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Blogtipping — November ’07

November 4, 2007

I am joining with my fellow bloggers in celebrating some new blogs that I enjoyed this past month.

As is the blogtipping tradition, (created by Easton Ellsworth) I'll offer a few reasons why I like the blog and one suggestion for improvement.

My self created theme for this month is relatively new Iowa Bloggers you should know. There are way more than 3, so feel free to browse my Central Iowa list on my blog roll.

This month's nods go to….

Focal Point is Chris Punke's take on using viral video on the web.

Things I love:

Chris is shifting away from links only posting to sharing his own expertise.

As you might expect, Chris uses a lot of video to make his points.

Chris' style is very approachable and comfortable.

Suggestion:

In your new style of posts — keep up the tradition of linking out.

Angela Maiers is a tightly woven blend of tips, stories and inspirational posts for educators. Angela Maiers reaches out through her blog, her seminars and her consulting services.

Things I love:

The diversity of your posts.

How you share your own experiences and hard learned lessons.

Your natural, engaging style of writing.

Suggestion:

How about expanding your resources to include others involved in the educational process, like parents?

Moment on Money is a financial planner's blog. But Art Dinkin is no ordinary financial planner. He speaks in plain English about things that matter to all of us, like identity theft and life insurance.

Things I love:

Great financial information in language we can understand.

Lots of outbound links that allow us to explore the topic even more.

Every post, a practical tip or insight. What's not to love?

Suggestion:

How about some quizzes or worksheets so we can do some self-analysis?

There you have it discerning readers…until next month's blogtipping adventure!

:60 ticks marketing tip: High tech legibility test

October 24, 2007

The world of marketing is now very high tech. We have computers and digital files and PDAs and a host of other technologies that have improved the way we do our job. But sometimes the old fashioned method is still as good as it gets.

Outdoor is a tricky medium. It looks great on the screen or layout, but how will it look 50 feet up in the air, as you whiz by at 65 mph?

Assuming you were mindful of the 7-word rule (try never to have more than 7 words on an outdoor board) here’s how you can quickly check the readability of your board.

Squint.

Yup, squint. Print out your design and tape it to the wall. Step back 10+ feet and then squint. Can you still read the board? If so – odds are it will be legible from the road as well.

Now let’s see them create a high tech alternative for that!

A quick trip around the blogosphere!

August 26, 2007

Scott Monty celebrates his one year blogiversary this week. Scott's blog is a great mix of marketing musings, old and new. Always worth a read.

Blogger Social Details are in…and the registrations are beginning to build as well. April 4-6th in the Big Apple. We really hope you can make it.

Robert Hruzek is calling on all of us to change the world, starting with ourselves. Count on Robert to set his (and our) sights high. Check out his challenge.

If you loved the Z-list and the W-list, here's another one for you. The Black Entrepreneurs Toolbox from Bootstrapper.

What tagline best describes your personal brand?

June 8, 2007

As I described in a recent post, at MMG when you call us, we have some questions for you! We thought it would be fun to bring our voice mail questions here to to blog. Now, over in the sidebar, you’ll be able to add your answers to our most recent voice mail questions.

Come on…add your voice!

Blogtipping — June ’07

June 2, 2007

I am joining with my fellow bloggers in celebrating some new blogs that I enjoyed this past month.

As is the blogtipping tradition, (created by Easton Ellsworth) I’ll offer a few reasons why I like the blog and one suggestion for improvement.

Because it’s graduation month for so many…I’d like to tip my mortar board to these three marketing student bloggers. I only wish I was half as smart as they are when I was their age. Who am I kidding..I’d still like to be as smart as they are.

I hope all three guys pass on the availability of the FREE e-book written by marketing pros about how to break into the business.

This month’s nods go to….

Student PR Blog is Chris Clarke’s way of reaching out to PR and Communications students and graduates with news they need to know.

Things I love:

The depth of information.

That you don’t stop at just giving us the facts, you also give us your insight.

