Conversational Media Marketing

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

My friend Wayne Hurlbert, veteran business blogger and SEO consultant, were on Twitter regarding corporate sponsorship for conference attendees.

The idea grew out of my expressing desire to attend the upcoming MarketingProfs Digital Mixer in October in Phoenix. He piped up and suggested corporate sponsorship as a means by which that could be facilitated. Of course, since I work full-time for a company they might frown on me going as an ambassador for another, but his point still holds.

There are many, many solo entrepreneurs and small business people who want and need to attend such events, but don't have the deep pockets required to cover registration fees, travel, lodging, meals and other expenses.

We interviewed Jason Falls, Director of Social Media at Doe-Anderson, a Louisville, Ky-based brand-building agency, on our User Friendly Thinking (formerly known as Bizzuka Buzz) Blog Talk Radio show today.

Jason is better known though as the author of Social Media Explorer blog. He literally came out of nowhere less than a year ago and has earned a place of notoriety among business and social media bloggers. (Read his blog and you'll understand why.)

We talked about social media and its implications where advertising, marketing, public relations and journalism are concerned. (Plus, a bit of conversation about its application to small business as well.) We dealt with the topic of personal branding to some extent as well.

The program ran past the 30-minute timeframe and we talked for over an hour. It was a great conversation and I'd encourage you to take some time to listen when you can.

My company Bizzuka sent two press releases today via PRWeb, one at the Media Visibility level and one at the SEO Visibility level. If you google the phrase you'll notice that one is already on the front page just beneath the returns linking to our Website.

Today, I'm starting a contest called "You Judge the Pitch," where CMM blog readers get to rate the quality of PR pitches sent to me.

The first entry, Mike's Hard Lemonade viral video campaign.

So, go ahead and play along. Follow the link and You Judge the Pitch!

I received a pitch from a PR firm today via Facebook. The opening paragraph started with the following statement:

"I have read through some articles of your blog, Converational Media Marketing. Upon hearing your valuable opinions and expertise about marketing..."

While I in nowise care to "out" or embarrass the PR person that sent this, I can't help but make a couple remarks.

Mack Collier's post at MarketingProfs, Dueling Blacklists: Bloggers vs. PR Firms, has raised quite a stir.

The post addresses the issue of PR folks pitching bloggers and the animus that can come as a result of irrelevant, unsolicited pitches. Specifically, Mack cites Lifehacker editor Gina Trapani's threat to blacklist PR firms which engage in this practice.

You'd think Mack released a fox into the hen house. One has only to look at the comments section to watch the feathers fly.

I had the best time presenting my talk, Top 10 Strategic Marketing Benefits to Using a Blog, to the AdFed group in Lake Charles, LA today. They were gracious hosts who fed me well, then proceeded to listen and subsequently express appreciation for my presentation. It can't get better than that!

I especially want to thank Oran Parker from the O'Carroll Group, a local advertising agency, who extended the invitation. I took some video of Oren and I, but for some reason, it didn't save...or something.

At the very least, I uploaded the PPT to Slideshare so that the participants could download it. (Of course, anyone is welcome to.)

Lastly, I did invite them to leave a comment regarding the presentation... good, bad or indifferent, I'll take all comers. So, if any of them take me up on my offer, you'll know when I know.

UPDATE: See part II of this series: Thoughts from LinkedIn respondents.

The other day I blogged about Spoke.com, a company that even they admit has received its share of negative attention on the web.

Which brings up the question... How does a company go about changing perceptions and protecting its brand?

Though companies like Dell and Facebook have done a reasonably good job of turning things around (and I think you'd agree they had quite a number of rotten eggs thrown at them by consumers), many companies have yet to find the secret sauce.

The entire blogosphere it seems has been standing at rapt attention waiting for Mark Zuckerberg to come down out of his lofty ivory tower (or Ivy League tower) and apologize for screwing things up.

Now, he has.