I was a tad jealous as I listened to my brother recount to me the details of their meeting. Interestingly though, the thing that made the biggest impression on my brother was that Bono was the one who asked all the questions. To quote my brother, “He didn’t break eye contact and his demeanor showed that he was genuinely interested in learning about me.”

It often comes as a surprise when we hear stories of world-famous celebrities showing so much interest in “the common man.” Why? Because we often get the impression that they have more important things to do.

This thought made me wonder how that same dynamic applies to companies and those that buy their products and services. Are buyers surprised when a company shows genuine interest in their wants and needs? Which are you, as a seller, more concerned with: being interesting or being truly interested in your buyers’ needs? While the difference in the two may be subtle, the way they come across to your buyers will make an incredible difference in how they engage with (and ultimately buy from) you.

Continuing with the theme, here are four characteristics of companies that are more focused on being interested than interesting:

1.  They Engage With Their Buyers.
Organizations that are interested in their buyers focus on engagement. What does this mean? It’s not just the new wave of brand marketing. It’s a communication process whereby they connect with their buyers, seek to understand them, and ask questions. The questions lead to answers that provide understanding; understanding leads to a better overall buyer experience; a better experience leads to a long-term relationship. This rarely begins with: “Hello, when can you view a demo? Engagement takes time and will be accomplished by patient, ongoing dialogue.

2.  They Know Who Their Buyer Is Before They Engage
Ask anyone what they are looking for in a romantic relationship, and the answer often is a list of character traits or a description of the ideal mate. Companies that are interested do the same with their buyers. They create buyer personas or ideal profiles, which allow them to better focus and target their messaging and offers.

The development of these profiles is a continual process. The more information you obtain through engagement, the more the profile of your buyer will evolve. The more you know about them (being interested), the better you’ll be able to help them achieve their goals.

3.  They Don’t Treat Everyone the Same
One of the things I like to do when I get a consumer telemarketing call at home is to see how quickly I can get the caller off script. It’s so painful to hear them reading word for word from this script, especially knowing that I’m hearing the same spiel they’re giving everyone else they call.  You know you have them thrown when you ask a question. There’s usually five seconds of silence and then they begin reading again, perhaps hoping I’ll forget I asked a question. It’s great fun.

Ineffective B2B marketing and sales organizations are acting in much the same manner. Instead of a one-on-one dialogue with each buyer, they take a scripted approach that indicates they have no understanding of the buyer. Conversely, organizations that are interested tailor communication and overall experience to each unique buyer (or buyer category).

4.  They Measure Their Engagement
I recently served on a panel which was asked, “How do you know if your content is effective?”  Other members of the panel began answering, giving elaborate answers about key indicators, and percentages of opens and clicks (obviously email focused). When my turn came, I offered up one short line: “You will know it’s effective if your buyers respond to it.” It’s pretty simple, but it’s true. If there is no response or action, your content is not working.

The only way to know this is to measure your buyer engagement, response, and (ultimately) purchase behavior. If they don’t keep coming back for more, then there’s a problem.

Interesting or interested? One gets attention, the other develops and maintains long-term buying relationships. Which one do you want to be?

3. The B2B Strategist: Marketing Interactions
Ardath Albee might write for a B2B audience at Marketing Interactions, but even B2C marketers will benefit from her common sense insights. You might not even realize your marketing strategy has gone awry until she reminds you to focus on correct priorities and goals.

4. The Web Analytics Maven: Occam’s Razor
Find out just how much your analytics can—and should—tell you with guidance from Avinash Kaushik’s aptly named Occam’s Razor. His real-world analogies and sense of humor make the sometimes-mysterious topic accessible to all but the most tech-challenged layperson.

5. The Mentalist: Neuromarketing
Marketing is an art—but it’s also a science. And Roger Dooley’s Neuroscience blog takes a close look at the scientific reasons people do what they do. In a recent post, for instance, he profiled a study that demonstrates just how far an apology will go toward appeasing an offended customer.

If you check out Melody’s Blog, you’ll find a high-quality site, full of great conversation and insight into the Starbucks brand.  She appears to have a large and loyal following that is highly participative. I sat down to talk with Melody about her passionate blogging for the Starbucks brand.  As a follow up to this article, I also plan to post a companion article with some Tips for Managing Unofficial bloggers on my site after our discussion.

Here is the transcript of my chat with Melody:

Melody, tell me a bit about yourself.

Well, I’m an ordinary person who lives in Seattle!  Since 2006, I’ve been working downtown as a lawyer for a non-profit.  I hang out with friends, enjoy my city, and work a lot.  I usually blog on the weekends and late at night.

How did you become a Starbucks brand evangelist?

I have always enjoyed a good cup of coffee, and I’m a regular Starbucks patron. I got into a pretty strong and enjoyable habit of going almost twice a day, Monday through Friday, while working downtown.  It’s a nice break from a courtroom and also a quick way to recharge and re-energize the work day.

Eventually, Starbucks acknowledged my brand habit.  In 2008, I was invited to Starbucks Headquarters for a tour. Later that year, I was invited to a “Gold Card” event at headquarters, for the Thanksgiving Blend coffee.  Stepping foot into Starbucks headquarters really set me on fire. The Thanksgiving Blend event was attended by a large number of passionate Starbucks customers. It was amazing to meet so many like-minded, long-term, hard-core fans.  It’s very energizing in a good way to realize you are part of a much bigger movement, but it’s also very humbling, too.  I’d never call myself “Starbucks’s biggest fan” because I’ve learned that thousands of us feel the same about Starbucks.  All I can say at this point is that I might be slightly more visible than some other fans due to my blog.

Why and how did you start blogging about Starbucks?

In the summer of 2009, I had a strong desire to blog. I knew I had a lot to say and needed an outlet for myself, even if nobody listened.  As a lawyer bound by client confidentiality, however, I can’t blog about my work.

As a die-hard Starbucks fan, however, I had already engaged on several unofficial Starbucks blogs and had even been asked to join as a guest blogger on one of them. My problem with that centered on some of the negativity and monotony on many of these blogs.

After thinking about it, I realized that I had enough to say about Starbucks on my own, having been a customer for a long time and a Seattle resident. I had a ton of passion about Starbucks, and I decided that I’d rather invest my energy in a new site, so I started StarbucksMelody in September 2009.

What did you want to accomplish that the other blogs, at the time, did not?

In part, I did genuinely intend to create some competition for the other sites by creating an alternative community for people to join.  I wanted the site to be clean and visually attractive, diverse in terms of content, and positive and upbeat by nature.  To keep things positive, my policy is to be fair-minded while encouraging open dialog and active participation.  I discourage overly negative content.  Healthy and constructive criticism is fine—slander and name calling are not.  I have worked hard to get other fans and brand evangelists involved and continue to do so today.

I took a glance at a few of the more popular Starbucks blogs out there. You’re among the most popular, it seems. Tell me about your site usage and readership.

It may sound strange, but I pay less attention to how I rank against others than I do to the content I post.  However, based on my stats, I have global readership, which is no surprise because Starbucks operates in 56 countries.  Right now, it is not at all uncommon for me to get about 15,000 unique visitors per month from about 110 to 116 countries.

Recently, I recently received a tweet from a favorite Twitter friend. His name is Sebastian Birr.  Apparently, he was in a Munich Starbucks talking to a barista about my blog.  It turns out she was already a reader!  That was fun!

The blog’s readership slowly grows over time, slipping backwards some months, spiking on others—but pointing to a steady gain.  My readers are also pretty engaged.  Most of my blog posts get about 20 comments. There’s a very active “core group” of folks that come back on a very regular basis. In general, traffic and engagement are very content-driven.  For example, when Starbucks released the new “Trenta” sized cup, traffic went up exponentially.

How has Starbucks responded to the presence of your blog?

The response was mixed at first, but it seems to be increasingly positive. We have exchanged emails where I felt some negative energy initially.  However, I don’t really want to go into that because emails are personal and rather one-dimensional.  Hopefully, I misunderstood them.  On the upside, there have also been times where Starbucks has reached out to me in a really positive way, making it clear that they enjoy the visibility and are flattered by it.  Adam Brotman, vice president of Digital Ventures, contacted me to talk about the Starbucks Digital Network, and I was also invited to a Friends and Family event for the opening of the Olive Way Starbucks.  So, I am optimistic about the future.

Have you met Howard Schultz, chairman and CEO of Starbucks?

