Egg recently released a new whitepaper called The Importance of Connecting Brands with Bloggers. If you’re not already working with bloggers to expand your visibility online, I recommend you read it.

You know I’m all about bloggers. You know I’m a strong believer in the fact that they can help you find brand evangelists and new customers. But did you know I help my clients through Egg connect with bloggers? We’ve helpd PicClick, the visual online eBay auction site, get the attention of fashionistas. And when Glitch Gear released its new line of Left 4 Dead apparel, we connected them with gaming bloggers.

And we get results. The blogs that write about our brands have gotten them hundreds of new visitors to their websites. Couldn’t you stand a few more visitors?

Download the free whitepaper now.

When I started Egg, I found myself an accidental entrepreneur. I had quit/gotten fired a bad job with a horrible boss. I started writing press releases. And stock tips. And emails. And resumes. And anything that would pay the bills. In some ways, I still have that mindset.

As an entrepreneur who is struggling (is there any other kind?), we tend to do whatever it takes. But is that actually detrimental to us? Everything I’m reading (including All for One) is pointing me in a single, focused direction. It’s urging me to shed the low-pay, non-focused efforts in favor of the niche I’m trying to create for myself.

And so, I will have to say no.

I will be more picky. I won’t sign up to market services (nothing against them, but it’s much harder to measure interest in something intangible than a product that gets bought off a shelf).  I won’t take on any teeny one-time projects. They don’t allow me to really help a business develop its brand, and the clients always expect too much out of a single press release.

I will look for projects with large budgets. With a desire to work with a marketing consultant long term. That understand that marketing doesn’t happen with a single email, press release or two weeks of social media. That it’s about long term commitment to building a brand.

And by asking for it, I will receive it. (cue heavenly music)

What about you? Could you stand to start saying no (I think no matter who you are, you could.)? I’m looking forward to saying no (unless you really really need a press release. Wait–NO!!!)

She points to a really fantastic presentation by Olivier Blanchard, which I will also use here:

Christina talks about goals, and the importance of having them before you even try to find your ROI. And it’s true. I know so many companies who want to get into social media because everyone else is. But why? What do you hope to attain by doing so? It’s not going to get you instant sales, so you need to be ok with using social media to build your brand and connect with your customers. If you think this is a waste of money, social media is not for you.

Assign a value to everything you do. If your Twitter reach is 5,000 people, that’s worth something. (not if you don’t interact regularly, though). If a Google AdWords click is $1, that’s a value. What’s a click worth from Twitter? Even if you start with arbitrary numbers, at least you’ve got something to look to for metrics. If you spend 20 hours on Twitter to get 1 sale, that ROI isn’t as good as if you spent 15 minutes crafting a custom email. Got it?

Here’s an interesting Twitter conversation I had with @jacobm on the subject.

What are your thoughts? Do you measure social media ROI? How?

I am hanging out with the wrong crowd.

On Twitter and Facebook, I hang out with social media and marketing types. I read the same types of books. But if I’m working on branding myself in a niche, shouldn’t I be hanging out in that niche??

Go ahead and say it. Duh.

Still, it takes a catalyst for us to have these realizations, so I’m pretty proud. I recently honed my focus into products that appeal to women and mothers. I wanted to pick an industry that I knew, liked and was comfortable working in. I’m a woman and mother, and working with my GiveDaddy giveaway blog, I realized how much I like telling others about great products.

So I have made it my goal to do the following:

• Spend less time following social media and marketing conversations
• Finish reading the stack of social media books I owe reviews on, then switch to reading about marketing to this demographic
• Attend product related trade shows next year rather than focus on blog conferences
• Pay attention to more brands on social media
• Establish myself as someone who knows her stuff in this realm

That’s not to say I’m foresaking my social media buds. I still learn a ton from them. But I need to follow a different school of learning if I really want to get good at my industry. It’s easy to stay complacent when we truly have mastered something, but how hard is it to leave the comfort of the nest and try to master something else? Pretty hard. But I have you as my witness, so I’m going to be just fine.

What about you? What’s that thing you’re fantastic at that you don’t want to leave? Could you stand to hang out with a different crowd online to learn something new?

Flash forward to today. Stories come in via Twitter, Facebook and AP RSS feeds. Journalists are now hybrid reporters/bloggers. Their content is more important online than it is in print. Newspapers themselves are forced to adapt to how technology has changed its format…or shut its doors, the way so many have.

