It's Official: Google Indexes Comments

A few years ago, I had an on-blog conversation with Bob Bly on the idea of marketing with blog comments. Bob was skeptical, but I had done it together with Steve O'Keefe.

Now it's official. Mequoda Daily reports that Google is indexing comments on blogs and Facebook posts. So add comments to your toolbox. And remember--Google is watching. So if you don't have something good to say, keep your comments to yourself.

Read the full story: Google Starts Indexing Comments – All of Them

Advanced Internet Publicity session a Top Seller

In cased you missed it, or just want to hear it again, PMA, the Independent Book Publishers Association has released recordings of the 2007 PMA University sessions. I was especially gratified see that the session in which I participated with Steve O'Keefe of Patron Saint Productions and Penny Sansevieri of Author Marketing Experts was one of the best sellers. The session focused on advanced PR techniques, through author tours and blogging.

The recordings, available through AVMG Media Store listed our session as

***TOP SELLER*** 4A. Advanced Internet Publicity: Online Author Tours

Let me know if you order the CD and have any questions. I'm working on a guide to Blog PR and would appreciate your feedback. Disclosure: I don't get any commission from sales of the CD. Just a nice warm feeling.

Writing by Hand?

This post is a supreme act of hypocrisy. I am blogging about Writing by Hand!

Here I am... tapping away at my keyboard. But the Luddite in me is telling me I've gone soft and should go back to real writing.

OK, I'm not alone. Emmy-Award winning scriptwriter Robert Avrech told me he writes with a fountain pen. But he writes his (also award-winning) blog on his Powerbook!

Copywriter Robert Stover writes:

Want to start writing better copy - instantly?
Then perhaps you need to throw out your computer and pick up a pen.

This insight comes from writing teacher Shari Wilson.

She noticed that her student’s writing transitions, flow and idea sequencing was better on handwritten in-class essays over those they worked on outside of class with a computer.

I've done some of my best writing in spiral notebooks... on the Subway! But I find it hard to give up the luxury of the word processor at home. The problem is the computer and the Net are recalcitrant tools. A #2 pencil doesn't distract you as much from your subject matter. Mark Twain anticipated this with his essay on the typewriter.

How do you write? Do you write a first draft with pen or pencil and only then fire up the computer? Or do you write your drafts on the computer?

CEO Blogs

Ted Demopoulos closes his show today on IAOCblog: Will CEO Blogs Ever Take Off?

Ted stood tough on some tough issues. If you're thinking of blogging for your company, check out his posts for this week. You may be scared off... or you may just become a better blogger!

Is It Okay to Get Paid to Blog?

How do you start a blog fire? Rub bloggers the wrong way!

One surefire way to get an argument going is to mention hired gun bloggers. And what about ghost riders... um I mean ghostwriters? Are they good, bad or ugly?

Is blogging a profession? Tune in to IAOCblog.com next week for blog expert Dave Taylor's Blog Show: "Is It Okay to Get Paid to Blog?"

Should CEOs Blog?

Mosey on over to IAOCblog.com for a Sneak Preview of a Blog Show with author/blogger Ted Demopoulos on the pros and cons of CEO blogging.

Some useful Websites

Writer's Digest has its annual 101 Best Web sites for Writers.

Now Bootstrapper offers a similar list for business bloggers: The Business Blogging Toolset: 100 Resources for Entrepreneur-Writers

Is blogging a waste of time?

Hoo boy! Now I'm really going to get in trouble with the blogerati! But you have to read this one.

Is it a waste of time to try promoting yourself by blogging?

Seth Godin sees blogs as the Electronic Grail. But usability expert Jakob Nielsen is also an Internet force to be reckoned with. And here's his advice to those who want to be recognized as experts and thought leaders:

To demonstrate world-class expertise, avoid quickly written, shallow postings. Instead, invest your time in thorough, value-added content that attracts paying customers.

Read Nielsen's whole article: Write Articles, Not Blog Postings Then let me know what you think. (I can just see Bob Bly nodding his head!)

I have my own ideas about the value of blogging. But I'm saving them for an article ;)

Creative Writing Challenge to Bloggers

Answers.com is running a Creative Writing Challenge for bloggers.

They are offering prizes for "creative writing genius": writing a story or poem using ten words/phrases they randomly choose. Prizes include Amazon gift certificates along with blog mentions on Answers.com and link love.

Click here for the submission details.

OK Morty, so who wrote it already?!

Ladies and gentlemen, here's the moment you've been waiting for....

