Think Archives - Page 4 of 6

What Happens When You Let Others Define You

June 4, 2010 by Phil Buckley 14 Comments

This week there was a online reputation management crisis that hit a local bakery. The online reputation management part of the equation was handled so poorly that now all that exists is the digital tire tracks.

There’s a lot of talk about how the bakery handled their problem poorly and how Twitter and Facebook filled up with comments from people saying they’ll no longer support them. But what about someone who moves here tomorrow, how does today’s blowup transfer?

Here’s how Google answers a query for crumb bakery raleigh tonight:

Google search result for crumb bakery raleigh

Bear eating a fish in a river — Bear Food

This means that eventually the “bad press” will overwhelm their other run of the mill search results. Since they have basically gone silent since the shit started hitting the fan, they have allowed others to totally define the entire event, including how they should respond.

I love the advice Lisa Barone gave LeBron James during his reputation management problem.

Here’s my advice. Constantly feed the bear. If you aren’t the one feeding the bear, someone else will feed him for you.

Awesome Alaskan Coastal Brown bear photo by: Alan Vernon.

Why I Shop at Kerr Drug

May 28, 2010 by Phil Buckley 4 Comments

When I moved down from Massachusetts in 2003, I had to adjust to living in a new environment where many things were different. Things that were familiar were easy for me to stick with. The few Dunkin’ Donuts and CVS were the two most familiar stores that were here.

Kerr Drug with Kerr Cafe in Hillsborough, NC — Kerr Drug with Kerr Cafe

Now it’s seven years later and I love sweet tea, Carolina BBQ, the Bulls and I shop at Kerr Drug.

There’s a couple of reasons I now shop at Kerr Drug, but mainly it’s because they are a local drug store, and because of Morgan Siem.

At the 30,000 foot view Kerr, CVS and Walgreens may appear to be very similar. So why do I choose Kerr Drug?

I’ve written about why I love The Pit BBQ, and it’s almost the same reason. For me, it’s personal. Having one of my best friends working with Kerr means that I will do what I can to support her. I know how hard Morgan is working to show Kerr Drug the value and power of social media – and I believe in the same things. I also want to help support a strong social media presence so that they lead the way and help prove the benefits of creating community with outreach, recognition and online coolness.

So the funny thing is, for me, this is absolute ground-zero grassroots social media 101. I am friends with Morgan, Morgan helps Kerr Drug with their social media, so now I support Kerr Drug.

See if this makes sense…

I’m lucky Morgan decided to come to my social media presentation at one of our SEO meetups
I was lucky that Michael offered up the MediaTwo conference room at the last minute for that meetup
Kerr Drug is lucky that they sent Shawn to that meetup
Michael and Ellie were smart to see that the questions he was asking that night were cries for help
Michael was smart to see the potential in Morgan from her participation at that meetup
Kerr Drug is lucky to have one of the best social media strategists in America working on their campaign.

I know that I can’t possibly be the only person that has been impacted like this. Maybe someone reading this will be swayed to Kerr Drug also.

Welcome to a social media world Kerr Drug, you’re in good hands.

Why you need to build your business one customer at a time

May 20, 2010 by Phil Buckley 2 Comments

There’s no other way to build a business than one customer at a time. The truth is, even if you have 100,000 customers each week, they all found you one at a time. Your prices, or value or something appealed to each one of them on a different level. What I like about The Pit may make someone else hate it.

I have brought people to The Pit for lunch and dinner because I love the food AND the way I’m treated there. Some of those people will return because they had a good experience also. So maybe Eric the manager doesn’t come out and greet every customer, but if I’m selling a new guest on how much I like it there, then the job is already being done.

The truth is, there’s no such thing as a single customer. Anywhere I go, I’m going to tell my family if my experience was at either end of the customer service spectrum. Because we hang around a tribe that is mostly the same, we influence them. “It’s a small world” because we hang around people we have a lot in common with. If my wife loves a new thing for our son, she’s going to tell her friends who also have small kids. Gaining or losing a single customer is rare.

99% of the businesses in the US could do with better customer service. That starts at the top and spreads like a virus. If the boss cares, you tend to care. I experienced that first hand while working at a Marriott in Boston while I was in college. There was a feeling of “let’s do everything we can for the customer” that permeated everyone who worked there. It was almost impossible to not be helpful.

But what if I did upset a customer? What if in the modern social media world a customer gives me the Kevin Smith treatment? I realize that it’s an opportunity to learn from. I step in as quickly as possible. Admit my mistake and try to fix it. The days of deny, deny, deny, cover-up, deny are hopefully gone forever (except, of course, in Washington DC).

If you like being treated like a real human being when you’re the customer, why would you think anyone else wouldn’t. For example, when I’m at Home Depot and can’t find anyone to rip my plywood it drives me insane, but then just as often there’s someone there who goes totally above and beyond and gives me hope.

The ideat that big companies can’t do one-on-one relationship building is just plain wrong. They can, and they can do it well if they want to allocate the resources. When you compare the lifetime value of a customer, it makes the salary of the person keeping them happy seem well worth it.

Consider that the cell phone companies spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars to capture each new customer. Yet seemingly then do everything in their power to alienate you! If you could keep just 1,000 customers from switching carriers, you could save your company half a million dollars a year.

Building your customer base one satisfied customer at a time seems silly, until you realize that’s there’s no other option.

Photo by: loop oh

Can you really build your business one customer at a time?

May 17, 2010 by Phil Buckley 8 Comments

Come on, we all know that you hear stuff like, “value every customer”, “a single customer can have an impact beyond that single sale” or “1,000 true fans can sustain you”. But in the real world that’s bullshit right? You want to be the one to tell your boss that you spent the last 8 hours cultivating a single sale? You want to be the person to tell your boss that 1,000 customers can sustain his 401K, medical plan and bonus structure?

The real question is how do you fake it? Can you make it appear that you care about your customers? When they start complaining about some silly minor issue, you’re suppose to stop what your doing and coddle them. Is that really where we’re at now? My dried out chicken breast gives me some sort of right to chat with some underpaid social media intern who apologizes for a store he’s probably never heard of and asks if I’d like a dollar off coupon. It’s pathetic really.

Am I going to “connect” with my local plumber on Facebook? Maybe I should become a fan of the children’s resale shop in the next town over. Oh, wait, I know, I’ll start following Ashton Kutcher on Twitter so I’ll know all the trendy places in Los Angeles (even though I live in North Carolina).

Where would the world be if people cared about each other in a real way? Could we have giant corporations that employ thousands of people and treat them like human machines? Hell no! We couldn’t have companies like General Motors, AT&T and Microsoft if we had to value customer feedback and bend to the will of the mob. Those companies are there to make a profit for their shareholders, not to listen to you whine about “bad design”, “spotty coverage” or “monopolistic tendencies”.

There’s people saying that the current wave of social media tools are fundamentally changing the way business is being done. You may have noticed those changes because your mortgage is going down, cars are getting cheaper, your cable company called and is now delivering all channels in HD for free and cell phone plans top out at $14.99/month (unlimited).

Now you may be able to pull out one small example of a business “doing it right”, but please don’t drag that ComcastCares horse out of the barn again. How old is that one? And have you talked to people who use Comcast? They still hate their cable company.

If you got this far reading this post, you should probably leave a comment so we can “engage”, but that’s a lot of work and bother, so you’ll probably just click away – because as micro-consumption digivores, we only make an effort when it’s really no effort at all.

Photo by: Barry Adams

What are you really hiring for?

