Jim has a high-energy interview with author, speaker, and social media pro Krista Neher.

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This week I had a great interview with with author, speaker, and social media pro Krista Neher.

As usual, for the full interview — and trust me, we had great energy and lots of fun sharing stories — make sure to download and play the podcast. The summary below highlights what we cover:

Krista’s background
- Her start at Proctor and Gamble
- Working on marketing for brands like Tide and Folgers Coffee
- Her transition to a startup
- The founding of Bootcamp Digital, which teaches companies how to use the web and social media to build their business

Her travels from Canada to Cincinnati
- What does that have to do with bowling?

Social engagement
- Not the kind of engagement you like – we’re talking on a train to New Jersey

Boot Camp Digital
- What makes a truly good social media program?
- Huge opportunity to show businesses how to do their own social media
- “You’re doing it wrong” – what is the #1 thing companies are doing incorrectly with social media
- Why “free” social media is a problem

Monetizing social media
Top 2 reasons people join a fan page
1) To get coupons and discounts
2) To learn about new products
These easily can convert to new sales, but are they incremental sales?

Her Book – The Social Media Field Guide
- Most social media books target a certain area
- Some people still need a true marketing plan around social media, but don’t know how to do it.
- Covers all the tools to get businesses to think more strategically – not immediately jump to Facebook
- ‘People need to get a grip about new sites.’

Institute for Social Media at Cincinnati State
- Social media nerds in white lab coats?
- Testing mice on angry birds?
- No… how do you get a comprehensive overview of social media industry without going to a conference or just reading websites?
- Certification – what do other industries do to certify professionals?
- Answer: Show they know and can apply knowledge of industry; Instruction, tests, application of information

Speaking
- Can reach lots of people all at once
- How she made herself a better speaker
- Some speakers have 1 presentation they do over and over (usually around a book), while others customize every speech they do
- She built it up 100% word-of-mouth
- The key turning point in her speaking career
- The two ways she is able to charge clients, and how to prove value

Speed Round – What’s the trend around the following:
Facebook
Google +
Twitter
Tumblr/blogs
Instagram
Foursquare
Youtube
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Klout

A true or false game: Can you guess what are the things that influence your Klout, and which are made up?

——————-
Learn more about Krista:
Bootcampdigital.com
KristaNeher.com
WinAtKlout.com

Note: Some links in this post contain affiliate links

Jim interviews Byron Bennett, owner of a NYC chocolate shop about how a small business uses Facebook, Twitter, QR codes, Websites, and his experience with Groupon.

- Download podcast: Via iTunes | Save to computer (Right click, Save As)
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It’s one thing for media companies to be on social media, but lately I’ve been fascinated with how small businesses are doing this. I met with Byron Bennett, the owner of The Chocolate Library, a small-business in Manhattan’s East Village and we discuss the challenges he faces.

Besides, he just happened to bring along some of his amazing inventory of chocolates from around the world. He tells me that 97% of people enjoy chocolate.

Count me in as one of them.

Summary of Topics covered:

BACKGROUND
- Byron’s background at a wine store before he started this business
- Why wine stores and supermarkets need a kiosk to help shoppers
- The similarities between wine and chocolate
- The effect of luxury goods during a recession
- The story behind the “library” classification in his store, and how he ended up on The New York Times.

SOCIAL MEDIA
- His store’s presence on Facebook
- Why he choses NOT to run his own Twitter page
- Why Google Local and Yelp are so important to small businesses
- His goal of ranking for the word “chocolate”
- The advantage QR codes have for retaining customers

GROUPON CASE STUDY
Just a few days before our interview, Techcrunch ran a story titled “Groupon Was The Single Worst Decision I Have Ever Made As A Business Owner.’ This made me even more curious to talk about his experience.

What did Byron learn? Listen to the podcast to hear about:

- The 2 other group buying services he used before trying Groupon
- His goal of reducing inventory — and the pitfalls of mismanaging that for small businesses
- The average transaction for his store — and whether or not the Groupon test exceeded that
- Whether or not the program attracted NEW customers to his location
- What type of businesses are better suited for Groupon and Living Social deals

- Bottom line — Is it worth it for a small business to try Groupon?

Today I interview Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn and self-published author of the religious thriller, Pentecost.

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- Download the podcast to your computer (Right click, Save As)
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For the full interview — a must-listen for anyone wanting to self-publish their own book — please listen to the podcast.

