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My Speech at eComXpo Now Has a Contest

In conjunction with my discussion at eComXpo about “Mobile Search Marketing: The Coming Evolution of Chief Marketing Officer to Chief Customer Officer”, I’m announing a contest! Prizes will be awarded via random drawing on Monday, October 30th, 2006, odds of winning depend on number of entries received and viewed via blog search engines.
Prize #1 – Dalka will be giving out one of his famous blog interviews to one lucky winner! (estimated value – priceless!)
Prize #2 – One eComXpo University Pass to allow leisurely viewing of content at a later time after the close of the conference, a great value if you missed part of the show. (estimated value – $99)

To enter, simply answer the following questions in a blog entry before the close of eComXpo:
1) Who exports what cereal to what country and why?
2) Who had a flat tire?
3) What three disparate data sets does David advocate tying together to create a customer driven experience?

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Honda – Great SEM and SEO on Honda CRV 2007 Redesign Launch…

What can I say? It’s so rare to see a new vehicle launch and have the term rank #1 in Google and have the Adwords ad done right to boot! Bravo! If anyone from Honda is monitoring their brand and would like me drive one for a while and give it my review, my contact info is in my bio section… P.S. Why can’t I buy an EX without that headroom choking sunroof?

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Why Executives Are Like Blog Readers

Someone asked me this morning why posts with lists do better on Digg? It’s a good question. I myself have worked for considerable time on many posts I thought were deep, profound and interesting only to see them go nowhere.

Sometimes the post combines other elements like artwork.

My favorite graduate school professor, James Schrager of the Chicago GSB, always preached conciseness in his entrepreneurship class so that executives and people funding your startup can understand it consistently. It makes things easier to digest. Especially if the concept is new to a person which is frequently the case as you stumble upon a random blog.

That’s why executives are like blog readers, yet most executives don’t read blogs, interesting contradiction, isn’t it?

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Jeremiah Owyang on Social Media at Ragan PR Conference

I arrived to the session late….

Corporate bloggers must have thick skin.

Community Manager – gather sources and send them away…they will come back.

How do I get all employees involved?

Community marketing allows engagement.

Responding to complaints:
– Engage the blogger – “we hear you”

Blogger relationships – treat them with respect and analyst.

Bloggers are egotistical.

I’m not in PR.

Prospects trust other customers than anything else. Embrace and use your current customers.

Let go, to gain more.

Do not over structure corporate blogs for product announcements.

Blogoshpere conversation benchmark tools are important. 
 
Rift between corporate communications and web – often exists.

You should educate people to overcome that rift. Social Media consultant.

Just do it . The tools will evolve.

Give to the community and they will give back. 

You need to trust and love your employers. IBM built it’s blogging policy with a Wiki.

Vivid examples given about how to use Myspace.

Wells Fargo has a blog, teaching credit. Useful content build trust.

 Links, activity, forum and stickyness.
 
C-level blogs can save time as the future meetings are framed.

Sun, says C-level leader is to communicate. 

“Social media is gray.”

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Shel Holtz on Podcasting at Ragan PR conference

Shel Holtz is the second Shel in my life who studies social media. The other is Shel Israel. Shel Holtz refers to Shel Isreal as “Shel #1” due to his superior age characteristics.

“Podcasting is Tivo for audio.”

Podshow is a network of shows. Yahoo!, iTunes, Podcast Alley are other alternatves.

There are a lot of people out there who aren’t technically savvy. 11% of adults have downloaded a podcast. 35-44 is 45% of penetration area – dismisses the myth that podcasting is only for Generation Y.

Podcast listeners are:
– Educated
– Affluent
– Trend Leaders

Niche focused – listen to relevant content

Podcasts are detachable from your computer – iPod, etc. I listen to podcasts when I’m walking my dog, sitting in airport tool. Audio is the only communication channel that you can do while listening to something else.

Allows you to listen while doing something else.

