There are lots of amazing tech events happening in Memphis this May. Here's the rundown of events that I'm getting excited for in the coming weeks. Hope to see you there.

Social Media Breakfast - The 3rd Memphis Social Media Breakfast happens on Wednesday, May 7th at 7:30 AM. Presented by LunaWeb, Social Media Breakfast is an event where social media experts and newbies can come together over breakfast to learn, share ideas and meet other marketers, entrepreneurs, bloggers and new media fanatics. You can find out more information and topics at Social Media Memphis Facebook Group or through the LunaWeb Blog.

TechFuel: Technology Meets Cocktails - Presented by LaunchMemphis, TechFuel is a kick-off event designed for technologists, entrepreneurs, media (bloggers), investors, and others to meet, and share ideas in a fun and open atmosphere. The event is open to the public and includes free food and drink specials. TechFuel is set for 5-7 p.m. May 8 at the Fox and Hound, 5101 Sanderlin Ave.

Startup Weekend Memphis - Startup Weekend is slated for the weekend of May 30th - June 1st. Over the course of the weekend, 100 members of the community come together weekend to found a new technology startup company in Memphis. At last count, I think there were a little over 20 seats still available for Startup Weekend Memphis. $40 is a small price to pay for the ability to work with some amazing people and the opportunity to take home a piece of a startup at the end of 3 days.

Tags: Bob Hazlett, Community, Web 2.0

I'll be attending Memphis Social Media Breakfast #2 tomorrow and have been asked to talk on measuring social media success. Trying to get a grasp on the current social media landscape and tools available is no easy task, thats why I first believe you must discover what's important to you before you can implement and strategy. A quick overview of my thoughts follow. Let me know what you think and what's important to you.

Your Goals
What your overall marketing goals? Do you want to push sales, drive engagement, increase awareness? What is considered a success? In the end is it the number of people who took an action, products sold, satisfaction index, mainstream media coverage, subscribers/listeners?

Your Tools
● Buzz – See who is talking about you. Go to blog search engine Technorati or get feedback from Google Alerts. Use existing functionality located within your online blogging platforms (WordPress dashboard). Use the old SEO trick by searching for your domain in Google, Yahoo and MSN with the following: link http://www.mysite.com. It’s not an exact science and many of these are very rough numbers, but will serve as a good indicator to see who is talking about and linking to you.

● Content Consumption – Measure who is reading your blog, where they are coming from and what content they are reading. Web analytic reports will show you the most popular content on your site and/or blog. This data will also show you how long they were on that particular page, where they came from, and also the bounce rate. Also consider vanity urls.

● Content Contribution – A quick and easy metric would be to monitor the number of visitors who are actually interacting with your content such as commenting or pinging back to your original post.

● Social Bookmarking – See who is adding your site/article/posts to sites like Del.icio.us, Reddit, Digg and Stumbleupon. Create profiles in each of the bookmarking sites and search for your urls.

● Subscribing to a RSS feed – Measure the number of your readers who are actually subscribing to your RSS feeds. Feedburner gives your readers lots of options to subscribe to your feed with useful stats on the backend

● Emailing posts – Use your blog platform tool like to see how many emails are actually being sent through your form i.e. forward to a friend.

● Profile Engagement - Profiles on Myspace, Facebook, or Mybloglog can give you some of the same metrics mentioned above; as well as monitor the number of friends that you have, total profile visits, etc.

Download this as a PDF

Tags: Bob Hazlett

I was lucky enough to be invited to Memphis' first Social Media Breakfast tomorrow by Dave Barger from Lunaweb. As of right now I think we have about 15 attendees coming, so we're off to a good start. I'm really excited to meet new social media Memphians and from the looks of the video below, I have some work to do tonight to prepare for tomorrow.

Social Media Breakfast - Memphis #1 (Prep)
Uploaded by lalunablanca

Additional Resources:
Understanding the UnConferences
100 Idea Topics for You to Cover at PodCamp
What is BarCamp?

Updated - Social Media Breakfast #1 Flickr Photoset ~ Official Social Media Breakfast page ~ LunaWeb

Tags: Community, Tools, Bob Hazlett

So let's say you're a Mom and Pop ice cream shop or even Ben & Jerry's for this matter. What could be a better promotion than embracing social media and integrating it with the latest cultural fad? Not only do you get your customers (and potential customers) involved with your brand, but you also make it fun for them and leave a lasting impression.

