Download the podcast from iTunes, or play it below:

Loyal listeners of The Hopkinson Report know a few things about me:

- I never miss a week (once in the last 118 episodes)
- I love technology, being online and all things social media
- I love mountain biking (I compared the ‘flow’ of biking to a business in Episode 113)

So when I was away for the first part of my vacation while mountain biking some epic trails in Seattle, the capable Brandon Werner filled in. But then the unexpected struck when I came back to the east coast to go biking in the rocky trails of the Pocono mountains.

Photo: Happier, 2-armed times near Seattle just days before my crash

Do you believe in social media karma? No less than SEVENTY-FOUR different people wished me happy birthday on Thursday August 19th. It was great. Everyone was so happy, and people wished me the greatest day of the year!

Well, as fate would have it, my upper arm (distal humerus) would face a 3-foot high karma boulder head-on. And lose. Badly.

The next week turned into a whirlwind of hospitals, travel, surgery, second opinions, friends, family, pain, insurance red tape, and frustration before finally making it back to NYC.

My friends said that I would somehow find a way to link my broken arm to social media.

In truth? I went the opposite way.

What did NOT matter in that week, was twitter, foursquare, facebook, marketing, viral videos, podcasts, and blog posts.

What DID matter, was family, friends, coworkers, communication and old school doctors screwing a piece of metal into me to put me back together.

I will say this:
- Text updates were great for quick communication
- Facebook is a great way to post gross photos
- E-mail is a good way to tell a story once to many people (helpful with one arm)
- The iPad is a great way to kill 3 painful hours on a train

However, all this is nothing without a real world network.

So I ask you… How is YOUR real life network?

Is it healthy?

Or is it fractured?

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On this special edition of The Hopkinson Report, Jim is on vacation, so I, Brandon Werner (Intern 1.0 for long time The Hopkinson Report listeners) guest-hosts. I explain why Social Media is the new dividing factor between Generation Y and their Baby Boomer parents.

Download the podcast from iTunes, or play it below:

On Hopkinson Report Episode 102, Jim interviewed me on my research on my generation, the millennial AKA Generation Y. This group is also called the echo-boom, as they are the children of the famous Baby Boomers. Since recording that episode, I had a revelation that will be the topic of this episode.

When I was a child, I remember my parents (baby boomers/teens of the 60′s and 70′s) used to tell me stories of how their parents “just didn’t get it”. Their formative teenage years were filled with Woodstock, the anti-Vietnam movement, Nixon… These were the years of Rock ‘N Roll and there was a sharp divide between the baby boomers and their “Greatest Generation” parents.

Through my teenage years, I never really felt that level of misunderstanding between my parents and I. In fact, my parents “got-it” almost too well.  I wanted to learn drums and be in a band, my dad taught me how to do it from his own experiences, If I tried to dye my hair, my mom would show me how. The classic parent/son anti-piercing or tattoo fight? They actually encouraged them (so I didn’t really have any drive to get them). I would say I wanted to go to a Green Day concert, and my dad would ask to come with me.

From talking to my friends, this is pretty standard. Where was our rebellion or revolution?  Where was our Rock ‘N Roll? Recently, after a few failed attempts to communicate exactly what I do for a living, I think I found it. Our Rock ‘N Roll is Social Media.

As I mentioned, the big events of my parents’ formative years are immortalized as the hippie and rock movements, I look back on the last ten years and one movement sticks out plain to see, Web 2.0 and the rise of the social networks. While it is hard to imagine, Facebook has only been around for five years. In that time, it has amassed over 500 million users, half of which log in on any given day. More than half of everyone in their 20′s has a Facebook profile.

I am not exaggerating when I say it is hard to imagine life without Facebook, but it is just one site. Think about how much YouTube, for example has changed the way we watch entertainment. I believe we just witnessed a milestone in how advertising is done with the recent Old Spice man response videos. Who wasn’t talking about those? In a time where not so long ago, people were saying TIVO was going to destroy advertising, we are passing around commercials and watching them for enjoyment! These videos received 45 millions views in just 2.5 weeks, with Old Spice sales going up 107% since the campaign started. When I asked my dad what he thought, he replied “Old Spice? That was for old people…” Talk about brand transformation.

The eternal disagreement with my parents is, “why don’t you get off that computer”. They would rather me do anything other than sit at the computer, including sit and watch television. For the baby boomers, the first computer they ever learned to use was at work or maybe Atari. It is a single use tool, or even a toy. For us Millennials, we can not even remember a time before computers.  For me, sitting and just watching television is absurdly boring when I can be doing other things as well.

For me, my computer/iPad/iPhone are my television, office, bank, notebook, phone, book, canvas, post-office, etc. Try to think when was the last time you had a phone conversation for over a hour on a landline… When was the last time you stepped foot in the Post-Office? Been to a Blockbuster lately? Stood on an actual line to get tickets to a concert? How about had film developed?

Even our dating has moved online, with online matchmaking sites being one of the internet’s biggest businesses. Eharmony throws around the statistic that it is responsible for 2% of US marriages and a recent study says that up to 1 in 3 relationships today start online. Even crazier, 1 in 8 couples married in 2009 met via Social Media.

I think one of the biggest differences between generations is old friends. My parents have a tight circle of friends, but anyone they knew from high school or college that moved away from the area, they have little, if any contact with. This just sounds so alien to me. My best friends are scattered all over the country right now, but through twitter, Facebook, and texts… I have constant contact with them. Sure, its not physical, but its comforting to talk to people I have known since childhood.

I know that my parents think on some level what I do on the computer is almost akin to playing a video game. They can’t even fathom that I am actually talking to real people on Gchat, having interesting conversations on twitter, producing content that helps get my name out there, or god-forbid making money on the internet through freelance.

We are living in an absurdly exciting time. In my opinion, this could be looked back as one of the most important decades in history. We are (almost) all carrying pocket-sized computers which hold access to all of humanity’s knowledge. It’s a shame Douglas Adams died before he could see humanity with basically The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in our pockets. We are able to instantly connect us with anyone we want, even in video form. We get updated the second any important thing happens to our friends and family, and get the world news at basically the speed of light without the limitations of paper. Think about this: 150 years ago, it took the Pony Express ten days to get a letter from Missouri to San Francisco. Today, we can get a letter from Missouri to China in seconds.

From my parents, I have seen the wonder, but usually aversion to the progress that not only the internet, but the socially networked internet is bringing to the world. They are amazingly supportive of what I do with my life, but every so often things break down and they show just how much they don’t understand. Yes, I know that the largest growing group right now on Facebook is the 55+ year-olds, but for the most part, they aren’t using social media in every facet of their lives to the level the Generation-Y, Millennials are. I know there are many exceptions to what I am saying and I am sure any one listening to this podcast that is a Baby Boomer is one of those exceptions.

But I think I can safely say that Social Media is an invention forged by Millennials and younger Generation Xers.
Mark Zuckerburg founder of Facebook – 26.
Kevin Rose founder of Digg – 33.
Jack Dorsey co-founder of Twitter – 33.
David Karp founder of Tumblr – 24.

For a little comparison… When the Beatles came to America in 1964, largely regarded as one of the keystone moments in rock history, John Lennon was 24! 24! I’m 25 and I don’t think I’ve written anything as profound as Can’t Buy Me Love.

Then why this drive to spill our life and feelings out digitally in little bite-sized pieces? Well, let’s look at music’s equivalent of bite-sized spilling of life and feelings, Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll flourished in the 60’s and 70’s. For teenagers and Young Adults, it was a pretty disillusioning time. America was caught in seemingly unending war, there was a serious split between left and right political views, and the economy was in the toilet. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

Like Rock, Social Media allows us to vent and feel connected to a greater whole. Like many people my age, I graduated into one of the worst economies in history with a masters and nothing to do with it. I have applied to over 150 jobs, attend meet-up groups monthly, but still have not found full-time employment. Instead of wallowing in self pity, I decided to put all my time that was not spent working on freelance or searching for full-time into jumping headfirst into Social Media, developing my own blogging collective of people in similar situations. I know I am far from the only one in my age group doing this thanks to the connections I’ve made online.

Neil Young said “Hey hey, my my, Rock and Roll will never die” and I think the same applies to Social Media. Sure it will become more and more mainstream, and one day will evolve into a part of everyone’s life. I am sure my age-group’s children will be all over it, in fact my feeds are filling with baby pictures at the moment. What I find even scarier than this is that this poor children could one day sign up for Facebook with 1,000 pictures of them already. You know those embarrassing pictures your mother shows to your friends when they visit? Oh boy…

Just as social media confuses my parents, I am sure these facebook feed babies will find something that confuses my generation.

I hate saying this. I really do. It makes me sound like a whiny brat. It makes me sound like a hippie/rocker/punk talking about their parents in the 60’s and 70’s. The millennial generation helped change the course of an election using Social Media electing the first black president, saved Conan O’Brien’s career with Team Coco, almost destroyed and then revitalized the music industry with MP3 downloading, and are completely changing the publication and advertising industries. To our generation this is exciting, this is ours, this is Rock ‘N Roll!

