New Age of Marketing & PR

Launch of Composure Marketing

2010-05-04T12:07:00.000-04:00

I am proud to announce the launch of my new venture, Composure Marketing, a new age marketing agency that helps companies expand their presence online and off. I have consulted on various projects ranging from content creation for corporate websites and blogs to social media integration and engagement and as a result decided to launch this new business venture. As marketing platforms grow, Composure will help companies navigate the changes in new media and establish its clients as industry leaders. Our strength is in evaluating objectives and aligning them with creative strategies to reach potential customers and retain existing ones.

All of our services follow a simple process: Listen, Connect, Track and Analyze. Regardless of the project, we approach each one with diligence in first understanding our clients’ objectives, developing an effective marketing strategy and targeting the right audience. Our services include Content Creation, Social Media Marketing, Traditional Marketing, PR and Coordination of Website/Blog Development.

I work with a talented group of individuals to help clients create effective marketing strategies that get the job done. If you are interested in working with a company that takes the time to listen to your story and communicate it to the marketplace, get in touch with us today for a free consultation.

You can also connect with us on Twitter or check out our Composure Marketing Blog!

I will no longer be posting blog posts to New Age of Marketing and PR. Please follow me at Composure Marketing for marketing updates and discussions.

Article on Lead Nurturing Featured in NYREJ

2010-04-29T09:30:00.001-04:00

Article about Lead Nurturing featured in the New York Real Estate Journal about How to Nurture Leads and Build Lists using Social Media. I had written a blog post about it earlier this month and it got picked up by the publication. Let me know your thoughts.

How to nurture leads and build lists

View more documents from NatashaAttal.

How NOT to Bill Your Customers - Marc Gordon Video

2010-04-28T09:20:00.001-04:00

I have become an avid Marc Gordon fan after connecting through Twitter and watching his videos at Marctv.net. He discusses topics ranging from copyright laws to Tiger Woods - quite an eclectic mix but always with a marketing lesson to be learned. Recently he made a video about how a hotel gave him a bill that was confusing and seemed to have items he didn't order - it turns out the bills at this hotel (Sheraton in Niagara Falls) are not tabulated for customers to understand but instead designed to be understand by the internal billing department at the hotel for accounting purposes.

The obvious lesson here is make sure your company keeps their internal processes internal and gives customers information they can actually understand. Customers don't need to understand your internal processes nor should they have to - if they did want to, they'd fill out a job application to work at your company.

It’s not just a bill, it’s my feakin’ holiday from marc gordon on Vimeo.

Marc can be found on Twitter - @MarcGordonDotCA

He also the Founder of Four Word, a marketing company with a wide variety of services.

Are Airlines Forgetting About Employee Feedback?

2010-04-23T13:52:00.000-04:00

This week I flew from New York to Paris with a 4 hour layover in Pittsburg and while the service on the Delta International flight was good, the responses from the flight attendants I got regarding some complaints were shocking. The plane was clearly outdated and when I made a comment to the flight attendant she said "Voice your opinion through the social networks or give Delta a call directly because they don't listen to us when we tell them."

As companies become more accountable for their business practices and levels of customer service through online communication channels, it seems Delta has shifted their focus to direct customer relations and forgotten to listen to employees for valuable feedback. Flight attendants are the ones who spend the most time with passengers and can offer valuable insights into preferences and customer satisfaction. The fact that the flight attendant did not feel like her opinion mattered does not create a great work environment.

When the volcano eruptied occured in Iceland and my flight got cancelled, Delta answered my question via Twitter when I was having problems getting through to them by phone. I was very pleased with their turnaround time on responding to me. If only their own employees could feel the same way I do about giving them feedback. At the end of the day, whether changes are made or not, customers AND employees want to know that they are being heard. Your employees are usually your best asset - keep them happy and motivated to help you succeed!

Have you experienced this type of response from airline employees? Please comment with your opinion.

You're Going to Call Me WHAT?! Changing Your Twitter Handle

2010-04-20T09:30:00.026-04:00

A Twitter handle is the username that people see on Twitter when they look at your profile- mine currently is @natashaattal. The great thing about Twitter is that you can change your handle at any time without losing your mentions or followers. Beware though because once you switch handles, your old one is up for grabs so make sure to immediately lock in your old name (instructions on this below).

Since I noticed several people that I follow changed their Twitter handle lately, I decided to dedicate this post to how to change your Twitter handle and 3 reasons why you may want to change it.

(pic found on google images

How to Change Your Twitter Handle:

1. Choose a new handle name that will work best for how you want to market yourself or your brand. Hans Kullin has written an informative article on Strategies for Choosing a Twitter Handle that should be helpful.

2. Log in to Twitter, click on Settings and enter your desired new handle in the "username" field. Twitter will tell you if that username is available or not.

3. Once Twitter accepts your new handle, enter a password and click Save.

4. Sign out of your main (the one you just edited) account and then Sign Up for a new account. This will be where you set up a new account with your old handle username.

5. In the new account (where your old handle is used), post a tweet saying something along the lines of "I have moved to @X. Please follow me there for updates."

*You may also want to announce to your followers prior to making the change that your handle will be changing shortly. People love a heads up.

Reasons to Change Your Twitter Handle:

1. Recognition: Many people originally joined Twitter with their common online username or possibly a random name (remember the good old days of aol instant messaging and trying to conceal your identity?- my "crypted" name was Tashu0284). Changing the handle to your real name or personalizing it to what you tweet about is a great way to redesign the way you market yourself or your brand and allow people to find you online.

2. Personalization: Some people like to tweet as a brand and others like to tweet with their personal brand attached to it. Tweet with the name you want to be known for - often times that is by tweeting as yourself. For now, that is what I have been doing but it is different for everyone depending on the way you want to be perceived.

3. Develop a Professional Profile: You may have started tweeting with your name and have since built a following around linking to your business or blog. In this case, if you want to focus more on the business, you can change your handle to your business or blog name if they are available. I suggest keeping your name in the profile even if you switch the handle.

