Marketing Roadmaps

Books

Let’s Panic About Babies in the Pacific Northwest and Bay Area

by

BlogHer is sponsoring the West Coast leg of the book tour for Let’s Panic About Babies by Alice Bradley (“Finslippy“) and Eden Kennedy (“Fussy“). We start in Portland Oregon on April 5th, move up to Seattle on April 6th and then down to the San Francisco Bay area April 8, 9 and 10. Alice and Eden will be doing book signings and readings at independent book stores, and we’ll have no-host blogger meet-ups in nearby pubs and restaurants before and/or after the signings.

The full schedule with times and locations is here.

I’ll be joining these funny ladies in Portland, BlogHer co-founder and president, strategic alliances Jory DesJardins will be with them in Seattle and ceo/co-founder Lisa Stone will be at the Bay Area events.

Let’s Panic About Babies is a humorous look at parenthood. Because, really, if you don’t laugh, you’ll often want to cry, and laugh lines are so much more attractive than worry lines.

Every new parent has doubts about the often uncomfortable and frequently scary adventure that is parenthood. And we screw up left and right.  It’s a good thing that children don’t remember much of what happens before the age of 5. It’s like a free pass on the early mistakes; you know that at least those disasters won’t contribute to your child’s eventual psychological problems. After 5 though — yeah, all your fault.

Unless you are prone to frequent psychotic episodes, these doubts will continue well into your child’s adulthood. Unfortunately most advice books tend to take a preachy tone, which only increases our doubts about our capabilities as parents.

Let’s Panic is the perfect antidote to the “What to expect” genre, and should be in every parent’s toolkit for when they run into the inevitable Sanctimommy (©Mom-101).

Will you love every joke in the book? Maybe not. Like most humor, some things will strike you funnier than others. But overall, if you get this book, you will laugh, cry and probably pee your pants. Just a little.

I’m looking forward to hearing them read from the book, and hope you can join us at one of the stops.

Not able to join us? You can of course buy a copy at your online bookseller of choice (my Amazon affiliate link). Even better, BlogHer is giving away 20 copies. Just leave a comment on the Let’s Panic tour page on BlogHer.com for a chance to win one.

—

Disclosure: I work for BlogHer, was involved in the planning of the tour and received my copy of the book from the publisher.

Cross posted to Snapshot Chronicles.

Professional Blogging For Dummies: More books for your reading list

by

As I was writing Professional Blogging For Dummies, it was clear that nearly every chapter in the book could be a book in itself. In fact, there are books that delve into many of  the topics in great depth. After you’ve read my book, if you decide you’d like to dig deeper, I highly recommend you invest in a few.

The For Dummies series has titles that cover just about everything, including Google AdSense for Dummies, Search Engine Optimization for Dummies, Web Marketing for Dummies, Public Relations for Dummies  and Social Media for Dummies.

A book about your chosen blogging platform can also be a handy reference. For Dummies can help you here as well, but I’d suggest you also look at more advanced guides, particularly if you want to get into deeper customization of your blog.

Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger website (problogger.net), one of the 10 sites you can learn from simply by reading featured in the book, is an excellent resource for keeping up-to-date on the latest developments in professional blogging. You might also want to invest in Rowse’s book, co-authored with Chris Garrett, ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income (2010, 2d edition,Wiley)

About Audio and Video

If you decide to add a video or a podcast to your blog, you should definitely get some help, whether a book or professional consultant, to get you going.

When I started doing a podcast for a client a few years ago I turned to two books:

I also bought a  book to help me use my sound editing software more effectively. I only use about 4-5 pages of it on a regular basis, but I use those pages EVERY TIME I edit a sound file for the Internet, making it worth every penny I spent. I use Sound Forge 8 Power! (Sony, 2005), which of course is only good if you are using Sound Forge 8. I’m certain there’s a book for your software, whatever you are using.

I don’t do much personally with video on my sites. I’m still working on my photo skills. That’s enough of a challenge for now, so when I use video for a client, I leave it to the pros. However, the equipment and software available to amateurs has gotten so good, there’s no reason to not experiment if you have the interest in learning the skill.  I crowdsourced a book recommendation for you:

I haven’t read it yet (although I plan to), but Garfield has an excellent reputation. You can check out his website at  stevegarfield.com

TIP: Don’t buy too many platform or software specific books. Features are constantly changing, and if the book is too tied to a particular version, it may not be as useful when the next version of software is released. Buy books that offer advice on strategy or technique, like Professional Blogging For Dummies and the ones referenced above. They have a longer shelf life because they help you understand the underlying principles.  If you do feel you need version-specific help, stick to one or two titles at most, and use online resources like support forums and wikis to fill in what the books don’t offer.

