Imagine if you will.....

You're photographing a wedding in China
when the earthquake hits!
This is CRAZY!

Meet Seth Godin.

This is a blog that we should subscribe to.
This is Seth Godin. I found him on Twitter and now
I check in everyday...VERY good marketing
advice...neat guy too!

Today I see that he writes about word of mouth.
Why it works and why it doesn't.

Here's what he wrote....

"Why word of mouth doesn't happen

Sometimes, what you do is done as well as it can be done. It's a service that people truly love, or a product they can't live without. You're doing everything right, but it's not remarkable, at least not in the sense of "worth making a remark about."

What's up with that?

Here's a smorgasbørd of reasons:

1. It's embarrassing to talk about. That's why VD screening, no matter how well done, rarely turns into a viral [ahem] success.
2. There's no easy way to bring it up. This is similar to number 1, but involves opportunity. It's easy to bring up, "hey, where'd you get that ring tone?" because the ring tone just interrupted everyone. It's a lot harder to bring up the fact that you just got a massage.
3. It might not feel cutting edge enough for your crowd. So, it's not the thing that's embarrassing, it's the fact they you just found out about it. Don't bring up your brand new Tivo with your friends from MIT. They'll sneer at you.
4. On a related front, it might feel too popular to profitably sneeze about. Sometimes bloggers hesitate to post on a popular source or topic because they worry they'll seem lazy.
5. You might like the exclusivity. If you have no trouble getting into a great restaurant or a wonderful club, perhaps you won't tell the masses because you're selfish...
6. You might want to keep worlds from colliding. Some kids, for example, like the idea of being the only kid from their school at the summer camp they go to. They get to have two personalities, be two people, keep things separate.
7. You might feel manipulated. Plenty of hip kids were happy to talk about Converse, but once big, bad Nike got involved, it felt different. Almost like they were being used.
8. You might worry about your taste. Recommending a wine really strongly takes guts, because maybe, just maybe, your friends will hate the wine and think you tasteless.
9. There are probably ten other big reasons, but they all lead to the same conclusions:

First, understand that people talk about you (or not talk about you) because of how it makes them feel, not how it makes you feel.

Second, if you're going to build a business around word of mouth, better not have these things working against you.

Third, if you do, it may be a smart strategy to work directly to overcome them. That probably means changing the fundamental DNA of your experience and the story you tell to your users. "If you like us, tell your friends," might feel like a fine start, but it's certainly not going to get you there.

What will change the game is actually changing the game. Changing the experience of talking about you so fundamentally that people will choose to do it.

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Posted by Seth Godin on May 16, 2008 | Permalink

NIKON

What's going on with the Ashton Kutcher
commercial for Nikon stating that
"anyone can be a photographer"????
Big news on the PPA site. Photographers
pulling ads from magazines....more to come.

WOW!!! Yea, like it's the camera! HA!

Do you TWITTER?

Recently, I began to "Twitter".
I like it. It fills that gap between
blog entries. Here is a really terrific
video by the BUI brothers on Twitter
that may convince you to start.

It's really perfect for those of you
that always tell me that you don't have
the time to blog....Here's the LINK

Sorry I missed the meeting last night.
I have all future dates on my calendar
now so I won't miss another one.

Enjoy this sunny Wednesday!

Sandy (Sam) Puc'

I got the pleasure of working the NILMDTS
booth at Sam's "Bellies & Babies" tour
last night at the Airport Hilton.

I saved a seat for Jason Thone and Heather
Lombardo in the front row and never did I
look at my watch! You know what I mean...
when's this gonna be over...when's the next
break...I gotta get home....NONE of that.
I loved every minute.

Now this was strickly, Bellies & Babies
as the brochure states....
Sam shared from the business aspect & the
initial phone calls down to her marketing
materials, schedules and of course posing,
lighting and baby wrangling tips! :)

Great time and I even got a couple of shots
during the live shoot...no cameras were
allowed but, what the heck...
I really brought it along to get a shot
with Sam.






This gal gets up at 4:14 every morning,
She shoots 10 sessions a day, employs like
24 people and has 4 children of her own.
She is amazingly talented and shared everything.
Jason took great notes and I'm sure he can
share at our next meeting some of his thoughts
from the evening...Sorry Stacey couldn't make it.