DISQUS

I was one of the 5,000. Frankly, it took me a while to get the gist of the whole thing. (In fact, it took a co-worker who had seen some tweets about the campaign to clue me in.) While I have no intention of eating the bugs, I am keeping the bag as a souvenir. I also took a picture and tweeted it. I thought the effort was admirable...a funky, creative way to get their rebranding efforts across.

John, one chapter in my new book deals with precisely what you said. Before diving off into social media initiatives, get the basics down first. Of course, my focus is online but the same applies in a general sense. Thanks for being the "voice crying in the wilderness." It may not be popular advice, but it is sound advice.

John, thanks for affirming something I believe, that podcasting was indeed an underutilized, under-appreciated form of marketing. Considering I'm devoting an entire chapter to it in my upcoming book, I'm especially grateful. It is most definitely a tool small businesses should be using.

Been there, done that (more than once), and asked for forgiveness every time. Occasionally, there are those who have nothing better to do than take offense and get huffy-puffy, but for the most part, people are willing to let it slide.

"Bloggers are people who use blogging software."

Chris, do you really believe that's all there is to it? At the most base level, yes. But, blogging is more than that. It's an ethos characterized by genuineness, authenticity and transparency, or at least it used to be.

I realize those words carry little import today and that grieves me deeply, but I'll never believe that blogging is nothing more than the use of a technology platform. If that is the case, I need to move on to other pursuits, because I've wasted too much time thinking about it as something more lofty and I'd hate to think I've given the last five years of my life devoted to something that's little more than a sequence of ones and zeros.

The most deserving small business I can think of is that owned by my wife, Amie, who is a home stager. Yea, OK, call me prejudiced, but I don't place her into nomination simply for that reason.

Amie is a frontrunner in a burgeoning, cottage industry (she started her business in Feb. 2007), bootstrapped it using commonsense business principles and has grown it into a growing, sustainable small business gaining the respect of not only fellow stagers, but Realtors and home builders as well. And she's done that in a part of the country where staging has yet to become standard operating procedure for the real estate industry. Truly, she is a pioneer deserving of the Small Business Kit.

Her URL is http://www.homestagingbyamie.com

Thanks, John, for facilitating this.

"Give and ye shall receive." It's a life principle that applies to social media as well. Great points Elliott.

Sanity has to prevail or else we'll all run around like chickens with our heads cutoff. Technology, which should be our slave, has become our master. Shades of I,Robot and Hal 9000. High-time to say "stop the madness!" Thanks Chris.

Congratulations on the book deal John. I'll pass the word around in our office and see if there might be something we could send your way.

Thought I'd help your comment count. Seems a little low on this one. :-)

Thanks for being an advocate for no-robot behavior in social media. You know my stance. Now, if I could convince you never to "pay-per-post" again, that would be great!

@Bill - There is much to be considered here. First, conversational media doesn't begin with talking. It begins, rather, with listening. These tools are not merely the purview of the marketer, but the consumer as well, and they are using them to talk about us, our businesses, products and services, potentially at least. And we need to be listening to what they have to say.

Why is that important? Because what they have to say has weight. Word of mouth is trusted more now than ever and the internet, particularly the social web, has put WOM on steriods.

So, what are we listening for? Three things: Strength of voice - how much is being said; tone of voice - whether that conversation is positive or negative; and trends over time.

What if, for instance, a customer of yours is out there on Judy's Book, Yelp or some other such site raving about the great service they received. Wouldn't you want to know that and potentially reward that customer? On the other hand, what if they are ranting about the poor products or service? Again, is that not something you'd want to know?

That's as much as part of what social media affords as any jibber-jabber of ours.

My strategy, then, is this: Listen, respond, engage and measure.

While we don't have time here to fully flesh this out, let me mention someone, a small businessperson, who lives this out each and every day. His name is JD Iles, and he runs a custom sign shop in Lincoln, NH. His site, www.signsneversleep.com, a blog, is probably his biggest, single-most effective (and least expensive) marketing tactic.

John can testify, I'm sure, to how social media in the form of a blog has worked to build JD's business.

Much more to be said...

@Bill - You struck two chords with your comment. One is that many perceive social media as nothing more than a place where you meet people and they push their virtual business cards in your face. It's not that. Social media, in terms of its efficacy as a marketing tool (and it is so much more than that), is in building relationships and those take time.

It's conversational or relational marketing. The notion of meeting someone and immediately (as I see happening on Twitter now) pitching your product or service, flies in the fact of well-established social media etiquette.

