Web Ink Now

A Brand Your World personal branding summit audio archives available

Last month, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of Tom Peters' thought provoking-article on Personal Branding "The Brand Called You" published in Fast Company, I participated in A Brand You World, one of the largest global events ever on the subject of personal branding.

If you didn't have a chance to listen in live, the audio archives are available for free download.

My session Promoting Brand You with Viral Marketing on the Web was a great conversation with Krishna De, Europe's leading personal branding and marketing strategist. Thanks Krishna for inviting me to participate.

Here are some other notable sessions that you might want to check out.

Evangelizing Evangelists to Build a Business and Build Your Brand, an entrepreneur panel moderated by Guy Kawasaki

How to Write a Great Business Blog with Debbie Weil

Express Your Personal Brand Through the Power of Podcasting with Neville Hobson

Identity You: Creating a Personal 5x5 Branding Strategy with Phil Gerbyshak

PodCamp Boston 2: Learn, share, and grow new media skills

PodCamp Boston 2 is the new media community UnConference that helps connect people interested in blogging, podcasting, social networks, video on the net, and new media together for three days to learn, share, and grow their new media skills.

PodCamp Boston 2 will be held October 26 - 28, 2007 at the Boston Convention and Expo Center and is free to attend.

I attended PodCamp Boston last year. I learned a lot and made some new friends like John Wall, CC Chapman, Owen Mack, Bryan Person, Christopher Penn and the Toronto band Uncle Seth. I'll be there again this year and look forward to meeting PodCamp leader Chris Brogan. I may present my ideas on The New Rules of PR. You can learn more on the PodCamp Boston2 Wiki.

The great thing about PodCamp is that it is for all levels of experience. Anyone just getting started with social media will benefit but so will all you veterans. PodCamp attracts podcasting, blogging, second life, twitter, and video folks. But it is also great for educators, business people, community leaders, and real world users.

Register for free to attend the event.

If Boston isn't convenient for you, check out the PodCamp Wiki to see the other locations holding a PodCamp, including NYC, Miami, UK, SF, Copenhagen, Toronto, and more.

Here's why I don't have my own podcast!

Readers of this blog know that I am a huge fan of using online thought leadership and viral marketing strategies as marketing tools. Online media such as blogs, content rich websites, ebooks, podcasts, YouTube video, and social networking sites all have a power to tell a story and to brand any organization as real and authentic and one worth of doing business with. Organizations that use this form of marketing do not interrupt people with "messages." Instead they deliver information that people want to consume.

Alas, we've only got so many hours in a day. I don't do all of the things that I write about in my book and on this blog. (OK, I admit it...) Yes, I blog and it is very important to me. But I've only ventured into Second Life a handful of times. I work hard on producing an ebook every now and then because my first one The New Rules of PR ebook (released in early 2006) has been downloaded 250,000 times, moving my business forward significantly.

I don't have my own podcast. Not enough time, I’m afraid.

But I have something that I think is much better: friends and colleagues with terrific podcasts who I am flattered have invited me to chat with them on their shows. I'm fortunate to have appeared on some of the best marketing podcasts around. For me, being an interloping guest is more fun than hosting a regular show anyway.

Check out these podcasts. You don't need to listen to the show I'm on (yikes – how boring to hear much of the same stuff over and over again). But do check out these podcasts. They are worth your time.

Jennifer Jones is the host of Marketing Voices, a PodTech.net social media show. Jennifer and I discuss what it takes to make it in PR and marketing today. According to Jennifer, this show has "Lots of good tips." And thanks to Robert Scoble for introducing me to Jennifer.

In the GrokDotCom GrokCast, I speak with Robert Gorell about how marketing and public relations have become more conversational than ever, and how to not let these new opportunities to relate to customers slip by your company's radar. We had so much fun that we did a part two where we discuss how marketing and public relations needs to be a real interaction with not only your customers, but the people who move your industry.

Carmine Gallo interviews me in his show Useful Commute: The New Rules of Marketing and PR on BNET (a CNET podcast channel). Carmine is a real pro, having worked in radio and TV, so if you want to hear what a well-produced podcast sounds like, check this one out.

On the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I speak with John Jantsch about online marketing. We take a close look at the use of blogs, podcasts, RSS, wikis, press releases and the like in promoting products and services directly to the end user. I've followed John's blog for a while, so it was fun to speak with him on the show.

