Last week I was in a meeting with people from a number of different organizations all discussing a common issue. I was the "social media" guy at the table with a few traditional marketers with various specialties along with non-marketing people working through an particular situation. During the course of the discussion I realized again how stark the difference is between the way I approach marketing and promotion compared to some more traditional marketers. I attribute this difference in thinking to people like Seth Godin, Chris Anderson, and Robert Scoble...all of whom have provided books and blog that have formed the way I approach the new technology for marketing purposes. I took some notes of my thoughts at the time and here's what came out...

It's not that television as we've known it doesn't matter. It's just that it doesn't matter as much as it used to.

It's not that newspapers as we've known them don't matter. It's just that they don't matter as much as they used to.

It's not that radio as we've known it doesn't matter. It's just that it doesn't matter as much as it used to.

It's not that marketing, advertising, public relations, and any other form of promotion as we've known it doesn't matter. It's just that it doesn't matter as much as it used to.

It's not that the way you've been marketing isn't effective anymore. It's just that it's less effective today than it was yesterday and it will be increasingly less effective tomorrow, next week, and next year.

The lesson here isn't that you have to make a total switch to social media marketing today. The lesson is that you need to be moving toward social media marketing and as you do, you can't think about it the same way as the old way you did marketing.

Tomorrow morning from 9:30-11:00 CST will be the social media micro conference for marketing and communication professionals. There were five free spots available for non profits but those have been taken. There are still paid slots available. We'll talk social media marketing strategy and tactics with some specific things I do when I'm working on a social media marketing campaign.

Up to 10 people from your organization can listen online or on the phone and an MP3 recording of the entire micro conference will be provided after the event is over.

If you're ready to join us you'll need to go here or if you want a little more information, check out the full description of the event.

Scott Schwertly and the folks at Ethos3 are presentation consultants and designers. Didn't know such a thing existed? I didn't either until recently, but once you see a really good presentation that tells a story like they do, it pretty much messes up every other presentation you'll ever see...and that's a good thing. This video is basically a presentation about how to do good presentations without feeling like a presentation. Watch the video and you'll see what I mean.

Link for "The Voicemail" video for the feed readers.

PresenTired: "The Voicemail" from Scott Schwertly on Vimeo.

[Full disclosure: Ethos3 is a new MicroExplosion Media client]

John W. Ellis is our first batter to step to the plate for social media batting practice. He has some great insight on what he would do with the fly fisherman example. You can see the full post on John's blog or read most of it below...

First up: How would a weekend fly fishing guide and instructor use social media to grow his business?

Here are 3 quick tips for this small business:

1. ëFly Fishing Tipsí Blog
   Creating an instructional blog is a great way to target specific customers. Donít worry about revealing too much. You want to do just the opposite. This is a great opportunity to show your expertise in fly fishing.As an instructional blog, it has a clear focus. Many blogs are all over the place and have no consistency. Creating a clear, precise blog is a great way to target customers. Remember itís not the quantity of visitors you want, itís the quality. Five strong customers are better then 100 5-second visits.
2. Start the conversation on Twitter
   Start following friends, colleagues and competitors. Now of course, tweeting with friends will not expand the bank account. However, it does start the conversation. By discussing ìfly fishingî the conversation expands beyond friends. After friends, begin following local lodging companies, restaurants, and local organizations. Donít just follow. Join the conversation. Make friends. Make partnerships.Twitter creates followers, it creates buzz, and it eventually creates customers. It all begins with one sentence: ìWhat are you doing?î
3. Flickr Photo Contest
   Ask for photographs of favorite fly-fishing spots. Then, give away free instructions to the best entries.After itís over, be sure to give something to all entries. Even if itís small, everyone loves winning.Flickr requires minimal time and investment. Plus, it has great photo sharing tools that allow you to integrate those photos into your blog and more importantly it allows ìcustomersî to share those photos.

   Other tips, outside of Social Media:

   • Create packages with local lodging companies
   • Place brochures in state border Welcome Centers
   • Find ways to give away lessons. A small gesture will lead to great word of mouth
   • Email is a great way to talk with customers. Look for ways to collect email addresses.

John, thanks for the insight here. Very good thoughts. Ok, who's ready to bat next?

I loved playing baseball as a kid and especially enjoyed batting practice. The great thing about batting practice was that it allowed you to work on your hitting outside of the pressure of the game. I'd like to invite you to some social media batting practice with me and here's how it will work...