The second chord you struck is one of a "minor key." My fear is that what you suggest is what social media will become if we're not careful. Again, when people start following me on Twitter or friending me in Facebook and immediately start pitching me, I know they don't get it. Traditional marketing techniques don't bode well in this new media world. They just don't. The Matt Barack debacle the other day is a perfect example.

As Chris Brogan put it so pointedly in today's webinar on Twitter for business, when I'm reaching my hand out to shake yours is not the time to stick you tongue down my throat!

Conversational media is about turning strangers into friends and friends into customers and customers into evangelists. That takes time and patience.

I agree with your surmise John. However, I will say this in defense of social media -- it has literally changed my life both personally and professionally. Starting with my foray into business blogging in 2004, I have found a home in the social mediasphere.

Some of my dearest friends in the entire world (and some of them are from locations across the world) have come from participation in social media. Not only that, it's opened doors that never would have been opened otherwise.

I admit to having an almost religious fervor about it, only because of the profoundly positive effect it's had on me. As such, I find it hard not to evangelize about the benefits. To me, it's not merely a marketing strategy, tactic or set of tools. It's a way of life.

My version of your "Listening, Providing Value and Participating" mantra is "Listen, respond, engage and measure." It's a simple plan for social media success.

Years ago I had some bad experiences with NetSol, and started referring to them as "Notwork Solutions." However, my interactions with Shasi has softened my attitude. It's like you said Jason, social media is about connecting more with people and less with brands. By building a relationship with the person representing them, I've become less of a critic of the company itself.

Thanks for the "fair-and-balanced" case study. I'm adding it to my What's Working in Social Media wiki.

I would agree that social media sites like Facebook and MySpace aren't well-suited for advertising and for obvious reasons: The purpose for participating in a social network has little if anything to do with advertising. It's about relationship-building and networking. (i.e. being social)

However, to suggest (and I'm saying you did) that social media is not suitable for marketing is quite another matter.

I sometimes feel we too conveniently lump all forms of social media into on big hamper and fail to take time to distinguish each strain by its relative strengths and weaknesses.

Forget Facebook and MySpace for a moment. Personally, I'd like to see figures associated with advertising on blogs.

Paul Chaney's last blog post..BrightTALK's Conversational Marketing Summit in full swing

Show off. :-) Pays to be the Scobleizer.

I'm sooo tempted to jailbreak mine, but sooo fearful of doing so as well. Tell the folks at Qik to hustle up and get and app ready for the masses to use. After all, we can't all be you Robert.

I can't recommend you because you didn't mention your relationship to IBNMA. :-) Ah, just kidding.

Honestly, there is a very short list of people I would recommend and you're absolutely one of them. I think you have your finger on the pulse of things Todd.

It's a huge job and NAR must (MUST) find the right person. I've outlined my thoughts on the matter on my CMM blog.

Make that accusation, not acquisition. D'oh!

Ouch! Certainly didn't mean it as an acquisition. Far from it and apologize if it came out sounding that way. Truth is, I'm an ordained Southern Baptist minister who grew up in church.

I have great respect for the Godblog community and claim a number of its members as personal friends, La Shawn Barber and Stacey Harp among them. Oh, and you as well!

Congrats on the book. If this is a first, it's exciting isn't it? Almost like the birth of your first child, but in some ways even better. You don't have to burp it or change its diaper. In fact, writing a book is almost like gestation and giving birth.

Again, congratulations on this achievement and good luck. I hope you sell a ton of them!

Paul Chaney's last blog post..Email and social media, a better fit than you think

I guess you've answered the question I asked via Facebook. :-)

Chris, it's hard for me to discern which is your best, because it's all "best" imo. Just keep doing what you're doing. We all benefit.

I wish I'd seen the MarketingSherpa article prior to writing my own on the topic at Practical Ecommerce. I wholeheartedly agree, ratings and reviews will become the norm.

Paul Chaney's last blog post..The SEO value of a PRWeb press release

I don't know that I wouldn't flip some things around a bit. It seems to me that content marketing could fall to the left of small groups. Regardless, I agree that community is where it's at these days.

The company I serve as marketing director has made a seismic shift away from display advertising (both print and online) in favor of content creation and social media participation.

I don't know that I necessarily agree with the cost estimation either. Keeping in mind that I come from a small business perspective, it's cheaper for us to create content on our own Website and blog than it is to purchase media in the form of banner ads (and, yes, print). For example, we're in the process of creating a couple of online communities to appeal to specific target markets. We're using Ning and, even with some upgrades, the cost is minimal (A few hundred dollars per year). Mainly, it's an investment of my time, which would be an expenditure either way.

I think we can add one more to the list. You've decided to give up blogging and communicate via an email list.