I met him a few times in 2008 and have been to a number of Starbucks events that have given me exposure at the executive level.  I ran into him in late October 2009, when my blog was only about eight weeks old, at 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea, which is a coffeehouse operated by Starbucks but without the Starbucks name.  He recognized me and politely said hello.  I told him I’d started a blog, and he looked at me with an expression that seemed to be irritation—an “I’ve got to get to work and you must be kidding me”  look.   He replied, “What’s it called?”  I said, “StarbucksMelody.com.”  I asked him if I could interview him for the blog.  He again gave me a facial expression as if I had two heads, but replied, “Maybe.” And then said he had to go.

Unfortunately, running into someone like Howard is worse than having a Twitter conversation.  Your brain has essay-length thoughts to express, and you have less than 140 unpremeditated characters worth of time before he moves on or out.  I remember thinking afterward that telling him about the blog was a really dumb thing for me to do on all levels. I thought “What if I fail?  I just alerted Howard to the fact my blog existed!”  So, I’m really thankful the blog didn’t tank!

Do you frequently get mistaken as an official Starbucks voice?

Well, first, it is very clear my blog is an unofficial blog written by a fan.  However, it does routinely happen that people email me using the “contact me” form or even sometimes contact me through Twitter, asking me questions because they think I work for Starbucks.

I have gotten emails asking, “When will I get my tickets to the annual shareholder meeting?” Just today, I received an email asking which stores sell the Vancouver BC Suspension Bridge mug.  I have gotten questions about the Starbucks Card, and I’ve been asked about how to open a franchise. I’m happy to forward them to the right official channel for their questions. The problem is, this type of stuff is bound to happen.  People often don’t read, and you just can’t control the Internet.

On the whole, this is probably one of the big downsides of the blog. It can create confusion as readers might think it’s an official site, and there is definitely the possibility that once in a while I have wrong information on the blog.  A barista will tell me something, and later, I find out it is not true.  This came up, for example, when I was writing a blog post about the “largest Starbucks in North America.”  I mistakenly thought it was in Seattle, but later realized that it is Texas.  Everything is bigger in Texas.

I noticed you also tweet under the handle “SbuxMel.” So, with potential brand confusion and misinformation, why shouldn’t Starbucks (or any other brand dealing with unofficial bloggers) just try to shut you down?

That’s a great question.  I’ve taken the time to look around on the Internet, and there are a lot of Starbucks blogs out there.  Partners are blogging, there are other fan blogs, and there many Starbucks-related websites.  Starbucks realizes they can’t control the web—or at least, I think they do.  There is no logical reason to go after a small blogger with a positive Starbucks blog.  I’m good for the brand, or at least, I think I am.

Tell me more about that.  How are you good for the brand?

Well, I hope not to overstate any of this, but here are my thoughts.  First, my blog is a fair platform for open discussion about the brand by fans and critics.  Many like-minded Starbucks lovers congregate on my site, and hearing our chatter is a great way for Starbucks to get a pulse on what we think and feel.  We also encourage open, constructive, and respectful criticism, which is also a good way for Starbucks to learn.  In this way, we’re like a 24/7 focus group and another place Starbucks can gain insight, feedback, and ideas.  Furthermore, we’re promoters:  We encourage people to try new products, register their Starbucks Cards, and opt in to promotions all the time—and they do it.  Generally, the blog leaves people with a positive feeling about the brand—and that’s never a bad thing!

If you had one thing to tell brands about unofficial bloggers, what would you say?

Well, in a nutshell, it’s this:  Know your advocates, and be responsive and transparent.

Thanks, Melody!

As a person who writes, consults, speaks, and teaches about about customer experience for a living, I walked away from my interactions with Melody full of thoughts.  First, I remember thinking how hard it would be to hire someone as bright, passionate, articulate as Melody is.  Just ask any recruiter.  Second, I know from experience that kind of zeal from a brand evangelist can make a company feel uncomfortable—especially at the executive level.  However, what these executives need to embrace is the idea that what folks like Melody are doing is a gift for Starbucks.  It only takes one look  at Melody’s blog to see how much of herself she has invested in it, how much she cares about her audience, the content, and the brand.

The truth is, when a customer cares enough to share thoughts, criticisms, and feelings—in any channel—it’s a gift.  This is true whether the feedback is positive or negative.  What brands like Starbucks have to decide, therefore, and in light of investments in their own blogs, crowdsourcing sites and partner channels, is how they will receive these gifts.  As they decide, they must consider that we live in a day and age where corporate confidence is at an all-time low—where people statistically trust people much more than brands.  In that light, it’s important to consider how powerful unofficial spokespeople can be.  When a brand demonstrates sensitivity, humility, gratitude, and care—just providing great service provided on the local level—it can have a sizable, positive impact on the way people feel about brands.  In the digital era, people with a trusted following can be strong and highly vocal advocates for brands or huge detractors.  In the day and age we live in, it’s up to the brand to recognize the voices in the digital divide, and decide how they will respond to them to extract every ounce of value there is.

If you represent a brand, I’d love to hear your thoughts about unofficial bloggers, fans, promoters, and detractors. Or if you want to weigh in and say hi to Melody, leave a comment.

You’re smart enough to decide within a few seconds if you’re getting what you need from this post. And it’s my job to keep you here so that you can at least get to the first subheading.

If my stopwatch is correct, it took you approximately 7 seconds to get to this point. And in order to keep you here, I have to combat a host of reasons for you to go elsewhere:

• You’re not finding what you want, and searching for it on Google might be a whole lot less painful than staying here.
• The web is an interactive medium that makes you feel that if you’re not clicking a link every few seconds, you’re not getting value from it.
• You might be reading this post on an iPhone, which severely limits what you can view at any moment.
• The dings of real-time web notifications are calling you even now.

How to Get Visitors to Read Your Entire Post

This may be obvious, but the best way to get people to read your posts is to get them to stick around for seven more seconds. And then seven more seconds after that—and so on.

7 Ways to Re-captivate Attention

1. Use subheadings. Every two paragraphs, break up the text with a subheading. This way, readers can scan the post for the section they find most relevant.
2. Use bullet points. Like what I’m doing here. People like lists. It puts your content in a nice container.
3. Use white space. Line height is important in posts. Most premium WordPress themes allow you multiple ways of creating more white space.
4. Use images. If you read CopyBlogger, you might notice that authors always put an image at the top of every post. Sonia Simone calls these images “steroids for your headline.” Where applicable, use images through your post, like I do in “Essential Social Media Connections For Your Blog.”
5. Ask a question that begs an answer. It’s one thing to provide information based on your expertise, but what about asking the reader questions that get him or her thinking about their experience? Like I just did in the preceding sentence.
6. Keep the focus on them. Try writing your posts as if they are emails to a specific person you have in mind. Maybe it’s a client who asked you a thoughtful question. For me, this way of writing flows more naturally and comes across more personal.
7. Keep word count under 500 words. Call it cheating, but why not make the finish line closer?

John Haydon is a social media strategist for non-profits at Inbound Zombie.

And you can’t really swing a cat by tail without hitting a blog post touting transparency.

I recently found myself in a situation where transparency was tossed under the bus, and I’m still not sure I handled it well.  I’d love your take.

Several months ago, I wrote about a website that helped entrepreneurs get their legal documents in order, particularly those around the intellectual property issues.  I originally stumbled upon the site, wrote the owner with a few questions, and decided it was of benefit to my readers.  I didn’t really “review” the site— it was more of an FYI.  The comments section got pretty lively when a few IP attorneys jumped in and started asking some hard questions.

The site’s owner also engaged in the conversation, and everyone stayed civil.  After a few days, the conversation trickled down, and new blog posts captured everyone’s interest.  A couple weeks later, a new guy (who had clearly searched for this site owner’s name) hopped into the comments and said, in less polite terms, that he’d had a very bad experience with the site and that the owner had handled the problem poorly.

The comment wasn’t inappropriate or attacking, so I left it alone.  But I chose not to fan the flames, and the guy’s comment went unanswered and unchallenged.

Now, fast forward a couple months.  I get a phone call from some flunky at the website, asking me to delete the comment.  He felt is was portraying the site’s owner in a bad light and apparently when you Googled the owner’s name, the post/comment showed up pretty high on page one.  I explained that, since the commenter had not been inappropriate, I would not delete the comment.  I didn’t censor the comments unless they got mean/personal.

Ten minutes later, I have the site’s owner on the phone.  He is spouting off about slander, libel and how much trouble I could get into after reminding me that he was a practicing attorney.   I reminded him that I didn’t actually write the comment and that, if he wanted to, he could respond to the man on the post and address the issue in plain sight, if he felt the guy’s facts were incorrect.

He told me that he had spoken to the man who left the comment and everything had been resolved.  So, I suggested that he get the guy to come back into the comments section and update the readers on the problem and that it had been resolved to his satisfaction.

He didn’t like that idea because it left the original comment in place.  He again pressed me to delete it.  Again,I  politely said no.