In Tech PR War Stories, Paul Gillin (author of The New Influencers) and David Strom speak with me about I used the ideas in my books to win election to MarketingSherpa's Viral Hall of Fame two years running. We also discuss the importance of search engine strategies to public relations and wonder why more PR professionals don't consider the techniques that buyers use to find products and services when they create their press releases. We kept the machine running and in part two we discussed how marketing folks have to reach out to ordinary people (and potential customers) for their press sections of their Web sites. These pages get the most traffic and show how everyone is now a publisher and can go directly to their audiences.

In Online Marketing with RSS Ray, I discuss the New The New Rules of Marketing & PR and using online content to grow your business. This show is distributed on the very popular wsRadio.com network.

John Wall, the host of The M Show and co-host (with Christopher Penn) of the Marketing Over Coffee show, helped me write the podcasting chapter in my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR (thanks John). We try to connect for lunch about once a quarter to compare notes about online marketing, and this time we just recorded the chat which John put onto his show.

In my conversation with The Blog Squad (Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff) we try to answer the following questions: What does it take to get your business online? How do you leverage the Internet to attract more clients, expand your network, and make more money? What are the different tools you need to master? This one is particularly cool because they produced a transcript!

My friend Brian Carroll (author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale) caught up several months ago just as my new book was coming out. I like speaking with Brian because he is a B2B sales expert and we always end up comparing notes about how marketing and sales can work better together.

In the Communication Steroids Podcast, co-hosts Tim 'Gonzo' Gordon and Roger Pike look deeper into Communication Best Practices, Communication in the Workplace, Communication Strategies, Communications Training, Fear of Public Speaking, Assertive Communication Skills and Public Speaking Tips. We discussed speaking at tradeshows and conferences.

Thank you to all of you for having me on your shows. Keep it up! You are doing a service to marketers who want to learn more.

(And you also give me an opportunity to get my voice out there without the need for my own show!)

The podcasting dentist: Successful Smiles!

Many times when I am on the speaking circuit or cocktail party and the subject of The New Rules comes up, people say to me something like, "Well that stuff sounds good for others, but I am a ____________" (fill in the blank with Dentist, Lawyer, Product Manager, Real Estate Agent, Swim Coach, CFO, (basically anything)).

I always respond that blogs, podcasts, video and other ways to reach buyers directly can be used by anyone. Which is why I like stumbling upon interesting people and their blogs.

A tip of the hat to Dianna Huff for pointing me to Dr. Helaine Smith's Successful Smiles healthcast. Yes, Dr. Smith is a podcasting dentist! She’s relatively new to this form of communications, but off to a great start.

In episode 3 of Successful Smiles, Dr. Smith cover the questions people should ask their dental professional when considering dental veneers (sometimes referred to as "teeth caps"). She provides details on what you should know and also questions to consider before having the procedure done. Hey. I'd like to listen to this in the car on my way to some dental torture.

It's probably too soon to know what result the podcast is having on Dr. Smith's business. But I hope she checks in with me in a year or so and lets me know.

Thank you Robert Scoble!

I want to thank Robert Scoble for writing the terrific forward to The New Rules of Marketing & PR!

What makes his generosity especially remarkable is that I have never met Robert. The only real connection we share is that his book Naked Conversations was also published by Wiley. The foreword Robert wrote is just brilliant. It sets up what I write about in my book perfectly. Robert obviously took time to do this – for someone he only knows from a few emails and blog posts. Thank you Robert!

Foreword to The New Rules of Marketing & PR

You're not supposed to be able to do what David Meerman Scott is about to tell you in this book. You're not supposed to be able to carry around a $250 video camera, record what employees are working on and what they think of the products they built, and publish those videos on the Internet. But that's what I did at Microsoft, building an audience of more than four million unique visitors a month.

You're not supposed to be able to do what Stormhoek did. A winery in South Africa, it doubled sales in a year using the principles discussed here.

You're not supposed to be able to run a Presidential Campaign with just a blogger, a videographer, and a Flickr photographer. But that’s what John Edwards did in December 2006 as he announced he was running for President.

Something has changed in the past 10 years. Well, for one, we have Google now, but that's only a part of the puzzle.

What really has happened is the word-of-mouth network has gotten more efficient. Much, much, more efficient.

