Media love for The Viral Garden

Mainstream media websites and publications that have featured/referenced my writings at The Viral Garden, or have interviewed me for feature articles:

CNET.com - April 27th, 2007
The Boston Globe - Jan. 10th, 2007
The San Francisco Chronicle - Sept. 1st, 2006
The Washington Post - August 24th, 2006
Advertising Age - August 21st, 2006
MSNBC - July 20th, 2006
The Atlanta-Journal Constitution - July 9th, 2006
The Boston Globe - July 7th, 2006


If you need an original quote or interview for your publication or website, please email me.

Articles I've Written

Here are several articles I've written, covering a variety of marketing topics. If you wish to include one or more of these articles in your newsletter, or on your site/blog, please review the following guidelines:

1 - If an article is marked as being Premium (Premium), then you cannot reproduce the article in full. You can reproduce the same excerpt I provide below for each article, along with a link to the article, as well as a link to The Viral Garden (http://www.theviralgarden.com).

2 - If an article is not marked as being Premium (Premium), then you can reproduce the article in full, along with a link to the article, as well as a link to The Viral Garden (http://www.theviralgarden.com).


If you have a question or need a clarification for the above guidelines, or if you need an original quote for your own article, please email me at mack.collier@theviralgarden.com.



How to Make the Community Your Marketing Partner

"So, at this point, you have a choice: You can continue using the same marketing methods you have always used to reach your customers, or you can try something revolutionary. You can join them. You can stop trying to guess what your customers are talking about, and instead join their communities and talk to them directly."


Five Real-World Ways Businesses Are Marketing to Their Communities

"It's every company's dream... having a community of customers who are so devoted to your company that they market to and evangelize among other members of their community—customers who feel a sense of ownership in your company and want to spread your message to others.

Such strong bonds between companies and their communities of customers aren't the norm, and they cannot be developed without great planning and dedication. But for companies that are willing to embrace and empower their communities, the results can be magical."


Ten Steps to Starting a Company Blog(Premium)

"A weblog is a wonderful tool for not only better serving your community of customers but also improving your bottom line. But that can only happen if you are willing to enter this space after due diligence and with the commitment necessary for your blog to achieve its full potential. These 10 steps will help walk you through that process"


Ten Steps to Creating a Brand Ambassador Program(Premium)

"Brand ambassadors are similar to brand evangelists in that they also have a vested interest in seeing their favorite brand succeed. It's not so much that they attempt to influence other customers to buy a product, but that they share their passion for a brand with their fellow customers."


Ten Steps to Creating Your Own Podcast(Premium)

"Podcasting is a powerful, yet misunderstood, form of social media. While listening to podcasts has become popular in the last few years, the creation process still contains obstacles, especially for listeners who are considering starting their own podcast."


Eight Ideas for Revitalizing Your Company Blog

"It wasn't supposed to be like this. After hearing all the buzz about blogs and how popular they are becoming, your company decided to dive into the blogging waters. But that was months ago. And even though you've posted a few times, your blog has gotten little or no comments, and only a handful of visitors a day!

Before you give up and decide to pull the plug on your blogging experience, let's look at some ideas for revitalizing you blog so that both you and your customers can benefit from it."


Eight Steps to Creating Brand Evangelists (Premium)

"Whereas many companies use traditional marketing tactics to send a one-way promotional message to customers, brand evangelists can communicate with customers in their space. This is a very powerful difference: It shifts the communication from being one-way to creating an actual dialogue; and whereas many people simply do not trust advertising, a recommendation from a fellow customer is credible.

But how can companies encourage their customers to become brand evangelists?"


Eight Easy Ways to Grow Your Blog

"The social media landscape over the last year or so has changed dramatically. Companies that were once skeptical about tools such as blogs are now blogging or considering starting one. Unfortunately, many companies that do so still have little idea of how to grow their blog into an integral part of their marketing efforts.

However, every company can take some easy steps to grow its blog. Many companies don't have the knowledge or the resources to implement elaborate technical measures to boost their blog's status and instead need no-nonsense ideas that every writer can use every day.

This article will outline eight easy steps that bloggers can take to grow their blog's readership."

How to Reach Facebook's Millions of Members in Nine Easy Steps (Premium)

"But the key to having success on Facebook is to use the site as its members do. Consider ways that you can be create and bring value to your fellow users, as in many ways Facebook is a community which rewards its members based on the good that they each bring to the larger group."


Eight Steps to Creating a Successful Online Community (Premium)

"Online social communities are all the rage. Sites such as MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook have grabbed headlines over the past year or so as examples of how to create successful communities. As a result, many businesses have tried to emulate these sites and create vibrant online networks... with mixed results."


How Social Media is Changing the 4Ps of Marketing: Stories from Real Companies (Premium)

"More than likely, you’re reading this article with a fair amount of skepticism. After all, many companies want firm control over all its marketing and messaging processes. The idea of turning control of some or all of these processes over to customers can be a bit intimidating at first. But here are a few reasons why turning your marketing over to your customers can make good sense"

Interviews

Nettwerk CEO Terry McBride Terry is the CEO of Nettwerk Music, and also the manager for several top music artists, including Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne, and The Barenaked Ladies

"This is all based on a simple principle; put the music where the music fan spends their time and allow them to consume it how they want."


