So the same can be said about negative momentum – where a community backlash can reach a tipping point and something starts to happen. I’m hoping that by intentionally publishing this article alongside a recent post by Elliot Jay Stocks, a new script by Chris Coyier, a dedicated upgrade campaign, and a new browser from Google (to name but a few), we’ll all be riding the crest of a large wave that sees Microsoft’s bastard child IE6 finally come crashing to a halt.

I hate IE6, as do many others like me. It famously lacks support for W3C standards, so websites rarely look ‘right’ when viewed. This matters because IE6 still has a significant share of the browser market (between 25-30%, depending who you ask) even though it was released a whopping 7 years ago. Fact: no other browser of that age exists.

But my mum doesn’t hate it, nor does my Dad, my wife, or many colleagues. They don’t care how a site is supposed to look, how it should work, or what hacks were used to make the site they see before them look at ‘pretty’. All they understandably care about is the site and its content. So the problem with IE6 lies primarily on the shoulders of the developers/designers/coders wasting precious hours making their sites pretty, only to be forced to hack and compromise them to ensure they look the same on IE6 as in all other browsers. Sure, this might sound trivial, but I assure you that there is nothing more frustrating than making a site look great in Firefox or Safari, only to see it look like the creation of a 10 year old in IE6. Essentially we create 2 versions of the same site – one for the ‘good’ browsers that fully support standards, and one for IE6, which simply doesn’t do what it should.

So what’s the Reverse Tipping Point angle?

IE6 has negatively affected so many web developers, designers and builders since ’01 that the time has come for this community to actually make a difference. With a market share as high as 30%, IE6 wouldn’t disappear overnight, but with what seems to be an increasing trend of ‘non-support’ for IE6, small-, mid- and large-sized web companies are getting bolder and phasing out all support for IE6… with or without Microsoft’s help.

Some methods are extreme. Chris Coyier’s new script tells an IE6 user that the site simply doesn’t support IE6, forcing the visitor to upgrade to view the site. Others are revolution-catalysts – see the IE Death March, and some are a bit more subtle – like savethedevelopers.org. But perhaps the most significant agent for creating this (reverse) tipping point is the fact that many of today’s top web designers (and companies that cater to web designers) are announcing that they’re ceasing all hacks, bug fixes and general support for IE6 – on both their own sites and for all new clients moving forward. It’s these guys – these mavens – that will ultimately change how many people are still using IE6 by this time next year. These guys basically lead the line on web design, so as word filters down that enough is enough, all others will start to follow suit.

To start the pendulum swinging, I’ve rounded up a few posts, sites and tools to get you started in saying goodbye to IE6. If you’re not even a web designer and have only a faint idea of what this is all about, 1) good job on reading this far, and 2) get stuck in anyways! You have nothing to lose, and rest assured you’ll be helping a great cause. Do you part to make the web a prettier place (the way it should be) and say no to IE6!

Tools & tips:

http://css-tricks.com/ie-6-blocker-script/
http://www.savethedevelopers.org/
http://24ways.org/2007/supersleight-transparent-png-in-ie6
http://nettuts.com/html-css-techniques/evening-tip-force-ie6-to-display-alpha-transparency/
http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage (PC only)
http://www.browsercam.com/
http://www.stopie6.org/

Stats:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
http://ma.tt/2008/07/ie6-independence/ (WordPress-specific)

Other posts/articles:

http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/08/25/is-it-time-to-ditch-ie6/
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1072-apples-mobileme-drops-support-for-ie-6
http://www.kryogenix.org/days/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/facebook-ie6.png
http://www.viget.com/inspire/is-it-time-to-ditch-ie-6/

Taking a stand:

http://ryanfarley.com/blog/archive/2008/08/18/why-i-am-no-longer-supporting-ie6.aspx
http://www.insideria.com/2008/07/37signals-drops-ie6-support.html
http://noscope.com/journal/2008/08/ditching-ie6

IE Death Marchers:

http://iedeathmarch.org/category/marching
http://iedeathmarch.org/2008/08/carsonified/
http://iedeathmarch.org/2008/08/we-are-not-freelancers/
http://iedeathmarch.org/2008/08/wplover/
http://iedeathmarch.org/2008/08/facebook/
http://iedeathmarch.org/2008/08/daring-fireball/
http://iedeathmarch.org/2008/08/37-signals/