Summary of Topics covered:

Joanna’s amazing journey
Joanna Penn has had quite an amazing journey from the UK and a Theology major at Oxford (hence the religious thriller), all the way to New Zealand and Australia, and now back to the UK.

As a full-time IT employee, she started her writing career with non-fiction books such as How To Enjoy Your Job and the basic ways of marketing.

She once tried to do the full-time author route and take an extended period of time off in order to write “The Great American (Australian?) Novel,” and tried signing on with traditional publishers, but it didn’t pan out.

Intrigued with the rise of digital publishing, print-on-demand, and using social media as a marketing platform, she started a blog and podcast called The Creative Penn. Joanna immersed herself in everything going on in the industry, and became a trusted source for information, while also interviewing dozens of authors.

One recent post broke down the current publishing landscape into four quadrants:

Eventually, her writing solution was to go to her employer and reduce her workweek to 4 days per week, freeing up more time to work on her religious thriller, Pentecost.

Joanna then takes us through …

8 steps needed to self-publish a book

1. Choose your topic
Joanna always wanted to write fiction, and got her inspiration in Venice at the Pentecost dome at St. Marks.
Pro tip: All the top authors think in terms of a series… building a story around a character that readers can follow from story to story. Hook ‘em once, and they’re you’re audience for many books to come.

2. Editing
Joanna stressed the importance of hiring a pro editor. Yes, you can go through your own work, but you’ll miss something.
Pro tip: Release chapters and ideas out to your readers… they’ll help you out, feel involved, and become your biggest fans.

3. Design
Book cover design is very important. Joanna used a freelancer at Thebookdesigner.com.
Pro tip: Once again, crowdsouce. Joanna posted several versions of her book cover online and let her readers vote. The winner surprised her, but was rated most favorable by a margin of 20%.

4. Formatting
Getting the book into the right format can be a pain… pay someone to do it.
Pro tip: Check out Smashwords.com.

5. Upload your book go Amazon
Head to Kdp.amazon.com… it’s free to to upload in Kindle format, and your book will be live in 24 hours!
Pro tip: The Kindle has the largest marketshare of eBooks

6. Pricing
Joanna started her book out at $2.99, the average price for indie books and based on a lot of research by excellent author/blogger Joe Konrath.
Pro tip: She dropped the price to 99 cents because her goal was to get the biggest audience with her first book, not make the most money. Sales took off.

7. Tracking sales
Two keys to success on Amazon are reviews and sales. The book rose to #2 in religious fiction, #2 in action adventure, and #300 overall.
Pro tip: Once Amazon’s algorithm gets involved it will start recommending the book to other buyers

8. Marketing an eBook on Amazon
As any good marketer knows, its good to be everywhere. She has the following:
- Website
- Podcast
- Blog Interviews
- Twitter
- Trying for awards
- Appearing on TV
- Public speaking
- And a book trailer

Pro tips:
- Her favorite marketing avenue is on Twitter: @TheCreativePenn
- Don’t spend too much money on traditional advertising
- Check out Kindle Nation Daily, which Joanna used, with sponsorships for $99 to $299

Final Summary:
- Success breeds success. Do well on Amazon, get good reviews, get good rankings, and it becomes a snowball effect.
- Write a good book. All the marketing in the world won’t help if the product is sub-par. Put in the effort.
- This is a new reality: It’s a bit of hard work, but everyone can do this.

Also see:
Joanna also interviewed me on Skype video for HER blog. Here’s how it went.

Blogger disclaimer: some links may include affiliate links

Today I question the spread of social media to every last place on earth.

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Hey everybody… big announcement on the podcast today.

To be honest, I’m not *quite* ready to make it. There are still details to iron out, marketing aspects I want to finalize, and just so many other things i want to do before I’m ready.

But today on the podcast, I wing it. Why? Three reasons:

1) Right before heading home to record the podcast, I met up with Wired’s NY Bureau Chief, John Abell. When I mentioned it to him, he said “Just write it… my new goal for my personal blog is 15 MINUTES. Sure, I may go back and make some edits later, but I don’t agonize over it anymore… I put down the best thoughts I can in 15 minutes and roll with it.”

2) My friend John Murch, who replied to a long, hand-wringing dilemma e-mail over a fairly big decision I sent him last last week with just four letters: JFDI. You can substitute the F for what you want, but loosely translated, it’s Just Freaking Do It.

