Passion2Publish

Measuring the Return on Engagement

As the nature of our business, custom publishing, changes -- we have to recognize that the education we provide our clients also needs to be shared internally as well. For the last 4 weeks or so, the Digital Media team in our company has been giving 30-45 minute talks each Monday about the very basics of what we do. And we're only halfway through our schedule of conversations.

Yesterday I introduced metrics and how, as a company, we can be more agile to respond to user needs. Here are the slides from that presentation (It's not my most creative presentation, usually I load up the slides with photos of kitties from Flickr...):

Click through for my thoughts about the presentation AND our adoption of an internal social network.

Rupert Murdoch is a fan of Passion2Publish.com

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"News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said Tuesday he intends to make access to The Wall Street Journal's Web site free, trading subscription fees for anticipated ad revenue."

Rupe'... err. Can I call you Rupe'? For such a busy, extravagantly rich man, I'm surprised you had the time to read my blog -- but I'm flattered nonetheless. Obviously you spent some time with these posts of mine:

• Times Select and the Flawed Logic of Paid Content Models
• Scarcity: Catch it Before It's Gone
• Advertising Age Declares the Paid Content Model Dead

and my call to action to ol' Rupe' -- Someone Should Meddle with the Wall Street Journal

Thanks Rupe', but next time you're interviewed, would you please toss me a little press? Credit where credit's due, and all....

Testing the Facebook SocialAd System

Following Jeremiah, I've set up a one-day, $20, run on Facebook's new SocialAd system to promote this is a conversation, the facebook group.

The SocialAd system lets you segment and target your ad based on the user attributes in your profile. Want to market to a single college graduate who is politically liberal but is interested in guns? Well, according to Facebook, there's 420 users who fit that profile!

I'll be providing live updates on twitter throughout the day -- come check me out, micro style.

PIC: Steve Carell & The Office Immortalized in Pumpkin

Beth and Gretchen in our office entered this pumpkin into the building's Halloween competition:

And they lost!

Obviously this is the result of a cloak and dagger, sinister type, pumpkinista agenda to deny these two gifted pump-craft-people of their due. Now, I would never suggest calling up the staff at 600 W Fulton, Chicago, and demanding justice -- I just think if you leave really nice comments it may bring these two back from the brink of personal crisis.

Oh and here are some fun friday vids to watch:

And in a personal victory, this is my 100th post!

Join the Conversation on Facebook

If you're a marketer that isn't actively pursuing the conversation, you're making a grave mistake.

I am a man obsessed with the web's ability for a brand to talk to a consumer, a consumer to speak to a brand, an evangelist to reach out to everyone that chooses to listen... and the magnitude of the ripples between us all.

With every conversation, your competitors and your customers are getting smarter. What have you risked? What have you learned? What have you won? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's an old expression, 1.0 if you prefer, but it fits this 2.0, this 3.0 landscape.

I'm inviting you to come join a new group on facebook that I've started -- as a precursor to larger things to come perhaps.

Call it alpha, wrap a starburst around it, and give it a gradient -- this is a conversation on facebook. Don't be passive, don't be a lurker -- I'm looking for people with something to say.

I've Been Everywhere, Man

My memory is a little hazy, but I'm pretty sure that for the last few weeks I've been talking about social media and engagement strategies in Atlanta, San Francisco, Charlotte, Philadelphia -- and before that Minneapolis, Raleigh-Durham and a couple more I might be leaving out, all the while handling a cross-town move. Pretty soon I'm going to start selling ad space on my luggage.

One phrase that keeps falling out of my mouth is this: Engagement is really about efficacy. Of course, it goes to all the research that shows that people are coming to expect more two-way communications with brands -- but when it comes to the web, my participation better mean something. We know that if we can put something in the hands of a evangelist, they can spread the word far faster and far more effectively than we can -- but how do you find those evangelists? You have to turn the experience into a personal one -- and you have to commit to personal levels of metrics. You can turn some regular customers into fans -- but evangelists seem to be born that way. Make your presence malleable, roll it like play-doh, like a "do-touch" museum, and give people something to get interested in.

I typed in your address, I clicked on that link, I have email sitting in my inbox, a bubbling over to-do list and boxes to unpack sitting in my living room -- make my time worth it and reward me for my attention.

On a "what's he up to?" note -- I'm looking for others like myself, those who are interested in the conversation between brands and customers, evangelists and non-affiliates, to start a new online publication. Details to follow.

The Best Community Science Presentation I've Never Seen

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I really have to get out more -- out of the cube, out of the airports, out of the meetings and into more presentations like this. Via Joshua Porter, these slides are from a recent presentation by Christina Wodtke. Click through, blow it up, and download her slides because this is an amazingly thoughtful presentation -- which from my experience, doesn't happen often enough at conferences.

On Josh's site he has listed some notes of his from the presentation. Good read through.

Content Creation in an Economic System

I was reading through a post by Steve Rubel, discussing the declining value of content based on how an economic system works.

Steve got a few things about economic systems wrong -- and his readers let him know it in their comments, but that doesn't mean the conclusion of his argument is wrong.

As strategists and as marketers, we live and breath in an attention economy. You hear about things like permission marketing or interruption marketing because of how fickle, how scarce, and how precious attention really is.

Creating content and monetizing that content is only going to get harder and more costly. That's a fact. Media saturation will only continue to increase and unfortunately attention is a limited resource. Therefore, the time and the care we want people to give our content will dwindle and its effectiveness will falter. UNLESS, we get smarter. All the tools are at our disposal. We can poke and prod and study our users like mice in virtual skinner boxes, aka websites. Never before are we given such a two-way medium to better understand our customers, to involve them more richly in the production process, and of course to help promote our finished product. The real difference between old media and new media is the willingness, or the outright fear, to be driven to this conclusion and to embrace it.

User generated content is putting your toe in the water, user co-creation is being up to your waist. Companies like etsy, and threadless and countless more are at the forefront of this philosophy -- where moving forward, organizations will only thrive with an active cult of participants -- not de-saturated, numerated customers, but vibrant, voracious participants.

Podcast: Social Media Tracking on the Cheap

Check out the podcast with Katie Delahaye Paine -- she has some great tips -- but her strategy talk is especially engaging. She's right, it's not about eyeballs, it's about the special type of eyeballs, those users that are just built to be your evangelists and having a conversation with them. You can't be all things to everyone -- but you can engage that powerful niche group that can grow your business.

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New Title -- Same Bud

I apologize for the decline in posts lately, dear reader.

Lots of goings on in the works here -- lots of good reasons to get out of bed in the morning, it happens.

There's much more to come in the following days, weeks, months, but I think you'll soon be hearing alot more from me (maybe in a different place), and I think you'll be hearing alot more about Imagination Publishing too.