Don’t Accidentally Give Credit to Hate Sites

Dear friends,

Thank you for stopping the normalization of Trump and his white supremacists pals. Thank you for keeping posting about fraud, national security risks, personal safety problems, and more. Keeping doing it.

However, you need to stop linking to white supremacist propaganda and re-sharing it on social media from the source in your outrage.

Yes, you should definitely say, “This is really what Steve Bannon, Trump’s Chief Strategist, said. It shows he’s an anti-Semite, who hates women, and gave his platform over to Neo-Nazis and is one himself.” However, don’t link to Breitbart. Please, please don’t link to or share/reshare their content.

Breitbart article sharing
This Breitbart article is misogynistic. 12,000+ people shared it on Facebook, and an unknown numbers in other ways. They got a lot of traffic. Lauren Duca’s tweet though, because it’s a screenshot, will be there forever and the shares she got won’t count as a win for Breitbart.

Why? Continue reading “Don’t Accidentally Give Credit to Hate Sites”

Community Manager Seeking Dream Job 2.0

As many of you probably know, Moz laid off 28% of its full-time employees. Including me. Including not just my fellow community managers, but many of my closest colleagues, from developers to office managers.

Women at Moz
7 out of 10 people and 1 dog in this photo are for hire!

The story of Dream Job 1.0

What many people likely don’t know is that working at Moz was my dream job. Back in 2006/07, I discovered the e-commerce site I worked on really needed this thing called SEO. I stumbled upon then SEOmoz’s blog and the well-loved Beginner’s Guide to SEO. I dug in. Everyone on the blog seemed so smart , and little did I know that most of them were in the same boat as me, figuring this stuff out. When I started looking for a new job, I thought “wow, it’d be so cool to work at Moz.”

I spent the next two years knocking on various Moz doors. Sure, I applied some other places — but nothing much panned out. Height of the recession and all. Then I landed an interview with Moz in their cramped offices above the Elysian Brewery as they prepared to move to their first Downtown Seattle location. I interviewed with Adam Feldstein and a couple other folks. I was elated to be given the opportunity.

Spoiler alert: I wasn’t hired. Adam told me I wasn’t quite the right fit job-wise, but he thought I’d make a great Mozzer. He encouraged me to apply again.

Most people don’t try again. But I did. For another role on Adam’s team, which I only made it to a phone interview.

Okay, I’d tried. It didn’t work. Instead, I co-founded an all-volunteer nonprofit called GeekGirlCon. I kept reading, learning, and even bravely answering some Moz Q&A questions.

This newfangled social network called G+ launched, and I poked around on it a bit. Followed this guy Rand Fishkin, seemed kind of cool. (Obviously, I knew who he was.) He posted about this hard-to-fill, ridiculous role called Community Attaché. This person needed to have both community building skills and enough SEO chops to help community members. When I was read the description, I thought “holy mother of god, that’s actually a job I’m super qualified for.” Rand asked applicants to email him directly.

I nervous, late-night typed out an email cover letter to Rand. I made some jokes, talked about my skill set, how I loved the community, how I was working to put on this GeekGirlCon convention (outcome TBD at the time), and read it over 100 times. I was sure I’d call him “Fishking,” which to this day, I always type out and then hit the backspace. Continue reading “Community Manager Seeking Dream Job 2.0”

Random Rec: 2BaysDJs

Barbie Wedding
What a beautiful bride. It's exactly what Mattel sold me on a child.

I highly recommend 2BaysDJs. Why? Because they have a great sense of humor.

I should say that I avoid all things to do with weddings. I don’t plan on ever getting married, unless for some reason I find myself desperately in need to being on my sweetie’s health insurance. [knock on wood] So imagine my surprise when I got the following email about my future wedding and how I’d talked to a DJ about it already.

Hi Elizabeth,

It was great to talk to you yesterday at the Elite Bridal Expo. We wanted to let you know that we still have availability on May 21st, and we’d love to ‘DJ’ your wedding reception. To receive your own custom price quote, you can visit our Quote Generator online. Don’t forget to use the promo code, [redacted], to save $75.00 on any of our entertainment packages.

Once you’re online, you can also browse through our Music Search Tool. If you’re struggling with song ideas for your special dances of the evening, you may want to click the blue box of our “Most Requested” songs. From there you can listen to our top 50 songs for every activity from the introductions to the garter toss.

