Understatement of the year?

June 29, 2007 | Humour

So I got this email today:

Understatement of the year or what?

Have a great weekend!

Tags: iPhone

Defining Social Media Success, Part III

June 27, 2007 | Blogger relations, Marketing, PR, Social media

Yesterday I did a webinar on Blogger Relations with David Meerman Scott and Vocus. Looks for links to the replay and Q&A tomorrow.

Afterward, I started thinking about the definition of success for blogger relations. Not how you measure it. That’s a topic for another day.

But quite simply, what is effective blogger relations? I came up with three critical things.

And, as I looked at my list I realized that these three things define successful marketing, full stop, not just online. Not just on/with blogs. Probably why I’ve embraced social media so strongly

1. It’s all about making friends. Treating people like you would your friends. With respect. Paying attention to what they need, what’s going on in their lives. Realizing that good, true friendships take time to mature.. That it’s about both parties getting something out of the deal.
2. Be relevant. Tell interesting stories to the people who care. If they don’t really care, the story won’t be interesting. Even when it is.
3. Put the bloggers (customers) first. Think about their WIIFM not yours. Really. Pay attention to theirs and yours will follow. Think about ways you can help them, make their lives easier… and not just if they accept your value proposition and buy your product. That’s table stakes. Doesn’t count.

What are your three critical measures of success?

Tags: blogger relations, social media, marketing, PR

Finding Hope in Photos: Children and Uganda

June 26, 2007 | Blogging, Charity, Douglas/Dogs, Travel

cross-posted to Snapshot Chronicles

This spring, as I wrote in May, I did some blogger outreach to mom bloggers about HP’s Capture Your Ever After photo contest. This post is a direct result of that project.

The background: Part of friendship is to say thank you. We decided to thank the bloggers who wrote about the contest by making a donation of an HP digital camera, compact photo printer and some supplies to a charity of their choice.We also decided to send the gear directly to the women, so they could have the pleasure of donating it personally to their favorite local charities.

Because the donation aspect was not promoted in advance, it was a bit of a surprise to the bloggers when they got the email offering them the gear, but  none of them had any trouble thinking of a cause that meant something to them personally. They also all took the time to let us know what they planned to do with it, even though we didn’t make it a requirement that they do so.

Tracey Clark’s donation is going to war-torn Northern Uganda next month with Katie Gardner of San Diego.

Katie is part of a group connected with Children of the Nations. They will be spending three weeks working with children and families in the IDP (internally displaced people) camps.  Some of the folks going will be doing counseling, but Katie and small group of four or five others will be doing photo projects with the children.

She told me that working with third-world children, giving them a chance to use photography as a creative outlet has been a dream of hers ever since she saw the documentary Born into Brothels which documents the lives of children who live in Calcutta’s red-light district.

"When kids take pictures, they have a unique view. I’m really looking forward to helping these children experience the world in new ways through photography. I hope it gives them hope for the future."

Including the camera and compact printer donated by HP, Katie has two brand new digital cameras, two printers, a handful of used polaroid cameras and cash donations from friends and family to purchase supplies. They still need a scanner so they can scan in the polaroids and leave the originals with the children. If  you’d like to help, drop Katie a note at katieann10@gmail.com.

Katie thinks it’s important that we hear and see the smaller stories from Africa and other third world nations, not just the larger than life efforts of celebrities like Madonna and Bono so she is developing a blog to document her Uganda trip. You’ll also be reading more about Katie’s project on Snapshot Chronicles and on Tracey’s blog, Picture This.

Over the summer, Katie’s kids in Uganda, Tracey’s daughter Julia (age 9) in California,  my son Douglas (age 7) here in Massachusetts and two friends of Katie’s in San Diego, ages 7 and 9, will take pictures using some simple themes, including laughter, friends, sunshine and where I live. When Katie returns in August, we’ll do a series of posts showing their worlds through their eyes. It should be interesting to see the differences and similarities between the American and Ugandan children.

Katie says she hopes these pictures will help Americans better understand what is happening in Uganda:

"Not only do I want the kids in Uganda to have a creative outlet to think about their lives in a new way, I want people back home to be transformed by seeing the world though these kids’ eyes. And I want both sides to really see the potential for hope in places where people have been suffering for so many years. I want people back home to be moved to see how they can make a difference; and even if not in Africa, then how can we make a difference in our own backyard? I’m lucky enough to go overseas, but it’s so easy to be the catalyst for change in our own families and neighborhoods when we allow ourselves to open our eyes to what’s going on around the world."

Bon voyage, Katie.

