Podonomics

People should be really careful what they write online, especially when they don’t know the topic well enough. I found an article written by Lynette Chandler called Article Site vs Blogs vs Podcast which only helped to show how unfamiliar she is with podcasting.

First, I’ll start off with the positive. She did say something that made alot of sense. She recommended that those who can’t be bothered with podcasting right now seek opportunities to appear on other podcasts as a guest. I really like that advice.

However, for every point she made about podcasting that I liked (which unfortunately is only one), I found 2 erroneous statements.

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Although he said this 2-years ago, I just found out through a news story that the President of the United States heard some rumours on the Internets. To which my mother turned to me and said:

“Leesa, I didn’t know there was more than one?”

She laughed uncontrollably after asking me that obviously silly question because even she knew that the President is wrong on this one.

That’s not the only funny statement I heard today uttered by the President. In an interview with CNBC, the President was asked if he uses Google. Not only does the President use Google, he referred to it as if it’s an omnipotent being by saying:

“Occasionally. One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps.”

The Google on Internets? What other misconceptions exist out there about social media and Web 2.0? Add your funny tales to the comments section.

Many cities across Southern Ontario are in the home stretch of a boring and uneventful election campaign to vote in mayors, city councillors and school board trustees.

Toronto’s municipal election is prominent simply because it’s a big city and big city politics seem to be more exciting. It isn’t, believe me, but at least it makes for interesting TV with 29 people running for the mayor’s seat.

The incumbent, David Miller, is said to be the front runner and will most likely retain his seat. The 2 other contenders - Jane Pitfield and Stephen LeDrew - are given much love in the media.

What’s important about these 3 is that they’re turning to social media to help get their message out. They’re using blogs, YouTube, MySpace and other Web 2.0 devices to tell people about their platform.

Out of the 3 front runners, the one who uses social media the best is Stephen LeDrew. Why?

• His website IS a blogsite. The front page changes often as Stephen (or someone from his team) updates the blog with key information. Nothing is stale or static and I don’t have to click around just to find out what Stephen is thinking. His blogsite shows that he’s current and that he get information out quickly.
• His blogsite includes lots of video. The videos are uploaded to Google and then embedded into his blogsite. They’re short, punchy and deliver key messages.
• LeDrew’s blogsite is actually a blog. Miller also has a real blog, but Pitfield, unfortunately, doesn’t. Although her website points us to a blog, it’s actually just text on a webpage.

One thing that Stephen LeDrew didn’t do that David Miller did is identify that there will be others aside from the mayoral candidate updating the blog.

Miller did that in this post and I didn’t see a similar message on LeDrew’s blog. That could just mean that LeDrew is updating the blog himself, however, if that’s the case, please identify yourself with a name other than admin.

Aside from this obvious faux pas, LeDrew gets my vote of having the most innovative mayoral campaign. Now, if only he could get his own domain name.

Technorati: david miller, stephen ledrew, jane pitfield, toronto, toronto politics,

Google keeps showing why it’s a billion dollar company through innovative web based services. It’s wildly popular Adsense program, which you see on thousands of blogs and webpages across the web, will soon be offered as insertions in streaming and downloadable audio, according to this guy.

While Google may be on to something and will probably do it differently from other podcast advertising services, I still preach that you can’t win offering ads in your podcasts. While you will probably make a few pennies, this model fails in comparison to the amount of money people are making using podcasts as a lead generation tool.

I’ll wait for the metrics before I even consider offering ads in my podcast.

I have followed a comic book theme this week on this blog (see here and here). Judging from the title of this post, it seems that the super hero theme continues.

Yet, instead of super heros, I want to draw your attention to Scott Bourne’s list of unsung heros in podcasting. Yours truly is one of them. Ah shucks, thanks for the nod, Scott.

Some of you may be wondering, “Great job Leesa, but who’s Scott Bourne?” Well, he’s just the author of a few dozen technology books, host of a few podcasts on Leo Laporte’s monster podcasting network called TWIT, has a few blogs on technology and podcasting (namely, this one, this one & this one) and is one of the coolest people I met at the Podcast & Portable Media Expo in September.

Who else can you nominate as an unsung hero in podcasting? Let’s contribute to this list.

So, I mentioned that there were 2 highlights that came out of my speaking journey last week. The first was meeting Michael Port. Here’s the 2nd.

Last week Friday, I spent most of the day with about 300 professional organizers at their annual conference held in downtown Toronto. Professional organizers are a fun, energetic bunch of people.

I gave a presentation called How to Get Publicity Without Sending Out a Press Release, a presentation about conversational media. At the end, I gave all the professional organizers 5 action steps for their homework assignment.

Quite simply, I gave them tips on how to launch their own blog and steps to get started with their first post.

Would you believe that only 1 person out of that whole group took any action? Her name is Michelle Lynne Goodfellow and here’s what she said to me by email:

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I was perusing iTunes, looking for one of my client’s podcasts. I went to the podcast directory homepage and guess what I found? A video podcast called Justice League Heros.

The little girl in me just couldn’t resist and immediately subscribed. She squealed in delight as the music started, but she soon turned quiet when the big girl in me reared her authoritative presence. However, the big girl justified it by saying, “This is research.”

I was curious why Warner Brothers released the video and audio portion of the podcasts. So, I clicked on the text link beside their podcast listing in iTunes, which took me to their website. There, I found out about the release of a video game by the same name.