May 3, 2010 by Phil Buckley 17 Comments

Last night I was searching for a used car on Craigslist. When I was done, I decided to see what type of SEO jobs were being advertised. As usual it was a depressing collection, but one help wanted ad in particular caught my attention.

…a web professional to handle our new website and other tasks. The individual we hire will be in charge of all things web related including, managing the CMS, inventory, data entry into shopping cart, social media campaigns, web marketing, SEO, and more. Experience is necessary but we do not want an over qualified candidate. Starting salary will be somewhere in the $30,000 range with opportunity for frequent raises and bonus potential. Again, candidate must be proficient and experienced in shopping carts, SEO, CMS systems and social media and have the ambition and desire to be a part of a fast growing company

So what depressed me most about the ad was the idea that they wanted to hire a single, very inexpensive person to handle 3 very important jobs. Here’s my take…

First off they ask for a web professional, yet make no effort to offer a salary that a true web professional would consider working for.

They then explain that the person will be in charge of all things web related, yet I doubt they’ll be “in charge” of anything. I would imagine if they wanted to start changing copy and colors they would have to get it ok’d from someone else.

I’m not sure what data entry into shopping cart means, but I would guess that means they’ll be hand entering products into the CMS. Who hand enters data anymore? Certainly not web professionals. Have they checked into the Mechanical Turk?

They are also looking for someone to handle their social media campaigns. People right out of college taking a position as ONLY a social media strategist make over $30,ooo/year. Yet this would be just one of their jobs.

They would also be expected to run down web marketing and SEO as well. Again, just hiring a full-time search marketing person would run you much more than $30,000/year.

Then comes the part where I cried a little, “Experience is necessary but we do not want an over qualified candidate.” My first thought was, “who could possible be over qualified for a position where it normally takes 3 or 4 people?”, my second thought was, “why wouldn’t you want that over qualified person?”

My advice for this company would be to focus. I wouldn’t hire an accountant and also expect them to fix the leaky roof. Do they want a web developer, a marketer or a search engineer? If they want one person to do all three, they need to increase the salary offer by about 300%.

If all you can afford is $30,000. Don’t try to hire just one person, because you’ll be disappointed that they’re unable to do 3 jobs.

Spread out the money and buy expertise in the short run so that next year you can hire the right team.

Spend 1/3 of it on a kick-ass SEO audit from a respected search engine genius like SixTurnSeven. The reason I suggest this one first is that the finding can influence the next two.

Spend another 1/3 of it hiring a social media/pr ninja like Gwynne Murphy before she gets snapped up as a full-timer by Bandwidth. Gwynne is a workhorse, and gets passionately involved in her projects. That’s the kind of passion you don’t get when you stretch someone too thin.

Use the last 1/3 to hire a web development contractor to work with you to add value to your current CMS. Try reaching out to Ara Yapejian, one of the smartest developers in the Triangle. One of the best parts of working with Ara is he’s happy to point out the problem roads you’ve already started down so that you can turn back and get to profitablity faster.

That’s my advice for this company. They really don’t need a full-time person, what they need is some problems solved.

Photo by: Darwin Bell

Raleigh Media Leaders Lunch Prize

April 26, 2010 by Phil Buckley 9 Comments

I just got back from a great lunch with some of the smartest people in the Triangle world. It was the prize that we gave away at the April 6th Raleigh Media Leaders event.

We met up at Raleigh’s best Asian restaurant, The Duck and Dumpling. I hadn’t met Brooks Bell (Founder and CEO of Brooks Bell Interactive) or Jesse Lipson (CEO of ShareFile) before so I was happy to make those new connections. I had met Michael Hubbard (CEO of MediaTwo Interactive) before, and always enjoy talking with him about the current social media landscape. The winners of the lunch were Jenni Bruckman who is the Senior Marketing Manager at Coldwell Banker Howard Perry and Walston, Maura McDonald who is a freelance designer running McDezigns and Theresa Spera who is the Director of Programs and Member Services for the Automotive Aftermarket Suppliers Association.

Raleigh Media Leader's lunch at The Duck & Dumpling

After some really good edamame and handmade sweet potato chips we got into some brief introductions and some questions.

Mailing list questions, how to start, how to refactor and how to get opt-n when you buy a third-party list. What I found really impressive was the insightful questions Brooks asked while trying to get to the root of the problem, the on-the-fly solutions Jesse has used in the past to overcome similar problems and the new metrics Michael suggested as better indicators than just “opens”.

We spent some time talking about the changing face of both real estate and automotive. Theresa shared a great story about traditional snail-mail versus email. It’s important to remember that the best medium is the one that works.

I love the idea of a casual lunch like this as a way to make new connections. The Media Leaders were generous with their expertise and time, the winners were also allowing us to cut into their busy schedules and that’s always appreciated.

All the participants are people who should be on your list of people to know in the Triangle. All of them are on Twitter except Theresa, but she did acknowledge that the peer pressure is getting unbearable, so soon she will relent.

Michael Hubbard as mediatwo
Brooks Bell as brooksbell
Jesse Lipson as ShareFile
Maura McDonald as MCDezigns
Jenni Bruckman as jennibruckman

Thanks to the entire Raleigh Media Leaders team, Brian McDonald, Morgan Siem, Sarah Burris and Dan London.

Graduating into a Social Media World

April 11, 2010 by Phil Buckley 12 Comments

I recently had a request for some help from a young woman who is graduating this spring from a nearby college. She asked if I could help her get started towards finding work in the communication field.

It got me thinking about a couple of different things. The first became even clearer while listening to Seth Godin’s latest book Linchpin. Most of us come out of school woefully prepared to make our way in the world. We offer a prospective employer only the promise that we’re not really as pathetic as our resume make us out to be. We almost never have any actual experience doing anything valuable. We generally think we’re smarter than we really are, and that we should be paid more that we’re worth.

The second was just how connected you can become by going out and actually meeting people. I’ve spent the last 18 months trying to build up my network in Raleigh. When I received that email the other day was really the first time I stopped to consider the awesome people I am now connected to.

So back to the first point. My advice to someone just getting started is hustle. If you’re unsure what that means, watch some of Gary Vanerchuk’s videos (or read his book). If you’re still unsure, go have lunch with Molly Buckley and she’ll explain it. Molly lives hustle 24/7, or watch how someone like Gwynne Murphy works her ass off for two different companies and still finds time to attend a ton of networking events and volunteer at still more.

Make yourself desirable. Make yourself memorable. Look at yourself from the other side of the table. Why should someone like Ignite Social Media hire you? There’s no doubt 100 other resumes in the pile with yours that are equal to, if not better than yours. I can tell you that the fancy typeface and extra thick paper you printed your resume on won’t be the deciding factor.

What if you already knew a person who worked there? What if you knew a couple of them? What if you had previously bumped into Jim Tobin and left a good impression? Then your resume might not even be in the pile with the other 100 people.

You’ve heard the old saying, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Often you hear that said in a derisive way from someone who didn’t get a job or promotion. Usually that person spends more time playing fantasy football at ESPN.com than worrying about what’s going to happen when her job goes away, so she’s unprepared and caught flat-footed.

There’s another saying, “build your network before you need it.” That is one of my favorites. Very early in my social media life, I was sitting next to Raleigh’s Mr. Hustle, Wayne Sutton. We were at a small tweetup because Jason Keath was in town. It was my first visit to The Pit BBQ and the manager came out to say hello because of all the chatter he saw on Twitter about the tweetup. Wayne and the manager chatted for a few minutes and left the door open to do something better planned in the future. After he left, Wayne said 3 important words, “always be networking”. There were a few other people at that dinner that I have since become friends with, all of them have large and influential networks. Knowing them allows me to connect with their networks if needed, and vice-versa.

