Web Ink Now

Building inbound marketing assets are not marketing expenses

I get pushback from many entrepreneurs and business owners as well as CMOs in larger businesses about the idea of using inbound marketing because they see the investment in people to create content as a barrier. They say things like: "I cannot find money in my budget to spend $5,000 a month (or whatever the number) on content creation."

When I probe, the vast majority of these decision makers are looking at content creation in the same way as they look at other marketing expenses they currently have such as advertising, trade show booths, spending on agency retainers, and printing brochures.

Building inbound marketing assets

Thinking of your content as an expense like advertising means you always underspend.

For example, if you spend $5,000 in a given month on Google AdWords, the only thing you are buying are the resulting clicks of your ads appearing against the important phrases people search on to find your business. But as soon as you stop paying, your clicks stop too. This is the classic example of a marketing expense.

However, if you spend $5,000 in a given month to hire a freelance journalist to write a bunch of interesting blog posts relating to important phrases people search on to find your business, you will have assets that live on forever that will drive people to your content from the search engines for years to come. The content will have value many years after it has been paid for.

I started writing this blog in 2004. There are posts that I wrote many years ago that rank highly in the search engines for phrases that people search on today such as "brand journalism" "online media room" and many others.

My free ebooks are an even more dramatic example. I've gotten well over a million downloads from these efforts. Every day people download my ebooks, in some cases many years after I have written them because they enter search terms like "viral marketing" and discover my long ago created content.

Those blog posts and ebooks are assets that I own. It's not a marketing expense because the 500 or so links from Google and the other search engines I get each day are free!

It's not just me. Mike Volpe, CMO at HubSpot, looked at HubSpot sales leads from their blog. It turns out that 70% of all blog leads are from older articles and only 30% of the leads came from articles that they wrote that particular month.

In other words HubSpot blog assets that were already "paid for" in the past represented 70% of HubSpot success. Yet the way most people would calculate ROI is to value the smaller 30% of leads against the marketing spend for that month. This method gives false data.

Time to stop thinking of content creation as an expense

Almost all marketers are looking at an investment in content as a short-term expense instead of a long-term asset.

It is time we educate the decision makers that content creation is asset building. I am such a believer in this that I think we should put our blog or YouTube channel onto our balance sheet in the same way that many companies value patents or brands.

How to value your content assets

There are a number of ways we could actually value our content. None are perfect. Here are a few to get you thinking:

Value of a blog post or ebook using AdWords Value Equivalency

I propose one metric, which I coin as AdWords Value Equivalency, which is sort of similar to the traditional PR metric of Advertising Value Equivalency.

The way to calculate this is to figure out how much you would have to pay for the Google AdWords equivalent of a particular search term that you rank highly for in the natural search results because of the content you have created. Then figure out how often that phrase is searched on and calculate a value for a year (or ten years or in perpetuity).

As an example, HubSpot is currently in the #1 position for "marketing software" (nice!!). And there are also a bunch of companies buying ads against this phrase using Google AdWords. I would argue the value of that phrase as a HubSpot asset is the present value of the maximum AdWords price you have to pay times the number of searches (or the number of clicks). You could figure it out such that a keyword like that could potentially be worth millions of dollars over, say, ten years.

Value of a Twitter follower

Here is an arbitrary way that each Twitter follower is valued. Some time ago the mobile phone site PhoneDog sued a former employee when he left the company, alleging that the employee took as many as 17,000 Twitter followers with him when he left. PhoneDog estimated each follower was worth $2.50 and went to court to get the money back.

I know the dollar figure is arbitrary, but take your company's Twitter followers and multiply by $2.50. Again using HubSpot as an example, the asset they have built of 285,000+ @HubSpot twitter followers is theoretically worth more than $700,000.

I'd argue that if HubSpot were to value the company to, say, go public in the coming years that investors would be wise to look at these valuable marketing assets in evaluating the merits of investing in the company.

What about you?

Please add a comment if you are already calculating the value of your marketing assets and let us know how you do it.

Are there any creative types out there who want to build an online tool for my concept of AdWords Value Equivalency?

Disclosure: I am on the HubSpot advisory board and serve as the company’s Marketer in Residence.

My TEDx talk The Need to Explore

The video of my talk was just posted to the TEDx YouTube channel.

Direct link to The Need to Explore on YouTube.

This is a completely new speech for me with no reliance on the material I use in my keynotes.

It was fun (but hard work) to create a brand new talk combining several subjects I am passionate about: space exploration and our ongoing communications revolution.

Soon I will post about how I created the talk.

How to Pitch a Blogger

I get several hundred pitches a week from well-meaning PR people.

Conversations with other bloggers suggest this is the norm, so now it is as tough to reach a blogger as it is to reach a mainstream journalist. It may be even more difficult since most of us work part-time on our blogs and we devote less time to wading though pitches as journalists.

Sadly, nearly all of the pitches I get are just plain spam.

But the good news is that I do pay attention to things that people send me. I occasionally write about them. So how do you increase your chances of getting a blogger like me to talk about you or your clients? Here are some ideas:

Don't pitch your product.
This is by far the worst thing to do. I may be interested in how people solve problems by using your product or service. But I don’t care about the product itself.

Keep in mind most bloggers have other ways to talk you up.
Don't limit your pitch to only the person's blog. Share what you think the person will be interested in, but realize you may be rewarded in a different way. In my case, I might tweet it. Or maybe it is a story is worth adding to a book I'm working on or as a riff in a speech. Don't limit yourself.

Remember, we're not journalists.
Bloggers write about whatever we feel like and we aren't obligated to "tell both sides of a story" or "cover your news." The best blogs are written by people who are passionate about a topic. Read the blog, discover the passion, and send something that the blogger will be interested in.

Don't offer guest posts unless the blogger runs them.
In nearly a decade of writing my blog, I've never run a post by a guest author. While I'm not prepared to say I never will, offering to write one for me is a sure way to have your email deleted. Make sure a blog runs guest posts before you pitch that as an idea.

Broadcast pitches are spam.
I love hearing about something interesting before others. If you've got a great example of marketing success, tell me! But don’t send me something that you also send to hundreds of others.

Never open with "Dear Blogger".
Dear Blogger tells people that you don't care enough about them to read their blog and learn their name. It's much better if you personalize your pitch with an appropriate greeting and some detail about why they were selected.

Make it short.
I won't read a long email. A few sentences about what you're pitching and why is great. If I want more information, I'll ask for it.

Never send an email attachment.
Links are okay but attachments are not.

Take care with the subject line.
Make your subject line specific. Something like "Example of newsjacking success" is a great subject line for me.

Twitter is good. Telephone is not.
It's fine to send a pitch via Twitter Direct Message or to include a blogger's Twitter ID in a tweet. The 140-character limit forces you to get to the point. But bloggers I've spoken with do not appreciate phone calls.

I've had many discussions with bloggers in recent years and most of us do like to get a well-crafted pitch targeted especially to us. We want you to reach out! Do it well, and we may write about you.

How Gareth Fairhurst used content marketing to get elected

Gareth Fairhurst, a local councillor on Wigan Council, has used online communications and social media, including his blog, Twitter @cllrgwfairhurst, and Facebook to communicate with his constituents in Standish, a village in Greater Manchester, England.

In 2012 Gareth, an independent, won re-election with twice the number of votes as his nearest major party rival. He credits his content marketing efforts as instrumental in his success.

"In the last local elections [May, 2012] I knew I had to try the online experience, as I was an independent candidate and that is always a disadvantage to the mainstream parties," Gareth told me. "There was a particular issue that people where concerned with so I used the blog as a starting point to set up an online petition. This allowed people to share the issue with their friends, which in turned associated my name with the campaign. It also helped me get 1000 peoples' email addresses over the election campaign."

While Gareth has been blogging since 2009, he recently changed his strategy. "I update my blog once a week on Sunday with what had been happening each week," he says. "Then I update my Twitter and Facebook account during the week with snippets," pointing people from the social networks to his blog. "This has seen an increase in my blog by over 60%."

While his rivals from The Labour Party and The Conservative Party used traditional leaflet drops during the 2012 campaign campaign, Gareth focused his efforts on social media and web content combined with personal meetings with constituents. "Here is the link to the result, which I believe demonstrates not only a massive win but you have to use new tools to connect with voters," he says.

Nice work Gareth! Keep going.

World's worst website

I'd like to nominate the English-language edition of the Tokyo 2020 Candidate City website as the worst English-language site in the world. The site is built in support of bringing the 2020 Summer Olympic Games to Tokyo.

Where to start. Well anywhere, really. So let's look at content.

How about Vision:
"Tokyo 2020 will bring together dynamic innovation and global inspiration. It will unite the power of the Games with the unique values of the Japanese people and the excitement of a city that sets global trends. It will be a unique celebration that will help reinforce and renew the Olympic Values for the new generation. And will contribute to more young people, worldwide, sharing the dreams, hopes and benefits of sport."

Huh? WTF?

This is about as gobbledygook as any paragraph I have ever read. And I've read a lot of bad ones over the years. We've got weasel words like the number one most over-used phrase in English language marketing: "innovation". Then there’s "global inspiration," "unique values" plus other world-class, cutting-edge, mission-critical nonsense. These phrases are so overused to have become meaningless.

A fun test of superlative-laden content like this is to substitute a competitor. So how about substituting into the paragraph above for Istanbul 2020 with the words "Istanbul / Turkish" or Madrid 2020 with "Madrid / Spanish." If the paragraph still makes sense with the competitor city substituted, then vision has failed.

Buyer personas... Or not.

While I could poke at additional content aspects of this terrible site that make it stink so much, I'll stop. Because what it really comes down to is the typical mistake of not understanding buyers.

I lived in Japan for seven years and my wife is Japanese. What we've seen so often is Japanese organizations that enter the global markets by simply translating the content they created for the local Japan marketplace. That's likely what happened here.

And it's too bad, really. Because Tokyo would make an excellent host city. But I fear the candidacy is doomed because of this rotten site.

For an example of missing the buyer persona, consider the use of animated characters that are so big in Japanese marketing. The people who made this site assumed that everyone in the world is attracted to anime so they carried it over to English too: All-Time Cartoon Hero Doraemon Joins Tokyo 2020 as Special Ambassador. Well not everyone is into the same stuff as the average eleven-year-old.

Who should be the buyer persona for this site? I'd argue the 115 voting members of the International Olympic Committee who choose the location of the 2020 games are the most important buyer persona. I'd have a tough time believing that this site reaches those people effectively.

When your organization goes global

While it is easy to sneer at this site and other crap-filled sites like it, imagine what happens when *you* simply translate *your* materials into the local languages of countries whose markets you enter. It is likely a similar thing happens to your site in the eyes of the local market if you translate your content.

To really globalize, you need local content creators who understand the local buyer personas and create content especially for them.

Voting for the Olympic host city takes place on September 7, 2013, as I write this a little more than 4 months away. There is still time to fix this site and increase Tokyo's chances.

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UPDATE May 2, 2013 - I am not a consultant (I write books and deliver speeches around the world. I have no interest in trying to generate consulting business from this blog post. I am simply pointing it out so we can all learn from it.

Communications revolution

I'd like to step way, way back and look at the big picture of where we are today with our ongoing communications revolution.

This is not a view, to use the cliché, from 30,000 feet. It's the view from 1,000 years into the future.

The new rules of marketing and public relations are a part of the much bigger and incredibly important communications revolution we're currently living through—the most important in human history.

In my thinking there are three major periods in human communications:

The pre-printing-press era from the beginning of humanity through the mid-1400s

In this period, knowledge is very, very expensive because it needs to be either memorized or written by hand. Most of humanity is illiterate and life is difficult for most.

The era of printed information

Beginning 550 years ago, knowledge became cheap because it could be reproduced in such a way that most anybody could have access to their own books or those owned by others nearby. However, communications was only one way, from a relatively small number of knowledge creators to a large number of readers.

