Posted by Ellie Mirman on Fri, Jun 12, 2009 @ 08:00 AM
Yesterday I did a presentation on How to Promote an Event with Inbound Marketing for the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) Social Media Marketing conference. Since I'm here in Massachusetts, and the event was out in Texas, I did the presentation via a live webinar and recorded the session.
Here is the full presentation video, plus the slides below. Enjoy!
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Tue, May 19, 2009 @ 02:38 PM
Recently I made my radio debut on Career Life Balance Radio as part of their "Marketing Minutes" segment. My segments are focusing on "How to Use Facebook for Business". Listen below for my surprisingly high-pitched Facebook for Business Tips.
Part 1:How to Use Facebook to Market Your Business
Part 2: How to Get More Facebook Fans
Part 3: How to Get the Most Out of Facebook Ads
Photo credit: foraggio
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Thu, May 07, 2009 @ 12:26 PM
I won't even attempt to deny I'm not a marketing geek. One of the things I loved about Kyle James' blog post "Jokes: 36 Reasons You Might be Addicted to Social Media" was "#6: You own the Google search results for your name." That definitely held true for me.
Here are all the top results for my name - x right in a row.
- My blog
- My blog "about me" page
- Twitter
- Facebook
- FriendFeed
- MITX
- LinkedIn
- Twitterholic
- SEMPO Meetup
- AMA Boston
- Amazon.com
- RSSmeme
- one of my recent tweets
- BoardReader
- one of my flickr photos
- my comment on a blog post
- Digg
- FriendFeed (again!)
- Tweetree
- another flickr photo
- Twitter mobile
- a mention on another blog
- BackType
- Insightory presentation I did on Twitter
- HubSpot blog article I posted
- my comment on a blog post
- a reposting of one of my articles from the HubSpot blog
- my comment on a blog post
- SlideShare presentation I did on Inbound Marketing
- my comment on a blog post
- my listing as a speaker for Geek Girl Camp
OK, I'll stop there. The results actually go on and on - and rightfully all about me. I actually made it 12 results pages deep before giving up on finding that first non-me-related result! Of course, I understand that there aren't a lot of Ellie Mirmans out there (if any!), and that even my first or my last name separately are not very common. But, damn, that was a lot of content!
Some things I realized:
- It's easy to create a lot of bits of content. I don't consider myself to be such a prolific writer / content producer (at least for the public web). Most of the results were either profiles on different social media sites, blog comments, presentations I had posted on sharing sites, or blog posts themselves.
- I've got a lot of social media profiles. Set up, not necessarily in use. Funny enough, they're almost ranked in the order in which I use them the most. First Twitter, then Facebook, then LinkedIn... In any case, social media profiles rank very well because of the reputation and optimization of the sites, and this actually serves as a good way for helping people connect with you online even via a Google search.
- What do your search results say about you? At first I was going to say, no one searches for your name (most likely) anyway, so who cares. But really, there may be a few who do, and they are probably either (1) trying to find/connect with you or (2) trying to learn more about you. Getting found in these top search results ensures that you're enabling connections. And producing more content ensures that you have good results (instead of potentially damaging results) at the top. What do my search results say about me? Well, that I work at HubSpot, and I'm pretty active in social media.
Of course, for those folks out there with less content or more competition for their name on the web, the Google profile gives everyone a good opportunity to get prime real estate on the first page of search results for their name.
Photo by silvery
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Mon, May 04, 2009 @ 07:54 AM
The secret's out - Canadian schools are a great education at a great price, plus the application process is much easier. It's definitely what got me to go to McGill... So easy to apply (online, no essay, no interviews) and I could attend for less than half the price of a regular US college. Right, and it was a great education too.
Can't see the video? Watch it here.
Oh, and a shout-out to Kelly, my main source for pro-McGill news.
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Thu, Apr 30, 2009 @ 06:48 AM
As perhaps the unofficial official blogger of my family, and also a well-intentioned member of society, I feel it is my duty to share this wonderful read. The Will to Whatevs is the ultimate self-help book for dealing with all of life's twists and turns, from school to marriage to death. Perhaps in that order, but perhaps not.
This guidebook comes from the very funny Eugene Mirman. I won't dare try to compete with Eugene's hilarity, but instead will share some of my favorite bits from his book...
The purpose of this book is clear.
"Our grandparents may have had twelve-hour workdays in dangerous, filthy factories, and limited medicine, but they can't imagine how hard it is to list your favorite bands on a social networking site in a way that maximizes what strangers think of you. Some of our parents may have gone to college, but did they temp at a weird PR firm or software company?"
This book provides very practical tips, including ideas for college essay topics, including:
- How old people and young people are the same in so many ways, except age.
- A concert or reading you went to that had a powerful affect on you.
- How you overcame adversity (and tricking someone slightly older into having sex does not count).
- How people are animals, but shouldn't be hunted.
- Reasons it's wrong to be racist even though it makes sense to you.
- Pearl Jam.
- How your parents met their new spouses.
- The perfect murder.
- Your favorite places to throw up.
- An essay title, "If I Were Eric Clapton..."
On explaining family relations, these words of wisdom may have held true when I was younger...
Good Uncle, Bad Influence: "Being an uncle is like being a rock star no one but your niece or nephew has heard of."
If you plan on coming out as gay,
"The best place to tell your parents you are a homosexual person from now on (no changing your mind back after college, okay?) is at a fancy restaurant... In the middle of the meal, show them a Vogue magazine (if you're a guy) or a Popular Mechanics (if you're a lady) and go, 'This is me now, and you have to accept it.' If they are confused, whisper, 'I'm gay.' The point of this roundabout exercise is the joy of deduction. Giving your parents clues and making them figure out that you're gay will give them a sense of accomplishment that will balance their initial shock."
