Greg Verdino

Want to make authentic connections? 18 experts tell you how in a free e-book.

Ask just about anyone who does a fair amount of thinking about social media how to connect with customers today, and the content will most likely turn to compelling content. So it's always cool when someone comes along and compiles a bunch of compelling content from a group of smart thinkers, all in one place. So when Codrut Turcanu, internet marketing strategist, reached out to let me know he was putting together a collaborative e-book featuring a batch of marketers and pro-blogging experts --  and asked me to contribute my thoughts on content, social media, micromarketing and even book marketing -- I responded with (something like) "hella yeah".

Codrut's free e-book, Authentic Connections 2.0 is out now and - in addition to my trademark genius (j/k) - it includes a lot of good thinking about how to make great content, earn attention, attract an audience, and get social media and marketing right. Whether you're a marketer seeking good ideas, a blogger hoping to earn a living doing the social media thang, or a n00b looking for sound tips in an easy-to-read package, you'll probably find at least a few things of interest between Authentic Connections 2.0's virtual covers.

A few of my favorite quotes concern - pay attention people - content. How to think about it, how to get it right, interesting ways to make it work for you, and why great social content creation is about so much more than just getting the word out far and wide.

Go ahead and download your free copy or read it all online at the Authentic Connections 2.0 blog - but if you'd like a few tastes of what you'll find inside, here are some of the thoughts that had me saying, "Right on."

One of my BFFs (best Boston-area friends), Ann Handley, writes about why content marketing can't be an afterthought. Ann writes:

Instead of thinking about "repurposing" or "recycling" your content as an after-thought, think of "reimagining" it. Repurposing is about slapping the same stuff in various places. Reimagining is about thinking through your content, from the point of inception... Noting is a one off... but a piece of a larger whole.

Speaking of best friends, MEC Interaction's Richard Fitzgerald got plenty of offers from girls looking to be his new best friend after he won 52 weeks' worth of free Mexican food as a giveaway at a social media conference. He took the experiences that followed and turned them into a blog called 52BurritoDates. Fun idea, but also some interesting insights for businesses. Richard writes:

I think that the model of 52 burrito dates and by applied to any company, in any industry. Social media marketing is all about creative a narrative, a sustained engagement. It's not necessary to aim for wide reach, concentrating on what the unique offering is... So many companies have... customers who would be perfect to create online content. Specifically, I think service companies could look to copying the format of 42 burrito dates, by handing over their social media presence to a loyal customer in exchange for free services.

And this brings me back to another social media friend, Toby Bloomberg - to my knowledge she wasn't one of Richard's burrito dates (at least not yet) but an awkward segue is better than no segue at all. Toby has been blogging and helping businesses get smart about social media for as long as anybody in the business. She points out that at the end of the day, social content needs to be a two-way-street. It's not just a way to say but a mechanism for meaningful two-way interactions (just like good burrito date conversation, I'd imagine). Toby writes:

When blogs entered the scene they brought with them a unique visibility that also occurs in social networks. Since people could interact with each in real time a la comments, tweets, status updates, etc. relationships and friends began to form in the digital world. Friendships that began with two or three people developed into networks among twenty and thirty and hundreds of people...That’s the way it was for the corner grocer or baker or candle stick maker. Not only was she involved with her customers but with the community at large. She was the person you bought your cupcakes from but also the women who you met at the PTA. Shop keepers were integrated into the community. That’s what blogs brought back. A way to for the people in companies to get to know their customers better and a unique opportunity for customers to put a face to a logo.

Obviously Ann, Richard and Toby have plenty more to say - as do the rest of the 18 or so contributors (all laid out in handy-dandy interview format, with Codrut asking the questions and the experts answering). And then there's me - and you already know you love me, so what are you waiting for? 

Grab it, share it, spread the love.

A little bit o' link love (it's what's going 'round)

With the book in stores everywhere -- well, almost everywhere (I think the release date in Europe may be later and I'll be damned if I can find a copy in airport bookstores, but in addition to being on shelves at the major chains you can also get a handy-dandy e-version for your Kindle, Nook or Sony eReader) -- my attention turns from writing the book to getting other people to write about the book.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been pimping lovable links on Twitter and to the Facebook fans, but thought now might be a good time for a good ol' link love round-up. Check out some of the posts the good people have been kind enough to write over the past couple of weeks.