He ended our conversation rather abruptly, saying we would speak again.  And 15 minutes later, I got another phone call.  This time, it was from the commenter.  Or so he said.  I didn’t have any way to verify his identity.  He said he’s just spoken with the site’s owner and at his request, was calling me to ask me to remove his comment.

By this time, I was sick of the whole game.  I told him I would consider his request.  And I did.

So everyone loves transparency when we’re driving traffic to their site but do we still love it when it splashes a little something on us?

I’m curious: H.ow would you have handled this situation?  (I’ll tell you what I did after allowing you to weigh in)  And what do you think it means in light of the common belief that transparency is vital to social media success?

While most marketing professionals are familiar with the term “conversion rate optimization,” few have actually put it in to practice. Fortunately, a recent proliferation of online tools and services will greatly simplify the process for most companies, making 2011 the year of conversion optimization and testing.

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the process of incrementally increasing online conversions (e.g. orders, leads, sign-ups) by optimizing and testing website design, content, and user experience. CRO can significantly reduce customer acquisition costs and increase per visitor value. It also provides measurable results (a must-have in today’s business climate) and can help you avoid costly website redesigns, saving you time, money, and headaches.

CRO is a 3-step process and should be an indispensable part of your 2011 marketing plans. Here is a quick step-by-step guide to help get you started.

1. Set Up Web Analytics

For most companies, implementing a web-analytics system (like Google Analytics) is a no-brainer. However, it is increasingly important to make sure your analytics are up to date and accurate. Keeping track of key performance indicators, like which pages are causing your visitors to leave, is critical to understanding how to improve your website. By sorting your analytics data by bounce rate, you can easily identify which pages on your website need the most attention.

2. Improve Key Pages

After identifying the pages on your website in need of immediate attention, start brainstorming ways to make them better. Often, this can be as simple as changing a headline, increasing the size of your call to action, or removing unnecessary distractions. Sometimes, you need an outside perspective to identify barriers to conversion. Online tools like Concept Feedback (expert website evaluations), UserTesting (crowd-sourced usability testing) and ClickTale (customer experience analytics) provide fast, affordable ways to generate actionable improvement ideas.

3. Test and Repeat

Before you scrap the old page and run with the new one, make sure to use a split testing tool like Visual Website Optimizer or Google Website Optimizer to verify the results. Split testing tools allow you to serve up multiple pages at once and track which one generates more conversions. As soon as you have enough visitors to reach a statistically significant conclusion, you’ll be able to implement the best performing page with confidence.

CRO doesn’t stop there. It’s a continual process of identification, improvement and testing. With this simple 3-step framework, you should be able to quickly and efficiently increase online business and drive revenue on a limited budget.

If you have questions, suggestions or website improvement stories of your own, please let us know in the comments!

Andrew Follett is the founder of ConceptFeedback, offering fast, actionable website evaluations from a hand-selected panel of experts in design, usability, copy and strategy.

Which is why I love what Eloqua has done with agency JESS3, who collaborated to develop “The Blog Tree,” or the world’s “first visual depiction of the interrelationship among marketing blogs,” according to Eloqua’s Joe Chernov. Is it a blog list? Is it an infographic? Yes. It’s also playful and is intended as a kind of fun representation of the interconnected ways the marketing blogosphere blooms.

What I love about the tree analogy is the way that it also suggests a constantly changing landscape. New buds emerge, leaves fill out and fall, branches grow and sometimes get trimmed. The tree bears fruit and then goes dormant, according to the season. It’s a constant state of evolution: Just like blogs themselves.

Wait. Is that a little too heavy … ? How about this: Trees are fun to climb, and trees like this one offer lots of opportunities to travel around from branch to branch, getting a new perspective with every foothold. (Better?)

So check it out. And enjoy!

Oh, and by the way, another content “rule” is to Create wings and roots. This advice is usually applied to parenting (give your children roots to keep them grounded and wings to explore new worlds). But it applies to content nicely, too: Ground your content solidly in your unique perspective and point of view, but it give it “wings” to soar freely and be shared across social platforms, all over the Web. And of course, it’s a No Duh! analogy for Eloqua and JESS3’s Blog Tree!

P.S. I also love the way Jess3 published the original sketched concept.

Check out the full post over at Eloqua’s blog.

So, how do you do that?

At a MarketingProfs Content Marketing Crash Course class, the instructor said the most important question to ask yourself is: “What do you stand for?” If you can answer that question, your content will have its focus.

“It’s not what you sell; it’s what you stand for,” Joe Pulizzi said. The content that you share should not be about you or your products or services. It  “attracts and/or retains customers by creating/curating valuable and compelling content to maintain and change a behavior.”

This means you need to figure out what makes you unique, what you can give clients or readers that is beyond the regular ol’ stuff that your competitors are peddling.

What Do You Stand For?

Let’s say you join the hot small-biz trend by opening up a cupcake shop. You also have a shiny new company website,  blog, Facebook Page, and Twitter account. Now, your cupcake blog is one of the kajillion cupcake shops online—but you start getting more popular than everyone. For example, the comment thread on your blog becomes the equivalent of a cozy shop packed with chatting, happy customers. How did that happen?

You focused on what makes you unique. Your content stands out with its unique advice and expertise shared without shilling. Your shop is the only one that tells guests specifically how to take cupcakes to parties without wrecking the frosting or how to turn your love of Psych into pineapple-flavored cupcakes. You don’t tell them to buy your cupcakes—but because they frequent your site, when they get the need for something sweet (and who doesn’t?), they will turn to you.

Being interesting means giving your guests something to take home. Consider these ideas for making your content unique and having readers leave your online space with something to chew on:

• Explain how to do something.
• Make them laugh.
• Tell a good story.
• Provide niche info in a unique webcast or podcast.
• Get the scoop on the latest news.
• Share your thoughts on the latest news or trend.
• Share something you’ve seen. (It can even be something you observed offline!)

Is there something else you’d like to add to the list?

Direct Link to File

Show length 22:11

00:44 Content Rules hits the shelves Nov. 30, 2010.

01:56 Written with Ann Handley of MarketingProfs

03:15 The importance of the publishing schedule

06:05 Stoking the campfire

07:34 “Feed the Beast,” the challenge of keeping it going

09:02 Treating your FAQ as a content farm, not a burden

11:08 What to write about when you have nothing to write about

12:50 Using a human voice

14:58 Bulk discounts through 1-800-CEO-READS

15:47 Marketing the book

17:50 On Digital Dads, Do You Know Clarence, and Managing the Gray

Check us out on LinkedIn: John and Chris. Digg Marketing Over Coffee

Our theme song is called Mellow G by Fonkmasters in the Music Alley from Mevio.

Be sure to check out the Virtual Content Rules Book Release party happening this Tuesday (that’s today!) at noon (Eastern time).

It’s not that I don’t like to cook—because I do—but the wet bread thing (as in French toast, bread pudding, and Thanksgiving stuffing) turns me off. In other words, it’s a little like asking the deaf guy to bring the music.

So, I consult a few of cookbooks, a few websites, the Epicurious iPhone app. But mostly I’m distracted by stuff I’d rather make: the mashed potatoes with olive oil and parsley? Yum. Butternut squash soup with apple and bacon? Now we’re talking …

But still: the stuffing. Sigh. Then I happen upon a useful tool on Fine Cooking that instantly seems the answer to my wet-bread dream: a “create-your-own” bread stuffing interactive recipe maker that allows you to mix and match your favorite ingredients to create your own customized bread stuffing.

Choose a bread base (cornbread, crusty artisan bread, pumpernickel, etc.), drag it into a big yellow mixing bowl, and then and add in 3-5 vegetables (leeks, celery, fennel, maybe?), along with other stuff (chestnuts, dried cherries), meat (bulk sausage, bacon), herbs and liquids (broth? Wine?) and… voila! The tool spits out a custom bread stuffing recipe, with balanced measurements of your chosen ingredients, and the correct ratio of liquid to bread.

“The trick to making a good stuffing is getting the moisture right,” Fine Cooking says. “You don’t want it to be soggy or dry.” Can I get an A-men?!

There’s so much I like about this tool—not just because I was desperate for a stuffing recipe I could get excited about, but also because it aligns so well with the concepts C.C. and I lay out in Content Rules. Here are two of them:

1. Create utility. Most businesses have embraced the notion that, in addition to being in the business selling whatever they sell (be it shovels or security systems), they also need to be producing content as a cornerstone of their marketing, both to engage and educate their would-be customers, and to get noticed by search engines.

