This is a continuation of my reviews of the Sprint EVO 4G.  I’m now two weeks in and getting more comfortable with my new sidearm.

Organization of Apps

There are some aspects of the Sprint EVO 4G that I really enjoy – the most prominent of which is the general speed of the operating system (and device overall), as compared to the iPhone 3G I was carrying.

Android seems to have bet their chips on the idea that your average smart phone user will typically use the same set of 20 applications (on a regular basis).  The organization of the apps on the Sprint EVO 4G seems to make it very easy to get to your top 20, but makes it’s bit more cumbersome to get to apps outside of that select group in a hurry.

It’s a decent idea, but I still fancy Apple’s new take on folder organization.

3 Downfalls of the Android Market

In buying into the Sprint EVO 4G, I’ve had to completely relearn how my phone operates.  One of the most stark differences lies in the user experience of the Andriod Market and Android Applications, as opposed to Apple’s App Store and iPhone Applications.

Here’s the breakdown of three differences I think are most noticeable:

1)  I’ve noticed a increase in the amount of comment spammers. These folks post comments on specific apps with the intention of driving traffic to third party app directories.  It’s not at all helpful in terms of learning about user perspectives, and, frankly, a bit annoying.

2)  The organization of the Market is cumbersome. Application titles are vague and it seems to take more clicks to get to information, regarding what each app does.  That alone has somewhat turned me off to seeking out new apps.

3)  There’s a noticeable difference in the variety and quality of the apps in the Android Market, as opposed to Apple’s App Store. While that’s not surprising, I am missing some of the apps I used on my iPhone 3G that were specifically tied to some of the back-end applications I use to operate Social Business Strategies.

What’s your experience with the Android Market and, Android apps and the Market?

If you have an Internet connection, you probably know what’s going on with the Old Spice Guy.  He’s everywhere.  And people are talking, laughing and sharing the videos at an incredible pace.  At the time of this post, Old Spice’s YouTube channel has recieved a total of 53,660,116 views, with a large majority happening in the last week.

It’s gone viral.  

It’s truly exciting to watch this unfold.  The campaign, created by marketing agency Wieden + Kennedy, and featuring actor and former pro football player Isaiah Mustafa, is one of the biggest creative breakthroughs since we saw the orginial iPhone shredded to bits on Blendtech’s Will It Blend.  

Read Write Web does a great job in this article of detailing how Wieden + Kennedy approached the project.  The agency deserves a cordial hat tip for taking risks and cutting a new path in online and viral marketing.  

