Here Are the 12 Best Facebook Marketing Campaigns From the Past Year | Adweek

June 16, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The Ice Bucket Challenge was the past year’s best use of Facebook marketing, according to the social network, which just announced its ad award winners. It’s no surprise the viral campaign got so much praise—Mark Zuckerberg even participated.

Zuckerberg was one of the millions of people to douse themselves in ice water to raise awareness for ALS in what became a powerful moment for online marketing. The best part was that it cost the ALS Association no money to generate all that attention—440 million people saw the videos.

The lesson was not lost on Facebook, which is holding it up as an example of how to use the platform for maximum impact.

This year marked the fourth Facebook Awards, which are timed to coincide with the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity—starting next week—where the ad world assembles to honor its top creative work.

Eight Ways Goofing Off Can Make You More Productive | Forbes

June 15, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

One of my colleagues used to head to the men’s room and brush his teeth every time he felt a surge of writer’s block. He swears it did the trick. Another exits the building and walks around the block to clear his head. I sorely miss the mid-day yoga sessions that Forbes offered in its old offices in Manhattan. After an hour of downward dog, shoulder stand and corpse pose, my body was relaxed, my mind was clear, and I attacked my work with new energy.

A growing body of research suggests that the longer you keep your rear end in your chair and your eyes glued to your screen, the less productive you may be. Getting up from your desk and moving not only heightens your powers of concentration, it enhances your health.

Where Does Your Money Go? |Getentrepreneurial.com

June 12, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

When setting up a payments system for your business, it is important to do your research. Not only is it critical for you to get paid for your products and services, you also need to know how each potential option affects your bottom line. Interchange plus pricing and tiered or flat rate pricing both have their benefits, but it is also smart to understand how each works so you can make the best decision for your operation.

Interchange plus pricing is traditionally reserved for large companies and has the lowest possible costs for accepting cards as a form of payment. Fees applied to transactions are upfront, with rates determined on a per-card basis. Tiered pricing is the most common form of pricing for credit card processing services. This is also known as “bucket pricing,” and prices are usually high enough to cover fees.

Some Thoughts on “Cutting Back” on Frugality | The Simple Dollar

June 10, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

It’s a pretty typical story.

Person reaches a financial breaking point. Person begins to use frugality to cut back strongly on their expenses. Person pays down their debts and begins saving for the future. Person begins to feel a whole lot better about their financial state.

At that point, many people reach a crossroads. They begin to ask whether or not it makes sense to keep being so frugal. Once you have a healthy amount of savings or investments, is there really a reason to continue being so frugal?

Whenever I hear that question, it serves as a recognition to me that there are two ways to look at frugality.

Some people look at frugality as a tool. Frugality is something you choose to do to extract more money by doing things differently than you would normally do them. If you begin to feel like things are in a financially good place, it’s tempting to put that tool down and not “work” as much.

Understand Your Entrepreneurial DNA Before You Start Up | Entrepreneur

June 10, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

As an angel investor, I get requests almost every day to review a new product or website, and provide feedback on its potential success. Yet I can’t remember the last time any entrepreneur asked me to assess personal potential, despite the fact that most investors will admit they invest in the person more than the product. It is people who drive successful businesses.

So it behooves every aspiring entrepreneur to understand their own DNA before picking a project to bet their life on, and to facilitate effective communication with all constituents, including partners, investors, team members and customers. We all have strengths and special interests, and it always pays to capitalize on these, rather than assume all opportunities are the same.

Fact or Fiction? 5 Myths About EMV Clarified | Business News Daily

June 9, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If they haven’t heard already, brick-and-mortar retailers are going to be hearing the term “EMV” a lot more in the coming months. As payment card issuers continue to roll out their newer, more secure cards containing a data-encrypting chip, merchants are feeling the pressure to upgrade their point-of-sale (POS) terminals to make sure they’re up to date with EMV technology.

As with any widespread technological update, many businesses may hear confusing or conflicting information regarding how the changes will affect them. Business News Daily spoke with security and payment industry experts to get to the bottom of five common beliefs (and misbeliefs) about EMV.

Myth 1: EMV will make credit card transactions completely safe and secure.

Verdict: False.

Comma Queen: “Who/Whom” for Dummies | The New Yorker

June 8, 2015June 17, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

“Who” and “whom” are relative pronouns, and the trick for choosing the right one is to switch the clause around so that you can substitute a personal pronoun. Personal pronouns have a property called case. “I,” “he,” “she,” “we,” and “they” are in the nominative case, and function as subjects of a sentence or a clause. “Me,” “him,” “her,” “us,” and “them” are in the objective case, and are used as direct objects, indirect objects, and objects of a preposition. Your ear will tell you which personal pronoun is correct.

Cats Do Control Humans, Study Finds | Live Science

June 8, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

If you’ve ever wondered who’s in control, you or your cat, a new studypoints to the obvious. It’s your cat.

Household cats exercise this control with a certain type of urgent-sounding, high-pitched meow, according to the findings.

This meow is actually a purr mixed with a high-pitched cry. While people usually think of cat purring as a sign of happiness, some cats make this purr-cry sound when they want to be fed. The study showed that humans find these mixed calls annoying and difficult to ignore.

“The embedding of a cry within a call that we normally associate with contentment is quite a subtle means of eliciting a response,” said Karen McComb of the University of Sussex. “Solicitation purring is probably more acceptable to humans than overt meowing, which is likely to get cats ejected from the bedroom.”

EMarketer Report Cites Major Challenges Facing Mobile Video Advertising | Adweek

June 5, 2015 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

There is a consensus in advertising that mobile video is the future, but that future is still hazy.

Mobile video can run in apps like Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube or be bought through ad networks that serve the mobile Web. There are six-second, 15-second and 30-second formats, and there are Gifs. There also are ways to measure by impression or engagement.

It’s this fragmented landscape that is creating uncertainty at an otherwise golden moment for mobile video, according to eMarketer, which released a report today taking a comprehensive look at the forces shaping the sector.

“There’s still some inconsistency with the ad formats for mobile video,” said eMarketer analyst Jeremy Kressmann. “There’s in-stream video working off publishers’ native players; there’s interstitials that pop up; there’s in-app, in-game video; interactive video; in banner and in-feed video.”

“It’s confusing on the ad-buyer side trying to figure out what they’re buying and how to get scale,” he said.