Following is the email I sent (sans the names and companies, plus some spelling fixes).

Wanted to give you a brief recap of what we have seen to be successful with running events online.

1. Find Your Audience Online
This is basic and practical I know, but many companies don't really get a good lay of the land far enough in front of the event to be successful. The idea is NOT to be a total new comer to the conversation and expect people to ride in and support the effort.

Part of this effort should be around ad support and potential sponsorships in those key communities months before the event.

As part of monitoring the online audience, look for themes that arise as part of the conversation. This gives you content fodder for mini-events (#3 below).

So getting some brand visibility is key. The visibility needs to be focused on the influencers.

2. Set Up Your Online Presence
Social media is fueled by reciprocation, be it tagging, friending, commenting or viral applications. But, there's got to be some place for people to see who you are what you're doing. Options (among others) could be a blog or microsite, Facebook group or page. Somewhere that gives you the ability to post content, notices and updates about upcoming events.

3. Create Mini-Events
Trying to get large audiences online is dependent on either: (a) celebrity draw, or (b) unique, interesting and relevant content. In front of the event itself create mini-events such as online chats using UStream or Kyte player. So you can take some people involved with the main show and start creating content and events that would be of interest to your crowd. During these mini-events your always throwing messaging forward to the main event.

4. Cause Marketing
This one has potential to work extremely well. Through cause marketing you can tie the event to a charitable cause. You can leverage the non-profit network to promote the event, and you can do something around say attendance numbers. So for each online viewer we will donate $1 up to 100,000 dollars. Obviously this costs money, and we only recommend this strategy if the organization itself is building a sustainable online community. With cause marketing you're driving lots of visibility and traffic and if the idea is to sustain a community beyond the event then it's an effective and comparatively inexpesnive way of doing it.

5. Main Event
In the online world, we have found promoting an event by communications outreach too far in advance is a waste of time. For exposure use brand advertising or site sponsorships as mentioned in point #1 above. For the event itself use the mini-events as a way to keep people interested then do your outreach online max four days in advance. Have something interesting and exciting to talk about for the outreach (see point #6 below) is critical.

6. Post Main Event
Another great tactic we have used is a post-event community program. That is a live call or online chat after the event where people who just watched the telecast can then get on and talk about it. This gives great reason to do outreach: "Don't forget to tune into the Telecast at 9 p.m., and then join in the Live Chat/Audioconference/Blog Radio Show with XXX immediately after."

7. Create Calendar Items that Can Go Viral
Calendaring for events is one of the main reasons we like Facebook. Events are one of the most viral applications in Facebook. So if I'm interested in the event, I'll click on attending the event, and all of my contacts will see: "James is attending the XXX event at 9 p.m. on Thursday". So if my circle of friends on Facebook are also passionate about the topic, they now see it.

Now, one point not raised is e-mail. This discussion was based on the assumption the client didn't have an active email list.

BTW, most people stumble and fail miserably at Step 1, never giving the following six steps a chance.

This goes back to the root of any social media program. LISTEN first and learn what your group is thinking, what motivates them, where they spend their time and then and only then can an organization plan its engagement strategy.

The role Craig is talking about is going from founder and growing Craigslist, to being the public face of the company, working with the media and being part of a team of customer service reps.

I personally find this role fascinating and refreshing. What better way to serve your company than to be directly involved in helping solve customer issues or responding to customer inquiries.

Imagine the insights and knowledge he gains from personally interacting with the customer.

Which begs the question: Why do so many companies look at customer service as a necessary evil?

Answer: EGO

The people best suited to handle the vast array of customer service issues are not people manning phone banks in India. It's high-level management with a true and deep understanding of the products and service offerings. But these individuals would need to check their ego at the door to start manning the gates.

I do think there is an opportunity in elevating conversational customer reps, those individuals responsible for the Twitter and GetSatisfaction pages to be more senior as these individuals will most certainly become a public figure in the company.