If you disagree with anything I said in this episode, please leave a comment below and to you I say relax, its only Social Media, but I like it, like it, yes I do.

For more of my nerdy content, check out TheModernDayPirates.com and follow me on twitter @BBwerner!

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This podcast was recorded on Tuesday July 6, 2010, and it was a historic day for Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Superstar LeBron James. No, it was not the day that he announced which team he was going to via free agency. It was the day that LeBron joined Twitter.

Let’s look at the lessons learned from LeBron James’ first day on Twitter.

Download the podcast from iTunes, or play it below:

1) Major brands need to engage in social media

Let’s face it, LeBron James is a brand. He is worth millions, is recognized worldwide, and generates revenue and profits on everything from ticket sales to merchandise. Until now, he has poked fun at Twitter, but he has finally broken down and signed up. Any major brand looking to engage with fans that does not have a social media presence does so at their own peril.

2) Your social circle strongly influences your decisions

What is the goal of nearly every company’s marketing department? To build a product with strong word-of-mouth marketing. Did you start using Google or Facebook because you saw a TV commercial about them? No. You found out about them because someone you know said “Hey, you need to check this out.”

A person that does this consistently, finding the newest products and spreading the word to multiple people is called an early adopter and a hyper-influencer. If you don’t follow basketball, you might not know who Chris Paul is. Well, he’s another NBA superstar and good friend of LeBron, and it was he that finally convinced LeBron to create an account. It’s this kind of marketing – trusted, and free – that helps spread the word.

3) If you build it, they will come

If you build a strong user base and have a brand that people love, true fans will want to associate with you. Once word of LeBron’s Twitter account surfaced, the followers came rolling in. He became a trending topic, and went from 0 to roughly 200,000 followers in less than 24 hours.

4) If the content is there, design can wait

The reason I believe this was a spur-of-the-moment decision by James, and not something entirely crafted by his PR team – despite the fact that the NBA is advertising on Twitter – is that he didn’t immediately add a “corporate friendly” Twitter background. Personally, I feel this would have been quite easy to do, as I’m sure he has hundreds of graphics and backgrounds to select from various marketing campaigns. It also would have added a better first impression to the tens of thousands of people signing up today. But there it was, his brand new account with the vanilla, generic, baby-blue, default background. Just like anyone else’s first day.

5) Have something to say

The timing couldn’t be better for LeBron, as this is the most anticipated NBA announcement of the last few years. Even the most casual fan of the league probably clicked the follow button today. Additionally, the link on his twitter page goes to his LeBronJames.com website, which is also in the early stages and appears to be yet another way for users to get LeBron information.

On the other hand, this doesn’t mean that if you’re a company you should wait until you have a product to announce to create a social media presence. In fact, if you create a Twitter account and then immediately jump on and start talking about how people can buy your products, without providing value first, your new media efforts will most likely fail.

6) Be authentic

While reading articles when the story first broke but before the account was verified (great job by Twitter for acting quickly and verifying the account), I came across a sentence that made me grimace. It said something to the effect of “It is unclear whether LeBron will be tweeting for himself or if he will have a team tweeting for him.”

Perhaps it’s that it has been drilled into our heads as a best practice in my 3+ years enveloped in all things social media, but it’s amazing that this is even a question anymore. I think Shaquille O’Neal said it best when talking about rapper 50 Cent being outed for not writing his own tweets, “It’s 140 characters. If you need a ghostwriter for that, I feel sorry for you.”

So it was refreshing to see LeBron’s first tweet, which was clearly written by him.  As a stickler for grammar and punctuation, I would point out inconsistent capitalization, incorrect use of quotations, and both a misplaced and missing period.  But at least he did a lot better than Oprah’s first tweet, in which she basically made up the word “Twitters” and effectively YELLED AT ALL HER FOLLOWERS by using ALL CAPS, a gross violation of internet etiquette (and also misplaced 2 periods, what’s up with that?).

However, I’m willing to forgive the typos because a) he only has a high school education, and b) because it’s his voice. For example, although I understood the context of the term “gas’d,” I jumped over to the Urban Dictionary to try and get some more insight (not very helpful).

Also impressive was his @ reference to his friend Chris Paul. Maybe he had someone looking over his shoulder and helping, but including Paul’s twitter handle (@oneandonlycp3) in the message equates to a public “thank you” for helping him trying something new, and I’m sure garnered Paul several thousand new fans as well.

7) Control your message

LeBron has been surrounded by a constant media frenzy from his high school years until today. Every move has been documented and every TV and radio station, newspaper, and website has taken his words and actions and interpreted them to the world. Creating his own Twitter account allows LeBron to speak directly 1:1 with his fans.

However, like Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility.
- A tweet sent near gametime will get him in trouble with the NBA [policy]
- A message sent in anger criticizing the refs will get him fined [Dallas owner Mark Cuban was fined $25,000 in 2009]
- A piece of information released too early could cause trust issues [Player Kevin Love tweeted that coach Kevin McHale was out as coach before the team announced it publicly]
- Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of internet public opinion

Day 2 and beyond

I have no doubt that LeBron will try out this new social media toy for the next few days, including announcing which team he will be going to. I’m sure the league will remind him of the rules, his PR team will snazzy up the page like his buddy Chris Paul (below), his Nike reps will make sure the brand is represented jusssst right, and he’ll learn a little etiquette from Shaq and his other pals. That’s the easy part.

But the true test will be the weeks and months to come. Will he embrace this new communication platform and provide the consistency and content that his fans crave once the shine has worn off?

Just like his NBA plans, we’ll have to wait and see.

Game on.

[I've had a Twitter account for quite awhile now, with more than 2,200 followers and 1,500 tweets sent. I talk about marketing trends, tweet when there’s a new podcast that goes live each week, but also provides value by sharing links I think you’ll like and insights into my personal life. Check it out at twitter.com/hopkinsonreport.]

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Jim’s guest is Deanna Zandt, author of a social media book. They talk about how she got a book deal, raised money to fund it, and how she got free pizza.

Download the podcast from iTunes, or play it below:

Deanna Zandt is the author of the new book, “Share This! How You Will Change the World with Social Networking” which you can find out more about at her website, DeannaZandt.com.

During our interview, we talk about the following topics:
- How the former corporate employee and self-proclaimed ‘webmonkey’ went from independent consultant to author
- The process she took to turn her training seminars into a book idea
- The “Jedi Mind Trick” philosophy her publisher uses, and how she used “the force” of social media to raise funds in order to work on her book
- How she used crowdsourcing on everything from the title to the cover — and how people reacted to it
- The free software program she used to dramatically ramp up her productivity during the writing process

And yes, she explains how she scored a free eye exam and free pizza along the way.

Give a listen.

Twitter: Deanna | HopkinsonReport

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How does a company turn their email file into a list of powerful social media influencers? They go to Flowtown.

Download the podcast from iTunes, or play it below:

Podcast Episode 101 is an interview I did at SXSW with Ethan Bloch of Flowtown.com, a service that turns email addresses into social profiles. After discussing the best way to survive the festival on no sleep and Green Tea, Jim gets down to business to find out Ethan’s story.

Topics covered:

About Ethan
- Ethan’s amazing start as an entrepreneur, importing video game components and driving $13,000 worth of revenue — at age 13!
- How marketing, finance, and technology have been the three pillars of his career thus far
- His move to San Francisco, subsequent job loss, and founding of a new business

About Flowtown
- A platform that allows businesses to connect with their customers
- Starting with their email list, Flowtown generates a list of the social networks their customer base is on, allowing them to write better posts, send better tweets, and more easily target their customers
- Not only does Flowtown return age, gender, networks, and the top 50 locations, but it then creates a sort of “iTunes Smartlist for Marketers,” showing the top 50 influencers that really move the needle

The Marketing Angle
- What is Flowtown’s approach to marketing their business?
- Where does Flowtown get their customers?
- Is all this a good thing? What about user’s personal information being exposed?
- Is email dead?

Advice for Startups
- What are the challenges of being a startup?
- What is the main advantages of being a small company?
- How the “lean startup” process enables them to make quick advances in technology
- Lessons learned through a failed project, which led to 3,500 new customers on their next project

Try it yourself
Check out flowtown.com and enter your e-mail address (it’s not stored) to find out which networks you’re on.

Follow us on Twitter: Ethan | Jim

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I’m going to talk about the gear I use, the clothing I wear, the brands I trust, and throw in three bonus how-to’s:

- How to make your own training calendar
- How to make the perfect smoothie
- How to make a framed marathon ’shadowbox’ for $25.

Note… this podcast ended up topping 45 minutes, my longest ever. I was going to break it into two parts, but decided if you’re not into running, you probably won’t listen to it, and thus won’t listen to the second part next week. However, if you ARE into running, you’ll find the entire show really valuable. So throw it on your iPod and head out for a long run.

Download the podcast from iTunes, or play it below:

One of the major marketing discoveries I pointed out, is that the following companies do not own their Twitter accounts:
@nike
@adidas
@asics
@newbalance (not a corporate account)
@brooks
@mizuno

Can you believe this??? It blows my mind. How the heck does a $30 Billion company like Nike not own their main Twitter account?