*****************

Check out Invisible Children, another group that helps the children of Uganda.

Update, 27 June: Tracey’s post Picture Hope

Tags: children of the nations, invisible children, HP, Tracey Clark, Katie Gardner, charity, digital pictures

Are we writing for people? Or for the machines?

June 25, 2007 | Blogging

Of late I’ve noticed something quite alarming. Short blog posts with more tags tacked on at the bottom than actual words within the post.

Tags are fine. Helpful even.  But when there are more tags than there is content, I fear we’ve crossed over more than a chasm into an unpleasant valley where we are writing more for the machines — the search engines — than we are for the actual people who might read our deathless, or deadly, prose.

This dilemma echoes a criticism I have long had of business Web sites  — that they spend far too much time "optimizing" for search engines, and not nearly enough time just putting forward a simple value proposition for their customers.

My two cents? If you write compelling copy on your Web site that tells your current and prospective customers why they might want to do business with you, you will use the right keywords. If you’ve taken the time to understand, and develop, what your customers really need, the language will follow. If you haven’t, no amount of manipulation, or SEO fees, will work.

Sorry.

The same is true for blogs. This is a conversation. If your principal objective is to be discoverable in search engines… that’s talking to the machines, not to people. A few tags on a post is fine. 20 is stupid. Really. How can your post be about 20 things?

It’s not.

If you are writing for the machines, whether a Web site or a blog, I am pretty sure you will bore me to tears.

Sorry.

And if you are writing for the machines, don’t think we don’t know it.

We do.

Tags: SEO, tagging, search engine optimization, corporate blogging, blogging,  B2B, B2C

Following up: Vocus and CBS

June 20, 2007 | Blogger relations, PR, Social media

More on CBS. As I wrote last week, I think CBS is making some smart moves in the blogosphere. BusinessWeek columnist Jon Fine agrees. Not with me, of course. I doubt he knows who I am. But that they are doing some smart things. Check out his column in the June 25th BusinessWeek, Not Bad, for a TV Network.

Next week David Meerman Scott and I will be joining the folks at Vocus for a webinar, The Inside Scoop on Blogger Relations. I’m sure we’ll discuss the mis-steps some companies have made, but we’re planning to spend more time talking about good blogger relations — including some practical advice on how to do it well.

Tags: vocus, public relations, pr, blogger relations, cbs

PR/Marketing Links, 18 June

June 18, 2007 | Blogger relations, Blogging, Marketing, PR, Social media

This week I am going to be focusing on my Snapshot Chronicles blog, but wanted to share a few links from this month’s reading that just didn’t fit into any of my posts.

Brian Solis has written a very comprehensive Manifesto for Integrating Social Media into Marketing. It’s an excellent summary of the state of social media and marketing, but I recommend it with a caution. Do not share it with clients, bosses, staff or colleagues that haven’t at least taken a sip of the social media koolaid. Among other things, his 20+ item list of what you need to do will scare the shit out of someone who isn’t ready to take the plunge. Or at least dip more than a toe in the water.

Todd Defren ruminates on the one year anniversary of the social media press release with two posts.

Toby Bloomberg covers two new blogs from pharma companies, GlaxoSmithKline and Johnson & Johnson. 

David Parmet on Why PR Still Works.

Tags: social media, press release, pr, public relations, social media press release, corporate blogging

Sing, sing a song

June 16, 2007 | Mathom Room

Pal Mary Schmidt tagged me in the "songs that lift your spirits" meme. The goal of meme originator, life coach Hilda Carroll, is a collective playlist.

Mary comments that it is hard to pick just one song because she has different soundtracks for different parts and times of her life.

Yup. How do I pick?

Bob Marley. Aretha. Nina Simone. Eric Clapton. Jimmy Cliff. Warren Zevon. Norah Jones. David Sanborn. Bonnie Raitt. Cream. Blood Sweat & Tears. Chicago. Monk. Billie.  And yes even The Who, Beatles and Stones.

I can get it down to three.

Pretty much everything by Crosby Stills & Nash, but most particularly Southern Cross.

For What It’s Worth, Buffalo Springfield

And for the sheer joy of it, Ella Fitzgerald’s Berlin version of Mack the Knife.

{spoken} thank you. we’d like to do something for you now.
We haven’t heard a girl sing it. and since it’s so popular,
We’d like to try and do it for you.
We hope we remember all the words.{}

Oh, the shark has pearly teeth, dear
And he shows them, pearly white
Just a jack knife has macheath, dear
And he keeps it out of sight

Oh, the shark bites with his teeth, dear
Scarlet billows start to spread
Fancy gloves though, wears macheath dear
So there’s not, not a trace of red

On a sunday, sunday morning
Lies a body, oozin life
Someones sneaking round the corner
Tell me could it be, could it be, could it be
Mack the knife?