Podcasting has low barriers to entry. I learned how to do it in under and hour.

Podcasting facts:
– 20,000 independent podcasts
– Podcasting community is supportive
– Has it’s own conference
– Spawned the “podsafe music” field (Pod Safe Music Network – let people know you  use it and they are happy)
– Support services emerging

Lybsyn.com only charges you for file storage (monthly fee)

IBM Podcast – Investment Relations Department – talks with different thought leaders around the company.

Ipressroom.com – talks about the future of press

Nearly all podcasts are free.

Producing a podcast is about setting a consistent format.
– One host or co-hosts
– Interviews
– Segments?
– In the field

Mix/minus – gets rid of latency.

Eliminate glitches

Secrets of Successful Podcasting:
– Unscripted and natural
– Regular
– No overt selling
– Housed on a blog
– Listener feedback encouraged and incorporated
– Employ other forms of engagement

Hobson & Holtz

www.forimmediaterelease.biz

Blog.holtz.com

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Getting noticed in the new word-of-mouth network

Robert Scoble: Keynote Speech: Naked Conversations

Talks about history, blogs are best way to get stuff indexed in Google.

There is an informal conversation network. Tells the story about how a few people he told that he was leaving Microsoft. How that spread and then a largely unread blog was the one that first posted it is why you need to pay attention to *ALL* bloggers, not just him.

Talking to bloggers is more important than covering Walt Mossberg.

People who read blogs are far more likely to click and take action.

The auto blog reader is more likely to click through to other auto sites.

Most people understand search engines. Talks about google.com and how people search “Yahoo” and vice versa. It demonstrates that it’s a Google world.

If you pipes are leaking, you need a plumber. So you type in “Chicago plumber leak” and you need to be on the top of the organic search results. Links are important and so are other things. Changing the content every day helps the algorithms. Blogs, due to the frequency of content update are excellent tools to do this.

He talks about the plumber blog that gets link due to the knowledge. Also talks about how he got a ripped off once with a carpet and is blog entry ranked higher than the company.

A dirty secret about Google is that the ad click through rate is lower there du to the higher educational level of a typical Google user.

People will link to audio and video more than they will text. Suggested video press releases. Be different. Hugh’s cartoon’s are different. Video and Flickr and other sites can create buzz.

Talked about the “Dell Hell” issue. (strangely few in the room had heard of it – shows how far we have to go) Tells the well known Jeff Jarvis story.

Talks about how to listen. (I would say this is Robert’s biggest gift)

Then gave examples of how he linked to complaints directly when he joined Microsoft, fascinating!

Currently, HP story is a great example. They have not listened to the blogosphere. It is making the ethics crisis there worse.

Every project should have a story behind it. Talked about channel 9 naming story and how Microsoft built transparency. The PR folks didn’t pay attention to our blogs and Channel 9 until we were in the New York Times. It’s so funny how that works. Tells more about telling good stories and how important that it. It’s all about story telling process.

If you post something it shows up in my RSS aggregator. Using RSS is far more productive!

How do I get my content viewed in new places…talked about second life.

Valleywag recently wrote about a bad pitch. Democracy Now, Z Fank, Ipod can aggregate. Steve Jobs used Rocketboom to do the recent Apple launch.    

Again, HP – where is the engagement in the ethical issues?

Ragan PR conferece 2006

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Vlogs Ain’t Blogs

Alec Saunders has a nice post on why he thinks vlogs ain’t blogs. Brian Sullivan does the same. They saved me the time of doing this. 

Then again, I myself posted video content in the past week (see unedited “loud announcement of Macy’s boycott” in my Marshall Field’s post). In my case it showed an angry mob and was in fact useful for this purpose. I wouldn’t want a whole blog filled with posts like that, but it served a purpose here for getting the passion across. Yet way more people viewed the text post than the Youtube video at this point though, maybe it’s because they too don’t find it compelling enough to click through?