I know a bridal show is not the most comfortable spot to , but if you’d like to set up a meeting in a quieter environment let me know and we can arrange a date at your convenience. If you’re ready, we can move forward with a contract and client login so you can start planning with us. In the meantime, feel free to reply via email, or give me a call at [redacted], and we can discuss your reception in further detail.

Have a great week, we hope to hear from you soon!

Sincerely,

Scott

Scott was probably just as surprised to get an email back from me as I was to get one from him.

Daleks
Finally, a good use for that plunger, Daleks.

Dear Scott,

Wow, I had no idea I was getting married on May 21st! Is someone throwing me a surprise wedding? This is like what I’ve dreamed of all my life.

I mean, when I was a little girl, I used to play with my Barbies, and my mom always thought it was weird that my Barbies married each other instead of Ken, but let’s face it, Ken was never worthy. He lived in the horse stable, and Barbie’s Dream Horse lived in the living room. I suppose it wasn’t his fault that the plastic horses had more genitalia than he did.

I was thinking that I’d love Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface” as my song to my man. Because then I could be like “surprise, my pokerface” as it is Lady Gaga’s song about how the men she dates just don’t understand how she likes the ladies too. Just imagine the look on my new husband’s face! I would be like that time my mom got remarried and I gave a speech thanking her for picking me out the perfect fake!daddy.

Talk to you soon!

Erica

P.S. I was thinking of cutting the cake to the Doctor Who theme song. But can’t quite figure out how to make a plunger cut cake. Ideas?

The thing about my mom’s wedding, true story. Ken living in the stable, also true story. Lady Gaga’s “Pokerface” one of the most requested wedding songs according to their site. (Which I blame on people not listening to lyrics. Seriously, people, also take “Bad Romance” and “I Will Survive” off your playlist. Lady Gaga lights her bad lover on fire at the end of the “Bad Romance” video.)

Surprise! The good thing about using a plunger to cut the cake, is that you can use it to feed your play-husband as well.

Scott

If nothing else, Scott finally found a good use for a Dalek’s plunger. I mean, obviously, the egg beater can be used to mix the cake.

Save the Earth: Greenwashing or Going Green?

KermitThese days being Green sells. This makes me happy, moreover, this makes my inner nine-year-old happy who was campaigning to save the whales on the local news long before it was cool. However, as Kermit pointed out, being Green isn’t easy, and sometimes, it might not be as profitable as shareholders demand that it be. Especially since being Green has become lumped in with better labor practices and company ethics.

Say I decided that I wanted to start mass selling warming cat beds, I would need:

1. Investors to fund my project
2. Materials to make my cat beds out of
3. A design team to create the product
4. A marketing team to create the packaging and branding messages
5. A factory to produce the product
6. A factory to produce the packaging
7. A warehouse to store my packaged cat beds
8. Shipping to get cat beds to warehouse and then to stores/customers
9. Stores and web site to sell them in

(Okay, I’m sure I forgot something. But this is simplified.)

So, let’s say I make my cat beds out of 100% organic cotton and use an energy saving method to warm the beds. Great, my cat beds are Green, right?

Wrong, when they travel really inefficiently by jet from my factory in China because I have to meet deadlines. Wrong, when I use non-recyclable new plastics in packaging. Wrong, when I mass market them at Wal-Mart and pay my own design team substandard wages so they have to work at Wal-Mart selling my cat beds on the weekends to supplement their income.

While this is a massive simplification of how hard going Green actually is, it’s not an uncommon practice for companies to say they’re Green and then leave some pretty big carbon footprints in other areas or with other products. This is also known as Greenwashing and it all comes down to how much money a company can make by advertising it as Green.

Though my cat warming beds are trying to Green and hopefully getting incentives to become Green in other areas besides materials, they aren’t quite there yet. They aren’t completely Greenwashing, but the packaging needs to be clear that the materials in the product and it’s function are Green while the rest of it may not be.

Traditionally, Greenwashing was associate with more blatant profit mongering or anti-environmental acts being passed off as Green. However, there’s been a move these days to say, “Hey, but what about…” And sites like GoodGuide have popped up to help the prosumer make a decision about how truly Green a product is. Because alone we don’t have the resources to figure it out, but together, we can stand up and say that while being Green isn’t easy, it’s time to start.

The Redneck Vote

Amanda Marcotte on Pandragon.net writes Rednecks and Offense, an article about the changing nature of the word ‘redneck,’ the appeal to rednecks by Republicans, and how she’s not that far from a redneck.