Socia Media guru Josh Hallet (via Marketing Profs) Josh is a social media success story. He has leveraged his blog at hyku.com to carve out a niche for himself as a social media expert, and along with a staggering speaking/conference schedule, has established himself as one of the true 'thought leaders' in the social media space.

"If we look at many of the "tools" of social media and social networks, the foundation is conversation and relationships. The majority of users are on the services to interact with friends. But can a corporation be a friend? Does a corporation really have anything of value to offer a customer in terms of conversation or relationships?"


Nettwerk's Marketing Manager Erin Kinghorn Erin is the Marketing Manager for Nettwerk, working alongside Terry is helping to market Nettwerk's music artists and properties.

"It's a matter of helping the artist, and guiding their career, instead of running their career. And also, looking at it as a career, and not as needing to put out a hit record. We're in the business of developing artists, we're not in the business of creating artists for revenue."


Personal Branding Expert William Arruda (via Marketing Profs) William has positioned himself as an expert in one of the fastest-growing niche industries in the nation: personal branding. Arruda's philosophy centers on identifying and communicating the unique value you can bring to an employer. If done correctly, your reputation and credibility will help you stand out from the crowd, and create an environment in which job opportunities come to you.

"Personal branding is nothing more than understanding what makes you interesting, compelling and differentiated and using that to stand out from your peers. It's about building a solid professional reputation around your unique promise of value."

Lookout! Records' Molly Neuman Molly runs indie music label Lookout! Records, and is also the manager for The Donnas.

"Yes and (making The Donnas' music available for free download) also speaks to the indie roots that we come from. We want our fans to get into the music and also support us by buying our records. We trust that our fans won't abuse the availability and that makes for a great relationship."

PayPerPost will fail because it lacks passion

Today PayPerPost launched. It's a service where bloggers are paid to blog about products, and here's the kicker: disclosing that they are being paid to blog about a product is completely up to them.

Wonderful.

The end results are obvious before this even gets started. Bloggers are huge on transparency, and any sort of dishonest shilling such as this will not only toast the credibility of the blogger in question, but all of us as a group, by extension. And sadly, this is just the type of trainwreck that the MSM is waiting for, as BusinessWeek has already jumped all over this new service, and how it will 'pollute the blogosphere'. Shel Isreal was even more venomous, but no less accurate, when he said that: "I hope this nasty, cynical, ugly idea crashes and burns swiftly.".

But of course, the true reason why it will fail is because the passion of these 'citizen marketers' won't be for the product and the communities the product is aimed at, but for getting the $5 or whatever they are getting paid to hawk some product they had first heard of when they opened their email 5 mins ago. Any time the sole motivator and passion for your marketing is getting paid, you have lost the game before the kickoff.

When your marketing passion is the community, you're set. When it's your wallet, it will likely always be your wallet, because you will never be very good at what you do.

From marketers to future music label execs...

According to Church of the Customer, those wild and crazy Mentos-Diet Coke fountain guys have so far gotten over $25,000 in ad revenue from their fountain video being viewed over 4 million times through Revver.

Yikes!

Of course the guys are elated that the wonderful world of the hyper-connected internet has led them to a windfall of quick cash, right? Guess again, the boys are mad as hell because there are 'bootleg copies' of their video popping up on YouTube and GoogleVideo, which means they won't get cash for them.

Give me strength.

Jackie nails it when she adds: Think not "How do I make direct revenue from the video?" but "How can I harness this incredible visibility I have just created?".

Exactly. Instead of trying to get in touch with their daddy's lawyer, the boys need to be trying to get in touch with Leno and Letterman. I'm sure their display would be a hit on the late-night/talk-show circuit.

Recently, I gave a journalist some background info on blogs for an article she was writing, and to illustrate how viral in nature blogs are, I mentioned how shortly after I left my '100 CDs for 100 Bloggers' post on Daily Fix, that labels began contacting me so I could explain to them exactly how the promotion would work. She asked 'Well weren't you afraid that a label might want to steal your idea?'. I told her that they definitely could, but it would be pretty short-sighted of them to do so. The smart labels would say 'Hey this is a great idea....maybe we should talk to this guy and see what other great ideas he has!', whereas the dumb label would say 'Hey this is a great idea....let's steal it!'. Of course, the dumb label wouldn't be smart enough to be reading Daily Fix or The Viral Garden, so it really doesn't matter ;) But my point was, when you have a good idea, the last thing you do is try to impede its flow. Let it come in contact with as many people as possible, and do anything you can to help increase its rate of exposure.

Something the Mentos dudes would be wise to learn. You only get 15 mins of fame lads, and the clock's ticking too fast to be worried about legal issues.


Pic of Rakim via Flickr user sketch_wiz

I hear the train a comin'...

When I first started blogging last year, I didn't see much discussion about how marketers could better serve their communities. I saw plenty of talk about how 'bloggers got it', and 'big business didn't', but not a lot of constructive discussion of how marketers could bring the online/blogging rules of community-building/embracing/empowering, into the 'real-world'.

Thankfully, I am noticing lately that the discussion seems to be shifting more and more towards how we can better serve our customers by joining them in their communities, instead of who's smarter than who.