Sarah and Morgan at Raleigh Media Leaders — Sarah and Morgan checking out an iPad at Raleigh Media Leaders

Last week I met Sara Gilbert and Morgan Eberle at the Raleigh Media Leaders event. What impressed me about both of them is that they were smart enough to show up. They were hustling. I approached them right at the beginning of the event because I hadn’t seen them around before, and once they said UNC and Journalism I knew I could connect them to at least 2 other people with the same background at the event. I pointed out my friend Morgan Siem to them and saw them all talking a few minutes later. I’m not sure what, if anything, will come of that meeting for any of them, but it’s a connection all 3 would have missed out on if they had stayed home and watched tv.

So if you’re graduating soon, what are you doing to get a jump on your competitors? Do you have your Facebook page locked down properly? Do you have a Twitter stream that wouldn’t scare away an potential boss? How’s your LinkedIn profile? How’s your blog look?

If you think you’re going to be able to run past Molly, Gwynne, Sara and Morgan by simply emailing in your resume, you may want to apply to grad school tomorrow.

100m photo by Jonas Merian

Value versus Free

April 2, 2010 by Phil Buckley 15 Comments

Tuesday night is the second Media Leaders event being held in Raleigh. The first one held back in January was great and I expect this one to be just as good. The question for some people is, “is it worth paying for?”

It’s an interesting question, free has taken on a life of its own in the social media age. It’s a question that I and the other organizers wrestle with. In the final analysis it comes down to the question of how much do you value an opportunity to meet and socialize with friends, peers and mentors in your industry and community.

For me, if I want to just hang out with my peers at a tweetup, that’s always available to me for free. I have very low expectations of such an event to actually make an impact on my life. It’s just fun to see all my friends.

If I want to see my business peers and maybe take it up a notch, then I would try to see who else in my industry is attending Chuck Hester‘s LinkedIn Live event. I know Chuck spends a lot of time getting those ready and offsets the cost by having companies sponsor the event.

We think of Media Leaders as a slightly different concept. We aim to make the event equally useful for C-level executives and entry-level evangelists. There’s not a lot of interruptions or music or food, it’s aimed at letting people connect.

There’s not a lot of places where someone just starting out can bump into a true leaders like Media Two‘s CEO Michael Hubbard , Brooks Bell Interactive‘s Founder and President Brooks Bell or ShareFile‘s CEO Jesse Lipson. Not only can you talk to them, you have a pretty good chance of winning the drawing, which is a lunch with them where you can pick their brains! Spending an hour with such smart and successful people could actually change your life. Maybe they give you a new idea, or tell you the crazy idea you have is brilliant (or terrible), and maybe there’s some real synergy and they want to work with you on something. It’s the opportunity to make the connection that’s important.

But what if you don’t win the free lunch? Everyone attending the first event seemed to be in the perfect mood. Because it was a straight-up networking event, everyone chatted and met a lot of new people. Use the event to meet a competitor, talk to someone who is hiring or a company you’ve always wanted to ally with.

I’ve been cutting back on time I’m spending attending social events to only include the ones I feel have real value for me. This is one that meets that criteria. If you’re attending just to hang out in the corner with your close friends, you’re missing the true value of the event.

The Raleigh Media Leaders event is on April 6th at Issac Hunter’s Oak City Tavern on Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh. You can still get tickets for the event.

Photo from: Brian McDonald

Nobody Reads Anymore

February 24, 2010 by Phil Buckley 34 Comments

Yesterday I was listening to Sonia Simone’s podcast about Brian Clark’s Teaching Sells idea (and website).

Pretty straight forward, but one line totally shocked me. 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.

kids watching television — Obey The Glowing Box

I was totally shocked by that when I heard it, but the more I thought about it, it made sense. 4 hours in front of the television each night pretty much kills that. If you find yourself in that group, ask yourself, “what if I stopped watching television one night each week?” What would you read?

When someone says, “…you read Wikinomics right?”, do you nod and hope they don’t get too specific? When was the last time you said to someone, “You have to read X!”. It’s a good feeling, and your friend or co-worker or boss will appreciate it.

Are you part of the 80 percent of U.S. families that did not buy or read a book last year? I was when I was a teenager. I never remember my mom or dad reading, so why would I?

Now I love reading. I get a lot from the books I choose and I’m always looking for new ones. I only buy about 1 of 10, the rest I get from my local library. When I do buy one, it’s one I know I’ll be loaning out to friends.

You want to read something good? Start with Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends by Tim Sanders. After reading it, you’ll wonder why you don’t have a book tucked under your arm all the time.

What book should I add to my list?

How Competition Makes You Better, and Your Team Can Make You Great

February 20, 2010 by Phil Buckley 3 Comments

Bill Russell played 13 seasons for the Boston Celtics. Many of the season he had to match up against a Goliath of the NBA – Wilt Chamberlain.

Chamberlain was 7’1″ 275 pounds. Russell was 6’9″ 215 pounds. Russell’s greatest adversary, entered the NBA and joined the Philadelphia Warriors for the 1959-60 season, setting up a decade-long rivalry. The debate over who was the greater player lasts to this day. Chamberlain put up incredible numbers during the period in which the two went head to head, but Russell helped the Celtics hang nine NBA championship flags in the Garden in his first 10 seasons.

Boston Celtic Championship Banners
Photo by: Paul Keleher

Chamberlain dominated the records book when he finally left. Most games with 50+ points, 118; Most consecutive games with 40+ points, 14; Most consecutive games with 30+ points: 65; Most consecutive games with 20+ points: 126; Highest rookie scoring average: 37.6 ppg; Highest field goal percentage in a season: .727.

There’s no question that competition like that makes you try harder, makes you push yourself a little further than you thought you could go. Just as important is a team that can make you want to compete at that high level.

Bill Russell boxing out Wilt Chamberlain

Bill Russell later wrote: “To me, one of the most beautiful things to see is a group of men coordinating their efforts toward a common goal, alternately subordinating and asserting themselves to achieve real teamwork in action. I tried to do that, we all tried to do that, on the Celtics. I think we succeeded.”

In everyday life, sometimes it’s easy to look at competition as a bad thing. You may ask yourself, “Why is Joe gunning for my job?” or even more common, you find yourself thinking why a co-worker is working so hard, because it means you have to pick up the pace.

I’m fairly sure that Motorola didn’t see the introduction of Apple’s iPhone as a good thing. I can’t imagine that IBM was planning parties when Microsoft released Windows. Greg Norman couldn’t have looked forward to the arrival of Tiger Woods. I know for a fact that the newspaper industry wishes the Internet never came along.

Human nature is a funny thing. When we look back it’s usually clear that the science teacher that drove us crazy in 7th grade helped us the most because he expected more from us. There’s no question that Wilt Chamberlain made Bill Russell greater than he would have been without that level of competition. Motorola’s phones are better today because of the competition from Apple.

What would happen if you started viewing competition as an opportunity to excel? What if you viewed you team the same way Bill Russell viewed his? What if you decided to try to one-up your competitors everyday, even if it was just in very small ways?

You may not redefine the way team defense is played in the NBA, or set scoring records, but you can start changing the way you play the game.

What’s the thing that you can do that would make the biggest difference for you?