Obviously, I have joked about my mom’s recent redneck wedding on this blog before. It’s no secret that there are a lot of rednecks in my family (on both sides), and yes, they use that word with reclamation and pride. And to be fair, my maternal family is populated with a lot of Vatican II Catholic yellow-dog Democrats and my paternal family is a mix of we-love-guns Libertarians and stereotypical redneck Republicans.

There have been family Christmases were my father’s family all sat around watching the hunting channel and Larry the Cable Guy. Or where my brother and maternal grandpa have changed the station from CNN to the rodeo. All the men in my immediate family drive trucks or jeeps that I, at 5’5″, have to be hoisted into and neither of my grandmas even attempt to climb into on their own. When my brothers go “rock climbing,” what they mean is that they drive their jeeps over rocks or watch their friends do the same.

My mom’s favorite beer is Michelob Ultra Lite that she buys at Wal-Mart; it’s cheap and has 96 calories, and she will hunt down the sales associate to ask him why they don’t stock more than two cases on the store floor. My dad prefers Coolers Light; my 22-year-old brother will drink about anything; my fake!daddy likes Bud Light; and I take lime in my Corona. We all have country and western music on our iPods, except my dad, who I don’t think knows how to work one.

I know how to muck stalls and castrate male lambs. I’ve owned at least one pair of rubber boots from the time I was four until I graduated high school. You do not want to change irrigation or dust chickens with chemicals to kill lice in flip-flops. And I still wear my authentic purple cowboy boots. While I don’t like hunting, I have had a lot of fun at the firing range.

However, I’m one of those latte-drinking big city liberals.

Scratch that.

I don’t like lattes or coffee for that matter. But I will admit that I love Chai tea and I’m a hot tea snob. I like my tea imported from England from Whittard of Chelsea. (Hint, if you ever want to buy me something.)

I do live in the big city. Well, in Seattle, which is the biggest city in the PacificNorthwest. However, my friend Mally from Boston still laughs at me, even if she does fear our traffic after experiencing it herself.

And I am a liberal. I’m very liberal and I pretty much have been. Except when for some reason, as a young child, Ross Perot really entertained me. Probably because he was loud and upset everyone, which is always hilarious.

I’ve always liked to watch the evening news (I blame my maternal grandparents) and listen to NPR, which I guess became a default choice when I couldn’t stand the adult contemporary or modern country stations in my hometown as a preteen. I enjoy being critical of the two-party system, and I’m sure my mom can tell you call about my Bill Clinton paper doll I made, which often said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” and wore my Barbie’s skirts. Humor makes me not want to throw up every time I watch or listen to the news.

I’m also part of the liberal elite and went to this really snobby liberal arts university, which I should mention, so did Larry the Cable Guy’s daughter.

But wait, didn’t I state in a previous post, I didn’t know who I’m voting for? That’s right; I don’t. But I never said I didn’t know who I wasn’t voting for.

Like Amanda, I know what both world’s are like. And I also know how far they aren’t apart.

I also know that in order to persuade rednecks to vote for you in next election, you need to speak their language. They need to be included in the branding concept.

The Republicans do a great job at this. Sarah Palin is moose-hunting hockey mom from Alaska; like her or dislike her, she has been a one woman branding force for the McCain campaign. She probably wears puffy coats and is still attractive, while being the type of woman who would drink from a can of beer. This is her image. It doesn’t matter that she raised taxes, even on food, in her hometown and left it $22 million in debt. She’s still campaigning on a smaller government and no tax raises. Palin is telling the redneck contingent what they want to hear because that’s what branding is about.

Obama’s camp, on the other side, might have progressive policies to help the lower and middle classes with taxes, health care, etc. He promises no tax increase if earning under $250K and tax cuts for those making under $75K. However, even taxing the very rich seems to frighten tax-hating rednecks. This is not what they want to hear. And what they really don’t want to hear is the collective head-banging-on-desk of Obama-supporters and the campaign itself, when the redneck voting contingent says they like McCain/Palin better on the issues of taxes than Obama/Biden. No one in my family has ever made over $250k/year. But my paternal grandma is still sending me e-mails about how Obama will ruin the country.