Is it possible that there’s not a single marketing person in the entire company that knows anything about social media and thinks it would be a good idea to secure that account?

Clearly there’s someone there that is manning @nikebasketball and tweeting to 30,000+ fans. Why not at least get the page so you can redirect people to other accounts?

Or is there a chance that it’s Twitter’s fault? I’m sure that Nike has a small army of lawyers, and there’s absolutely no question that Nike is an established, trademarked brand name.

Twitter should have no problem yanking the person with the Nike account (especially considering he has 0 followers).

I could see a gray area with the guy using the @puma account… at least he has a website using the same name and can show that he has historically used the name Puma in a non-competitive business.

I guess I have to give a huge shoutout to @saucony. Nice work!

Here’s a brief outline of what I cover:
- My running clothing recommendations. As a lifelong runner, I tell you my picks for running shoes, socks, shorts, t-shirts, gloves, hats, and the interesting topic of tights.

- My running gear recommendations. Cross a runner with a tech geek and you get a list including the iPod Nano, Nike+ iPod chip, the Marware chip holder, Incase neoprene iPod case, sunglasses, RoadID, what water bottle I DON’T recommend, and when I listen to podcasts vs. music.

- The Nike+ community. The Nike+ tracking system has been an amazing breakthrough with runners, and they take it to the next level with their online community.

- Jim’s nutrition picks
I describe the best time to eat and prepare my favorites, including
– Instant oatmeal (with other additions)
– Fig Newmans
– The best way to make a Peanut Butter and Jelly
– Whether or not runners should drink coffee
– My love for GU, and the easiest way to pick the best energy bar for you

Plus
- Jim’s ultimate smoothie recipe

- How to make a calendar and training guide for under $5. Download here.

- How to make a Marathon Shadow Box Frame for $25 (not $175)

Finally, I go through my beginner marathon tips
- Training
- Nutrition
- The Mental Game

Keep on running!

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If there’s one buzzword that resonated in 2009, it has to be Twitter, so it’s fitting that I’m ending the year with a podcast about Tweets.

The week of December 14th I was in charge of Wired’s massive 325,000 follower account (@Wired), so I want to tell you the 10 lessons learned, and break down writing the perfect tweet.

Download the podcast from iTunes, or play it below:

In the podcast I give a background on how the @wired twitter account came to be, but here are the key points:

- At the end of 2008, Twitter really started gaining a lot of buzz and I knew Wired had to look at this up-and-coming platform
- I organized meetings with key decision makers and presented the pros and cons, with the data to back it up
- We decided to make @wired an interactive account (not just a feed of top stories), and that editors familiar with Twitter would rotate on a weekly basis overseeing the account
- This enabled us to give a unique voice each week (using editors from gadgets, science, transportation, programming) without burdening one individual with all the responsibility
- We started the year with only 8,000 followers, and Twitter was #49 on the list of traffic-drivers to Wired
- Three key things happened in early October… we passed 100,000 followers, we threw a party to celebrate that fact, and we were added to Twitter’s recommended follow list
- On 11/6 we passed 200,000 followers
- On 12/11 we passed 300,000 followers, and on more than one occasion Twitter was a top 10 referrer of monthly traffic

My turn at the wheel:

When we first started tweeting, I had every intention of taking my turn as one of the ‘gatekeepers.’  But the first time I asked, I was out of the office for a few days, so I declined. Then I think that happened again the next month. Before I knew it, the awesome editors at Wired were on a roll and hitting it out of the park each week, so who was I to interfere?

But then Wired Science editor Betsy Mason asked if I wanted to take a turn, and I said of course. I have to admit, it was a little intimidating at first. Here’s why:

- When I use my personal Twitter account or post on Facebook, I’m reaching about 500 people. If you mess up or say something stupid, it’s mostly your friends. Probably something they’ve heard before.
- When I send a tweet from @HopkinsonReport, it goes out to almost 2,000 followers. Still a decent number, but I’m pretty good about keeping it marketing-focused.
- Even on Wired’s Facebook page of 50,000, it’s not too bad as it’s just a major story or two that we link to during the day.

But 325,000???

Just one typo, just one misstep, just one bad link, and you’re potentially tripping over your shoelace in front of a quarter million people. And not just any people… there are some key influencers on there.  And not to mention, the millions of fans that each of THOSE followers all have.  So lets just say I double-checked each tweet a little more closely than usual. I go into it in more depth in the podcast, but here are:

10 lessons learned from the tweets I sent from Wired twitter account.

Lesson 1.  Transparency

Wired had already set this precedent a bit. I updated the bio to show that I was the one tweeting that week, and sent out an introductory message.

Lesson 2. Money

One of my first tweets was one of my best. What better topic at this time of year (holidays + recession) than to talk about a HUGE BONUS. It was with this tweet that I also started to find my voice, mixing a question/statement and then the headline. This got at least 1,853 clicks, good for 4th most all week.

Lesson 3. Stories about Twitter

Shocking… stories about Facebook on Facebook do well, and stories about Twitter on Twitter do well. I used my statement+headline method again.

Lesson 4. Be Humble.

On that Monday, there was a lot of excitement here in NYC after we were announced as AdWeek’s Magazine of the Decade. The marketing group was buzzing, the sales team was beaming, Wired rang the closing bell at NASDAQ, and we did a Wired spine contest.

But when it came time to tweet it, I followed the wise words of Gadget Lab editor Dylan Tweney (@Dylan20). Be humble.  Yes, we are proud, and yes, we work really hard. But we’d be nothing without all the great fans.

Lesson 5. Stats Rule.

When I read the story “Baby-by-Number: Parents’ New Obsession With Data” I knew that would be a good one. But the title needed something more. Knowing that new parents are basically on a treadmill of feed baby—change baby—sleep 2 hours—repeat, I knew some of the hard stats from the article would really make this tweet jump out. And that it did… 1,100 clicks.

Lesson 6. Hackers and Puns

I knew Wired readers love the topic of hackers, and love a good pun. With a few already in the headline, I couldn’t help but add on another:

“Wired” story: Hackers brew self-destruct code (DECAF) to counter police forensics tools (COFEE)

Lesson 7. Short and sweet works too.

And lists. And spotting a trend early. I put up the very simple 7 word tweet of “Best of 2009: Top 5 Wii Games” and it did great.  Best of?  Gaming news?  Keep going back to the well.

Best of 2009: Top 5 Wii Games (2,074 clicks)
Best of 2009: Top 5 Multi-Platform Games. (1,069 clicks)
Best of 2009: Top 5 Portable Games. (1,366 clicks)

Lesson 8.  Weekends work too.

This one actually surprised me a bit. Wired gets far more traffic during the week, so I figured that trend would hold true on Twitter as well. Not so.  I scheduled a holiday shopping related tweet to go out early Saturday afternoon, but it was “18-Gigapixel Panorama Offers Breathtaking View of Prague” that ended up as the 2nd most clicked story of the whole week, with more than 2,500.

I also tried to target the tweets to time of day, and what people might be doing:

Why Geologists Love Beer (Friday at 5pm)
Choose wisely tonight, feel better tomorrow? Study shows dark liquor makes for worse hangovers.  (Saturday 8:30 pm)

Lesson 9. Be a little risky and daring.

By Thursday, I was feeling more confident when I came across the holy grail… a Star Trek story involving women and science. Star Trek/Star Wars is always gold. Now I just needed a good lead.  Phasers to stun?  A Captain Kirk Reference?  I wanted to shock, so I went with Spock (1,300 clicks).

Lesson 10. Watch for the perfect storm.

Apple + Macbook  + Airport Security + Photos + Bullets + Triumph over Evil?  This isn’t just a story, it could be Cameron’s next movie. How to phrase it?  Wham Bam, thank you… nope, a little too risque.  Lets go the geekier angle instead. Result: 4,000 clicks.

So that’s the overall look at several tweets. But lets break down my thought process on crafting the perfect tweet. Am I way too obsessive with my writing, to the point where I am going against the very nature of the “say what’s on your mind immediately” culture? Probably. But again, with a big audience, I was extra analytical in formulating my thoughts. Here is…

The 7 Step Evolution of the Perfect Tweet

Step 1. Get my initial thought down… I want to talk about the 1 Wired Wish contest… I want a retweet element… I want to talk about the prize:
Tell us your 1 Wired Wish for a chance at a $10,000 prize package. (pls RT for a chance at an iPod touch)  URL

Step 2. Shorten the $10,000 to $10k to save some space… Remove parentheses as they aren’t needed:
Tell us your 1 Wired Wish for a chance at a $10k prize package. pls RT for a chance at an iPod touch  URL

Step 3. Since the prize money is pretty huge, I want to lead with $10k. Idea to go with alliteration (geek gear grabs) for effect:
$10k in geek gear up for grabs. Tell us your 1 Wired Wish. Pls RT for a chance at an iPod touch  URL

Step 4. Try it with “10 grand” instead of $10k to add another “g” in there, then shorten to 10Gs. Add caps on the G’s for effect:
10Gs in Geek Gear up for Grabs. Tell us your 1 Wired Wish. Pls RT for a chance at an iPod touch  URL

Step 5. I thought the fact that the iPod was Wired-engraved was cool, so I added that. Didn’t want to, but removed the word “please.” Felt that this wasn’t so much asking a favor (please retweet this) as a command (you need to retweet this for the chance to win).
10Gs in Geek Gear up for Grabs. Tell us your 1 Wired Wish. RT for a chance at Wired-engraved iPod touch

Step 6. Need some more space, so change “for” to “4″ and “to win” to “2win.” Added caps on WIRED. Added url to see how long that was. Definitely made sure there was room to reweet… wasn’t just that we want people to retweet… it was an essential part of this.  Test everything a few times.
10Gs in Geek Gear up 4 Grabs. Tell us your 1 Wired Wish. RT for a chance 2win WIRED-engraved iPod touch http://ow.ly/Nbsf

Step 7. Make sure to do the follow-up and keep your promise. The next day, picked a winner that had retweeted it and reached out to him. Sent him his prize. He retweeted that he won.

