The ploy worked. Not only did it get past the censors, but it’s gone viral in China, gaining 44,000 retweets and 5400 comments.
We are a clever species. There’s always a way to communicate, no matter how hard the shoe of oppression squeezes down. I did some work on a WWII memoir written by a German civilian mom, and her focus was on the jokes ordinary Germans told to demonstrate their opposition to Hitler without getting killed or even in trouble (most of the time).
Wish some of MY articles would get 44,000 retweets! <wink>
Thanks to Daniel Lieberman, @damfino11, for passing the link.
Whereas outbound marketing often provided consumers with fantasies (think of Budweiser commercials or luxury car ads,) inbound marketing provides consumers with facts. People aren’t researching and gathering information on what fantasy a company is trying to sell them on, they are researching the efficacy of their products, and (with ever-growing regularity) the social and environmental policies of specific brands.
If you’ve followed me for a while, you know that I’m a huge believer in pull marketing, in putting the consumer in the driver’s seat to actively seek out solutions and find you. All the way back in 1985, when I published my first marketing book, I talked about effective Yellow Pages presence. Yellow Pages was the web browser of its time, a way to seek out and compare all the providers of a service and make a decision based on who could serve you best. By the time I did my most recent (sixth) marketing book, the award-winning and category-best-selling Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green, I devoted significant space to inbound/pull strategies, from social media to Internet discussion groups. This kind of marketing is not at all intrusive; in fact, it’s welcomed.
But the insight that the reason it works so well is that it’s based in fact rather than fantasy is something I’ve never articulated. And I find it particularly interesting because the common marketing wisdom is that emotions do the selling, and intellect serves only to justify the purchase to others. I’ve never believed that; I have said for years that the best selling uses both emotion and rationality, complementing each other. To put it another way, selling is much easier when the buyer has both the need and the desire. Either one by itself is rarely enough to close a purchase.
By coincidence, I’m reading a book right now that says businesses don’t need to advertise—but it makes a huge exception for directory listings (including Yellow Pages and search engine ads). I was having trouble with that differentiation, until I read this article. Now I finally understand what the authors are getting at: advertising = fantasy, while listings = fact.
I’m not sure I agree, but at least now I see where they’re coming from.
What do you think—and feel—about this? Please share below.
Nina Amir and I have known each other online for a few years now; we finally got to meet at the BEA Bloggers conference last week in New York. But I had the post scheduled long before then, as part of Nina’s blog tour. It’s alo an example of the kind of great material you’ll find in the upcoming series of e-books I intend to pubish as part of a series called Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers.
Yes, I already have a single-volume book by that name. But as I’ve been updating and revising for the new edition, I decided it was a bit overwhelming to be just one book; there’s so much good new cool stuff on book marketing nowadays.
Nina’s expertise is blog-to-book—and interestingly both keynote talks at the BEA Bloggers day were from bloggers who had published books. And with that, I give her the floor.
—Shel
How to Write and Promote Your Book One Post at a Time By Nina Amir
If you want to create an author’s platform, a fan base, a tribe, a community, even a movement around your book, or around the idea upon which your book is based, the most effective or inexpensive tool you can use to achieve this goal is a blog. And if you want promote that book or idea from the moment you write the first word of your manuscript, you can do this quickly and efficiently by blogging your book. Simply write, publish and promote your book one post at a time on the Internet.
With a blogged book you write your book from scratch in post-sized bits and publish them in cyberspace. In the process, you promote your work and develop a fan base for your book (and for yourself).
To blog a book and create both a successful book, one that sells later to readers and to publishers (if you desire), and successful blog, one with a large or growing blog readership, follow these eight steps.
Choose your book topic carefully. Make sure the topic you plan to write interests you and interests a lot of other people but also is one about which you feel passionate.
Evaluate your book’s success potential. See your book through the eyes of an acquisitions editor. To do this, go through each section of a book proposal and accumulate the necessary information as an evaluation process.
Angle your topic: Consider if you need to angle your book differently to make it unique in both the book store and the blogosphere.
Create a content plan. A table of contents works for nonfiction. For fiction or memoir, map out your story arc or create a timeline. Include material that will not appear on your blog.
Write your book in post-sized bits. Blog posts are short–250-500. Break your nonfiction chapters into many subheadings or sections. For fiction or memoir, divide your story arc and time line into vignettes or scenes.
Blog 2-7 times per week. Write a short bit of your book (a post) in a word processing program to create a manuscript. Then copy and paste this into your blogging program, and publish it.
