Conversational Media Marketing

FeedBurner, which was acquired by Google in 2007, is now forcing a migration of its feed data into Google and anticipates completion by February 28. (See Google's to learn more.) To say people are unhappy about it would be an understatement. For example...

Many, many people, including TechCrunch's Micheal Arrington, reported losing some or all of their subscribers. You may have noticed similar problems.

If you have a Feedburner feed tied to any of your blogs, in true handyman style this post outlines what you need to do in order to make the transition. It's really pretty painless.

Step 1: Log into your Feedburner account.

Step 2: Note the following statement. Choose "Move your account now." (As if you really have any choice.)

Step 3: Sign in using your Google account. (You do have a Google account right? If not, you'll have to set one up.)

In all likelihood you're already signed into the one you want, so click the "Next" button and you will be presented with this screen. (Well, of course it will have your feeds listed, not Bizzukas.)

Step 4: Click the "Move feeds" button. FeedBurner's server will start talking to Google's server and you should see this screen.

If all goes well, and it will (fingers crossed), you will next see this screen.

You will receive a detailed email from Google confirming that the transaction has taken place, along with other information relative to the matter.

Once you've made this transition, you can never go back to the old FeedBurner account. (Awe!!!) From now on you will log in via the Google version, . Well, actually, you can go to Feedburner.com for the time being, but it will redirect to this new URL. After February 28 that won't be the case.

If you happen to be a Blogger user, you are at an advantage. Because Blogger, like FeedBurner, is owned by Google, they offer a one-click migration. Everyone else has to follow this routine.

Lastly, there is a new URL for the feeds, http://feeds2.feedburner.com/yourblogname. You may want to go ahead and change the URL on your blog. However, Google does indicate in the FAQs that they intend to maintain backwards compatibility as long as the service exists.

In a second post, I'm going to discuss some of the proposed benefits from making this transition and offer my opinion on alternative solutions. For now, I'd go ahead and make the transition. No need to wait to the last minute.

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I'm pleased to announce that Wiley Publishing has contracted with me to write a book on social media marketing, to be called The Digital Handshake: Seven Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media.

It's set for publication in September and I have three months to write it.

I won't bore you with the minutiae of how all this came about, just happy that it did. I do, however, want to address some questions.

Another book on social media marketing?!? Isn't the market glutted with them?

In case you might be asking why Wiley would want to publish yet another title about social media, I admit I asked the same thing. It's not like they haven't cornered the market already with the likes of David Meerman Scott's New Rules of Marketing and PR, Dave Evan's Social Media Marketing an Hour a Day and Joseph Jaffe's Join the Conversation, just to name a few. (Oh, let me not forget Larry Weber's Marketing to the Social Web, soon to be released in its second edition.)

Not only that, they have several new social media titles set for publication the early part of this year: Content Nation, Social Influence Marketing For Dummies and The Social Media Bible.

Of course, all of these are in different divisions and intended for different audiences, or so I suppose. Mine, btw, was originally considered for the professional and technical division, but is going in the business division. (Not sure who I have to thank for that, but a couple of people do come to mind.)

The bottom line is, while I'm aware the market is glutted, who am I to turn down such a wonderful opportunity? After all, it's not my place to determine for Wiley how many books they publish on the subject of social media...just as long as they publish mine. :-)

Why Wiley?

Considering the number of titles Wiley is producing, you might think I would have been better served to go with a publisher who doesn't have as many.

There are two reasons I chose Wiley. First, I have a long history with them dating back to 2005 having served as technical editor on a number of For Dummies books. I know several editors there and believe Wiley to be a company that has my best interests at heart.

The second reason, they are the ones who offered me a contract! I did have the book in front of some other publishers, one of whom showed great interest, but in the end, money talks.

What sets this book apart from the rest?

That was a question asked by the editor in trying to determine the positioning of the book.

At its heart, this book is "a practical application of principles." It's focus is on providing principles, explaining the tools (not everything, but the ones in most common use) along with an understanding of how to use them, accompanied by concrete examples and case studies of how they're being used in real world settings, mostly by SMBs. It culminates with a four-prong strategy for social media engagement.

