Everybodysagenius’s Weblog

Hey Everybody,

Haven’t posted for a while, but I just wanted to share a set of guidelines for starting a new corporate blog. Blogging can be an amazing marketing tool. If you are thinking of starting a blog to help interact with your customers/ shareholders. Check out this plan and advice sheet. Hope you enjoy.

OVERVIEW

Listed below are guidelines that will help the you make the most of your new blog. These guidelines will help you to grow your blog into a powerful conversation tool. The guidelines are separated into five easy steps:

Step 1: Listen

The best advice anyone can follow before entering into a new method of communication is to become familiar with the tools and voices within that medium. Before a blog launch:

1. Take a month and read relevant blogs in the blog’s category.

2. Check out competitors’ blogs.

3. Subscribe to podcasts related to the blog’s industry.

4. Find groups on the social networking sites (SNS) that pertain to that industry.

This process can be as easy as visiting directories for each of these mediums and searching relevant keywords or industry stories. You can then follow trending stories and learn who the most popular influencers are in this category. You should join these relevant conversations and subscribe to receive updates from influential content producers. The following tools are suggested as a means to locate relevant discussions in different categories online:

Blogs:
Technorati (blog search engine):
Google Blogsearch (blog search engine):

Podcasts:
iTunes:
Podcast Directory (podcast search engine):

Groups:
Facebook:
Yahoo! Groups:

Once part of a group, your bloggers shouldn’t just sit back and watch. They should take a side on a relevant issue affecting their category. They should put their opinions out there for others to read. Before they begin their own publishing, they should let people know who they are and start building their reputation online. This will help the blog develop a relevant audience when they start to post.

Step 2: Plan

To please both the search engines and readers, it is important to regularly post relevant content. Plan ahead and post often. Make a schedule of who is going to be posting about what topic and when. Stick to that schedule. Try to post two to three times a week. Feel free to post more often if there are many product developments or a lot of news. It will be helpful to identify which blogger is exceptionally passionate early on and make them the default writer.

Ideas on Good Posting Content: Good content consists of breaking news, product innovations, money saving ideas, internal visual content such as photos or videos, humorous anecdotes and personal stands on trending stories in your industry. The best content is original, injected with personality and demonstrates authority.

Examples of Bad Posting Content: Bad content is blatantly self-serving content. Your bloggers shouldn’t spend the whole time talking about their products and services. The posts need to be interesting to everyone. Bad content is also content that meanders without a specific theme. And if the blog lacks focus, it will lack an audience.

Step 3: Socialize

Allow comments on the new blog (it’s not a conversation without comments). Respond to all comments in a timely fashion. Link to other bloggers, outside sources of information, and even competitors. Hopefully, they will link back to the your new blog. By providing a very robust source list, the new blog can become the ultimate source of information for users on this subject. This practice also provides the blog with a lot of valuable links and indexible information, both of which will help increase the new blog’s search engine ranking. If the new blog becomes the best source of information, users will submit the blog to social news-sharing sites, tell their friends and bookmark its stories.

Make social bookmarking and social news-sharing links available. Try to make it as easy as possible for users to share your blog’s content.

The new bloggers should make themselves personally available to their readers. The new blog should provide contact information such as a phone number, email and/or Twitter address to a real person. Once a relationship has begun to flourish online, the bloggers should meet up with their readers in real life. Tweetups, tradeshows, and group lunches offer great outing environments that will help the bloggers further connect with their readers.

Step 4: Customize

Blogs are one of today’s most versatile mediums. In fact, many companies are using blogs as their main Web vehicles. Your bloggers can easily add widgets or applications that do almost anything imaginable to the sidebar of their new blog. Some examples of widgets available today are current weather displays, news readers from major newspapers, games, photo albums and much more. Most of them are free. Visit Widgetbox or Google Gadgets and add them to the side bar of the new blog.

Add RSS feeds from other relevant blogs and online news sources to the blog’s RSS feed blogroll.

Write personal and detailed about-the-author pages. This is an often-overlooked opportunity. Don’t let the descriptive pages sound too corporate or be too short. Many readers will judge the blog’s personality and authority from these pages.

Step 5: Tracking

You should equip your new blog with Google Analytics. This tracking service will allow your bloggers to learn where their visitors come from and how they interact with the new blog. Use this information to research and contact sites that refer traffic to the new blog. Tune the blog to match the most popular keywords available to your industry.