The era of web and mobile communications

In the past 18 years, information has become essentially free and two-way. The big picture ramifications are huge. One thousand years from now, the only two things that will be remembered in the history of the time period we are living right now will be the first lunar landing of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969 and the development of real-time communications instantly connecting every human on earth with every other human on earth.

The second most important communications revolution in human history

Johannes Gutenberg's invention of printing with mechanical movable type (circa 1439) was the second most important communications breakthrough in history. It meant books could be mass-produced, rather than painstakingly copied by hand. It meant ordinary people could refer to things in books, like laws. These used to have to be committed to memory.

The printing press created the first communications revolution by freeing people's minds from memorization and allowing them to use that extra brainpower to be creative. At the same time, this first communications revolution (which took many decades) helped large numbers of people become literate and raised living standards along the way.

No longer relying on religious leaders for the truth

The invention of the printing press meant that average people could learn to read and understand knowledge for themselves. This meant that they had a choice to no longer rely on religions leaders for the truth. People could decide on their own that, say, the earth really did revolve around the sun.

The printing press brought changes to humanity that lifted Europe out of the medieval period and into the Renaissance.

However, this communications method is essentially one way – from publishers of information to consumers of information.

The single most important communication revolution in human history

Some 556 years later, in 1995, the most important communications revolution began. I choose 1995 because it was the year that Netscape went public on the success of Netscape Navigator, the first popular product to allow easy Internet connection and web browsing.

We're fortunate to be living in this time in history, the time of another important communications revolution. I figure we’re about halfway through it. The first nearly twenty years or so were fast-paced, and things changed very quickly. Usage went from a few million people online to billions.

Now any person with an internet or mobile phone connection can communicate in real time with virtually any other human on the planet. Talk about a revolution.

Mobile phone adoption

According to the International Telecommunications Union, there were 5.9 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide in 2011, and mobile networks are available to more than 90 percent of the world’s population. It's not just creaky old technology either; some 150 countries offer high-speed 3G service.

In fact, more people have access to mobile phones than have access to toothbrushes. More people have access to mobile phones than have access to working toilets.

No longer relying on companies and government leaders for the truth

When people can communicate in real-time with one another, it has fundamental ramifications for humanity.

A handful of people in Egypt can create a Facebook group that generates support from millions of ordinary citizens and brings down a government.

Anybody can do independent research on the web and choose what to believe about the products and services they consume.

The revolution drives the economy

Mobile phone technology has far reaching influence on the world's economy. People who relied on traditional selling techniques in use for hundreds or even thousands of years suddenly have a global market at their fingertips.

I saw this firsthand when I was visited the village of Cangandi in the Guna district of Panama last year on an expedition organized by my friends at Earth Train.

What’s remarkable about Cangandi is that the several hundred villagers chose to move the entire village over one kilometer away to the top of a hill because that was the one place that had good mobile phone reception. In 2010, they moved the entire village - huts and all - obviously a massive undertaking.

The village of Cangandi does not have running water. It does not have electricity. But Cangandi does have cell reception (with solar power for recharging).

This has transformed the way they do business. Previously, before they had mobile devices, they would load up their canoes with the products they grow such as cassava roots, maize, and plantains and paddle downriver to the Pacific Ocean to the islands there to see who needed to buy. But it was hit or miss. If another seller had been there recently there was no way to make a sale, so they frequently returned after several days wasted.

Now, they have spot market intelligence. Islanders frequently contact them to place orders which the villagers deliver when needed and at a fair price. This is particularly relevant for cassava and other roots because the plants can be kept alive for a long time and harvested as needed or when the offered price and desired quantity make sense.

Without that communication learning of spot market opportunities via mobile devices villagers would frequently be stuck with a canoe full of roots out at sea skipping from island to island only to find that there is little need for roots right then and that they have to sell at a loss.

What about you?

Even now, nearly 20 years into the revolution, many organizations still aren't communicating in real-time on the web.

Are you one of the revolutionaries? Or do you support the old regime? Are you marketing your product or service like the villagers of Cangandi? Or are you failing to produce content on the web that will do well in the search engines and social networks?

The next few decades will bring a continuation of the revolution. We need to be constantly learning and updating our skills to reach buyers as they're looking for the products and services we sell.

This is an exciting time to be in marketing and communications. In 1,000 years, people will study this period in history books to learn about the tremendous transformations in society brought by the changes that we are living today.

Just like we study the transformation from medieval times leading to the Renaissance due to the knowledge gained from the printing press, the wide availability of mobile technologies and web content to the entire world means humanity is made better.

Images: 1) Villagers in Cangandi, Guna Yala, Panama. 2) Former Secretary General of the Guna General Congress (and Earth Train board member) Enrique "Kike" Arias while in Cangandi.

The HubSpot Culture Code: Creating a Company We Love

My friends over at HubSpot published a deck on Slideshare called The HubSpot Culture Code: Creating a Company We Love.

The presentation deck started out as an internal document years ago (it doubles as the company handbook). As a company who values transparency (and inbound marketing), they decided to share it with the community as a manifesto.

As I write this, it has generated a remarkable 384,000 views in just one month!

Culture Code: Creating A Lovable Company from HubSpot All-in-one Marketing Software

I have seen the HubSpot culture up close since I joined the company's advisory board in 2007. It is an absolute joy to walk into their ever expanding offices in Cambridge, MA. The energy and enthusiasm is everywhere. People love their work and it shows.

An organizational culture is a critically important factor that drives marketing and HubSpot proves that. The company now has about 9,000 customers and over 460 people work at the company. When I joined the advisory board it was less than 100 customers and about a dozen people worked there. Their growth rate makes HubSpot the fastest growing company in Massachusetts. They’ve raised over $100 million in venture capital to fund continued growth, having recently opened a European headquarters in Dublin.

Most senior management teams either completely ignore culture, or they try to force something unnatural onto people. Worse, some executives say one thing ("we love our employees") but their actions show something completely different.

Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot co-founder, wrote about the HubSpot Culture Code in his blog. Included in the post, are some highlights:

1) Culture is to recruiting as product is to marketing.

2) Whether you like it or not, you're going to have a culture. Why not make it one you love?

3) Solve For The Customer -- not just their happiness, but also their success.

4) Power is now gained by sharing knowledge, not hoarding it.

5) "Sunlight is the best disinfectant."

6) You shouldn't penalize the many for the mistakes of the few.

7) Results should matter more than when or where they are produced.

8) Influence should be independent of hierarchy.

9) Great people want direction on where they're going -- not directions on how to get there.

10) "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without."

11) We'd rather be failing frequently than never trying.

Check out the deck and see what has been behind HubSpot’s success.

The End of Big

Last night I finished my advance readers' edition of The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath by the super-smart Nicco Mele. The book releases here in the U.S. on April 23, 2013.

I enjoyed Nicco's important book very much, but not because of the frequently discussed details about how the Web allows anyone to publish and be seen. No, that's obvious. Instead what I particularly liked was his deep dive into less obvious ramifications and the cautionary aspects of the erosion of power structures.

Big is the New York Times book review. The end of big is you reading my book review on my small independent blog or on the book's Amazon page. As Nicco writes: "The end of big replaces the elite, formal, highly capitalized, institutionally backed provider of goods or services with your neighbor the poet / journalist / lawyer / soldier / designer (insert craft here)."

The book has chapters on the end of big in areas I've written about a lot including news, companies, and fun (including music and book publishing). But it also includes fascinating chapters on subjects I know little about such as the end of big government, big politics, and big armies.

Nicco certainly knows what he's talking about. As webmaster for Governor Howard Dean's 2004 presidential bid, Nicco and the campaign team popularized the use of technology and social media, revolutionizing political fundraising and reshaping American politics. Soon after, he co-founded EchoDitto, a web strategy firm whose clients included Barack Obama's successful Senate campaign. Nicco is now also on the faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School where he teaches graduate-level classes on the internet and politics.

All is not rosy

While there are many exciting aspects of the end of big in every area Nicco covers, in each there are also threats. For example, in the world of politics, radical connectivity sometimes makes backing by major parties a liability for incumbents. The rise of fringe groups such as the Tea Party and WikiLeaks are a result of the end of big because the Web rewards extremist views.

In journalism, if we no longer have big news gathering organizations, who is going to fund the big investigative story? Without the Washington Post, would Woodward and Bernstein have emerged independently? Without the Watergate Scandal how would history have differed? These are questions worth asking.

Big is not dead

What I find particularly interesting about our culture today is that big is not going away. We are all struggling to figure out which big institutions make sense in our lives today and in our future world. And we're trying to figure out which are best torn down.

For example, I note that The End of Big was not self-published. Nicco talks a lot about micro publishing but went with a big publisher (St. Martin's Press) for his own book.

But at the same time, Nicco is running EchoDitto his own small business and he also has a small publishing operation (his blog). He's someone who used small techniques (on the Web) to make both Howard Dean and Barack Obama very big.

When you are ready to dig deeper

As someone who has talked about the end of big marketing and big PR for more than a decade, I find it refreshing to read Nicco's book because it made me think about some negative aspects of our new world.

I have a tendency to be too much of a cheerleader about the rise of small and the end of big, so having this challenge to my ideas has been important to me. Thank you for that Nicco.

Newsjacking with a B2B infographic and blog post

With all the talk about the Oreo Super Bowl newsjacking juggernaut, many people think that newsjacking, the art of injecting your ideas into a breaking news story is only for consumer brands.

Joe Chernov vice president of marketing at Kinvey proves that a quick acting B2B company can have equivalent success within their target market.

Early this week, executives at Kinvey, a mobile backend as a service (BaaS) company learned that Salesforce.com was about to enter their market category. They quickly realized this would be big news.

As it turns out, not only did Salesforce.com enter the market, but Rackspace also announced a competing platform on the same day as Salesforce.com.

Working late into the night, Joe and Kinvey CEO Sravish Sridhar crafted a blog post under Sravish's byline about the implications titled Backend as a Service Welcomes Vendor #32: Salesforce.com. They also updated their category-defining infographic Backend as a Service (BaaS) Ecosystem Map depicting all of the major players in the market.

The blog post went live within minutes of the Salesforce.com announcement and it triggered a bunch of discussions on Twitter, some involving journalists and analysts.

Soon after, TechCrunch, arguably the most important blog for buyers of services in the Kinvey market, wrote about Salesforce.com and Rackspace's announcements in a post titled Rackspace Rolls Out Its Mobile Plan As Vendors Get Giddy About Backend Data Pipes And Spigots.

The newsjacking success came because the bulk of the TechCrunch article talked about Sravish's post and BaaS Ecosystem Map infographic.

Newsjacking success

I connected with Joe to learn more about his newsjacking success so other B2B companies can be prepared when a similar news event happens in their marketplace.

"Newsjacking involves more than issuing a timely blog post, product placement, or press release," Joe says. "It also requires actively engaging with journalists and other influencers who are discussing the topic you wish to judo to your advantage."

When the Salesforce.com news broke, Sravish jumped into the discussions with a prominent tech journalist, industry analyst, and another CEO who were all discussing the Salesforce.com news.

"He became an active participant in the conversation, and in doing so shared his blog post," Joe says. "It was that exchange that ultimately led to the successful newsjack. My advice to others is all content - even something as time sensitive as a newsjacking post - requires a measure of hustle. It doesn't always get discovered on its own."

I love how Sravish was in real-time discussions himself. Frequently when a CEO jumps in, the credibility factor goes up and journalists pay more attention. But most CEOs are "too busy" and leave "that PR stuff" to staff.

