Oh, and if you don’t like my list, make your own. Link back here and people will find it and see what you you think. That would be fun.

8 Bloggers to Watch in 2009

**Update: Marshall Kirkpatrick, superstar from ReadWriteWeb, made a nifty OPML file if you want to subscribe to these guys all in one whack.** Thanks, Marshall!

Social Media Explorer – Jason Falls is not only an advertising guy, but a pioneer. His work in 2008, including tweeting a race for a company are the kinds of things that you can expect from him. Jason is quite the thinker. He raced into the public eye in 2008, but I think his best work is still ahead of him. Stay tuned.

Conversation Agent – Valeria Maltoni has been knocking the cover off the ball for a while over on her blog, but still, I feel she’s undervalued. Her work is consistent, has strong strategy elements, and leads one to think about execution. I recommend her work highly, and if you’re not on board yet, get there.

Feeds – Jennifer Leggio writes about social media for Ziff Davis. I think her writing has been solid all year long, and I expect even more quality posts in 2009. It’s frankly one of two blogs I still read over at Ziff. She’s a great writer, and delivers balanced thinking and ideas.

Danny Brown – Danny has roared up out of nowhere. His blog is a consistent read, and the quality is improving every day. I find myself gnawing on his posts and deciding how they might impact things. For 2009, I hope Danny turns that insight out and away from the social media crowd and starts exploring his thoughts on various verticals. I think he has the chops to deliver good stuff in those areas.

Very Official Blog – Shannon Paul makes great pieces that help me better understand the hybrid mindset from traditional PR and marketing into the new stuff. Her perspective and sense of humor bring me a lot of happiness each time she posts. Keep an eye on this one. She’s a force of nature.

Take Me To Your Leader – First off, if I owned this domain, I’d cherish it. Freddie Laker’s who I know from this little outfit, and he spoke at this year’s New Marketing Summit, which is where I got a glimpse into Freddie’s style. I hope to see more deconstruction and analysis in 2009. I’m watching you, Laker.

Technotheory – not only is Jared Goralnick the creator of AwayFind, he’s a thinker. Jared and I got together a few months back, and that one conversation has spawned several changes in how I do business, from something as simple as buying a new laptop bag to more strategy-level things, Jared keeps me thinking.

Learn to Duck – Micah Baldwin isn’t new to blogging nor is he new to marketing. But he’s someone I’m watching. His work is always thought-provoking, and gets me moving in a new direction. If you don’t add Micah, you’re missing a voice that will impact your thinking.

**Update: Marshall Kirkpatrick, superstar from ReadWriteWeb, made a nifty OPML file if you want to subscribe to these guys all in one whack.** Thanks, Marshall!

Veterans

Here’s a quick listing of people I love and follow for their perspective that aren’t exactly new, but still worth perusing, while I’m writing a post with links in it. This list doesn’t include the obvious people that you already read like Seth or Brian or Darren. You know about them. But are you reading:

• Six Pixels of Separation – Mitch Joel
• PR Squared – Todd Defren
• Web Ink Now – David Meerman Scott
• Awaken Your Superhero – Christopher S. Penn
• Successful Blog – Liz Strauss
• C.C. Chapman – CC Chapman
• Altitude Branding – Amber Naslund
• Paul Gillin – Paul Gillin
• Brian Solis – Brian Solis
• Technosailor – Aaron Brazell

Your Turn

Either add a comment or write a blog post with YOUR picks. I bet you’ll find some different ones. Let’s see what comes of it. And if you’re not on my list, I probably still read you. I’ve got hundreds of people I’ve started reading by way of my Rockstars page. Are you on it? (If you’ve submitted recently, it takes about 2 weeks for me to add you).

Photo credit, makou0629

Please feel free to share this with others, and reblog it, provided you link back to [chrisbrogan.com] as the source.

