A Small-Town Newspaper and the Polarization of Readers

I live in a small town and have to put up with a small-town newspaper.  I know that if I want real news of what's going on in the world I can't rely on The Post Register at all, but they still amuse me from time to time.

For being an unbiased, impartial newspaper, you'd be amazed how many religious-based articles there are.  Since this is an LDS-heavy area, they cater to Mormons even more than the Salt Lake Tribune does.

For example, the Post Register's Facebook page has 2 of their 4 most recent posts about Mormons.  One is talking about the Mormon Tabernacle Choir trying to reach out to the masses, and the other discusses how popular BYU-Idaho is getting.

The SLC tribune is much less Mormon-centric, even though the world sees Salt Lake as the Mormon-Mecca.  Their #6 most recent facebook article talks about Mitt Romney's representation of the LDS Church, and then you'd have to scroll through about 2 weeks worth of posts before finding something else religious.

So when I saw this comment-and-exchange between a reader and The PR on Facebook, I wasn't that shocked...  These are the comments about the Mormon Tabernacle Choir trying to become more mainstream:

I laughed.  Especially with the 'half our readers' quip from the newspaper.  On their website, they boast  a daily print circulation of about 22,000, targeting an area of over 230,000.  That's a 9.56% reach.

Comparatively, The Los Angeles times has about 53%.  The St. Louis Post-Dispatch boasts a 57% reach.  Granted, those are both major metropolitan areas, but the greater Billings area compares to Eastern Idaho (population-wise), and the Billings Gazette has a 42% reach.

I know print is slowly dying, but The Post Register seems bent on helping it croak.  A yearly subscription would cost me about $3.35 a week, yet I could get the Los Angeles Times for about $2 a week.  Sense?  This makes none...

The comment above shows that by catering to one demographic, they're risking alienating everyone else in the process.  If half of your subscribers (11,000... ha) are LDS, ok.  I'm sure they want to know what's happening around the world as well, instead of what's going on in their own church.

I have news for you, Post Register.  They (Mormons) talk about themselves enough as it is.  They probably knew about the things you report on before you report on it...  Non-mormons don't care about the goings-on of the church, so you're essentially preaching to the choir (pardon the pun).

Even if you take away the Mormon-centric philosophy, the paper seems to have troubles with fundamentals as well:

Granted, I used to play 'Paperboy' on my Nintendo in the 80's.  I know how hard it is to throw the paper just right without breaking a window or getting chased by an old lady.  But still, if you have a Facebook be prepared to communicate and engage with Facebook.  "You should have called us" and "email was lost in the ether" are lame excuses, and I am glad you were called-out on it in a semi-public setting.

Do you come from a small town?  If so, do you have a newspaper as skewed and out of touch as this one?  Please share your stories below.  With luck, someone from the Post Register will read this and learn something...  (and, with luck, hire a new Marketing/PR Director)

Key Influencer or Major Asshat? The Klout vs Klouchebag Debate

As a blogger and social media whore, I try to extend my reach as much as I can without being too much of an ass.

(on that note, please follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Google+)

One slice of the internet that monitors your influence on others (and their influence on you) is Klout.  Klout will look at your Facebook, Twitter, Google and other social media sites and will gauge (on a scale from 1-100) how influential you are.

For example, my Klout profile says I'm a 49.  Top influential topics include:

Blogging

Idaho

Humor

and (of course) Mormons.

People can go to my Klout profile and give me a '+K' on things they think I'm influential on.  For example, I would love some +K on Cats and Business.  Just because.

It's a neat little tool.  Mostly pointless, sometimes annoying, but every now and then you can get a cool perk or two from it.

But... remember earlier in the post when I said "without being too much of an ass?"  Well, there's an internet tool that measures how much of a Twitter Douchebag you are...

Meet Klouchebag.  Like Klout, but instead of measuring how influential you are, it measures how annoying you are.

It measures your anger, misuse of the English language, Retweet abuse and social media spamming on twitter, and gives you a grade.  Also (I'm assuming) on a scale from 1-100.

In Klout, the higher the better.  In Klouchebag, the lower the better.

For example, here is my rating:

For comparison, here is Lady Estrogen:

Finally, here is celebrity annoyance and big-booty extraordinaire, Kim Kardashian:

What do you think about Klouchebag?  Feel free to check it out (if you have a Twitter account) and see how much of an ass you are.  Do you think this is accurate?  Are you above 50 on the douche-meter?  Feel free to share your score with the class, and we can all revel in our shame together.

Pinterest - The Devolving of Social Media

Remember 10 years ago, when Myspace was the coolest new thing? Everyone wanted to be a part of "Tom's" network, and all the popular kids had a myspace page.

