Celebrity tweets that endorse products are on the rise – clearly no surprise, but what might be a surprise is how much they get paid per tweet!

• Lindsay Lohan $2,353 per tweet

• JWOW $2,353

• Mike Tyson $3,250

• Jose Conseco $3,900

• Khloe Kardashian $8,235

Seriously, that is a lot of money!  When I first read the article I thought, what company would pay any of these stars to endorse a product? That can’t possibly per worth it. Then, I paused for a few minutes and grabbed a calculator and thought that might not be a bad deal.

Here is my logic.

Let’s take Khloe Kardashian, who has over 5,000,000, yes, 5 million followers! Let me just say I am not a fan of the Kardashians, nor do I follow Kloe, Bruce or any of them.

So if Khloe endorses and tweets about a product, what is the ROI? Is it worth it? Well, this is where my hand dandy calculator comes in.

5,000,000 followers

If 1% take action because of Khloe’s tweet that would be 50,000 people. If you don’t like that number (which might be too high) lets use 10% of that number which would be 5,000 or .0001% of the original number (which might be more likely) and multiply the 5,000 people who buy the product (call it body lotion) for $25.00 generates $125,000 in revenue.

So the tweet cost you $8,235 and generated $125,000 – who wouldn’t take that ROI?

When I did the math I actually thought it was a pretty good deal for the companies and the tweet cost wasn’t that outrageous.

• What do you think?

• Where does my logic breakdown?

• Which stars do you follow on twitter?

• Have you ever bought a product based on a tweet endorsement?

• If you were in charge of marketing at a large company would you use celebrity tweet endorsements?

Crazy yes – but very interesting in my mind.

I look forward to your comments.

PS – here is a sample tweet from Khloe:
OMG… Wheat Thins has a new limited time sweet cinnamon flavor…. Why am I so excited about this?  LOL

I remember growing up with my 2 sisters and taking a very long trip up to Montreal to visit my mom’s family every 3 or 4 months. During the 6 hour car ride one thing was for certain, we would ALL fight for the armrest. Back in the day, that was the trophy in the car, the Holy Grail and the thing we all coveted most.

Speed up 35+ years. I guess the same thing is true but this time you are playing the game with strangers, in fact most of the time total strangers. Have you gone to the movies recently and sitting on your left side is a person (stranger) who is hogging the armrest? He/she got there before you and they have the inside position and aren’t moving an inch? Or what about when you are sitting on a 4 hour flight in a row of 3 people and have 4 armrests – who gets what armrest? Does the left rule? Is the 1st to arrive the king/queen?

I know most of you are laughing and thinking I am 100% nuts, but seriously…….what do you do?

So I ask you:

• How do you handle the situation when you need to share an armrest?

• Does the situation change when you know the person sitting next to you?

• What is the protocol?

I know this situation has happened to everyone but the question is what do you do?

I look forward to reading your comments.

I think the title of this post says it all – the older I get, the more important the weather is. Yes, I grew up in the Northeast. Yes, I am familiar with blizzards, bad weather and short summers. I hate the cold and snow!

If you ask me to go skiing the answer is, NO! Not just because I tore my ACL over a decade ago but because I really don’t like the cold, ice, snow and everything else that comes with it.

I still remember trying to get in my rental car around 6:30 AM in Boston last year to battle with a frozen door! I couldn’t even unlock the car to try and get the car warmed up.

Yes, I live in Texas and yes, I love the heat! The more 100 degree days there are, the happier I am. You can do so much more outside with nice weather. Frankly, as I get older the ice (I assume) will be much more terrifying for me so I don’t slip, fall and break my wrist or hip!

Ok, I said it – the older I get the more important the weather is.

What are your thoughts?

• Do you agree?

• Has the same thing happen to you?

• Are you going to retire to a cold spot or a warm weather city?

I look forward to reading your comments.

Today’s blog is a little different. The subject is money! Probably everyone doesn’t have enough money but that is not what I want to discuss today! I would like to start with a quick story. I was at CVS last week buying a few items. My transaction was $6.52 and so I gave the terrific customer service person a $20 dollar bill. She gave me the correct change, which was $13.48. She handed me the bills which were 3 (ones) 2 (fives) and some coins and as I was putting my change into my wallet she gave me a very odd look – almost like she was saying, what are you doing?  What I was doing was putting my bills in my wallet smallest to largest and all the bills facing forward.