End result was a very good number of clicks and retweets.

BTW… the contest goes until Feb 2, 2010, so hey… Enter to win $10,000 from Wired.

Key Takeaways

- Having a huge audience was a little bit daunting at first, but I quickly settled in and found my voice while staying true to the Wired brand. Know your limitations and just take a little more time.
- Don’t be afraid to go through a few rounds of copy.
- I had one major change in talking about twitter and social media. The selling points I was telling people all year were: It’s free, it works (we’re getting more traffic),  it’s fun and interactive, it doesn’t take a lot of time.

Well, I’m ready to rehash that last point a bit. Yes, you can quickly find a story and tweet it in a minute. However, I found myself taking more time looking for the breaking trend or hot story, time making sure it was accurate and hadn’t been mentioned before, more time crafting the tweet and testing it, and more time analyzing (ok, obsessing a bit) over all the cool stats you can glean from what you’re doing). So maybe it doesn’t take a TON of time, but let’s just say you can spend a lot of time on it if you let it.

In looking at the early returns from my survey, the one thing that was clear is that most people heard about me from a friend. So if you enjoy the content that I’m producing, please pass it on to people you know who might like it as well.

Have a happy holiday, and a prosperous new year

More »

Recorded via conference call in New York City and Vancouver
September 11, 2009
Jim Hopkinson, Wired’s Marketing Guy
Ryan Holmes, CEO, Invoke Media (Creator of Hootsuite Twitter Client)

Click here to view the summary page of this interview, including photos and videos.

Or listen to the podcast while you read:

Hi, this is Jim Hopkinson, Wired’s Marketing Guy, bringing you the marketing trends that matter. Welcome.

The popularity of Twitter continues to grow, both on a personal and business level, and in this episode I interview Ryan Holmes, the CEO of Invoke Media, the creator of a Twitter dashboard client called, “HootSuite.”

Jim Hopkinson: Well, welcome everyone. I’m here today with Ryan Holmes who is the CEO of Invoke Media. Welcome, Ryan.

Ryan Holmes: Thanks a lot, Jim.

JH: So, Ryan comes to us from Vancouver. Now, Ryan, I don’t know if you know about this, but, I’m getting huge in Canada with the Hopkinson Report. I’ve got you coming in from Vancouver, I interviewed Saul Colt and Sarah Prevette from Toronto, Mitch Joel from Montreal, and maybe I’ll expand into, like, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, or something next.

RH: That’s great to hear, I’m in good company there.

JH: So, tell me about what your major company, ‘Invoke Media’, is all about. How you founded that, and then we can get into the Twitter dashboard, ‘HootSuite’, after that.

RH: Sure, so, Invoke is a company I founded in 2000. We do client work, agency work, and a lot of development around applications in the social media space. We have a very successful contesting platform called, ‘Memelabs’, and it, basically helps companies take care of online contesting, so, video, imaging, and SA contesting. And, through our work with brands on Memelabs, we help do online promotion, help drive traffic to the contest, and we use Facebook and Twitter and a lot of social media properties. And, through our work with Facebook and Twitter, we found that there wasn’t a really good tool for pro and corporate Twittering, so we built out HootSuite, which is our Twitter client.

JH: So what that does is allow companies to kind of manage that data, and tell me how that evolved.

RH: Sure, so, our 1.0 version was fairly barebones that let us manage multiple accounts and multiple users. We launched that in December of 2008, and had a really great response. We’re sitting at about nine months later, and we just released our 2.0 version; at that point we had 100,000 users, right now, two months later we’re sitting at about 200,000 users, so the response has been really great on our 2.0 version.

JH: The evolution of this, so, everyone is like, “OK, what is Twitter?” They’re making their Twitter accounts, and then they’re finding they have multiple Twitter accounts, and then companies are like, “Hey, this is a great way to do branding and do marketing.” So, the companies are coming in there, and then it evolved almost faster than the companies could keep up with it, and so that’s why people need a dashboard to manage all these multiple accounts.

RH: Absolutely. And, so, the natural evolution of that for us was looking at team workflow within your Twitter environment, so having multiple editors working on a single account, and that’s more and more prevalent; and as well, we’ve got very deep analytics. So, we have a URL shortener called, ‘Ow.ly’, that’s built into HootSuite, and it’s the number three URL shortener in the market in just a few months. Effectively, that URL shortener allows us to draw out really great analytics for people so that they can see, when they send a Tweet out, how many people are clicking it, what Tweets are the most popular of the Tweets they send out, so they can kind of tailor their messages to what their followers are interested in – looking at time of day, A/B messaging and a lot of interesting stuff around analytics, and click tracking. So, our users are really excited about that part, as well.

JH: And, who would you say, right now, are your competitors, and how are you different from them?

RH: Well, on the corporate side, I would say that CoTweet is a competitor, their functionality, they’re effectively a support desk for Twitter, they have ticket assignment, but we have a load of other functionality built around CMS-type functionalities; scheduling of Tweets, RSS integration, and the analytics pieces I talked    about teamwork flow. The market’s really kind of spoken terms of preference there, I think our traffic, we’re often between the top three and top five clients for outbound messaging at this point. So, we had great traction there.

On the kind of power user side, so, our applications for pro and corporate usage, power user and corporate usage, on the power user side we have been called the ‘web-based Tweet deck’;’ Tweet Deck’ has been around for quite a while, and they have a legacy market share there. We see a lot of people coming over from Tweet Deck because they want to tease some of the analytic functionality we have, as well as the teamwork flow that we’ve got. Those are our two competitors, and how we’re different.

JH: It’s amazing for the people who are using Twitter; you’re in it every day and you know what’s going on, and you’re living this life, and then you meet someone that’s just getting started, and, they’re like, “What should I do next?”, like, what’s the next thing to do, and that’s how I kind of summarized. You introduced me to HootSuite a couple of months ago, and I’ve been using it, and I’ve really found a great value with it, and I was telling someone that they should be using it, and these are the five reasons I said that they should be using any kind of a dashboard like this, and see if I missed any, if you agree.

1)    So, number one is a URL shortener; so, like you said, you’re number three. A lot of people familiar originally with ‘Tiny URL’, but even just counting the number of extra characters you get by using Ow.ly, and having it built in, it is such an advantage.

2)    Number two, it allows you to manage multiple accounts because for me, myself, I’ve got my HopkinsonReport, I’ve got my JimHopkinson account, I’ve got a Wired account, and sometimes we have multiple Wired accounts, depending on an event; so, if someone has more that one account, they’re doing that. Have you seen that? People have multiple accounts, what would you say the average number of Twitter accounts that people have?

RH: I would say that probably 95% of our users have more than one account. It’s pretty amazing how many people, they either have a business and a personal account, or have a personal account and then a kind of interesting ghost account that they like to keep private, and send out funny messages on. There are all sorts of creative usages and why people want multiple accounts. But, I definitely see that clients for businesses, agencies managing multiple client accounts, or larger organizations that have a lot of different accounts that they need to do provisioning on, and management. One of our users has over 400 accounts, and they’re a large media company, and they need to manage all of their media properties, so they use us for that.

JH: Wow, it’s amazing.

3)    Number three would be the tracking of statistics, so you get to see exactly which one of your Tweets during the week got the most clicks, and things like that. Are you able to track re-Tweets in any way?

RH: So, we track clicks on re-Tweets so we can just get an aggregated view on clicks. Some of the upcoming functionality we’re looking at will be around discovery of who your big re-Tweeters are. So, if you send a message out and it gets 1000 clicks, what we’re going to be able to do is show within those 100 clicks, who the people are that re-Tweeted it, and drove the most traffic there, and so, that will be a really interesting piece that we’re going to expose for people.

JH: And do other companies track that, so if you don’t have that functionality right now, is there a website that you recommend that people can track retweets?

RH: There’s nothing that I’ve come across that gets into that piece, so I think it’ll be a greal piece for us to expose for everybody.

JH:

4)    OK. The fourth thing I recommend is you have the ability to schedule Tweets and Tweet later on. I read this on your website; you really have some great reasons, why would you use scheduled Tweets. And, some of the things you said were things that are time-sensitive, that controls the flow of content, what are some other reasons why someone would want to schedule a Tweet at a later time?

