I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be delivering a new talk about my company’s use of Social Media Marketing at the eWomen Network’s Surrey Chapter the evening of June 12th, at Coyote Creek Golf Club on 152nd St. in Surrey, BC.

The subject of my talk will be an in-depth analysis of the results of a marketing experiment that I’ve been conducting for the book Words in Action, by local Author Jeri-Lyn McCrea.

The talk is titled: “The Social Media Diet”, after a blog post I made here a while ago, which started a discussion and a number of comparisons to marketing and dieting. (Bottom line: both of them take a bit of figuring, but if you stick to it, the results can be astonishing.)

Here’s the description of the talk that is being promoted to Members: “Social Media Marketing is very trendy right now, and although we’re bombarded by a flurry of terms and tools, the mechanics of it still seem a bit fuzzy. How do you do it, and what does it really mean for you and your business? This discussion documents a live experiment that my company conducted, using SMM tools and techniques to promote a current book on our roster. What we learned was surprising, and these lessons can apply to almost any product or service.”

To make this discussion even more interactive, we’re inviting you to submit your questions about this topic in advance. I’ll address your actual questions that you submit as comments below, here on this page, during the live discussion on June 12th.

To submit a question, simply submit your question as a comment to this blog post. (Click here, or there’s a link below in the grey bar.) All comments are moderated, but they will be posted publicly here as they are approved. We also welcome general comments.

See you on June 12th!

For many years, I’ve been a subscriber to the newsletter (now turned blog) of Elliot Masie of the Masie Center, an eLearning thinktank based in Saratoga Springs, New York.

I like Masie – he’s got a clever, out-of-the-ordinary way of looking at the way people learn and communicate. Masie is a very readable writer, and he communicates complicated ideas in a simple and easily-assimilated manner. He might be a training nerd, but he does it with style.

Therefore, I was pleased today to receive the most recent edition of “LearningTRENDS“, his newsletter. His headline? Follow him on Twitter as he participates in the Harvard Kennedy School event on Presidential Leadership Competencies.

For those of you not already on board, Twitter is a handy-dandy little website that allows you to broadcast one-liners, or “headlines” of content to a a list of your subscribers. It’s another one of those things that falls into the category of Social Media Marketing. People can subscribe via email, or even on a cell phone. We’re only talking about a short string of text – messages are capped at 140 characters, so most people will stop and read it, even if they don’t have time to read your blog.

The caution here is that Twitter must be used carefully to avoid “burning”, or over-messaging your subscribers, and making them want to leave the list. It’s about serving the needs of people who have taken the trouble to sign up to hear what YOU have to say.

Masie announces, “If you would like to get a taste of RealTime blogging, I am using Twitter to send all-day-long “blog” objects: quick notes about comments from Joe Klein, David Gergen, Ken Blanchard, Rosabeth Moss Kanter and more.” He calls this “small-burst blogging”, and invites people from all over the world to listen with him on this important leadership conference.

By following him on Twitter, I received several stimulating headlines throughout the day that made me stop and think. Items like “How will you create an environment for innovation within your leadership team?” and “Evaluate your campaign as a case study in leadership — success, failure, personal learnings” can easily apply to almost any business leadership situtation.

So, I’m taking note: THIS is how Twitter should be used. To stimulate, to question, to inform, and most of all, to keep people wanting more. Masie understands the needs of his audience, and he has really maximized the use of this channel. I’ve seen some really poorly-utilized Twitter feeds, which turn into personal rants about the weather, or comments about being unable to get a taxi. What does your reader really need to hear about all day long? Industry news? Updates from a conference? Cool new products you’ve seen at a trade show? Only you know what will be of greatest benefit to your readers. So, unless you’re the weatherman, no rants about the rain.

Thanks to those who came to our little “meet the Author” night last Wednesday, May 7th, at the City of Langley Library. Jeri greeted all our visitors and directed us through a goal-setting exercise that brought out some interesting observations from all of our attendees.

Jeri was pleased to sign books for those who purchased them at the event, and we are very grateful to the Library and their energetic support. A special thanks to Ken at the coffee counter who kept us refreshed for a delightful evening.

Hope to see you at the next event!

This week, I’ve had a number of readers ask me questions that relate to blogging; setting up blogs, writers and blogging, and promoting through blogging.

In response to this, I’m preparing a short eBook that will be available shortly for download from this site, which is essentially a re-work of a class that I taught some time ago, titled “Blog Essentials for Self-Publishing Authors”.