This is how I see the promo set up, but feel free to add you own twist on it. Start a YouTube page for your business - they're free. Encourage your customers to upload their best performance of one of the greatest lines from There Will Be Blood - "I drink your milkshake." Promote the effort on your website, company blog, in-store promotions and to your best clients. Have a definitive start and end date in mind. At the end, have the community vote on they think gave the best rendition of the movie. Have a screening of the movie for all participants, give away prizes such as a years supply of milkshakes or let the winner be in your next company commercial.

Not only to get free PR out of the effort, but you create goodwill and get your customers talking. They'll share their story and videos with their friends. Their friends will want to take part in the promotion and before you know it, you've got life-long engaged customers. Now the tough part comes when you have to do your next promotion.

Tags: Free Trade Ideas, Videos, Bob Hazlett

Work and the holidays have really been taking a toll on my mood and energy levels. With that in mind, I'm taking a break for the next couple of weeks to relax, touch base with the family and reenergize. I promise to come back stronger, post more often and with better content in 2008. If you're still looking for great social media and marketing minds, check out the sites below.

Chris Brogan - Chris Brogan advises businesses, organizations and individuals on how to use social media and social networks to build relationships and deliver value.
Jeremiah Owyang - Jeremiah discusses how web tools enable companies to connect with their customers.
Seth Godin

Tags: Bob Hazlett

Yesterday, Google along with a host of other major social networks (MySpace, Bebo, SixApart, Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle) announced OpenSocial – an initiative to share an open API amongst across multiple sites. This will allow developers to create applications or widgets that can efficiently extend their website experience to existing communities on popular social networks.

What this means for you?

• We no longer need to have a MySpace strategy, a LinkedIn strategy, etc, but rather we can develop one application or widget that can be accessed throughout all services. A standard API will greatly reduce development time.
• Harness existing communities. We don’t have to go out and build an audience, but rather we can leverage what’s already there.
• Combined, the core group of networks involved represents over 100MM subscribers.

Challenges

• The open API was just released yesterday, so bugs may occur
• Inconsistencies may emerge – not all applications may behave the same across all platforms
• No two networks are the same. LinkedIn and MySpace have 2 different user bases.
• Facebook, Yahoo! and Microsoft haven’t bought in yet.

This is a major announcement and something that I feel could really benefit your online strategy. The possibilities are endless. I suggest sitting down in the coming month with someone who actually understands this and how it can affect your business (or contact me) and see how you can be proactive and tackle this head-on. Trust me, its going to be worth it.



Additional Resources:
Wired covers the aspects of Open Social
Open Social FAQ's
All the Children are Insane courtesy of Magnus Kjall

Tags: Community, Google, Bob Hazlett

Social Media Marketing Essentials
A few ways to be successful with social media are to interact with participatory communities, create and promote viral (and beneficial) content and research the key influencers in a certain industry. When you or your company successfully incorporates these tactics into your social media marketing plan, you can increase brand awareness and increase traffic to your site or subscribers to your blog. These can also lead to increased conversions and sales for your company. SMX NY Session: Social Media Marketing Essentials

What's Your Social Media Strategy?
Chris Brogan has a great way of taking complex social media theory and breaking it down into digestible chunks. In this article he gives you some overall thoughts on what you should consider while developing your social media strategy. What are you doing with it all? What is your plan? How are you tying this all together to make it meaningufl, useful, and/or otherwise impactful conversations with your community?

Is Your Social Media Marketing Strategy Passive or Active?

Measuring Your Social Media Efforts
I firmly believe that when talking to a CEO or any other high level decision maker who doesn't understand Social Media, you must be able to show the value first and foremost. Chris takes on this issue. Wouldn't it be great if someone could actually make a system to measure all of your social media efforts?

How to write a Social Media Press Release

Tags: Bob Hazlett

As the internet becomes more and more ingrained in our everyday lives, a new breed of consumer has emerged - Consumer 2.0. Who is this person? What makes them tick? How can you improve your social media and search engine marketing efforts to build your brand around their needs?

Who is Consumer 2.0?

• Addicted to Leisure - They work hard, but they also expect a certain amount of work/life balance. They expect products and brands to conform to both aspects of their day. They want their phone to sync with Outlook while also keeping tabs of their Facebook profile.
• Create and share content - In their own eyes, they're a rockstar. They twitter, pownce, blog and YouTube everything in their life. If they like it, they share it.
• Always connected and love information - They subscribe to hundreds of RSS feeds, have thousands of friends online, never leave home without their iPod or their web-enabled phone. These consumers can find what they're looking for in a drop of hat (and expect it as well).
• Hypertaskers - Forget David Allen, these consumers chat online, play games, stream music and send text messages all while watching TV. In a survey produced by Yahoo!, 60% of 18-34 year olds said they surfed the web while watching TV.
• Love to be part of communities - They have multiple social network accounts and use them all on a regular basis.