It is a comprehensive treatise whose target are those just getting started in this space and those needing to learn more about social media itself and its application where business is concerned.

Practical application of principles written in language everyone can understand and that everyone can deploy. That's it in a nutshell.

Why the title The Digital Handshake?

That was probably the eighth or ninth title suggested. The original, Conversations Create Customers, was not liked by any publisher who looked at the proposal.

We went through a litany of other ideas including:

• Handyman's Guide to Social Media
• Social Media DNA: Are you changing your mindset or just changing your tactics?
• The Fifth P of Marketing: Participation
• Common Sense Social Media: What really works, why and how
• Making Sense of Social Media
• Making Dollars and Sense of Social Media

They didn't bite on any of them. Nibbled on a couple, but no bites.

Finally, a light turned on in my head and I submitted the title that was ultimately chosen, The Digital Handshake.

The title builds on the idea that relationships tend to start with a handshake and grow from there. In the virtual world, social media is a way of extending a "digital" handshake. There are certain unwritten, yet accepted rules of engagement. Don't push, pull. Use the power of attraction. Take a Dale Carnegie type approach and express interest in others first. A "seek first to understand, then be understood." That's the spin this book will have.

The editor LOVED it! (emphasis hers)

Last question, why me?

Of all the questions I asked myself about why Wiley or any other publisher would choose to take on this project, the one asked most often was "why me?"

I mean, I can think of at least a dozen or more people much more qualified to do this than I. Still, the same refrain echoes in my head, it's not for me to question, just be grateful the offer and opportunity was extended.

So, there we go. I'm going to be a hermit for the next three months and my dear wife, Amie, will be a widow. BTW, she's in complete support of this. After all, she's been through it once already with my first book, Realty Blogging. Honestly, I could not do this without her help and I'm extremely grateful to have it.

I gave a talk today at the Sales and Marketing Executives meeting in Baton Rouge on the topic of using the web to maximize your marketing dollar and presented some cost-effective strategies to market through the recession.

At the conclusion of the meeting an attendee, , asked if I had blogged this information. I responded with no, but will before the day is over. So, Kent, here it is.

I started out by talking briefly about two current trends...

Marketing budgets are tightening. That's news to no one. Bizzuka CEO told me several weeks ago, "Paul, you are our marketing budget." I'm sure companies much larger than ours are scaling back. That's what all the emails I get from various sources indicate.

Money is moving from offline to online. Newspapers are losing revenue hand over fist. To a lesser degree, the same is true for radio/TV/print media. The single winner in all of this is online media, and that's not growing as fast now as hoped.

Given the current economic climate, there is a need, particularly for small businesses, to maximize their marketing dollars and I'm here to trumpet the Internet as the place to do so. Here are the five ways I suggested.

1. Put yourself in the "findability" business

At the New Marketing Summit last October Todd Defren, Principal of Shift Communications, said, "You are no longer the marketing department. You are now the 'findability' department. What I think he meant was that Google is the new yellow pages and if your business can't be found there, for many people you don't exist. PPC/SEO are two ways to get there. My second point elucidated another.

2. Think of yourself as publisher and your Web site as a media property

What I'm referring to here is content, content and more content. Content is STILL king!

David Meerman Scott said companies should consider hiring people with the skills of a journalist to churn out content, which can come in many forms: video, photos, podcasts, blog posts, articles, press releases, etc. And they don't have to all live on your own site. It's good for link love and Google Juice purposes to have them on third-party sites as well.

It doesn't have to be expensive either. At Bizzuka, we use every one of those tools. With the exception of press releases syndicated via PRWeb, everyone one of them is free. If we can do it, you can too!

And it's given us a lot of presence on Google. A reveals returns from , , , PRWeb, , Blog Talk Radio, blogs and on and on.

An added benefit is ubiquity. You're everywhere! That's something I think carries with it social capital and credibility.