I believe there are no businesses or organizations that cannot benefit from social media marketing but for probably many reasons, social media marketing is still considered something that only quick, young, startup types of companies can utilize.

Social media batting practice will be our way to show that social media marketing can, in fact, work for any type of business or organization and this is where we'll share those ideas. My hope is that this will be a way to stretch those of us interested in social media marketing (without the pressure of the pitch from a prospective client) and hopefully prove its worth to some doubters or skeptics. So...we need pitchers and batters (and those who want to do both.)

Pitchers will throw out an idea of a type of business or organization we might not think could or would use social media and it's up to a batter to give some specific ideas of how that business would implement social media marketing. The batter can think about it like being temporarily hired as a social media marketer for the business or work. The only request for the "pitches" here is that they be real or at least plausible. For instance, a pitcher might say, "how would a gunsmith use social media? Or maybe, "how would a dog grooming store use social media marketing?" That's more the spirit we're going for here...businesses that people might think could benefit from social media marketing.

If you want to be a pitcher or batter just let me know in the comments or shoot me an email (Bill@MicroExplosion.com) All pitchers and batters will get credit and links to their respective blogs or websites. The pitchers really have the easy job here...just throw out a type of business and give some parameters so the batter can give a good answer. The batters are the ones who have to come up with a couple of things they could do and give some specifics. It's not enough to say, "Start a Facebook group , create a blog, and post some video to YouTube. There, have a nice day." That won't cut it. You need to be more specific. This post might help if you need it.

Who knows how long we'll play. Maybe through the summer. Let's see how it goes. So, who's ready for some batting practice? Here's a pitch if someone wants to be the batter (email me if you do and I'll have a full post with your response):

How would a weekend fly fishing guide and instructor use social media to grow his business? Assume the guide works a job during the week but would love to be a fly fishing guide full time if possible. He knows the best spots for good fishing in the region and is a great instructor as well. He's only booked one weekend a month right now, but wants to be full every weekend. What should he do?

By the way...I totally made that up but that's the kind of information a pitcher will need to provide for a batter.

Last week I announced the 90 minute social media marketing micro conference I'm hosting a week from today with twenty five spots for businesses and and five free spots for non profits. All the non profit spot are full as of a few days ago (and we've had to turn a few away too...we'll get them next time around) but there is still space for paying attendees. Remember...the fee covers you and up to ten people from your company to participate and you'll get an MP3 recording of the micro conference when it's over. If you're ready to participate go ahead and get in on it.

I'm going to admit this up front: I have a few issues when it comes to advertising agencies and marketing firms. I don't think they're all bad, but I believe there are a lot of new options (which are better for the client) for people who need the same types of services that ad agencies and marketing firms offer.

For instance, you can find really good graphic design, web design, or web development services from a multitude of companies that have no more than two people in the company. More than likely, if you go with one of those you'll pay about half of what the agency will charge you because you're not covering a large overhead. I once worked for a company whose annual rent was more than what most of the people who worked there made in a year. It wasn't that the work was that much better or that the technology was that much more expensive or that the staff was that much more talented. It was just that the company had a lot of overhead to cover and that was passed along to the clients. Again, not all the larger places are bad, but the best big ones are specialists, not generalists.

Here are three things to think about that may lead you to fire your current marketing firm or advertising agency:

If your agency doesn't communicate with you, fire them. If you don't recall the last time you heard from them, how are they supposed to know what your needs are? Even worse, I know of a company today that has an agency on retainer but doesn't use their services. Their agency never contacts them and doesn't have a clue about what's going on with them, but they keep on collecting the fees every month. I think it's dumb for the company to keep paying the retainer and very bad business for the agency to keep collecting without doing a thing for their client.

If your agency isn't a learning organization, fire them. The world of marketing is changing too fast these days. If they're not keeping up then they're selling you outdated (and less useful) services. Many agencies did something well many years ago and are still trying to sell those same services. A lot of them have come to the cold realization that the old way doesn't work anymore and are scrambling to figure out what to do next. I can only imagine how confused their clients are.

If your agency hasn't given you a new idea in the last six months, fire them. This goes along with the learning organization point above but takes it a step further by actually expecting the agency to be leading in some way. It's not enough to be learning, you have to be applying the new learning as well. If your agency is still making the same recommendations you got from them a year ago, they're probably not learning and they're certainly not leading.

My cell phone died on me this week. I thought about getting this one...but figure I don't need quite this many functions.

Check out the Samsung Turbo 3000 if you're a feed reader.

