B.L. Ochman

What's Next Blog

Video Interview: B.L. Ochman & Mitch Joel Discuss the Growth & Future of Podcasting

Mitch Joel, “Six Pixels of Separation” author and podcaster and I discuss the growth of podcasting; who should and shouldn’t podcast; what makes a great podcast; what equipment you need to podcast; what makes brand podcasts effective, and much, much more.
What makes a podcast great?
There are some core passions that create the dynamics, Joel said. These include guests and a theme that is sustainable over time. For his “Six Pixels of Separation” podcast, Joel wants people to feel like they pul...

beyondsocialmediashow.com

The Ascending Growth Of Podcast Marketing- Beyond Social Media Show, Episode 226

BL and David discuss Google’s new strategy for leveraging the growing library of podcast content; the latest data from Edison Research about the podcast consumer; Amazon’s new Alexa Skill Blueprints feature; Jason Calacanis’ Open Book Challenge race to replace Facebook; SmugMug’s acquistion of Flickr; Burger King’s stealthy campaign to sneak Whoppers into movie theaters; Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes chocolate record; an advocacy campaign that turns victims of gun violence’s handwriting into a too...

mediavillage.com

Tasty Gives Brands New Phone-to-Table Offerings

What if a wine delivery service, a maker of cooking utensils, or a food brand could reach almost half a billion hungry people just as they're ready to prep a meal? BuzzFeed has now made that exact scenario possible.

BuzzFeed just announced two new offerings: a countertop smart appliance called Tasty One Top and an all-new Tasty iPhone app featuring more than 1,700 videos of recipes from their wildly popular Tasty network. The two work in tandem to make meal prep practically "paint by numbers....

Innovairre

How Your Nonprofit Can Get Big Results By Creatively Combining Free Google and Amazon Marketing Tools

Is your nonprofit too cash-strapped to run a nationwide awareness campaign with an online contest or to create and manage a wish list with millions of products? You’re not alone. But here’s help – and the cost ranges from free to very little – from Amazon and Google.
In the face of cacophonous competition for donor dollars, a marketing push from Amazon and Google – behemoth sites with huge resources and millions of daily visitors – can engage, entertain and generate donations.
Google and Amaz...

beyondsocialmediashow.com

Beyond Social Media Show, Episode 233

BL and David discuss the iconic photo of the crying migrant girl; Richard Painter’s dumpster fire ad; the Facebook fundraiser to reunite the families Trump has torn apart; the Supreme Court’s ruling requiring a search warrant for police to obtain your GPS location data; the Apple/Oprah alliance; banners replaced with cats; Beyonce & Jay-Z’s new album release; the Weather Channel’s immersive forecasts; Google’s new podcast app; Melania Trump’s trolling jacket; Burger King’s Russian babies offe...

beyondsocialmediashow.com

Beyond Social Media Show, Episode 232

BL and David discuss a Snapchat Lens video game controlled by gum chewing; the Minnesota Public Radio Raccoon who captivated the nation by scaling a 25-story building; the minor league Yankees team fan-named the Staten Island Pizza Rats; restaurant goers paralyzed by choice; the Angela Merkel Instagram G7 post that memed Trump and went globally viral; a great idea for push button customer satisfaction; 13 year-old Courtney Hadwin whose astounding singing voice is Janis Joplin 2.0; rating resu...

mediavillage.com

Buzzfeed's Tasty Steps Into UGC with "Today" and Campbell's Soup

BuzzFeed's Tasty and NBCUniversal's Today show are extending their partnerships with household brand Campbell's Soup. They're cooking up a campaign that will not only deepen already massive engagement, but furthers their goal of driving shoppers into stores by bringing digital, social and broadcast together in a trend-setting first for strategic partnerships.

The initial results of this big shift in mainstream media planning and buying are already looking like home run.

What's Next Blog

How some social media icons drink from the media firehose without drowning

The question I’m asked the most is “how do you stay informed?” And indeed, keeping up with the flow of news and information that bombards us daily has become Sisyphean.
Many people have given up, and their skills have very quickly become fossilized.

Yet some people manage to not only keep up but also to keep ahead of the curve. So I asked some of the brightest people I know how they keep ahead of the curve.

What's Next Blog

Author Interview: Trina Paulus, Author of “Hope for the Flowers”

“Hope for the Flowers” has been around for 50 years. Its message of hope and transformation is exactly what we need right now.

I had the great pleasure of interviewing “Hope for the Flowers” author Trina Paulus, explaining how her allegory of transformation came to be. Read to children for 50 years, it’s also a profound, multi-layered parable for teens and adults. Once you read the book, you are unlikely to ever forget it.

Innovairre

A Dozen Tools to Help Manage Your Nonprofit’s Social Media Presence

Engaging with a variety of social platforms is critical to nonprofit marketing success, but effective social media marketing can be overwhelming. It takes time and experience to use social platforms well. Having the right tools can often help, so we’ve compiled a dozen tools to help you manage your social media presence

What's Next Blog

B.L. Ochman Author Interview: Why Is There So Much Bullshit in Business Writing?

Josh Bernoff, author of Writing Without Bullshit, says fear of saying what you mean accounts for most of the BS in business writing.

Josh’s top three tips for BS-free writing

Write shorter

Get to the point quickly

Get rid of three kinds of toxic prose

You’ll find many more tips about banishing BS from your writing on Josh’s website.

And here is Howard Rheingold’s often updated list of Crap Detection Resources.

Advertising Age

Twelve Wild and Crazy Ways to Find a Job in a Tough Economy

From making firms apply to hire them, to networking behavior that 's just this side of stalking, frustrated job hunters in this tough economy are coming up with unusual, and sometimes wacky, ways to find jobs.

Do they work? Sometimes. Hint: showing up at the recruiter's gym is creepy, not clever. Here are some examples that you may or may not want to try at home. Stroke their vanity. Advertising executive Alec Brownstein bought six ads on Google saying "Hey ...," followed by the name of a top...

What's Next Blog

Typography? What’s That? Aesthetics!? Who Cares? Graphic Designers? Who Needs Em!

Typography? Huh?
Are you are old enough to know what typography was?
A long, long time ago, back in the early 1980s, before the scourge of desktop publishing made everyone a “designer”, typography was integral to the aesthetic of graphic design.
Then, to the horror of those who care about design, programmers became designers and the graphic arts went to hell. And typography went down the tubes with it. Sigh.

Advertising Age

In Defense of Social Media

AdAge has been beating up on social media lately. Matt Creamer wrote last week that popularity doesn't lead to influence or sales. In the current issue, Rance Crain writes that "advertisers don't even know what the primary purpose of social media is supposed to be." Sorry, but that train -- and that protest -- left the station a long time ago.

Creamer and Crain are right about two things: First, Creamer: "Social media ... threatens to warp our understanding of influence"; and second, Crain: "...

Advertising Age

There Are 181,000 Social Media 'Gurus,' 'Ninjas,' 'Masters,' and 'Mavens' on Twitter

As a public service, What’s Next Blog periodically reports on the number of self-proclaimed social media gurus, ninjas, masters and mavens on Twitter.

What’s Next Blog's social media guru Twitter Bio list (researched on FollowerWonk) has grown to epic proportions. The list now tops 181,000 – up from a mere 16,000 when we first started tracking them in 2009.