Frustrated with Twitter? Join the ever-growing club. You’re pumping out great content day in and day out, and it’s just not getting noticed. What’s the deal? Well, instead of keeping your head down and plowing forward, stop and look around you. What do you see? First:

1. You’re too worried about clicks. Twitter is a place people go to ingest 140 characters of information quickly. Many users flat-out ignore links included in tweets. Why? Battery life, for one thing. Clicking a link in the Twitter app of a smartphone loads the landing page on your suddenly-operational web browser, further taxing that poor piece of mobile technology.

   And don’t even get me started on attention spans. In the time it took me to write this sentence, I checked my fantasy baseball lineup for today, sent an email, and tried to get “Call Me Maybe” out of my head. That song is infuriating. The point is, 140 characters is more than enough to read for quite a few people in the Twitterverse.

   So what to do? Focus on making those 140 characters the best they can be. Maybe a link is unnecessary from time to time. Be funny. Be honest. Be helpful. And to do that, you’ll have to realize something:

2. You’re not having conversations. How often do you reply to people? Chances are it’s not enough. How about retweets? Again, probably not enough. This is an easy pattern to fall into. As the task list piles up, neglecting Twitter is a natural response. And when you do remember the account, it’s all too simple to rush a tweet just to get something out there. Next time you’re about to fall into that pattern, take 5 minutes to get a conversation going. Just 5 minutes. Listeners are hugely valuable on Twitter. There aren’t many out there.

   Let’s use healthcare as an example. Is one of the people you’re following complaining about a headache this morning? Give him this article. Did you just laugh out loud at a tweet? RT that noise. Did you just read a fascinating sentence and share it with a friend? Again, RT. Show some love. The Golden Rule applies in the Twitterverse, too. Once you loosen up a bit, you may find your account is heading in a great direction. But in order to loosen up, we should probably tell you:

3. You’re taking your account too seriously. Tweets scheduled months in advance. Great tweets ignored because they didn’t come from your brand. No conversation with the commoners.

   If you’re not going to change these bad habits, you’re wasting your time with Twitter. It’s an organic, up-to-the-minute summation of our world, and there’s a place for anyone and any brand that’s willing to converse, help, and show a sense of humor. If you’re not up for that, your time and money are better spent elsewhere.

Currently there are over 600,000 apps in the iTunes App Store. There are also over 450,000 apps in Google Play (previously known as the Android Market). Needless to say, your app can get lost very easily. This is why mobile marketing is so important if you want your app to be downloaded.

In our newest case study, we take a look at the number of downloads for a client who opted into mobile marketing and another who did not use mobile marketing. For the full case study and results head over to dcinteractivegroup.com.

This is a brand new, unique social media site. CLUBbuzz is Facebook for the Party World, a place free of haters who keep you from being you! Freely post what matters to you and share it with the people who find it interesting. The site offers the option to join as a member, club owner or vendor. As a member, you have exclusive access to the club world including events, groups and music. Owners and vendors can easily spread the word about upcoming events, post to the interactive job classified section and view a directory of clubs with location information.

Joining the club is currently invite only, but we’re ready to give you a shot! Just fill out your request for an invite. And don’t miss out on your chance to bring the club to you—download the free iPhone app or the Android app. Enjoy the club!

The humor is dead-on for the intended audience, Offerman makes the perfect spokesman, and while exaggerated, I’m sure many men out there can relate to these situations. I can’t speak for the product itself but I’m sure they perform admirably amongst men’s body washes; meaning they make you smell less like a gym bag and more like a decent human being. As for their revitalizing properties, I’m a little skeptical.

Here is a link to the playlist with the five minute-long spots for each type of girlfriend (there’s a few other spots mixed in): sporty girl, flirty girl, high maintenance girl, party girl, and brainy girl. Embedded below is the minute-long spot for “Sporty Girl” which has one of the best lines of all the commercials.

“Nothing says I love you like breaking the bridge of another man’s nose. Now hit the showers…and claim your trophy”.

