A Week in the Life…

Haven’t posted in more than a week, but a lot of has happened.

• I got a Mac yesterday! The trackpad is awesome… amongst other things.
• Have a few more clients!
• My girlfriend’s birthday was on May 4. Her surprise pajama party was a great time!
• Our fish died… It was a red betta fish she got for her birthday. We were shopping for a new home for him and when we got home, it had jumped out of its bowl. We hadn’t even settled on a name, I wanted “Fish” she wanted “Delicious Red.”
• RIP Delicious Red AKA Fish : May 4 2009 – May 6 2009
• An election was called for the Nova Scotia Parliament. I will be helping Liberal MLA Diana Whalen on her re-election bid.
• Joined another Fusion action team, Health & Wellness! Can’t wait to work with some more great people.
• Went to Nick Brunt’s art show at the Paragon. He is a co-founder of Waldii, and an amazing artist and graphic designer.
• Finally took the plunge and bought my own domain name (AnthonyMyersPR.com) and a hosting package with Netfirms.
• My blog will be transferred very soon. Can’t wait for my new layout!
• Took my personal branding to the next level, and got AnthonyMyersPR.com stiched into a new hat I bought.
• I am using Tweetie, a Mac-only Twitter application. It rocks!
• Went to another show at Exhibition Park. The Saltscape Expo was great, and I met some fantastic people and hopefully some more clients!

Thanks for stopping by!

5 Things I Learned from a Freshbooks Presentation on Making Love to Customers

Mike McDerment, Freshbooks’ CEO, was the first speaker at the AIM conference.

His presentation called “How to Make Love to your Customer” was a great start to get the attendees thinking about creative internet marketing strategies.

Freshbooks is a great example of a product/service filling an important need. It offers simple invoicing for small businesses/consultants so that we can focus on the more exciting parts of our businesses.

Here are 5 points I took from the presentation

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Social Media is great for Unexpected Publicity

A Freshbooks blog post about a new Triscuits flavour led to an article in a New Zealand newspaper. (True and complicated story!)

Also, a follower of @freshbooks on Twitter got stood up and tweeted about it. The guys at Freshbooks didn’t think that was right, so they decided to send her flowers. She wrote a blog post about her experience complete with a picture of the flowers and the note.

Social Media is great for Customer Relations

The Freshbooks team has also embraced social media in an all-encompassing way. Even optimizing their webpage for social media users, rather than SEO.

Michael told us stories about how social media interaction with customers paid dividends in goodwill & buzz. And if you follow Freshbooks on Twitter, make no mistake, you are being listened to.

Go the extra mile, it is not very crowded

One of Freshbooks’ selling points is whenever you call them you will get an actual human being answering right away. Pretty cool and very rare.

I also received an example invoice in the mail about a week after I signed up. It was very cool to see my name on such a professional-looking document. Knowing clients will see something like this, with very minimal effort and money spent on my part, makes me very happy!

Make it as easy possible for customers to work with you or use your site

If if it is hard to work with you or your website, you will be missing out on a lot of business.

The night after the presentation, I signed up for an account. I was astounded at how easy and non-threatening the sign up process was! (Threatening would be a long list of inputs with the dreaded red stars for required fields)

All they wanted to start was my company name, email address, and a name for my freshbooks-specific site. Then they coaxed the rest of my info out in the next few pages. It was a great experience and I hope we can use some of those principles for Waldii’s sign up process!

Build your site for the User not Google

Mike showed the transformation from the typical copy intensive website into a more social version which focuses more on features, and what people say about Freshbooks.

The site also does a good job on putting the focus on the key things they want the customers to do: “trying it for free” and “take the tour.” It seems obvious but a lot of websites don’t get the idea of pushing the focus to actions you want your user to do… GO TO MY CONSULTING PAGE! lol

Customer testimonials are also featured prominently all over the home page.

It is obviously still important to be strong on Google and they are number one for a search on “online invoicing.”

———-

Freshbooks’ way of business represents a total focus on the customer’s needs. This is the best way to run a business, because it encourages referrals (most of their new customers are referrals) and gets people talking. e.g. this post!

If you are not focusing on the needs of your customers, your business won’t be around for very long.

AIM Conference Debreifing

I volunteered for the Atlantic Internet Marketing conference last week.

I was CEO of Panelists and also did some of the setup. Thanks to all the other volunteers as well, it was great working with you!

