Jonell Mosser – Artwork and New CD Release
What a fun project this was creating the cd artwork for Jonell Mosser’s new release, Fortunes Lost, Fortunes Told. And, I just heard it’s on the Americana chart! Thanks to the creative direction of Cathey Stamps and her retro ideas.
Rick Price New Release
Just completed artwork for the new RICK PRICE album, and the new website is up and running thanks to PINEAPPLE-PC. Rick is an Australian artist, now living in Nashville, who just released his tenth album, “THE WATER’S EDGE.” A VERY talented multi-instrumentalist with incredible writing and vocals touching on country, blues, folk, pop. His albums go back to early 90s – amid the gorgeous long hair – that earned numerous Australian Top 40 hits and awards. He’s Aussie, but loved all over the world! You can read more about him here.
“Saturday in the Park” is ringing in my ears…
READ CHICAGO STORY HERE, SEM Chicago 12/10
Sitting down with two members of the band CHICAGO was simply amazing! Had a great conversation with Jason Scheff and Robert Lamm while they were recording at the Sound Kitchen in Franklin…the nicest guys in the world. Not to mention, a whole separate interview with legendary producer Phil Ramone (that story still to come). Many thanks to Ira Blonder at the Sound Kitchen for setting this up. Here’s the profile story from Southern Exposure Magazine, SEM Profile: Chicago 12/10, w/Photography by Anthony Scarlati. (And, visit SouthernExposureMagazine.com to get your subscription!)
December issue of Southern Exposure Magazine
So excited to see the new issue of Southern Exposure Magazine. I’m happy to say I made it in with two articles this time….The Feature Profile being none other than the band CHICAGO…more to come on that one. The final leg of our JOURNAL OF 100 MILES (NashvillesTraceJournal.com) was spent in the oh-so quaint and friendly town of Collinwood, TN – we love this place! Located at Milepost 355 off the Natchez Trace Parkway and just north of the Alabama state line…a must visit and you must meet Volunteer Coordinator Dorothye McGrath!
Take a look, SEM Welcome to Collinwood 12/10
Journal of 100 Miles
Since 2009, I have been writing a series called the Journal of 100 Miles along with photographer Anthony Scarlati, a travelogue covering stories along the Natchez Trace Parkway in Tennessee. This 100-mile portion of the scenic byway was also labeled this year by the Tennessee Department of Tourism as the Nashville’s Trace. We have loved every minute of our travels finding great stories which is why NashvillesTraceJournal.com was created. We also discovered there is a lot to learn from these special people and places – what we like to all Rural. Real. The travelogue has just about come to an end. Many thanks to Southern Exposure Magazine for publishing this series. Visit NashvillesTraceJournal.com for the website and links to stories.
Here’s the October/November 2010 article and one of our favorites when we visited the amazing elephants at the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, TN, “Where Trumpets Sound” SEM_Journalof100Miles_Oct2010web.
You can read more about their incredible stories at Elephants.com.
Nashville School of the Arts – Nashville Arts Magazine
The latest article I had published in Nashville Arts Magazine. A great display of the correlation between arts, leadership, education and success….take a look here, Nashville School of the Arts_web
Nashville Arts Magazine: Jonell Mosser
The September issue of Nashville Arts Magazine is out and it’s beautiful!! Great stories on art, architecture, music…and speaking of music, here’s a link to the story I did on Nashville songstress Jonell Mosser….click on this link: NashvilleArtsSep_09_Mosser_a
Facebook Regional VP Speaks in Nashville
REGIONAL VP OF SALES FOR FACEBOOK SPEAKS IN NASHVILLE
There are 250 million users on Facebook which makes it the 4th largest website in the world, and if it were a country, it would be the 4th largest country in the world. (I checked the stats, it’s true)
This affirmed by Mike Haines, Regional Vice President of Sales for the Southeast at Facebook who spoke to almost 200 members and guests of the Nashville American Marketing Association yesterday on how businesses can utilize Facebook to fulfill their marketing objectives.