Share your posts on social networks. Include a link to your most recent blog post in your status updates on your social networks.
Edit your manuscript. Take the time to revise the first draft you created, and hire a professional editor to give it a final polish.
If your blog and book stem from your sense of passion and purpose, you have the opportunity to build something larger than a blog community. You can create a movement—inspire people not only to gather around your blog and buy your book but to go out into the world and take action. In this way, your fans promote for you by sharing your blog posts and by taking on your cause.
About the Author
Nina Amir, Inspiration-to-Creation Coach, inspires people to combine their purpose and passion so they Achieve More Inspired Results. She motivates both writers and non-writers to create publishable and published products, careers as authors and to achieve their goals and fulfill their purpose. She blogged her book, How to Blog a Book, Write, Publish and Promote Your Work One Post at a Time (Writer’s Digest Books), in five months. Find out more about her at www.ninaamir.com or www.copywrightcommunications.com.
A blogger on Sustainable Business, Marc Stoiber, wonders why a major sustainability milestone achieved by Translink, the Vancouver, British Colombia transit system, went almost unnoticed by local and national media.
The funny thing is…transit systems control their own media, one that reaches the two most important audiences they have. If I were the company’s marketing director, I’d put inside placards on the front and back of both sides of every bus and subway (four signs in each car) to reach the actual riders—and exterior signage to reach the next-most-important constituency: Vancouver-area residents not yet using public transit.
The interior placards would not just brag about the accomplishment—they’d say thank you to the riders for their part. And those exterior signs would recruit new riders to join the tribe, e.g., “become part of the greenest commute in North America.” And I’d supplement this with a nice social media campaign, which itself could be a subject for exciting press releases, etc.
Then, the local media and perhaps the national media would almost certainly pick up the story—but even if they didn’t, the message would be out there, and if done right, ridership would grow.
Stoiber goes on to discuss the very creative marketing of another transit advocate, Jason Roberts—who put up a website for the a nonexistent light-rail transit line in Dallas, Texas called the Oak Cliff Transit Authority—and was able to organize so effectively around this public vision that the project actually got funded! You might call Roberts’ story “If You Dream It, They Will Come—IF You’re a Marketer and Organizer Who Can Create and Gather a Tribe.”
Vancouver Transit execs: I’d love to consult with you on how to build big awareness. I already have one Vancouver-based green company as a client.
I’m writing this on Sunday, immediately after posing my question to you, and posting it on Tuesday, as promised. Hopefully a few of you have added your wisdom. And here’s what I think:
1. Chris Brogan is spot on when he says you don’t achieve greatness by following the existing paradigm. You conceive the ultimate goal—hopefully something big and bold—and then engineer a path from today’s world to that goal.
Examples:
Steve Jobs envisioning a “computer for the rest of us,” or a whole music library that fits in a shirt pocket
2. A number of lessons to be learned from “Caine’s Arcade”:
Caine’s parents were wise enough not to interfere, not to assault their son with messages that what he was trying t do was impossible, useless, or even misdirected. They gave him room to follow his dream.
For Caine, it was enough to build it even when people didn’t come—just as for me, I’m driven to write my blog, my monthly column, and my books even though my audiences are small. Because I know that a few people do passionately pay attention to my ideas, it gives me a lot of juice to keep going. Of course, if I had the fame of a Chris Brogan or Seth Godin, I’d reach a lot more people. And that would harmonize with my own goals to change the world. But just knowing that I have changed the lives of a few people and the course of a few communities helps me keep going. I’m not sure I’m as brave as Caine, though. I’m not sure I could do it anymore if I didn’t think anyone at all was listening.
The missing ingredient in both Emerson’s “build a better mousetrap and people will beat a path to your door” and director Phil Alden Robinson and writer W. P. Kinsella’s “if you build it, they will come” is marketing. While Caine says he doesn’t care if anyone comes to play, he tells us of feeling excluded and teased when he tried to share his accomplishment at school. And his reaction when his lone customer brings a crowd to play shows that while just the achievement had been enough for Caine, sharing it with others is so much more. Nirvan, that solitary customer, did the marketing for him, and did a fabulous job. The happy ending is as much a testament to Nirvan’s social media prowess as to Caine’s creativity and ingenuity—just as the rise of Apple needed both Jobs’ vision and marketing skills and Steve Wozniak’s engineering genius. The lesson for entrepreneurs is that if you don’t have all three elements—vision, engineering, and marketing—you need to partner with someone who has the pieces you lack.
