Blah Blah Blah

I never used to be a believer in the adage that “Those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach.” I graduated with a degree in education, after all, and now part of my job is conducting client training in digital best practices.

I have officially Changed My Mind, and it’s all the so-called “experts” that led me to do so.

Look, I get it: blog post titles are good linkbait. People like simple, short lists of things they can do immediately. But today I counted no fewer than 50 articles in my Google Reader with headlines beginning with phrases like “3 Easy Steps” or “5 Habits” or “10 Secrets,” all purporting to wield some great knowledge about social media in particular and online content in general.

While I’m sure the pagerank for these blogs is great, and they’re highly trafficked and highly commented leading to an enormous ego stroke for the authors, I’ll let you in on a little secret: They all said the same thing.

Actually, they didn’t, but they all blurred together in an acidic whirl of blah blah blah. My “Technology” folder in Google Reader is starting to look like a classic Ren and Stimpy background.

Because I’m a curmudgeon like that, I’m going to slash all their tires and let you in on the biggest secret of digital media; the secret none of these shaman will tell you, lest their careers, speaking engagements and book deals go the way of the dodo:

Be interesting, relevant, and valuable.

The end. Period. Insert fork.

Yes, you have to monitor and measure and all that jazz. Those are just the tools of the trade and we’ve all got the same bucket of Legos to play with. But if you’re interesting, relevant, and valuable, you’ll see return in spades.

If over time your interesting, relevant, valuable content about your product doesn’t lead to anything, your product probably sucked anyway. Or maybe someone else did it better. Whatever. The point is, a salient reason to keep coming back and keep buying, paired with quality offerings, is the whole shooting match.

Now stop reading so many blogs and start making things interesting (and relevant and valuable).

Two quickies:

Featured Post

My Venture Pad

A post from the Raidious blog is currently featured on the front page of My Venture Pad. Matt’s post “Three Things I’ve Learned Working at a Startup” apparently warranted some attention.

We appreciate the inclusion on a site we read often. It’s always nice to have someone else check out your work and find some value in it. My Venture Pad is a really useful site with lots of great posts and resources for small business and networking.

Raidious Death Wish

BC's Raidious Death Cycle

Our director of platforms, Brian “BC” “Silent T” Conradt, just fulfilled his dream of owning a motorcycle. He promises to wear his helmet.

While we think he’s a little crazy, he did manage to find a bike in Raidious Orange. Now it just needs a logo and a Twitter profile.

That’s all. Happy Friday!

Corporate Blogging for Dummies

Run, don’t walk, to your favorite local bookstore and pick up a copy of our good friend Doug Karr’s new book, “Corporate Blogging for Dummies.”

(Okay, you could also click to your favorite online bookseller.)

Trust us, you need this book. And it’s not just because we at Raidious are in the book on pages 126 and 127 (not that we were looking or anything).

Doug, proprietor of DK New Media and the Marketing Tech Blog, is a brilliant and insightful thinker and doer in the field of online marketing. We just got our shipment from Amazon, and we can’t wait to dive in to read all he has to say.

(Full disclosure: Matt Chandler and Ryan Smith of Raidious are contributing writers on Marketing Tech Blog.)

New Raidious Training Service

Matt Chandler

If you’re a smaller business without the resources to hire writers to blog about your services and engage in social media, that’s no reason not to do it yourself.

If you need help getting your blog started, understanding the tricks and techniques of social media, or learning how to use the right tools to accomplish your online marketing goals, Raidious can help.

We offer a variety of seminars and sessions on topics including:

• writing for the web,
• best practices,
• creating a social media marketing plan,
• social media for crisis communications,

and more.

These sessions can be conducted on- or off-site, and are delivered by the personable and engaging Matt Chandler, an emerging thought leader in the field and skilled trainer.

A little about Matt:

• Content Architect and Lead Trainer for Raidious
• background in elementary and secondary education
• over 10 years’ experience managing online content for enterprise organizations including NYU Langone Medical Center and Community Health Network
• member of the Information Architecture Institute and the American Advertising Federation
• guest lecturer for groups including the Public Relations Society of America and Butler University
• featured guest blogger on Social Medial Today and Marketing Tech Blog
• regular guest on Sirius Satellite Radio.

And if you ask nicely he might bring George Benson along with him.

Get in touch with us for more information.

Tip o’ the hat to Social Media Today for seeing fit to feature my recent Raidious blog post “Social Media Strategy: Are You Marketing or Communicating?”

If you read the article, feel free to give it a comment. If you haven’t, go on over and check it out.

Had a great time this morning with the Indiana Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America at the Indiana Chamber of Commerce’s session on “The New Normal”.