Why It’s Brilliant

• Entertainment and the Weirdness Factor
  The content of these videos is just weird enough, but not creepy.  The writing pushes the envelope and really has nothing to do with the product, other than the occasional cameo shot.  It’s not selling anything.  The delivery of such absurd lines by Mustafa is reminiscent of the lists and t-shirts that float around emblazoned with popular Chuck Norris jokes.  The absurdity makes it highly entertaining, so I was hooked.  Much like a tweet, the brevity of the content makes it easy to consume.  I quickly got sucked down the rabbit hole and watched another video.  And another…
• Mass Media First
  Before any spread began via social media channels, Mustafa was syndicated on primetime television.  I first saw this video run sometime around 9:30 p.m. on Fox, during the American Idol spinoff, So You Think You Can Dance.  Why is that important?  Millions of viewers were introduced to the concept and Mustafa.  You should also note the difference in post-production and editing between this video and those regularly produced for social media distribution.
• Human Business Team
  For 48 hours, a team of 6 human beings manned the outposts and a production studio.  Listening stations were set up to respond to various tweets, status updates and conversations that were happening around the web about the campaign.  The @oldspice team, comprised of social media power users and technical specialists like producers, editors and even script writers used this information to tailor, produce and distribute over 200 entertaining videos of the spot.  Amazing.
• Getting Personal with Influencers
  Alyssa Milano and Perez Hilton probably don’t wear Old Spice, but they do have millions of followers on Twitter and other social networks.  Their sphere of influence and social graph makes them very attractive to B2C product companies, in terms of creating viral spread.  When influencers talk, their followers start talking too.  The critical success factor was how the Old Spice team reached out to the influencers, grabbing their attention with humor (and sometimes snarky comments) that started real conversations.
• Loosening the Reigns
  I have a new opinion of P&G and Old Spice, as they clearly did not take themselves too seriously.  To quote the RRW article: “Tait says that Old Spice’s parent company, Proctor & Gamble, exhibited incredible bravery in allowing his team to write marketing content in real time, with little to no supervision.  ’There is such great trust [between the companies],’ he said. ‘But we are being very responsible.  They have given us a set of guidelines and if we get close to the edges we contact them.”  I find that statement so refreshing.  So many times, companies continue to demand complete control over their message.  The problem is that complete control is no longer possible.  The world has changed, and cutting-edge agencies and consultants understand why.  We social media users know this because we are in the thick of it every day, working from the frontlines of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, because that’s where all the cool kids (like us, of course) hang out.  “P&G had enough trust in their agency and the relationship to let them play.  Today, that’s a critical ingredient of success.” 
• Speed and Real Time
  D.M. Scott’s new book is going to talk about the idea and power of real time.  If it’s up to par with everything else he writes, it will absolutely change the game.  I’m willing to bet that this campaign has already inked it’s spot as a case study in the pages of David’s work.  What’s most amazing to me (and so creative) is how the Old Spice team broke the rules of Twitter by responding to tweets with video messages that were incredibly outside of the 140-character limit.  Essentially, leveraging Twitter’s real-time communication, while bending content rules allowed for Old Spice to maintain Mustafa’s campaign branding, as a spokesperson, in a much more engaging way than a simple-text tweet.  Truly a stroke of genius.
• Shifting the Brand Perception
  I think it relates to Mustafa’s delivery and the comical writing for the video responses, but personally, I’ll never look at Old Spice the same way again.  Brand is about what consumers attribute to a product, service, company or human being.  My perception of Old Spice had always been that it was the cologne that we gave my grandfather on Christmas morning.  Even the name Old Spice creates a disconnect in reaching younger audiences.  Now, however, I see Old Spice as a brand that has has a Gen Y sense of humor, participates in the places I visit, and has a young and hip former NFL spokesperson.  When I pass an Old Spice display in the store, I suddenly find myself stopping to look and explore.
• Mustafa’s Back Story & Humanization
  Unlike Nationwide’s fictitious and lackluster attempt at the World’s Greatest Spokesperson In The World, Isaiah Mustafa is a real human being.  He’s a former NFL football player and avid reader of comic books, who studied history at Arizona State University and has a daughter (who he addresses from a tweet in this video).  Why is this important to the campaign?  It provides fodder for publicity to keep the story going.  Today, everyone on the web is in awe as to how this Old Spice brand revamp was executed.  ReadRightWeb wrote the first article outlining how they truly executed.  There will surely be more articles on the matter, and the press will likely want to know more about who Mustafa is.  To a nationally syndicated reporter or talk radio host, Mustafa is beginning to look like a great interview.

What’s your take?  Did I miss anything?  Do you agree?  Disagree?

I’ve subscribed to SurveyGizmo for about three weeks now.

It’s an online survey and polling tool that has a bit more meat on its bones than PollDaddy.  And in my mind, it also has a much nicer user interface than SurveyMonkey.  I’ve used all three and landed here from my own projects.

What’s interesting – from a marketing angle – is that I never saw an ad, read an article or blog post, or even received a tweet from the company.  Nope. Nothing.  I found SurveyGizmo while taking a recent survey that Dan Harris included me on.  It just so happened that, at the time of Dan’s Q&A, I was about to start looking at survey tool options.  Serendipity, yes?

I was so impressed with how clean Dan’s survey was designed, I decided to try SurveyGizmo on for size.

I currently have three client surveys out and I’ve been impressed with how easy they have been to set up.  There’s also a good amount of pre-build logic for questions.  I’m planning some more surveys and polls for research for a few eBooks in process over the next few weeks.

Then on Friday afternoon, SurveyGizmo did something VERY important, in terms of growing a business.  With a heartfelt, creative, and highly humanized piece of direct mail, the folks at SurveyGizmo converted me from a happy customer into a raving fan.

Guess what else happened?  I’m now telling you the story.  See the connection, friends?

Here’s what I mean:

Let’s Review What SurveyGizmo Just Did

• Focus on Making a Great Product – SurveyGizmo invested in developing a product that delivers and is impressive.  It’s not just a shiny marketing campaign.
• Go Viral by Making it Easy to Spread – SurveyGizmo’s customers spread the word virally by using the product to conduct surveys, such as how I learned about it from Dan.  Genius.
• Get More Personal with Customers – New customers are immediately embraced and thanked in a very personal offline way that is rather unexpected.
• Humanize Your Company – Rather than send a catalog with more products (like some companies still do), the team at SurveyGizmo sends a creative mailer with introductions to the humans who make up the company.

