Social Media Marketing Maverick

A Twitter conversation sparked this post today, thanks @JDeragon

Jan Phillips wrote this white paper in 2006, using Michael Stelzner’s white paper on… “How to Write a White Paper”  (thanks Michael …designed to help market the book she was writing for 9th Element Group, our angel-funded, short-lived “business of thought leadership” consulting company.

You can download it RIGHT here:

 Visionary Thought Leadership. (PDF, opens new window, no registration required - coming from a die-hard information marketer no less!)

I think it’s time we revived it, let me know what you think when you read it,  it’s obvious to me now that we were probably ahead of our time (at the time ;-)).

Enjoy the read, and if you like it…
You’ll LOVE the award-winning book companion book we published titled “The Art of Original Thinking: The Making of a Thought Leader”
(Amazon.com and in bookstores too)

Also, go check out Jan Phillips and tell her what an amazing predictor she is… 
(well, I guess we all were ;-)).  You’ll love her site.  Tell her Michelle Price sent you.

Technorati Tags A Third Mind, jan phillips, jay deragon, michael stelzner, michelle price, thought leadership, thought leadership marketing, visionary leadership

Today on The Business of Online Thought Leadership talk radio, I snagged an interview with leading thinker Sandy Carter, IBM’s Hippest Marketing 2.0 Chick, and Vice President, SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and WebSphere Marketing, Strategy, and Channels.

Sandy is also the new author of the book “The New Language of Marketing 2.0: How to Use ANGELS to Energize Your Market”. She is responsible for IBM’s cross-company, worldwide SOA initiatives and is in charge of one of IBM’s premier brands, IBM WebSphere.

She is known for her innovative Marketing 2.0;  she’s led the brand to win 14 industry marketing awards in the past year!

Listen in and learn what Big Blue is up to - how they are using the tools of Web 2.0 and social media to open and sustain conversations with their customers and prospects.  You’ll learn how they got over 50,000 customers to give them input on a new product, and how they used Twitter to increase the attendance at a series of Road Show LIVE events.  In fact, they attributed at least 5,000 attendees overall to Twitter!

Here you go, enjoy:
The New Language of Marketing: How to Use ANGELS to Energize Your Market

Technorati Tags ibm, Marketing 2.0, michelle price, Online Thought Leadership, Sandy Carter

I discovered TWO more online thought leaders today, both women. Rhonda “Shelley” Ellis and The Technology Goddess or TTG (and funny enough, that is the name that stuck for her for me). Shelley is the leading thinker on how to cash in with Google Adwords using “content targeting” (which the boyz usually run screaming away from) and TTG is just the coolest female I’ve seen online yet - she’s got the latest thinking on “content placement” and it’s NOT the usual suspects - ie article distribution, it goes MUCH MUCH deeper. She’s teamed up with one really smart dude too. Her site is where I found this video and just had to share it on A Third Mind so you can see the latest thinking of where the web is going.

“Jonathan Harris wants to make sense of the emotional world of the Web. With deep compassion for the human condition, his projects troll the Internet to find out what we’re all feeling and looking for.” The site mentioned in this video is We Feel Fine

Enjoy this TED Talk, it’s fascinating! And I’ll share more about these cool women later…(I’m going to be inviting them for an interview on The Business of Online Thought Leadership in 2009.)

Technorati Tags jonathan harris, new economy, Online Thought Leadership, shelley ellis, TED, the social web, the technology goddess

For some reason, I’ve always been fascinated with the topic of thought leadership. Maybe because I like to think a lot ;-).  

In fact, in 2005 I was a partner in a start-up consulting firm with 5 other dynamic women - we named our company 9th Element Group, (the ninth element is Flourine, it’s the most powerful element in the known universe and has been tested as rocket fuel…literally).  and we decided our niche was going to be The Business of Thought Leadership.  We would position, package and propel thought leaders into their marketplace! 

Part of the business of thought leadership is that you publish thought-provoking information. And we knew we’d need to write a book to be taken seriously. Luckily, one of the partners was an award-winning author, Jan Phillips. Jan wrote the book over the summer of 2005 (literally).  The Art of Original Thinking: The Making of a Thought Leader was published in 2006 and won awards.

Unfortunately, the company ran out of funding before we could really get traction so we all went off to other things.   

My intrique with the topic has remained, and in particular, I’m finding that there are a lot of women who demonstrate thought leadership with blogging, podcasting, social networking, social media and other areas - PR, business, technology…but aren’t necessarily recognized for their leading-edge thinking.

So I’m starting an internet talk radio show “The Business of Online Thought Leadership” and it’s going to profile many of the brave new entrepreneurs leading the field who you may not necessarily know but probably should.  

This week starts with my good friend Rob Schultz of www.AudaciousAudio.com and the reason I started with him is that he’s done some really cool innovative things with online media, like creating flash movies for big name coaches, and created a Larry King-style split screen interview using Skype and a web-cam (who knew? Traditional media is probably about to lose their MIND because of innovations like this ;-)…they can’t compete!)

