WebProNews

Tag: BlogWorld

  • BlogWorld & New Media Expo Gets A New (Yet Familiar) Name

    BlogWorld & New Media Expo co-founders Rick Calvert and Dave Cynkin announced that they’re renaming the popular conference series to just New Media Expo, or NMX.

    Calvert said, “When we started BlogWorld in 2006 the new media industry hadn’t really formed yet. Changing the name from BlogWorld to New Media Expo was always the plan, but the timing wasn’t right until now. The industry has clearly defined itself and the name ‘BlogWorld’ no longer represents everything our industry event embodies, which is blogging, podcasting, and Web TV.”

    That’s for sure. Having attended some of these shows, there’s no question that the emphasis is on much more than blogs. Blogs are still very much a part of it all, but the conference is really about all the ways the web is contributing to media, and enabling anybody to take part in the shifting media landscape.

    “We are, and always will be, married to the mission of the show, not the name,” Calvert told the audience before a keynote.

    Dave Armon&nbsp @daveyarmon
    “Blog” is a four-letter word now that #BlogWorld is rebranding. Isn’t #NMX Albuquerque’s airport code?http://t.co/pwisykUa #li

     

    BlogWorld CEO
    @blogworld     @daveyarmon I am still fond of #blog #blogs #blogging #bloggers and all other blog related stuff
    1 hour ago via HootSuite · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    Matthew Selznick&nbsp @mwsmedia
    Oh, hey, just to mix things up, @BlogWorldExpo changed their name for the fiftieth time. BACK to New Media Expo. Question mark.

     

    dave_blogworld
    @dave_blogworld     @mwsmedia actually the original podcast event changed names 4x, we’ve never changed b4 now. We acquired that event.
    3 hours ago via HootSuite · powered by @socialditto
     Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

    New Media Expo is calling on designers to help them come up with a new logo. A post on the BlogWorld blog (soon to be the NMX blog, I presume), says:

    For those of you in our community who are designers, the name change brings with it a really cool opportunity. We want you to be involved as we evolve. The logo you see in the photo above is just a placeholder. We want YOU to submit designs for what our new NMX logo will look like! We’ll narrow down the submissions and then have our community vote on which one they like best.

    Watch our interview with Calvert from BlogWorld last fall:

  • BlogWorld & New Media Expo Buys Travel Blog Exchange

    BlogWorld & New Media Expo announced that it purchased another blogging event series: TBEX (Travel Blog Exchange), which BlogWorld says is the world’s largest travel blogger event.

    BlogWorld will take over production and operations of the event, though TBEX’s founder Kim Mance will continue to be involved in an advisor role, while also playing the part of TBEX evangelist.

    “It was my passion for travel in the new media space that brought an ever-growing grassroots group together, but as a writer and Web TV person, event planning has never been a strong point,” said Mance, who is also the editor for GoGalavanting.com “Being acquired by a fantastic organization like BlogWorld allows the TBEX events to be taken to the next level, and to something the attendees and I always envisioned the event could be. I could not be more pleased.”

    BlogWorld Co-Founder and CEO Rick Calvert says, “BlogWorld’s mission has always been to help all bloggers, podcasters and WebTV producers succeed and grow their businesses. We approached Kim about making TBEX a part of the BlogWorld family because it’s the largest and best travel blogging event in the world. We think it is a perfect fit and we think we can help TBEX continue on its amazing growth path here in the United States and around the world.”

    If you’re a long-time WebProNews reader, you probably have a feel for the kind of content offered at BlogWorld’s events. There are tons of sessions about how to use the web to further your career as a content producer, and there are typically celebrity keynotes. Last November at the LA event, for example, Rick Fox made an appearance:

    Obviously TBEX is catering to a bit more of a niche audience, but having attended multiple BlogWorld events myself, I’d say the conference is in good hands. BlogWorld notes in its announcement that there is already crossover between the content and audiences of both events.

    The first TBEX event under BlogWorld will start June 15 in Keystone, Colorado. That will be the fourth one.

    Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

  • Design Is Still An Important Aspect of Blogging

    Yes, a blog is only successful as its content, but if your platform looks like a joke, it really won’t matter how good the content your presenting is. In other words, design is still, and will always be, an important aspect of blogging. The web is obviously a visual medium and if you turn your potential audience off with a poorly-designed blog, you’re only hurting yourself.

    It should be noted that design is more than just the look of the site. The site’s feel, that is how it navigates and the overall theme need to be considered as well. These concepts were discussed by Bob Dunn at BlogWorld under the guise of how to keep from losing subscribers, which should give you an idea of how important design is in relation to your blog’s success.

