by Scott Howard | Jul 15, 2015 | Marketing and Advertising Insights, ScLoHo's Web World, The Not-So-Secret Writings of ScLoHo
See this picture?
My daughter shared it on her Facebook page Monday night. Actually she shared a post from the Facebook page of the Roanoke Village Inn that included this picture. She and her family lived a few blocks from there before they moved west.
I saw the picture and shared it on Twitter Tuesday morning:
Tuesday evening, I was notified that it was picked up in a story on Mashable.com which you can read here and scroll down a bit.
While this picture went slightly viral, it was a bit of luck and not planning. The Village Inn probably had no idea that the picture went beyond their 742 followers.
There is a marketing lesson for those of you who are trying to “go viral” and hit it big. It’s not likely to happen. Or if it does, it is fate or luck and do you want to bet your business success on that?
For help with a real marketing plan, reach out to me.
And the Village Inn is scheduled to reopen today after spending Tuesday cleaning up, which is good.
by Scott Howard | Apr 9, 2015 | Really? The Personal ScLoHo
For #ThrowBackThursday, a reposting of an article I wrote 3 years ago:
It seemed so simple to me.
ScLoHo.
Google it and 99.99% of the time you’ll find some reference to me.
That was the purpose of creating the word scloho.
But yesterday I was reminded that even some very good friends of mine don’t know how to pronounce it.
SCLOHO is a weird word I admit, and it has a unique origin which I’ll share in a moment.
But how do you pronounce scloho, or SCLOHO, or Scloho or ScLoHo?
When you want to say it, just break it into 2 syllables: Sclo and Ho
Start with the Sc sound like the beginning of Scott and add the Low sound, and you have the first syllable: Sclo.
The 2nd syllable is real easy Ho. As in Ho, Ho, Ho, the sound of Santa laughing.
Sclo-Ho Go ahead and say it out loud a couple of times.
And I’ll answer the other questions you have.
If it’s only 2 syllables, then why do you capitalize the L and H?
Why did you chose those letters and put them in that order?
Here’s the background and history:
My given name is Scott Howard.
If you Google Scott Howard, there are plenty of other Scott Howards around ranging from doctors, to attorneys, to criminals.
There used to be a Scott Howard restaurant in California that was at the top of the Google Search Results, but they closed.
The dot com version of Scott Howard belongs to a real estate agent, also in California.
And there is a fictional Scott Howard, the main character from the movie Teen Wolf staring Michael J. Fox.
Back in the 1990’s when I was setting up my first email account I decided to create a unique name instead of something like ScottHoward24 or whatever Yahoo was suggesting.
If you take my first and last names and add my middle name and you get Scott Louis Howard.
Get creative and shorten it by only using the first two letters: Scott Louis Howard.
Throw away those extra letters and you wind up with: ScLoHo.
ScLoHo developed into an online persona.
A personal brand.
When I joined Twitter it was short enough to leave me with 134 more characters to play with when I tweet.
A few years ago when I decided to start my own marketing consulting firm, ScLoHo Marketing Solutions was born.
And I protected myself by registering ScLoHo on a few hundred social media sites and bought a few domains with ScLoHo too.
My wife and kids now call me ScLoHo, and you can too if you want.
Or I answer to Scott too.
by Scott Howard | Jan 5, 2015 | Marketing and Advertising Insights
Welcome to the first full week of 2015!
While you were away focused on Christmas, New Years, and what ever other end of the year stuff was going on in your life, there have been a few changes in your online privacy that might have slipped by.
The big one that has some folks worried is regarding Facebook.
Still using Facebook? Then you have agreed to their new Terms Of Service that they rolled out on New Years Day.
I was reading this article last month that describes some of the changes.
Most folks will ignore the changes and just keep doing what ever they were doing before.
Others will become paranoid and go the other direction and cancel their Facebook account.
I urge you to do neither one of those two options.
First off, Facebook is one of the most popular online social media platforms that allows you to connect with friends, family and others in a way that was not possible 15 years ago (Pre-FB).
Second, act as a responsible adult online and offline. Don’t live a hidden life or do stuff that would make your grandma disown you.
Third, Facebook is only one of the online services that is tracking you. Google is another big one.
Android phone users need to have a Google Account. Even if you use some other search engine like Bing or Yahoo!, or some other email address other than a Gmail account, if you have an android phone, you are connected to Google.
What does Google know about you? Plenty. Check out a few things in this article.
Face it. You and I have no online privacy if someone really wants to know about us.
But before you go completely offline and try and hide, there are a few good things about all this data collection and Facebook in their new T.O.S. spell it out pretty clearly.
Most online services are free or have free versions. It still costs money to run these free services and the money comes from advertisers. Just like broadcast radio and television is paid for by advertising.
As a 55 year old guy, I don’t care about some of the ads I see on TV about baby diapers or toilet paper. I could care less about many of the ads I see on TV. The internet and all of this data that is being collected is changing the ads I see online. It is changing the ads you see online too.
Imagine a world where the only marketing messages you are exposed to are about things you care about. That is what Google, Facebook and all the others are trying to create.
The bad side of a lack of online privacy is not coming from these folks. It’s the data breaches that occur at a greater and greater pace then ever before due to a combination on better hacking tools and outdated security used by those we trust such as our banks and credit card companies.
But that’s another story.
By the way, one of the fastest growing areas of marketing that businesses large and small are planning on expanding again this year is the digital world. If you own a business, or are in charge of the advertising and marketing, I can help. A few years ago the parent company of the radio stations I work for, (WOWO Radio in Fort Wayne and Federated Media in Indiana), began expanding our services and marketing expertise and formed a division known as Federated Digital Solutions. We brought in some of the best and brightest and have partnered with some of the worlds best vendors of digital marketing solutions and are continuing to stay ahead of the curve in this digital world.
Contact me to discuss how I can help.
by Scott Howard | Mar 22, 2012 | ScLoHo's Web World
Every once in awhile i hear someone make a comment about meeting someone in “Real Life” that they’ve already connected to on Social Media.
I understand.
I used to use that term too.
But it’s not accurate and I want to challenge you to change your words.
Tonight I will be having drinks and dinner with friends in Indianapolis that I met from my social media connections.
The man behind this monthly “Friend-Up” is Randy Clark who I met in “Real Life” in 2010 on Twitter.
Yet it wasn’t until January 2011 that I met Randy “Face to Face”.
Same goes with Ricky Potts. Ricky and I communicated back and forth on Twitter and FourSquare for months before we met “Face to Face” last year.
Randy, Ricky, and hundreds of others I have communicated and conversed with in “Real Life” before ever being in the same room and talking “Face to Face”.
This “non-Face to Face” communication is possible due to the interactivity of social media platforms allow us to get to know someone before that “Face to Face” meeting occurs.
And there are several “Face to Face” meetings that I doubt I’ll ever have with people that I communicate with in “Real Life” due to distance. Which is fine.
Just be careful that you don’t discount the “non-Face to Face” relationships as not being real.
On the other hand, it’s great to have those “Face to Face” meetings too. Earlier this month Ashley Motia organized a Fort Wayne SpringUp TweetUp with dozens of folks in attendance. Next week the Social Media Breakfast Fort Wayne is scheduled for Tuesday morning.
Perhaps I’ll see you there.
We’ll call it “Face to Face”, okay?
by Scott Howard | Mar 16, 2012 | ScLoHo's Web World
How about an infograph to tell us about the state of Twitter in 2012?
Here you go:
Twitter 2012: The Freshest Statistics on the King of Microblogging Services by Infographiclabs
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