Word-of-mouth has always been important to business. When I helped run a Silicon Valley camera store in the 1980s about 80% of my sales came from it. "Where should I buy a camera this weekend," you might have heard in a lunchroom back then. Today that conversation is happening online. But, instead of only being two people talking about your business, now thousands and sometimes millions (Engadget had 10 million page views in a single day during the Consumer Electronics and MacWorld shows in January 2006) are either participating or listening in.

What does this mean? Well, now there's a new media to deal with. Your PR teams better understand what drives this new media (it's as influential as the New York Times or CNN now) and if you understand how to use it you can drive buzz, new product feedback, sales, and more.

But first you’ll have to learn to break the rules.

Is your marketing department saying you need to spend $80,000 to do a single video (not unusual, even in today's world, I just participated in such a video for a sponsor of mine)? If so, tell that department "thanks, but no thanks." Or, even better, search Google for "will it blend?" You’ll find a Utah blender company that got six million downloads in less than 10 days. Oh, and 10,000 comments in the same period of time. All by spending a few hundred bucks, recording a one-minute long video, and uploading that to YouTube.

Or, study what I did at Microsoft with a blog and a video camera. Economist magazine said I put a human face on Microsoft. Imagine that. A 60,000-employee organization and I changed its image with very little expense and hardly a committee in sight.

This advice isn't for everyone, though. Most people don't like running fast in business. They feel more comfortable if there's lots of checks and balances. Er, committees to cover their asses. Or, they don't want to destroy the morale of PR and marketing departments due to the disintermediating effects of the Internet.

After all, we can type "OneNote Blog" into Google or Live.com, or Yahoo and you'll find Chris Pratley. He runs the OneNote team at Microsoft. Or, search for "Sun CEO." You’ll find Jonathan Schwartz and his blog.

You can leave either a comment and tell them their product sucks and see what they do in response. Or, even better, tell them how to earn your sale. Do they snap into place?

It's a new world you’re about to enter. One where relationships with influentials AND search engine optimization strategy are just as important as each other. One where your news will be passed around the world very quickly. Don't believe me?

Look at how the world found out I was leaving Microsoft for a Silicon Valley startup (PodTech.net).

I told 15 people at a videoblogging conference. Not "A listers" either. Just everyday videobloggers. I asked them not to tell anyone until Tuesday – this was on a Saturday afternoon and I still hasn’t really told my boss.

Well, of course someone leaked that information. But, it didn't pop up in the New York Times. It wasn't discussed on CNN. No, it was a blogger I had never even heard of that posted the info first.

Within hours it was on hundreds of other blogs. Within two days it was on the Wall Street Journal, in the New York Times, on the front page of the BBC, in Business Week, Economist, in more than 140 newspapers around the world (friends called me from Australia, Germany, Israel, and England, among other countries) and other places. Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft’s PR agency, was keeping track and said that about 50 million media impressions occurred on my name in the first week.

All due to 15 conversations.

Whoa, what's up here? Well, if you have a story worth repeating bloggers, podcasters, and videobloggers (among other influentials) will repeat your story all over the world. Potentially bringing hundreds of thousands or millions of people your way. One link on a site like Digg alone could bring tens of thousands of visitors.

How did that happen?

Well, for one, lots of people knew me, knew my phone number, knew what kind of car I drove, knew my wife and son, knew my best friends, knew where I worked and had heard me in about 700 videos that I posted at http://channel9.msdn.com on behalf of Microsoft.

They also knew where I went to college (and high school, and middle school), and countless other details about me. How do you know they know all this? Well, they wrote a page on Wikipedia about me at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Scoble -- not a single thing on that page was authored by me.

What did all that knowledge of me turn into? Credibility and authority. Translation: people knew me, knew where I was coming from, knew I was passionate and authoritative about technology, and came to trust me where they wouldn’t trust most corporate authorities.

By reading this book you'll understand how to gain the credibility you need to build your business. Enjoy!

Robert Scoble
Vice President Media Development, PodTech.net
co-author Naked Conversations
Scobleizer.com

The New Rules of Marketing and PR book cover

Big News. The cover for my newest book The New Rules of Marketing and PR is finalized and I really like it!

Thank you to my friends at Wiley who worked with me to create this cover. I was thrilled that Wiley made me a part of the process.

