Here comes another bubble

TechCrunch posts this thought provoking piece about the "Here comes another bubble" video by The Richter Scales and the issue of Lane Hartwell trying to be compensated for her image being used in the video. You can watch the new video below that doesn't include her image. The original video was viewed over 1 million times on YouTube but was taken down because of Hartwell's objections.

Good video in my opinion. I liked it when TechCrunch first posted it. The sad thing is that there is more focus on the poor photographer not getting paid for her picture than about the actual video.

It's ashame that people don't get how things work online. If someone used something of mine, whether it be a photo, video, text, or whatever and I found out about it, I wouldn't get upset. I'd be happy someone is promoting my work for me.

The reason this photographer put her pictures up on the net in the first place was to get some publicity. Just not too much I guess. A few people seeing your picture on Flikr=good, 1 million people seeing your picture on YouTube=bad.

If my picture was used, here's what I would do. I would try to borrow the attention that the video has and use it to promote my photography services. I'd be writing blog post after blog post, comment after comment talking about how cool it is that my photographs were used in this video that has been seen over 1 million times. Then I'd link back to my photography website where people could see my other photographs. If I'm any good at taking pictures, maybe I'll get lucky and 3 of the 1 million viewers will pay me to take some pictures for them.

I don't know, maybe it just makes too much sense to work. Traditional industries are too caught up in getting paid the way they're used to getting paid to realize that if they start to do things differently they just might get stinking rich. That's just one opinion, what do you think?

Get this blog in your email!

I finally figured out how to use FeedBurner! What a sweet tool. It allows your readers to subscribe to your blog via email. That way you don't have to check back all the time to see if there's been a new post. The information comes to you!

FeedBurner also allows me to have the share links integrated in the post footer of every post. So it's easier than ever to share my stories on Facebook and Digg, and you can email them to friends and colleagues too.

The only downside to FeedBurner is that it tells you how many subscribers you have, but you have no way of knowing who they are because it is completely anonymous as far as I can tell. That's also a good thing though in encouraging people to subscribe I suppose.

Anyway, I encourage you to subscribe to this blog and I'll do my best not do disappoint you with the content.

P.S. Thanks to Marshall Kikpatrick who provided this blog post about using FeedBurner. It really helped me out.

If Santa was an Internet Marketer He'd Love Rich Schefren

Wow, Rich Schefren has really been flooding our inbox with free stuff! I can't keep up.

In the last little while he has put up his complete marketing and launch model, an interview from Jay Abraham with real people that have used Rich's teaching methods, a swipe file of attention getting phrases, the Attention Age Doctrine 2, an interview with Wine Library TV's Gary Vaynerchuk, and so much more. All the while he's been able to answer the direct questions people have for him on his blog (I'm sure he's got a hard working team helping him out too).

All this is to capture your attention in an attempt to build his reputation with the Internet Marketing community (as if he needed any more) to demonstrate the value in his Business Acceleration Program. Well, congratulations Rich, you've managed to provide obscene value to everyone.

Santa wishes he could be so giving.

Vote for me video - Thanks Katlyn!

My wife Katlyn put together this video to show people how to vote for me. I need your Diggs by the end of the day Friday December 14. Your Diggs could send me to Florida with $1000 cash for an Internet Marketing seminar that would kick-start our business. So watch the video and follow these instructions:

Digg Signup Process
1. Sign up for your free Digg account at: http://digg.com/register/
2. Check for an email from Digg and confirm your account by clicking the link in the email
3. Click “No Thanks. I’ll do this later.”
4. Go to http://www.strategicprofits.com/66-seconds-compelling/sean-stefan and vote for my video by clicking the Digg button next to it.

66 Seconds Video Contest - Vote For Sean Stefan's Video!

The 66 seconds video contest is finally into the voting stages and I need your help! Please visit this link http://www.strategicprofits.com/66-seconds-compelling/sean-stefan/ and vote for my video by Digging and Sphinning it.

The winner gets (among other things) a trip to Florida to attend a huge Internet marketing seminar that I know would help our business grow leaps and bounds.

So if you know me, or if you don't, I'd really appreciate your votes.

http://www.strategicprofits.com/66-seconds-compelling/sean-stefan/

Thank you!