But at the same time, producing any old content isn’t enough. Businesses have to produce the right kind of content: web content that is honestly empathetic and seeded with utility for your customers. They have to be “brand butlers” to their customers. Fine Cooking’s bread stuffing tool does just that: It creates a resource for its discerning subscribers who are challenged to create something other than the same ol’, same ol’… but who need a little help with the particulars.

To paraphrase Content Rule #6: Share or solve; don’t shill. Good content doesn’t try to sell. Rather, it creates value by positioning you as a reliable and valuable source of vendor-agnostic information. Your content shares a resource, solves a problem, helps your customers do their jobs better, improves their lives, or makes them smarter, wittier, better-looking, taller, better networked, cooler, more enlightened, and with better backhands, tighter asses, and cuter kids, and moister (but not wet) stuffing.

In other words, it’s high value to your customers, in whatever way resonates best with them.

2. Have a point of view. Fine Cooking doesn’t just lay out the fundamentals of Thanksgiving stuffing without editorializing because its readers want to know its take. The people who read the magazine consider themselves competent and inspired cooks, and they want to know the why and not just the how. So, I like how Fine Cooking’s writer (Jennifer Armentrout) has a point of view and perspective:

“In my opinion, stuffing baked outside the bird (also called dressing) is the way to go: your turkey cooks faster and more evenly, your stuffing gets nice crisp edges, and you don’t have to worry about undercooking.”

Plenty of people who read Jennifer’s reasoning might disagree, but at least you know where she stands on this issue. Jennifer might have just said, “Cook it inside the bird or outside; add more liquid if you cook it outside the bird.” But the actual name of an actual person with an actual point of view does more to humanize the Fine Cooking brand than bland commentary without editorializing ever could.

* * *

So what can you take away?

Like Adagio Tea’s Tea Timer, which helps tea aficionados brew a perfect cup, or Virgin Atlantic’s Taxi 2, which connects those who want to share a cab, the Create Your Own bread stuffing tool — one of several Create Your Own tools published by Fine Cooking — presents an incredibly useful and relevant piece of content, matched to both the needs of your customers and the business’s objectives. Oh, and it meets another official Content Rule: It’s FUN!

What else can organizations take away from Fine Cooking’s Recipe Makers? Here’s my take: A little inspiration.

Here’s the bottom line: Are you helping and supporting your customers in their goals, or just selling to them?

In advance of SocialTech 2010, we’re offering a FREE virtual pass (a $99 value) to the online version of the conference to the #TechChat attendee who shared the most valuable insight during last week’s chat.

After many restless nights of deciding who the pass should go to, I gave up. All the insights were fantastic … so I’ll put the burden on you, our trusty readers. In the poll box below, please decide the winner of the FREE SocialTech virtual pass. The poll closes tomorrow night at 9 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time), so we’ll announce the winner at the end of tomorrow’s #TechChat.

Ready, set, good luck!

“Focus on your subject matter experts, then teach them social tools. You can be the evangelist your biz needs.” (@carissao)

“Blogging is like learning to ride a bike—use training wheels, get balance, then go for it! Same applies to Social Media.” (@susanbeebe)

“Don’t forget to have a blog promotion plan along with posting/publishing plan.” (@pushingsocial)

“Your blog can’t just be a sales pitch, that is going to get old VERY quickly. Related to the industry you’re in w/o being ’salesy.’” (@mikulaja)

“Content about your customers draws more customers than content about your product.” (@robpetersen)

“I think blogging is the polar opposite of advertising if it’s done well. Don’t post press releases.” (@RLMadMan)

“Anyone who thinks a blog isn’t work, time, and investment is selling something. Or clueless.” (@AmberCadabra)

“Blogging goals should always stem from overall strategic goals and brand voice.” (@joey_strawn)

“B2B blogging allows you to educate prospective and current customers in your field.” (@DavidSpinks)

“I believe that every business blog takes on a life of its own, no two should be alike.” (@Michael_Evanko

Fact checking is a staple of traditional journalism. Good and ethical media hold back from printing or posting news that hasn’t been thoroughly verified. But, in this instant Web 2.0 world, we are all publishers and citizen journalists. Nothing holds any of us back from publishing content online, whether truthful, questionable, or outright misleading.

We have reached a slippery slope where none of us can truly determine what is real from what is fabricated or twisted. And just because we can post a link to another site for reference, who’s to say that what’s posted there has any merit?

The news, which used to be comprised of important topics affecting our world community, now include reports on Lindsay Lohan’s jail time, the latest viral YouTube videos, and countless reports on a sports figure’s trade to another team. Has America dumbed down this much?

I’m waiting for the pendulum to complete its swing and return to its central position on the fulcrum. I’m waiting for people to realize that real journalism doesn’t come from bloggers like Andrew Breitbart (who posted Sherrod’s speech). It isn’t coming from CNN’s ireporters, or from biased opinion pieces or op-ed shows. It comes from investigative journalists who work on news ethically and impartially using the 5 Ws  (who, what, where, when and why).

What do you think? Is journalism dead or are we in some type of transition? What do you think of citizen journalism?

In one case, it was a local restaurant that made an anniversary extremely memorable. In the other, it was a hotel/resort that redefined “above and beyond” in my book.

Both of these examples involved personalized notes.

I’ve been to countless restaurants and an abundance of hotels, and very few have been remarkable enough to be … well, remarked on in writing. I expect good service and am disappointed when it fails to occur. I am quite pleased with excellent service. But it’s time to think about providing remarkable service that is—to be perfectly tangible—blog-worthy.

For a customer to go home, and freely and happily take the time to publicly praise a person or a company’s service, is an exceptional affirmation. It is also about the best marketing you’ll ever get. It won’t cost you advertising dollars. It’ll cost you rigorous hiring practices, great training, and cultivation of an exceptional work climate.

What it will earn you is all kinds of repeat business and glowing recommendations. Worthy ROI, in my book.

Perhaps every service organization should sit down with employees and say, “We need to treat EVERY SINGLE GUEST as if they have an influential blog, and assume they’re going to write up their experience tomorrow.” Because the fact is, some of them do—and will.

Don’t just pursue good customer service. Shoot for blog-worthy service. That’s social media marketing at its strongest.

In this episode of Marketing Obsessions, Jason Teichman, SVP, Marketing & Product Management at Register.com—one of the leading companies focused on helping small businesses build presences on the Web—talks about where small businesses fail when it comes to digital presence.

The main takeaways:

• Even if you’re 100% bricks and mortar, you can’t succeed without a website (because people go online to find you).
• If you make a website that isn’t SEO-friendly, your would-be customers can’t find you—and a lot of your online efforts have gone to waste.
• If you aren’t using some kind of Web analytics, you won’t know what works and what doesn’t.

The image above is a word cloud. When I looked the word cloud for our b2b marketing blog, I thought it reflected our subject matter and the intent of our posts. We focus strictly on B2B. We specialize in the development of B2B content marketing assets as a primary way to convey and support key messages and establish thought leadership in a client’s given niche. We help B2B clients effectively use social media, search engine optimization, and email marketing to promote these content marketing assets, and generate and nurture leads until they are sales ready.
Okay. Given what we focus on, we’re doing pretty well, I said. Some of the related key words really stand out in the word cloud–like B2B, content, and marketing. Some of the content vehicles have visual prominence, like blogs, email, newsletters, site, and article. And the word “lead” pops out a bit.
But there were some words that were far less prominent or even absent, like optimize, search, SEO, social, and thought leadership. I was a bit puzzled by that. Those are things I thought we were definitely talking about and focusing on. When I went back to recent posts, I found that in some cases we cover these issues in posts, but we don’t actually end up using the words as prevalently as I thought. In other cases, it had been a while since we posted about certain issues and topics. Finally, I found that all of our posts and articles tend to run together in my mind; while I’ve written several articles recently on blogging and thought leadership, the ones discussing thought leadership were articles published elsewhere, not on our blog.
This has implications for both visitors and search engines. For visitors, we may be talking about and around the issues, but unless we’re clearly using the words that resonate with visitors, they might not connect the dots (issues, implications, concepts) in the same way we do. The key words we use give readers context within which to evaluate or consider the subject matter. Make sure you’re using familiar words that give your readers context of the issues. These words serve as touchpoints and help position your content.
Secondly, it’s smart to do an audit of your blog posts. What is the subject-matter allocation of your blog content, and how recent are the posts in each category? Don’t just look at the category or tag of the posts, but remember to look at the copy of each post. Doing an audit will also help you sort out what you published on your blog and what content was published elsewhere.
Finally, while there are many factors that influence how well a blog post is optimized for search, the copy you use in the post an important factor. Make sure your posts are sufficiently keyword rich. This doesn’t mean you should be keyword spamming. However, you should make sure you’re actually sufficiently using the keywords for which you want to be found.
As a test, I created word clouds for a couple of blogs I follow. Some were spot on, totally aligned with my impressions of the blog’s focus. Other word clouds left me guessing as to the intent and the content of the blog. If you simply showed me the word cloud, I could not have told you with certainty what the blog was about.
I know the word cloud is a far stretch from a complete analysis of a blog or its content. It’s simply a fun tool. But it gives you some insights into how others might view your content and your focus. Just one note: If you try to generate a word cloud from a blog feed that shows only the introductions to posts, you’ll obviously get different results than if you point it at a full feed.
So what about your blog? What does your word cloud look like? Is it aligned with what you think you’re talking about?
If you’re curious, you can go to Wordle to find out. Let me know what you think. Did your word cloud align with your mental image of your blog?

