It’s been said among media strategists and ad executives that there are two sure bets when it comes to tracking new technology and upcoming new media trends. The first one is the Pornography industry (I’m talking facts and figures here not well…you know) “Going back to home video they’ve been the canary in the coal mine when it comes to new media,” said Jeff Katz, former Fox Executive and founder of Geek Week Online and American Original Entertainment. They were the first in home video, the first on Pay-Per View, and before Netflix, Hulu and YouTube, they were streaming video online. They were even some of the first to sell their product on Facebook and social networking sites before others saw the value. If you want to know what media trends are on the rise look at what these guys are doing. (Again, just facts and figures here. I’m not encouraging anyone to watch this stuff.)

Another completely unrelated way to see what’s coming next is to look at what kids are doing. The hard part with this, as I’ve said before, is that tracking kids was really difficult when all you had to go on was focus groups and survey calls. In the past surveyors would call a house and ask for the youngest male or female and they would get most of their information that way. I actually did that job for a while. It can be kind of fun but even when you get a kid you only have a small window to ask questions before they lose interest and even then it was hard to get anything beyond “yes, no, first choice, last choice,” out of them. But now that we have Facebook and Twitter to look at we can accurately see what they’re spending their money on and what medium they are doing it in.

Actually social media itself was largely pioneered by kids. Before Facebook there was Friendster and MySpace that was largely supported by the under 18 crowd. Before ITunes that same demo was the first to dive into the online file sharing with sites like Kaza and Napster. The most revolutionary piece of technology this decade, the IPOD, was first advertised to kids, as are the E-Book readers that are just now starting to carry ads.

Thanks to Twitter and Facebook you can see what kids are looking at and in what mediums and then act accordingly. As I’ve said, a company that uses social media wisely follows the feed from a lot of their followers. Ultimately, if you can look at these 2 groups and see what they have on the horizon as far as new media and you have the right product you can invest in it cheaper and have a foothold in their with relative ease. Companies like Hot Topic and Five Guys Burgers were some of the first to use online and viral marketing and it basically made their company what it is today. They went from one store, to a regional cult following, to a national company without having to spend the money on a national ad campaign. They did mainly by being in front of the ball as far as new media and new trends go.

marketwatch.com/story/media-advisory-forresters-consumer-forum-2010-october-28-29-2010-in-chicago-2010-09-07

womenintechnology.co.uk/news/apple-joins-social-networking-market-news-800054490

We need tools like search engines to help organize and make sense of all the data we’re producing. In order for us to make sense of all this data it means making the right stuff ‘findable’ at any given time. This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in. The search engines are doing their best to index your site’s relevant content, but there are things you can (and should) do to make sure they are successful. Search engines get better all the time, but they’re still just robots and can not reason the same as you and I. They scan your content and your markup and collect what they ‘think’ is valuable. Until some significant computing breakthrough’s occur, It’s your job to provide them with hard data that matches your concept of what the site actual is meant to embody. This will, in turn, make you more easily findable to human searchers.

SEO can be tricky. It is not comprised of a singular practice, but rather a collection of several practices that can vary from project to project. These practices carry different weight in effecting the search rankings and due to ever-changing search engine algorithms different practices can become more or less important over time.

Confused yet? What’s worse is the search engine companies don’t really even come out and tell everyone what the secret sauce is. Periodically they leak out bits of information on their algorithms, but they are closely guarded secrets for the most part.

So, what should you be doing to implement SEO into your site? Here’s a basic run down of essential techniques for Content, Markup, & Server-side SEO:

