Are You On?

It's the Snoop song and the ubiquitous gold capped tooth at the end that really makes this commercial work for me. I absolutely love it when a brand has a good time with the image of their product, and it's clear XM is doing just that. Their closing line for the spot is a hook: "XM: Are you on?"

Citizen Soldier and Three Doors Down

If you're going to the theater to see AVPR, I have a bit of advice. Don't take a pregnant woman. I don't want to give away the film, but seriously - don't take a pregnant woman.

But if you do go, or if you go see I Am Legend, you might see the National Guard film, Citizen Soldier, a solid music video from 3 Doors Down that does an excellent job of pitching service in the National Guard. Personally, I think it's the best recruiting pitch I've seen the armed forces ever do.

The video has a story, and that story is the theme of service. It's not snappy, like the Marine videos, and it's not all about confidence, like the Army recruiting. It starts by showing National Guard soldiers helping during disaster, and then goes on to show the history of the Guard and their participation in every major conflict.



The best part of the video is the way in which the Citizen Soldier is portrayed. The camera focuses on the eyes of soldiers, and what you see is a combination of fear and determination The point that is driven home is that soldiering is not cool, but necessary. The video doesn't glamorize war, but it does make the point that serving your country, your community, and your fellow soldiers is something worth doing.

That's a difficult theme to pitch in a video, but the song, from Three Doors Down, is very impressive. It might even bring a tear to your eye.

Agency Christmas Party Ad

This video is from last year, but I thought it an appropriate warning for my friends who work at agencies.

It's a bit crude, but still clever.

Selling Social Media To Corporations

I attended the GIMA holiday party last night, and was once again surprised at the bigger companies in St Louis that are interactive marketing experts. The funniest moment was when a young lady registered surprise to find out Durbin Media is a social media marketing company, and headquartered in St Louis. I think a lot of people still think you have to be on the coast to be relevant, and that still bothers me. To be fair, most of our social media clients in the first year, 2006, were from the coasts, but that has changed in 2007.

That's not the point of the post, though, it's the idea of selling the enterprise on social media strategies.

Step 1: Scale Your Prices.
Just because a blog can be made cheap, doesn't mean that the writing, and the commenting, and the "blogging" can be done cheaply. Money has to be spent on marketing and manpower, and if it's a big company looking for big results, the price tag starts at the $10,000 mark. Many blog consultants, who are used to working with small companies, vastly underprice themselves, and deliver little value ultimately they are just being paid to write (and copywriters are better at it then bloggers).

Companies don't respond to a budget of a few thousand, because it costs more to listen to you, give you approval, and pay your invoices, then it does to actually pay your fee.

Step 2: Understand Your Value
Companies aren't stupid. If you charge a small company $1000 and you charge a large company $10,000 without changing your services, you're walking a dangerous line, and probably won't sell the larger firm.

Figure out what a 10,, 20, 30, and $50,000 project looks like, and really dig deep to understand what value you can bring. A company will pay attention to a $50,000 price tag, but they aren't going to accept intangible benefits as metrics. With $50,000, can you deliver more traffic, more eyeballs, increase sales, cut costs, or provide public relations that are of greater worth than your competitors? Will your social media project yield results, or are you simply looking to get paid to "try." Public Relations firms are struggling with this, as they charge $10,000 a month to get you in the papers, but get paid whether or not you're successful. SEO Firms can charge $10,000 a month to get you on the first page of Google, but if they don't convert traffic to sales, they won't stick around.

The biggest mistake I see from competitors is selling services rival to PR firms and SEO firms, without showing a measurable return on the money spent. If you charge only $5,000 a month, but can't show results, the company won't hire you.


Step 3: Train your manpower well, and do it before you start a project:

Most companies want internal experience, but often will turn to you to do what they don't have the experience to do. It's one thing to offer consulting, and another entirely to actually execute the program. You cannot overestimate your ability to perform. From using Digg and StumbleUpon, to comment and link campaigns, to searching data and getting involved in communities, social media takes time.

