Get a Top-Quality Professional Logo for Yourself or Your Company for $200 (USD)

People who read this blog often (thank you) will know that I am a member of many online communities. I do that because it is a good place to see what people are writing about SNS, Social Media, and Social Media Marketing (SMM). It is also a good place to see what the old school people are doing to try to make themselves look as if they are up on the Internet and the new media.

Guess how much this logo cost? A total of $200 (USD) Incredible? Read on.

It is pretty easy to pick the people out who are still stuck in the old ways at these "Marketing Online Professionals" communities. They write things like,

For this reason , I am convinced that SM works ONLY when being integrated inside a marketing plan, together with media placement, PR, promo, direct marketing and CRM. 

It is painfully obvious that the guy who wrote this is an old-school advertising guy posing as an "Internet and Social Media" expert. He laments the fact that his Social Media Marketing (SMM) plans fail consistently. He is trying to convince us - but more likely he is trying to convince himself - that the old way is vital.

In some ways he's right. The old media is vital if my product is targeted to to the 45 ~ 70-year-old crowd or if my product or service is for everyone in the family from the smallest kids to grandpa and grandma (think Disneyland, etc.) But when your product /service is for the under 40 crowd, I think you'd have to consider long and hard about spending a cent on old media... In many cases you would not be doing your client any favors to recommend spending huge budgets on TV or radio. I wrote about that in detail here and here.

Earlier today, I went to a different online professionals community and was so surprised to find people saying things like "First things, first! You must hire a professional to do your company logo!"

Of course a good logo is a must... But coughing up a few thousand dollars to hire a professional? And this advice coming from a community that calls itself, "Online Professionals"? Hmmm... Why would the people who are supposedly sold on online business be pushing the old-school ways?

Perhaps hiring a big-bucks professional will be necessary down the line, but I think us Internet types should try to use our creativity and brains before we just throw money at the problem like people used to do....

As I suspected many times, these online communities are often places where old-school advertising agents try to gain credibility as "Internet" and "online experts"... But they actually don't really do either (always ask any self-proclaimed "Internet" and "Social Media Marketer" for a list of their blog URL's and Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, U-Stream, Mixi (in Japan), etc, accounts. That's an easy way to pick out the frauds).

Click here and read at bottom for tips on how to pick out the poseurs.

I know many a small to medium business owner who has hired a professional and spent a few thousand dollars only to wind up with a handful of designs and they didn't like any of them. Foolish especially considering the fact that new businesses must watch out for every single penny and paper clip!

Well, now my friends, there is a solution! It is a company called Logomyway.

Logomyway is a new service that started in April 2009. At Logomyway you make a logo design contest and get 1,000's of artists to compete for your business... You pay nothing excepting to the winning submission. The cost can be as low as $200 (USD). You decide the winner's prize fee.

My company, "Universal Vision" logo... $200! Excellent!

Hiring a professional designer right off the bat is old school. It is also the easy way to do things for salaried employees who have no problem spending the company money... They wouldn't recommend this is it were out of their pocket. The people people who were so quick to recommend throwing away $1,000 ~ $2,000 were from an online professionals group! I'm surprised that anyone would suggest the old way without investigating the new and exciting things going on online. Try Logomyway.

http://www.logomyway.com/

I have no investment nor business relationship with Logomyway whatsoever but have used it twice  and recommended to three other people who have used it. Everyone has been more than thrilled with the results... One friend was so happy because the professional that he had hired before - and paid well - gave him designs that weren't that good... He was worried that he was going to be out another $1,000 when I introduced him to Logomyway... The result? He spent $200 and got a killer logo.

And, if you don't like any of the logos... You don't pay!

All hail the Internet!!!!

