12/12/2008
This post is dedicated to the awesome women entrepreneurs at the Women's Employment Opportunity Project (WEOP). Yesterday I was invited to spend some time with a special group of women who are creating blogs to support their new ventures. If you think that the U.S. has lost its edge on innovation think again. Some of the business ideas that are in development at WEOP ranged from financial services targeted to moms to an online resource center for divorced women to a community for women in non traditional jobs like construction.
We talked about the logistics of blogs (any WordPress experts willing to donate a few hours?), marketing (WEOP is using DivaTalks podcasts to supplement their learnings .. wOw!) and the power of social media marketing .. building relationships.
Speaking of relationships .. today I was surprised with an early social holiday gift from a BBF (best blog friend) Denise Wakefield who included Diva Marketing in blogs.com best of .. Ten Best New Media Marketing Blogs. What an honor to be among people like Chris Brogan, Chris Garret, Paul Chaney, Jeff Herring, Michael Martine, David Meerman Scott and Patsi Krakoff
So the fabulous entrepreneurs from WEOP asked, "How do you build those relationships?" "Great question," said I. "There are comments, links, emails .. being part of the community and give bits of yourself in your posts .. as it is comfortable for you to do that of course.
When we first meet people in their offices we have "walls" that often give us cues to the first steps in finding common interests that go beyond business. We may find a college diploma that leads to a conversation about the school we both attended or perhaps it was a city that we both lived in. Or we may discover a photo of the family vacationing on the beach and find we have a love of the ocean. Or we may see a sports team pennant on the wall and realize we are both fans of the same team.
In the social media business world we have to give bits of ourselves to create those initial synergies that go beyond a mutual interest in marketing, advertising, PR, research, etc. One way to do that is through the meme games. Sometimes called "tag" it's a way of giving your friends a better sense of you. Some memes ask for your favorite books, some for places you traveled .. you get the drift.
The divine diva Ms. BL Ochman tagged me and asked me to give up 7 things that you didn't know about me. So here goes ..
1. It took me a week to decide to keep little Max the rock star YouTube puppy.
2. I love Xmas music. I especially like the songs from the '40's like White Christmas, Winter Wonderland, Silver Bells .. I play Xmas DVDs when I bake for the holidays .. shh don't tell any .. and dance around the kitchen with Max (see #1).
3. I make a mean cheese cake. One year I spent all summer experimenting my friends loved me! Note see #2
4. Family rumor is my grandfather, Popsie, was a boxer in Boston.
5. My Uncle Hy White 
is a jazz guitarist who played with the Big Bands. Maybe he knew BL's grandfather. He tried to teach me to play but the strings hurt too much ..ouch!
6. I want to have a home on the ocean and one in a real city.
7. I want to conduct social media workshops on a cruise ship .. combine a holiday what with I love.How cool would that be?
Now the next part of the meme is to tag 7 people who will continue the game by telling who tagged them and then tagging 7 more people who will .. well you get it.
I'll tag a few people who have recently commented on Diva Marketing -
1. Debba, girlfriendology
2. Lewis Green, BizSolutionsPlus
3. Luckie Daniels, and speaking of pink
4. Bryan Person, LiveWorld
5. Mei Li, No Fear, Just Diva
6. Yvonne DiVita, Lip-Sticking
7. Marney Lewis, Va4growth
09/11/2008
Social media marketing must be graduating from nursery school if the latest meme is - What is your best practice in social media marketing? Liz Strauss , as in the Diva Divine Ms. Liz Strauss, tagged me to play along. The game was stated by Mitch Joel, Six Pixels of Separation.
Social media is unlike any marketing strategy I know. None of what I'd call tactics, some may call "tools" were built for marketers. Perhaps widgets might be the exception.
Think about it for a sec or two. Facebook was developed for students to keep in contact with each other. MySpace helped indie bands leverage the power of the internet for free promotion. Blogs (and micro blogs) were created to help people communicate with friends and relatives. YouTube, Flickr and other visual (audio and video) sites were more ways to share online.
Savvy marketers began to explore ways to include these nifty online applications in communication strategies. Business stepping into the social mix changed the dynamics for many. However, what did not change was the culture that had grown-up before we (yes I'm guilty as charged) marketers started playing.