“Early in the nineteenth century, most Americans worked twelve hours a day, six days a week. The work week shrank gradually during the nineteenth century and more quickly during the twentieth. The traditional six-day week was shortened to five and a half days during the 1920s and to the five-day, forty-hour week during the 1930s.” (Preservation Institute)
What happened? The shortening of the official work week was supposed to free us and give us more time for our families and friends while allowing us to sustain the same standards of living. Yet, we are bombarded by more communication devices, tools, and channels than ever before. From the traditional telephone and telex, we got the fax machine, then the Internet, e-mail, blogs and social networking sites. The ocean of communication channels increases rapidly. The questions are…

1. As exciting as these new channels are, are we (as marketers) becoming slaves to them, attempting to keep up for fear of falling behind and becoming obsolete?
2. How does this situation contribute to the division between our work and leisure time?
3. Are we addicted to our communication tools, devices, and channels?
4. How has the situation affected our quality of life and the number of hours we inevitably work weekly?
Please share your experiences. Are we stopping to “smell the roses,” or are we too wrapped up in the next big thing?

Reality is that social interactions are anything but simple. How a group will react to something we say or do is beyond difficult to predict partially because the number of factors involved verges on the side of unknowable. This places social phenomenon as beyond complicated or complex and into the realm of chaotic. Things in the chaotic realm are extremely difficult (some might say impossible) to predict and thus require a different model for how we work to create change or impact behavior. [Anyone academically inclined may want to check out the CYNEFIN model.]
Motrin recently had to pull an ad because of the reactions of a small few. Walmart has had a series of run-ins with bloggers. The number of first forays into social media that actually upset the digital denizens they mean to engage with are growing too numerous to count.
Why is this? One thing the Cynefin model proposes about the chaotic realm is that we can no longer analyze the situation, design the campaign and measure the responses. We have to engage differently. We have to Act, then Listen (Sense) and finally Respond.
Act first? The phrase, “Shoot, Ready, Aim.” comes to mind and aptly so. It’s not to say one shouldn’t plan up front. It is more that we can no longer plan with the idea of predicting the actions that will match the desired outcomes. We have to take risks (starting small), sense how they are being received and then respond quickly and appropriately before beginning the cycle again.
We are learning to be social using digital tools. This requires us to have access to digital tools that enable us to act, listen and respond quickly. I call the act and the spaces where this occurs “being MESSY”.
What is “being MESSY?”

• A space in which we can explore, test and evaluate the social impact of our actions.
• Hands on Learning. It is time for us to get our fingers dirty.
• A visual design verging on simple or non-existent so we don’t worry about “breaking the site”.
• Access to tools that enable us to control this space in real time.

Let’s be very clear. Anything involving a phone call to your IT department or agency is anything BUT messy. The idea is that we have a space where we don’t have to call ANYONE. It becomes our place where we can explore and interact with our audiences online.

“Hi, is this John in IT? You know that javascript I just emailed you? It’s the wrong color. Yes, I realize that email text is always black. I meant the color of the widget that it will build. Oh, you have to check to see if widgets are authorized? But it’s already on our site!! Okay. Fine. I realize this is my fourth call today. Yes, I know this has to be tested and run through the change management process. I was just hoping you could throw that email away and I could send you a new one. Hello? Hello?”

I’ve had a few instances where clients have surprised me by adding widgets to their web pages or joined new services that I didn’t even know existed yet. And by the time we sit down to review what they’ve done, these clients already have feedback from their communities about whether these additions are good, bad or indifferent. The tide quickly shifts where they begin educating me on what is of interest and value to their constituents and we become partners in expanding the number and size of efforts underway.
Many marketers blanch visibly when I first speak of embed tags and widgets. All I can say is that it’s not as bad as it sounds. If a ten year old can figure this stuff out, so can the rest of us. It just may take us a bit longer and our friends may not be quite so interested in sharing our excitement when we do figure some of it out.
So how does one start getting Messy? My first recommendation is often to start a blog.
Here are two places I recommend for starting a blog:
- blogger (free)
- typepad (I prefer this service, but there is a small fee per month)
Some of you will already have a blog which is awesome. Can you create a page that is yours to mess up, hack and change in real-time? If not, forget about that blog and start a new one. A new place where you can muddle through while exploring what works socially with your potential audiences and communities.
[Image source: Stuck in Customs]

Here’s a roll-up of those articles…

Survey: Email remains top e-mail activity
E-mail is the most popular online activity, according to a survey from Mediamark Research and Intelligence, with almost three-quarters (74.2%) of all U.S. adults using e-mail, up 5.2% compared with the fall of 2007.
Forrester finds b-to-b marketers sticking with tried-and-true digital tactics
While b-to-b marketers are beginning to invest more marketing dollars in Web 2.0 tools, the majority are sticking with traditional digital marketing tactics, according to a Forrester report which found more than 60% of respondents use conventional digital lead-generation tactics such as e-newsletters and webinars, while less than one-third use blogs, podcasts and social networks for marketing.
Transactional e-mail seen as powerful marketing tool
A new study by JupiterResearch finds that transactional e-mail – notifications of completed online orders or service-related messages, for example – can drive new revenue by including product offers or advertisements.
Add to that a report from AdWeek…
Epsilon: Marketing Execs Aren’t Sold on Social Nets
Not only are social networking site users less than thrilled about seeing ads, it turns out that corporate chief marketing officers share that lack of interest, judging from the results of a survey released yesterday.

A number of conclusions can be made as a result of these findings.
Social media is still the new kid on the block and, as such, has to prove its value
When I was in fifth grade, at the beginning of the school year, a new student joined the class. His family moved to our small town from another state. Well, boys will be boys you know, and a little scrap developed in the school yard between he and I.
I don’t recall what prompted it, but for the purpose of making my point, let’s just say we boys needed to see how tough he was and establish his place in the pecking order, that sort of thing. Of course, the teacher broke up the fight almost as quickly as it started, so I don’t know that we achieved our aim.
Social media is subject to that same scrutiny, and as much as we’d like to avoid the issue, it’s going to remain a “schoolyard scuffle” until all parties can agree on its place in the marketing pecking order.
Tony Uphoff, CEO of Techweb, says in a well-reasoned post that “Social networking won’t be a revenue driver or even have a tangible ROI for awhile.” I’m sure he’s right, which leads to my second conclusion.
Marketers should not throw the baby out with the bathwater
While it’s going to take a while for social media to establish its value among marketing stalwarts, that’s no reason to refrain from deploying some strategies. “[T]he cost to create, develop and maintain these lightweight apps isn’t much,” says Uphoff in the same post. “The need to have multifaceted (and multimedia) interactions with customers, prospects, employees and influencers is essential and social media will play a strong role.” Uphoff goes on to suggest that marketers focus on a series of metrics around engagement. “How many people subscribe, join and or interact with your company and brands? And what are they saying? Engagement is the currency.”
Don’t throw the bathwater out with the baby either
Many of we die-hard social media advocates seem to be on a “mission from God” to see it gain acceptance in the marketing schoolyard. In our rush to define our place, we have been known to make erroneous, even adsurd, statements like “email is dead.” As you can see from the above articles, nothing could be further from the truth.
New media is not replacing old media anytime soon, if ever
Some of us kool-aid drinkers further concocted the notion that social media would actually replace other, more established forms of marketing. It won’t, nor should it necessarily.
While it’s a pretty well foregone conclusion that the effect of forms of interruptive marketing such as the 30-second spot are less effective, and that permission marketing is becoming a much, more accepted standard, there is no need to suggest that “push” should be replace by “pull.” Not entirely at least.
An integrated marketing approach makes the most sense
I think what we are seeing is a trend toward integration of old and new. At Bizzuka, the company I serve as Internet marketing director, while I’m very evangelistic about adopting a social media mindset across the entirety of the organization, I’m also aware there is continued need for traditional lead generation strategies such as webinars and pay-per-click, customer retention strategies like email, as well as good old SEO. And, I’m not opposed to advertising online if certain criteria can be met.
Conclusion
Social media will find its place on the schoolyard and eventually make friends with tried-and-true forms of marketing, just like the new kid and I did over time. In fact, before that year was over, he and I became best of friends.

