Adam Schultz

A couple of weeks ago I finally caved and joined the new Killer Social Media App for Online Marketers Gooruze.

About 20 hours and 2 weeks later, I won a $500 AdWords credit and am ranked #12 out of a thousand. So far, so cool. At this point it’s a fun site and I am learning a lot about the correct way to launch a social media app.

I even got some love from the Marketing Pilgrim himself. (A founding member of Gooruze)

Then, they asked if they could use a quote from a recent blog post I wrote about Gooruze to announce the win. Again, no problem. I was actually quite flattered and IMHO it was a nice little metaphor.

Here is the part of the post they pulled from.

In order to ensure success you need:

• People with a shared passion (interest isn’t enough)
• A clear UI
• Participation Incentives

But what’s different about Gooruze that has me acting like Tyrone Biggums?

• They are focused on MY passion. On-Line Marketing.
• They targeted the right people in the industry to be a part of the founding community members to seed the site before even the beta launch.

That being said, I’m hooked.

Then, I log on and see this.

I don’t know why, but for some reason, seeing my face in a banner ad kind of creeps me out.

I’m still excited about the site, the win, that they are using my quote all over the site, the pats on the back from my online marketing buddies and the fun project I am going to do with the prize but seeing my face in a banner ad just creeps me out.

Here is the banner.

Does this creep you out?

Have you ever had an experience where online attention made you uncomfortable?

Post Script:

Another thing that makes sense but also creeps me out a little is that no one associated with or in Gooruze is linking to my personal or my company blog in association with my quote. I clearly link to it form my profile but I guess they want to keep their link juice all in the family.

A little outbound linking never killed anyone did it?

Wouldn’t it add some umph to the testimonial if Adam Schultz, CEO of Bold Interactive had said that wonderfully creative metaphor?

Post Script Update:

The amazing Bealdini “hooked me up the bomb” by updating his post with a sweet juicy link. I guess the english aren’t so bad after all. CHEERS!

So after being invited by a couple of different people to the beta for Gooruze and then not joining, I finally caved last night and logged about 2 hours on the site.

The tech is solid, nothing too spectacular but good. It’s a scalable social media app that focuses on incentivising participation with an action based scoring system.

With about 3 total hours logged, I’m already #20! (Gooruze member standings)

Now as a social media marketer I have seen all of this before in a number of different verticals and I know that the most important aspects of a community are 3 fold.

In order to ensure success you need:

People with a shared passion (interest isn’t enough)
A clear UI
Participation Incentives

But what’s different about Gooruze that has me acting like Tyrone Biggums.

They are focused on MY passion. On-Line Marketing.
They targeted the right people in the industry to be a part of the founding community members to seed the site before even the beta launch.

That being said, I’m hooked.

I can’t not track my site wide ranking as I ask, comment, and write the time away. Now that I am up to # 20 though, who knows how long I will be able to keep it up as more and more brilliant online marketers join this new platform.

I am already talking to the founders about licensing options of this app for a couple of my clients who have a need for mobilizing a passion centric online community. I will keep you posted on some of the details as things move forward.

——————————————–
Ignore please - boldadam.gooruze.com

Holy crap!

My town is at war! I had no clue, baton down the hatches, hide the women and children, head for the hills…

Oh, wait, that’s just the worst email title ever.

Here is what I just received in my in-box.

Would it have killed them to say “Vigil in Durham to end the War” or how about “Vigil to end the Iraq War in Durham”

Now, you have to wonder if this is just a case of bad word choice or did they do it on purpose. It certainly got my attention and totally hijacked the brainstorming session I was having. Not that I actually thought they were referring to a war in Durham, just that the subject left plenty of room for miscommunication.

It wouldn’t be the first time they missed the mark on driving their point home.

What are you doing to end the War in Durham?

Did MoveOn.org announce a vigil to end the war in your city?
Did you know your city was at war?

Thanks for the tag Cord. Now I can actually write something on my own blog rather than constantly commenting on yours.

So here are 8 random things you may not know about me:

1. This is the first time I have been “tagged”.

2. In high school, I had a part time job showing up to parties in character costumes. Yea, I was Barney. One time they sent me out as the Red Power Ranger. I was wearing a full body spandex suit with an over sized helmet leaving very little to the imagination. It was a pretty large party and there were like 20 moms who I’m pretty sure never took their eyes off me. I have never in my life, sense that day, felt more like an objectified slab of beef. A shame really.