You update your posts to keep them current.

Suggestion:

It would be nice if you broke up some of the long posts with some visuals, when you can.

A Student’s Guide to Connecting is just that. Andy Drish just finished his junior year at Drake University and has already made more connections than I have!

Things I love:

The diversity of your posts.

That you’re so hungry to learn and you share that learning with us.

Your natural, engaging style of writing.

Suggestion:

How about some visuals to illustrate your points?

The trio would not be complete without Ryan Karpeles and his blog Living Light Bulbs. Ryan’s done a remarkable job of reaching out to the marketing bloggers world-wide.

Things I love:

Your insights are refreshing and thought-provoking.

Great, conversational style.

You interject a lot of your personality into your posts.

Suggestion:

It would be very interesting to track your job hunt, once you get started on it.

There you have it discerning readers…until next month’s blogtipping adventure!

Can’t go to SOBCon? How about just staying home and getting it together?

May 11, 2007

As many of you know, tonight SOBCon begins in Chicago. I can’t wait…my flight leaves in a few hours. I’m looking forward to talking face-to-face with some of the brilliant and witty minds I’ve already loved for awhile.

But not everyone can get there. Thanks to Carolyn Manning and some friends, you can still grow, learn and connect this weekend.

Check out the Getting It Together virtual conference that they’ve created with you in mind. Lots of very thought-provoking content, all from your home sweet home. In your underwear if you choose.

Read about it here. See the schedule here.

I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give everyone your regards at SOBCon and you do the same for me at Getting It Together.

Enjoy!

Jumping into the middle, Marcus Brown is dead, and Elvis loves cribbage

May 4, 2007

I jumped into the middle of this story, so that’s where I’d like to start with the telling as well.

Many of us have enjoyed Marcus Brown’s blog It Could Get Worse for quite some time. Smart, funny and willing to really take a chance. He had no fear and no pre-conceived ideas of what his posts or positions should be. He just went with it.

Think of this post as a very poor man’s Brownesque post. Just let me go with it and come along for the ride. This is an interesting study in viral marketing, social media and a brilliant but warped mind.

Here’s how my version of the story started.

Sometime in April, I went over to enjoy Marcus’ wit and I happen upon a post where he is soliciting ideas on how he can sell a painting. This painting.

I got the general gist. Marcus created the work of art because a buddy of his was somehow saved by some Mountain Rescue group. What caught and kept my attention were the hilarious suggestions about how Marcus could raise more money. Right in the middle of the comments, someone suggested that to truly get a good price for the work, sadly Marcus would have to be dead. Only dead artists commanded top dollar.

Then, I started laughing out loud at some of the suggestions as to HOW Marcus could meet his untimely death. I particularly remember the riff about him choking on a sausage. Funny stuff.

I didn’t think too much more about it. Then a week or so later, I read that Marcus has pulled the plug on his blog. I couldn’t believe it. I rushed over to see. No goodbye post to speak of. No explanation. No archives. Just gone.

Wow, I thought. Marcus must have been really burned out. To just pull the plug.

Boy, did I not understand how much of his plug was truly pulled.

Until I heard he was dead.

And not only is he dead, but he’s blogging about it. And he even sent a YouTube video to reassure us that he’s okay.

What I find remarkable about this is that I didn’t get it for quite a bit. I honestly thought Marcus had just called it quits. Which is one of the elements of a good viral marketing campaign. He let me stumble upon it and discover it. He didn’t package it or worry that I might not get it — so he had to lead me by my nose. He had faith in his audience and his idea — so he tossed it all in the air to see what would happen.

But of course, what I’ve now discovered is that this lunatic is/was (guess we should talk about him in the past tense) willing to sacrifice what he had built in the blogosphere for the sake of an experiment. An experiment with a good cause attached. Could he in fact, raise more money this way?

How many of your successes are you willing to just walk away from to start from scratch? To see if you can be successful in a different way?

Are you brave enough?

