Friday, May 31, 2013

Sideshow Boxers c.1900



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Stuck inside? Bwahahahaha!



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Placement



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Mona Latte



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Draw me like one of your French girls



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Thursday, May 30, 2013

1955 Ford Thunderbird. Underrated.



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It Takes a Village to Raise a Social Media Presence

It Takes a Village


This is the first (and most likely last) time that I will use a Hillary Clinton book title as the concept for a blog post. I didn’t read the book, but the concept is definitely applicable in social media.


I was speaking to a potential client yesterday who was telling me some of their challenges with social media. The main challenge they were having was in coming up with interesting content to post that was associated with business. As a car dealer, they had plenty of pictures of cars to post, but they weren’t very active in the local community and the person in charge of social media didn’t consider herself to be creative.


“Does anyone at the dealership do anything interesting?” It was a simple question that sparked a 2 minute conversation that turned into an hour-long brainstorming session. At the end, we came to the conclusion that she worked at the most interesting dealership in the world and didn’t know it.


The parts manage was in a country band that played at the local steak house saloon on Saturday nights. They had a customer that came in 5-days a week to get what he considered to be the best coffee in town with their fancy cappuccino machine in the service waiting area. A sales person was a little league baseball coach that recruited the top talent in town to take to tournaments across the country.


Last night, she did some further research and found even more interesting things. The land on which the dealership was built turned out to have a rich and somewhat controversial history. One of the secretaries had a son who was likely going to he starting for the state university basketball team the following year. Another sales person had a photography business on the side where people posed in or around classic cars.


Everyone gets into a rut. We try our best to be creative and to come up with interesting things to post to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Google+, but sometimes it seems that you’re posting the same things over and over again. Finding images is easy. Unfortunately, social media needs to be richer, more robust. It’s not just about pieces of content. It’s about stories that affect the local area and the people that make up your business, customer base, and community.


You don’t have to live on social media island. There are people around you who can inspire you, spark an idea, or become the subject of content that can all be tied back to the business itself. The difference between being isolated on social media and having a flood of potential content is often about getting up from your desk and talking to people. In essence, the key to successful social media is often as simple as being social in the real world and applying it to your business presence.









via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/it-takes-a-village-to-raise-a-social-media-presence/

Monday, May 27, 2013

Launched a New Automotive Social Media Blog

KPA Local Engage Header


OK, so technically it’s not new. Technically, it was launched back in 2011 and fell off of my radar due to challenges I was having with bandwidth. Technically, it’s a “revival” rather than a launch, but I can assure you it’s one heck of a revival.


The goal of launching an automotive social media blog is to have venue through which to post my business-related items. Soshable has always been a general social media blog, one that can apply to a wide audience and the majority of industries. With the launch of KPA Local Engage, I’m finding that I’m posting a lot more things related to my professional industry – automotive – rather than general topics that a real estate agent, restaurant owner, or social media guru in training can find useful.


That doesn’t mean I’ll stop talking business here and it doesn’t mean that the other site will not have things of general interest. I’m going to separate the two disciplines but there are times when niche posts can apply to everyone just as there are times when general posts can apply to a niche.


Check it out, subscribe to Automotive Social Media by Email, and, as always, contact me if you have some awesome unique content you’d like to contribute to either. We’re always looking for fresh insights.







via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/launched-a-new-automotive-social-media-blog/

Today I learned that Justin Timberlake was a dapper gentleman from the 1870s



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Sunday, May 26, 2013

Now, you have my permission to golf



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I’d Rather Not Know My Audience, Thank You Very Much

Audience


When it comes to social media advice, the majority of the common catch phrases are there for a reason. Tips like “be engaging” and “communicate, don’t broadcast” are sound pieces of advice despite the annoying frequency that they’re used by gurus. There’s one common tip that is more than just annoying. In many ways, it’s actually wrong.


“Know your audience” is a mantra, a driving force behind many blog posts and help videos. For those building blogs or social networks for the sake of having a nice hobby or making money through traffic-based advertising, it’s good advice. For businesses using a blog and social networks to increase sales of their products or services, it’s the type of advice that can send people in the wrong direction. Unless you’re making money directly from your blog, you shouldn’t attempt to know your audience.