And there's that pesky reality that you can't fake it. If you're not actively involved in the campaign, leaving a few comments isn't going to work. And that means you need help. It means you'll have train people ahead of time. And their back-ups.

Step 4: Sell to People Who want to be Sold to:
The final step in selling to corporation is finding decision makers who want social media, and don't have to be convinced. A lot of time is wasted explaining what you're doing, but what executives want is results, not understanding. They're paying you to get the job done, not to fill their mind with ideas of using Jajah to improve customer service (I have a great program built around that if you're curious).

Sell the benefits, and be prepared to execute the idea. In corporate America, the goal is to be a fast second, which is why selling your ideas to people who know nothing about blogs or Facebook is a lost cause.

Step 5: Make Sure You Have Examples of What You Do:
Lots of marketing companies say they offer blog services, or a social media program. Very few of them even have their own blogs, or Facebook or MySpace pages. They're responding to a demand from clients, but they can't do it for themselves.

Your biggest advantage as a blogger is that you are one. Work that advantage. Show your success, and compare it to your rivals. Everyone knows great salespeople, but few people know great bloggers. If you are one, it should be obvious, and it will help you close.

And on that note - I found this blogger on Digg - great information on improving your blog's reach and influence.

LinkSys Router With The Mac

I lost an entire day working in our new office, trying to get the Linksys router to work with the SBC modem. We have the setup at our home office - with the Linksys router working with Charter Cable.

SBC says we have to bridge the modem, but that kills the internet. If we just plug and play, the router can't recognize that we have an internet connection.

So today, I talked to an expert, a friend of ours that knows everything there is to know about connectivity, as he's the CEO of a high-end hosting company.

His advice? Go to the Apple Store and buy an Airport Base Station. It's cheaper then spending more time trying to troubleshoot the LinkSys router.

He's right, and we're going to do it, but it offends my tech sensibilites, as I once knew how to do this stuff. And the worst part is I don't know if I should blame user error, Linksys, or SBC. I have the sinking feeling that the problem lies with Durbin Media tech support (one of my many titles).

Together Everyone Achieves More

If you're a blogger who writes several times a week, you often run into the anxiety of what to do when you have offline business to turn to.

Some people just stop writing, which works, but all to often when you remove blogging from your schedule, it's hard to put back in.

Some people moan about leaving, but can't seem to pull themselves away from the computer. Those people often have exasperated spouses.

And some, those lucky few, have friends that can fill in and write content that actually continues to build the value of your brand. I'm talking, of course, about Rohit Bhargava, who writes the excellent and essential, Influential Interactive Marketing blog.

Rohit had some personal family business to take care of, in the form of a new child, and he prioritized, correctly, putting family in front of the blog. For those of us with business blogs, that's a bigger deal than setting aside your political or personal blog for a few weeks. Rohit brought in some heavy hitters, and in this post, he thanked them for their top-of-the-line writing. The writing is great, but so is Rohit's. What's really great, for him, is that he found backup bloggers who stepped in to keep his site going.

And you can too.

Mark Collier of the Viral Garden explains it, fittingly in a guest post on Rohit's blog.

Recently, there's been some great discussion about measuring the effectiveness of social media. These discussions are important and necessary in order to give companies and organizations valid tools and metrics that they can use to measure their social media efforts.

But in the end, these marketers need to keep in mind that succeeding with social media means connecting with people. I cringe a bit when I hear marketers talk about measurement and statistics, because that's applying a business mentality to an area that's about connecting with and understanding people.

When I talk to businesses and corporations about blogging, I tell them not to think of blogging as a direct tool to grow their business, but as a community-building tool. A tool that allows companies to better understand their customers, and that helps current and potential customers better understand the company. Business growth is a pleasant by-product of connecting with your customers via blogging.