While I don’t have any access to the data to prove this, I’m willing to bet that a possible outcome of SurveyGizmo’s efforts is an extremely high customer retention rate.  (Folks at SurveyGizmo, please feel free to share that in the comments if you’re willing and able…)

Being Reminded of Little Things
I used to be really good about taking time for the little, personal human touches.  Treating people like human beings is how I built my network of friends, as well as professional connections.  Yet, somewhere along the path, I’ve gotten away from things like handwritten notes and simple, personal phone calls to say “congrats!” or “happy birthday.”  I use Facebook for that now, along with almost 500 million other users and hundreds of thousands of companies who, like me, buy into that machine and set of norms and processes.

As I type, I find it ironic that a single customer experience with SurveyGizmo and the humans behind their business has reminded me about the foundation upon which my own business has its roots.

What have I learned?  I need to readjust.  I need to do better at getting back to my roots.  Stay tuned…

What about you? Where are your business roots?  Are they still important or have the been buried under overgrowth?

I’ve been a HootSuite user for some time now, and while I won’t be signing up for the HootSuite Certified Professionals program anytime soon, I’m digging the new release of HootSuite5.

I’ve been playing around since about 6 a.m. this morning when I received the notification of the update.  This post is purely an initial review of HootSuite5 and only my first reaction, as well as the reactions of some of my Twitter followers.  I’m pleased to feature some of their opinions.  Thanks for the insight, folks!

What’s Different about HootSuite5

You don’t have to write code to know that Google’s HTML5 is creating a ton of buzz across the web.  It seems like a good move that HootSuite has invested time and energy into building on the new web standard. Geo-search capabilities aside, I think the most promising ability that innovation offers is an improved ability to drag and drop various media objects, much like how Apple products work.  Improved refresh speed is a plus, as well.

Review of HootSuite 5 – My Initial Reactions

• Redesigned Interface – I like the aesthetics of the new release much better.  To be clear, I’m accessing HootSuite 5 from Google Chrome, so I’m not sure how it operates from other browsers.  Amanda L. Sage also seems to be a fan of the new design and themes and speed:
  
  

  Mike Bowers also has an interesting take on the new design:
  
  I agree with both points.  With Amanda, it is nice to have the ability to customize the look and feel of the dashboard.  I think that some aspects of the functionality are faster and some are still a bit clunky.  I’ll attribute that to the usual bugs that happen in early releases of a new version of software, coupled by exploration into HTML5.  From a product standpoint, HootSuite has always been good with releasing fixes fairly quickly.

• Site Analytics – It’s going to take me a few more days to wrap my head completely around where HootSuite5 is heading with these updated features.  I will say this, though: the addition of Google Analytics seems to be a win for me, simply from a convenience standpoint.  Integration was also a two-click breeze and the display dashboard is pleasing.  I’ve not yet played with the Tweet overlay, but it’s in the foreground of my immediate radar of experimentation.
  
• GeoSearch – This feature does require an HTML5-ready browser, but I can see some relevant applications of geo-sourcing conversations and mentions of specific keywords.  This could be a helpful feature in a variety of front-end research projects for strategy development or even marketing campaign planning, especially for companies at the local level with franchises, dealers, retail locations and even small business.  For the league JetSetters (you know who you are), what will be interesting to see is how traveling users apply this feature using mobile devices.  The HootSuite iPhone app has become one of my mobile weapons of choice.
• Drag & Drop Upload – This works beautifully from what I’ve experience thus far and was voted a favorite feature by my friend, Christian Adams.  Drag-and-drop functionality simply makes things easier and less time-consuming.  Enough said.  Well done, HootSuite5.
• Enhanced FaceBook – This is one of my personal favorites thus far.  From a consumption angle, the new display is much more pleasing.  At some points, it changes my display when I submit a status update, but at this point, I can’t say for certain what triggers that change.  I’ll be digging into this more as well.
  
• New ReTweets – I’m not much of a fan about how the ReTweet function works as is on Hootsuite5, in that it automatically sends the message without allowing me to add my own text into the message.  However, the savvy Traci Knoppe shared a work-around that she has discovered.  It works nicely!
  
