BlogKing September 7th, 2007

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1. To Network and Forge Valuable Connections

At any point during PodCamp Philly you’ll share the room with at least one person (if not a dozen) who can offer you huge value or solve a significant problem for you as a podcaster. It may be a sponsor. It may be a promotional opportunity. It may be someone you can interview. Bring lots of business cards and be ready to network.

2. To Associate with the Podcasting “Movers and Shakers”Those who will attend PodCamp Philly are “in the trenches.” You’ll associate with people have “been there and done it.” These are ideal people to learn from and make connections with as you progress in podcasting.

3. You Can Present to Your Podcast Peers

Any attendee can organize a session to present ideas and/or facilitate a discussion. All you have to do is enter a title and description on the session list.

4. To Promote Your Podcast

PodCamp Philly is a great place to pass out cards and let you know people about your show. It’s a focused audience of podcast enthusiasts. You can also find other podcasters who will cross-promote your show to their own audiences.

5. To Share Your Ideas

PodCamp Philly is a very interactive event. Each session is an exchange of ideas. You have your own tips, tricks that can benefit others. Come and share your expertise and ideas with your podcasting peers.

6. It’s Free

There is no cost to attend PodCamp Philly. Compare that with other industry events and expos which cost hundreds of dollars. You can’t beat free. The event is paid for by our generous sponsors. Please visit our sponsor page if you’d like to contribute. To register, just visit the registration page and add your name and email to the list.

7. To Learn the Latest Tips and Tricks

PodCamp Philly is an ideal place to learn how to start your own podcast or to discover the latest tips and tricks for taking your show to the next level. The presentations offered will cover the whole spectrum from content production, technical how-to, business podcasting, marketing and monetization.

8. Philadelphia is the City of Brotherly Love

PodCamp Philly is all about sharing ideas and resources and building community. That the podcaster brand of broterly love.

9. You’ll Get Food and a T-shirt

As if the value you’ll get from the presentations isn’t already worth attending, there will also be free food and t-shirts for attendees.

10. To Enjoy the Energy of Philadelphia Podcasters

You can count on a unique mix of individuals and opportunities at PodCamp Philly.

• Podcasts , Public Relations
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Michael Klusek June 20th, 2006

iMedia Connection: Social Networks and Viral Marketing (Page 2).

Viral marketing isn’t about products or value in the traditional sense; it’s about trust and fair-exchange and is pyramidal in structure. Here is a graphic representation of the pyramid:

The base is Meskauskas’ four elements of entertainment, utility, palpable reward and uniqueness. The top of the pyramid is success. The more you fill that pyramid with trust and fair-exchange, the greater your chances are for a successful campaign.

The message to companies going down this road is a simple one: make the social value of the exchange more important than what’s being exchanged and your campaign will take off every time.

• Blog Trends , Marketing , Public Relations
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Michael Klusek June 20th, 2006

iMedia Connection: Social Networks and Viral Marketing.

The NextStage CRO talks about joke lists, your online network, and how trust powers good word of mouth.

I’m on a joke list– surprise! I don’t know anyone with an email account who isn’t on a joke list. I get jokes from people in all walks of life. Some I’ve never met, yet I have excellent online relationships with them, some I’ve known in person for years. That distinction is important for what comes later in this column. If you’re reading this online, you’re probably on some kind of joke list too.

Recently, I received a joke with a link that lent itself perfectly to two areas of research. The first (just completed) deals with determining value in wikis and blogs; the second concerns viral marketing.

What is viral marketing?
iMedia Connection’s Media Strategies Editor Jim Meskauskas wrote a two part column on viral marketing almost a year ago, and it remains a good source on the topic. Wikipedia has a good and relatively succinct definition as well. The Meskauskas piece is economically oriented and provides online examples; the Wikipedia piece mentions the term’s biological origins.

Meskauskas wrote that viral campaigns are really online versions of word-of-mouth (WOM) advertising. If you remember the "Jesus Christ Superstar" lyric, "What’s the buzz, Tell me what’s a’ happening," then you know what WOM and viral campaigns are all about.

Meskauskas offered four items that good viral marketing campaigns share:

    * Entertainment: the marketing is entertaining.
    * Utility: what is being marketed is something the reader can use.
    * Palpable reward: the marketing provides instant gratification.
    * Uniqueness: the marketing is like nothing the reader has ever seen.