• Write copy that is naturally keyword rich (not stuffed). This means being honest. Don’t try to trick the search engines.
• Make content visible to the search engines. Currently, technologies such as Flash, Javascript, and Ajax can make content harder to index.
• Create an XML sitemap so the search engines can easily crawl and index your site. You can learn how to create one here.
• Name your files and folders in a descriptive manner. Use keywords whenever possible.
• Keep keyword density around 7-9%. Anymore than that is not going to have a natural tone and you could get penalized by the search engined for going too much over that. Several free online tools exist.
• Abundance of inbound/outbound links affect your page ranking. Search engines like sites that promote linking.
• Follow all best practices and web standards when marking up your pages. This will help ensure that the search engines don’t have trouble indexing your site and give your content hierarchy. Search engines take this into account when they run their algorithms. Head tags (<h1>, <h2>, <h3>…) are a good example of this.
• Make the most of your <title> tag. It weighs heavily in determining ranking. Keep it under 12 words (70 characters) and remember to keep the language natural. Don’t just stuff keywords in.
• Keep URLs clean and meaningful with keywords in them if possible
• META description tag – Like the Page title tag, it also weight heavily on the search results rankings. Utilize this tag for every page in your site if possible. Try to keep it to around 150 characters. It can be longer, but most search engine result pages will truncate your copy if it is.
• Anchor tags – The text labels for links are perceived as one of the most critical places to position relevant keywords.
• Alt tags. These help make content such as images visible to the robots. Using them is a standard accessibility practice as well.

Of course there are many more techniques you may want to consider depending on your goals and the site you are trying to optimize. As mentioned above, search algorithms change and sites like Google frequently experiment with ways to improve and keep up with the landscape of the web. Various content types such as images,video, and real-time data are starting to play a larger roll in how search results pages are populated and new ways of indexing this data are always emerging. At a certain point you may want to consider seeking the services of a professional if your site is complex or has some cutting edge features. At the very least, try and be pro-active in learning about the basics of SEO and keeping an ear to the ground concerning changes within the field.

Further reading:

Ambient Findability: by Peter Morville

Building Findable Websites: by Aaron Walter

Don’t worry, if you’re like me and listen on repeat to Ke$ha’s ‘Animal’ album on your MP3 player — No?

Okay, well there’s still wiggle room here for us to relate. Let’s try this:

If you’re like me and underground dining doesn’t immediately make you say aloud, “Oh, yes. Underground dining. That’s that thing I do quite often,” then follow me, dear friends, as we tunnel on a journey beneath the surface to a world where food is hidden and secrets are brewed like a witch playing a game of Clue — No?

So you haven’t heard of underground dining but you’re pretty sure it’s nothing like the aforementioned scenario? Okay, then. Let’s try this:

How about an example?

How about, let’s say, Christine Cikowski, founder of Sunday Dinner Club.

Does this work? Good.

Dear friends, please don’t turn too green when I tell you that I had the privilege of meeting Christine and team while baking their specialty granola bars. But before we venture into that area, let me introduce you to Christine.

She’s a young chef already with a lot under her belt. I mean, she knows Stephanie Izard, winner of Top Chef Season 4, which, if you’re like me, a reality TV fanatic — No? Back to Christine. Christine and business partner, Josh Kulp, began their Sunday Dinner Club as way to showcase their own foods and create community outside of the restaurant environment on their only day off, which was, drum roll: Sunday. To be invited to a Sunday Dinner Club at Christine’s own home, you have to be referred by someone that’s been to the Sunday Dinner Club. In that way, it became an exclusive club of 5,000 friends over that last five years.

Christine made a point to me — if you want to know what underground dining is, I’m about to tell you! — that chefs go into underground, or secret, dining for various reasons. Some chefs truly want just that. They are double agent chefs who work in restaurants during the week and run stealthy, undercover (and delicious) operations as soon as the weekend breaks. Part of the secrecy is about staying out of the eyes of authorities and all that licensing stuff.

For Christine and Josh, the motives were less about being more secretive, and more about the idea of community:

“Feelings are involved when you think of Sunday family dinner. At Sunday Dinner Club, the food is served by chefs and explained by chefs who want people to appreciate food that was made my somebody for them. The experience becomes something bigger than us. We provide the food, and everything else is organic.”

A meal at the Sunday Dinner Club will give you a different dining experience, a personal one that you don’t necessarily get in restaurants. Unless you’re like me and find Chipotle incredibly hospitable — No?

Fine. Unlike the Chipotle menu, Christine and Josh change their menu based on the seasons. They cook with the current, not against it, and use the best foods of the season to inspire them.

Now, back to those granola bars — Yes?!