3) It’s the entrepreneur’s way. I’m Type A. I’m an extreme perfectionist. I want to wait and wait until everything is just right before moving forward. In fact, that’s why it took nearly 3 months to get this podcast off the ground… I wanted the name perfect, I wanted the sound perfect, I wanted the icon perfect. But that’s never the case. So better to get it out there at 80 or 90%, vs not getting it out there at all.

So as you might have guessed from the title, the announcement is:

I got a book deal.

When I started this blog and podcast nearly three years ago, I ran it by one of the Executive VPs here at the office, Dan Shar, to make sure it was appealing to the Wired audience, I didn’t offend anyone, there weren’t any sales or advertiser conflicts, etc. After 3-4 weeks, he said, everything is fine, just use your best judgment and push it live without me.

After a few months of listening, one day he looked at me and said, “This stuff is really pretty good. Keep doing it. I don’t know where it’s going to lead, what Wired is going to do with it, if it will ever get sponsored, or if there’s any way for you to make money on it, but just keeping doing it.”

And so I did… nearly three years of spending several hours per week of my own time, coming up with great, free content and giving it away. It wasn’t always perfect, but it was consistent.

Then I read the Four Hour Work Week, and started thinking of entrepreneurial ways to make some money outside of my full time job. So I looked to my passions.

Tech and social media? Already had that covered and because the blog/podcast was sponsored by Wired as part of my full-time job, I could not monetize it.
Cars and Sports? I’d already done the ESPN thing, and couldn’t quite find the right angle for cars.

So I ended up drilling down into Career Development. I’d already done 13 posts on The Hopkinson Report about this subject, and it turned out to be a good fit. Because the topics of interviewing and resumes were saturated (90 million Google hits and 10,000 books), I focused on the niche subject of Salary Negotiation (500,000 hits and 139 books).

Did I have the writing chops to pull it off?

In the podcast I talk about my writing careeer… from high school and college classes, to my 3 1/2 year run writing the Greek News for my college newspaper, to the articles I wrote for ESPN.com. And being a marketer, I write every day… presentations, banner ads, email and newsletters, Facebook and Twitter posts. etc.

And hey, my grandfather wrote a freaking LATIN BOOK. Top that.

But what really gave me the confidence is this blog. Much like playing an instrument or practicing a sport, if you do something for nearly 140 weeks in a row, you’re going to get better and better at it.

Writing this blog week in and week out really honed my writing chops.

And when I had to go in to record the audio version of the book? Please. Even though it took six hours, I was so comfortable in front of the microphone that it was a breeze.

So how did it all go down? I explain it more thoroughly in the podcast, but

It went something like this:

- The plan all along was to self-publish… after all, that was the digital way.

- I paid my book designer Erin Fitzsimmons to create a great cover and amazing layout

- I paid my web designer Brandon Werner to create a logo and the Salary Tutor website

- I was going to sell the product as a PDF download via Lulu.com, and keep all the profits

But then guests from The Hopkinson Report came back into my life

- I was having dinner with Rana Sobhany, from episode 38 and 138, and she said, “Jim, why don’t you just TRY and see if you can get a traditional publisher.” After all, she was able to convince Wired.com writer Brian X. Chen to get a book deal done.

- Then by chance, I ended up in Montreal for Jazz Fest over the 4th of July weekend, and had lunch with former podcast guest Mitch Joel

- He said, why don’t you talk to my agent, Jim Levine — in fact, remember when you came to my book launch in New York and we went to dinner afterward — he was there. Ironically, Jim is also the agent for another Wired writer, Frank Rose.

What happened next was surreal.

My agent had the book and wanted me to come in and talk about it. I thought he would say
- It’s good, but it’s just an eBook right now
- It’s not bad, but it’s too short
- It’s ok, but you’d need to do a lot of work on it.
- Or, it’s really not that good… I just took this meeting as a favor to Mitch

But that’s not what happened at all. He said he read the whole thing, had others in the office read it, and in short,

“We loved it.”

Excuse me?

“We loved it, and we already have a few publishers in mind that we want to bring it to, if you’re ok with that.”

From that point on, it’s been a whirlwind.

- We spoke with several publisher, both traditional and new media.
- We bargained from a position of strength, since the worst that could happen is I took my already-completed book and self-published.
- We were turned down by a few publishers (giving me some incentive in a “Tom Brady was drafted 199th” kind of way).

And in the end, Rick Wolff, of Hachette Book Group’s Grand Central Publishing, Business Plus division, gave us the thumbs up. Salary Tutor was going to be the first original eBook.