• Localization – This is not new to social media aggregators in the same category.  In fact, Tweetdeck has had this functionality for months.  While it’s a great idea, it does typically require a more specialized user to take advantage of this feature.  As is, I can see it being applicable in terms of individuals tasked with global and international business development, or even in the European market where folks speaking a different language may only be a short train ride away.  In the US, not so much. Also, I want to be able to change my geographic location.  For instance, talking with Mike Brown today, I learned that Twitter was abuzz with talks of a new social media club in Kansas City, MO.  From a research standpoint, I might want to then search for the terms “Social Media Club” and geo-target that search to the appropriate zip code (per Mike’s suggestion).  Do you see where I’m going with this?
• Instaload – I’m not entirely sure I notice a difference on this just yet and need some more time to play.  That said, the real issue in my mind is with Twitter itself.  It seems that recently, I’ve been receiving the ever-popular “Twitter API is down” message across the top of my columns.  What’s that all about, Twitter?
• Themes – I like that I can now personalize my dashboard with themes.  Users can pick from any of the three current options available!  Hmmmm. One suggestion would be to release additional themes or give users the ability to brand the application to their business or even their own personal liking.  Jason Velliquette, for instance, fancies seeing HootSuite5 “Zoolander inspired themes!” Who knows?  Maybe custom HootSuite5 themes will provide an additional quick and easy market opportunity for freelance designers.  It did for Twitter backgrounds.

This is round one for me.  If you are using HootSuite5, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on feature sets, design, and anything else you are experiencing.

What’s your take?

With all of the new, shiny bells and whistles, I’ve noticed that we are all guilty of getting hung up on the power that technology now lends us.  I know I’m guilty of this.  I’ll bet you might be too.

It seems that recently, marketers are especially prone to getting stuck on the tools.  Stuck.  The demands of the career are high and tools make things faster, easier and sometimes more effective.  I get that.  Heck, I live it every day.

But sometimes, there are opportunities to be effective without the high-tech gizmos.  Right?

Case in Point

Grove City is a southern/southwestern suburb of Columbus.  In the last six years, city officials have been focused on reinvigorating the community as a destination for fun, family values and convenience to Columbus.

What’s the ultimate goal?  To raise awareness and attract interest from potential families who might be moving near the Columbus area for work (or otherwise), and to take advantage of the benefits of living in Columbus’s nearest suburb and the family values-driven Midwest lifestyle.

Here’s one of the ways they are spreading that message:

Viral Marketing – Effectively Low-Tech

What you’re looking at is a set of three postcards.  I found these prominently located in the lobby of the La Qunita Inn, which is one of the many hotels located off of Stringtown Road on Grove City’s north side.

These post cards are made available to any guests staying in the hotel at no cost.  The photography is good and the message is limited, making the card usable.  If my Maka were still here today and visited the hotel, I know that she would have picked up all three.

Why This Is a Good Idea

There’s a laundry list of why this very inexpensive campaign caught my attention.  Here’s my take:

• Good clean design
  These cards are well-produced.  While I don’t know the firm who did the work, if you happen to be reading, kudos!  The photography is solid and attractive; the copy is concise and to-the-point.  Notice that both online and offline conversion points are located at the very top of the messaging.  Win!  The only improvement I suggest would be developing a stronger call to action.  Other than that, it’s effective.
• Good location per the target audience
  La Quinta Inn is located where a huge majority of Columbus city visitors make their stay, as Grove City hotels are far less expensive than downtown lodging.  What’s more is that many folks who stay in Grove City come for the many events that the community has to offer, including annual car shows, the coveted alumni softball tournament, horse racing, and the new Pinnacle Golf Club (which is one of the most challenging courses in central Ohio).  Aside from that, Stringtown Road is no more than ten minutes from downtown Columbus.
  
• Showing off Grove City’s niche attractions
  Like I mentioned, the last six years have been a period of major developments for Grove City.  One of the highlights of this community is the park system, which rivals any other suburb of Columbus.  Grove City knows this.  They’ve invested significant dollars in the park system and take tremendous pride in the work they’ve done.  One of the highlights (which is actually featured on the front side of the flipped card) is the Grove City Skate Park.  More than twice the size of any other suburban skate attraction, this park reigns supreme as one of the best in the state of Ohio.  It’s worth talking about and these cards make that message much easier to spread.
  