And, of course, some wise career counseling.
"A new job is like a new glove. You are excited, but it's just a glove. Still, maybe it will fit well?"
And I can't help but have a soft spot for this section:
The Internet: How to Harness the Power and Reach of New Media: "Make a music video of all your friends fighting in a forest with animals. Make sure the animals are dangerous, but not too dangerous. So no one gets seriously hurt. Put that footage to your catchiest song and post it on YouTube. Then just wait. I forgot to add that everyone (including the animals) should be in their underwear."
Also, a while back I went to New York for the book release party for The Will to Whatevs. Brooklyn Vegan had a good recap of the event.
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Fri, Apr 17, 2009 @ 07:29 AM
One of the features that I [hated at first but now] love about Firefox 3 is the "smart" address bar that remembers the web pages you've been to along with all their page titles - so if you start typing the website URL or page title, Firefox pulls up a few suggestions of sites you've recently or repeatedly visited.
Every once in a while, I get a kick out of the suggestions it makes for me, and how smart it's gotten about the sites I visit most frequently.
So here's a look at my Internet - the first suggestion for each letter - from A to Z.
A: amazon.com
B: blog.hubspot.com
C: citicards.com
D: digg.com
E: elliemirman.com
F: facebook.com
G: gmail.com
H: hubspot.com
I: inboundmarketingsummit.com/agenda
J: jetblue.com
K: hubspot.com/website-redesign-kit
L: linkedin.com
M: maps.google.com
N: netflix.com
O: onstartups.com blog article
P: pandora.com
Q: hubspot.com/customer-case-studies/?Tag=quote
R: rebeccacorliss.com
S: search.twitter.com
T: twitter.com
U: unionstbrooklynbandb.com
V: vcall.com
W: weather.com for my zip code
X: [random yahoo login page]
Y: youtube.com
Z: zazzle.com/hubspotgear
Photo by shibainu
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Fri, Apr 03, 2009 @ 04:38 PM
This brings together two fabulous things: Jewish stories and social media geekiness - in a hilarious way!
The story of Exodus, as told through Facebook.
Some highlights:
...
...
...
Read the whole story of Exodus, as told through Facebook.
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Wed, Mar 25, 2009 @ 08:26 AM
It's no secret that I'm an Internet marketing geek. In particular, I spend a lot of time learning the ins and outs of Facebook to share how businesses can use the social network for marketing.
Well, in doing just that, I made a discovery! Yesterday I discovered a loophole that allowed me to create links from Facebook to my website that pass SEO (search engine optimization) credit.
This is a pretty big deal because (1) a link from Facebook.com is incredibly valuable, and (2) almost all links from Facebook are either "no follow" (don't pass SEO juice) or "redirects" (first bring you to a page that warns that you're leaving Facebook). But through the custom-coded FBML (Facebook Markup Language) application, I could code whatever link I wanted - the target URL, the link text, everything!
For at least an hour, I was jumping in my office seat. Of course, after sharing my news with the marketing team, I was volunteered to write a blog article about it.
Photo credit: futurowoman
Posted by Ellie Mirman on Mon, Mar 23, 2009 @ 07:55 AM
I love this joke from comedian Mike Birbiglia:
"I get really annoyed with technology. They don't make better technology, they just combine stuff. Like you go to buy something, everything's also a camera. They'll be like, 'It's also a camera!' I'm like, 'I just wanted a grapefruit.' They're like, 'It's a camera grapefruit. You take pictures of yourself eating the grapefruit, and then you eat the camera, and you shit the pictures!' Oh my god, that is the opposite of what I wanted."
- Mike Birbiglia, as heard on Invite Them Up
I was reminded of this last night, as I was at a family function talking to some family friends about cell phones. One family friend, who recently became a grandfather in fact, was talking about his old cell phone that he just loved. "It was just a phone. You turned it on, and it worked, and it never missed a call." He was ragging on all these PDAs and data plans -- he had no desire for such technology in his cell phone. I started to explain how valuable it is to have the Internet at your fingertips at all times. I tried to think of examples of how handy it would be, without giving the use cases of twitter or email, but didn't get far before getting stumped.
And so I started to think about how hyper-connected we all are with our iPhones and BlackBerries and how this can actually keep us from the living in the very moment we are in. I have not actually mastered mobile tweeting quite yet, and so still find it quite cumbersome to try to tweet while at a party or other event. Sparse tweets can actually mean that I'm just having too good a time to pull myself away to tweet. And while I'm a big believer in all this technology helping us extend our community and allow more people take part in our experiences, it may simultaneously serve as a distraction from that which we are experiencing at a given moment.
I was recently telling my friend of the "practical" reasons behind "observing the Sabbath." I grew up in a Reform Jewish household, and still consider myself Reform. Though I did have periods of my life where I became more observant, or was surrounded by those who were very observant. My friend couldn't imagine spending 24 whole hours not being online, not using technology. I told her how invigorating it can be - to put aside your cell phone, but aside your laptop, and just be with your friends and family. Spend the day talking or reading or playing games. Just be in the moment.
Isn't it still considered rude to be on your cell phone at the dinner table? That's at least partly because you're signaling to those around you that you'd rather be somewhere else, talking to someone else. Putting down the phone shows that you want to be right then and there.
It's also incredibly calming. That's what I love about traveling, especially out of the country, where my cell phone won't work and I rarely have access to the Internet. I'm disconnected, in a good way. I can just be where I am, doing whatever I'm doing. My brain isn't somewhere else and it doesn't need to be anywhere else. A little bit of the back to basics can be good from time to time. And that's exactly what I got last night, with the Russian music playing, and the happy couples dancing, and even with the camera phones snapping away... it was good to just laugh and dance in that very wholesome my-family-is-ridiculous sort of way.
Photo by pouwerkerk