Last week I was in a meeting with people from a number of different organizations all discussing a common issue. I was the “social media” guy at the table with a few traditional marketers with various specialties along with non-marketing people working through an particular situation. During the course of the discussion I realized again how stark the difference is between the way I approach marketing and promotion compared to some more traditional marketers. I attribute this difference in thinking to people like Seth Godin, Chris Anderson, and Robert Scoble…all of whom have provided books and blog that have formed the way I approach the new technology for marketing purposes. I took some notes of my thoughts at the time and here’s what came out…

It’s not that television as we’ve known it doesn’t matter. It’s just that it doesn’t matter as much as it used to.

It’s not that newspapers as we’ve known them don’t matter. It’s just that they don’t matter as much as they used to.

It’s not that radio as we’ve known it doesn’t matter. It’s just that it doesn’t matter as much as it used to.

It’s not that marketing, advertising, public relations, and any other form of promotion as we’ve known it doesn’t matter. It’s just that it doesn’t matter as much as it used to.

It’s not that the way you’ve been marketing isn’t effective anymore. It’s just that it’s less effective today than it was yesterday and it will be increasingly less effective tomorrow, next week, and next year.

The lesson here isn’t that you have to make a total switch to social media marketing today. The lesson is that you need to be moving toward social media marketing and as you do, you can’t think about it the same way as the old way you did marketing.

I read Seth Godin’s blog regularly but hadn’t looked at it in a few days until I received an email from Jeff today who said I needed to see his post about digital coaches from yesterday. The point of Jeff’s email to me was that Seth’s post pretty much sums up what I do and the type of help I can provide.

I’ve found it’s not always easy to explain what “new media marketing” is because there is some basis for understanding that is necessary to even know what the heck new media is…much less how to use it for marketing purposes. That being said, Seth hit the nail on the head by calling it (among other things as you’ll see in the post) digital coaching. I think in my case it’s more applicable to say I do digital marketing coaching…but you get the idea. I created a Squidoo lens to talk about it too. Take a look if you like. It’s called, “Blogs, Podcasts, YouTube, oh my!“

UPDATE: Help take my Squidoo lens to the top of the Digital Coaching page…scroll down to the entry that says: http://www.squidoo.com/easydigitalmarketing (that’s me) and vote once for it. Right now the top vote only has five votes so with just a few of you we can get to the top!

If you have blogged for any time at all you have inevitable wondered about blogging frequency. You’ve probably asked questions like: Am I blogging enough? Am I blogging too much? How many blog posts should I write each week?

I’ve heard blogging referred to as “feeding the beast” and that once you start you must keep on feeding it. I agree generally with that idea and encourage bloggers to post a minimum of once a week. In my view that’s the bare minimum to show that you’re regularly active. This is not to say that if you post once every other week your blog is without value, but you can probably expect that people will learn your posting cycle and will check you blog about as frequently as you post. So don’t be surprised if your traffic is sparse and you only post twice a month.

On the other end of the spectrum are blogs that post 20-30 times a day. The average person probably won’t hit anywhere near that. Conventional wisdom (if there is such a thing for blogs) has said for the last few years that the more you post, the better off you are. That’s true to a degree if you consider that every blog post is another hook in the water for people to find you through Google searches. It also shows that your blog is very active, which is a great thing for readers to realize.

The downside to these massive posting blogs, however, is that they create pressure on new bloggers to feel like they’re failures if they don’t blog often enough. Also, that type of blog can overwhelm readers because if they miss two days of posts they’ll have 50 posts to sort through just to catch up. They’ll skim the headlines at best in that situation or may bail on the blog altogether out of a sense that the time commitment required to read the blog is more than they’re willing to give.

I look at blog posts in two ways: some are meals and some are snacks. A meal is a well thought out post that has some meat to it. It doesn’t necessarily have to be long though it very well may. A meal is a post where someone comes away feeling like the time invested in reading the post was well worth it. A snack, on the other hand, is a quick thought, idea, funny video, link, etc. to provide ongoing value to the blog’s readers yet without the time commitment as a meal. Whereas a meal blog post may take a minute or two (or more) to read, a snack may only take 10 seconds.