• Tapping into the social graph
  We all have deep personal relationships with family, friends and even coworkers.  My Maka was never on the internet, but she always used postcards to keep in touch with her loved ones.  My friend, Jack Windsor, can tell you about the difference a personal, handwritten note can make.  Now, consider the volume of people who may visit hotels in Grove City, Ohio each year.  Even if a small percentage of them send one or two cards, how many people could potentially be reached by those messages?
  
• More meaningful than Facebook
  Let me ask you this: in all the messages you receive on Facebook, Twitter and even LinkedIn, do some messages get lost?  Maybe a few here or there, right?  But, if someone you know takes the time to write you a postcard and sends it in the mail, do you read it?  Probably.  What’s more is that you may even take that card and display it on your desk, kitchen counter or on your home bulletin board.  Postcards are often kept as keepsake memories for years.
• Free to you
  This point is important.  By making these cards available for free, the folks in Grove City have eliminated many barriers to adoption.  You don’t have to pay to use their viral marketing tactic (outside the cost of a stamp).  How could Grove City take it up a notch?  Simple.  For a small additional investment, make these postcards available with paid postage included.

That’s why I think this is an effective low-tech viral campaign.

What do you think?  Anything you would change or add?  Can you use this thinking in your own marketing?  How?

What is Human Business?  You might recognize that term.  It’s become a buzzword in 2010.

You’ll recognize who’s in the next video interview and he has some answers for you.  If you’re here, you probably read his blog too, and might have even seen him speak sometime in the last couple years.

(Side note:  The picture you see to the right is kind of fun.  Over some tasty martinis, Becky Johns asked Chris to shoot a short video roast of Peter Shankman.  It was hysterical and all in good fun.)

If you don’t recognize Shankman’s name, you might recognize him by the very popular HARO emails that float around to marketers and other business-minded folks.  Maybe you even subscribe to them.  Help a Reporter Out is one of peter’s babies and a damned good idea.

Chris Brogan is one of the key leaders in the human business movement and the growth of social media adoption in business.  I first met him around this time last year at the Ohio Growth Summit, where he was the keynote speaker.  At the time, Trust Agents, his New York Times best-selling book had not yet been launched.

Towards the end of video, Chris shares some information on his newest project, Human Business Works.  While the site is not updated yet, I think small business owners will find this project particularly interesting since Human Business Works is being launched to help you build new ideas and become more profitable.

Check it out.  I think you’ll dig what he has to say.

What’s your definition of Human Business and how will you make it work for you?  Do you think Human Business Works will be a helpful project?

(Photo credit: Becky Johns)

I’ve spent a good majority of my career living the agency life, marketing and selling professional services.  It can be challenging, especially when your focus centers around selling strategy projects to your clients.  Making strategy (a process) tangible (something you can see, touch and feel) is tough.

That’s why this session was particularly interesting to me.  If you are in the professional services game, whether it’s in the agency world or elsewhere, you might dig this content.  I was especially impressed with the way the panelists and moderator handled the Q&A.

It was challenge distilling roughly 35 minutes of footage into less than 5 minutes of content.  Nonetheless, I’m confident that I captured the highlights for you.

Meet the Moderator

• Mike Schultz, President, Wellesley Hills Group (and author of Professional Services Marketing)

Meet the Panel

• Andrew Bosman, Executive Director of Marketing, Navigant Consulting, Inc.
• Linda Meenan, CMO, Wildman Harrold
• Randall Thorne, National Executive Director, Marketing, Grant Thornton LLP

Did anything surprise you?  What would you add?

Just so you know, I’ll be producing blog posts from the BMA Engage Conference this week in Chicago.  It’s going to be a killer conference, with all of the content focused on B2B marketers and how they can leverage emerging technologies to reach their audiences.

Here’s a look at what I’ll be using to bring the content to this blog – and to you.  I hope it, in the very least, gives you some ideas on stuff you might go out and add to your own media production arsenal.

Here are the links to what’s in my Mobile Media Production Studio.  The products are in no real particular order, and I’ve only included links to the fun stuff.  There are plenty of options out there on things like cables, card readers and whatnot.