You could design your own layout.  Have a playlist of your favorite songs.  Make a bio/online resume, including pictures, words, videos, and more.

Then, as business started to notice, saying "we should probably market to this," myspace died.

What killed myspace?  Facebook.

Facebook offered a 'cleaner' interface.  Simply put, you can't design your own layout anymore.  You can't have music playing on your profile.  You post status updates, pictures, videos and links.  It was a dumbed-down version of myspace, and people LOVED it.

Simplification rules.  So how do you simplify Facebook?  Twitter.  It's facebook in 140 characters or less, and designed for mobility.

But... words are overrated, right?  Let's cut those out.  Enter Pinterest.

Pinterest is 'the next big thing,' especially with women.  You pin pictures you like (recipes, fashion, quotes, as long as they're in an image file) and you share with your friends.  For example, my ex wife is newly engaged and is planning a wedding.  She pins decorations, cakes, dresses, etc she likes, and her friends go "DAWWWWWW..."

That's pinterest in a nutshell.

And businesses are trying to find ways to capitalize.

As a blogger, my blog's continued success involves 'staying current with the times' and using social media trends help fuel blog traffic.  But pinterest?  It doesn't quite work for me.

You see, pinterest is for pictures, and this blog is more than pictures.  If I showed cute lolcat images or talked about skinny jeans on fat dudes, I'd have relevant pictures to pin.  My focus is more on the words instead of the pictures, and not the other way around.

Twitter?  I use it.  Stumbleupon?  Great for traffic.  But pinterest?  Sorry.  Not for me, not for my blog.  I only have one thing to say to pinterest:

Businesses who can use images and pinterest to their advantage may have found a great new marketing tool.  For those of us who use words, humor, sarcasm and wit, pictures DO say a thousand words, but not always in the right way.

Do You #Wahooly?

Social Media sites come and go like 90's hair-fads these days, but one new website caught my eye recently.

It's called Wahooly, and promises you a piece of the pie for hundreds of startups in the coming year.  The way it works (in theory) is you as a blogger/tweeter use your influence to promote a company.  In turn, this company gives you a stake in the profits.

This includes Wahooly itself.  They offered 25,000 spots for people to split a 5% profit share in the company.  Yes, that means that I'm only getting 2-ten-thousandths of a percent, but that means I get $100 for every 20 million this company makes.

Not a lot of cash, no.  But I'm not exactly putting 40+ hours a week into this.

Their goal is to show followers about 200 startups in 2012.  The design will be similar:  Use your influence to promote the startup, and get a piece of the profit pie.

Is this going to make a lot of people rich?  Maybe, maybe not.  But it seems like a novel idea.  The internet seems to fuel the modern world these days, so why not try to tap into that power?  And why not reward those who help make you successful?

Imagine if Facebook did this long long ago...

I'm not sure if there are any spots left, but give Wahooly a look.  I received my invite due to a high(ish) Klout score, so there may be some criteria to get in.  Regardless, money is money.  Check it out.

And if you see a lot of Twitter-spamming coming from me about @TeamWahooly, you'll know why.

Twitter for Bloggers - Waste of Time, or Am I Doing It Wrong?

By the time you read this, I'll have reached my 250,000th page view.

And in less than a year.  I have been blogging for 11 months, and just hit a quarter million page views.

...and no thanks to twitter.

You see, I analyze my data.  Most of my pageviews come from my following audience, google searches, and stumbleupon (in that order).

#4 on my referring sites list?  Networkedblogs.com, at 0.32%.  Twitter?  It's not even showing up in my top sites...

And I tweet a lot.

I even belong to a few sites that amplify my tweets, and make my twitter look better to others, in hopes of better blog exposure.

I use Klout.  My current score is 48, which is supposed to be decent.

I also use Triberr:

Triberr is a tweet amplification tool for bloggers.  I get in a tribe (network of other bloggers) and with every post, they tweet my link to their followers (and I do the same).  This results in more tweets and more mentions, but not a lot of page views.

So, am I doing something wrong, or is twitter just a waste of time?

Besides google and being fairly popular in searches, the only social media site that has been worth it has been Stumbleupon.  It has resulted in about 20% of my views, which I consider decent.

And if you stumble, follow me here.  You scratch my back, I scratch yours, capice?

What social media sites do you use?  Which ones are successful and which ones are a waste of time?

Does twitter work for you??  Facebook?  Google+?  If so, tell me what you're doing, because they're not working for me...

Marketing Tips From The Muppets

Unless you live under a rock (or maybe in one of the countries ending in -stan) you are aware that a new Muppet movie is coming out in a few weeks.

I'm 30 years old.  Anyone plus-or-minus ten years of me has probably been influenced in their childhood by muppets.  From Sesame Street to The Muppet Show and beyond, Jim Henson's creations played a heavy role in late 20th century pop culture.