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50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing

1. Add social bookmark links to your most important web pages and/or blog posts to improve sharing.
2. Build blogs and teach conversational marketing and business relationship building techniques.
3. For every video project purchased, ensure there’s an embeddable web version for improved sharing.
4. Learn how tagging and other metadata improve your ability to search and measure the spread of information.
5. Create informational podcasts about a product’s overall space, not just the product.
6. Build community platforms around real communities of shared interest.
7. Help companies participate in existing social networks, and build relationships on their turf.
8. Check out Twitter as a way to show a company’s personality. (Don’t fabricate this).
9. Couple your email newsletter content with additional website content on a blog for improved commenting.
10. Build sentiment measurements, and listen to the larger web for how people are talking about your customer.
11. Learn which bloggers might care about your customer. Learn how to measure their influence.
12. Download the Social Media Press Release (pdf) and at least see what parts you want to take into your traditional press releases.
13. Try out a short series of audio podcasts or video podcasts as content marketing and see how they draw.
14. Build conversation maps for your customers using Technorati.com , Google Blogsearch, Summize, and FriendFeed.
15. Experiment with Flickr and/or YouTube groups to build media for specific events. (Marvel Comics raised my impression of this with their Hulk statue Flickr group).
16. Recommend that your staff start personal blogs on their personal interests, and learn first hand what it feels like, including managing comments, wanting promotion, etc.
17. Map out an integrated project that incorporates a blog, use of commercial social networks, and a face-to-face event to build leads and drive awareness of a product.
18. Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi Data Systems.
19. Experiment with the value of live video like uStream.tv and Mogulus, or Qik on a cell phone.
20. Attend a conference dealing with social media like New Media Expo, BlogWorld Expo, New Marketing Summit (disclosure: I run this one with CrossTech), and dozens and dozens more. (Email me for a calendar).
21. Collect case studies of social media success. Tag them “socialmediacasestudy” in del.icio.us.
22. Interview current social media practitioners. Look for bridges between your methods and theirs.
23. Explore distribution. Can you reach more potential buyers/users/customers on social networks.
24. Don’t forget early social sites like Yahoogroups and Craigslist. They still work remarkably well.
25. Search Summize.com for as much data as you can find in Twitter on your product, your competitors, your space.
26. Practice delivering quality content on your blogs, such that customers feel educated / equipped / informed.
27. Consider the value of hiring a community manager. Could this role improve customer service? Improve customer retention? Promote through word of mouth?
28. Turn your blog into a mobile blog site with Mofuse. Free.
29. Learn what other free tools might work for community building, like MyBlogLog.
30. Ensure you offer the basics on your site, like an email alternative to an RSS subscription. In fact, the more ways you can spread and distribute your content, the better.
31. Investigate whether your product sells better by recommendation versus education, and use either wikis and widgets to help recommend, or videos and podcasts for education.
32. Make WebsiteGrader.com your first stop for understanding the technical quality of a website.
33. Make Compete.com your next stop for understanding a site’s traffic. Then, mash it against competitors’ sites.
34. Learn how not to ask for 40 pieces of demographic data when giving something away for free. Instead, collect little bits over time. Gently.
35. Remember that the people on social networks are all people, have likely been there a while, might know each other, and know that you’re new. Tread gently into new territories. Don’t NOT go. Just go gently.
36. Help customers and prospects connect with you simply on your various networks. Consider a Lijit Wijit or other aggregator widget.
37. Voting mechanisms like those used on Digg.com show your customers you care about which information is useful to them.
38. Track your inbound links and when they come from blogs, be sure to comment on a few posts and build a relationship with the blogger.
39. Find a bunch of bloggers and podcasters whose work you admire, and ask them for opinions on your social media projects. See if you can give them a free sneak peek at something, or some other “you’re special” reward for their time and effort (if it’s material, ask them to disclose it).
40. Learn all you can about how NOT to pitch bloggers. Excellent resource: Susan Getgood.
41. Try out shooting video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Don’t throw out text, but try adding video.
42. Explore several viewpoints about social media marketing.
43. Women are adding lots of value to social media. Get to know the ones making a difference. (And check out BlogHer as an event to explore).
44. Experiment with different lengths and forms of video. Is entertaining and funny but brief better than longer but more informative? Don’t stop with one attempt. And try more than one hosting platform to test out features.
45. Work with practitioners and media makers to see how they can use their skills to solve your problems. Don’t be afraid to set up pilot programs, instead of diving in head first.
46. People power social media. Learn to believe in the value of people. Sounds hippie, but it’s the key.
47. Spread good ideas far. Reblog them. Bookmark them. Vote them up at social sites. Be a good citizen.
48. Don’t be afraid to fail. Be ready to apologize. Admit when you’ve made a mistake.
49. Re-examine who in the organization might benefit from your social media efforts. Help equip them to learn from your project.
50. Use the same tools you’re trying out externally for internal uses, if that makes sense, and learn about how this technology empowers your business collaboration, too.