You must try to get your hands on one of these delicious homemade wonders. The second aspect of Christine and Josh’s business is Eat Green Foods, a line of foods made from all things local and sustainable from ingredients to packaging to economy. In fact, Christine gave me two bars to taste, and I even ate them locally– about a block away from the kitchen the Eat Green Foods team was working in. You can find these energy-bearing delicacies in Chicago at around thirty different cafes and Whole Foods.

Christine and Josh have been savvy business people. With a specialty business like theirs, they have found ways around the quirks. They depend heavily on their iPhones, link their calendars and even video chat to keep in contact with one another throughout the day since they don’t have a common office.

Plus, they have fans. Fans who frequent their dinner club and fans on Facebook. They use social media, Facebook and Twitter, to keep their customers up-to-date about where the next batch of granola bars might show up and what they’re making for Sunday Dinner. Christine noted that while it’s great to keep their customers in the know, you still have to be referred by somebody to make a reservation in Christine’s home for a Sunday Dinner. In that sense, there are boundaries to social media. But, hint, hint, friends:

You can find the Eat Green Foods folks at Chicago’s Green City Market selling delicious burgers. And, if you’re like me, you can introduce yourself to them and prove you’re just another completely normal person who loves Ke$ha– No?

Well, maybe you’ll give a better impression.

Until, then, if you want to keep digging up information on Christine’s take on underground dining, get in touch with them on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chicago-IL/Sunday-Dinner/81886479911?v=wall&ref=ts) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/SundayDinnerChi) and sign up for their newsletter!

One of the pitfalls of advertising on E-Book readers is that it’s still a very new medium.   Putting advertising on them would be like putting trailers and Coco-Cola commercials on a movie in 1910 (The first commercial trailer shown during a movie was in 1914 and it was made by Charlie Chaplin himself.  It would be another 20 years before they started showing commercials for products during movies.  This means E-Book reader advertising should be common by the year 2035) It was an unproven medium back then and they only really got advertising when it became a little more stable.  The internet never had that problem and they had advertisers from the word go, some say to their detriment.  If E-Book Reader developers can’t come up with an industry standard for advertising quickly they may find themselves in the position the internet was in the late 90s with massive IPO busts.

Another reason advertising on E-Book Readers might be a bad idea right now is that whom exactly it’s geared toward isn’t exactly clear.  It seems with each new iteration the core audience they shoot for is getting younger and younger.  They even have displays in Barnes and Noble and Borders where you can get your pink E-Book Reader covers bedazzled.  But I really don’t think kids are going to spend hundreds of dollars on a device just to help them read more books, on the other end sometimes the older audience is turned off by having to read off a computer screen.  They’re going to have to go through some evolution before they develop a core audience.

Of course there are reasons why it might not be a bad idea.  For one thing it’s definitely not a crowded medium so it’s cheap and you don’t have to worry about being forgotten in a pile of other ads.  And, while you can’t be sure what age group you are dealing with, you can be reasonably sure you’re dealing with someone with a good amount of disposable income.  This could make E-Book Readers a good place to advertise hotels or a vacation destination.  Even an airline with a cross promotion saying you get a new book with your flight might be a good idea.

As I’ve said in a previous article on this site, Amazon’s success can be directly attributed to foreseeing the rise of Google and search engine optimization.  They put money into Google and were already one of there top sites when it skyrocketed.  If you get your advertising embedded in just the right way with this stuff and it does blow up even more you could be in a great position without having to pour tones of money and time in it.

The bottom line is if you don’t mind the fact that you’re sinking your advertising dollars into a medium that could very well change on a dime you can have a lot of success.  If you want to reach high end customers and don’t mind being somewhat blind as far as demographics goes you might want to look into this.  But there are still lots of unanswered questions and there is precedent against going into a new medium before it has a chance to mature.

bnet.com/blog/technology-business/look-out-amazon-and-apple-barnes-noble-has-7-steps-to-e-rule

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704554104575435243350910792

helium.com/items/1902128-tips-for-promoting-your-website-for-free

To put it plainly, twitter was tailor made to advertise to kids. Hot Topic started out as a small cult boutique store and has ballooned into something huge; one of the major reasons is because they know how to use Twitter to build a community for kids and tweens. They know that they want to see funny pictures and videos (What other corporate owned twitter is going to post a picture of a gorilla playing a Gameboy?) and they want to play games and win prizes. On top of that they use Twitter to share the latest music and fads that are coming to there store. They promote autograph signings and other events so that their audience knows what they have coming out. They have built themselves up as an indispensable resource for an audience that wants to stay on top of the latest trending topics.

