Don't be the Guy in the Banana Suit

Two big stories coming in on my RSS feed.

One is about, well, RSS feeds, and the other is about building community around a product.

First, to RSS.
Steve Rubel points us to Emerson's new RSS starter kit, which explains what a feed is and how to use one to improve your web surfing. He also points to new information on advertising in the weblog and RSS space. More money is going towards online marketing, and understanding the difference between the two is just the beginning.

I finally broke down a couple of weeks ago and started using RSS regularly. It has incresed by a hundredfold my functional ability to surf the web and pull good stories down. To some people, this might seem daunting, but all I've done is add all of my regular reads, and quite a few new ones into one place.

In essence, I don't have to type in websites to find out what is going on - it's delivered to NetNewsWire, which makes reading blogposts and newspaper articles as easy as reading Outlook. If you can surf 300 messages when you get back from a long weekend, you can read 300 posts in your newsreader, sorting, deleting, and controlling your information flow.

The second post is on the Intuit community, and the Church of the Customer Blog delivers:

"Go to Intuit's community site for QuickBooks customers and you'll find a state-of-the-art arena filled with:

* Customer forums grouped by industry, product add-ons and level of software
* A slew of podcasts about tax tips and payroll usage
* Screencasts on how to use the software
* A database of customer-requested features and the company's response to the requests
* A roster of product and small-business blogs
* A library of product tips and ideas
* RSS feeds for most of the above"

What Intuit is doing is providing services that complement their expertise. Customers who buy their software have other needs - if Intuit provides for all their needs, they are more likely to buy their software. This is the point of community in business marketing - solving multiple problems around a core product.

So what we have is companies starting to catch on. Emerson teaches RSS to showcase their expertise, and Intuit builds a community around their product. Now compare that to companies who still think blogs are written only by unemployed consultants in their pajamas.

The Summary:

1) The ability to read large amounts of information is a competitive advantage every executive should have. Utilizing a web-savvy member of your staff or a blogging consultant, you can set up your new RSS information filter and be better informed, more quickly than ever before.

2) Reading is part of the solution. Learning to function in an online community, understanding the rules and providing a place for your customers to gather information, is the new marketing.

Think of it this way. OldSchool Advertising is the guy on the streetcorner in a banana suit begging you to come inside and try the latest specials. Building an online community is the equivalent of having your best friend drive you to the restaurant and ordering with you.

Welcome to our world, Tom

Tom Hanks will be joining the mobile community soon, at a theater near you. The movie, dubbed "How Starbucks Saved My Life" will illuminate millions to the world many of us already know intimately: Starbucks sells office space for the cost of a mere cup of coffee.

Out of necessity, Tom's character begins working at the famed coffee purveyor to keep his livelihood in check. In the process he befriends the manager, develops friendships, learns about life, love and himself.

Based on a nonfiction book by Michael Gates Gill, the movie has the opportunity to expose this ever more popular lifestyle. While mobile professionals may not be behind the counter creating caffeinated masterpieces, we do think of the network of Starbucks stores as our virtual corporate locations. Rather than being a "third place" for many it is an office for countless millions.

What is exciting, is the opportunity to see how Hollywood (or at least Gus Van Sant) chooses to bring this to life. I certainly hope to see velvet-upholstered chairs filled with entrepreneurs and small tables covered with laptops. Who knows, we might even see some coworkers onscreen.

Local Business Blogging

I'm a big fan of community, and happened to find one just my size. today.

It's called All Business.com, and it's an advice site for small businesses. Blogs are key components of All Business, and right away a post caught my eye that we've been talking about.

You Can't Measure Everything, So Don't Even Try.

Kevin Stirtz uses the example of a bowl of stew to explain the importance of intangibles. Maybe it's how close it is to dinner, and maybe it's the cleverness of his example, but I was drawn in.

A few weeks ago I made a huge pot of beef stew. Or maybe it was soup. (I can never tell the difference!) Either way, it was a hearty combination of beef, vegetables, rice and seasonings all cooked together in a steaming hot (and delicious) medley of a meal.

When I enjoy a bowl of this stew, I enjoy it as a whole. Sure, I enjoy the various ingredients. They each stand out in their own way. And, if I neglected to include one I would miss it. For instance, it wouldn't be as good without the carrots. And I'd certainly miss the rice.

But I find it hard to imagine I could assign a specific share of the flavor to one ingredient.

Let's see, if I assign a value of 100 to the entire experience of enjoying a bowl of this stew then I need to break out the “experience value shares” of each ingredient. Of course there are things that went into the stew that are not ingredients, like heat and time and how the vegetables for cut and the quantities used."

Tasty. The point of Kevin's column is that far too many business decisions are based on their ROI. In running a small business, Franki and I can't afford to allow money issues to guide our decision-making. The joy of running your own business has to outweigh the stress of running a business. Maybe that's an emotional ROI, but when we go through planning sessions, the final question we ask is "Do we want to do this?"

