There were many influences and influencers for the concepts behind the Innovators’ Road Trip.  One of the best ways to get great ideas is to surround yourself with smart people – the Inbound Marketing Summit is a great way to do just that.

In the video below, I talk specifically about how the iRoadTrip project was influenced by great thinkers in new marketing such as Chris Brogan, David Meerman Scott, Brian Solis, and powerful new products and services such as Thesis, Radian6, Techrigy, and more.

I hope to see you at the Inbound Marketing Summit – as a special insentive – register with the  discount code ‘iRoadTrip’ and get an additional $250 off our San Francisco event!  Please register today!

/colin

Below is Aaron’s interview in two parts:

Part 1:

Part 2:

For more information on Powered, Inc:
follow Aaron Strout on Twitter at: @aaronstrout or his blog: http://blog.stroutmeister.com/

Also find Aaron and Powered at SXSW and the Inbound Marketing Summit!

/colin

Be Cool.
The first major section of the book speaks to Obama’s character.  Calm, focused, smart, and tough.  He sets a great example for leaders (of all kinds) to follow and the book really details all aspects of his character with a great series of examples.  One of my favorite highlights are the details behind Obama maintaining focus of the campaign on John McCain when Sarah Palin was getting a lot of attention in the press.  For those still looking to add to their new year’s resolution list, Barack, Inc’s chatper on ‘Be Cool’ provides ample lessons for how to improve your leadership style to presidential levels!

Be the Change:
In what I thought was one of the most inspirational parts of the Obama campaign was Barack Obama’s response to the ‘toxic sermons’ of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr.  The book details how Obama had the courage to face the media head on speaking to how we can be stuck in a status quo of a ‘racial stalemate’ or embrace change and strive for a ‘more perfect union’.  In a time where technologies are threatening existing business models and financial distress forces businesses to make hard decisions, the ‘Barack, Inc’ message of change is a powerful message that needs to be headed by every business leader.

In summary, I recommend this book for any business leader or any Obama fan.  It is a great, quick read with many stories to inspire your organization to the same level of success as Barack Obama.

/colin

The following is a broad outline of a social media crisis policy:

1. Establish Employee Awareness: Empower employees to participate in social media while reminding them that this participation is very public for co-workers (past, current and future), customers, prospects and competitors.  Put simply, employees should be smart.
2. Crisis Levels: Agree on the categories of a crisis.  Include how your organization responds to each level and who should engage.  Provide this list to everyone in your organization.  For the individuals responsible for responding during the crisis (ideally your PR and Community manager) provide the proper PR crisis training.
3. Listen: Ensure that you are listening on all social media channels with the appropriate alerts.  There are a wide range of powerful tools from Radian6 to Techrigy or the free tools such as TweetBeeps or Google Alerts.  Social media is now providing incredible real time feedback to brands.   Quick response can prevent escalation.
4. Engage: Directly engage in the conversation within the medium (blog comments, twitter, ect) during a crisis.  Yes, PR and Marketing teams – you need Twitter accounts!  Be sincere and honest in your conversations.  It is far more likely that you will be judged more by how you react to the crisis than by the marketing miss-step that is being discussed.
5. Apologize and move on: Depending on the guidelines that you have agreed on for the crisis level, swiftly make the appropriate apology, both in the original medium (Twitter, blog comments, etc) and a mass medium (website and Youtube – again depending on crisis level) and move on.

We have seen various companies react differently, what would you add or change?  Please add to the comments below.

/Colin

Image via Wikipedia

I came across a recent blog post from Information Dissemination on the 6 Commandments of blogging.  The commandments at first glance are similar to the same great advice that you would find from Chris Brogan, Jeremiah Owyang, Liz Strauss and others.  Here is his quick list from the post:

• Be Interesting
• Be Insightful
• Be Social
• Be Interactive
• Set Expectations
• Be Relevant

Certainly this is great advice, but the wonderful difference between the Information Dissemination post and what Chris, Jeremiah and Liz would say is how the Information Dissemination blog has made this great advice relevant and specific for his audience (the Navy).  I love how for each of the ’six commandments’ very clear and specific examples from the Navy are given.  For example in ‘Be Interesting’ he speaks about how naval ships all have different coats of arms and slogans as personal brands that are unique.  Fascinating stuff that speaks directly to his audience!

As many of us try to communicate the benefits of social media within organizations, this is really a wonderful example of how to make your message more impactful and meaningful by simply choosing relevant examples to your audience and speaking in their terms.

/colin

Not only is the presentation that I gave below, but so are several of the links that I mentioned.

Thanks!

/Colin

In other words; does your future social media agency have a regular blog (if so, does it have compelling content)?  Do they participate on Twitter, Facebook, and/or Friendfeed?

If not, find any of the many great organizations or consultants with relevant experience that are actively using social media.  These are the teams that understand this quickly changing medium and are the organizations that you should be talking to.

Very soon I will be announcing a new listing service specifically designed to help organizations connect with the experienced social media agencies and consultants.  Stay tuned!

/colin

I have included a short overview of each, as well as a ‘freshness dating’ to help you gauge how helpful it will be to you.  Though there are a few that I have noted that I think are absolutely timeless.

I hope you find this section useful as you construct and plan social media for yourself or you clients!

/colin

When building out your own social media strategy it is impossible to ignore the pull of the larger social media sites such as MySpace and Facebook, in fact it is critical to a successful strategy to incorporate these large audiences.

Individual organizations are building their own focused communities. In a sense these are smaller, new villages when compared to the large cities of MySpace and Facebook. For these community initiatives to succeed they need to build and grow their audience. For these new villages to grow and thrive a great strategy is to build solid connections (or highways) to the large cities such as Facebook and MySpace. By enabling the promotion of the activity from the smaller communities to the larger communities, targeted audiences are going to be drawn back to the smaller ‘village’.

There are many technologies that are emerging today that help to enable this from Clearspring to new Facebook Connect. Today’s social architects can plan their communities success through solid bi-directional connections to the large social cities.

Have you ever been one of the first people at a restaurant and noticed where they have seated you?  Have you noticed that is typically at a visible spot to other future patrons?  Either at the windows or visible to the front entrance.  Have you noticed that they then try to spread people around to make the restaurant appear more full?

No one ever likes to be first; whether it is in selecting a restaurant, entering a party or participating in a community.  Strategic seating at restaurants is critical, strategic seeding in communities is just as critical to enticing and encouraging participation.

Over the past three years I have worked with many companies that have started communities, some with seeding and some without.  While there are always exceptions to this rule (and I think to call it a rule would be a bit strong), communities that have taken the time to create a welcoming environment with strategic posts that make the restaurant appear full and active prior to opening generally have quicker adoption.  In fact, in one recent case moderators have seeded over 100 posts, contributing accounts from their own lives to bring the community to life and to encourage other to participate in a similar way.  This community has taken off and flourished.  If you are planning a media campaign just after launch, seeding is a tactic not to be overlooked to help to optimize your buy.

Next time you enjoy a nice meal out with that important person in your life, think about how they are seating people and how it is putting you at ease while encouraging others to come to the establishment.  Then, of course, enjoy a great dinner!