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Consider this a start. You probably could add another 50 tips for marketers and PR professionals to consider by adding to the comments section, or blogging an additional list at your site. I know you’ve got some ideas that I’ve missed. Care to share?

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The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.

Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.

• Increase in sales.
• Good media coverage.
• Healthy sales/customer pipeline.

Am I right? (I’m not a marketer by trade or experiences. I’m a hack who sometimes gets put in the position of helping people market.)

If so, we have to consider what it’s going to be like for you as a marketer, being told to try out things like Facebook and Twitter and other social networks to do what you’re tasked with doing. One problem is that there are obvious benefits to using online methods to market, and yet, it’s not as easy as just blasting your traditional messages via electronic channels. here are some thoughts.

You’re the Visitor

In some cases, newly arriving marketers are quick to dive in and and get their message heard. They make a few cursory passes around the “neighborhood” and then set to work talking about their product or service. The problem is, even though it feels like this new neighborhood is filled with random people, lots of us know each other, and we don’t know you. We understand the pace, the patter, the social norms of this environment. Coming in and getting down to business is frowned upon in almost all cases.

Get to know some people. It does take a little more time, but the results are better. I know plenty of people who could pitch me their new project without me feeling weird or put out by them. Why? Because we’ve already gone through the effort of getting to know each other. I assume that what they’re pitching will be of interest to me, and I trust that they’ll be straightforward with what they need, while being sensitive to their relationship with me.

In the end, people who pitch me well get what they seek, and I do even more than a “cold call” would expect, because by that point, I feel invested in the outcome because I know and appreciate the person who pitched me.

And when the pitch doesn’t match my interests, no harm no foul. Try doing that with a “cold” dive into a social network and see what you get.

Collaboration and Two Way Roads

We do a lot of collaboration in social media and social networks. Sometimes, it’s about your cause. Other times, it’s about mine. Even the non-marketers are marketing for attention. Make a point of helping out others often. Try to be there when they need you, and Digg their story, chip in the $10, or do whatever else needs doing.

People remember those who help out. And then when the time comes, it’s a little more likely that people will be inclined to help.

Is this “quid pro quo?” Maybe. But it’s very tacit and explicit, and people who are collaborating understand that it’s a give-and-take relationship.

When you come without that kind of investment already built into the community, you have to spend some time sharing and doing what else needs doing, as well.

Shared Value

Marketing is used to the idea of giving something to get something. It’s not very different in the social networks world. Only, really consider the value before making the offer. If you’re marketing something that has a fan base, give ways for people to have access to something (give Sony pictures fans cool games to play, like they did with 30 Days of Night’s vampires game on Facebook). Give people who love your software a badge to place on their site, if they want, but make a value link back to the person displaying such a badge.

In short, in the universe of social networks, it’s not enough to hit people over the head with your message. Instead, the goal shifts towards finding supporters and giving them something of value, on one front.

Wooing Non-Customers

Social networks afford marketers the opportunity to learn lots about people. You can read Facebook profiles and understand what people like, who they know, what they support, etc. This means it’s a great environment to find out about people who aren’t engaged with your product, or who use a competing product.

If you’re a smart company like the guys from Zoho, you have search terms and triggers set up for when people mention their products, and I’m going to bet that they have terms set up on certain competing products, as well. (I’m not singling them out, but I’ve met the Zoho team, and have talked with them online – on my blog plenty of times and also in email – and I think they’re a great example of people paying attention to their non-customer base, as well as those who are already believers).

With this knowledge, you have the chance to build relationships, and offer opportunities for people to try out a product they might not be currently using. Don’t be pushy about it, but by paying good attention to blog posts and profile information and the flow of words on Twitter, a marketer can also find their non-customers identifying themselves over and over again.

Because these social networks capture data that isn’t usually considered – watercooler-like conversations, for instance- you have an opportunity that doesn’t exist in the offline world. How you execute on it is the real question. Will you be ready?

Marketers Can Do Magic on Social Networks

But only smart ones. Those who choose to roll their existing methods onto the web will find themselves writing articles in magazines about how the web is a horrible place to market. For the rest of you (and I mostly mean YOU), this is a great place to start out learning, and then grow into being a transplant to this new community. In no time, you’ll be one of the gang, and hopefully, the metrics that matter most to your organization will be growing in the right ways, by way of your efforts.

The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.

Get the entire series by subscribing to this blog, and subscribe to my free newsletter here.