What knowledge does your organization have that can add value to the conversation?

What assets can you produce that are exciting and engaging to the groups gathering around a subject?

Approaching Social Media with a traditional online marketing mindset which is drive toward some conversion can be dangerous.

Too many companies look at the power and leverage of social media and start asking what can they get out of it, rather than considering what they can do to add value to it.

Finding The Right Approach

The idea is find the common interest threads that run through your audiences and then create content that appeals more on an emotional level then a product or service level.

What does this mean? It means losing the marketing speak about features, benefits and services and going to the places where the consumers have passion and providing support and input on those passions. I wrote a recent article on the theory of engaging in consumer "passion threads" and believe tremendously in the idea of getting out of the market segmentation business and getting into the passion business.

This is essentially taking the idea of sponsorship and social causes and creating an authentic social media conversation around the passions your potential consumers are pursuing.

To create a viral campaign, one needs to understand the emotional triggers, cool factor and belief behind a project or program.

Make The Assumption That All Employees Are Involved In Social Media

Now ask yourself, would the company's employees voluntarily reach out to their own networks to promote a cause, campaign or event the company has put marketing efforts behind? If not, then you need to ask yourself: Why not? Even better ask your employees why not. Find out what could the company do to motivate them to tell their friends, share an application, attend an event or promote a cause?

Be Creative

Consumers want original, authentic and entertaining content to engage with. By understanding what their passions are you will be more likely to create content that inspires and invokes action. This means you might be producing content that is not only about your product or services, but connects with your customers on an emotional level.

It could be as simple as a great Facebook application, a podcast series, man-on-the-street videos, or sponsorship of local ride naked events. Be careful with that last idea.

1. Agencies providing online advertising for top brands have no clue how to target online influencers
   
2. Online advertising skill sets are vastly different from traditional MSM advertising
3. Ad agencies lack understanding of the social web, and still see online advertising as display or pay per click only
   

Point 1: Using Influencer ID Tools Will Deliver The Audience Targets

Peter Whoriskey of the WaPo had a great post, Brought to You by .... Anyone? on how major brands are slow to move their sponsorship budgets to the web. In the article there were some great quotes that struck me:

Penry Price, Google's vice president of North American advertising sales, noted that while it is relatively easy to do demographic targeting in other media, it is more difficult to get precise information about online audiences for a given Web site. Consider, for example, an advertiser trying to reach young women interested in fashion.

"We know they're online, and they may be online more than they are watching TV or reading magazines, but there's no easy way to find them right now," Price said. The process of adapting to online media is "a fundamental challenge for the entire advertising industry."

Okay, Penry, Google VP of ad sales for NA, is right in regards to audiences for a given website, but the fact is the technology does exist today to target young women in fashion. Penry's quote reinforces the point that ad agencies have no clue how to target online advertising to influencers. They are still stuck in the MSM mindset that the site owner will provide the audience stats. There are other means at getting at this data. It takes work, but it is doable.

Coming from the word of mouth marketing and reputation management field in online marketing, we are often shocked at how few online advertising strategies focus on influencer targeting. By leveraging subject matter influencer identifcation tools such as Collective Intellect and Umbria, we actually can narrow ad targets to those sites, blogs and forums where young women interested in fashion visit.

But, again, it's not just the fact of finding those blogs and running banner advertising and sponsorships. It's about creating content that will put your company right in front of those niche audiences.

New analysis tools are there to dive even further into creating deeply targeted campaigns that connect the common threads of your audience. What does this mean? It means that a company just doesn't target fashion blogs. What they need to do is find the common "tribal" thread that runs through that entire target audience of women and fashion.

So imagine the analysis about young women interested in fashion also tells you that these individuals have a high affinity for social causes, discussions on urban travel destinations and a love for Coldplay.

NOW YOU HAVE A CAMPAIGN PLATFORM, not a just a target demographic to push your advertising to.