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Keywords:
Logo, Logomyway, SNS, Social Media, SMM, old media, Japan, Mixi, Internet, Facebook, Twitter, blog, online professionals, Marketing Online Professionals, YouTube, Online Marketing, Universal Vision, Mike Rogers, Marketing Japan, U-Stream, Mike in Tokyo Rogers, 

Tips on Strong Passwords from Social Oomph

I use Twitter and other Social Media. In order to get a hold of so many loose ends, I use Social Oomph to control it. I find Social Oomph to be quite convenient.

Social Oomph also sends out a useful newsletter once a week.

This week's was about creating good passwords. Here it is:

How To Choose Very Strong Passwords That Are Easy To Remember

What makes a password strong is the combination of different alphanumeric, special characters, and capitalization that you use, and of course the length of the password.   I don't know about you, but I don't want to remember and type an epistle when I fill out a password field. And, ideally, I don't want to use the same password on many sites, because if one is compromised then my entire life is unlocked. I want to show you here how to choose very strong passwords for every website that you use, that are different for each website, and are each only 9 characters in length max.   A study found that an 8-character password that's constructed in the manner I'm going to show you has 7.2 quadrillion different combinations, and will take 83.5 days to crack if the hacker can try 1 billion different passwords per second. Step 1: Pick 2 Starting Characters To make it easy to remember, all your passwords are going to start with the same characters. But these are not just any characters. Pick 2 characters from the list of special characters that you see above the numbers on your keyboard and to the left of the Enter key. These characters are: ~`!@#$%^&*()_-+={}[]:;"'<>?/|\\ Pick any two of them as your password starting characters. To show you an example as you read through the steps, let's pick $ and % (pick your own two). In my example, all my passwords are going to start with $%. Step 2: Pick 2 Ending Characters In exactly the same way as above, pick two different special characters that will be at the end of your passwords. Don't pick the same characters as your starting characters. For the purposes of my example, let's pick * and ^. Hence, all my passwords are going to end with *^. Step 3: Construct The Middle Part Using The Website Name This is the fun part. Take the first 6 characters of the website domain name where you want to use the password. If the domain name is shorter than 6 characters, then use the full domain name. In my example, let's create a password www.microsoft.com. The first 6 characters of the domain name is "micros". Now we're going to substitute some characters and capitalize others. Substitute the following characters: a becomes @, e becomes 3, i becomes 1, o becomes 0, and u becomes ^. Now we have "m1cr0s". Now, decide on a standard for yourself regarding which character(s) you're going to capitalize. For this example, let's say we're always going to capitalize the 3rd consonant. So now we have "m1cR0s". The next step is to drop the last character ("s" in our case), and append the Ending Characters (*^) that you picked in Step 2. Our password is now "m1cR0*^". The last step is to add the Starting Characters (Step 1) to the beginning of the password. The final password is "$%m1cR0*^". A Few More Examples Domain: www.twitter.com, Password: "$%tw1Tt*^". Domain: www.facebook.com, Password: "$%f@c3B*^". Domain: www.ebay.com: Password: "$%3b@*^" Remember Pick your own 2 starting characters and your own 2 ending characters, don't just use the same ones I used in the example. In addition, make your own capitalization rule (you can capitalize more than 1 character if you want to. You can also use more than the first 6 characters of the domain name if you want to. It just means your passwords will be slightly longer. Is This Password Strong? Yes, it is very strong. With this method you're potentially using any of 30 special characters, 10 numerals, and 26 lower case and 26 uppercase characters. Unless a hacker happens to have a water-cooled supercomputer in his briefcase, he will not be able to crack your password.   Making It Even Stronger   If you're concerned that some hackers might know about this password construction method, simply pick 3 starting characters and/or 3 ending characters, or as many as you like. Any slight variation of the method makes your passwords even more secure.   Credits   This password construction method was designed by Sammie, a person with a brilliant technical mind.

Create Your Very Own "Twitter-Like" Focused Community Free!

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers


OK. Welcome to some of the best Internet related news you've heard in a long time! Have you ever thought that Twitter cast too broad a net? That too many people start to follow you, and then, when you follow them back, you realize that they speak a completely different language and you cannot read their Tweets?