Raleigh Media Leaders Inaugural Networking Event

January 28, 2010 by Phil Buckley 39 Comments

On January 27, 2010 Raleigh, North Carolina proved itself as a major social networking hub. Again!

About 3 weeks ago, I saw a link on my Twitter stream about a nationwide networking event called MediaLeaders. I sent an email to Josh Ochs in Los Angeles to see if I could shoehorn Raleigh in at the last-minute. Josh liked the idea and basically told me to grab some people and get going.

I had not planned anything of any real significance before, so I knew I would need a lot of help. I had originally bounced the idea off Sarah Burris, and she helped me get excited about it, so I knew I had to bring her in right away. Sarah spends her days doing PR for Carolina Advanced Digital so I knew she’d be a huge help. She handled everything flawlessly.

I also reached out to the sharpest marketing mind I know, Brian McDonald. Brian was the taskmaster that we needed to stay focused on making the event something different, something that people would look forward to attending. There’s no doubt we wouldn’t have had the reach we did without Brian McDonald on the team.

One of my best friends also happens to be a serious social media workhorse at the MediaTwo Interactive Ad Agency. Morgan Siem has quickly become my go-to girl for all things social. She always had a simple way to fix our complicated hurdles.

I had only really known Dan London a few months, but in that time he had really impressed me with his big-picture understanding of marketing, search and social. Dan was there all along the way helping us sharpen the ideas that ultimately led to the big night. Of course Dan did have a weird need to hang around his house after work, something about a wife who was due to have a baby girl the day before the event!

We all got used to Google Wave by the end of week one, and by the night before the event we were old pros. I was unsure of its value until that point, but as a collaborative tool, it worked great.

Once the team was in place, we had to choose a venue. It wasn’t an easy choice. I love the guys at The Pit, but I wasn’t sure it was the perfect type of venue. I had just met the guys that run Issac Hunter’s Oak City Tavern downtown, and it’s a fantastic place, but we would have had to figure out how to bring in some food and we were short on time. The Raleigh Times was also in the mix, but I thought it might be a tight squeeze. That meant that our best choice was going the The Busy Bee Cafe. It had everything we were looking for.

Now we were down to about 2 weeks to see if we could actually get some buzz about it. We were all really excited at the chance to host an event that the awesome Triangle community could enjoy.

Step 1 was figuring out what we would do for 3 hours. We tossed around a bunch of ideas, but we kept coming back to wanting to offer something different from Chuck Hester’s LinkedIn Live events, or the Triangle Social Media Club‘s events or random tweetups and meetups. We wanted to put something together that would offer a benefit for C-Level executives as well as more junior people who can benefit from meeting and connecting with them.

The MediaLeaders networking concept is on creating a cutting edge junction of leaders in PR, media, marketing, advertising and tech while discussing current events and new ideas. We figured that meant trying to create a relaxed social atmosphere where everyone could schmooze and also make new contacts. We would keep the music low, the interruptions to a minimum and the overall value high. We also decided to have one prize to give away, but not something you could wrap-up. We decided to reach out to 3 of the most influential and smartest people in this orbit and ask them to give up some of their valuable time to have lunch with 3 lucky winners. Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim fame, Patty Briguglio, President of MMI Public Relations and Barrett Joyner the Development Director of The Healing Place of Wake County.

We arrived and started setting up about 6pm. Sarah had grabbed some adhesive name tags so that as people came in, they could be easily recognized, and also brought about 70 sharpies in every color possible. We set up a small table by the door to handle what we figured would be a manageable crowd of about 75.

When Chris Moody from Bandwidth showed up with their giant old-school telephone booth, we knew we were almost ready. Chris has been an awesome force on the Raleigh scene and the photos with their phonebooth has been a huge success due mostly to the beautiful photography of Sledge.

A half hour in we had a line down the stairs waiting to get in! It was getting busy, and fast. At 7:40 we took a minute to thank everyone for coming but you could hardly hear us over the PA system because we had already let over 100 people through the door. Thankfully Lisa Sullivan, Leslie Wilkinson, Mandy Steinhardt, Tucker Peterson and Karl Sakas volunteered to help us out. Karl and Tucker estimated later that at least 150 people showed up for the Raleigh Media Leaders event!

Everyone seemed to be having a pretty good time, I didn’t notice people starting to trickle out until about 9pm. There was still about 50 people hanging around at 10pm when the event was officially over. By the time Brian and I were lugging laptops, projectors and cables down the stairs at 11pm, there was only a handful of friends keeping us company.

We saw lots of Tweets from people saying the had a good time, which is always nice. My favorite Media Leaders tweet came from Colleen Bradley who attended the Boston Media Leaders event:

That’s what networking is all about. Building a network that can help you when you need help, and offering help when you can offer help.

I watched the tweets from the other Media Leaders cities, and they couldn’t hold a candle to Raleigh. When Wayne Sutton talked about the 19 reasons the Triangle is better than Silicon Valley, here is #20.

I had a blast helping organize the Raleigh Media Leaders networking event. I hope everyone who attended got something out of it, even if it was just some of the awesome hummus that The Busy Bee provided.

We’re already thinking about the next one, but would love to get some feedback about what worked and what didn’t.

Thank you to the entire Triangle community for a great night!

You can see a bunch of photos from the event on Flickr tagged with Raleigh and MediaLeaders

Why You Should Attend The Raleigh Media Leaders Networking Event

January 9, 2010 by Phil Buckley 8 Comments

A week or so ago, I ran across a link pointing to the Media Leaders site. I noticed that they were working on a nationwide event on January 26th, but Raleigh wasn’t included. Los Angeles, Boston, Austin, New York City and San Francisco are big cities, with lots of social media electricity coursing through them, but there’s no doubt that Raleigh needed to be included in that top echelon.

Raleigh has a collection of some of the brightest minds in advertising, social media, new media professionals, online producers, tech entrepreneurs and brands interested in high-tech content integrations and promotional opportunities. Do you fit into any of those categories? If not, do you wish you did?

This is one of those events that can help you start working on building your network. If you think you can reach your full potential by staying home and watching re-runs of What Not To Wear, it’s time for you to start getting out. This is the year to put as much effort into your network and your career as you put into that fantasy football league.

Go look at the list of people already attending the Raleigh Media Leaders event, it’s a who’s who of people who are making Raleigh one of the hottest spots in the United States for new media of all flavors.

When we opened up the event, the first 100 tickets were free, and were also gone in a few hours. The remaining tickets are $12 each, which means that it is within reach of anyone who is serious about networking in this community.

We’re lucky that they Busy Bee Cafe has agreed to host the Raleigh Media Leaders event. They offer a fantastic venue for us to eat, drink and schmooze.

Lastly, we have lined up a nice collection of sponsors that will be offering all sorts of goodies and prizes for the attendees. More on that in the upcoming days.

I’ll be there, will you?

Love In The Workplace

December 31, 2009 by Phil Buckley 2 Comments

A couple months ago I read Tim Sander’s Love is the Killer App. It’s not a new book, it’s from 2002, but it’s core message really struck a cord with me. You can do more work, with more people, at a higher level when you have a deep and meaningful relationship with them. The reason it’s important is, you give your friends the benefit of the doubt, you give your friends a chance to correct mistakes.

Too often, in life and at work, when you really need some compassion, some understanding and dare I say it, love – you get exactly the opposite.

Let me ask you managers a question. When a subordinate is going through a crisis in their life, are you there for them? Do you do everything in your power to be a positive force for them? Are you helping to diffuse the fear that accompanies their crisis or are you cracking the whip because they seem suddenly scattered and unable to concentrate like they did before?