He also describes the difference between frictionless and active viral marketing campaigns. Frictionless occurs when the audience spreads the good word via usage, such as Hotmail. Active viral marketing occurs when the audience spreads the word via actively recruiting non-audience members into the audience.

Meskauskas doesn’t quite phrase things that way, and this is where NextStage’s research might extend the concept a bit.

Continue Reading »

• Blog Trends , Marketing , Public Relations
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Michael Klusek June 13th, 2006

EContentMag.com: Anatomy of a Viral Marketing Campaign.

Communicating with target audiences through Web content initiatives is also an extremely cost-effective form of marketing. If you’ve got an hour or two a week to devote to it, a blog is virtually free to produce. Contrast that to, say, an expensive direct mail campaign. Other forms of marketing also take time to produce, but cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to execute.

As much as I rant about Web content as a viral marketing tool on the speaking circuit and riff about it on my blog, I’ve never had detailed insight into the specific metrics around one viral marketing effort using Web content—until now. In mid-January, I put my marketing money where my mouth is: I published a complementary ebook, The New Rules of PR: How to Create a Press Release Strategy for Reaching Buyers Directly. Since then, I have been happily watching the wave of interest from this effort and am amazed by the metrics. If the results I’ve achieved are any indication, Web content, particularly in the form of ebooks, is one of the best viral marketing initiatives today.

My ebook, The New Rules of PR, is about how the Web has changed the rules for press releases (though most old-line PR professionals don’t know it yet). Today, savvy marketers use press releases to reach buyers directly. While many marketing and PR people understand that press releases sent over the wires appear in near-real time on services like Google News, very few understand the implications for how they must dramatically alter their press release strategy in order to maximize the effectiveness of the press release as a direct consumer-communication channel.

Continue Reading »

• Blog Trends , Marketing , Public Relations
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Michael Klusek March 14th, 2006

Colleges using blogs to attract students.

By Anya Sostek, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On a Monday this month, the admissions officers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had pizza for lunch.

That week, they also chose 377 high school seniors to admit to MIT, out of 3,098 who applied in the early action process.

They stuffed admit letters into confetti-filled cardboard mailing tubes
and deferral and rejection letters into 4.125-inch-by-9.5-inch
envelopes.

And then they put this information, from what they had for lunch to the
size of the envelopes, into their Web logs, or blogs, which are read by
thousands of prospective applicants and their parents.

MIT is one of a handful of universities where admissions officers write
blogs. But the idea is quickly spreading, as universities look for new
ways to appeal to an applicant pool that barely remembers life before
the Internet. It’s quickly shown itself to be a useful tool in boosting
interest among potential applicants, and one with some downsides as
well.

"We’re not reinventing the wheel, we’re just going where they already
are," said Matt McGann, an MIT admissions officer who started his blog
in August 2004. "We’re trying to take the mystery out of this college
admissions process a bit."

With entries that are often as much personal as they are business, the
blogs leave few stones unturned. Admissions officers post that they
listened to the new CD from the group Resonance, ate Indian food for
lunch or went to see "Harry Potter."

• Public Relations
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Michael Klusek September 21st, 2005

Global PR Blog Week 2.0.

The Global PR Blog Week 2.0 is an online event focused on how new communications technologies are changing public relations and business communication.

Happening NOW September 19-23, 2005.

This is great way to learn from the experts without actually traveling to an seminar. Read teh latest insigts on your own schedule.

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Michael Klusek June 11th, 2005

CNN.com - Pennsylvania uses bloggers to lure tourists - Jun 7, 2005.

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (Reuters) — Pennsylvania is turning to a new kind of travel writer to sell its glories: the blogger.

The state tourism office has created six blogs for selected "real people" to record their visits to prime Pennsylvania locations over the summer in exchange for their expenses paid.

"I choose what sites to visit and take it as it comes," said Robert McCreary, a 37-year-old computer software salesman from Chalfont, Pennsylvania. He has become the history buff of the project, visiting battlefields and monuments and writing about them on the VisitPA.com Web site.

In his current blog, McCreary describes driving toward the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg and imagining having General Robert E. Lee sitting in his passenger seat, "marveling at the car I was driving."

Other bloggers are a mountain biker seeking outdoor adventures; a motorcyclist looking to enjoy the open road in this largely rural state; a couple of New Yorkers whose itinerary includes a NASCAR event in the Poconos and milking cows in Amish country; a family of four looking for theme park thrills, and a pair of "culture vultures" who are planning to check out the nightlife in Pittsburgh and go shopping in the Delaware River town of New Hope.

