Let’s talk about it.

Do Your Homework

All bloggers aren’t the same. Big numbers don’t mean big response. Just because someone writes about X doesn’t mean that your product is actually X to them. Bloggers can be fickle and often work to the beat of their own drum.

I get dozens of pitches a day. I delete almost all of them unread, unless I know the person, and then half the time, I delete those, too. The reason is that people aren’t considering what I write about before pitching to me. I rarely ever cover software here, so if you’re showing me a software story, it damned well better have a human angle.

The same is true for any of the bloggers you need to reach. Not sure where to find the bloggers you need? Use these resources:

• Alltop – the Internet’s magazine rack.
• Google Blogsearch – search by topic.
• Twitter Search – find bloggers by what they tweet about.
• Postrank Topics – search by topic.

Once you have a sense of who you might want to reach for your stories, it’s all about building relationships.

Be There Before the Sale

This is something Julien and I wrote about in Trust Agents, and it’s the first part of making your blogging outreach more successful. If you want people to write about you, they should probably know about you first. Quick ways to get that started:

• Follow them on Twitter.
• Comment on their blog posts.
• Set up Google Alerts and comment on related articles.

Is this more work than just blanketing someone with email and hoping a few write about it? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes.

The trick is not to talk about your stuff. You should have started this outreach weeks and weeks before ever needing anything, and it should be genuine. Be interested in the people you hope will take an interest in you.

Make It Easy

People that I like in the outreach department work to find the people who she thinks make the most sense for the story. They deliver tons of information and preparation. They do lots of checking and double-checking (because bloggers can be fickle or forgetful). They make everything as seamless as possible. Some ideas:

• Make everything dead simple.
• (Tyler in the comments suggested) Be clear what you want the outcome of the outreach to be.
• Provide URLs to everything, so that bloggers can refer.
• Provide photos to go with the piece, or a video, or whatever other content.
• Keep your outreach emails brief, and keep the details highlighted and bolded appropriately.
• Make sure your FIRST email does nothing but get the buy-in to pitch the story.

Let’s pause on that last point. Some people disagree. They want the whole pitch in the first email, because two becomes a clutter. I’ve honestly seen it done both ways. I know that when Cathy sends me an email asking to pitch me, I’m going to ask for the pitch. I’ve seen others send me the pitch in the first email and it’s been okay, but more often than not, I prefer the two-email system. You can dispute this. Really.

To me, making the effort simple is a good thing.

Ask the Right Questions

I’m often given business books to review. I’m a voracious reader, and I like sharing the good ones with people. However, I also tell people who send me books that I don’t guarantee a review. Sometimes, the book is okay, but not my favorite. Other times, I really don’t like the book. If the people who send me the book ever push for a review, I usually explain that it might not be as positive as they’d like. As an author, myself, I don’t like giving bad reviews.

To that end, think about some questions that might let you have some guidance on how the blogger acts.

• Can you tell me how long it takes to post from when you receive the product?
• May I check back in a few weeks from now?
• What do you do with negative reviews?
• If you have disagreements or problems with the product, could you email me first to make sure you have all the information?

Questions like this and others can be really helpful to you setting your own expectations.

Above All Else, Don’t Push

If not this story, the next one. Believe me, relationships in this space run long and weird.

Christina Pacelli from Red reached out to me to cover the Eye Fi (a USB-to-wifi cool gadget) over a year ago. She sent me one. I couldn’t really get over my own techno-idiocy to make it work. A year later, Christina and team got smart and mailed me a new Eye-Fi (still have the old one, by the way) and a Novatel Mifi device (which acts like a wandering hotspot). Combined with BOTH, I’ll be able to use this product on the show floor at my next event and report back what I think of its benefits to various groups.

A year. Christina has been politely persistent for a year. And it will pay off. (Who knows? Maybe the links already make it pay off.)

Don’t push bloggers, and just accept that sometimes the story doesn’t hit. I’ve had a series of situations where things seemed right, and upon checking them out, I just didn’t feel good about blogging it, or wasn’t moved to blog it, etc. As the person pushing that particular product, I’m sure it doesn’t feel well when your push goes nowhere. I’m so sorry when I’m the cause. I imagine bloggers also have their own reasons and feel bad, too.

In most cases, it comes around to the better at some point. This is a long game for lots of us. Be patient. Learn who doesn’t work out. Move onward.

An Imprecise Science

There’s more to it than all this, but this is a good start. If you’ve questions, I can definitely add more. What do you think? What have you tried that’s worked? What else have I missed?