THE BENEFITS
REAL TIME – What began 5 years ago as merely a platform for college students to connect, has evolved into a global platform for not only social individuals, but for businesses as well. Leveraging two-way engagement allows businesses to connect to customers in real time while driving brand awareness and sales. “Every change we’ve made to the sight has created a lot of iterations, establishing identity in real time,” says Haines.
AUTHENTICITY – I love this word and wish nothing more than authenticity in people and their work. With Facebook, there are nearly 200 unique identifying characters on their page. Embellishments aside, members’ profiles and pictures create an authentic identity making it easy for a business to know intricately who people are and gaining sustainability in reaching their target market.
Haines does divulge, “Facebook is not our product – The social web is the product, a living breathing organism with billions of connectors around the globe.” This “social graph of the world,” he calls it, creates connections of long-term value while driving brand awareness and sales.
Most importantly, Facebook harnesses the most trusted source of marketing – word of mouth. When making buying decisions, 80% of people will say referral is the top motivator. Haines calls it, “The most powerful since dawn of time and will continue to be so.” And, as ROI has always been a challenge, with a significant shift in the number of people on Facebook, it now ‘scales’ and can provide real measures.
KEYS TO SOCIAL MARKETING
While I believe it’s still important to integrate offline and online marketing, social marketing offers its own measures and rewards. But, as Haines points out, businesses should think strategically and avoid using old metrics to define success. “Everybody can leverage this platform in a unique way.”
Engagement Plan – It’s Important to develop a plan with “Committment, collaboration and alignment.”
Using your own tone, voice and brand persona, will make it appropriate and work for you. For those reluctant, Haines encourages businesses to, “Stick to a plan, learn from it and move on.”
Some Sizeable Statistics:
*People are becoming fans 4 ½ million times a day
*15 billion minutes are spent on the Facebook homepage making it the “Most engaging page in the world”, creating 40% organic impressions with action rates in 90th percentile
*This is 5 times higher than internet average
*Publishing into a stream more popular than the top TV show
*Average 20 minutes a day on Facebook
“That’s the reality of a social world, it’s all about creating connections.” It’s a successful channel for B2C and an ever increasing opportunity for B2B while really driving the ‘intent to purchase’ will have you closer to your marketing goals than ever before.
HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY MARKET
Ad Campaigns – Given authentic data, a company can build targeting clusters whether based on geographic or demographic qualities, as well as key words from a profile. Think you can’t reach the real decision makers? There are age 40+ executives with the name of who they work for and “Vice President” or “Director” right there in their job title. Pay per click advertising is easy and targeted while allowing you to control your budget and schedule.
Follow – For first-hand knowledge, become a fan of the most successful Facebook marketers like Coke, Starbucks and Warner Brothers. Papa John’s executed a promotion giving a free pizza to every fan that joined their page that resulted in 300,000 new fans in one week. Along with discount offers posted on a regular basis, that has turned into increase in online and phone orders with profits far exceeding the cost of free pizza. Target has been instrumental in cause-related marketing grabbing the socially conscious audience. Ben and Jerry’s, Haines likes to say, “Doesn’t have a Chief Marketing Officer, they have a Chief Euphoria Officer.”
Action – Use the Homepage, links and profile attributes to create social action. Haines states at any given time among connected friends, there are 1 million actions triggered. One person averages 120 friends, multiply that by 1 million actions and your equaling millions of free traffic and impressions. News feeds help incorporate brand and promotional based marketing and create affinity and emotional connection.
It’s up to you to create what’s next,” Haines says, “We don’t’ know what is yet to be created.” What is most amazing to me is that Facebook has literally developed to scale a mirror image of the general population of online users – with the fastest growing categories of age 35 and over and age 50+ women. So does this make Facebook now the perfect marketing sample? Haines says, “Jump in and get started, learn and iterate.” Minus the ad campaigns, it’s potentially a few million free customers for you.
Jazz and Marketing
I always love to find new points of view on business – take jazz music and marketing. Here is something I found a while back on what jazz music could teach marketing.