I have to think there were several factors in the deal, but one of them definitely was because of the dedication to this blog and podcast. So again, thank you.

Then it was on to manuscript edits, bonus chapters, the audio book, photo rights, cover art, Facebook pages, mailing lists, and marketing ideas.

At this point, I want to give a disclaimer and make some assurances.

- First, this is a personal project outside of my full-time job at Conde Nast. While they encourage their employees to pursue outside activities, and several of Wired’s writers have written books, they do not have a specific investment or endorsement of this.

- This blog/podcast will not become an outlet for me to continually plug my book. It is not turning into a “How to negotiate your salary” blog.

But I will say, is that I will talk about the process, as long as I do so in a way that continues to add value for new media marketing trends. Unlike some blogs, I’m not a guy just TALKING about producing an eBook for the Kindle, or formatting content for tablets, or marketing a digital product, or creating an iPad app, I’ll be DOING it.

To that end, I hope to bring in book designers to talk about that process, web designers to speak on those considerations, iPad developers to give you their secrets, and bring you marketing tips from trenches.

So for now, after 140 weeks of free content, I’d like to ask a few quick favors — any and all are totally optional.

1) Like Facebook.com/salarytutor
I just recently created a Facebook page for the book. It will evolve. Right now I have some insider photos, book cover shots, and other friends

2) Check out SalaryTutor.com

- This is also in the early stages. I have some videos and some more back story.

- To receive an email when the book launches, when the NY launch party is, and maybe a very small handful of other notifications (no spam, I promise), sign up on the frontpage.

- To become a Salary Tutor All-Star, go to this secret signup page. What’s an All-Star? This is if you want to be in my inner circle and help out. There are so many decisions… which book cover, which tagline, where I should host my party, screenshots of the iPad app, testing on the kindle, etc. If you want to help in the process, see more background information, and go behind the scenes a bit more, sign up here.

3) Follow Salary Tutor on Twitter
Again, this is fairly new, but I will be tweeting more job search and salary negotiation tips as I move toward my April 1 book launch.

Again, THANK YOU readers and listeners. More to come.

- Jim

It’s easy to jump on the latest trends, but do you know when to exit the old ones?

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The tagline of this podcast is “The marketing trends that matter,” which means I’m usually looking forward at what is coming up.

But I read an interesting article in one of Wired’s sister publications, Details Magazine. The story is by David Amsden, and is called: ‘Introducing the First Dropper: Say so long to the Early Adopter. Today, the most influential guy in the room is the tastemaker who senses when a trend’s 15 minutes are up.’

He describes the First Dropper as someone that not only knows trends — whether it be a hot TV show, what jeans to wear, or the certain type of drink in the certain type of bar — but more importantly, he knows when these trends are overvalued.

Amsden says “Unlike most consumers, the First Dropper seems to be immune to peer pressure and the sway of marketing gurus; he’s propelled instead by an instinctual feel for when a trend has become overvalued. Think of him as a slyly influential arbiter of taste – one who operates as a covert counterweight to his better-known cousin, the Early Adopter.”

With the advent of worldwide blogs, tight social networks, and up to the millisecond trending on Twitter telling you what’s hot, it’s almost easy to be an early adopter. Is there anyone on the planet that does NOT know a month in advance when the latest iPod, iPhone, or Macbook is coming out?

Amsden makes it clear that you shouldn’t mistake the First Dropper with The Hater, who takes pride in never jumping on a new trend.

Don’t even mention your 65″ slimline 3D TV… you’ll get an earful that The Hater hasn’t even owned a TV since 1997.

Here are a few social media, tech, and pop culture items, and where I think they stand. In fact, it’s a little like Wired’s famous Wired/Tired/Expired feature.

Early adopter or safe to stay

Here are the items it’s still safe to jump on
(listen to the podcast for my reasoning on each)

- iPad, Kindle, and other eReaders
- Tumblr
- Twitter
- Facebook (Yes, even though I talked about a potential fall of Facebook)

Gone or ready to be dropped
- iPhone (see the great article by Wired Gadget Lab editor Dylan Tweney, talking about how he’d love a feature phone tethered with an iPad)
- Cable TV
- Untucked shirts and baggy hoodies (here’s a novel idea… why not grow up a bit, add some style, try some clothes that fit)
- Foursquare
- Cupcakes

What does this mean to marketers?

One prominent school of thought is to target these early adopters. After all, they’re dialed in, have influence over purchase decisions, and can help get your product on the radar. If you’ve used them successfully, congratulations.

