Category Archives: Business & Marketing

Presentations are conversations

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Garr Reynolds blogs about “professional presentation design” and offers some terrific insight into Steve Job’s presentation style, using his recent roll-out of the video iPod. Be sure to watch the video. This is how it’s done, kids. [via Micro Persuasion]

“What has always made Steve Jobs such a great presenter is that he seems relaxed and informal in tone and style (yet gracious), as if he were having a conversation with a group of friends at home in the backyard. … the essence of his masterful style is something many (most?) people can achieve in their own unique way. The secret is to communicate in front of a large group the same way you do everyday when you are talking with your spouse or your best friend down at the local Starbucks. The key is to look at presentations as conversations.”

Professional Sign-holders Wanted

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Former Radio Guy Matt Zeni recalls a radio interview on his station some years back:

“I saw a want ad in the Branson daily newspaper for full-time opening(s) for people to hold advertising signs on Highway 76 and the job included full benefits! The job paid $8.50 – $9.00 per hour plus medical and insurance. You could only keep the job, according to the owner of the advertising business, if you constantly waved to all the cars driving or stuck in traffic.”

Companies don’t blog; people blog

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The headline above was my big take-away from an excellent white paper (from The Content Factor) titled: To Blog or Not to Blog? How Business Can Get Closer to Their Markets through Blogging. Their “Ten Rules for Starting Your Corporate Blogging Off Right” are on the money (for my money). Nuggets:

* You can’t blog by committee.

* Conversations are already taking place among the millions of blogs that you can tap into. These conversations—about you, your industry, your company, your competitors, and your market—will occur whether you participate in them or not.

* The unique word-of-mouth marketing secret of the blogosphere: the human urge to tell people about things that interestus, adding our own impressions as we do. This is the DNA of conversation.

* Blogging has potentially the lowest barrier to entry of any communications medium to date aside from word of mouth, and offers the farthest reach for the least cost when done right For this reason alone, there is no question that your organization should be participating in the world of blogs. This is no time not to be part of the conversation.

If you own a company…work for a company…do business with a company… I encourage you to download and read this white paper (PDF).

AgWired blogs IFAJ conference

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Chuck and Cindy Zimmerman (AgWired.com) are blogging the IFAJ (International Federation of Ag Journalists) Congress in Thun, Switzerland. If you need an example of how to effectively blog a conference or event…this is it. The folks at Pioneer Hi-Bred must agree since they’re sponsoring AgWired’s coverage. Frequent posts, photos and audio. I’ve been trying to imagine how a radio station (or network) or TV station or newspaper could provide better coverage but haven’t come up with anything.

Webcast from Nebraska State Fair

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Today our farm network did a live webcast from the Nebraska State Fair. It was a 90 minute panel discussion on technology in agriculture and it was great radio. Except I’m pretty sure it wasn’t on the radio. Just our website. In fact, the last eight or ten ag events we’ve covered have not even been put up on our satellite channel and offered to our affiliated radio stations. We’d love it it they would air these long-form programs but program directors are less and less willing to air more than a short ag report in the middle of the day. And I’m not sure they’re wrong.

Are we (the network) wrong to produce this programming? We’re pretty sure Nebraska corn farmers are interested in anything having to do with ethanol. But if you’re the program director of a radio station in the middle of Nebraska, you ask yourself what percentage of my listeners want to listen to someone talk about corn for an hour. Wouldn’t our listeners rather hear some good country music?

Probably. But, as a former small-town program director, I’m convinced there is a “cool factor” at work here, too. It just isn’t cool to air all that farm stuff. Country music is cool. And everybody likes country music, the people in town and the people on the farm. It’s the safe call.

This is where we encounter the long tail of ag programming. While there may be only a few hundred people that care about the future of ethanol in Nebraska, they care very much. And it’s getting harder and harder for them to find in-depth, real-time programming on their local radio station. Enter the web with streaming audio and podcasts all the rest. You want an hour on sugar beets in southern Indiana? No problem, click here.

Radio stations could have it both ways. Put the longer, in-depth programming on their web site and promote same on the air. But radio station owners do not perceive the need. And they no logner have the staff to do much of anything “extra.” At the same time, their listeners are just a Google search away from that they want. And they don’t care too much about where they get it.

Once upon a time, the only place a farmer in Ogallala could get farm news and prices was on his local radio station. Advertisers who wanted to sell stuff to those farmers only had to advertise on that station. It was the natural order of things. The good old days.