Photo credit 蓝莓兔子

On Monday, I complained about a crappy, impersonal pitch I received. It’s been a while since I’ve done that. Danny Brown chided me for it, and said I had just mentioned in my newsletter that it’s important not to point at the mess, but to point at the solution. For penance, here’s some ideas for yesterday’s pitcher, and maybe you.

How to Influence Me

I’m Human – As best as you can, use my name. Sometimes I have to send out mass messages, and if I can’t use software like Blue Sky Factory to put the first name in neatly for me, then I do this one thing: I put the person’s name at the start and/or a line or 3 that shows I’m personally sending the message to that one person. I receive at least a dozen emails a day like this, and I appreciate the personal touch.

Be Brief – Okay, you CAN put everything in one big email, but if you do that, could you make the first few paragraphs a very brief summary? Maybe a bullet or 3, or a numbered list or two. (Monday’s email was brief, for sure. In that case, he might have included a URL for me to learn more).

Target it Even a Little Bit – If you’re asking me to join your influencer group, maybe decide whether or not I’m the right fit. I’m going to say that the pitch from Monday was close enough. I’ve written about consumer beverages before, so that’s fine. I also got five other requests that were for things I’m not remotely related to, or have any influence over. If you’re looking for me to influence, that might be a point to think about.

Don’t Let the Numbers Fool You – Charles Best from DonorsChoose.org gave the best presentation at the 2009 New Comm Forum, wherein which he talked about the “Oprah Effect,” and how a woman with 1000 very passionate readers in her blog community outperformed a popular tech blog with two million daily readers in a simple request for help. Never ever ever look at my numbers first. Never. Never look at anyone’s numbers first. Decide whether the community responds and interacts (some ways to do this are technorati ranking, comments per post, overall traffic vs comments as %), and then determine if you’ve got an influencer. For instance, I think Dadomatic.com is influential to parents, even if there are only a few hundred daily readers.

Be There Before the Sale

There are many people I know and support in this space. I love talking with marketers and pr professionals and other people passionate about how these tools empower communications. If you and I have some kind of passing relationship before you pitch me, I promise you it’ll go much better than when you cold call me. Does this scale? No. (No no no no no no no.) Is it the better way to do it? Yes. You decide whether you want to eschew this advice, but there’s a price to cold calling.

Remember We all Have Megaphones

If you (or if I) do something you don’t like, we’re now the broadcaster. We have the tools to complain, and we use them. Sometimes, we do it to illustrate. Other times, we’re just being human and frustrated. But this isn’t a warning: it’s notice that your attempt has to be considered, because we might not just delete it.

I Could Be Wrong

You’re going to tell me that you have to get the word out, that you don’t have time to talk with everyone individually. You’re going to say that it’s a junior person, and that it’s not something worth giving a lot of attention to in the long run.

Bull.

Sam Lawrence is launching a company Wednesday. He reached out to me directly. He has LOTS of people to contact. This should be something easy to give to someone junior. Do you think Sam wants his message handed to me in a way that might set me off? Do you think Sam thinks this isn’t important to how I perceive him?

We vote with our actions, people. Maybe I was too negative in writing a griping post about this low end annoyance. And yet, to me? How we treat each other, as best as we can, is all we have right now. Attention and trust come from relationships.

How are you building yours?

Twitter

1. Find seven things worth retweeting in your general feed and share.
2. Reply to at least five things with full responses (not just “thanks”).
3. Point out a few people that you admire. It shows your mindset, too.
4. Follow back at least 10 folks. (I use an automated tool, but this is a personal preference. If you want such, I use SocialToo.)
5. 10 minutes of just polite two-way chit chat goes far.

Facebook

6. Check in on birthdays on the home page. (Want a secret? Send the birthday wish via Twitter or email. Feels even more deliberate.)
7. Respond to any comments on your wall.
8. Post a status message daily, something engaging or interesting.
9. Comment on at least seven people’s status messages or updates.
10. Share at least 3 interesting updates that you find.
11. If you belong to groups or fan pages, leave a new comment or two.

LinkedIn

11. Accept any invitations that make sense for you to accept.
12. Enter any recent business cards to invite them to LinkedIn (if you’re growing your network).
13. Drop into Q&A and see if you can volunteer 2-3 answers.
14. Provide 1 recommendation every few days for people you can honestly and fully recommend.
15. Add any relevant slide decks to the Slideshare app there, or books to the Amazon bookshelf.