Thanks to Jordan Reid from Ramshackleglam Blog for the inspiration for this post. Her name changed from @JordanBerkow to @ramshackleglam a couple weeks ago and I figured it would be a good topic to discuss. If you like lifestyle blogs, make sure to check hers out. She is great!

Let me know what you think about changing Twitter handles and any success (or failure) stories!

Mass Mailing Gone Wrong - Sid Roth's Attempt to Convert Jews

2010-04-14T11:16:00.000-04:00

It takes a lot to get me upset about the way people choose to market their products or services but this week I was confronted with a direct mailing that had me shaking my head in anger. I received a package in the mail with a book inside titled "They Thought for Themselves: Ten Amazing Jews" by Sid Roth. Right away, I read the letter that accompanied the package to see what the catch was. In the letter, Sid writes "if you follow the advice of these ten Jewish people, I believe you will obtain the same results." Upon reading the first couple pages (out of curiousity) I immediately found it to be a book about Messianic Jews and how these 10 Jewish individuals found Jesus, alienated themselves from their Jewish heritage and finally "thought for themselves."

Among the many reasons, here are some key take aways on why this is not an effective marketing campaign.

1. Cloaked transparency - The author, Sid Roth, conceals the true nature of the book in his letter to those he has mailed it to. He gives reasons in the letter as to why he is giving this book as a "gift" but never truly explains what the book is about. Tricky and in my opinion, unethical.

2. Non-Segmented Mailing List - I'm sure someone out there will find this book of interest, but that person is not me. If you want someone to actually read your book, be honest about the contents and send it to the right people. This mass mailing to a group of Jewish individuals will not work because the list has not been segmented to reach potential interested parties. This is interruption marketing at its finest.

3. Irrelevant Information on Cover - The author has an emblem on the cover that says "Over a MILLION copies in print." Well, what is that supposed to mean? This is not relevant information for a potential reader. No one cares how many copies were printed - people would be interested in knowing how many copies were sold. I believe the author expects people to skim over the emblem, see the million number (which is capitalized) and think that represents the amount of sold copies.

Photo below is taken from amazon.com and shows the emblem saying "Over 850,000 copies in print."

Just as a note to readers, I think it's fine to join any religious group you choose to follow but this attempt at forcing people to change their views in a sneaky way is what truly upset me. Feel free to leave comments about this topic. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Why I Feed Tweets to LinkedIn but Not to Buzz

2010-04-13T09:26:00.000-04:00

When Google Buzz first came out, I took a look at the integration features and had my tweets (and blog posts) sent through to my Buzz feed. It didn't take me long to realize how irritating this feature was to my followers and quickly disabled it. However, on LinkedIn I have integrated my tweets and find that it serves a purpose without bombarding my connections with redundant information.

I take a look below at why I think it is ok to send your tweets to LinkedIn but not to Google buzz. Most importantly, you need to know who your audience is and where they are engaging in conversations. If your friends are on Twitter and co-workers and business contacts are on LinkedIn, you should filter the appropriate conversations to each network or your updates will end up looking like spam.

Why Tweet to LinkedIn:

-Provides an opportunity to get in front of more people - Many of my connections on LinkedIn are not on Twitter and sending my tweets to LinkedIn expands my outreach.

-Ability to filter which updates from Twitter get sent to LinkedIn by putting #in in your tweet. This helps segment relevant updates to your LinkedIn connections and develop a professional network.

-Your connections can comment directly to your status updates allowing engagement with LinkedIn followers. This is what I love about LinkedIn, Google buzz and Facebook - the ability to comment on updates and see those comments in a linear fashion.

Why Not to Feed Tweets to Google buzz:

-Many people on buzz are also on Twitter and the redundancy is quite annoying - Any time I follow someone on both networks, if they feed their tweets to buzz I automatically unfollow them because I don't want to read the same update twice.

-Lag in tweets sent to Google buzz - Not only is it irritating to see tweet feeds on buzz but they also seem to get pulled in at a painstakingly slow rate. When I originally had the feed set up, I would post to Twitter at 1pm and it would show up in buzz that night around 10pm which does not bode well for posting "real time" updates.

-It does not foster deep conversations - The great aspect of Google buzz is that you are not confined to 140 characters so make the use of the space and engage in deeper conversations with your followers.

Do you send your tweets to Google buzz or have you decded to stop the integrated feed? What about on LinkedIn? Have you found it useful to post tweets to the LinkedIn status updates? Let me know what you think.

Data Released Shows that Use of Social Media Explodes

2010-04-09T09:32:00.000-04:00

A new study by Arbitron Inc and Edison Research called The Infinite Dial 2010: Digital Platform and the Future of Radio was released yesterday. The report gives an interesting look at how Americans use new media and digital platforms.

Infinite Dial Presentation 2010

View more presentations from NatashaAttal.

Key Take Away from the Report:

-Social media is not only used by younger consumers (teens and 18-24yr range) - 65% of 25-34yr olds and 51% of 35-44yr olds now have profiles on social networking sites.

-Social networking "has become part of maintream media behavior" as noted by Tom Webster, VP of Strategy and Marketing for Edison Research.

-48% of Americans in 2010 have a personal profile page on a social networking site compared to 34% in 2009. The statistics shows that social networking has increased in every age group.

-Radio is still being viewed in high regard - In the 12-24yr age range, >40% of phone owners said they would listen more to FM radio if there a tuner was built into the phone. A significant 8 in 10 say they plan on listening to as much radio in the future as they do now even as technology advances.

-Approx. 70 million Americans listened to online radio last month. Weekly online radio audience has remained around 43 million (representing 17% of Americans) from 2009 to 2010. This audience is composed of 55% men and 45% women with most being in the 25-34yr range at 27%.

-Internet surpasses TV as more important in Americans' lives. 42% believe the internet is "most essential" while 37% chose TV. In 2002, internet was considered most essential by 20%. Radio and newspapers trail behind at 14% and 5% respectively for 2010.

-49% believe newspapers will dissappear in the future as people continue to rely more on the internet to get their news.

-46% of Americans have ever used Youtube to watch an internet video, 15% have ever used Hulu. - I would have thought the number of Americans who have used Youtube to watch a video would have been significantly higher.