First Page Google Results in Days - Not Months!

The online conversation lately has revolved around Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine 2. As you know if you've been to this blog lately, I've been trying to borrow the attention of Rich's audience to promote our free e-book, Changing the Way You Market Your Small Business.

Well, we've turned up on the first page of Google for the search term "Attention Age Doctrine 2" for one of our videos. I got this Google ranking in a couple of days, not the months that it usually takes to get highly competitive search engine listings. Check out the results in the video below.

What's in a logo?

The Saskatchewan Provincial Government announced yesterday that they will be changing the logo it uses to identify the provincial government. It hasn't been changed since 1977. You can read the whole story at the Leader Post's website.

So why the change? Well, the logo represents a brand and every brand has things associated with it. You see the Nike swoosh and you think "Just do it" or maybe think about children making shoes in sweat shops. You see the Apple logo and you think iPod, Mac, innovation, Steve Jobs, etc.

Those types of associations are exactly why the new Saskatchewan Party provincial government wants to update the provincial government logo. When you see that wheat sheaf, chances are you'll think of the years and years of NDP governments. You'll think of farmers, tough times, stagnant population growth, or whatever else you've come to associate with the logo. The point is that the Saskatchewan Party doesn't want you thinking about the past, they want you thinking about the future. And you can't think about the future if you're constantly being reminded of the past (either consciously or subconsciously).

So good on the Saskatchewan Party for updating the logo. Finally a government that might understand some marketing principles. Even though they set themselves up for criticism by scrutinizing the NDP's Saskatchewan! campaign, this is a positive move nevertheless.

Rich Schefren is watching you watching him

Rich Schefren is eavesdropping on the Internet.

Rich Schefren and his Strategic Profits team have come up with a neat tool for monitoring the online conversation going on about you, your company, your competitors, or anything else for that matter. You can read more about it at the Strategic Profit's Blog.

I'm still sorting it out.

My Dad the Restaurant Marketing Maven

My Dad Randy Stefan and I are in business together. He actually started this business long before I got involved, but brought me on board when I got close to finishing my B.B.A and no one else would hire me. I just get to be the face of our company's online presence most of the time because I've taken it upon myself to become the Internet guy. But that's all about to change.

After reading the Attention Age Doctrine 2 and listening to the interview Rich Schefren did with wine guru Gary Vaynerchuk, both my Dad and I were captivated by the possibilities of becoming mavens. My quest has been to turn our LRS Consulting operation into the place that traditional small business owners turn when they realize that they need to take advantage of the Internet to promote their businesses, products, and services. Randy took the idea and applied it to one of the niche's we operate in - restaurant marketing for high end, special occassion, independently owned restaurants.

Taking the model Gary Vaynerchuk uses to help wine drinkers everywhere, my Dad has started his own video blog for our Restaurant Marketing.ca operation. Our goal with this aspect of our company is to help independent restaurant owners compete with national chain restaurants by communicating directly with their customers, building relationships, and giving people a reason to visit more often. His first video installment is below. I think he's got something good here, and restaurant owners around the world will benefit from the ideas he will share in his video blog.

P.S. The site might not be live yet, but his video blogs will all be hosted at http://www.restaurantmarketingblog.ca/.

David Frey got me hooked on his video newsletter and then fed me some text

David Frey got me hooked on his video newsletter. A lot of these marketing guys have a ton of great information, but it's hard to digest all the reading sometimes. So one of the things I love about David Frey's newsletter is that he switched over to a video newsletter for his Marketing Best Practices website. I can watch it or listen to it in the background while I do other things (multitasking allows me to fit more into my day).

I know I'm just whining but this situation is going to occur more and more. The more people get used to watching video online, the less time they'll want to spend reading text. So was David's text email that bad? Of course not, he puts out great free content. He's just got me conditioned to expect videos from him. Funny, when you become a leader people expect you to keep leading.

David Frey - We want you videos not your text!
Uploaded by lrsconsulting

Why I've been promoting Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine 2

Hopefully this video clears it up for anyone wondering why I've been promoting Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine 2 so much.

P.S. This video comes up on the first page of Google for the search term "Attention Age Doctrine 2" and "Borrowing Attention".

