Tag Archives: Advertising

Drupal: Integrating Your Site With Facebook

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After avoiding it for years, I’ve finally added some Facebook integration with the website. I don’t know why I avoided Facebook this long. I’m not sure if thought Facebook was just a ‘fad’ or I just didn’t think it would help in any way or maybe I thought that the integration would be too difficult. So far it turns out I was wrong on just about all counts.

It’s fairly easy to integrate things like Facebook “Like” buttons, “Facepiles”, etc. There are several Drupal Modules for Facebook to choose from. Which one you decide on depends on what you want to do, and compatibility with your existing modules – I started with the Facebook Social plugins integration module which is pretty simple to setup and gives you instructions for creating your Facebook App ID, etc. I had Facebook Social plugins up and running in just a few minutes – so much for being difficult.

It’s hardly been 48 hours since I built a “Facebook Page” for the website, and we’ve already gotten a few “likes”. Also, by adding the Facebook “Like” button to all of our pages I am now able to see how many times those pages had been ‘shared’ or “liked” over the years. I was shocked to see many pages that had been shared or liked hundreds of times! Facebook also has a great little analytics package called “Insights“, that once setup provides a webmaster with some startling demographics information about the people visiting your page.

 

Perhaps the most surprising of all are the results of the Facebook advertising campaign I setup. I was able to buy a CPM ad for only a few cents per 1,000 views. Even more surprising is that according to Adsense & Google Analytics, the CTR and earnings for visitors coming from Facebook is incredibility high! Man.. I was really wrong about that one..

As far as Facebook being a ‘fad’.. This is the one I was most wrong about. Over 600million Facebook members and still growing proves me more wrong every day!

If you haven’t setup a Facebook presence or at least tried/testing running a Facebook ad campaign I recommend you give it a try. You can see/follow/”Like” our new Facebook page (above) or my “public” Facebook profile (using my middle name instead of last name) here:

My Personal Page |

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Get On The First Human Billboard In Australia

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Steven Gaunt of Perth Australia has set his sights on becoming the very first human-billboard in Australia.  Steven and his boyhood dream of being a human billboard has already been featured in a West Australian newspaper (with circulation/readership of 500,000) and the newspaper plans to publish photos of the big event when it happens.  Whatever website or business is the first to get tattooed on Steven’s dot-com-virgin skin is sure to get a lot of exposure.

If you are interested in getting your website or company permanently (that means forever, Steven!) tattooed all over Steven, you can contact him directly to discuss pricing and body-part availability.

Steven’s email address is:  gauntsteven -at – yahoo.com

Tell him Rand sent you.

Our Human Billboard Gets More Press

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You may remember a while back we had our second human-billboard tattoo for GrownUpGeek.com created on the back of our good friend Billy Gibby.  Not long after that AOLNews posted a story about our Tattoo advertisement which brought in a short-lived gush of traffic which was fun and all, but today minyanville.com has made a post which explains that not only is our friend once named Billy Gibby still looking for corporate sponsored tattoos, he has also changed his name to Hostgator Dotcom!

From minyanville.com:

For a nominal fee, he [Billy Gibby] will permanently plaster a company’s logo on his skin. Gibby’s website featured the going rates for tattoo placement. (A six-inch by one-inch forehead logo goes for a mere $20,000.) Among the companies he currently advertises: Golden Palace, Liberty Tax Service, and Grown Up Geek.
Though the sponsorship seems extremely crass, he uses the money to fund his boxing career and the rather noble effort of promoting organ donation.
But tattoos apparently weren’t paying the bills — or enough of them, at least — because Gibby is no longer Gibby anymore. His new name is Hostgator Dotcom.

..Traffic is already picking up.  Thanks Billy.. i mean, Hostgator Dotcom!

AOLNews.com Picks Up Our Tattoo Advertisement

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AOLNews.com posted an article featuring Billy The Billboard who you may remember is sporting a large GrownUpGeek.com Tattoo across his lower-back.

The article, posted 2 days ago generated a  huge surge in traffic which lasted about a day and has finally made the investment worth it.  They even posted the video of Billy getting the GrownUpGeek.com tattoo.

It’s an interesting story.  You can read it here.

More Human Body Advertising

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Billy The Billboard is on his way to the Guinness Book of World Records for having the most website tattoos on his body – so being the kind and understanding person that I am, I decided to do my part and help him out.

These are a few pics from the first session of his newest tattoo.  The tattoo will be completed soon, and more pics and video will follow.

Do your part!  DIGG Billy The Billboard on Digg.com

Jack KNOWS How To Use The Internet !

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The Hospital Is Accepting Ketchup Donations

This is a bit off-topic for my blog, but I think anyone trying to do any sort of Internet Marketing can probably learn something from it.

As you may have already seen, Jack In The Box (a quick-service food company based in Southern California) is running a combo TV/Radio/Internet/Real-World advertising campaign that looks to be the smartest and best-executed I have ever seen.  How many attempts at Internet/viral marketing from “big companies” have you ever seen that were not totally lame?  Jack In The Box has really broken the mold and done it right.


The Idea:

  • In a tragic accident, “Jack” the founder/CEO of Jack In The box, who has been appearing in all of the Jack In The Box commercials for the last few years is hit by a bus while crossing the street.  A tragedy like this is “breaking news” and should be covered “live” via the Internet.  The country has not been traumatized like this since that President Jim Kennedy guy was shot from that bell-tower back in the roaring 50′s and people are “hungry” for information.



The Execution:

  • TV/Radio Campaign kicked off during the SuperBowl (See it on YouTube)
  • Ongoing TV/Radio ads directing people to the website/blog with updates on how Jack is doing
  • Real world updates: Hand-typed notices taped up at Jack In The Box stores letting people know Jack’s status

Sounds like your run of the mill, moderately well-done advertising campaign – UNTIL you look at the blog they have created to give updates on Jack’s condition, www.hangintherejack.com.  This is where Jack In The Box has really used the power of the internet, and pulled everything together correctly, like I’ve never seen any other ‘big company’ do before.  Take a close look at what they are doing at HangInThereJack.com:

  • A simple WordPress-looking blog – not some multimillion-dollar, flash-laden website created by a team of high-priced web-designers and Six Sigma stat-heads.  And this is not because they could not afford it – remember, they kicked this whole thing off during the Superbowl
  • “Live” get-well wishes via a shout-box
  • Upload your own get-well video via YouTube
  • Sign up for eMail and Mobile updates on Jack’s condition (wonder what they’ll do with all those email addresses?)
  • “Real” YouTube videos of the “Doctors”, “Nurses” and first responders that are treating Jack
  • Flickr Photos of the accident scene
  • Updates via Twitter
  • Jack’s Facebook Page for friends and well-wishers
  • Links to Stumble, DIGG, Reddit, etc
  • Address to send snail-mail get-well cards
  • Only ONE advertisement/Link to try to sell any hamburgers
  • No Myspace page (They are smart enough to realize that Myspace is dead!)

Again, maybe it’s just me, but it seems like the boys at Jack In The Box really pulled this off the right way.  It may not go “viral” the way they are hoping (or, maybe it will – It got me to blog about it!) but this is the first time I have seen such ‘real’ use of the internet for an advertising campaign.

If you have ever seen a better-executed internet advertising campaign, please post a comment about it.  And, oh, please post your get well wishes for Jack too!