Internet Access and Digital Households
-Household with dial-up internet are lower in education and income.
-45% of households have 2 or more working computers in 2010 compared with 42% in 2009.

What do you think of these statistics?

How to Nurture Leads and Build Lists through Social Media

2010-04-07T07:51:00.000-04:00

As social media becomes a key approach to marketing, companies are trying to figure out how to nurture leads throughout the sales cycle. Prospective customers are becoming leads prior to going to a company’s website and companies must recognize the necessity of tracking that information online. Engaging in social media is similar to lead nurturing in that companies are building relationships with prospective customers who may not be ready to buy but will have that relationship solidified for when the lead is ready to become a customer.

Marketers can use social media to nurture their leads and build more effective mailing lists by listening to their customers, providing interesting content and segmenting leads.

Listen

The first step in nurturing leads throughout the sales cycle is to listen. Companies can find unidentified leads and nurture existing ones by listening to conversations on social media sites, industry blogs and forums. This interaction allows companies to provide customers with relevant content by gaining a better understanding of buyer interest. As companies show customers they are paying attention to their interests, they will start to receive valuable feedback in real time.

Provide Interesting Content

Creating free, valuable content to customers is an effective way to build relationships, credibility and trust. As people start viewing your company as a “go to” source of industry information, they will be more likely to subscribe to your newsletters, visit your website and eventually become customers. If they are existing customers, the content you provide will help you retain them in the future.

I worked for a real estate company several years ago and their motto was, “We provide information, not sell real estate.” Their employees focused on being experts in their field and provided potential buyers or sellers with the necessary information to move forward in the sales cycle regardless of whether or not the individual was a customer.

Segment Leads

By tracking and monitoring conversations on social media sites and blogs, companies can learn more about their customers, segment them by specific interests and see what part of the sales cycle they are in. Companies will also be able to use these conversations to find new ways to sell their products or market their services.

A common mistake is combining all leads into one list and mass emailing them the same content. Over time, if the content people receive is not relevant to their needs or interests, they will start opting out of your emails and that customer will be lost. This brings up the strategy some companies use to expand their outreach of purchasing lists through 3rd parties. This does not allow proper segmentation of contacts and is not an effective strategy for companies interested in reaching the right customers.

Recently, David Meerman Scott blogged about an email he received indicating that he could purchase miles for a trip. Mr. Scott is a frequent flier and if American Airlines had segmented their lists, they would have seen that he already had thousands of miles and would not need to book a trip. They made the mistake of not segmenting their contacts into specific interest areas and levels of customer loyalty. This takes us back to the first step: listen to what your customers are saying and doing.

Marketers cannot effectively build lists and manage leads if they don’t have the proper tools. Some of the resources I have used recently have been Hubspot, Radian6, Constant Contact for email marketing, Cotweet for tracking Twitter, Google Analytics and Google Alerts. Most of these resources have free tools to help companies communicate with their customers and understand their needs and preferences.

5 Questions with Mike Volpe of Hubspot about Interactive Webinars

2010-03-30T12:22:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned last week, I listened in and commented on the Interactive Website Optimization Webinar from Hubspot which was hosted by Mike Volpe and Jeanne Hopkins. I was able to reach out to Mike, VP of Marketing at Hubspot, and ask him a couple questions as a follow up to the webinar. It was interested to hear the feedback Hubspot received from the webinar and how they expect to change the format in the future.

Natasha: How did you decide to do another interactive webinar? As you mentioned, the last one was for "5 Tips to Turn Your Website Into a Marketing Machine" in 2007.

Mike Volpe: Actually, the first webinar we ever did was in 2007. But this one was our first 100% interactive webinar - we alwats take audience questions in our webinars, but this was the first one where the whole thing was live discussion with others.

We are always looking new types of content, and this interactive webinar was something we had talked about - it is based on the talk radio shows where people csll in for advice on topics like relationships - and we finally decided to give it a shot.

Natasha: I'm sure the response to this webinar was positive. What kind of feedback did you get that will help you make the next one even better?

Mike: The feedback was way better than we expected! The major thing we heard in terms of improving was go faster and do more examples - sp I think for next time we will try not to do a complete optimization for each person, but just focus on one thing.

Natasha: The topic of this webinar was website optimizatio - what would you say is the single most important aspect of website optimization to someone is creating a new website or is trying to optimize an existing one?

Mike: There is not one good piece of advice, except to use http://www.websitegrader.com/. There are a bunch of things you need to do that all work together to form a solid inbound marketing program from creating content, to optimizing content, to promotion content, to using conversion to get leads and sales, but running a Websit eGrader report will get you started.

Natasha: I know you had many people email in their website for review. Were all three callers from an email or did you take some from Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn?

The three that we took this time were by email. We're still figuring our the best way to manage the interaction. A lof of people don't want to share their phone number on Twitter...I am sure it will evolve.

Natasha: Being VP of Marketing at Hubspot you get to wear many hats. What is your favorite role?

Mike: I am really passionate about marketing, so anytime I can interact with people and talk about marketing is fun! I love to learn from others and also share what I have learned.

Thanks again to Mike for letting me interview him and get an inside look on the thought process for conducting the live webinar. I look forward to listening in and hopefully participating in some interactive webinars in the future.

Two Great Books to Get Started with Inbound Marketing

2010-03-29T12:32:00.000-04:00

If there are two books you should read to get started with applying inbound marketing strategies to your company, they are The New Rules of Marketing and PR and Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. I have listed a quick summary of the books and what you can learn from reading them.

New Age of Marketing and PR (Second edition)

Written by David Meerman Scott (@dmscott)

Forward written by Robert Scoble (@scobleizer)

I read the first edition of The New Age of Marketing and PR and the second edition is even better, providing further details on how to create effective marketing strategies to reach the right people and new case studies to review.

What you will learn from reading this book:

1. How the rules have changed through the integration of various web channels. David Meerman Scott explains the "old rules" and mirrors each of those rules with the new ones that should be used. There is a clear guideline to learn the "how to's" of replacing the old rules.

2. Reach your buyers directly through proper web based communications - social media, blogging, audio/video tools and compelling content creation.

