Sure, attention is rapidly moving online, but truth is, having a traditional
printed book still remains one of the most effective
credibility-building tools out there.
Challenge is, whether you self-publish or go with a traditional publisher, the
marketing is on you. (C'mon, you know it's the truth!)
So, my business pal, @JonathanFields wanted to wake other authors up to the need to
step up and take control -- 'cause that's what he's all about.
So last month he released a whitepaper called "The Truth
About Book Marketing" that was instantly downloaded thousands
of times.
The questions that whitepaper created led him to launch
TribalAuthor.com and Tribal Author Camp as a way to share the most
innovative book marketing strategies and case studies.
If you have a book out now that's NOT selling well or if you have a book coming out, you need to be there, too.
Many
of you know I don't attend events unless I'm speaking -- well this
time, I'm the student. That's how important I think this event is.
At the time, she was still an executive at Salesforce. Now, she's the CEO of Hearsay Labs based in Silicon Valley. Over the course of all this time, Clara has been SUPER patient with me in re: the time it has taken me to get this interview uploaded. (Thank you, Clara!)
In the interivew, we talk about how she got started with Faceconnector (she developed it in her spare time!) and what went into writing her book and her thoughts behind some of the content. I should mention that this book is NOT just about Facebook. It's a good-as-all-get-out primer for using social networking to build rapport and mindshare - and, oh, yeah, "sell more stuff".:)
So, take a listen. It's about 22 minutes, so feel free to listen while you go grab a cuppa - and COMMENT to let Clara and I know what you think.
If you've read the book, chime in via comments below.
I'm always interested in organizations that are taking the use of social media to the next level. And, Corrigan Sports qualifies. They plan to use some latest social media hotness, R2iSMASH, to showcase the Baltimore Marathon on October 10.
R2iSMASH, was created by R2integrated, and the technical explanation of it is:
A social media vehicle that drives interactivity around specific events, campaigns, or initiatives by combining feeds from popular social networking sites like Flickr, Twitter, and YouTube, into one unique presentation window.
For all the non-techies, that means when people talk on social networks like Facebook and Twitter about a particular event, it shoves all that conversation into into one convenient screen. Tres cool, non?
So, while most social media tools push internal messages outward, R2iSMASH takes external messages and brings them in, creating a real-time gallery of information and commentary. By allowing audiences to share in pertinent, real-time events, R2iSMASH can be a powerful tool for brands, media, and other organizations.
To get a feel for how this really works, take a look at R2iSMASH in action for the Sotomayor confirmation and the tribute to pop icon and creative genius, Michael Jackson.
More and more companies are diving into cloud computing, but there are security, quality and scalability concerns. That's where Sonoa Systems comes in.
If you're not like The Rolling Stones and you DO want people on your cloud, listen in as I have a techy-ish convo with Chet Kapoor, CEO, and Scott Regan, SVP of Marketing, of Sonoa Systems. (Hey, I got my start as a geek! What can I say?)
Yeah, yeah, it's 29 minutes of your life, but we get into the goods on this call and if your company is considering cloud computing, you need to understand what you're about to sign up for.
Alas, poor Twitter. The service that we all know and love suffered a Fail Whale of 'orculean' proportions for two hours last week on August 6, 2009, due to a denial of service attack. We were all a little annoyed (read: lost without Twitter), but if you're anything like me, you're just glad Twitter's back up and running. After all, the world hearts Twitter.
Twitter Co-founder, Christopher Isaac "Biz" Stone doesn't do a heck of a lot of interviews (can't say I blame the dude), but tonight Thursday, August 13, Stone, the co-founder of the online phenomenon, Twitter, will appear on PBS’ “Tavis Smiley” to discuss the evolution of Twitter and the impact of social media in today’s world.
In the interview, Stone elaborates on how Twitter has learned from the recent denial of service attack:
“We spent a lot of 2008 catching up with a lot of the popularity of Twitter, the unexpected popularity--getting there technically so that we were stable, and along comes this massive attack. You know, we learned. We worked behind the scenes with folks from Google and other companies to figure out how to stop the attacks and how to better deal with them in the future.”
I find it interesting INDEED that Biz is doing his interview with Mr. Smiley. And, I don't find it interesting for the reasons you're probably thinking. :)
>> As an aside: Don't you just "love" it when Biz says to Mr. Smiley, referring to a denial of service attack, "I don't know if you know exactly what this is..."?
Check your local listings for air times: www.pbs.org/tavis. The Twitterverse will be watching -- will you?
Debate is a healthy part of life. It's an understatement to say that people won't always agree.
And, as I've mentioned in a previous blog post, my interest is always piqued by companies and organizations that use social media tools in innovative ways. Which is why, when I read about OurBlook.com, I was intrigued. They have taken healthy debate among top business, socioeconomic and political action thinkers and have not only given it a place online, but they compile each blog post "argument" into a book format for download by their audience. So, if you're interested in becoming well-versed on the pros and cons of a particular topics, all you need to do is download the e-book, grab a cup of tea and read to your heart's content. You simply have to see it to believe it.