This happens to me all the time. I get followers from Russia, Korea and other countries that do not Tweet in English and I cannot read their Tweets so I wonder, "What's the point?" 


I think these good people start to follow me because they must have signed up for one of those "Get a 1000 new Twitter followers programs." Well, that's all well and good, but, if you are like me, and using Twitter to get out a message and also interested in Social Media Marketing (SMM) for possible business purposes, this does you no good.


And when I say that they "speak a different language" I do not only mean that they do not Tweet in English... I also get followers who have radically different political, religious, and social views than me... I am not interested in judging these people, but I would prefer not to associate with racist groups and those sorts of things.


I think it is also very important that our communities are kept intimate (I mean, "Real") and focused on certain topics... I guess if people want to be all over the place, then Twitter is fine. If, say, I am interested in sports, I'd love to be in a sports community. Or, even more focused, Rugby, for example... Or music, or Punk Rock, or Dance music.... Whatever!


I want to use my community to communicate with my friends and talk about what we want to talk about.


So that brings me to today's point. A new service named Statusnet.com is allowing you to create your very own "Twitter-Like" community and it's completely FREE!


Start your own community and group. Invite your friends. Become to world's #1 destination for your focus group! And it's all free.


I already started mine and it's for everything about Japan and its URL is: http://japan.status.net/


You can access Statusnet.com right now and start your very own focused community! No more having to sift through tons of unrelated materials on Twitter anymore!


Here's the promotional spiel from Statusnet: 


Soon you will be able to get a hosted solution from StatusNet, using your own domain name, so that you don't even have to worry about servers and software installation. Check out their site at http://status.net and reserve the name you want right now, while the hosted solution is in private beta phase.

Here is a random sampling of the sites already out there:

- Identi.ca http://identi.ca - This is the original StatusNet site and is still the largest.

- The TWiT Army http://army.twit.tv - Run by Leo Laporte, the well-known American technology broadcaster and author.

- Mozillaca http://mozillaca.com - A Mozilla community microblogging site.

- Bleeper.de http://bleeper.de - The largest German language microblogging site.

- Brainbird http://brainbird.net - Frequented by English and Colombian users.

- Twyka Usikike http://twyka.com - Connecting you with Africans around the world.

- SwiSen http://swisen.com - A microblogging site for Chinese speaking people.

- Cielo http://cielo.com - A microblogging site for Spanish speaking people.

There is a comprehensive list of sites here: http://status.net/wiki/ListOfServers



I signed up and got the best name for a Japan related community possible: Japan!


You can do the same too.


Get cracking on it now while the going's good!


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Keywords: Twitter, Social Media Marketing, SMM, Statusnet, Marketing Japan, Mike Rogers, Mike in Tokyo Rogers 

Does Social Media Need Old Media to be Effective? No! Here's Proof!....

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

There sure is a lot of boring stuff on Social Media these days. I was just checking out Linkedin where they had a topic of "What are for you the most common mistakes in social media marketing approach?" (sic)

It said:

What are for you most the common mistakes in social media marketing approach?

Either from client's side or agencies' side, what are the obvious reason why social media strategies you have seen were not working?

For me , some are:
- lack of time investment,
- Boring / irrelevant content,
- lack of clear objectives,
- Being inactive,
- Do not react when sollicitate
- ...
What are yours?

(sic)

I didn't correct his post. That's how poorly it was written. I'm assuming that he's missing one of the reasons that his SMM is doing poorly is because his spelling, diction and grammar are wretched... 

Besides that, these good people are mainly talking about pick, Twitter and Facebook (Mixi is only in Japan). Some of the good folks actually did write intelligent comments and I usually don't write comments on these things, but this time I made an exception. I responded:

 I think everyone is missing two huge points that I see all the time and that I do believe will be, say, Twitter's undoing within 3 years (besides 60% of all Twitter users dropping off within the first 30 days).