I converted a valuable list designed for nonprofits (Net2 blog post) so it now reads in business speak. Here are 10 ways your company can use a blog:
1. To report back from a business event or conference
2. To involve staff and take advantage of their knowledge/skills
3. To involve customers and document their success
4. To provide resources and information to customers
5. To provide resources and information from customers
6. To give customers a place to voice their opinions
7. To give customers support
8. To create the media coverage customers want
9. To give customers the power and tools to create change
10.To reach potential customers
Got any more recommendations?

* Has no interesting stories to tell about how your products have solved problems for users, how your company got started, or lessons learned along the way.
* Is fearful of “losing control of the message” — which is probably a non-differentiating, feature-driven, “we-oriented” message that’s boring and alienating customers anyway.
* Is not “into” computers, social networks, YouTube, etc., and does not care about customers who are.
* Believes in commanding and controlling, rather than engaging in conversations with the public.
* Hates getting down on the level of customers to learn what their real problems and needs are.
And my favorite…
* Is totally satisfied with conducting Business As Usual (which generally leads to Business As Over).
You could say that blogs are a bridge. A bridge between the community of your customers, and the community of workers that make up your company. Unfortunately, too many companies view their customers with an almost ‘us versus them’ mentality.
Francois Gossieaux recently noted the difference between Target and Wal-Mart’s groups on Facebook. Target’s group has over 12,000 members, while Wal-Mart barely has a tenth that number. While members of Target’s group can contribute to and start their own discussions, Wal-Mart’s cannot.
In the Marketing 2.0 group on Facebook, Francois notes:

“What is the difference do you think, except for the fact that a large portion of the population believes that one of the two companies is truly evil?
“The Wal-Mart home page looks like another interactive ad.. The Target home page is more inviting and enlists the help of users to co-create the experience.”

And this is truly the power of social media. Blogs and social sites have the incredible ability to bring company and customers together, if the company is smart enough to build that bridge.

The easier question to answer is this: When many of us are doing the same thing, do customers and clients benefit? The obvious answer is yes, because choice allows individuals to shop for just the right product or service to meet their needs.
But what about when there is so much of something that it all begins to look the same and in addition there are no editors or experts and little ability of customers and clients to get help in filtering the good from the bad? Who, if anyone, benefits then?
In the business world, natural selection mostly prevents that from happening, as those businesses who are most successful in reaching their customers with quality products and services that meet wants and needs live on, the rest die. That’s also true in the world of publishing, at least it was until the internet became the place where anyone can be heard, whether or not they have anything to say or whether or not they know of what they write.
For example, let’s take the blogosphere. More specifically, let’s narrow it down to those blogs purporting to offer business advice. I can’t say how many blogs are represented in that category, but I suspect we are talking thousands, maybe tens of thousands. Is that a good thing? Does it lead to more of the same? Is it akin to flooding the market with toys from China, where quality control is mostly absent from the process? How good, or different, can most of that advice be?
Natural selection doesn’t seem to work in the blogosphere as most bloggers don’t blog for a profit, many if not most don’t have measurable goals to achieve, and as we learned last week from my post called 10 Tips for Keeping Your Blog Fresh, at least more than a few don’t write for their readers but for themselves. So there are no set triggers to eliminate blogs and bloggers if they aren’t achieving a profit, goals or meeting the wants and needs of readers. Is that a good thing, is it troubling or does it matter?
So I ask again: Is too much of a good thing a bad thing? How will readers judge what business advice is trustworthy and credible without a process to eliminate blogs that offer less value than others? Do we live in a world where quality of voice is less important than the opportunity to have a voice? Are readers served well when there is so much to choose from and when what they have to choose from cannot be judged except by the individual who may not have the ability to know whether or not they are buying a great product or a lousy product and there are no places to turn to get that information? In other words, there are no blogosphere “Consumer Reports.” Maybe there should be one?

If you placed a story in, say, The New York Post, you got a base hit. Get ink in the Times and you got a home run. Training was on-the-job. You had a batting average you had to keep, and you competed with all the other fledgling flaks. (You can guess what happened to those who didn’t score.)
Alas, it seems not much has changed since then. I’m encountered a young PR person yesterday, who’s charged with getting bloggers and other journos to write stories about a very big client. And he works for a very big PR firm, which is part of a very big ad agency, proving, once again, that bigger is hardly ever better.
He sent me an email addressed to me, but clearly a form letter. It said “I like your site” and “I thought you’d like this.”
My site, however, was clearly not something he’d ever seen since it is about my online marketing services. My blog is where I cover Internet marketing and advertising trends, and he clearly had never looked at it.
I emailed back and asked if we know each other. “I like your stuff,” he replied, “so I sent you this.”
I ran the video (which is great) on my blog, protected his name (I was in a good mood) and outed his firm. And then he and I sent several emails back and forth in which I gave him the following advice:
Here’s my advice to flaks who have to pitch the media:

* treat people like people, and talk to them like you’re being straight with them and they will treat you the same way.
* don’t try to fool people, it won’t work

The bottom line: just like back in the 80s, when I was making those awful media calls that every flak hates to make, PR is about quality, not quantity.
There’s never been, and never will be a reason to pitch 1,000 journalists. Pitch the ones who matter, whose work will trickle down to the rest.
And pitch them like you are talking to people.
His response:

“A) thanks for saying that – your advice is well take, [sic] and I will use it.
Thanks again, and I’ll be more direct, and human (my style, I swear it!) next time.”

Jeez, I hope so.

Related:
The Myth of Not Cultivating Bloggers
Here’s a Good PR Pitch for a Change
Rules for Flaks Who Pitch What’s Next Blog

Today, I take a different view on the subject. One that should not be controversial but it might be provocative, based on the lessons shared.
Everyone within the blogging community that I most frequently participate in is a business person, most often involved in services such as marketing, advertising, PR, consulting, design, and web-based technologies. We are not non-profits. We work hard to earn a living. For me, that means that a piece of growing my business includes a blog. Like my web site, the blog was launched to build brand and to grow business. But those two goals do not form the foundation of the content.
I do little self-promotion and whatever branding I do primarily involves my business name and my picture, which appears in the left column. The blog is what it is. A place to offer and share free professional experiences and advice, and a place for others to join in the conversation and offer their opinions. The blog is designed as a sharing avenue for readers to grow personally and professionally. The content is not about me. It is about you. Pandering to readers also is avoided, even if it causes me to hurt my brand or my potential to get work.
Content, however, as any good marketer and writer knows, achieve my goals of monetizing the blog. Last week, I attained my third paying client who discovered my through my blogging since May. In my mind, creating an educational and a conversational blog based on quality and focused content is the “right” way for me to monetize my blog (and my web site, as well as the other blogs, books and articles that I contribute to or author). No advertising, no sponsorships, little to no self-promotion. Just straight-forward talk and story-telling.
Ninety percent of my marketing effort is tied up in my web site (where free content and advice are also offered), my blog and my writings. I think this is what Mack is getting us to think about when he asks how to share income with our readers that we make through our blogs. My answer is that we achieve value for our readers and our clients by giving away tens of thousands of dollars of consulting and business advice and experiences, and then when one of them hires us, we work our butts off to exceed their expecations.
In an effort to share here what I believe works (but you are the final judge of that), here are tactics are that I use to provide value and to market my services and build my brand:
1. Keep to the subject, which in my case is the world of business, most often centered on marketing but not always. Only on Fridays and weekends do I veer away from business talk to sharing the music I love.
2. Create weekly series that publish the same day each week so readers know when and where to find them. My current series are called “How Do You Feel About [name of company]” and “Fridays and Weekends Rock with [name of musician or band].”
3. On occasion, be provocative. Don’t avoid controversy. Do avoid being argumentative. Never be rude and always respect readers’ intelligence. Cam does this better than most.
4. Accept all comments except those that cross the line of respect, dignity and decency.
5. Post four to five days weekly.
6. Listen to readers and write about the topics they seem most interested in.
7. Respond to every reader comment with an e-mail and at the very least, say thank you, even if you don’t respond in a blog comment.
8. Read other blogs and comment and, when appropriate, get to know them better with a personal visit or an offline conversation. CK is great at this.
9. Credit others, especially when following up on their posts or when using their ideas to create a different point of view. Use links, in other words, to help bloggers grow their readership. Toby and Valeria are generous in this way.
10. Reread every post and delete first-person pronouns as much as possible. Write about and for readers, whenever possible. (Believe it or not, this post has about half the number of first-person pronouns than the original. There still are too many, I think, but my brain hurts.)
These tactics are not thorough, of that I am certain. For example, David Armano does a great job with visual elements, and that is a marvelous way to draw in readers and to help them better understand his thoughts. What other strategies and tactics can help us continue to share but also monetize that sharing in a professional business manner?

