Micro Persuasion

AMA Plans Blog Marketing Road Show

The American Marketing Association (AMA) is sponsoring a series of events on blog marketing in Seattle, New York and Chicago. The events feature a cast of A-list bloggers, including Robert Scoble. I will be participating in the January 21 New York event, but I am hardly an "A-lister." Rather, I am second-string quarterback who was lucky to get drafted! In addition, the Boston chapter of the AMA has another related event coming up on November 11, featuring the great PR blogger, John Cass.

Marketers Will Soon Find a Home in Social Bookmark Sites

If you're not familiar with social bookmark sites, now is a good time to get acquainted with them. At least in the short term, they hold a lot of potential for PR professionals and marketers.

Social bookmark sites, which include del.icio.us and Furl, are becoming increasingly popular. They are basically free online repositories where you can easily store, categorize and share online links.

For the PR professional, Furl and del.icio.us are useful on a number of different levels. First, they hold a lot of potential for knowledge management. If you head a team and need to regularly share info with them, you can file away links that they can access at their convenience, either online or via RSS. In addition, by checking out each site's list of most popular links you can look through the open window into the psyche of heavy online users and influencers. But this is just the beginning.

Furl and del.icio.us are also places where at least right now you can plant mini memes. I found this out myself recently. On October 4 I blogged that Gmail added Atom feeds. I posted the link into del.icio.us and quickly I noticed an influx of traffic from the bookmark site and also watched as the link began to spread. As of this writing my site is one of the top links on Google for the terms Gmail and Atom.

Now imagine that instead of sharing a blog link I had used del.icio.us to spread word in the influencer community about a new gadget I was pitching. Rather than offering a reporter an exclusive or running an ad, I instead elected to plant a mini meme. Sound far fetched? Not to me. Right now this tactic holds potential, but perhaps at some point it will lose its punch as these sites become a haven for bookmark spam. Enjoy it while you can.

How Blogs Aid Search Engine Visibility

Search Engine Watch today features an article on how blogs can have a dramatic effect on search engine positioning.

The Dark Side of RSS Advertising

John Battelle today started experimenting with Amazon ads in his RSS feed. John writes...

It won't be long, I predict, before Feedburner and services like it start rolling Overture-like ads into feeds. Then, perhaps, we can change this lame "headlines and summaries only" RSS approach taken by most of the mainstream publishers.

He's right. RSS ads will soon become standard. And this is definitely a good thing. RSS ads will help everyone who is serious about blogging monetize their efforts. However, as bloggers begin populating their feeds with ads, the game will change. There is a potential dark side here as well.

The Chinese Wall - e.g. the line that usually exists between "editorial" and advertising - will blur even further. Some bloggers are adamant they will stick to their ethics. But I can easily see how there might be others who will begin to favor writing more about certain topics than others to ensure that their feeds carry high performing ads. That's something you generally would not see in the world of professional journalism. Hopefully a few bad amateurs won't spoil it for the rest of us.

Mazda's Marketing Mishap

Pamela Parker and Steve Hall tonight are pointing out a lame new Mazda stealth marketing blog. Bewarned. Video starts as soon as you click the blog link.

Open Source Marketing Campaign Beats Goal

Remember that Firefox open source marketing campaign I mentioned yesterday? Well, it already beat its goal. Keep an eye out for their New York Times ad soon.

Open Source Marketing is the Future - Pass It On

Open source marketing is the future. Need proof? Study how the Mozilla Foundation is building momentum behind Firefox.

Mozilla today launched a community effort to secure enough funds to take out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times. The full-page ad will include the names of everyone who supports the campaign along with a message about the benefits/features of the awesome Firefox browser. An individual contribution of $30 will get your name included in the ad ($10 student rate). eWeek has more details.

Jim Grisanzio over at Sun wonders how many marketers will realize that the future of their very profession will be based on open source community principles. I could not agree more.

This is a big sign of things to come. Eventually tons of innovative open source marketing/public relations campaigns will sprout up online. They will be owned by folks who share a common passion and goal. They will rely on the Web and best practices gleaned from innovators like Mozilla and Howard Dean. Depending on how you look at this - this is either a huge threat or an opportunity for the public relations industry.

Obviously, you know that I say it's an opportunity. The days of throwing a release on the wire and seeing what comes back are over. It's time the PR industry begins to apply the new, low cost tools that are popping up everyday; tools like Skype, PubSub, iPodder, TypePad, del.icio.us and more. Firefox is re-writing the marketing playbook and is showing the world how open source marketing can work. As PR pros, we need to begin to learn from the Joe Trippis of the world so that we build the know-how to launch such bottom-up initiatives and then guide them in the right direction. This is the future of marketing communications.

About a year ago I got religion. And I assume if you're reading this, you have it as well. Now it's up to us to spread the word. PR Week this week (story unavailable online) reports that there are some 50 PR bloggers. Why aren't there more? I wish there were. Maybe it's fear or simply just time. Scoble basically takes on the fear issue. As far as time goes, I say the more time you put into blogging and community marketing, the more value you get out of it. You're here. Your head is wet. Now spread the word to your colleagues. Evangelize.

RSS Ad Network Forms

Google Blogoscoped points to a new network that syndicates ads into RSS feeds.

Blogging for BtoB

Sean Callahan at BtoB Magazine reports that with the rise of technology, markets are increasingly becoming dialogues, and blogs represent a perfect example of the trend. The story interviews Microsoft and Sun Micro corporate bloggers, including Channel 9's Lenn Pryor.

Faux Blogs

Chicao Trib (registration or BugMeNot required): Faux marketing blogs, while relatively new, have not always been well-received.