Another page that is good with kids is Six Flags. One thing that a lot of old Advertising professionals fail to realize is that kids are exposed to the latest tech from a very young age so they know how to do things like upload photos practically from the age of 5. Six Flags takes advantage of this by collecting fan pictures and building a collection of fan made advertising material made by kids for kids through their twitter presence. They’re always encouraging followers to upload “Twitpics,” and holding contests based around the best pictures. The more pictures they get the more online content they have, and the more followers they have, which in turn gets them more pictures. It’s a virtual circle of ever increasing ad revenue. A lot of companies are seeing the value in this and I know a few companies that have someone managing fan uploaded pictures and videos fulltime. That’s definitely an undervalued area of online advertising. Online Pictures and Video are like gold in search engine optimization.

The Field Museum sees the value of getting younger kids interested in their group. After all if kids control one thing it’s what the family does on a sunny Saturday afternoon. They know if they can get kids interested the parents are going to jump at the chance to take them to a museum. They have interesting facts, contests and news about the latest promotions and events; all designed to hold the attention of the most finicky youngster.

The major challenge of advertising to kids on Twitter is that you are as far away from the purse strings as possible, your message has to grab their attention and, not only do you have to be their first choice, you have to have a message that makes parents want to spend money too. It’s like being a salesmen and giving your sales presentation to a secretary, It can be a great presentation but if it isn’t strong enough for it to translate again when they tell the person with the money about it you aren’t getting the sale. It’s a challenge but if you can do it all in 140 characters you have a tremendous upside.

It can be really hard to get demographic tracking on kids. Really the only way to track them is to look at women over 35 because that’s usually where mothers who spend money on behalf of their kids are. With Twitter you can get a good grasp on what the younger demographic is thinking and what their spending habits are just by asking questions. Remember, Twitter is just as useful as a focus group as it is as an advertising medium and companies that use twitter wisely talk to, and follow, their fans.

indyposted.com/36817/top-10-companies-using-twitter-effectively

www.clickz.com/clickz/news/1727218/twitter-hires-first-ad-sales-executives

www.mycustomer.com/topic/marketing/regulations-rights-and-wrongs-social-media-marketing/111559

It might sound creepy but the programs that search engines send to your website are called spiders. They sound worse than they are; essentially a search engine sends out spiders through links such as Facebook, Twitter, and other well-known sites. This is why; first and foremost, a social media presence is essential in today’s marketplace. It’s the main way search engines like Google know you exist. Spiders travel through links. Once they find a site, they catalogue the text, videos, and links so when someone searches specific keywords or looks for certain sites, they find you. Knowing how search engines work is the first step in using demographic research for SEO and keyword optimization.

If you try keyword optimization without demographic research you’re basically trying to catch a whale with a fishing pole. There’s really no way you can get every necessary keyword without knowing what kind of fan base you have. You may find your restaurant isn’t getting a lot of the “spring break crowed.” Perhaps that particular demographic isn’t searching for “family restaurants,” or “kids menu,” phrases that are plastered all over your website. Including words like “drink special” might bring in more of the “spring break crowd.” Spider programs are great because they follow you and change in accordance with your site. Therefore, you can change your keywords, as your demographic research dictates, on a regular basis. This is especially advantageous if you have a seasonal business like a hotel, bar, or tourist attraction.

It isn’t a matter of cramming the word “sale” into your site. Search engine programs are made to look for titles and headlines more than long form text. In fact, if you try too hard to include general keywords, you run the risk of turning people off and having your site reported as spam.

Using headlines for keyword advertising is the best bet that the SEO programs, used by search engines, recognize your site for what you want. Another great way to get more bang for your SEO buck is using links. This is another way your demo research can pay off. If you know the groups you need to reach, or are lagging in, you can tailor your links to those. Post a funny and relevant YouTube video on your site that appeals to your target audience. You can also post site reviews and links to sites that your focus demographic frequents. I’m sure there’s someone in your office who would love to look for intriguing YouTube videos for your site.