RH: Sure, those two are great ones in themselves. Scheduling a flow of content, we see a lot of people that get on Twitter in the morning and just bang out like a solid stream of 50 Tweets, and that just doesn’t work. It’s not good, people start un-following you, it doesn’t help anybody. On the flipside, scheduling them out so they’re a little less invasive for people is very useful – smaller bytes, and you turn people off less that way. The other thing, time-sensitive items, or, we see a lot of people that hop on an airplane and say something like, “I’m on a plane right now, but I thought you guys might be interested in this”; so, just kind of like playing around with your followers, and sending them funny notes and stuff is kind of an interesting usage of it.

JH: Yeah, when I jump on in the morning, it’s east coast time, it’s 9:00 o’clock, I’ve got some time before I start my day, I can see what are the three or four top stories on Wired; but, if I send them out all at once, number one, like the west coast people might not see them, and you don’t want them all going out all at once.

RH: Right. Yeah, that’s another thing, times own scheduling is very nice for that, so you can put it at a little bit more of a busier time, like you’re mentioning; you don’t want to definitely send it out at 8:00 AM New York time because everybody’s going to miss it on the west coast.

JH: Have you found any data on when is the best time to Tweet?

RH: That’s a good question, I don’t have anything concrete; so, just off the cuff I would say, looking at times like 10:00 o’clock, 10:00 o’clock Pacific where you catch the 1:00 o’clock crowd in New York, or just times that catch the bulk of people where people aren’t on lunch. We notice definite trends around weekends being low times; that being said, sometimes the off times and the low times are times when people really notice what you’re saying, and so, it’s a real crapshoot there. I don’t have anything specific.

JH: I’m guessing it does mirror like website traffic where you see that, where it’s 12:00 to 1:00 Eastern when people are at lunch, especially for something like Wired or Reddit, or Twitter or Facebook, it’s kind of content that people are using on their off time.

RH: I agree. I think it’s probably, and at this moment it’s still fairly early and a lot of those people being technical, I think it would definitely follow the readership trends of something like a Wired, or other tech publications.

JH:

5)    Then the fifth thing I had was the ability to organize your followers into groups. I know, personally, when Twitter first came on, it was like, “Alright, I gotta get as many followers as I can.” So, I started following all these people, and they kept following me back, and I turn around and I’ve got over a 1000 followers, but, then there’s like, “Wait a minute”, I never differentiated between a person I met in person at an event that I have a contact with versus someone random that I don’t even know, and someone I really want to follow. Now, with yours you can set it up in different columns, and have ‘these are people I know’, ‘these are website that I know’, and really be able to see what these people are saying.

RH: I agree, and I think that that comment that you have there is very important, and I think the market is definitely seeing the value of that, so, when you’re following 100 people it’s very easy to just kind of look at what they’re doing, and keep in touch with those people, but, as you get into thousands, and tens, and hundreds, and millions, it becomes less and less feasible for you to be able to manage what people are saying. And, so, the two features that we have that help with that, one is the grouping of people so you can create groups around your specific friends within your follower list, maybe make a group around ‘influencers’ and one a round ‘customer support’; you just kind of create a very organic setup.

The other thing that we have is ‘brand mentioned’, so you can create columns around brand mentioned so you can be monitoring what your customers are saying about you, or your followers are saying about you, or just anybody in the Twitter space is saying about you – very important. You can also set up competitor monitoring which is a very useful thing, just to see what your competitors are doing, and have an idea about what people are saying about them, as well. There are a lot of learnings that can happen there, and you can see areas that you can look at at moving in, or where’s there a need in the market, and I think that’s a very valuable thing.

JH: So, a lot of my listeners are online marketers and they’re being tasked with Twitter for their company, and setting up things like this. Are there any case studies or kind of lesson learned that you’ve seen that you can give us some examples?

RH: That’s a really timely question. We have a few blogposts that we’re going to be coming up with; we do have couple with regards to feature-specific items like RSS scheduling, Tweet scheduling, and why you should do those on our blog, which is blog.hootsuite.com. But, we are going to have some white papers coming up, as well, that will talk about some further features and how brands are using this, and businesses are using Twitter with regard to specific functionality, and, so, we’re going to tie that in there. I’ve looked at some drafts on these case studies, and they’re going to be very useful for small, medium businesses, and enterprise, to get a better idea of how they can kind of harness the power of Twitter.

JH: And, what do you think is next for Twitter, what trends are you seeing, what’s kind of the next thing that people should be looking at?

RH: Well, I think one of the biggest issues for Twitter is dealing with spam, and one of the most things for marketers is to look at clever ways of marketing products that aren’t conceived as being ’spammy’ because it’s whole different way of marketing.  As opposed to banner advertising or Google AdSense advertising, you’re getting into conversations, you’re looking at engagement and creating relationships here. So, it’s definitely a different type of advertising or marketing.

The other piece, Twitter, in general, they want to become ubiquitous, they want to reach a billion users and they want to be absolutely everywhere in a main communication channel for the internet, in my opinion. So, more ubiquity there, I think it’s probably the thing that we’re going to see. There will probably be some movement towards providing businesses with accreditation; we’ve seen through the Seal of Authenticity that they’ve done for celebrities. I imagine that’s going to also be coming out for brands, and some functionality around that.

JH: Great, so tell people where they can lean more about it, and, you just have a new version with a couple of new features you just came out with this week, actually, right?

RH: Yeah, so, hootsuite.com. Our new release has two new features – one is, file upload, so you can upload images, you can upload documents, pdfs, Excel documents, etc., and Tweet them out. So, we’ve had a lot of usage on that, and in a couple of days we had a few thousand files uploaded – great response from our users. And the second piece is autocompletion of usernames; so, as you start typing, autocompletion of your follower names, so it just makes it a little bit quicker for getting a hold of people, and messaging to them.

JH: Well, great, I urge my audience out there, this is something that I’m using, and if you’re using Twitter, and you’re going from just a recreational use and to using it for business, and you have the need to have the URL shortener to track statistics, to manage multiple accounts, HootSuite is definitely one of the Twitter dashboard managers that I recommend.

So, thank you very much, Ryan, for joining me.

RH: Yes, thanks a lot, Jim, I really appreciate it.

[End of transcript]

More »

Download the podcast from iTunes, or play it below:

Ryan’s company is the creator of a Twitter client called Hootsuite.

What exactly is a Twitter client (also known as a dashboard)? It’s a way for individuals and companies to better manage their Twitter experience.

The adoption of Twitter definitely moves through various stages, from the initial hatred (why do I want to know what you’re having for lunch!!!) through a tiny toe in the ocean of status updates, and finally through the a-ha moment when it starts to add real value.

Some people will move through these stages faster than others, and it’s easy for power users to forget that millions of new people are signing up every day, and they’ve never used a URL shortener and don’t know what a ReTweet is.

I’m here to cut people some slack and help educate them. So if you fall into that category, now that you’ve got your graphical background and your bio written, you’ve got a few dozen (or hundred) followers, and you’re truly starting to grasp it, what’s next?

Start using a Twitter client such as Hootsuite. Why?  Here are…

5 Reasons You Should Be Using a Twitter Client

1. URL shortener

A URL shortener is a way to take a very long web site address, or url, and compress it into a much smaller set of characters. This is especially necessary when using Twitter, since every character counts in your 140 character maximum for each message. For example, the URL below:

http://thehopkinsonreport.com/2009/07/09/episode-64-career-profile-from-big-city-marketing-to-small-town-coffee-shop/

can be shortened to:

http://ow.ly/sE3F

With Hootsuite, the URL shortener is built into the application.

2. Manage Multiple accounts

Why would someone need more than one Twitter account?  You might want a personal account for yourself and one for your business. You might want to keep an ‘anonymous’ account for things you’d like to say without jeopardizing your career. Or, you might work for a company with multiple divisions or brands.

Either way, Hootsuite makes it easy and virtually foolproof to toggle between multiple accounts. What I really like, is how it makes you specifically click on the icon of the account you want to tweet from every time. This might seem like an annoyance, but I like the fact that I have to consciously click the box to send from ‘Hopkinson Report’ vs. ‘JimHopkinson.’ But what’s cool is that if you want, you can choose to send out the same messages from multiple accounts at the same time.

3. Track statistics

The statistics within Hootsuite serve to answer the basic question, how many users clicked on my link? You can check total statistics by date range, or the last 24 hours, 7 Days, or 30 days. You can drill down to individual tweets to see which ones got the most clicks. While this is a great start, I want more more more.

In my interview, Ryan indicated that they were going to add additional stats, such as which users retweet your content the most. I’d like to see more data on retweets, time of day, most popular keywords, tweets over time, and other stuff I can’t even think of yet. The more data, the better.

4. Tweet later
Hootsuite allows you to write a tweet and then ‘Send Later.’ Why use scheduled tweets? Here are some examples:

- Content flow. You don’t want to overload your readers with too much content at the same time. Using this method, you can find 3-4 different stories in the morning, and schedule them to be sent every few hours or so.

