Lessons learned from spam emails: Writing concisely and clearly

I received a spam email at my school account the other day. You know, one of those emails asking you to help relocate money from some foreign bank account to various charity organizations. Needless to say, I didn't bother replying. But these emails do make me laugh. They're so terribly written, you'd have to be an airhead not to recognize them as spam.

Their mistakes are mistakes marketers, or any writer, should be careful to avoid. While the poor grammar and sentence structure may be obvious in a spam message, the mistakes in your own writing are much more difficult to notice.

Good writing is concise and clear. It does not contain random changes in case or structure, and it does not contain excessive wording. While your writing will probably never be bad enough to give a reader a headache the way a spam message does, it can still lose a reader's attention.

• Stay active ("She sells sea shells by the sea shore" is much better than "The sea shells were sold by her at the sea shore.")
• Cut excess words.
• Make sure your writing is clear of any jargon.
• Make sure you keep indicators like "that" or "then" when you're writing to a broad audience.
• Stick to basic punctuation, but realize it may change for different countries.

For more specifics on writing concisely, I recommend reading The Yahoo Style Guide, which you can purchase on Amazon or read on Yahoo's website.

What are some tips you have for making your writing effective?

The importance of mobile marketing

If you ever doubt the effectiveness of reaching your customers by mobile phone methods, check out Facebook's success. Facebook is very good at following trends to make itself grow. One of those trends it has recently expanded upon is the use of mobile apps. According to blogger Liz Gannes:

Facebook says it has more than 200 million active mobile users, who are twice as active on Facebook as non-mobile users.

Click on over to Liz Gannes' blog to read more about Facebook's most recent mobile methods.

Live streaming of concert with Matthew Morrison of Glee

Talk about a great way to get viewers to like your Facebook page. Oscar Mayer is hosting a live Matthew Morrison concert in less than 30 minutes. The event has its own tab on Oscar Mayer's Facebook page, and if you're at the page, you might as well "like" the Facebook page. I mean, who doesn't enjoy breaking outinto song: "Oh I wish I was an Oscar Mayer Wiener!"

I don't think Morrison (Will Schuester onGlee)will be singing that song in his concert, but it's still a clever concept. The tab even includes a live chat below the video streamer for viewers to discuss the concert. As of now, there are 340 viewers and counting.

This is great publicity for three businesses:

1. The Grove - a shopping center in LA where the concert is located. From what I've read, the center has had some financial troubles and hasn't thrived as much as it could. Concerts like this help keep it alive and well.
2. Oscar Mayer - the concert stream brings traffic to Oscar Mayer's Facebook page and gets its admin guest appearances.
3. Matthew Morrison - free publicity for his upcoming album - positive public relations based on charity donation mentioned at the concert.

Live streaming is growing in popularity. YouTube has the concept down with its live concerts (YouTube Live).

Where else have you seen live streaming? How can you use it for your benefit?

*Update (12:40 p.m.): The channel has gone offline. Looks like it was caused by technical difficulties (which also caused it to start 10 minutes into the concert). Fans are not pleased, as evidenced by their comments. Not good public relations for Oscar Mayer.

*Update (12:20 p.m.): 20 minutes in there are over 1,600 viewers at the free concert happening at The Grove in Los Angeles.

Newspapers are not dying: Washington Post finds new way to gain revenue

The Washington Post has opened its own Facebook marketing management service called SocialCode. The service offers to manage fan pages, Facebook ads, and more.

A few things to think about:

• Newspapers are not dying. News is changing mediums, but there will always be a need for reliable information, and papers like the Post are finding new ways to make money. So, while you may not want to focus all your efforts on pitching press releases to newspapers, don't write them off entirely. You can pitch to a particular writer, just like you would pitch to a specific blogger.
• There are more and more of these companies showing up. If you don't have the resources to manage your own Facebook strategies, perhaps you should consider using one.
• If enough businesses are offering these management services, there's obviously something worth using on Facebook. Why don't you give it a try?

Do you use Facebook to market your business or product? How do you take advantage of management services or of Facebook in general?

Read more about the new service on Inside Facebook.

Why Facebook's growth models the need for interactive marketing

Considering recent statistics that show Facebook continues to grow, I have to wonder, "Why? How do they do it? And how can I apply Facebook's success to my own marketing and public relations strategies?"

After all, no one ever says "MySpace me." MySpace has gained popularity with bands and other groups, but the major social network remains Facebook. Perhaps this is because Facebook never stays the same. While many have complained about the many changes in layout, the new layouts give users something new to get excited about. I only recently saw the movie The Social Network. In the movie, Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) mentions that his site will always be changing.

Change. The world is constantly changing, and we need to change with it, especially in our marketing and public relations strategies. But one more important lesson for marketers comes out of Facebook: the importance of interaction.

In the movie, The Social Network, Zuckerberg also says Facebook provides people with the opportunity to connect online, to learn about each other through status and relationship updates.

Such interaction has its downsides. An old professor of mine recently stopped using Facebook because he believed it negatively affected relationships by keeping people from interacting in person. His choice should come as a warning to marketers. Without genuine interaction, Facebook negatively impacts some of its users. It's up to you, as the representative of your company, to show that your company does genuinely care. The accusation that Facebook facilities fake relationships and keeps people away from real, personal relationships should make us work even harder to prevent that very thing from happening.

How do you increase interactions with customers and keep those interactions genuine?