How Raytheon implemented a brand journalism approach to content marketing

I'm always fascinated by organizations that embrace brand journalism, hiring reporters to create content that serves as marketing and public relations. For almost a decade, I've recommended that companies of all kinds model their sites not on their peers' boring old brochure-like approach but rather aspire to becoming like a media site such as Forbes, the BBC, or The New York Times and that they actually hire reporters and editors, not marketers and copywriters, to produce the content.

One look at the Raytheon homepage shows they do exactly that. There are real-time news, images, and a top stories section. And Raytheon is a B2B (and B2G) company!

"You can see our homepage is very much a news operation," says Corinne J Kovalsky, Director, Digital & Social Media at Raytheon. "We've got feature stories and trend stories about cool products."

I've engaged with Corinne for several years on social networks and recently had an opportunity to visit with her and the team at Raytheon headquarters to learn how they built the brand journalism approach to marketing and public relations.

"I'm an ex TV producer," Corinne says. "I did national news up in Canada for the CTV Network for a number of years. I produced the Canadian equivalent of Meet The Press and I have very fond memories of having journalists on staff."

In early 2011, Corinne worked with Pam Wickham, Raytheon's vice president of corporate affairs and communications to implement the brand journalism approach. Pam recognized the opportunity to establish a more robust footprint in digital and social media for the company, an idea that resonated to the very top of the organization.

Hiring brand journalists

Once the plan was signed off, Corinne brought on some very impressive talent in early 2012 including Stephanie Schierholz who formerly worked as NASA social media manager. Stephanie grew the @NASA Twitter account from zero to over three million followers and helped organize some interesting "firsts" such as the first live tweet from space and the first Foursquare check-in from space.

Stephanie now works on Raytheon social media including the @Raytheon Twitter feed. Journalists and defense department officials pay attention to the feed and frequently use the content such as this CNNi tweet of a Raytheon image of a high tech helmet to guide pilots of the future.

Soon after, Chris Hawley was hired as managing editor of digital content. Chris joined Raytheon from the Associated Press where just a few weeks earlier he won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting for a months-long series outlining the New York Police Department's surveillance of minority and particularly Muslim neighborhoods since the 9/11 terror attacks. Now, as a brand journalist, he brings the skills he learned at AP to Raytheon.

"I'm helping to build a news operation," Chris says. "We are working at Raytheon just like an AP beat to find interesting stories and tell the world about them in a way that engages. We have bureau chiefs in all of our four divisions. They have certain products that they want to talk about so we try to find new and interesting ways of exploring those stories. And we refine the story ideas, assign writers and we're doing a lot of training on editing and getting those stories out."

Chris has also taken on the role of establishing editorial guidelines for Raytheon and teaching staff about journalism. "We've tried to codify the writing and editing process," he says. "We've come up with a checklist approach to writing a web story that goes through everything from selecting if it's going to be a hard lead story or a soft lead story, right down to which scientific study should I pay attention to when I'm evaluating background information for an article."

Content that drives the media

The content that Corinne, Chris, Stephanie, and the others on the team produce serve to educate and entertain existing and potential clients. But it also serves the media who with increasing regularity use Raytheon content to create their stories. For example, Gizmodo frequently writes about Raytheon so articles published by Raytheon such as Tiny Satellites To Give Warfighters a Bird's-Eye View of the Battlefield frequently lead to articles such as DARPA's SeeMe Satellites Are a Soldier's On-Demand Eye In the Sky on Gizmodo.

The feature packages produced by Raytheon include text and video plus photography, infographics, and animation where possible. Journalists love the video that Raytheon produces.

"We had a plant opening in Huntsville, Alabama and the factory is one of the most state of the art robotic factories in the world so we focused on the robots in the video," Corinne says. "Mark Thompson, who writes for Time, picked up the video and linked back to our feature and his headline was Elroy Jetson Is Building Missiles!"

Measuring success

While brand journalism at Raytheon has been live for less than a year, there is evidence that the approach is producing results.

"One of our big trade shows is the Association of the US Army annual conference, which happens each October," Chris says. "In the most recent one we decided to go for quality content instead of quantity. We did only three stories compared to more than 20 in 2010, but we really wrote the heck out of them. If you look at them they're really well written and capture trends. And we increased traffic 451% over the year before."

Senior management is noticing too. "Bill Swanson, Raytheon's chairman and chief executive officer, let us build this team and there are some people within the organization who, perhaps, still question why a defense company is doing social media," Corinne says. "Bill has thrown his support behind this young team and has been incredibly encouraging."

To thank the CEO, the team presented him with some Twitter cufflinks. "Well, he was so tickled that wore them during a meeting one day in front of Pam Wickham," Corinne says. "She immediately took a photo and tweeted it out. Bill's cufflinks got 17,000 impressions in 24 hours. Not everybody is that lucky to have a CEO who is so open to new developments and so willing to bring in the right talent."

Editorial note: Nice watch Mr. Swanson!

If you're an organization looking to implement a brand journalism approach to content marketing, study what Raytheon does.

Here I am with the Raytheon team at their Waltham, MA global headquarters.

Left to Right

Doug Bonarrigo, @Bonarrdo, Digital Media Manager, is technology lead.

Corinne Kovalsky, @Kovalskyc, Director, Digital & Social Media, is the managing editor.

Stephanie Schierholz, @schierholz, Social Media Manager, is the audience advocate.

David Meerman Scott, @dmscott, that’s me and I’m lucky to have had the chance to visit Raytheon!

Chris Hawley, @chawley1, Managing Editor Digital Content, is in charge of content and programming.

Sheehan Perera, @SheehanPerera, Raytheon Leadership Development Program, is working on internal and external digital and social media.

Your chance to learn more

At Blaze, the Business Marketing Association 2013 Global Conference on May 31, I’m leading a panel "In the Moment: How and Why to Do Real-Time B2B Marketing" which includes Corinne together with Rich Jurek, Group CMO, The Inland Real Estate Group of Companies, Inc. and Matt Petitjean, Vice President, Corporate Marketing, ADP. I'm looking forward to learning more from Corinne then. If you're attending Blaze, please find me and say hello.

The journey from a traditional marketing executive to a modern CMO

With an MBA from Wharton, a bunch of high profile marketing gigs on his resume, and a bit of gray hair to show he’s got experience, Brian Kardon is what people think of as a typical Chief Marketing Officer. He’s been there and done that. But he realized one day that everything he learned in school and from the early part of his career in the publishing business had become completely obsolete.

"I cared about arts and crafts," he says. "I cared about brochures and direct mail. I cared about the color on the website. And what's happened is the world had gone digital. It had gone social. It's gone mobile and we have to learn a completely new language of conversion rates and pay per click and search engine optimization and authoritative inbound links and it's a whole new world."

The journey from a traditional marketing executive to a modern CMO

I met Brian when he was CMO at Eloqua and I joined the Eloqua advisory board. Today Brian is Chief Marketing Officer at Lattice Engines a company that provides Big Data analytics for sales, marketing and business intelligence and a platform provider for predictive analytics.

There was a moment that caused Brian to realize he was turning into a marketing dinosaur and heading toward extinction. "Within my second month at being at Eloqua, I read a book called Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah and I didn't put it down," Brian says. "I read it in 2.5 hours and I said to myself 'I have to give this book to everyone in my team because the world of outbound marketing is being disrupted. Everyone is time shifting. You can pause and you don't have to watch commercials. Spam filters are out there. Messages aren't going through."

[Disclosure: I wrote the foreword to Inbound Marketing.]

Brian realized that there was a new way to do marketing and the tools and techniques that were described in the book were things he didn't understand and he realized he needed to learn.

"I didn't really understand what meta tags, alt tags, and title tags were." He says. "I didn't understand about blog platforms and how WordPress worked. I didn't understand about pay per click. I didn't understand all of these things. I was the CMO. Could I have just skated along and had all my team members understand those things? I think I could have, but you can't outrun the ball. For a certain amount of time you can, but you'll get to a point where someone asks a technical question or something with a little more depth and if you haven't done it, you're not going to be successful."

Brian then did something that many executives are unwilling to do. He asked his team for help. Often. He freely admitted his ignorance but also showed he was willing to learn. And he proved he was willing to jump in and actually do real work rather than just direct from the sidelines.

"I decided just to roll up my sleeves and ask people on my team, 'How did you do that?' I had a bunch of people in their 20s and I would just sit next to them and say, 'Tell me how you did that. How did you push that out there?' or 'What are those social sharing links? How did you put that on there?' I asked how HTML works and what Java script is.”

Today, Brian's 11,000+ followers of his @bkardon Twitter feed show that he's in the thick of the action and making it happen. And his work at Lattice Engines wouldn't be possible without his willingness to get down into the weeds to understand data and the technologies of digital communications.

"Lattice Engines is all about using patterns and predictive analytics to help sales people identify those prospects most likely to buy now," he says of the services that Lattice Engines offers. "Marketers are sitting on mountains of data on purchase histories. What did David Meerman Scott buy? When did he buy it? Did he pay full price? Did he buy the scarf? Was it a gift? Was it for himself? We found there's a new breed of company that is using past to predict future. You can find patterns that actually predict that David Meerman Scott's going to buy a purple scarf next month or that you only buy running shoes in November."

I asked Brian to offer advice to other senior marketers making the transition: "You've got to tell yourself you're a child again and you have to relearn what you’re doing."

Do not delete your content because it should live forever

UPDATE - March 30, 2013 - Air New Zealand tweeted a clarification to us which I have saved as a screen shot pasted below.

++++++++++++++
As I was working on a writing project this week, I went to back to take a look at a YouTube video that I talked about on my blog in an August 2010 post titled Awesome Air New Zealand All Blacks rugby safety video. I've mentioned the Air New Zealand - Crazy About Rugby - Safety Video in one of my books and in talks around the world. Remarkably, this had been an airline safety video (you know, how to buckle your seatbelt) with over one million YouTube views!

Even more remarkably, it seems Air New Zealand has removed the video because it is now marked as private. What a lost opportunity for Air New Zealand.

Do not delete your content

Much of your web content should live forever. This video would have continued to rack up views, make people laugh, and serve to humanize Air New Zealand forever. But now it is gone. In reviewing the Air New Zealand YouTube channel, which was created on May 31, 2006 and has 24 million total views, it seems that all videos older than 3 years have been removed. Why in the world would they do that?

I frequently witness this silliness with conference organizers who have one URL for their annual conference and each year delete the prior year's content and replace it with new. Don't do this!

The media in your industry, speakers, bloggers, and exhibiters all link to the conference site and if the content is deleted as soon as the conference ends those links break.

A well-organized conference site is an important historical artifact that provides valuable information many years later. Who spoke that year? What panel discussions were held? What companies sponsored the event? People want to know that your conference has thrived for over a decade. Rather than use one conferenceURL why not make it conferenceURL/2013 and then next year make it conferenceURL/2014? The homepage can then point to the current year's conference.

The SEO benefit of many links

Your Search Engine Marketing benefits from multiple pages with many inbound links. Cultivate your content with care and it will serve as a marketing asset for years to come.

UPDATE: Here is what Air New Zealand said about the deleted video.

How Ocean Frontiers uses Facebook to get dive clients returning year after year

One of the most useful aspects of Facebook is the ability for people to Like and Tag the things you do on the site. When you create something interesting, your friends can spread it for you. As a marketer, there's nothing better than people eagerly sharing your stuff and exposing your ideas to people you don’t know yet.

Steve Broadbelt, Managing director at Ocean Frontiers Ltd. in the Cayman Islands, does exactly that. He and his team are constantly posting tagged photos and videos on their Ocean Frontiers Facebook page, photos and videos that people are eager to share.

Ocean Frontiers specializes in small-group scuba diving off Grand Cayman's East End. Broadbelt runs a modern scuba-diving operation and dive shop with old-style Caymanian hospitality. Many clients return again and again. He's been active on the web since he first built his Ocean Frontiers site (in 1997), an email newsletter soon after, and more recently a presence in social media including Facebook, Foursquare, and Twitter.