1) Boring writers make boring content. Get motivated, creative and funny or interesting writers. Quit forcing office clerks to do SMM (I see that all the time). If the writer is not motivated what makes anyone think the readers will enjoy the writing?

2) Quit sending out motivational and sales stuff all the time... I'd say that at least 1/2 of the junk I get on Twitter is the same as Direct Mail. Who needs it?


Another guy (obviously an old hand at advertising and marketing) wrote:


I see the market and clients every day, and the thing I can tell you is that a B to C company investing all its marketing budget and ressources in social media has 99% chances failing. (sic)


This might be true, but rather than trying to convince you or me, I gather he is trying to convince himself... This would also explain why his Social Media Marketing efforts fail. He doesn't "get it." 


He goes on to write:


This for one simple reason, their are rules and processes in marketing and nobody will want to connect and engage with a brand you don't know.
For this reason , I am convinced that SM works ONLY when being integrated inside a marketing plan, together with media placement, PR, promo, direct marketing and CRM. (sic)


Notice that there is not single fact or piece of evidence that he inserts into his claims. What a load of nonsense. What "rules"? What "processes"? 


(I can imagine that his retort to my skepticism would be "Because I know. I've been in this business a long time!" Just as the captain of the Titanic, Edward Smith, was a thirty-two year veteran when they hit that ice-berg!)


I bet this is the kind of crap he tells his clients. What's he doing on a Linkedin Social Media site besides posing as a SMM expert I don't know. Besides that, like I said, I hope this guy doesn't write copy. It's terrible. 


Besides his being wrong and just throwing out opinions. He obviously doesn't know or comprehend how to use Social Media well... I suspect that, from being in a dusty old advertising company desk for so long, that he's so used to taking client money and going out to "do" lunch while on the client's dollar that he thinks he can do things the old way; think for a while (or tell someone else to do the thinking) and order someone else to do the Social Media part (I explained above why that's a bad idea) and sit around like always.


Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. 


I didn't blast the guy (like he deserved), but added this as my last word:


One more thing that I think is missing - and I don't agree that a big bucks mass media plan is necessary - I've done it without one.

Notes: We increased airline passengers to and from Japan for a Chinese airlines by over 270% between October 2009 and April 2010. We also increased tourism to Croatia by 300% in three years (don't forget this was during a seriously down market - airlines lost billions in 2009) all by the internet only - with minimal mass media support (we certainly did not spend one cent on mass media!).

It seems that too many good folks are trying to do the SMM the lazy way... You do SMM to keep costs down, but SMM is, perhaps not labor intensive, but it is certainly effort intensive.

Besides SMM you need to do a Word-press blog for the client that includes SNS (Use Ruby on Rails to build - dirt cheap) and gives away killer content, has contests and prizes, and motivates people to return everyday!

Being lazy and throwing money away at the old media then doing a few Twitters doesn't cut it anymore. (which is actually why I say Twitter is in serious trouble!)

Make a killer blog for the client (perhaps using a persona like Helga of Volkswagen - Look her up on Google). The blogs needs video (suggest U-Stream recorded to YouTube), SNS, chat, free information, excellent and compelling writing, and free giveaways all the time.

That motivates people!

Then your SMM directs people to the blog, not to some boring corporate site that is nothing more than an online company brochure (that is structured like web 1.0) .

This is effective. This s the new way. It is not easy and lazy people who think that throwing money or half-butt efforts at it need not apply.


Like I've said many times before, it seems that a lot of these people who claim to be experts at Social Media actually do not "do" Social Media. If you ever get anyone who claims to be an expert, first off ask for their URL's


Hint: If they do not blog - and do not actively blog at least three times a week - I'd say it's a 99% chance that they are blowing smoke in your face. Don't fall for it. 