To be clear, the fact that O.B. Tampons has a “green” angle in their advertising is great.  It’s unique.  It’s beneficial to not only the buyer, but to all of us.  Even a guy like me can appreciate that.  But I think they’ve gone a little overboard here in an effort to go viral.  They forgot that just because you can do or say something, doesn’t mean you should.  And if you’re not sure or if you have any doubt, do it in a small way first to see the reaction.  Well, O.B. either was sure and had no doubt, or they are closing their eyes and hoping for the best as  they’ve gone all out — long form video, Facebook page, links to petitions, etc.  We’ll probably see some print ads too.

This video starts out nicely, with a beautiful ocean shot that has us all going “ahhh”.  Right when you start to feel like it’s heading toward a standard “save the world” pitch, it switches gears — completely.  While I wouldn’t say I was uncomfortable watching this spot, I would say that I was close enough to uncomfortable to be distracted from the point.  The main selling proposition was a minor player, an after thought.  And that’s a shame, because a message like that deserves to be front and center.

Take a look and let us know how you see this.  At this posting, there were only 258 views.  You can also see what they’re doing on Facebook with this at this link.

My only question: Is it possible for the music playing during the video to play each time a drink is made? If so, sign me up.

QR codes facilitate a direct link between traditional and online media, and when QR codes are strategically targeted within a marketing plan, the cross in marketing mediums can result in successful goal conversions.

Something to consider: If consumers take the time to scan a QR code and land on a page that does not pertain to them, they leave and become a lost opportunity! One landing page can’t cater to an entire potential market, and having a dozen QR codes on one ad doesn’t appeal to any market. QR codes with a single landing page are great when they are placed in front of targeted, captive audiences, but what if there is a broad potential market?

A company called Kimtag might be able to help. The London-based company is a mobile compatible connection hub that allows users to create custom index pages containing all of their online media outlets.

Once consumers scan the single QR code, they land on the Kimtag index for that business and can choose how they would like to interact. Those invested in Twitter can navigate to the Twitter page, people who want more information can head to the company’s FAQ page, and so on. Consumers can even tap on the companies contact information to initiate Google maps, call, or e-mail them.

Any other information or landing page can be easily programmed into the Kimtag index. Plus, and this part is important, so I’ll boldface it: Kimtags are free to create and fully customizable. Play around with it and don’t worry about being charged.

The key concept is allowing a broad market to be reached through one QR code or link, and letting each individual choose how they would like to interact with the brand. One QR code, unlimited connection capabilities.

The lesson? Have fun with your product, and if there’s room to ease up and maybe not take it so seriously, then by all means do it.

Well, you could cross the line.

A co-worker sent me the following video. The video is of President Barack Obama addressing the nation regarding an apocalypse. Only he wasn’t actually addressing that. Some cutting and transitioning makes it sound like Armageddon is fast approaching. Lucky for you, Vivos, a company that has built underground shelters, will allow you to board for just under $10,000!

The dramatization of the Presidential address was a little too dramatic. While I’m not angry at their attempt for a viral video, I do think it’s a little tacky to fear people into buying your product. Not to mention they posted this video about 2 months after the movie 2012 came out.

I’m not the only one who thought this video was a bad idea. 86% of people who rated the video gave it a thumbs down. The creators of the video disabled the comments section. The only reason people usually do this is because they are receiving a lot of negative feedback. Moral of the story: If you’re trying to make a video that can go viral, think it through.

Okay, let’s air the dirty laundry right away. We all browse sites we shouldn’t when we’re putting off work. StayFocusd, an extension for the Google Chrome browser, aims to keep us on task.

“StayFocusd is a productivity extension for Google Chrome that helps you stay focused on work by restricting the amount of time you can spend on time-wasting websites. Once your allotted time has been used up, the sites you have blocked will be inaccessible for the rest of the day.

It is highly configurable, allowing you to block or allow entire sites, specific subdomains, specific paths, specific pages, even specific in-page content (videos, games, images, forms, etc).”

It’s the extension you’ll love to hate. I’ve installed it and am looking forward to being more productive than ever. Also, I’m not looking forward to browsing less on sports sites (ESPN, Deadspin), gaming sites (IGN), and many more. But in case my boss is reading, not THAT many.

What sites are your go-tos? Are you man or woman enough to download StayFocusd? If so, click here.