The Green Shorts Challenge

It was the realization that people like to come back year after year that prompted him to create The Green Shorts Challenge, where scuba divers who visit each of the 55 dive sites within the East End dive zone in Grand Cayman are given special recognition. The prizes include a pair of coveted, limited-edition green shorts (just like the Ocean Frontiers staff wear), a party to celebrate the achievement, a gold medal, a plaque embedded into the dock that leads to the boats, and special recognition on the Ocean Frontiers Facebook page—with photos documenting the achievement. Participants record their visits to each of the fifty-five dive sites in a custom-designed dive logbook with hand-drawn illustrations. Anybody can download the book for free, with no registration required.

Broadbelt recalls his creation of the award: "I had a customer at a dive show expo in New York who couldn't remember the name of our business, but he remembered that all of our staff wear these green shorts," Broadbelt says. "At the same time, I was frustrated that some of my longest-standing customers, people that have been diving with me for more than 10 years and come back every year, hadn’t seen certain dive sites. So that got me on a mission to try to get all my customers to see all of my dive sites, because there's so much variety and diversity to see. So now we get them on this trail where they check off all the sites, and I found out it’s quite addictive. So we made The Green Shorts Challenge and that’s how we built our tribe of loyal followers. I never thought it was going to be such a marketing powerhouse and get the reaction that it has. Everybody who touches The Green Shorts Challenge seems to stick to it."

As I said, Broadbelt uses the Ocean Frontiers Facebook page to recognize the achievement. For example, when Mary recently hit the 55-dive milestone, the Facebook post read: Mary gets her Green Shorts! There are a bunch of photos of Mary on the Facebook post, including some with the staff, toasting with champagne and cutting a cake. Plus there’s a shot of her new shorts.

People are eager to share

"It ties into social media because every time somebody completes the challenge, we have a celebration and they share with their friends on Facebook," Broadbelt says. "It is the scuba diving hall of fame for our customers; as they’ve reached the ultimate celebrity status with the dive community here. We use Facebook to make everybody aware of the achievement and then people share that with all their friends, and alumni that have already completed the Green Shorts Challenge comment. There’s a lot of warm and fuzzy, feel-good vibes as they’re welcomed to the club—and that cements them as a customer for life."

When customers see their achievements recognized on Facebook, they frequently "like" the posts and use tags to identify people in the photos, spreading the love to their own Facebook friends. This is one of the reasons that Ocean Frontiers has more than 12,000 "likes" on Facebook.

"You couldn't ask for a more loyal and dedicated customer base than what we're building," Broadbelt says. "From whatever social media platform they communicate, if someone wants to go diving in the Caribbean, our customers are going to recommend us. There's a human element that can be brought in with Facebook. You humanize what your business does."

Speaking of humanizing a business, I found out about Ocean Frontiers from Mark Rovner, a communications consultant at Sea Change Strategies who told me about how he dove all 55 sites and now has his very own Green Shorts.

"Steve Broadbelt is a really creative guy and developed a dive logbook with sketches of the dive sites, and little stickers you can put on each dive site," Rovner says. "He gamified it. The Green Shorts Challenge works in so many different ways. The ceremony gets put on their Facebook page, and then each of us who becomes a Green Shorts alumni puts that on our Facebook page. It gives us a story to tell to every diver friend we know. And the one thing that is true of divers, like any other sort of hyperpassionate hobby, is that there’s little else that divers want to talk about more than diving."

Too often marketers want to use Facebook simply to talk up their stuff. But when you provide things of value like Ocean Frontiers, people are eager to share.

Photos courtesy of Ocean Frontiers

Tumi shows great customer service is excellent marketing

It is rare that I have a customer service experience where I go "Wow!"

Tumi, the travel bag company, just caused me to do so.

After many years of going through travel bag after travel bag, I decided to buy a good quality one and after some online research I invested in a Tumi Frequent Traveller in July 2009. At $600 these things are a not cheap.

I figure based on my speaking calendar alone I put nearly a million air miles on the bag since then and together we've visited some 25 countries. The bag is clearly well used, with scuffs and dirt and scars from its adventures around the world.

I didn't have any trouble with the bag for nearly four years, which is much longer than any other bag I've owned. Already it had paid for itself.

So when the retracting handle broke, I figured it was time for a new one. I wondered if it could be fixed. Probably not, I thought, but it was worth a shot.

Great customer service like that from Tumi is excellent marketing

Thinking that I'd need to purchase a new Tumi (a million miles is more than "normal wear and tear" isn't it?) I went on Sunday afternoon to the Tumi retail store at Boston's Copley Place. Charissa took one look at the bag and said she could fix it by installing a new handle mechanism "but it would take a few days."

Cool, I thought. "Please do!"

Since I wasn't able to go back to the store to pick it up, I offered to pay to have it shipped to my home.

She wouldn’t hear of it and said they would send it back to me at no cost.

Yesterday afternoon, less than 48 hours after I left the bag at the Tumi shop, UPS delivered the repaired bag to my door.

Wow!

The new handle works like a charm.

I went into the store expecting to replace the bag that served me well for four years. Instead, at no charge, it was repaired. Remarkable.

And here I am telling you.

In a world where most companies are only interested in today's transaction, great customer service like that from Tumi is excellent marketing. Some day when my bag is finally beyond repair, I'll buy another Tumi. I'm a customer for life.

And maybe you will be a Tumi customer too after hearing my story.

Or better yet, maybe you'll look at your own customer service to see how you can turn it into excellent marketing.

Join me on an Antarctica Expedition

I'm going with Quark Expeditions on their Dec 10 - Dec 20, 2013 Antarctica expedition aboard the luxury Ocean Diamond and I am hopeful that a few adventurous travelers will want to join me!

Here is a very short video that gives you a glimpse of what we will do:

Link to Explore Our Frozen Planet with Quark Expeditions on YouTube.

Why Antarctica?

Ever since I was a child, I've always dreamed of visiting Antarctica. The idea of the white continent with no indigenous population at the bottom of the world makes me want to experience it for myself.

The scenery seems dazzling, with icebergs, mountains, and amazing animals like penguins and seals that don't fear humans. The 7th continent is a special place that fewer than 50,000 people per year will visit. I have always wanted to be one of them!

Antarctica is threatened due to climate change and there is a role for marketing and social media to communicate what's happening in one of the most stunning places on earth. I want to experience the continent firsthand so I can share my experiences and in a tiny way help keep the continent pristine for future generations.

I would like to experience Antarctica with like-minded people. If you're reading this, that means you! This is a trip to be shared. There are a few cabins available on the journey and I hope you will consider going.

What will we do on our journey to the bottom of the earth?

We depart from the southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia, Argentina (which is interesting in itself), cross the Drake Passage, and then explore the Antarctic Peninsula for a week.

During our expedition, we will live aboard the luxurious Ocean Diamond - with its comfortable cabins, great food, Internet connections(!) and a well-stocked bar(!!) - we will certainly not be roughing it.

There are daily adventures, usually by Zodiac to see penguins, icebergs, and other interesting things. We may have a chance to visit one of the research stations.

For the adventurous there will be opportunities to Sea-kayak and hike and if you're a little "out there", join me camping for one night and in the famous Quark Polar Plunge.

The ship includes experts on Antarctica and its wildlife and there will be guided trips from the ship as will as lectures in the evenings.

What about marketing and PR?

I am hopeful that a handful of explorers interested in the intersection of Antarctica and marketing will want to come along on the journey.

A maximum of 189 passengers will be aboard the ship and since the ship is filling fast, most of the passengers will not be part of our intrepid little group. We'll have plenty of time to get to know one another and dig into ideas about marketing and social media over meals and at the bar. Things are very, very informal onboard the ship and we will be free to do what we want.

I'll be joined on the trip by my wife Yukari Watanabe Scott @YukariWatanabe who is an author and social media maven in the Japanese language. She's written several books about Twitter (among other subjects.). She’s very knowledgeable about how to use social media to get noticed in the Japanese marketplace.

At one point I'm going to be giving a talk for anyone on the ship who wants to come. It is titled When You Return North: Sharing your experiences and becoming an Antarctic Ambassador and is about how each passenger can use social media to share what they experienced and help the continent to remain unspoiled. The talk will be geared towards beginners and I'll discuss how social networks are a great way to showcase interactions with penguins, seals and whales and how we experience the natural beauty of the water, ice, and land.

While we'll "talk shop" a little, mostly we're there to have fun and learn about Antarctica.

How to book a cabin

Quark is offering us a discount which is valid for the December 10, 2013 Antarctic Explorer voyage. The discount provides 20% off suites (quote code MK52) and 15% off regular cabins (quote code MK53). They do have single cabins available but those are not discounted. With a ship this small, cabins are in limited supply. The discount expires June 30, 2013.

To book a cabin or for more information on this trip (or Antarctic travel in general), visit Quark Expeditions or call Quark’s Polar Travel Advisers at 1-888-892-0073.

If you've read this far, you must be interested. You know you want to do it, right?! Perhaps Antarctica is on your bucket list. Or perhaps as our daughter said to us “Antarctica! YOLO!”

The good times are back and marketing is fun again

When I was a kid in the 1960s and 1970s I distinctly remember as I watched (too much) television that I enjoyed the commercials. Early on I recall a lot of breakfast cereals: Trix, Cap’n Crunch, Franken Berry, and Count Chocula (fortified with 8 essential vitamins and iron) come to mind.

As I hit junior high school, I paid more attention to the heavily advertised L'eggs pantyhose (girls! "they hug you, they hold you, they never let you go"), and of course the cigarette and beer ads.

I imagine that it was fun to be a consumer products marketer in the 1960s and 1970s! Looking at it from afar and without having been there, I assume you only needed to focus on a few television networks and the biggest budgets won the war. Looking back with nostalgia, it looks exciting to be a part of the Mad Men culture, enjoying a martini and a smoke at lunch and talking shop with your agency people.

Sure, it's easy to look back to the "good old days" (especially if you are too young to actually have worked in the ad business then). It's easy to ignore the negative aspects of too much booze, sugar, and cigarettes. But still...

The reality of offline B2B marketing

I became a marketer myself in the very late 1980s. I recall my work into the 1990s and early 2000s and it wasn't so much fun. No martinis at lunch. No TV commercials.

I was a B2B marketer, typically working with challenger brands rather than market leaders. We had tiny budgets. We couldn't afford fancy agencies so we did the work ourselves.

It was often a tough slog. And while I am generally an upbeat person and find the good bits in everything I do, it was difficult to get excited about writing another white paper or proofing a product brochure. Don't even get me started on "discussing" sales leads with the VP of sales!

The good times are now!

Today marketing is an absolute blast. B2B, B2C, nonprofit, whatever – we're having fun now.

Actually communicating with customers via Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and other social networks is exciting!

How cool is it to interview a rock star in your industry and pop it onto YouTube or Vimeo!

It's thrilling that one burst of cleverness can generate more media coverage than a hundred thousand dollars of PR agency pitching!

We'll never go back the Mad Men era. But we've got our own good times and they are right now.

I predict that a decade or two from now we will look back at this era too with fond nostalgia.

Count Chocula box via the wonderful Found in Mom’s Basement blog.
Instagram pic of me with Amanda Palmer by the fun-loving Steve Garfield.

Proof that you can succeed at Newsjacking too

Several months ago I connected with Trent Silver, a young Internet entrepreneur, who wanted to test some of the ideas I talk about in my free World Wide Rave book and in my Newsjacking book.

Trent has been building Web businesses since he was a 15-year-old high school student(!!). He's 22 now.

I thought this would be a fun experiment so I waited for him to get back to me with a success. It didn't take long!