One SEO experience, I gained working for an agency, involved writing landing pages for a few community colleges. I was given extensive notes on SEO and the kinds of keywords the customer base looked for. I used headlines displaying strings like “New Career,” and “Financial Aid.” Research studies found that people looking for a community college commonly searched using these headline phrases . Using demographic research and implementing it in SEO ultimately proved very effective. The great thing about keyword advertising is that it cost the same no matter how much you do. As long as you conduct your research and use keywords strategically, you can be on your way to the top of the Google search list.

searchengineland.com/how-to-target-your-seo-landing-pages-demographic-profile-30988

blog.dropshipaccess.com/bid/34581/5-Reasons-Why-Your-Social-Media-Marketing-Isn-t-Working

techjournalsouth.com/2010/07/five-easy-inexpensive-ways-to-add-seo-new-media-to-your-pr/

Artists are constantly strung to their work while simultaneously (and rather obsessively) focused on all possible creative endeavors. The driving force behind great arts seems to be this OCD quality and need for creative perfection.  Artists, as well as designers have an extreme case of extroverted intuition. A constant need to observe, interpret, and make. This is with cost, the artist will become a loner, not nearly as social. A tremendous interpersonal frustration forms. The individual artists needs social context, and are driven away from this need by the creative pursuit. What is this individual to do?

Creative thinkers are now imbued with endless social possibilities online. Personal links and networks across continents can form, all while the artists is scudded away in the confines of his dark studio. Essentially, web social media has given artists a modern day form of communication (a movement in a sense). Sites like core77.com have brought thousands of artists/designers together in one spot. Issues in design are brought to the masses and discussed through forums and blogs. Individual and company portfolios are laid out for all to see. These web communities merely reflect creative group-think persona that has been around for ages. Artists are provided with an outlet to observe as well as a path to communicate.

Since the cavemen, artists have reached out to each other (a need driven by their lack of social context). It seems as though every great creative period involved major communities of artist. Grand masters of the renaissance period collaborated with peers and students. Salvador Dali amongst other great painters intermingled during the surrealist movement. Artists worked with each other in studios, some even lived together. This is really no different today save for that creative communication has been optimized through the Internet.

I find it rather odd when individuals detest the advantages of web media. I hear stuff like “Twitter and Facebook are destroying our privacy.” The truth, is that web media is just a more fantastic tool by which people can communicate, especially for those creative types. No longer are people of similar interest confined to groups within a small geographical range. The “isolated artist,” has web media to provide that that potent outlet for social context. Old habits are treated with a new means solution.

Me: “That’s great! Online advertising is the best way to reach a huge customer base.  So, Imaginary Restaurant Manager, who do you want to advertise too?”

Manager: “How can I reach everybody?”

Mr. Imaginary Restaurant Manager might seem crazy but for his business he actually has the right idea.  He should be diversifying his marketing strategy.  One of the biggest challenges I face when meeting new clients is to get them to think about the demographics they want to reach.  I worked for a movie theater promoting a local midnight film festival.  They spent lots of money on newspaper ads and a large display at a local county fair.  While they might catch some eyes, the odds are those aren’t going to catch the audience going to the movies at midnight.  If they had done a little more market research they could have used their ad budget in much smarter ways.

So what does Mr. Restaurant Manager do when he wants to successfully go after a diverse market?  If you can afford it, focus grouping is a great way to see if things are working.  If you don’t want to shell out the cash, social media can be a great tool.  You can use Twitter, and Facebook to get people to take online surveys and even do some in house surveying of customers.  If you can get a broad spectrum of people to take the survey you can compile the data into the standard 4 quads, Woman under 35, Woman over 35, Men over 35, Men under 35.  This is how advertising agencies and focus group managers see you.

C compile your data into these quads and look at a few basic questions. For restaurants and hotels it’s “Would you recommend this establishment,” and “Would this be a first choice to go in the future.  For retail it might be, “Is this place your first choice to go for (insert product).”  Look at 100 people, 25 in each quad, and take a look at that big question.   That’s the bottom line that advertising people look at when they decide how to change their ad strategy.