With this kind of research and understanding of the audience, big advertisers can truly connect through the "passion threads" of their target consumer. By connecting on a deeper, more meaningful level big brands will see greater acceptance, success and visibility online.

What Does A "Passion Thread" Campaign Look Like?

Sticking to the young women and fashion target, imagine a campaign idea that promotes user generated content involvement spearheaded by a fashion icon, donates a certain dollar amount to a major social cause for every UGC upload and awards a grand prize of an all expense trip for four to New York City to see Coldplay live in concert.

So now the targets and messaging go beyond the fashion blogs and sites. You have a common passion thread in multiple niche markets (social causes, music) that gives you the ability to run sponsorship on sites outside of the fashion world and influence and connect with other passionate users.

"If you are responsible for a brand that has been around for 50 years, you clearly are more cautious," said Kelly Twohig, who manages digital investment for Starcom, a media agency. "You have less license to innovate."

I think what Kelly is really saying in regards to less license to innovate is that you just can't take uncalculated risks. So by doing the influencer research upfront and presenting the data about the passion threads, and building the campaign and online media buying targets to tie those passions together, one can signifcantly reduce the risk and increase the probability for success. That's what the client is looking for.

Point 2: New Skill Sets Needed

Another issue is the skill sets required in online advertising. It's not the same game as traditional main stream advertising. There needs to be integration with the interactive team, development of a community manager role, definition of an online conversion, split testing mechanisms in place to make adjustments on the fly, online tracking and sentiment analysis.

I've heard the horror stories from large branding agencies that dived into online advertising only to find out they struggle to understand how to bring all of the necessary tracking, split testing and data and sentiment analysis together to define what would make the campaign a success or not.

For one thing, the largest chunk of money spent for online ads is in search advertising, those little text ads that run beside search results. These ads do not directly benefit companies putting information online. Instead, the money from search advertising is reaped by the search engines -- Google, Yahoo and Microsoft -- that run them.

Listen, PPC search advertising is pretty easy. Yeah there's a science to it and it takes time and attention, but the goal of any brand advertising is to increase awareness and positive sentiment about a brand. So by default keyword PPC advertising is just one of many tools, but it stil dominates the majority of the budget.

Point 3: Embracing the Social Web. Beyond Banner and PPC Advertising

In the WaPo article, Rob Wrubel, chief executive of the online ad company that works for University of Phoenix, the nation's leading buyer of online sponsorship states that he:

...wants to encourage faculty members to have blogs so that when a person searches on a given subject, the results might lead them to the University of Phoenix. He speculates that the company could produce reality-TV "webisodes" involving people going back to school -- a way to find and engage the target audience.

Bingo. Rob has the vision for what is next and what will drive immersion for online branding. I've been saying this for a while, that the most effective online branding tool for companies would be to have their employees actively engaged and involved in social media.

The employee base is the most valuable and underutilized tool in the marketing shed. The more the employees get involved in the medium the more connections there are to spread the word about the organization or campaign. Not to mention the more insights the employees can deliver to the marketing team. I've posted my position about companies embracing employees engaging in social media on the Endless Wormhole blog.

The next wave is about understanding the common threads of your audience and creating content that is relevant and important to them. Brands need to start thinking of themselves as content publishers and looking at ways to increase there social web footprints through employee participation in social media sites, blogs, podcasts, online customer support, events, etc. It's all there, waiting for the taking.

Anne Mitchell at Internet Patrol pulls Vonage's blog comment spamming punk card.

So yet again another company that can't resist the urge to go into blog comments without a thoughtful and authentic approach. Comment spamming is considered pure vile, so building on my "Resist The Temptation of Astroturfing Post", I'd like to offer some very straight forward ways to avoid this kind of mess that Mr. Kariolis has gotten Vonage into.

As you can see in Anne's links she points out Mr. Kariolis posted the exact same comments on Internet Patrol and DownloadSquad.