Cash for Purses

One of Trent's businesses is Cash for Purses, where he serves as CEO. Cash for Purses finds new homes for high quality designer purses and handbags (brands like Gucci, Prada, Hermes, Chanel, etc.), generating cash for the former owners.

In the past few days, Trent has enjoyed a barrage of press because he tied his business with cash-strapped but designer bag laden starlet Lindsay Lohan. Trent recognized that Lohan is sitting on a goldmine and doesn’t even know it! So he crafted a pitch to celebrity Web sites that cover Lohan, saying that his company would purchase her extra handbags to help her pay her bills. He even offered to donate his profits to charity.

Brilliant newsjacking

Trent understands that celebrity sites are always looking for exclusive stories, so he pitched the top sites first. Since Lohan's financial troubles have been in the news, that was his newsjacking hook. Radar ran with it: We'll Buy Your Purses, Lindsay! Company Offers Big Money For Cash-Strapped Lohan’s Leftovers.

Once the story was out, other sites started to pick up on the resulting buzz including Huffington Post: Lindsay Lohan Offered Money For Used Handbags By Fundraising Company and the Inquisitr: Lindsay Lohan’s Purses May Be Key To Financial Freedom.

Interestingly, people who read celebrity sites seem to also be people who want to sell their purses because since the story broke, Trent has received several hundred new leads from people ready to sell their designer bags.

Trent's advice

"I've found it helps to have a legitimate position to take when going to the media," Trent tells us. "I really want Lindsay Lohan to sell me her purses. I really want to donate the same value of all her bags to charity. It's not a publicity stunt, it's a real offer."

Trent is a news junkie, so he enjoys looking for something interesting in the news that he can tie his business to. "I read voraciously because I know that I have to get the word out for my businesses in a way that people will understand," he says. "I make sure I am up-to-date on what's going on in the world to see if somehow I can align my businesses in a positive, interesting way. It's definitely an art and a science."

Since Trent runs his own business, he has the luxury of being able to put the word out without getting multiple approvals from people in the organization. If you run your own business too, take his advice.

But if you work at a larger organization, don't use that as an excuse, you can still get buyoff from others to generate interest in your company and its products.

"Don't be afraid to try something different," Trent says. "Different gets noticed. If you don't get noticed, you're not doing your job."

Thanks for sharing with us, Trent. Keep up the great work and let us know about your next success.

The marketing one hundred is now the marketing ten thousand

When I was a B2B marketing executive in the 1990s, we ran marketing "campaigns".

My team focused on a about 100 big initiatives throughout the year including a dozen trade shows where we exhibited and spoke, a monthly email newsletter, a media relations effort focused on a few dozen press releases and pitches, a few white papers, a product launch or two, and the creation of print brochures and other materials.

With maybe 100 discrete things that we did during the year, each one could be measured.

From one hundred things a year to ten thousand

Marketing has fundamentally shifted.

Rather than doing a hundred really big projects, today's marketers need to do tens of thousands of tiny things each year to be successful.

It's not about the campaign, it's about engagement.

-- Rather than a dozen trade shows to exhibit and speak at, marketers need to create a 24x7 virtual showcase on the web. We need to create tons of individual articles, photos, infographics, videos, and other content to make a site strong. That means lots of very small projects instead of a dozen big ones.

-- Your monthly email newsletter is fine. But what about a daily blog post? What about 20 or 30 daily tweets? Then you’ve got your LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social feeds.

-- A decade ago your media relations effort probably focused on a few dozen press releases and media pitch campaigns in a year. Now you can engage journalists in real-time at the precise moment they are looking for information.

As you do the ten thousand, the nature of how you measure success changes.

Are you doing the ten thousand? Or are you still focused on the hundred?

photo credit: Eva the Weaver via photopin cc

The art of asking

Most music industry executives live in the past.

Music executives obsess with how to get people to pay for music in a world of free. They obsess over radio airplay when true fans no longer learn about new music on the radio. Music label execs actively discourage people from learning about new music on YouTube because they are afraid of "free." What stupidity! On one hand they are eager to be played on the radio that few listen to. On the other they claim copyright infringement and take music off YouTube where tons of people look for new music!

Amanda Palmer has proven that "How to get people to pay for music" is the wrong question. Rather, she asks: "How do we let people pay for music."

Amanda delivered an amazing TED talk titled The art of asking which was just posted.

You don't need to be in the music business to learn from Amanda's story of success.

No matter what industry you're in, marketing today is about giving. And about asking.

Give away your content

You've got to give away your white papers and ebooks (with no registration required). Freely give your blog posts and videos and Twitter streams and Instagram images and infographics. Heck, make your full-length book totally free on Kindle and iPad and Nook and as a PDF.

The world of marketing has changed. Don't let the executives tell you to put gates on all your content. Don't obsess over traditional ROI measures. Give away your best stuff!

Then ask

The fans you build with free content will want to support you. But you've got to ask them.

Amanda Palmer has made an art of asking people to help her. She didn't make people pay for music. She asked. "When you connect with people, they want to help you," she says. Like when she asked people to fund her new record on Kickstarter and nearly 25,000 people responded with about $1.2 million.

It's not easy to ask for help because asking makes you vulnerable. Take Amanda's advice: "Give and receive fearlessly. Ask without shame."

Here is my ask

Do you need a speaker at your upcoming conference? Are you interested in personalized training for your staff? I'd like to help. Here is a short video about my customized marketing and leadership presentations. Shoot me an email to learn more.

Rebranding the Catholic Church with open dialogue

As a new Pope is chosen in the Vatican over the next weeks, one Cardinal who has been embroiled in the sex scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church has taken to social media to try to clear his name.

Cardinal Roger Mahony, who resigned as archbishop of Los Angeles following the release of personnel files documenting priest sexual abuse cases during his tenure, is taking advice from a crisis management firm, writing a blog and tweeting @CardinalMahony his thoughts.

While this is interesting, because it takes guts to put yourself out there, Mahony has yet to respond to any tweets directed at him. Instead he is practicing one-way communication rather than the dialogue that defines a successful online presence. He doesn't allow comments on his blog.

Rather than engaging with the public, he's talking to the public, which is how the church has handled the entire reputation crisis it has faced in the past years.

Rebranding the Catholic Church

When people just create a one-way broadcast stream like Mahony, particularly when the individual is tainted with scandal, it appears defensive even if the motivations aren’t.

The opportunity to elect a new Pope is an excellent opportunity for the church to rebrand. There is an ideal opportunity for a new leader to change people's perception of the institution and to earn back trust.

For centuries, the church has operated using secrecy as a weapon. But in today's always-on, real-time world this approach doesn't work so well.

Besides the new Pope himself, church leaders can truly open up, using tools like blogs and Twitter to engage the public rather than just broadcast to them.

Lies, damned lies, and marketing

Do you believe these claims?

Lose twenty pounds in a week, no exercise or diet required!

My husband is the former oil minister and I want to give you $20 million!

Of course not! Scam artists prey on the one person out of a million who do. Everyone else knows these are lies.

How about these:

And now he’s making $30,000 a month from his own web site.

We exceed your expectations.

The Service Plan covers everything.

Hmm. These statements sound a little fishy, don’t they?

What about these?

Regular price $100.

Our products are [pick one] innovative, cutting-edge, world-class.

Light.

Deluxe.

It's so easy for marketers to slip into little lies. You've got to resist those seemingly small exaggerations and half-truths that harm your brand.

The leading provider of...

Service that's second to none.

Are you telling the truth? Or is some marketer making something up? Your customers see through the smokescreen.

Your call is important to us.

We love our customers.

Thanks to Seth Godin for the nose!

(Your results may vary).

Mini newsjacking flogs a dead horse

I'm always interested in fun newsjacking examples and here's one sent to us by Mazz PR.

Over the past week, the discovery by DNA testing of horsemeat in products sold as beef has been big news in Europe. The story broke in Ireland last month, spread quickly across Europe, and has resulted in products being pulled from supermarket shelves.

Into the furor jumps Mini with this clever ad: "Beef. With a lot of horses hidden in it."

Newsjacking.

This example from Mini is an ad, and therefore could have come from any number of companies.

For an organization associated with the news in some way, the best way to newsjack is by creating content such as a video or blog post.

When people are talking about something in the news, how can you inject your take? Can you get people to talk about you?

Effective storytelling for business

As content takes its rightful place at the forefront of marketing, I'm seeing many marketers fail at basic storytelling.

Marketers are ineffective when they use the classic "customer testimonial" format and pop that onto their blog or make it into a video. "Here’s our product. It is great. Here are customers who say it is great. Now buy some of our product." This just doesn't hold people's attention.

How interesting would a book or movie be were it to have this plot?:
Boy meets girl.
They fall in love.
They get married.

That's what most people do with their business writing.

Effective storytelling

The best stories drip with conflict. They have a hero and sometimes a villain. There is a story arc. As a writing teacher once told me: "Writing without conflict is propaganda."

Movies and novels have these elements – the best open with conflict in the first scene, on the first page, or even the first paragraph. Usually, it's one character in conflict with others (Batman against the bad guys). Sometimes it's a character in conflict with herself ("I really shouldn't go into this bar, but...").

Example of a good storytelling TV ad

Here an example of a story driven TV ad Audi aired during the 2012 Super Bowl called "Prom". I really like this ad because it is an example of all the elements of a good story. A slightly insecure teenager is unhappy about going to the Senior Prom without a date. But when Dad lets him borrow the new Audi S6 for the night, he gains more and more confidence with every mile, arriving at the Prom a changed young man. There's a confrontation and a resolution. And it all happened in one minute. (The YouTube version of the ad has 10 million views.)

Direct link to Audi Prom on YouTube.

Example of a good storytelling blog post

For an example of a story-based blog post, check out Weather Happens – Be Prepared by Kristiana Almeida on the American Red Cross blog.

Kristiana writes about her life as a kid on Cape Cod and uses that to educate on being prepared for a blizzard. Great stuff. What does the Red Cross really want? A donation. Is a donation mentioned in this post? No.

You too can be an effective storyteller

Here are a few ideas to get you thinking about telling stories that people will want to pay attention to rather than propaganda they will ignore.

- Instead of "creating copy", think about sitting in a restaurant with friends and explaining a little about your work to them. How would you say it? How would you hold your friends' interest? Write that down.

- Rather than talking about the features and benefits of your products and services, consider how you help people to solve problems.

- Who or what is the "bad guy" in your market? Is it the big, famous company that everybody does business with but nobody really likes? Is there some silly government regulation that holds buyers back? How can you weave those into a story with conflict?

- What is the status quo? Use that as the bad guy in your story.

Bonus for reading this far: Here's how I create many of the stories of success I share in this blog, in my speeches, and in my books: I think of the story as a movie or novel and cast the people from around the world whose success I showcase as my hero and traditional offline advertising and the PR pitching approach as the villains. That's what I did in this post. Audi and the Red Cross are my heroes and the traditional customer testimonial is the villain. (Shh... don't give away my secret.)

Want more?

Several years ago I wrote a free ebook Gaijin Male Model: A Case Study in Conflict-Driven Business Writing.

If you’ve got a few minutes and want to dig deeper into using conflict in your own writing, this is a good place to start. No registration required.

Content marketing and video showcase expertise and drive tons of business

You could hardly ask for a more dramatic example of how near zero-cost videos can expand reach and drive business. And it all started because Mary McNeight identified a problem that no one online was helping people solve.

When Mary couldn't find anyone in the Seattle area who would help her train her own dog Jasper for service work, it fell to her to teach her pet to be her service dog. Service dogs that help people manage disabilities like blindness and diseases like recurrent seizures and diabetes.

Later, she enrolled in puppy classes to train Liame, her new Labrador retriever puppy. In the process, she became addicted to dog training—so she made it her business.