3. Strategy Planning to implement the New Rules of Marketing and PR - understanding your buyer persona and learning how to engage in conversations with them.

Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs

Written by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah (@bhalligan and @dharmesh)

Forward written by David Meerman Scott

This book teaches you everything you need to learn in order to leverage inbound marketing to drive sales of your products or services. This is very hands on in that it not only teaches you what you need to do but also how to do it.

What you will learn from reading this book:

1. Ways of reaching out and communicating with your customers/clients and how to track this engagement.

2. Importance of creating remarkeable content and how to leverage it through various web communication channels.

3. Basic best SEO and keyword practices and how search engines works

Have you read these books? Tell me what you think.

Interactive Website Optimization Webinar from Hubspot

2010-03-25T14:36:00.000-04:00

Today, I listened to an interactive webinar on Hubspot.com about Website Optimization. I often log on to their site for webinars on various inbound marketing topics and was pleased that website optimization was going to be discussed. If you have read my blog in the past, you know that I am a big fan of their free tool called Website Grader which helps you find the strengths and weaknesses on your website.

Michael Volpe (@mvolpe) and Jeanne Hopkins (@jeannehopkins) conducted this interactive webinar today. I say interactive because they decided to not only have people send questions but also called some of these people to give them a more hands on explanation of how to optimize their website. The conversations Michael and Jeanne had with these individuals was not only beneficial to the people they called but also to the webinar audience. The direct feedback and questions these individuals asked were similar questions people listening in have as well.

Some of the topics discussed:
-Increasing the amount of inbound links to accumulate authority by commenting on other industry blogs and getting known in the community
-Making sure you own your domain and that you secure it for large periods of time. Do not wait to renew it each year
-Importance of page titles and meta descriptions to get found online
-Companies should have conversion forms and proper landing pages
-When people navigate through your site, do not make them think too hard. It should flow well
-When it comes to your website grade, there is always room for improvement

Michael and Jeanne called three people. Here is a review of two of the people they called and the suggestions they made:

The Law Offices of Mesirow & Fink
- Great that they have a form to fill out on the home page for conversions
- Blog was recently established. Hubspot suggested more frequent posts. They also discussed blog post titles and making sure that posts are not too self serving. The reader needs to find value in your post. As always content is king!

Photos by Orion
-Hubspot suggested to get their blog, Photos by Orion, off blogspot.com so that they could get control of their data
-Focus on SEO in terms of keywords, page titles, and meta descriptions and don't get stuck in focusing on the artistic vibe of the site

I hope to see more interactive webinars from Hubspot.com. Did you get a chance to listen in on this webinar? What did you think of the topic and the interactive aspect?

Twitter 101 for Real Estate Firms

2010-03-23T11:34:00.001-04:00

I was recently asked to write an article about Twitter for a Real Estate trade publication called The Mann Report. Many commercial real estate firms are just starting to integrate social media into their marketing platforms so I wrote about three ways to get started: Communicate, Interact and Put a Face Behind the Brand. You can see the article below or view it in a larger format at Twitter 101 for Real Estate Firms.

Use KnowEm to Secure Your Brand Identity Across Social Networks

2010-03-18T16:03:00.000-04:00

Prior to establishing your presence on social media networks, a company or individual must check to see if their username is available across all sites. To create a level of continuity across social media networks you must make sure the name is not already taken so that you can use the same branding on each site. This calls to mind the situation Denny's restaurant faced last month after printing thousands of menus with text indicating customers could follow them on Twitter via @Dennys. Unfortunately, this name was already taken by an individual in Taiwan named Dennys Hsieh (their actual accounts are @DennysAllNightr & @DennysGrandSlam). To avoid a similar situation and properly acquire your company's brand name online, secure your usernames as soon as possible. The race to acquire domain names has now become a race to acquire your user identity on social media networks.

In April 2009, KnowEm? launched to help individuals and corporations secure their brand positioning on social media networks. They have helped reserve 350,000 profiles and can help companies spot misrepresentation of their brand. As social media networks get added to the web, KnowEm? will update their database to include them. As new sites pop up everyday you never know what will be the next big thing.

The site allows you to search for the availability of your username by category on over 400 social media sites. Some popular categories include Blogging, Bookmarking, Business, Microblogging, Music and Tech.

With the recent acquisition in January of competitor site Friendscall.me and the addition of Paige Craig and Brian Solis as advisors, I think individuals and businesses will be getting some good use of KnowEm. It is free to search through the database of sites and they offer premium profiles where they will create profiles for you. The prices are reasonable and it is a tactful preventative measure.

KnowEm's Premium Profiles include:

Individual Plan ($99)

Signup initiation only (not full profiles) on 150 social media websites

Business Plan ($249)

Complete signup of all profile info: photos, bio, URL and description on 100 social media websites. (this is their most popular plan)

Corporate Plan ($349)

Complete signup of all profile info: photos, bio, URL and description of 150 social media websites. (this includes 50 more social media sites than the Business Plan)

Enterprise Plan ($599)

Complete signup of all profile info: photos, bio, URL and description on 300 social media websites.

Comment and let me know if you have been using KnowEm? and what premium plan you have found most useful if any.

Wayne Sutton Provides Twitter CEO Evan William's SXSW Keynote to All

2010-03-15T16:05:00.002-04:00

While everyone at home was watching as Mashable and WebProNews were blogging live from the Keynote address today, Wayne Sutton (@WayneSutton) tweeted a link to his blog with a Live video stream of the presentation.Within minutes, Wayne had tons of people going to his site to watch as Evan Williams discussed the new Twitter platform (called @anywhere) for integrating Twitter into websites. For detailed information on the keynote itself you can see Mashable's coverage.

Congrats to Wayne for thinking of posting this live and setting it up for many of us at home who couldn't attend SXSW Interactive. Mashable even linked up to the video on their website to increase the outreach. Unfortunately, Wayne ran out of battery power and the feed went down for a while until Leslie Bradshaw lent him her Mac Air to continue livestreaming. Instead of expecting another site to live stream, Wayne was able to provide a solution to a problem we all faced at home - not being able to see the keynote. Further, Leslie and Wayne worked together to get the stream back on air after the short outage. That is what I call collaboration!