    One of Dunn’s first talking points concerned the blog’s header. Use graphics. Use images. Use pictures. Use something that speaks to your audience and relays the message of what your blog’s trying to accomplish. Most importantly, make your blog header your brand.

    Navigation is another aspect to play close attention to. If visitors can’t get around your site in an intuitive manner, they be visiting for very long. Some suggestions include drop down menus, although, don’t make these too convoluted. The longer it takes for a visitor to find what they are looking for, they won’t be a visitor for very long. Use categories in your drop downs, Dunn offers these thoughts, “Catagories are like chapters in a box. Tags are like the index.”

    Tag clouds and bottom-page navigation is something to pay attention to as well. Bottom-page navigation, which can include various links for contact pages, return to top commands, categories, and the homepage, just to name a few. Dunn also suggests the bottom-page navigational links are also search engine-friendly.

    In regards to sidebar navigation, it’s important to avoid redundancy. Be creative and offer your visitors choices of interest, not just links back to the index page.

    RSS feeds and contact pages are additional design elements to keep in consideration. Syndicate your content, which gives your audience an easier way to access it. RSS readers are still an important part of the web user cycle, so don’t ignore it. The same is true for a contact page. While this may seem like common sense, clearly enough people ignore this aspect that Dunn can still discuss it in his session. If you visitors can’t get in touch with you, then they probably won’t visitor much anymore, and it’s a pretty sure bet they won’t spend money on products you offer.

    Moderate the blog comments, especially if your trying to attract a diverse audience. Visible spam comments in a good blog post take away from the quality of the content at an exponential degree. Captchas help prevent bots from ripping your comment stream apart, and if you’re using WordPress, the Akismet plugin is an essential accessory if you’re serious about fighting spam comments.

    The content of the human comments should be considered as well. If your audience is comfortable with adult language, then you can be a little more liberal. If not, keep the comments at a PG-13, if not PG level.

    Don’t forget your About You page either. Give the audience something to go on about their author. Share a little bit about yourself and the goal of your blog and the business its attached to. There’s nothing wrong with a straight forward approach. Your audience will appreciate the honesty.

    For 5 years, WebProNews has partnered with BlogWorld and New Media Expo, the world’s first and largest new media conference, in an effort to broadcast how new media can grow your business, brand, and audience. Stay tuned to WebProNews for much more exclusive coverage.

  • The FTC Endorsement Guidelines a Year Later

    As you may recall, about a year ago, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) set some guidelines into motion, concerning endorsements and testimonials. The main point of these guidelines was to ensure full disclosure when people lending endorsements and testimonials receive any kind of compensation from the marketer or advertiser. 

    IZEA, of PayPerPost fame, was one company who was forced to pay special attention to these guidelines, simply due to the nature of its business. CEO Ted Murphy seems pretty happy with the whole thing though. 

    "It’s been a great thing for the industry," he tells WebProNews. "What the FTC guidelines really did was gave everybody a standardized rulebook to play by. So whether you’re giving people free TVs or hamburgers or you’re compensating them with cash, all marketers are required to do the same types of things in terms of disclosure and transparency."

    Ted Murphy of IZEA Talks FTC Guidelines"I think that’s a great thing, and we follow the – we call it social media sponsorship – kind of that whole space, whether it be cash or product, and it’s just exploding," he says. "I mean…everybody’s just trying to figure out how do they get their piece. I think now that the legal aspects – now that we have some clarification on that – now we can all charge forward and deliver great campaigns for advertisers, and help people that are doing social media finally make some money."

    You may have noticed that disclosure, or at least more obvious disclosure seems to be much more prevalent on blogs these days. Though certainly the lack of disclosure will be less obvious anyway. Still, the guidelines would appear to have sunk in with many. 

    "I think from the advertisers’ standpoint, they don’t want to get hit by some judgment from the FTC, and if their competitors see them doing things that aren’t on the up and up, you probably run the risk of being reported, so I think that it’s really the advertisers are driving awareness of that."

    "But at the same time," Murphy adds. "We did a study just last quarter, and over sixty percent of marketers – people that are PR professionals – have never read the FTC guidelines. So there’s still a lot of room to grow there."

    "But we’re getting there," he concludes. "You know, we had to get the rules out, and now it’s all about education."

  • The Need for a Flexible Employee Social Media Policy

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  • Know HOW You Want to Monetize Your Blog

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  • How Bloggers Can Find Journalistic Credibility

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  • Stop Thinking About Social Media as a Separate Marketing Channel

    Stop Thinking About Social Media as a Separate Marketing Channel

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  • Ads Aren’t the Only Way to Make Money Blogging

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  • Recipe for a Blog That Doesn’t Suck

    Recipe for a Blog That Doesn’t Suck

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  • Social Media and Blogging: The Common Sense Approach

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  • Army Chief of Strategic Communications Talks Soldier Social Media Limitations

    How much information is too much for a soldier in the United States Army to divulge through blogging and social media? Anything that puts other soldiers’ lives at risk. According to the Army’s Chief of Strategic Communications, Lt. Col. André Dean, that’s about it.