As I've blogged about before, there are many things you can do to conform and mold your brand to meet Consumer 2.0's expectations. It's important to treat them with respect and dignity as they can make or break a good portion of your business.

• Listen to them. - They are more than willing to tell you what they think of your product, if you simply ask. Use them as your guinea pigs for new ideas and improvements on old ones.
• Collaborate with them. Just as Stromhoek, a small vineyard who collaborated with bloggers to create a grass roots initiative, so should you. Respond to their online posts and comments, answer their emails one at a time and take the initiative to create 'wow' experiences in your store. If you scratch their back, they'll scratch yours as well.
• Give them the tools to share. Create an online toolbox in which users can remix your brand to meet their style. Include RSS feeds, pictures, videos, music, Facebook applications, custom t-shirts and everything else they could use to evangelize your product.

So how does Search Engine Marketing tie back to Consumer 2.0? Well, because Consumer 2.0 is so intrenched and dialed in on a regular basis, they've developed a small case of ADD. Nearly 72% of people answered that they cannot recall URL's that appeared on TV spots. Therefore, not only should you do the things I've mentioned above to gain attention online, but you should also work to control those things you do have power over.

Your search engine marketing must include using appropriate keywords so Consumer 2.0 can find your brand, creating lots of relevant content, making sure your pages are user-friendly and have appropriate titles and descriptions just to name a few. Consumers expect brand leaders to consistently be in the top results of search and I can guarantee that many will look at a site because it was one of the first results regardless if it was what they were looking for or not. Great search engine marketing increases your brand familiarity, pumps up your brand consideration, improves customer satisfaction and results in a better brand experience.

Integrating Consumer 2.0 into your marketing plans and tweaking your search engine marketing will allow you to close the loop on your customers and engage advocates. I guarantee that if you implement the above to a tee, you will see much success online and off.

Additional Resources:
CASH courtesy of *mgwinc

Tags: Search Engine Marketing, Community, Customers, Bob Hazlett

• You understand social media and the benefits it can bring to your personal life, your company or a client's business, but not everyone is on the same boat. Chris Brogan breaks down the high level points to introducing a social media adoption strategy. I couldn't agree with him more on (1) Show the Reward, Not the Tools, (2) Consider Head Count and (3) Start Simple and Lay it Out.
• SearchMarketingGurus.com give a great overview to Optimizing your Press Release for Search Engines and People
• On September 15, 1997 Larry Page and Sergey Brin registered the domain name Google.com. Their market value today sits at $164 billion. Excuse me while I go cry myself to sleep.
• Ogilvy's Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics which should be offset somewhere by the Blogger's Guide to Publicity.
• The Business Blogging Toolset - 100 Resources for Entrepreneur Writers. Feel free to also check out my earlier post on What is a Blog and How Can It Help Your Small Business.

Tags: Tools, Bob Hazlett

I'm sure by now these clips have made there way around the net and have been played countless times. Five years ago only a handful of people would have seen these flubs live and only a few would have told someone about it. The Internet and online media has changed everything. New and ever-evolving technology allows anyone to record, upload, stream and share their best clips with 10, 20, 50, 300 of their closest 'friends' in nearly real time. In the past users would never have been able to record live on their computer, edit it down into a :60 second clip, post it to YouTube, place it on their FaceBook account, Twitter it, write a blog post and Dugg it with a few clicks of the mouse (or on their cell phone while waiting in line at Starbucks). Heck, not one of these technologies I just mentioned was even around 5 years ago. The game is changing and if you or your business are not ready to address it, then you could end up being the one without a map.

How will you address your flubs? How will you promote your successes?

What technology will come around in the next 5 years that you can take advantage of? How will you anticipate and prepare for it now?

Tags: Web 2.0, Bob Hazlett

I recently ran across an interesting article in Business 2.0 highlighting the work of South African winery Stormhoek who distinguished their product in a crowded market by using blogging, crowd surfing and viral marketing. I thought it would be good to compare Stormhoek (new-age) with the PR that your company (stone age) is probably doing.

In short, Stormhoek, hired Hugh MacLeod to promote their products through his site, GapingVoid.com. Stromhoek believed that MacLeod's following of tech geeks would be the perfect match as they shared the same single-minded passions as wine enthusiasts do. MacLeod offered a free bottle of the wine to any blogger who asked so long as they were of legal drinking age and had been blogging for a minimum of 3 months. Bloggers were asked to write a post on the Stromhoek wine experience without any obligations. The post didn't have to mention the name of the company or even reflect a positive review.