The current issue: how to respond on its blog, (finally started in 2007) and in bike forums, to a competitor’s attempt to discredit the effectiveness of a Kryptonite lock.
The claim, made in a bike forum was that “ordinary wire cutters” could be used by a thief to break a Kryptonite lock. However, as Donna Tocci, Kryptonite PR director, points out, those 42-inch bolt cutters that were cited cost approximately $600 -742 (US) and are the tools of only the most dedicated thieves.

Last week, in an exceedingly long post, with the hand of the company’s lawyer quite apparent, Tocci responded. Despite the fact that it took them weeks to come up with their response, I think the company has handled the situation in a reasoned and thorough way.
Given the breakneck speed with which online communication moves, and the amount of damage that can be done in hours, let alone weeks, the speed is my basic point of contention.
Back story: Tocci, who’s become a friend over the past couple of years, emailed me a couple of weeks ago asking me for my opinion and advice on the problem. She asked me to wait to blog about our conversation, and I did, telling her I would do so as long as a thorough response would be coming soon.
She told me that a competitor had slammed them in comments on the Kryptonite blog and in bike forums (including Bike Forums and Visor Down ) and she wanted to know if it is seen as acceptable to moderate comments and not to publish ones that are abusive.
In this case, a commenter called her “a liar” and mentioned “silencing the Kryptonite PR girl”, which certainly sounds threatening.
I responded:

“it is absolutely acceptable, and most blogs do it. When it becomes a problem is when someone won’t allow negative comments or comments they just don’t like.
I draw the line at abusive and my policy is that if I wouldn’t allow it in my living room I won’t allow it on my blog. Many people post their comment policy in the sidebar. I’ve posted mine several times.”

And i encouraged her to out the commenters

“I feel that slime dries up when you shine a light on it and if I were you, I’d out them immediately and fully and let your readers weigh in on it – with comment moderation of course! :>)

Tocci emailed me yesterday, saying:

“The piece of the ’story’, if you want to write about is when a company blog goes to comment moderation. Why it would. Why it may be necessary. We did and we will keep it that way. I’d like for it to be open comments, but sometimes it just isn’t realistic, I guess.
Interestingly, when we did the most negative comments slowed to a trickle. We are approving all comments that are legitimate comments without any hesitation even if they aren’t pro brand. I fully support that all voices should be heard, as long as they follow our living room rule. “

This signals a huge shift in the value that mainstream media puts on individual bloggers, as Ad Age will now have a vested interest in promoting the very bloggers that they are ranking. It’s also a sign of the growing influence of bloggers, and an acknowledgement of the value of the content we are creating.
Honestly, I am amazed that no one hasn’t thought of this sooner. When I started my weekly ranking of The Viral Garden’s Top 25 Marketing Blogs in April of 2006, I did so because there was no ranking of what the “best” marketing blogs were, and because I thought it would be a good reference for others that are coming into this space. Ad Age can use the Power 150 in much the same way, which would also make Ad Age more valuable to its readers.
This move appears to be a very strong vote of confidence in marketing/pr/ad blogs by a well-respected mainstream source. It will be interesting to see where this goes from here, but I do think the possibilities are terribly exciting.

Mack is a friend, a smart blogger and a big-hearted soul. I admire him in many ways. But on this subject we disagree. Inherent in Mack’s title question is the idea that if we bloggers make money on our blogs, we should find ways to share it with our readers. I love you Mack, but either I don’t get it or you are just wrong on this one. Here’s my view, and then let’s get all of yours.
Most of us in the MarketingProfs community, including the writers, are marketers, designers, PR types, advertising specialists, entrepreneurs and business managers or executives. We do what we do for two reasons: 1) we love our work (I hope) and 2) we need to make a living.
To that end, our blogs, including this one, are designed to do several things: 1) to share ideas and information freely, 2) to provide reader value, 3) to build our brands and our businesses, and for some of us, 4) to provide additional income. I believe these reasons are ethical, values-based and smart business.
Mack asks in his post: How can we share our revenues to provide readers with value? How can we share the profits? (It is a question not a diatribe on what we should do.)
I believe we provide value in our words, wisdom, and sharing. As an author, when someone buys my book, I am appreciative, and I am confident they will receive value for their purchase price. It is a basic business principal: You give me something, usually money, and in return I provide value in the form of a product or service.
As a marketer, one of the services you give me money for is advertising. Not on my blog, because I don’t sell space, but where I can best get your ads placed that will reach your target audience and grow your business. Your value is in the advertising’s effectiveness.
The same is true for blogs. If MarketingProfs sells advertising here at the Daily Fix, they are not compelled to share that revenue with us. Nor is any other blog. You receive value in the posts and in the contents of the advertising, as well, if the product, service or idea is something you want or need. If you don’t receive value in the posts, you won’t return.
In conclusion, if we monetize our blogs, I believe we insult our readers by sharing that revenue with them and cause harm to the basic business principal of fair exchange. If we share our revenue, it is bad business and doing so implies that our posts are crap and offer no value in and of themselves. It’s akin to buying a washing machine, sharing in the sales person’s commision, and then getting home to discover the washing machince sucks.
So there you have it. The value is in the words. Bloggers keep any revenues they make because they earned them. Now, let me have it. Maybe in our conversation and comments we can find a way to discontinue this conversation (or maybe not). Is the value in the posts or should we be sharing whatever monetization of our blogs exists?

STRATEGY
1. Define your vision: So, let’s assume you’re at a company that’s not gotten around to the idea of a corporate blog yet. I’m sure your idea of starting one, will be met with “Why should company X have a corporate blog?” For starters, some forward thinkers would say that the corporate website is irrelevant, which may surprise a few. Some others will say it’s necessary to start a conversation with our users. Right on both counts, but how do you convince upper management that it’s the way to go. Working for a company that embraces that conversation definitely makes life easier and once they do, get to the next step.
That’s when defining a vision for a corporate blog comes in. Different situations call for different measures. You could use a corporate blog as a) an educational tool, b) a feedback loop, c) conversation starters (for the blogosphere as well as other media), d) a focus group, e) a crisis management tool etc…or even e) a combination of the above. I’m sure each company could find it’s own unique application of a blogging platform. At LinkedIn; it’s used as a combination of factors a through c with the ultimate goal of becoming THE resource when it comes to all questions related to LinkedIn.
So, when you search for “LinkedIn” or any product feature for that matter, you should be directed to a blog post on that particular topic. That’s the ultimate goal. The blog is currently the fourth result when you search for “LinkedIn”.
2. Designate an editor or chief blogger: Well, this is really critical since blogging takes a concerted effort involving time, persuasion and editorial skills. This role definitely cannot be placed on the CEO, since he/she has far more important goals to accomplish. In my case, I was a blogger before I started at LinkedIn and it definitely is worth considering an experienced blogger to take on that role.
3. Earn the approval of your internal teams: Strategically, this is THE most important aspect of corporate blogging, because connecting with your internal teams is as important as establishing a connection with your target audience. A good way to start and keep the internal conversation going would be to have an internal blog. Every team meeting or “happy hour” is a chance to find out how different teams would like to communicate to the end user. The blog editor’s job is to facilitate that communication through a unique calendar of blog posts.
TACTICS
4. Define your categories: Once your vision is clear, it becomes easy to create the buckets of content that you’ll start populating the corporate blog with. In LinkedIn’s case, our goal is to create content under 10 categories; simple yet comprehensive. The categories should be a direct result of your vision and goals. If it’s to educate your users, then automatic choices would be “product features”, “tips and tricks”, etc…
5. Enlist contributors and plan posts: Before you start blogging, it’s always good to have a list of possible blog contributors from within your organization. As far as specific products are concerned, it’s good to enlist the product manager of that team and for posts on vision and announcements, C-level executives would be appropriate authors. Also, if there are bloggers within the company, do reach out to them and make them a part of your blog team.
6. Create a blog calendar: Now that you’ve earned the confidence and approval of internal management and teams, it’s time to get into action. Unlike your personal blog, where you could craft any random post depending on the day’s zeitgeist, a corporate blog is built for a specific purpose and so a calendar of posts is essential. The calendar can also be built around the different categories/tags you’ve envisioned and that way you’ll have a steady flow of posts.
7. Define your template/layout: A blog template has to be in consonance with your company brand. As you can see, LinkedIn’s blog template was carefully crafted keeping in mind the simple aesthetics of our website. Yahoo! blog, Yodel Anecdotal has the colors and branding of Yahoo! and so does the Facebook blog.
8. Stick to the categories: As my friend and web strategist Jeremiah often says, “Laser like focus” is an essential prerequisite for any blog, more so for a corporate blog. Once you define the categories or tags, NEVER veer away from them and start creating content on a regular basis and keep increasing the frequency. The LinkedIn blog started at 2-3 posts a week and we’ve slowly moved onto 4 posts a week. Increase the pace in slow increments and don’t turn back.
9. Veer towards content that provides value: Crafting 5 posts a week from 10 categories, means you’ll be veering towards content that has increasingly provided more value for your audience. If your blog is an educational tool, then start focusing on posts that encompass outline tutorials and keep augmenting the value. Maybe, start enhancing your tutorials in multi-media to add to the text based posts.
MEASUREMENT
10. Measure progress: Now this could be a separate post in itself, one I’ve covered in the past and will revisit in the days to come, but once you start your blog it’s always good to invest in an analytics software that can help you track, plan and measure the growth of your blog. This in addition to the feed stats measurement tools. The first few months of blog growth can be measured by the following four stats: 1. Technorati ranking, 2. Alexa ranking, 3. Comments, 4. # Subscribed to your feed, etc…
Feel free to leave your questions, comments or suggestions.