Instead, you need to know your customers and potential customers. The current audience is irrelevant.


Catering content to fit in with the current audience will appease them. It will make them more likely to share your content. It will get more interactions and engagement. These are all good things. However, catering content to fit in with them does not help grow your business. Sure, some of the people in your audience might be current or future customers, but unless they’re the majority, the opinions of your audience don’t really matter.


This all stems from a conversation I had yesterday with a client. She has an automotive blog that has accumulated a nice following because of the content that she was posting. It was fun content that included memes of people parking like idiots, stunts, and beautiful pictures of hot rods. The audience loved it. The problem is that the audience wasn’t buying cars from her. They were spread across the world. There was nothing local and only an occasional post about the brand itself.


If you’re blogging for SEO reasons only, then this isn’t a bad idea. The problem is that having one domain linking to your single website isn’t going to give you much SEO juice. The effort is wasted. Your company blog should not be used for SEO reasons to drive links to your website because if you only have one website and one blog linking to it constantly, the effects are minimal.


Your blog should be geared towards building amazing content that your customers and potential customers can enjoy. It should be relevant to them and them alone. It’s nice to reach thousands of people with your general interest blog posts, but it doesn’t drive business. You should be focusing on getting content up that 100 local potential customers will find interesting rather than 10,000 people spread across the world. That general content might draw more overall traffic, but it’s not driving business-relevant traffic. More importantly, it’s not making an impact on the locals that actually are visiting your blog, at least not as much as if you were posting content that they could associate with because of the local nature of it.


Having a large audience is a blessing, but having a good localized audience can help your brand and increase business. That should be your focus.









via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/id-rather-not-know-my-audience-thank-you-very-much/

Marissa Mayer. Vice Presidential Candidate. 2016.

Marissa Mayer Vice President


It’s never too early to speculate.


When Marissa Mayer joined a small startup called Google in 1999, nobody knew who Marissa Mayer was. She made a name for herself by leading the most financially successful component of the company, online advertising, into the realm of juggernaut status before shifting to the emerging arenas of local and mobile. Then, she was tapped as CEO of Yahoo.


Today, she’s leading her company in the type of bold direction that few would have thought possible just a couple of years ago. They’re making billion-dollar deals. They’re involved in more deals now to get more deeply embedded in the communication industry with rumors of Hulu and telecom purchases. She’s demonstrated a willingness to make controversial decisions and she doesn’t shy away from the press.


Could Marissa Mayer be the next democratic vice presidential candidate? She has demonstrated a willingness to put her money where her political beliefs reside, having been a donor to President Obama’s campaign and holding a fundraiser in her own house. She spoke for and danced in videos for San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee. She has never voiced a desire to get into politics directly, but that’s not what CEOs do until it’s time.


If Hillary Clinton gets a big lead, it would be extremely unlikely that Mayer would be her running mate. The country is ready for a female president or vice president, but not both at the same time. If a serious challenger steps into the ring with Clinton, it’s very possible that they would consider a female running mate. Mayer has the clout, the brains, and the panache to be that person, particularly if the presidential candidate is older.


The ploy didn’t work for John McCain in 2008, but that had less to do with Sarah Palin as it had to do with McCain’s lack of strong conservative backing and an unpopular republican president before him. Despite missteps, Palin helped keep the ticket afloat for as long as possible.


Don’t be shocked if, in the next year and half, you see Mayer more outspoken about political issues. If she has any desire at all to get into politics, she’ll make it known through subtle involvement and activism. She’ll appear at more events that aren’t associated with her company. She’ll throw support towards high-profile democratic candidates. She’ll get on camera with President Obama and other politicians.


There’s no reason to believe that she’s in the mix today. Still, it’s never too early to speculate.


Here are the videos showing her support for Ed Lee:











via Conservative Haven http://conservativehaven.com/marissa-mayer-vice-presidential-candidate-2016/

Friday, May 24, 2013

The Truth About the National Debt Ceiling

National Debt Clock


Ah, the good ol’ days. Remember when the national debt was a mere 413 trillion? Good times.