3. The actual ad featured in the going green video is a brilliant example of using big-picture thinking to convey a message. Take a walk—and find your true love. Yes, it’s absurd. But it’s also very compelling. and it talks most elegantly to the way people can change behavior and become greener—achieving both a planetary and a personal good.
Much traditional advertising of for-profit products and nonprofit causes focuses on one or the other: buy this car or smoke this cigarette and you’ll feel sexy, that sort of thing—or “only you can prevent forest fires,” give money to cancer research, etc.—helping-others messaging without a clear direct benefit.
A complete customer service nightmare, not to mention I made the mistake of trusting my data to this bunch of losers.
Last April, I bought one year of the SafeSync data protection program, that supposedly backs up my files to a server on the cloud. About ten days ago, I accidentally deleted an important file. So I strolled over to the Trend Micro site, and attempted to retrieve the file.
After all, whenever I click on the software, it smiles at me and tells me that all my files are up to date.While not backing up my data, Trend Micro's SafeSync claims it is.
It wasn’t there.
Not only wasn’t it there, but the last time that folder was backed up was in July! I wish I’d taken a screen shot. I haven’t changed any of the settings since I set up the program.
So of course, I initiated a customer service request. And my request apparently led some employee at Trend to delete my entire backup, so I could not demonstrate that it stopped working.
Today I spent an hour on the phone with a tech, who was not able to locate any of my files. At this point, having utterly lost confidence in the product, I asked for a refund. I was told, first by Miss Clueless (who was, BTW, a very poor listener) and then later by Richard, her supervisor, that I would have needed to request that refund by 30 days after purchase. Then Richard tried to blame it on me, saying the empty data folder meant I had installed it improperly. I pointed out that I could see the first three months of files when I’d logged on earlier in the month. I pointed out that I had paid for a year of service, and that after 30 days, it was still working properly. No refund. I tried to escalate. He said “I’ll save you time. There will be no refund” and did not honor my request to talk to his supervisor.
Hello! I bought a year of backup data security; I received, apparently, three months
I am therefore adding to my list of missions to save you from buying anything from a company whose product lies to its customers, whose customer service staff is atrocious and which does not stand behind its product. All they had to do was give me back my $61. I would not have been happy about the lost data, but at least I would not have been charged for services not received. But they can’t be bothered, and I’m not going to get any work done until I vent. I’m pretty steamed at the moment.
In addition to safeSync (yeah, real safe!), they also make an antvirus product called Titanium and a cyberblocker called Online Guardian. And a suite called Internet Security Pro, and an eneterprise security program called Endpoint Security. Guess what I won’t be buying! A company this lacking in business ethics shoots itself in the foot. They clearly have no concept of customer service as either marketing or damage control.
My blog gets automatically posted to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, with over 10,000 total connections. I hope I can save a few of those people from wasting money with a company that doesn’t care.
No person connected with, employed by or engaged in any medium of communication to the public shall be required by … a judicial officer … to disclose, by subpoena or otherwise … [t]he source of any published or unpublished information obtained by the person in the course of gathering, receiving or processing information for any medium of communication to the public[.]
Notice—there is nothing here about working for a recognized mainstream media outlet. By my reading, a guy in a clown suit standing on a milk crate in the park and haranguing a crowd of random passers-by would not have to disclose sources.
Yet here’s what U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez wrote:
. . . although defendant is a self-proclaimed “investigative blogger” and defines herself as “media,” the record fails to show that she is affiliated with any newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system. Thus, she is not entitled to the protections of the law
Hello! Since when does being a journalist require working for mainstream media? This country has a history of independent writers serving a journalistic role going back to those 18th-century “bloggers” Tom Paine and Ben Franklin—those guys didn’t write for the London Times, but started their own publications. Are you going to tell me that Daily Kos, Huffington Post, RedState, Drudge Report, Washington Spectator, and even the legendary I.F. Stone’s Weekly of the 1950s and 1960s have no place in the world of journalism? That the thousands of indy-media-istas who attend the National Conference for Media Reform are spitting in the wind?
And meanwhile, investigative blogger Crystal Cox is facing a $2.5 million judgment because she would not disclose her sources. Out-bloody-rageous!
Shame on you, Judge Hernandez!
Abraham Lincoln said, “It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest.” I am protesting. And I hope voices with more clout than mine, such as FreePress.net, the National Writers Union, Authors Guild, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), People for the American Way, National Coalition Against Censorship, and opinion journalists working for mainstream media (like Rachel Maddow) jump in and protest as well—with amicus briefs filed for the appeal.