Follow/Join/Interact:

https://twitter.com/SaveDevelopers
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/IE6MustDie
http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2463342409
http://www.stopie6.org/
http://www.stopie6.com/
http://friendfeed.com/e/c7b7d477-bfcf-47c2-aa6f-63d58c3eb645/The-STOP-IE6-campaign/

So you’ve read about Twitter & Tipping points, what it’s for and who uses it… so now’s the time to start using Twitter to effectively market and promote your offering. The sky’s the limit for how you can integrate Twitter into your marketing, but here are few ideas of how to use Twitter and in what capacity:

• Start small:
  Use the Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com) to find tweets about your industry or niche. Follow the tweeters, wait for them to reciprocate, and gradually build up a list of interested followers. Use Twitter to announce new blog posts, exclusive articles, company insights and open-ended questions targeted to a specific and qualified group.
• Build buzz:
  Offer enticing hints, or functions of your upcoming product to build a buzz. Drive traffic to a microsite or page that continues the dialog by asking the visitor to subscribe to an email list for the official announcement of your product.
• Re-launch an old brand: What better way to enter the world of E with Twitter. If your brand has finally made the big move to online, Twitter is a great way to start building online relationships versus the traditional style.
• Inject personality:
  If you work in the marketing department of a large, faceless corporation and need to add a personality, Twitter is for you. Assuming you don’t step on any legal or branding toes, use Twitter to put a face (literally, a profile pic of you) out there and engage with your customers. They’ll appreciate knowing someone is there talking to them.
• Manage your brand reputation:
  Similar to Google alerts and when used in the same way as above, Twitter can be a great way to see (in real time) who’s talking about your company, products or services. PR and journo’s also use Twitter to gather info about sources, allowing you as a company to offer yourself as a resource from the start. Alternatively, if the story is about your company, you can get a head start on rectifying any negative situations. **Note: Subscribe to the RSS feed of your search, and let the semi-real-time tweets come to you.
• Have frequent downtime?:
  If you’re like Twitter and growing quickly, use Twitter to post 140 character notices of system status and ETA’s for your loyal followers. They’ll appreciate it, just like the actual Twitterverse appreciates it from the guys behind Twitter.
• Job hunting/hiring:
  Remember that all Tweets are searchable. Always. Don’t tweet anything silly, but do tweet about insights, information, posts and more to increase your chances of getting hired by a like-minded employer. Hiring? Tweet what you need and for when, and wait for the responses.
• Exclusive deals/sales announcements:
  Your loyal followers will appreciate feeling exclusive. Offer sales or rebates to them by giving a Twitter-only coupon code for them to redeem online or in-store. What’s more, say as much on your website and increase followers of your brand.
• Increase site/blog visibility:
  If you use WordPress, use the plugin that automatically updates your Twitter status with the URL of your new post. Conversely, use another plugin that links your recent Twitter updates for display on your site itself.
• Increase interaction:
  Ask open-ended questions, link to polls, and get people involved in your brand. People love to share their opinion, especially those using Twitter – otherwise they wouldn’t be using it
• Promote Twitter on-site and invite to follow:
  A no-brainer. You can’t get followers if no one knows you exist. Display your new Twitter URL and ask to be followed. Remember that the viral component of Twitter means that a follower’s followers might appreciate your brand as well.
• Customize your background-image:
  With some Photoshop, knowledge of CSS positioning and some cleverness, you can use your Twitter bg as yet another brand builder/enforcer. Here’s a tip: Your bg is fixed to the top left, with the Twitter content in the centre. Modify your bg to have your topline info at the top left, and all your followers will see it.
• Be fun, be open, be candid, be YOU:
  Do it.
• Create curiosity:
  Intrigue your followers, make them want to know more about your product, you, or your brand (which are sometimes one in the same).
• Have more ideas?
  Share them below!

In the spirit of this marketing blog, this article will explore what Twitter is, what and who it’s for, and why you should start to use it as part of your ever-growing marketing mix.

What is it?

Don’t you just love buzzwords? Micro-blogging (Twitter’s official definition) and social networking are combined in Twitter, allowing a user to send snippets of their everyday life in 140 characters or less to a loyal group of followers. If it sounds odd/useless/a waste of time, it’s really not – just ask the 2.2 million registered users of Twitter who use it, including big names like Barack Obama, the BBC, BBC News, the Guardian, Dell, and many more.

What’s it for?