It is, of course, much higher than that now and the debt ceiling continues to go up. Here’s a great video and infographic explaining the debt ceiling and how it’s affecting the country courtesy of Bankrupting America.


National Debt Infographic







via Conservative Haven http://conservativehaven.com/the-truth-about-the-national-debt-ceiling/

Now considered in some neighborhoods to be too unsafe for kids



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Ruffled Feathers: Why Controversy Works on Blog Posts

Argument


If someone asked me for a single piece of advice about blogging, it wouldn’t be a standard answer like “post regularly” or “know your audience”. It wouldn’t be to “find a niche” or “add keywords to your title”. These are all good pieces of advice and are almost always in the mix in “X Top Tips for Blogging” posts that pop up every couple of weeks across the internet.


My one piece of advice: write something that will get responses. Be controversial. Make content that some people will love and some people will hate. Be willing to ruffle some feathers, to piss some people off, and to make others cheer loudly.


It’s not done enough by the majority of bloggers. We try to be too mainstream sometimes. We attempt to be universally liked for our writing. This is simply the wrong approach, at least for those who want to find big time success. If you’re looking to keep a small audience happy, keep your posts safe. If you want to get your blog posts seen by the masses, you have to be willing to make people upset.


That’s not to say that getting people upset is the goal. The goal is to make people love what you’re saying, but to do that it’s almost impossible to avoid making other people hate what you’re saying. It’s the nature of the medium. If you’re not getting people fired up and complaining about how wrong you are, you’re also not getting many people saying how right you are.


The last post I put up was mildly controversial. It wasn’t so far off that a lot of people complained, but some did. Some objected. Some emailed me and told me that they thought I was wrong.


Others loved it. They agreed. The commented. They shared it. The story was discussed and the traffic that came to it was strong.


People will like your posts if they’re universally acceptable. Few will dislike them. However, if your posts are not universally acceptable, people won’t just like it. They’ll love it. Others won’t just dislike it. They’ll hate it. That’s the nature of the beast. You have to be willing to polarize the audience, to take criticism and adoration as they come.


There’s a caveat – don’t try to make people upset. Speak your mind. Make your case. Accept the critics. Don’t push it too far. Whenever I see a blog that posts non-stop controversial topics, it reminds me of balloon boy. There was a dysfunctional team of parents that got addicted to the spotlight so they took it even further.


Blogging can be beneficial to your business, fun to do, and has the potential to have a positive impact on the blogger’s life. To reach the top echelon, you can’t be mild. You can’t shy away from criticism. You can’t try to make everyone happy. Being liked is the safe approach. Being loved takes ruffling a few feathers.







via Soshable | Social Media Blog http://soshable.com/ruffled-feathers-why-controversy-works-on-blog-posts/

Romans 8:7-8 – “Those who are in the flesh…”

Romans 8:7-8


Romans 8:7-8



For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.



It doesn’t get any more straightforward than that, but there are those who are trying to promote the concept that our works are able to help us find salvation, that we can be pleasing in God’s eyes by “doing good” as Pope Francis has stated. This couldn’t be further from the truth. What we do as humans that isn’t specifically repentant belief in Christ cannot bring us salvation. You can give all of your money to charity, travel the world giving people food, and run into a burning building to save children hiding in a closet, but if you don’t also believe with all of your hear that Christ is your Lord who died on the cross for your sins, you’re soul is still lost.






via Judeo Christian http://judeochristianchurch.com/romans-87-8-those-who-are-in-the-flesh/

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Brandon's OCD conundrum.



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Challenger.



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It's true, mothers. Fathering is different when they don't know you're watching.



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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

How real Americans truck



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I wish I could make you see in this picture how clean the air feels, tastes, and smells after a rain storm in central Wisconsin. Tangible difference to LA. Breathgiving.



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Cat beard



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Well played



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Peter Dinklage and his dog



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The most important thing to bring on a long flight when babies are aboard.



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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Teddy Roosevelt, 19, in his first year at Harvard. Looks like a badass already.



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