Your main goal is to reach double digits in the “first choice” question.   If you have successful 4 quad advertising the odds are you are doing pretty well in your business but that’s a difficult thing to accomplish.   (Neither the NFL or NBA have double digits in all 4 quads.  The only sport to do it is major league baseball.)  Double digits in all four quads means your advertising is working.

The most likely scenario is that one or two of your quads can are a little bit lower than the others.  If you are a restaurant and Women over 35 is low you might want to gear your advertising to represent your place as a family restaurant since that demographic is also where you get a good idea of what kids are seeing.  (Kids are notoriously difficult to track considering they are spending through their parents and don’t usually have great internet access)  If you are lacking the Women under 35 range then you could try some ads that show how your place would be great for a “Girls Night Out.”  Advertise some drink specials on Facebook or Twitter.

On the other side if you find yourself lacking in the men under 35 demo you may want to show less ads about families and children and start advertising your place as a little more hip.  You could start a funny video contest on Facebook and YouTube for example.  If you have trouble getting the Over 35 guys you could try showing that your place has a traditional feel.  That’s when you try some newspaper ads, and maybe some radio.  It’s all about picking the right medium and the right audience for your message.

Former New Line Cinema executive and current online publisher Jeff Kats (www.geekweeklive.com) said, “All this tracking data is the biggest tool an advertising exec has and is what they use to figure out what needs to be changed.”  Thanks to social media and the internet you can now have this data in the palm of your hands and adjust your advertising accordingly.  All it takes is 100 survey takers, 25 in each quad, for you to take your advertising to the next level.

www.foodservicewarehouse.com/education/restaurant-marketing/demographics

gossmark.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-take-on-restaurant-demographics

findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3190/is_41_39/ai_n15727597/

Perhaps Starbucks enlisted me at too early an age with Grande Caramel Macchiatos and its many variations. How could I even compare leaf-flavored hot water to a caramel chocolaty caffeinated shake that my mom somehow allowed me to drink before school?

In the last year, though, I’ve voyaged out to discover what the big deal was, why my dad, who remembers nobody’s name remembers Earl Grey’s when he’s sick, why my roommate always makes a cup of chamomile before bed, why the English dedicate a whole time in their day to the brew.

Enter: Sarah Rose. Author of the new release For All The Tea in China.

It’s kind of strange how things work out. One day a weird girl is weirdly wondering about why people don’t find tea that weird, the next, she’s interviewing the author of a book about the history of tea!

Rose’s For All the Tea in China is a nonfiction book that reads like a fictional page-turner. As you travel with Robert Fortune on his journey through China to steal the recipe for the beloved beverage, you realize that putting some dried leafy stuff in hot water is a perfected, ancient art. There was a time when tea made the world go round. It influenced foreign policy, and it catapulted men into adventures into the unknown. You could say that tea is drink that launched a thousand ships…or one man, Robert Fortune, with the tenacity of a thousand ships to bring tea under British power.

I got to interview Sarah Rose, a native of Chicago, about For All the Tea in China. Here’s what she had to say:

1. How many cups of tea did you drink while writing “For All The Tea in China?” Or, oh no. Are you a coffee drinker?

For about 2 years in the middle of the book, I couldn’t touch the stuff. I would look at a cup of tea and shudder. I got over it. Now I love tea again. (and no, I’m not a coffee drinker)

2. I follow you now on Twitter. You Tweet a good amount of clever and fun 140 or less characters. As a writer and published author, why did you join Twitter? Does Twitter and other forms of new media “do” anything for the modern writer?

I joined for mercenary reasons, I thought Twitter might be a good avenue to promote FOR ALL THE TEA IN CHINA. There is a pretty active tea community on Twitter. But once I got on, I was hooked. Twitter is a running diary of randomness, a way of keeping up with the world, with tea, and with friends.

3. You recently Tweeted: “Am excited possible new gig will include mag content for iPad – cool new world for #writers” What is your “new gig,” and what do you see the iPad and similar technology has in store for writers.

