....it's the concrete jungle where dreams are made of

So I've arrived in New York City - this is my first week on the job as Online Content Manager for this office.

So far, so good - just trying to get my head around the topics and each of the conferences, meeting everyone, understanding what they do and how different it is to Sydney (my comfort zone).

I'm looking forward to learning about this market though and how these marketeers operate to acheive their results.

The most promising thing from my perspective is how big the market is here - the potential to tap into our target through various social media channels, and online content, is massive! Much to be learned, much more to do!

Until next time,

Chris Archer

...it's chapter 16 of the New Rules

Our bible here at IQPC is 'The New Rules of Marketing and PR' - how to use social media, blogs, news releases, online video, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly.

As a unit, the team has been reviewing and discussing a couple of chapters each week, and as the Online Communications Manager, I've decided to take it one step further and chart my learnings - since the aim of this blog is to 'evolve an online communications manager'.

The good thing about this book is the simplicity of the language. The author, David Meerman Scott, uses plain english, real world examples, and cuts the crap. The book was evolved as a result of his experience with his own blog and the feedback and conversations he had with the readers. In addition to this, the book does not read front to back - you can open any chapter and read, and it's not required that you've read the early ones....

So this is how i'm going to post - chapter 16: Video and Podcasting made, well, as easy as possible. Overall impression of this chapter: I think it reinforced to me that we are doing a good job in terms of new media within business - our standard of podcasts and videos are excellent, but we can certainly take it to the next level...

Key learnings:  

• Video: Essentially the chapter explores how easy it is to create engaging content via video. The best line in this part of the chapter is where the author says ‘Creating audio and video content for marketing and PR purposes requires the same amount of attention to appropriate topics as other techniques. It requires targeting individual buyer personas with thoughtful information that addresses some aspect of their life or pr they face. By doing so , you brand your organisation as smart and worthy of doing business with...
• He says that the idea of companies using video for business is still fairly new. He mentions Youtube and Vimeo as channels through which companies can publish video content (and develop a channel) - ‘Vlogging’ is an interesting term for embedding video content into a blog (we should think about engaging with our bloggers and encouraging them to embed our content?)
• Podcasting 101: A podcast is a piece of audio content tied to a subscription component….I wonder what he means by this, and if it’s something we should consider? Ultimately, are we really only creating ‘Audio interviews’ if they aren’t podcasts, because there is no subscription element? Podcasts also presume that people can access them on their iTunes or iPods (mobile), but is this how we envisage they’ll listen to it?
• ‘Many people will help promote a show they have been featured on..’ - this is a great line which got me thinking about how we should encourage our interviewees to leverage the content to their networks also - after all, they invested the time to doing the podcast, they should do more for us!!
• Put links to your podcast on your website, email signature, and on your offline materials (business cards, brochures)

Quotes:

“Podcasting is great marketing because, like blogging, it is a human voice”

  

“Most podcast’s don’t have a PR stamp on them, so the shows come across as being human. The reason why this is interesting is that there is a big marketing shift going on right now. The older traditional advertising model, like the 1950s TV, is that we publish and you consume. However, today’s marketing model is that we publish and you respond to it. It provides me real feedback from real people, and I have conversations. I can be interactive."

Until next time,

Christopher J Archer

...It's All Online, September 2010



This is the monthly eNewsletter I send to our marketing and production teams which gives them updates on online communications. Usually I have action points for each producer or marketer, but sometimes I like to share or educate them. Read on....

Welcome to ‘It’s all Online’
________________________________________

Social media can’t be left to one person….

Jason Romain, Global Head of Marketing, explored the concept of ‘Social Network Fatigue’ in his latest Marketing Newsletter. SNF refers to the sheer burnout experienced by the vast number (and increasing) of social networking and sharing sites available online today.

I’m stealing his material in this edition, because I want to highlight that in light of SNF….social media can’t be left to one person…

Social Media can't be left to one person. It's the whole organisations responsibility, producers, customer service, sales and marketing must all leverage social media. Obviously we can't (nor should we) ignore this powerful channel, but we also can't let it distract us from effective marketing. Marketing is about communicating a story, a story that resonates with our audience, regardless of the tools. Effective marketing is about measurement, some of these new tools also have great new metrics but we shouldn't forget it's about driving revenue or attendance at our events. Integrated direct marketing is about wrapping it all together, measurement, channel and message. Aligning them is where success lies.

… More importantly we must find influencers in the social media space and engage them in our events. It's not always about the latest or greatest tools, it's about telling a story (and measuring success).

So continue to spend time on social networks to engage with influencers who can promote and advocate for our events.
________________________________________

THE POWER HOUR:

Daily in marketing we have commenced ‘Power Hour’ which is a dedicated time between 9-10am for us to engage with social media channels.