Why Rob first? Well, when we reconnected recently, he happens to have just created the Online Radio Challenge - a 50 day program to creating your online radio show using Blog Talk Radio (how about that for timing?? The Universe is always at work, right?)

You can watch the split-screen program below:

You can listen to our first show here: The Business of Online Thought Leadership

And, I’ll be on the air every Wednesday at www.BlogTalkRadio.com/onlinethoughtleadership at high noon to inspire and empower you to build your online presence using social media and social networking, build your platform and get up close and personal with some of today’s most innovative thought leaders in social media.

Hope you can join me!

Technorati Tags blog talk radio, internet talk radio, michelle price, Online Thought Leadership, rob schultz, Social Networking

I decided to embed the live blog on my site too, we are officially simulcasting live from three different blogs - watch out CNN! - Next - off to go see if I can put it on my Facebook page…I’ll let you know…

Technorati Tags barack obama, dahna chandler, election 2008, michelle price, social media changed politics

I am trying out something new - “live blogging” - if you want to come join the fun, and learn how it works (or watch how it works is probably a better description meet me over at my colleague and fellow social media experimenter Dahna M. Chandler’s blog at 5 pm Pacific/8 pm Eastern.

Election 2008: How Social Media Changed This Election 

Last one there is a rotten egg…

O-BA-MA! Yes we can!

I think I have a slight case of Facebook Fatigue… If I get one more group message inviting me to an event 4,000 miles away I don’t really want to say what I will do, it’s not polite for ladies to say such things (as my mother would say).

Please (she ducks) don’t throw rotten tomatoes at me just yet…I think Facebook is still the most “fun” social network for business I’ve ever seen.

It just also has the ability to quickly fritter away MEGA time (a nice way of saying “time-suck) if you don’t have what my friend Kevin Nations calls a “Profit Strategy”. In other words, a real business model, with a sales system that can turn all that socializing into bottom line dollars and cents - eventually, after you’ve established your social hierarchy, trust and likeability.

Because at the end of the day, we all know that people buy from people they know and people they like - and how can you not like someone who has the audacity to throw Paris Hilton at you? (umm, yep, I’m talking to you Rodney Rumford, FaceReviews Guru ;-))

It’s been my observation over the past 4 years of working with mega-entrepreneurs (John Assaraf, Les Brown, Scott Martineau, most recently, Jerry Conti, my Purpose Posse over at HUB - Humanity Unites Brilliance) that the truly successful 7 & 8 figure + business owners create the sandbox and invite others to play with them, not the other way around.

In other words, they throw the party (or seminar) and collect 50% from the people they put on the platform in front of their audience.

Or better yet, they are the ONLY ones speaking on their platform, it’s their platform, and they aren’t afraid to use it. When you think of it, when have you ever seen Tony Robbins share his stage with someone else? VERY seldom. And if he does, they’re usually delivering his programs, not theirs.

There’s something to be said for continuity and a gated community.

I’ve been quietly playing over at Ning.com, where you can create your own social network with ease.

Now I’m “easing” several of my clients into developing their own private online communities where it’ll be all them, all the time. And, as Lady Fortune (or Law of Attraction would have it, my “Diamond Rolodex” delivered the ideal connection once again - a client introduced me to my new best friend, who is a “Ning Ninja”, and very good friends with Ning.com co-founders…if that isn’t attraction in action, I don’t know what is!

What’s really cool about Ning is the fact that you can private label it for your business - use your own domain name, display your own ads, and even remove their branding. The main consideration in setting it up is what your strategy will be to:

• Get people to come (for what will they come?)
• Get them to engage (why will they stay?)
• Get them to come back
• Get them to tell their friends
• Get them to buy your stuff

Another way to use the private label function is to use it as your own membership site - I know of at least one very well known spiritual teacher who is doing this with great success. She charges a monthly subscription that includes weekly audio, a monthly teleseminar and ongoing access and conversations.

And she gets their full attention, because they’re paying her for what she has that they want. Can we say “social network profit model”?

Works for me. What say you?

Update: I’ve since launched a consulting package called Instant Platform 2.0 to strategize and launch niche social networks/online communities for experts, and help them get their first “1000 True Online Fans”.

Here are a few of the ones under way…

http://www.SocialNetworkingSalon.com
Training wheels playground for my Social Networking Boot Camp for Women Entrepreneurs to learn how to play in the social networking scene in a supportive environment. Will start to conduct ongoing teleseminars with experts in social networking and social media, also business experts.

www.ContributionNetworkingParty.com
Virtual companion site for a live event that happens every three months)

www.TheSingerLink.com
Goal is to link hundreds of thousands of singers around the world, and meet at live Choirfest events that host up to 22,000 singers at a time!

www.WakeUpGirlCommunity.com
Author community built around the topic of getting over a bad-breakup: “Wake Up Girl! From Break-up to Wake-Up”

Launching Soon:

Business Black Belt Network - an online community for JIAN.com business planning software company with 180,000 existing customers.  This will allow customers to network and will have a nice Marketplace to list services/products.  If you are a consultant who works with small business owners, email me to find out how you can participate.

Technorati Tags create a social network, create your own social network, facebook, michelle price, ning, roi social media, social media profit model, social network

Apparently I am not alone.