It is also a very smart idea to employ an online reputation management (ORM) tool to follow the most relevant and trending stories within your category. ORM tools can help the your bloggers identify key influencers online and trending stories that the your blog can post on. This will take a lot less time then searching through all the blogs, podcasts and groups manually and is an easy way to inject this new blog into the heat of the most relevant conversations going on today which will help expose the new blog to new readers.

TOP 15 TIPS

1. Read other blogs and follow online conversations.

2. Comment and contribute to online groups and other blogs.

3. Develop a schedule and stick to it.

4. Write about what you know.

5. Write about what you are passionate about.

6. Take a stand on relevant issues.

7. Share photos and videos.

8. Allow comments.

9. Tell a compelling story.

10. Link to many other sites.

11. Go meet people in real life.

12. Customize your blog to fit your readers’ wants.

13. Keep an up-to-date and relevant blogroll.

14. Create a great about page.

15. Track and tune your blog’s messaging.

Obama Facebook Page,
originally uploaded by swept14.

Hey Everybody,

I have been reading a lot online about how the Obama campaign is going to be the new standard for social media campaigns. And well, it was pretty amazing. Just the fact that they could maintain a constant feel and message across so many mediums with so many different user experiences is nothing short of astounding. Who in the corporate world could even pull that off? Nike? McDonalds? That’s probably about it.

Anyway, I wanted to share some stats about the Obama campaign social media presences. So first, here are the numbers:

-5 million supporters on 15 different SNS
-More than 1 billion e-mails sent to supporters
-More than 1 million signed up for text message alerts
-180,000 followers on Twitter

YouTube Stats:
-139,000 Obama related videos
-1,800 official videos
-The Famous “Yes We Can” received 14.2 million views
-15 videos in their channel with more than 1 million views

Like any good viral campaign, the Obama campaign gave people a reason to engage and share content by regularly disseminating interesting information across many networks and mediums. This campaign also gave people something to do, donate, tell a friend, vote. Pushing for active participation is another important element of social media that the Obama campaign

Results:
3 million online donors contributed more than $6.5 million
And 1 presidency

Best Wishes,
Will Flavell

Hey Everybody,

I have been using this link for a while, but honestly it is the single greatest warehouse for information and online marketing ideas that I have seen. http://www.iyazam.com/web-based-entrepreneur.html. Just had to share.

It is really a one-stop shop for information and ideas on E-mail Groups, Facebook Marketing, Twitter for Business, How to Get More Inbound Links. It goes on and on, this is definitely worth a look.

Enjoy,

Will Flavell

Hey Everybody,

As you might know from my recent posts, I worked on a campaign that promoted the 86-mile Market to Market Relay in Omaha, NE. The race took place on Oct. 11 and it was big success. I wanted to share the case study with you because it was a little strange and it was pretty successful and very cost-effective. Bozell took on this client and all the art was done by my buddy Aaron Christensen. Enjoy!

The Opportunity:
Every year thousands of runners compete in the 197-mile relay run from Mount Hood, Oregon to the Pacific coast. Similar races exist in Kansas, California, Colorado, New Hampshire and Texas. Recently distance relays have been growing in popularity because they combine the athletic prowess and competitiveness of distance running with the fun of team sports.