Oh, what’s the next chorus?
To this song, now
This is the one, now
I don’t know
But it was a swinging tune
And it’s a hit tune
So we tried to do mack the knife

Ah, louis miller
Oh, something about cash
Yeah, miller, he was spending that trash
And macheath dear, he spends like a sailor
Tell me, tell me, tell me
Could that boy do, something rash

Oh bobby darin, and louis armstrong
They made a record, oh but they did
And now ella, ella, and her fellas
Were making a wreck, what a wreck
Of mack the knife

{louis armstrong imitation}
Oh snookie taudry, bah bah bah nop do bo de do
Bah bah bah nop do bo de do
Just a jack knife has macheath, dear
And do bo bo bah bah bah nop do bo de do {}

So, you’ve heard it
Yes, we’ve swung it
And we tried to
Yes, we sung it

You won’t recognize it
It’s a surprise hit
This tune, called mack the knife

And so we leave you, in berlin town
Yes, we’ve swung old mack
We’ve swung old mack in town
For the darin fans,
And for the louis armstrong fans, too
We told you look out, look out, look out
Old macheaths back in town.

( lyrics found on LyricsFreak)

Before you ask, yes, I am aware that  my three songs are all from the 60s. I like contemporary music and just about every genre, except country music, but the songs I grew up with lift my spirits the most. 

I’m tagging Mom 101, Jeneane Sessum and Kent Newsome. Because I know they’ll tell us about interesting music with great posts.

Defining Social Media Success: The New Adventures of CBS

June 14, 2007 | Blogger relations

In the comments to my post about defining social media success, David Wescott pointed out, correctly, that we don’t know whether a program like the CBS blogger outreach for the program The New Adventures of Old Christine is really a success unless we know what the objectives were. We can guess, but the measure of success is whether the outreach accomplished what CBS hoped.

So I decided to find out. Last week, I spoke with Beth Feldman, the CBS communications VP who spearheaded the effort. Thanks, Liz, for making the connection.

Beth is a mom blogger herself, and recently co-wrote a book Peeing In Peace: Tales & Tips for Type A Moms. As a result, she has gotten to know a number of other parenting bloggers. The New Adventures of Old Christine was about to get a new day and time, and she thought outreach to parent bloggers was a perfect fit.

The goal was quite simply to get the word out about the show.

"We treated the bloggers just as we would reporters," she says. "There was a press conference with the entire cast including star Julia Louis-Dreyfus and series creator and executive producer Kari Lizer. Each blogger got to ask a question of the cast and they also observed part of a rehearsal. Afterwards, the bloggers went out for coffee with the show publicists and a programming exec."

"For me, the coffee was one of the best parts of the whole day. As Liz told you, we didn’t fly anyone out for it, but some did fly out at their own expense because  they wanted to participate. Many of these bloggers had never had a chance to meet in person. Even though they knew each other through their blogs and email, this day gave them an opportunity to connect in person. It was great to be part of that."

Beth was quite clear. She says that this outreach was most definitely a success for CBS, and overall, a step in the right social media direction for the network. But she doesn’t feel she had to achieve "more" with this project.

"I’m a publicist. My goal was to reach out to bloggers just as we would entertainment reporters. We wanted them to have a fun positive experience, and hopefully write about the show and the visit. Which they did. If I were a development executive trying to make decisions about programming, my goals, and tactics, would have been different."

Ironically, Beth told me that usually CBS would provide a gift bag on a set visit. This time, Beth was too busy. The DVDs the moms received? CBS sent them a few episodes in advance so they’d be acquainted with the show. They’d do the same for a traditional reporter.

The network did create a custom package of video coverage of the visit for each blogger, with an intro and outro recorded by the blogger. Some of the bloggers used it on their sites. Others did not. Which was fine with Beth. They were going to film the visit anyway. It didn’t cost much to make the special DVDs for the moms. My opinion? What a nice and well targeted extra touch. You wouldn’t do this for a print reporter because they’d have no place to use it. And TV or radio would record their own stuff. But it’s perfect content for a blog: multimedia, exclusive to each blogger, featuring the blogger.

