Musings About Blog World Expo '08
09/24/2008
Networking on iPhones and Blackberries. Networking in-person. Tweets on screens. Tweets on cells. Parties and People. An industry finding its way. New companies. New technology. New bloggers. Conference Word: Vulnerability
Last week I joined social media friends and colleagues at the se
cond Blog World Expo conference. Lots of thoughts swirling through my mind.
One is that this industry continues to grow. Susan Getgood reminds us in her BWE post that challenges often accompany. My hopes are that the newly formed International Blogger and New Media Association (I'm on the board) will bring direction, cohesion, credibility .. and ease a bit of the pain that Susan identified.
Friday night Elisa Camahort, BlogHer, and Jen Openshaw, WeSeed, coordinated a girlfriends in Las Vegas dinner. What a great way to kick of the weekend. And what a treat to be among amazing women who are pioneers in social media. Girlfriend, I've the perfect excuse for you to visit Hawaii -- Hawaii Podcamp .. the diva making this one happen is Roxanne Darling, Beach Walks With Rox.
Last year some of my greatest learnings came from sessions outside of my comfort zone - military and sports blogging. This year I sat in on a God Blog session and listened intently to the Andrew Jones, Tall Skinny Kiwi, tell his story about faith blogs. He begin with a light hearted joke .. You might be a faith blogger if .. My favorite .. You're a faith blogger if your prayers are 140 characters or less because that's all Twitter allows.
My big take away from Andrew's talk (slides) was ~
A blog should not be a well. It should be a spring. ~
Although Andrew put it into a religious context, his concept makes perfect sense to me not only for blogs but for social media in general. Think about it .. a well contains stagnant waters. Stagnation occurs when there is no new flow of water. Blogs, social networks, wikis and all the other tools/tactics allow for and encourage fresh water or new ideas to flow.
Sidebar: I often say that the blogopshere/social media is comprised of many, many villages. There is the business blog village where Diva Marketing resides and then the mommy blog, golf blog, healthcare blog, beauty blog, race horse blog "villages" and more. The God blog/faith blog village is one of the most active. Skip over to the interview I did with Lead Pastor of the National Community Church - David Mark Batterson - for some insights into this most interesting "village."
Caught the end of a session based on enterprise case studies. Rohit Bhargava, Influential Marketing Blog, offered lessons learned from the Ogilvy Ford Taurus blogger outreach program.
1. Know your product. 2. Tap into something they (bloggers/customers) know they can do. 3. Search visibility is a valid KPT 4. Provides valid opinions from real people
It was Anne Plese's great story about how she turned a team of Cisco engineers into blogging rock stars and went from a focus on tradition marketing to social marketing that caught my interest. Goals were to grow wallet share and relevancy for a new product. The bloggers were positioned as "assets." Wow! the light bulb went on. Although I have thought of bloggers as a value-add component to a marketing strategy, I never went as far as to use the term "asset." Brilliant.
In addition to writing their own posts the bloggers continued to actively participated in relevant conversations. Actually that's how they initially began as commenters on other people's blogs. It was Anne's vision to give them a platform (their own blogs) where they could also move the discussion into Cisco's world. In addition, the blogger relations program bloggers were given direct access to the engineers who built the product. Results - at least $250,000 in cost savings. Watch for an in depth interview with Anne on Diva Marketing coming soon!
Jennifer Openshaw, WeSeed, and Spike Jones, Brains on Fire, spoke about reaching and connecting with women by building long-term movements not short-term campaigns. Jen and Spike reminded the (mostly women) audience that credibility comes from being vulnerable. Spike shared the case behind the successful Fisk-A-Teers ..or how an orange pair of scissors created a community of crafters. Jen reinforced that the way to a women's heart is: to make life easier, your product relevant, the experience fun. Looking forward to the innovative investment site she's about to launch targeted to women which includes her tips: easy, relevant, fun. Lesson Learned: A person with passion can be more "influential" than an "influencer."
Toss a pink boa to Becky Carroll, Customers Rock and Des Walsh, Thinking Home Business who invited me to share the stage with them and the talented people on their panels. Tweets of Becky's panel - Creating Customer Loyalty with Social Media (with Brian Solis, and "brand tweeters": Frank Eliason, Comcast, Tony Hsieh, Zappos)- from @pblackshaw, @dbrazeal, @beckylicious721. Tweets of Des' panel - Getting Customer Buy-in & Managing Client Relationships (with Rich Brooks and Robyn Tippins)- from @trishussey, @dbrazeal, @waderockett. Be sure to catch Becky's blog series on Customers Rock about using social media for customer service.
More pink boa tosses .. Average Jane for walking the trade show floor with me. Smiles from Glenda Watson Hyatt, whose thumbs .. right and left .. are in amazingly great shape. Dinner with Paul Chaney and his diva wife Aime while watch Las Vegas from the skies. Jay Berkowitz's "quiet" dinner which was a great chance to actually sit down & hear people talk. Geoff Livingston for including me in his video series with uber cool peeps. Finally! meeting James Andrews and Ellen Marden who is picture perfect. Liz Strauss (slides from her presentation), David Berkowitz (great A-Z wrap post of the event!) Tish Grier, Tris Hussey, Nicole Simon and Matt Dickman and well you know who you are .. but more important I do too. Thanks for a great weekend.
Oh .. the next time you see me walking through an airport I'll be reading on my new 
Kindle I won from Newstex. Sweet!
Thanks to Mike Elgan for the Kindle image.