This was a great way for Wayne to open his outreach to a larger audience. You can find him at the links below. Thanks to Leslie as well for helping!

http://www.socialwayne.com/

http://twitter.com/waynesutton

Wayne on Google Buzz

What did you think about Wayne's live broadcasting? Is this his 15 minutes of fame or do you think he will be able to use this to broaden his audience?

Not at SXSW? How I attended Virtually Day #3

2010-03-15T10:15:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was Day 3 at SXSW Interactive and since I could not be there I decided to follow all the excitement virtually by reading associated hashtags for presentations that were of interest to me. I also blogged about Day 1 and Day 2.

Yesterday I followed two presentations:

1. Gmail: Behind the Scenes
2. My Life, Take Two: The Right to Delete

Gmail:Behind the Scenes (#gmailbehindscenes)

Presenters (click name to see Google Profile):
Arielle Reinstein, Product Marketing Manager Google
Braden Kowitz, User Experience for Google Ventures
Edward Ho, Technical Lead for Buzz - @Ho
Jonathan Perlow, Software Engineer for Gmail Frontend

Todd Jackson, Product Manager for Gmail and Buzz - @toddj0

The key message from this presentation was when Todd Jackson said "You can either be a shit funnel or a shit umbrella." What he meant by that in a company like google where ideas are constantly being thrown around, the product managers must manage distractions and protect the engineers from them.

Team Approach - Edward Ho, Techinical Lead for Buzz, discussed the need for meetings to be about demos and execution. Their work space for Buzz was created in an open layout so that they can bounce ideas off one another while at their workspace instead of getting up for meetings all the time.

Organic Growth - Arielle Reinstein, Product Marketing Manager, is in charge of the Gmail blog and discussed PR strategies and how organic growth has been their bread and butter in terms of getting products used by people. Most of the time they will not announce that a service is being launched because people want to start using it right away. However, they will announce when they are working on fixing issues so that users know it is being worked on.

They also discussed the feature in Labs called "undo send" which stopz messages from being sent for a few seconds after you hit send. This feature was actually debated for two years before being implemented by an engineer in Japan. I think this is a cool feature and I have used it but it should allow you to undo send up until the point before the recipient has opened it. A few seconds doesn't give you very much time to realize your mistake sometimes.

Update: Michael Yingling commented on buzz that you can not use this feature if the message was sent to a non-google server. Thx Michael for the info!

Detailed information about the presentation can be seen at William Hertling's Support 2.0 Blog: Notes from Gmail Behind the Scenes Presentation.

My Life, Take Two: The Right to Delete (#mylifetaketwo)

Presenters:
Marc Davis, Co-Founder of Invention Arts - @marcedavis
Annalee Newitz, io9.com - @AnnaleeN
Chris Conley, ACLU of Northern California (@ACLU_NorCal)
Elly Jonez, elly.org - @Le
Andrew McLaughlin

The panelists discussed the challenges in regulatory frameworks and the need to create an infrastructure for people to aggregate their own data and exchange it. Chris Conley is part of the ACLU Northern California digital privacy team. Most of the information I found online were points made by Marc Davis.

Main points made by Marc Davis:
-We are in the early phases of a digital economy/digital society where we can infer a lot about people based on bits of data they leave online. People don't realize how much data they are sharing
-Commercial entities are making a lot of money from your query searches and data entries
-Data is a form of asset - the right to delete is about privacy but also about how businesses operate in the future
- Need to create a user centric framework where you own and have rights to control the data that you produce. You would then have the ability to make money from sharing your data. Creating a user data banking exchange would foster economic growth
-Way to solve this problem will be a combination of social/technical/economical innovation

How to solve this problem now:
Step 1 - Look at how your data is being used. Check your privacy settings
Step 2 - Read the terms of service and understand what you are agreeing to

Andrew McLaughlin brought up a good point: You might have thre right to delete something if you posted the info but what about when someone else does? - This makes me think of Facebook and how frustrating it is that people can just post photos of you that you can't remove (unless you ask them kindly).

Elly Jonez talked about how it is important to be able to reinvent yourself and delete your personal info online

You can also get more information on Marc Davis' thoughts by viewing his interview with WebProNews.

Feel free to leave comments about what presentations you want me to follow today and tomorrow. I look forward to your feedback.

Not at SXSW? How I attended Virtually Day #2

2010-03-13T15:01:00.003-05:00

Today was Day 2 of SXSW Interactive and I watched what happened at three events by following the associated event hashtags. There were tons of events today and I decided to focus on three that I thought were important to share. The events I followed were The Era of Crowdsourcing: Guiding Principles, Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way we Live and Do Business and Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs.

The Era of Crowdsourcing: Guiding Principles (#eraofcrowdsourcing)

Presenters:

Scott Belsky, Founder and CEO of Behance/Action Method - @scottbelsky

Jeffrey Kalmikoff, Director of Design & UX at Digg - @jeffrey

I will keep this one short since Scott Belsky and Jeffrey Kalmikoff made it easy to attend this presentation virtually by tweeting a link to the slides.

Jeff Howe coined the term "crowdsourcing" in June 2006. For those of you not familiar with crowdsourcing, it is the "act of taking a task that is usually designated to be completed by an employee and outsourcing it to the general public in the form of an open call." Jeff is a contributing editor at Wired magazine and started his own blog about the topic called Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business. It is the practice of letting customers state their opinion and come up with ideas for your company for free. Brilliant! I have actually used crowdsourcing many times when getting ideas for blog posts. It's a great way to truly connect with your audience and find out what their interests and needs are.

Common misconception - Crowdsourcing equals access to free labor only

Example of crowdsourcing is Wikipedia or Behance. They actually used wikipedia in their slideshow to describe certain key terms.

Crowdsourcing Models must have 3 Components:

1. Must foster community by creating an incentive for conversation, learning and a sense of collaboration

2. It must tap collective wisdom - Basic idea that the whole is great than the sum of its parts

3. It must nurture participants - participants should be building relationships, resources can't be wasted and the work benefits reputation

The difference between community and crowds was also addressed to analyze the sustainability of crowdsourcing. The message was that in order for it to work, it needs to come from a community, not a crowd of people.