Instead of insulting rednecks for being ignorant, the Democrats need to reach out to them and properly communicate with them. The Democrats need to make a branding campaign that will effect them. I’m not saying Obama should wear a cowboy hat or they have to persuaded a country artist to write a song about them. (Though Toby Keith supports Obama.) But throwing out facts is not working. Obama’s message of Hope and Change is supposed to reach out and effect everyone. That’s one of the reasons why it’s such an effective branding slogan for the liberal-voting choir and why the Republicans have attached themselves to a Change message. (We all agree that Bush sucks.)

If the Democrats want to level the playing field for the redneck vote, they need to direct Hope and Change to that audience. Don’t say, we’ll lower your taxes so you can send your children to college and then they can work white-collar jobs instead of blue ones. Don’t say, are you stupid, there were not weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and global warming is real for the 15th billionth time. Instead, do some homework and get a neighbor, who’s just like them except voting for Obama, to campaign for you or make Biden be the guy who will have a beer in your kitchen with you, make him as VP just as appealing as the Republicans have made Palin. Connect with the youth who use MySpace instead of just Facebook and people (shame time) like my paternal grandma, who really does believe that Obama is Muslim thanks to internet forwards. (I tried to educate her otherwise, trust me.)

If myself and someone who thinks you’re only rich if you make over $5 million knows that this “cultural divide” isn’t as big as it really seems and can market to them, maybe I’ll save a lime or two for Obama and Biden.

Election Mania

I don’t know about you, but I’m loving these elections. Not in that I know who I’m voting for or that I’m a political junkie from way back, but in that they are so much fun when it comes to marketing.

There’s Obama, the Celebrity. McCain’s a POW, don’t you know. Biden comes across rather plain. And Palin’s family just keeps getting bigger.

But I say, kudos, America, we finally got something right. Politics are the big news and even the covers of OK and US had Obama and Palin gracing them, respectively. This is actual news, even if the gossip is still good, but it’s still better than movie stars flashing their lack of undergarments or getting arrested while slurring racist bullshit.

I also have to say that I hope 2004 was the last time there will be four straight, white men running for office in the two-party system.

To Boldly Go Where Only Fandorks Will Still Go

Finally, someone has decided that it’s time to capitalize on Star Trek again. (J.J. Abrams is pushing out a new Star Trek movie, which the movie posters look fabulous, and hopefully, Abrams can follow up with a suitable plot ending for it.)

Despite the rampant cult following, Star Trek has failed to gain a new audience in the past years with the infamous what-was-that Enterprise. Some argue that the Utopian ways of the Roddenberry-created franchise doesn’t fit a post-9/11 War on Terror world. I tend to agree that the new Battlestar Galactica fits the energy and mood of this decade much better than Star Trek ever would. Heck, even the Star Trek: Experience in Vegas is closing.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t still fandorks out there who wear their red Uhura uniform almost every Halloween. (It looks way naughtier with fishnets and knee-high Doc Martens. Trust me.) They still come in droves to conventions and attend Reading Rainbow readings at local libraries just to see LeVar Burton. (Seriously, Burton is the nicest celebrity ever, even if we did kind of scare him.)

And finally, someone has decided to capitalize on the die-hard fans by combining Star Trek role-playing into a World of Warcraft-like simulator with Star Trek Online. I won’t be joining it as role-playing, either online or live action, has never been my form of geekery, and I still haven’t moved beyond my original Nintendo when it comes to video games. I’m just really surprised that no one has done this before.

Free Shipping, Even If You’re a Beaver

There are lots of theories and data on how free shipping effects e-commerce sales. The only constant is that the faster an item ships to a customer, the happier s/he is and that offering free shipping often affects sales in a positive manner.

Free shipping image designed by me

My cheeky direct e-mail image illustrates the happy little beaver whom got free shipping on his/her $75 or more order. Wood has become a prosumer product ever since the realization of globalization and environmental impact hit the beavers. They want to order from Green Bee Wood’s web site with wood that’s been fairly traded and a company commitment to wood as a renewable resource instead of clear-cutting rain forests in Brazil. Because of this, the beaver has committed himself/herself to a higher price point and free shipping is helping to offset the sting on his/her wallet. Because even as a prosumer, the beaver still budgets.

On the business and marketing side, Green Bee Wood knows that their products are targeted at the prosumer and can accept that quality of product and other good business practices do drive up their prices compared to Wood-4-Cheap. Beavers make up 75% of Green Bee Wood’s demographic. In the realm of free shipping, Green Bee Wood has a lot of options. They can offer free shipping across the board, at a certain price point based on their average order, for a limited time only, to offset sale tax charges, at a flat rate instead of free, etc.