    WebProNews recently sat down with Dean to talk about the social media use of soldiers. “We have since 2007…jumped into social media with determination to be here and stay here, and it’s just taken off like gangbusters since,” says Dean. “We’re just trying to find out where the Marines are. Where are those Marines?”

    “Restrictions are almost non-existent,” he explains. “Like any blogging community, you establish some rules of slander or libel or just basic good conduct on the Internet. That’s all that we have with the exception being United States Military in time of war, what we call “operational security,” which means if a soldier talks about a mission that’s upcoming, the enemy is listening always to what we say and do, and if a soldier talks about something that could cost a soldier his or her life, that is operational security violation.”

    “But soldiers are trained to do that,” he continues. “They’re trained to do that continuously. So we just have them be reminded of…and they’re getting an operational security briefing before they start to blog, and we ask them to honor and respect that, and that’s really the only unusual piece, because of the nature of what we do. We have to put something in place, and soldiers…I mean, nobody argues that piece, because that’s their life protected. The whole community has to rally around and understand that piece, and they do immediately. I mean that’s how we watch each others’ back…by good operational security procedures.”

    “So, we stress that as a part of blogging, and we say ‘Cut loose. Fire. Go. Tell the Army story.’ And these great young soldiers do.”
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  • Turning Your Blog Into a Book

    Turning Your Blog Into a Book

    WebProNews recently spoke with Ellen Gerstein, the Director of Marketing at John Wiley & Sons, the publishing firm behind the "For Dummies" books among many others. She discussed the impact blogs and social media have had on the publishing industry and gave some advice for bloggers looking to get books published.  

    "I think there’s a general impression that people aren’t buying books anymore, and while there may be good content out there, it’s really hard to find the readers who are going to pay money for a book," she says. "There are still books being written that have great content and are selling well, and are finding their readers…"

    "I think there will always be a place for books…As long as we work to keep our books relevant, that we deliver them on the platforms that people are looking for…yes, the rise of the Kindle and the iPad and the iBookstore have really done wonders for publishing," she adds. "It’s giving us a new medium to reach people, and having that platform for our content has been a good thing."

    While there may still be plenty of people buying books, whether that’s in the form of print or digital publications, there is no question that there is a lot of free content out there available to be consumed.

    "I think Twitter and blogging is helping us find new authors, but in some senses, it is making us focus more on what the customer is really looking for," Gerstein tells WebProNews. "I think there’s less leeway, because there are so many avenues for putting you content out there, that we have to be more choosey about what goes into a book."

    Many bloggers out there have no doubt considered turning some of their best posts into books. After all, you’ve done all of that writing about a particular subejct. Why not? 

    "It is a very different process between what works in kind of nuggets of content on the web and what works on the printed page, and it is more formal," says Gerstein. "One of our authors, C.C. Chapman, was on our panel [at BlogWorld], and he made the point of saying, ‘when I write a blog post, I can go back and change any of it. Once I put something into print, it’s done.’"

    That’s the magic of the web, but when you’re talking about digital formats for books, the possibilities are opened up there as well. 

    Gerstein offered the following advice for bloggers looking to get published. "I would say, really concentrate on your platform. Figure out what your message is and what community you want to connect with."

    "It’s the people who have the platforms, who are out there creating good content and bringing quality information to a community that we’re looking for, and I think if you work on serving that niche…then take it to talking to a publisher, talking to an agent, considering writing a book. Make sure you’re sure who you’re speaking to and why you’re speaking to them before you take that next step."

    Of course there are self-publishing options on there. In fact I actually spoke with BookBrewer.com at BlogWorld. This is a service that will let you turn your blog into an eBook and get it on eReading devices like the Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone, Android, Kobo, etc. and in online stores like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders. There are also other options, such as Lulu, InstantPublisher, etc. 

  • New Media is Like Ostrich Meat. Eventually, Your Kids Will Grow Up Eating It.

    WebProNews recently spoke with popular radio and podcast personality Adam Carolla. After being fired from his radio show, he started a podcast and after just two weeks, it reached 2.4 million downloads. Some people consider him a pioneer in podcasting, but he doesn’t seem to really think of it that way. "I was doing a radio show, and then they fired me," he says.

    Should you wait until you lose your job to start trying something new? Tell us what you think. 