Crowd - Comprised of people with a common purpose, based around an event and there is interpersonal isolation. "With crowds, sourcing only exists in sprints."

Community - Conditions affect the identity of the participants and cohesiveness comes from various shared conditions and commonalities.

For more detailed information, you can look at the slideshow of The Era of Crowdsourcing.

Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way we Live and Do Business (#socialnomics)

Presenter:

Eric Qualman, Author of Socialnomics - @equalman

In this presentation, Erik Qualman discussed how social media impacts the way we live and do business on a daily basis. Pretty basic information but it's a nice summary of proper social media netiquette.

-We are going from word of mouth to world of mouth

-We don't search for news anymore, the news searches us

-Next generation wants collaboration in all aspects of their lives, in part because of the social media tools they grew up with

-Engage! That is why it is called social media not "sales" media - People need to get to know eachother, develop a relationship and then they can think about doing business with one another

-Social Media escalator is back to the basics: Listen first, interact, react, sell

-Must eliminate product redundacy

-Live your life (online) as if your mother is watching - I thiink this is a great point. Anything you say online can be found so make sure only to publish content that you believe in and are willing to have anyone see it

- Your CEO should be getting a regular social presence report

Inbound Marketing: Get Foudn using Google, Social Media and Blogs:(#inboundmarketing)

Presenters:

Brian Halligan, Co-Founder and CEO of Hubspot - @bhalligan

Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder and CTO of Hubspot - @dharmesh

First off, if you haven't already bought Brian and Dharmesh's book Inbound Marketing: Get Found by Using Google, Social Media and Blogs go buy it now. It has a forward by David Meerman Scott and explains how to strengthen your inbound marketing strategies. I am a big fan of Hubspot.com and their seminars have helped me grow efficiencies and develop great marketing plans for my clients. I also like to watch Hubspot's live webinars hosted by @mvolpe and @karenrubin on #hubspottv on Fridays at 4:00pm EST. I always learn a lot and would highly recommend watching them.

Key Points from the Presentation:

Strategy - Write a blog, not a business plan and when you post ot your blog think about SEO, titles and keywords that will be optimized for your users

Keywords - When dealing with keywords, don't pick a fight with a ninja unless you are a ninja. Settle for second place for starters and work your way up. Use the free site websitegrader.com to see where your strengths and weaknesses lie.

Polarisation works, target them - Do not get discouraged by people who dislike what you are saying. For every person that hates you online with a passion, there are a dozen that love you.

Page titles - Dharmesh said friends don't let friends make their page title "Home." - I couldn't agree more. Page titles should be optimized for target keywords. Don't get lazy with titles and meta descriptions.

They also said that "all of you (audience) has a superpower-find it and exploit it!"

Have a great Saturday and I hope you are enjoying learning more about what's going on at the SXSW Interactive festival.

Not at SXSW? How I attended Virtually Day #1

2010-03-12T19:03:00.000-05:00

I was not able to get to Austin, TX for SXSW but I have been following the events through the Twitter hashtags that are associated with each presentation. Below are the three events I watched people discuss on Twitter and the ideas that were discussed at each.

Important tip on attending these panel discussions - Get there early. There are massive lines and people are already missing out on some popular panels.

Social Media Marketing for Your Business (#socialmediamarketing)

Presenters:

Chris Weingield, President of 10e20 - @chriswinfield

Tony Adam, Director of Search Marketing for BillShrink - @tonyadam

Getting Involved:

-Locate your audience by using sites liked compete.com to see traffic and engagement metrics

-Make sure you place yourself where your audience is - You can focus on blogs, myspace, niche forums as well as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. No need to be on everything - just find out who you want to reach and where that demographic is based

-Track your company through setting up Google alerts for your company, individuals at your company, your brands/products

-Understand your ROI - Set goals and stay on track to achieve those goals

Results of Getting Involved:

-Achieve a wider audience and engage with clients and people in your industry

-Monitor your reputation

-Inbound marketing/link building

Take-away message from this presentation: Be Human

Photo from @Chriswinfield of the audience

How Your Brand Can Succeed in the New Web (#engagebrandbiz)

Presenter:
Brian Solis - @briansolis
Special Guest Panel:

Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks and an established new media blogger, headed this discussion about succeeded in the new web. He started off the presentation by actually giving out mimosas to the first 70 or so people in the audience. This also served as a book signing and discussion about his new book, Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate and Measure Success in the New Web. The book is about understanding authenticity and keeping your audience engaged. The presentation was a packed house according to some Twitterers. Here are some of tha main points he brought up:

-How you contribute to the web defines who you are - this is a good lesson for people looking for employment

-Social media is in the "summer of love" phase

- It's not what you say online as a brand, it's what people say about you

Time + Social + Location. What's Next in Mobile Experiences (#timesociallocation)

Some of the Presenters:

Naveen Selvadurai, Foursquare - @naveen

Josh Banetski, MapQuest, Inc - @quixado

Greg Cypes, AIM - @GregCypes

This presentation was about learning different ways to leverage new technology for mobile experiences and how geosocial applications have changed the way people interact and do business.

Discussion points:

Nature of Sharing - Our culture now is more about sharing than ever and anyone can provude their location for free with friends

Motivation for location based apps - Driving a sense of achievement makes people strive to interact further on social apps. The key with location apps is to make the game play interesting if you expect users to give up their information. Foursquare does this with earning badges.

Privacy concerns - Privacy concerns with were discussed as they brought up the site Pleaserobme.com. The panelists' answer to this issue is that people have been reliably been away from their houses forever - it's called a job.

Who should be in your location network - Naveen put it simple by saying "If I'm not going to sit down to dinner with you, you shouldn't be in my geosocial network."

Augmented Reality (AR) - Augmented reality will allow people to literally turn their entire life into a socially enhanced mobile platform. Chevrolet has launched the Chevy iReveal that allows you to see virtual vehicles on streets. I also recently saw a t-shirt from Swedish magazine T-post where you can wear the shirt and play an AR version of rock paper scissors. The criticism of AR was that although AR is cool, it has a long way to go since people want lists and ease of use. In general - AR received a lukeworm reception by the panel with the key problem mentioned being mediated reality=socially awkward.