Mr. Kariolis Astroturf Trail:

1. Posting the Same Comment on Several Blogs. By definition and common sense, that's comment spamming.
2. No Link in Comment Name. When leaving the comment on Internet Patrol, Mr. Kariolis did not provide any link indentifying him with a company, blog, etc. Most comments allow you to put in your name, and then ask for an associated URL. If you don't have a blog or company website then link to your LinkedIn profile.
3. Disclosure. No where in his comments does he disclose that he is working for Vonage and can be a resource on this subject.
4. Newbie. Okay, here's the deal. Bloggers know who their regular commenters are. They know them intimately, and when someone new posts, like Mr. Kariolis and is clearly posting URLs in the comment to drive traffic to their own site - it's no brainer red flag for comment spam. Case in point, if you look at Mr. Kariolis' post on DownloadSquad you will see that the link from his name goes to his profile. He posted his comment on May 7th and look at what day he became a member:

Three Simple Ways to Be Transparent and Authentic and Avoid Astroturfing

1. Provide Full Disclosure in the Comment. Right up front Mr. Kariolis should state that he works for Vonage. This takes the edge off and let's you be transparent about what you're trying to communicate.
2. Contact the Blogger Directly Via Email Rather Than Leave a Comment Post. Mr. Kariolis could have emailed Anne directly stating clearly that he is with Vonage and appreciates her post, and provide a response. In the email state clearly that he is not a regular commenter, but does have a point of view on the story that he would like Anne to consider. Then it's up to Anne to update to her post with new insights, or she may even ask Mr. Kariolis to post his views in the comments area but to clearly call out that he is representing views from Vonage.
3. Be a Participant Before Hand. This takes planning, time and dedication. So if Vonage is serious about engaging in the online conversation about VOIP, they should have individuals that are active in the conversational community on an ongoing basis, so when an opportunity to discuss a competitor's news arises, they are not setting up new profiles on the same day they are commenting on it.

Embracing a consumer trend before the government demands it. Now that's the entrepreneurial spirit that Marc German, CEO of Spicy Pickle embraced when he paid to have an independent company provide a nutritional analysis of 30 of his top selling dishes.

It's a smart move not only from a regulatory perspective (many cities are now passing laws requiring chain restaurants to post nutritional information), but simply from a customer service and marketing approach.

As our level of awareness about the connection between our diet and our health becomes more ingrained, we begin consciously seeking healthy choices about what we eat.

More, More, More
The more information we have, the more active the conversation will be and consequently the more involved consumers become in embracing a brand.

So more is better in the food industry, because what the mind doesn't know it creates and it's more than likely to create a conspiracy theory than it is to create a reasonable discussion.

Because I love this customer-centrist approach so much, I'm offering some tips for Spicy Pickle to really take the lead and extend this customer centric approach online.

Three Simple Conversational Tactics

1. Become an active participate in Yelp. Spicy Pickle can go through the Yelp for Business Owners process to create a more robust and informational rich experience for Yelp visitors. By being a Yelp sponsor Spicy Pickle can enhance its business page on Yelp with a slide-show, a personalized message from Marc Geman, a featured favorite review and timely business news and announcements.

2. Create a video blog with Kevin Morrison, Chief Culinary Officer to show how each sandwich is made and discuss the nutritional values. Giving people insights to the kitchen is a great way to promote Spicy Pickle's commitment to quality and nutrition.

3. Set up a contest for customers to submit a healthy sandwich to add to the menu. This is a great opportunity for Foodies to get active in the process. Leveraging the Build Your Own option, really come through on the promise of "Our kitchen is your culinary playground".

Note to Spicy Pickle: Because we like you so much, we've gone ahead and secured the Twitter URL: http://www.twitter.com/spicypickle for you. We're not squatting on it, we'll just hand it over when you're ready.

Source CNN: Would you eat a 2,900-calorie cheese fries?