The presenters were amazing and a lot of big ideas are formulating for my blogs, online video, consulting and Waldii.

Also met some great people and am anxious to get to know them better. I know we are going to do some cool things!

I took a lot of notes so expect a lot of posts. Some of the slide shows will be available, as well.

Thank you to Peter Sickles and Robert Swick from AlphaSearch for bringing all of us together.

If any AIM conference attendees are writing blog posts about their experience, please comment! I would love to have your take.

Social Media and Twitter are Officially on the Map

Check out this amazing post from PR 2.0, on what the race to a million followers meant for Twitter, and thus social media.

For those of you that don’t know what I am talking about…

Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN to a race of being the first person/entity to have 1 million followers on Twitter. Then a bunch of other celebrities joined the race, including Oprah (I couldn’t resist following her… Haven’t seen many of her tweets though.)

Colin Solis also talks about how Ashton Kutcher used Twitter as a way to develop awareness for malaria and get more donations from twitter users.

It really opened my eyes to how social media can benefit the world by bringing people together for amazing causes.

Although I should have known this by know. e.g. Obama’s campaign, the Donate for Dachshunds campaign in Halifax, and Colin Hebb using facebook for his quest for $2,000 for Revolution 2009.

Relatively long post, but worth the read!

Video of Waldii’s Interview on Haligonia.ca

The interview is now available on demand!

Thanks to Giles Crouch and Haligonia.ca for having us.

Also thanks to Ashley, the man behind the camera.

Check out the interview here.

Formula 1 Going through Biggest Turnaround in Sports

I am a huge fan of Formula 1 racing!

There is something about knowing it is the absolute best way to move on four wheels.

F1 has gone through a monumental shift because of new rule changes they implemented before this season.

See the flashy video:

This season Jenson Button, a driver with the Brawn GP team who had trouble finishing races last year, won the first two races. And in the Chinese Grand Prix last weekend was third.

Now to the big turnaround.

The Red Bull Team just got their first one-two finish in team history at the Chinese Grand Prix. Congratulations Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber! They also had trouble being competitive and finishing races throughout their five year history. I guess the wings finally started working. 🙂

Ferarri, the team that has dominated since the start of F1 racing, is having their worst start in many years with no championship points in the first three races.

Personally, I think this situation is great. Parody is good for sports and I am glad a fresh palate of rules has set a more competitive playing ground for teams. The skill and adaptability of Brawn and Redbull has given them an early advantage, and hopefully Ferrari and the other teams can catch up!

People and Places – April 9-10

This is going to be a diary/shout out to the people and places I saw last Wednesday and Thursday.

WEDNESDAY

Congratulations to Ian Miller

I met Ian Miller at my first CPRS networking event in Halifax, and then I saw him again at the last CPRS session with Bessy Nikolaou. (You may have seen the post) I am congratulating him on his new job for the summer! He is a Communications Assistant with Canoe ’09. Around ninety countries are going to be competing in Dartmouth’s Lake Banook and it is going to be a massive event!

Networking with Cindy Wheeler

I also invited Ian to my second Wednesday networking lunch at the Halifax Club. This one was hosted by Cindy Wheeler who is a personal shopper and wardrobe consultant. It was a great time and I met some great contacts with cool jobs.

Press Conference for Fusion’s “Wear the Button” campaign

This was an event near and dear to my heart. I am part of Fusion Halifax’s Urban Development Action Team, aka UDAT (group of members who are interested in Urban Development) We have been working on a campaign to support HRMbyDesign, an urban design plan being proposed to the city council for the downtown core, for the last few months. HRMbyDesign is a plan to make the downtown core and surrounding areas a more sustainable and beautiful place! Find out more about the plan here.

THURSDAY

Networking at Smitty’s Lacewood

Another great networking event that I could walk to.  Met some more great people and hope to find ways to help them all soon.

Fusion’s Second Thursday event at the Garrison Brewery

Second Thursday is networking event for Fusion members. This was a special one because it was all about HRMbyDesign. I also helped organize this event with the UDAT.

The key parts of our “Wear the button” campaign are the distribution of our cool green buttons (they go with everything!) posters and decals we are giving to local businesses and organizations, and  post cards that we created for Haligonians to sign. We will be collecting all the signed post cards and will be delivering them to city council before the vote. Message me if you want to be a part of the campaign!