3. Participate in social networks

Social networking via (your business suit), (business casual) and (the networking cocktail party) are places you should have profiles established and where you should, to the degree time will allow, be actively participating. It will pay off over time. We're seeing the fruits of it here. Again, if we can do it, you can too.

4. Get closer to your customer

Marketing strategist John Moore says there are three ways companies can increase revenues:

• Raise prices
• Get new customers
• Sell more stuff to the customers you already have

In a recession, raising prices is out of the question. It costs more to get new customers than to keep the ones you already have. Therefore, getting closer to your customers and upselling them on new products/services is the preferred route.

While nothing beats an in-person, real life connection, via your Web site, blog, email, social networks and online communities the Web can serve up a digital handshake to help keep you top-of-mind with customers.

5. Start a tribe

Seth Godin's latest book, Tribes, talks about how people form communities around leaders, brands, products and services. These are often self-forming groups in which the brand may be a non-participant.

I often use the idea of "getting a seat at someone else's table" to describe how brands should find communities of interest wherever they may exist and join as co-participants. I also suggest it's not a bad idea to "set a table of your own" and start such communities.

A great example is Vertical Response, the small business email marketing software company. They built a customer community, VR Marketing Lounge, using low-cost social network platform Ning that numbers several thousand members.

While that may be only a fraction of their total customer-base, it's still significant. Just think of the feedback that group can provide and the potential for word-of-mouth growth that can come as a result of increased tribal affiliation.

So, there it is -- five ways to maximize your marketing dollar via the Web. If you found the post helpful, let know. It was his suggestion... and a good one it was.

Bizzuka CEO, John Munsell, and I are working on a video series dealing with how businesses can use the web to thrive in these difficult economic times. (Hopefully, we'll unveil it next week. It contains interviews with some of the best marketing minds in the country, nay, even the world.)

Comparing social media to, say, advertising is like comparing the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life to a "walkathon." If you've never participated in Relay, this won't make sense, but if you have, you know what I mean. (BTW, if you haven't, you should.)

UPDATE: Here's Cathy Taylor's post at her Social Media Insider blog at Mediapost announcing the winners. Four of us made the cut and there are some interesting business models presented. I still think mine is the hands down winner tho. Heh.

Great news, for me at least. I've been chosen to be a panelist at OMMA Social on the topic of creating a Twitter business model. 

If you are at all interested in social media marketing, especially as it relates to branding, there is a blogger you should be reading, Leili McKinley.

asked the question last week, Is social media the same as marketing? 

 
There are two schools of thought pertaining to who to follow on Twitter. One is what I refer to as the Guy Kawasaki method which says, "forget the influentials," "defocus your efforts," and "get as many followers as you can." It's more of a mass marketing approach.

Up and until on the number of people that I could follow in a given 24-hour period, that's pretty much the school to which I subscribed and just about anyone and everyone qualified (minus the spammers of course).

Since then, I've had to be more discerning and have actually found that to be a good thing. So, here are fifteen suggested Twitter follow dos and don'ts based on my current Twitter follow modus operandi:

Dos...

1. Focus your efforts - If you're in sales and marketing, hopefully you've outlined specific target markets based on demographic, psychographic and technographic profiles. Maybe you've even created a persona of the ideal client or customer. Find those folks and follow them.

One good way to do that is by using Twellow, which is a Twitter "yellow pages." It categorizes Twitter followers based on geography and industry and covers everything from aerospace to Web development.

For example, a search on my city, Lafayette, LA, brought five pages of returns totaling 100 people. Not a lot, but consider that a) Lafayette is a small city by comparison and b) it's in the deep south which is often the last to catch on to new trends. If you're in a more metro area, chances are your returns will be manifold times this.

What might be more relevant is search by category. For example, Bizzuka, the company I serve as marketing director, is targeting the legal industry. A search for lawyers brought over 930 returns. We are also targeting healthcare. A search returned almost 100 hospitals.

Apply that same methodology to your own situation and see what comes of it.

Twellow defaults to ranking returns based on number of followers, but you can also sort by
recent activity and/or whether the person has verified their Twellow account.