Good journalists know they have to open the doors to the masses via social media tools. They need to be accessible, even if that means a constant stream of pitches. They have to, because their jobs are about communicating. And that’s what social media does.

And yet, I’m amazed at how few newspaper websites list journalist and editor Twitter IDs.  Back in Orlando, the Orlando Sentinel has a page with all the journalists’ Twitter IDs. MuckRack is a gathering of journalists who can be found on Twitter. Why, then, don’t more journalists embrace the inevitable and use social media to get their jobs done?

Maybe because they’re resistant to change. Maybe because like so many large corporations, they fear what social media will bring.

I say, bring it on.

Until recently, I used BaseCamp to manage my projects for Egg Marketing. It was great, and I didn’t have a negative reason for switching…other than price. I came across Projecturf, and for the opportunity to save $10 to $20 a month, I thought it was worth looking at.

Projecturf is great if you’ve got multiple things going on (and who doesn’t?). You might think, “Project management? That’s not what I do.” Think again. If you’re an entrepreneur, you likely handle:

• Payroll
• Hiring
• Product design or supply
• Expenses
• Internet efforts
• Marketing
• Cleaning the toilet

So don’t tell me you don’t manage projects! I often have trouble keeping up with what needs to be done next. I have freelancers working on projects, and honestly, sometimes I forget to check back with them. Projecturf makes it easy. You can manage different projects, upload files, create to-do lists and manage milestones. You can communicate with employees in one place and manage their time cards.

Let me give you a demonstration. Before I used project management applications, I would have a task that needed doing. I would decide which employee could do it. I would email her (yes, we’re all chicks) and give her the description and ask if she could do it. Sometimes I’d write out further instructions on a Word doc. Sometimes I used Google docs. I was inconsistent and unorganized. Here’s that same process on Projecturf.

As you can see, it’s a lot faster to use Projecturf!

In the book, the guys talk about it being difficult to maintain authentic relationships with more than 150 people. I can attest to that. I’ve got over 4,000 followers on Twitter and 1,000 friends on Facebook. After scanning the streams, I feel like I know less about all these people rather than more.

So I decided to make my 150 list. It’s going to have 150 of the people I want to interact with regularly. That might mean checking in on their blogs once a week, sending a Facebook message, paying attention to their Tweets. And that’s not to say I won’t pay attention to anyone else. But I want to make an effort to really listen to these 150.

So where am I with my list? I have about 40-50 so far. It’s harder than I thought. For each person in my contact database and Facebook friends list (I haven’t even hit Twitter yet) I ask, “Is this someone I want to pay extra attention to?” I want to pay attention to everyone but the real question comes down to: will I benefit from listening to this person? Will they benefit from listening to me?

I will make my list flexible. I can switch out people as my interests change. I used to read ProBlogger much more than I do now when I was starting out blogging, but these days I’m less about the how-to of blogging and more about developing solid content. That’s not to say Darren Rowse isn’t worth listening to; I’m just knee-deep in other areas right now.

My goal in this is to cut through the noise. Hearing so many virtual voices in my head is starting to be a deterrent from my work, and it’s keeping me from building really good relationships with the people I do care about.

What about you? Could you stand to focus on a few less people? Who would be in your 150?

It’s clear that the public relations landscape is changing. No longer does emailing a journalist a press release always result in coverage on major news channels (there are exceptions, naturally, but the average business doesn’t get on Oprah). These days, journalists (and yes, bloggers too) are inundated with press releases. It’s easy to hit delete and move on.

How do you get your pitch heard above the din? Conversation. Engagement. Interaction.

Social Media is Key in Your Pitch

Pamela Johnston of PJ Inc. Public Relations says she avoids doing certain things on Twitter () that are looked upon negatively, like:

• pimping client news

• straight out traditional pitching

• sending random things to people/journalists she doesn’t know

I like that she doesn’t use traditional methods of pitching on social media. You can’t apply the same methods you used 10 years ago to Twitter. It’s impossible. Instead, you must find new ways to reach media contacts.

The world is small these days. Social media tools like Twitter, Facebook , LinkedIn, Kirtsy, Digg, blogs, video and web sites are quickly becoming integrated. It’s fairly easy to connect with someone and keep up with what they’re doing. Journalists and bloggers are no different.