I personally try to make sure I serve up one meal a week and at least two snacks. Some bloggers seem to have their own working combination of the two. Seth Godin, for instance, serves several meals a week with a few snacks in between. Lifehacker, on the other hand, is virtually all snacks while bloggers like Mitch Joel and Jeremiah Owyang seem to serve up a meal with about every post. Each blogger needs to find the right meal to snack ratio for his blog but I’ve found that with this understanding of two types of blog posts, new bloggers especially feel empowered to begin blogging without any unnecessary pressure. For me it’s a mental gauge for the type of posts I’m going to write over the course of an average week.

A while back someone asked me if I knew of Seth Godin to which I responded with something like, “Heck yeah, I think he’s remarkable.” After we talked a bit he asked me how I thought he could “Seth Godin” himself…meaning he was wondering about the secret to Seth’s seemingly widespread success through unconventional means and how could he replicate it. The person I spoke to has developed himself as a brand in his area of expertise and sees Seth as a model to follow for further growth. I agreed with his take and gave him the following thoughts on how he might be able to Seth Godin himself (without shaving his head):

Seth leverages his blog. Blogs are unique for many reasons:

• Blogs have tremendously positive effects on Google rankings because the content is updated regularly and therefore shows Google it’s more active than a static website thus ranking it higher.
• Blogs allow your ideas to be easily distributed by allowing people to reference specific posts and talk about them on their own blogs (thus beginning the word-of-mouth marketing).
• Blogs give you an immediate forum to expand your base of readers, post new ideas, coordinate a meet up on the fly, get feedback on an idea, or respond to critics quickly and informally.
• Blogs let people connect with you through comments (though Seth actually doesn’t do this on his.) With a blog people get to talk back to you and you can listen but don’t have to respond to every comment. It allows you to get valuable and immediate feedback in a way you can’t (and won’t) get on a standard website or email newsletter.
• Blogs give you an opportunity for greater to . If a well known blog posts about your blog it will take the awareness to an entirely new level. Though it’s possible one could do that without a blog, it seems like bloggers prefer to link to other blogs because they want to reference something specific most of the time and blogs make it possible.
• Blogs are accepted as more authentic than traditional marketing. With so much marketing today people have natural filters and defenses up to deflect the barrage of ads. Those defenses drop when reading a blog that they respect so if a blogger talks about you, people are more accepting of the idea and more willing to respond or research it further. They’re taking the blog post as a personal recommendation from the blogger rather than a professional promotion by marketer.

Seth leverages his audience. He knows he’s making the most of his base by always giving them something. He knows that if he gives away valuable ideas long enough he buys the person’s attention, respect, and time. He then strategically asks the audience for things from time to time but not in a pushy way, but more like “Hey, I’m doing this and if you want to participate here’s what you do…” He displayed this recently with a good idea to promote his new book, The Dip. In essence he told people he would fly to speak to them if they coordinated groups that would purchase five books each for admission. He made the offer and left it up to his readers to take him up on the offer.

Seth limits his accessibility (but is highly accessible in other ways.) Seth is interesting in that as a high profile guy, he answers all of his own email and does it rather quickly. He writes numerous blog posts a week as well. People feel like they know him and he accomplishes that through both his personal email responses and frequent blogging. To see Seth, however, you have to be part of a select group but that doesn’t mean he selects you, it means you select yourself. He uses exclusivity to his advantage by teaching seminars to small groups and charging a premium for those seminars. That creates the best possible opportunity for him to make money off the event yet also create demand for those who didn’t get in on the seminar and want to get in next time.

Seth focuses on quality. Seth believes that if anything is remarkable (reference Purple Cow) it will be talked about (reference Unleashing the Ideavirus) and then people will buy it. Quality is the key rather than a mediocre product or service with a razzle dazzle marketing plan.

So to sum it up: You can Seth Godin yourself by building an audience, leveraging that audience at key times, limit some forms of accessibility, and wrap the whole thing up in high quality and remarkability.

Christian book and Bible publisher, Crossway, announced last week that they are giving bloggers the opportunity to review an upcoming book (John Owen’s Communion with the Triune God) through a free download. The announcement came via Justin Taylor’s personal blog. Justin is an associate editor for Crossway.