Ok, quick tip if this applies to you...if you use Twitter, be a person. Don't be a nameless, faceless brand. I'm seeing more of these lately and I've determined I'm not following them back. I know there's someone behind the scenes, but why not introduce yourself? I can't have a relationship with a brand. I can have a relationship with a person.

The same thing goes for social networking sites. Don't created a Facebook profile for your organization or product without making it clear to everyone that there's a person behind it. We know he or she is there...so why hide behind the logo?

Social media and social networking tools rely on personal interaction. This may be hard for some companies or counterintuitive to others, but at some point you're going to have to get out from behind the brand to actually say, "Hi, I'm Jim. I'm the guy who handles this for the company." If you're not willing to do that, you can't play in the sandbox...and not because I say so...but because you're the one who put the bucket over your head. How's anyone supposed to talk to you with that bucket on your head? Take it off and start talking.

The latest episode of The New Mediology is now available in iTunes or you can listen online.

In this episode, Nathan and I discussed the online advertising methods we have seen work since on the last podcast we talked about banner ads as something that doesn't usually work online. If you listen to the podcast (or have listened to previous podcasts) be sure to leave a message on the comment line at 1-800-881-6059.

Over the weekend I visited the local Home Depot to pick up a few things. As I pulled into the parking lot I passed the "garden center" and noticed rows and rows of flowers just waiting to be purchased and planted in the front yards of homes all around the community. You would think that's a good thing, right? Not me. I was mad. Here's why...

Home Depot is pulling out all the stops to sell people the flowers they need for their yards. That's fine except for one little thing...they're selling the flowers a full month before they're really supposed to be planted. Most folks who plant flowers in this area recommend you wait until after May 15. That's an entire month from now, but Home Depot is more than willing to sell you flowers a month early and is doing a great job of creating a really attractive display to convince that it's just fine to get them now. You should see the spread of flowers they have out there. It's beautiful. It looks like exactly what I would love to have. It's also way too early to buy them. The likelihood they'll die between now and next month is pretty good. Tonight it's going to get down to almost freezing...so case in point!

Here's why I'm talking about this. Some marketing firms and ad agencies will sell you flowers a month early. They'll be happy to provide something you want without telling you how and when to use it. It may be good for business, but it's bad for customers. I understand there's a level of responsibility on the part of consumers, but when you expect someone to know more about a topic than you do, you also put some trust in their hands. That's why I'm appalled that Home Depot is selling flowers a month early as if to say, "Go ahead, get you flowers early. The smart people won't be doing that, but you ignorant folks can give us your cash now." I'm equally appalled at marketers who sell services to people when they don't need them.

The bottom line is this: just because it's available doesn't mean it's the right time. Just because they'll sell it to you doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. Just because you bought it doesn't mean you should use it. That would just be doubling the number of wrong things you're doing.

In two weeks I'll be leading a micro conference especially for marketing, advertising, and public relations professionals. So, whether you work in a communications office, marketing staff, PR firm, or advertising agency, you qualify for this micro conference. The 90 minute micro conference will be on April 29 at 10:30am EST and will cover the following:

• Why new media marketing is worth a shift to your marketing strategies
• Growth statistics for new media technologies
• Explanation of the technology, the shift in online culture, and the shift in the way to communicate online
• How to think like a social media marketer
• The most effective strategy for social media marketing

Limited Space (but five spots are FREE)
Space will be limited to 30 companies/organizations. The price is $249 for the 90 minute conference but five of the thirty slots will be given away for free to non profits. If you work for a non profit or know of one that may benefit from the conference, pass this information along to them. All they need to do is send me an email stating who they are, what they do, and why they are interested in social media marketing.

Access For 10 People From Your Organization
Access to the micro conference will be available for listening online or on the phone. Participating businesses and organizations will be able to have up to 10 people from their company attend as well. That means if a couple people in one office want to gather around a phone or computer but someone else is a little less social...everyone can all listen from their respective locations. Or maybe one of the staff is traveling and will be driving all that morning. She can call in and access the entire conference from there.

Conference Recording Available to All Participants
The entire session will be recorded and emailed as an MP3 to the email address provided during the registration process...so even if someone from the staff is out sick that day or you just want it for future reference, you'll be able to pass it on to the rest of the staff after the conference is over.

Your Questions Answered
The reason for limiting the number of participants is that I want to be able to answer at least one question from each participating organization. Once you sign up send me a question (or several if you like) and I'll be sure to answer at least one during the course of the micro conference so I can answer something you specifically want addressed.