Social Media as a Learning Tool

I make notes in my contact database with links to all her sources. I then make a plan to interact with the journalist in her own space. I comment on posts I like. I retweet her content on Twitter. I send a brief note on Facebook (not pitching a story, but sharing one of her posts I liked and asking to connect). This way, by the time I’m ready to pitch her, I’m already on her radar.

Pitching a media contact is a process. It’s not something that will happen overnight. Plan ahead and work for several weeks to get to know a journalist or blogger for best results.

Be A Resource

It is quite common for reporters, news producers and anchors to post something along the lines of “looking for interesting stories about ______ to discuss today.” Being part of an agency, it is critical for me to capitalize on those opportunities for my clients. Often times, this doesn’t require a “pitch” as much as connecting a reporter with a resource (hopefully my client).

This goes back to monitoring social media. Your best successes might not come from a pitch at all, but rather the reward of being a good listener and paying attention to the journalists you can help. Journalists like being helped better than they like being pitched.

Keep reading the post on Mashable.com.

This year’s topic is climate change. I tried to find a way to tie this into what I usually talk about, but I came up empty, so I thought I’d just talk about how this initiative is spreading to over 6,000 blogs globally. Viral marketing at its best.

The fact that just about anyone who gets an email or Tweet about this event will participate speaks to the ability we have to affect change.  And that it’s about social good, educating people about climate change helps us connect in a way we never have before on these types of issues. This year, the blogs involved are expected to reach more than 10 million readers. Can you do that?

I also loved his approach. This is a great way to spread the world virally because of course each of us who were interviewed will be egotistical enough to share the video, helping him reach a wider audience!

At any rate, here’s the video. Go buy the book.

The Old Days

After World War I, a guy named Ivy Lee invented the press release. It was said that a press release helped foster a two-way street, where the client would listen to the public, but let’s be honest: it was more of the “enough about me, what do you think about me?”

In other words, companies wanted to know what the public thought of them, not just what they thought in general.

Fast Forward to Today

It’s been slow going to get to the conversations that are happening today: not just about brands, but about what consumers want. And I mean slow. A year ago, I didn’t see nearly the number of companies who got it. Who understood that social media and blogger outreach was part of the PR landscape that was not an option but rather a requirement for survival.

I go to these conferences today and see brands that don’t need me to explain why they should work with bloggers. They’re there, in the thick of things. They know that a well done product review by a blogger has 10 times the selling power that a print or even internet ad has.  They know that giving away free products on blogs helps get them traffic and interest. They want to be a part of the revolution.

And I sigh with relief.

Because I’ve spent the last year trying to swim upstream in a river of small businesses who want solid results. Apparent ROI. Familiarity. Companies who, because they didn’t know what a blog was assumed they should ignore them. Companies who were run by old white men who have secretaries do all their work and never ever used a computer.

All this is changing, and I am thrilled. It’s a new day in public relations, and I, for one, am happy to be part of the pack leading the way.

Let’s get started. Here’s your first lesson. Repeat after me:

I will not sell my product/service at a conference.

Say it again. Go ahead, I’m waiting.

Conferences and networking meetings are designed to expose you to a lot of people. You’re surrounded by hundreds of other people and lots of noise so you get about 60 seconds to make any kind of impression. Take a business card and make a note of how you can build that relationship.

Some relationships will bear fruit. Others won’t. I have contacts I met last year that are only now coming into fruition.

The key is to go into networking with the attitude that you want to find new people to pay attention to. You can then go home and connect on Twitter, Facebook, their blog, Whrrl, etc. As you see fit, leave comments and send notes to the people you met. Keep the fire burning. When the time is right, you’ll find a way to work together.

Am I being harsh? Does this bother you that I’m telling you to spend hundreds of dollars to attend a convention only to not come away with ROI? Think about how you’d feel if you met someone and 30 seconds in, they’re pitching their product. You’d be turned off. But take that same person, let him hand you his card and walk away. Curious, you follow him on all the channels. Turns out you’re both into baseball. There’s a conversation starter. You talk through Twitter for months when suddenly you need what he has. He’s the one you’ll go to, right?

Now you get it.

So if you’re networking with the mindset of getting something out of it, shift your thinking. You’ll reap even more benefits if you do.

So you know what SEO is…at least that it’s important. I write about it from time to time, but here’s a quick definition according to me:

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, includes the techniques used to help a website have better placement in search engines. This might include blogs, article writing, metatags and keywords and web copy.