    His friend then told him he should do a podcast. After explaining to him what a podcast was, he convinced Carolla to sign on. "I’m flattered that people think of me as some sort of podcast pioneer," Carolla tells WebProNews. "There are people who were doing it before I was doing it. There will be people doing it after I was doing it. We didn’t invent anything. Maybe we were a little more consistent about it or approached it in a little different way, and you know, if people like to give me more credit than I deserve, I’m always willing to take it."

    "But you know also, the whole pioneering thing, you know a lot of people say, ‘well, you got in on the ground floor of this’ and they act like you bought Macintosh or Apple stock, you know, in 1979," he continues. "It’s not quite the same. It’s more like…I always tell people, ‘the guys who played in the NFL in the 50’s were sort of pioneers, but those guys made 8 grand a year, and had to work at used car lots during the off season with no benefits,’ so pioneer…not necessarily a rich pioneer…you’d be much better off playing in the NFL now and making millions of dollars, so it’s somewhat analogous in that it’s nice to be known as the first guy to the party and the pioneer and all that stuff, but on the other hand, you don’t get rich just because you were there first."

    Inspiring words for anyone who may think they are late to the game at this point. The fact is that it’s still very early in the game, particularly when it comes to monetization. 

    "When it comes to advertisers and monetizing the podcast, there’s nothing that people have done and are aware of and so when you’re trying to get ad dollars from companies and they have traditionally used terrestrial radio and print and cable television and network television and sky writing and banners on the back of airplanes and blimps and everything else, this is new," says Carolla. "And people are a little weird about new, and it’s sort of like…I remember about ten years ago, people wanted us to eat ostrich meat, and they’d go ‘well it tastes like beef and it’s lean and it has less fat than beef and it’s better for you and it’s cheaper per pound, and people went…’I don’t know. I never ate ostrich growing up. That seems weird to me.’ and you’re like what’s the difference…"

    "So there’s that little transition, and you can tell them until you’re blue in the face ‘hey, it’s better and it’s leaner and it’s cheaper and it’s whatever’, and they’re still like, ‘I want a burger.’ So that’s what you’re dealing with," continues. "Now eventually, you start getting people going ‘hey, I tried that ostrich burger and it’s pretty solid,’ and then eventually, their kids grow up eating ostrich burger and it makes no difference to them, and they start preferring it over the beef, because it’s cheaper and leaner and whatever else it is. So there is that transition where no matter how much you tell them, and how good it is for them, there’s still [the] old school that goes, ‘I don’t know.’ But, we’ve seen all that change in the last six months. I mean it just changed. People are stepping up. They’re advertising. They’re getting their checkbooks out. They’re not writing anything on them, but they’re getting the checkbook out…but they understand, a couple hundred thousand people’s a couple hundred thousand people. It doesn’t matter what they’re listening to or how they’re listening to it."

    As far as content production, Carolla doesn’t see new media as much different than old media. "There’s not much to it. It’s not that different….everyone tries to kind of spin it into something different, but you get a microphone, and sometimes you get a camera, and you sit there and talk, and you tell jokes or you have some provocative conversation, and either people want to hear it or see it or they don’t, and you put it up on the computer vs. the TV set or on an MP3 player vs. the car stereo or radio, but either way, it’s just you talking and people listening…"

    Carolla’s talking about podcasting, but you can see where this logic would apply across the whole new media board.

    Is new media really that different than old media? Share your thoughts.

  • Your Social Strategy May Lack Key Elements for Increasing Conversions

    As a business, it’s great to get out there and engage with customers. It’s great to use a variety of social media channels to open up communication and spread your marketing message, but what a lot of business decision makers might not realize is that it can be the combination of tactics that work much better than any one strategy.

    Social media marketing can be broken down into three categories: earned media, paid media, and owned media. This is how Maggie Fox, CEO of Social Media Group presents it. Social Media Group, by the way, counts brands like SAP, Ford, Yamaha, ING Direct, CNN, and Thomson Reuters (to name a few) among its clients. 

    Do you you use a combination of earned, paid, and owned media? Let us know. 

    "In the simplest possible words, earned media is when someone says something about you rather than you saying it yourself," Fox tells WebProNews. "Paid media is when you then pay to place your content on a third-party channel, and then owned media would be your own channel, so when we’re talking about social, there are social components to all of these things, that would be something like Twitter or Facebook, or you know, your own social website."

    "You can take earned media, for example, it’s very expensive to generate, particularly when we’re talking social, it doesn’t have a huge reach," she says. "If you do, say, a blogger outreach program, you know, perhaps you might reach a couple hundred thousand people. They might consume your content, and realistically for a big brand, that’s not enough to move the needle. You need hundreds of millions of impressions, but you’re just not going to get it through earned social, so then what you can do is take it and amplify it through paid, so there are paid opportunities on places like Digg, Outbrain, StumbleUpon…things like that, where you can actually amplify that content to a much larger audience and get the benefit of it."