Here's just a few of the great quotes I've come across recently:

The Masi Guy said: "Does anybody really still think that dialog, conversation, building community and working with the audience/ community to craft a way to spread the message is not the way to do things?"

Mike Sansone talks about the 'social media' tools that customers are using:"They are a portion of your customers and prospects. They are using these tools as a platform for conversation and communication."

Paul McEnany adds:"And a marketer is wrong if he or she doesn't listen, adapt to, and ultimately, become a part of the community."

Kim Klaver nails it here: "If more marketers used the products and services they market themselves, and could speak as members of the same community, there might be less of a disonnect between them and their potential customers."

Mario chimes in:"So as a marketer you have the two options: either communicate one-way with your prospects or communicate two-way by engaging your audience with your product/service and getting to hear their feedback on the same."

Ann Handley quotes Amy Gahran:"Few things cement relationships of any kind, but especially with audiences and markets, like strong, mutual communication. Encouraging conversation -- and leveraging those conversations to enhance news offerings -- demonstrates that your audience is valued not merely as a market, but as a resource."


One of the great things about blogging is that it gives us a front-row seat to view just how easily communities can form, change, and even overlap. For example, I hadn't heard of ANY of the above 6 bloggers just 3 months ago when The Viral Garden went live. Now they are all daily reads for me.

I think/hope that as more and more companies and their marketers become more internet-saavy, that they will start to realize that they have to begin to embrace the changing marketing landscape and join their customers in their space. Thankfully, with smart people such as those above, and so many others, that change will likely come sooner, rather than later.

Tennis needs a better serve

CNBC just ran a story on how low popularity is for professional tennis. I remember growing up in the 80s, tennis was a pretty big deal. You had great rivalries like McEnroe-Borg, Chris Everett-Navatilova, and youngsters such as Michael Chang and Boris Becker. Wimbledon was a summer mainstay, but as CNBC reported, with the World Cup, baseball, golf, NASCAR, and a general lack of interest in the sport, tennis' crown jewel could come and go without many people noticing.

It's a shame, because tennis is a fun sport, and if we can find a way to make televising NASCAR races and golf tournaments draws, I can't see why tennis couldn't be made into a ratings winner.

So here's the marketing moves I would make to revitalize the sport:

1 - Get college tennis on ESPN. ESPNU would be a perfect outlet for tennis, since they specialize more in the 'non-traditional' sports. The added exposure would entice more college students to try-out for tennis, which would eventually lead to more talented players. Also, the college season ends right as the professional season begins to hit it's summer stride, so it would be the perfect lead-in for the pros.

2 - Give tennis a point-system similar to NASCAR. Right now all you have are the world-rankings, which change constantly(Someone correct me if that's wrong). There's no sense of a beginning and end, no sense of a 'season' for tennis. I would give each tournament a set number of points awarded to winner, runner-up, making the semis, quarters, etc. And have the points weighed more heavily toward the Grand Slam, with Wimbledom of course being the biggest tourney. Scrap the world-rankings, and have the rankings based on the cumulative points each player has won.

3 - Shorten all matches to best of 3 sets. Sure occasionally you get an epic 5-set match that goes back and forth for 5 hours, but if the match is lopsided, especially for men, it can still last 2-3 hours. And considering that we are wanting to grow the fanbase, it's better to go with shorter matches to match shorter attention spans.

4 - Sign an exclusive licensing agreement with Electronic Arts to produce a tennis video game. Also give players the ability to download 'updated' player attributes based on their performance during the actual season, as well as updated wallpaper and screen shots for the game, based on who wins what tournament. And during the actual broadcast of each tournament, show a special code that allows players to unlock that tournament in their game, or maybe the seedings for that tournament, something like that.


I think it all starts with getting college tennis on TV, over time fans could follow the best players from college to the pros, which would lead to endorsement deals, etc. Once fans start to identify with individual players, then that will help drive video game sales, as players will want to play as their favorite player. And the point system would give readers a reason to follow the sport throughout the season.



Pic via Flickr user happymooses

So who cuts the cake?

As of yesterday, The Viral Garden is officially 3 months old. When you're in blogging, you get to count the anniversaries more often, since most haven't been around for a year or more ;)

I've heard so many bloggers state that their main regret about blogging is that they didn't start sooner. That's the only regret about having my own blog, I wish I had started sooner. I seriously thought about breaking off last December, and decided not to. In January and February BMA got on a hot streak, but in March traffic seemed to be levelling off, so I decided to move here. Perhaps by coinky-dink, or not, but BMA's traffic began to surge again in April, and continues to grow.

Thankfully, traffic continues to grow here as well. That first week I think myself, Andrea, Ryan, JD, and Jordan were the only visitors here. Course they were the only ones that knew about the blog, which was back when it had the horrificly bad name of 'This Parachute is a Napsack!'. Since then, we've gone from 5 visitors a day, to last month a 1-day record of over 700.

But as I've always said, it's not about traffic, it's about readers. When I came here from BMA, I had maybe 5 or 6 blogger friends that I read their blogs religiously every day. That number is up to around 30 or so now. That's not all the blogs I read, but the people that I now know enough to call them friends, and the amazing thing is, this community grows every day. It used to be that I would find a great blog and start reading it, now I can read David's blog and see where he's found Mario's blog, and I connect with Mario that way. Of course my sis has been great by bringing me to Daily Fix, I can't thank her enough for that, not only for the extra exposure it has given me, but in putting me in contact with so many great marketing bloggers. This has really become a Viral Community that's growing and spreading every day. I wouldn't have it any other way, hell I'm even connecting with bloggers at my MySpace page!