However, better keep your eyes out for the First Dropper. Because if they start abandoning your product, that could be the sign of things to come.

I have to run, I only have one cupcake left, and I want to tweet about it from my iPad.

You can follow me on twitter at @hopkinsonreport

Can a broken arm kill Jim’s love for technology and social media? Stay tuned:

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Loyal listeners of The Hopkinson Report know a few things about me:

- I never miss a week (once in the last 118 episodes)
- I love technology, being online and all things social media
- I love mountain biking (I compared the ‘flow’ of biking to a business in Episode 113)

So when I was away for the first part of my vacation while mountain biking some epic trails in Seattle, the capable Brandon Werner filled in. But then the unexpected struck when I came back to the east coast to go biking in the rocky trails of the Pocono mountains.

Photo: Happier, 2-armed times near Seattle just days before my crash

Do you believe in social media karma? No less than SEVENTY-FOUR different people wished me happy birthday on Thursday August 19th. It was great. Everyone was so happy, and people wished me the greatest day of the year!

Well, as fate would have it, my upper arm (distal humerus) would face a 3-foot high karma boulder head-on. And lose. Badly.

The next week turned into a whirlwind of hospitals, travel, surgery, second opinions, friends, family, pain, insurance red tape, and frustration before finally making it back to NYC.

My friends said that I would somehow find a way to link my broken arm to social media.

In truth? I went the opposite way.

What did NOT matter in that week, was twitter, foursquare, facebook, marketing, viral videos, podcasts, and blog posts.

What DID matter, was family, friends, coworkers, communication and old school doctors screwing a piece of metal into me to put me back together.

I will say this:
- Text updates were great for quick communication
- Facebook is a great way to post gross photos
- E-mail is a good way to tell a story once to many people (helpful with one arm)
- The iPad is a great way to kill 3 painful hours on a train

However, all this is nothing without a real world network.

So I ask you… How is YOUR real life network?

Is it healthy?

Or is it fractured?

On this special edition of The Hopkinson Report, Jim is on vacation, so I, Brandon Werner (Intern 1.0 for long time The Hopkinson Report listeners) guest-hosts. I explain why Social Media is the new dividing factor between Generation Y and their Baby Boomer parents.

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On Hopkinson Report Episode 102, Jim interviewed me on my research on my generation, the millennial AKA Generation Y. This group is also called the echo-boom, as they are the children of the famous Baby Boomers. Since recording that episode, I had a revelation that will be the topic of this episode.

When I was a child, I remember my parents (baby boomers/teens of the 60′s and 70′s) used to tell me stories of how their parents ‘just didn’t get it’. Their formative teenage years were filled with Woodstock, the anti-Vietnam movement, Nixon… These were the years of Rock ‘N Roll and there was a sharp divide between the baby boomers and their ‘Greatest Generation’ parents.

Through my teenage years, I never really felt that level of misunderstanding between my parents and I. In fact, my parents ‘got-it’ almost too well.  I wanted to learn drums and be in a band, my dad taught me how to do it from his own experiences, If I tried to dye my hair, my mom would show me how. The classic parent/son anti-piercing or tattoo fight? They actually encouraged them (so I didn’t really have any drive to get them). I would say I wanted to go to a Green Day concert, and my dad would ask to come with me.

From talking to my friends, this is pretty standard. Where was our rebellion or revolution?  Where was our Rock ‘N Roll? Recently, after a few failed attempts to communicate exactly what I do for a living, I think I found it. Our Rock ‘N Roll is Social Media.

As I mentioned, the big events of my parents’ formative years are immortalized as the hippie and rock movements, I look back on the last ten years and one movement sticks out plain to see, Web 2.0 and the rise of the social networks. While it is hard to imagine, Facebook has only been around for five years. In that time, it has amassed over 500 million users, half of which log in on any given day. More than half of everyone in their 20′s has a Facebook profile.

I am not exaggerating when I say it is hard to imagine life without Facebook, but it is just one site. Think about how much YouTube, for example has changed the way we watch entertainment. I believe we just witnessed a milestone in how advertising is done with the recent Old Spice man response videos. Who wasn’t talking about those? In a time where not so long ago, people were saying TIVO was going to destroy advertising, we are passing around commercials and watching them for enjoyment! These videos received 45 millions views in just 2.5 weeks, with Old Spice sales going up 107% since the campaign started. When I asked my dad what he thought, he replied ‘Old Spice? That was for old people…’ Talk about brand transformation.

