All Posts By

Ted Murphy

Ted Murphy
In

Twitter Boot Camp

Learn Winning Twitter Strategies

Join Me and O’Reilly Media CEO Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly) for a one-day Twitter boot camp in New York City. I will be speaking on a panel called Twitter and Rules of Engagement. We are going to talk about corporate policies, transparency, legal risks and other best pratices.

You can register here.

Who Should Attend

  • Advertising and marketing professionals
  • Individuals interested in personal brand-building
  • Business owners seeking to increase visibility and improve customer experience
  • Anyone who wants to use Twitter to build and serve online communities

Speaker Include

Kat Meyer (@KatMeyer), Reggie Bradford (@ReggieBradford), Megan Clahoun (@TwitterMoms), David Deal (@davidjdeal), Marla Erwin (@wholefoods), Beth Harte (@BethHarte), Tony Hsieh (@zappos), Amy Martin (@DigitalRoyalty), Sarah Milstein (@SarahM), Eric Mueller (@EricMueller and @FLWbooks), Eric Peterson (@erictpeterson), David Puner (@DunkinDonuts), Laurel Touby (@laureltouby), Steve Ruebl (@steverubel) and Mike Volpe (@mvolpe).

Ted Murphy
In life

Manta at SeaWorld Rocks

For the past few months I have been collaborating with SeaWorld on their social media outreach program. A large amount of our efforts have been focused on Manta, a new mega attraction that officially opens tomorrow. Today I rode it for the first time and I have to say I was really impressed. The coaster is unlike anything I have ever been on… it had me screaming like a little school girl (see video evidence).

I brought Janice Croze, Gwen Bell, Arianne Segerman, Tara Kuczykowski, Lori Falcon, Katja Presnal, Steve Spalding, Audrey McClellan, Alex Schek and Julia Allison along for the experience. They are a great group of bloggers and we had an absolute blast together. SeaWorld had Manta specially rigged with video and still cameras for our ride. All of us got to walk away from Manta with flash cards containing high res photos and video of our rides. Sorry I didn’t stick my tongue out in the picture below, I obviously wasn’t thinking straight.

SeaWorld Manta Roller Coaster

If you want to ride Manta FOR FREE all you have to do is register for IZEAFEST. Every person that registers gets a free ticket to SeaWorld for the blogger takeover on Sunday.

Leaderboard

Ted Murphy
In

Did you miss me?

I know it has been awhile since I have posted anything here. I have been working on a video project that has monopolized my creative energy. You can check out the video below. I wrote it and did the design and production work.

Let me know what you think. Do you understand what a Sponsored Conversation is after watching it?

Ted Murphy
In sales & marketing

Product Placement Recon Mission

McDonalds product placement on the news desk

McDonalds product placement on the news desk

I am working on a big presentation about product placement and I need some help. I want to gather the biggest body of examples I can get my hands on. I am specifically looking for television and movies, but I would love to get some other examples as well (video games, theme park attractions, fast food). Anything where advertising is integrated into the content or experience is of interest. If you have your movies or television shows digitized I would love to get my hands on full quality stills (640px or greater) of the following:

  1. Taco Bell in Demolition Man
  2. Apple Computer in Mission:Impossible
  3. Dodge in Twister
  4. FedEx in Cast Away
  5. Subway in Happy Gilmore
  6. Pepsi in Back to the Future
  7. Coke in Blade Runner
  8. McDonalds in the Fifth Element
  9. Coke in American Idol
  10. Ford in American Idol
  11. Staples in The Office
  12. Ford in Knight Rider
  13. Mr. Potato Head in Toy Story
  14. Red Strip in The Firm
  15. Crest Vanilla Toothpaste in The Apprentice
  16. Lark Cigarettes in James Bond License to Kill
  17. Audi in iRobot
  18. Gap in Minority Report
  19. Blackberry in Sex in the City
  20. Snapple in Seinfeld

I will do a follow up post on this an provide links back to everyone who helps on the project. Please point me to your stills in the comments.

Ted Murphy
In

CEOs Need A Personal Blog & Twitter

Traffic Sources

Traffic to IZEA.com

Corporate blogs are nothing new. They have been around long enough to see mainstream adoption from companies like GM, HP and Bank of America. Corporate blogs are usually maintained by marketing or PR teams, with CEOs and upper level execs popping in every once and awhile to make an announcement or two. They are typically sales, service or industry centric… watered down and lack any real personality. The large majority of these blogs are the same-old boring-ass corporate communications crammed into a new format. Corporate Twitter accounts tend to follow a similar path.

I am not saying that there is anything wrong with corporate blogs or Twitter accounts. Dissemination of organizational information through social media is an important part of the marketing mix. However, I believe this is a myopic view of how social media should be used by companies. I believe every CEO should augment their corporate social media strategy with their own personal social media presence. Here’s why:

Relationships Matter

Any CEO worth his weight in corn flakes understands the value of relationships. As CEO you have relationships with customers, vendors, employees and investors. Some relationships are formed in the office throughout the work day, but the strongest relationships tend to be formed outside the confines of the office. When a CEO takes a client on a golf outing, invites an investor to dinner or grabs a beer with employees the magic is in the personal connection. The little stories that are shared between people create a deeper bond and understanding of each other.

Social media allows a CEO to take thousands of people on a golf outing at the same time. They can simultaneously share a beer with customers and investors or even bond with new people that may become valuable contacts in the future.