It doesn't matter what the money is and it doesn't matter what other benefits are involved - we are learning to chase our passions in our business development and tap our joy in our solutions for clients.

Maybe that makes us money foolish - and certainly we don't work for free - but if we wanted to just make money, I'd still be recruiting and Franki would be working inside a corporation with a good dental plan.

Our goal is to enhance our personal lives with our working lives.

Anyone who can measure that has never had a spoonful of my all-day beef stew.

If you Build it, will they come?

When we begin asking the question of how blogs affect the bottom line, we should be aware that blogs themselves don't bring value. This is a tough question I've wrestled with in sales calls, because the answer isn't what an executive wants to hear.

The Question:

What value am I getting from a blog?

The Answer:

You don't get value from a blog. You take value from a blogging community. It may seem the answer is just semantics, but the purpose is to shake off the idea that blogs = more money.

Blogs are information tools - they are good at collecting, managing, and dispersing communication - but they aren't money-makers in any significant way.

The value in blogging is building and participating in a community that you can then use to leverage your products. How do you build and nurture such a community? Why, you learn from the experts.

On-line communities have become not just a major social force, but a significant driver of business activity both online and offline. Facilitating, nurturing and benefiting from those communities, however, is not a simple task. To explore what makes these communities tick, Kevin Wehrbach, a professor of legal studies and business ethics at Wharton, spoke with Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.com, Julie Herendeen, vice president of Network Products at Yahoo and William Flitter, CEO of Pheedo. All three are involved with successful online communities and efforts to leverage and facilitate online communities, but in very different ways.

The challenge lies in not just building a community, but providing enough value to the individual community members to ensure their voluntary participation. Check out the podcast in the link to find out how the most successful communities were built.

An Orange You Can't Refuse

Grocery shopping for the "family" this week? You might have noticed something different in the produce section...

To promote the release of EA's The Godfather game, marketers slapped stickers on thousands of oranges to drive traffic to the promotional web site. These URL emblazoned fruits were placed in large numbers throughout busy public spaces. New York, Chicago and San Francisco were all hit.

Although I don't readily see the connection between Don Corleone and citrus, the site is fun and the approach is unique. Best of all, it got people talking and made the rounds in marketing circles today.

Changes in the Website

Small companies like ours thrive on change. It is to our advantage that when we want to change something, we will do it.

Which is why the Processes tab on the site is now being changed to a FAQ section. For some reason, FAQ's draw more attention than any other section of a website. Maybe it's the clear language, maybe it's the format, but we'd like to present the new section for our nascent community of readers.

If you have suggestions of better questions, better answers, or if something is not clear, please leave a comment or send an e-mail.

Help us, Help You. Help us....Help You.

What's In Your Wallet

I can't stand those Capital One commercials. They're cheesy (though they have been less bad as of late).

Capital One and I have a long-standing relationship. They turned me down for a job in a call center 10 years ago, and I have never forgiven them. It's not that I was a good fit for the job - I actually met the woman who designed the testing standreds for Capital One, and after looking through my file, she told me that telling a call center manager you want her job is not the way to get hired.

But that's all in the past. The real problem I have with Capital One is they keep sending me offers for their credit cards. I've had Capital One cards in the past - mainly when I was broke, owed a lot of money, and Capital One was the only company who would give me reasonable credit at a reasonable rate.

As I improved my financial situation, I cancelled those cards and looked forward to the day when Chase Manhattan and Citibank would agree to take me back into their fold. Every credit card offer from Capital One was a reminder that I had made poor choices in the past. And every tacky commercial reminded me that I was an undesirable to the cool credit card brands.

See what I did there? Yes, I'm talking about brands. Capital One is a fine company - they treat their people well, they treat customers fairly, they avoid predatory lending practices, and managing your credit with a Capital One card is a good way to improve your financial situation.

And yet, using your Capital One card is a daily reminder of past failures.

Branding is funny like that. As consumers, our choice of companies is often based on a brand, and not the way the company treats us. So I'd like to offer a truce. I'll stop thinking bad things about Capital One, and they'll work on those commercials to try to amuse me more, or at least annoy me less.

In the meantime, we should all take a look at the brands we use and why we use them. We may find our desire to be cool to get in the way of smarter decisions.

Step on the gas. Turn up the volume.

What could be better than cruising down the California coastline in your new BMW? Driving while listening to audiobooks written exclusively for your listening and driving pleasure. BMW has teamed up with Random House to bring you short stories written specifically for those one-hour jaunts in your Beemer, with hairpin turns and breakneck speeds written right into the plot.

