Marketing Monday profiles a cool person, website, or business doing more online. Got an idea? Contact me so I can write about it. 

People always ask me: How do you get by without cable? I say that my Google Reader keeps me in touch with what's going on in the blogosphere/pop culture and I listen to NPR for my news. Both of these are true, that's part of the reason I can go without a cable bill. I do, however, get my television zoning out pleasure courtesy of Hulu.

There is two main ways for media companies to make money online: 1) charge users a fee to access the site or 2) get advertisers to foot the bill and offer the users free access. Hulu has opted for the latter, and may or may not be making enough money to support themselves. Regardless of whether Hulu is turning a profit at the moment though, they are doing interesting things online. 

Hulu is having customers chose their viewing experience... and getting customer data in the process.
Several times recently, I was given options for commercials. Did I want to watch a 1 minute 30 second long commercial about Nuvaring before the show began or did I want several shorter commercial breaks? Did I want to watch the stylish, tech, or speed-oriented commercial for Google Chrome? (Part of me also wonders also if there is some ad targeting going on based on my age, sex, and other demographics.)

Remember last week when I had the brilliant idea of offering a workshop with my friend Matt? Well turns out planning events takes, um, planning. 

This week, I learned there's always a little more to something than we expect there to be. Here's what happened so far this week:

The workshop had multiple details to iron out.
First of all, Matt and I realized that neither of us have a projector. With this realization came more questions: Which projector do we buy? Are there any on CraigsList? What about people we know who might have one? Which one of us should buy it? You can see what I mean. 

Then there was the whole "How are we going to accept payments?" issue. Which one of us is talking about what? What if people don't have laptops? What's the internet connection like at our venue? Oh, and what are we going to call this workshop anyway?

Every Monday, I feature some cool marketing, be it something that a person, business, or organization is doing. Please tip me off if you have an idea of what the BE Blog could feature!

Except for listening to the rap/hip hop on occasion (usually while driving or on a treadmill), I hadn't thought much about Lil Wayne until last week. The rapper was busted for having a concealed weapon, and while they had initially talked about him possibly going to jail for multiple years, it looks like he's going there for a least one. 

But this guy is no slacker. Here's what Lil Wayne is doing right, post having done something wrong:

He recorded nine music videos in two days. According to a commenter on the NPR story, Elvis did the same thing before going into the Army.

He has twenty songs pre-recorded and ready to go. Yup, that's an album's worth. Sure, if some get leaked, he might have to think of more (the hype alone might be worth leaking a few on purpose) but all this groundwork is part of the plan. According to NPR:

"He has a label, Young Money Entertainment, that's going to keep him front and center while he's in jail. They are moving from their headquarters in New Orleans to New York, to be close to him while he's at Rikers Island...His label has made every effort to make it seem like he isn't gone while he's actually gone. When he gets out, he may be bigger than he was when he left." 

Do you even have an idea, and wonder "Why haven't I thought of this before?" 

Sometimes inspiration strikes when you least expect it, and then actually works out. Here's what happened the last two weeks at BEC:

I had an idea for a workshop.
One of the littler known things about me is that I have a teaching certification, and I really do miss helping people learn things.

It was while I was sitting in a talk about websites that I had an idea about how I could combine teaching with what I'm doing now. What if I gave a class to help people set up a blog?

Partnering with my much more tech-oriented friend Matt, he could give the technology portion of the talk (how to install Wordpress on your domain name, basic setup, etc.) and I could do the content part (what to put on the blog/website, how to promote it once it's set up). We would help registrants of the class buy their domain names and hosting the week before so that the day the class met, we could actually set up the website/blog. Charging $50/person would allow us to pay for our time and the room and give those just starting out a chance to have a website on their own domain in just a few short hours of work. 

Matt is down for it and we have a venue...More on the progress of all this next week. In the meantime, let me know if you have any interest in attending. 

I gave a presentation to the Ellsworth Chamber of Commerce.
It turns out that double the amount of people registered for my talk about social media. I was a bit worried about getting through my material and also being able to answer questions so I tightened up my presentation. The other good thing was some of the people who attended gave me an idea of what they'd like to ask me, and the Chamber director was kind enough to send me a list of those who registered.

Marketing Monday talks about an impressive internet marketing effort by a business, person, or non-profit. Have an idea for the series? Contact Nicole; she's always looking for new features. 

I had the pleasure this past weekend of getting the heck out of town and finally checking out Rabelais, which is a bookstore in downtown Portland with all books about food. Interesting concept. 

What I found more interesting is their online presence, complete with website, blog, and Facebook page. And they are leveraging it all rather nicely. Here's how:

Rabelais Bookstore comes up third on a Google search for 'Rabelais'. Impressive.

There are some weeks where it seems that you get a lot done but it all seems like small and unrelated things keep coming up for you to deal with? That was this week at Breaking Even Communications. Good news is it was all pretty manageable.

Here are a few things that happened this week: 

Forgetting to do something finally made me try Basecamp project management software.

Project management is one of those things you always mean to do, like cleaning your bathtub. All it takes is one metaphorical slip to finally make you get on your hands and knees. Yup, I finally forgot to do something so it was finally time to manage the details of these different projects at BEC.

I've tried a few different free or cheap project management software options only to find something missing. I finally decided to try out Basecamp, which is one of if not the most popular project management software online that will end up costing me around $50 a month if I decide I like it.

Know of a company or individual marketing themselves well online? Let me know about it and they could be featured on Marketing Monday! 

The human spirit is often most inspiring in the middle of terrible events. The earthquake in Haiti was certainly on everyone's minds this past week. I was personally quite proud of the role that internet marketing and in particular social media played in not only raising awareness but fundraising around this tragedy. Here are a few ways that the internet moved efforts along:

Social media resulted in pressure to give. 
I think we can all agree that sometimes, peer pressure can be good. In the case of the Haiti earthquake, on Friday afternoon, I felt like the only person on Twitter who hadn't donated to the cause. And I felt guilty, which made me finally make my own donation.

In addition to regular media coverage, social media was able to bring up-to-date and user-generated information about the latest news in Haiti.