Yes, there are measurable aspects to blogging, but I've found it's the people I meet while writing that sustain me, and ultimately makes blogging worthwhile. If you want to measure the effectivesness of your social networking, take a week off and see which of your blog buddies is willing to write for you. If you are generous with your time, and inject value into your community, you'll find yourself with a surfeit of posters. If blogging is just something you rip off on Sunday nights, and you haven't left a comment in three months, well, you'll get your answer there, too.

eWorkMarkets Announcement

on their front page:

Notice to all interested parties of eWork Markets, Inc.

On November 30, 2007, eWork Markets, Inc. commenced a formal liquidation process through an assignment for the benefit of the creditors ("ABC") under Delaware law. An affiliated company to Sherwood Partners, LLC has been appointed as the assignee and the party managing the liquidation process. Within the next 30 days interested parties will be receiving information in the mail regarding the ABC process and the submission of claims relating to eWork Markets, Inc.

In the meantime, should you have further questions, please contact the assignee; eWork M (Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors), LLC at (800) 983-9737 .

We Didn't Start The Bubble

I'm not prone to giggling, and maybe it's the fact that I'm sitting really close to the heating vent and slowly being poisoned by carbon dioxide, but Matt Hempey, who is a Washington University graduate, an a capella singer, and a tech bubble baby with an MBA from Stanford just made my day.

It's time to bust out the a capella cd's and make my videos. This really cracked me up. Here Comes Another Bubble.



hattip: HotAir

Durbin Media Staff Announcements

We've been growing, organically, and have added two new people to our staff of independent consultants. This has been a big deal for Franki and I, as we move from being consultants in our firm, to managing other people.

That's the hard part about growth. You reach a point where you simply can't get all of the work done by yourself, but you're not big enough to start hiring people willy-nilly. Ultimately, you have to make the choice; Ddo we want to manage an agency, or do we want to simply do the work?

It's an entereprenuer's first big step, and the hardest. Talk about magnifying risk. Currently, we're straddling the fence. The two new additions are independent consultants, one working as a blogger, and the other as a designer. While this allows us to take on more projects, if we want to keep them, we need to give them more work, and more interesting work to keep them motivated.

Well, we can always sell more projects, so I'm going to go ahead and throw this out there - we're looking for more bloggers, and more designers, especially designers with Typepad, Wordpress, and Blogger design experience. Designers will work hand-in-hand with the owner of the company on projects, but if they have enough experience, can work directly with our clients. We're very picky about who we work with, but the advantage is you get mentoring from a fantastic designer. Franki does this work - and though I'm a bit biased, she's the best I've ever seen. Send us a note and announce yourself as a fabulous designer.

For bloggers, we're looking for people who have been writing for at least three months, who have either been paid before to write a blog, or who currently make money with their blog using AdSense or other methods. We'll need to see proof of traffic growth in your writing, and incoming link growth in Technorati.

At this time, we're specifically looking for people with a strong knowledge of St Louis (for local clients), marketing, or MySpace. We also like bloggers who write about business topics, and who understand the difference between blogging and writing.

The pay is good. We pay monthly based on the project. It's more than you'll make with Adsense, but we're not paying professional writers what they're used to making. In fact, we're not interested in professional writers - we don't want writers, we want bloggers.

Your duties will be
1) Writing 3-5 posts a week, averaging 16 a month
2) Leaving relevant comments on other blogs (this is an art in itself - we don't comment spam other bloggers)
3) Joining the communities we assign you to (marketing, local areas, pets)
4) Working with clients to help publish their information, without serving as a company shill
5) Utilizing widgets to help build traffic

Durbin Media Group does not write ghost blogs. We don't create fake blogs. We don't astroturf, or write fake comments. Our dedicated bloggers become an extension of a company's marketing and corporate communication departments, and work with the company to introduce social media to their customers, and help provide an online platform for the company.

Working with us, we'll teach you how to blog for business, and pay you fairly for your efforts, including sales referrals and blog referrals. Our business is creating and executing online marketing campaigns, and we'd be happy to have you join us.

