Mike Moran, Paula Berg and Viral Marketing

I’m getting another dose of Mike Moran. Now he’s talking about different types of viral marketing:

Content-Based social media marketing. Focuses on the content to be posted and passed around (e.g. Blogger, WordPress.com,YouTube, del.icio.us,digg, StumbleUpon). Does your organization have content that might be passed along?

If you think YouTube isn’t for B2B, you’re wrong. YouTube lets potential IBM customers get a product demonstration in a low-stress environment. No pressure. Very cost effective. Here’s an example from IBM:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63qIq9t9Gqs]

Squidoo is another example. Some might find it helpful.

Don’t launch big new projects. For example, don’t say you now want all of your releases to be social media press releases. Try one. Then try another in a different way.

Personality-based social media marketing. For example, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace. It’s a way for people to find consultants directly.

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Duncan Wardle Media Relations 2008 Presentation

Duncan Wardle is VP of Global PR for Disney Parks. His presentation is called Communication Revolution 2.0 -> 3.0.

He started with the Epic video to set the tone:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WqecXo1-Cc]

Not new stuff (the video is a few years old), but helpful background for people just getting into social media.

Duncan sees this period of change as equivalent in upheaval to the industrial revolution. He calls it the communications revolution, based on these trends:

  • Digitization
  • Convergence – Duncan thinks Apple TV will do for TV what the iPod has done for audio.
  • Media Snacking – Half of the US now has broadband. The internet has taught us to be impatient readers.
  • Social Networking – The future is here today. Personalization and customization. There are no more broad demographics. The days of the interruption economy are done. People can and increasingly will be able to screen out brands they don’t consider relevant.

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Dennis Quaid Video on Medical Errors

Here are some video highlights of Dennis Quaid’s speech about medical errors and his family’s experience at Health Journalism 2008, the 10th annual conference of the Association of Health Care Journalists:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7vcYN-K0Dk]

I was in the back row, and there are a couple of jerky moments as my arm got tired, so I apologize if you have any fleeting moments of vertigo. Still, for SMUG students and journalists, it’s an example of what you can do fairly easily to share interesting and important information with the world. It’s not a live uStream (maybe I’ll work on that next). I’m not a trained journalist (and as you can see not a trained videographer, either), but this is a step between streaming everything and a deeper context piece. And maybe it can be a resource for real journalists to use in their reporting.

Welcome Frost & Sullivan eBulletin Readers

A few weeks ago I got a Facebook message from Caryn Brown from Frost & Sullivan, saying that she wanted to feature my blog as a “Recommended Read” in the eBulletin, a quarterly electronic publication for past participants in Sales and Marketing: A Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange. (I guess they ordinarily feature a book in this section.) I asked Caryn to let me know when the eBulletin would be distributed, so I could welcome you properly and share links to some of the posts I’ve done about Frost & Sullivan events. She kindly obliged, so here’s a quick intro to Social Media University, Global — or SMUG.

SMUG is the University of Phoenix without the football stadium…or the tuition…or the accreditation. It’s a place for lifelong learners to get hands-on experience with social media tools, which are changing the way people communicate.

With well over 100 million blogs and upwards of 68 million active users of Facebook, I’ve said previously that for PR professionals, unfamiliarity with these tools borders on malpractice. The same is true for those involved in sales and marketing.

Especially when you can learn about them for free!

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Engaging Key Stakeholders through Social Media

Today I had the pleasure of giving a presentation to MHSCN, the Minnesota Health Strategy and Communications Network. This also provided me an opportunity to try Slideshare.net, a service that is like YouTube for presentation decks, so that I can share the slides with those who attended (and anyone else.)


This was a great group, highly engaged and interested in the subject matter, which was using social media to engage employees and to communicate with outside stakeholders.  It was a fun opportunity to offer a SMUG Extension Class. I hope lots of the MHSCN members will decide to enroll.

For those who attended, I would appreciate any feedback on the presentation, and would be happy to answer any additional questions you may have.