For example, some of the topics they're creating a "blog/book" about are:
The future of journalism
Sustainability (as relates to healthcare and energy)
And, of course, social media
There are more topics coming and it's a good thing because their traffic is nothing to sneeze at; right now, they have about 7,000 visitors per month. Not bad.
OurBlook.com's Founder, Paul Mongerson, has always been interested in news media and as a former engineer, brings an interesting spectrum of leadership to the company.
The describe themselves as "a collaborative resource that gathers todays epxerts to find tomorrow's solutions" and I believe they're right.
I'm always interested in how companies that don't have an obvious connection with social media are using these tools to create online destinations that work for them and work for their market.
To feed my curiosity, I've started a whenever-I-feel-like-it interview series about such companies.
Which is why, a few weeks ago, when I had the opportunity to sit down with Vikram Savkar, I was pretty amped. Vikram is the Senior Vice President and Publishing Director of Nature Education, Nature Publishing Group's newest division. And, we spoke about how their website, Scitable, is combining peer reviewed content with social networking in some really innovative ways.
Throughout this interview, I was not pronouncing Vikram's name correctly, and he was kind enough to not put me on the spot and point it out. His name is actually prounounced: Vick-rahm Sahv-car My apologies, Vikram!
This is my first full week back from being on holiday for the past month. Ahhh, good old R&R....
Yesterday, I spent half the day leading two roundtable discussions at the Real-Time Communications Conference, where Steve Etzler and Team BDI packed the house again. See my blog post about his prior event, Convergence 2008.
Here are some good outtakes:
* The keynote was Ray Kerins, VP of Worldwide Communications for Pfizer. When I first saw that someone from Pfizer was the keynote for a communications conference, I thought for sure that Steve had finally lost his marbles (no offense, Steve). I mean, what would someone in "no comment" pharma-land have to possibly say about real-time communications? Turns out a lot. Ray was real, engaging and funny. Who knew pharma had it in 'em? "Pharma and its social model HAS to change," is a quote directly from Ray at the conference. Ray informed us that when he became part of the communications team at Pfizer, he was told on his second day that the unwritten rule at Pfizer was to toss out the first voice mail or email from journalists. Whoa! Thanks to Ray's initiatives, Pfizer now has a TRUE worldwide, 24-hour communications team where his team members spend 50% of their time with the media and bloggers are respected like the journalists we are. (Yeah!)
* The panel that was moderated by Sarah Milstein, author of "Twitter and the Micro-Messaging Revolution" included: Morgan Johnston of JetBlue, Dave Armon of PR Newswire, Paul Gennaro of AECOM, David Sacks of Yammer and Marc Monseau of J&J. Definitely a motley crew and definitely engaging. Check out the online video here.
* Dave Armon has a new blog called Pounce Now. Although the blog sports the standard WordPress theme, it's got some good, off-beat content. It's clear Dave has somethin' to say. Let's see where it goes - the blog is only a month old. (Sidebar: I initially sat next to Dave who was generously Twittering the conference on his Blackberry. I can say that you never know how loud the clicking noise of texting is until you're sitting at the back of an auditorioum next to someone Twittering and you're trying to focus on the presentation. I eventually changed seats so that I could ask a question, so it all worked out.) If you're on Twitter, check out PR Newswire: @prnewswire
* Paul Gennaro talked about the need for brands to act on the information that they get from the real-time communication flow. A great quote from him at the conference addressing that need is, "My wife says I listen, but I don't do any differently."
* Marc Monseau gave a lot of "business speak", but there was one topic about which I felt he was dead on. I'm going to blog about this a bit more over at Marketing Profs, but his point was social media journalists need to give major corporations time to get back to them. He gave the example of a story online in which a social media journalist wrote, "Marc Monseau could not be reached for comment." And, they had only left a voice mail for him 5 minutes prior. Talk about real-time communications!
* I felt the rockstar of the panel was Morgan Johnston. Maybe because I'm totally engaged with the JetBlue brand...who knows, but he was real, personable and didn't delve into "marketing speak". It was nice to meet the face behind the @JetBlue Twitter account. Morgan said that the challenge with real-time conversations that are potentially damaging to the brand is, "the follow-up...that's the challenge at this point." What he meant is that when people express negative sentiment about a brand online - even if the situation is resolved to their satisfaction, you can't always guarantee that the same group of people who saw the initial complaint, will see it IF the offended party decides to post either a "retraction" or share how the company resolved their problem. Maybe 10,000 people see the complaint, but only 7,000 people see the resolution. Bummer, dude.
* The roundtables were packed with moderators like myself, Robin Carey of Social Media Today (and, yes, I'm also a MyVenturePad blogger!), Matt DeLoca of The Feed Room (also a sponsor) and Perry Hewitt from Crimson Hexagon (LOVE that company name!) sharing insights with both PR and corporate types who were genuinely interested in learning more.