These commute-friendly stories are another great brand sharing tool by this already tech savvy company. It's a unique but not surprising approach by the company to interact with its loyal customers and anchor the driving experience in the minds of the audience. As a once regular visitor to bwmfilms.com, I see this as a terrific move for the auto maker. These 'podcasts' are cheap, portable and bound to be the topic of water cooler conversation.

A new audiobook with a gripping car-centric tale written by contemporary writers will be released every two weeks. By experimenting with downloadable advertainment, BMW goes head to head with other podcasts and digital content that modern drivers have available to them. Our iPods become portable entertainment systems loaded with possibilities. By giving loyalists the option of a brand-focused experience, BMW drivers become engaged, interested and excited about the next release.

Although simple, the site offers the short stories for free, and encourages users to review the books online once they've listened to them. By inviting interactivity, BMW has the potential to build a community of enthusiasts. How better to get people telling stories about your brand, than to commission the stories yourself?

Focus Factor Four

I just received a box in the mail. In the box, six bottles of vitamin supplements arrived to help me improve my focus, concentration and memory.

It's called Focus Factor, alternately titled "smart pills" by Franki. I heard about them originally on the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show, and decided to buy them on his recommendation.

What a difference - in all seriousness, these pills have been like brain candy for an already fertile imagination. I take 8 pills a day, four in the morning and four in the afternoon, and I feel like I've ratcheted up my IQ a full 10 points.

Don't get me wrong - taking the pills doesn't make you smart the way that caffeine gives you a jolt - it's more like your reserve of brain power, your ability to actually think, is greatly increased.

My proof? I doubled the amount of money I made in one year when I started to take the pills regularly. They are just vitamin supplements, but I'm dropping $300 a month on them for their effect - and it's worth every penny.

If they could only solve one problem. Focus Factor comes in Adult and Child variations. When the box comes, the label says Focus Factor Adult. I just hope the postwoman who brings the mail doesn't think I'm getting dirty videos in mail.

Other than that, it's another brand addiction!

Measuring the Efficacy of your Blog

Corporations are starting to ask the question of if they should blog. The answer may be yes or no, but convincing the boss usually takes some kind of ROI statement that can be tracked over time.

How do you measure a blog's effectiveness?
Zachary Rodgers of Clickz says it's not just traffic to the site, and he turns to Henry Copeland of BlogAds fame for answers.

The debates over the numbers and the technical aspects are fairly straightforward, but they miss a deeper debate that's going on over the nature of blogs and the communities that form around them. According to some blogging and ad sales experts, the marketing value of a media buy on blogs may be obscured by traditional reporting metrics.

Henry Copeland runs the BlogAds network, which sells advertising on a number of influential blogs, including DailyKos. Copeland, one of the first people to package and sell ads in the blog environment, argues against the notion that measurement of a blog buy should resemble that of a traditional site buy.

"Most of the stuff that goes on in blogs is currently unmeasurable...which is to say the buzziness of it," he said. "We started doing this because we think blogs are uniquely influential. In the long run, if bloggers are going to get premium value for their ads, you want to move beyond a CPC or even a CPA environment. You want your media buyers to understand that something sold to an influential is better than something sold to some guy in Wooster, Ohio (which I can pick on because it's my hometown.)"

So if the guy responsible for figuring out how to measure effectiveness doesn't have the answer yet, how can a corporate blogger sell the idea to the metrics-hungry boss? The answer lies in a tried and true sales strategy: Focus on the value, not the money.

Selling Blogs as a Tool not a Destination
When blogs are used in place of websites or as an "alternative" media to the corporate website, they should be tracked using traditional web metrics like traffic, response rates, and as the origin points for sales. If your company is using the blog as a destination, then by all means track it's success as a destination.

When your company, department, or position does not easily lend itself to selling a product or service, there are still ways to convince the higher-ups of the merit of posting to the blogosphere. The blog is a tool for changing perceptions. To pitch that, your ROI Statememt should reference these three points.

Return #1: Publicity
It's okay to admit it - the purpose of starting a blog is to get your name and your brand out there. Publicity can be tracked using inbound links, especially blog "influentials," major media publications, and trade publications in your particular field. Reporters look for good material, and if your writing is up to snuff, you might find yourself quoted in the next issue of Your Industry Weekly. You should exercise caution here, but positive media exposure is always a good selling point.

Search Engine Ranking:
Active participation in the blogosphere, from links to carnivals to traffic to comments improves your search engine ranking. This is true for everything you write, but it's also true for everything negative said about your company. It's a big world out there. Type your company name in a popular search engine and click on the first ten or so entries, skipping your own site. These 10 sites are what people are using to instantly evaluate your company reputation. Keeping a steady blogging presence pushes positive news up the Search Engine Rankings. Presenting and Before and After Google Cache of searching your name is a powerful visual reminder of what it takes to brand yourself online, as well as the dangers of allowing someone else to define you.

