Marketing Melodie

The short time I’ve spent in the year 2009 has been quite the adventure. 2009 has been consumed mostly by personal challenges best kept out of a marketing blog but I made the decision to start the year off by taking a break from investing all my energy into my career as an active way to improve my concentration, refocus my energy and create clarity on what my goals really are.

My biggest roadblock was being ok with taking a “break”. Ever since I entered the job force I’ve been going nonstop with a tight schedule full of deadlines, meetings, events and office work. I wasn’t used to an unstructured schedule and felt I wasn’t make progress in any direction. I continuously reminded myself that what I’m doing is a means to progress and new opportunity.

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The Online Marketing Summit @OMSummit took place at the San Diego Westin on February 4th-7th, 2009. According to feedback, the event was a sweeping success. Capturing reactions was immediate, authentic and personal with the latest mircoblogging technology, Twitter! This was my first experience at a major conference with Twitter as a dominate engagement tool used by speakers, attendees and organizers. Twitter strengthened the connections among everyone at the event and painted a picture to the public of all the amazing content that was being revealed.

Twitter users tagged their posts with the hashtag #OMS09 as an easy way for everyone to follow along.

Steve Woods @SteveWoods , CTO of Eloqua and Technology Strategist took the lead with the first interactive twitter presentation in OMS history. He encouraged everyone to tweet their questions and even hosted a contest where best question would receive his book. When I asked Steve about his experience using twitter he shared that “It was interesting to combine [my] presentation and Twitter – gave some interesting insights into background conversations”.

Twitter was a useful tool in may aspects. Here’s a glimpse of the conversations that were happening:

1. Announcements




Twitter Annoucements from OMS

2. Networking




OMS Networking Tweet

3. Broadcasting Live so those who couldn’t make it were still able to follow along




OMS Liveblog Tweet





OMS Follower

4. Communication




Twitter Communication at OMS

Tim Mclain @tmclain, an enthused OMS Twitterer couldn’t have said it better. In 140 characters he let the world know he was at OMS, recognized a speaker, gave props to another attendee and give his insight on the future of OMS.

Tweet from Steve Woods Presentation

My overall impression of this year’s Online Marketing Summit is very positive. I connected with industry leaders, learned new information to enhance my own marketing strategies and experienced firsthand an on-site event enhanced with online technology.

As a marketer I’m always thinking of ways people can enhance their image to be more impressionable and memorable. This is especially true in cyberspace where images definitely trump text. Your avatar is your face in cyberspace and a unique reflection of your online persona. It’s a way for people remember you in an infinite galaxy.

I’ve been known to express my views on avatar choices so I decided to share a few tips on how to maximize the power of your avatar:

Personality: Your avatar is your first impression to many in the online world. Add a little personality to it! If you’re fun and outgoing lets have fun looking at your avatar. If you’re athletic or active, inspire us to work out. If you’re intellectual, how about an insightful image? If you’re a hard worker and proud of your career, let us know!

Consistent: Being consistent helps people recognize you across various social networks, blogs and forums. This builds brand recognition for your online persona. Your avatar will immediately evoke an impression and provide a better understanding of your online purpose and goals. If you use a completely different avatar for every single profile then it becomes difficult for people to piece together your thoughts from different areas of the web. This makes it difficult to build a strong reputation and following.

Memorable: A memorable avatar can be created in many different ways. Use bright and bold colors, a distinct smile or even a strategically incorporated item or logo. Memorable avatars stand out. They’re usually not composed of dull colors and if they are then the image is bold. A great way people remember my avatar is the flower I wear in my avatar that shows up on many of my social networking profiles. If you have a memorable avatar people will see your image and immediately know it’s you without thinking twice.

Recognizable: My test of a recognizable avatar is meeting someone in person. If I meet you for the first time offline and I immediately feel like I already know you from our online interactions then you’ve done a great job at creating a recognizable avatar. I’ve been to many networking events where someone will come up to me and start talking to me as though they know me but I have to ask to make sure if we’re met before because I don’t recognize the person from their avatar. Of course after a few words are exchanged my memory is triggered but the initial recognition was not there. Examples of avatars that aren’t recognizable include a blurry image, a photo where something is covering your face, a photo that’s too light or too dark or even a corporate logo.

I personally always recommend avatars that are a photo of your true self. Unless I already know you, an avatar that’s a logo or image other than your face does not feel as personal. I don’t feel as connected or engaged when interacting with you.

We all remember the night before senior picture day in school. Trying on countless outfits, making sure the colors were right, making sure our outfit doesn’t clash with the background and doing our hair up to perfection. This photo goes into our senior yearbook, something our classmates will hold on to for years. This photo gets sent to our friends and family with graduations invitations. This photo is the reputation we’ve built throughout our primary years of school and this photo is a glimpse into the next chapter of our lives. If you apply these same principals of importance to your avatar choice you’ll enhance your opportunities for building a strong internet presence.

Here are some San Diego Avatars that incorporate many elements of my recommendations. They all definitely have personality and are recognizable. I wanted to include some female avatars but for some reason only guys responded when I asked permission to use avatars!