The popularity of the Top 25 Marketing Blogs list just continues to amaze me. The first list, from back in April, has now been linked to over 40 times, and a new link pops up every few days. Heck the list has even grown to the point where it is getting MSM attention (watch this space!). I really did start it because I thought it would be a fun way to track the top marketing blogs. Everyone seems to love it, so I'm glad I could give something back to the community!

What's next? More fun, of course! I promise not to leave if you guys don't! ;)




Pic via Flickr user lwr

The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing Blogs - Week 10

Here's the standings for Week 10, and these will be updated again next Monday.

1 - Seth's Blog - 6,474 (LW - 1)(+572)
2 - Creating Passionate Users - 17,987 (LW - 2)(-138)
3 - Gaping Void - 19,185 (LW - 3)(-250)
4 - Duct Tape Marketing - 19,519 (LW - 4)(-333)
5 - HorsePigCow - 45,052 (LW - 5)(-330)
6 - Marketing Shift - 45,319 (LW - 6)(+2,213)
7 - Coolzor - 74,408 (LW - 7)(+452)
8 - What's Next - 84,249 (LW - 8)(+3,177)
9 - Church of the Customer - 87,819 (LW - 9)(+1,690)
10 - Brand Autopsy - 89,223 (LW - 10)(+2,770)
11 - The Viral Garden - 89,250 (LW - 12)(+12,990)
12 - Emergence Marketing - 91,682 (LW - 11)(+6,882)
13 - FutureLab's Blog - 103,578 (LW - 15)(+19,839)
14 - Jaffe Juice - 109,377 (LW - 13)(+1,487)
15 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 115,869 (LW - 14)(+393)
16 - Diva Marketing - 120,740 (LW - 16)(+4,131)
17 - Marketing Headhunter - 168,500 (LW - 17)(+12,782)
18 - Network Marketing for Women - 179,593 (LW - 20)(+24,869)
19 - What's Your Brand Mantra - 181,668 (LW - 18)(+4,980)
20 - Marketing Roadmaps - 207,390 (LW - 19)(-14,631)
21 - Pro Hip-Hip - Hip-Hop Marketing - 211,528 (LW- 21)(+358)
22 - Marketing Begins At Home - 229,877 (LW - 22)(+5,722)
23 - Logic + Emotion - 253,955 (LW -UR)
24 - WonderBranding - 270,453 (LW - 23)(+9,092)
25 - The Origin of Brands - 274,615 (LW - UR)


I figure I better brag about us fast before the clock strikes midnight, but I'm pretty damned proud of how our Viral Community has pushed The Viral Garden to the brink of the Top 10. Especially when you consider that we won't hit our 3-month anniversary till tomorrow. As a whole, this was probably the best week for the Top 25 blogs, as 18 of the group were up, and there were 2 new entries.

The Origin of Brands re-entered the Top 25 at #25, and David Armano's Logic+Emotion became the third blog, joining Jaffe Juice and BMA, to be ranked in both the Top 25 Advertising blogs, and Top 25 Marketing blogs, as L+E touches down at #23 this week. Several blogs benefitted from being a part of Marketing Sherpa's blog awards, and there will likely be more spillover affect from these awards in the weeks to come.

The consolidation of the Top 25 continues, last week an Alexa ranking of 300K would barely make the cut, this week that number falls to 275K. Making the Top 25 was always an honor, it is now a serious achievement for a marketing blog.

As always, next update is next Monday.

Viral Community News

Michael Wagner at Own Your Brand!, has an amazing pair of posts about how Rick Rubin helped Johnny Cash revitalize his musical brand. Here's an added bonus: A link to watch Cash's video for Hurt, IMO the best music video ever.


Speaking of music, Tricia has a great post about how bands are finding that 'internet hype' might not always be an unknown band's best friend.


Daily Fix update: Joe Jaffe from Jaffe Juice has been added, as has Scott Baradell from Media Orchard. Ms. Community keeps on keepin' on!


New blogs that I am enjoying: No Man's Blog, and Marketing Nirvana. And if you needed further proof of how bad my self-promotional skills are, I was honored to be among Mario's Top 5 Marketing Blogs at #5, where I am #12 in my own list!


Finally, an interesting illustration of how an active blog generates more traffic than your average website. Leigh has a great advertising/marketing/branding blog called AdverGirl. Leigh works for, as she puts it, a 'midwest advertising agency'.

Alexa ranking for Leigh's blog? 242,365.
Alexa ranking for Leigh's agency's website? 2,611,250.

UPDATE: Karl Long has a great recap of the Supernova Conference, which focused on how social media and communities are impacting marketing. Great stuff.

NOTHER UPDATE: Chris adds extremely detailed notes from BloggerCon.

Yet another 'blogger' nixes comments

A couple of weeks after SethGate, Mark Cuban has apparently decided to kill comments to his blog posts. Honestly, I can't put this in the same vein as SethGate, or even Scoble deciding to monitor his comments. In this case, I think Cuban is making this move as a fan who's upset that his team lost the NBA Finals. I wouldn't be suprised if he turns comments back on shortly.