Community Response:
The success of your blog is no different than that of non-corporate blogger. Blogging is about personal expression, and without reader feedback, blogging is rather meaningless. What successful bloggers quickly find is an online community springs up around specific topics. If you join a community of like-minded bloggers, you'll be more likely to have information, readers, and the attention you need to keep going. A blog without a community is worthless, so get to work understanding what other pioneers, supplier, competitors and consultants have joined the revolution. The community is where you will get your best ideas, and your best criticism. Sell the community by referencing specific ideas, links, and leads you gain from being part of a group of people in your niche (and remember to give back if you know what's good for you).

Conclusion.
Starting a blog in the corporate world should be a joint function of Public Relations, Marketing, and even Employment (think employer brand). These departments can utilize the blog url to push messages, track customer and candidate response, and even evaluate the online reputation of your company. Blogs, and bloggers, are uniquely qualified to get raw and unfiltered information to corporate bosses.

When selling your blog idea, use all of the tools at your disposal. Blogs are not meant to be websites - they're meant to be conversation starters with your consumers. Measure their worth by the quality of the conversation, and that blog will be a success.

Brand Addiction - Tabasco

My wife and I have an addiction. Several, actually. We love certain brands and are willing to go out on a limb and tell the world about them. In this case, we want to tell you about a little something called Smoked Chipotle Tabasco Sauce - by Tabasco.

Let me tell you a story: There once was a lad who was not a big fan of the spicy sauce. The occasional barbecue sauce with a kick was okay, but mild buffalo wings was the limit of his taste bud sensation.

Then one day, the wife and I stopped at a Chipotle Mexican Grill in Columbia, MO. My little brother was in college at Mizzou and wanted us try this burrito place. I got a steak burrito, and tried a little of this hot sauce called Smoked Chipotle Tabasco Sauce. It wasn't hot - it was tasty! I was so impressed that I went to the local supermarket and bought a bottle. Three days later, I returned and bought four more.

It wasn't long before I was taking the sauce with me everywhere. It was great on eggs, burgers, chicken, tilapia, pot roast, chicken mcnuggets, burritos - and anything with sauce or cheese. I was an addict, going through a bottle every couple of days - and the wife used only slightly less.

Remember this is a guy who was not a big fan of spicy - I'd cry like a baby when I ordered mild hot wings and there was any extra sauce on the side. But something happened. The constant ingestion of hot sauce changed my palate. Emboldened by smoked chipotle tabasco, I started trying Pete's Hot Sauce, all the other flavors of Tabasco, and even started ordering hot wings with the Hot Sauce at Buffalo Wild Wings (Blazin' is just foolish).

This use of hot sauce didn't come cheap, so the wife and I started ordering from the Tabasco Country store, where we could order 24 bottles at $2.65 a bottle. We go through a two cases every three months (We could buy a gallon jug, but we prefer the bottles - dropping a gallon jug of hot sauce trying to pour sauce on an omellete isn't exactly the best way to preserve kitchen tiles).

So why the information on our hot sauce addiction? Because it's the perfect example of brand addiction. We evangelize Smoked Chipotle pepper sauce in every place we go. Pulling out a bottle of hot sauce at a restaurant is a strong indicator of a great product - and everyone wants to try great products.

So, congrats to Tabasco, and thanks to Chipotle Mexican Grill. Now if they could only come up with a low sodium version that still tasted so good.

Freedom and Traffic in Hotlanta

College Students decide to obey the law, and havoc reigns.

Several Atlanta-area students recenty videotaped themselves driving the speed limit on an Atlanta Freeway, complete with footage of other drivers responding with dangerous behavior, inclusing passing on the shoulder, breaking mirrors, and honking like crazy.

This is a fun little video from a small production company called Five Year Plan (the students themselves). I hope they get national exposure.

The video is an instant classic, and media and newspaper reporters will probably eat it up, which means the video will show on Late Night shows, local newscasts, and even in local papers. Can you imagine the exposure? What do you think it is worth in terms of advertising dollars? What about to the careers of these students?

Without getting too bombastic, this video is the driving force behind the Web 2.0. It's not the technology, that's the enabler. It's not the companies - those are just an online version of companies we've always known. It's the people. Web 2.0 is about unleashing the creative nature of the human brain and providing a platform where quality of content can compete with corporate branding and marketing. In many ways, Web 2.0 could be said to be the elevation of personal branding to the level of the corporate marketing department.

Don't take this as a negative for corporations - after all, content like this is now freely available, and corporations can utilize the creative power of the general public to lower expenses, connect with local communities, and watch the emerging of trends simply for the price of being involved.

The video itself, and the students, are not the revolution. The thousands and tens of thousands of individuals putting their talents online for praise and scorn are the revolution. Freedom is the promise of Web 2.0. Freedom.


Hat tip: Instapundit