I got to present with Slingshot SEO’s Jeremy Dearringer (a genius) and Kevin Bailey (also a genius). Also, Rodger Johnson from YourPRGuy was there, the Global Director of PR from Cook Medical, the head of PR from the NCAA, and several other amazing speakers. Lots of bright folks, I was way out of my league.  : ) Honored to even be in the same room with them.

Wow.

My topic today was the “how” behind social media. I went over several different tools, including one of our favorites at Raidious, Radian6. When I got back to my office, I found an email from Radian6 talking about their new product launch which was very exciting, and which I wrote about over on SocialMediaRisk.com. You should check it out – game changer for large enterprise.

If you were in today’s session and you have more questions for me, please email me or leave a comment. Great audience today, really enjoyed the event. Thanks Hoosier PRSA and Indiana Chamber of Commerce!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Social Media Monitoring Services (solvisconsulting.typepad.com)
• Radian6 Launches Powerful Social Media Engagement and Monitoring Console For Brands And Agencies (techcrunch.com)
• Content and Passion…Finding The Right Social Media Content And Engagement Strategy (socialmediatoday.com)

Recently I had the opportunity to present a workshop at the Social Media Bootcamp presented by the Indiana chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. I was asked to give a session called “Blogging 101” targeted at public relations professionals who are transitioning from sending out media releases to generating blog posts for their clients.

Other speakers were: Kristofer Karol, National Sports Journalism Center; Eric Deckers, Pro Blog Services; and Chad Richards, Firebelly Marketing. My particular session was attended by about 40 public relations and communications folks, most of whom were new to the blogging world. It was a bit of a whirlwind session, packing a lot of information into 90 minutes including a hands-on blogging exercise.

If you are a marketing, communications, or PR professional in Indiana and you’re not already a member, I highly suggest looking into it. The Hoosier chapter of the PRSA are smart folks, real movers and shakers.

The Hoosier PRSA Blog has a nice wrap-up, and you can view my slides on Slideshare, but of course it’s not the same as seeing it live and in person.

If your organization is interested in having me out to speak about blogging or other social media topics at your brown-bag luncheon, conference or event, get in touch and we’ll talk about it.

WordPress is pretty awesome. I’ve used it on many projects, and we use it quite often at Raidious.

The first time I used the web publishing platform was in 2007, when I launched the RockitBomb podcast. I was impressed with the ease of deployment and the fact that I could do it all without writing any code; so impressed, that I set up a WordPress installation for every nearly every website  on my personal web server. My assumption was that by deploying this easy to use content management and blogging software and inviting collaborators that every site would quickly overflow with regular updates.

As one can probably imagine, this did not happen. Easy-to-deploy and easy-to-use software does not instantly make authors out of contributors, or contributors out of enthusiastic friends. After some time, I inevitably found my installations consolidated. The band site I had built pulling a feed from mySpace, the podcast being combined with my personal site, and other projects simply being shelved.

Easy to deploy, easy to use, and easy to maintain, but it still fails without content. WordPress, like any other blogging software or content management system, is nothing without humans creating content to fill it, and engaging with the site’s audience.

Fortunately, that is what Raidious is all about.

If you are like many Americans, 2009 was rough year. Numerous industries cut back staff to bare-bones operations and, even less fortunate, some businesses locked their doors permanently. The banking industry is in flux, the automobile industry is still in a deep void, and the hospitality industry could use a break. Every industry was effected by the collapse of the financial markets and most industries aren’t projecting significant growth for a couple years. Yikes!

A study release from Bernhart Associates Executive Search, LLC shows that they are anticipating a rebound in Q1 for digital marketers. 46 % of respondents to their survey said they will be adding staff in Q1 of 2010; only 26% will remain on a hiring freeze, which is down from 45% in Q4 2009.

“All of our major indicators are showing significant improvement… As far as hiring goes, digital and direct marketers are back on a growth trajectory.”

- Jerry Bernhart, principal of Bernhart Associates Executive Search, LLC.

If you are a marketer or product specialist still searching for gainful employment, I would encourage you to switch your thinking to a digital mindset. This industry can be intimidating, but in my opinion it is the industry with the best growth potential and promise. Specifically, look to e-mail marketing service providers: ExtactTarget, Responsys, Contant Contact, etc.

These companies aren’t going to hire Joe-Blow-Marketing-Guy-to-Fill-the-Void because this industry is demanding top talent. With so many people out of a job in 2009, they have their pick of the litter. 2010 is your chance to grab the reins and get comfortable in the digital space because the old rules of submitting your resume and waiting for a e-mail or phone call no longer exist.