But...what I'm worried about is the bigger message that this might be sending other bloggers. Seth and Cuban are very influential bloggers, how long is it before another A-Lister, or A-Lister wannabe, decides that they don't need the 'hassle' of feedback from their communities. If Seth can get along without them, why do I need the 'hassle' of reading comments?

Here's a thought for those bloggers that are thinking of dumping comments from their readers, because they 'add no value': Start making an effort to CONNECT to your readers, and maybe they'll give you better feedback! Take the time to get to know these people that are taking time to come to YOUR blog, and maybe they'll get to know YOU a bit better, and give you better feedback.

Don't lock yourself up in an ivory tower and call down to your crowd that 'you guys just don't get me'. They don't 'get' you because you won't JOIN them.

If this trend continues of high-profile bloggers banning comments, either the readers will eventually migrate to the blogs that DO embrace their readers, or eventually readers as a whole will get tired of blogs. Which hurts everyone.

I talk a lot about the need for companies to 'join the community', but it applies to bloggers as well. And as a blog grows, the blogger should look for MORE ways to embrace their communities. I see so often, the exact opposite happening, in that many bloggers reach a certain level of traffic, and think they don't need to pay as much attention to their community anymore. The result is that some long-term readers will leave, and as new ones start to read the blog, there's little interaction with the blog owner. The end result is that the readers that understood the blogger, because he used to interact with them, they leave, while the new readers have no interaction with the blogger, and therefore don't understand him/her.

So if you aren't accepting comments because you aren't getting 'value' from your readers, that's not their fault, it's yours. I read on another blog a few weeks ago that 'a blog gets the readers they deserve'.

There's a lot of truth in that. Building bridges is almost always preferrable to burning them.

The power of staying true to your brand

"If you want to look at Sarah, she's always stayed true to herself, and stayed true to her music." - Erin Kinghorn, Director of Sales and Marketing, Nettwerk Music.


Recently, Laura Ries had a great post about how the Dixie Chicks are botching their attempted comeback. Laura says the main reason why is because the group isn't staying true to their 'hardcore' fans, and their music. In other words, the girls aren't staying true to their brand.

The quickly falling sales of their new album(controversy led to a monster debut, but sales have skidded about 40% every week since), and disappointing ticket sales for their upcoming tour, point to Ms. Ries being as right as ever. We then started talking via comments, and we both agreed that while the Dixie Chicks (and Jewel, Laura's so smart!) had gotten their music and marketing all wrong, that Sarah McLachlan is a prime example of the power of a musician staying true to their brand.

Consider that Sarah's first true mainstream hit, Possession, didn't come until her third album, Fumbling Towards Ecstacy, was released. That was in 1994, with the combined sales for her first two albums sitting at less than a million copies at the time. And Possession definitely wasn't aimed at a pop audience. The song's lyrics were inspired (or lifted) by the letters that a stalker had written Sarah over a 3-year period. The stalker then sued Sarah from jail for 'damages', but committed suicide before the trial was to start.

But by 1996 when she was working on her followup to Fumbling..., Sarah had found mainstream success, with combined sales of her first three albums now at almost 3 million copies. Instead of attempting to 'go mainstream' as some (Jewel) artists would have done, Sarah stayed true to her brand, and her fourth album, Surfacing, spawned four Top 10 hits, and has sold over 8 million copies to date.

Her latest album, Afterglow, was generally given an 'average' rating by mainstream critics, and is considered one of her weaker albums. Yet it still sold over 2 million copies. Reason? Because like all of Sarah's albums, Afterglow wasn't aimed at a mainstream audience, it was aimed at Fumblers, and fans that discovered her in the late 80s, and never left. Not many artists can have an album get a '2 out of 5 stars' rating from Rolling Stones, yet still go double platinum.

That's the power of staying true to your brand.

SPECIAL UPDATE: Part of Sarah's brand has always been to help others. Here's the simply amazing $15 video that helped over 1 million people worldwide, World on Fire.




Pic via Flickr user WanderingOne

The mainstream is still where it's at

Harry Joiner had an interesting rant recently on using your blog as a job search tool. The post was touched off by Robert Scoble's post about a Yahoo! recruiter that asked him for a resume, and Scoble added that "my point was that not everyone needs a resume and some, like me, won't join a company that is so stuck in process.".

Harry's point was that Scoble's situation was far from the norm, and he's right. And to be honest, it sounds like Scoble got miffed because the Yahoo! recruiter apparently doesn't read his blog every day. I think we bloggers sometimes lose sight of the fact that while something might be big-time in the blogosphere, that doesn't mean that the majority of America cares, or worse yet, even knows what we are talking about.

Harry adds:"In my experience [as a blogger and a recruiter] it is far more likely that you'll get a new job with a company that has no idea what a blog is."

I agree with Harry, and I think that bloggers looking for work, as well as marketers that are having success in reaching bloggers, need to find a way to build that bridge back to getting the attention of the mainstream. Building a presence in the blogosphere is great, but you need to get the attention of 'the right people'. This is the big challenge for job-seekers, and marketers, how to leverage 'clout' in the blogosphere, getting your foot in the door with the tools that the mainstream is using, such as newspapers, magazines, and online sites.

