Monday, 12 October 2009

Book signing - Weston-super-Mare

On November 19th, Waterstone's booksellers will be helping to launch late-night shopping at The Sovereign Centre in Weston-super-Mare by holding a book signing event. I've been invited to take part, so I will be there between 3:30 and 8:30pm to sign copies of 'The Wonderful Demise of Benjamin Arnold Guppy' (and 'Utamaro Revealed', if you have an interest in Japanese art as well as murdering your neighbours in cold blood). Do come along and say 'ho ho ho' if you're in the area.

Waterstone's Booksellers,
Unit 21-23,
The Sovereign Centre,
High Street,
Weston-super-Mare,
BS23 1HL.
Tel: 01934 642 588

Zara's Note: - here is a story from techcrunch about the latest scam going on within Facebook - note that facebook are usually pretty quick to hit these scams on the head but if they are get 6 Million Dollars off them on a regular basis for advertising - they might not suspend the games - dispite doing this with Slide.com's top friends and a number of the dodgy dating websites back in 2007. Also note I am a facebook fan, and I like the games Zynga make - it will be a real shame if they don't really kick butt and clean up their act - I am boycotting their games by blocking their facebook apps, this might seem hypocritical seeing as I use Yuwie as a place to meet people and blog - BUT at least at Yuwie you know for sure they are in it for greed, whereas Zynga are making out to be some kind of social marketing break through - when they are not

Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said earlier this week that he intends to make sure his company’s games don’t include scammy offers in the future. Our full background on this story is here.

But what he didn’t say in that blog post is that Zynga has been scamming users from the beginning quite intentionally as part of their revenue model. Rather, he pointed much of the blame at middlemen offer companies: “We need to be more aggressive and have revised our service level agreements with these providers requiring them to filter and police offers prior to posting on their networks.”

Last spring, though, he gave a much clearer explanation to an audience at a Startup@Berkeley mixer, admitting that scamming users was part of Zynga’s business model from the start. And it was all caught on video. I think everyone sort of knew that this was exactly Zynga’s gameplan. But to hear it said so directly is just shocking.

The full 30ish minute video is here. We’ve taken the relevant section of the video, roughly starting at around the 10:40 mark, and embed it below. From the video:

I knew that i wanted to control my destiny, so I knew I needed revenues, right, fucking, now. Like I needed revenues now. So I funded the company myself but I did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues right away. I mean we gave our users poker chips if they downloaded this zwinky toolbar which was like, I dont know, I downloaded it once and couldn’t get rid of it. *laughs* We did anything possible just to just get revenues so that we could grow and be a real business…So control your destiny. So that was a big lesson, controlling your business. So by the time we raised money we were profitable.

get widgetminimize

CrunchBase Information

In this article I am going to break down 5 Ways you can Boost Coffee Shop sales with actual examples on how to go about implementing them. I have broken this article up into 5 parts and included a quick index at the top of every post for easy navigation. All of the examples I give in this article are great ideas but they are really meant to be spring boards to get your own creative  juices flowing.

Way #1:  Social Media – Twitter and Facebook

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

By now I think most everyone is on board with the idea that social media is an important element in their overall business strategy. But I don’t think most people  really grasp that this is not just a peripheral element. It can and ultimately will be one of the biggest factors that the everyday consumer will use in deciding where they are going to spend their hard earned money. If you don’t believe me then just do a twitter search on one of your favorite brands or t.v shows. You will see a stream of real time information about that particular brand and what people are thinking or feeling about it in that moment. I think so many people are making the mistake of writing this off as a “Twitter Thing” when in actuality it will ultimately change the way people search and surf the web forever.

Now I don’t want to limit you’re exposure or thinking to just Twitter and Facebook but right now they are easily the two biggest players in real time Social Media. So if you don’t have an account at both of these sites please STOP reading this article and get one immediately. Now that you have an account on these sites how do you use them? Well this is going to depend on your overall strategy and later I am going to go into more detail of what that might look like for you. The important thing to remember is to stay active, communicate, be available, be genuine, provide valuable information, remain approachable and do not abuse these streams to over sell or as a glorified RSS feed. Below I will walk you through three examples of how to use these tools by interacting with customers at the store level. (Note: There is also a huge use for these streams at the corporate level.)

3 Ideas for Your Store

Idea #1: Facebook Fan Page Giveaway

Let your customers know you have a Facebook Fan Page. Once you have over 100 fans turn your url into a vanity url. (http://www.facebook.com/MyCoffeeShop – If you do not have a fan page Spencer at Tutorial Blog has a simple How To on getting it set up.) Once you have the vanity url it makes it a lot easier to market that page to your customers. Now that you have the fan page let’s get started with the giveaway. On your fan page update your status by saying something like, “Come in to the store for the next 60 minutes and say you saw this message and receive ANY small beverage for FREE!” Even if you don’t have all or any of your fans come in for the giveaway many of them will most assuredly tell their friends or family about it. By the end of the day you will have many more Facebook Fans and loyal customers watching your every move, waiting for the next big surprise!

Idea #2: Twitter Contest

This one is super simple. Tweet out a message that saying something like, “Who is enjoying their YourCompanyHere beverage this morning? Send me a pic and you could win a $20 gift card.” Then when some time has past and you have some pics announce the winner. This will draw people to you on Twitter and ultimate increase your companies visibility on this very important medium.

Idea #3: Coupons on Your Blog

Do a blog post the day before a big sale with a coupon in it. Tell everyone they can get an additional 20% off. Include a field where they can input their email address to receive their coupon. This not only gets you more sales but also increases your base of contacts.

