How to stop SOPA/PIPA
By now you must have heard about 
SOPA/PIPA, if not, here’s the skinny. The Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protection of Intellectual Property Act are two laws currently being considered by US law makers.
The aim of these two bills is to combat online piracy and help prevent the theft of intellectual property. Sounds like a noble cause, right? The only problem is that these bills have far reaching effects, effects that could destroy the right to information on the internet.
Kumi Naidoo, International Executive director of Greenpeace, had this to say about the bills. “In the history book of bad ideas, the concept of giving corporations the right to censor the Internet has to rank among the worst ever.”
Tags: online piracy, PIPA, SOPA
Epic Marketing Failures
Sometimes a marketing strategy can 
do wonders for a business and help increase your market share. In other cases it can severely harm your company’s reputation, and even cause you to file for bankruptcy. These are just a few examples of spectacular marketing failures:
- Blockbuster Video commits suicide
In 2003, Blockbuster Video announced what they thought would be something revolutionary: no late fees on late returns of DVDs. Most people thought, ‘Great! I’ll return the DVD when I feel like it.’ And so it went that most people never returned them. Those who returned the DVDs after too long were then charged with the entire price of the DVD. As you can imagine, not many people would rent a movie from a place that does idiotic stuff like that.
Tags: marketing, marketing disasters
The dangerous search for the truth
The work of a journalist is hard, 
often thankless and always dangerous. In 2011, 66 journalists were killed while on the job in Africa, the Middle-East, Asia, the Americas and Europe.
In 2011, 1044 journalists were arrested, nearly double that of the 535 arrested in 2010.
The most dangerous of these places is Pakistan. Ten Journalists were killed in that country alone last year, making it the most dangerous country for a journalist to work in. The Middle-East is also especially dangerous to work in, as 20 journalists were killed during the Arab Spring uprising.
Tags: blogger, journalist, photojournalist, safety
SA marketers join the eco-revolution
An increasing number of companies 
in South Africa and overseas are turning to green advertising due to consumer demand. DuPont, a global leader in market-driven science has noticed a major trend in local companies adopting eco-friendly advertising materials, products and methods for their campaigns. Greg Gardens of the Nedbank Group explains: “A new consumer consciousness requires a new marketing mindset and a very different marketing approach. Companies, brands and markets that fail to adapt will face extinction”.
Green issues are rapidly becoming a central concern amongst South African consumers. Gardens warns against what he calls “greenwashing”, the marketing approach of advertising a brand as green when it is actually not. As consumers are becoming more eco-conscious about the products they are using they are also becoming more skeptical about companies claiming to be green.
Search Engine Optimisation – Worthy Investment or Costly Expense?
There is a common misconception in the online 
marketing world that Search Engine Optimisation is a costly expense. Sadly, this myth prevents some companies from getting the results they want. The long-term nature of SEO combined with a great deal of on-site changes and a lack of instant, quick-fix results are some of the reasons that SEO is seen as an expense rather than an investment.
Is Search Engine Optimisation really that costly, however, and do those costs offer some sort of return on investment?
Long-Term SEO Strategies = Better Results
Tags: search engine optimisation, seo
10 Most Successful Social Media Campaigns
Social media is a powerful 
promotional medium, a fail safe vehicle for any sort of campaign to reach millions of people. In recent times, the power of social media has been leveraged to popularize and promote various products, concepts, shows and causes. Ten of the top campaigns are listed here.
1. Greenpeace
Greenpeace used a very innovative method to make Mattel, the manufacturer of the world famous Barbie doll, stop using wood pulp to make its dolls. Greenpeace put up a huge banner on the side of Mattel’s headquarters, showing Ken breaking up with his girlfriend Barbie for playing a role in destroying a forest. The activists then began a letter writing campaign which they hooked to Facebook Connect. This opened the floodgates, with people posting protests against Mattel on their Facebook pages.
Tags: social media, social media campaigns, social media marketing
16 Ways Blogging Helps Your Business
You can get more eyeballs and 
advertise your brand more effectively by blogging than through any other means. Effective blogging can increase your business’s visibility and generate leads from different areas. Here are a few ways in which blogging can help your business.
1. Create Brand Awareness Cheaply
Provide great content and network on social media sites; make sure you always post your company’s brand message everywhere with a link back to your blog.
2. Learn from your Audience
A blog helps you gain valuable insight into your customers’ needs, thinking, preferences and challenges. You can turn feedback forms, visitor comments, polls and surveys into spontaneous, instant market research tools. Think of your blog as a free focus group which gives you insight as to which products you should develop and why.
Tags: blog, blogging. brand awareness
How to sell your blog
When AOL bought Huffington Post 
for $315 million dollars it was no surprise that many bloggers started wondering how to attract top-dollar investments. There tends to be a misconception amongst new bloggers and webmasters that it is easy to sell your blog, but at the end of the day selling a blog for anything above a couple thousand (editor’s note: insert currency of choice here) is a rare opportunity. In fact, even backlinks, unique content, or Google PageRank will not attract buyers seeking to invest significant amounts of money.
Making Loyalty Card Marketing Work
I’m not really one for loyalty cards 
but I recently signed up for Pick ‘n Pay’s Smart Shopper card. I shop weekly at Pick ‘n Pay and spend a lot of money, as do most of us, filling my fridge and cupboards, so it made sense to get some of that money back.
But I was suspicious as to what Pick ‘n Pay wanted from me in order to give me points. Too often the company gains but not the consumer. As it turns out, they did not want much. They needed some personal details and gave me the option of whether I wanted to receive any promotional advertising and in what format (by SMS or email) I wanted to receive them in. The clincher for me was that I did not have to agree to receive advertising in order to get the card.
The Age of Amazon?
The latest scandal in the digital world is between 
Amazon and publishing houses, and it’s not the first time. First, we saw Amazon pulling books from Macmillan, one of the largest publishing houses in the USA, due to a scandal over the pricing of their e-books. Then we saw not only small bookstores but also the second largest chain of bookstores in the USA, Borders, shutting down. It did not stop there; Amazon released the Kindle, which started treading on the toes of publishing houses. Now, Amazon is going straight for the heart of publishers; their authors.
Tags: Amazon, digital publishing, publishing, publishing houses
