What the who now?

The moment you’ve all been waiting for (almost), I’ve decided that I’m probably not going to receive any more letter for my netbook contest.  The results are definitely a surprise to me.

Over the course of the contest, I received more than 400 unique page views, I was retweeted more than 15 times, including by some contest specific accounts, the post was shared on Facebook a couple of times, it was even written about on other popular blogs.

I received 7 qualifying entries.

7 people took the time to sit down and write a quick letter about why they thought they deserved a more than $350 laptop.  I guess the reason I was so surprised by this response was because of the prize.  I’m not talking about a $50 gift card or something like that, we’re talking about a computer.

I’ve decided to forgo the voting process and just pick a winner myself.  I’m going to re-read all of the letters this week and select a winner no later than March 6th.  The winner will be posted here – the only catch – I expect the winner to take a picture with their shiny new netbook when it arrives and email it to me.

I know you’re all going to be surprised, but I’m having a Twitter contest.

Now that you’ve picked yourself up off the floor, it’s not what you would think of as a traditional Twitter contest.  I don’t care if you follow me, you don’t have to re-tweet something (although I’d appreciate it if you would, I’d love a lot of entries), all I want you to do is write me a letter and send it to me in the mail.

Here’s the contest:

1. Write me a letter explaining why you should win the prize (listed below)
2. The letter has to be hand written or typed on a typewriter
3. You have to include a return address (this is where I will ship the prize)
4. You also have to include your Twitter ID so I can congratulate you on Twitter for being the winner
5. The contest will begin today and all letters must be postmarked no later than February 4th

(more…)

Facebook has become a primary means of communicating with customers.  Everything from deals and discounts to “crisis communications” like store closings and apologies.  Brands big and small have a presence on Facebook and they all use that presence in a variety of ways.  Lately I’ve been hearing all kinds of tips for brands on Facebook, I’m going to give you my suggestions based on my experiences.  As with everything on this blog, these are simply my opinions, they aren’t going to work for everyone, but they are what are working for me. (more…)

Against all of the advice I give my colleagues and friends and all of the advice I’ve ever been given – I’m changing the topic of my blog, slightly.  Okay, a lot.

Normally, I would say, pick a subject and stick to it so as not to alienate your audience.  In this case, it’s really more of an addition than a change – I want to write about the things I’m passionate about.  When I redesigned this blog, I decided those things were the Air Force, Technology and Volunteer Management.  At that time in my life, I was immersed in all of those things.  Now, I’ve started a new job and I’m spending less time thinking about Technology and way more time thinking about the much blogged about topic of Social Media.

That’s right, I’m going to start adding my ideas about SOCMED to the already mountainous pile of crap content that already exists on the subject.

To be clear:

I am not an expert – not even close.

I think I have some insights into the space purely from the perspective that I work for a company that has embraced this platform as a way to reconnect with it’s diverse and large customer base.  Are my ideas gospel?  Hell no.  They’re just that, my ideas.  Some of them are working for us, and some of them aren’t.  Sometimes I’m just full of shit.

So, here we go, take it for what it’s worth.