Green Bee Wood has decided to offer free shipping slightly higher than their average order to bring average order sales a little higher, and they think it’s a urgency incentive for their customers to buy. Since they want to create a demand, they’ve decided that free shipping is only going to be offered for a limited time, approximately two weeks, to drive up sales in a traditionally slow winter season when beavers stay lodged down with their families and conserve energy.

This free shipping campaign is very successful for Green Bee Wood as they understand their demographics’ buying patterns and how free shipping can affect them. Free shipping helped a few more beavers make the final click to buy.

To use free shipping or not really depends on the company and their target demographic. As a huge company and largely consumer-based, I think it’s brilliant that Amazon.com offers it on all orders over $25 year round. However, for smaller companies targeting prosumers, there are pitfalls in that constantly running free shipping can flatten out sales. People don’t think they need to order then because it will still be on months later. There’s no urgency. Free shipping can be a useful tool, but like all tools, there’s an appropriate time to use it. The prosumer appreciates free shipping, but will appreciate it more if it’s not there all the time.

Give Me Wal-Mart or Give Me Death? Death: Life as a Prosumer and a Prosumer Marketer.

A friend recently linked an article, Identifying, Knowing and Retaining Your Customers, which talks about marketing towards the prosumer, not the consumer. The person who cares about what s/he’s buying, how its impacted the Earth, where it comes from, the company’s ethics, etc. I’d describe myself as a prosumer and in my daily job, I marketed online to the prosumer, instead of consumer.

Prosumer marketing is interesting as it’s almost the opposite of consumer. It’s specialization vs Wal-Martization.

The consumer wants a pack of 24 women’s athletic socks for $15 at Wal-Mart. S/he cares about prices and quantity. There also might be some attachment to jingles, logos, and brilliantly worked tag lines to cue up the buying instinct. I see the consumer as two different types of people:

The self-server consumer who straight up doesn’t care as long as s/he is getting the best deal. This is the mindless consumer who sometimes buys just to have stuff and has the income or credit lines to do it. The ones who buy disposable diapers and is never going to think twice; it’s convenient, cheap, easy, and always available.

The low-income consumer who’s more concerned about keeping food on the table and a roof over his/her family’s head than fair trade, being green, or shopping locally. This is not just the person buying from Wal-Mart, but likely the one who works for Wal -Mart too. At the current federal minimum wage, the low-income consumer must work 2.5 hours to buy that pack of women’s athletic socks.

On the other hand, the prosumer is the one who looks into the quality of the product, how it’s going to be use, where it’s made, and/or who made it being concerned about fair trade, being green, being organic, and/or shopping local. Different prosumers have different ideals and may mix and match. Lifestyle marketing works wonders on this crowd. A prosumer is usually willing to pay a higher price tag in order to achieve some quality of product.

For instance, when I went to buy an mp3 player, instead of buying a 2 MB generic one for $60, I bought the 160 GB video iPod for around $360 as I knew I would be using it a lot, needed a lot of space, possibly to watch video if flying somewhere, and know Apple not only pioneered the technology, but has good customer support. I’m a web designer, a geek, of course, my tech is going to match my lifestyle.

As a prosumer, I’m a big fan of specialization in the marketing and how e-commerce has greatly helped it out. If I want to know anything about any company, I get online. I look at the company’s web site, product information, and what other people are saying about that company. It’s way more exciting and hopeful than the Wal-Martization of everything.

I might work for a company, which is owned by another one that utilizes Wal-Martization to the extreme, but I can comfort myself with knowing that my job is to market to the person who perhaps cares about something besides bulk pricing and convenience. It’s more creative and stimulating than sticking giant yellow stars with new markdown prices on every graphic I make. (Been here, done that.)

Personally, I want to invest in a product that lasts. I want a product that’s being sold locally or manufactured by a smaller company. I want something that’s green and maybe recycled. I don’t want to feel dirty for what I prosume . I want something that speaks to me. I have no interest in 24 pairs of athletic socks; I would never use them or want them around. They’d end up in my Goodwill donation bag.

I haven’t bought something from a Wal-Mart in something like 7 years, even if my mother, who’s a bit of mix of the self-server and low-income consumer currently, likes to drag me into one when I visit her. I hope as globalization expands and more people have access to free trade and the prosumer voices will be loud enough to equality the marketplace.