by Scott Howard | May 20, 2013 | ScLoHo's Web World
I’m guessing that only about 25% of the people reading this today know what a QR code is.
I’ve talked about them in the past and you can see the articles by going here.
What was an up and coming bit of technology is now falling out of favor, it seems.
On a recent Sunday, I was paging through the printed version of the newspaper and found a grand total of TWO QR codes.
One was for a shoe store, the other was for a car dealership.
The shoe store code was a fail, because the link went to their regular webpage which wasn’t mobile friendly.
The car dealership ad said to scan their QR code and Like their Facebook page. This works…sort of.
The code went to something that was mobile friendly, but I have no reason to Like their Facebook page.
The most ironic ad I saw in the paper was this:
Why isn’t there a QR Code?
by Scott Howard | Apr 17, 2013 | ScLoHo's Web World
Some of you have asked me about the change I made recently on this site, right under my name where it now says Social Media Magician from the Land of ScLoho.
What kind of a made up goofy title is that?
A couple months ago I walked away from my full time profession in advertising and marketing in the world of broadcast radio. I walked into the full time world of social media as my full time profession.
All of the Social Media activity I’ve been doing the past ten years has been a sideline. It was supplemental to my main income in the sales world. 9 of the past ten years was in radio advertising sales and about a year was in website development sales.
The company I joined in February has been around since the 1920’s and has successfully transitioned from selling via printed catalogs to becoming a major player as an online retailer. The department I joined, Internet Marketing decided they needed to add a couple more people this year. One to devote his entire time to email marketing, the other to handle Social Media.
Our company had been active in both of those areas but now was the time to expand. My official title is eCommerce Media Specialist. But we are a party supply company and we get to pick our fun titles.
I have 5 separate brands that are under our corporate umbrella that I am actively handling most of the social media content including Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Pinterest numerous blogs, You Tube, Tumblr, and a few other social media platforms. With the exception of Twitter, and our blogs, just about everything else on our social media channels is being handled exclusively by me. We have guest writers on some of the blog posts and others on our Internet Marketing team will sometimes add some Tweets, but overall there’s about 30 to 40 posts and updates a day that I get to do using the voice of each of our brands. And that takes up only a portion of my day.
A magicians greatest trick is to make things look easy, to get you to look here, while they’re doing something over there. A magician does slight of hand, juggles, creates illusions and entertains. That’s the role I play as I work behind the scenes, interact and engage with our social media followers.
I get to play detective, experiment, look forward, look back, watch what others are doing, discover how to improve, make a few mistakes, learn and try again.
I don’t wear a cape or a coat with tails, nor do I have a beautiful assistant that I saw in half. Instead I get to work with a team of other Internet Marketing professionals, each of us with our own areas of expertise.
It’s my magical world of Social Media.
If you want to know about ScLoHo, visit my About Page.
by Scott Howard | Mar 8, 2013 | ScLoHo's Web World
Let’s say your Uncle Steve offers you $200,000 with a few conditions.
First off, you don’t get to keep it.
You have to spend it.
You have to spend it in 24 hours.
You can not spend it on anything “tangible”.
You have to spend it on some form of marketing.
Recently I found out the price tag of something some of us see online.
If you use Twitter.
For $200,000 you can own a promoted trend for 24 hours.
I’m sure it’s worth it for some companies and causes.
Personally though, it will be awhile before I buy.
by Scott Howard | Feb 28, 2013 | ScLoHo's Web World
Over the weekend I noticed that a website I needed to access was down.
Or maybe it was a problem with my internet connection.
This can be a source of frustration that involves checking routers, restarting computers, redoing this or that and perhaps wasting a bunch of time.
Before you go through all the motions, do this first:
Go to: http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/
This is one of the most basic, non-techie ways to check to see if the problem is on your end or theirs.
And that’s my Thursday Tech Tip.
by Scott Howard | Feb 10, 2013 | ScLoHo's Web World
Time to re-introduce you to the whole ScLoHo.
But first what’s a ScLoHo?
ScLoHo is a made up word that is a mash-up of my first, middle and last names. Take the 1st two letters of Scott Louis Howard and you get ScLoHo.
How do you pronounce ScLoHo? It’s just two syllables = Sclo-Ho with a long “o”.
But what is a ScLoHo?
Back in the 1990’s when I was looking for an email address, I could have used ScottHoward with some numbers attached but I wanted something unique. Scott Howard is more common of a name than I had ever imagined. So I stuck with ScLoHo.
As my online activity grew, the ScLoHo brand grew.
I created a website blog that included articles on Media, Marketing, Sales, and Advertising that featured insight from others, ScLoHo’s Collective Wisdom.
I also created another another site with the same theme, but only features articles I write, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo. If I were to write a book on marketing stuff, these articles would be the chapters.
Because I was asked multiple times for advice on social media for beginners, I created another site in 2010 which included step by step guides on how to set up Twitter and other social media platforms along with advanced tips. This site, ScLoHo’s Social Media Adventure quickly became a favorite resource for those who were jumping into the social media world.
Each of those sites are still alive, and you can access them by clicking on the links above, along with a site I created that is more personal and fun, ScLoHo’s Really?. These sites are on the Google Blogger platform.
Over 12,000 articles were published at the rate of 35 to 50 per week.
Then in October, 2011, I launched this site and began a restructuring process That along with an agreement I made with a former employer last year changed the content direction of what I was putting on my website. ScLoHo Marketing Solutions became dormant for the past several months.
Instead of 30+ weekly articles, I was down to 3.
That’s changing.
Look for a more active website in the future. as I bring back some of the features I used to publish. A daily update at 9am is the first step.
Feel free to connect with me on Twitter, email, or carrier pigeon. Google ScLoHo and you’ll find me too.
by Scott Howard | Jan 11, 2013 | ScLoHo's Web World
On the 11th of January I have updated an article I wrote 16 months ago:
- Make sure you fill out your Twitter Profile completely including a link to a site that tells us more about you. Yes, we are going to judge you, we want to see who you are and why we would want to follow you on Twitter.
- Include a picture. Of you, not your cat or your car, unless you are a cat or car. The exception is if you are a business, but even there, I prefer to talk to persons, not impersonal businesses.
- It’s okay to send the same tweet more than once. Those of us that follow more than 200 people don’t see all the tweets you send out. When you have more than 3000 like I do, I will likely miss your message due to the volume of tweets I get. And because I have a real job and life offline too.
- More on tip 3. Vary that “same tweet”. Change a word or two. Send it at different times of the day.
- Include an @ScLoHo in your tweet if you want to be sure I get it.
- Use the Direct Message feature to talk privately to someone. Works like text messaging.
- Include a link if you want me to read or see something.
- Communicate and converse. I try really hard to respond to everyone that reaches out to me. I also reach out to others and join in their conversations at times. Be Friendly!
- Use hashtags. The pound sign # is a way to follow a theme or conversation.
- Don’t spam me. Twitter has become victim to the same spammers who now send out more than 75% of the emails. I don’t fall for those and I will block and report you.
- Your universe shouldn’t revolve around Twitter. Or any social media channel for that matter. Use it as a tool, but also get face to face. Twitter has changed my life. It wasn’t really Twitter that helped me land a new job or created dozens and dozens of new friends the past 4+ years. It was me going beyond Twitter. My wife doesn’t Tweet. However Twitter is still my favorite Social Media Channel
What tips would you add to this list?
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