    "And then you can also syndicate it through your own channels, so there are…most companies have multiple channels, so you might have something on Facebook, you might have Twitter, you might have YouTube, you might have Flickr," she continues. "You have all these different places you can publish content and work them together in a very concerted, sort of orchestrated fashion to get a lot of people consuming content that’s very favorable to you. So it’s really about orchestration. How do they all work together?"

    Orchestration That Increases Clickthroughs and Conversions

    Finding the right mix of these three types of media may just net you a significant increase in conversions. The way Fox describes it, it almost seems like it should be automatic.

    "We certainly see with paid social that we typically will see a clickthrough or conversion rate of about half a percent against…a program we recently did for a large publishing company…we saw a conversion rate of .55%, so when you compare that to typical display, which is (being very generous) often around .09%, the results are obvious," she says. "There’s an obvious reason why you would choose to leverage some of these platforms, so what we often see people doing is rather than using marketing materials and these paid places again…you take that earned media and take people saying good things about you, as opposed to you saying good things about yourself, and get it to a broader audience."

    Still, a lot of businesses don’t seem to be latching onto the three-prong approach Fox describes. Many are just after the earned media, which can be great, but it’s not necessarily going to maximize a campaign’s effectiveness. 

    "I think there are a couple of reasons. I think the primary reason is that they’re unaware of it," says Fox. "That’s changing though, because we certainly see large advertising networks establishing groups to kind of crack the nuts of emerging paid platforms. They recognize that the effectiveness of existing platforms largely is starting to diminish…that advertisers are demanding more results, and so there are emerging places and ways to get the .55% instead of the .09%, so they’ve gotta figure it out."

    "In terms of the ways people aren’t using it, it’s largely that knowledge," she adds. "It’s the knowledge of ‘how do I do this? What do I do?’ and then the other part of it is, interestingly, services. We see the ratio of media to services to do this properly – to get those results – actually being quite high compared to what you would see from traditional creative, but the results are so much better, so for example, just to…give some data points, we recently did a project for a client where we saw four and a half times the clickthrough rates of what you would see from a display campaign using the same amount of media in the same time frame."

    On using social media in general, Fox says, "At the end of the day, it all comes back to a simple thing, and that’s fishing where the fish are. The primary business reason is 70% of people who are online spend time on social platforms, so go where they are."

    There’s an interesting study making the rounds, looking at when Facebook users are most active. It may also help to go where they are, when they are there.

  • LiveStrong CEO on Fighting Cancer with Social Media, Origin of the Wristband

    WebProNews recently spoke with Doug Ulman, President and CEO of Livestrong, the nonprofit behind the famous yellow wristband and a huge cancer-fighting movement. 

    You probably know that social media has been huge for nonprofits, but listening to Ulman’s story is truly inspiring, as it really shows just how powerful these new tools can be – not just for business and communication, but for making a real difference in the world.

    "Social media has been critical to allowing us, not only to engage with individuals who are part of the movement, but giving them a platform and a voice," Ulman tells WebProNews. "And again, for a nonprofit that’s always watching how we spend money, these tools are free. So, it’s a free way to over-communicate and be very transparent and authentic with millions of people who’ve been touched by cancer and who want to help in some way."

    "Cancer transcends all barriers," he says. "Cancer does not discriminate. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you live, what color your skin is, what religion you are…it is a deadly disease, which is now the number one cause of death around the world, and everybody’s been touched. So, if we can give people a platform, people who want to give back, people who are so resilient, people who want to make the world a better place, if LiveStrong can be that platform, then we’ve achieved our goals, and social media is the only way to do it in a scalable fashion that doesn’t cost way too much money."

    "We used to literally lick envelopes and stamp newsletters, staple them and mail them out," he continues. "Those days are long gone. I mean, now we can communicate in real time. You know, so if I’m here today, we’re telling people what we’re doing. If we have programmatic activities, if we have support programs for people with cancer, we can talk to people in real time every day, and get more people who can benefit from the services, so it’s transformed not only our work, but I think in general, it’s transformed all the nonprofit sector."

    The Origin of the Wristband

    Of course the yellow wristband, which has now even gone digital itself, has played a huge role in getting people excited about the cause. Ulman shared a little about how the Wristband took off and helped shape the movement. 

    "This yellow wristband, this iconic symbol of hope and inspiration and activism and empowerment, allowed people to be a part of this movement, and so it transformed us from a cancer nonprofit who’d been around for six or seven years to an organization who was touching many more lives, and giving people a voice in this process,’ Ulman says. "And so that’s how it sort of transformed from a cause to a movement."

