Digital Marketing and Web Strategy by Bob Hazlett | One Half Amazing!

Feeling frustrated cause you got up an hour early this morning only to find out that CBS Sunday Morning had some lame feature on Loretta Lynn? Well, unleash some of that bent up anger by going to Impact: Earth.  The site allows you to create your own asteroid, fill in its dimensions, impact, angle and a bunch of other stuff that I learned and subsequently forgot from my Junior year of high school.  It will then hurl a potato-like figure at our planet giving you the output of its destruction.  Do you feel better now? I know I do.

Howdy, it’s Bob.  Remember me? I used to be pretty active on this blog, but then lots of things in life started making things crazy.  I’m not complaining, because I’m happy to announce that I’m getting married this August and I’ve also taken a new job.  The job part is what brings me to the topic of this post – getting your foot in the door at companies which may otherwise not give you the time of day.

Working and doing a lot of online marketing, you find some loopholes, but there are also some drawbacks.  The bad thing is that its hard to actually openly search for a job while you have an active blog and social profile.  The things you rely on heavily to communicate with and get the word out, can’t be used as they should when lots of ‘different’ people could potentially be reading it.  You almost have to do it ninja style, sending cryptic DM’s and communicating under the dark of night.

Thinking to myself, I wondered how could I show off my skills to those few ‘dream job’ type of companies. I didn’t really expect I’d get the job or even take it if I did, but it was more an experiment on my own to see if it would work.  So here’s how I got interviews with 2 of the most influential web companies in the country.*

You’ll kick yourself for not thinking of this yourself and come to find out, I’m not even one of the first.  But all I did was buy a couple of Facebook ads and directly target folks that worked at those few companies I was interested in. In the ad, I mentioned who I was, my specialties and if they could introduce me to a hiring manager.  The ad featured my picture which led the user to my resume** located on my site. Boom, I had 2 calls within 4 days for a grand total of $12 spent and less than a hours worth of time.

If you’re new to buying Facebook ads, check out my 101 presentation from Social Camp

That’s it. I wish there was some magic formula to it.  Have you seen creative resumes or ways that people are getting interviews? If so, share them in the comments below.  I promise I’ll work on posting more often too.
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*I’ll keep their names a secret, but the first interview came from a company whose name combines a utility that a man shaves his face with and an aquatic animal and the second interview came from a company which combines a word that defines a market consisting of a street lined with shops common in the Middle East with the the distinctive quality or pitch/condition of a person’s speech.

**Much love for all the time and hard work that Jay put in on my comic.  He took my vision and blew the doors off of it.  With his help and a little time with Comic Life, my resume really stood out in a crowd.

My first priority with One Half Amazing! has always been the users.  I want to make sure that you have the best experience possible.    Without you, I am nothing.  You inspire me, motivate me and push me to get better. For that, I’m forever grateful.  With that, I’m excited to announce some great new features.  If you’re a regular reader or follow me on twitter, you may have noticed that I’ve leaked these additions out over the past few weeks, but I thought it would be best to summarize them in one single post.

1. Thanks to the wonderful folks at MotherApp, One Half Amazing! is now available as a free iPhone app.  Download it here or click on the “Available in the AppStore” button in the right hand navigation.  MotherApp offers a end-to-end solution for bloggers and designers to create mobile applications without the need of learning the SDK.  They offer 2 different platforms.  For $99/year you can have an app without ads, but if you’re cool with ads in your app, they offer a free version and will split an ad revenue with you.  Hau at MotherApp has been one of the easiest folks to work with.  Hats off to them, they do great work and I highly recommend their services. Download the One Half Amazing! app.
MotherApp is working diligently on getting my app available for Android and Palm platforms as well, so please hold tight if you’re using either.

2. I’m very honored to be featured as a top marketing blog on AllTop.  Alltop’s goal and purpose is to collect the latest stories from the best blogs that cover each certain topic.

3. Kindle owners rejoice! You can now read the the best digital marketing and online marketing content from One Half Amazing! on your Kindle.

These are the biggest additions to my blog in the 2+ years I’ve been running it.  I hope you enjoy them and find value in them.  I’d love your feedback in the comments below .

@lalunablanca entertained this idea a couple weeks ago via twitter.  Here’s how it goes.  I want your feedback. Simply tell me what you like about this blog and what sucks. Tell me the type of posts that benefit you most and those that you just gloss over.

Post your feedback in the comments below or drop me a message here.  That’s it.  Thank you very much.

Louis Gray wrote a wonderful piece on what he believes are the keys to satisfying consumer expectations in today’s real-time world.  Gray believes consumers and technology are becoming more acute, hence they are demanding greater advancements in communication and openness with the companies they do business with.  In his post, he details 10 key tenants for dealing with today’s real-time consumer including, my favorites, #2 – We Expect the Product to Work on Any Platform In Any Location and #10 – We Want You To Trust Us As Informed Consumers and Partners. It’s worth the read, check Louis Gray’s rules for today’s consumers.

The world of communication and product delivery is changing as the Web evolves and new services are introduced, enabling us to gain faster access to information, download richer media more quickly, and rapidly voice our opinions and feedback near and far in a wide variety of methods, including text, voice, video and imagery. As customers become more savvy and in tune with these new tools, we are also expecting those offering products and services to adapt, and as such, I thought it made sense to put forth what I believe are key tenets of a new consumer manifesto for today’s real-time world.

Who do you feel are the best companies that are really in-tune with real-time consumer expectations? The worst? What will it take for more companies to tune in and take action?

Memphis Pillow Fight Bobby Digital Style from Bob Hazlett on Vimeo.

On March 21, 2009 a fun, old-fashioned pillow fight broke out in Overton Park. Bobby Digital was there to catch all of the action. Enjoy!