- Time zone differences. Have something very important to say first thing Monday morning? Well, you might want to hold off and schedule it for 12:30 eastern time, when the New Yorkers and Bostonians are checking personal email and tweets during their lunch hour, and the west coasters from Seattle to San Diego are checking their accounts over morning coffee at 9:30.

- Optimizing traffic. When is best time to tweet? Perhaps you’ll find your business updates are read first thing in the morning, while posts about travel plans work well late on Thursdays and Fridays.

- Product launches. Let’s say that you’re launching your new product on May 1 at noon eastern and you want to announce it via Twitter… except that on May 1 at noon eastern you’re going to be on a stage at a conference announcing your new product.  You can queue it up while you’re still in the green room.

5. Organize your followers into groups

Having hundreds, thousands, and up to millions of fans following you on Twitter sounded like a good idea as you were ramping up, but eventually you’ll find yourself trying to filter your legions of fans into manageable groups. With Hootsuite, you can create multiple tabs to track different followers, as well as mentions. For example, mine are broken up into “people I know,” “sites I track,” “mentions,” and “direct messages,” among others.

These are just a few of the things you can do with a Twitter client. Listen to the entire interview with Ryan to gain even more insight into the trends, tools, and future of Twitter.  Oh, and did I mention it’s free to use?

Download the Hootsuite client at Hootsuite.com

Follow on Twitter: @HopkinsonReport | @Invoker

Click here to view the full interview transcript.

More »

Full Transcript of Mitch Joel Interview

Recorded in New York City, September 9, 2009

Jim Hopkinson, Wired’s Marketing Guy

Mitch Joel, President, Twist Image

Click here to view the summary page of this interview, including photos and videos.

Jim Hopkinson: Alright, I’m sitting here in Wired’s New York City office with Mitch Joel. Mitch is President of Twist Image, an award winning digital marketing and communications agency. He’s also a blogger, a podcaster, a passionate entrepreneur, and speaker, who connects with people worldwide by sharing his marketing insights on digital and personal branding. Marketing Magazine dubbed him the ‘Rock Star of Digital Marketing’, and called him one of North America’s leading digital visionaries. And, in 2008, Mitch was named Canada’s most influential male on social media, one of the top 100 online marketers in the world, and was awarded the highly prestigious ‘Canada’s Top 40, Under 40.’ And as of this week, he has another title to add. So, welcome, Mitch.

Mitch Joel: Hey man, thanks.

JH: So, what would you consider your primary job, are you the owner of an agency, a speaker, a blogger, or as of this week, an author?

MJ: My friend, Chris Brogan, who’s got chrisbrogan.com and Trust Agency, says I’m a typist, is what he says [chuckles]. No, I’m actually, definitely a digital marketing agency owner. I’ve got three partners, we have offices in Toronto, Montreal, we have about 90 employees, and I really consider what I do fundamentally, marketing. I definitely use these other cool channels to build and promote the business in a very non-pitching way, but, I consider myself a marketer, at heart.

JH: So, you have the agency, and then all these other things you do kind of help you represent the agency?

MJ: Yeah, people are really shocked to hear about, but like anytime I speak, or the book advance that I got, goes right back into the agency; I don’t take my own cut out of it. When I was teaching digital courses, all that money went into the agency. I really am trying to build the business, after years of being both an entrepreneur and working for companies, I consider myself a rottweiler – this is mine, and I’m not letting go.

And, so, I just sort of look at it as I use a lot of these channels to communicate and connect to people in a very, very non-pushy or salesy way. I’m trying also to build the industry, the interactive world that we live in. And, it’s crazy! You’ve got traditional advertising will account for 90% of the budget, compared to interactive, which is like 10% – on a good day, it’s 10%. And, so, I really do see myself a little bit as an evangelist, a person who likes to go out there and speak to small and big groups about the importance of thinking differently about marketing in this day and age. Because, I’m really on a kick lately, that I think marketers are being highly irresponsible in this marketplace.

JH: What do you mean by that? [Laughter]

MJ: Jim’s eyes light up! Wow.

MJ: It’s true, right, if you think about the world as we know it; people don’t spend a lot of time and energy on search. And, that’s crazy, you have consumers. Like, you and I are going to hang out here for a couple of minutes. Whatever industry people are in that are listening to this, there are thousands of people, right now, looking for something related to that industry. And, if you’re not there, well, your competitors are, and other people are, but just think about that.

Ninety per cent of your other advertising budget is on the ‘hope and whim’ that someone sees a billboard, or catches an ad in a magazine. But, the people who are actually raising their hands and looking, so, “Yeah, search isn’t so sexy, let’s not do it.” Forget the fact that it’s a recession, but, we’re in a recession still. That’s highly irresponsible, that if you are banking dollars, almost all of them on the essence of a brand, that I believe powerfully in the power of a brand, but, I just can’t believe it. I do, I think most marketers are acting irresponsibly, I think you should be putting 100% of your budget into search, and then whatever you can’t use, then do all your other branding stuff. But, right now I’m looking, I don’t know about you, but I’m looking for customers who are raising their hands.

JH: Right. You’re going to ones saying, “I want your product, I want to find your product, and they’re going to land on your webpage.”

MJ: Or not. Or, they’re doing things like, I just came out of my talent agency in the U.S., it’s called Greater Talent, and they just do some real simple searches on search.twitter.com, like for keynote speaker. And, so, if someone is saying, “Hey, looking for keynote speaker on digital marketing”, it sort of pops up on their TweetDeck, and they’re like, “We have Mitch Joel.” They aren’t active, they’re not building audience, they’re just listening. And, it’s crazy to think that people will spend all day trying to do, like print that, whatever it is, TV ads, whatever it could be, when there are actually people in market right now saying they need something.

JH: Right.

MJ: It’s crazy.

JH: So, what led you to this point? Give us a quick background; did you always have a marketing eye?

MJ: I think I was always a marketer, when you think about it. My first sort of gig was in the mid 80s, I was a music journalist. Actually, my first gig was interviewing Tommy Lee for Motley Crue, believe it or not.

JH: Nice!

MJ: And I spent many, many years interviewing tons of great rock stars, and I was doing freelance, but, at the same time I was publishing magazines. And, if you Google my name, there are some people who say that was the first magazine ever online. I was putting this magazine on the internet so early that, I live in Montreal, I had to call long distance to Toronto to get on the internet.

JH: Huh! [Laughs]

MJ: Like that’s how, we didn’t even have an ISP at the time, so that was sort of where I was at. From there, I decided the magazine thing wasn’t for me, but, I wanted to still freelance. I started working for mama.com, which was one of the first search engines on the internet; we’re talking years before Google even existed.

I got in there very early, I was the fourth or fifth person, and we built that company up quite large, really got into paid search in the early days, again, way before Google was even around. I went through the whole ‘boom-bust’ echo that we all sort of have lived through, I think, in one incarnation or another. Spent a short bit of time helping launch a mobile company called Airborne Entertainment, some of your listeners might know this guy, Andy Nulman, who’s got a great blog called, Pow! Right Between the Eyes. He’s the founder of the Just for Laughs Festival. He’s got a book out called, Pow! Right Between the Eyes. I worked for him helping him launch this mobile content thing; again, you’re going back like eight years. So, we’re talking to carriers about data, and they were like worried about voice and turn.

JH: Mm hmm.

MJ: Like they didn’t even care, we managed to get this product on every single carrier deck, because they didn’t care about data, that’s how early that was. I spent about a year there, worked a little bit in a PR firm, wasn’t really a good fit for me, I just didn’t feel like this was where I wanted to be. I started a record company, went back into the music industry – we have two or three bands that did very, very well. And, then we got hooked up with the guys at Twist Image, and, really sort of, I think, found my thing, where I really wanted to create a next generation marketing agency. So, in one incarnation or another, I was always involved in marketing technology, communications…

JH: Yeah. And, you hear a lot about that with music. I found a lot of people in social media kind of came from music, because all of the elements are in it … it’s kind of starting small, and getting the word out, and trying to monetize, and trying to build an audience, and is there a lot of parallels you found with that?

MJ: I think there are now that I’m 38, and I look back on the fact that I started when I was 18 or 19. I see them, but, for me it was really more of, I was in an industry where I realized that’s really a small percentage of people who really make money. And, as passionate as I was about it, and, it’s not like I’m a money-grubbing guy, I’m actually quite minimalist. But, I just really want to really control my own financial outcome in life. And, I just felt like it just wasn’t a great fit for me, but, I’m still passionate about it, I’m still friends with a lot of the famous people that I sort of met when they weren’t famous, and, I do have one of those lives where anything I’ve been interested in, I pursued, and, sort of have some level of opportunity within that. So, I don’t really ever look at life and work, I’m just sort of like having fun.

JH: I’ve been the same way. I wanted to work in sports, I was able to find a job in sports [talk over each other] I wanted work in tech, I did that, so, I was checking on your blog, and I saw the archives go back to July of 2004. So, while millions of blogs are being started every month, not a lot of people have the consistency to keep it up for five years straight. I know it’s been difficult doing my podcast, I think I’m like on 72 weeks straight. How do you have the energy, and, how do you get your ideas to keep that up?

