How do I promote myself on the internet…

…without looking like I’m a shameless self promoter? Consider this…

“Recently, we received the following netiquette question from a relatively self-aware reader:

how do I get my music blog out there (as it is fairly new) and make it accessible to my friends without looking like the pretentious f*** I really am and trying to make them realize that my taste in music is better than their own?

Putting aside the fact that said capital-letter averse typist has decided to start a music blog in this overly saturated cesspool we call the Internet, what we’re really talking about here is the delicate art of self-promotion. If you want to earn eyeballs, buzz or cash dolla bills for something you’ve dreamed up, using social media is pretty much a must (and a topic taken on by plenty of writers before us).

But promoting oneself online is a concept that myriad people hate. There are the humble few who genuinely feel uncomfortable telling you why they are worth your time. Then there are the scores of self-righteous cads who really hate having to bother.” Source: How to gracefully promote yourself online – CNN.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested in learning more. Comment, call or use the contact form to connect — we can talk about how this applies to your business…

via ScribeFire

September 22, 2010 0

The Top 3 Tools for Thought Leaders

Here’s a sneak preview of a presentation I’m giving tomorrow as part of a panel discussion at the Business Assistance Center at NWTC. It will be a lot to cram into to 10 minutes…

Top 3 Tools for Thought Leadershttp://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=top3-100922140731-phpapp01&rel=0&stripped_title=top-3-tools-for&userName=toddlohenry

View more presentations from e1evation, llc.

Questions? Feedback?

September 22, 2010 1

Big Talk. Small Acts.

: Cover of Paranormal Activity

If you’re going to do anything in Marketing, is it more important to focus on “how many?” people you put your message in front of or “who?” you put your message in front of?

You can see this as the classic “quantity over quality” debate or you can look at it as “big vs. small,” however you slice it, it’s hard to argue that brands can now get major results through many small (and sometimes minimal) acts. There are winning business cases (in fact, more than you may think) around every corner. A cause for celebration if you dabble in the Social Media space (we like to claim those small victories as our own).

But, Social Media alone will not save you.

While some small brands can do many small things that achieve incremental results, the bigger brands tend to be doing a whole lot more of the the little things while pushing their weight around if something clicks. One example of this would be the indie-turned Paramount Pictures scareflick, Paranormal Activity. Leveraging many of the Social Media platforms (from Twitter and YouTube to Eventful) the movie had an initial groundswell that enabled Paramount to kick marketing dollars into additional online spaces (and traditional mass media ones too) and slowly push it to become the blockbuster that it became.

via twistimage.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested in learning more…

Warmth, Competence and the Value of Social Media (marketingsavant.com)

September 22, 2010 0

The Birth of Product Evangelism

: Image via CrunchBase

Over the last decades, salespeople often used the power of personality, or the development of a relationship to build trust and heavily influence what a sales prospect would think of the product. In other words, the better a person was at the art of sales, the less the product they were selling even mattered. Hence the phrase, “he can sell ice to Eskimo’s.” It might be true to say that the harder a product was to sell, or the harder it was to get someone to spend a large chunk of money, the more you needed the human element involved in order to influence the prospect into signing the agreement. For example, I spent about three months of my life at 18 years old selling Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door. Now these are good machines that do the job, and they are also very expensive compared to competing products. We sold them door-to-door and it was commonly known that some of the easiest people to sell were those that would struggle the most to afford them. However, these were the people that were easiest to influence from a human level. In fact, one of the top sales guys targeted people living in trailer homes.

The reason this kind of sale worked was because the salesperson could parachute into the lives of the prospects and whatever came out of the salespersons mouth was hard to verify easily. Today, things have changed. Even a person in a trailer home can go online and in an instant type in a product name and see what others have paid for it, how it stacks up against competitors, etc. The reality of where we are headed is that people are becoming less and less willing to be pushed into to making decisions with the only information coming from the sales person. It is just too darn easy to check the Web to gain more information.

This change in human behavior is going to drive us to a world where we still can promote products and services by influencing, but the influence is going to have to be supporting and evangelizing a products strengths, and those strengths are going to have to be supported by information that can be found online. Not only that, people will also be able to verify pricing ranges because buyers and reviewers will post this information so the salespersons ability to unfairly get in the pocket of a prospect will diminish.

via technologystory.com

I had the chance to hear Scott speak in the springtime — his perspective on the impact of social media on sales is an interesting one. You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested in reading the rest of his article…

September 21, 2010 0

Miriam’s Kitchen; cooking up something good with social media

“I first encountered the Miriam’s Kitchen team during the summer of 2009 when the DC organizing committee selected the Kitchen as its charity of choice for the second Twestival. At the time, we felt they would make the most from the exposure, and I think we sold them short. Their ability to grasp online social relationships and extend them to real life actions has been outstanding. It’s an honor to feature Miriam’s Kitchen as a case study.

Miriam’s Kitchen decided to participate in online media because many of their supporters were using social media. It’s important that we meet our supporters where they are, and social media helps us accomplish this. Many of the Washington, DC residents that donate and volunteer fall within the 25-40 age range, and are social media/web savvy.