I never thought that was odd but she did. As I started to look around, the next person who paid had her money jammed into her wallet folded lots of different ways. This really got me to think –is the way that I do it the norm? I assumed it was but perhaps not? Also, this got me to think about how we really don’t use cash for much anymore – I wonder how much money my friends and industry contacts typically have in their wallet?

So I ask you:

• How do you arrange your money in your wallet?

• Do you think I am strange for having the bills smallest to largest?

• Do your bills face forward like mine do?

• I usually carry $200.00 in my wallet – What is your average?

• How often do you go to an ATM?

• When I go to the ATM I usually take out $300 – How much do you usually take out?

I really look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Over the past few months I have had a number of conversations with friends regarding their pets being overweight.  I don’t have a pet right now but I used to give tons of treats to our dog when I was growing-up. If our dog howled, I gave her a treat. If the dog jumped over the cushions that my sisters and I set-up, I gave her a treat. If the dog did her business outside quickly because it was 10° out, I gave her a treat. I probably gave a treat for anything and everything.

Perhaps you do the same thing.

The question is what do you do if your pet is overweight?

• Do you give them diet dog food?
   
• Do you take them on longer walks?
   
• Do you send them to a pet workout facility?

There is actually a Pet Obesity Prevention Association so apparently this is a pretty big problem. You can even rent a treadmill for your dog or enroll them in swimming lessons at a facility in Los Angles called, ‘K9’s Only.’ I promise I am not making this up.

• What shape is your pet in?
   
• What are you doing to keep them in shape?
   
• If your dog or cat is overweight what are you going to do about it?

I look forward to reading your comments.

A few weeks ago I had lunch with two colleagues. Since you are curious I will mention we were at a Chinese restaurant. Yes, it was a buffet and yes, it was yummy! During lunch I noticed the table next to us had two guys sitting there who were wearing matching logo shirts. Not sure if it was a landscaping, electrical or some other company. But I can tell you they were both wearing nice logo shirts.

During their entire meal they never talked or said one word to each other! All they did was check out their iTouch. I assume they were reading emails or texting. Regardless, they didn’t say a word to each other. Now you could ask, “How did Merrill notice? Was he talking to his colleagues?” The answer is, they were sitting right in front of me, in my perfect line of sight and yes, we were talking throughout the entire meal.

I just don’t get it!

If you aren’t going to speak with someone during lunch – why go with them?  Eat alone!

As we were walking out of the restaurant I noticed that a number of other tables were checking email as well.

• Have you noticed the same thing?
   
• What has happened to socialization?
   
• Don’t we communicate with each other anymore?
   
• Isn’t this a missed opportunity to learn/bounce ideas off someone?

Maybe it is me but I am concerned about this!

• What are your thoughts?

I look forward to reading your comments.

PS – If you are curious, I don’t bring my Smartphone with me to lunch.

The other day I met a few colleagues for breakfast and they were discussing how much and when they tip the person who cleans their room in a hotel. As I was listening to the conversation I was thinking, “I never do that.” I think I am a good tipper and a nice person BUT I never think about leaving money for the chambermaid.

One of my colleagues said they do it after the first night and their thinking was they will get some extras from the chambermaid when they arrive back to their room. The other person said they do it when they are getting ready to checkout of the hotel so if they get great service they can tip accordingly.

I understand both strategies but mine is way different – I leave nothing….. UGH!

• What do you do?

• Are you like me and do nothing?

• Do you always type the chambermaid?

• Do you have a formula XXX dollars a night?

• Have you always been doing this?

I really look forward to reading your comments.

In the past few months I have had the opportunity to present at a number of different conferences. As a part of that presentation I talk about Big Brother – where we are about the concept and what people really think. Lots of people are very uncomfortable.

Right now:

• Everything you do!
   
• Everything you say!
   
• Everywhere you go!
   
• Everything you buy!

Is being monitored!

Companies are working VERY hard to develop marketing ideas to reach customers and prospects at the right time – companies believe if they market an offer to a person at the right time it will impact their buying decision. Rest assured this is happening and growing up really fast!