Each person listed has a profile associated with their entry which, depending on whether they've verified their account or not, could contain lots of information, including a bio, latest Twitter updates (good for knowing whether they're an active user or not), and link to their Web site or blog.

2. Follow those with real names - That's one way to know it's a genuine account. (It's always a good practice when setting up a Twitter account to use your real name.)

3. Follow those who follow you - In most cases it's a common courtesy. Chances are they're in the same industry or have some relevance to you.

4. Follow those following the people who are following you - Same rationale as #3, just once removed.

5. Follow those following the people you are following - If you've chosen to follow a particular individual for whatever reason (maybe they fit the profile mentioned in #1), there's a good likelihood at least some of the people following them would be relevant for you as well.

6. Follow those in your industry - Obviously, one of the best uses for Twitter is as a vehicle for networking, gathering feedback and getting advice.  It's a great tool for meeting others in your industry or discipline.

7. Follow those you find interesting and/or entertaining - In all the mad rush to turn Twitter into a business communications and marketing tool, leave a little for pure fun. If you find someone's posts interesting, maybe they're worth following as well.

8. Follow those who use the same hashtags (ex. #nms08) to follow a conversation - Again, if they're interested in the same things as you, consider following them.

9. Follow those who @reply you - @replies can be sent into the public timeline addressed to people you're not following. If a user has addressed you in that way, might be fruitful to add them.

10. Follow those interacting with people you follow - If you see a tweet with an @reply addressing someone you're following that comes from someone you're not, they may be worth following. Check em out!

Don'ts...

11. Don't follow those with numbers behind their names - This is a technique often used by spammers (Twammers) due to the fact that have multiple accounts. It's a dead give-away. (One word of caution: When setting up your Twitter handle, don't use numbers. Your real name will do nicely.)

12. Don't follow those with no avatar - If you can't see their face, company logo or some sort of avatar, don't follow.

13. Don't follow those who only broadcast - Unless you know it's an account set up strictly for that purpose - a news, shopping or "tips" type account - don't follow. If they don't participate in conversations with anyone else, they won't with you either.

14. Don't follow those who aren't active - I don't know the number or percentage, but I bet the number of people who've subscribed to Twitter and aren't actively using it is sizable. If a user is not actively maintaining the account, chances are it's dead.

15. Don't follow users based on their follower count - In social media, it's not necessarily how many eyeballs that count but who those eyeballs belong to. There are some very influential people who may not have huge numbers of followers.

There you have it - 15 tips for know who to follow and who not to. That's my list at least for now, though I'm sure I'll add to it. BTW, you can too! What criteria do you use in determining who to follow. Please share it in a comment. Thanks!

Finally, if you're not following me, please do. My Twitter handle is .

A newly released survey done by Marketing Executives Networking Group of top marketing trends of 2009 indicates that "twice as many marketers are 'sick' of hearing about Web 2.0 and related buzzwords such as 'blogs' and 'social networking' compared to last year’s survey."

The survey goes on to say that "marketers still admit they don’t know enough about it" and that " 67% of executive marketers consider themselves beginners when it comes to using social media for marketing purposes."

This represents real opportunity for true social media marketing consultants, so long as they can make this stuff palatable and speak in layman's terms.

One person who does this very, very well is , a veteran marketer who recently started her own agency, Harte Marketing and Communications. Beth has the good sense to see where social media fits into the overall marketing spectrum, and I believe her's is a well-reasoned, studied approach. (Doesn't hurt she's an adjunct professor at a local university.)

In a recent post, Beth asks, "Is social media the same as marketing?" To which she answers...

As you can tell, Beth has some strong opinions on the subject and I highly recommend you read the post referenced above. Whether you agree with Beth or not, it will spur some critical thinking.

Another thing you should consider doing is joining us tomorrow, Friday, January 9, for User Friendly Thinking Radio, where Beth will be our guest. We're going to discuss this and other issues of importance to marketers today. The show airs at noon central and lasts for 30-45 minutes.