We also connect with some of our homeless guest”s through social media,” said Jennifer Roccanti, Development Associate and Miriam Kitchen’s primary voice on the web. “While interactions online are rare, a few of our guests have posted messages to us on our Facebook page, and some of them have started using Twitter. We recently heard from our Case Managers that a few guests check our Facebook page for the daily menu before they decide whether or not to make the couple-mile trek to Miriam’s Kitchen each day. That’s a lot of pressure on our social media team.” ” Source: Case Study: Miriam’s Kitchen | Geoff Livingston’s Blog

Non-profits + social media is big on my radar right now because of the work that I’m doing for Freedom House Ministries in Green Bay. If you’re interested in social media for 501(c)3’s, comment, call or use the contact form to discuss how this applies to your organization…

via ScribeFire

September 21, 2010 0

Warmth, Competence and the Value of Social Media

: Image via Wikipedia

Pop Quiz: How would customers rate your organization on characteristics like “honesty and trustworthiness” and “acts in the customer’s best interests?” While those may seem like far from relevant concerns in the realm of social media, I assure you that they should be among the first things you think about.

Yet another national study has proven that consumers instinctively judge brands in much the same way they judge other people. (It’s called the “warmth and competence model”) And what’s one of the key reasons that brands get into social media? To inject a level of humanity and dialogue not seen in most marketing efforts, of course! In other words…to make their brands more like people…to attract more people.

Yet, it’s not that easy. In the same study, they looked at why Tylenol, who had a large recall in 2010 fared so much better (leagues apart) than BP in the court of public opinion. It’s simple – Tylenol exhibited humanity across their communication channels – which developed trust in their brand. That said, the underlying reason that Tylenol (Johnson & Johnson) was able to do that in the first place stemmed from the selfless servant-marketing attitude that they have toward their customers and that’s ingrained in their corporate culture.

See, social media “value” isn’t really about ROI in many cases. Rather it’s a question of how it fits with your culture and brand attitude. If yours is a brand that could score well on characteristics like “honest and trustworthy” and “acts in the customer’s best interests”, then you’ll likely derive a great deal of value from social media. If not, it may not be the perceived effectiveness of social media but rather your culture that’s holding you back.

via marketingsavant.com

Who’s your favorite social media gooroo? Mine’s Dana VanDen Heuvel and I’m thrilled to be on a panel with him this Thursday to discuss Thought Leadership marketing. I’ll put up a link to the event a little later but in the meantime, follow the ‘via’ link and head over to MarketingSavant.com where you can learn more about Dana and his craft…

September 20, 2010 1

We Only Trust Experts If They Agree With Us

We think we trust experts. But a new study finds that what really influences our opinions, more than listening to any expert, is our own beliefs.

Researchers told study subjects about a scientific expert who accepted climate change as real. Subjects who thought that commerce can be environmentally damaging were ready to accept the scientist as an expert. But those who came into the study believing that economic activity could not hurt the environment were 70 percent less likely to accept that the scientist really was an expert.

Then the researchers flipped the situation. They told different subjects that the same hypothetical scientist, with the same accreditation, was skeptical of climate change. Now those who thought that economic activity cannot harm the environment accepted the expert, and the other group was 50 percent less likely to believe in his expertise. The study was published in the Journal of Risk Research.

via scientificamerican.com

I’ve joked before about searching for data to confirm my preconceived notions. Little did I realize how close I was to the truth…

September 20, 2010 0

The Future of Social Media in Journalism

: Image by fredcavazza via Flickr

The future of social media in journalism will see the death of “social media.” That is, all media as we know it today will become social, and feature a social component to one extent or another. After all, much of the web experience, particularly in the way we consume content, is becoming social and personalized.

But more importantly, these social tools are inspiring readers to become citizen journalists by enabling them to easily publish and share information on a greater scale. The future journalist will be more embedded with the community than ever, and news outlets will build their newsrooms to focus on utilizing the community and enabling its members to be enrolled as correspondents. Bloggers will no longer be just bloggers, but be relied upon as more credible sources.

via mashable.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go directly to the source and get the rest of the story if you’d like to dig a little deeper…

September 20, 2010 0

‘The new unemployables’: Workers over 50

: Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Since the economic collapse, there are not enough jobs being created for the population as a whole, much less for those in the twilight of their careers.

Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older. Nearly half of them have been unemployed six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate in the group — 7.3 percent — is at a record, more than double what it was at the beginning of the latest recession.

After other recent downturns, older people who lost jobs fretted about how long it would take to return to the work force and worried that they might never recover their former incomes. But today, because it will take years to absorb the giant pool of unemployed at the economy’s recent pace, many of these older people may simply age out of the labor force before their luck changes.

via msnbc.msn.com

Time to start a business? You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go directly to the source and get the rest of the story if you’d like…

For the Unemployed Over 50, Fears of Never Working Again (nytimes.com)
Unemployment Affects Older Americans the Hardest (prweb.com)
Poll Shows Unemployment On The Rise Again, Total Nears 19% (247wallst.com)

September 20, 2010 0

Want a Raise? Find Out What Your Job is Worth

As a blogger, I get paid in bags of stale Tootsie Rolls. Is that good? I have no idea. Actually, I am getting a better idea of what my job is worth now that I have checked out some salary comparison sites. Specifically, I I’ve found out that there are places you can blog where you’re paid in fresh Tootsie Rolls.

If you want to see how your salary compares to the industry at large, be sure to visit MySalary, a site where you can find salary ranges for virtually any career. There’s a lot of stuff on the site — job search and education information in particular — but be sure to click the Salary tab and enter your job title and zip code. You’ll instantly get access to a slew of job titles that are similar to what you searched for.

The resulting histogram shows national averages for salary ranges, like this one for speech writers (I always wanted to know what Ben Stein used to make).

via bnet.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…