See the example of Hire Me, Headblade, when Eric Romer took an unconventional approach to landing a job on the West Coast with HeadBlade, Inc. When Eric found out about an opening as the Marketing Manager for HeadBlade, Inc., he not only submitted a resume, but he took his credentials social: Facebook, Twitter and Blog. 24 hours after getting these sites up and running Eric received an interview from HeadBlade, which ultimately led to HeadBlade hiring him.

It is not essential for everyone to go above and beyond like Eric did for the HeadBlade position, but it doesn’t hurt when trying to get noticed. Times are still tough and it is estimated things will remain tough for awhile. Luckily for enterprising individuals there is a way to land a job in a down time. It is up to you if you want that to be today.

Twitter Job Pages:

The Media is Hirin‘

Talent Zoo Jobs

Marketing Jobs

CareerBuilder for Job Seekers

Monster Careers

Bernhart Associates

Now go get ‘em.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Increase in Hiring Expected in New Year, Reveals CareerBuilder.ca’s Annual Job Forecast (newswire.ca)

Politico

An article in the current New Yorker, “Non-Stop News,” discusses the blinding speed of the news cycle as it exists today, pointing out the fact that President George W. Bush’s administration–while still being responsive to cable and internet news–didn’t have to deal with the likes of Twitter and Facebook.

Political blogs existed and were certainly popular, and indeed some of the largest (Huffington Post, Politico) were formed during Bush’s tenure. But blog readership at that time was determined by subscriptions to RSS feeds, links from other sites, and perhaps references in traditional media. If readers were really astute they might find it on Digg or Reddit.

The landscape is much different for the Obama administration. Now as soon as a blog post is published it’s tweeted and Facebooked instantly. With monitoring tools like Cotweet, Tweetdeck and myriad others, it is possible to respond just as quickly. Journalists tasked with covering the White House are stretched further and expected to produce faster than ever before.

According to the article, every day NBC’s Chuck Todd:

• does eight to 16 on-camera interviews
• writes the first post on NBC’s blog
• appears on the Today Show and/or Morning Joe
• churns out eight to 10 tweets or Facebook posts
• publishes three to five blog entries, and
• co-hosts the one-hour MSNBC newscast “The Daily Rundown.”

Granted, this is the output of one of the most active and astute political reporters out there, and covering the beltway and White House goings-on is one of the biggest jobs in journalism. But for a company, what business is more important than yours?

Who is your organization’s Chuck Todd? And what if you don’t have one?

That one person not only needs to approximate or match that productivity, but coordinate with marketing, communications, IT and often compliance. They need to plan content in advance as well as react to current and unforeseen events and discussions. They need to make certain that all communication across all these digital channels maintains a consistent voice and message. And they need to make sure that all these efforts are measured and analyzed as they relate to conversions and the bottom line.

So who’s it going to be? The intern? The secretary? Or a team of people who can get inside your organization and find out what makes it tick, then work with you to present the best possible image?

In the beginning stages of forming Raidious, we liked to somewhat whimsically ask the question “What if CNN covered your company?” Now we realize the aptness of that question, and how clearly and precisely it describes what we do. And as we’ve found, it also describes exactly what many companies need. Maybe you do too. Get in touch and we’ll talk about it.

In Early December, Chandler was kind enough to share a link to Rush Coil’s 8 Bit Christmas album with me. While Rush Coil’s record was great, I was more impressed with the little gem at the bottom of the page: a standalone commenting system.

Curious, I dug a little deeper to find Echo from JS Kit. I have worked on projects in the past with a WordPress back end that only provided comments on a page, and while not free ($12/year at minimum), Echo is a much easier approach to providing comments on any page.

Filed away as a great standalone option for comments and not much else, while catching up on Google Reader today, I ran across this article from Social Media Group. I spent some time watching Echo’s trailer video (embedded below), and it  looks to be a very promising comment replacement system as well.

Attracting comments on original posts is something that is becoming harder and harder to accomplish in today’s world of networks, aggregation, and conversational link sharing. Echo does a great job of capturing all of that conversation on the original post, in addition to providing an  authentication system via FaceBook, Twitter, etc.

Social Media Group’s article mentions a  TechCrunchIT pilot  regarding the quality of comments improving with this authentication.

When TechCrunchIT piloted the service they found that when they forced authentication via a social network before commenting was allowed, the quality of the comments increased considerably.

I do have reservations with replacing built in commenting systems with an external system, as this obviously presents an additional layer of moderation and maintenence, but Echo is definitely something worth looking into and experimenting with.

Update

Our friend Doug Karr from DK New Media is using Echo on his Marketing Tech Blog. Check it out and leave some comments!