With the hospital under control, Paul found a few extra seconds. In August of 2006, he added blogging to his To Do List and launched Running A Hospital Blog. In keeping with the mantra of social media (transparency, authenticity, honesty and passion), posts run from patient customer service concern to his views on social issues to health insurance to asking readers if he got paid too much and even the recipe of Beth Israel’s famous chocolate chip cookies.
The healthcare industry is fiercely competitive, especially in Boston, a city know for its hospitals and docs. In his post Opening Day Items Paul explains an out-of-the-box marketing initiative that dovetails with BIDMC’s Boston Red Sox partnership. BI Babies are sent home in co-branded baby caps and a certificate for a tour of Fenway Park on birthday number five. Idea: Tickets to a Red Sox game for “grown-up” BI Babies might be an interesting addition to a loyalty program. Disclosure: I am a BI Baby.
In an email chat Paul shared his views about the most democratic form of communication – blogs and social media – with me.
TB: It seems as though Running A Hospital Blog is your personal blog versus a “company blog.”
PL: This a personal blog. It is not published by the hospital.
TB: Why a personal blog and not a BI/Deaconess Medical Center blog a la Nick Jacobs?
PL: Dunno. I’m not sure it matters that much, but if it were an official organ of the hospital, I would probably feel compelled to have all posts reviewed by our General Counsel, press office, and other people inside the hospital. That would make it hard for me to write and post something at 5am or 10pm, when I do my writing.
Also, I would probably self-censor much more, knowing that things were going to be reviewed by corporate folks. I think currency and immediacy and spontaneity are important in keeping things interesting. Also, this way, my staff folks can honestly deny that they have any prior knowledge about what I have written! By the way, I like Nick’s blog a lot. He seems like a wonderful guy, and they are lucky to have someone with his experience, wisdom, and good humor.
TB: Do you think the hospital will adopt a social media strategy including blogs, blogger relations, etc? If so when? If not why not?
PL: With regard to blogs and blogger relations. Anyone can start his or her own blog in about 30 seconds. Why should the hospital be a repository? If we were, then we would have to have blogging policies! That seems inherently contradictory to the idea of social media.
If we did post blogs on our company website, wouldn’t we have to make the “space” available to all and then also have to insure that they met standards for honesty, accountability, grammar, spelling, HIPAA, good behavior, and the like? If you permit all blogs to be posted on the company website without standards, then you are inviting lawsuits.
So then I would have to have people enforce the standards. Why undemocratize the most democratic form of communication by imposing corporate standards on it when anybody in the company can already create their own site in the outside world? If it is good enough and interesting enough to attract readers, the word will get around.
We are, however, looking at wikis for a variety of purposes.
TB: Why has blogging been worth your time, energy and resources? What has surprised you about your blogging experience?
PL: Totally worth it, especially in terms of getting feedback from a wide variety of people throughout the world. It is like tapping into an incredibly extensive community.
TB: Are ideas and suggestions from comments distributed and/or utilized internally?
PL: Oh, yes. I pass along ideas to our folks, and we follow up.
Sidebar: Paul is listening also. In March Roy Young highlighted Running A Hospital Blog on a Daily Fix post.. CK offered an idea that Paul incorporated into his blog.
TB: How does your blog fit into Boston’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Marketing/ Community Outreach Strategies.
PL: This is not the hospital’s blog. Strictly speaking, it is not tied into our business strategies, although I like to think that there is nothing in it that is inconsistent with our strategies.
TB: Did you have to first gain permission from your board?
PL: No.
TB: How are you handling HIPPA regulations?
PL: I follow them!
TB: What were the reactions from your peers?
PL: Some are very supportive, some are disdainful. Our physicians and nurses and other staff are very, very supportive.
TB: What are your feelings about Sermo? Particularly the inclusion of allowing investment firms to view postings and the possibility of inviting the pharma in?
PL: I have never read it. I don’t look at sites where you have to register.
TB: What will it take for social media to gain acceptance within the healthcare community, to the extent that blogs (and other tactics) are adopted?
PL: This will happen very slowly. It is not a field that encourages open expressions of feelings or positions.
TB: What would you tell other healthcare organizations and physicians who are considering launching a blog?
PL: Be prepared for a great adventure.
About Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
One of the nation’s preeminent academic medical centers, providing state-of-the-art clinical care, research, and teaching in affiliation with Harvard Medical School. Licensed for about 600 beds, BIDMC annual clinical and research revenues are in excess of $1 billion. Overseen by a 20-member Board of Directors and with a staff of over 6,000 FTEs and a medical staff of over 700 physicians in thirteen clinical departments.
Thanks to Nick Jacobs for the intro to Paul Levy; another example of blog networking.

I pointed Walaika Haskins, who interviewed me for the story, to some of the stories she included, like Dell Hell and the blog coverage of the Scooter Libby trial. Nice to be asked for input!

“Just a few years ago,” she writes, “blogs were looked down upon by many media professionals and even bloggers themselves. However, it’s not unheard of for a blogger to be the one breaking the news on a big story. Blogs such as Perez Hilton, the Wonkette, the Daily Kos and others have changed the way people get their news and the way the media covers news.” (Hmm, when did bloggers look down on blogs?)

The article also states that “Blogging will peak in 2007, according to a Gartner report. The company estimates that there are already more than 200 million ex-bloggers … [Gartner] expects the number of bloggers to top off at around 100 million.”
One hundred million writers with their own “printing presses” is nothing to sneeze at, but I believe there aren’t more than 10,000 bloggers worldwide with significant numbers of readers.
However, blogging is about influence, not numbers. Some bloggers who have influence don’t necessarily have a million readers, or scores of comments on every post. Influence is harder to measure than pageviews, and the perfect measurement system has yet to be developed, despite ongoing efforts by Technorati, Google, BlogPulse and others.
Influential as some bloggers may be, it was just yesterday that a friend asked me “Don’t people have anything else to do besides read blogs about other people’s lives?” To which I responded, feeling a lot like Rodney Dangerfield, “Yes, they can watch ‘reality’ shows and stupid sitcoms on television.” So, the are bloggers journalists debate is sure to continue. Sigh.

She’s off the air now–and by “air” I mean network TV. The Rosie O’Donnell Show is history and so is her turn on The View. But she’s moved her “show” online–she’s starred in 27 video blogs since late March. Most of them feature her alone–no script or sponsor. And no interviews, music, wardrobe, or crew. Or spit. Or polish.
Times writer Virginia Heffernan writes,

“All the videos are pure Rosie, in the sense that with their unforgiving lighting and absent production values Ms. O’Donnell, the comic-actress-host, is revealing the last of whatever she was holding back on daytime television.”

The promise of social media is that anyone can be a somebody–or, as I’ve written in the past, anyone can be a “Who.” But, correspondingly, anybody can also be a nobody.
The Times writes,

“The spectacle of her both humbled and emboldened this way brings to mind Ross Perot, Tina Brown and ‘Rocky III’–the big wheels who decided it’s time to return to the old gym and do something real.”

The strength of emerging media is this: that everyone has a voice and can be heard. Everyone has a way of looking at things that can inform the thinking of anyone else.
At the same time, the degrees of separation between the “somebodies” and the “nobodies” inch closer together: All voices count. The playing field levels.
And the likes of Rosie–glorious with no makeup, no script, no filter–appear a little more humble, a little more honest, a little more human. It’s Rosie …. it’s all of us. For real.