Best Practice Social Media Marketing Tip .. before you incorporate any social media tactic into your marketing strategy it is beyond critical to understand the culture of social media. It is beyond critical to build any and every social media program based on the -
Social Media Mantra: Honesty, Authenticity, Transparency and a Passion about the topic
Bonus Best Practice Social Media Marketing Tip .. without a strategic direction and a plan social media marketing is just a me too play toy. It might be cool to talk about your YouTube video or your Facebook page at cocktail parties but trust me on this one .. it ain't gonna work for you as a business strategy. Give social media marketing the respect it is due and add accountability to the mix.
Off my soap box now and tagging Becky Carroll and Des Walsh who kindly included me on their BlogWorldExpo panels next week. Paul Chaney who is the new president of the International Blogger New Media Association (and invited me to be on the board). Merril Dubrow who has most kindly agreed to be a live case study in blogging for me when I present social media to market researchers at the AMA Marketing Research Conference in Boston next week. And Susan Cartier Liebel because she's one attorney who gets social!
Game Rules
Now it’s your turn:
Blog it.
Link to Mitch’s blog
Tag it “social media marketing best practices”
And then tag someone else with the meme.
Would love to hear your take .. what is your social media marketing best practice?
02/08/2008
Friday Fun is Diva Marketing's virtual happy hour from cosmos to
Jack to lemonade. A waiting for the weekend 'playground' time to be
sophisticated-silly. Or sometimes just plain silly.
Red rover red rover send me right over. Recently I was tagged by two BBFs Peter Kim and Cyndee Haydon to play in a couple of memes. Peter's game is 4x4 Things About Me and Cyndee's is called 7 Facts About Me.
Ann Handley, who recently launched her very own diva fabulous blog - Annarchy - had this to say about why join in the game -
So why would you publish these few revealing details for strangers to gawk at? The short answer, of course, is that none of you are exactly strangers; and, what’s more, it’s all about getting to know a bit more about each other.
It's rather nice to be asked to play (sometimes - smile) and I don't think Peter or Cyndee would mind if I followed Ann's example and combined both into one mega meme. So here goes .. and it might be nice to have your beverage of choice near by.
For Pete: 4 x 4 things about me
Four jobs I've had in my life:
Brownie Leader - in Boston's Back Bay and Beacon Hill. (I think volunteer work should count!)
Cashier at a a swimming pool - high school summer job. so much fun. crushes on the lifeguards!
Hawked the Boston Phoenix newspaper - college pick-up $
Georgia Lottery - great fun giving away $$
Four places I've been:
Belize City, Belize River - boat ride through the jungle was amazing and so surreal I thought I was in a Disney movie
Paris, France - perhaps the most beautiful city in the world
Hydra, Greece - wonderful, warm people, fabulous food. time seems to stop.
New York, NY - it's more than a city .. it's a state of mind.
Four TV shows I DVR:
SNL - a classic
SITC - wouldn't want to disappoint you!
Iron Chef - love the creativity under fire
Desperate Housewives - great escape
Four favorite foods:
Ice cream
Lobster
Fried clams - with bellies
Hot corned beef sandwich with lots of pickles
Peter asked for 4 people to be tagged. Red rover red rover send Rick Short, Jason Kapler, Jack Yan, Robert Bruce right over. Sidebar: Since Cyndee asked for Seven Fabulous Women it seemed only fair to tag guys for the 4x4.
For Cyndee: 7 Facts About Me
1. Wine or beer - wine
2. Dog or cat - Dog
3. Mountains or ocean - ocean
4. Coffee or tea - Coffee
5. NYC or LA - NYC
6. Summer or Winter: Summer
7. PJs or nothing - ??? ;-)
undefined rules are to tag Seven Fabulous Women. Red rover red rover send some of the W List Women Michele Lamar, Carolyn Townes, Tammy Lenski, Average Jane, Glenda Watson Hyatt, Sunny Cervantes Holly Buchanan right over.
If you still want to know more .. I had the honor of being part of Kevin O'Keefe's LexBlog's Interview Series with Rob LaGatta. The interview is split into two posts - one and two.
Speaking of honors, a belated but heartfelt thanks to Holly Buchanan for including Diva Marketing in her 2007 Best Marketing To Women Blogs.
01/03/2008
BBF 
Shel Israel gave me a new year's present. Thanks Shel! He tagged me and Liz Strauss, Pat Phelan, Loic Le Meur Mer, KP Paine, Chris Heuer and Robert Scoble with the 8 Secrets Meme Game. You know the one you tell 8 things people don't know about you and then you tag 8 more people to play and then they tag 8 more people and so on and so on ..
