Archive for the ‘B2B’ Category

I love promoting awesome people, great causes, events, and organizations/businesses that are doing interesting things. My favorite tech tool to help me do this is the Apple iPhone 3Gs.

There’s a reason the iPhone 3Gs is such a hot seller, it is a mobile promotion machine. I use it to check email on the road or at home when away from my laptop. I use it to take pictures that I post to my Twitter and Facebook status feeds and to various blogs. The built in video allows me to post to my YouTube Channel, post via email to my Posterous account, send short videos via 12seconds.tv, and to live stream using Qik.com and UStream. With this single tool, I can immediately share what’s going on with my life or at an event.

Here’s an example of how I used my iPhone for shameless self-promotion. A couple of months back, I noticed Nancy Rodriguez’s Twitter update where she mentioned that she and the crew from Q1047, the local Hip-Hop and R&B station, where going to be live broadcasting from a nearby McDonald’s. It was around 7am so I grabbed a fast shower then zoomed over to McDees. I had chatted with Nancy before via Twitter so it was great meeting her and the rest of the Rico and Mambo show. I took a couple of photos of them in action, posted the pictures to Twitpic and Twitter, spoke to Nancy, then headed back to go home.

Now, I’ve been listening to Q1047 since I moved to Ventura County and it’s my favorite station. So I was glad to post pictures and tweet about them on Twitter. But as I headed back to the car I realized that I could have plugged my new online blogging course. So I decided to grow a sack and went back to ask Nancy to send a shoutout to my BuildYourFanBase.com readers and she kindly did so.

Fifteen minutes after I left the live broadcast, I had uploaded the video shoutout to YouTube and had already tweeted out a link to my blog post on the event. Minutes later Nancy retweeted the link and gave my blog and new blog class an on-air shoutout.

Now that’s promotion at the speed of light!

Do you have any other mobile promotion tech tools that you swear by?

[Cross posted to www.jesseluna.com]

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YouTube allows you to create a custom video player but the process doesn’t include an easy way to set the player size. I’ll show you how to do both.

Create the custom player
You can create a custom player by logging into your YouTube account then selecting “Account” link next to your user name at the top right of the page.

From the Account page, click on the “Custom Video Players” link under the “More” column.

Click on the Create Custom Player button, add the player name and description, select the layout, then select the video(s) you want to include. If you want to create a player for only one video or for a specific group then you can save what you have at this point and create a Playlist with those videos. Otherwise, select the video(s) that you want to include in this player.

Click on the “Select” button once you selected the videos(s) to include in the player.

Once things look good, click on the “Generate Code” button then you’ll see the Embed Code box with the HTML code in it.

At the time of this post, the default player size is 416 by 337 pixels. You probably noticed that the Create a Custom Player process never allowed you to set the player size. I’ll show you how to edit the code so you can get the right player size.

Edit the Embed Code
Copy the Embed Code and paste it into a Notepad or Text file for now. Now, we’re going to change four parts of that code, the two “width” and two “height” parameters which are both 416 by 337 respectively.

To avoid strenuous math at this point, I included a data table that has the width and height at different percentages of the original player size. So if you want the player to be around 300 pixels wide, you’ll need to set the height to be around 240 pixels, based on the chart below.

Final Steps
Now that you have the desired width and height, change those values in the Embed Code then add the entire code to your blog. If it doesn’t fit correctly, revisit the table above and find a combination that works for you.

You just learned how to create and resize a custom YouTube Player!

[Cross posted on jesseluna.com]

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I recently had “the Twitter talk” with the CEO of a high tech B2B company. His one main question was, “Will Twitter help us make money?”

My response was that B2B companies should not look to Twitter as a way to sell widgets, but to view it as a trade show.

At a trade show:

1. Conversations and actions are focused on building relationships
2. Outcomes are evaluated on a long-term basis, not a quick hit
3. Strong partnerships are the greatest financial reward. In the CEO’s business, a new vendor can mean millions in sales per year
4. It’s a great place to share the company’s brand and personality
5. To get the most out of a show, you have to engage participants or you will get lost in the crowd

So there is a reward at the end of the Twitter rainbow for B2B companies. But it takes time, work, and a decent strategy.

Oh, and don’t forget the swag.

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