Blogs

16. Visit your blog’s comments section and comment back on at least 5 replies.
17. If you have a few extra minutes, click through to the blogs of the commenters, and read a post or two and comment back.
18. While on those sites, use a tool like StumbleUpon and promote their good work.
19. Write the occasional post promoting the good work of a blog in your community.

It’s Not Easy

Maintaining your online presence takes time. If you look at all I’ve listed above, that’s easily more than an hour of work. But it depends what the value of that presence is to you, if you’re doing this as an individual, or to your organization, if you’re doing this on behalf of a brand or product.

We’ve traded dollars for time, in lots of these equations, as we see the return on our advertising spend diminish. It’s your choice whether you want to maintain an active online presence, or if you want to get away with a bit less.

What do you think?

It’s pretty much a done deal that they’ll have to restructure. That means there will be huge conversations around Washington and in Detroit, involving everyone from President Obama to several dozen layers of government. At times like this, what does a company with a social media presence have to do to keep us feeling like they’re genuine and keeping us in the loop?

Pay attention to @cbarger and @GMBlogs, the accounts of Christopher Barger and the GM Blogs account. Let’s see what they tweet about the filings, about what comes next, about how this will be addressed. Let’s see how accessible CEO Fritz Henderson and other senior members of GM will be to the social media. Let’s see what comes of this.

Here’s a chance, GM (and by GM, I mean pretty much all major companies using social media tools), to show us that you’re going to participate even when the chips are down.

Best wishes to everyone involved in this situation. The potential economic impact of this will certainly alter Michigan and other related areas more than we have previously predicted. It will be a big deal. Our economy will feel this, if done wrong.

The sales organizations of most companies have a similar way of diagramming their sales process. They make these little graphics showing a circle with five or more points along the circle that indicate a customer’s potential interaction with the organization. The points are usually labeled something like this:

• Prospects
• Awareness
• Leads
• Customers
• Evangelists (or sometimes, they use this bubble for “support”)

In writing this up, what comes first? Awareness or prospects? (I think this goes in two configurations.) Person (be this B2C or B2B) is unaware of your product or service. You make them aware. They become prospects, which means you identify which of the people who become aware might actually be a good fit for your product. Then prospects who seem genuinely ready to become customers enter the lead process (where a sales person attempts to close the sale successfully). After this, the person becomes a customer/user/member and experiences the product they’ve purchased. And then hopefully, your customer has had such a great time with the product that they’re evangelists who say great things about it. Companies who are less hopeful mark this bubble “support.” Because it’s a circle, the suggestion is that we will constantly make our existing customers aware of new products and sell them these, as well.

These tools we have like blogging and podcasting and video and the use of social platforms are interesting, but to be useful to a sales marketing process, we have to look at where they make the most possible leverage and value.

Awareness

Here’s where I think the most value lies in using social media tools. Because we have these tools that let us listen for potential customers at their point of need (loosely quoted from Radian6 CEO Marcel LeBrun), we can find potential prospects and make them aware. We can use our podcast or our blog or our YouTube videos to build what we hope is meaningful content. We can strike up conversations on Twitter with people who might find our service or product more interesting. Awareness ranks highest in my sense of what these tools let us do.

Think about how you can get past the typical daily newspaper grind. Think about using email marketing, blogging, and basic presence on Twitter and Facebook to build relationships. It’s much better than the old method of broadcasting and the one-dimensional efforts of traditional advertising. There’s a strong opportunity here for any organization seeking to improve awareness of their offerings.

Prospects

My point on social media and prospecting is this: we now volunteer up lots of information via our social networks. If your prospects are online, they’re donating all kinds of information that’s useful in relationship building. If you want to sell something to Jeff Pulver, for instance, you’ll learn quickly that he loves music, that he loves live bands and karaoke, that he takes having fun seriously, that he travels all the time. If you’re a salesperson, you know how to translate this into openings for other conversations. You know how to pursue Jeff where he roams. It’s clear and obvious the value.

Prospecting using social networks and other social media is obvious, but are you doing it?

Leads

So now you’ve put someone into your lead cycle. You’ve decided you are going to close them for a sale (and remember, let’s use “sale” loosely. Maybe you’re “selling them” on donating to your charity, or watching your video channel. The advent of services like Twitter allow you to mind read from afar. If I’m going to hit up Len Devanna from EMC to sponsor a conference of mine, I’m sure as hell going to read his Twitter stream from the last two days and make sure his dog hasn’t gone into the hospital or that he’s not dealing with a budget cut, etc.

