02/07/2008
One day I'm going to write a book. It will be about playing nicely in the social media world. It will be about how companies people within companies are reaching out in casual conversations that become meaningful. It will be how business sometimes blurs the lines of personal relationships and ROI. It will be about how playing nicely can create win-win-win situations.
There is a company with a funny name, ooVoo, that has found a way to do just that. They have asked bloggers to volunteer their time to demonstrate their new service. In lieu of compensation ooVoo is the making a donation to the 
Frozen Pea Fund which supports the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer campaign.
What makes this an extra special gesture is the Frozen Pea Fund was established for diva blogger Susan Reynolds who is fighting breast cancer. Please read her story on Boobs On Ice. The win is the bloggers get some visibility. The win is the Frozen Pea Fund is increased. The win is ooVoo gets lots of positive word of mouth buzz and great Search benefits. I think Katya, Nedra and Beth would approve.
ooVoo is a pretty neat concept. It's video chat that can accomodate up to 6 people at the same time who participate in the conversation. I don't know about you girlfriend, but I'm thinking video chat is a great excuse for a shopping trip for a cute new outfit with a visit to your hair stylist thrown in .. of course. Perhaps our friends at Lancome might want to partner with ooVoo (wink).
My ooVoo Day Schedule of Speakers and Times. Runs from Feb. 10 - 21, 2008.
Sidebar: Thanks Scott Monty for the list. I think Diva Marketing is the only blog where you'll find the schedule of speakers with times.
Allan Cox, Your Inner CEO
Time: PST
Feb. 11 9-9:30 am
Feb. 12 9-9:30 am
Feb. 13 9-9:30 am
Feb. 14 9-9:30 am
Bob Garfield, AdAge
Time: EST
Feb. 11 11-1 pm
C.C. Chapman
Managing the Gray
Time: EST
Feb. 11, 12-2 p.m.
Chris Brogan, How Social Media Builds Relationships
Time: EST
Feb. 14, 1-2:15 pm
Chris Thilk, Movie Marketing Madness
Time: CST
Feb. 11 11-11:30 am
Feb. 13 11-11:30 am
Feb. 19 11-11:30 am
Feb. 21 11-11:30 am
Connie Reece & Susan Reynolds, Every Dot Connects / Boobs on Ice
From Connections to Community: How Online Relationships Enrich Our Lives
Time: EST
Feb. 10 - 2-3:00 pm
Feb. 10 - 5-6:00 pm"
Dave Delaney Two Boobs and a Baby +
New Media Marketing
Time: CST
Feb. 13, 9 - 10:30 pm
David Meerman Scott
The New Rules of Marketing & PR
Time: EST
Feb. 11, 2:00 - 4 pm
Erin Kotecki Vest
Queen of Spain
Time: PST
Feb. 15, 9:30-11:30 am
Geoff Livingston
Now Is Gone Now Is Gone
Time: EST
Feb. 16 1-5:00 pm
George Parker AdScam
The State of the Ad Industry: George Sounds Off
Time: MST
Feb. 10, 8-9:00 am
Feb. 12, 8-9:00 am
Feb. 14, 9-10 am
iJustine, Tasty Blog Snack
The Internet
Time: PST
Feb. 10, 5-6:00 pm
Feb. 17, 5-6:00 pm
Irina Slutsky, GeekEntertainment.tv
Time: PST
Feb. 20, 11-1 pm
Jack Myers & Friends Media Village
Time: EST
Feb. 13, 2:30-4:30 pm
John Wall, Marketing Over Coffee
Using the web and common sense to grow your business - And answering all questions Marketing
Time: EST
Feb. 10 7-7:20, 9-9:20
Feb. 11 12-12:20, 7-7:20
Feb. 18 12-12:20, 7-7:20, 10-10:20
Joseph Jaffe, JaffeJuice
Life After the 30-Second Spot or Join the Conversation
Time: EST
Feb. 10 8:00 - 9 pm
Feb. 11 12:00 - 1 pm
Feb. 11 8:00 -9 pm
Feb. 13 12:00 - 1 pm
Karen Putz, A Deaf Mom Shares Her World
Time: CST
Feb. 21, 12-2 pm
Laura "Pistachio" Fitton, Presentations clinic
Time: EST
