My friend and IZEA Insider Heather from Beautiful BC was the first person to post a picture with my head. That’s quite fitting as she is the leader of SocialSpark crew called the TedHeads. It appears that I went to Yoga in Canada today! Awesome… I haven’t been for about 6 months and need to get back in the habit.
Join in the fun! Print out your own Ted Head and send me around the world.
A few weeks ago I was packing for my trip to SXSW. As I gathered my clothes Tara asked me if I was going to bring my “social media costume”. I laughed…she had totally
caught on to me. Over the past few months I have been making a point of wearing the exact same outfit to any event where I would be seeing a lot of social media types.
My hat, Twitter shirt and crazy red running shoes have all become part of my personal brand. I wear this outfit to events because it enables people to easily recognize and remember me. It also creates a consist image when people take photos of me and post them on the interwebs.
I have a red and blue version of the “costume”, allowing me to switch things up if the event is multiple days. The red version is my primary pick because it matches the colors of this blog.
If you want to build a personal brand you need to constantly reinforce it, whatever it is. Are you the guy who always dresses in black? Hawaiian shirts? Has crazy hair? Wears sunglasses inside? Define your visual image and make a conscious effort to embrace it, particularly at social events.
This morning I was thinking of building a photo gallery that included pictures of me with all the readers of this blog. I have had the pleasure of meeting quite a few of you, I thought it would be cool to share those images with my community. I started to build the gallery, but then it occurred to me that it wouldn’t really be an accurate representation of everyone who visits. It seemed a little unfair to the rest of my readers; some of you just don’t have the time, money or interest in attending the events I go to but still contribute here.
Then I had an aha moment. What if you could download me wherever you are? We could take a picture together anywhere in the world! Awesome.
Click on the image for a printable size
Download the image above, print it out and cut my face out. Take it with you somewhere fun and snap a picture…. be sure to stick your tongue out! Let me know about the picture by leaving a comment or writing a blog post that links back here (you’ll get a trackback). Be sure to let me know who you are, 
where you took the picture and where you would like me to link back to. I love to go to parties, weddings, bar mitzvahs and fancy restaurants. I will also accept photos from companies, it could be a cheap way to earn yourself some traffic.
I am going to take all the photos and make a permanent photo gallery just for them in a new section of this blog. I can’t wait to see where I wind up. I have always wanted to go to Asia!
I am very excited to be spending my Easter vacation in Costa Rica this year. Randy has been raving about Costa Rica ever since I met him. He loves it so much he plans to build his dream home there on day. Tara and I will be leaving on Thursday and returning on Monday. I am bringing all of my gear and will do a full video of my experience when I return. I will be off the grid for a bit, I hope I don’t go into some type of Twitter withdrawal.
by thombo2
Top 10 things I want to do while I am in Costa Rica:
I know that is a lot for 5 days, but I am going to do my best to pack it all in there.
The past two days haven’t been so good for me on the customer service front. Yesterday my flight to New York was canceled after waiting in the airport for 3 hours. Today I am really frustrated after trying to reserve a rental car for my vacation this week.
While I am a member of the Hertz #1 club I rarely rent cars through them. I decided to give Hertz a try because Randy recommended that I book my car through an american rental company for my trip to Costa Rica. While I normally use Orbitz for all my travel I decided it might be easier to book on Hertz.com since this was an international reservation. I went online with my Hertz ID, selected my destination and vehicle, and landed on this page.
Apparently “online booking” isn’t really online. I have to call a phone number to complete my reservation. I dialed the number and was greeted by an automated system.
System : Are you a Hertz #1 Club Member?
Me : Yes
System : What is your number?
Me : 527XXXXX
System : What is your last name?
Me : Murphy
System : I’m sorry, I can’t find that. Your member number is “2”. Is that correct?
Me : No
System : I’ll transfer you to an agent.
Me : It wasn’t like this on the Jetsons.
Five minutes goes by, then I get someone on the phone. She asks me for the exact same information I just entered in the Hertz.com site. She then proceeds to tell me that my rental will be over $400. I explain that there must be a mistake. Perhaps she has selected a nicer vehicle for me. She begins to read me a list of American vehicles to choose from and I reply that none of those vehicles were presented to me when I made the online booking. I want to roll in a Hyundai Tuscon (or similiar) for $58.00/day.
We go back and forth for 10 minutes or so. I ask her if I can send a screen shot and she tells me that she can’t recieve it. She asks me if I have a discount code. I tell her I have an AMEX platinum card. She tell me the AMEX card will save me 12%.
After a little more time she finally tells me the best she can do is around $360. I tell her that isn’t going to work. She informs me that she has to transfer me to the web operations people.
I now go through the process of sharing my destination and dates a 3rd time. The web operations person tells me she need to walk through the website with me. At this point I decide to bring up Orbitz and see what they have to offer. To my surprise the prices are even cheaper than what I was originally offered on Hertz.com with my #1 Club discount.
Finally The Web Ops person tells me the price I have is wrong and it will be around $320.00. I laugh. Hard.
Web Ops : Why are you laughing?
Me : Because I tried to book this online for one price and now I call and you give me a completely different price. It is a joke. It is bait and switch.
Web Ops : This is the price.
Me : I am on Orbitz right now and the prices are cheaper than your original quote with my #1 discount. What is the point?
Web Ops : (hung up on me)!?!?
I should have just stayed with Orbitz to begin with. I spent 30 minutes of my day with Hertz and all I got was this stupid blog post.
Our society has become saturated with traditional display advertising. Consumers have learned to tune out, or even pay to omit ads altogether.
The most glaring example of this can be seen in television. If you have seen an episode of NBC’s “The Office” lately, you might have noticed product placement for Sandals Resorts, Apple, Gateway, Chili’s, Cisco and many others. In the episode “The Merger,” the character Kevin uses a Staples-branded shredding machine to shred a Staples branded CD-R and other non-paper 
items.
Product placement and sponsorship are appearing more than ever in radio, television and motion pictures. Each day the products and entertainment we love are becoming more entangled in each other’s success. Naturally, the same advertising shift is taking place online.
Advertisers have long understood the benefit of sponsored content — soap operas got their epithet because they were sponsored by soap manufacturers such as Procter and Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers. But content creators and networks moved away from this form of advertising because it limited inventory.
A show sponsorship can only be sold once, but distinctly separating content with commercials allows the ad inventory to be sold hundreds of times to different advertisers. Essentially, the networks got rid of custom sponsorship then created standard ad units and sold them all to the highest bidder. Initially, it worked. But the number of television and radio stations multiplied, niche content networks were created, and soon advertisers had thousands of options to promote themselves. Every network was selling the exact same thing, creating a commodity out of television and radio ad inventory.
Pretty good teaser huh? Read my whole article at Website Magazine.
I have been invited to be a guest on The Daily Buzz morning show next week to talk about blogging, making money online and personal branding. Missy Ward will be joining me on the show and it should be a hoot. They broadcast live on 148 stations nationwide as well as UStream.
Live nationwide television. Hope I don’t barf.
Today IZEA launched its new website and I am really excited. Why? Because the redesign was way overdue. The old site was built in a few days and had no content management system… not to mention that it wasn’t the prettiest thing IZEA has ever put out. I am also excited because I designed the site myself. It was the second WordPress site that I personally created all design elements for and I am very happy with the outcome (ted.me was the 1st). Adam did a kick ass job coding it and the team helped me fill in the content holes. What do you think?
Be sure to stop by the Ted Murphy page and leave me some love.