It also allows you to gently touch (without selling) your clients so that they keep you top of mind. Don’t talk to @elizabethhannan about that webinar software you need to sell her. Talk to her about her last few brightkite uploads and ask her how her weekend sporting outings were. It has the same effect: a gentle touch in the process of closing a lead.

Customers

As more and more organizations turn to blogging and Twitter for customer service, still others are building communities of use around their products, and promoting product discussions, member sharing forums, and more. A paid-up customer is not the end of the sales cycle, any good salesperson knows. He or she is a trusted part of your next successful sales, or at least, a referral to other potential prospects. These tools are a great way to connect with customers and keep them feeling important.

Evangelists

Social tools that promote sharing are a great way to transform customers into evangelists. Are you Sony Electronics and you’re trying to sell more GPS-enabled camcorders? Send each unit out with a piece of stationary inviting the new owner to sign up to YouTube (or even better, Blip.tv), and encourage them to use a metadata tag on all their submissions that marks them as part of the Sony family.

Nikon did this famously with Flickr, the online photo sharing site, such that any Nikon pictures uploaded showed off the Nikon logo in the metadata in the sidebar, and identified themselves as such.

If you’re not thinking of ways of connecting your products and services to the online share-o-sphere (all these various social networks that encourage interaction and sharing), you’re missing a powerful opportunity.

My Points In Closing

What is the ROI of adding metadata to someone’s YouTube account? Good luck figuring out the math on that. Do you feel in your gut that any time someone has a chance to experience yet another brand impression on your product, it’s a good thing? I do. And I feel that all the above-mentioned ideas are ways (or at least the start of ideas that I expect you to have AFTER the post) on making sense of how to tie social media tools and methods to your sales process.

Building awareness, maintaining good business relationships, communicating thoroughly, listening, and encouraging evangelists are all ways your efforts in social media will pay off sooner rather than later.

But what about you? Have you had some early success with any of this? What are some other examples you’ve seen or have practiced yourself? What’s your take?

I mean, who is the right person at GM to Twitter? (They put Christopher Barger in Comms). Who’s the right person at BestBuy to be everywhere? Keith Burtis is everywhere (no idea what his official line of command is). Should the CEO blog? Not always. Not unless they’re Jonathan Schwartz.

Who runs all this is a huge issue to companies. It’s also the blood in the water that agencies smell from miles away as an opportunity. (This includes me, by the way.) And then there’s “we, the people,” those consumers that want to feel a genuine connection to these companies, not just marketing-ese pretending to be part of the fabled conversation.

Let’s rip into this a bit. This will be part 1 of 2. (Part 2 is about casting your nets.)

The Phone Tree Analogy

In thinking about who should man the various potential positions that social media provides, the question comes back to how you want to use it. Customer service? Marketing? Sales? This isn’t the same as putting up a website. In fact, think of it like this: a website is more like an automated phone tree, you know, “for English, press 1.” Social web presence is more like giving out everyone’s direct line.

Let that sink in. It’s every bit as much work to manage the relationships that come with online presence as it is to answer your phone without the robots to block people’s attempts. The payoffs are about the same, though. People appreciate the human touch of reaching someone online and having a “real” interaction. It might cost a little more, but it really shows a different level of care and service.

Is your company ready for that? Could your organization see shucking the phone tree in exchanged for a heightened sense of business contact? That might be a good gating question to consider. Hint: just having one person on the “phone” will rarely be the right answer.

And as for which employees should be involved in this, let’s get there a bit at a time. Because in lots of cases, the answer is “more than one,” but we’ll come to it.

Want to go a little deeper?

The Name Game: Who IS This?

How should a company identify itself online? Should you use the corporate brand? Should you be an individual representing the brand? What happens when the individual who’s built up all the credibility leaves?

I’ve seen it done all different ways:

• @JetBlue – run by @MorganJohnston says it should be the brand first. He says it shouldn’t be about him.
• @LionelAtDell and the rest of the Dell horde all use first name ATDell as their nomenclature. I prefer this, but have heard why that’s harder for people to search and find.
• @WholeFoods tweets interesting things, for a grocery store. It kinda works, and yet, I always am left wondering “who.”

If you’re going to do a multi-person-using-one-account kind of implementation on a service like Twitter, use CoTweet, which comes with the recommended nomenclature of having ^CB at the end of tweets, so that you’d know “@chrisbrogan” was the driver of the @ShatnerRules group account (for example). This, at least, lets people know who’s at the helm.

Now, where should you be?

Where Are Your Fish?