One dig though...Steve, let's get some women on those keynotes and panels! We're not just good for moderating and roundtable discussions, you know! :) [See update below...]
So, if you missed it, watch the video of the panel and make sure you get your buns to the next one. The networking was great (I already have a speaking offer) and the attendees were first draft.
Don't want to miss the next one? Sign-up for te BDI mailing list and save the date for March 3, 2009!
[1/16/09 Update: Steve read this post and had this to say:
Just to set the record straight, BDI has had numerous female presenters and panelists over the years. I would argue the majority of our speakers have been female. We also produce diversity job fairs and conferences for the advertising industry that actually help get those from minority backgrounds into the industry. The conference portions of those events feature industry leaders as speakers including Carol H Williams, McGee Williams from Burrell, Tiffany R Warren from Arnold and the list goes on. Below are the links to our past diversity programs and conferences so you can see for yourself if you are interested. With that said, I almost leaned over to you during the panel discussion to say that we could have used a female panelist up there, so I agree with your sentiment :)
I guess you told ME, Steve! No, seriously, thanks for setting the record straight, Steve. I know BDI has a great record of working with women speakers and I should have mentioned that in my post originally.]
This post is an idea-stem from an excellent post that was written by Michael Mace in the Rubicon blog network.
When consulting with clients and while delivering presentations about social media, I often mention the imperative that local businesses have to leverage social media as well as - or better than - national brands. I often use Yelp.com as an example of a tool they can use to do this.
I also mention the importance of having your own social media "turf" or what fellow blogger and social media consultant, Chris Brogan calls, "home base".
Many people remember the Martha Stewart debacle. I firmly believe that one of the tactics that played a major part in helping Martha hit the ground running when she was released, was the website she was using in a blog-like manner. I think it was called marthatalks.com.
Each time there was some information in the media that Martha thought was skewed or she didn't quite agree with, she would go to her blog/site and update it with her viewpoint and the facts as she knew them. It was awesome. It gave the gawkers something to read and it helped her maintain order in the court of public opinion. Because we all know that a rumor left unchecked for more than 24 hours becomes truth in the mind of the public -- and Martha just couldn't afford to have that happen. Brilliant. Brilliant.
Light speed to the blog post written by Mace (above) wherein he chronicles what appears to be the abuse of Yelp.com by a few people who didn't agree with the stance of some businesses re: Proposition 8.
If these businesses had their own turf, like Martha, on which to set the record straight about their reviews, the impact may not have been so harsh, there would have been great (albeit challenging) blog content and it would have probably resulted in more media attention for their venue.
They could have joined the conversation on Yelp.com and then used hyperlinks to invite interested parties to visit their own blogs where they could spark a serious, yet respectful, conversation with their patrons.
It's so easy to sit back and throw all your social media eggs into one basket -- and for the most part, Yelp.com provides a great service (I use it myself). Thankfully, Yelp saw was what happening and stepped in to manage some of these reviews that were blatant backlashes. Because no matter what your thoughts are about Prop 8, honesty and truth rules the roost otherwise the blogosphere isn't worth the pixels it's written on. What's most important is to manage (not control!) the ink, especially when your brand is at stake.
Please know that this blog post is not about whether I think Prop 8 is right or wrong, but rather this is yet another way of showing why it pays to have a place - that your company "owns" - to keep the ball in your court so you can proactively participate in the conversation.
Who knew there was so much to say about convergence? Steve Etzler, the founder of the conference and career fair producer Business Development Institute (BDI), did.
Thanks to Social Media Today's Robin Carey, yesterday, I attended BDI's Convergence 2008 conference at The Graduate Center/CUNY. I was pleased, which, gentle reader, is a feat in and of itself. I attend and speak at many, many conferences throughout the year and I know a thing or two about these shindigs.
There were plenty of marketing and PR professionals and everyone there was honestly interested in learning more about social media. There were no egos - if there were, they were mingling in coat check unburdened by their owners bodies.
What definitely helped set the open, honest tone was the conference delivery format. Keep in mind, I attended last year and while there were different tracks, delivery was speaker/audience style. This time there were 17 roundtables, each with a different topic and an experienced moderator - not a speaker talking at you. Lov-ah-ley.
We all got to chat and get to know one another. The "musical roundtables" was really effective in making sure that we didn't just hang around the people we knew and that attendees had multiple opportunities to meet a wide variety of people. We bounced ideas and shared results - both good and bad. With Steve as our "dance card" announcer, we made our way from table to table. You know a conference is good when you don't want to leave the table when the session is done. That happened again and again. I admit that I was a ninja interloper at one table. I sat at table 5 when I was supposed to be at table 17. (Sorry, Steve!)
One of the themes that ran through the conference is that many companies really are still finding their way with social media. There were questions and comments about compliance, legal and crisis communications. Many organizations hadn't started one single social media effort and still others had just hired their first community manager. Either way, people were relieved to find out, "it's not just me!" and they were encouraged by one another's efforts.