Many publishers force book covers on authors. One of my friends said that when she first saw her cover and was told that it could not be changed, she was so bummed that she cried.

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to use news releases, blogs, podcasts, viral marketing and online media to reach your buyers directly will be out in June 2007. Thanks to many of you who have commented on this blog and helped to make the book better.

Book Review: What No One Ever Tells You About… Blogging and Podcasting

I just finished reading the fun and fast book What No One Ever Tells You About… Blogging and Podcasting by Ted Demopoulos. This is a great read for anyone looking for some encouragement and case examples of real people who blog and podcast. Unlike some books that focus on celebrity bloggers such as Bob Lutz,
GM Vice Chairman and his Fast Lane blog, Ted profiles "regular people" and also spends some time on other aspects of blogging such as why you should be monitoring blogs to find out what people are saying about you and your organization and its products and services.

With real-life advice from 101 people who successfully leverage the power of the blogosphere, the book is made up of very short chapters that can be devoured on planes, trains, and hopefully not while you're driving your automobile (but as a passenger is OK). The book is best read it in snippits.

Ted has a blog The Ted Rap: Ted Demopoulos' thoughts and musings on Technology, Business & Their Intersection that you should check out for more details.

Disclaimer: I am profiled in chapter 31 "Marketing with Content: Don’t interrupt people; instead, attract them with value." Thanks for including me, Ted.

Blog on.

Social Media Club Boston: if you get it, share it

Last night I attended the kick off meeting of the Boston gang (what do I call it? Branch? Chapter?) of the Social Media Club. Funny that online social media people need to occasionally meet offline to make sure we're all real. Check out the proof here.

Todd Van Hoosear and the team at Topaz Partners organized the event and got something like 120 people in the room. Well done guys.

This was a stellar group. Wow. How cool to meet people in the real that I had read on their blogs many times and traded emails with.

I finally met Todd Defren, Principal at Shift Communications who helped pioneer the Social Media Press Release format which I am a big fan of. I had interviewed Todd for my book, and we've traded a bunch of emails.

Bryan Person is a consultant (he does a lot of work with Monster) and is someone who really gets stuff like podcasting and video. I'm hoping Bryan will tell me more about what Monster is up to with social media so I can put it into my book.

Brian Del Vecchio had an interesting insight during the breakout sessions which I quite liked. He said that the media used to be produced only by people who owned the capital to create media (newspaper printing presses) & TV stations for example). Now the capital to publish is virtually zero. Anyone can undermine big media now because it is so easy to do. Blog on.

Scott Monty is an expert in B2B social media, an emerging niche of social media that I like a lot. Scott gets it and works with larger companies to help them get it too.

John Wall from The M Show is a great resource if you need to know the basics of podcasting. He helped me as I was writing the podcasting section of my book.

The Social Media Club is being organized for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media. The Club has come together through the tireless efforts of Chris Heuer, the club's co-founder, and many others. In his opening remarks Chris defined Social Media as the nexus point around which all of the different people (podcasters, bloggers, PR people, etc.) who are communicating online come together.

The Club is the forum where people learning from one another. In his opening remarks, Chris said, "We're all figuring out this stuff together. Nobody has all the answers. The club learns from each other and we share knowledge and help people succeed."

Some ideas of the Social Media Club include: Promotion of media literacy both the understanding of the media and produce media (such as blogs), media ethics, media standards, and sharing best practices (Club motto: "if you get it, share it").

Podcasting is more than just music

For content that is best delivered via audio or for buyers who prefer to listen to audio content, podcasting is obviously essential. For example, many politicians and churches podcast so that supporters can keep up with speeches and sermons when they can’t hear them live.

While the podcasting of music is perhaps an obvious choice given the medium's similarity to radio, all marketers can learn from what the music business and bands like Uncle Seth have been doing with podcasts. After all, who would believe that a business like that of student loans providers would benefit from a podcast? "Podcasting is almost exactly mirroring the internet of a decade ago," George Smyth of Eclectic Mix says. "Ten years ago, I was telling people about the Web and building example sites. But then some larger companies jumped into the Web. I see the same thing with the evolution of podcasting, with some big organizations jumping in, like NPR."