Feb. 12 4-4:30 pm
Feb. 14 4-4:30 pm
Feb. 19 4-4:30 pm
Feb. 21 4-4:30 pm
Marshall Kirkpatrick, ReadWriteWeb
Let's test out ooVoo & meet each other
Time: PST
Feb. 10, 12:01 am - 1 am (to be clear it's midnight Sat/Sun)
Mitch Joel,
Six Pixels of Separation
Social Media, Web 2.0 and this crazy new world of Marketing and Communications
Time: EST
Feb. 12, 8-9:00 pm
Feb. 13, 8-9:00 pm
Scott Sigler, Podcasting Fiction
Time: PST
Feb. 18, 6-8 pm
Steve Hall, AdRants
Time: EST
Feb. 12 2:30-3 pm
Feb. 13 2:30-3 pm
Feb. 14 2:30-3 pm
Susan Reynolds, Boobs on Ice
Wish Susan Reynolds a Happy 60th Birthday
Time: EST
Feb. 10 - 8-9:00 pm
Happiest of birthdays Susan!
02/06/2008
It's a rainy day in Georgia and just as I was wishing for something to distract me from gray skies into my email in box popped this message: Your Guide to a Fabulous Kiss from Lancome. Well Girlfriend, who could resist a click to open that one? Of course I knew it would be a promotion but I was anticipating fun and flirty. A prelude to Valentine's Day perhaps.
The copy drew me in. Yes! Red stilettos, cocktail dress and a hot midnight affair would be lovely diversions as I sipped coffee and procrastinated which project to tackle next. I was ready to take a break. I was ready to play with the brand.
Click. I engaged. I was taken to a product page. Where was my Guide to a Fabulous Kiss?? So I click on another link and another and another. Guess I made Lancone's stats soar (smile). I saw lipsticks in lovely shades but where was there the Guide to a Fabulous Kiss? Needless to say, I was disappointed and became less enchanted with the promotion because it didn't deliver what I anticipated.
Sidebar: Note the subtle language change above. I went from "my Guide to a Fabulous Kiss" to "the Guide to a Fabulous Kiss."
Well, diva dahlings, I still was not ready to go back to work. I began to imagine how Lancome could have taken what started as a promising email campaign and turned it into a fun, flirty consumer generated content strategy. Let's play with the wonderful headline - Your Guide to a Fabulous Kiss.
Perhaps the guide begins with asking - What is a kiss? .. and don't get x-rated on me. Keep it clean and sophisticated. A kiss could be a kindness to someone that shows how much you care.
Then it moves into asking you to tell the the story of your first kiss and or perhaps your most memorable kiss. Which might be the kiss you gave your new born bebe. Or the kiss you received from your dad before you went to college.
A la American Idol .. ends with people uploading videos singing one of my favorite songs from Casablanca .. As Time Goes By. You must remember this A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.
How about a joint promotion with NECCO to create a new sweetheart saying for the famous
candy heart that actually is produced for Valentine's Day? We could add
a widget and a Flickr page and have the community vote. Make your own candy heart.
Perhaps it ends with a kiss of kindness - a charity chosen by the winner.
Lessons Learned: Great copy can draw in your customers but take care to understand what expectations might occur. Try new ways to engage your customers with your brand that is personal and meaningful to them.
02/05/2008
Diva Marketing Talks
is a live, internet radio show. 30-minutes. 2-guests. 1-topic about
social media marketing. Why? To help you understand how to participate
in the "new" conversation without getting blown-up. Miss today's show?
You can pick it up as a podcast.