Just because Oprah’s on Twitter doesn’t mean your customers are here. They might be hiding in forums, or very big into YouTube. Does your company need a Facebook group? Not always. Who’s there that you want to connect with, and what are you going to do for them there?

Deciding where to establish presence on the web is every bit as important as who should be at the helm of the various presence points. This also relates to understanding what you want. Are you there just to put a good face out for the company? Great. Then pick one or two places to start, see how people respond, get involved where you can, and work on it from there.

One way to find where people are talking about you is by using listening software. Tools like Radian6, Techrigy, and Scout Labs (to name a few that I like) can help you find where the conversation about you is hiding. (Oh, and if you don’t find much, don’t feel bad. It’s a good time to start stirring up some.)

Start with no more than 2 or 3 places for your presence. Maybe that’s “blog + linkedin + facebook.” It could be “linkedin + twitter + special forum.” And from the moment you start an account, think hard about what you want out of that point of presence. Are you there to answer customer service issues like @ComcastCares or are you hoping to just be a warm presence, like @LenDevanna of EMC (who has no actual “requirements” on him for Twitter, that I know of – correct me, Len) ?

Expectations and What Comes Next?

Let’s say you build a pretty decent stream of conversations on Facebook. Maybe it’s your junior comms person and they’re just drumming up excitement for a new product that the people want. Everything’s going great, and there’s an active group, and people feel like they’re being treated like humans. Know who comes next?

Marketing. In some companies, they come crashing down from the hills like angry Mongol raiders, set on converting people from interested community members into hot leads to purchase. They start asking to push materials down the community channel. They ask for lists. They push for opt-ins for email marketing.

Is it the right move? Not as listed above. Not if that’s not how you set the presence up to begin with. It will feel like horrid bait and switch. People will flock away pretty darned fast if you switch them over into convert mode. They’ll also hate you if you just pull up stakes and run after the product is launched. If they’ve committed to talking with you at those points of presence, they want you there for the long term.

Be wary of this. Think further out than a single campaign. If you set up the direct line, you have to be willing to answer it for more than the short term.

Checking In

Tomorrow, we’ll talk a bit more on how to get your feet into it, and where agencies can help, should you need/want that. We’ll also talk about what I think agencies shouldn’t do for you (but that’s my opinion).

What’s your take on this so far? Scary? Good? What you expected?

Photo credit peasap

Every now and again, something pokes up, a reminder of how people see bloggers. I was once called “inventory,” as in, that stuff you could put ads up against. Sure takes the wind out of your writerly sails, eh?

Hell, even I sometimes jokingly refer to social media efforts as “Hamburger Helper for your marketing.” Face it: we’re less expensive than traditional paths. One year of services with New Marketing Labs, with all the trimmings, costs less than many agencies’ two-week engagements.

But we are human. (So it seems.)

So, the next time you’re contemplating a blogger outreach program, and if you haven’t contracted me to do it, please pay attention to just a tiny few details, like putting my first name on the letter you include with your book that you’d love for me to review. It’ll make me a wee more interested in helping.

The Little Things

In doing a blogger outreach campaign, please consider a few of these points:

• Is my product relevant to the blogger’s audience?
• Is the company/product community-minded? There will be discussions.
• What has the blogger done before? Any risk potential?
• What is the blogger’s audience reach? (Check their authority on Technorati, their reach on Compete.com, perhaps their RSS subscriber count, if it’s visible.)
• Write a personal message. Even if the first part is the only personal part, at least the name and first few lines should be 1:1. (The payload of the data rarely changes, I realize).
• Follow up. Even though the blogger should be compelled to reach out and thank you the moment they receive what you’ve sent them, it doesn’t often work that way. Politely check in.
• Follow back. When a week has passed, double-check that there aren’t questions and the like.
• Follow through. When (if?) a post finally comes about, be sure to drop by and comment a simple something or other, to show the audience (not the blogger) that you’re responsive and that you care about the community. This often amps up the discussion in a good way.

Now, if you want the bonus round, read Susan Getgood. She’s building quite a body of work about blogger relations. Wherever my ideas contradict hers, use hers.

**Update: I found this piece by Todd Defren really good, too.**

I know it seems like this post is stacked against marketers and PR people. I’m on both sides of this particular fence. I do blogger outreach projects, as well. Maybe, you might consider this my offering of advice to you. Or, if you see it as a slap at you, I can understand that. Either way, maybe we’ll all learn a bit.