The Costs Of Starting A Blog: Corporate Vs. Individual

Prospective Clients often ask me what the ROI is for social media. Whether blogs, or Facebook, or podcasts, they want to know how much they are going to make if they sign up for a program. I have my set responses, but can boil the answer down to a single principle. You get what you pay for.

For Corporate Blogs:

I see blogging and its siblings as effective Word of Mouth tools, enhancing Search Engine Ranking and providing a branding platform for companies to communicate with their audience. When we present proposals, we lay out both the tangible (measurable), and the intangible benefits, and compare the basic ROI to that of a PR or branding campaign.

Blogs, when nurtured, over time can provide a powerful online messaging platform, and they serve the very useful purpose of integrating you into an online community (which becomes
more important every year).

Cost:
Design: A blog is often quoted as $0, because you build one on Blogger, or just add it from your website host. Don't believe it. A professionally designed blog can cost you anywhere from $5,000-$25,000, and it's far more robust then the templates you can pick up at GoDaddy.

These kinds of blogs will also work better in the search engines, and visually for your readers (A well-designed site attracts readership), and what you get will be more robust than a site that costs three times as much. It's a deal to build a $75,000 site for $25,000. And if you are a national company, you want to spend this amount of money. Do you really want to be on the front page of AdAge with a $25 Wordpress Template? Just because the public can build blogs cheap, doesn't mean that your company wants to mess with its brand. Find agency-quality talent to build a beautiful site.

Marketing:
Building a site is cheaper with blog software, but you're not off the hook for cost. The money you save in building a blog needs to be spent on marketing if you want to generate large amounts of traffic. I'd take an amount at least equal, but oftentimes twice as much as you paid for the site, and use it to market the blog over 3-6 months. It's a big internet, and if you're not prepared to spend money, no one is going to find your site.

Hosting:
Here you get off cheap. For $150-$250, you can host the site for the year, and only pay for higher traffic if you overload your servers.

For Small Business And Individuals:

For small businesses and individuals, the blog is a less-expensive way to maintain a web presence, and it's often more effective than a website if they sell services, and not a product. Thus if you're a speaker, a blog makes more than a website. If you sell a product, a blog is complement to your website, but you need a full-fledged e-commerce site if your business is more than a hobby.

Cost:

Design: $0-$4000
The rule of thumb on cost is looking at the value of your blog. If your site is going to make you money, or directly is responsible for driving revenue (like sales leads that close), then it's a good idea to spring for a site design from a professional. If you are just testing the waters, or if cash is tight, it makes sense to use a free template, or hire someone to make a template and customize the site for a few hundred dollars. We charge for site customization based on the average time it takes me to build the blog, add the right sites to the blogroll, change the colors, map the domain, and add widgets that you need for your site. When we "design" a site, you're paying for conceptual.

The problem here usually comes from people who have never paid for design before. It's not a time-based project. You're paying for creativity.

Marketing:
This is where most people get into trouble. Blogging, and most of social media, is a time intensive act. Because it takes time, it usually doesn't cost as much in money. Owners of small businesses often overlook the cost in time, and want results from a blog simply from its creation. And of course that doesn't happen.

The best description is one Franki came up with. Blog Consulting it like personal training. Buying the Solo Flex is just the first step. Hiring a coach is the second, but the final, and most important step is following through on the exercises. A personal trainer cannot make you fit, anymore then a blog consultant can get you 10,000 daily uniques. We can show you how, but it's up to you to perform.

Hosting:
Here you're getting hosed. It costs the same for Megacorp to host their blog as for you. Think of it this way - at least you get to compete on content and SEO.

In the end, both from a corporate standpoint, blogging takes effort. You can choose whether you prefer to spend time, or money to be successful. Time is Money, right? The amount you put in of either one is going to determine what you get back. There is no such thing as a free lunch in the blogosphere.