Today's Diva Marketing Talks is about an old world communication that meets new world buzz. Seems you can't turn a corner in the blogosphere without a blogger writing a book. I think of it as a side-step going from virtual to paper .. one more way to "time transfer communicate." Bet you thought time transfer was only about podcasts (smile).
Nettie Hartsock, publicist to authors (and more) and Sybil Stershic new author, dish about using social media to get the buzz going. Even if you are not a book author I'm betting a chocolate martini that there will be some hot tips that can apply to beyond books!
Topic for February 5, 2008:
Inside Out: Creating and Promoting Books With Social Media/Web 2.0
Time: 6:30p - 7p Eastern/ 5:30p - 6p Central/ 4:30p -5p Mountain/ 3:30p - 4p Pacific
Call-in Guest Number: 718.508.9924
Guests:
Nettie Hartsock
Nettie Hartsock is a veteran e-business journalist and PR marathoner! Nettie helps individuals, authors, and companies focus on creating, conveying and connecting their message to the world and creates actionable how-to-programs which establish a powerful base for attracting both blogger and journalists attention. Catch Nettie at her blog Hardsock Communications.
Sybil Stershic
Sybil F. Stershic is a marketing & organizational advisor with more than 30 years of experience helping service providers strengthen relationships with customers and employees. She is the author of the recently released book on internal marketing, Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most: A Guide to Employee-Customer Care, published by WME books.
A graduate of Lehigh University, Sybil began her career in bank marketing. (The banks she worked for were merged into oblivion.) She launched her own business, Quality Service Marketing, in 1988 specializing in internal marketing and marketing/strategic planning facilitation. Sybil also conducts marketing workshops nationwide for business and nonprofit professionals and is a frequent speaker at national conferences.
Active in leadership and professional development, Sybil is a former Chairman of the American Marketing Association. Catch Sybil at her blog Quality Service Marketing
Tips From The Diva Bag
Complements of Nettie Hartsock
- Don't blog spam or blogblast to bloggers. Reach out on a personal one-to-one basis. Don't demand coverage.
- Be authentic, honest, timely and make certain that the blog you're reaching out to is one you're familiar with and have had the respect to read.
- Ask not what a blogger can do for you, ask how you, your book or your product can benefit the blogger and its readership and then approach them in a humble and respectful manner.
Complements of Sybil Stershic
In Taking Care of the People Who Matter Most, I advocate the “3 Rs” – Respect, Recognition, and Reinforcement – as the foundation of internal marketing strategy. This is the same 3 Rs but in a different context.
- Apply the “3 Rs” when dealing with prospective reviewers (both online and off-line).
- Be Respectful of their time & workload (and understand they may not have the time to review your book based on your timetable).
- Recognize their efforts by acknowledging their time to review and comment on your book (e.g., send a thank you note).
- Reinforce their helping you with appropriate reciprocity (such as linking to their blog or website on your blog).
- Target carefully & respectfully when contacting other bloggers as prospective reviewers, especially as many bloggers are already inundated with book review requests. If the book is of interest to me, and the request is sincere, then I’ll consider it. The one request that really ticked me off is the e-mail that raved about my blog and asked me to review a new book on internet marketing … despite the fact that my specialty is internal marketing!
- Start with your existing relationships. I had great response to an e-mail I sent to my network of colleagues, clients, friends & family announcing my book’s release. It wasn’t a “buy my book” announcement, but a sharing of the good news with the folks who supported and encouraged me throughout the process. The e-mail included a special discount that they could pass on to the people in their respective networks who they thought might benefit from my book.
Can't call in but have a question for Nettie and Sybil ? Drop a
comment and I'll ask it for you. Let me know what you'd like Diva Talks
to chat about. Don't forget Diva Marketing Talks morphs into a podcast.
Update: Sites/people mentioned on the show - Gather, Beliefnet, WMEbooks, Connie Reece, Beth Kephart, Steve O'Keefe
A La Oprah .. make sure you listen to the "After Show". . three divas dishin' after the show!