Applebees Isn’t Lying

The bartenders at the Applebees where I ate knew everyone who came in, many by name. There were clearly lots of regulars here. But I was treated every bit as warmly, was brought into the jokes, and felt very much like a valued part of the evening. When I finished my meal and got up to leave, the bartender wished me a great night and invited me back. I felt with all my heart that he meant it.

The people working at the Applebees where I had my dinner truly lived the spirit of making it a neighborhood grill and bar.

Cafe-Shaped Business, Again

That’s how I first got to know Carolyn. That’s why I like buying comics from Mick. I think the purpose of us all figuring out blogging, figuring out twitter, accepting friendships in Facebook relates to this notion. I think the idea of putting a social network around our conferences so that you know the people before you get there is part of it.

We like to feel known. We like to feel wanted. We like to feel like we belong to something. It’s part of being human. And that’s where it comes back to you.

You are Important to Me

I try in many ways to make this obvious. I try to show you by speaking with you, by commenting back when I can, by responding to your messages and reading and commenting on your blogs, when I can. I friend you on the various services, and in general I connect.

To me, that’s the crux of what we can all do with these various outlets. We can reinforce that we appreciate someone, that we want to connect, that we like interacting with them, that we appreciate their business.

Are you using social media in that way? Are you using your blog to connect and to reach out and to tell people that you appreciate them? Look at what John does at Simply Gourmet. He has a customer of the day blog post.

Will it Scale?

No. No, it will not scale. You cannot — I cannot — maintain a 1:1 relationship with every single person who interacts with me. But I will go down trying. I think the same is true of using these tools within an organization. Only, the beauty is this: inside an organization, you can spread the connections out a bit. Not everyone has to talk with Tony Hsieh at Zappos. They might want to, but they will find that there are plenty of other great folks there.

Ditto Comcast. Ditto Dell. Ditto every brand that’s trying to figure out these tools and this space.

It will not scale, but if you want the bottom line return on investment value, you’d best remember to remind people that they’re important to you. And that’s what these tools do best. Lucky us.

What we’re doing is changing how some of business communications are being done. And how? We’re looking for ways to rehumanize the web.

Sometimes, that’s not the goal. Sometimes, companies don’t need that service. As social media practitioners, make sure you’re thinking like this all the time. Ask yourself EVERY time whether this is the right fit. Though this isn’t surgery, we need to ask whether every diagnosis ends in an operation. Answer: no.

What’s the checklist for thinking about this? I’ve got my thoughts, but I want to hear yours. How about we think about that some more together? What do you think are the tell-tales for when a company might try social media and when not?

Photo credit DavidWatts1978, but I think he’s copying Janis Krums photo

Justin Levy came up with a crazy idea. He said, “I wonder if we can get on board the pirate ship out in front of Treasure Island.” I thought it was brilliant. We both immediately asked Twitter who knew whom and how we could get onto the ship. Justin is persistent and knows many people. He found Brandie quite quickly, and started the ball rolling.

What Comes Next

Brandie reached out internally into the MGM/Mirage team and found us enough connections to ask for help. I got connected to Christi Braginton, MGM MIRAGE’s Public Relations Director. It’s her obligation to preserve and protect this very expensive brands, and to enable the right kind of storytelling that will do the best justice to her properties. It’s a powerful responsibility, and if anyone reading has had the job of deciding what kinds of stories are important for a company, you know that evaluating these things is tough.

Christi didn’t owe us anything. Further, I ran into trouble connecting with her. I didn’t get her email message back to me and I fretted, so I begged Brandie to help me find my way to Christi again. My first phone call to Christi went poorly because it kept dropping out. So, given that all I’d done to make this an even harder decision, we didn’t expect them to say yes.

I finally spoke to Christi on the phone, and I told her what I wanted to do. She was very professional, very polite, and we had a great conversation about my goals, and how I wanted to use the photos. After a really great talk, Christi agreed, and here’s why:

Outreach and Relationships Have Legs

Having Brandie listening in the social sphere meant that she knew we were coming to town. She knew more than many of the other hotel and casinos. She was human-aware. Thereafter, Brandie was able to connect the rest of the organization. Everyone was given the challenge of making an exception for a blogger and his tiny 3-person company, and they did it.

And now, with the help of super-photographer Brian Solis, I want to show you just one of a few amazing photos shot from our very own personal pirate ship, the Treasure Island Song (which is the centerpiece of a really cool outdoors live show every night), here is one of our photos. Justin Levy, Colin Browning, and me, on board a pirate ship:

The Picture

VERY special thanks to Brandie, Christi Braginton, Brian Solis, and Justin Levy for the idea in the first place.