MJ: The truth is, actually, you can go back further to 2003; I saw it from a

blogger platform, and then moved slowly over onto my own platform. Being from the publishing industry is a huge key to this. And, what I learned really quickly is, let’s talk a little bit about Wired; I go and buy the new issue of Wired with Craig Newmark on the cover, and, I’m all excited. But, for the next three and half weeks I’m pretty depressed, cause I tear through it, and then I keep going back to the magazine store – nothing, you wait. But, humans intuitively sort of know when the next issue is coming out, when you’re really passionate about following a media. And, I realized at that time, when I was doing my own magazines, that as much as it’s important to be relevant, which is really, really key, consistency is a huge thing. And, I do think that as new media as we all are, and, “Hey, it’s RSS, and it’ll be there when I publish it, and that whole thing is great”, I think people do have expectations once you build up some semblance of audience. And, I do believe that one of the keys to success for any business, or any individual looking to engage, is to be consistent.

The biggest mistakes I’ve seen is like, you blog seven times a day, then, you sort of, “Well, I don’t have much to say today”, and then all of a sudden it’s twice a week, and the next thing you know, they’ve faded off and they’re not blogging ever. Or, they get excited by the next shiny object, and they hop onto Twitter. So, I’m not holding on to my blog because I refuse to let go because I’m on Twitter, I just also look at, for me, what works for me, again, background in journalism, background in publishing, blogging really, really works for me; Twitter, also, podcasting – I just did my 170^th episode. And, every single week, I don’t I’ve ever missed a week, actually. And, again for me, it’s just that consistency.

The other part of consistency is an individual looking to produce content is, I think it forces you to do stuff. And, a lot of people see it in a negative way, like, “Well, if you don’t have something to say, you’re forcing it” – yes and no. To be honest, I blog once a day, sometimes a little less, then I do twice a day later on, but I got six things I could blog about, and I’m sort of picking the one. I think just part of it, it’s just the journalist in me, like you, you’re a curious person, you ask curious questions, and, so it’s easy for me to even open up an issue of Wired Magazine, look at an article and ask myself a question, “Why is this like that?” That’s a blog post right there.

JH: Yup. So, how did the book evolve? You just launched your book this week, in the first day, it made it up to number 14 on Amazon Canada?

MJ: Yeah, Canada, we were about 350 in the U.S., which I think for a niche marketing book is pretty spectacular. Now it’s the maintenance part of it, again the consistency of keeping it there. The book was an interesting thing. I think, as a journalist, the book is like going after going Moby Dick with the spoon and fork; as a journalist, gotta get that that book, it’s the whale that you gotta to chase. And, years went by where I thought I’d like to retire and then write a book. Of course, when you say that, you put that on the world, it’s like you meet an agent, and the next thing you know. So, the next thing I know there was a sort of book opportunity in front of me through my agent, really, really exciting, called The Six Pixels of Separation. And, for me, it was actually good, I started writing as a marketer, and then I went back, and I was like, “This is the wrong angle.” The angle that I took my book was that I wrote it as an entrepreneur.

Again, in 2003, I started blogging because nobody would give me any ink. [Laughs] And, so, I thought this is the new world, I don’t need permission to be published. There are blogging platforms, and so I started off on Blogger, and, literally, we built this company – it’s 90 employees in multiple offices and great clients, because of the blog. And, I thought that in a world where people are so cynical about blogging, and Twitter, and Facebook, and YouTube, that I can, actually, also not just use other great business examples, but I think I’m the example, too. So, actually, I took a different almost language, and the language is a little bit more than my newspaper columns, and stuff like that, where it is more business person speaking to business about how to use these tools in business. [Laughs] I know it’s sort of a lot of business, but it was a big thing for me, cause I haven’t seen anything like it out there.

JH: Well, you’re pretty well known, but you’ve had a traditional publisher on this, right? And, so, we’re kind of in an age where bands are producing their own music, and actors are putting their own movies on the web, and every budding journalist has their own blog, did you consider self-publishing with some of the several sites that have that?

MJ: Yeah, I’m actually on the advisory board of a great new site called the Book Oven that’s quite involved in the sort of personal and self-publishing space. No, and the answer’s no, I never thought about it for two seconds. My whole thing was, if I was going to write a book, is I want the book to be for people who are not as engaged in these channels as we are. If you’re engaged in these channels, you’re going to read the blog or listen to the podcast, or check this podcast out; you’re not going to need to read a book necessarily.

I wanted to write a book for those people in the room that keep getting asked, “Why aren’t we doing this, why aren’t we on Facebook, why aren’t we on Twitter, why aren’t we doing this?” I wanted to write a business book for them. I jokingly tell people that the book is like the prelude to the blog, almost. But, the feedback that I’ve had so far, in all honesty, has been that even for people who are really, sort of engrained in this space, they’re also really enjoying, I think they’re enjoying reading the business side of it.

JH: That’s a great angle, I hadn’t thought of that that the reason you do a traditional book, because everyone else is already on the web.

MJ: That’s it. I wrote a book for people who read books, and it is, it’s a whole other market. We were talking before about my newspaper column, and it’s like the joke – everyone two weeks I do a business column in the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun, and people come up to me literally on the street and are like, “ I love reading you every two weeks.” I’m like, “You can read me everyday on my blog if you really wanted to.” [Laughter] But, again, these are people who are buying the newspapers, these are people who are running through the airport, stop to look in the bookstore, like, “What can I read on my trip to San Fran?” And, I keep hearing about new media, here’s a book, boom, off I go to the races.

So, for me it was really important to write a book for a certain demographic or target market, rather, what would be the Channel 3 […]? Well, if I want to get businesses excited about this channel, let me each them in a channel they like – business books, boom! So, it’s actually a sort of short bridge for me to cross.

JH: And, it sounds like it was very passionate, you had fun with it, ‘cause I’ve heard people talk about when they write a book, that it’s this long, it’s drawn out, it’s time sucking, it can be frustrating, how was your experience with this?

MJ: It’s really funny, so I speak a lot, and I know people, I go to conferences like TED, and everyone’s like, “Oh, how was it like?” I asked other people, “What was it like to write a book? Oh, it was the hardest thing, I hated it, it was like hell.” So, I was like getting really intimidated, I had the best time writing it, I loved writing it, it came really, really easy to me. Again, background is in journalism still, I’m still a journalist, as weird as that sounds when I say it. I write fast, I know I write fast, too; actually, we cut out 30,000 words to be honest [chuckles], so that’s a lot. The book is about 70,000 or 80,000 words, so we cut out a lot.

It was almost like I took a deep breath, and I was able to suddenly really talk. It was almost like we sat down, and you were a really close friend, you’d been gone for five years, and you said, “I want to start a business venture, Mitch, what should I do?” That was sort of like opening thing, and, that was like ok, voom, here’s what I would do; if I could start it all over today. So, for me it was highly pleasurable, I have an amazing agent, though, I have a great publisher. I was jokingly saying, I was telling my agent, I’d be like, “Am I doing a good job?” He says, “Like, why?” I’m like, “Cause there wasn’t really any rewrites even.” It was like the publisher was really happy, I was really happy; so a great experience, hopefully we can repeat that on book number two.

JH: That’s generally … maybe it’s that combo of a journalist and a blogger, and then an internet marketer, because that’s how I work a lot. I’ll start with something and have to write like a little blurb for a newsletter, and I’ll write it out, or even a Twitter post, and I’ll look, and, be like, “Alright, it’s 190 characters, got to get down to 130”, and then it’s easier to chip away things, and to try to like keep adding more content.

MJ: Some of the concepts were definitely blog posts previously, but they were totally rewritten, and in my head it was like, this can’t be a blog post, because, again, blogs you do want to keep it like snackable content – nice and tight, and Twitter posting, and even less, obviously. I really looked at it and said, like “What if there was no end to this concept, can I exhaust myself on it?” And, then I sort of went back and said, “Ok, what’s the meat here, what’s the structure?” Well, creating the structure for what I wanted to go through was also really good. Over the years I have sort of have, cumulatively, built these thing like when I speak, a lot of keynote speakers they’ve got 40 to 60 slides, that’s what they do. I’ve got 10,000 slides.

JH: Wow!

MJ: I build slides every day, like if there’s a great quote in Wired Magazine, I create a slide for it, and I bank it. And, I’ve got all these, I call it my master deck, it’s actually 20 files, or something like that. And, so, I ‘m always pulling and rearranging, and recreating, and I wanted to bring that, I bring that spirit when I speak, I wanted to bring that spirit to the book, too, where it was, again, different ideas and ways in which they flow together, and obviously in the book, I could structure it, too. First, it’s like a blog post where I’m doing like a self-promotional post one day, then like a critique on a news item the next day, it’s erratic – blogging is quite erratic.

JH: Mm Hmm.

MJ: But, I really looked at this and said, “Canvas, like white canvas, what would I paint?”

JH: Now, you did an interesting thing yesterday on one of your blog posts called, Asking for Help.

MJ: [Chuckles] Right.

JH: Let’s talk about that.