Now, there are many an internet marketing company that can help you (or purport to help you) show up higher in search engine results. Some are good and some are bad. I’ve been asked to review Keyword Performance LLC, which offers a variety of white hat (think good guys) services to improve your search engine placement.

First let me tell you about the bad guys of SEO: there are companies who will promise to get you to the #1 position in the search engines. It’s crap. No one can guarantee where you’ll be in search engine results. Often this means you’ll be #1 for your company name or other search term that no one’s looking for. That’s not what you want. You want a company that uses ethical search engine  optimization efforts to organically move you toward the top.

Keyword Performance tells you flat out that they don’t use spam techniques and website optimization doesn’t happen overnight. It’s true. A successful campaign will take a few months. They work with their clients to customize SEO reports to show the client how they’re moving up the ladder.

From what I can tell, Keyword Performance is on the up-and-up. They’ve got tons of great tools and resources, so if you want to learn more about SEO, it’s a great site to start with. My only complaint is that their website is very wordy and maybe not easily understood by the average non-techy person. Some shorter paragraphs and bullet points would be nice. But hey, that’s what ya get over here on my blog, so it’s all good!

And yes I just realized this was a How-To Tuesday post published on a Thursday. Oops!

Anyone who does PR for a brand knows that getting the attention of the media is like trying to get President Obama’s attention. Reporters and editors all seem too busy to care about our stories, intriguing though they may be. Sure, they are bombarded with pitches and press releases daily, but how do you cut through the crap and rise to the top of that stack?

One trick of the trade I’ve discovered is Twitter. When I’m researching contacts at publications, blogs and websites, I look to see if an editor or the company has a Twitter account. Then, a week after I send the email pitch (carefully crafted, of course), I send a tweet as a followup.

Most journalists don’t seem to mind being contacted via Twitter. After all, it’s not exactly a private channel. For a recent client of mine, ioSafe, who makes external hard drives, 90% of the media placement I got was as a result of following up on Twitter.

Some of the writers hadn’t received my emails (thanks, CAN-SPAM Act!). Others had forgotten about it and were glad to be reminded of it. I found the immediacy of the interaction on Twitter to be gratifying. After all, it’s harder to ignore a tweet than it is an email.

I’ve also pitched directly through Twitter. I’ll send a quick note saying I think XYZ product is a good fit for their website/magazine/blog, and are they interested in learning more? I include a link so they can easily click it and decide if they want more information. If they do, we exchange emails and the process is set in motion.

My final words of advice are: target, target, target. Even though Twitter provides a new channel for public relations, it’s still essential to do your homework and understand the channel you’re pitching. Read the articles or blog posts. Read the editor’s bio to see if he even writes product reviews. Pretend you’re going to be quizzed on the company and be that prepared. The editor you’re reaching out to will be that much more likely to take you up on your pitch, and hey, who knows? Maybe you’ll actually develop a relationship with that media contact!

But that’s what I do.

Well, not exactly. I don’t sell people on getting more friends. Egg creates or manages Facebook profiles and pages on behalf of clients who don’t want to do it themselves. We do add targeted friends. We also post updates, photos, videos and more. Are we a third party if we’re acting on behalf of the company??

In this day and age, it will be difficult to keep people from doing this. I searched for “buy friends on Facebook” and there are apps within Facebook that purport to do just that. Why aren’t they being lashed out at?

What do you think? How will Facebook enforce this policy and still keep businesses interested? If companies cannot employ third party marketers to use a tool they either don’t know how to use themselves or don’t have time to use, what will Facebook do to grow?

Then we launched GiveDaddy. Given my past experience in launching websites and blogs I expected it to be months before things really got hopping. Well, they’re hopping now. After just a week we’re getting a steadily increasing flow of traffic. I realized the secret to getting web traffic:

Make a site people want to go to.

It sounds simple, but it’s not. I have a marketing firm. I think that website is pretty darn good. But it doesn’t offer much more than a resume of my work. It’s not a place people want to hang out. GiveDaddy on the other hand, is. People love free stuff. We have no agenda (at least not for our subscribers. Companies will be presented with our numbers once they’re stellar and can buy advertising).  We’re not selling anything. We’re just offering fun giveaways to people who are interested.

Now that I’ve had this epiphany, I want to look at my other sites and see how I can provide something people want to visit. Maybe I can add an interactive component to my marketing site. I can write about different things on this blog (suggestions anyone?). I want to become a destination and not feel like I have to go out and recruit people to visit my sites!