• Swissgear Synergy Notebook Carrying Backpack (LOVE this backpack.)
• Moleskine Folio Book (My playbook.)
• MacBook Pro (Want to do media better?  Buy a Mac.  Enough said.)
• Kodak Zi8 (Wonderful product.)
• Kodak Zi8 0.45x Wide Angle With Macro (Modification Style) Magnetic Lens + Cronies Micro-Fiber Cleaning Cloth (Makes a wonderful product even better.)
• Flip Mino Camcorder, 60 Minutes (Black) (I’ve been using this for over a year.  Dependable.  Compact.  No complaints.)
• Kodak EasyShare MX1063 10.3MP Digital Camera (Not terrible, but not the best in terms of quality and flexibility.)
• Targus 6″ Table-top Tripod (Cheap, solid and effective.)
• Novatel – Wireless MiFi 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot – Black (Verizon Wireless) (Wish I would have purchased this long ago.)
• CPG20 GRID-IT! Organizer (Awesome product.)
• Windscreen for Tie-Clip Microphone (4-Pack) (Basic, but essential, for good close-up audio.)
• Sony ECM-DS70P Electret Condenser Stereo Microphone (Really great quality audio from this mic.)
• Olympus ME-52W Noise Canceling Microphone (Small, excellent quality and super handy.  I use this mic most often.)
• Radioshack Universal Cassette Recorder Microphone (More of a backup than anything else, but does the trick for interviews.)
• Hands-Free Tie-Clip Omnidirectional Electret (Great for capturing interviews or your own video content.)
• Vanguard MK1 Tripod (Light, simple and sturdy.  Sometimes difficult to get level on certain surfaces.)
• Audiovox Surface SURF260 Screen Cleaner Combo Pack (Good deal and works really well.  Mine has lasted about three months now.)
• Sony ICD B300 64 MB Digital voice recorder – (Great for quickly taking notes on-the-fly, as well as when driving.)
• Final Cut Express 4 (GREAT software, but I’m still working through the learning curve and not yet as proficient as I need to be.)
• iMovie (Not mentioned, but I use it all the time because it’s fast.)

What do you think?  What have I missed?  What would you add to the backpack?  I might have some room…

A few months ago, Jessica Simpson (no, not that Jessica Simpson) approached me to do a sponsored web conference for her company, ConferencePlus.  I liked her vision.  She was focused on developing a series of content that would help her customers with some tactics that were outside of the core products and services that her she and her team currently provide.

Thus, the idea for B2B Blogging 101: How to Use Your Blog to Drive Traffic to Your Online Event was born.  The event will take place tomorrow and is completely free for you to sign up.  In full disclosure, I’m getting paid a little money by ConferencePlus for my time in designing the content and presenting.

With that said, if you’re trying to figure out how to make a B2B blog work for your business,  here’s why I think you should register to attend:

• We’ll start with some business blogging basics like the anatomy of a blog, a breakdown of some of the CMS platform options and the case for on why B2B businesses should consider blogging
• We’ll explore two main genres of B2B business blogs and the advantages and disadvantages to each approach
• We’ll talk about how to get started building out a targeted keyword strategy with terms and phrases that will draw the right audience to your blog presence, as well as some of the tools that are available for you to use
• We’ll dive into some tips and tricks for creating relevant content with the right frequency it will take to move the needle.  For the purpose of this web conference, we’ll focus on how to best use a blog to drive registrants to your online event.
• We’ll cover some basic strategy, tactics and tools for distributing your blog content through social media outposts in a way that will drive inbound traffic to your blog
• We’ll discuss the process of using your keyword strategy and WISIWIG tools to optimize your blog with keyword-rich copy and metadata so that, over time, search engines will index your content
• Finally, we’ll cover a few ways that you can convert your blog readers into registrants and attendees for your online events

Some of the case study examples you will see will see come from my own experience in blogging here at NateRiggs.com.  Others include tips and tricks I’ve picked up over the years from blogs like ProBlogger, HubSpot, Michael Hyatt and a slew of others I follow.

My Background in B2B Blogging

I first started business blogging around 2007 when I worked for a technology start-up, called BestTransport.  The blog was co-authored by Bob Parsley (my boss) and myself, and it was a valuable learning experience.  Prior to that, in 2006, I had dabbled in WordPress, building out a simple personal blog as a tool to keep my extended family updated on pictures and happenings around my wife’s pregnancy and the birth of our son, Kaden.  Back in those days, WordPress was a shadow of what it is today.  The open source movement was just gaining momentum and things like widgets and plugins were still fairly clunky.  At times, it was frustrating to use.

