Tony Darrick Baker

I just set up SmartSEO.com as a domain for sale.

Today Starbucks is running a nationwide social media campaign to give away a new line of pastry. Be prepared to get up early and be sure to bring your invitation.   They warn that they may run out  (fear of loss) if you don’t get there early enough, and the special ends at 10:30am. How [...]

Today’s blog post is inspired by 2 or 3 emails I just happened to receive today. Here we are in mid-2009.  It’s been about 15 years since the world evolved from dialing up to long-distance bulletin board services.  Today it seems that many, if not most people are “always on” with DSL, Cable and other [...]

No I’m not talking about the local grammar teacher placing a bunch of red ink all over your next article or white paper. Google Docs can give you an idea of how difficult your document is to read by age and grade level. First upload your document to your Google Docs account. Once you have [...]

A few insiders know that I’m about to launch a couple of members-only websites.  In fact the sites are quite late.  I should have had them done a few months ago.  However, there’s quite a learning curve when you’re testing out several membership software packages. I found one for about $300 that claimed to work [...]

The Newspaper and Yellow Pages industry are reeling.  They erroneously assume that their financial problems are due to the recession.   The truth of the matter is that less people every day are looking to printed newspapers and yellow pages listings in order to find the information and services that they need. More people are turning [...]

I’m often asked how to write a press release to be distributed online. In 2004, Search Engine Optimization of Press Releases was a hot topic. At the time, it was absolutely amazing. We could write a press release and have the top 2 Google Listings for our targeted keyword phrase within about 48 hours. Today, [...]

American Idol is an amazing reflection of 7 of the most important marketing truths that many of us tend to forget about. Playing it safe isn’t good enough. There’s nothing worse in American Idol than listening to some average song that you’ve already heard someone sing. Likewise, if the contestants do not reach out and [...]

I’ve been doing press release optimization since before it was cool. A few years ago, nobody had really considered how Press Releases distributed directly to the public could be an amazing way to get news about your company distributed throughout the web. Yahoo was one of the first we noticed that started publishing our Press [...]

I’m reading my preview copy of “World Wide Rave” by David Meerman Scott. I’m about to put some of his research and concepts to action. Stay tuned. -Tony