[chrisbrogan.com]

Very Sneaky-Clever Warner Posted: 30 Jan 2009 06:34 PM PST Kat bought me the Batman: The Dark Knight, which came with a digital copy as part of its special features. With this, I got a digital copy of the movie via iTunes, which I can play on my laptop, my iPhone, or any other of my authorized devices. Nice touch. I’ve asked for this kind of feature in the past. But this ad is sneaky, eh? I got this in email from iTunes. Look at what they say. “Hey, hope you’re liking that digital copy of the movie you redeemed. Want some more?” Clever? Rude? I’m leaning towards clever. What about you?

How You Might View Bloggers Posted: 30 Jan 2009 12:31 PM PST I love reviewing business and “thinkers” type books. I love reviewing all different kinds of things. One reason is that I love the opportunity to write from my perspective, and I’m grateful for those opportunities. Every now and again, something pokes up, a reminder of how people see bloggers. I was once called “inventory,” as in, that stuff you could put ads up against. Sure takes the wind out of your writerly sails, eh? Hell, even I sometimes jokingly refer to social media efforts as “Hamburger Helper for your marketing.” Face it: we’re less expensive than traditional paths. One year of services with New Marketing Labs, with all the trimmings, costs less than many agencies’ two-week engagements. But we are human. (So it seems.) So, the next time you’re contemplating a blogger outreach program, and if you haven’t contracted me to do it, please pay attention to just a tiny few details, like putting my first name on the letter you include with your book that you’d love for me to review. It’ll make me a wee more interested in helping. The Little Things In doing a blogger outreach campaign, please consider a few of these points: Is my product relevant to the blogger’s audience? Is the company/product community-minded? There will be discussions. What has the blogger done before? Any risk potential? What is the blogger’s audience reach? (Check their authority on Technorati, their reach on Compete.com, perhaps their RSS subscriber count, if it’s visible.) Write a personal message. Even if the first part is the only personal part, at least the name and first few lines should be 1:1. (The payload of the data rarely changes, I realize). Follow up. Even though the blogger should be compelled to reach out and thank you the moment they receive what you’ve sent them, it doesn’t often work that way. Politely check in. Follow back. When a week has passed, double-check that there aren’t questions and the like. Follow through. When (if?) a post finally comes about, be sure to drop by and comment a simple something or other, to show the audience (not the blogger) that you’re responsive and that you care about the community. This often amps up the discussion in a good way. Now, if you want the bonus round, read Susan Getgood. She’s building quite a body of work about blogger relations. Wherever my ideas contradict hers, use hers. **Update: I found this piece by Todd Defren really good, too.** I know it seems like this post is stacked against marketers and PR people. I’m on both sides of this particular fence. I do blogger outreach projects, as well. Maybe, you might consider this my offering of advice to you. Or, if you see it as a slap at you, I can understand that. Either way, maybe we’ll all learn a bit.

Define a Social Media System for Yourself Posted: 30 Jan 2009 09:55 AM PST I’m a fan of John Jantsch. He recently wrote about his social media system and encouraged a few folks to do the same. I’m game, so here are some thoughts on how I do what I do. A Social Media System The Tools Firefox Mail.app iPhone (for SMS) Tweetdeck The Workflow (Here’s where John and I differ, because I’m crazy.) Constant - monitor SMS and Twitter stream. (40-60% of my opportunities come from Twitter) Six times Daily(more, but I’m trying to pretend) - check email Twice daily - RSS dives of my 700+ blog subscriptions plus shared items stream Twice daily - blog content (sometimes more, like today) Daily - review my Task list and add 14 new things to it. Daily - beg Colin and Justin to save me (they take a lot of new opportunities from me and work them). Daily - put really important stuff into Delicious. Daily - swing by Friendfeed. I’m still not at Scoble level there, but I appreciate its intent. Less Daily - Swing by LinkedIn Less Daily - Swing by Facebook Rarely - try yet another new social network. I’m getting burned out on them, unless there’s a huge value. The Workload At this point, if I summed up my systems, and how I’m spending my time, which is a little different than John’s original intent, I think it’s something like this: Correspondence (of any kind) - 60% Discovery (new things, ideas) - 20% Execution - 20% But there’s the rub, right? Social media is, uh, social. If I don’t correspond, then I’m aloof and I have “forgotten my roots.” If I correspond all the time, I run lower and lower on time to do new things, to plan and run my business, and to execute on behalf of clients. In doing the work of defining one’s system, many things come up, and this exercise turned out to be more worth it than I thought. I think John’s original post is more helpful than this one, but the idea is really good, and I wanted to participate. What’s your system look like? Blog it and maybe link to John’s great post?

Video Book Reviews- Throwing Sheep and Savvy Leaders Posted: 30 Jan 2009 09:01 AM PST Today’s book reviews are Fraser & Dutta’s Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom and David Henderson’s The Media Savvy Leader If you don’t want to watch the video, these books are booth good buys. The first is more a thinking person’s book, and the second is a bit more actionable.

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