    "We had a great partnership with Nike, and they came to us with this idea to make a yellow wristband, and to sell six million of them," he remembers. "We thought they were crazy. We didn’t think we could ever possibly do that, and it just took off. I mean, the LiveStrong mantra was put on the band. It was a program we had developed a year earlier. Nike started giving them away to some of their athletes. We started selling them, and one thing led to another: the Tour de France, the Olympics, the Presidential election, people wearing them in all walks of life, but the value of it was that no one ever told you to wear it. It just happened organically, and it happened because everybody’s been touched. So, it’s been phenomenal to watch, and even to this day, we’ve sold 72 million of them, and this year we’ll sell at least 5 million, so it continues to go really, really strong."

    The part of about everybody being touched by cancer was truly illustrated during Ulman’s keynote at Blogworld, in which he asked those in the audience to stand up if they had survived cancer, new somebody that had survived cancer or had lost somebody to cancer. Nearly everybody (if not everybody) in the large room stood up. 

    "We’re really focused on two areas," says Ulman. "One is providing direct service to individuals and families that are affected by cancer, and we do that through LiveStrong Survivor Care, an 800 number you can call and get support and help. Our website offers that support and help as well. We’ve got all kinds of other programmatic initiatives, which are aimed at improving the quality of life for people with cancer. And on the other hand, we are a platform for advocacy. How can we give people the opportunity to give back and to help? And helping has traditionally meant giving money, and we dont’ believe in that. If you want to give money, great. But we want your time. We want you expertise. We want your energy. We want to help you accomplish your goals, and get your support. And so, if we can provide great, direct service, and we can give people a platform, then we’re gonna make a huge dent in the cancer burden around the world."

  • Keep Learning & Get Help From Friends to Improve Your Social Strategy

    One of the many challenges of corporate social media is that it never stops evolving. New tools, applications, features, and strategies emerge just about every day. It can be tough keep up. That’s why constantly learning has to be part of the strategy as a whole. 

    WebProNews spoke with José Chacón, Lexmark’s Director of Marketing in North America, at BlogWorld & New Media Expo a couple weeks ago. While he and the company were at the conference to launch a new product (a pretty cool printer/scanner with social media apps), he said they were also at the event to learn. A lot of the time at the event, he said, was just spent talking to people and learning. 

    "We’re still learning. The organization has been fully open and is embracing it [social media], and I think that’s why we’re here," he told us. 

    "Being such a large organization, you need to get a lot of people comfortable," said Chacón. "It’s something that’s taken us a while, but I think now, they recognize the opportunity – the value. They see what we can do with it and primarily, it’s to serve our customers better."

    Do you have partnerships? Even just other businesses your friendly with? What’s to stop you from teaming up to help each other out in the social media space? It could be good for all parties involved (including the customers). 

    "A lot of the things that we’ve done, and we started very…like a lot of other companies, with you know, using social media more from a corporate standpoint…using Facebook, posting videos on YouTube…probably in the last 18 months is when we started really doing a lot more with our retail partners, with some of the other brands that we’ve worked with that are part of the value propositions…they’re also involved in social media, so we’ve been working together," he said. "So they’ve been helping us, we’ve been helping them. We want to make sure that if they are helping us, that we give back as well. So I think it’s been a pretty neat experience."

    Such teamwork could be particularly helpful for businesses with fewer resources to dedicate to social media, and if you want a complete strategy (that is to maximize effectiveness), it’s going to take a lot of time and/or resources. 

    At this point, you’ve really got to have some kind of social presence if you want to find success in online marketing. "As big companies, big brands…if you want to maintain viability in the marketplace, you need to participate," said Chacón. 

    If you’re not a big brand, you’re going to need to participate even more.  

  • Thinking of Check-Ins As Searches That Aren’t Going to Google

    Businesses are still struggling with finding the right social media strategies, let alone strategies for check-in apps like Foursquare, Gowalla, and the recently launched Facebook Places. WebProNews spoke with Lawrence Coburn, CEO of geolocation app provider DoubleDutch about where this industry is headed and what it means for businesses looking to take advantage. 

    "I think it’s still early days," he tells us. "I think a huge step for the whole industry was when Facebook Places launched a check-in. And I think the big question that we all need to answer is like ‘is the check-in becoming a gesture that’s gonna be as common as a status update?’ which is, you know, Twitter’s thing…I think it is. I think we’ve passed critical mass, especially with Facebook in the game."

    "What Facebook did is they launched a very basic service, and with a couple exceptions," he adds. "They did some pretty cool stuff, but for the most part, it’s very basic."