Relationships Have Their Place

While these bonds are important they also have their place. I don’t want to go to the Google blog and see how Eric Schmidt spent his vacation or what he does to manage stress. It’s not appropriate to share that type of personal information on a corporate blog. When I go to the Google blog I expect to see information about Google. However, it would be perfectly acceptable and relevant content for Schmidt’s to share on a his personal blog (which doesn’t exist).

We follow this rule at IZEA where I am CEO. The IZEA blog is focused on things relevant to IZEA and our community. Ted.me is filled with content relevant to me and my personal thoughts about the world around us. While there is some overlap in audience each blog has a different message and bond with the reader.

Relationship Force Multiplier

Most CEOs that don’t use social media say they “don’t have time to play on the Internet” or “It’s not a good use of my time”. To which I say “You may be rich, but you are a donkey”. That’s like saying you don’t have time to write a mass email about the new product launch because you are in physical meetings about the new product launch.

I look at my personal use of social media as a relationship force multiplier. I can’t possibly maintain communications with all the people I want to face to face. But my blog and twitter account let me build and maintain relationships with thousands of people every month. If you can make time to play a round of golf (4 hours) you can make time to write a blog post (.5-1 hours) or write a tweet (.5-1 minutes).

Relationships Drive Results

If you are a numbers driven CEO you have probably read all of this and think it is complete crap. I don’t blame you. There are a lot of “social media consultants” out there (which I am not) that talk about this stuff without anything to back it up. Here’s the bottom line: My personal blog consistently rates in one of the top 5 referrers to IZEA’s corporate website. Twitter is consistently in the top 5 as well (though I can’t take 100% credit for that). My personal use of social media drives traffic, helps retain customers and most importantly acquires new customers.

Personal social media isn’t just about good relationships. It’s about good business. Go setup your blog and get on Twitter already. Once you do don’t forget to follow me!

If you read this whole post and don’t leave me a comment I will hunt you down and steal your twinkies.

Ted Murphy
In

The Real Andy Sernovitz

For the past three years I have tried to work with Andy Sernovitz. For the past three years it has felt like banging my head against the wall. For those of you that haven’t heard of Andy he is a self proclaimed word of mouth marketing expert and the guy behind the Blog Council. He is also an advocate for disclosure, transparency and open conversations in the blogosphere.

You need to read this to get the back story behind our relationship:

https://www.ted.me/andy-sernovitz/

Come back after you have read it. Seriously.

Today Andy attacked IZEA again. At this point I am kind of used to it, it is like some sort of strange rash that resurfaces every year or so. Once again I reached out to Andy on his blog, hoping to engage in conversation and perhaps constructive collaboration. Once again Andy Sernovitz went against everything he preaches, deleting my comment. An advocate for conversation that consistently deletes comments. How does that work exactly?

Luckily I am familiar with how Andy Sernovitz works so I took a screen shot before he deleted my comment.

picture-20

Andy I am still here. Any time you want to talk and move the blogosphere forward drop me a line. You know my number.

UPDATE: Chris Brogan weighs in on Sponsored Conversations.

Ted Murphy
In travel

My First Day in Costa Rica

This Easter weekend Tara and I took our first trip to Costa Rica. I am on a plane right now returning to the U.S. tired, soar, sunburned and very happy. I have been fortunate enough to travel to quite a few places in my life, but none of them were like Costa Rica. We experience a lot in a few short days. I am going to break up the trip into a series of posts so you don’t fall asleep.

Day One

We began our journey with a short 3 hour flight from Orlando to San Jose on Jet Blue. The second we hit the ground it was clear we were no longer in the U.S. The first thing we did was rent a car. The rental car employee explained to us that it was common for locals to booby trap the roads by throwing nails and glass in the path of unsuspecting tourists. “Booby traps,” I thought to myself. “I wanted to go to a tropical paradise, not a war zone.”

Costa Rica Car

He instructed us to check the tires on our vehicle before we left the rental facility and make sure that the car jack was in good working order. The employee then rattled off a list of emergency instructions and phone numbers, smiled and said “have fun.”

Costa Rica CarWhen we arrived at the car rental pick up building it was clear to me that the employee was not kidding. Every vehicle in the facility lacked hub caps and were outfitted with inexpensive, almost disposable tires. All the buildings in the area were fortified with tall fences, razor wire and bars on their windows. It made me a bit nervous but Tara and I piled into our little SUV, punched our hotel into the GPS and set off on a tour of the Costa Rican country side.Costa Rica Cow Road

While the scenery was beautiful I dreaded every second of our drive from San Jose. We encountered traffic, cows, washed out roads, clouds and many one-way bridges. While all of these were genuine hazards the biggest hazard of all was the people. There were people standing and walking on the highway at every turn. I didn’t understand what was going on. Are these people going to throw glass in the road? Are they going to jump out in front of my car? Is this a booby trap? Are they going to try and rob me? I was incredibly tense.

Driving in Costa Rica

Five hours later we arrived at outside our hotel La Mansion in Nuevo Arenal. Tara and I were both exhausted. My hands hurt from gripping the steering wheel so hard, my shirt was soaked with sweat. Yeahhh! We are here. We didn’t die!

La Mansion is a small hotel on Arenal’s north shore that features 17 small cottages. We walked into the lobby/restaurant/bar and were greeted by the owner’s daughter Peggy and their dog April. Peggy explained to me that her father Leo built the hotel 17 years ago. She and her father manage day to day operations and her daughter cooks breakfast and dinner. Tara and I enjoyed a glass of wine and later noshed on homemade beef goulash and broiled sea bass.

We called it a night around 8:30 Costa Rica time and crashed out in our private villa. Day one was filled with travel and stress… but all that changed the next morning… : )