Think about the times in your life when you were in crisis. The people who reached out, how do you remember them? How about the people that pushed you to “get over it” and “grow up”, how do you remember them?

When you treat people without compassion, it has wider implications. Other employees who may be closer to the person in crisis, will also form an opinion of both the situation, and how you handle it. Can you afford to have your entire department dislike you?

If you can love your employees, understand that they may be at 80% for a while, when they come out the other end, they’ll love you back. At some point in the future you may need someone to work late and finish something, you’ll have a volunteer. Beyond the work aspects, you’ll have made someone’s life better.

What would happen if the next time you felt like yelling at someone, you took them out to lunch and asked them what you could do to help them. Listen to them, listen as you would if it was a family member.

Ready for the last step? Let them know you appreciate them, then… hug them. Let the power of the hug build your tribe into a force to be reckoned with.

What do you have to lose, is the way you’re doing it now working as well as you would like?

Watch the short clip below, then try to deny the power of the hug.

Well, do you have the guts to put yourself out there?

Who Are Your Personal Rock Stars?

December 22, 2009 by Phil Buckley 5 Comments

Last night I was minding my own business when I saw my friend Ryan tweet that he was heading over to The Pit for dinner. I had just tried the warm chocolate cake with ice cream there a couple days ago, so I replied that he should try it. A minute later I saw the reason Ryan was heading over there, it was to meet Chris Brogan who was in the area.

It was about 7:30 and I was happily on my couch with my wife and 2-year-old. I turned and told my wife that it was cool that Chris was hanging at The Pit. She then asked, “are you going?” – I thought about it for a long second and decided, no, I wouldn’t.

I’m a really big fan of Chris Brogan, also a big fan of The Pit, and friends with most of the guys who were hanging out there. Here’s the calculation I did in my head: Should I go someplace I wasn’t exactly invited to meet someone I admire. I’ve chatted with Chris in comments and via email a few times, and he’s always been super nice and responsive, so running out away from my family to be one of 50 didn’t make sense to me.

I’ve asked my family to put up with me being out and about a lot over the past year, and because Chris Brogan is so accessible I couldn’t bring myself to jump off my couch, drive 30 minutes, find parking, muscle my way in, and introduce myself, then hang around, there wasn’t enough value for me.

That made me start thinking about who I would have jumped up for. I have a short list of people I only know via the Internet, that I would run for:

These 5 people are my personal rock stars. I can’t think of many days that I don’t bookmark or share something from at least on of them. I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to have a normal 5 minute conversation with them, so I would go that extra mile to meet them IRL.

By the way, if any of my personal rock stars ever make it to Raleigh, dinner at The Pit is on me!

I know you have a list like this. Who is on your list?

Is Foursquare Worth The Trouble?

December 21, 2009 by Phil Buckley 26 Comments

I recently had an interesting talk with Dan London, who one of the smartest search marketers I’ve met. He sees a real problem with most of the geo-locating social media tools, as a consumer you’re often left asking, “what’s in it for me?” As a business owner, you may look at a tool like Foursquare and say. “Why would I use something like that?”

It’s a circle of uncertainty that feeds on itself. Here’s my pitch to both consumers and businesses.

How do I use Foursquare to promote my business?

Here’s how I feel businesses could benefit from an active and sustained use one of the geo-enabled tools: Foursquare/Gowalla/Tri-Out/Loopt.

Bars and Restaurants: This is an easy one for me because I’ve written an entire post about how The Pit BBQ in Raleigh is doing it right. They were on Twitter, and actually listening to what people were saying about them. When they saw people checking in using Foursquare, they jumped on the bandwagon and were the first place I know of in the area to offer a “Special Offer” when “The Mayor” comes in.

In case you’re not a Foursquare user, you can become “The Mayor” of a venue by checking in there more than anyone else. That is the base functionality of Foursquare, but what you do with that functionality is up to you. So what The Pit is really doing is rewarding one of their best customers for always broadcasting to his friends that he’s eating at The Pit. Smart.

The cost for The Pit is a freebie every so often, but the return is a super targeted advertisement sent out by a happy patron to all of his friends who are already more likely to listen to that message than a radio or television ad.

I think any restaurant that isn’t using the geo-tagging services is falling behind more than the other types of businesses. A bar or restaurant need a buzz to stay filled, if I know my friends are always eating or drinking someplace, I’m more likely to go there to.

Realtor: I haven’t seen this yet, but I think a smart realtor will start doing this and gain a large following. If I am either buying or selling my house, I would love to see what else my realtor is showing. A tweet like, “Showing a 3BR 2bath colonial – $249k – twitpic” might get some people who are also selling the house for 249 to see what the competition is. People looking to buy in that range will want to see the picture of the house. Having it geo-tagged also lets everyone know what neighborhood it’s in.

Realtors are everywhere, what else can they do to set themselves apart?

Home Security System and Cable Guys: I thought of this one after talking with my cousin who is a sales/installation tech. How awesome if I was on the schedule for an appointment and I could see that 20 minutes ago my tech checking out from his previous appointment 10 miles away.

All of these examples are just jumping off points. For example when the cable guy leaves one appointment, the customer service guy could call and check in to make sure everything went well.

Why should I bother using Foursquare?

This side of the equation can more complicated. Whereas I think all businesses can see some benefit from using one of these tools, I think a consumer can go either way. I’ll explain the benefit I see from using them.

1. Feeling Special: Last night I decided to go out to dinner with my wife. We decided that we would head to The Pit. At 5:15 I sent out the tweet below.

the-pit-reservation — My lame attempt at making a reservation

We arrived for dinner about 6 and were seated for dinner. First, the waiter remembered me from a Tweetup there a few weeks ago, then the manager came over to say hello. Both of those small actions go a long way in making anyone feel special. If that was the end of it, it would have been fine, but after dinner, I saw this:

The Pit was keeping an eye out for me — The Pit keeping an eye out for me

That was pretty cool. It’s extra work for them to keep an eye out for me, then when they saw me and my wife arrive, to take a minute to send out that tweet.

Let me be honest that I’ve gone out of my way to help build my relationship with the guys at The Pit, but they’ve done the same, and not just with me, but with a large group of social networkers in the area.

Besides real tangible value, I also get some satisfaction from becoming “The Mayor” of places, especially when I can oust someone else. It’s a bragging rights thing.

Another nice side effect is getting the chance to run into friends while I’m out. By broadcasting my location to my friends, it allows them to come by and join up if they want.

I think in the end, it’s all about using tools that help you. I find value from these tools, so I’ll continue to use them.

D0 you use any of these tools? Why (or why not)?

Who Taught Me The Most In 2009

December 18, 2009 by Phil Buckley 3 Comments

This was an awesome year. I set out last December to expand my network, mainly so that when my job was eliminated I would have some contacts.

The good news is that my job didn’t get eliminated, but the better news is the people who I met have enriched my life in ways I never envisioned a year ago.

Ashley Berman Hale

Ashley’s SEO Meetup was my first baby step. I was doing more and more SEO work and wanted to connect with others to compare ideas and get some new tips. The meetup is far and away the best one I’ve ever attended. Ashley has found the sweet spot in connecting with small business people, techies, marketing people, novices and advanced search marketers. I now compare all other meetups to this one, and none have even come close, here’s why:

Fantastic subject matter – Ashley has a knack for picking really smart sessions to appeal to a wide audience
Feels casual because it has an expected structure – people are encouraged to participate, share, brag and question. The less lecturing the better her meetups get. She’s a true rock star.
Handouts. Ashley goes the extra mile and always has handouts and other take-aways that let you work on your specific checklist.
Expert – Ashley has made her bones in organic search and is now a Top Contributor and Bionic Poster at Google Webmaster Forums, which requires Google reaching down and picking you out as super helpful and knowledgeable about search.
Fun – I’ve always had fun at the meetups, which is why Ashley has been able to attract over 300 people to join the meetup.