Other Books You Might Enjoy

If you get hooked on social media, here are my top three reads for you. I consider them business classics.

First, if  you haven’t already, read The Cluetrain Manifesto by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger (10th anniversary edition, 2009, Basic Books). It’s the book often credited with starting the social media revolution, and it’s a good read to boot.

Next, pick up Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel (2006, Wiley). Social media has changed quite a bit since this book was published. Facebook didn’t open up to the general public until September 2006 and Twitter wouldn’t burst onto the scene until the South by Southwest conference in March 2007. But, the book is very well written, and the underlying principles about engaging with customers and building trust haven’t changed.

Finally, if you really want to dig into to the topic of integrating social media with a business strategy, you can’t go wrong with Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff (2008, Harvard Business Press).

Reference Books that should be on your Bookshelf

Blogging is about writing, and every writer should have the following on her desk:

  • A dictionary, and if you haven’t replaced yours in more than five  years, get a new one. Language changes all the time, no more so than in the last few years.
  • A thesaurus
  • A book of quotations. I have two, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and The Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations.
  • The AP Style Guide

All are available online as well as in print versions. I prefer using the real books, although I do look up quotations online if the reference I need is very recent.  Somehow, the act of physically looking something up inspires me. You may find it easier to use electronic tools. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is using them to give your writing some variety.

Disclosure: Links in this post to books on Amazon.com include my Amazon affiliate link. If you buy a book after following an affiliate link, I’ll earn a few cents. If you’d like to buy my book, there are links to it on Amazon, Borders and Barnes&Noble in my sidebar.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Emptying the bit bucket: books, pitches and too fat to fly?

by

Heard on Twitter about a big brand: Apparently the brand is using multiple word of mouth agencies on blogger outreach programs for the same company initiative. Some of the agencies are offering compensation for posts, others not. Here’s the kicker though: some bloggers are getting both sorts of pitches. For the same program. Ouch!

And before you ask: yes I know who it is, no I am not telling, and I’d appreciate it if my readers do not “out” the brand in the comments either. I’m telling this story to make a point, not to embarrass anyone.

Here’s the lesson. It’s okay to have different programs for the same initiative. Just make sure the programs are highly differentiated, especially if some include compensation and others do not. And for heaven’s sake, de-dupe the lists, and do your best to make sure that bloggers only get ONE of the pitches.

Too fat to fly? The ‘net was all a-twitter over the weekend and yesterday about the @ThatKevinSmith and Southwest Air incident Saturday. It was all over the mainstream media as well, but just in case you missed it (on vacation at the South Pole, crossing Alaska with a dog team, climbing Mt. Everest, etc.), here’s the short story.

Director Kevin Smith (“Clerks”) was asked to get off a full Southwest flight from Oakland to Burbank last Saturday for “safety reasons.”  He twittered about it as it was happening, and later released a special, very long, very ranty episode of his podcast with the blow by blow.

Smith has 1.6 million Twitter followers, so the whole thing blew up hard and fast. And of course, the whole situation was further fueled by the fat/thin debate.

Eventually,  Southwest apologized, sort of but not really, which further inflamed Smith. They then apologized again, as detailed in both this Nuts about Southwest post and Smith’s final word on the subject in his blog.

I’m not going to do a blow by blow analysis. The pundits have analyzed this thing to death, and it’s pretty clear that this was a customer service snafu that evolved into a full-blown communications crisis due to bad decisions and the power of social networks.

Southwest has learned a hard lesson. What can we learn from it?

First, exercise a little common sense. The entire situation could have been avoided in multiple ways. First, the obvious — just let the man fly. Southwest also could have chosen to NOT clear Smith from the standby list if they were truly already hyper-aware of fliers with “safety issues.” Is that right? No, of course not. It’s awful and stupid and ugly. But, it would have avoided the problem. Putting the man on the flight and then taking him off is the problem, because, truly, he didn’t get any fatter while waiting to board the flight.

Second, and I know others have said this as well: When you apologize to someone, you really should apologize for the thing that actually upset the other party. Otherwise, it isn’t an apology. It’s a justification. The lawyers may not like it, but good  customer relations demands it. When you screw up, own it. All of it.

Enough of this. I may write about this on my travel blog this weekend — after I fly Southwest to Houston for Mom 2.0. The airlines  — all of them — do have a problem. As they try to pack more seats into each plane and then pack each plane to capacity to improve the bottom line, the US population is getting larger. It’s not good. It just is.

Finally, I meant to post this weeks ago, but forgot. The second edition of David Meerman Scott’s book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR (Amazon affiliate link), has just been released. While I don’t agree with all of David’s tactics, it’s a good introductory text on how to use social media in your marketing plan.