02/04/2008
From blogs to podcasts to vlogs to micro blogs to social media networking communities brands continue to explore marketing opportunities. Laura Bennett from Embrace Pet Insurance shares her challenges and lessons learned about Why Facebook?
About Embrace Pet Insurance
Embrace Pet Insurance is a pet health insurance for cats and dogs. Every Embrace Pet Insurance policy is 100% underwritten by Lloyd's of London. Now that's some classy insurance!
Toby/Diva Marketing: Why use a social networking site, like Facebook, to promote the brand?
Laura Bennett: I’m fascinated by the development of online social networks and participate in a number of them myself. I thought that if I enjoyed interacting with other like-minded (or not) people online, maybe our Embraced pet parents (as we like to call our policyholders) and other friends of Embrace might be too. Embrace on Facebook.
At the core of it though, the open nature of Facebook dovetails very much with the Embrace philosophy - an upfront and honest interaction with just about anyone who wants anything to do with Embrace. Insurance is all about trust and pet insurance hasn’t had the best reputation in the past. Our mission is to change the flighty image of pet insurance one person at a time. Facebook puts Embrace out there in a real way and lets our audience decide if we mean it or not.
Toby/Diva Marketing: Why in particular Facebook?
Laura Bennett: I like the flexible, clean look, the growing number of real people on the site, and the demographics of where Facebook is going (older, more affluent) – I think it matches our customers more closely than say MySpace. Having said that, we also have a presence on MySpace but I don’t personally run that.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What is success for Embrace's Facebook strategy?
Laura Bennett: The ultimate success would be for the Embrace group (I’ve Been Embrace By Embrace Pet Insurance) to take on a life of its own and to be run by Embrace evangelists. Just think how incredibly powerful that would be.
Toby/Diva Marketing: Is your Facebook strategy supported by other tactics?
Laura Bennett: I’ve been writing a blog on pet insurance for 2.5 years now with the same upfront and honest feel so the two go together but apart from that, we’re not doing very much right now. Since we’re an early stage company, our resources are very focused and my attention is on fundraising at the moment. Once that painful process is finished for a while, we’ve definitely got a few ideas we’d like to implement. Can’t spill the beans right now though. Would love to hear any brilliant ideas on what we could do though – what do your readers think?
Sidebar: Check out my guest post about how I found Max.
Toby/Diva Marketing: Are you/will you also use ads on facebook to complement the initiative?
Laura Bennett: We’ve used some ads on Facebook with little success as they weren’t very targeted; however, it wasn’t a coordinated approach. Perhaps that’s another thing to add to the to-do list!
Toby/Diva Marketing: What were a few of the challenges you face/faced?
Laura Bennett: Well the nice thing about Facebook are that there are few technical challenges. There’s really nothing much to do on that front. And there is just “getting” Facebook. I have to admit that when I started, I couldn’t see the attraction or how it worked. I’m not sure I’m totally there either. And we certainly need to work on augmenting the Group, increasing the appeal to interact with it. And then the challenge is to get a critical mass of Embraced pet parents to get the group going. You need thousands of interested members before it takes on some momentum of its own and we have a long way to go before we reach that. That means I have to find time and inspiration to get the current members involved. That’s always a challenge.
Toby/Diva Marketing: What are a few lessons learned you can pass along to other brands who want to leverage Facebook as a marketing tactic?
Laura Bennett: If you want a presence on Facebook, go for sincerity and real people, not corporate speak and faceless minions. It’s harder than you think. If your evangelists have created something about you, ask them how you can interact without getting in the way.
And always remember, it’s not about you, it’s about the people interacting with your brand.
Sidebar: If your brand's strategy includes a social media networking component like Facebook and want to be a Diva (or Divo) rock star interviewee drop me a comment.
02/01/2008
Spent last week in Miami speaking at The Women's Congress conference. The Women's Congress is a 2-year old organization with a mission to bring small business owners and corporate executives together for mutual learning. 
I knew the conference would be great. What I didn't know was the day would be inspired by change.