Around late 2007, I started this blog (as ChasingChange) on Google’s Blogger platform, with the goal of using it to help my efforts in B2B business development for Young Isaac.  But a funny thing happened.  I got hooked.  After year one, I migrated my content back to WordPress, on a suggestion from Jake Stoops (he blogs at Agent-SEO).  Widgets and plugins had improved to the point where it just made sense.  I had started to out grow the functionality that Blogger provided and needed a CMS that would allow me to dive deeper into search optimization and do more in terms of content variety and visitor conversion.

Today, my blog gets somewhere between 3,000 to 4,000 unique monthly visitors on average.  While my Feedburner subscriptions tell me that I have around 125 subscribers, my repeat traffic numbers in Google Analytics are showing that about 1,200-1,300 of you come back on a regular basis (Thank you, by the way.  I’m glad you read!).  As it stands today, my own contact form generates somewhere around 3-5 new leads per month, with about half of that number being qualified and sales ready leads for the consulting and speaking services I offer.  Almost 100% of my business is focused on B2B companies.

Are they bigger blogs out there that are doing better?  Sure.  Is my blog serving my needs as a B2B consultant?  I would say so.  Can I still improve, tweak and adjust for better results?  Absolutely.  Business blogging is a dynamic process rooted in continuous improvement.

Want to Learn How To Move the Needle with a B2B Blog?

Over the past few years, I’ve learned this medium and how to make it work pretty well for B2B objectives.  While I’ll always be learning, I have things I want to teach you so that you too can find ways to apply blogging in your business.  Tomorrow’s web conference with ConferencePlus is a chance for you to get insights, tips, tricks and tools that help you take your blog up a notch and drive attendees to your online event.  It’s FREE to attend and will last about an hour.

What do you say?  Will you register for the event?

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  2010 Speaking Events
• Date:
  Tue, May 25th
  
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  12:00pm
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• Venue:
  B2B Blogging 101: How to Use Your Blog to Drive Traffic to Your Online Event – Sponsored by ConferencePlus
• Country:
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• Notes:
  This is a FREE Webinar to attend and has been sponsored by ConferencePlus
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I’ve been focused on brand and communities this week.

Yesterday, we talked about internal customers (the people who work for your company) and how brand can be developed from the inside out.  Today, let’s look at external brand loyalists and an example of a loyalty program that, at the very least, keeps me coming back.

Here’s what I mean:

Treats vs. Staples

My office is a block down the street from Katzinger’s, a very well-known and wonderfully tasty delicatessen with great service.  That last link will show you some of the reviews that local spot has received on Yelp.  I’ve even written about the Katzingers before and some of the great experiences I’ve had as a customer.  It’s one of my favorite lunch spots in Columbus, and it’s closeby.

Yet Katzingers has become a lunch treat, not a staple.

The loyalty program at Subway, coupled with their $5 Footlong program is why I go back regularly.  It’s the extra hook that keeps my attention and places Subway at the top of my mind around 11:30 a.m. each day.  What’s more is that I’m not alone.  Go to your local Subway at lunchtime and check out how my people order from the $5 menu, and if yours is a franchise that buys into the card program, take notice of how many people approach the counter with their card in hand.  While I don’t have the actually statistics, it always appears to be a solid majority of the customers in line.

Make Loyalty Easier

Mobile is everywhere.  Apps are everywhere.  How could Subway enhance the customer experience of brand loyalists using an iPhone or Droid?  What type of functionality would be helpful to carry around with you in your pocket, in terms of visiting your favorite lunch spot?

I’d love to see a Subway iPhone App that not only let me check my reward points, but also allowed me to place my order in advance.  Building on the fact that I get the same sandwich from Subway on almost every visit (as brand loyalists often do), developing functionality that allows me to set up my order preferences would be huge.  What would be even cooler is if the iPhone App could tie into my Foursquare check-in data at the location and send the pre-populated content of my order preference to a monitor behind the counter – so that my sub was ready by the time I walked into the store.

Subway probably isn’t going to find a way to build a better tuna melt.  In my mind, there doesn’t seem to be much room to improve the product and keep the price in check.  Where they might be able to improve, however, regards the delivery of their product and the customer experience around receiving it.

What do you think?