Sunday, October 26, 2008

"When It Is Darkest, We See the Stars"

That quote is from Ralph Waldo Emerson, and it's entirely fitting in today's society, with the global economy in the dumps and companies turning to digital solutions for smarter, more cost-effective ways of connecting with customers.

As I mentioned in my last post, there are some great folks out there that you should be following, who do the industry a great service by sharing their thoughts with us on a regular basis. And I've got an opportunity for you to hear from some of them directly.

In this case, my friends and communications colleagues Geoff Livingston and Shashi Bellamkonda have put together a unique program called the “Solutions Stars Video Conference,” which consists of over 30 experts in SEO, social media and communications. Filmed at Blog World Expo in Las Vegas last month, this video conference is hosted by Network Solutions and will happen on Wednesday, October 29 from 1:00 - 3:30 p.m. Eastern time.

The entire list is below - it's quite the lineup of stars. If you haven't had the chance to see any of these people at a conference, this is an amazing opportunity to see all of them in one place - and for FREE!

The focus of the conference is helping small- to medium-size business owners and entrepreneurs on how the Internet can benefit their business. Nine content areas featuring vignettes of the Solutions Stars will run during the conference, and you'll be able to choose the segments you'd like to watch:

Building Web Presence
The Social Opportunity
Start with Listening
Strategy Drives Outreach
You Need Social Networks
To Blog or Not to Blog
Visibility Through Search
Rising Above the Noise
Time Demands

And here's who you'll be hearing from throughout the 90-minute session:

If you visit http://solutionsstarsvideo.com, you can bookmark the page and come back on Wednesday for the full program. And if that's not enough, Geoff and Shashi will be available via ooVoo (my "oober"-cool former client) for live video chat during the sessions.

I hope you find it a valuable use of your time.

Labels: news, social media, speaking, Video

Posted by Scott Monty at 9:48 AM

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Friday, September 26, 2008

Social Media On the Road

If you happen to swing by this site, you may have noticed on my sidebar that I've had quite a number of speaking engagements lately.

Below is a short video of an interview I did with Lee Odden while I was at Blog World Expo last weekend. While my panel wasn't recorded, this is a short and succinct insight into social media and large corporations - in particular, my experience with Ford Motor Company.

In the meantime, here's a 45 minute-long video of my panel last Monday at the Social Ad Summit. It was moderated by Ian Schafer and my co-panelists were Deborah Korb from J.P. Morgan and Don Steele from Comedy Central. One of my key observations was around 8:00 mark - where I mentioned Your Brand Is Not My Friend, is by my friend Alan Wolk.

Anything you'd add?

Labels: brand, Ford, speaking, Video

Posted by Scott Monty at 2:28 PM

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Sunday, September 14, 2008

A Word About Personal Branding

As social media has continued its rise in the past few years, there's been an increasing need for education on personal branding - that is, the you that people experience online.

The things that you do, say and post on Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, your blog, and any other public-facing social network are part of your reputation. Are your profiles consistent with each other and with who you are? Does your online persona reflect what you want it to? How do all of these come into play with your professional life? The savvy and thoughtful digital professional will give this due consideration.

These and many other questions and issues are being addressed by a number of people in the social media space. People like Chris Brogan, Mitch Joel, and Dan Schawbel, to name just three. They're all worth checking out, if you don't follow them already.

Since I moved to Michigan, I've been introduced to another personal branding expert - one who is really taking it to the next level. His name is Hajj Flemings and I'm proud to call him a colleague.

Hajj has written a book on the subject, called Brand YU Life: re-thinking who you are through personal brand management. I've been reading it and I'm very impressed with the message he conveys, broken down into seven easy to remember sections and peppered with some very compelling visuals and notes sections. Hajj recommends the following steps:

Identify your passion
Definie your mission
Count the cost
Create your voice
Develop your core
Be authentic
Shift to now

In addition, he has created and is producing an event called Brand Camp University in the Detroit area on September 27. I'm honored to be one of the speakers there, where I'll be talking about the importance and impact of social media and your career.

If you're in the area or planning on being in the area on September 27, I'd urge you to sign up for the event. And if you can't be there, you should order a copy of Hajj's book. The personal journey he shares is worth it, let alone the solid personal branding advice that comes along with it.

Photo credit: Ahmed Rabea on Flickr

Labels: books, brand, speaking

Posted by Scott Monty at 9:09 AM

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Monday, June 02, 2008

Streaming Media East Footage

As you may know, I was on a panel at Streaming Media East a couple of weeks ago. The panel, which had a few last minute changes in personnel, was well received and well attended.

In case you'd like to see what Jose Castillo, Steve Garfield, Sarah Austin and Sarig Reichert and I had to say, here's the session. And if you don't have an hour to kill, just fast-forward to the 57:00 mark to hear our closing remarks. It's well worth it!

If you'd like to see all of the videos from the show, you can check them out here.

Do you have any thoughts on the future of lifestreaming? Please share them here.

Labels: speaking, trends, Video

Posted by Scott Monty at 3:39 PM

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Wednesday, May 21, 2008

What I Saw at Streaming Media East

I was lucky enough to be invited to speak on a panel at today's session of Streaming Media East by Chris Brogan. The topic was "Lifecasting: The New Broadcasting Platform," and I was seemingly the odd man out, as I was joined by the likes of Sarah Austin of Pop17.com, Steve Garfield of SteveGarfield.com and Sariq Reichert of Flixwagon. I was the only one on the panel who wasn't livestreaming from a Nokia N95, so I felt a little bit out of my league.

But I like to think that I added a bit of reality and business sense to the proceedings, as there were quite a few people there who, in addition to wanting to learn about lifecasting, also wanted to understand how it applies to businesses. I had a few key takeaways about lifecasting that I'd like to share with you here.