The fact that Crossway is using bloggers this way is a great step for them and one that more publishers will likely pursue in the future. Crossway isn’t trying to force bloggers to do anything (which indicates an understanding of blog culture) but is simply providing them with an opportunity to get something early in exchange for a review. Crossway can also look forward to the positive Google search results that will ensue. I commend Crossway for taking advantage of Justin’s blog readers. It’s a great (and informal) way to promote the new book to the very people who are most willing to talk about it. Justin’s readers fall right in line with the types of books Crossway produces so they’ve got a marketing advantage that many publishers can only dream of.

As good as this idea was I think there are two things that would make Crossway’s free download promotion even stronger:

1. Seek to identify and target bloggers with larger numbers of readers. It’s great to get bloggers talking about your book. It’s even better to get bloggers with a lot of readers to talk about your book. If Crossway identified ten bloggers with significant numbers of readers, it will have a more immediate impact on book awareness and will lead to even more blog posts from the readers of those select blogs but don’t forget there’s a right way and a wrong way to pitch the idea to the bloggers too.
2. Don’t quit sending out the PDFs after October 1. I expect there’s concern within Crossway that they will hurt sales by sending too many digital files of the book. Though that’s an understandable concern, I don’t believe it should hinder more free reviews of the book. In fact, I would recommend they give the book away as a PDF regardless of whether someone is going to review it or not. I heard Seth Godin say once that he gave a book away as a free PDF and it was downloaded over two million times. It went to #5 on the Amazon.com Best Seller list and he said he made more money on this book than his previous book that was marketed more conventionally. The hard back version was what people wanted after they read a few pages of the free download and decided it was worth the $40 price. Though it’s counterintuitive to give it away, what’s really being given away with a free download is the initial impression of the book not the book itself. If the reader likes the impression the book makes they’ll be sure to get the real thing.

Yes, I know I use Blogger and not WordPress. No, I don’t know when (or if) I’ll make the switch but I must give it to the WordPressers…they sure come up with some good ideas. If you’re on WordPress you may like the “What Would Seth Godin Do?” plugin to give new visitors a unique experience the first few times they come to your blog. Any Bloggies got something like this for me?

Though I’ve been familiar with podcasts and podcasting for quite a while I have to admit it wasn’t until recently that I really immersed myself in them to see what’s out there. What I discovered is that when podcasts are good, they can be really good. On the flip side, when they’re bad, they can be quite awful. Below are four things I discovered that the good ones seem to be doing:

1. Attention to pace: The good podcasts feel like they move quickly. Whether it was the pace of the people talking or the momentum they would carry from one story to the next, the really good ones keep it moving forward. Not all podcasts move at the same pace however. Some seem like a steady jog while others move like a brisk run, but in the end they all know they have a pace to maintain and do it well to keep the show moving forward.

2. Sound quality: I didn’t think poor sound quality would be as annoying as it was. After all, we’re dealing with amateurs here right? Yes, partly, but the difference is that the line between pro and amateur is very blurry now so it’s all about good quality. Whether you’re a solitary guy in garage or a team in a studio, the playing field is level and the listeners can’t help but desire good sound quality. The good news is that the solitary guy in a garage can actually sound like a pro in the studio with fairly basic equipment. The rule seems to be that if it doesn’t sound as good as the radio, it’s not going to be good enough.

3. Set the hook early: The most distinct thing I heard between the good podcasts and the bad ones was that the good ones recognized that I may very well be a first time listener and therefore not familiar with the personalities, the format, the content, the tone, etc. In every case they set it up as if they know some percentage of their listeners are first timers. If you think about it, that’s how talk radio is…at any point in time a radio personality knows people are coming and going and although that wouldn’t be necessary to incorporate through an entire show, that mindset seems vital within the first two minutes of the podcast. I was most turned off with one particular podcast where it seemed like the guys were trying to figure out if they were even ready to begin. The dialogue went something like this (names made up for example purposes):
Tim: “So Joe, how’s it going?”
Joe: “Pretty good.”
Tim: “Whatcha been up to?”
Joe: “Not much.”
Tim: “Jeff, how are you doing?”
Jeff: “Good.”
Tim: “Whatcha been up to?”
Jeff: “Not a whole lot.”
After this they traded a few inside jokes and sort of talked about what the show was going to cover that day but at this point I went to the next podcast. They lost me. The thing is the preceding dialogue followed a pretty decent prerecorded intro and a “Welcome to the podcast” intro by the host. The point here is that you can’t forget how easy it is for people to move on. They don’t know you. They don’t know how smart you are or how inspired and compelling your message is. If you don’t get them hooked early they probably won’t take the time to find out.