A great example is what Chris did at Movie Marketing Madness. He started talking to a LA Times reporter that found him through his blog, and the next thing you know, he's getting to contribute to pieces for the newspaper. Ms. Community found my blog, invited me to join Daily Fix, and that leads to me getting the chance to write an article for Marketing Profs. On the marketing side, Stormhoek has success with their blogging promotions, that leads to newspaper articles in the UK, which leads to mainstream exposure.

Harry and I have talked about this before, and I still think I have a bit more faith in blogs as a tool to help you get a job. But I think their real value comes from putting you in a position to get exposure from the mainstream, which is where you eventually will likely want to get your message to.

Whether you are a marketer, or a blogger looking for a job, for most of us, the mainstream is still where it's at.

Pic via Flickr user JenniferGilbert

This is why I'll never be an A-Lister....

...cause my self-promotional skills suck.

Last week I noticed that Marketing Sherpa was accepting nominations for 'best advertising and marketing blogs'. So I tried to nominate The Viral Garden (found out the blog has to be created sometime last year), then when I saw I couldn't, I tried to nominate BMA, and it threw up an error when I submitted the nomination form, so I said to hell with it, and forgot about it.

Yesterday I saw on another blog that the nominations were up, so I went back to Marketing Sherpa to check them out, and sure enough, BMA appeared to be about the only blog in the blogosphere that wasn't nominated. At first I got ticked, because here BMA is continuing to grow, with monthly traffic increasing every single month since it began, and the daily traffic average is now up to over 1,400 people a day.

So after almost coming to the realization that our traffic reports were wrong, and that BMA must actually suck, I went back and looked at the list of nominees again, and realized I had never heard of many of them. Doesn't mean they are bad, just that I had never heard of them. So I went and clicked on a few of them to see what they were about, and noticed the same thing at every one of them.

Every one of them had just left a post asking their readers to nominate them for Marketing Sherpa's blog awards. Of course, it never occurred to me to do the same thing for BMA.

I was talking to someone about such awards, and they told me that these awards 'really don't matter'. In a way they are right, but then again if they matter to the readers, then they matter. When a reader sees that a blog has 'been nominated by Marketing Sherpa as one of the best marketing blogs', then it matters.

So I guess my self-promotional skills need some brushing up. Ah well there will surely be another set of awards coming up soon...

The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing blogs - Week 9

Here's the standings for Week 9, and these will be updated again next Monday.

1 - Seth's Blog - 7,046 (LW - 1)(+114)
2 - Creating Passionate Users - 17,849 (LW - 2)(+99)
3 - Gaping Void - 18,935 (LW - 4)(+168)
4 - Duct Tape Marketing - 19,186 (LW - 3)(-180)
5 - HorsePigCow - 44,722 (LW - 5)(+1,463)
6 - Marketing Shift - 47,532 (LW - 6)(-77)
7 - Coolzor - 74,860 (LW - 7)(+3,228)
8 - What's Next - 87,426 (LW - 8)(+357)
9 - Church of the Customer - 89,509 (LW - 9)(-895)
10 - Brand Autopsy - 91,993 (LW - 10)(+797)
11 - Emergence Marketing - 98,564 (LW - 11)(-346)
12 - The Viral Garden - 102,240 (LW - 12)(+6,178)
13 - Jaffe Juice - 110,864 (LW - 13)(+3,037)
14 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 116,262 (LW - 14)(+2,133)
15 - FutureLab's Blog - 123,417 (LW - 16)(+17,893)
16 - Diva Marketing - 124,871 (LW - 15)(+11,943)
17 - Marketing Headhunter - 181,282 (LW - 17)(+413)
18 - What's Your Brand Mantra - 186,648 (LW - 18)(-3,738)
19 - Marketing Roadmaps - 192,759 (LW - 19)(-5,504)
20 - Network Marketing for Women - 204,462 (LW - 20)(+7,842)
21 - Pro Hip-Hip - Hip-Hop Marketing - 211,886 (LW- 21)(+2,732)
22 - Marketing Begins At Home - 235,599 (LW - 22)(+101)
23 - WonderBranding - 279,545 (LW - 23)(+2,914)
24 - B2Blog - 291,124 (LW - 24)(+174)
25 - Crossroads Dispatches - 304,478 (LW - 25)(-421)


This week's list marks the 2-month anniversary of the Top 25 Marketing blogs countdown! Woo-hoo! In my mind, the biggest story during that time is Creating Passionate Users moving from #5, to solidly locking themselves in at #2. As for this week, Hugh and John again trade places, in their continuing dance where neither of them seems to want to lead. HorsePigCow had another decent week, will be interesting to see if Tara can seperate herself from MarketingShift, or if MS will catch back up.

A rift of almost 60,000 spots has developed between the Top 16, and the rest of the Top 25. Emergence Marketing, Jaffe Juice, BMA, and The Viral Garden all continued their creep toward the Top 10, while Diva Marketing and FutureLab again had big weeks to keep up the pace. After the Top 16, it was a pretty flat week for the other blogs, and there were no new blogs this week. After I bragged about Logic+Emotion last week, David's blog surged another 60,000+ spots, and just missed the Top 25. Also it's interesting to note the consolidation that's taken place in the last over the last 2 months. In the first Top 25 list, The Brand Builder Blog(which is making a strong run to re-enter the countdown, don't think I haven't noticed that, Olivier) was #25 at 430K. Now 300K will barely make the cut.