More Attention for Sean Stefan's Doctrine 2 Promo Video

Linked-inEntrepreneurs.com thought enough of my Doctrine 2 promo video that they included it in their list of top 25 Rich Schefren Attention Age Doctrine 2 videos. Thanks for the comment on my video and for including me in the list V. Consider this link back to your post my way of saying thanks.

If you haven't seen my snowman Doctrine 2 promotional video yet, you can watch it below. I'd love to hear your comments, and when it comes time to vote - vote for me!

Attention Age Doctrine 2 Promotion - Technorati Results

Still promoting the Attention Age Doctrine 2. This screen capture video shows some results I've got in the blog search tool Technorati. It's more evidence of the fact that there is so many ways you can gain attention and borrow attention online.

My Attention Age Doctrine 2 Video Results on Tube Mogul

The nice folks at Strategic Profits led me to a relatively new (I think) video uploading tool - Tube Mogul. It's a great tool that allows you to upload your video once to a bunch of different video hosting sites. Not only does it save you time in the uploading process, it provides an analytics dashboard for you to track views of your videos on all the different hosting services.

As you know if you've seen my last few posts, I'm plugging Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine 2 through his 66 seconds video contest. I'm monitoring the progress as kind of a case study of how the whole Web 2.0 platform can capture attention. Rich's Doctrine 2 has really made me think about how all the tools on the Internet can be used together to create powerful promotions.

The video below demonstrates the results I've got for my Doctrine 2 promo video, simply by borrowing the attention Rich has right now in the online conversation. Check out the views (151 in 2 days).

I challenge you to think of ways you can use video and Web 2.0 applications to borrow attention or create it for yourself.

Rich Schefren's Doctrine 2 Google Search Results

I've been promoting Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine 2 through his 66 Seconds Video Contest "Become an Internet Video Maven". I uploaded my video for the contest on Saturday, December 8th just after lunch sometime. I recorded the video below at about 11 am on Monday. It shows how fast video gets indexed in the search engines.

If these simple results don't get you the least be interested in finding out what video can do for your business, I don't know what will. My videos and blog even out rank Joel Comm's website for the term "Rich Schefren's Doctrine 2" (no quotes necessary).

All this promotion I'm doing is to share the free report Rich is offering, The Attention Age Doctrine 2, with as many people as possible. If you are at all interested in marketing, the Doctrine 2 is a must read. The document and a phone call recording Rich did with Gary Vaynerchuk motivated me to change the way we approach using the Internet to promote our business and our client's businesses, so I feel obligated to promote his free report so others can be motivated just like me.

I'm also trying to put Rich's techniques into practice by borrowing attention from people that have it - and Rich certainly has it. Watch the screen capture video below to see my Google results, or watch it at YouTube.

Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine 2 Video Promotion

Rich Schefren's Attention Age Doctrine 2 is a free report out just a few weeks ago and is receiving huge attention in the online marketing community. Rich Schefren is the guy internet marketers turn to when they need advice. He has built his business Strategic Profits into a multi million dollar company in a few short years by distributing great free online content.

To promote The Attention Age Doctrine 2, Rich and his team have put together a video contest asking his subscribers to create a 66 second video talking about the things they took away from reading Doctrine 2, and what they are going to do with the information. The video is also intended to get others to download The Attention Age Doctrine 2.

I thought this was a great idea on a number of different levels. First, Strategic Profits really gets how valuable viral video can be for publicity and to gain links to their website. Second, I thought it was a great idea to put to use what Rich was talking about in the Doctrine 2 - borrowing attention from people that have it. So that's exactly what I'm doing.

I created a video to enter the contest. Of course I'll try to get tons of votes to win this thing because it's -30 degrees celcius here today and one of the prizes is the chance to attend an amazing marketing seminar in Florida. But I'm also using the attention this video will generate to promote my own free products at our website www.lrsconsulting.ca. I have a ton of ideas that I think are great, but unless others get to hear them those ideas are useless.

So I'm doing what Rich said, find out who has the attention and leverage it to help your own ventures. Well, right now Rich Schefren has everyone's attention online so I'm going to borrow some. I'll have more to say in the coming days about this whole experience. It's been a lot of fun.

The video I submitted appears below. Please visit it at YouTube and leave your comments, or simply comment on this blog post.