What don’t I agree with? I am a profound opponent of using press releases to reach customers. News, yes. The press release form, no. Otherwise, our approaches to integrating marketing and social media are pretty similar.

Social media karma

by

It’s time to make a few deposits in the social media karma bank.

The past few weeks, I have been consumed with Blog with Integrity, my book proposal and getting ready for my vacation to Africa next month. In the process, a number of interesting projects and initiatives from my marketing, PR and social media friends have piled up in my “must blog about that” pile.

Former Bostonian Aaron Strout was kind enough to ask me to be a guest on his podcast, along with Brian Morrissey of AdWeek and Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester, to talk about Facebook Connect. Take a listen. Enteprise web and community managers, you should definitely check out Aaron’s company Powered. They are doing some neat things with enterprise level communities and Facebook Connect.

In my role as an SNCR Fellow, I was privileged to conduct a social media workshop for Goodwill Industries International at their summer national learning conference in Grand Rapids Michigan. The students were great, and really invested in figuring out how to make social media work for their communities. I was already impressed with what the Goodwills were doing with social media, and am looking forward to even greater things in the future.

If you have old clothes and other goods, please consider making the effort to donate them to Goodwill. Your donation doesn’t just fund charitable programs, it funds programs devoted to putting people to work. In these economic times, that literally doubles your money.

My SNCR colleagues Don Bulmer of SAP and Vanessa DiMauro of Leader Networks are conducting a research study called  The New Symbiosis of Professional Networks. They are interested in the the use of social networks as a tool in the enterprise and part of the decision making process. Please check out the website for more information and if you fit the profile, please consider taking the survey.

Janey Bishoff and the team at Bishoff Communications are helping Boston ad exec Jeff Freedman’s non-profit Small Army for  a Cause raise funds for cancer research in memory of Jeff’s late partner Mike Connell. They are holding a fundraising event on September 17th called Be Bold Be Bald!

Participants will wear bald caps on the 17th to raise funds and awareness of a major challenge faced by cancer patients, losing their hair. More information at beboldbebald.org

Chris Brogan’s book Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust, co-authored with Julien Smith, went on sale at Amazon today to a very positive reception. Congratulations Chris! I promise to read it when things slow down.

Finally the SXSW Panel Picker went live today. Once I sort out all the various panels from friends and colleagues, I’ll let you know. Right now, I’m cross-eyed trying to figure it all out from the tweets. If enough panels from people I know make the cut, I might even make the effort to go this year.

Books, blogs and Burma

by

crossposted to Snapshot Chronicles

We interrupt our discussion of blogger relations, good and bad, to bring you some news from around the blogosphere from friends new and old.

First, from  my good friend Yvonne DiVita. In addition to being one of the leading experts on marketing to women online, Yvonne runs Windsor Media Enterprises, a  print-on-demand publishing company that guides authors through the self-publishing process. This fall, they are going to put on a conference called Books, Blogs and Beyond: Publishing 3.0, and they are asking for our  input to create a program truly relevant to the attendees’ needs. If you are an aspiring author, or even just interested in the impact of social media like blogs on the publishing process, please take their survey. Let Yvonne and her team know what you’d like to know.

Speaking of authors, this week the momosphere was alive with buzz about Sleep Is for the Weak, the upcoming collection of essays by parent bloggers edited by Rita Arens. Read the story of how Rita shepherded this project from her dream to a reality on her blog Surrender, Dorothy, and then immediately add the blog to your feed reader. She is an excellent writer, as are the many moms, and one dad, included in the book. I can’t wait to get my copy, already pre-ordered on Amazon.

One reason I am so excited about her book, apart from the fact that Rita is an awesome woman who deserves the success and accolades that are and will be coming her way as the result of the book, is that it will expose an even larger audience to the amazing writing on parent blogs. Major media always seems to focus on mom blogs as a market,  the privacy issue — that parents are writing about their kids, and dooce. What it misses is what a damn fine group of writers this is, and not just Heather Armstrong. I read many blogs. Some of the best writing BY FAR is on parenting blogs, and not just about their kids. Politics, culture, sex, travel, art, photography, philanthropy, the economy. Just some of the topics you’ll find on parenting blogs along with daycare, diapers and  disasters.

Finally, here’s a simple way to donate to the relief effort in Burma that won’t cost you a cent, just a comment. Leave a comment on this post at digTrends by May 31st, and Digital Influence Group will add $10.00 to its donation check to the US Campaign for Burma. They’ve capped the donation at $5,000 — that’s 500 comments on their post, and I hope they get there. Hat tip, Mack Collier on Twitter.

Tags: , , , ,