Communication

Note: As you’ve likely noticed, the Marcomblog has a new design. With the upgrade to the latest version of WordPress, I have added podcasting (Podpress), widgets (Automattic), and more to the admin areas. In honor of our new podcasting ability, I’ve chosen to cross-post an interview with Ted Demopoulos. I encourage our contributors to start taking advantage of our podcasting ability, too. Let us hear what you think of the new look and add-ons.

Blogging is a difficult concept for some people to embrace. Often, the best way to learn how you might be able to use a blog for your own benefit is to hear how others use it.

This is where Ted Demopoulos comes into your life. Ted has written a book - What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting: Real-Life Advice from 101 People who Successfully Leverage the Power of the Blogosphere. (Amazon)

Ted agreed to sit for an interview and we discussed many of the individuals he interviewed. He has stories from around the world. Big names and relative unknowns. But, they have all found positive (even profitable) uses for blogs and podcasts in their personal and professional lives. The book includes stories from “Seth Godin, Large John, Guy Kawasaki, surferdude/deep thinker Dave Kesel, Dave Taylor, Andre the Siberian Splogger and reindeer breeder, and even my (Ted’s) favorite, ANONYMOUS!” We discussed several of these people in our interview.

I have edited this down from a one hour conversation. It now runs 21:06 (7mb download), and I hope you will enjoy it.

Full disclosure: I am in the book. Ted kindly included our discussion which is condensed down to the quite simple section - It’s All an Experiment. Thank you, Ted. I’m grateful and honored you chose to include our interview.

Despite my good fortune to be in the book, I’m still grateful for the opportunity to read it. Stories like those Ted has compiled will serve me, and you, well. Check out the book at Amazon. It was released last week.

Here is the interview.

 Ted Demopoulos Book Interview [21:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (212)

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Thought I’d jump into the fray here. We’re going to create marcom memes. A meme is something repeated from one mind to another, or from one site (blog) to another. Think longtail. Think WOM - word of mouth.

Let’s discuss new tools that we might incorporate into an online campaign for a client. Creating interest in a topic, or site, may be accomplished using a number of tactics. What I’d like for us to discuss here is the use of digg-style sites and applications. 3spots has assembled a list of “over 300 Digg like applications! (exactly 349 now) without counting the +200 Social Bookmarks! (del.icio.us, RawSugar, Netvouz…)” types of sites.

If you are not familiar with digg, here is their description of what the site accomplishes.

Digg is all about user powered content. Every article on digg is submitted and voted on by the digg community. Share, discover, bookmark, and promote the news that’s important to you!

An older such community is Slashdot. It was founded in 1997 and has become quite legendary. These sites - digg, slashdot, et.al - can literally make a site popular in a click of the mouse - or mice, as in thousands (or millions) of them. To have your site “dugg” or “slashdotted” can bring you wild exposure online. There are numerous true tales of stories being published on these sites and driving so much traffic to the site - the servers crash. People whose sites have been slashdotted or dugg, in this manner, are proud of it. They brag about it.

So, we are talking about a community organized around a topic of interest where discussions ensue and the stories are peer reviewed by the community’s members. Is this really that much different from you writing about someone and linking to them in your blogs or Facebook account? No, it is just done differently.

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