Next Page >>>>> Part Two – Giveaways

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These tips are useful for a variety of niches

Business : 50 FREE Ways To Market Your Business

by Lilach Bullock

on 3-Nov-09 1:07pm

Liked (7)

Message

So, who said marketing was expensive? Who said paid marketing was the best way? Below are 50 of my favourite FREE methods to market my business. I try and use them all and have had very successful results with each and every one of them. Which methods will you use? Don't forget to let me know how you get on and which results work well for you.

1. Networking
2. http://www.youtube.com
3. http://www.viddler.com
4. http://www.facebook.com
5. http://www.ecademy.com
6. http://www.linkedn.com
7. http://www.trafficswarm.com
8. http://www.craigslist.org
9. Forums
10. http://www.bttradespace.com/
11. http://www.twitter.com
12. http://hubpages.com/
13. http://www.squidoo.com/
14. http://www.myspace.com
15. Ezines
16. http://www.bebo.com
17. http://www.ezinearticles.com/
18. http://www.wordpress.com
19. http://www.blogger.com
20. http://www.thearticledirectory.org/
21. http://www.digg.com
22. http://www.jumptags.com/
23. http://www.vivastreet.co.uk
24. http://www.ebay.com
25. http://www.usenet.org/
26. http://www.problogger.com
27. http://www.affiliateshowcase.com/
28. http://www.prweb.com/
29. http://www.prleap.com/
30. http://www.clickbank.com
31. http://www.trafficexchangelist.com/
32. http://www.hitvortex.com/
33. Postcards
34. Flyers
35. Back of Car Bumper
36. Testimonials
37. Article Submission Sites
38. Free Classified Ads
39. http://www.socialmarker.com/
40. http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/
41. http://www.weebly.com/
42. http://www.mybloglog.com/
43. http://www.ping.fm
44. http://www.nrg-networks.com/
45. http://www.business-scene.com/
46. http://betternetworking.co.uk/
47. http://technorati.com/
48. http://www.gumtree.com
49. http://www.onlinemarketingtoday.com/software/link-management-assistant/
50. Network with your family, friends, colleagues and wider circle

I hope the above tips help you. There are many more free places to promote your business, but these are just a few to get you started! It's important to remember that effective marketing doesn't always equal big budget.

www.whoislilachbullock.com

Tel: UK 07590 554292 or US 001 209 251 2906

"If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you'll achieve the same results." Tony Robbins

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50 FREE Ways To Market Your Business

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by Norman Feiner

on 3-Nov-09 3:19pm : Message

Nice list - albeit, some are no longer 'free' for business promotion/advertising/offers, i.e. Gumtree now say:
"Posting an ad for 30 days in any of these categories will cost £4.95 (excl. VAT). "

Norman

Call Simply-Fone to reduce your Home & Business telephone call charges and line rentals.....
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50 FREE Ways To Market Your Business

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by Zara Lockwood

on 4-Nov-09 12:15am

A traditional business advert might cost, but there are still ways you could market for free in the gumtree classifieds ads without paying with creative use of words and ideas about what you want to achieve - that doesn't involve deception or unethical behaviour

Zara Lockwood | Create your badge

[ reply to this comment ] [ edit ]

Liked (7)

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I belong to most of these sites myself.

Looking for something different for your website or a gift - how about getting a cartoon ?

Zara Lockwood [Edit]

Date of Birth	01/03/1973
Type
Role	Sales, Marketing, Advertising or PR
Member Since	02/11/2007
Primary Website	http://www.weston-chatter.com
Status	Online and currently viewing Member Profiles

Biography [Edit]

Something which could Transform your Business

Click here for More details about The Million Dollar Challenge.

http://sites.google.com/site/zaralockwood/networks/ybc

 

oke doke, trying a different way of doing things, waiting for the magic pixies instead...okay okay, stop it Zara you are so silly!

What are you really doing ?

You really wanna know ? - I don't think I believe you  :-(

Okay (gawd where did we find this one ?) well can you just tell us where your website is so at least others can have a look, even if you don't want to talk about it ?

hmmm, okay, I suppose.... www.coffee42.info

hey what's that " De-activated during a4uAwards nominations" mean ? man you'd have thought that kind of information was , like PRIVATE, don't want to be in your awards anyhow....

 Oh yeah here is my A4U coffee lounge I will probably add it to my Coffee Blog: http://www.affiliates4u.com/forums/groups/zara-s-affiliate-coffee-lounge.html

[Edit]

Specialisms
Verticals
Territories
Job Title

Company Description [Edit]

Contacts

Events marked with a belong to this user.

Whiteboard

4 comments:

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agrees

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hello me, hello you! xxx

muto33 a few hours ago

agrees

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Hi , It would be great if you will add me to your contatcs list . I saw your websire , may be you shoul try our affiliate program . Babylon pays 40% cut plus 10% of all sales which comes from your sub affiliates . That how you make more then 50 % revenue share ! In addition you can get a special monthly bonuses of $100 to $1,000 for our best performing partners. Have a good day . Regards Daniel

Daniel_Razumov on 26 Apr 2008

agrees

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LoL . . . you sound as daft as me . . . . but hey ...give up on the award thingie eh ... I'll claiming it ....so there :)

TheCheekyMillionaire on 17 Apr 2008

my profile over at A4U - I lurked there briefly in 2003, updated my profile with million dollar challenge info - if you are a Ning Nomad, do come and say hi :-)

If you do want to post somewhere I recommend visiting my social group first to check what is allowed - they are quite picky these days!