If you need a starting point for your SEO journey, Ashley’s site audits are the best in the industry.

Seth Godin

I know a bunch of people learn from Seth. I remember running across a video of his Tribes presentation posted at Mixergy and being so moved, I started writing this blog in earnest. What struck me were just a few catch phrases that gave me the courage to keep moving forward in an environment that doesn’t always value straight-forward honesty and sticking to your guns.

Tim Sanders

I hadn’t heard of Tim Sanders before running across his name while reading something. I was intrigued by the name of his book, Love is the Killer App. I grabbed the book from my local library and it really helped me refocus on the importance of actually being there for the people around me. Although I sometimes get weird looks followed by, “really?”, I try to let people know how much I appreciate them, it’s a nice feeling.

Morgan Siem

I’ve written about Morgan already this year, but that’s why she’s in this list. The impact of Morgan is her presence. She has the ability to walk in anywhere and be confident, charming and memorable. It’s so rare to see, I had almost forgot that such people existed. Meeting and getting to know Morgan has made me remind myself to put forth a little more effort at being memorable when meeting people.

Jeremy Smith

I ran into Jeremy at an impromptu Tweetup at The Pit BBQ in downtown Raleigh over the summer. We hit it off right away as a couple of smart-asses. I later found out he runs Twine Interactive downtown. Jeremy has offered me guidance and suggestions ever since. I can always count on him to give it to me straight, and he can count on the same from me in return. I value that, it’s not often you find someone who will point out your warts.

Brian McDonald

Brian and I had passed each other a bunch of times over the year, but finally became friends at the end of the summer. Brian has more marketing knowledge in his head than any other dozen VP’s of Marketing combined. He has the lethal combination of old-fashioned core marketing know-how, new 2.0 marketing savvy, tech skills and people skills. He is simply “the shit” when it comes to getting it done, and it doesn’t much matter what “it” is. I’ve snuck into his pack to get a better angle to observe him from and every week he does something that I label as brilliant (and then write down in my notebook).

Twitter

I know, I know, Twitter’s not a person. So what, just keep reading. Using Twitter has allowed me to talk to and meet people who in the old 1.0 world never would have had time for me. It’s allowed me to look in on the people who I want to learn from, and see what they’re doing with their time, what they’re reading, what they’re interested in. Anyone who doesn’t see value in that is missing the best part of Twitter.

Who did you learn from this year?

2010 Prediction for SEO & Social Media

December 13, 2009 by Phil Buckley Leave a Comment

2009 was a really exciting year for people involved in search and social media. A lot of the search excitement came from the launch of Bing, the Caffeine update, Sidewiki and Real-Time search results. Social Media was finally leaving the “shiny object” stage and becoming a real force in driving traffic (online and off).

So what about next year?

I believe next year will be the mainstream rise of mobile optimization, mobile search, and geo-enabled everything. I think it will force three major components to come together – search,social media, development.

If I’m standing downtown wondering where to eat lunch, I’ll need you to have worked with all three departments to have a chance to grab me.

Is your business on Yelp, Foursquare, Gowalla, Tri-Out, BrightKite? Are their recommendations for you at those sites? Is the information about your business correct? Can I get your street address so I can map my way to you? If I see your business and click the link on my phone, is your site optimized for me?

I think the days of stand-alone SEO are now way behind us, it’s now an integrated science. Web development without a comprehensive plan for mobile is short-sighted at best, reckless at worst. If you have a premium product or service and don’t have a dedicated smartphone apps, you’re falling behind.

The winners in 2010 will be similar to the winners in 2009, the quick, the nimble, the confident, the risk takers and those not afraid of failure.

The losers will be the companies immobilized by the disruptions in their sector. If your boss is saying things like, “we can ride this out if we just hunker down”, you may be hunkered down so deep, you can no longer see that the parade has already passed by.

If you had to predict one thing for 2010, what would it be?

Simple Reputation Management

December 2, 2009 by Phil Buckley 3 Comments

At the next Raleigh SEO Meetup, we’re covering Your Brand Presence & Managing It Online. Ashley had this one queued up for at least 3 months, but over the last week or so, some of my favorite blogs have decided to also write about it.

Lisa Barone over at Outspoken Media wrote about Protecting Your Brand From Online Attacks. She sums it up nicely with her 4 bullet points:

Work on claiming your SERP
Ramp up your customer service
Build your listening station
Learn when to duck and when to punch

Don’t over look #4, not every attack or slight needs a response. When you get in an argument with a crazy person, nobody can tell that only one of you is crazy.

Then Chris Brogan gets into a discussion of Timberland and his bad experience with them and then pulls back when he realizes that his powerful blog can do real damage to a company’s online presence. It was a really smart move on his part to pull back and recalculate.

If you or your brand are known by more than a handful of people, you have an online reputation. The more connected you are, the easier it is to see what that reputation is.

Let’s take a quiz, shall we? I’ll say a brand name, you shout out the first word you think of that relates to it, ready?

Toyota Prius

Fox News

Michael Moore

Oprah

AT&T

NY Yankees

Sarah Palin

Well, how did that go? Did you have an opinion on those brands?

Those brands have people dedicated to monitoring and defending their brand, even so, I probably found at least one that you don’t have a positive opinion of . So with that in mind, how is your online reputation?

The other day I was in the Wake County Courthouse watching as the kids that broke into my house last summer and stole 2 laptops went in front of a judge in juvenile court. A couple friends had asked for updates, so I tweeted out some updates.

Now, if you do a search on Google for Derice Utley(who pleaded guilty to felony breaking and entering) this is what you see:

That’s a classic online reputation problem. So what can he do to fix this, I mean besides stop breaking the law?

Well, step 1 would be what Lisa Barone suggests. Get control of your brand on the search result page. If your only footprint on the web is what other people have said about you, it will eventually be something bad. People will rarely write a post about how awesome you are, they are much more likely to write a long rant about how much you suck.

I try to regularly Google my name to see what is showing up. I share a name with a comedian so we share most of page 1, but more importantly I control all of the sources of information that show up on that page about me. Twitter, this site, LinkedIn and my Google profile page are all places I have the opportunity to put my best forward. Any brand can, and should be doing the same thing. If you wait until Defcon4 before starting, it’s too late, start right now. If you’re not a big business, you can do some personal branding to inoculate yourself against future screw ups.

If you are a business, you can do something that can head off a nasty rant, you can stop sucking. I know that even the best companies sometimes have customers that can’t ever be satisfied, but more often, that’s not the case. For example, my wife sprained her ankle really bad this morning so we spent a chunk of the day on the phone with doctor offices and in x-ray offices. In almost every exchange, on the phone or in person, the treatment we received ranged from below average to really bad.

So what happens when you see someone trashing your brand, or your company or even you personally? First decide if it’s worth engaging at all. Sometimes, it’s just not worth the effort, but other times you have to. First, take a breath and realize they are pissed off about something. Is the complaint actually warranted? If you could have done better, say so. Apologize to the person and move the conversation from “I hate you guys” to “how can we fix the problem”.

If the problem is someone who is misguided, enter gently and explain why they might be looking at things differently than you. Personally, I still think an apology doesn’t hurt in this case either.