Yesterday, I quoted a futuristic vision of interactive, consumer-based marketing. And I challenged readers to guess the writer. I expected people to guess Seth Godin or Doc Searls. The actual guesses ran from Al Ries, to David Ogilvy to "...it certainly wasn't Lasker or Hopkins."

Ladies and gentlemen, the writer of those words first learned about marketing delivering chickens for Izzy's kosher butcher shop in the Bronx.

He invented bound-in subscription cards in magazines. He changed marketing history by putting a little gold box in record club ads and getting people to hunt for the "buried treasure." (Did I hear somebody say "Interactive"?!)

Those words were written in 1996 by the "Father of Direct Marketing": Lester Wunderman!

What is Mr. Wunderman doing these days? Don't look for him in a shuffleboard game! Retirement isn't his style The king of mail order is still guiding the Wunderman agency. He also started blogging! And in his very first blog post, he said

The Industrial Revolution is behind us, and The Information Age has matured. Many of the old mass media are losing ground as we begin to provide information to smaller groups and even single consumers. The Internet has brought to the forefront the idea of interactive marketing. Millions of sellers and buyers are now involved in an increasingly personal dialogue. Marketing objectives are achieved not only by what we know but more importantly the increasing number of ways that we can use that knowledge.

Keep an eye on this guy. He's going places!

Ted Demopoulos on Blogs and Marketing

When I saw Ted Demopoulos's post Blogging for Business: Blogs and Marketing: Do they work and what about metrics?, at first I thought of what Oscar Wilde said:

Ah! Don't say that you agree with me. When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong.

But, in Ted's case, I have to make an exception!

Bob Bly wonders, "Does blog marketing make sense?"

Copywriting maestro Bob Bly has long been skeptical about the marketing value of blogs. Even on his own blog! Now he brings Bad News for Blogging Evangelists that...

According to an article in Internet Marketing Report (5/25/07), 52% of U.S. adults never read a blog, and 16% don’t even know what a blog is.
The article concludes that investing a lot of your marketing budget in blogging “doesn't make a whole lot of sense.”

But to me, going by the numbers alone is like choosing a book by how many pages it has. I care about what is inside, not how much. J.K. Rowling's books sell in spite of how much they weigh... not because of it.

Can the value of blogging be measured purely in numbers of readers? I would say it makes a lot of sense to reach 100 readers who are likely to buy and then tell their friends about your product. Especially when the cost of reaching them is minute compared to other media.

Not only that. The real reach of blogs is far wider than the reported "readership." Google immortalizes the information on blogs. Searchers (read "buyers") for your product will find you. Get tagged and you're it!

Get a ringside seat at the slugfest on Bob's blog.

Blog at your own risk

Blogs have come up on the radar of "The Man."

If you or anyone at your company is blogging, make sure you know your legal rights... and wrongs! Don't miss the discussion this week on IAOCblog: Blog Rules

Book Review: The Corporate Blogging Book by Debbie Weil

Instant survey (under 30 seconds):

1. Do you run a business?
2. Do you have to communicate with customers, clients or employees?
3. Do you blog?
4. What are you waiting for?

If you're like most executives or entrepreneurs, you're probably somewhere between:

What's a blog?
Why would I want to blog?
and
How do I get on the blogging bandwagon?

For the uninitiated, a blog is an online journal. Short for web logs, blogs started with Internet geeks logging web pages and adding their own annotations. Then new blogging software like Blogger.com and TypePad made blogging almost as simple as sending an email. What was once the province of teenagers sharing their diaries, spread to kitchen table journalists... marketers and CEO's blogging company news and opinion.

As spam oozed out more and more legitimate email marketers, blogs began to look like an attractive alternative.

One of the main advantages of a blog is having an ongoing "conversation" with your public. Unlike formal websites, blogs are by nature more immediate and "transparent" (open and candid) than static websites. They are also interactive--inviting comments from readers--and viral--inviting readers to forward blog posts to friends. Many are about specialized areas of interest.

One blogger stands out as midwife to the birth of the blogging movement Debbie Weil. (Yes, I know that "midwife" sounds gender-specific, but it ain't necessarily so. Anyway, I like the image. "Obstetrician" sounds cold and stiff. And Weil is anything but either. )

If you read this far, stop now and get The Corporate Blogging Book by Debbie Weil. Like her popular blog the book is clear, instructive and focused. No rambling self-indulgence here. Weil is a teacher who isn't afraid to lose the class by smiling..... But she wants to make sure you pass the test.

Should the CEO Blog?