Anything you want it to be. Twitter doesn’t have to be all about business, nor does it have to be all about your daily habits and routines. What it does innately is increase your transparency as a corporate or personal brand and allow you to open up to those following you (or searching for you). Twitter offers user insight that even blogs can’t offer due to its 1) 140 character limit – enforcing succinctness, and 2) following concept, where you can follow anyone using the service that interests you. Interested in Web Design? Use the Twitter Search and follow anyone discussing WordPress or CSS. Love Food? Search and follow.

Who’s it for?

If you read my last post on Gladwell’s 3 agents of change, you’ll likely fall into one of the 3 types, otherwise you wouldn’t be here, right? Although it’s currently full of a savvy tech crowd who are hungry for information, news, events, tricks, new posts, and interacting with one another, Twitter is open to anyone who wants to ‘get connected’. Following on the example above with Barack Obama using Twitter, just look at his measly 65k followers and you can be pretty certain that 75% of them aren’t fanatical tech-heads!

Me + Twitter

As far as early adoption goes, I’m embarrassed to say I was a bit narrow-minded with Twitter. I roughly understood the concept, but felt daunted and annoyed by the thought of updating what really is a Facebook status message with mundane information about my life. What was worse was assuming people whom I’ve never met even cared what I did last night or what TV show I was watching.

But, fast-forward 60 days, and I’m a true Twitter believer. Diving into the Tweetiverse and meeting all the Tweeple (OK, I’ll stop the cheese), I started to appreciate what it is, what it does, and ironically how it fills a void that I never knew needed filling. The thing is, when you think about it, haven’t most of today’s successful ideas created something that no one realized they needed until it was actually created? By creating a virtual demand and being the only supplier, Twitter has most definitely set the scene for creating their own tipping point.

Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Aizlewood

Update:

This video perfectly encapsulates what Twitter is, in an easily-digestible format

The next article will address how to use Twitter for marketing. Stay tuned!

How do Twitter and Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘The Tipping Point’ come together? If you’ve read the book, you’ll know that a tipping point is established when the momentum of a service, product or idea becomes so great that it reaches a type of critical mass, ultimately becoming a part of a mainstream society for any period of time.

Twitter seems to be approaching its own Tipping point, as seen by the various growing pains it has encountered lately, including unplanned outages and a rethink on their free SMS service for Europe [link]. As they become a victim of their own success, the simple, easy-to-use and highly addictive web service is quickly gaining notoriety as a new way of reaching, engaging and interacting with like-minded peers or customers.

Ironically, Twitter is also proving to be a platform for facilitating other tipping points, due in no small part to its ability to connect Gladwell’s 3 agents of change – Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen – to build momentum for other ideas, products and services.

Which one are you?

Twitter seems to be tailor-made for the agents of change described by Gladwell. In my Twitter account alone (www.twitter.com/Aizlewood), I’m already well aware who of the 54 Tweeters I’m following fall into one of the 3 categories:

• There are most definitely the Connectors - those who simply tweet about interesting topics, events and new blog posts. Without these Tweeters, I wouldn’t know who’s just published a post on Tracking iPhone visits, or ever know about a great app called Olive.
• Then there are the Mavens – the ‘information specialists’ who bring new ideas, new technologies, mash-ups and various other tech-fu to our insatiable appetites. Without this select bunch, I would never know about particular WordPress hacks and great ideas like Egommunication.
• Then, of course there are the Salesmen – the Tweeters who brazenly market and promote their services, products and solutions, at least in a round-about way, to the Twitterverse. These guys speak for themselves, and using the same example of Olive, I would never have downloaded the free version with intention to buy!

When you have these 3 basic ingredients for creating a Tipping point, Twitter has, either intentional or not, created a fertile land of allowing the smart marketer to start & maintain the momentum for their product or service. By harnessing the power of gathering like-minded enthusiasts in one place and forcing them to talk as often as possible, the opportunity to start and engage in conversations about something particular is better than ever.

The next article will address what Twitter is, who it’s for, and why use it. Stay tuned!

Check out ‘The Age of Snark’ here, for your own good.

A while back I had a great experience with Dell Canada’s customer service, so much so I wrote a post about it and as a result I happily recommend Dell to any peers who’re in the market for a new computer. It’s also a fact that referral marketing is one of the strongest and oldest forms of marketing, with the rule that ‘a happy customer tells 5; an unhappy customer tells 10’.  It’s one thing to see that statistic, but it’s entirely different – and more rewarding – when it actually happens to you. In this case I’m happy to become a statistic.