Finally, if I suspect that you are doing something to intentionally 'misrepresent' your Alexa ranking, out you go. If you have no idea what I am talking about, good for you. If you know exactly what I am talking about, then can it before your blog gets booted from the Top 25.

As always, next update is next Monday.

Never underestimate the power of a passionate community

Going to Tuscaloosa, Alabama on a Football Saturday in the fall never ceases to impress me. Whenever the Alabama Crimson Tide plays a home game, this mild-mannered college town is tranformed into a city with a 1-day population of around a quarter million people. I've seen figures that estimate the economic impact to Tuscaloosa for an Alabama home football game at being anywhere from $12-25 million. Over 100,000 strangers from all across the state and country, converge onto a few blocks around Bryant-Denny Stadium, and become an empassioned community.

From a marketing perspective, it always amazes me the utter devotion that these fans have for their team. When you are there, in this stadium, you can look at the other 80,000+ people in attendance, and know that there is absolutely no other place in the world that most of these people would rather be than right here, right now. I know, because I feel the same way!

Ryan has a great post up now about the passion he observed for the Korean World-Cup team in 2002. It's the same passion that surrounds so many sports teams across the country and world. I've always been intrigued by music marketing because of the close relationship that musicians have with their community of fans, but it's really a similar dynamic at work for sports fans. The teams put themselves in a position where interaction with their community makes them more productive.

And in the end, a strong relationship is formed. Both sports fans, and the teams they cheer for, literally need each other to 'survive'. But how does this differ from Coke and their customers? Without the customers, Coke has no one to sell to, and the business collapses.

Or perhaps the big difference is that while Coca-Cola has customers, the University of Alabama has passionate fans. Passionate fans, that are, ironically, nonchalantly drinking Coke while they cheer for 3 hours for their favorite team.

There's a lesson for marketers there: While it's nice to have customers, fans rule.

Pic via Flickr user TooMuchPete

Viral Community News

The 'Shameless Self-Promotion' edition.

First, I have a new article appearing at Marketing Profs, entitled How to Make the Community Your Marketing Partner. This is my first article for MP, and covers how businesses and marketers can embrace and join communities and partner with them in their marketing efforts. Here's a portion:

But here's the problem: Faster and more efficient communication means that ideas are exchanged more quickly than ever before within communities. Thoughts are exchanged, styles are developed, trends are created... all at an ever-accelerating pace. Attempting to guess from afar what the current trends and preferences are for your hyper-connected customers is a crapshoot at best, and a total waste of time at worst.

So, at this point, you have a choice: You can continue using the same marketing methods you have always used to reach your customers, or you can try something revolutionary. You can join them. You can stop trying to guess what your customers are talking about, and instead join their communities and talk to them directly.

Sound scary? Good, because at first it will be. But the good news is that when you join consumers in their space, you begin to understand them. You begin to understand what their wants and needs are, and you begin to "speak their language." Perhaps just as important, they begin to understand you.

Be sure to check it out, I think you'll like it. And as you can see here, it's currently the 2nd most popular non-premium article this week! And a footnote: Thanks to Lani for her incredibly kind email about the article!(Lani I linked to your website, if you have a blog, email me the address and I'll add a link to it as well!)


I also have a new post up at Daily Fix, Where's the Blogging Party?, focusing on the steps I've used to create The Viral Community here, and hopefully it can help some other bloggers as they try to grow their own communities. Feel free to stop by and add your own tips!


Finally, other blogs are continuing to link to my '100 CDs for 100 Bloggers' idea. Thanks to everyone that's helping to spread the word. I am pretty passionate about this idea because I know it will work, and I know it will benefit all parties involved; music fans, the artists, and even the labels. And it will go a long way toward revolutionizing the way labels market music to their communities (by joining them, of course). If you haven't linked to The Viral Garden yet and want to, please instead link to my '100 CDs for 100 Bloggers' post here, or the post I left at Daily Fix. I'll make sure to link back to everyone's blog here. Thanks in advance ;)

UPDATE: Thanks to Tamera at (3i) for adding her take on '100 CDs for 100 Bloggers'!


Pic via Flickr user Subinev

Coke gets geyser of community-based publicity, but doesn't want it

Chris at Shotgun Marketing has the latest example of a company not liking the direction that the community is going with their product, so they try to LEAD the community away from their chosen path.

Hundreds of videos are popping up all over the internet of an interesting experiment involving Diet Coke. Apparently, when you drop a Mentos into a bottle of Diet Coke, the chemical reaction results in a geyser shooting up to 20-feet in the air. For months people have been shooting videos of this experiment, with the most famous being at eepybird.com. As of last Friday, this video had been viewed over 800,000 times.

The interesting part of this story is the reaction that Mentos and Coke have had to their products being featured in these community-produced videos. Mentos' reaction? "We are tickled pink by it," says Pete Healy, vice president of marketing for the company's U.S. division.

As for Coke? "It's an entertaining phenomenon," said Coke spokeswoman Susan McDermott. "We would hope people want to drink [Diet Coke] more than try experiments with it.". She adds that the "craziness with Mentos ... doesn't fit with the brand personality" of Diet Coke.

