Five Favorite Stumbles of the Week, Vol. 6
By Joe Ferry on Oct 24, 2008 in Featured, Marketing Communications
Over at Copyblogger, Brian Clark had some fun this week with list headlines. Seems every story featured on the cover of a recent issue of PC World featured a list headline. Brian’s a big fan of the technique and has a little exercise for anyone who wants to take part.
Anyway, it just so happens that this week’s Stumbling was jam-packed with sites that feature — you guessed it — list headlines. Let’s get counting, from the most to the fewest:
- Writing at The Future Buzz, Adam Singer offers “65 Bite-Sized Web Marketing Tips.” The sheer number might seem intimidating, but Adam stays true to his word and keeps his suggestions to single sentences (for the most part), and short ones at that. Lots of useful links.
- The folks at The Bootstrapping Blog came up with “50 Guerrilla Marketing Tactics You Should Be Using.” Some are a little off the wall — Temporary Tattoos? Sponsor the Homeless? — but most are brilliant. Great suggestions for businesses where cash is at a premium.
- We all want to know what our competitors are up to, right? But short of breaking in at night or hacking their network, what can you do to get the real goods? FutureNow’s Bryan Eisenberg says there are several strategies, all perfectly legal, to spy on your competition. If you’re comfortable with some esoteric web tools, these look like they could be a lot of fun to play with.
- Anyone who has read this blog knows I’m a big fan of Google and the awesome tools its provides. Gil’s Method offers “11 Obscure Google Tricks You Didn’t Know Existed.” You can track a UPS package on Google? I didn’t know that!
- I still admit it: I don’t get Twitter. I’ve looked at it from every direction and just fail to see its usefulness as a marketing tool. But that doesn’t mean other people aren’t taking advantage. Jeff Woelker has come up with “7 Habits of Successful Twitterers.” My mind remains open…
Popularity: 60% [?]


On Oct 29, 2008, Jeff Woelker said:
Hey Joe,
Thanks for including my article. And yes, I was in the same boat when I first started checking out Twitter. I thought, who wants to know when I’m reading a blog or redoing a new business pitch, but there are LOTS of people who want to know. And they want to help, collaborate, contribute, and provide their opinion. So trust me, give it another shot, it’s totally worth your time.
Here’s another post I did about my first experience with microblogging:
http://www.jeffwoelker.com/2008/07/15/microblogging-twittering-is-it-worth-your-time/
Keep up the good work,
Jeff
P.s. - you can follow me on twitter at @jeffwoelker
On Oct 29, 2008, Joe Ferry said:
Jeff:
Thanks for checking in and for the positive encouragement. My plan is to start tweating and share my experiences through the blo, good or bad.