Sometimes you will just get a situation where someone doesn’t want reconciliation, they want vengeance. This is harder. If a former employee calls you out on Twitter as a liar or says you did something illegal, how do you react? In this case, you have to make a judgment about the other person and if you think there is any way to salvage the relationship. If there isn’t, don’t respond directly where everyone else can see a running transcript of the craziness. In a situation like this, you may want to ask your network of friends to offer up a defense for you. That way, it makes the disgruntled ex-employee just look like a disgruntled ex-employee.

If you want to find out about some of the really cool tools available to you so that you can listen in to what’s being said about you, join us on the 15th, or check back here next week for part 2.

Social Media Case Study: How The Pit Uses Twitter and Foursquare

November 22, 2009 by Phil Buckley 30 Comments

I’ll admit it, I’m totally biased and a fanboy of The Pit BBQ in downtown Raleigh, there, that’s out of the way.

I first tried The Pit when Michael Hubbard took me to lunch there last September. Michael runs one of Raleigh’s small advertising firms, which just happens to be exactly a 90 second walk away. We were having a good discussion that day, so I wasn’t really focused on the food, but my pulled pork sandwich was good, and the place was certainly a step (or 10) up from the normal BBQ place.

Later that month, I was back there for a Tweetup where someone from The Pit came out and chatted with us for a second and thanked us for all the Twitter chatter. I took note, it was the first time I saw a restaurant actually reaching out like that.
[Read more…]

Internet Summit 2009 Wrap Up

November 16, 2009 by Phil Buckley 4 Comments

A couple months ago I told my company about the Internet Summit. Although we are the interactive arm for the nation’s 3rd largest newspaper company, no one was aware that Raleigh (our fair city) was the home for the 2009 conference. A month or so passed, and finally corporate decided to pay the way for a few people. I was really excited, until I found out I wasn’t one of them. I would be on my own if I wanted to attend.

I attended the social event the evening before, which was really just a lot of networking and meeting new people. I walked over with my friend Jeremy Smith from Twine Interactive and we met up with Wayne Sutton, Jeffrey L Cohen, Jennifer Griffin, Jamie Tharp, Tucker Peterson and Gregory Ng all hanging around outside the Starbucks and checking in on Foursquare waiting for the pre-convention-pre-party Tweetup to start.

Internet Summit 2009 Conference Opening Reception

Eventually we all make our way down to the new Raleigh Convention Center. The interior is really nice and there is lots of food and drink to be had inside.

There are lots of familiar faces in the crowd. Michael Hubbard from Raleigh’s best interactive ad agency, Media Two, checks in right after me. Rachel Healy, web editor for the Garner Citizen shows up late, but is excited about the conference. My friend Ellen Lynch has decided it was worth the high price to expand her skill set.

At 6:30 the next morning, I picked up Ashley Berman Hale and set off for the real event. We ate the so-so baked goods (they should have used Crumb bakery for awesome yumminess) and hustle to grab a front row seat for the morning keynote addresses.

I found John Kosner, Senior Vice President and General Manager, ESPN Digital Media to be entertaining and knowledgeable. Especially interesting is how ESPN has decided they don’t care how people get content whether its on the web, print, tv, mobile, etc. As long as you check out ESPN’s content, they don’t care how you do it. That’s especially important because it allows you to be everywhere. Companies that ultimately wall themselves off and limit how you get content or products are going to stifle their growth because customers want freedom to choose how they receive it.

Some points I had written down…

Younger viewers expect video EVERYWHERE! Mobile is huge, and still growing. They make money off their podcasts.
They plan to keep rolling out more and more local sites.
They try to “Super Serve” their fans.
Their iPhone app has been downloaded over 3 million times. It uses your location to pull in local scores for you.
“It’s an app world we’re heading into.”
“The iPhone has really improved my life.”
When talking about the redesign, he stressed that “the experience is crucial”. The focus groups had been complaining about clutter. That was their main aim, to clean out the clutter.
Revenue from the homepage went up 35% after the redesign with less ad space but better ad treatment. (yes you read that correctly)
350 people work on ESPN.com 1/3 editorial, 1/3 technologists…
The local sites, require more local people.

Richard Jalichandra is the prez + CEO of Technorati. He had some interesting data, but was a pretty lame presenter.

More people than ever are reading blogs.
Blogs ARE media. In 2008, 46% of bloggers self-described themselves as “professional bloggers”.
That peaked enough interest for them to follow-up in 2009 and get more specific.
In 2009, 28% of bloggers are professional bloggers who are making money.
Bloggers are not just crackpots in their pajamas.
40% of professional bloggers have worked or are working in the mainstream media (less than 1% of the US labor force was employed as journalist in 2008).
73% of bloggers use Twitter, as opposed to only 14% of general population. They use it to promote their blog(73%), share links(67%), understand buzz(63%) and interact with readers(60%).
Roughly 30% of professional bloggers spend more than 10 hours a week blogging.
The Technorati top 500 “authority” blogs generate 300 times more posts than the average blogger. The top 5000 generate 100 times more content.

I headed into to listen to the Search Marketing Panel.

This panel was a bit scattered, but Cliff Reeves from Microsoft said Bing is trying to change the search experience by focusing on user experience and pulling in non-native content.
There was a lot of agreement that if your site architecture is fundamentally flawed, seo is magnitudes more difficult.
Also talk about real-time search and how “authority” seems to be getting more weight in search results.

I then decided to listen to the Morning Spotlight Speakers – Rick Klau and Seth Sternberg

First up was Rick Klau, Business Product Manager, Blogger/Google

10 million people a month use Blogger, and 220-230 million people each month visit a blogger site.
1/2 the people on the web, visit a blog every month, although surveys show that number lower since some people don’t know they are actually at a blog.
Blogger is considered a pro-am type of space, where you eventually step up to WordPress or Typepad.
There are about 292,000 words/minute being entered at Blogger!
Blogger is the #3 Google product behind only search and YouTube.
He spent the 2nd half of his time talking about how conversions are fragmenting – blog comments vs. facebook comments vs twitter comments vs Sidewiki.
He suggest NOT trying to force the conversation to take place in one place, engage where your customers are.

Next up was Seth Sternberg, CEO and co-founder of Meebo, the web’s real-time communication platform providing instant messaging and group chat to over 40 million people. Seth had some interesting data on what gets shared, and how that sharing is happening.

Facebook is now the #1 referrer to CNN.com. Facebook is in the top 5 referrers for most big popular sites now.
Meebo has allowed over 5 billion conversations on their platform last year, that includes 75 million links being passed. What were those links?
- #1 was YouTube links
- #2 links to photos – and interestingly, the majority of them were to photobucket
Seth said you should bias towards shareable video links, photo links and finally text links. To have your stuff shared more write about things from the following perspective:
- social pressure
- help me
- learn about me
- curiosity
Success is getting 1% of your visitors sharing daily.

The Lunch/Panel Session I chose was Social Media: Engage

This was the one panel I wasn’t sitting in the front row for, and it made a huge difference. It was hard to hear, hard to focus and multi-tasking with my chips and sandwich only distracted me more.

Biggest take away for me of the whole day came from Matt Van Horn, Business Development Manager at Digg, who said, “Facebook Connect is one of the most awesome things we’ve done”. 40% of all registrations on Digg are now coming through FB connect.

They also talked about all the buzz in Silicon Valley about Foursquare, Groupon and Boxee.

After lunch I ran into the tiny meeting room to listen to Design and Usability.