3. Even though I have been running my own company profitably for a year now, I still have no idea what I am actually doing. I just take it a day at a time and do everything I can to bring value to my clients.

4. I have yet to meet anyone else in the business world who has a better plan.

5. I met my wife at a swing club… swing dancing… what were you thinking? When we met she had just turned 21. After our first dance, I asked if I could get her a drink. I came back with a sprite. I was 19. She was surprised but she thought I was cute and liked my moves. The rest is history.

6. In the past year, I have lost over 30 pounds playing Ultimate Frisbee. I was up to 260 lbs at one point. Now I am down to 225.

7. I am lucky enough to be married to the first and only love of my life.

8. I don’t think God and Government should have anything to do with each other. I would even like to see God out of the pledge and off the Dollar Bill. I even think it is wrong to force people to swear on a religious text in court. I have nothing against religion, I just don’t like civic decisions being made within religious context.

So now I guess I have to tag some other peeps.

Garrett
Nathania
Ben
Phil
Thad

Feel free to comment any stuff about yourself that I don’t know.

A few weeks back I complained about not having anything to stand for or a movement to really get behind and make my own. I have plenty of ideas and many opportunities that would most likely lead somewhere if I only just committed to something.

Well talk is cheap, time is money and I don’t feel like wasting talk or time anymore.

I have narrowed it down to 2 finalists.

I have 2 core concepts that have been dancing in my head for way to long and I am prepared to move forward on either of them. GiveAndGo.org and LocalCasters.com.

These are 2 completely different ideas with the core linking concept that they are social media projects which require a large community of participants where all are compensated for their involvement in one way ore another.

GiveAndGo.org

The GiveAndGo.org concept was born of perspiration and inspiration. Keith Cassell of Cassell Design (I sublease space in his office in Durham) was telling me about a web page he has setup to track the progress of an incremental cross country bike ride he was doing to raise $ for a good cause. At the end of it all, he had traversed the equivalent of a cross country trip without ever leaving Durham and the surrounding areas. He also managed to raise a nice stack of cash for a good cause.

It got me thinking, we could absolutely create a system to allow people to raise $ for charities through goal based physical action. If I wanted to get sponsors to give me $1 for every game of ultimate Frisbee I played over the net year to raise $ for Urban Ministries of Durham. I would be able to set it all up at GiveAndGo.org.

We would handle all the cash and would create a system that would help them track progress, raise awareness, find sponsors and whatever else we can do help them in their journey. Keith and I talked more over the following 6 months and we already have a preliminary business plan in place. Now we need to polish the idea and get our proposal into circulation for investment.

LocalCasters.com:

If you couldn’t guess by the URL, would be a local media outlet for Indie producers who want to cover the happenings of their favorite haunts. We would allow them to upload video, pics, text from their cell phones in order to have the most timely content available on local happenings. Yahoo and CNN are already doing things on a national level to this effect but I have yet to see a craigslist for local, user generated, journalistic media. Revenue would come from 2 sources and would be shared with the producers based on % of overall page views of their content and our total revenues for a given time period. There are other details of this project that are already worked which will remain under wraps for now.

I figure we will need to launch in one market and partner with local media outlets for phase 1 in order to prove the concept before moving the top us metro markets. (and then the ENTIRE WORLD, muahaha, muahahahahah, muaahahahahahahaahaah… sorry.)

What I need to get started on these concepts:
A business plan writer
A lead developer

What I will need in 4 months:
Angel funding (or charity sponsorship for GiveAndGo.org)
A business developer
A site editor

What I have to offer:
A Winning concept, guidance, leadership, and, of course, the almighty equity.

This post started as my third comment in a string on a post over at MarketingHipster.com sparked by news that fans pulled all kinds of stunts including sending 45000 pounds of peanuts to CBS offices to bring a TV show back on the air.

Cord was pissed that people would raise that much ruckus and mobilize so well for a friggin TV show rather than putting that time and money into something more meaningful. He was totally on point.

I was commenting my outrage there for a while but my latest comment was to big for that little comment window.

Where is the political action campaign where we send 45000 pounds of cow shit to the white house to give back some of the BS he has given us over the past 7 years? I don’t think Move-On.org would ever send out a bulletin asking users to do that.

(Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Anyone want in?)

As marketers, we need to find a way to rally people around something that both reactivates this nerve that has gone numb and their need to pay attention to online entertainment.

Here are my first 4 Ideas
Find a way to create an online reality TV show that follows an activist group trying to raise awareness and make change in the country on issues ranging from homelessness to ousting Bush.
Try to get one of us (net brights) to run for political office where the entire campaign and then the whole time in office is transparently published and openly discussed on a day to day basis allowing the community to see and interact with the day to day political challenges.
Create an online network where all we do is create shows and interactive environs supporting this kind of programing utilizing net distribution like Joost, YouTube, Democracy instead of traditional broadcast.
Mobilize a community that will somehow deliver cow manure as close to the White House as they can safely get without getting arrested or thrown into Git-mo for a chemical attack on Our Nations Capital. “We are just fertilizing the lawn man, where is the law against that.”

(I am sure that idea 4 will get me on some no fly lists or at least a secret service entry in my log files)

Now what?

If anyone wants to help me with some of these ideas, I would love to put together a little squad under the Bold Actions banner to see what we can accomplish. Let me know if you are interested.

Be sure to comment your ideas, what do you think we can do to make a difference?

How can we stand up and fight for something meaningful.

UPDATE - 06-12-07 - After further consideration on idea 4 and a log file entry form the US Postal Service, sending fertilizer in the us mail might actually be illegal. So instead, I’m thinking little plastic poo. We could attach little messages to it. We might even be able to get a novelties company to donate the poo to our cause.

Dear Move-On.org,

I am writing to you as someone who just received a message from you to call my local representatives about upcoming energy legislation so that it won’t include subsidies to support the coal industry by subsidizing liquefied coal.

You made a well informed point about how it is being presented under the guise of doing something good for the environment while actually supporting higher greenhouse gas output. You ,furthermore, stated that it would be with money that should be and was not going to subsidize renewable energy.

Be that as it may, I felt more compelled to write this letter to you about your failure to get me to act than to actually make the calls to my representatives in the Senate.

“Why not?” You might be asking your self.

You made a greatly motivational case to get me angry, you even gave me a reason to act. I went so far as clicking on the link to make the calls to my Senators.

But, you didn’t close the deal for some reason.

Adam Schultz

So what happened? Why did I lose my urge to act?

I got to this page (above) and thought to myself,

OK, so I have to call these people and talk to them about the fact that I don’t agree with this thing that I just learned about.

But, I don’t know a whole lot about it.

I might have to talk to someone.

What do I say to them.

I can just leave a message about it.

Then, what if they call me back.

How long is this going to take.

Do I know enough to talk to a senator about this.

How long is this going to take.

I should be working.

What would I say anyway.

And then they lost me.

I started to think about how interesting the exchange I just had with myself was. Then I cared more about blogging this concept and exploring what went wrong than with taking the action.

How many other people were thinking the same thing I was?

What would it have taken for me (and and the rest of us) to act as requested rather than get distracted and not?

So what would it have taken?

I really don’t know. It’s the kind of thing that once you start to measure it or try to figure it out after the fact, you most likely get it wrong. You know, like Blink.

But that won’t stop me from trying.

The email worked. I felt like I needed to act. The button told me to “click here”, so I clicked. I think it was the landing page that failed them in this case. I think that if they would have assured me that the time commitment would be very low, given me a brief script and supplied me with some follow up links.

The crazy thing is that they have done all of that before and I did it, I acted, I made some phone calls and tracked my progress, the whole 9. Did they just get lazy or did they have a reason for doing it this way?

I’m sure that I am but a small part of their core action taking group and I would imagine that they have studied what works for maximum affect for the group as a whole.

But what if that is the problem? The whole group.

Another idea for consideration,

It would appear to me that they have 3 types of people on their mail list.

1. People who have never acted
2. People who have ever taken action
3. People who often take action

I haver never seen a change in the format of their emails since I first joined a couple of years ago. Even after my first click and call, I still get the same stuff.

It would make sense to me that people at different phases need different messaging.

For me, they know I will act. I care less about the details of the issue at hand and more about doing something to help make change, anything to help make change. If they were able to target that, I would un-undoubtedly be more valuable to them.

How many people do they have on their list that they could get more value out of by being smarter about the way they ask and how they craft their message?

