Polymer Studios::Web Consulting

Why should big retailers blog?

31. December 2008

Jason Billingsley of the Get Elastic blog recorded this interview with Darren Tomey, VP of Sales from Compendium Blogware, at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition 2008 in Chicago. I find it interesting that Darren uses organic SEO as the rationale for why big retailers should be blogging. I don’t disagree, but my first reaction would [...]

A huge social media headache for Motrin

23. November 2008

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Have you heard about Motrin Moms? On November 16, Motrin released a commercial suggesting that baby carriers are both painful and unfashionable. Check it out below. What probably seemed clever in the mind of a 23-year-old, childless copywriter turned out to be quite offensive to many moms (and dads, to be sure) and unleashed a social [...]

Ethics of corporate commenting

23. October 2008

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How not to handle complaints about your company… Over at myRagan.com, an online community for corporate communicators, lisam recently posted: Coworkers regularly make me aware of blogs and online media sites that either include negative commentary about our company’s products, or mention all of our competitors but not us. My coworkers ask me, “Can we have someone [...]

ROI of blogging

10. October 2008

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Better late than never! I just got wind of a old (Jan. 25, 2007) report by Forrester that takes on a real sticky wicket: calculating the ROI of running a corporate blog. I’ve ranted on more than one occasion that marketers should use social media, including blogs, as an R&D tool and not to expect a [...]

A massive, subprime bailout of links

24. September 2008

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Oh my, has it been a week since we last talked? If we follow each other on Twitter, then it’s probably been more like a few minutes, as that’s where I’ve been spending/wasting my time. Which brings us to the first in this cavalcade of content: Graeme Thickins, of DoApp and Tech~Surf~Blog fame, ponders whether using [...]

Social media: What’s keeping you from wading in?

15. September 2008

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There’s a fair amount of hand-wringing on the part of marketing execs over what to do with social media (aka Web 2.0, Social Web). It’s on the news and in the papers, so the CEO hears about it and asks the CMO, “should we be doing that?” And so the lukewarm potato gets handed downward [...]

Choke, gasp… Is that the death rattle of the corporate blog?

25. August 2008

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Have you heard? Corporate blogging may soon be pushing up daisies. Or so reads the provocative description for Corporate Blogging Myths & Realities, a session at Blogworld & New Media Expo, by Paula Berg, Manager of Emerging Media at Southwest Airlines. “A recent report from Forrester suggests that corporate blogging has had its day, the craze [...]

“Don’t blint me, bro!”

20. August 2008

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The moment of confrontation. Simon Blint (blue shirt, center left) takes on Thomas Hawk and loses. Photo by Thomas Hawk. There can be little doubt about the Web’s ability to promote reputations. But what about its ability to destroy? Consider the case of Simon Blint, director of visitor relations at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art [...]

A land with many faces

18. July 2008

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Over the coming weeks, the posts on this blog might take a turn for the exotic, as I’ll be posting stories and photos from the far reaches of Peru. On the agenda: Hunting for megalodon teeth with Desert Man of Ica, who was recently written up in the New York Times. (Fortunately, we made our reservation [...]

Freeconomics

10. July 2008

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Just caught wind of a great article in Wired: “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business” We’re debating this very question with a product we’re developing. One quote that stands out for me: “..free is not quite as simple — or as stupid — as it sounds. Just because products are free doesn’t mean that [...]