Since it’s still in the realm of the possible – not the confirmed – I can’t say more yet. But it’s just so easy to buy things on the iPad, I think there’s real hope for the written word there. Not as much because of the multimedia capacity – though that’s awesome – but because it’s the easiest way in the world to spend very little money quickly. And I’d really like to see magazines and books survive so I’ll hope for magic.

4. As a Chicago-based blog, and being a Chicago native myself, I have to ask: Does being a Chicagoan influence your writing or your inspiration?

Being a Chicagoan influences everything I do. First of all, it is the greatest city on the planet. I feel overwhelmingly lucky to have grown up in a place that boasts a deep pool of talent with very little bullshit. It’s a good place to become good at things, no one is watching you fail. No one cares. Then you move to the East Coast and everyone thinks you’re so talented and normal.

5. For All the Tea in China narrates mostly the adventures of Robert Fortune and his escapades to bring Chinese tea to the English masses. Do you see Fortune as a hero or a thief? You explored China, too. While writing your book did you ever feel a kinship to Fortune? Like you were both searching for something in China?

Fortune and I were in a struggle with each other. I would sit down at my computer thinking, ok, Bob, you and me, we’re in this together, can we please make a page work today? His Victorian arrogance frustrated me, but I also couldn’t help but admire his pluck, his swashbuckling improvisation. He spent three years in China, a stranger in a strange land, in the name of science and commerce. My first experiences in China were much less glamorous – I was a backpacker right out of college and Hong Kong is where I went broke, so I got a job and stayed. Returning for the book, I had a mission: to find what was left of pre-nationalist, pre-communist China, to see if there was anything old left in the most rapidly modernizing place on earth.

Was he a thief? In modern eyes, most certainly yes. At the time there was no sense that botanical products could obtain any kind of intellectual property protection whatsoever. There was no intellectual property. But he knew what he was doing was illegal, that the laws of China expressly forbid his presence there.

6. You say writing For All the Tea in China took five “grueling” years. Why so grueling? And for the sake of our tech buffs out there, what word processing did you use?

Grueling isn’t the half of it. Five abusive years. Five miserable years. Five years of degradation, abject poverty, frustration, humiliation. Publishing is a ridiculous business. No one with self esteem should ever write a book.

For the tech buffs, I used word 2002, I think. Someday I’ll need a fancier version, but see poverty above.

7. I heard through the grapevine, aka Twitter, that you recorded your voice for the For All the Tea in China audio book. What was that experience like? Have you listened to the final product? Have you used any other new methods to market your book?

I did record the audio! We just won some fancy awards for it – from Library Journal and AudioFile (Phile?). It was probably the very last time I’ll ever read For All the Tea in China, so it was kind of touching. And it was isolating, I was alone in a booth every day for a week. Just me and the product of all this labor. But I’m so happy I got the chance to do it – I actually had to audition to read my own book.

I would do anything to sell this book. A writer needs readers. If I thought it would help to bake cookies for every single person who sent me a bookstore receipt proving they bought the thing, I would. It has always been my hope that tea shops would pick it up, what the industry calls “non-traditional retail sales”. Michael Harney, of Harney and Sons, sells it. But it’s too disappointing to walk into tea shops in every city asking for it and only finding “Three Cups of Tea”

8. I understand your research came from mostly Fortune’s journals. What other methods did you use for your incredible research? What role did the Internet play in your research?

I made several trips to the British Library in London, where the remainders of the East India Company documents are kept. It’s a wonderful place and I had a mad crush on the brain of their China expert. The Company documents provided a good check on Fortune’s personal memoirs, I could confirm where he was when and what he was doing. I also spent a lot of time flying home to the Regenstein Library – my mother still lived in Chicago then. It’s the greatest open stack library on the planet, a tremendous resource, the entire world should bow down before the Regenstein and kiss what used to be Stagg field. (beware the radiation)

The internet was more helpful in the last years than it was in the beginning. When I began this project, I stood in the basement of Regenstein xeroxing all of Fortune’s books because they were only for sale for $145 by some rare academic press that made its money gouging libraries. Now everything is available on Google Books – I can download Fortune to my eReader. Oh, brave new world.

9. I left your book with a much deeper respect for botany and tea. The time and science that goes into each. What would you say was the most important thing you took with you after writing this book?