"We want to speak to consumers in a voice that they want to identify with," said spokeswoman Carrie Fischer, spokeswoman for the state tourism office.

Check their stories out.  

"What a Long Strange Trip…

Over the next few months, you’ll really get to know the people
pictured below. They’re real people, and they’re taking real
Roadtrips—and you get to see it all right here at VisitPA.com. Our
Roadtrippers are making their own decisions, exploring the Commonwealth
on their own, and posting their photos and adventure blogs for you to
follow. "

I bet other states jump on board. This is a really cool way to put a personal spin on tourism.

• Blog Trends , Marketing , Public Relations
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Michael Klusek May 31st, 2005

Revenue Journal :: Search-optimized PR: Greg Jarboe reveals secrets.

I recently interviewed Greg Jarboe, one of the founders of SEO-PR, a company that has established itself as one of the market leaders in the field of search engine optimization using public relations techniques.

In September of 2002, Google launched Google News. As part of my work in search, I did some searches on Google News. I fell off my chair. Not only were there articles from NY Times and Washington Post, there were press releases. “Oh, my God,” I thought. “Press releases in Google News.”

I saw this as a new opportunity—to take my background in PR, what I had learned from SEO, and partner with Jamie O’Donnel, who had a background in direct marketing and tracking.  We formed SEO-PR in late 2002/early 2003. We’ve optimized several hundred press releases since then.

[The bottom line is that the PR world will never be what it once was. Your releases are now going directly to readers via search engines and feeds. Any PR house that is not providing SEO services in addition to traditional journalistic services is not giving their clients the full benefit of today’s buzz-building tools.]

Continue Reading »

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Michael Klusek May 30th, 2005

Webpronews  Neville Hobson | Contributing Writer | 2005-05-03

First there was Business Week featuring Steve Rubel in their cover story on blogs last week, complete with full-page photo.

That feature evangelizes blogs, exploring the business perspective in quite a different way to other recent mainstream media reporting, and in a far more relevant way for the business reader.

Today, the Wall Street Journal reports that CooperKatz, the PR firm Steve works for, has begun a project with Vespa USA to develop two blogs that will be written by US owners of the Italian motor scooters:

[...] Its blog site, VespaBlogs.com, could launch by early June, says Steve Rubel, a vice president at New York public-relations firm CooperKatz, which will manage the program. Four bloggers will be selected to regularly contribute content about the products and broader lifestyle topics. The company will give the bloggers guidance as well as a code of ethics. Comments may be removed if they are deemed inappropriate.

This is great news to hear of a major success for Steve and his firm’s new media services that leverages Steve’s Micro Persuasion brand, for which I offer my warm congratulations. It emphasizes the success of Steve’s role as a key evangelist in the PR profession and pushing that envelop ever further (for more on that, see the interview transcript or listen to the conversation (MP3, 30.8Mb) Shel and I had with Steve in March for the Hobson & Holtz Report).

But, this isn’t the really significant news. That news is related to a comment Steve makes in his post today about the new relationship:

[...] Vespa USA has contracted CooperKatz and Company, my employer, not only for blogging but for its comprehensive US public relations effort as well.

And there you have the key - the blogs form an integral part of an overall communication strategy.

The FAQ on the new VespaBlogs site - a model of transparency - describe how the blogs program will work and what it’s intended to achieve, including this explanation on building buzz and driving traffic to the blogs:

Piaggio USA plans to execute a small ad buy on both blogs and search engines to support the launch. In addition, since the online marketing and PR programs are tightly integrated, the blogs will integrate into the broader PR strategy as well. In addition, the VespaUSA.com site will link to the blogs once launched.

Amongst all the generic info out there about the benefits of blogs for business, and how they can work as integral elements of broader public relations, marketing and other communication activity, it’s very good indeed to learn of a real, live example of that integration and how it’s planned to be executed.

One to watch in the coming months as the plans develop.

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Michael Klusek April 26th, 2005

Global PR Blog Week 1.0.   July 12-16, 2004

The first edition of the Global PR Blog Week 1.0 is now over. During one week, 35 practioners published more than 60 articles and interviews on the impact of personal publishing on Public Relations. Enjoy the reading - and stay tuned for version 2.0.

A great educational resource not to be missed if you are new to the blogosphere.

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