Follow The Lead: The ZoomInfo B2B Sales & Marketing Blog

Zoom Info's resident blogger, Matthew Schwartz, took a look at some of the concepts in microMARKETING - specifically, the opportunities tha lie in content creation and curation - through a B2B sales lens.

jacoBLOG: Everybody Has An Audience

Radio consultant Fred Jacobs wrote about another key theme - the notion that the people formerly known as the audience now have audiences of their own - and reflected on what this means for broadcast media professionals.

Dan Schawbel's Personal Branding Blog

Dan asked me a few questions about the book and how it pertains to personal branding, among other things.

Three Questions with MarketingProfs

The lovely, vivacious and wicked smaaht Ann Handley fired off three questions - and I fired back three answers - about the book, leading up to last week's Summer Social webinar.

The First Batch o' Blog Reviews

If you haven't seem 'em, check em out... My colleague Valeria Maltoni (aka Conversation Agent), former colleague Jon Burg, Rayna Fagan (aka @RaynaNYC, who won 1 of 10 freebies) and Reg Nordman were all kind enough to post early reviews. And kind enough to say they liked the book. To which I say: thanks guys. I like you too!

Slides: get big results by thinking and acting small

Maybe you're thinking about buying microMARKETING but want to get a better sense of what's between the covers first. Or maybe you just want a souvenir of my MarketingProfs webinar. In either case, you've come to the right post.

Here's the newest version of the presentation slides based on the book. Of course, this touches on only a few of the key themes and presents just a small handful of the case studies and stories I've crammed between the yellow covers - but it should be enough to whet your whistle. As always comments welcome.

microMARKETING for MarketingProfs

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From New York City to Music City: new 2010 speaking gigs

As the new year kicks into gear, my speaking calendar is already starting to fill up. Here are the details on my first two 2010 speaking engagements - a February panel appearance at the Engage! Expo in NYC and a March presentation at Custom Content Conference 2010 in Nashville. 

Hope to see some of you in the audiences. Read on to learn more...

 
On February 17th I'm speaking at the Engage! Expo in New York City. This year's Engage! (the conference that grew out of the old Virtual Worlds event series) is co-located with the 2010 Toy Fair, and will have a big focus on toy marketing, youth marketing and marketing to parents. I'll be playing the role of "token dad" on a panel that will include Maria Bailey from BSM Media, Natalie Hornsby from Cepia LLC (Zhu Zhu Pets) and Katja Presnal from Collective Bias. Katja is a former Walmart Elevenmom and I had the pleasure of connecting with her while I was doing some research for microMARKETING, so I'm looking forward to meeting her in person next month.

The panel details are:

Mommy Bloggers, Twitterers and Kids: Meet the New Influencers 

February 17 at 2:30pm (60 minutes)

Mommy bloggers, DigiDads, Twitterers, forum posters, and kids themselves. They all contribute to your product's branding. And unlike TV, print, or direct in-store messaging, they fall outside your range of control. But there are ways to court the new influencers and turn them into brand sirens and evangelizers. This session will introduce you to the new landscape of peer-to-peer marketing that is actively taking place on blogs, microblogs and social networks: who are the new influencers, how do you reach them, and how do you control what they say about your product? Understand 360 degree marketing in the digital age and find out how to tame the new recommendation engines.

You can all the show details and register (early reg discounts end on January 15th) at the Engage! Expo site.

*

 
In March, I'm heading to Nashville, TN (it'll be my first visit to Music City) to present at the Custom Publishing Council's Custom Content Conference. The event takes place from March 24-26 at the super-cool-looking Hutton Hotel and looks like it's going to rock twang.

This one is a keynote-style solo slot and I'm excited about it because this presentation will be the first time I preview some of the ideas from microMARKETING. In keeping with the event's theme, I plan to focus specifically on the microcontent revolution, how it has changed everything from production to distribution, and what all of this means for marketers and publishers.

Even if you think content and custom media aren't your thing (think again actually: content marketing is one of the hottest inbound marketing approaches around) I can say for sure that this event generally draws a nice crowd of blue chip marketers - so don't think you need to be a custom publishing pro to get value from the sessions.

Get the details about the event and register to attend on the CCC site.

So ya wanna start a blog...

Just a friendly reminder that I'll be co-presenting a free blogging basics webinar tomorrow afternoon (11/19/09). The event is hosted by Target Marketing magazine and sponsored by Compendium Blogware, and takes place online at 2pm ET. There's still time to register (or refer your clients and friends who could use a primer), and I hope some of you will be able to tune in.