About 2 weeks ago my wife and I got back from a fantastic destination wedding in Antigua (West Indies), where we got married. It was fantastic, and was made all the better because we chose Blue Waters hotel (www.bluewaters.net). We couldn’t be happier with our entire experience; the weather, the hospitality, the friendly staff, the food, and the ceremony were all like a fairy tale, and for that reason we’ll be going back. And that’s the key – our experience was made so great by the team at Blue Waters that we’d be happy to go back. That’s great branding and marketing and they’re doing it right.

What did they do?
In addition to our wedding package, we had pre-booked a superior room that was already not too shabby. However, upon arriving at the hotel, we were delighted to find we’d been upgraded to one of the elite Cove Villa suites – complete with private infinity pool, 2 flat screen TV’s, King-size bed, turn-down service, and more. Fantastic.

It works
What Blue Waters did was very simple. Knowing it was off-season during our stay, they upgraded us. It would be no extra cost to them, but the instant affinity created with that one sentence: ‘we’ve taken the liberty to upgrade you to our Cove Villas’ will ultimately pay off. Over the average lifespan of a marriage, with 1 anniversary per year, it’s a sure bet we’ll find ourselves back in Antigua in the future, and paying for the same villa we were upgraded to for our wedding. The crucial thing is… we’ll be happy to do pay, simply because our first experience was so good. Blue Waters gained customers for life by simply identifying their market, calculating a one-time loss, and factoring in the average spend made by a couple on an anniversary. Sure it may not be next year, but it will happen.

What companies can do
So what’s the point of all this? If you as a company can identify the needs of your customers and calculate what you can offer them at low cost to you but high value to them, you can dramatically increase the weight and affinity of your brand. It’s all about perception, and like I said, happy customers referring friends can pay over the odds for small risks taken at the onset. Of course it’s relative – hotels can offer free rooms, whereas online stores can offer free shipping, but what counts is that you recognize what puts a smile on your customers’ faces, address it, do it, and you can have customers for life.

One of the highlights of the interview has to be the hint that one of the email client industry’s key players (such as MS, Yahoo, Google, Lotus, etc) have already approached David and his team to get more information on the ESP and, hopefully, are willing to do something about it.

The real goal of the ESP is for change. Actual, black and white change. Any other project similar to this one might go half the distance – which would still be a great thing – but they’d stop at making a resource website that shows how an email acts in different email clients. Greiner and his ESP are going the full mile – they’re not only showing the behaviour of emails in each client, but they’re also pushing for change to those email clients who need changing. We’re talking Microsoft’s Outlook 2007, Hotmail, Google’s Gmail, and Lotus Notes here – major players in the email client market.

Obviously a lot of onus is being put on these big wigs to sit up and listen, but, just as I ranted on about in my manifesto, the beauty of today’s web is that anyone can step up on a soapbox and be heard. The power has shifted to the user, and the ESP will be a perfect example of just how much power we the users now have.

I think I’m quickly becoming the Email Standards Project’s biggest fan. What they’ve achieved, in less than a week, is monumental. Its one thing to think of doing something, or wishing something had already been done, but it’s quite another actually doing it. These guys have addressed one of the major obstacles in the email marketing industry, one that affects everyone, not just email designers, and they’re clearly willing and able to tackle that obstacle head on. Effectively they’re pulling the weight of anyone connected with email marketing on their shoulders, and the least we can do is help.

It’s called the Email Standards Project; its aim: to create a universal standard for email design, akin to the existing universal Web Standards that every web designer adheres religiously to, so that we can all code faster, easier and better HTML emails that will work across all email clients.

The email client environment is similar in many ways to the current web design environment:

“Hey, my __________ looks great when viewed in/on ___________, but looks like total garbage when viewed in/on ____________. What gives? Argh. Damn you Billy Gates.”

If you design websites or email campaigns, you’ll fill in the blanks above with ‘website/email’, ‘Firefox/Outlook 2003’, and ‘IE6/Outlook 2007. All web designers have been there and cursed in the general direction of IE6, and most email designers have been there and cursed in the general direction of Lotus Notes. I have the privilege of cursing both, which is why the Email Standards Project is like a breath of fresh air.