Following are recommendations for the best sites for Creative Commons blog photos and another just awesome image site. The link provided will take you to Wikipedia to further explain the different levels of Creative Commons licenses. The key piece to remember is to always provide a photo credit and link below.

1. Flickr. By far the largest resource for photos. Note: make sure you use the advanced search options and select the "Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content "
2. EveryStockPhoto. This is a license-specific photo search engine.
3. Pixdaus. By far I think the most interesting of the three, but not reviewed for licensed content. I've linked to Pixdaus and to the user profile that has uploaded the photo. When using Pixdaus be sure to avoid photos with copyrights on them.
   

"Dubai" posted at Pixdaus by Jorge

"They Are Here" posted at Pixdaus by Luke

Marshall Kirkpatrick of RWW posted Five Wrong Ways to Pitch RWW and One Great Way . The list of don'ts:

• Email the wrong email address
• Phone calls
• Twitter, espcially DM
• Facebook
• IM

Now that you know, don't do it. But let me call attention to the one DO:

• RSS Feeds

"PR people, please send us the RSS feeds of your clients' blogs and news releases"

Oh baby, how we love it when our ideas and concepts get affirmation like this, especially from someone like Marshall. I'm not going to go into the past two years of actively prophesying this approach, but instead focus on:

1. What a great RSS feed management program looks like and....
2. Why corporate communications teams and public relations agencies need to invest in a robust RSS system.
   

Many communications and PR professionals struggle to understand RSS feeds. Most media rooms are absent of RSS feeds, and other tools that offer online media rooms are lacking any RSS managementso the media room itself gets one RSS feed.

We've worked with a few PR firms on an active client strategy for RSS feeds. So the what this looks like is easy:

What you see on Catapult PR/IR Client RSS Feed Page are a list of client RSS feeds the agency actively and independently manages on behalf of the client. So the agency avoids the technology void of working with its clients web team to get an RSS feed on the company's news room, and more importantly trying to get someone to actively update the feed.

Why a Robust RSS Platform?

Because PR needs to move at the speed of conversational requirements.

Think about what RWW is asking for. A direct line of communication to all content updates from your client. They want to track it, see what activity is coming out of the organization, and probably, from my perspective to see if you have any new media communications competency at all.

The sign at the door reads: No Shirts, No Shoes, No RSS Feed, No Coverage.

Now, if PR and communications are reading this there is a rush for an RSS feed on the media room. But that just won't do. How about a RSS feed dedicated just for RWW, giving you the ability to directly update and communicate with the RWW team about your products, updates and other pertinent announcements.

Any good PR person knows that mass outreach tactics (press releases, form emails) don't work. You better know what the journalist is writing, blogging or podcasting about and be able to tie your story into the trends and readerships they are addressing. So a single RSS feed that is giving mass updates is a step in the right directlon, but take it one step further.

Set up a RWW RSS feed, create a custom video to embed in the feed and have your spokesperson send a personal message with what they are trying to achieve with RWW coverage.

Of course to set up that RSS feed, you'll need to be able to set up and manage your own RSS feeds: Post Zinger

James Clark - Blog | Twitter | FriendFeed | LinkedIn | Facebook | Digg | DandyId
Jason Cormier - Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook
Jennier Eubanks - LinkedIn | Facebook
Ben Castelli - Blog | Twitter | Facebook
Ingrid Getzan - Blog | Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook
Stepan Mazurov - Twitter | FriendFeed | LinkedIn | Facebook | Digg | Pownce | DandyId
Emma Sefton - Twitter | FriendFeed | LinkedIn | Facebook | Digg
Wendy Ricci - Twitter | FriendFeed | LinkedIn | Facebook

Look us up, we love to talk to all our readers. We will keep this post updated until we get our own little profiles here at CTC.

UPDATE 7/25/08 - We grew! Added new family members and added a few services for others.