And they're making a comeback, 21st century style.

When a muppet movie was green-lighted, the PR team for this movie went to work.  The plot of the movie is "Are muppets relevant anymore?" with the main focus of showing this generation what muppets are all about.

How do you target this younger generation of movie goer?

The INTERNET!

In November 2009, they launched this video:

It was an instant hit, getting millions of views and being passed around Facebook pages galore.

Speaking of Facebook, the muppets are there as well.

Any major social media outlet has been infested with muppet-dom.  Even Miss Piggy, The Swedish Chef, and a host of other muppets are on twitter, tweeting regularly (and in character).

Interviews on late night talk shows, commercials galore, viral videos (you have to see The Pig With The Froggy Tattoo) and even guest appearances on WWE Monday Night Raw are making sure that everyone knows about this movie.

I mean, come on.  Beaker getting involved in a wrestling match, handing Santino Marella a concoction that helps him win the match.   When is the last time you saw Julia Roberts do this for one of HER movies?  What about Leo DiCaprio?

Again, the plot of the movie is "Are the muppets relevant anymore?"  They're marketing tactics are making sure they are.  Gen X'ers are loving every bit of it.  Gen Y'ers and the newest generation (Generation Internet?  iGeneration?) are getting a taste of what made the muppets hilarious in the 70's and 80's.  They are fuckin crazy, and will make you laugh in unconventional ways.

Businesses.  Entrepreneurs.  Learn from the muppets.  If you're going to market yourself, go all out, and get as unconventional (read: CRAZY) as possible.

Why I Use StumbleUpon (and why you should too...)

Do you stumble?

You should.

If you have a blog, a website, a business, or do any online marketing, stumbleupon is a fantastic way to not only drive traffic to you, but also show you amazing content related to your interests.

My user name is lostinidaho (yeah, original.  I know) and I use stumbleupon to not only promote my blog, but to also see what else is out there.  I have learned web design tips (see that slide show near the top?  It's a jquery slider I discovered whilst stumbling...), as well as found other bloggers and humorous sites.

It is a neat little research tool, and can become highly addictive.

From an optimization standpoint, stumbleupon also helps you build links back to your site, which is SEO gold.  Granted, you ideally want links from multiple sources, but SU is a great source to use.  Every time someone stumbles one of your pages (or you stumble yourself) you get linked.

Links add up.

And you get added to the SU directory in whatever category your pages get tagged in.  Talk about Sexuality?  There's a tag for that.  Hockey?  There's a tag for that.

When people stumble their interests, they can stumble into you.  If they like what they see, they 'like' you.  Like facebook, the more likes the better, and the higher up in the rankings you go.  All of this results in more traffic, fresh faces, and ultimately (if you produce good content) a higher popularity of your site.

As far as social media goes, I would consider stumbleupon one of the top four sites to use for increasing traffic (along with facebook, twitter (if applicable to your site) and youtube).  This handy dandy chart will show you some top social media sites along with their strengths and weaknesses.  Find out what works best for you, and use the corresponding sites.

*from cmo.com*  Click for full-size

As a blogger, if it has 3 or more green fields, I try to use it.  If you learn what to use and when, you'll be able to boost your site into internet immortality.

At least, that's the plan...


Edit:  My day in a sentence asked what kind of results I have seen thanks to stumbleupon.  Well, the proof is in the pudding.  Here is a screenshot of my all-time referral sites.  Yes, google is king, but stumbling works (moreso than twitter...)

Now click that happy 'S' below and stumble this post!  Make sure to follow me as well, so I can find you easily and stumble your posts as well!

Fun With Facebook

Happy Birthday to me!

Or not.

Yaaay!

I saw this mentioned on a blog long ago (I'd link it, but the blog has since died.  Meh) and wanted to try this myself.

Tuesday was my birthday.  Yay!  Happy Birthday to me!

Wait, so was Wednesday.  Yay!  Happy Birthday to me!

Um, ok... so is today.  ...Yay!  Happy Bir--

But my real birthday is in January.

This fun social experiment took 3 days before people finally got the joke.  But during those 3 days, I got some fun statistics....

Day 1 - 20 people were fooled, including 2 family members and 1 guy who has known me since I was 6
Day 2 - 10 people still wished me a happy birthday, including 3 people who did it less than 24 hours ago.
Day 3 - The jig was up, people had figured it out.  Oh well!  You HAVE to forgive me!  It's my birthday!!!

I'd like to say that my FB friends are smarter than most.  They got the joke pretty quickly, and a handful of people knew something was up on day 1.

But still, it was a fun thing to try.  Too bad I didn't get any presents out of it...