Time flies. Yes it does. As the Independence ads started inundating me with red, white, & blue, I knew the firecracker stands couldn’t be far behind.

What hit me next is tomorrow is July 1st,  marking the beginning of 2009: Part 2. To our Canadian friends, July 1st is Canada Day (a national holiday) and start of the NHL draft. But I digress…

As a wedding marketer, the calendar change to July should be a prompter for making an assessment of your first-half-2009 accomplishments and your prospects for the balance of the year.

Don’t let the calendar run your business. Take a day or two (not necessarily on the holiday) to step back make mid-year corrections and adjustments.

If you are proactive, the second half of 2009 should be even more productive and prosperous for you.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing  Authority

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: Andy Ebon, Facebook, independence day, July 4th, LinkedIn, mid-year adjustments, Twitter, wedding marketer, Wedding Marketing Authority

Do you have any Grey Poupon?

As I was reading every possible book and resource on blogging, I came across the great title: No One Cares What You Had For Your Lunch: 100 Ideas for your blog It turned out to be one of the most important marketing lessons, about blogging, micro-blogging (Twitter), social networking (Facebook), and business networking (LinkedIn).

The essence is this: In all forms of advertising, marketing, social media, and networking you are vying for people’s attention within brief and/or limited time constraints. It is important that your words and images be pithy, crisp, motivational, interesting, and memorable. To ramble or post about topics that don’t pass the ‘Who cares?’ test is not just a waste of a reader’s time, it increases the likelihood that they will tune you out in the future.

So what is Ham Sandwich Marketing? It is my buzzword phrase, inspired by the aforementioned book. It is my notation of meaningless posts and status updates that are meaningless to virtually everybody but the person who initiated them.

Example: “Just had lunch at Wolfgang Puck with Susie, Johnny, and Big Al.”

My response (by Direct Tweet or Public Facebook Wall Post): “Did you have a ham sandwich?”

Wolfgang Puck

It’s my not-so-subtle sarcastic way of nudging the poster or blogger with the subtext: “I read your item. Am I supposed to know who Susie, Johnny and Al are? Am I supposed be impressed that you lunched at Wolfgang Puck. Why don’t just tell me you had a ham sandwich. That would be equally unimpressive and unnecessary?”

If you’re lunch was incredible, take a picture of the ham sandwich. post about the incredible Dijon mustard, the soft fresh-baked roll, and what variety of ham was involved. That has the possibility of being entertaining. Otherwise, you’re just engaging in Ham Sandwich Marketing.

In today’s fast and furious world of communications, being boring is a big crime. Being irrelevant is a felony offense.

Don’t waste people’s time. Be interesting or be gone.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: advertising, Andy Ebon, blogging, Facebook, Ham Sandwich marketing, limited attention, LinkedIn, marketing, post, social networking, Twitter, Wedding Marketing Authority

Click to follow me

The fine people at Hubspot specialize in optimization and testing of various kinds. Previously, on the site, I have recommended Website Grader, a free service that analyzes and helps you tweak your website.

More recently, Hubspot has introduced similar services to better understand your Facebook, Blogging and Twitter performance. As part of the Twitter Grader service. Without disclosing the exact scoring algorithms, Hubspot explains that your Twitter Grade is based on Followers, their ReTweets of your Tweets (forwarding to their followers), and various other levels of interaction and relevancy.

When I checked my Twitter Grade, it came up at 96.6, which seemed pretty high (out of 100). As The Wedding Marketing Blog is a niche business blog, comparing it to general consumer sites doesn’t typically play very well, as that is an Apples and Oranges situation.

Within the Twitter Grade service, there is Twitter Elite (Top 50). There are various subsets of Twitter Elite. Just for fun, I thought I’d see how I compared to the TOP 50 Twitterers in Las Vegas, NV. To my surprise and amazement, this site (and I) ranked #46, just a couple of slots below MGM Grand and the Tony – CEO of Zappo’s; just a couple of slots above the world famous Las Vegas Sign.

What does that mean to me?

It means this: In order to have influence, one must have an audience. In terms of my goals, it means have loyal readers on this blog. Twitter and Facebook, in particular, are part of my social media plan to direct focus toward The Wedding Marketing Blog.

None of that works unless the content on this blog is interesting and helpful to its readers. Clearly, the stars have aligned as June 2009 is this blog’s best month ever.

The challenge to you: What is it, you can do, to make your blog and website the thought leader in your industry, in your market?

Think about it, make a plan to leverage awareness of your brand, and go do it!!

Andy Ebon

The Wedding Marketing (and Twitter) Authority

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: Facebook, Hubspot, MGM Grand, search engine optimization, SEO, Twitter, Twitter Elite, website grader, Wedding Marketing Authority, wedding marketing blog, Zappos