Supporters of Conan O'Brien have joined forces to (loosely) create Team COCO. This team has some major traction, and it's all because Conan O'Brien's core audience is a group of Facebooking, Youtubing, non-traditional TV watching 20-somethings like myself. What I find most interesting is that the online conversation, one large enough to effect a sea-change in the world of late-night, is being held almost entirely outside of the reach of Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno and NBC.

There's also an online store where you can buy a tshirt and print of this now well-known image. In case you're too broke and/or busy to buy a t-shirt and attend a rally, you can simply download and print out an image of Conan's hair and either wear or display it. He's also had tremendous celebrity support (catch this great video of Jimmy Kimmel on Leno).

Even google search appears to be on Team COCO.

So what?

Conan's ratings, which have consistently been lower than his CBS counterpart David Letterman, have been up dramatically this week. Last night he beat out Letterman's 1.0 rating with a 1.9, a number which represented Conan O'Brien's all-time high. And, regardless of all the negative press, NBC has enjoyed a huge increase in viewership for The Late Show with Conan O'Brien.

Does this mean NBC will reverse its decision? No. The timing and fate of both NBC shows remains undecided. But it is without a doubt that NBC, any other network shopping a Conan show, and Conan O'Brien himself will take this extremely vocal audience into account as they move forward with decisions. It's a tough debate with this group; you've got an audience who doesn't affect a traditional metric (live viewership) but still will take the time to speak in a collective voice loud enough to make headlines.

So if you've got a group who is going to talk, it's important prepare for their reaction. I'd venture to guess NBC had no clue the effect of their conversations regarding late night. It looks like it's had both positive and negative effect thus far. I'm interested in the outcome.

If you're not already using Digg, it's worth checking out to learn how it works. Even if you never become a regular Digg user, it's helpful to know what to do if some of your online content (or someone else's content that mentions or links to you) gets "Dugg," becomes popular, and sends a sudden spike of traffic your way.

I recently created a video tutorial called Digg Basics. If you're brand new to Digg, this 12-minute tutorial explains how Digg works and shows you how to register with Digg, how to Digg and get Dugg, and more.

Of course, there's much more to Digg -- and to all social media services (there are so many similar ones) -- than I could possibly fit into a short basic tutorial. So here are five tips to help you make the most out of Digg and avoid common pitfalls...

Journalist and good PR professionals know that great stories have three elements:

1. Differentiation
2. Emotion
3. Simplicity

Well TOMS Shoes knocks it out of the park in all three areas.

Founder Blake Mycoskie, who appeared on CBS's The Amazing Race ended up in Argentina where the local footwear and poverty inspired him to launch a TOMS Shoes.

So here's the story from TOMS Shoes website. Pay special attention to the mission - it captures all three of key elements of a great story.

"Inspired by a traditional Argentine shoe and challenged by the continent's poverty and health issues, I created TOMS with a singular mission: To make life more comfortable. TOMS accomplishes this through its unique shoe and my commitment to match every pair purchased with a donated pair to a child in need...no complicated formulas, it's simple...you buy a pair of TOMS and I give a pair to a child on your behalf."

I bought two pair, and recently received the following email from Shannon Douglas at TOMS Shoes

Dear TOMS Customer,

disclaimer: you will not when the rat race wearing TOMS.

I was one of 391 people included in the email distribution list.

Oh and by the way, I read about TOMS in Outside Magazine

Take a look at the shoes - Blake's right - they're simple. It's the story that sold me.

See, part of what I do is journalism, so consequently a lot of PR folks unthinkingly add me to their press release e-mail lists. I really, really don't like that. In fact, I routinely flag any unsolicited press release as spam. I strongly prefer to get news by feed, and I subscribe to lots of feeds on the beats I cover.

It's not that I'm closed to new sources. In fact, PR reps for prospective sources can always e-mail me to request permission to send me releases. If I think they're relevant enough, I'll first ask for their feed URL. If they don't offer a feed, then I'll let them send me e-mail only if I think their content truly is on-topic for me.

Not surprisingly, several PR pros were alarmed that I'd flag their precious releases as spam. Tough! It's my inbox, and have no trouble finding good leads from diverse sources.

On Saturday, PR blogger Barbara Iverson picked up on my theme and encouraged PR pros to offer feeds. I appreciate her support in that community.

In the comments to her post, I asked Iverson whether she thinks most PR folks know how to set up a feed, or know enough to ask their tech people to set it up for them. From her reply, I gather that most PR pros probably don't even know what feeds are, let alone how to set them up.

Then she responded with a good question of her own: "Do you think most reporters know about feeds or how to ask for them?"

Here's what I told her, plus more reasons why organizations should publish their news via feed...

"Effective blogging is about joining an existing conversation, rather than interrupting your audiences' conversation. What that means in practicality is that a corporate blogger does not pitch their articles to other bloggers, or ask for links directly. Rather a blogger should look for opportunities to join in an existing conversation. Make comments with relevant statements on another blog or write a follow up post on your own blog."

So true, so true.

I think that's the core of what's irked most people about traditional marketing for decades: It interrupts their conversations. It tries to foist messages (or, more accurately, "messaging" -- ugh) on them. It's attempted attention hijacking. It's like someone who shows up at a party, walks up to strangers, and blurts, "Enough about you, let's talk about me."

Way to go, John.

(Thanks to David Wilson for the tip.)

Moleskine notebooks aren't fancy. In fact, this brand's reputation hinges almost entirely on quality, and on a vocal, dedicated community of customer evangelists -- such as Merlin Mann of the popular productivity site 43 Folders.

Therefore, when sharply worded complaints about Moleskin's quality and service erupted on the 43 Folders Google Groups forum on Aug. 15, Modo & Modo (manufacturer of Moleskine notebooks) had a pretty big problem.

Apparently, some Moleskine notebooks started falling apart after just a few weeks or months of use. Some owners of these defective notebooks tried contacting Moleskine US, but got no response. Later, it turned out that Moleskin US is not the US distributor for this brand. The official US distributor is Kikkerland Design Inc. But in the meantime, these customers believed Moleskine was ignoring them. Not good.

Clued in by e-mails, Moleskine maker Modo & Modo began checking out the online complaints. On Aug. 30, the company posted a sincere apology on its blog. They offered an explanation of their late response: they're a small company, and in Italy everyone's on vacation in August -- not a great answer, but an honest one. They also offered clear instructions on how owners of defective notebooks could get their problem addressed.

Even smarter, Modo & Modo posted the full text of this statement onto the 43 Folders forum where the complaints arose. It's interesting to note that, despite earlier frustrations aired in that forum, all the responses to the company's apology were positive and supportive.

This story demonstrates the importance of three lessons for all organizations who understand how conversational media can help make or break your reputation...