What’s your experience with this? How do you create a site people want to go to?

I almost didn’t get one.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMOCXUVX1P8[/youtube]

When I first placed my order online, I was envisioning the hours I’d while away playing with apps. Then I got an email saying my order had been cancelled because either AT&T couldn’t verify some information or I’d applied for too many lines. I was encouraged to make my purchase at an AT&T store.

Problem was, I was trying to buy a refurbished phone, and the stores don’t carry them.

I placed my order again. Once again, I was denied.

After a politely heated conversation between myself and a lowly customer service agent, whereby he also encouraged me to buy from a store,  I started to feel duped. Was this the great bait-and-switch I’ve heard tell of? Was AT&T going to refuse to sell anyone a refurbished iPhone so that they would have to buy a more expensive new one? Didn’t they care that I was on the verge of burning down their building, wherever it may be??

I asked to speak to a manager. He put me on hold. For 30 #%#@ minutes. Then my TMobile phone turned off, which is why I’m getting AT&T.

And so, I did what any normal angry 30something would do. I turned to Twitter. And Facebook. And I expressed my frustrations. Others chimed in that AT&T was the devil. Others said to persevere; the iPhone is worth it. After a while, I reached out to AT&T’s Twitter profile and voiced my frustration. I was immediately referred to an AT&T employee’s Twitter profile. She soothed me and told me someone would call me to resolve the issue.

I waited all Friday, but the call didn’t come til Monday (I think an instant call was in order but I’m sure AT&T employees also have other work to do besides calm me down). The woman (not sure her title) was very soothing and said she couldn’t see a reason why my order had been cancelled (What??  There’s not even a good reason I’ve gone through hell for this??). Anyway she was very nice and told me what to do to get the order placed.

A week later, I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of my phone (due to arrive tomorrow. Expect not to hear from me for a few days!).

What AT&T Did Wrong:

• They didn’t empower the snippy customer service man to help me. He kept saying he was not authorized to verify the information over the phone. Disney does a great job of empowering every Cast Member to assist an unhappy Guest. AT&T could learn a lot from them.
• They made me wait for a manager. Maybe it was just a ploy to piss me off more, but if I’m at the point of needing a manager, I should not have to wait 30 minutes.
• When reacting via Twitter, an AT&T manager should have called me immediately. It might have nipped my angry flood of Tweets and reduced the number of people who witnessed the trouble I was having.
• AT&T was not searching the Twitter stream to see who was talking about them. Had they done that, they could have immediately helped me, rather than me hunting for them. @comcastcares does a great job of proactively finding people who talk about them.
• They did not make me feel like they valued me coming on as a new customer.

What AT&T Did Right:

• They responded to me via Twitter openly.
• They called me back (albeit late).
• They worked to resolve the problem.

Now the question is: if they didn’t have the iPhone, would I have still switched to AT&T? Probably not.

And so I wrote another book. Go me!

If you are an entrepreneur (as many of you are) and want the quick and easy way to start marketing your business and seeing results soon, buy the book. I provide (just as I do on this blog) step by step instructions to make it brain-dead simple to do your own marketing.

Get your free sneak peek of the first chapter here. This is a cool tool called Book Buzz that lets you view pages of a book for free.

If, after you read Internet Marketing for Entrepreneurs, you have questions about any of the content, I’m happy to answer them for you.

And I’d love your feedback on the book!

What that means is that if I write a review of a Dell laptop (something I would LOVE to do, Dell) and they give me a laptop or pay me for the review and I am not up front about that, the FTC could “get” me. (Not sure what that would entail). Or if I give a fluff review because they pay me, that’s a no on too.

I get the idea. I am one of those few bloggers who disclose everything and refuse to do a review if it doesn’t meet my standards.  But how will the FTC manage the millions of blogs out there? How can they prove that a review is false?

I am interested to see how this regulation will work. I do agree that we need some sort of regulation, as well as a system where bloggers get paid for their work. If you were taking out an ad, you would pay for it, so why shouldn’t you pay a blogger to give her honest opinion on a product?

What do you think? Can the FTC regulate blog reviews?

I thought I’d take a playful approach to a technical item most think is over their heads. They’re actually incredibly simple to use. But I wanted to create a story rather than talk about the product’s features.

Take a look and tell me what you think. Feel free to pass on to your friends for a laugh!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91J8lRCJsB8[/youtube]