The Project has already done 1 ‘acid test’ on the most common email clients out there, with results that won’t surprise any email marketer, but will definitely give a fantastic, comprehensive, and useful insight into what exactly doesn’t work in which client, and why. Have a look by visiting the homepage at http://www.email-standards.org. Outlook 2007, which I wrote about back in January, is definitely no surprise with a rating of ‘poor’ due to its use of MSWord as its rendering engine, but the depth of analysis the ESProject goes into is amazing.

I’m so full of support for the Email Standards Project that I’m including their badge on my blog from now on.

Keep up the great work guys!

Video Marketing:

1. Create videos that research proves will do well on the sites you are marketing to. Usually funny videos and tutorials tend to do well.

2. Decide what video marketing stance you are going to approach with your video marketing: Cut the video and add branding before something funny or interesting happens to redirect the viewer to your site. Or allow the entire video shown to allow for more viewers and impressions.

3. Initiate streaming rich media ads on videos.

4.Purchase pre-roll or post-roll ads on videos.

5. Distribute your video across these multiple video sharing sites.

Conversational Marketing

6. Leverage sites like Sponsored Reviews in order to create a viral buzz online regarding your brand.

7. Join as many forums as you can adequately sustain a quality contributor.

8. Get to know who the industry voice is for your niche and post comments on there blogs.

9. Contribute to online groups like google groups and myspace groups.

10. Market yourself by adding a blog.

11. Use advanced techniques to gain RSS subscribers for maximum exposure.

Pay Per Click

12. If you have a larger budget create an account on the top tier pay per click networks, Google, MSN and Yahoo!.

13. If you have a smaller ad budget go with Google and some tier 2 and tier 3 networks.

14. A great way to get branding is to get those impressions. Try giving 3^rd tier networks a try but know that conversions may be lower on 3^rd tier networks.

15. Utilize keycompete to get a good base on competitor PPC advertising.

16. Do extensive keyword research to find optimal exposure and converting keywords.

17. Try to find niches and keyword markets to target that are not as heavily competitive but are highly trafficked so your cost per click will be way down.

18. Mind your ad quality.

Social Media Marketing

19. Stay as ethical as you possibly can.

20. To successfully leverage your social media for online marketing you need to really be active in your communities, ergo is best to have power accounts on a few social media sites rather then trying to manage many of them across multiple networks. Find your niche.

21. Initiate social bookmarking campaigns online.

22. Create content to support edits in wikipedia.

Email Marketing

23. Team with companies with double opt in lists

24. Sponsor mailing lists with companies who have a wide subscriber base.

25. Try to leverage DBA lists

26. Setup a network of sites geared towards lead generation. By capturing these leads you can use them for yourself or sell them to leading lead brokers.

Mobile Search Marketing

27. Create a click to call campaign

28. Develop a mobile version of your site.

29. Include jump links below your content as normal navigation on a mobile search page can cause problems when viewing on mobile devices.

Search Engine Optimization

30. Optimize all title tags and meta data according to your rev mix.

31. If you are having problems ranking internal pages for there given keyword terms consider developing an effective silo.

32. Develop search engine friendly html sitemap.

33 Develop quality internal linking structure.

34. Create optimized html source code.

35. Create optimized robots.txt

36. Create optimized XML sitemap.

Affiliate Marketing

37. Create accounts in the 2 major affiliate networks, link share and commission junction.

38. Evaluate your competitions affiliate program

39. If you do not have an affiliate option for your services or products then think about creating one because the chance to have others advertise your products and services is a great way to get exposure and build your branding.

40. Incentavize your affiliate deals to attract the affiliate and the consumers.

Banner Advertising

41. Examine potential sites demographics.

42. Get media break outs

43. Consider Portal Advertising

44. Weight your cost per acquisition model between the cost of CPM and CPC banner advertising.

Application Marketing

45. Create a marketing campaign on Instant messangers

Contextual Advertising

46. Initiate a PFI (pay for inclusion) campaign for in bound links with sites like Text Link Brokers.

47. Consider Pre Sale pages or Hosted Marketing packages.

On to offline Marketing

48. Clothing is one of the best ways to market a product and service on and offline. By creating clothing that is branded with your logo and services you can ad this clothing line to online shopping sites and having people wear your clothes with your branding obviously increases your brand awareness.

My last and final tip is to make sure that everything you do can be tracked and measured via an accurate web analytics system. If you can afford it I would recommend click tracks. If that is to expensive for you then you might consider web trends. Many of these tips can not only improve your online marketing success but can increase the value of your own site allowing you to be paid much more for your sponsored reviews..

– Joe Whyte