If you're ready participate click here or click the "add to cart" button below.

Saturday Night Live's "Surprise" sketch.

All bloggers want more traffic to their site. It doesn't matter if it's a professional blog or some random musings from your life, you want more traffic if you publish a public blog. Sure, you know about blogrolls and link exchanges, but do you ever link specifically to posts to bring some traffic to you blog? You can. Here's how.

Linking to posts (called trackbacks or pingbacks depending on what your blog tool calls them) is a way to show that you wrote a blog post specifically talking about a post on another blog. That referring link then shows up on the original blog either under the trackback area or in the comments. That referring link can then send people to your blog to see what you had to say on the topic.

For instance, if I wrote a post about how Seth Godin gives a good explanation on the types of people who use Firefox rather than Explorer, I would link to it as I've done here and grab the trackback link at the end of his post. That trackback link can then be inserted into a special trackback field within Wordpress (some blog tools can do this automatically...just check how your blog platform deals with these or try this). Then my post referring to Seth's post would show up on his blog.

Wordpress is especially generous to pingbacks. If you were to link to this post for instance (the permanent link) it would show up in the comments. Wordpress works like this for all users unless the blog's author has specifically turned the feature off.

The strategy here is that you add value to the conversation and get to bring people over to your blog to see what you've said. It's better than a comment because it shows you took some time to really respond to the blog post. People who read the comments will be more likely to click over to see what you said because they also recognize that you took the time to write it.

One final thought here...don't be a jerk. Don't trackback unless you have something valuable to add. There is such a thing as spam trackbacks and spam pingbacks and you don't want to be one of those. Just add something to the conversation and you'll be fine.

If you have a blog I hope you see it as a strategic marketing tool for your business or organization because it is. One thing you should be doing is blogging specific keywords and phrases that describe you and your business, products, or services. If you have a Google AdWord account you have already identified the keywords you want to be recognized for, so why not use those same keywords straegically in your blog post titles and throughout the posts themselves?

The stats I continue to see pop up after doing a little research suggest that 70% of online searchers prefer natural search results compared to paid search results like AdWords. That's why it's important to be found on the left-hand side of the Google search page more than the right-hand side. You get more than twice the traffic.

Here's how it can work...

Let's say I want to be discovered as a new media marketing or social media marketing expert in the Nashville area (which would be nice but I personally don't want to be too geographically fixed so I wouldn't necessarily use these specific combinations of keywords). I would probably do a steady stream of posts over the course of several months where I would use the words "social media" or "new media" and "Nashville" in the post titles and through the blog posts themselves. I would also look for variations on these keywords like "social media marketing" and "middle Tennessee" or "new media marketing" and "Nashville-area." I could even get more specific with phrases like "social media consulting" or "new media coaching" and then also tie that into the Nashville or middle Tennessee keywords.

As you can see there's a lot that can be done here and it's just the beginning. There are all kinds of alternative phrases I haven't even gotten into like digital marketing, online advertising, interactive media, interactive marketing, etc. I expect if you just took 15 minutes to focus on the keywords for your business you would come up with a nice, long list too. Once you get your list, identify the top ten most important ones so you know where to put the bulk of your energy.

One more thing to do is to really focusing on tagging your posts with the same keywords as you'll see I've done below with the same keywords that you use in your posts. Jeff, over at Mossy Creek Custom saw a great increase in traffic to his blog once he started tagging more specifically.

After a few weeks start searching the keywords to see if your posts are turning up. Also, check your stats and see if there are some specific keywords that seem to be sending a lot of people to your blog. You may be surprised

So, to recap, here are four things to do:

1. Identify your keywords. If you haven't identified your keywords with a Google AdWords account, take some time to create a list of all the phrases you would hope to be found under in a Google search. After this, pick out the top 10 that are most important and start with those.
2. Post strategically and regularly. If you post four times a week, maybe one of the four posts every week will be a strategic post with your selected keywords. You should plan to do this for a few months to get good coverage because it may take that long before you see it show up on Google depending on how competitive your particluar market is.
3. Tag you posts. Tag well. Tag often. Tag like you marketing life depends on it...ok, not that much, but you get the idea.
4. Measure. Check to see what's working and what isn't. You may have some surprisingly high performing keywords that you didn't expect. If so, you should consider blogging about them more often.

This is certainly off the beaten path of my normal blog posts but too funny not to share. My friend C.H. told me he realized this week that he's getting old and out of touch.