Cone, Inc. presented findings of an online survey done in September, 2008 of 1,092 adults (525 men and 567 women 18 or older) that showed 60 percent of them use social media web sites.

Of the 60 percent of social media users, 93 percent believe companies should have a presence in social media, while a huge 85 percent believe a company should not only be present but also interact.

A whopping 56 percent of users feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media  environment.

Wow. And get this…this is coming from hard to reach consumers in the online space like men, younger users (ages 18-34) and the wealthiest households (income over $75,000+).

All the more reason I say “connectivity is the new currency(tm)”. 

Read more here:

Cone Finds That Americans Expect Companies to Have a Presence in Social Media

Welcome to another edition of the Social Media Marketing Live Lab.

As you already know, I consider myself one big experiment in how social media is changing business - my new mantra is “Connectivity is the New Currency”.  This time, it’s me who is the actual subject in the lab, I’m involved in an interesting experiment involving getting an MBA in Social Media Marketing.

MBA stands for Mastering Business Actions.

About 6 weeks ago, I met Ann DeVere, creator of the Marketing Blueprint and the MBA in Marketing.  for the second time in as many years. The first time was over the phone, the second time in person with a group of highly motivated entrepreneurs at a Brian Tracy iLearningGlobal event. I’d been interested in learning more about her MBA so quickly went into interestED mode because I sensed there was some transferable application of her system to social marketing.

MBA in Marketing has 3 steps:

1. Identify Your Most PROFITABLE Customer
2. Create Your Marketing Message That Speaks Only to Them
3. Implementing Your Marketing Message using the Power of 3

While I was talking with Ann, I was also in the process of identifying the value to ME in her offer, because that is what we all think. Except, in my case I’m always ALSO thinking about the value of what someone has to my network (includes my clients).

So I was on multiple levels thinking of the ways in which to APPLY her system in my world, the brave new world of social media marketing.

Social “Multimedia” Marketing is the actual term that came up for me as she talked about her MBA (Mastering Business Actions) in Marketing.  And I realized that multimedia is what people are actually talking about when they talk about the value of generating the content being used in social media marketing today:

• Video turns into content used in Social video-sharing sites: YouTube, Vimeo
• Slideshows turn into viral marketing pieces and can be uploaded to YouTube and others
• Audio turns into MP3 most popularly known as a Podcast,  distributed online: iTunes,your blog.
• Images can be socially shared - Flickr, Picasa
• Powerpoint presentations - SlideShare
• White Papers/Special Reports - Scribd.com

When I really got the power in her 3 step system, I was hooked, and I shared my thoughts on how valuable I felt her information was applied to Mastering Business Actions social media marketing.

And so Ann also got the power of that and this social media Live Lab experiment was born - the MBA in Social “Multi”Media Marketing.

And you know every good experiment deserves it’s own blog, so we’ll be posting at www.MBAinSocialMarketing.com also.

Stay tuned for the next post - it will be about Step 1: Identifying Your Most Profitable Customer.

Your Teacher & Student,
Michelle P,

Technorati Tags ann devere, MBA in marketing, michelle price, multimedia marketing, social marketing, social media marketing, social media strategy, social media trends

(***Disclaimer***
Please excuse the way the posts are all squished together - I upgraded to Wordpress 2.6.2 AND added some really cool plugins, but now cannot figure out what is happening with the stylesheets - Bear with me til it’s fixed ;-))

(***Update*** I deactivated all the plug-ins and sure enough one of them was causing that problem.  So you can peer into the mind of a Renaissance woman geek - the next step I am taking is to reactivate them one by one to see which one was the culprit…***;-)

So, now on to my post…

Getting more (and BETTER) business is fast becoming more and more dependent on your ability to connect deeper and faster with others, which is where social media has the potential to deliver.

Tune in as Melody Campbell, The Small Business Guru and I have a candid conversation about how small business owners can grow their “social capital”, create stronger relationships and get more loyal business using social networks the way they were meant to be used.

Show details:
Get More Business Show - www.blogtalkradio.com/getmorebusiness
October 3, 2008
Friday 9 am PST
30 minutes

I’m in Great Company…here are some previous and upcoming guests:

Joan Stewart of Publicity Hound
Tom Antion of Great Internet Marketing
David Frey of Marketing Best Practices (Author “Small Business Marketing Bible”)
Terry Dean - He is a legend in Internet Marketing!
And more…you can see the shows at www.GetMoreBusinessPodcast.com

Nancy Marmolejo - Viva Visibility
Wendy Weiss - Queen of Cold Calling
Mike of Briz.com
Jeff Herring - The Article Marketing Guy
Denise Michaels - Author of Testosterone Free Marketing

Waiting in the wings are a few surprise guests…one is an author and was a featured personality on The Secret.

(And, you already may know that I owe my escape from wage slave to the entrepreneur lifestyle I craved to John Assaraf, featured teacher in The Secret so I will tune in to see who this personality is!)

Technorati Tags blog talk radio, melody campbell, michelle price, social capital, social media marketing, Social Networking