Beth also mentioned that CBS’s "narrowcast" outreach to the small group of mom bloggers was followed by a "broader" cast effort to reach the same core group. About a month after the set visit, and a bit closer to the actual change of time for the show, Lisa Stone of BlogHer hosted a live Webcast with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Kari Lizer that also was posted on CBS.com. They also fed an electronic press kit about the mom blogger set visit to CBS affiliates.

So, was the CBS blogger outreach for the New Adventures of Old Christine a success? The bloggers invited certainly thought, and said, so. Independent observers think so.  The network says so.

And since we are still talking about it months after the fact, I don’t think there’s any question. How often does a blurb in Entertainment Weekly or TV Guide show a similar lifespan?

I for one certainly plan on watching New Adventures, at least once, when it returns in mid-season next year. Unless it is on at the same time as Battlestar Galactica….

Tags: blogger relations, CBS, New Adventures of Old Christine

Are you LinkedIn to my Facebook?

June 13, 2007 | Community, Social networks

Work is a little light this month so I’ve been taking advantage of the lull to explore the two major, public social networks — Facebook and LinkedIn. As always through the lens of discovering how a tool can be useful in business.

It’s not hard to find the business angle for LinkedIn.  Salespeople and job seekers have been using it since the beginning to expand their networks and connect with potential prospects and employers.  Especially in high tech.

Who do you want to meet? Do a search to find out if someone in your network knows the person you’d like to know. Not connected directly? You can use a LinkedIn introduction to get connected, although I haven’t done so yet. No one I want to meet that badly, I guess.

Pretty useful. Pretty established. In that specific niche. But it’s not terribly sticky. You log in, look and leave.

It’s a network, but it’s not a community. What’s the difference? My opinion only, YMMV. A social network connects individuals. A community interacts. We expect members of a community to have something in common, a reason to converse with others. Yup, the old C word again: Conversation.

You won’t have a community without one or more social networks to provide the connections, but a network is not necessarily a community.

But it seems LinkedIn would like to be a community. Otherwise, why would it have community evangelist Mario Sundar on staff? The question is, can it become a community? Should it?  What can be added to the experience that would make it one? Why not leave well enough alone and continue to do what it does so well for so many?

Well, the answer is of course, what if another service comes in and manages to do both — make connections and facilitate conversations? Something like oh uh, Facebook?

Facebook is fast becoming much much more than the Internet version of the college facebook. If that were all it was, I wouldn’t bother.

The open API makes all the difference. Third party developers are linking their tools into Facebook, so now I can have all the "stuff" in one place. Twitter. RSS. Flickr. Movie reviews. And not so much my stuff as my friends’ stuff.  Because it’s not just about connecting. It’s about sharing information. Where we are. What we are doing. What our friends are saying. That’s what makes it a community.   

The principal drawback of Facebook is that it is hard to find people. You need to know their email address or stumble upon them in a group or a friend’s friends. This security measure is a legacy of the product’s initial user base: college and high school students, and an important one. It’s one thing if an adult shares her personal information. Quite another if a 9th grader does so.

The Facebook platform helps people who already know each other stay connected. But it’s not the best place to make a new connection. For that, you probably still want to use LinkedIn.

What do I really want? Something that does both.  Loosely manage and access an extended network of contacts with space for playing and connecting with  friends. One UI, one log-in and one password please.

Quick take:  Based on what we can publicly see about the two companies and assuming they want to play in the sandbox, Facebook will have an easier time doing this than LinkedIn. It has first mover advantage with the open platform and a loyal user base among the people entering the workforce.

Plus, it is way more fun. As Beth Kanter twitted last week: Facebook is like crack. Internet crack. I’ve only been using it for a little while, but am fast becoming addicted. Last night, I messed around looking for other Getgoods. Just because, let’s face it, it’s not like looking for Smiths or Joneses. And discovered that I am the oldest Getgood currently on Facebook. By a longshot. A dubious distinction, but oh well. 

Speaking of Twitter…. I’ve started using it just to give a periodic status. Something I want to share, with my Twitter and Facebook friends and blog readers, but don’t plan to write about. A pointless WebEx. The puppies born last week. Etc. Perhaps if I were traveling more, I’d use it to talk with friends and colleagues. Like Josh Hallet did last night when he was stranded in DC.

What do you think? How are you using these new social media tools? Are you?

Bonus Question: What about MySpace? Is it still relevant as a community platform or is it becoming just a blogging platform with music?

Tags: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, social network, community

More amusements

June 11, 2007 | Humour

Tips of the hat to Elisa Camahort and Karen Rani for pointing out passiveaggressivenotes.com

And to my friend Sydney for forwarding the link to Women in Art.