The eternal disagreement with my parents is, ‘why don’t you get off that computer’. They would rather me do anything other than sit at the computer, including sit and watch television. For the baby boomers, the first computer they ever learned to use was at work or maybe Atari. It is a single use tool, or even a toy. For us Millennials, we can not even remember a time before computers.  For me, sitting and just watching television is absurdly boring when I can be doing other things as well.

For me, my computer/iPad/iPhone are my television, office, bank, notebook, phone, book, canvas, post-office, etc. Try to think when was the last time you had a phone conversation for over a hour on a landline… When was the last time you stepped foot in the Post-Office? Been to a Blockbuster lately? Stood on an actual line to get tickets to a concert? How about had film developed?

Even our dating has moved online, with online matchmaking sites being one of the internet’s biggest businesses. Eharmony throws around the statistic that it is responsible for 2% of US marriages and a recent study says that up to 1 in 3 relationships today start online. Even crazier, 1 in 8 couples married in 2009 met via Social Media.

I think one of the biggest differences between generations is old friends. My parents have a tight circle of friends, but anyone they knew from high school or college that moved away from the area, they have little, if any contact with. This just sounds so alien to me. My best friends are scattered all over the country right now, but through twitter, Facebook, and texts… I have constant contact with them. Sure, its not physical, but its comforting to talk to people I have known since childhood.

I know that my parents think on some level what I do on the computer is almost akin to playing a video game. They can’t even fathom that I am actually talking to real people on Gchat, having interesting conversations on twitter, producing content that helps get my name out there, or god-forbid making money on the internet through freelance.

We are living in an absurdly exciting time. In my opinion, this could be looked back as one of the most important decades in history. We are (almost) all carrying pocket-sized computers which hold access to all of humanity’s knowledge. It’s a shame Douglas Adams died before he could see humanity with basically The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in our pockets. We are able to instantly connect us with anyone we want, even in video form. We get updated the second any important thing happens to our friends and family, and get the world news at basically the speed of light without the limitations of paper. Think about this: 150 years ago, it took the Pony Express ten days to get a letter from Missouri to San Francisco. Today, we can get a letter from Missouri to China in seconds.

From my parents, I have seen the wonder, but usually aversion to the progress that not only the internet, but the socially networked internet is bringing to the world. They are amazingly supportive of what I do with my life, but every so often things break down and they show just how much they don’t understand. Yes, I know that the largest growing group right now on Facebook is the 55+ year-olds, but for the most part, they aren’t using social media in every facet of their lives to the level the Generation-Y, Millennials are. I know there are many exceptions to what I am saying and I am sure any one listening to this podcast that is a Baby Boomer is one of those exceptions.

But I think I can safely say that Social Media is an invention forged by Millennials and younger Generation Xers.
Mark Zuckerburg founder of Facebook – 26.
Kevin Rose founder of Digg – 33.
Jack Dorsey co-founder of Twitter – 33.
David Karp founder of Tumblr – 24.

For a little comparison… When the Beatles came to America in 1964, largely regarded as one of the keystone moments in rock history, John Lennon was 24! 24! I’m 25 and I don’t think I’ve written anything as profound as Can’t Buy Me Love.

Then why this drive to spill our life and feelings out digitally in little bite-sized pieces? Well, let’s look at music’s equivalent of bite-sized spilling of life and feelings, Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll flourished in the 60′s and 70′s. For teenagers and Young Adults, it was a pretty disillusioning time. America was caught in seemingly unending war, there was a serious split between left and right political views, and the economy was in the toilet. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

Like Rock, Social Media allows us to vent and feel connected to a greater whole. Like many people my age, I graduated into one of the worst economies in history with a masters and nothing to do with it. I have applied to over 150 jobs, attend meet-up groups monthly, but still have not found full-time employment. Instead of wallowing in self pity, I decided to put all my time that was not spent working on freelance or searching for full-time into jumping headfirst into Social Media, developing my own blogging collective of people in similar situations. I know I am far from the only one in my age group doing this thanks to the connections I’ve made online.

Neil Young said ‘Hey hey, my my, Rock and Roll will never die’ and I think the same applies to Social Media. Sure it will become more and more mainstream, and one day will evolve into a part of everyone’s life. I am sure my age-group’s children will be all over it, in fact my feeds are filling with baby pictures at the moment. What I find even scarier than this is that this poor children could one day sign up for Facebook with 1,000 pictures of them already. You know those embarrassing pictures your mother shows to your friends when they visit? Oh boy…

Just as social media confuses my parents, I am sure these facebook feed babies will find something that confuses my generation.