At the end of the 6 month experiment, nearly 100 bloggers posted related items or comments. MacLeod capitalized by using his online celebrity to organize "geek dinners" for the bloggers in Britain, Spain, France and in the United States. Stromhoek's sales have jumped nearly six-fold over that time. They expect to push about a million cases annually within three years, up from their 50,000 cases a year worldwide now. The total cost of the campaign over the 2 years came out to about $40,000 which is remarkably cheap considering the amount of publicity and sales conversions the promotion added. To top off the success, Ad Age named the Stromhoek strategy one of the top 50 marketing campaigns in 2006. Not bad for a bunch of bloggers.

How does the promotion and strategy that Stromhoek pulled off differ from your company's plans?

Stromhoek - Gave their small niche audience something to talk about. On a volunteer basis, their customers chose to read their advertisements and PR. They had the permission of each person they came in contact with to market their product to them.

Your Company - Force your story and splatter your advertisements across as many mediums and over as many people as you can afford. Yes, some of the crowd may already know about your product and yes, you may gain a few new supporters in the process, but the probability and conversion rate is very low. You don't engage your customer or find out who they really are which in turn costs you more money down the line as well.


Stromhoek - Created a true grass-roots / word-of-mouth customer program. They were transparent and clear with their intentions. They asked permission from their customers. They didn't interfere or do the song and dance to get attention.

Your Company - Fakes a grass-roots campaign. You have a lackadaisical MySpace or FaceBook page (so does everyone else), but your customers can see right through your futile attempts.


Stromhoek - Built a marketing strategy on-line and off. They correlated and had a similar function and feel to them.

Your Company - Lucky if you can get the group that develops the online collateral and marketing plan in the same room with the group that is responsible for the print pieces.


Stromhoek - Let their customers be their guinea pigs. They tested outside of the lab and gave free samples. They took their customers advice and made changes as necessary.

Your Company - Test, test, test in the lab, but still end up being surprised when your product fails in the market. You know what your research tells you. Customers don't know what they want.

Additional Resources:
Mixed Media courtesy of mgwinc

Seth Godin - Permission Marketing
Made to Stick - Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Tags: Community, Bob Hazlett

Why some customers choose certain brands to become fanatical about and others to totally hate isn't completely clear.

The one thing that is clear is the communication that these 'popular' brands have with their customers. So how do you create customer evangelists representing your brand that are willing to shout your message from the top of a mountain? How do you fill you house people knocking down the door rather than throwing eggs at your windows?

These are the customers that comment on nearly every article you post to your blog, are the first to sign up for beta testing and are constantly e-mailing you about your product. Evangelists believe in your product just as much as you do and would gladly spread your gospel, so your first priority is to get up the gumpshun and simply ask them to take on and represent your endeavor. Being as transparent as possible ensures that everyone is represented fairly and intentions are layed out prior to actions. The last thing you want to do is turn an evangelist into an opponent over a small misrepresentation.

Each person will have a little different style about them that may not always mesh with the standard manner your Communications department could like to be represented - THIS SHOULDN'T MATTER! In my opinion, the key is that they utimately believe in you and your cause or mission. Their background, popularity or influence can be ignored. Beggars can't be choosers as the old adage states.

Building customer evangelists isn't a one-stop shop, but rather a relationship that must be respected and nurished. Ensure that you nuture these relationships. Give them things that they will value. Respond to their desires by modifying your product or service from the feedback they give you. Showing that you actually value them and their hard work along with responding to their concerns will only add fuel to the evangelizing fire.

Additional Resources:
Brains on Fire - Cycle of a Fan
Church of the Customer Blog - Corporate Evangelism vs. Customer Evangelism
Jackie Huba 2003 keynote presentation on Creating Customer Evangelists

Tags: Customers, Community, Bob Hazlett

Many businesses both small and large are adding blogs to their website to better communicate with their target market and build traffic to their site. According to Technorati, a blog search engine, their are over 71 million blogs world wide and approximately 175k are launched daily. Blogs are no longer a fad - they are here to stay!

The word Blog is the combination of the terms web and log. Blogs are somewhat similar to online journals or daybooks created by both individuals and companies contained within a website. Blogs typically contain text, images, media (such as video and audio) and most importantly, they link to other relevant web pages and content on the net.

Blogs can help to build stronger relationships, target certain groups such as clients, media, general public and encourage conversations.