Mary spent countless hours learning all aspects of the business, got her accreditation from the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers, and is now owner and director of training and behavior at Service Dog Academy. This business offers private training sessions and small-group adult-and-puppy training classes for both service and pet dog training. They even offer a groundbreaking train your own Diabetic Alert Dog program.

Content marketing and video production

But credentials, skills, and even passion alone don't bring in customers. Her excellent website (featuring dozens of videos that she shot and edited herself) educates buyers and generates high search-engine rankings, driving business her way.

"I've gone from barely having any students to getting anywhere from twenty to forty emails per day requesting my services and advice and verbally praising my work," Mary says. "If that isn't a story of success, I don’t know what is. I have the power to create an audience for any product or service I put my mind to. But I think I will stick with what makes me happiest, helping dogs and the disabled live more productive lives."

In 2010, Mary started making YouTube videos with an inexpensive Flip Video camera and the software that came installed on her Mac notebook computer. "Seeing a need for my students to understand how to make a Kongsicle, I produced my first instructional video," Mary says. Kongs are natural rubber-food puzzle toys for dogs, and a Kongsicle is a Kong with frozen food inside. The video is titled Best Dog Food Puzzle: The Kongsicle.

"A couple of months later, I went to the Association of Pet Dog Trainers conference, and I was startled by a young trainer who said, 'You're Mary McNeight right? You made that video on Kongsicles! I use it as a reference video for my students.' Here was this dog trainer in Florida using my materials for her classes. That was the day I understood the power of YouTube." Since then, Mary has made many instructional videos, with titles that include “Diabetic Alert Dog Scams,” Puppy Doggie Ants in the Pants, and a multi-part series on diabetic alert dog training.

The content on the Service Dog Academy site, including the video series, is created for three buyer personas: pet dog owners, service dog owners, and people who want to train their own diabetic alert dog. After her initial success, Mary purchased a $400 HD video camera, a $20 microphone, Final Cut Pro software, and, as she describes it, "some funky alien-adjustable-arm-looking lights at Home Depot, since I couldn't afford to light my videos with professional lights. The really cool thing about my content is that it proves that it doesn't have to be shiny, flashy, spiffy or cost thousands of dollars to produce. People will watch anything as long as its packed full of useful information."

Make it free

Mary's notoriety and search engine results are aided by her willingness to post content that others in the dog training business are fearful to post because they don't want to give away information for free. "A great success was a video on how to travel with your service dog, something nobody on the entire Internet was teaching people how to do," she says. "I also hosted a webinar that gave an overview of how to train a diabetic alert dog. I placed the webinar capture video on YouTube and was afraid of being banned in the dog training community. This information was not available on the Web because nobody wanted to share how they trained dogs for tens of thousands of dollars. I started getting emails and phone calls from people all over the world asking me for advice on training their dog or just outright purchasing my online diabetic alert dog training program. I’ve had dog trainers who want me to fly out to their location and teach a class on diabetic alert dog training for them.

"How cool is it that this now three-person service dog training organization is getting worldwide attention? I never would have gotten that type of exposure printing brochures or running expensive ads on local television. A couple of months ago, I even had a woman tell me the video I made saved her life! It allowed her to get enough information to help her train her own medical alert dog by herself."

Yes, Mary, it's cool. Keep up the great work and thanks for sharing your story.

A company or a guru?

As organizations need special skills and expertise from time to time, many hire a consultant on a contract basis, realizing it is more cost effective than hiring full-time staff.

Meanwhile, many people with specialized expertise choose to go independent, leaving the corporate world to run their own businesses, contract out their skills, or consult based on their expertise. I've been at it myself for more than a decade.

As I was speaking with my friend Steve Johnson about his recent foray into the world of independence, we discussed the fundamental choice that all independents must make: Are you a company or a guru? Either approach can succeed. However, we both noticed that people who don’t make the choice are positioning themselves somewhere in the middle of company and guru and they generally struggle.

Are you a company or a guru?

If you market as a company, build your business around an idea.

Although they can be a one-person company, those who go the company route typically have plans to grow their business with more and more consultants in the future as demand increases.

The marketing of this approach is to make you the CEO of a company—with the emphasis on "company." A great example is Greg Alexander, CEO of Sales Benchmark Index, who has built a very successful professional services firm focused exclusively on sales force effectiveness. While there is information about Greg on his site, the approach Greg took was to build a company.

When you go this route, write using "we" and "our" and design a site to showcase an organization, not a person. You build around a core offering and use a corporate logo.

If you market as a guru, build your business around your expertise.

Although it can be a large organization, the focus of a guru is on one person and his or her vast knowledge with everything else supporting that person.

Typically, people who write books and speak take this approach. Trevor Young is a great example of someone who has turned himself into a guru over the years he has been independent. He calls himself a “PR Warrior on the frontline of the communications revolution.” Everything on his site is about Trevor, written in his own voice and it is very clear that he is a go-to expert.

The marketing for a guru is typically in first person, with "I" and "my" used a lot. You build around your expertise and use a photo.

You can’t be both a guru and a company

Many people try to be both. They talk about "our company" on one page, and "my work" on another confusing the marketplace.

If you're newly independent, you've got a choice to make: Are you a guru or are you a company? It is a very important decision.

When I first spoke with Steve about this a few months ago, he was signaling the market that he was both a guru and a company and as such he was neither. But it was obvious to me that Steve is a guru, because the market knows him as the tech industry’s authority on product marketing and product management processes.

"I'm sure every marketer goes through this," Steve says. "Are we promoting a company, a portfolio, a product, or a service? Most of us can only afford to do one. Once I really listened to my customers, I heard loud and clear that they wanted my expertise, not my models."

One tip to keep it straight in your head: use a [company] logo on every page to remind yourself to speak in "we" terms; use a [person's] photo to remind you to speak in "I" terms.

"I hadn’t really seen the company / guru dichotomy until David pointed it out," Steve says. "And then it became obvious."

I'm glad to see that Steve has since updated his site. Now he uses the first person and his photo is on every page. He's recently written a free ebook (no registration) called Product Management Expertise: beyond the tactical role. The ebook explores expertise needed in product management including domain, market, product, and business and includes ideas for organizing a product management team.

Oreo wins the Super Bowl Newsjacking game

At the Super Bowl last night, the power at the New Orleans Superdome went out for 35 minutes. It took just seconds for people to start talking about #BlackoutBowl and less than five minutes for brands to start Newsjacking the story.

Oreo wins big

By far, the best of the lot was Oreo with their real-time ad posted on Twitter. Thanks to my friends who know how much I love this stuff and tweeted me about this. Benjamin Strong was first to alert me (dare I say Benjamin newsjacked the Oreo newsjack...). Others who alerted me include (not in order) Amy Baylee, Melissa Mines, Margaret Ebeling, Dan Moyle, Alan Belniak, Damien Basile, Mike Hapner, and Victor Ruiz. Thank you all.

This morning, there are a bunch of posts and articles talking about #Newsjacking the #BlackoutBowl. At CNN Chelsea J. Carter says #BlackoutBowl generates social media moment for jokesters, advertisers and Matt McGee writes in Marketing Land Oreo, Audi & Walgreens Newsjack Super Bowl Blackout Bowl.

Clearly, getting out quickly is key in such a situation. But as Benjamin said regarding a good effort that not many people saw from home improvement company Lowes, brands really need to put hashtags into their Tweets so people can find them. This real-time tweet "Hey dome operators at the 'Big Game', there are a few Lowe's nearby if you need some generators" was good, but only had a few hundred RTs because few people saw it.

Newsjacking works.

This newsjack from Oreo succeeds because it was fast, its witty and fun, its non-controversial, and it ties back to the brand and its messages.

Newsjacking gets attention. Oreo spent many millions of dollars running television ads during the Super Bowl. But on a cost per view basis, newsjacking generated a much, much bigger ROI.

How to use the new Vine social app for marketing and PR

Vine is the newest and hottest social media application available for the iPhone. It was launched late last week to deliver 6-second videos.

I tell people it's sort of like Twitter for video. And since it was released by Twitter, the integration with Twitter is seamless.

I used Vine to show some covers of the 25 different languages that my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR has been translated into.

I used #vine to show a few of the 26 language covers of New Rules of Marketing & PR. vine.co/v/b5LhgtgpmOP

— David Meerman Scott (@dmscott) January 26, 2013

Like any social network, early adopters like me are trying to figure it out. I've seen my friends Chris Brogan and Steve Garfield playing around with it (check their Twitter feeds for examples) and it's getting a bunch of buzz.

It's really simple to use, you just hold down the iPhone screen to record and lift up to stop. Then you can alter the scene and do it again. This means you can easily do short segments of any length as long as they add up to 6 seconds total. At the end of the video, it repeats into an endless loop and you add a caption and release it to your Twitter feed.

It's very early days, but people seem to be gravitating to using it for demonstrations of something or to capture the feeling in a location. There also seems to be a bunch of people using Vine for porn, but I'm not going to elaborate on that… (Google it).

I'm excited to use Vine to share short snippets of rock shows and I'll try to shoot one at The Vaccines show in Boston tomorrow night. [UPDATE: Here is that one.]

With just 6 seconds, the challenge for marketing and PR use is to tell a story. In a weird way, I found the 6-second constraint to be very liberating, much like the 140 character limit of a tweet.

To get your creative mind working, here are just a few ideas for how you might use Vine for marketing and public relations purposes. If you have any more, please add as a comment to this post:

• A brief product demonstration.


• A short statement by the CEO.


• Highlights of an art exhibition.


• A speaker shows their view of the audience (I'll be doing that!).


• Speakers' bureaus, modeling agencies, and actors' reps show clients in action.


• Restaurants make visual online menus.


• A bartender shows her signature drink being made.


• Any kind of "before and after" such as redecorating a room or washing a car.


• Walk through of a hotel suite.

Here's a six second "behind the scenes tour" from the MSNBC television network.

#msnbc behind the scenes caught on @vineapp: RT @caramaresca: All in a day's work @msnbc vine.co/v/b5dI1ZbJOdg

— msnbc (@msnbc) January 24, 2013

Let us know how you are using Vine.

Hire Philippe Dubost because he has he coolest online CV ever created

My friend Mark Copeman points us to the CV (resume) of Philippe Dubost. He created it in the style of an Amazon page! This is awesome personal branding.

Here's a link to the CV.

I noticed he's updating it in real-time which is awesome. This is just so clever. (Have I gushed enough yet?)

Obviously, it shows that if you were to hire Philippe, then you'd be hiring his creativity. I call this idea of using web content to get others to tell your stories and share your ideas a World Wide Rave and my book with that title is completely free as a PDF (with no registration required) and on Kindle, iPad, Nook, and Kobo ebook readers.

In a tough job market, showing your stuff online works. That's why Lindsey Kirchoff has a great job at HubSpot even when many of her newly graduated peers are still looking for work.

American Airlines announces new branding to its best customers first

Several very positive marketing and product related experiences with American Airlines suggest to me that the company is making great progress since the parent company - AMR Corporation - filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on November 29, 2011.

Telling your best customers first

Late last week I received an email from American Airlines with the subject line "Be The First To See Our New Look". The email said that they want their most loyal customers to be the first to see their new logo and the refreshed exterior of new planes. (I am a top elite-level frequent flyer and have more than 1.5 million air miles with American). The email said that in about two hours a new look would be revealed and it teased with a hashtag #newAmerican. Then, a few hours later, another email arrived with the new branding revealed together with a link to a video Becoming a new American.

I really liked this approach of letting their best customers in on the big reveal. Most large companies would announce such a change to the media first and let the new branding trickle down to customers that way. This is very smart marketing and customer service. The addition of the #newAmerican hashtag indicated to me that American is integrating with social media. Well done.

That particular day, I needed to research an upcoming trip and I noticed the AA.com website had been completely changed over to the new look. Also that day iTunes updated my American Airlines iPhone app with the new branding. Obviously, the team at American had thought through the rollout and had it timed perfectly (at least the parts that I experienced).