I, too, fell for the botanists in a big way. I’ve come to think of them in the same way I think of the guys at Xerox Parc in the 70s, the geeks who paved the way to a technological revolution. Nothing was ever the same again.

And personally, I have developed a healthy wariness of book writing. When I proposed this book, I was young and green, hopeful and optimistic. Now I am old and wizened and feel every mile, every disappointment . So really the most important thing I’ve learned is how truly special books are as a form. For two or three nights, or over the course of an airplane ride, some stranger engages with a project from my pen. I command their attention. They imagine my thoughts and follow my story. And people actually like it! I get letters. There is no magazine story that powerful – well, none that I’m likely to write, anyway. I’m still not certain writing books is worth all the pain – but the reward is profound.

10. What do you see for yourself in the future?

Someday I’ll write another book. I’m still feeling pretty bruised. Every time I talk about a new project, it ends up sounding like I’m describing weight lifting.

So for the moment I’ve had a great year travel writing for various magazines. It’s even more financially ruinous than writing books, but the immediate perks are better.

I need to earn a living. So I’ve been thinking about getting a real job. You know, one of those plentiful, rewarding, glamorous writing jobs.

For All the Tea in China can be found in a bookstore near you, or online.

(http://www.amazon.com/All-Tea-China-England-Favorite/dp/1400165377)

Or download a copy to your Kindl.

Follow Sarah Rose on Twitter: @TheSarahRose

These days it’s a necessity for car dealers to have a presence online especially on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Automobile advertisers need a medium where they can market event sales, show pictures, show feedback and customer testimonials easily, make announcements and keep track of their customer base, all things that Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter were built for.

I once worked with an auto dealer regarding their internet advertising and they have a thriving YouTube channel that is still going strong today. (youtube.com/user/TomSparksBuick) With YouTube you can post videos of your sales staff so people know exactly who they are dealing with before they even step foot on the lot. You can build a relationship and make yourself look trustworthy. Of course with big ticket retail a trustworthy relationship is like solid gold. YouTube can help you build that relationship quickly. The biggest thing we implemented was the customer review videos. You can do this with just a video camera and a few minutes with a satisfied customer. You can either tell people how trustworthy you are or you can show them. The latter is clearly the more effective way – and YouTube makes it just as easy.

If YouTube is a great way to show off your sterling reputation and spotless feedback record, then Twitter is your ticket to make sure you become their source for news on their favorite brands. Take Gary Lang Auto for example. They’ve used their Twitter to tell their followers all about when the latest cars are coming in and what they have coming up down the road as far as new products and events – and they have 1600 fans who use them as a resource. People are most likely to go back to big ticket retailers if they have demonstrated value in some way and that’s the best way to use Twitter if you’re in that category. It can also be a great way to live-blog your events and sales to drum up interest similar to what some music festivals and conventions do.

There are a lot of auto dealers who understand the value of Facebook. Gartner Hyundai in Aurora Illinois built a pretty good following. They have a good amount of fan interaction, which as I’ve said before is a great sign your social media advertising is working. It’s updated regularly with links and interesting discussion topics. They attract followers by holding Facebook exclusive contests, answering consumer questions on their page, and showing them new product pictures to get them interested. Another great feature in Facebook that more auto dealers and big ticket retailers could take advantage of is the ‘event’ page. You can use them to drum up interest in your holiday sales and tradeshows you’re sponsoring. The more pages you have the more chance you are going to catch someone’s eye. As long as you make sure to tie it all together at least.

As with everything one of the keys to having a social media presence is tying it all together. Tom Sparks’s great YouTube presence doesn’t do them much good if they don’t direct people there from the website, show them were they can ask questions on Facebook, get news on YouTube, or show it off in their advertising materials. Just in the last week, I had a freelance client that I was trying to encourage to do just the things on these pages. They don’t take a lot of time and ultimately will help your business, especially with big ticket items like cars it can really lead to a great windfall.

www.topdealerseo.com/7-benefits-for-car-dealers-using-twitter

www.goso.com/blog/2009/10/social-media-best-practices-for-auto-dealers/

www.pressdistribution.net/14896/tips-car-cars-sales-online-searching