Because of this I have developed a chart to try and determine people’s feelings about big brother. In my opinion people fall into one of the 7 buckets which I have listed below.

click image to see full size

One end of the scale is absolutely no way. Don’t bother me with texts highlighting special deals, don’t show me a commercial that you think may interest me because of certain sites I may have visited. Some people went thru all six buckets very quick and are now in the implementation mode. I believe those people will find creative ways to increase their brand awareness and revenue by implementing this strategy. My position is this, if you can find a creative way to market to me on products that are on sale or restaurants that I frequent are now in my area I say do it. In fact please do it! When I watch TV please let me only see the commercials that interest me! When I am on my computer I understand you need to show me a commercial or at least want to – but please let me control what the subject is!

• What do you think of big brother?
   
• Which bucket are you in?
   
• Are you ok giving information if you get something in return?
   
• No matter what do you not want to be bothered at all?

Believe me this is a huge debate in my office. I may NOT agree with everyone’s opinion on the subject but I do respect their position.

• The question is what is yours?

I look forward to reading your comments.

Yes the world is changing and yes it is changing fast. What also might be changing is the way that we view how important people are. In the past, companies base the importance on their loyalty programs well the future might be different. Do you have a Facebook page? Do you have a Twitter handle? If you do you want to go to klout.com and see what your Klout score is. Ok before I get into why it might be important here is what their website says about a Klout score……

The Klout Score is the measurement of your overall online influence. The scores range from 1 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence. Klout uses over 35 variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score.

True Reach is the size of your engaged audience and is based on those of your followers and friends who actively listen and react to your messages. Amplification Score is the likelihood that your messages will generate actions (retweets, @messages, likes and comments) and is on a scale of 1 to 100. Network score indicates how influential your engage audience is and is also on a scale from 1 to 100. The Klout score is highly correlated to clicks, comments and retweets.

We believe that influence is the ability to drive people to action — “action” might be defined as a reply, a retweet, a comment, or a click. We perform significant testing to ensure that the average click-through rate on links shared is highly correlated with a person’s Klout Score.

If you check in to the Palm Hotel in Las Vegas they will base your perks (better room, free show tickets, etc) on your Klout score. I imagine their reason is they want to ensure they take care of their MOST social influential guests knowing they will share their amazing experience with their social network.

My current klout score is a 29 and here is what they say about me:

Merrill Dubrow is an Explorer

You actively engage in the social web, constantly trying out new ways to interact and network. You’re exploring the ecosystem and making it work for you. Your level of activity and engagement shows that you “get it”, we predict you’ll be moving up.

• Merrill Dubrow is influential to a tightly formed network that is growing larger.
• Merrill Dubrow engages with a good mix of influencers and friends
• Merrill Dubrow is more likely to have their message amplified than the average person
• Merrill Dubrow has a small but tightly formed network that is highly engaged

• What is your current Klout score?
• What do you think of their rating system?
• Do you think this will be a trend in the future?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Yes this is a great country, yes we have freedom of speech and yes you can say whatever you want, whenever you want to whomever you want….. but aren’t there consequences?

The world we live in now word travels fast. Sometimes tweets from Twitter are emotional and very pointed and certainly with the power of the web that message spreads like wildfire. Let me give you two quick examples of recent sports tweets:

Miami Heat star LeBron James tweeted a few weeks ago after Cleveland’s 55-point loss to the Lakers, it read: "Crazy. Karma is a b—-.. Gets you every time. It’s not good to wish bad on anybody. God sees everything!" Even though LeBron backtracked a little bit the tweet was directed at Dan Gilbert – owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The second example is a tweet from Jacksonville Jaguars star running back Maurice Jones-Drew who was heavily criticized following the NFC Championship game for tweets regarding Bears QB Jay Cutler. Cutler left the game in the third quarter with a knee injury but was later seen standing comfortably on the sideline. Maurice Jones-Drew had this to say: All I’m saying is that he can finish the game on a hurt knee… I played the whole season on one…”

Is it a big leap to say that Jones is calling out Cutler? Saying he is soft? I think he is! Is it a big leap for a lawyer to say that may cause him damage? May cause Cutler to lose out on a future contract in the NFL? Will cost him future money and endorsements? Doesn’t/couldn’t  that  even lead to a defamation suit?

I for one say it will and VERY soon!

I am sure that LeBron and Maurice (who did try and retract some of his comments) regret what they said. They got caught up in the moment, took a shot at someone and unfortunately with the way that things spread now can’t take it back!

So I ask you:

• Are personal attacks through tweets going to lead to lawsuits?

I really look forward to your thoughts.