A simple zip code question caused 50+% abandonment rates, people thought it was to intrusive. They added a brief one line explanation, abandonment fell way back, and conversions doubled.
WRAL used a rotator, but it was hard for people to get all the info, when they added static headlines below, much better traffic numbers.
“we read IRL, we scan on the web” – Page Sands
iPhone users walk up to kiosks and try to do gestures on the screen
Above the fold is on its way out; people have bigger screens and less concern about missing info.
You are now optimizing an experience.
“people who are half asleep or heavily medicated can still use your site” -Dr John Morkes
Usability tip:”Microchunk” content into easy-to-find, quick-to-consume, remixable pieces/parts
A more usable site should be able to charge more for remaing ad positions.

The best speakers in my opinion were the afternoon spotlight speakers.

Gian Fulgoni from ComScore was up first, and he rocked the data!

Surprising stat: 85% of all music for sale on the web last year was never purchased even once.
Online classified revenue is down 32% over last year.
“It’s inescapable that internet advertising is picking up market share.”
US Media Spend: $118B on branding (63%) and $68B on direct response (37%)
Internet Spend: $6B on branding (23%) and $20B on direct response (77%)
8% of all internet users account for 85% of all ads clicked, and many of them are new users.
In 7/2007 32% of people had clicked on an ad, by 3/2009 it was down to 16%

He actually had so much data I couldn’t keep up, it was impressive.

Matt Van Horn from Digg talked next about what’s happening at Digg and what they are seeing in the future.

Pictures are being shared most.
You should focus on what’s key to you when adding sharing options, you don’t need 100, most only need a handful.
CollegeHumor uses referrers to highlight a specific share button.
New Digg API allows “Most Digg’d” functionality. Time and UK Telegraph use it with great success.
Savvy content producers keep an eye to social media to see what’s hot.
Talked about new ad service where users can vote ads up or down, and ad rate goes with the votes.

The last panel I attended was the Twitter/Real Time Panel

This was a panel of mostly sposts related guys.
The Phoneix Suns engage Twitter users with special deals.
re: Monetization: “everything’s a transaction; who cares you had a grilled cheese sandwich? maybe, Kraft” – Don Brown (Twitpay)
David Eckoff: “It’s not just about content, you have to establish CONTEXT”
Notion of authority becoming important on Twitter
Next Big thing on twitter…filtering tools to allow you to select the content you want.

Final keynotes from Pandora president Joe Kennedy and Lending Tree CEO Doug Lebda.

Both of these guys gave really great speeches. Kennedy spoke about the importance of “disruptive innovation” (I was a little worried at first) in entrepreneurship and drew a phenomenal extended metaphor to the birth of modern film with The Great Train Robbery. Furthermore, he provided some really interesting facts about Pandora’s business, including the stat they have 20,000 new iPhone app registrations every day! What can you see that others are blind to?

“it’s a REALLY bad time to release a crappy product” – Joe Kennedy, Pandora’s CEO
Pandora gets 20,000 new registered users every day from iPhone app with no addtl marketing.
“Just taking the internet and making it mobile = big mistake”
Marketing needs to be more conversational, less one-way messaging
Over $10M mobile ad run rate / year currently for Pandora
mobile is not JUST making the internet mobile, main advantage is that its “with you” – location changes everything
“1:1 web chgs everything (personalization) .. 2-way brings emergent collaboration (cocreation)”
38 million users, 5 billion songs played to date. $45M 2009 revenue

Doug Lebda from Tree.com was one of the most engaging speakers I’ve ever seen. Period. He did an unusual format for his keynote and structured it as a Q & A with the CEO of Peak10. He was incredibly honest and interesting, and the majority of his answers were centered around his entrepreneurial journey, his failures, how his company has evolved, and what he’s learned.

“Raise a bunch of capital, then pretend you don’t have any.”
“You have to be willing to change everything, while staying true to your core beliefs.”

So the take away for me from the entire day was: iPhone, location-aware, mass-personalization, love your customers, mobile and just try it.

How Social Media Can Save The Newspaper Industry

November 12, 2009 by Phil Buckley 4 Comments

70 years since newspapers were a "growth industry"

Working in the US newspaper industry isn’t always rainbows and unicorns… I know, it’s shocking.

Over the past few years I have come to believe a few things.

Print papers will disappear in smaller and younger cities, but will remain in the older and larger metro areas like New York and Philadelphia.
What is commonly referred to as newspaper journalism will move online in those smaller/younger cities.
Many newspaper sites will fail online because they will not understand how to compete effectively.
Journalists that understand personal branding, blogging and video will be the big winners.
An inability to connect with your audience will mean readers, connections mean evangelists.

The problem with most newspapers is they don’t love their readers. Most, stopped loving their readers a couple generations ago. But it’s not to late, although it will take a cultural change that some may be unable to achieve.

Step 1: Start loving your readers.

Show your love by listening to them, by responding to their comments and by offering to co-create with them.

Learn who you most avid users are and engage with them. If you ran a coffee shop and the same customer came in twice a day, you would get to know them, you would know just how they want their coffee. You might even give them a free coffee mug. Can you offer your best fans anything similar?

2. Understand that your world is changing – stop fighting, start adapting

The generation leaving school today has never known a world without high-speed internet access. Generation Y expects information to come to them, so they can share it, mix it, mash it and repurpose it as they see fit. How easily can your users share your content?

3. Make it easier for your users

Every person who visits your site is different, and they all want something different, sometimes, a lot different. Are you trying to give them what they want or are you handing out Men’s XL t-shirts in a one-size-fits-all strategy? I think it’s important that the front page (or lead story on a website) be what the editorial brain trust has decided is the big story. They have experience in picking out stories that should be important to the community – they know that the XL t-shirt will cover most people.

After that opening editorial salvo, I may want to read about where I can listen to jazz this Sunday or find out who won the boy’s basketball game at the high school last night. The next day, all I want is weather. By Saturday, I need the to find out if there’s a parade and what it’s route is.

There’s a good chance a local newspaper site will have some of this, but some of it will fall through the cracks. That’s okay, I have no expectation that you can cover all my interests – but someone is talking about it somewhere. Help me. Be a resource for me and I will always start at your site. Connect me to the guy who blogs about the high school basketball team for in-depth coverage of that, and how about the video blogger who covers the local music scene?

When you help me I will probably share out that information with my friends on Twitter and Facebook. My friends will probably click on the link to see what I’m doing… see the eco-system that is being built?

4. Let me help you

You can’t be everywhere at once. You don’t run in the same circles I do, but sometimes I might be someplace where “something” happens. I have an iPhone and I’m not afraid to use it! Make it easy for me to share my photos, videos and thoughts with you when I happen to be the best reporter you have – also known as, the only person there.

Last month I asked WRAL if they wanted photos of kids on Halloween. They did, they had a page on their website where I could upload photos of little trick-or-treaters. That’s not good enough, because it means more work for me. It means I have to take a photo with my phone, come home, remember to connect my phone to my laptop and extract the files, then create an account at WRAL, then upload my photos one by one. For me, that was too much work. What I wanted was an email address I could just send my photos to as I take them, or an iPhone app. Why wouldn’t WRAL set up a Flickr acct or Tumblr, Whrrl or Posterous to make it easier on me? Media companies are not used to gathering information that way. What would happen to all of the multimedia from all the smart phones if another hurricane Katrina hit? What’s the plan to let me help you?

I’ve embedded the slide show I gave to a very sparsely populated conference room at my company last week.

What advice would you share with the guys running your local newspaper?