4. Content quality: In the same way that the lines are blurry between pro and amateur on the sound quality side, they are equally blurry when it comes to good content. The fact of the matter is that good content is what will keep people over the long term. Everything above is to get them to pay attention to you the first time or two. Giving attention to quality content will keep them their for the long term.

Bonus 1: Episode numbers
Aside from the above items I discovered that everyone tells me what episode number that particular podcast is. I don’t get that. Why do I need to know what number episode they’re broadcasting? Maybe if you’re just starting out it buys you a little bit of grace but on the other hand it could work against you because a listener could assume you don’t have your act together since you’re brand new.

Bonus 2: Browseable podcasts
Also, I read a post from Seth Godin back in May, 2005 when he noted that one of the downsides to podcasts is that they can’t be browsed. That sentiment didn’t resonate with me until listening to a bunch of different podcasts more recently. I can’t help but wonder what it would do for a listener if the podcast posted a timestamp listing of all the topics covered in each podcast…meaning if you have a 30 minute show that covers blogging, a new book, and an interview you note that at 1:13 of the show you talk about blogging, at 8:47 you begin talking about the book and at 14:09 you begin the interview. Seems to me that would be a step toward browseable podcasts.

I mentioned last week that I ordered several new books and a few days ago while reading Seth Godin’s “Small is The New Big” I came across an interesting segment. He says there are six things that a blog should have to really work:

• Candor
• Urgency
• Timeliness
• Pithiness
• Controversy
• Utility

Now, he’s not saying that a single blog should have all six of these, but what he does seem to be saying is that the more of these elements incorporated into a blog more often will lead to its success. In the book he created this list specifically for corporate blogs but it seems like a good list for all current and future bloggers.

Birthdays are a funny thing as we get a little older. Nobody’s too sure what to get you if they even want to give you a gift at all. I hate when I get asked what I want because I know I don’t really need anything in particular and the things I want are a little too pricey for a mere birthday gift. Last week my wife had a surprise party for me and that was a great gift (she also got us tickets to the John Mayer/Sheryl Crow show coming up…another great gift). I got to spend time with a bunch of friends and it was really fun but apparently everyone thinks I really like Starbucks because I racked up nearly $100 in gift cards to Starbucks. I think I’m covered for a while. In fact, I’m more than covered…so here’s an idea for a little free coffee to someone reading the blog…the first person to email me who wants to meet up for coffee here in the Nashville metro area (at the Starbucks location of your choosing) just has to ask (fourthbill@gmail.com) and it’s all yours. We can talk about anything you want. What do you think? You, me, and Starbucks for free!

Ok, back to what I was actually going to post about…I got a gift certificate to Amazon.com (thanks M,K,E,&SE) and some cash so I promptly spent it all on five books. My friend Randy said a while back that he always likes to see what books people are reading…so I’ll share five books that I’ll be reading soon…

• Purple Cow - This is a Seth Godin book that I read a few months ago but I had borrowed it from Chris and since I obey all borrower rules and returned it promptly after completion I don’t have it anymore. It’s good enough that I knew I needed my own copy.
• Small is the New Big - The latest from Seth Godin
• Naked Conversations - Robert Scoble’s book about blogging
• The Long Tail - This is a big deal…and I need to know more of what it’s all about.
• The Search - We all want to get better Google ratings don’t we? I hear this book has the goods.

My friend Ray sent me a link to the blog, the evangelical outpost, where there is a series on launching successful blogs. There’s a lot of information there and the parts I reviewed seem very strong. Here are the main topics covered:

• Part I - Before You Begin
• Part II - The Beginning Bloggers Toolbox
• Part III - How to Become an A-List Blogger
• Part IV – The Art of Marketing Your Blog
• Part V - Owning a Micro-Niche
• Part VI – Three Essential Elements of Blog Design
• Part VII The 5/150 Principle

PS - Ray just got mentioned by Seth Godin today. Congratulations Ray!! It’s truly a thrill when Seth gives you a little publicity.