Coca-Cola Internal Marketing Blog Leaks Out

Today I discovered what appears to be a new blog that's being developed for internal/knowledge management use by The Coca-Cola Company. At blog time, it was accessible via the list of recently updated blog links on the TypePad home page, so it's fair game.

It appears that the site is being developed by Elemental Interactive, Coke's online marketing firm. Perhaps they didn't realize that blogs can be so public right away unless you password protect them.

The blog site has categories set up for online marketing, corporate blogging, and internet trends. It's not clear if this was meant to be a site just for Coke or Elemental employees or if it has some greater purpose.

UPDATED: The site is now password protected.

Blog Marketing Explodes

Rich Ord: CEO blogs are possibly the most powerful type of corporate marketing per dollar spent ever invented.

Technorati Now Has Contextual Keyword Ads

I don't think this has been around, but I am sure you'll correct me if I am wrong. Technorati is now running contextual keyword text ads that are syndicated through a site called GetFound.com. At post time the ads could be viewed on this search results page for Firefox. No word yet on how one goes about buying such ads. See screen grab below.

MSN Invites Me & Others to Kick Search Tires

eWeek reports that Microsoft has invited 30 researchers, bloggers and other influencers to kick the tires on the next version of MSN Search. The news had been kept close to the vest for awhile but it is now leaking leaking across the blogosphere after Scoble blogged it.

The 30 influencers have been invited to Redmond next week for an event called "Search Champs." They are scheduled to hear about and test upcoming features for MSN Search and to meet researchers from Microsoft Research.

I was thrilled to have been invited to participate. Unfortunately, however, I cannot attend in person due to some prior commitments and not to mention my upcoming nuptials. However, I have assured the MSN Search team that I will participate virtually in this process.

Once again, Microsoft is demonstrating its leadership in the power of word of mouth marketing. They are tapping key influencers not only to gain valuable feedback, but also to get the early word out there that they have big things planned for search. This is not the first time Microsoft has used this approach. Wayy back in 2000 they invited many Palm bloggers to preview the then nascent Pocket PC operating system. Kudos to Microsoft for continuing to demonstrate its marketing leadership.

Business 2.0 Says Biz Blogs are Now the Norm

The venerable biz pub looks at CEO blogging, blog marketing and blog monitoring, writing:

But in time, and as this latest Web phenomenon becomes more established, blogs will likely become just another standard marketing channel for most companies.

Marketing Lessons from Channel 9

iMedia Connection: Microsoft's Channel 9 developers' blog sheds light on how marketers can use these forums.

PR Threats and Opportunities in Moblogs

Moblogging – short for "mobile blogging" – will have a bigger impact on the public relations industry than any other technological change in the past five years. Combine low-cost, easy-to-use social media tools like Blogger, TypePad, Audioblog, Flickr and BitTorrent, with an intelligent arsenal of millions of connected mobile devices, and suddenly the PR professional is faced with an entirely new set of challenges and opportunities. Here’s a quick look at two threats and two opportunities …

Moblogging's Threats to PR

Corporate/Intellectual Property Secrets will Leak onto the Internet
Some companies and organizations are already banning camera phones from the workplace. Others, perhaps naively, are still allowing them. In either case, it will increasingly become difficult for corporate America to stop some employees from using their camera phones to mobile blog photos of source code, secret products in development, planned advertising/marketing campaigns, legal documents, pending patent filings and more. Once this information is out on the Internet, it’s an easy picking for any enterprising professional/amateur journalist. Just think what the Enron and Tyco scandals would have been like if moblogging were more widespread back in 2001.

The "Soft Launch" Will Die
"Soft-launches" and "test marketing" are oft-used phrases in corporate marketing. Companies often roll out new products and services in stages to make sure they’re fully baked and ready for primetime. Typically the PR team will wait to begin its full court press until a soft launch has completed. The reason is simple – you don’t want to "hype" a product before it is widely available and functional. With millions consumers moblogging, the soft launch is dead folks. If your company or client is test marketing a product in a limited market – and you are a well-known entity – expect the news to hit the network.

Moblogging’s PR Opportunities

Moblogs Will Become a Valuable Crisis Communications Tool
What’s more convincing? A corporate-speak PR statement from Firestone that says "we’re working on our tire recall issue" or an up-to-the-minute moblog that shows executives and front-line workers in real-time implementing a massive recall to protect consumers. This gives you a taste of how the savvy PR pros might employ moblogs in the future when a crisis breaks. Take a look at what David Sifry wrote today as an example.

Using Moblogs to Bang the PR Drum
Moblogs can also be used to build early hype for a product/service before it’s even out on the market. Let’s say you’re a movie publicist. Why not moblog or "vlog" (video blog) snippets of the "dailies" live from the shoot’s location? Or perhaps you are organizing all PR for a trade show or conference. You could launch a live moblog from the event. Moblogging offers PR pros the opportunity to leverage new tools to generate buzz. Look into them.

Book Authors Go Blogging

Many bestselling authors, like Jennifer Weiner and others, are writing personal commentary on their blogs, AP reports.

Blackshaw's Warning to Marketers

Intelliseek CEO Pete Blackshaw writes in MediaPost: Blog and bloggers have made a huge mark in 2004, and this should give every major marketer and advertiser pause for deep reflection. Let the word go forth - to marketers and agencies alike - that the blog revolution brings with it unmistakable tradeoffs and potent new "rules of engagement." Ignore them at your peril.

Help Wanted

Help wanted. Must like to blog. Must know enough about advertising to both write about it and make money from it. To apply, send in three blog posts in a style similar to blogs like AdRants.com, Gawker.com or Engadget.com.