Why should a small business build a blog? Besides a way to express yourself and keep others abreast on relevant news I've compiled a list below on the benefits of writing a blog.

Benefits of Blogging for your Small Business

1. Establish Expertise - Just as I spoke on in my post "Upload a video to YouTube", a blog positions you and your business as the expert in your industry and raises your visibility among your niche market.

2. Communication/ Builds Customer Relationships - Blogs enable companies to present a human face and voice to the public. No longer can you hide behind your phone tree or email - customers want and demand to know whom they will be working with. A blog gives you the opportunity to become transparent to your customers.

Blogs typically allow customers to join discussions respond to concerns, provide tips and insights or receive support. This can be accomplished through any number of mechanisms (comments, forums, etc).

3. Simple, low-cost PR - Writing a blog is probably one of the simplest, fastest ways to put information online.

4. Build communities - Use your blog to grow group support around a cause, political issue, technology or hobby related to your service or support.

5. Test ideas or products - Those that read your blog and comment are your biggest fans and supporters. Use a blog to publish an idea and use it to generate any interest or buzz. A small software company that I support will dangle an idea that they have for a product in front of their best users, gain feedback, tweak their product and then tease them with small bits of news and insight prior to its release. It works like a charm.

6. Higher search engine rankings - Google and other search engines reward those sites with lots of relevant content that is updated often and contains many inbound and outbound links to other relevant content.

Additional Resources:
Do's and Don'ts of Corporate Blogging - CNN Money
Publish and Prosper: Blogging for Your Business - Amazon.com
Why Blogging Matters to Business - About.com
Bloggers Code of Ethics
Blogging for Business - The Entrepreneurial Mind

Tags: Web 2.0, Tools, Small Business, Bob Hazlett

Placing an online video on any of a number of sites gives your clients and customers the idea that you know a little more than the next guy. Not that you're not already talented as it is, but when a potential customer sees a video entry on your site it moves the scales in your favor. To the customer they are getting a sense of the type of service you offer and the knowledge you have without even having to take out their checkbook.

For example, lets say you are a local landscaper. By creating just a simple video about planting a tree or maintaining your lawn you are now looked upon as an expert in their mind. Therefore, when they decide to buy, you are the one they choose because it's comfortable and they know what to expect.

So, before you can become the "go to guy (or girl)", you must know how these new web technologies function. There are numerous services, but I'm going to keep with YouTube in this example simply out of simplicity sake. YouTube is probably one of the easiest video sites to use out of the bunch in my opinion and their recent acquisition by Google makes they even more of a powerhouse.

Step 1: Know what type of video to create
YouTube accepts video files from most digitial cameras, camcorders and cell phones in .WMV, .AVI, .MOV, and .MPG file formats. Have no fear if you are unaware, these are standard outputs on most equipment. If you are familiar with video details, YouTube recommends a resolution of 320x240, MP3 Audio and a speed of 30 frames per second.

Step 2: Create you video / Create your YouTube account
Create your video and transfer to your computer. Most cameras and camcorders have USB or Firewire output. A simple plug and play should do the job.

If you don't have a YouTube account yet, go to YouTube.com and create your unique username and password. It takes less than a minute and they won't spam you.

Step 3: Upload video to YouTube site
While logged in, click "Upload Video" in the upper-right-hand corner of just about any page within YouTube.

Step 4: Enter your video information
Input as much information as possible, include Title, Description, Tags (one-word descriptors such as tree, landscape, lawn) and Category. The more info you supply, the easier it will be for users to find your videos

Step 5: Find that file
In the next window, click the 'Browse" button to find the video located on your computer. YouTube takes your file and converts it to a flash file so it can be shown in all web browsers without any special equipment.

Step 6: Determine Public or Private
If you want everyone to be able to see your video (which I'm sure you do in this example), make sure to click Public.

Step 7: You become an online video star!
Click "Upload Video" and your video is magically taken to YouTube wonderland.


After you have created your video and uploaded to your site, YouTube supplies two pieces of information that allows you to easily pass your video on to your customers.


A good idea for the URL tag would be to place it in your e-mail signature or as a link to your customers in their monthly e-mail or newsletter. Once typed in, the URL will take the user to the exact page within YouTube where the video is placed.

If you want to get a little more fancy, you can copy the Embed code and insert it within your web site or on any electronic communication. This feature will pull the video right out of YouTube and integrate it within your site.

Additional Resources:
Making and Optimizing your Videos
Adding YouTube videos to your web site or blog
Policy on Copyright information

Tags: Web 2.0, Tools, Videos, Bob Hazlett