Ownership of placed data - Naveen said that place data should not be owned by anyone in order to eliminate friction from the geosocial system. It should be an open domain and everyone should be able to give feedback.

Universal Check-In - The future of universal check-in is GUID's (Globally Unique Identifiers) for places.

This presentation was by far the most intense conversation going on of the three hashtags I followed today. I hope this gave you some insight on what happened today at SXSW.

Leave comments with your thoughts on the topics discussed. If I missed any topics (which is entirely possible given the depth of topics covered), please add them in the comments as well.

TechCab Confessions: Confessing Sins at SXSW to Irina Slutsky

2010-03-12T17:25:00.000-05:00

Conference goers at SXSW Interactive are making confessions to TechCab Confessions as they broadcast live from inside the cab. TechCab is in their fourth year attending SXSW and is sponsored by Intel this year (the car is a Ford Hybrid). They have partnered up with the application Cabulous to hail cabs. This reminds of me of Cash Cab, a quiz show offering passengers prize money if they can answer trivia questions correctly. TechCab Confessions is a creative way to get an inside look on people attending SXSW Interactive and what they are discussing during their cab ride.

If you give a confession, your ride is free. The driver (@Irinaslutsky) is very convincing in getting that confession before you leave the cab and is amusing to watch. Their TechCab promo for SXSW explains what they are doing in some more detail.

Irina is looking into how many viewers there are on her phone and promoting it. Probably not a great idea for driving safely. Let your co-pilot (Emily) do that work and focus on the road. Besides that, it is interesting to watch.

Here is a conversation Irina had with a passenger:

Irina: When is the first time you kissed someone?

Passenger: Danny answered "The first time I kissed a girl, I kissed three because I couldn't tell who the bottle was pointing to"

Irina: What do you do on the internet

Passenger: Katia answered "i look at things"

-Eddie, the producer, was in the cab at the same time filming with his camera.

It seems like Irina knows most of the people that she is picking up. I'm curious to see some random people people get in the cab and what their confessions may be.

The concept is good but it would be a bit more interesting to ask questions focused on SXSW Interactive, spotlighting the passengers and their company. It could be like your "elevator pitch" but you would be pitching your company/product/services to people watching the live broadcast. The confession could be work related which would add a nice twist to the conversation.

You can follow what people are saying about TechCab on Twitter at #TechCab

Have you heard some crazy confessions while watching? Feel free to share them by leaving a comment.

Jetblue's Twitter Scavenger Hunt to Celebrate their 10 Year Anniversary

2010-03-10T13:56:00.002-05:00

Jetblue is celebrating their 10 year anniversary with a social media marketing campaign that I like to call the twitter scavenger hunt. They are in Manhattan giving away free tickets to people who follow the hashtag #JB10NY and go to the locations they tweet about. The scavenger hunt part is that they make you bring a specific item to win the tickets so showing up is not enough.

Earlier today they were at Broadway and Dey Street and asked for people to bring a birthday card to win a free ticket.

This marketing campaign is pretty smart. The word is being spread all over Twitter and other social media sites and the excitement of it all is making people feel like kids again. What a fun and interactive way to celebrate JetBlue's 10 year anniversary. The only thing I would like to see is more interaction from their Twitter page during the giveaway besides location spots. Maybe an announcement of winners and photos of the crowd would be nice. (I already tweeted them the suggestion - we'll see if they do it).

dada_rocks and bnpeyton are two lucky players that already won their tickets from the Broadway & Dey St location. Congrats!

See more of the chatter going on about this topic by following #JB10NY.

Please share your comments on this giveaway? Do you think JetBlue should have chosen additional cities for this celebration? Do you think they should be posting more updates during the giveaway?

Update: Here is a picture of the crowd at 11th St and University Place where people had to wear something blue and bring an airplane related item.

TabbedOut: Using Your iPhone to Pay for Your Tab

2010-03-10T10:30:00.001-05:00

ATX Innovation, headquartered in Austin, TX, has developed a mobile application called TabbedOut which allows restaurant patrons to pay their tab with their phone. The app is currently available for the iPhone/iTouch and will be available for Androids and Blackberry phones soon according to their website. For those of you who will be at SXSW, TabbedOut will be at stand 934. They will be giving 3 free tabs to all users in Austin, TX during SXSW so make sure to check them out. The Android app will be released on March 15th which is great news for those non iPhone lovers out there (who are you?!).

There has been so much buzz about this app and unfortunately at the moment it is only available at a limited amount of venues in Austin, TX and Chico, CA. Rick Orr, CEO and Co-founder of ATX Innovation, has said that the next main locations will be Los Angeles, San Francisco/Bay Area, New York and New Jersey. I suppose these will be rolled out after SXSW but that is just a guess. I look forward to trying it out. This is definitely an emerging application to watch in 2010 as it rolls out new partnerships.

How It Works:

1. Setup TabbedOut on your phone

2. Find a location - you can find locations near you using the nearby tab

3. Open your tab - the program automatically integrates with the restaurants' point of sale system to provide your payment information and fulfill your order

4. Pay the tab - when you pay your tab, you have the ability to enter gratuity and close out your tab. You will also have the option to have a receipt emailed to you

*There is a fee of 99 cents for convenience which I think is fairly reasonable

Benefits to Patrons:

- If you are tapped out and want to get your tab, no need to wait in line at the bar or flag down your server.

- Nearby feature allows users to see what establishments support TabbedOut near them

- Receipt can be emailed to you for convenience

- Tip percentages can be calculated on the app

- Patrons can monitor their tab as orders are placed

- No more issues with people placing drinks on other people's tabs

- Creates a fun experience for patrons

- No need to pull out your credit card to pay your tab

Benefits to Merchants:

- Provides great partnership opportunities for local restaurants - as the app becomes more popular, people will want to go to places where they can use it

- Patrons monitoring their tabs as processed will decrease disputes

- Simplifies the close out process

- Venues can set up tip minimums so waiters are not "stiffed"

Pitfalls:

- Currently only available in select locations in Austin, TX and Chico, CA

- Less interaction between patrons and bartenders (yes, some people still enjoy interacting with each other)

- Security issues - what happens if someone steals your phone? Can they take your phone to a restaurant and use the app to pay their tab? People would need to make sure to place a lock on their phone if there is none on the actual app. Not sure about this but will get in touch with TabbedOut to find out.