What do you think?

Did you get this email?

Did you act?

What would it have taken to get you to do so?

I received a MySpace message this morning that sent me on a side track. After writing that post, I found myself asking a bigger question.

I am constantly trying to ride the line in my head for my love of marketing and my hate of being marketed to.

So, where do we draw the line? At what point does grey become black?

Currently, If I feel like if I am adding actual value and I feel like there is a good chance that the people I am marketing to will find some real value in the offer we are giving them or the channel in which we are doing it, it’s not spam.

With pull marketing, most of your efforts are demand based - PPC, SEO, Banners and the like. They are all passively offering a thing or an answer based on a particular interest and require action on behalf of the user to go into play.

Knowing when you cross the line in this world is all about expectation. If you tell them they will get A by clicking here, don’t give them B, S or both when they show up to your url.

Push marketing, however, is a different beast all together. You are infiltrating the home, in-box, profile or community of prospective customers. So you still have the A - B thing to deal with but you are also un-invited.

When un-invited, how do you separate your message from spam.

Is it possible? Can you be intelligent enough about who, how and why you direct market to someone that you are not considered spam?

Can you send something meaty in a spammy way that’s not considered spam?

Does it matter?

Here is an email message I received in MySpace today from an Adult Dating Site that I will not privilege with a link. It was from a profile with the name Heather and no pic of who’s only friend was Tom. If you are in MySpace ever, you know the profile.

Hey Schultzie

How’s it goin? Im Heather and I just moved to the DURHAM area and I wanna meet a nice guy around here :-). I moved here to DURHAM a couple of weeks ago for work and now that I’m here I have nobody to hang out with! I read your profile… You’re cute and I liked what you had to say :-).

I’m just graduated college and I’m lookin for a guy who is a little bit older or more mature than me. You say you’re 28 and you’re cute so I guess you’re qualified

My friend Kim from back home suggested I tried using myspace to meet people in my area. I just signed up and my profile sux hehe. I do have a I put up a dating page at

My dating profile - more pictures (Link to sign up page on adult dating site)

… I have alot of photos and stuff up if you wanna see me. My user name is “summerfun2″. Its free to sign up.

I left you a personal msg on my homepage and I took a new pic for you today. Come check me out when you have a chance, k?

Lookin forward to seeyin ya,

Heather

So… I am impressed.

Not by her casual use of LOL, that she thinks I’m cute (though I am) or that she seems to be promiscuously bubbly with a screen name like “summerfun”. It’s the fact that whatever affiliate is running this latest spam campaign is actually using some smarts rather then just brute force that intrigues me.

First off, lets move past the fact that spam sucks and everyone hates it and try to focus on the marketing opportunity presented.

As far as MySpace spam goes, this was by far the most personal. They mined my readily available profile information to create a message that spoke to my age, name, and location. Now, they didn’t seem to care that I was married or that I had a kid. I guess on adult dating sites, all bets are off.

So why am I writing about spam. Mainly because in my opinion, the difference between using these tactics in a spammy way compared to using them to drive a targeted, community driven, value added social media campaign is fairly thin.

IMHO, If you can create a highly targeted, personalized and valuable message to the people in a community, you can go from spam to direct marketing fairly quickly.

For instance, if I had the tool being used above, and I had a poster website, I would scrape the top movies and top favorite bands on a profile and offer everyone who added my profile to their top friends a free (your fav movie or band here) poster when they spend $??.?? on my site or if they also sign up for my newsletter.

This could be especially successful for indie bands who may not have that much schtuff available in mainstream outlets.

Of course we would include their name and other creepily personal information.

Which brings me to another point.

Here is the text of an email I just received from MoveOn.org that I thought needed to be shared.

I just learned about a really important issue, and signed a petition about it. The federal government is on the verge of turning over a huge portion of our public airwaves to companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast–who will use them for private enrichment instead of the public good.

These newly available airwaves are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to revolutionize Internet access — beaming high-speed signals to every park bench, coffee shop, workplace, and home in America. Phone and cable companies don’t want this competition to their Internet service–they’d rather purchase the airwaves at auction and sit on them.

You can sign the petition I signed here - urging the government to make sure the public airwaves are used for the public good:

http://civic.moveon.org/airwaves/?r_by=10433-5211591-qs9ZKc&rc=paste

Thanks!