I hate saying this. I really do. It makes me sound like a whiny brat. It makes me sound like a hippie/rocker/punk talking about their parents in the 60′s and 70′s. The millennial generation helped change the course of an election using Social Media electing the first black president, saved Conan O’Brien’s career with Team Coco, almost destroyed and then revitalized the music industry with MP3 downloading, and are completely changing the publication and advertising industries. To our generation this is exciting, this is ours, this is Rock ‘N Roll!

If you disagree with anything I said in this episode, please leave a comment below and to you I say relax, its only Social Media, but I like it, like it, yes I do.

For more of my nerdy content, check out TheModernDayPirates.com and follow me on twitter @BBwerner!

This podcast was recorded on Tuesday July 6, 2010, and it was a historic day for Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Superstar LeBron James. No, it was not the day that he announced which team he was going to via free agency. It was the day that LeBron joined Twitter.

Let’s look at the lessons learned from LeBron James’ first day on Twitter.

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1) Major brands need to engage in social media

Let’s face it, LeBron James is a brand. He is worth millions, is recognized worldwide, and generates revenue and profits on everything from ticket sales to merchandise. Until now, he has poked fun at Twitter, but he has finally broken down and signed up. Any major brand looking to engage with fans that does not have a social media presence does so at their own peril.

2) Your social circle strongly influences your decisions

What is the goal of nearly every company’s marketing department? To build a product with strong word-of-mouth marketing. Did you start using Google or Facebook because you saw a TV commercial about them? No. You found out about them because someone you know said ‘Hey, you need to check this out.’

A person that does this consistently, finding the newest products and spreading the word to multiple people is called an early adopter and a hyper-influencer. If you don’t follow basketball, you might not know who Chris Paul is. Well, he’s another NBA superstar and good friend of LeBron, and it was he that finally convinced LeBron to create an account. It’s this kind of marketing – trusted, and free – that helps spread the word.

3) If you build it, they will come

If you build a strong user base and have a brand that people love, true fans will want to associate with you. Once word of LeBron’s Twitter account surfaced, the followers came rolling in. He became a trending topic, and went from 0 to roughly 200,000 followers in less than 24 hours.

4) If the content is there, design can wait

The reason I believe this was a spur-of-the-moment decision by James, and not something entirely crafted by his PR team – despite the fact that the NBA is advertising on Twitter – is that he didn’t immediately add a ‘corporate friendly’ Twitter background. Personally, I feel this would have been quite easy to do, as I’m sure he has hundreds of graphics and backgrounds to select from various marketing campaigns. It also would have added a better first impression to the tens of thousands of people signing up today. But there it was, his brand new account with the vanilla, generic, baby-blue, default background. Just like anyone else’s first day.

5) Have something to say

The timing couldn’t be better for LeBron, as this is the most anticipated NBA announcement of the last few years. Even the most casual fan of the league probably clicked the follow button today. Additionally, the link on his twitter page goes to his LeBronJames.com website, which is also in the early stages and appears to be yet another way for users to get LeBron information.

On the other hand, this doesn’t mean that if you’re a company you should wait until you have a product to announce to create a social media presence. In fact, if you create a Twitter account and then immediately jump on and start talking about how people can buy your products, without providing value first, your new media efforts will most likely fail.

6) Be authentic

While reading articles when the story first broke but before the account was verified (great job by Twitter for acting quickly and verifying the account), I came across a sentence that made me grimace. It said something to the effect of ‘It is unclear whether LeBron will be tweeting for himself or if he will have a team tweeting for him.’

Perhaps it’s that it has been drilled into our heads as a best practice in my 3+ years enveloped in all things social media, but it’s amazing that this is even a question anymore. I think Shaquille O’Neal said it best when talking about rapper 50 Cent being outed for not writing his own tweets, ‘It’s 140 characters. If you need a ghostwriter for that, I feel sorry for you.’

So it was refreshing to see LeBron’s first tweet, which was clearly written by him.  As a stickler for grammar and punctuation, I would point out inconsistent capitalization, incorrect use of quotations, and both a misplaced and missing period.  But at least he did a lot better than Oprah’s first tweet, in which she basically made up the word “Twitters” and effectively YELLED AT ALL HER FOLLOWERS by using ALL CAPS, a gross violation of internet etiquette (and also misplaced 2 periods, what’s up with that?).