Debbie Weil leads a discussion next week on corporations and blogging. If you are even thinking of writing a blog, don't miss it!: Should the CEO Blog?

Not the King's English

A carton of books in someone's home caught my eye. (If you should ever want to trap me, bait the trap with books!) Digging through the pile of "paperback writers," I came across a yellowed copy of Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut.

"Hey, this looks interesting."

"Um... That's yours!"

"Oh..."

Anyway, the book had a wonderful piece called "New Dictionary" that was actually a 1966 review of the then new Random House Dictionary. In Ben Yagoda's The Sound on the Page: Style and Voice in Writing, Vonnegut was quoted: "The writing style which is most natural for you is bound to echo speech you heard when a child...Lucky indeed is the writer who has grown up in Ireland, for the English there is so amusing and musical. I myself grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, where common speech sounds like a band saw cutting galvanized tin, and employs a vocabulary as ornamental as a monkey wrench."

But Vonnegut's Times review ended with what sounds like a sideswipe at permissive rather than "prescriptive" English:

...one dictionary is as good as another for most people. Homo Americanus is going to go on speaking and writing the way he always has, no matter what dictionary he owns. Consider the citizen who was asked recently what he thought of President (Lyndon) Johnson's use of the slang expression "cool it" in a major speech:

"It's fine with me," he replied. "Now's not the time for the President of the United States to worry about the King's English. After all, we're living in an informal age. Politicians don't go around in top hats any more. There's no reason why the English language shouldn't wear sports clothes, too. I don't say the President should speak like an illiterate. But 'cool it' is folksy, and the Chief Executive should be allowed to sound human. You can't be too corny for the American people--all the decent sentiments in life are corny. But linguistically speaking, Disraeli is dullsville."

These words, by the way, came from the larynx of Bennett Cerf, publisher of "The Random House Dictionary of the English Language." Moral: Everybody associated with a new dictionary ain't necessarily a new Samuel Johnson.

I say, in copywriting and blogging, stick to folksy and utilitarian monkey wrench writing. If you're writing for the Times or Posterity (whoever that is), make sure your language brushes its teeth and polishes its shoes.

FREE: Beginner's Guide to Business Blogging

Debbie Weil has re-released Beginner's Guide to Business Blogging as a free ebook on ChangeThis.com. Get it now here.

Coming soon: my review of her new book: The Corporate Blogging Book. Stay tuned.

Will copywriters be supplanted by perfumeries?

If you think junk mail and spam stink, just wait until junk scents take over the atmosphere. In a summary of new advertising inroads--from college textbooks to supermarket conveyor belts, Chief Marketer reports:

"Play-Doh and Crayola Crayons were hardly aware of the power their aromas represented," Martin Lindstrom, the author of "Brand Sense," told Brandchannel. But because scents are more likely to evoke emotions than are images, companies such as Starwood Hotels are now working on "olfactory branding." (And in fact, you can buy a limited-edition Eau de Play-Doh from Hasbro and Demeter Fragrance Library.)

Coming soon: blogscents?

Aristotle on Marketing

Copyblogger has a nice take on Why Plato Would Have Blown it as a Blogger. And an earlier post on Aristotle.

If I may quote myself, I once wrote a related piece in my newsletter:

ARISTOTLE ON DIRECT MARKETING

Aristotle was one of the great minds of all time. He is best known for his works on philosophy and science. But he also wrote a small book--the Poetics--that is still the prime manual on story writing. In it, he outlines the six elements of drama: spectacle, song, diction, thought, character and plot.

The most important element, Aristotle says, is plot. This is true of a play, a novel... and a direct mail letter. What does "plot" have to do with a letter? I'm glad you asked that question.

Simply put, plot is the pattern or structure of the story, without the trappings of style (song), design (spectacle), etc. And a plot has to build. Just a series of "this happened, then that happened..." isn't a plot. Each step of a plot must be "caused" by the step before it. And each step has to be more and more intense and exciting.

That's what keeps the reader involved... right up to the end.

Aristotle would tell you it's smart to make sure your next letter grabs the reader from the first sentence, then keeps on building... right to the order!

PRNewswire Press Release Auction

In a comment to my post on Direct to Consumer Press Releases, Dave Armon, COO of PR Newswire, said:

Your blog got us thinking. So we're gauging -- via an eBay auction -- the interest in D2C during our off-peak hours.

And he threw down the challenge of an auction of press releases. I put him in touch with the maven of D2C press releases, David Meerman Scott. And the race is on. See Web Ink Now: PRNewswire to auction off-peak press releases with SEO via eBay

And stay tuned....