Conversational Media Marketing

I've only heard this meme a few times and I'm already sick of it, blogging is dead. Give me a break. Blogging is no more dead than email, which has also had its share of doomsayers. Blogging is not dead, it has merely found its place in the grand scheme of all things social media.

A little history lesson. In 2003, the year I started blogging, it was about the only game in town social media speaking, at least where business was concerned. And it wasn't until 2005 when Business Week did their cover story on blogging that the business world really even took note. Up to that point, it was a curiosity that only early adopters were making use of, more or less.

You have only to read the books on blogging published around that time to see what I mean. (Note: Until 2005 there were none that dealt strictly with business applications.)

So, tell me, how only three years later, does anyone have the temerity to say that blogging's future is dismal and that, rather than start a blog, one should invest their time on Facebook, Twitter and other social applications? *Balderdash!

(A word about email. It's still the #1 Internet activity and than any other form. And those numbers continue to rise. Email dead. Yea, right.)

Here are a list of good reasons why blogging's future is bright.

Blogs, though old (relatively speaking) are new again. They have morphed into: a) Lightweight CMS platforms, are b) Social media headquarters, c) serve as vehicles for content marketing, d) are great niche market penetration tools, and e) search engine magnets.

I've been given the opportunity to present at a two-day virtual summit on conversational media marketing sponsored by BrightTALK that starts today.

Here's the blurb...

The message for marketers is loud and clear: social media will change your business. Few years ago, social media was a nice addition to a marketing plan – nowadays it is an essential part of the marketing mix and it is likely to overtake traditional marketing channels very soon. According to a TWI study, conversational marketing will surpass traditional marketing by 2012.

To address the challenges and primarily the opportunities that come with conversational marketing and social media, BrightTALK is organizing an all-day online summit on conversational marketing on November 24. There is no charge for attendance.

The summit will be available live on November 24-25. This is where you can also find the most up-to-date schedule.

The following presenters will discuss the use of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, social media, search marketing, corporate blogging, reaching out youth and much more.

• Bill Hartzer, search engine marketing manager at Vizion Interactive
• Chris Kenton, CEO of SocialRep
• Dave Evans, CEO of Digital Voodoo
• Edward Weatherall, managing director at Concept Ltd
• Ian Lurie, president of Portent Interactive
• Jerry Hart, principal and vice president of sales and marketing for Power to be Found
• Jennifer Carole, director of the worldwide teen lab at Alcatel-Lucent
• Kate Brodock, principal at The Other Side Group
• Linda Pophal, owner and CEO of Strategic Communications
• Loren McDonald, vice president of industry relations at Silverpop
• Malcolm Friedberg, marketing automation expert
• Mary Lou Roberts, instructor at Harvard Extension Program; author at DIY-Marketing
• Michael Kurtzman managing director of mobile advertising at Sybase 365
• Sundeep Kapur, online marketing strategist at www.emailyogi.com and NCR Corporation
• Will Schnabel, vice president of international markets at Silverpop

My presentation take place tomorrow, November 25, from 10-11 a.m.

For those who'd like to learn more, here's a link to the press release. Visit the BrightTALK Web site to see the list of topics.

Back in June, I was interviewed by MarketingSherpa reporter Natalie Myers for a report she was writing dealing with real estate online marketing strategies.  The report is now available as the second of two-parts: Online Strategies from Real Estate Marketers – Try Blogs, SEO, Social Media

I regard MarketingSherpa with the same esteem as MarketingProfs. For years, CEO Anne Holland and her crew have been creating high-quality content to benefit marketing professionals and I'm honored to have the privilege of participating in this report.

A question was asked in the LinkedIn bloggers group, "Do you have a system for creating blog post titles? If so, what is it?"

I responded with this...

My philosophy is that we speak to two audiences with our blog, one human and one machine (i.e., search engines). As such, the post titles have to make sense to both. Creating titles that do the job well is both art and science. And, of course, it depends on whether we really care about reaching either audience, or both as the case may be.

My procedure is normally to incorporate a keyword or keyword phrase into the post title and to frontload it if at all possible. I then repeat those keywords in the post itself a couple of times, depending on the length of the post. Obviously, that's in an effort to appeal to Google. As you are aware, the post title is turned into an HTML title tag, at least in the most popularly used blog platforms. That's important from an SEO perspective.

The art then is to wrap a sentence or phrase around those keywords that make sense to the human reader. I've almost completely abandoned writing "catchy" titles in favor of ones that are more descriptive of the topic at hand. I'll leave the catchy titles to the likes of Seth Godin. He already has plenty of traffic. Me, I need pagerank.

Now, let's suppose one of my posts returns well for someone searching a particular keyword. It increases the likelyhood that one they're looking for and what I'm talking about are going to be a better match. What I don't need is a majority of my traffic hitting the site, then quickly leaving. Not only that, but using a more descriptive title will help the reader vet whether the post is worth their time to begin with.

For example, in this post, , I opted for descriptive and use of frontloaded keywords. I'd like to think the last phrase is descriptive enough for human readers to see where I'm going with it.

Conversely, in this post, A list of things to do before I die , I went for catchy. The former was intended to be more polemic and informative. The latter was a bit more personal.

Anyway, long answer, which I hope made sense.

• Two audiences, humans and machines
• Have to appeal to both
• Use fron-tloaded keywords in combination with descriptive titles
• Leave the catchy stuff to bloggers who can afford the luxury

Today, I want to share a few secrets I've learned along the way that may help you to become a more successful business blogger.

(OK, so they're not really "secrets." In fact, they've become pretty well-established business blogging best practices. Of course, if you don't already know them, then perhaps secrets they are. Now that I've cleared that up, uh-hum, on to our program.)

I'm in the throes of preparing for a speaking engagement later today with the Public Relations Association of Louisiana, Baton Rouge chapter, at their monthly luncheon. I'll be talking about the marketing benefits of blogs.

Actually, this feels a bit like deja vu all over again. A couple of years ago I spoke to the Mississippi version of the same group at one of their monthly luncheons.

I'm a member of the LinkedIn bloggers group where the following question was asked by one of the members...

I have toyed with the idea of merging my e-newsletter & blog, and just going with the blog.  The e-newsletter actually inspired the blog creation, and I used the topics from my newsletter to begin my blog.

My question is this: Have any of you ever merged your blog & newsletter?  If you did, any advice?  Would you do it again?  What would you have done differently?

I've blogged about this before, but felt a solid reply was needed again, so here it is...

A company called Blogfuse has built an application that allows bloggers to create their own Facebook app for their blog. Here's mine.

Here's some tidbits...

• The app supports any blog that has an RSS feed associated with it.
• The set up is easy enough, though was a tad confusing. You have to go back and forth between their setup checklist and Facebook (which they embed on the setup pages using iframes) and some of the instructions didn't always seem to match up with what I was seeing on the Facebook page. It took me about 10 minutes to set it up.
• Once the app is set up, as with every other FB app, you can invite your friends (20 at a time of course).
• Just like other apps, it shows up in your profile.

My schedule doesn't allow time to elaborate too much at the moment, but in reading Pete Blackshaw's blog I find that today, December 17th, 2007, marks the 10th anniversary of blogs.  Actually, it's the word "weblog" that we commemorate today, but that's close enough.