My portion of the agenda explores the building blocks for creating a compelling, sustainable corporate blog that the people you're looking to reach will actually want to read (basically an updated version of my Blog DNA framework) and a bit of high level thinking about how you can gauge your blog's success during its first year. The second portion of the agenda -- presented by Compendium's Chris Baggott -- will deep dive into how to use blogging to juice your SEO, attract prospects and drive revenue. And then of course we'll get to the good stuff: a moderated Q&A, so if you have any blogging questions, you'll be able to get some quick answers.

Here's a peek at my presentation.

Blogging Basics

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Hope to see you online tomorrow. If you can't attend but would still like to (ahem) join the conversation (or attended and stopped by this blog afterwards) feel free to drop your thoughts or questions into the comments.

Upcoming speaking: free blogging basics webinar

You're probably not a blogging n00b but you probably know someone who is -- a client, a coworker, someone new to the industry or your mom perhaps. If so, you should let them know that I'm taking part in a free blogging basics webinar at 2pm ET on November 19th.

Target Marketing magazine will be hosting an hour long conversation (part presentation, part Q&A) featuring Compendium Blogware CEO Chris Baggott and me sharing everything we know about how companies can get started with corporate blogging and what this means for their SEO programs. Look for practical tips about how to get one of the most basic components of a social media plan going right.

So register today or pass the link along to anyone you think might be interested.

Miscellaneous Monday

  

This is just a quick jumble of recent and new items that may be of interest (to me, if not to you.)

• Blog World & New Media Expo: I'm fresh back from Las Vegas where, as I noted last week, I presented at Blog World. Home improvement blogger Tony Saucier attended my session and wrote a nice summary of my presentation. I believe a video of my speech will surface at some point, but in the meantime Tony captured the gist of it.

• Time Off in Las Vegas: If you were at Blog World and we didn't see one another, that's probably because I didn't spend much time at the conference. What was I doing? No - not getting married... Check out my photostream to find out.

• Now More Famous in Lawrence, MA: While I was on the road, I heard from a cousin-of-a-friend who is currently a student at Emerson College in Massachusetts (the cousin, not the friend.) She is taking a social media class and needed to profile a blogger. So apparently I was that blogger. Check out the write-up on her blog. Wanna know what's most interesting about it? She wrote the post before I had the chance to respond to some specific questions she sent my way, so she was working off nothing more than my blog itself. And she managed to get a pretty good sense of who I am, what I'm interested in, how I think and even how to pitch me properly. Why is this interesting? Well, that's more than most PR reps who actually pitch me bother to do. So riddle me this: if Dana Evans can learn so much about me by simply spending some time with my blog, why do so many so-called social media pros get it wrong? Someone offer this girl a job (or at least an internship.)

• Because I'm a Fashion Icon: My buddy and ace media man Darren Herman has booked me to speak alongside Sir Ian Schafer from Deep Focus, and Media Kitchen president Barry Lowenthal at a Fashion 2.0 Meet Up in NYC next week. We'll be talking about the future of media and showing off our latest couture duds. The event goes down on the evening of October 27th, and although the RSVP list full you can throw your name on the waiting list if you'll be in the city and are interested in grabbing a seat if one opens up.

• Panasonic LiHD Insider voting begins: And last but not least, the Living in HD Insider competition I blogged about at the beginning of September has entered its final phase -- with the ten finalists going up for a public vote that will crown the winning Insider. Votes must be in by October 23rd, so I hope you'll take some time to check it out and cast your vote. I think we have an interesting batch of social media content creators in the running, so I'm excited to see what happens. (If you're a regular reader, you already know that Panasonic is a crayon client. If you're a first time visitor, now you know too...)

Peace...

Turn skeptics into advocates at Blog World Expo

 

Tomorrow morning I hop a plane to Las Vegas where, on Saturday afternoon, I'll be speaking at Blog World & New Media Expo. In my session -- From Skeptic to Advocate: Making the Business Case for Social Media -- I'll take a practical look at a variety of different ways to get a reluctant client or boss to say "yes" to social media. No theory here -- the entire presentation is based on personal observations and real approaches that I've used to get potential clients over the hump and on the road to social media greatness.

From Skeptic to Advocate is a "Lightning Round" presentation and the format is kinda unique: I'll present solo for 30 minutes in a room and then move to a table on the Exhibit Hall floor for an interactive "Ask the Expert" Q&A session with anyone who wants to pick my brain (presumably about my presentation topic, but I'll be happy to discuss pretty much anything related to social media, marketing or haberdashery.)

