6 Best Practices For Small Business YouTube Marketing

From 2011-11 (Nov)

6 Best Practices For Small Business YouTube Marketing:

Mention YouTube and most people will picture cats playing piano. But among a certain type of small businessperson, the name conjures another image: Dollar signs.

Such entrepreneurs can often sound like brainwashed cult members — in a good way. For instance, Scott Imbrie, owner of Original Skateboards, a brand that has been built largely on its YouTube presence, says the platform is better for marketers than even Facebook. “YouTube is actually the biggest social media site,” he says. “It’s bigger than Facebook or Twitter.”

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Choices... Or, what's weak this week in the lives of the broken, the deranged, and the damned

From 2011-11 (Nov)

This is one of those mopey journal entries about my life, so if you are looking for something about social media marketing or alligators in Oregon ponds, you might want to pick a different post.  


There is your warning.


It is also very long.  But it ends on an upbeat note talking about how today was better than yesterday because none of the emails to my sons' schools required the use of the phrase "dealing with threats of anal rape."


You are now informed.  Read it or not, I leave it up to you.

A tale of two charts.  Good news and bad news. And a clear illustration of how the choices I make affect the lives around me.  Basically, in this way...  We are all damned no matter what choice is made, so it is time for me to gird up my loins, pick a shitty option, and wade out into the filth for a nice wallow in the unpleasant muck of one choice or the other...  Because even that is better than the current situation.

So, some background...  Honestly, a lot of background...  Grab a cup of tea or a beer or whatever, we are going to be here for awhile.

Last April, my youngest son moved back in with me full time, and his older brother followed in May.  They spent the previous year living full time with their disabled mother in Beaverton, and the school year with their grandmother living there trying to help out.

By the time the boys came back my way, the little one had been expelled from two schools and was killing time at home waiting to finish the school year at a private, outpatient treatment center for severely troubled youth. The older boy was in even worse shape and had not even attended school since December.  CPS was literally hours away from stepping in and shutting the whole scary and confusing game down out there...

Meanwhile, I was sitting on the sidelines, helping out where I could, waiting and ready to be called out onto the field.  Finally, I got the tap on the shoulder and, since then, I have been the primary custodial guardian of both of my sons for the first time in too many years.

Needless to say, considering the state the boys were in when they arrived here, I've had my hands full for the last six months.

But it has been a wonderful, well, five and a half-months, for my family. Both the boys did great and made tremendous progress up through the summer.  The little one, the one sent to the treatment center last spring, reached the point where he was ready to start transitioning back into his neighborhood, mainstream elementary school and the older one, who in many ways came out of the last year or so even more damaged than the younger one, while struggling a lot at school, was showing slow and steady signs of improvement.

Thus began October...  Unfortunately, the end of October would look very different.

A less fun graph...

~26,181 Views Last Month: October Statistics Wrap-Up

These numbers are a bit rough, but I believe that they offer a fair account of the activity involving my sites, pictures, etc. across the web.

I am surprised.  Basically, this is all since March or so, with a few exceptions here and there.

So, 62,387 views of my stuff on the web, mostly since March.

And things are starting to take off, since approximately 26,181 of these views have occurred in the last month. I do not know if that growth rate will continue or not.  I would be surprised if it did, but hey...  This is not a bad start for the Rubblebase sites and their associated content.

Taking over the world?  Not yet.  A decent start?  Surely.

A closer look:

Rubble:
Last month:  1,531
All Time:       8,106*

Democracy In Distress:
Last Month:  4,198
All Time:       9,395*

Retrovirus Lab:
Last Month:  1,282
All Time:       1,615**

Suburban Eschatology Part Two:
Last Month:  368
All time:        602**

Panoramio.com:
Last Month:  5,101
All Time:      13,236***

Photobucket:
Last Month:  3,685
All Time:      17,325****

Picasa Web Albums:
Last Month:  1,719
All Time:       3,811*****

YouTube:
All Time - Channel:   208
All Time - Uploads:   562

And now for the very new kids on the block. Considering that these properties are not being promoted in any real way and contain little actual content, it is more than I'd expect for them. 

Rubblebase:
Last Month: 114
All Time:      114

A. F. Litt:
Last Month: 85
All Time:      85

This has been a fun post.  The internet keeps crashing out, so I've had about a five minute break between each entry here.  Fun.  Throw your router out the window fun.  And this is the new, "good" one.