While listening to the local radio station a few days ago, C.H. heard a promotion for an upcoming concert and the announcer was making a really big deal about giving away "$48 tickets for Fifty Cent." This completely dumbfounded C.H. because he thought, "Why the heck would the radio station promote a giveaway for a concert yet charge the winner fifty cents to win the tickets? Can't they just give them away for 100% if the ticket value? Is there some kind of tax implication to the station for giving away the full value of the tickets? Is the radio station just so cheap that they'll pay the first $47.50 but not cover the remaining fifty cents? What a lame giveaway. Why can't the station come up with a measly fifty cents more?"

After really being perplexed by this strange radio promotion it finally dawned on him. The tickets aren't going to cost fifty cents. The tickets are for 50 Cent...the rapper. It's a 50 Cent concert. Guess the radio station's promotion isn't so bad after all, though maybe their phrasing was. Or maybe it was just lost in translation on a guy who's not quite as in touch as he thought. Whatever the case, I got a good laugh out of this.

Ok, so I know I used a Rhett and Link video a few weeks ago but I had to get this one in too. Enjoy!

The Facebook Song

I think the business of website development is going through a major shift. With the power of current blog platforms and the ease with which they can be used as a valid alternative to traditional websites, I believe small web shops are going to have to adapt and/or specialize in something else or their business is dead meat.

In the good old days (about four years ago) you could build a website from the bottom up if you were talented enough or you had to pay someone to build a website for you. Fact is, many of those sites amount to little more than what we see on blogs today, but it was the only way to really get a decent, well branded web presence. There were some do it yourself type of website tools with templates you could choose from, but by and large if you were serious about being online you didn't go that route.

That's not the case anymore. Blog platforms can be customized beautifully these days with a fraction of the development time and cost because the entire backend of the site is already done. That's a huge shift for the web design business because traditional shops (and I've worked for and with some) would have their own code set for building sites or they would start from scratch. Customers got charged like crazy for sites that would really be no big deal in this day and age. The worst part is not everyone knows this and some web shops are still selling their services like always.

All I'm saying here is that it's no longer necessary to look only to a web design firm to build your web presence. My friend Cory Miller began a venture a while back to start building on Wordpress and selling the designs so he can deliver an entire web presence on a platform he didn't have to build. You can check it out at iThemes.com and you'll see the designs are really sharp. Nathan Moore and the Anthology Creative crew did my blog on Wordpress and I love it. It's clean, simple, gives me everything I could want, and it's a full website that covers everything I need.

This web development shift is great for customers. They are generally better looking sites that are easy to manage and much cheaper than what some companies charge.

If this feels a little too doom and gloom for the web designers then you're not seeing the opportunities. I actually think the future is bright in the web design/development world if they adapt to the changes or become specialized. Here are three areas that seem wide open for growth:

• Blog Design Specialists: Blogs have emerged as a great platform for a web presence that meets the needs of what many people want when they think about getting a website. The web designers who are focused on providing a great web presence with a focus on ease of use, function, and beauty will do well. Their counterparts building sites the old way, however, will still be charging clients to use some bulky, proprietary stuff their company is married to.
• The Flash/Controlled Media Specialists: Some people want to control the entire online experience for users and Flash or some other controlled online media like that is always going to be a preference for those people. Blogs won't cut it in that regard and the specialists who can do this well will likely be in demand for a long time.
• The Big, Bad, Complex Website Specialist: There are some websites that are just too big and bad to warrant being built on a blog platform. You're not going to see Amazon.com or anything like that switching over to a blog so there will always be a need for the large and highly complex site specialists.

I should note if anyone is wondering...I don't build websites. I know enough HTML to get into trouble and my design skills are mediocre at best. This entire perspective is based on the opportunities for consumers and my observations about how the market is changing. It's as simple as this: the days of paying more than five or ten thousand dollars for a website are gone except in some select scenarios. In many cases you can get more than enough for what you need for under $1000. Just be aware of that next you want a website.

I admit that I'm not an SEO guy and and don't want to be. There are lots of specialists who know the ins and outs of how to get the most Google juice out of your website or blog and it's worth knowing where to go for that kind of help.

Eric Holter and the team at Newfangled Web Factory, located in the shadow of the University of North Carolina, (no kidding...they're right down the road from the campus) have put together a two part series on search engine optimization. The video below is the first of two they've done to help people understand how to do search engine optimization better. You can read more about Newfangled's two-part series on SEO here (part 1) and here (part 2).

How to do SEO