Is the medium forgiving enough to tolerate this time warp/parallel universe existence? Will his audience support him even though what he’s now offering is completely different?

What, if anything, will be the cost to Marcus for "killing" himself and his alter-ego, Sacrum?

Will his readers help him reach his goal? And what happens after the painting gets sold?

Viral marketing takes guts and faith. Do you have enough of both?

The missing parts of the story:

Early in March, Paul Colman over at Life in the Middle posted a chilling story about how he and a friend were caught in an avalanche and had it not been for the mountain rescue squad, the end of the story might have been very tragic indeed.

Marcus Brown read this story and decided to raise some money by selling a painting. (start at the top now)

Blog roll exploded!

April 27, 2007

There are changes afoot at Drew’s Marketing Minute…so be on the ready. The first change is already in place.

The longer I’m writing and reading blogs, the more incredible content I discover. My blog roll kept scrolling further and further down the page. At the rate I was going, my page was going to scroll down 5 feet before you got to the end of the list.

So, the blog roll is going to be moving to its own page. Enjoy the expanded list. And now that I have a whole page — watch out! More great blogs are on the way!

What should the “freebie rule” be for bloggers?

April 22, 2007

For years, journalists have maintained a "no gift" rule because they never wanted their credibility be put into question. While I am sure some journalists bend/break that rule…it’s pretty much the industry standard.

But most bloggers are not journalists by trade. They aren’t employed by a media outlet and they certainly aren’t objective observers. Most bloggers infuse their opinions into their posts.

So is it wrong for a blogger to accept freebies? There’s a pretty broad spectrum of opinions out there.

Lewis Green raises this issue and takes a very clear stand in his post Does taking a freebie mean you can’t trust me?

Tim Almond talks about Microsoft sending out laptops and his opinion of accepting gifts.

Robert Scoble say as long as you disclose you received the product (in this case…the laptop) for free, your ethics are fine.

Joel Spolsky calls it a bribe that is corrupting the medium.

B.L. Ochman makes her take on the question pretty clear in a post from late December where she called PR agency Edelman’s ethics into question.

What do YOU think?

A laptop or a trip to Seattle to meet Bill Gates (examples in the above links) seems like the extreme that only the most influential bloggers will be tempted by. But what about a free weekend at a bed and breakfast? Or an advance copy of a book? Or a pair of sunglasses? How about a marketing white report that will later be sold? Tickets to a show or concert?

Should a blogger ever accept a gift? When is it okay? If a blogger does accept a freebie — how should they handle that fact if they post about it?

UPDATE: Some additional opinions…

Chip Griffin has this to say.

David Reich adds his always valuable and insightful 2 cents.

Perspective — the bright side of blogging

March 26, 2007

Ever since I read/blogged about what’s been going on with Kathy Sierra (Creating Passionate Users), I’ve had sort of a dull ache in my heart. It just makes me sad.

But…as I tried to catch up on my blog reading — I was reminded that the abusive, hate-filled idiots that have threatened Kathy are the vast minority.

The truth is…the blogosphere is filled with generosity, insights, fellowship and helping hands. People go out of their way to turn the spotlight from themselves and instead showcase excellence in others.

Just wanted to share a couple reminders that the vast majority of the blogging community is good, generous and still has things in perspective. I don’t know about you, but I needed the reminder today.

Reminder One:

Mack Collier of The Viral Garden is celebrating his blog’s 1st anniversary today. Mack is known far and wide for being a guy who goes out of his way to help every and any marketing blogger make a splash. Father of the infamous z-list and the Top 25 Marketing blogs – Mack sets the bar for community building.

Vintage Mack…he changed his blog’s banner to call attention to many of the bloggers that have been a part of his blog’s growth.

Reminder Two:

John Moore of Brand Autopsy has put together his own March Madness Bracket — featuring marketing blogs. John took the opportunity to introduce 64 marketing blogs to his readers. Generous. And fun. Go download it and see if you agree with the match up’s results.

Thanks guys! Your timing could not have been better!

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