American was established in 1934 and the logo and branding had most recently changed in 1968, so it was a big deal to make this switch.

Improving the customer experience

On a recent Europe trip on American Airlines, I was intrigued by the gadget being used by Frank Eschmann, who called it his "Flight Attendant Customer Experience Tablet". Turns out Frank was beta testing it and was happy to explain to me how it works.

The tablet provides details on who is in what seat and includes their frequent flyer status, so Frank instantly knew that I was among American's best customers. Passengers' onward connections are listed so when there is a delay, the flight attendants know who might need extra attention to make tight connections or rebooking.

Flight attendants also use the tablet to record passenger meal selection, which pops up as a color code while the system simultaneously records how many of each meal remains available during ordering. The in-flight announcement scripts are in the tablet as are the entire safety manual for the plane. Each of these features make it easier for flight attendants to provide good service to passengers.

The gadget is delivered via Android on a Samsung Galaxy Note with AT&T running the data and Frank said that there's email and Web interfaces so he uses it in the airports too. The gadgets are still being tested but will roll out later this year.

As a passenger, I think the availability of the tablets will benefit me. Frank says he loves using it, so anytime my flight attendant is happy, I'm happy. And the more they know about me, the better.

American Airlines and the future

While new branding and product improvements like a gadget for flight attendants are relatively minor when it comes to the complexity of an airline, these several positive experiences suggest to me that American has a bright future as they emerge from their recent troubles.

Social media drove the Egyptian revolution but can it bring back the tourists?

This week I delivered a full-day Digital Marketing Masterclass for 250 people in Cairo organized by my friends at Digital Marketing Arts.

I was particularly excited to visit Egypt to speak with people about the role of Facebook and Twitter in the Revolution the culminated on January 25, 2011. On the plane over, I read Wael Ghonim’s @Ghonim excellent memoir Revolution 2.0: The power of the people is greater than the people in power (more on the book below).

Social media drove the Egyptian revolution but can it bring back the tourists?

I arrived wondering if social media was used more in business in Egypt in other places now that the power of these tools was obvious to all. But I learned an important fact as I was talking to people about social media. Many people I spoke with told me how the country is suffering because tourists are scared to come because of what they read and see in the media. People think Egypt is dangerous for foreigners. Tourism is a very important industry in Egypt and a critical source of foreign currency investment and the numbers of visitors is way down.

So at my Masterclass, I asked why not use social media to get the word out that Egypt is open for business and now is a great time to visit? I filmed a short video, including interviews with some social media leaders in the country.

Direct link to YouTube: Social media drove the Egyptian revolution but can it bring back the tourists?

Revolution 2.0: The power of the people is greater than the people in power

Wael Ghonim's memoir tells the fascinating story of how he became the anonymous admin of a Facebook page Kullena Khaled Said, which turned into a critical social media communication point for political change.

Khaled Said, a 28-year-old Egyptian, was tortured to death by the police. He became the symbol for many Egyptians who wanted to see an end to the Mubarak regime that perpetrated such violence, conducted under the 30-year-old long emergency martial law.

Ghonim was an ordinary middle class Egyptian citizen who was living in Dubai and working for Google. Many of his Facebook posts (which because they were done under the "admin" role were anonymous) captured the sentiments of young people eager for change. When the Tunisian government fell under similar circumstances, the time was right. "I feel that very soon we will turn the page, claim our pen, and begin writing our future with our own hands," Ghonim wrote on the page. (6,317 Likes 2,077 Comments 1,244,267 Views).

Ghonim was eventually arrested and spent more than a week in prison. His book reads like a spy novel as he describes the ways he hid his identity and had people help him with the page even when he was unable to.

The culmination was the massive protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square and central locations in many other cities. "Message to the regime: The people on the streets raise the level of their demands with every passing hour. The current demand that needs to be fulfilled as fast as possible is for the president to step down and leave Egypt." (5,514 Likes 5,030 Comments 1,013,841 Views).

Ghonim doesn't claim credit for the revolution nor did anybody I spoke with say that he should. He says there are other more outspoken and more courageous people than him. But there is no doubt that his social networking and marketing skills led to a new "Revolution 2.0" model for political change.

The lessons can be applied to any communications. Let's hope social media can help bring the tourists back to Egypt.

Insensitive Newsjacking leads to social media firestorm

My friend Jim Stewart who is CEO of a Melbourne digital marketing firm, points us to an example of inappropriate newsjacking.

Recently, Australia has been hit with devastating bushfires. The damage has been especially great in Tasmania. People's property has been destroyed and many are homeless.

Into the disaster jumped SellItOnline saying they would donate electric generators to the victims of the Tasmanian bushfires in return for people who "like" the SellItOnline Facebook page. The company received backlash from many of its 1,500 fans, who accused the company of taking advantage of the catastrophe. This led to people writing about the insensitivity which led to discussion on social networks. The post has since been deleted.

We learned from the Hurricane Sandy newsjacking attempts that negative stories are very dangerous to attempt to newsjack. This example is in poor taste because the company was attempting to use the disaster to gain Facebook "likes". Had they just donated generators to the victims, they might have gotten some positive buzz.

Newsjacking is a powerful tool. But the potential to backfire is large when the story is a negative one.

Image: au.news.yahoo.com

How to use Instagram, Pinterest, and 500px to sell an expensive product

Okay, so Instagram and other photo sharing services are a fun way to share photos with your social network. But how could you use the applications to market your product or service?

When Doug Eymer, a Boston-based creative director, was ready to sell his home, he turned to his Instagram feed at deymer and other photo sharing services to get the home out to prospective buyers.

"We have a unique house in a great spot on the water, and we know that water is prime real estate," Doug says. "We also have an incredible view. We feel like that that adds a significant amount to the price of our house, although it’s not something you can really measure. So I started documenting sunrise every morning, and putting them together into a collection. What's really cool is how the marsh grasses change colors and the leaves in the background change colors. It's an ever-changing view."

Doug snaps the photo each morning and shares the series Sunrises at 31 Bow Street (now well over 100 photos) on a wide variety of social networks and photo sharing sites including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Foursquare, and Pinterest. He also uploads each day's photo to photo sharing sites including 500px and Flickr.

"On 500px I have sets with all of my photographs, including a set for my sunrise photographs," Doug says. "500px is great as far as followers; and as soon as you post, you start getting feedback right away. Usually it’s like one or two words 'love it, great'. And 500px also gives you a lot of information about the activity on your photos, you can rank what the favorite photographs are, which is kind of cool information. You can see what people are responding to."

Marketing using original photos

When Doug listed his home with a realtor, the photo series became a valuable asset, which the realtor linked to. "The realtor that we used was pretty web-savvy, and he was also posting information on his blog about the photos and he mentioned them on Facebook and on Pinterest," he says.

The approach of documenting the view from his home as the seasons change is a subtle but very effective form of marketing.

"It's brought a lot of attention to our house, especially from people in town and that’s built positive word-of-mouth," Doug says. "There are a few people who respond every morning and I think they look forward to seeing what photograph I'm going to post. When I first started, we had a red canoe that was in the yard. I always made the red canoe part of the photograph. One day we had some high water, and we moved the canoe so it wouldn't float away. People said, 'What happened to the canoe? Where did it go?' Then someone made the leap and said: 'It looks like summer’s over. The canoe has been put away'. That was pretty interesting. It was just one little thing, people letting me know that they were actually watching it."

Taking the photos offline

Doug has taken his photo series offline in a very clever way. In various rooms in the home, he has laptop computers and iPads running a continuous slideshow of his photos of the ever-changing view towards the water from 31 Bow Street. "As buyers walk through the house, especially the rooms which overlook the view, we can show how it changes over time. There's summer, the beautiful changing leaves, and photos of wintertime with ice. It gives people another window on what's outside, and gives them an idea of what is there to look at."

Original photos, shared on Instagram and other photo sharing social networking services are a powerful way to showcase you and your offerings. And when you take your photos and integrate them into your online and offline marketing, you set yourself apart from the pack.

Disclosure: Doug is a personal friend and has been my go-to designer for all my projects for the last decade.

My book World Wide Rave is now FREE on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, iPad, and as PDF

As a kickoff to an awesome 2013, I’ve made my book World Wide Rave: Creating Triggers that Get Millions of People to Spread Your Ideas and Share Your Stories, free on all major ebook platforms as well as a PDF version.

This isn’t a one-time limited time thing. The book is now free and will continue to be free.

Download your copy on your favorite ebook reader or via PDF (with no registration required).

I'd be grateful if you would pass this on...

World Wide Rave free PDF download
(32 MB file, no registration required)

World Wide Rave free on Amazon Kindle
World Wide Rave free on B&N Nook
World Wide Rave free on Kobo
World Wide Rave free on your iPad

I define a World Wide Rave as when people around the world are talking about you, your company, and your products. It’s when global communities eagerly link to your stuff on the Web. It’s when online buzz drives buyers to your virtual doorstep. And it’s when tons of fans visit your Web site and your blog because they genuinely want to be there.

Since one way to generate a world wide rave is to offer something of value for free, I thought making the book totally free made sense.

I want to thank Shannon, Peter, Matt, Elana, and Brian at my publisher John Wiley & Sons for working with me on this project. Most publishers would flat out say "no way" to an authors request to make a book free. My friends at Wiley totally get the value of generating attention in this way. They understand that because more people will know my work they will consider purchasing my other (paid) books. That understanding of the new realities of publishing is why I've done my last 5 books with Wiley. There is a significant amount of work required to coordinate with Amazon (for Kindle), B&N (for Nook), Apple (for iTunes) and Kobo is takes a lot of work. Thanks guys.

Download your copy on your favorite ebook reader or via PDF now. And please pass this offer on via your social networks.

More information on World Wide Rave here.

++++++++++++++++++++++

UPDATE January 10, 2013

My publisher is working to make World Wide Rave free outside of the United States. This is a manual process that takes a great deal of time. I'll post links as I hear about them:

World Wide Wave free on Amazon UK Kindle

The Icarus Deception: How high will you fly?

A decade ago I left a nice, safe corporate career to find my art and discover my true self. It was scary. I didn't know where the journey would lead nor if I could make a living by my own wits. Seth Godin's The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? is an ambitious work that challenges you to do the same. It's for anyone who is living life as a cog in the machine and who dreams of breaking free, making art, and creating something meaningful. You don't have to leave your current job to make art, but like me, you might be forced to.

Seth launched the book via Kickstarter and because I am a backer, I got an early copy. The book releases to the public on December 31.

Part of the reason I chose to start my own business was Seth's 1999 book Permission Marketing had recently been released and for me, the book clearly articulated the online marketing revolution that we were on the cusp of. I just had to take advantage of those ideas but that marketing radicalism just didn't fly with the corporate status quo. There are no boxes in the org chart for a "ruckus maker".

For me, creating art meant starting something new. But you can create art within an existing structure too. It's the doctor who chooses to communicate with patients on Skype video when they have questions even though the medical establishment looks down on such personal care. It's the customer service rep who brings his colleagues together every Friday afternoon to figure out ways to do their jobs better. It's anyone who picks herself to do something important rather than waiting for an authority figure to give authorization to proceed.

I read each and every Seth book the moment they come out. And if you take a look at my Amazon reviews, you'll see that I talk about many of them. Yes, I'm a fanboy. But that's because Seth has an uncanny ability to generate ideas that prompt me to think about what I'm doing in new ways.

The Icarus Deception will likely make you uncomfortable. The ideas push you to evaluate the nature of your work and your life. Hopefully, like me, Seth's thoughts are a catalyst for you to stop simply doing what the bosses say and live as an artist: to try the untested, to challenge accepted wisdom, to build something new, to travel without a roadmap, to make a difference. I only wish this book had been available ten years ago when I was ready to fly.