Helen Fong and the Yoga Atlantic Conference

I did manage to do some networking. (surprise, surprise)  I went to a leadership course/event a few weeks back and Helen remembered me from a question I asked. Helen Fong is the distribution coordinator for the Yoga Conference and a certified yogi! The conference will be a great time, and I hope some of you guys can make it out to the Chocolate Lake Best Western this weekend. Yummy!

There will be stretching

Earth Day in Halifax

I also met some members of the Sustainability Action Team. The action team will be a part of Halifax’s Earth day celebrations on Wednesday April 22 at Victoria Park. Hopefully the weather will be great and you can check it out!

Fashion Show at the Page Gallery

I would like to thank Gillian Wesley, the lady in charge of Carpe Omnis Media, for inviting me to the fashion show she put on. Katrina Tuttle was showing a sneak peek of her fall line up. It was my first fashion show and it was everything and more than I expected! The models were from a Halifax modeling agency called City Models. Great job ladies!

Wow, that was long. I hope I did everyone justice, and it was great to meet and participate with all these people and events!

Waldii on Haligonia.ca

Hey guys,

Two of Waldii’s founders will be on Haligonia.ca talking about our creation.

Ian Conrad and I will be interviewed at 12:15 AST.

Check it out live, or find us after!

I will be posting the direct link to the video as soon as it is ready.

Cheers,
Anthony

4 reasons why a PR consultant should go to a Home Show

It was in a non-pedestrian friendly location which meant I had to walk through ditches, cross highways, and walk more than 30 minutes. (20 if you know exactly where you are going…)

My first home show at Exhibition Park in Halifax still turned out to be a great experience! I learned a lot about what goes into creating a home for yourself. From the architect’s renderings, roof options, insulation options,  maintaining clean air, garage door openers, financing options, solar panel installation and much more.

My main goals were to promote my consulting business and Waldii. It was definitely worth the trek and here are my reasons to go to a home show with a public relations consultant’s hat on:

1. Clients, Clients and more Clients

When I first heard of the idea of a PR consultant, in my first few days of class, I thought it would be a great job/business. I also thought that I would be the one to bring the power of PR to the under served market of small businesses. My day was spent going to booths and telling the owners about the value of PR and how it can help their business. Some were receptive, some were not, but I got cards from them all.

2. Networking

A lot of small business owners have regular day jobs. Sometimes these day jobs need PR help as well! Through getting to know some of the people at the booths, I was able to figure out ways to help them and ways for them to help me. For example, I met a mortgage broker who also hosts a radio show. He offered to interview me about the PR business! I will let you know how the interview goes, very soon.

3. Other Business Opportunities

Through my adventure at Exhibition park, I was offered two jobs! A couple of people thought I could do a good job selling/referring their products. These opportunities came as a surprise to me. However, I quickly realized that through my addiction to networking I could easily find people who need the products and connect them to something they need anyway!

4. Small Business Advice

Most of the booths were manned by small businesses, like myself. Through talking with these people, I gleaned a lot of information on how to get the most out of small resources. I met a mortgage broker/financial expert who gave me a place to find cheap business cards, and other business needs. I also met a guy who told me about more networking opportunities, advice on who to contact in the home show, and some valuable tips on organizing a busy life.

I guess the moral of the story is don’t be afraid to sell yourself and your abilities! Good things will happen when you put yourself out there.

CPRS Session with Bessy Nikolaou

I recently attended a CPRS PD session on Social Media. It was really informative and it was presented in an elegant and easily understandable way.

Bessy did a great job of starting with the basics and organized the presentation into easily digestible points that her audience could understand.

It started off with some wicked stats and videos! Basically computers are getting VERY powerful and China will have more English speakers than the U.S. soon.

There was also a video explaining social media in the simplest terms possible. I also posted it on my consulting page, because it is so amazing!

Here are a key few points or observations I took away from the presentation:

1. Social media is a communication tool, just like TV, newspapers or any other media. To be successful, you need the same research, strategy, and tactics used for any other PR campaign.
2. Old media involved pushing your message where you think your audience is. New media is about pulling your audience to the message.
3. Social media is an authentic and transparent medium. You must be prepared to monitor the discussion about your organization and be totally accountable for your actions.
4. Social media releases are just guest blog posts!
5. Social media is an amazing way to connect with people. A prodigal son or daughter coming back to their city needs only Twitter, Facebook, and some time to feel right at home again.

The session gave me some great fundamental knowledge of social media that will help me use it more effectively and efficiently. I feel a hundred times more ready to tackle any project!