Adam Schultz

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.

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Ignore please - boldadam.gooruze.com

Due to our holistic approach to online marketing and focus on bringing results and value to our clients as quickly as possible we are seeing an astounding result from our recent marketing efforts. Because of this success, we are looking to expand our paid search offering to a slightly wider audience.

Click here to learn more about Bold Interactive’s Paid Search Management.

The case studies will be written within the next couple of months but here are a few summaries from some recent campaigns.

Within the first month and after spending only $650 in Google, a client whose site we recently launched closed 3 new deals as a direct response to the new site and PPC placements. These deals are worth over 30K in pure profit over the next 3 years. That’s a 4300% ROAS. Our next steps for them are to launch some new product verticals and expand the existing campaigns into new geographical regions.
One of our financial services clients was generating roughly 250 leads per week on a site that converted at 15-20% with a big affiliate lead fraud problem. Within 2 months of working together and in partnership with their internal marketing team, we were able to move their on-site conversion rate to 25-30%, launch 3 new product lines, develop and launch a new retail storefront, build and staff an internal lead quality team and get them up to 700 leads per week. We haven’t even started the new affiliate and seo campaigns we have planned for them.
A third client who is used to spending almost $200 to generate a lead, is now sitting pretty watching us generate leads at $30 - $40 per. He now receives 500% more leads than he has ever generated online. He is already increasing his budget and looking to expand into new geographical markets. We haven’t even finished his new site yet. When it launches and the conversion rate improves, that cost per lead will even further reduce helping us attract more leads for the same cash investment.

Give us a call at 919.451.8983 or email me at adam@boldinteractive.com if you are interested in learning more.

PS: Did I mention that these are the only 3 PPC clients we have so far. 3 for 3 ain’t bad, care to help us make it 4 for 4?

Like beer?

Wish someone would pay you to drink beer and talk about it?

Me too.

Enter LagersAndLoungers.com.

Myself and my fellow He-Brew Jeremy Swiller will be leading you on a harrowing journey of beer and relaxation in our effort to get people to pay us to keep doing it.

Bold has recently (like yesterday) launched a new authority link development service focused on creating highly targeted link bait content to garner link love from top trusted sites in a given keyword marketplace.

For the initial launch we have done a broad range of tactics that have all gone very well and have already begun to drub up interested parties.

For starters, we created a product page for our new Authority Link Development service (shameless I know) on BoldInteractive.com and an announcement post once it was up.

Then Garrett wrote a killer piece of link bait on Building Hub Links: a 5 Point Strategy Guide for Creative SEOs. That brilliant post earned us a quick bit of love from the Pilgrim himself, Andy Beal.

So far so good right?

Then cut to Friday night at 9:45 pm after I have been working to get an announcement out to my Linked-In network to announce the great new product.

I get the post written, get all my contacts lined up and get ready to send the post. I give it one last looksee before I hit the big send button and notice a typo in the title of the post.

A glaring, in your face, OMG what a joke, does this guy mean to be taken seriously kind typo. Luckily, I hadn’t sent anything and was able to correct the mistake before sending out the blast.

So corrected it in the available fields, and hit the send button.

Moments later, I go to my linked in homepage and what do I see there staring at me eating away at my very soul.

ITS THE F-NG TYPO!

“Do you know of anyone or are your self in need of some Authority Link Development?” Like I needed to bold it.

Not a minute earlier I had corrected it to read “Do you know of anyone in need of some Authority Link Development?” the “or are you yourself” line was awkward anyway. The important thing is that I thought I had fixed it.

Instant mortification. I know this is not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things but as a young entrepreneur in the beginning of my second year as a business owner, sending a product offering out to all of my past and present colleagues and clients, this sucks. As I type, Gmail notifier is blinking little messages in the corner of my screen form auto responders of people who have received my post but are out of town. It’s mocking me with with every flutter like the kids middle school laughing when my own snoring woke me up at my desk during a math lesson with a thud and a jerk.

I feel like I should close this post like an episode of The Wonder Years with some life’s lesson learned. Na. I’m just going to submit this post, close my computer, and wait until tomorrow for all of my friends, who care enough, who are hoping deep down that it’s not too late to fix before Monday, to notify me about the typo.

Fortunately, life, and business, goes on.

Update: (5 mins later) (No I didn’t close my computer but I will after this)

Apparently, my correction affected the subject line of the email that went out as a result of my post but the subject line that actually shows up in Linked-In still has the typo line. So, its not as bad as it could be, but still sucks.

Now it’s your turn.

Let’s go ahead and complete my embarrassment by linking to this post and adding your stories to the mix. I want to hear about your most agonizing irrevocable typo? Leave it in the comments or post on your own blog with a trackback for all to point and laugh at.

After all, the only thing more fun than laughing at others, is laughing at yourself. (How’s that for a Wonder Years closing)

To get the ball rolling, I’m gonna go ahead and do some tagging.
Garrett
Nathania
Cordster
Ben
Phil
Thad

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.

Between family life, working on new clients, making time to work on GiveAndGo.org and and maintaining my status as top commenter on MarketingHipster.com for 2 months in a row, I have been neglecting my own soap box. (Any monthly prizes for top commenter Cord?)

Over the past year Bold interactive has gone through plenty of trials, adjustments, tweaks, more trials and more adjustments. The good news is that through it all, we have remained profitable and continue to grow while still keeping our focus of working with people we like, on projects that add value to our clients and their customers.

It has been a fun ride with some great people and until now things have been pretty manageable for me. Until last month, Garrett moved to Philly and Bold landed it’s biggest contract to date. The company has finally grown too big for my britches.

That being said, help has arrived. Her name is Nathania Johnson and I expect great things from her for Bold, Our Clients, Conversational Marketing, Social Media Marketing and Online Custom Publishing.

Look for some great tidbits and insights from her and others on BoldInteractive.com. If you haven’t already subscribed to it, now is the time. I may even get around to a post or two over there as the muse strikes.

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.

About 6 months ago I made the move over to an Intel Mac from my PC. I couldn’t be more happy about it. I love my mac and it has preformed for me with no questions asked.

The only Microsuck thing that I still used on a regular basis was Entourage. It’s the mac version of outlook. The funny thing, is that Entourage was the only program on my Mac that had performance issues. It would cause the computer to freeze up on occasion as well as not allow it to shut down because of a 5 minute long spam deletion process.

Well, I am finally rid of that final vestige of Microsoft oppression.

How did I do it you might be wondering.

I switched over to Gmail and Google Calendar. I was already using Google docs for my word processing.

In the immortal words of Darth Vader, “Soon the transformation will be complete.”

Now the only product I still use is excel. Sometime next week I am going to dig into open office and rid myself of that vex as well.

I wonder how long it will take for Google to loose it’s appeal and become the next dark lord or computing environments?

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.