Twitter Tutorial

"Madman" Marjorie Clayman has a terrific new tutorial on her blog for anyone who's freaked out about learning to use Twitter. 

It's easy to follow and practically encylopedic.

I always learn a lot from Marjorie's posts. 

But this post rocks.

Check it out.  It's well worth your time.

Steal This Book

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be," Shakespeare wrote.  But Billy never needed a Zipcar when he wanted to escape London for the weekend.
  
Internet entrepreneur Lisa Gansky has written an insightful new book, The Mesh, which reveals the inner workings of scores of bleeding-edge businesses that have in common one key fact: they derive their unique selling proposition from a "share platform."

While the concept of sharing dates from the time of the Cro-Magnons, the Web has made it possible for 21st Century consumers to lease commodities on a grand scale.  Everything from artworks to apartments, books to boats, cars to clothing.  Even cats and dogs. 

Supplanting old-school "buyer/seller/own-it" businesses, Gansky says, "a new model is starting to take root and grow, one in which consumers have more choices, more tools, more information, and more power to guide those choices.  I call this emerging model 'The Mesh'." 

Mesh businesses (or what we used to call "rental companies"), Gansky says, are based on "network-enabled sharing—on access rather than ownership."

Sounds like a Commie plot to me.

But it's pure capitalism.  Clever Mesh businesses, after perfecting a foundational service, boost their revenues through a blend of partnerships and affinity programs.

Zipcar, for example, offers customers not only car-sharing, but hotel rooms, restaurant reservations, foods, wines, fitness centers, event tickets and access to a host of other goods and services.

The Mesh is eye-opening and provocative.  Borrow—don't buy—a copy today.

Have Pen. Will Travel.

When I was seven, my favorite TV show was a western called Have Gun. Will Travel.

Each Saturday night, a lonely gentleman gunfighter-for-hire with the single name of "Paladin" roamed the dusty streets of the little towns getting justice for his clients.  Besides a custom-made Colt revolver, Paladin carried a knowledge of history, Classic and Romantic literature, law and foreign languages.  

He was James Bond in cowboy boots.

Last month, Junta42 and MarketingProfs released an intriguing study, B2B Content Marketing: 2010 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends, based on a survey of 1,100 business-to-business marketers.

The study shows 90 percent of B-to-B practitioners market with content.

It also shows that the average practitioner spends 26% of her budget on content marketing and uses eight tactics, including (in order by popularity) social media, articles, in-person events and e-newsletters.

The three top challenges B-to-B marketing practioners face, according to the study, are:

• Producing engaging content;
• Producing a sufficent volume of content; and
• Finding the money to produce that content.

If you're a B-to-B marketer struggling with these challenges, why not make life easier?

There's a bunch of freelance copywriters roaming the West (and the East).  We want to help you out. 

Have pen.  Will travel.

Sacred Cow Slain

A blog post of mine earlier this week set off a teapot-size tempest inside Washington, DC's video production community.

I took to task marketing guru David Meerman Scott for extolling "business casual video."

Local video professionals were riled by Scott's low opinion of the value they add to a production and re-posted my piece on a number of sites.

Well, with apologies to cute little Carol Anne in in Poltergeist, "He's back." 

Besides asserting that video production professionals are unnecessary, Scott now suggests that traditional video release forms are superfluous as well.

"Many people obsess over getting legal release forms signed prior to posting a video interview online," Scott writes.  "However in my experience, the mere act of thrusting a legal document in front of someone and demanding they sign causes many people to re-think permission."

Scott skips the formality of getting a signed release in favor of asking for a verbal okay.  

"I simply ask the person I am about to interview if it's okay to post the video.  Then in the edit process, I save the video permissions and post the interview.  It works great.  I've interviewed and posted video with rock stars and Fortune 500 CEOs and top government officials using this method."

Looks like another "sacred cow" of the professional video world has been butchered.

Not to worry.  Any moment, the lawyers will be having another.

How Do You Look in Black?

"Authenticity" is the new black.

The trend poses a huge problem for many marketers.  Why?  Because authenticity requires credibility.  And credibility isn't the strong suit of a lot of organizations.

Think about it. 

How many times have you been victimized by providers of poor service and manufacturers of shoddy goods?  

Probably thousands.

I'll bet not one of those organizations used an advertising slogan like, "Stinko. And proud of it." or "Terrible. Every time."

No, their ads probably claimed instead that they're "Connecting and Perfecting" or "Reaching Beyond Excellence."

Even if your branding appears healthy on the outside, it won't save your organization's reputation if there's cancer within.

"But I'm just the marketing manager," you insist.  "I can't fix customer-service problems.  I can't eliminate product-bugs."

True enough.  You probably can't cure the disease.  But you can help your organization by finding its place of authenticity. 

The journey starts when you discover the "truth" in the eyes of your customers.

Authentic branding isn't that hard.  In fact, it's really pretty basic.  Like black. 

You can learn more about it by reading my free report, Path of Persuasion.

How do you look in black?