    Facebook has over half a billion users, so naturally, when the company launched Facebook Places, a lot questions surfaced about other check-in services. Would they be able to compete with such a monster? 

    "It looks to me like Foursquare has weathered the storm with Facebook’s initial launch, and I don’t think Foursquare’s going anywhere," Coburn says. "I think they’re gonna keep growing. I do think that there’s gonna be a shake-out, like right now there’s probably 10 or 15 consumer-facing check-in apps, and I don’t know if the market can support all those identical apps, but I think we’ll see some fragmentation as well."

    "I think the real competition from the Facebook ecoystem is gonna come from third-party developers like Zynga that build on top of the Facebook Places API, because you’ll notice with Facebook Places that they haven’t done anything with like virtual goods like badges or points, and these are some of the main attractions of Foursquare and Gowalla," he adds. "So they’ve just left that open, but I know that third-party developers won’t be so shy, and they’ll come in and make games, because there’s a lot of good game developers on Facebook."

    Games are one thing, and there are ways businesses can take advantage of games themselves, but is there more to this phenomenon than just games? Real business applications? 

    "I think that location is so fundamental that it has its chance to be its own mega-hit in it’s own right," Coburn says. "Think about it. You want to know where your friends are. You want to know where your family is. You need to know where your co-workers are….To me it’s almost more fundamental than like a status update, which if you had to pitch Twitter to me on paper now, if I had never seen it, it would be a tough sell, but it worked. It became like a communication channel in its own right."

    "Right now you hear about a lot of campaigns that big brands are doing with Foursquare, in terms of giving away free stuff, I think Gowalla gave away a bunch of New Jersey Nets tickets. Then there’s like deals with Starbucks and I think, Brightkite," he says. "It’s all interesting stuff, but I think there’s a lot of experimentation, trying to see where the value is for big brands…We do know this: if a consumer tells you (a brand, a company) where they are, it’s a big deal." 

    "It’s almost like a search query that isn’t going to Google," he continues. "It’s like they’re telling you ‘I’m here, what do you have for me?’ and that’s an opportunity for brands and marketers, and I think we’re gonna figure it out as to where the monetary value is."

    Have you found interesting ways to use check-in apps for your business? Comment here.

  • New Media: It’s Just People.

    New Media: It’s Just People.

    Now that I’ve had time to regroup (a little bit anyway) after a long day of travel, I’d like to reflect a bit on the BlogWorld & New Media Expo that wrapped up over the weekend. If there was one thing to take away from the event, it is that creating good content and engaging with people are the ways to go if you want to succeed in blogging and new media. 

    Almost everyone I heard speak at Blogworld basically said this in one form of this or another. I don’t think it was anything anyone didn’t know before they went into the show, but it was the different ways of creating content and engaging that presenters spoke of that attendees could take home and think about. It was the stories of causes and effects of said content and engagement, showing what can actually be achieved. 

    If you watched any of our live coverage, you may have saw our interviews with people like Scott Stratten (who did the event’s opening keynote), LiveStrong CEO Doug Ulman (who spoke during the first day’s closing keynote), Scott Monty (Ford’s Social Media Director), Brian Clark of Copyblogger and Darren Rowse of Problogger (who both spoke during  day 2 keynote, Adam Carolla (who has the most downloaded Podcast on iTunes and spoke during the closing keynote), and Rick Calvert, CEO and co-founder of BlogWorld & New Media Expo. That’s just to name a few (we’ll be posting the video regularly at videos.dev.webpronews.com). 

    WebProNews interviews Adam Carolla

    Each of these people, in different ways, represent the effects of new media on society. Carolla represents an old media celebrity breaking away from the old system and creating something special with a new format. Clark and Rowse represent finding great success through blogging and hard work. Monty represents how a brand can stay on the cutting edge of new media and technologies. Ulman represents how new media has greatly changed the world for the better, in terms of generating interest and money for important causes. Stratten represents how you can turn yourself into a brand, while being yourself. Calvert, along with BlogWorld Co-founder Dave Cynkin represent the coming together of all types of personalities, opportunities, industries and channels with common goals: creating great content and engaging with people. 

    WebProNews Interviews Rick Calvert

    Penn Jillette, a name often associated with Las Vegas whether BlogWorld is going on or not, had the most entertaining way of describing engagement out of anyone at the show, as he participated in the closing keynote "talk show" with Carolla, MyDamnChannel‘s Rob Barnett, and others. He says that with Twitter, we’re seeing "an incredible increase in intimacy". 

    Jillette also said, "There is no such thing as new media. It’s just people." If nothing else, that is probably the one thing that should be taken away from a three-day event filled with speeches, presentations, exhibits, parties, networking, and interviews. It’s just people. 