* Blogger has been keeping stats since May 2009, these blogs have been around much longer.  However, since they were essentially dormant until March 2011, they do reflect the activity on these blogs during their current, active incarnation.

** These blogs were created in August 2011.

*** Since August 2011, when I first started posting on this site.

**** I hate Photobucket and rarely use it.  I believe 11,007 is the total since May, not March, since I had 10,909 hits on June 15.  I've arrived at this static by adding the monthly counts since June to 10,909, which is probably more accurate, but still leaves 15 days worth of hits unaccounted for.

***** I began recording statistics on Picasa in March, 2011. I was posting to the site earlier, but not by much, so this should be a fairly accurate statistic.

Beyond Barrel Roll: 10 Hidden Google Tricks

Beyond Barrel Roll: 10 Hidden Google Tricks:

We got a taste of that fact on Thursday with the highly popular “Do a Barrel Roll” search trick, which went viral on Twitter and brightened a million work days. But that’s only the latest in a long line of quirky features Google has embedded in its products. We’re not talking about useful stuff like the in-search calculator, or Google’s much-documented April Fool’s jokes. These are all fun built-in tricks you can amuse yourself with right now.

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Related Posts

from tag Mashable

• Suburban Eschatology Part Two: But where are the sexy pirates? Hottest Halloween Costumes of 2011 [INFOGRAPHIC]
• Suburban Eschatology Part Two: Beyond Barrel Roll: 10 Hidden Google Tricks
• Suburban Eschatology Part Two: Facebook "Wall of Shame", a handy chart via Mashable
• Suburban Eschatology Part Two: The Google+ deathwatch is officially on! Or is it? (Plus a look at Google+ Brand pages)

from tag Google

• Democracy In Distress: Rick Santorum Fanasizes About Gay Soldiers Who 'Shower With People'
• Suburban Eschatology Part Two: Rubble: Death and Re-Birth... Welcome to Rubble Redux
• Suburban Eschatology Part Two: Top 10 Features Users Want From Google+ Brand Pages:

from tag Humor

• Democracy In Distress: Comic: God hates who?
• Democracy In Distress: A handy chart to help pick the Republican presidential candidate who's right for you!
• Democracy In Distress: On SNL (with Video): Rick Santorum fantasizing about gay shower sex (because I just can't say that enough...)
• Suburban Eschatology Part Two: How to tell the difference between zombies and babies

from tag Interwebs

• Suburban Eschatology Part Two: ~26,181 Views Last Month: October Statistics Wrap-Up

(more..)

From Nova via Mashable: Steve Jobs Predicts the Future in 1990 [RARE VIDEO]

Watch An Interview With Steve Jobs on PBS. See more from NOVA.

Steve Jobs Predicts the Future in 1990 [RARE VIDEO]:

In this fascinating raw footage from 1990, Steve Jobs talks at great length (for 50 minutes) to a WGBH-Boston interviewer about computers, the efficiency of human beings’ locomotion compared with the animal kingdom, his early experience with programming and his ideas about the direction he saw technology taking in 1990.

...

A prescient statement: Networking was going to be the next revolution, “which will define and create the home computer market,” Jobs said. Even though he acknowledges that networks had already made a big mark in education and the military, he talks about how the network at Next helped the company work together as a team in a way it never could before, claiming it reduced the number of meetings the company had by 50 percent. He predicts users would be able to hook a computer up to a network at home using radio links and fiber optics. “We’re working on that — that’s our goal for the next five years.”

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Death to Internet Explorer

From 2011-11 (Nov)

Internet Explorer's Share of Web Traffic Falls Below 50%:

Internet Explorer can no longer claim more than half of the web’s traffic, as of October, ending more than a decade of the default Microsoft browser’s reign.

 'via Blog this'

I made the jump  this year.  My laptop was having issues and didn't like running IE anymore... Switched to Chrome, fell in love.  It is lean and mean and everything that the bloated, clunky, tank like IE is not.