My thanks to Rebecca Weeks, Director of Business Development, Real Girls Media Network, Inc. for the invitation to moderate the panel on Web 2.0. In addition to Rebecca our session included two other savvy divas - Anne Murray, Senior Director of Interactive Marketing, Southwest Airlines and Virginia Simmons, Online Communications Manager, The ONE Campaign. Sidebar: Biz Blog Profile interviews coming soon. Love that networking online and off digital too!
Companies are tightening their training and travel purse strings and one of the first to feel the pinch is professional development conferences. Moments before our panel we changed direction. We decided to merge the Web 2.0 and social media sessions. So .. we tossed out the preplanned Powerpoints and the agendas. We pulled chairs into a big Conversation Circle and in true bloggy style, and similar to what I had done at the Healthcare Summit last fall, we trusted in our audience to tell us what they wanted to know. And they, of course did! Again, the feedback we got was "Best session I attended." "I learned so much." I must admit that having successfully gone down this road before I was pretty comfortable with the formate and new direction. Something to be said of experience. (smile)
Sidebar: Slides from the Healthcare Summit are posted. If you're looking for a basic 101 How to Create A Blog Strategy check it out.
What made this especially fun was my friend and winner of the Entrepreneurial Champion for Women Award (!) none other than Ms. Lena West, xynoMedia Technology, was the moderator of the social media panel. The panelists included Nina Kaufman, Making It Legal, and Cory Edwards of Symantec. Yes, the conference did include a few smart men .. and Cory is that indeed.
The session on Leadership And Change Change Management was particularly interesting to me since for so many companies a dive into social media marketing constitutes not only a new strategy but a change in company culture. The panel members not only shared their experiences about leadership, change and how women are likely to handle change differently than men (more talk, more involvement, more sharing of information) but were inspiring. The prestigious panel included: Jeri Dunn, Chief Information Officer, Bacardi Limited, Juanita T. James, Chief Communications Officer, Pitney Bowes Inc., JoAnn Lilek, Chief Financial Officer, DSC Logistics. Lisa Gibbs, Executive Business Editor, The Miami Herald.
For your reading pleasure my notes and a few random thoughts.
"Ships are safe in harbors but that's not where ships are suppose to
be." Like sailing a ship change involves risk but you don't grow unless
you sail out of the harbor." Jeri Dunn, Chief Information Officer, Bacardi Limited
On Change
- Systems are just tools.
- People often feel that change is a threat that is done to them on a personal basis.
- Remember when you institute change within an organization you also change people's lives.
- It's critical to clearly articulate both the vision of the new direction and why the need to change.
- You need to learn the rules before you can change them.
- You can not influence change in isolation .. it takes team work.
- The role of communication in change management is critical for both
(internal) employees and (external) stakeholders e.g., customers, media,
shareholders. Communication must include: listening, understanding and then
talking.
On Leadership
- Leaders grow over time. A good leader understands the culture and how to work within to make changes. Listen to the experts but in the end you must form your own opinions.
- You may not always have all the information to make a decision but a good leader understands what is essential and what is nice to have.
- Understand the role of everyone in the organization and treat all with respect.
- Employees will share knowledge with you if you ask them; don't overlook some one who appears shy or quiet.
On Mentoring and Personal Learning & Values
- Get yourself a good mentor. Mentors come in different packages; you may find a
mentor in a peer or a younger person.
- As important, help others realize their
full potential.
- Make yourself vulnerable. Openly seek and accept feedback from wherever you can get it. Learn not to take it personally.
- Your personal values must align with the values of your organization if there is a disconnect that's when the work and your life begins to unravel.
You can not define yourself by your work, by your title or by your position. Those are things that people can give and take away from you. Juanita T. James, Chief Communications Officer, Pitney Bowes Inc.
Frozen Pea Fund which supports the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer campaign. 
My ooVoo Day Schedule of Speakers and Times. Runs from Feb. 10 - 21, 2008.