However, I’m willing to forgive the typos because a) he only has a high school education, and b) because it’s his voice. For example, although I understood the context of the term ‘gas’d,’ I jumped over to the Urban Dictionary to try and get some more insight (not very helpful).

Also impressive was his @ reference to his friend Chris Paul. Maybe he had someone looking over his shoulder and helping, but including Paul’s twitter handle (@oneandonlycp3) in the message equates to a public ‘thank you’ for helping him trying something new, and I’m sure garnered Paul several thousand new fans as well.

7) Control your message

LeBron has been surrounded by a constant media frenzy from his high school years until today. Every move has been documented and every TV and radio station, newspaper, and website has taken his words and actions and interpreted them to the world. Creating his own Twitter account allows LeBron to speak directly 1:1 with his fans.

However, like Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility.
- A tweet sent near gametime will get him in trouble with the NBA [policy]
- A message sent in anger criticizing the refs will get him fined [Dallas owner Mark Cuban was fined $25,000 in 2009]
- A piece of information released too early could cause trust issues [Player Kevin Love tweeted that coach Kevin McHale was out as coach before the team announced it publicly]
- Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of internet public opinion

Day 2 and beyond

I have no doubt that LeBron will try out this new social media toy for the next few days, including announcing which team he will be going to. I’m sure the league will remind him of the rules, his PR team will snazzy up the page like his buddy Chris Paul (below), his Nike reps will make sure the brand is represented jusssst right, and he’ll learn a little etiquette from Shaq and his other pals. That’s the easy part.

But the true test will be the weeks and months to come. Will he embrace this new communication platform and provide the consistency and content that his fans crave once the shine has worn off?

Just like his NBA plans, we’ll have to wait and see.

Game on.

[I've had a Twitter account for quite awhile now, with more than 2,200 followers and 1,500 tweets sent. I talk about marketing trends, tweet when there's a new podcast that goes live each week, but also provides value by sharing links I think you'll like and insights into my personal life. Check it out at twitter.com/hopkinsonreport.]

Jim’s guest is Deanna Zandt, author of a social media book. They talk about how she got a book deal, raised money to fund it, and how she got free pizza.

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Deanna Zandt is the author of the new book, “Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking” which you can find out more about at her website, DeannaZandt.com.

During our interview, we talk about the following topics:
- How the former corporate employee and self-proclaimed ‘webmonkey’ went from independent consultant to author
- The process she took to turn her training seminars into a book idea
- The “Jedi Mind Trick” philosophy her publisher uses, and how she used “the force” of social media to raise funds in order to work on her book
- How she used crowdsourcing on everything from the title to the cover — and how people reacted to it
- The free software program she used to dramatically ramp up her productivity during the writing process

And yes, she explains how she scored a free eye exam and free pizza along the way.

Give a listen.

Twitter: Deanna | HopkinsonReport

How does a company turn their email file into a list of powerful social media influencers? They go to Flowtown.

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Podcast Episode 101 is an interview I did at SXSW with Ethan Bloch of Flowtown.com, a service that turns email addresses into social profiles. After discussing the best way to survive the festival on no sleep and Green Tea, Jim gets down to business to find out Ethan’s story.

Topics covered:

About Ethan
- Ethan’s amazing start as an entrepreneur, importing video game components and driving $13,000 worth of revenue — at age 13!
- How marketing, finance, and technology have been the three pillars of his career thus far
- His move to San Francisco, subsequent job loss, and founding of a new business

About Flowtown
- A platform that allows businesses to connect with their customers
- Starting with their email list, Flowtown generates a list of the social networks their customer base is on, allowing them to write better posts, send better tweets, and more easily target their customers
- Not only does Flowtown return age, gender, networks, and the top 50 locations, but it then creates a sort of “iTunes Smartlist for Marketers,” showing the top 50 influencers that really move the needle

The Marketing Angle
- What is Flowtown’s approach to marketing their business?
- Where does Flowtown get their customers?
- Is all this a good thing? What about user’s personal information being exposed?
- Is email dead?

Advice for Startups
- What are the challenges of being a startup?
- What is the main advantages of being a small company?
- How the “lean startup” process enables them to make quick advances in technology
- Lessons learned through a failed project, which led to 3,500 new customers on their next project

Try it yourself
Check out flowtown.com and enter your e-mail address (it’s not stored) to find out which networks you’re on.

Follow us on Twitter: Ethan | Jim