The eBook will include information that was not in the original course, including a variety of updates and lists of resources, both free and paid. As usual, comments will focus on resources that are open-source in nature.

To be updated when this free eBook is available, please subscribe to my blog using the sign-up box at right.

I didn’t realize that when we made Words in Action – A Journal to Inspire Change available on Amazon.com, that it would also be available in so many other locations. This includes Target.com.

I realize that Amazon.com is not a high-margin way for an author to sell a book. However, it does improve your reach, and potentially also your volume.

So, speaking literally and figuratively, Words in Action is now happening on Amazon.com.

To document.

Whether we are blogging as a promotional mechanism, to help spread useful information, or simply to be heard, all of that boils down to documentation.

Bear with me a moment while I give you some background to a point I’ll make another paragraph or two down. The movie “300” (2006), the classic story of how a tiny Spartan force of 300 defeated hundreds of thousands of Persians, was popular because it’s really a timeless story. It’s about clever strategy standing a real chance against evil and pure might. About how a single event can change the course of history for the entire world. About events that happened once, and which are repeated over and over again in small ways in every culture on the planet.

Not many realize that the events in that book and movie are based almost entirely on the single surviving account, written by a fellow named Herodotus. Herodotus is often called “the first historian”, because he didn’t write poetry, or about philosophy or religion. He wrote down that which he observed, and what was told to him that had been passed down through oral tradition. He was really the only one to attempt to document this time in world history.

Here’s my point: Herodotus was the first blogger.

He sold his material in his lifetime, and it was clear that he wrote for the masses. This is evidenced by the fact that he was granted, by public vote, public money to further his work. (How far do ten talents go these days, anyway?) His posts come from as far away as Pharaonic Egypt and back up to Western Europe. He was objective, and as accurate as he could have been at the time.

Being a political upstart, he didn’t think of himself as a reporter, because he was outside the realm of (his own) traditional media. He tells fantastic, inspirational stories from real life that have wide-reaching applications. He was a lifelong advocate for freedom, including in that of his own work, and that of others. And his work spread because of viral mechanisms – not sophisticated ones, but effective nonetheless: gossip.

Any of that sounding familiar?

Herodotus clearly understood the importance of documentation. In his main life’s work “The Histories”, he travels extensively to test the accuracy of what he is told by many local peoples. The first few lines of Book One read as follows: “Herodotus of Halicarnassus here displays his inquiry, so that human achievements may not become forgotten in time, and great and marvellous deeds – some displayed by Greeks, some by barbarians – may not be without their glory; and especially to show why the two peoples fought with each other.”

Not just how, where, and over what the Greeks and Persians fought, but why. He carefully notes that he will document the deeds of non-Greeks alongside those of his own adopted people. Sounds pretty fair to me, and what I aspire to in my own blogging efforts. Just as long as I don’t have to write it in classical Greek.

Jeri-Lyn McCrea, the Author of Words in Action, has offered to fund scholarships through a partnership with Rotary. It works like this: any Rotary club worldwide can place an attractive ad banner on their website that directs people back to a custom web page, where anyone can buy the book. When a book is purchased through this link, our system calculates a payment of $5 per book for that club. Simple.

Does your Rotary club want to sign up for this program? Click here to apply. The qualifications are that your club must be able to cash a check in US dollars, and you must direct the funds back to a scholarship that meets Jeri’s specifications.

Jeri explains… “To align with Rotary values, and those of my book, this scholarship would benefit students who exemplify the characteristics of action, effort, determination, courage and dedication. Therefore, using the existing Instructor jury process already in place by many of the local Rotary clubs, the scholarship would be given to the student who displays the best consistent effort toward his or her future goals. It is not necessary for this student to achieve a high GPA. It is only necessary that this student applies their best, consistent effort.”

For more information, or to apply for a scholarship in your area, call me at 1-866-907-4084.

Let me take a moment here to throw a plug out for Zebra Logic, and Mr. Rob McCrea. Rob specializes in hard drive recovery. When you think all is lost, it isn’t. Call Rob, and he can recover stuff you didn’t even want him to. Rob claims a 97% success rate, and I believe him. He worked wonders for me lately on a recent project.
ZebraLogic.ca is based in Cloverdale, BC, Canada. Call Rob with your hard drive problems, at 1-866-MY-ZEBRA.