What I liked about the Justice League Heros Podcast:

• I found the audio listing for this podcast in iTunes first and found out about the video podcast via the description. In it, it said there’s a video podcast AND told me how to get to it.
• The video podcasts were short, under 5-mins.
• When I clicked through to the website from iTunes, it took me here. So nice to see that they’re using their podcast as a lead generating tool.
• They’re using other social media tools, namely a blog, well, a pseudo-blog. On it, someone gives a behind the scenes look at the creation of the characters for the video game. I say it’s a pseudo-blog because it’s actually presented in flash and you can’t leave any comments.

What could be improved:

• Just one thing - I was taken through hoops just to buy the thing. I went to the Xbox website and it took a few clicks (about 4 altogether), before I found the details here, only to discover it’s not for sale yet. The path of the breadcrumbs was much too long and I grew tired trying to find what I was looking for.

Other than that, very nicely done. Nice to see a corporation doing it well.

Some thoughts as I stumble through the web this morning.

• Can magazines stay relevant? The American Magazine Conference is happening this week in Phoenix, Arizona and companies such as Google & Yahoo are there to lead sessions on digital media. I really like some of the comments I’m reading as to why magazines need to incorporate digital media into their overall strategy.

“We cannot be over-dependent on the print magazine. We have to look for new streams of revenue. It’s not really a choice.”

“Publications that have engaged in relationships with their consumer base across multiple content points are more desirable than one four-color page in a magazine.”

“Given that the digital world is growing at a much faster rate than old media, there’s top-down pressure on publishers to get into new platforms, to find new ways of using their content.”

• Online Stars & Hollywood. A talent agency in Los Angeles is scouring the web looking for online stars to peddle wares for companies who want to launch online advertising campaigns. United Talent will accept submissions and sign clients who don’t have agents. As one person said on the video podcasting dicussion group I belong to:

“Yep, everybody wants to get rich off us. Too bad we can’t figure it
out for ourselves.”

I stumbled upon this great blog post on how to blog a conference. One thing that stuck out are the tips the author provided on how to podcast a session.

Somehow, writing about a session and recording it to turn into a podcast are treated separately. Most conference organizer would frown upon attendees recording each session then publishing it as a podcast for all the world to listen.

The reason? Conference organizers typically get the speakers to sign a release form to get their permission to record (and then sell) the recording of their session.

As a podcaster, you don’t have this permission from the speaker. So, to avoid any legal hiccups, podcasters should focus on getting the behind the scenes stories.
Forget about recording the sessions. Instead:

• Interview speakers after their sessions (Josh suggested this).
• Interview attendees and ask for their opinions about the conference.
• Interview exhibitors and find out what’s so interesting about the product or service they’re showcasing.
• And then, interview someone who just visited a booth and get their honest opinion about the product or service.
• Attend an after party and capture the energy, noise and voices.

All these can become great podcasts that don’t infringe on the agreements conference organizers made with the speakers, plus you get to provide content from a unique angle that compliments all your blog posts while reporting from a conference or expo.

Last week, I spoke in front of 3 separate groups in 2-days. There were two highlights. The first one was meeting Michael Port at the SOHO Conference.

Some of you may be saying, “Who?”

Michael Port is a small business coach who teaches entrepreneurs and business owners how to think big. Actually, his website says that he’s the guy to call when you’re tired of thinking small.

He wrote this awesome book called Book Yourself Solid. I read the book in one day, then downloaded and completed the workbook in 2. It’s an excellent book and I learned so much about myself and the clients I want to work with because of Michael’s book.

So, at the SOHO conference, I approached his booth to have a quick chat. I had about 20-minutes before I went on stage and Michael was taking off for a radio interview.

A lady was chatting to him, so I politely waited on the side until she took a breath (I’m Canadian, what do you expect?). As soon as the woman paused, I jumped in and said:

“I’m here to meet you, Michael. I’m Leesa Barnes.”

“Do I know you? I kind of recognize your name,” Michael said.

“Nope, just a fan of your work.”

“You sure I don’t know you? Are you famous?”

“Not yet, but I’m close.”

Michael then asks me:

“So, what do you do?”

And here’s where I wanted to show off and let Michael know that I’m truly a fan of his work. I mean, I watched his Entrepreneurial Idol movie (which is awesome, although, I still think should’ve been podcasted in bits and pieces), so I was eager to recite my elevator speech to him.

What did I say?

“I help businesses use podcasting to fill their sales funnel and attract new clients.”

To which Michael said:

“That’s awesome.”

We chatted a bit more and then we went our separate ways. I had a bit more of a pep in my step which probably came through in my presentation because I met Michael Port.

You see, what impressed me the most about meeting Michael, wasn’t how blue his eyes are, or the fact that’s he so down to earth, nor was it the fact that he totally lived up to my expectations.

What got me was that someone I truly admire as a business person and as a successful entrepreneur is asking me if I’m famous and is questioning why my name seems familiar to him.

Is your current marketing efforts giving you or your brand the recognition you’re looking for? Is all the money you’re spending on advertising getting you or your brand the awareness you seek?

If you met your hero or idol or someone you truly admire on the street tomorrow, would that person say to you, “Your name seems familiar. Where do I know you from?” Or, would that person simply give you his or her autograph, then walk away?

How has social media positioned you? And if you’re not using social media in your marketing efforts, why not?

Technorati: marketing, Advertising, Public Relations, Blogging, michael port, book yourself solid,