The application is currently available at the Apple App Store.

More detailed information can be viewed at Mobile-Financial.com where they did an interview with Rick Orr, CEO & Co-Founder of ATX Innovation.

5 Common Mistakes Bloggers Should Avoid

2010-03-08T11:07:00.001-05:00

If you want to attract more followers to your blog (which I would assume you do), make sure to avoid these 4 mistakes that many bloggers make.

1. You link to your blog instead of your post - You only have a couple seconds to attract your readers attention. If they have clicked on a link you provided on a social media site, the reader is already interested in that post title. However, if they click the link and it does not lead them to the post, they will most likely click out of your blog and never get to read that article.

2. You don't create catchy post titles - The title is the most important part of your post because it is what people look at to determine whether or not they want to read your post. Make sure the headline tells the reader what they will be reading. Here are some tips on post titles:

-Use numbers: People love to know that they will get a list of items. It's an old formula for blog post titles but it tends to work if you follow it with interesting content of course

-Be controversial

-Ask questions

-Put keywords about your post in the title

You can also look at Problogger's How to Craft Post Titles that Draw Readers into your Blog for more tips.

3. Linking to other sites by using generic anchor text - I have definitely made this mistake of using the anchor text "click here" and now make a conscious effort not to do that. If you are linking to a blog or article, use the blogs' title or article title. Think about it - if you wrote a great post and someone was going to link to you in their blog, would you want them to say "click here" or would you want them to mentioned your article title or blog name?

Andy Beard talks about Linking mistakes frequently encountered on blogs at Internet Business Systems.

4. Expecting people to find your blog on their own - People will not just "find" your blog on their own. Similar to anything in life, you can't expect things to just fall into your lap. Apart from publishing compelling content, you need to comment to participate in the blogging community. Post and communicate with people on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Check out other blogs in your niche and comment on their posts. Engage in interesting conversations with people on other sites to draw them to your blog.

5. You focus on yourself too much - Do your mom and dad read your blog? Are they still the main people that log on every day to read your latest post? There may be a reason for that - if you focus too much on yourself and not the topic you are writing about, people will click away.

Mashable Uses Drop.io's PressLift

2010-03-04T12:20:00.001-05:00

Remember last week when I wrote my review of PressLift? Mashable has now joined in on the surge of multimedia focused press releases and used the site to promote their 2nd Annual MashBash at SXSWi 2010.

Link to the PressLift: http://mashable.presslift.com/the-social-media-guide

They included a map of the event location, their website info, the event info, and a link to Mashable's Austin Real Time.

As I previously mentioned, more and more companies will start using this site to feature interesting content in their press releases that they previously could not include. Now that Mashable has used the site, I can bet money that PressLift's brand recognition will increase dramatically (as well as their sales).

What do you think of Mashable's use of PressLift? Do you think they could have incorporated more multimedia or do you think it looks good as is?

Saving Search Queries on Google Buzz

2010-03-04T11:36:00.000-05:00

I have been participating in creating a Google Buzz user guide with a group of individuals from BuzzUsers.com. The blog will be launched soon but here is some useful information on searches that I have been using lately.

-Click "Buzz" in Gmail and then the search box at the top that usually says "Search Mail" becomes "Search Buzz."

Follow these steps to keep track of these search queries:

-Go to Settings, click Labs and then enable the Quick Links

-Click Buzz and type in the search query (Ex: I typed in my name: Natasha Attal)

-Go to the Quick Links box in the sidebar and click "Add Quick Link." This will add the search query as a bookmark.

This will be helpful to go back to rather than doing another buzz search. I will keep you posted on the launch of the new Buzz user guide blog.

Please leave comments if you have found this helpful.

5 Tips to Convince Your Boss to Engage in Social Media

2010-03-03T10:31:00.000-05:00

Although it's hard to believe, there are many companies that still refuse to implement social media into their marketing plan. I have done some consulting work for several companies that actually block certain sites (Facebook, Youtube, etc). They don't realize that they are basically asking their employees not to communicate and interact with clients. Since I encountered a lot of skepticism from some clients when trying to encourage them to engage in social media, I decided to write 5 simple steps to convince your boss why social media is important.

5 Tips to Convince Your Boss to Engage in Social Media:

1. Empower Your Boss with Information - it's is common knowledge that people fear what they don't know. Take it upon yourself to create a presentation or white paper with easy to follow information about the various networks you want to integrate into your company's marketing strategy. Make it clear that social media is not a supplement to a business but a necessity.

2. Provide Success Stories - Do some research and find out how established companies in your industry have successfully used social media. Examples and statistics are very helpful. Show your boss a list of Fortune 500 Companies and their involvement in Web 2.0. You can also show your boss a list of CEO's and experts in your industry that have taken part in this new age revolution.

3. Create a Social Media Strategy - Formulate a detailed social media strategy with clear objectives and an implementation plan. Do not just sign up for these sites without an idea of how you want to execute your plan and measure the effectiveness of your presence in social media. Once you do engage in social media, use Hubspot's free tool called Website Grader to track the influence of your website and social presence.

4. Low Implementation Costs - The costs of creating these sites and engaging in conversations with clients online can be relatively low. Time does cost money but the benefits from interacting with your clients and being on their radar is very important. If you are the one who wants to manage social media, you can include it in your existing job responsibilities. That way your boss would not feel the need to hire another employee.

5. Stay Connected - These sites have a wide reach and by joining you will have the opportunity to interact with existing clients (whether B2B or B2C) and attract new ones. Not only can you stay connected but you can also keep an eye on your competition and be proactive about your outreach rather than reactive. It enable your company to watch the market and track activity as it happens.

They key to convincing your boss is to make him/her understand how passionate you are about aligning the company's objectives with a social media platform. If your passion shines through, your boss will feel more apt to let you move forward.