Advice on getting media coverage for your business

Last month I was a panelist in a session called Get Famous Fast: Helping entrepreneurs win at media relations at the MassTLC Innovation 2012 Unconference.

Our ringmaster Scott Kirsner just posted the full audio from the session on his Boston Globe Innovation Economy blog. If you find yourself with a little time during this quiet holiday period, the audio from this session contains 35 valuable nuggets of wisdom from the panel.

As Scott says: "Our goal was to capture advice from everyone in the room about how entrepreneurs can build relationships with reporters / bloggers / TV producers, and how to successfully pitch story ideas to them."

Joining me as panelists were Kate Castle VP Marketing at Flybridge Capital Partners; Dave Balter founder and CEO of BzzAgent; Laura Fitton, HubSpot's Inbound Marketing Evangelist; and Matt Lauzon who co-founded Gemvara.

I previously blogged about the panel here, but at that time did not have the audio.

Photo courtesy of Scott Kirsner.

Inbound PR and a free Newsjacking book excerpt

Getting positive attention for your business via mainstream media is great! That's why organizations spend so much money on PR agencies and staffers.

But the old "outbound" approach - sending a press release or PR pitch to hundreds of journalists via email doesn't work so well in a world of instant communications.

Media outlets work at rapid pace, constantly striving to publish the most relevant and newsworthy content. The new way to reach members of the media uses "inbound" PR - creating content that journalists are looking for as they write breaking news stories.

Newsjacking

Regular readers of my blog know I call this approach Newsjacking which is the subject of my most recent book.

I've teamed up with HubSpot (I'm on the HubSpot advisory board) to offer a free excerpt of Newsjacking.

I'm also holding a Twitter chat about Newsjacking Thursday December 20 at 2:00 pm ET. You can join me by using the hashtag for the chat - #inboundchat.

If you haven't read my Newsjacking book, here is an opportunity to download a free excerpt. Learn how to transform your PR from outbound to inbound.

Market competition and your business

There are many ways to compete in a marketplace. You already know them.

But are you really conscious of your place in the market?

How do your customers define you? How do you define yourself? What makes you special? You’ve got to know what you do better than the other guys and deliver even more of that.

You cannot do everything so letting the other guy offer the cheapest price or have the slickest product is just fine of you’ve, say, got the very best service.

Produce markets in Morocco

This past long weekend I was in Morocco and became fascinated with the local produce markets. I went to several in Marrakech and a country market in Asni at the foothills of the Atlas Mountains that's held once a week.

The produce sellers offer the same basic items and sell in a similar way. But lingering and observing, I noticed ways the proprietors differentiated.

Location - Some sellers got prime position near the entrance to the Medina (ancient walled city) in Marrakech. A similar strategy was to stake out a position near the entrance to the marketplace in Asni. I'm not sure if these spots go to the first to arrive in the morning or if somebody is paid, but there are definitely good and bad locations.

Product – It was orange season in Morocco. The oranges were at nearly every stall and were delicious and cheap. I ate so many I thought my skin would turn orange. If everyone basically sells the same thing, how do you differentiate product? Then I noticed that some sellers had leaves still on the oranges they were selling. This indicated that the fruit had just been picked because the leaves quickly wilt.

Comfort – A few stalls had coverings where people could shop outside of the hot sun. While this might be comfortable to haggle over some fruit and veggies, it was very bright and the direct sun enhanced the look of the products so…

Display – When artfully arranged in direct sunlight, the items just looked tastier.

Service – Being friendly, offering a free sample, tossing in a few extra, packaging in two bags instead of one to make it easy to carry are indications of good customer service, another way to differentiate.

Price – When everyone sells the same thing, there’s a low cost provider. But with margins thin, that’s a tough position to be in.

Advertising – Some of the sellers called out information about their fruit and vegetables.

Sales – Some sellers tried to hustle people into their stalls. But usually the hard sell doesn't work.

Kindness – Some sellers just smiled and caught your eye.

There are probably other ways the produce sellers differentiated that I didn’t notice. Certainly as I don’t speak the local Berber language, there was a lot happening that I didn’t catch.

How do you compete?

We all compete for business in a crowded marketplace of ideas, services, and products. There are many different ways to compete and differentiate your offerings. Copying the other guys is a tough way to succeed.

You've got to know how you're different than the other guys.

You've got to stake a claim as being the best at something.

Photos by David Meerman Scott taken with an iPhone 4S

What converging mainstream and social media means for marketing and PR

Too many people are still hung up with outdated artificial demarcations between "mainstream media" and "social media", arguing that one is more legitimate. This leads to flawed marketing and PR strategic decisions.

This is especially true of many (but not all) public relations agencies whose reps do their clients a disservice by focusing on one form of media over another.

Nonsense. The distinctions have nearly disappeared. You've got to eliminate your prejudice.

Whenever this subject pops up, I'm prompted to ask some questions:

- What is a blog?
- What is an online news site like Huffington Post?
- What is it when a print newspaper like the New York Times or a television network like the BBC publishes an online news site?
- What is it when readers can post comments to on an online story from a magazine?
- What about when a reporter for the BBC maintains a blog?
- What are the Twitter feeds of New York Times reporters?

Guess what? It's all just real time media!

The Huffington Post is a technically a blog. It is written on the Blogger platform so there is no difference technically when I write for the Huffington Post or when I write on Web Ink Now, my personal blog.

The Huffington Post is a blog, but is one of the most important news sites on the Web with a recent Alexa ranking as I write this of 77, making it in the top 100 of all sites of any kind in the world.

The Huffington Post is a blog, but won the Pulitzer Prize in the category of national reporting for senior military correspondent David Wood's 10-part series about wounded veterans, Beyond the Battlefield.

The BBC is mainstream media, but readers can comment on stories (and thousands do).

The New Yorker is a magazine, but people can share links to stories within the site using widgets for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, and Tumblr.

What the blurring of mainstream media and social media means for your business

When your buyers search Google or another search engine for information related to your business, they don't really care if the top results come from a "news site" like the BBC, a "blog" like the Huffington Post, or your own content rich Web site. So you need to eliminate the bias.

When buyers ask a question on social media they are happy when someone sends a valuable link to information on the web. They don't scrutinize what’s recommended to them and dismiss the blog content and only read the remainder. They're happy for something that educates and entertains.

The best marketing and PR strategies must include creating your own content, including text, video, and images. It should also include strategies for getting noticed by important voices so they write about you, which comes back to the content you create.

photo credit: DanAllison via photopin cc

SEC action against Netflix CEO over Facebook post is completely wrong

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is considering taking action against Netflix and its CEO Reed Hastings because of a Facebook post.

The agency says that the update to Hastings' 200,000+ subscribers where he said "members had enjoyed over 1 billion hours in June" violated the SEC Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) rule.

The SEC is charged with making securities trading fair and since Netflix is a publicly traded company, the SEC has oversight. RegFD is the SEC rule that says when a company discloses something of material importance (something that might affect the stock price) that the information needs to be sent to everybody at once.

According to the SEC: "Regulation FD provides that when an issuer discloses material nonpublic information to certain individuals or entities—generally, securities market professionals, such as stock analysts, or holders of the issuer's securities who may well trade on the basis of the information—the issuer must make public disclosure of that information."

The SEC is completely wrong

The issue is not with Netflix. It is with the dinosaurs at the SEC. This is not a stock story. It is a real-time communications story.

The post that Hastings sent out was to his Facebook PUBLIC followers list which currently numbers 245,000 people. Anybody can subscribe to the list and anybody can access the content at any time without subscribing. I do not subscribe and it took me less than five seconds to access it – go to Facebook and type 'Reed Hastings' in the search bar. Bingo.

Any journalist or securities analyst who has any brains at all would be following what Hastings is saying on his public Facebook posts.

Here's the important point -- by posting to Facebook, Hastings is getting the news out fairly to anyone who wants to see it.

The SEC considers press releases to be the acceptable way to comply with RegFD.

Press releases are fine, but in 2012 saying that only press releases qualify for fair disclosure is like saying the only way to watch movies is in a theater. In fact, when I looked for press releases from Netflix it took me much longer than five seconds to find the relevant pages.

Time to re-think fair disclosure

There is no question, based on my extensive previous experiences - 1) working in the real-time news business for a decade; 2) as head of corporate communications for two public companies and 3) as VP marketing for Fair Disclosure Financial Network - that the SEC is wrong.

The SEC needs to develop new rules on what disclosure is in our world of instant communications.

If anyone from the SEC reads this, I'd be happy to come down to Washington and educate you on the new tools of real-time communications. But since this is not a press release, I doubt we'll hear from the lawyers down in D.C.

Not Another Junky Blog

Tania Venn, director of PR at 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, the largest full-service professional junk removal company in the world, oversees a team that creates content with a focus to reach customers who may not think that they need a junk removal service.

“Once they hear about what junk removal could do for them and how it could impact their lives, they become interested in our service,” Tania says.

Tania and her colleagues focus on what information would be valuable for buyers as they create content for the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Not Another Junky Blog and then use their Facebook page and Twitter feed @1800GOTJUNK to let their followers know of new posts.

Making junk interesting

I hear all the time from marketers who tell me something like "My business is boring. Nobody cares about what we do so how can I create content?"

Tania's example shows any market or company can be made to be interesting. We're talking about junk removal here, people!

"We think about what’s relevant," she says. "That could be tips and suggestions for people on getting their space back. It could be about decluttering and how to do a garage sale. We also focus on environmental sustainability, what happens to the stuff we haul away and creative ways to reuse junk." Right on the homepage there is a counter showing the number of pounds 1-800-GOT-JUNK? has saved from landfills. As of this writing, the ticker reads 2.264937 billion pounds.

They also create content about what's timely, either because it is in the news or tied with the time of year. "With the holidays coming up we'll post about making space to have your in-laws over and making room for new things you might get as gifts," Tania says. "And with New Years, everyone has resolutions. We know that the top ten New Year's resolutions includes 'getting organized' and 'simplifying'. We also look at what's trending. For example, there is a trend called trashion, when people make fashion out of trash, so we'll write about that."

Writing for buyers

Unlike when a blog is written from an egotistical perspective and turns into a bunch of advertising messages, Not Another Junky Blog, because it is written for buyers, focuses on real problems that people have with junk in the home.

"We know there’s an emotional component to getting rid of the stuff that you have," Tania says. "Our customers have an emotional release and an amazing magical feeling of 'that crap is not there anymore' when their junk is taken away. They don't realize until it's gone how good it feels. We hear it time and time and time again from our customers. So we build that into our blog because it answers what customers are looking for." The 1-800-GOT-JUNK? business is a franchise model, so the content they create also appeals to franchisees who learn about clever ways to market in their local area.

When you focus on buyers' problems as you create content, frequently you'll write about something that doesn't have anything to do with what your organization actually does. This is true at 1-800-GOT-JUNK?.

"We might talk about how to set up your own garage sale," Tania says. "That wouldn't get us business necessarily, but we’ve got the experience and we can share that with people. We know that readers may not be able to afford our service right now, but some day they will be able to. They'll have learned something from us that can help them out, something that can help them get rid of some of their junk, but they can do it themselves."

Measuring success

It's not just the billions of pounds of junk that the company saves from landfills that's measured. Tania knows that the content published in Not Another Junky Blog and shared on Facebook and Twitter is working because she uses analytics to measure content success too.

"I look at how many people view our blog on a daily basis and a weekly basis," she says, also paying attention to any content that becomes particularly popular with readers. "We've learned that we need to create content in order to be recognized on the web. It's a way of engaging with customers. It's a great way to get information directly to who you want to reach rather than going through the media."

Hey, if Tania can make junk interesting, there's no excuse for you not making your company interesting!