As a component of a larger content marketing strategy, podcasting is also an increasingly important part of the marketing mix. For example, customer service departments increasingly deliver "how to" podcast series to keep users of their products informed. Companies that market to people who are often on the road (such as salespeople) and therefore have "down time" in their cars or on airplanes have had success reaching people with interesting podcasts. For many organizations, podcasting for marketing purposes is not an either/or decision. Instead, podcasting coexists with blogging, a great Web site, e-books, and other online marketing tools and programs in a cohesive marketing strategy.

Digg, a technology news Web site that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical editorial control, uses a podcast to deliver technology news, commentary, and information to its constituents. But Digg also has a blog and a content-rich Web site, and the different marketing tools work together. The Diggnation podcast, which generates more than one hundred thousand downloads per episode, is classic thought-leadership content. Hosted by Kevin Rose, founder and chief architect of Digg, Diggnation is not just about the company and its products. The 2006 People's Choice Podcast Awards chose Diggnation as the best tech podcast because people learn about technology as they listen. And they keep coming back.

The Student Loan Network gains a competitive edge online with Financial Aid Podcast

Another inspiring case study that will appear in my upcoming book The New Rules of Marketing and PR.

The Student Loan Network is an online student loan company that's been around since 1998. The company is a significant lender, with some $150 million to $200 million in loans produced each year. The Student Loan Network site excels as an online guide to student loans and financial aid, and it reaches students and parents directly with financial aid advice and student loan services. Particularly interesting is the company's Financial Aid Podcast a six-days-per-week podcast available on iTunes and other podcast distribution and subscription services.

"We're always looking for a competitive edge online," says Christopher S. Penn, chief evangelist for The Student Loan Network and host of Financial Aid Podcast. His show helps students (and some parents, too) make college more affordable through shows on topics such as credit cards, international student issues, private student loans, and scholarships. But Penn also produces episodes dealing with other aspects of finance that interest young people. The podcast was the first and is by far the most popular show about financial aid for college-bound students. "So much of modern American society revolves around money in one way or another, and the more I learn about it, the more I see, the more I understand," Penn says on the bio page of his podcast's companion blog. "Money, economics, all that stuff is so important, so vital to understand, and it's what really drives me to crank out a podcast every single day. Each day, another piece gets added to the puzzle, and I know a little bit more about how to make the world work for me—and for my listeners.

"The audience for Financial Aid Podcast is primarily people who are looking to get into college, are currently in college, or have just graduated," Penn says. "The nice thing about the college aid demographic is that they all have iPods, which is ideal for the podcast as a marketing tool." Because Penn understands his buyer personas—young people—he can speak to them in an authentic, resonant way. Penn knows that for his demographic, a podcast is perfect, because so many people are already listening to audio and have iTunes accounts.

"Podcasting is great marketing because, like blogging, it is a human voice," Penn says. "Most podcasts don't have a PR stamp on them, so the shows come across as being human. The reason why this is interesting is that there is a big marketing shift going on right now. The older, traditional advertising model, like 1950s TV, is that we publish and you consume. However, today's marketing model is that we publish and you respond. It provides me real feedback from real people, and I have conversations. I can be interactive."

Penn sees a clear link between marketing and customer service at companies. He suggests that customer service needs to be real and authentic and have a human voice, just like great marketing. "There is no such thing as 'on message' anymore," Penn says. "[Customer service] is no longer about spin, but instead becoming a part of the conversation. Now I think that companies that do not make the jump to blogging and podcasting and interacting with customers look like dinosaurs. Some industries are tailor-made for this, but they do not get it. For example, I would think that real estate agents could do a great job with video podcasts, but it is very rare. If you have a customer services department, you need to be doing this kind of marketing."

Penn has conducted research about his audience and has adapted his show accordingly. "Podcasting is time-shifted," he says. "You can take it with you and listen to it at any time. My shows are all eighteen to twenty-four minutes, because twenty-four minutes is the average commute, and the average human attention span is eighteen minutes." Penn also has an interesting perspective on competition. He says that he competes with every other podcaster, because listeners only have twenty-four hours in a day.

Penn has learned that the best way to drive his listeners into The Student Loan Network sales process is to mention URLs on his show. But he is quick to point out that the show is not a sales pitch. "The podcast is not an immediate business generator. We are real and authentic. We want to help people. We want to be beneficial to people;" he says. However, based on promotions that the company has run, Penn knows that he’s generated over $10 million in loans directly from podcasts. "It’s way beyond beer money," he says.