Uh, yeah! I'm not shocked at all by the recent report from Pollara that garnered data stating:

"Of more than 1,100 adults polled in December, nearly 80% said they were very or somewhat more likely to consider buying products recommended by real-world friends and family, while only 23% reported being very or somewhat likely to consider a product pushed by "well-known bloggers."

Marc Macalua, had a great post referencing this study and how prevalent WOMM initiatives laser focus on A-List bloggers, forum veterans and senior Diggers to spread the message.

It's a strategy that if done right and the content is compelling, the story had a differentiation edge, there's good emotional content and it's simple to understand - you've got something that can go viral. So that equates to about 1% of all the stories out there that WOMM agencies are trying to work with.

Litmus Test

The true litmus test for an organization is to see if it's employees believe in the product, service or program enough to tell their "real-world" friends - many of which by the way they are connected to, and communicate with via social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace.

This of course would require that your employees are maintaining social media profiles, but even more importantly, would require that your employees are proud enough of the company, their role in the company and its achievements to tell their friends and family.

Swallow Your Pride And Do The Following:

1. Ask your employees if they would be willing to discuss your company's product with their friends and family on their social networking sites.
2. Find out how many of them actually do it.
3. If people are not willing to do it, ask them why.

The answers might just be the solution to the problems that are plaguing your organization.

A few posts back, I did a video post on Social Media Starting Points, where I recommend that individuals start participating in social media via LinkedIn. The reason as I stated in that post:

"Because on LinkedIn you can quickly connect with individuals you have had personal relationships with through previous employers, universities, groups, etc. It's human nature to be more comfortable around the people we already know."

With the adoption of aggregation services like FriendFeed where in one place we can now see blog posts, family photos, articles they liked, restaurants they loved and music they are listening to - it's becoming easier for us to maintain communications and stay up to date with what our "real-world" friends are doing out there in the wild and wacky world.

More of a Reason to Encourage Social Media

So this report that states real world friends and family are more influential to purchasing decisions only strengthens the case for companies to actively support and encourage it's employees to participate in social media programs.

We go through and get them set up with mics, recording software, etc. But inevitably, what we find is the rooms, or spaces, they are attempting to record in have a terrible echo. We deal with the same problems in our own offices here.

I just came across a great video by Jake Ludington showing how to put together a portable recording booth for under $42.00.

It's Friday, so this is going to be a good weekend project as I already have the Snowball USB mic.

When's the last time you ordered a nice satisfying steak from a fast food restaurant?

I'm looking forward to the day when planning a social media strategy is not the last agenda on the marketing team's strategic initiative.

If there is ever a marketing program that needs time to marinade before it gets thrown on to a hot grill it is social media.

Why? Because social media is not made to operate like a fast food joint, where everything can be pre-cooked and ready to go.

It takes time to plan, prepare and present. Understand that social media networks are not there to serve you, you are there to feed them. Big difference in how one needs to approach a social media effort.

Immersion, Feedback, Acceptance is the marinade that goes on the steak. Go get yourself all slathered up in the conversations by getting involved in the discussions where you want to be recognized.

Your biggest challenge will be acceptance - because that takes time, energy, effort and authenticity.

For starters, there are lists abounding out there about how to launch a social media program. I particularly like Chris Brogan's post. Social Media and Social Networking Starting Points.

Inspired by: Seth Godin

Why LinkedIn?

Because on LinkedIn you can quickly connect with individuals you have had personal relationships with through previous employers, universities, groups, etc. It's human nature to be more comfortable around the people we already know. So start with LinkedIn and see what your contacts are doing online and then choose what to dive into next.

17:50 - Roll Your Own discussion and Jason's Tupac sighting in his toast.

20:00 - Kris' FeedBuffet idea to track feeds in real time, James' view of the world through his Google Reader, and Jason talking about SEO being dead - RSS or Die: The Oncoming Slaughter of the Corporate Website.

Music provided by JT Presents: The Lovely and Talented, song Dog