1. Always use some sort of greeting. A simple “Hey (insert recipient name here), How are you doing?” will work wonders in putting someone in your favor. Especially if you’re asking for one.

2. Watch your tone. No one wants to feel like they’re being SHOUTED at via Facebook. Or made to believe that you’re excited about everything you’re saying!!!

3. Capitalize what needs capitalizing. As in proper names, days of the week, holidays, and the first letter of each new sentence.

4. Proofread. Even if it’s a quick glance over a short Tweet or post. Sometimes one misplaced, comma can throw off your whole sentence.

5. Say thank you. Make all your Mom’s effort worthwhile. Always try to end your writing, especially if it’s on Linked In, with at least a “Thanks” or “Talk to you soon.”

Thanks everyone. I hope this was helpful.

Talk to you soon,

Lindsey

The Incredibly Boring Web Content Challenge has been quite the intense process. The Captains have been hard at work reviewing one utterly uninteresting submission after another. The entire team has been working late nights, downing double espressos, and reading and re-reading until most of our employees have developed double vision. To see for yourself just how grueling the submission process can be, check out the latest video from Captains of Industry.

All submissions are due today (March 8)! So get them in to www.captainsofindustry.com/yawn while you still can.

We’ve received some great submissions to date and Intimate Surprises is definitely in the running, but there’s still time for your company to enter before the March 8th deadline. If you haven’t yet entered, submit now. Good luck!

The Most Boring Game Ever

When you’re bored with that, head over to the Incredibly Boring Web Content page and enter your submission!

Boston, MA: February 16, 2010 –Captains of Industry, in partnership with their media sponsor MarketingProfs, today launched the Incredibly Boring Web Content Challenge. The Challenge will offer one company the chance to have a piece of their most boring content Captainized for free, in the form of a web video, podcast, quiz or other engaging web media.

Here’s how it works. Companies can submit their dullest, most incredibly boring product or service to www.captainsofindustry.com/yawn. The Captains will pick the one that really makes them snore and Captainize it for free, making it ideal for effective inbound marketing campaigns.

“Even great products can sound dull if their story isn’t told well on the web,” said Ted Page, Principal and Creative Director of Captains of Industry. “The Incredibly Boring Web Content Challenge is a good way to demonstrate that it is possible to make any subject matter exciting and entertaining, helping clients attract the right customers to their sites.”

To enter, participants can send a link to the content they think could use a makeover to yawn@captainsofindustry.com by March 8th, 2010. It can be anything from a chunk of web content or a downloadable document—but participants must provide an active URL that is no more than 2 pages in length. To be eligible, the submitter must occupy an officer, marketing, or sales position at their company. Only one entry will be chosen for Captainization into an exciting piece of FREE content.

To learn more about the Incredibly Boring Web Content Contest, watch the Announcement Video and view the submission guidelines at http://www.captainsofindustry.com/yawn/.

Stay tuned for more updates about the Incredibly Boring Web Content Challenge at www.captainsofindustry.com.

About Captains of Industry
Captains of Industry is an independent marketing and filmmaking company dedicated to telling their clients’ stories, engaging customers, and getting results. The Captains have expertise in renewable energy and viral marketing and have created memorable work for clients ranging from First Wind, Alteris Renewables, and Deepwater Wind to Dunkin’ Donuts, Bose Professional Systems, and SolidWorks. In a BusinessWeek CEO Guide to Online Video, two of Captains’ campaigns were ranked among the top ten created nationally. Learn more at www.captainsofindustry.com or follow us on twitter @CaptainsBoston.

About MarketingProfs
MarketingProfs is a rich and trusted resource that offers actionable know-how regarding marketing applications of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media tools along with coverage of more traditional marketing topics, such as lead generation and email marketing. The MarketingProfs team is committed to helping you market your products and services smarter. Entrepreneurs, small-business owners and marketers in the world’s largest corporations make up our more than 350,000 members. Our library of more than 3,000 articles, online seminars, conferences, discussion forum, and special reports deliver the tools, templates, and tactics you need to quickly turn even the toughest marketing challenge into your own marketing success story. Follow MarketingProfs on Twitter @MarketingProfs.

###

Picture a gangly teenage boy sitting in the back row of his science class, listening to his teacher, Mr. Powell.  At the time, I was compelled by my mother to wear hand-me-down bellbottom jeans, and they were too short, so I looked vaguely like someone from the Starship Enterprise. I was not particularly good at science, but I revered Mr. Powell and hung on every word he said. He talked about working two jobs. At night he was a meat cutter. By day, he taught at the Diamond Middle School in Lexington. He told us about his life, how exhausted he often was, and how too many people had forgotten the importance of working hard and giving it all they had.
Even with two jobs, he didn’t make much money. He was half-Italian, and spoke with his hands, jumping to new and fascinating topics like a maestro conducting an orchestra. No matter what the subject matter was (i.e. the chemical properties of hydrogen), he always seemed to come back to the underlying currents of his life, his family, the things that drove him to live right, to do the honorable thing, to stand up for his beliefs, to keep working 19 hours a day because it was necessary. And if we just learned that, we’d be ok in life. If we just learned to be good people, everything else would fall into place, just as molecules bonded to form compounds, or living, breathing matter.

I took his lessons to heart and have lived by them ever since.  When we tell stories on the web, or when we do anything in the world of communications, it’s really important to remember that the story we tell matters a great deal. But what also matters is the dignity, honesty, hard work and integrity we bring to that process. These things shine through in every story we tell.

To Mr. Powell, wherever you are today, thank you.

The best advice that this veteran Facebook user can give is:

1. Research the kind of language your viewers use and use it too.
2. Constantly update. Your diehards will love it.
3. Don’t just post pictures of your product; show the team behind your brand. It’ll humanize your company.
4. Fill out your Info in a clever way‹it should be interesting and informative.
5. Have someone who is responsible for your company’s page.

This way, all the previous suggestions can actually happen. Overall, the point is to engage your audience with your brand. By using the appropriate language and constantly updating new and appealing content, your brand will be properly represented and your audience will be able to connect with your brand.

And for goodness sake, poke back. It’s the Facebook equivalent of a high five.

Kirsner suggest that fresh and useful content should be a part of any company’s strategy for getting seen. The Captains agree with this, but we’d go one step further. What’s needed is great stories that captivate the imagination of the people you most want to connect with. In the age of YouTube and Vimeo, when millions of people are snacking on short web videos every day, great storytelling on the web often means video. Any website today can be its own TV channel, with an audience that’s as narrowly focused as it needs to be, with video content that helps attract just the people who matter most to your company. A case in point is the media center for First Wind, a leading wind energy company. Check out this video for a wind farm in Utah that came about through the vision of a local high school teacher and his students.

This video and others by First Wind have been picked up by a range of blogs, essentially extending the audience of First Wind’s web TV channel – for free. The constantly updated web video content on First Wind’s site, combined with other fresh content such as news and interactive maps, has increased their site traffic by 50%. It’s important to note that search engines still have a hard time finding video content, but they do find the titles of the videos and other text that accompanies them. What people are really finding are the stories. That’s what matters.

Our parents taught us to believe in ourselves, that anything is possible, and to never EVER take “no” for an answer. And despite the fact that it ticks off almost every other generation before us, it’s the attitude that’s making moves in today’s market.