07 Jul 2006
B.L.’s March 29 post on 10 Reasons Your Company Shouldn’t Blog, is a litmus test for any company, or person seeking to enter the conversation through a blog. Of the Top 10 list, #8 and #2 are the knockout punches for many of the companies that have come to us seeking input on social media and starting blogs. #8 – It’s hard to build an audience. It takes time, effort and skillful promotion to build an audience for a blog. Once we get into explaining that you actually have to put yourself out there, post on other’s blogs, be unique and have a point, most people begin to shut down. You can see their brains churning and the idea of “more work” leaves them to abandon the dream and go back to the comfort zone of doing it the old way. #2 – It takes a lot of time. Researching…
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05 Jul 2006
Just a quick plug for David Leonhardt’s article in the New York Times today about using the new Google Trends functionality to begin predicting “what’s next.” I’ve been talking to people about companies like Umbria for several months now, all in the spirit of using tools that collect the kind of data that can help predict the future (as opposed to simply summarizing the past). Now, we are beginning to see this topic talked about more in main-stream news circles. If this isn’t the future of Marketing, I don’t know what is.
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04 Jul 2006
Having been in public relations for a number of years, we discussed three triggers: point, hook and illustration, needed to create a stimulating and engaging conversation. The illustration part being: tell a story from your personal experience. Audiences are much more receptive to a personal experience than a personal point of view. The Pew Internet and American Life Project, just released a study:Â Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet’s New Storytellers, which has very compelling market and demographic breakdowns on bloggers. The study cites that more than three-quarters of the bloggers (78%) say that a personal experience has inspired them to post. Bridging personal experiences with professional knowledge is a connecting strategy to bring reality and color to your blog posts. Brett Astor at The Radio Sage blog, did a great job of this with a post Ironman Lessons for Radio Advertising. You can see Brett took the personal experience of…
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