Conversational Media Marketing

I've started writing a post or two per week over at WordFrame.com. My first post is Vertical social networks for business, a table of their own, which reports on the new eMarketer study about businesses entering the social network space.

(BTW, WordFrame is an awesome B2B social networking platform. If your company has an interest in creating a socnet for either internal or external use, I recommend it highly. It's affordable, highly scalable and has all the features you'd want or need.)

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 met Rudy Bachraty at an Inman Real Estate Connect conference a few years ago at a mixer sponsored by Zillow. (I remember because I got a beer glass with Zillow's logo on it.)

He and I also served on a panel at Blogger's Connect alongside PayPerPost CEO Ted Murphy. (I still have yet to figure out why Ted was invited to be on a panel talking about real estate blogging, but oh well.)

Rudy is now the resident social media guru (his term) at Trulia.com.

As part of my ongoing series of Realtors who get social media, I asked Rudy this question: "What is working so far as the Web 2.0 is concerned? Are you seeing business off Twitter, Active Rain, other social networks or apps?"

Rudy's reply:

In my role at Trulia, I speak to a good amount of Realtors who use Trulia Voices. They are really connecting with home buyers and sellers and helping them either find their next home or by selling their current one. As with any other social network or community, you have to be there and put in the time in order to reap the benefits.

Today's agents need to be proactive and figure out how they can make all the new web 2.0 tools and technologies work for them.

Here are some public Trulia Voices testimonials:

Inman Real Estate Connect for free - have a Trulia Voices testimonial?

What is Trulia Voices?

San Francisco Style - Trulia Voices Is...

See what others Realtors who get social media have to say: Andy Kaufman, Ines Hegedus-Garcia, Jackie Colson-Miller

I've never been very good at self-promotion. That being said, thanks to some encouragement from a few friends I've taken the leap and am offering business blog and social media consulting and speaking services.

If you visit those two pages, you'll note that I refer to myself in the third person, which does seem a bit weird. Let me know if you think so as well and I'll change that. Also, if you feel so inclined, please pass along my name/contact info to anyone you think might have an interest. Thanks!

PS: A video is being produced from a recent live event, so you'll get to see me in action. (I'm sure it will be need to be highly-edited. :->)

I've noticed a thread that seems to run through the social web -- an emphasis on the use of personal branding as a way to build the associated company brand.

There are a number of examples:

• Paul Dunay, Director of Global Field Marketing at BearingPoint (see conversation I had with Paul below)
• Chris Brogan, VP of Strategy and Technology at CrossTech Media
• Jason Falls, Director of Social Media at Doe-Anderson, a leading Louisville, KY advertising agency
• Jeremiah Owyang, Peter Kim, Charlene Li of Forrester fame (Peter and Charlene are no longer associated with Forrester, but you get my point)

Perhaps the way to think of these people is as spokespersons for their company.

When Jason Calacanis quit blogging last month (he really did) and turned to the use of email newsletters, by the reaction in the tech community you'd think it was the first time someone thought of using email as a marketing or business communications tool.

Jason has always been a trend-setter, so I suspect others will follow his lead. (In fact, others already are.) I do think it interesting that he turned to something as old-school, tried-and-true as email. Like the title says, what's old is new again.

I've longed believed blogs and email can work together as a marketing "one, two knockout punch!" (Corny, I know, but I like the metaphor.) I've been writing about it and it's recently become a topic renewed , Calacanis notwithstanding.

Blogs and email can provide any company, large or small, with an inexpensive way to share its message and build its brand.

Still, it will be interesting to see if others follow Jason's lead. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if even Scoble made the shift!

UPDATE @ 3:19 p.m.: Just saw this report on B2B Magazine which says social media is affecting email marketing.

We're officially announcing the relaunch of the International Blogging and New Media Association today. This has been long in coming and I'm elated to see the day finally arrive.

Check out the press release and the blog post. If you feel so inclined, please help us spread the message.

One more thing...

I know there may be talk about how the executive board is comprised only of men, and middle-aged white men at that. And I understand. I can promise you the Advisory Council, which we will announce next week, is far from that. It's a diverse group in many respects as you will see.

Again, help us spread the word, the IBNMA is back Jack!

I finished reading Groundswell last night, the book co-authored by Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff and former analyst Charlene Li. I have to say it's one of the most important books on the subject of social media that I've read this year.

Research - The opinions shared, suggestions made and advice given are based on solid research. What else would you expect from Forrester, right? Everything is well-documented and appended.

Case studies - Charlene and Josh support the research with real world examples showing how organizations both in the for-profit and non-profit sectors are using the tools of social media to accomplish marketing and business communication purposes. They showcase larger organizations like Dell, Best Buy and M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, but do include a few references to small business.

Writing - The book is very well-written. Again, you'd expect no less from Forrester analysts.

Back in the day (circa 2004-2005), most of my blog traffic came from one of two sources: a) blogrolls and b) other blogger's posts. Nowadays, a lot of it comes from Twitter, Plurk, Friendfeed, Facebook and, yes, Google (thankfully).

What does that indicate?

1. The conversation is much more distributed than it used to be. Mack Collier thinks so too.
2. Blogrolls are less important that they used to be.

As to why I'm not seeing traffic from other's blog could mean that:

1. The value of my content is less than it used to be.
2. There are more of us talking now so less attention is paid to any one blogger. The competition for attention is higher to be sure.
3. I'm not spending enough time commenting on or referencing other's blog posts myself.

Last week I learned about SavvyAuntie.com, a new social network for, you guessed it, aunts. In its short period of existence news about the site has spread quickly, even reaching into mainstream media. Since mine is not a news site, let me reference several for those of you who'd like to know more: Mashable, Center Networks, Huffinton Post and Washington Post (reprint from TechCrunch).

This is not merely a post about Savvy Auntie though. News of this site's launch got me thinking about women in social media, especially those I've met either online or in person, and the impact they're having.