Kris Miller Law is a respected and trusted criminal defense attorney ready to help you with your legal needs.
As a social media user since 1995, and someone who trains others in social media, I’d been wanting to see “The Social Network” for months. Last night, I got my chance.
And I was disappointed. It’s a courtroom drama without drama, a jumbled series of flashbacks seen through testimony in two different lawsuits combined for a single hearing: One from Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, upper-class preppie twins who came up with a Harvard social networking concept and brought Mark Zuckerberg in as a partner, only to have him modify the concept into Facebook, leaving them behind—and the other by Eduardo Saverin, his best friend and first investor, for cheating him out of his position and his percentage.
The movie begins with the messy breakup that first inspires Zuckerberg to hack into Harvard’s computers and create the original “Facemash,” illegally placing pictures of most of Harvard’s entire student body on a website, and chronicles how this led to the Facebook 750,000,000 of us use today.
I already knew a lot of this backstory and perhaps that colors my dislike of the movie—because it is in fact a fascinating history. It’s well worth a magazine article, and many have been written. But as film, it left a lot to be desired.
While it was (barely) interesting enough to watch to the end, it lacked drama, focused for the most part on unlikable characters (not just Zuckerberg but the Winklevoss twins, Napster founder Sean Parker, and even Harvard’s then-president, Larry Summers in his one scene). The men are scheming crooks, except Saverin—and pretty much all of the women in the film are portrayed largely as brainless bimbos—except, ironically, Erica Albright, the one who breaks up with Zuckerberg at the start of the movie, who he calls a bitch on his blog, but is one character whose motivations are clear and justified.
Overlisting people for Follow Friday and its many genre-specific siblings on other days of the week has polluted Twitter–too often, you click on a profile and see nothing but undifferentiated lists of people to follow. This does no good for the people making the lists, and hardly any good for those mentioned.
But naming people to follow is still a useful thing when done right. I’ve added many followers by checking out some of these folks and following them. Typically, each week, I’ll pick one person’s list that mentions me, and visit the other people mentioned.
There are, of course, many ways do “do it right.” Here’s what works for me, personally; your solution may look different.
When I do my #ff (and my eco-Monday), I list several in one tweet with a couple of keywords, such as “humor” or “green marketing.” With hundreds of people on my list to spotlight for Follow Friday or Eco-Monday, I keep a document in my email program that groups them by category in batches of 140 characters or less and also lists the dates I mentioned them. Here’s an example:
So in this case, this is the third batch of green contacts (out of 36 so far–yeah, I need to make an official Twitter list), which I posted in January 2010 and repeated in July 2011. All I have to do is scoop up the part after the dates and pop it into Twitter, then add the next date in the brackets. 114 characters, eight people recommended, and I’m done until the next time. If it’s an Eco-Monday post, I won’t label them “green,” because it’s obvious. On Follow Fridays, I try to always give some clue abut why I follow these folks.
But here’s the thing–I do *one* #ff tweet and one #ecomonday tweet per week, and I post plenty of other useful content during Fridays and Mondays.
Then I come back and say thank you to anyone who has #FFd me (or retweeted, mentioned my book, etc.)–but I do it as Thanks for the #ff, and that way it’s clear that I’m saying thank you and not necessarily endorsing them.
I skip pages that are nothing but long lists of people to follow. BORING! They’ve lost their chance for me to follow them back if that’s all I see when I visit.
Yes, this does annoy a few people who like to be on my list every week. There’s at least one prominent marketer who used to #FF me each week, but I only #FFd back once in a while. She stopped. But at the moment, I have 583 people on my #FF list, and that number is always growing; I’d be foolish to post them all at once every week. It’s not about ‘I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine,’ but about another way I can be a useful resource for my own followers while keeping a Twitter profile that people actually want to read. And event hough she hasn’t listed me in a year or so, that marketer still shows up on my list every once in a while.
2. Share advice and resources at least 8 or 10x as often as you self-promote.
3. Be friendly, helpful, and interesting; provide useful and accurate information that builds people’s trust in you.
4. Amplify your message across different channels, but only in ways that make sense and don’t annoy.
5. Reach out to others, both individually and in groups (as appropriate).
Using these rules, I’ve grown my business more from social media (all the way back to 1995) than anything else I’ve ever done to market my writing and marketing/publishing consulting services, and have also sold a fair number of books and other information products.