The details, for those of you interested in attending:

Lightning Round Presentation:
Saturday, October 17, 2009
12:45 - 1:15 pm
Room 222

Ask the Expert Roundtable Q&A:
Following the presentation
2:00 - 2:30 pm
Look for the assigned table on the LVCC Exhibit Hall floor

As I generally do before speaking at a conference, I thought I'd preview my slides right here. You'll note that they're pretty bare bones -- an intro, a few provocative statements, some iconic images, and that's about it. The real meat is in the voice over and -- more importantly -- I hope we'll spend most of the 30 minutes allotted for presentation having a discussion about the topic instead.

From Skeptic To Advocate

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Although I'll be in Vegas for several days, I will only be at Blog World for my speaking slot -- I'm happy to catch up with anyone who is interested in meeting during that time, but don't expect to see me walking the trade show floor or raging at the parties.  So if you'd like to say hey you'll want to catch my session. This isn't a ploy to fill the room (although I've got nothing against full rooms) -- I'm just mixing business and pleasure and plan to use the rest of the trip for a li'l bit o' r&r.

Blog World bound...

The first step is often the hardest step, isn't it? Unless it's the first step you take off the plane in Las Vegas. Not irrelevant but not really my point either... I'm talking about getting buy-in for your company's (or client's) first social media marketing program.

If you've been championing social media inside your organization or suggesting it to your clients, you know that winning support from a senior-level skeptic can be quite a challenge. You may be a believer, but your CMO, CEO, corporate communications gatekeeper or that woman down the hall who controls the purse strings isn't sold on the value or importance of social media. And without their buy-in, odds are good you won't be experimenting with social (let alone making it a fixture of your integrated marketing approach) any time soon.

My BFF (blog friend forever) Jason Falls and I were talking about this very challenge a month or so ago, and I walked him through a set of arguments (some rational, some emotional) that I've found to be pretty effective in getting skeptical clients to take the plunge.

Evidently he liked at least some of what I said, cuz when he lined up speakers for the "Social Media Business Summit" track at this year's Blog World & New Media Expo, he asked me to present a session on making the case for social media.

So this October, I'm Vegas bound and hope some of you will be too.

My 30-minute session -- From Skeptic to Advocate: Proving the Business Case to Your Boss or Client -- happens at 1:15pm on Saturday, October 17th and should be a nice combination of business in the front and party in the back (in other words, strike the right balance between informative and fun for a Saturday afternoon in Sin City.)

If you're thinking of attending Blog World & New Media Expo or want to find out what's in store, you can find the details on their site. Lots and lots of great speakers covering a wide variety of new media-related topics. And it's Vegas baby!

Bad Pitch teleseminar to teach PR folks how to pitch so good

Over the past few years, just about every snarky marketing blogger has written a post (or two or ten) about poorly done influencer outreach -- sometimes just to shame boneheaded brand or agencies, other times to offer their own set of tips for how marketers can do a better job of talking to those of us who create content.

I wrote mine almost exactly two years ago and although I haven't written much about blogger outreach since, trust me, I get bad pitches all the time.

Just today, I received an email that began, "D------------ear Greg" (exactly like that, with the dashes between the D and the e), and only went downhill from there.

OK. So we all make mistakes. 

But the sad truth is that we're already a bunch of years into this social media PR thing and, if anything, the quality of the pitches I see might actually be getting worse.  I receive far too many unsolicited, off-topic pitches with no customization -- and you'd probably be surprised if I told you the names of some of the worst offenders.

Well, I must not be the only one noticing because the boys at the Bad Pitch Blog (who have elevated PR faux pas snark to an artform) are running a one-time-only teleseminar that aims to teach attendees how to get PR right. Kevin Dugan (@prblog) and my blogosphere-buddy Richard Laermer (@laermer) know their stuff, so if you're a PR pro, have yet to crack the code on outreach, and/or just want some new ideas that you can use to up your pitching game, you might want to sign up.

According to the teleseminar website, CrappyPR.com:

Call attendees will learn a smart, step by step approach to pitching that includes hilarious case studies and goes beyond that simple email. From looking at the whole pitch lifecycle, including the truth about pitching bloggers and using social media, to tips that will no doubt make you better-informed (and tell you how) plus the keys to pitch inspiration, we'll help you improve your game. Plus we will show you our tricks!

The throwdown goes down on Wednesday, July 29th at 1pm Eastern, so you can listen in while eating takeout sushi at your desk.  Admission is $49 but everyone who buys a seat gets a complementary electronic copy of Laermer's Full Frontal PR handbook. Seems like a pretty good deal to me.

Don't forget to tell Richard I sent you. ;-)

NOTE: I am not affiliated with Laermer, Bad Pitch or this event. Just got a not-so-bad pitch about the event and thought I'd share the info.