What we do:

• Join groups on LinkedIn
• Start discussions centred around themes of the conference (ask questions etc)
• Connect with speakers and influencers within the groups
• Search for relevant blogs and engage with the author (eventually we’d like to share content on the blog)
• Tweet our content on our mining and construction portals
• Try to build our LinkedIn groups through mass invites
• Trial new social media portals to see how we can use them to leverage our content
• Use promotions to connect the event with our group (by offering linkedin offers etc)
• Ask people who join our groups to ‘Introduce themselves to the group and make mention of their interest in X topic’
• Use our speakers are leverage, an area we must get better at. People are more likely to engage with our speakers, not us!!

 What we don’t do: 

• Start a discussion on Linked In and say ‘Come to this conference because…’
• Start new groups of stage one launches without a clear and defined growth strategy as to how this will grow post-event
• Email group members directly spouting that they attend
• SELL our conference on social media – we share content and knowledge aligned to our conferences.

So, I challenge you to commit some time to social media of your own – after all, you hold much more knowledge, you have stronger relationships with the speakers and you can interact and respond to them online. GO TEAM!!

...it's a video showcase

I just want to share a few of the more recent video interviews i've conducted. Each of them has taught me something different about video production (obvious things), but without ACTUAL training in this area, i'm learning as I go - enjoy!

In this interview, I was director / camera man only. We arranged for our media partner (IT News) to interview Andi Luiskandl from the Smith Family on Cloud Computing. What's the first thing you notice when the image appears? Whooops!



Clearly the rule here is simple - watch out for your reflection!!!



In this interview with Scott Stewart, CIO, Wilson HTM - we tried to achieve the illusive 'engaging' interview with the interviewer (me), asking questions to Scott in a conversational way. I think we've done ok - but the lesson learned here is to REALLY understand the question you ask to your interviewee. Although you may not know the topic well (or at all in this case)...understand why you are asking, and what it means!

Until next time,
it's all online
Chris Archer

...the Tao of Coaching

Recently I've found myself 'coaching' others, well, doing my best...

I've always like to teach others, mainly because someone once told me 'the best way to learn is to teach others', and I believe this to be very true. When you have to explain to another person how something is done, you are forced to really evaluate and rationalise what you are doing...

Often I find myself talking reaaaaalllly fast, then observing the person's body language..which is often one of confusion. Sometimes I struggle with finding the balance between giving someone a task with enough information as to WHY they are doing it, without having to tell them the WHOLE rationale behind it.

Take today for instance - I have a marketing intern working under my guidance at the moment. She is very capable, but has never worked in a marketing department before. Her experience with marketing is limited to textbook study at a marketing institute (which makes me wonder if they are teaching the 'New Rules of Marketing and PR' there). SO, when I'm briefing her on a new project, I start asking her to do something, then realise that she has no idea how or what or where to begin, so I have to start back at the WHY we do 'online content'....

I'm getting better at it (and so is she in understanding the objective of online communications), also because my Regional Marketing Director, recommend I read 'Max Landsberg: The Tao of Coaching'...now, i've only just begun, but it's a good book. I want to share a couple of the learnings i've found useful.

Ask questions:  Don't just tell when helping others develop their skills!!! This may sound obvious, but the book explains that if you invest the ten minutes in coaching (notice that I didn't use the word explaining or telling) someone who reports to you, it will later save you an hour!

In this video - Herb Kelleher, CEO Southwest Airlines says 'Coaching has to emanate from the heart, not the head...and that people readily recognise the difference between the two...'

Ask for feedback and then receive feedback genuinely: Avoid being defensive, and ask for specific examples.

I've only read the first quarter of the book, but it's worth reflecting on it in this blog!

Stay tuned for more!

Catch me on Linked IN - Christopher J Archer

...ask and you shall receive!

ASK and you shall receive…

We are all LinkedIn right?

LinkedIn is a great tool for conference producers and marketing managers – there are many applications you can use to find information about your conference, share content, connect with professionals in the industry, identify vendors, and much more.

Last week I trialled the use of the ‘Answers’ function on LinkedIn (see below) – this is where you can ask a question to the entire LinkedIn community about a specific topic. Ideally, your respondent’s will give you valuable answers which you can use…. So, I did this for a few of our upcoming conferences…(confidential, but I can reveal that I had 21 responses for one of the questions, 11 for another, and 7 for another!)

Watch out though - this one guy said regarding an energy question on Carbon storage (talk about creating controversy….) - My thoughts are that CC&S is a vast pork-barrelled boondoggle, capable of swallowing taxpayer's money far more efficiently that it can ever hold CO2. My primary concern is that those who are most ardently pressing for carbon capture (like Al Gore, for instance) have invested billions of dollars their own money in the same projects that they're promoting politically.

So ask away…. You’ve got nothing to lose. Here’s my advice though…

• Keep the question simple
• Before you submit a question you need to clarify the appropriate industry (choose two here)
• Mention in your description that responses may be used within a content article piece you are producing

Next step though....how to use the responses to generate event enquiries....

Here's an interesting video I came across on Youtube. John Pulizzi on Content Marketing 'We are all publishers' - worth a watch!