Trust
A question out of the gate was, "Why would advertisers be interested in this?" It's a good question that plagues a lot of social media tools. Invariably when customers are asked whom they trust most, the answer is "Someone like me." The 2008 Edelman Trust Barometer Bears this out (visual below). When citizen journalists take to the airwaves with their videos, it's inherently more credible than any scripted, edited piece by a company.

Engagement
The next (predictable) challenge was when some audience members seemed to be dismayed at the number of viewers for some livecasting shows. Numbers in the low thousands were quoted, for frame of reference. But they were missing the point that all of the viewers watch these shows because they want to; they're actively seeking out the content.

My take is that, as a marketer, I'd rather have 100% engagement from 1,000 people than 1% engagement from 1 million people.

Measurement
I'm sure you're following the progression here. The next issue up was: "How can you tell if your viewers are engaged?" I think we all admitted that the jury's still out on this, but that the real innovators would be able to develop metrics for length of views, which content in videos is most compelling (including using embedded comments), etc. There's a lot of room for growth in this area.

Content vs. personality
One of the problems that I noticed is that there seems to be an abundance of data/information out there, much of which is just not that interesting. How often do I need to see someone sitting around their living room, or doing a talking head video? Puh-lease.

The truly compelling content - and I'd argue verticals are key here - is what's going to be of the most interest to advertisers. This means consistency and quality.

Final note
When asked for our final thoughts on the future of lifecasting, I closed with what is a sneak preview of my chapter in the Age of Conversation 2:

When you think about it, the human race can be divided into two camps: exhibitionists and voyeurs. Between these two groups, there'll be enough fuel to keep lifecasting going for some time. Taking Andy Warhol's famous phrase and turning it on its head, "In the future, we'll all have 15 minutes of privacy."

Do you have any thoughts on the prevalence of lifecasting/livecasting? I'd love to hear what you have to say on the future of this nascent activity.

Labels: age of conversation, speaking, Video

Posted by Scott Monty at 9:55 PM

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Monday, May 05, 2008

Back to Basics: B2B

When I first started writing this blog, it was focused on social media in the b-to-b space. I was working at a B2B agency at the time so it made sense, plus I saw a lot of potential.

Fast forward to today. I've broadened the focus of the blog (sacrilege!) but I've probably become better known for offering perspectives on the tools and my level of knowledge in general (or you tell me what I'm known for). But occasionally I dabble back into business-to-business applications, because there are some worthy examples and that market is finally starting to catch up.

Which makes a perfect segue to refer to a conference at which I'll be speaking in Boston next month: the Marketing Profs Business to Business Forum 2008. There are going to be some heavy hitters there, talking about all sorts of marketing in the b-to-b space:

Marketing Profs own Roy Young and Ann Handley will be there;
Valeria Maltoni, that Conversation Agent, will talk about making your site engaging for your customers;
My colleague Greg Verdino will walk everyone through the essence behind how to stay current with trends to support your business acumen;
Boston's own Chris Brogan will talk about social media and sales leads;
The inimitable David Meerman Scott will give one of his famous keynotes;
I'll be on a panel with Lewis Green and Robin Carey moderated by Paul Dunay titled "Is Social Media Harder for B2B vs. B2C?"

This is but a small sampling of the entire conference. Take a look at the conference web page and see what you think. And since you're a faithful subscriber to my blog (you have subscribed for free, right?), let me offer you something in return: if you sign up to attend this blockbuster conference and submit the code ESPK08, you can get $200 off the price of registration - make it $350 off if you register before May 19.

I hope you'll take the opportunity to avail yourself of some of the best current thinking on this subject today and consider attending. If you do show up, please introduce yourself, as I'd be delighted to meet you.

Labels: Chris Brogan, Greg Verdino, MarketingProfs, news, speaking

Posted by Scott Monty at 11:08 PM

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Thursday, April 17, 2008

Standing Apart from the Rest

On Monday, May 22, I'll be part of a panel for the Institute of Management Consultants New England Chapter meeting. The panel is called Social Networking and Web 2.0: What you need to know to use this medium to separate your company from the pack.

The IMCNE is a professional organization that has been around for 40 years, and if you know management consultants, many of them are veterans of the corporate world who are making a good living consulting on organizational, operations, and leadership consulting. It's no surprise they may be a little light on social media, so here's our opportunity to give them something a little different.

I'm excited about being part of this discussion for a few reasons:

The panel moderator is Lewis Green, one of my co-authors from The Age of Conversation, someone who attended Blogger Social with me a couple of weeks ago, and author of the business and leadership book Lead With Your Heart
I'm lucky enough to be teamed up with some other smart individuals in the social media space: Aaron Strout from Mzinga and Laura "Pistachio" Fitton. If you don't know them, one of the best ways to get to know them is on Twitter: @astrout and @pistachio.
Lewis is using the principles of social media to build the panel discussion - he's involving his audience. Over on his blog, Lewis has asked "What would you ask?"

Keeping in mind that the panel is about how to use social media to make your company stand out, I find it fascinating that the concept is being batted around. Less than a year ago, a number of companies were simply starting to hear about some aspects social media. When you consider the quick adoption of a number of tactics, it's not surprising that companies are seeing this as a competitive advantage.

But are they missing a larger takeaway? It's not enough to stand apart from your competition. You need to think about what you're doing to build relationships with your customers to make them the most loyal advocates for you. Over time, as you get to know them, you'll be able to better serve them and give them a better experience every time.

See if you can drop over to Lewis' blog and give him a comment or two about what you would ask if you were part of the presentation. While you're at it, leave a comment here too.

How would you recommend using social media to separate your company from the pack?

Photo courtesy of nickwheeleroz

Labels: social media, speaking

Posted by Scott Monty at 12:08 AM

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