“How do I improve my open rates?” It’s the question that every marketer has asked at some point. You’ve spent hours crafting the perfect e-mail, testing every link, playing with different subject lines and delivery times. Yet no matter what you do, a significant portion will never even open the e-mail that you’ve put…
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The theme of yesterday’s WWDC could have been summarized by Apple giving Google the middle finger. Apparently Jobs is still pulling strings even in the afterlife. But that’s neither here nor there. We want to know, how do yesterday’s announcements effect you, the small business owner? Well, depending on the business, it could potentially play a huge…
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With the recent success of one of my Internet pranks (basically telling the world that Abraham Lincoln Invented Facebook), Tech Cocktail asked if I would share with you some of the elements necessary to create viral content. So here’s what I know, in order of importance. 1. There is never a guarantee. You need to…
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On February 15, 2011, a Red Cross employee – obviously having a lot of fun – accidentally broadcasted this tweet from @RedCross rather than her personal account. (See the full story on CNN.) But what VP Community Dave Olson was most alarmed about was the little HootSuite marker: the rogue tweet had been sent using…
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Startups use free advertising channels like social media to get the word out about their company, and their employees tend to be active and avid Twitter users. So do the standard intellectual property rules apply to Twitter? After all, how much trouble can you get into with 140 characters? Answer: A lot. You can even…
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A new Small Business Mobile Survey from Web.com found that 69% of small businesses say mobile marketing will be crucial to their growth in the next five years, while 64% plan to increase their investment in mobile marketing this year. Another survey by the Pew Internet Research found that 74% of smartphone owners use their…
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Regardless of how you feel about their politics, Invisible Children made Joseph Kony famous. Their heart-string tugging, albeit controversial, YouTube video has garnered more than 88 million views. Their goal was to build awareness. They succeeded. What was the secret behind their success? To pinpoint one element would be over-simplifying a brilliant marketing scheme. To achieve…
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“In every generation in every decade in every turn of the world people are looking for magic. In the contemporary sense, magic is you do something to get a million hits on your website, 10,000 incoming phone calls, or 100,000 emails. I hate to break it to new entrepreneurs: There is no magic.” This is…
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If you rely solely on social media for marketing, you’re missing out on lots of fine-grained data, opportunities to follow up, and true engagement. That’s part of the message in a new book by Jed Alpert, expert mobile communications strategist and CEO of Mobile Commons, whose clients include the Obama campaign, Nike, and AT&T. Alpert’s…
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The Internet has opened up new avenues of fundraising for charities, and you’ll see one in action on June 14: Twive and Receive, a competition by Razoo. Twive and Receive is a friendly battle where nonprofits try to raise the most money in a 24-hour period (Pacific time). The top nonprofits/cities will win $15,000 (first…
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When we first covered Feastie last September, we had decided that 2011 was the year of the recipe site. Despite the very crowded market they are operating in, Feastie, a DC-based recipe search site that generates shopping lists based on what you want to cook, has continued to grow, evolve, and stay competitive. Part of…
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Many of us spent last night with our eyes glued to the TV and our fingers glued to our keyboards during the Oscars. Meanwhile, social analytics platform AddThis was humming away monitoring our social media activity. Below are some insights (as interpreted by me) from their data. Everyone loves Pinterest. AddThis saw Oscar-related sharing on…
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On Monday night, Rosetta Stone hosted an event at Barcode as part of Social Media Week in Washington, D.C. The title - “Interactive Culture: Food, Drinks, and Social Collaboration with Rosetta Stone” – caught my attention. In the description of the event they were boasting ”a night of international culture and interactive collaboration,” and they completely lived up to their promise. Shavanna…
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Last week, I accomplished a lifelong goal when I published my first book (an Appalachian Trail Book). But allow me to back this story up a bit. March 2011 I was self employed as an Internet marketer, making good money, residing in the vacation destination that is San Diego, CA, and working part-time for the…
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If you’re single, today sucks. There is no escaping all the ooey-gooey-makes-you-just-want-to-barf ads and promotions for Valentine’s Day. As our lives become increasingly busy, it seems that the easiest way to meet people is online, a fact that many entrepreneurs have also noticed. So much so, that online dating sites are almost a dime a…
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If you are just starting a business or creating a new product line or service offering, I bet you’re struggling to come up with a name for it. That’s not surprising—good branding is hard work. It takes dedicated time, thoughtfulness, and research. Here are three sure-fire ways from an intellectual property perspective that can really…
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Tech Cocktail is headed back to DC. Why? Because we're a fan of good... Read More
Locating quality startups in San Francisco is like spotting bees in a hive.... Read More
Today, we’re excited to announce that Tech Cocktail has taken a $2.5M... Read More
Two months after the iPad 2 debuted in March, around 40% of users surveyed said... Read More
This post is part of Tech Cocktail’s “Healthy Entrepreneur” series,... Read More
