August 21, 2008 63 Comments

Creating Honest Content Marketing

Yellow Place Content marketing has an opportunity, should you decide to take it. Instead of going the route of old marketing, you who create content with the intent of building business relationships could try going the route of being honest, being genuine, being human. It’s no more difficult than the alternative: crafting something that’s dishonest but perhaps shinier. The thing is, if you start with honest and genuine, there’s a chance that people will give you extra points for it, in the longer run.

In a recent post, Seth Godin offers some storytelling suggestions, and the best of it is at the bottom of the post:

Start with the truth.

…

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August 20, 2008 89 Comments

How to Do More With Less Time

one man band You need better time management. You’re looking for time saving tips. Whether you’re in a huge organization, a team of 30, or a solo practitioner, it’s fairly guaranteed that you’ve got more work to do than you have time to complete it. Further, the effort it takes to keep up with people in social media and do it like a human being takes some time. In this post, I’ll talk about how to do more with less time. Part of this will be about the philosophy behind it, and the next part will be about the tools. In a subsequent post, I’ll talk about my social media workflow.

How to Do More With Less Time

I’m finding that there are two keys: have a simple system, and automate everything you can.…

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August 17, 2008 13 Comments

Content Networks and Storefronts

content networks Back in May 2006, I wrote that content networks are the new blogs. With all kinds of great information out on the web, I posited that people would start needing aggregations of content. Though many of us on the web know how to roll our own collections of reading material, the general public doesn’t want to go through all the work. Content networks cover more than just blog networks, and there are a few other ways to slice the pie than just thinking about blogs as ad platforms. Here are some quick thoughts about content networks and storefronts.

Content Networks

On one side of the equation are content networks.…

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August 15, 2008 23 Comments

Consider a Marketing Funnel

Brian Carroll gave some interesting advice in an interview with Chris Coch at ITSMA. He talked about creating a marketing funnel, and how this differed from a sales funnel. In brief, his interview covered five points:

  1. Create a marketing funnel.
  2. Create a universal definition of a lead.
  3. Use the phone.
  4. Ask about goals—don’t sell.
  5. Define lead nurturing—and the right people to nurture.

The full interview is here.

If we think about how this applies to social media, it’s something we need to consider (somewhat) differently.

You might be blogging or podcasting for lead generation.…

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August 9, 2008 167 Comments

Write Your LinkedIn Profile for Your Future

Gradon Tripp I was speaking to one of the best upcoming tech bloggers the other day about LinkedIn, and how I view it. To me, LinkedIn isn’t a place to dump a snapshot of where you’ve been. It’s an opportunity to stay connected to people, and to demonstrate where you are now, and where you plan to go next. To that end, I’ve got a little advice for you to consider applying to your own profile.

Write Your LinkedIn Profile For Your Future

First Impressions

First, your headline matters. It’s what people see when they accept your invite, and it’s probably the fastest first impression one receives.…

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August 6, 2008 140 Comments

How Content Marketing Will Shake the Tree

money tree Content marketing, in my definition, is the ability to produce useful and entertaining information that is worthwhile on its own, but that might also be useful towards a sale or subsequent action. For instance, a really good review of a product from a trusted source is content marketing. Every time Paisano writes about an amazing piece of software that he loves, it’s a kind of content marketing that I’d call reputation- or authority-based content marketing (meaning, maybe he’ll get consulting work based on someone feeling he’s a thought leader).

Before I go further, I should say that there are variations on the theme.…

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August 6, 2008 65 Comments

Remember Blogging and Podcasting

cobwebs Some days, it feels like more and more people have abandoned their regular blogs and podcasts and have run off to tools like Twitter and Friendfeed. I just stopped by a friend’s blog, worried that I had a bad RSS subscription, only to discover that he hadn’t blogged since June. Another of my friends only blogs Twitter links now. What happened? Why are all the bloggers and podcasters going to Twitter or Seesmic or other temporal moment-in-time platforms?

One reason is that products like Twitter and Seesmic and uStream.tv all give us even faster, simpler conversations. We don’t have to synthesize information, compose a position, and build a post.…

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August 6, 2008 185 Comments

What I Want PR and Marketing Professionals To Know

business crowd Since quite a number of people who swing by my blog are either in marketing or public relations, I wanted to address you specifically for a moment. I’m writing to you as part of this new version of media, one blogger not paid to blog, not working for a newspaper or magazine outlet, not especially beholden to the traditions that have come before. I’m writing to you as a human being who likes people, community, innovation, and business, not to mention art, creativity, play, and many other things. I want to tell you a few things for you to consider.


  1. Social media isn’t that scary, but it is different than what you’ve been doing.

    2. …

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August 1, 2008 48 Comments

How to Reach and Influence Prospects

information flowThis was requested by GirlPie

We talk about how social media like blogs and podcasts and social networks will help us grow our business, and yet, there are several ways in which we’re hampered. Some of our customers won’t provide testimonials. Others will take a while to actually execute a project. Still others have stumbled onto your site, and it’s up to you to keep them. Let’s talk about these prospects, first.

Who Are Your Prospects?

There are, of course, tons of ways to think about who your potential customers might be. David Meerman Scott talks often about buyer personas as a way to better understand who you’re hoping to reach.…

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July 30, 2008 172 Comments

How to Create Business From a Blog

lemonade stand This post was a request from Eric.

How to Create Business from a Blog

First, let’s agree that there are many ways to create business from a blog. I’ll cover a handful to start. You’re very welcome to share more advice and ideas in the comments section.

Straightforward Sales

Blogs are a wonderful piece of software to use as a home base for several kinds of website projects. For example, I believe Chris Pearson used a WordPress blog to build his DIYThemes.com site. There, he’s selling a beautiful theme called Thesis for $87. That’s one way to create business from a blog: a simple sales platform.…

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