Well, girlfriend to be completely honest and transparent and authentic .. I have no fabulous secrets to tell you. Amazing Divine Diva Liz Strauss t
old me she had none either - that I find hard to believe. So instead of telling you 8 boring things about us we thought we'd have some fun and cross post The Top Ten Secrets About Shel Israel That Even Shel Israel Doesn't Know About Shel Israel.
#1. It's not true that Shel knows everyone. He hasn't met one of the six fake Tazmanian Chris Brogans.
#2. Shel is not short for Shelly of the female persuasion. Shel was born Shel Red Sofa just outside Topeka, Kansas. He changed his name to Israel in 7th grade after a girl at school called him a "couch potato."
#3. Shel has never been seen wearing Connie Reece's pink boa.
#4. A recent quote from Shel "An Aussie snake with a lot of balls is noteworthy."
#5, Shel is an obscure Incan word that means "man who talks to Scoble in print without wearing clothing."
#6. When Shel was in college, he won a contest in which he drank a strawberry fruit smoothie while doing Irish Step Dancing with Meryl Streep's cousin, Louella. Shel is the staring in next season's Dancing With The Stars with BL.
#7. Shel is hanging up his consulting shingle. It was a toss up either go back to his beloved PR or sell shoes at Neiman's or renew his cabbie medallion. He decided to launch a social media community for burnt out bloggers ..calling it Shelomville.
#8. Shel has never been to North Dakota, though he once met a cat with that name and they liked each other.
#9. Naked Conversations was based on a personal experience in Shel's hot tub.
#10. Shel is famous for having great equipment. You'll have to ask him. We're not telling.
We know Shel would want you to link to Toby, Liz, and SHEL ISRAEL. You really should. After all, who are you to break a little boy's heart?
Sincerely,
Liz and Toby
P.s. Since this is a Top Ten I'm tagging the last 10 Twitters I read: Dave Taylor, Jake Mckee , Connie Reece, Robert French, Beth Kanter, Jonathan Trenn, Geoff Livingston, BL Ochman, Drew McLellan, Matt Dickman.
P .s. Liz's post is titled The Almost Real Secrets of Shel Israel and is brilliant!
11/30/2007
Friday Fun is Diva Marketing's virtual happy hour from cosmos to
Jack to lemonade. A waiting for the weekend 'playground' time to be
sophisticated-silly. Or sometimes just plain silly.
This Friday Fun - let's play tag! 
Remember when "tag" was a fun innocent game that children played at recess. Do you remember recess?
Divas and wonderful bloggers Nettie Hartstock and Tammy Lenski "tagged" me in a virtual game/meme .. book tag. Rather goes along with what has been the theme this week books for holiday gifts on Wednesday and an interview with new author Geoff Livingston.
Here goes...
How many books do you own?
I have not a clue. Hundreds. Thousands. I started to count and gave up at 500. Books are friends. I love to collect them and to share them too.
What was the last book you read?
The Artist Way by Julie Cameron It's a book that you can only read when the time is right for it in your life.
What was the last book you purchased?
Age of Conversation. I bought 6 copies today. Last day before the price doubles. Read about the Bum Rush set for 12-14.
What five books are most meaningful to you?
-Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austin. I just know Elizabeth Bennett would be blogging.
-Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. So many good lessons and a wonderful love story too.
-The
Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Okay, so it's not really 1
"book" but it's one book on my book shelf so I'm counting it as 1!
-Moments of Truth by Jan Carlzon. Guess I should throw in one biz book and this is simple, practical and powerful.
-Oh The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss. How can you not love Dr. Seuss? Great "present book."
What is your most obscure favorite book?
Julie Harris Talks To Young Actors by Julie Harris and Barry Tarshis. I recently found this book in a box far back in a closet. It's special because my dad sent it to me when my dream was the theatre. Tugged inside was a small white card with this note - I hope this book will be a little help in realizing your goals. Dad
The rules says I have to tag five people. The following five have dropped recent comments on Diva. So in the spirit of getting to know you better .. Tag You're It!
Martha Retallick
Susan Reid
Lewis Green
Glenda Watson Hyatt
Ben Casnocha
How many books do you own?
What was the last book you read?
What was the last book you purchased?
What five books are most meaningful to you?
What is your most obscure favorite book?