Facebook Disses Pages With Less Than 1000 Fans - hypebot

Facebook Disses Pages With Less Than 1000 Fans - hypebot:

EdgeRank Checker released a study late last week of activity related to Facebook Fan Pages and found that those with less than 1000 fans are seeing reduced activity after recent FB changes. Overall, while impressions have decreased on Fan Pages, Likes and Comments have increased. But for those Pages with less than 1000 fans the number of Likes and Comments, when combined as an Engagement metric, has decreased by 11.64% presenting an additional challenge for emerging acts just beginning to build their band's Facebook following.

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Suburban Alligators: That has got to be a sign of something

From 2011-09 (Sep)

'The Reptile Man' captures alligator in Gresham pond | OregonLive.com:

After an alligator had been swimming in a Gresham pond for at least three days, "The Reptile Man" took matters into his own hands.  Richard Ritchey, a herpetologist from Colton, jumped into the pond Sunday and captured the creature.

"He seemed a bit irritated from all the attention he had received over the past couple days," Ritchey wrote on his website. A fight ensued, he claims, with "rolling, snapping and hissing," but he was able to pull the gator out of the pond and take him home.

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But where are the sexy pirates? Hottest Halloween Costumes of 2011 [INFOGRAPHIC]

Seriously.  Last night, from what I saw, Halloween 2011 is all about pirates.  Mostly chicks in sexy pirate outfits.

Hottest Halloween Costumes of 2011 [INFOGRAPHIC]:

You came to the right place. Find out what’s hot and what’s not by checking out the spooky stats on our Halloween infographic from Webtrends, showing you which costumes and candy garnered the most buzz.

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Spotify rising...

I am starting to suspect that Spotify could be the "next big thing"...

I agree, it has been a long time since I have taken to a service so quickly... Not just in music, but in every department.

Salesforce CEO: Facebook Is Leading The Direction For Where ‘We’re Going As An Industry’ | TechCrunch:
While Benioff’s tone has definitely tempered somewhat since OpenWorld in relation to Ellison and Oracle, it has not changed in terms of what the CEO sees as the future of his company and the future of the enterprise industry as a whole. Enterprise has to be, needs to be: Social.

What do I mean by that? Well, unsurprising for anyone who is familiar with Salesforce, Benioff has a big old man crush on Facebook.

“I really think that Facebook is becoming a vision of what the consumer operating system is”, he said. “Everything I want, I’m beginning to see on Facebook”.

The CEO was speaking largely in relation to Spotify, which he says has become his favorite music service, a quicker transition than he’s made to any other platform in the recent future. Having the Facebook UI built into Spotify is incredible, he said, allowing friends and colleagues to what he’s listening to in realtime — was inspiring to him.

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Are You Building a Social Brand or a Social Business? - Brian Solis

Are You Building a Social Brand or a Social Business? Brian Solis:
...you find that at the heart of notable social media successes is simply brilliant creativity and desirable incentives, not necessary authentic or genuine value or engagement. With every Tweet or Like to win campaign, hilarious viral video, and user-generated promotional series, businesses make social media more of an oxymoron than a movement to transform two-way conversations into improved customer relationships.

...

...getting closer to customers is the overwhelming top priority for CEOs. And, social media is lauded as the great facilitator for engagement and renewed business relevance. What we tend to forget however, is that social networks are merely platforms for people to connect with friends, family and peers. Businesses are not the primary beneficiary of connections, but they can certainly benefit once they realize that a Like or follow does not equate to an opt-in for marketing communiqué.

'via Blog this'

Comic: I relate...

Slow and steady will, eventually, win the race...

Zombies, soccer moms... Is there really that much difference?

Swiped from Cracked: "That's 300 percent more phallic than an actual penis."

Let's get an actual story about one possible eschaton up on the blog that is supposedly, but not really, about eschatology...  (Or is it?)

7 Famous Zombie Movie Weapons (That Would Get You Killed) | Cracked.com:

Zombies are the best imaginary enemy because they let you indulge in psychotic fantasies while still pretending to be the good guy. You're not a demented serial killer, you HAVE to slaughter your way through the crowds of people you see every day! Except they're all brain-damaged and incapable of teamwork! That's less sporting than an ice hockey team versus a figure skater, and even more fun. But it's only fun because, like all daydreams, you only imagine the good bits. Very few people daydream about their own failures and pointless unnoticed deaths (and those that do are safely channeled into reality TV). Here's how seven spectacular anti-zombie weapons will get you killed.

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