In 2008, two childhood friends from Omaha, NE started their own distance relay race, The Market to Market Relay. The race routed runners across 86 miles from the Old Market in Omaha, NE to the Historic Haymarket in Lincoln, NE. The Market to Market Relay took runners through small towns, rural farms, downtown brick roads, state parks, over streams and across the plains of Nebraska.
In spring of 2008, with the route mapped and preparations made, only one thing was missing: runners. Registration opened on March 15, 2008 with slots available for 150, six-to-eight-person teams. So, how do you get more than 1,000 people to sign up for an 86-mile race?
The Tactics:
Bozell’s challenge was to create a marketing strategy with a very limited budget that could increase sign up and establish the legitimacy of the race to possible sponsors. The Market to Market Relay’s messaging focused on three key angles:
1. The novelty of this event: This is the first time that race of this nature had been held in Nebraska. The 86 miles was divided into 24 race legs that were run by alternating team members.
2. The ‘green’ factor: The race donated a portion of its proceeds to the Great Plains and Eastern Nebraska Trials Networks and the eco-friendly group, 1% for the Planet. The post-race party also focused on conservation education.
3. The course’s beauty: This long distance race took runners through a variety of Nebraska landscapes.
Bozell contacted the local media throughout the summer and fall of 2008 with race developments. The public relations push was also targeted at national running magazines and online running forums.
Bozell created ads that appeared in the Omaha World-Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, Running Times and Runner’s World. A Market to Market Relay Facebook group and MySpace page were created to quickly spread information to runners and to let participants easily promote the race to their friends.
The Results:
The Market to Market Relay filled all 150 of its team slots on July 25, months before the race. Another 50 teams were also allowed to sign up on a waiting list. This list was also filled by July 25. On Oct. 11, more than 1,200 runners competed in the Market to Market Relay.
The Market to Market Relay was able to reach beyond its projected sponsorship goals and even secure a presenting-level sponsor, The Nebraska Orthopaedic Hospital.
The relay raised $6,000 for the trail systems of Nebraska.
The Omaha World-Herald and Lincoln Journal Star both published several stories on the Market to Market Relay. A variety of smaller local newspapers and magazines also published stories and photographs on the relay. Local television networks WOWT, KOLN and KGIN aired stories. Several local radio stations also covered the event. There were roughly 50 independent blog posts written about the run including large online running publications such as: TrailRunnerMag.com and RunningNetwork.com.
One particularly impressive piece of media coverage came in the form of a slideshow presentation built by the Lincoln Journal Star. This slideshow included photography and race information, it also incorporated audio from race day.

Hope you enjoyed the article. Please feel free to e-mail me or hit me up on Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Linkedin, MySpace, SlideShare, etc. I go by the profile swept14.

Best,

William Flavell

Hey Everybody,

I don’t know if you have all been on Facebook this morning or not, but it’s new look is available that we have all been reading about. I love it. It is much more openly spaced and a lot more visual. I think that the new way organizing apps (widgets) is really cool. If you haven’t seen it yet, refresh your Facebook and follow the link in the upper right hand corner.

I also like how the ads are now displayed to the right, so that you know easily what is an ad. It is easier to avoid and easier to find. Read more about the new look here.

This is my favorite SNS and it just keeps getting better. Nice Zuckerburg, nice.

Thanks Facebook,

William L. Flavell

Hey Everybody,

I am sure that many of you know about the DEMO conference. If not, it is like the superbowl of emerging technology. They have a couple a year. The next one is They are doing a great job right now of maintaining a strong Facebook Group with all kinds of apps, videos, photos, and much more. They also have a really interesting Twitter presence. Their name is DEMOtweets (we really need to do something about that name: tweets). And they have a 500+ user LinkedIn DEMO group.

So, DEMO has a lot of presence online and they have a lot of great groups and great stories. So, what you might ask is a missing strategy. Well, the missed opportunity is for the technologies. With DEMO being the superbowl of emerging technologies, and all the tech news media and VC (venture capitol) groups world-wide watching, you would think that every new tech company in the world would be putting out info. Well, they are not. Very few are, in fact there is not one fan video up yet on the DEMO facebook group, which has 545 members so far. This is a great opportunity for one of those presenting companies to engage a highly interested audience.

Here are some of my recommendations for applying this strategy:
The strongest social media opportunity for DEMO right now is the DEMO Facebook group. It has 545 members and currently hosts no fan videos. The right tech company could be the first group member to put up a product demonstration video in the fan section. It would also be a good platform to post up your videos of DEMO or the DEMO training process. This way you can be contributing content and writing updates that are DEMO themed and that will also showcase your idea or product. Every update that you make to the group will automatically show up in the feeds of all the Facebook DEMO group members’ pages. This involvement with the Facebook Group will be used to build relationships with others in the tech community and to spread your name.

In addition to the DEMO Facebook group, DEMO also sponsors a Twitter account named DEMOtweets that provides DEMO stories to everyone following. It currently has 75 followers. We can join Twitter with a DEMO-themed account, follow the DEMOtweets account and send them messages. We can also use this platform to promote whatever product or idea at the DEMO conference. The tech press also regularly does Twitter searches on subjects or events of interest. The more DEMO posts that we have the higher the chance that we will get noticed and picked up by this press group.
DEMO also runs a LinkedIn group with more than 500 members. LinkedIn only offers one-to-one communication between its group members. It does not allow for multimedia posting either. But, this will be final stage in the social media communication strategy for DEMO. You can use LinkedIn to make business connections with those users that comment on our Twitter tweets or Facebook group additions.

Enjoy,

Will Flavell