    Penn Jillette Talks Twitter

    Read coverage from the event here. See photos on our Facebook page. 

  • Social Media: Power to the People?

    The keynote at BlogWorld this morning was an interesting one, looking at how new media has changed the landscape of politics. Mark Penn, former Chief Messaging Architect for President Clinton and Karen Hughes, former Chief Messaging Architect for President Bush discussed the power blogs and social media have had on shifting elections and public perception. 

    Penn discussed a surge in independence and how we are no longer living in a "red and blue" country. We’re seeing the parties themselves dividing and new movements emerging among both Democrats and Republicans. "There’s a wave of discontent," says Penn. 

    To say the least. 

    Penn and Hughes

    Blogging and social media have given the people a voice. As more and more people have turned to new media, more have been able to consume a wider range of content and opinions, respond to it (in a way that others can also see and possibly benefit from), and spread it. Because of these things, there is more power in the hands of the people than ever. Anyone can go online and say anything they want and be heard. 

    That’s a very powerful thing, but as Hughes points out, it’s not without its negatives – primarily, the incredibly quick spreading of false information. "Speed is essential," she says, adding that you have to jump in because things get reported and repeated. 

    On the flip side, however, new media has enabled instant response. It’s essentially reputation management. Brands face this all the time. When it comes to politics, there will always be plenty more people to stand up for the brand (or bash it). But again, that’s the voice of the people.  News consumers have more viewpoints to look at to help them  form their own. 

    Other concerns Hughes voices include anonymity and the dehumanization of people via the technology. 

    One interesting comment from the audience: social media is just enabling the spread of propaganda on both sides. What do you think?

    Another interesting audience comment: "You’re not pundits anymore. We get our news from sources we trust."

  • Reasons Why Making Money Blogging Isn’t That Easy

    Everyone wants to make money online, and a blog is one of the first things to which many turn to achieve this. There has been so much made of this concept over the years. 

    There are entire businesses based on helping others learn about making money blogging. It’s entirely possible to do, but it’s also easier said than done. 

    There are seven "harsh realities" of blogging for bucks, according to ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse and CopyBlogger’s Brian Clark and Sonia Simone, the panelists in the opening keynote of BlogWorld Day 3. These are:

    1. "Free" is not a business model.
    2. The push-button Internet cash machine is on the fritz.
    3. You are not scalable. 
    4. No one actually wants that much authenticity.
    5. Social media hates selling. (and yet, you have to sell)
    6. A blog is not a business.
    7. No one is reading your blog

    Brian Clark Talks Making Money Blogging from BlogWorldTo summarize an hour of dialogue, you should at some point have a product that your readers will want. You should give a lot of free content away, but even when it comes to content, you can charge for some amount, and if your content is good enough, people will pay for the premium stuff. "You can tell them about ninety percent, and they’ll pay money just to get the final ten percent," so they know they have the whole picture, Clark says.

    Making money blogging will not happen overnight. Sometimes it may seem like this is possible, but in reality, it takes a lot of work. "Build something that is real and something that matters to people," Rowse advises. He shared a story about how he launched a product one day and literally watched the sales roll in. It was as if he had hit a button, and the cash just started flowing, but then he realized he had been working hard up to that point for over two years, promoting the blog, writing two posts a day, doing SEO, press releases, etc. It wasn’t overnight. 

    Sonia Simone talks Making Money Blogging from BlogWorldYou’re not scalable, meaning that as your audience grows and more people want to connect with you, there will be a point where it just becomes too much. You have to set boundaries, otherwise you will have no time for yourself and your family. 

    Eventually, you’re going to have to "get real" about how many meaningful connections you can make in a day, Simone says, adding, "That’s part of growing up in social media.”

    When they say "no one actually wants that much authenticity," they mean that nobody cares about what you did last night, who you were with, what you had for breakfast, etc. In other words, don’t show everybody everything about yourself, because you’re not writing for you. You’re writing for them. Be who you want to be for your audience. 

    Darren Rowse talks making money blogging from BlogWorldUltimately, you’re blogging and using social media to sell, but you can’t just go around selling to people, because they won’t have it. It just doesn’t work. You have to make them want to buy. "You’re selling yourself," says Clark. If you provide enough value to your audience, they will want to buy what you have to offer if it expands upon the value you’re already giving them. "The content is the marketing," he says. 

    Just having a blog is not a business. If you want it to be a business you have to treat it like one, Rowse says. This is basically an extension of number 2. 

    The most important of the seven points is that no one is reading your blog. As Simone says, there are hundreds of millions of blogs, and that includes blogs on your topic. You have to write it in a way that is fresh, and either entertaining or informative. The good news is that you don’t need "monster traffic". You just need a good, steady core audience for advertising to do well.