Bloggers wanted

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USATODAY.com: Retailers are creating blogs to promote brand awareness and sales. A recent study by online market research firm ComScore Networks found that shoppers who visit blogs spend about 6% more than the average online shopper. “The people who spend time on our blog are the people who are … the very top customers that we have,” says a former CEO of fashion catalog Spiegel.

I’m of the opinion that EVERY company should be blogging. No one is interested in your static, boring “About Us” website. And, frankly, I’ve got a few of those up myself. If you’re gonna be online, talk to your customers. Listen to them. Blog.

But I have a hunch it’s going to be harder to find people to feed the blog beast than than we realize. It almost certainly won’t be the guy that writes your bullshit company news releases. I used to write radio commercials and I’m pretty sure that in no way prepares someone to blog. And a lot of news writers are terrible at the blog format. So I’m wondering, why is it so hard for some folks to write a decent blog post? I think it probably has something to do with honesty. Specifically, that “voice” thing.

Blogging is kind of like writing a letter to a friend…but letting the entire world read over your should. And if you’re faking it, people somehow know it. In much the same way the “America’s Funniest Home Videos” producers know when they’re watching a true candid moment or something staged.

I had lunch with Chuck this week. He’s been blogging for less than six months but picked it up quickly. We talked about where you would look to find people to hire to blog for a business or organzation. The first thing that popped into my head was, I would never hire someone to blog professionally if they were not already blogging. Frankly, there would be no way to know if they could do it…unless they WERE doing it.

I’m not sure I could get a job as a blogger. But the real acid test would be right here at smays.com. If you’re reading this, you probably know everything you need to know about me. No personality profile. No writing tests. You could probably skip the interview. If you couldn’t hire me based on what I’ve posted here, you wouldn’t want me. Blogging is about honesty and transparency and hanging it out there. Could someone scam me with a bogus blog? Could they fake it? Maybe for a few posts… but it would be hard work to keep up that kind of charade for weeks or months.

If I had to go looking for a new job tomorrow, I would not bother updating a resume. I’d just send them here. They could read for 3 minutes or three hours and know everything they need to know about me.

Does your web site suck?

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“Agency websites suck, launch a weblog” is the subject of a post at AdRants.com. Replace “agency” with “your company” and see if it still makes sense.

“Right now, agencies might be saying, “What do we need a weblog for? We already have a web site.” Great. Take an honest look at it. Is it much more than a creative showcases (if that) and management bios? Aside from a few short paragraphs on your so-called “proprietary process” is there any value there for the reader? Are you offering anything that gives insight into the way your agency thinks and what your opinion is on the current state of advertising? If so, great. Most likely. though it is not.”

A good example of the difference between a “typical” web site and a blog? AgriMarketing.com and AgWired.com. I think the company I work for could be using blogs more effectively. But “brochure” web sites are safe and blogs are risky. And if they’re not risky, they’re useless and ineffective.

AgWired.com

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I’ve been a blog bore for a few years and helped 10 or 12 friends get started blogging. Some were/are very good at it but none have run with the ball like Chuck Zimmerman at AgWired.com. I used to work with Chuck and his wife Cindy until they left and started their own consulting business a while back. Anyone interested in agriculture marketing should (does?) make AgWired.com their first stop. He’s making Old Media publications like AgriMarketing look… old. If you want to see how to do this blog thing right, click over to AgWired.com. From this point on, Chuck gives me tips on blogging.

Jonathan Schwartz on executive blogging

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Jonathan Schwartz –president and COO of Sun Microsystems– on executive blogging:

“If you want to be a leader, I can’t see surviving without a blog. It’s as important as having an e-mail account and a mobile phone. It doesn’t count if you delegate the task of maintaining your blog to someone on your staff.”

Schwartz says that too often, communicating with employees and business partners is like a game of telephone. You speak to a group of people close to you, and they speak to their teams, and so on and so on. With a blog, “you hop through 12 layers of management to get directly to someone in New Zealand.” It also opens up a channel for receiving feedback and ideas from that employee in New Zealand.” [Fast Company]

I have been (gently) lobbying the COO of our company to consider blogging. He’s a smart and funny guy (neither necessary for blogging) and would be very good at it. But it is a bit like having a puppy. A lot of work and sometimes messy.

One second commercial

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Catering to the ever dwindling attention span and capitalizing on its name, One Second breath freshener has placed a one second commercial during every commercial break on every TV station in Belgium yesterday. I think the blipverts on Network 23 were 5 seconds.

“High-speed commercials condensed into a few seconds that prevent channel changing and embed themselves in viewer’s minds. Sometimes they cause the heads of viewers to explode.”