Smart Social media marketers will have a rundown of what they do (excepting for invitation members only sites) as the signature of their e-mails. Here's mine:


Mike in Tokyo Rogers
e-mail: mike.rogers@universal-vision.jp 
Blog: http://modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.com/

Lew Rockwell: http://www.lewrockwell.com/rogers/rogers-arch.html
Twitter: http://twitter.com/mikeintokyo2004
Pick: http://naver.jp/mikeintokyorogers
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/mikeintokyo2004

Facebook: www.facebook.com/MikeinTokyoRogers
Linkedin: http://jp.linkedin.com/in/mikeintokyorogers

Look for these kinds of things when investigating a potential company to help you with marketing. Be leery of companies, big or small, who claim to be experts at Social Media. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding.


Some of my readers know I will be on vacation from tomorrow, but nevertheless the BLOG calls! Tomorrow, I will place diagrams and information tomorrow morning for all of you who have mailed about bit differentiations between Japanese Katakana and Japanese Kanji versus English pertaining to my recent blog.


But, just for a teaser. Consider:


Word (translation).......................................Bit count


イギリス (England)...................................8 bits
England.......................................................7 bits
旅行 (Travel)...............................................4 bits
Travel...........................................................6 bits


Data on the Internet consist of bits. It is the way data is stored. This is important to know if you want to run a successful business in Japan.


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Keywords:
blog, Social Media, Mixi, Google, Helga, SMM, Mike Rogers, Social Media Services, China, Croatia, England, Travel, bit, bit count, Japan,  Japanese Kanji, Modern Marketing Japan, social media marketing, promo, Japanese Katakana, PR, Twitter, marketing plan, Facebook, Linkedin, airlines, YouTube, U-Stream, e-mail, Lew Rockwell, Mike in Tokyo Rogers, chat, Marketing Japan, web, web 1.0, Volkswagen, Ruby on Rails, Placement, Word Press, mass media, free information, direct marketing,

Marketing Japan: Six Basic Rules for Effective Internet Blogging and Intelligent Social Media in Japan and Beyond...

By Mike in Tokyo Rogers

Here are the first six rules that absolutely should be followed if you wish to build up a good following for your blog or other Internet activities. Do these today (they're easy and free) and you will be way ahead of the game immediately.

1) Think about your name and use a unique and effective name every time try not to deviate! I use Mike in Tokyo Rogers which makes me much more unique than Mike Rogers, of which there must be millions of and I know that there are a few who are famous. One is an athlete, a politician from Michigan, one is an actor, one is a musician and another is a K-1 fighter. Try to use your online name in your e-mail address to make it easier to find you. Anytime you see my name on the Internet is is Mike in Tokyo Rogers. 

2) Take a real photo of yourself to use as your avatar and use the same one everywhere possible.

3) Create online bio's using this name and avatar everywhere you frequent on the Internet: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Youtube, Myspace, Mixi, Pick, Linkedin, U-Stream, and on your video blogs and vlogs, etc.

4) Comment on other people's blogs and, this way, people will begin to see your name and avatar and bio. It helps you to build a reputation and a brand and image. This is not just good business, it is smart and intelligent marketing.

5) Always add keywords to any and all blogs you write for the Internet. ALWAYS rename any images for your blog to specific titles. Do not use generic names like 11100342_34.jpg. Why? Because no one searches for that. Use your head and give your images a unique name that might drive traffic to your site. 

6) Whenever you upload a new blog, vlog, U-Stream or Youtube, make sure that you announce it on your other Social Media Marketing tools. For example, announce new blogs at least 2 -3 times within the next 24 hours of putting them online. That way you can drive people to you.

Do these six tips religiously and you will be way ahead of 99% of the others. Now that's smart marketing!

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Keywords: U-Stream, Pick, Internet, smart marketing, Marketing Japan, Social Media, marketing, Youtube, intelligent, Japan, Intelligent Social Media, blog, Yahoo, vlog, video blog, Facebook, Mike in Tokyo Rogers, unique name, effective, avatar, Google, Twitter, Social Media Marketing, Mixi, Linkedin, Pick