ION Digital

I knew I would struggle when I started blogging a few years ago. I blame my years of journalism work. Sentences had to be carefully crafted, and words chosen carefully. My first editor at BusinessWeek told me, “Magazine real estate is precious. Use it wisely.”

Now we live in a new world that is no longer shaped by printing presses and information scarcity. Yet everyday I see companies that make these mistakes: they want to launch the perfect blog, create the polished video, craft the right message.

They are suffering from the curse of the corporate perfectionist. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes I walk away from a conference with as many questions as answers. Such was the case at the recent Inbound Marketing Summit in SF. Great speakers, great content, great ideas– an idea-fest for social media types. But after the two day session ended, I couldn’t help but wonder: Why is this so hard? Why aren’t more companies getting it?

The answer is both simple and amazingly complex: It’s woven into the very fabric of the the way we think about marketing.

My company has worked with many companies the last three years on social media programs, from Fortune 100 giants to small shops, giving us ample experience to see how good intentions come up short in making the transition to the new marketing world. The mistakes usually fall into one or more of the following areas, the seven deadly blind spots of traditional marketers: Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s Inbound Marketing Summit provided a nice display of some of the best thinking on social media on the planet. They were preaching to the choir here, folks who believe the social media movement is long overdue.  So you didn’t get a lot of contention or debate. What you did get was some exhilarating ideas, strategies, tips and techniques.

Many of the sessions were only 20 minutes so speakers had to blaze through their material, but most pulled it off smoothly. It was an interesting mix of consultants, web types, businesspeople, freelancers, former journalists, marketing and PR people and others that I couldn’t quite categorize (I met two people out of work; jobless, well might as well hang out with the social media crowd).
The conference ended the second day as strong as it began, with Louis Gray providing tools to deal with the information overload and Tim O’Reilly giving a spirited speech based on “creating more value than you capture.” Along the way hosts Chris Brogan and Justin Levy kept the trains running on time and the mood upbeat.There were too many great sessions to cover all of them  but here’s a sampling of key takeaways for me. Read the rest of this entry »

photo by Sean Dreilinger

Pretend you’re a speaker approaching the stage at a big conference. As you walk up to the stage, you notice two big screens–one for your Powerpoint presentation, the other for Twitter.

Guess what? You’ve got company. Your audience will be joining you on stage, tweeting about your presentation.

Public speaking is nerve wracking enough. Now speakers will get to deal with Twitter and a new era of “participatory” presentations. Right now the “Twitter factor”  in speeches is microscopic, mainly confined to a scattering of techie conferences. But it’s coming.

As usual, it’s starting with the tech savvy types who are itching to join what they see as a public “conversation.”   The more voices, the merrier (see a recent post in the Pistachio blog). Corporate speakers cringe; they see a public brawl coming. Read the rest of this entry »

Twitter is a great tool for companies seeking to connect with key audiences, build their brands and much more.Once you  get the swing of Twitter (last blog) , you’re ready to get fully immersed and start growing. The goal is to attract followers, and eventually build your own community.

Twitter communities are generally loosely organized at best; that’s the beauty of it but it’s also the challenge. Connecting with so many different people is like herding cats.

My approach is this: rather than thinking about hundreds (or in some people’s case, thousands) of followers, I’ll choose two or three representative followers to focus on at a time; that’s my “audience.” This is based on techniques I use in public speaking. Rather than scanning a big audience, I’ll find 2 or 3 audience members  in the front row and focus eye contact on them, providing me a chance to focus my energy and thoughts. When I’m answering a question or corresponding with someone on Twitter, they have my full attention.

I’m trying to build a  community one contact at a time–slow, yes, but steady and (I’m hoping) enduring. I’m really focused on quality of community vs pure quantity, so Guy Kawasaki (100k plus followers) has nothing to worry about with me.

Below are a few tips to get you started. Read the rest of this entry »