Let me repost what I said in Part 2 of my 'Marketing With Your Community' series:

I prefer to think that our goal as marketers is to clear a path for the consumer. The consumer will eventually reach their destination with or without us, but the value we bring to the equation is to help the consumer reach their destination as effectively as possible. We can't clear a path if the consumer is leading us. And if we get too far ahead of the consumer, we lose the ability to accurately anticipate their path.

So we walk with the consumer. If the consumer leads, our ability to clear their path is diminished, which doesn't serve the best interest of the consumer. If the marketer leads, then our ability to understand the consumer is diminished, which means our ability to understand which path they will take is lessened. And that's not in their best interest either. It also doesn't help us.

Mentos is walking WITH their community, Coke is trying to lead them. Mentos found out about how the community was enjoying their product, and now they are considering offering a marketing deal to the men responsible for the most elaborate, and popular video. The company values the online buzz for Mentos at 'Over 10 million'.

On the flipside, Coke is telling their community to stop playing (enjoying) with Diet Coke, and start drinking it.

Mentos is clearing a path for their community, Coke is trying to lead their's.

Guess which company will be the winner here?

There are podcasts...

...and then there's Across the Sound. I've never been a big fan of podcasts for 2 reasons:

1 - Most are boring as hell, IMO.
2 - Since I am the last living person on the planet with dial-up, it takes me approximately 2.7 days to download a 30-minute show.

But I must say, the couple of times I have spent the 8-10 hours necessary to push 10 mins of ATS through my modem has been time well-spent. I'm listening to the first 15 mins or so of ATS: Episode 36, and it all started with Joe's description of the show (see if you spot the hilarious joke), and so far he's plugged several other podcasts, then he acknowledges that he's creating more competition for himself, then clarifies that he has no problem with that, and then plays several listener comments. Of course he then makes the mistake of letting Karl Long make a comment, which lasts so long that the answering machine has to intervene. Still, Karl and Joe have a hilarious, and spot-on account of SethGate, and even mention Hugh's 'response'.

But anyway, definitely give Across the Sound a check, my guess is that once you hear the first show, you'll be hooked and immediately dig through the archives looking for more.

The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing Blogs - Week 8

Here's the standings for Week 8, and these will be updated again next Monday.

1 - Seth's Blog - 7,160 (LW - 1)(+1,502)
2 - Creating Passionate Users - 17,948 (LW - 2)(-334)
3 - Duct Tape Marketing - 19,006 (LW - 4)(-181)
4 - Gaping Void - 19,103 (LW - 3)(-321)
5 - HorsePigCow - 46,185 (LW - 6)(+4,781)
6 - Marketing Shift - 47,455 (LW - 5)(-313)
7 - Coolzor - 78,088 (LW - 7)(+4,965)
8 - What's Next - 87,783 (LW - 9)(+1,617)
9 - Church of the Customer - 88,614 (LW - 8)(-2,884)
10 - Brand Autopsy - 92,790 (LW - 10)(+1,902)
11 - Emergence Marketing - 98,218 (LW - 11)(+2,696)
12 - The Viral Garden - 108,418 (LW - 14)(+19,716)
13 - Jaffe Juice - 113,901 (LW - 13)(+8,928)
14 - Beyond Madison Avenue - 118,395 (LW - 12)(+3,894)
15 - Diva Marketing - 136,814 (LW - 15)(+17,529)
16 - FutureLab's Blog - 141,310 (LW - 17)(+27,866)
17 - Marketing Headhunter - 181,695 (LW - 18)(-2,034)
18 - What's Your Brand Mantra - 182,910 (LW - 19)(+3,614)
19 - Marketing Roadmaps - 187,255 (LW - 16)(-20,439)
20 - Network Marketing for Women - 212,304 (LW - 20)(+13,993)
21 - Pro Hip-Hip - Hip-Hop Marketing - 214,618 (LW- 21)(+12,449)
22 - Marketing Begins At Home - 235,700 (LW - 22)(+3,758)
23 - WonderBranding - 282,459 (LW - 24)(-10,569)
24 - B2Blog - 291,298 (LW - 23)(-22,239)
25 - Crossroads Dispatches - 304,057 (LW - UR)


SethGate continued to boost Seth's website, giving the site its biggest jump yet. As for the rest of the Top 25, no shortage of big moves this week. Duct Tape Marketing and Horse Pig Cow both moved up a notch, to #3 and #5, respectively. Past the Top 10, The Viral Garden, Jaffe Juice, Diva Marketing, and FutureLab all had big weeks. As expected, Diva Marketing got a nice boost from being featured on TypePad.com. And FutureLab continues its torrid pace.

Past the Top 16, Network Marketing for Women and Hip-Hop Marketing both had nice jumps, and Crossroads Dispatches re-entered the Top 25 at #25. But in my mind, the story of the week didn't even occur on the Top 25, as David Armano's Logic+Emotion had what I believe is the biggest jump any blog I've tracked in the last 2 months has enjoyed, last week. L+E vaulted upwards almost 400,000 spots, and just missed the Marketing Top 25, but did indeed land in the middle of BMA's Top 25 Advertising blogs. Just a huge move, and L+E is probably the best new blog I've found this year.

As always, next update is next Monday.