MJ: I’ve noticed a huge switch in blogging. When blogging started, it was actually, ‘me, me, me.’, that’s what it was. It was, “I’m doing this checkup, I’m speaking here”, that’s what blogging was – online journaling that you were just publishing to the world, And, if it wasn’t of interest to somebody, don’t follow me. That’s what it was, everybody was like that. And, there’s been a small shift in the past three years where it’s not ‘me, me, me’, it’s ‘you, you, you.’

JH: Mmm.

MJ: Which I great, I think that’s amazing cause it’s forced me to be more about journalists where I’m just providing total value to people. And then I sort of got trapped where I realized, like I‘ve got this book coming out, it’s like this weird new thing, you can’t be self-promotional blog, and people are like, “Look at him, shilling for his own stuff” – which is crazy, that’s what it is. And, I had this sort of moment where I realized I have to ask for help, because in this real world that we’re in right now, if what you’re saying is I can’t be self-promotional, then what do I do, wait around for mass media to come and cover the story, cover my book? Well, we all use blogs, because we’re trying to prove that mass media isn’t as powerful, it became this really weird thing, and I thought, there’s only one thing I can do, and that’s ask for help.

And, so, I didn’t ask people to really buy the book, it was one of them, obviously, but I asked them six basic things, “Can you buy the book, talk about it, can you blog about it, can you Tweet about it?” And, the reaction was thankfully really, really positive, and the book’s done well. But, I felt a little dirty even after posting it, I don’t know why, I love people even emailed on the side, and said, “This is your time.” And, I said in the post, “Yes, this is me shilling; yes, this is me being self-promotional”, but I didn’t know what else to do.

JH: Right. I think that’s the key, that you have that history, and that following of being helpful all along, so that when it comes time, when you do need help, you can ask for it and people will respond to it.

MJ: Well, I think that that’s the fundamental beauty of a real community, right, it’s like if you look at your neighbors, you tend to help those neighbors who’ve been there longest, and who have been helpful to you. We just moved into a new physical neighborhood, so I know what it’s like, it’s weird, it’s like well they don’t you, you don’t know them, and, so, it becomes this weird dance. You would think it was like that in the digital world, but what I’m actually seeing is that there is that part of it, but, I think there a lot of takers online, I really do. I think there area a lot of people who go, “All this great free content, I can take, take, take, and provoke, and do what I want”, but when it’s time to actually put money down somewhere, “Well, you’re being self-promotional, why should I give you money?” There’s actually a comment from someone who’s like more of an open source person, who said, “It’s ironic that Mitch’s asking for all this free publicity, but he’s charging for the book.”

Obviously, they don’t know me well, because the reality is every single day I’m just doing nothing but giving, whether it’s links, or thoughts, and, I’m not just giving, I’m sharing, I ‘m being part of the community.

So, I thought that that was weird, but the other side of it was, and it’s interesting with the book promotion, the publisher comes over and says, “Let’s release it free as a PDF”, and all this sort of stuff, and I was like, “No.” Like, ‘no, no, no. no.’ Because, I give free stuff every single day, all the time – audio, text, even my columns that are published I repost then there with links. I spend the time to link to it, and tag everything. And, I thought, if people want the book, they can buy it, and if they don’t want to buy the book, no problem, I’ll be here tomorrow with more new content for you – free!

JH: Right, because at what point, you’re building this stuff up, you’re building up your Facebook friends, you’re building up your Twitter following, what is the use, if you’re not going to use it. It’s almost like, when you have your life savings, and you’re saving, you’re saving, “Oh, I kind of had to do that, I bought an apartment in New York”, and its like, “Oh, my god, it’s all my savings.” But, then it’s something like, “Well, what are you saving it for?”

MJ: But that’s what you were saving it for. [Laughs]

JH: That’s what I’m saving it for. So, why do I have all these Twitter followers, I’m giving, giving, giving, and at some point if you have something of value, and you’ve shown a history of giving free value to these people, it’s ok to ask for help.

MJ: One of the things that I pulled out of another great book that just came out, it’s called, Trust Agents, by Chris Brogan and Julian Smith. And, they talk about a couple of things, one is ‘social proofing’, which is sort of like when you do make the ask, that’s the social proof of whether or not your community is strong. But, they talk a lot about sort of the idea of trust, and I think that’s a big thing, too, is my community trusts me, and I trust my community. And, so, I have hopes that if I’m doing anything self-promotional, they also know that it’s also to their betterment.

So, it’s not like, buy the book, because I’ve given you seven years of blogging, I’ve given you seven years of blogging, and there’s this book which has tons of new stuff in it, and if your so inclined to buy it – cool; and if you’re not, if you’re so inclined to talk about it – great, and if not, well, I’ll be here tomorrow with some more blog posts for you that you can grab, and do what you want with it. I don’t say that negatively, at all, I think that that’s the beauty of the community of people who rise up, people say. I spent a full day, like 18 hours, sending individual emails to people I know who have audience, and saying to them, “Now is the time, my book is coming out, what, in anything can you, would you be willing to interview me, can I interview you?” And, I was thinking, “Are you willing to read content for other people?” And, it was really interesting, some of the A-listers or internet celebrities who I’ve met where I don’t feel as comfortable, there’s a lot of other books on this, and then, it’s amazing, people who are way busier, way more well known, way wealthier, way more engaged, were doing it without even me asking them, out of the kindness of their heart.

We had a re-Tweet yesterday from M.C. Hammer, [chuckle] of all people. He’s got an audience of 1.3 million people. But, it really made me think that there are some people who also take themselves a little bit too seriously in this space. If you’ve got a couple of hundred thousand people following you on Twitter, that doesn’t mean much. In the grand scheme of things, you have to have, I think all communities should be reciprocating. I try to promote as much as I, I try and promote others, and it was sort of interesting to see who the real givers and takers are. And, some of the people we all see as big community people, I’d think we’d all be surprised to see how very selfish they actually are; and they’re really in it for themselves.

JH: Mm hmm.

MJ: And, my whole thing was I didn’t want to be that, and people, I think, know that I’m not that. But, it was a big thing on my head, like don’t ever want to be perceived as someone who is just taking, cause I’m not.

JH: Yup. You do a lot of speaking, and, I’m guessing some of my audience would say, “How do I become a good speaker?”, and one of the blog posts that I saw on your site was setting up a speaker page. Talk about that, I thought was a really great idea, that’s so obvious that people may not be as [cut off].

MJ: So obvious. Well it started over at onedegree.ca there. This debate brews up all the time online where they’re not enough female speakers in the tech and social media space. And, yeah, we know that. It’s for sure a male-dominated thing, and there area some amazing women who don’t get the opportunity they need to speak. And, you sort of watch the comments go, because, any time it has to do with that topic, you’re going to see a lot of comments back and forth. And, I absolutely agree that there’s definitely not a lot of female speakers; and, so, as the names were coming and going, this person and that person, this person, I was like, “Well, let me go check out who they are.” And, some of them I’ve never really heard of.

And, I went, and I have to tell you, 96% of the people didn’t have a speakers’ page – it’s like, nothing, not even close. And, it was really, really freaking me out, and, then I was like, “Ok, forget the gender issue, let’s just look at people who are saying their speakers, this and that, and, even then. And, so, here you have people saying, like, “I’m a great speaker, how come I never get asked to speak?” Well, because if even someone would, how do we even know you want to speak? Definitely, on my blog, or space, I don’t even know what it is anymore, it’s a blog, it’s a podcast – I have a speaking page, and it’s got my bio for speaking, it’s got images, it’s got video sample, it’s got testimonials from people, it’s got the topics I speak about, an abstract for them, how to contact me. It seems so basic, but, again, none of these people had it.

And, so, two things happen there – one is people say, “Well, I just want to be like a panelist.” But, even then, show me that you can be yourself on a panel. And the other thing is people go, “Well, I was interviewed on TV, and here’s my video clip.” And, the answer is no. So, what happens in my world is people come over to me and say, “Can you introduce me to your speakers’ bureau? I’ve been told that I would be a great motivational or business speaker.” And, I’m like, “Absolutely, send me a link that has a video, all the sort of source stuff”, and they go, “Oh, I don’t have that.” It sounds like me saying I want to be magician. [Laughter] It’s so random.

JH: Yeah, show me some tricks.

MJ: Go back, get me some video, and if it’s any good, I’m happy to forward it on. A 100% of the time, I‘ve never heard from the person, 100% of the time. And, so, it was going back and forth, and the comments, and, I was like, “It’s not a gender thing at all. It’s actually across the board. If you’re interested in speaking, that’s the basics.” And then, people say, “So, I have that. How come I’m not getting the gigs?” And the answer is the same reason why certain bands break and some don’t – it’s cause, “Well, you’re not that good!” Sometimes it’s hard to say, and, “Well, I’m a bit more shy.”

There’s Toastmasters, there’s practicing, there’re so many colleges that would love to have a guest speaker – get out there, practice, work with the coach. Hire a coach for a couple of bucks. Learn body language, learn how to build your content flow, there’s so many things about it. And in the end, I was just like, “Listen, go buy Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds; go get slide:ology, by Nancy Duarte; go get Nick Morgan’s book, Give your Speech. Change the World, and you’re done. Those are also great books, read them, do what they say, and you’ll be on your way. The amazing thing about it is, because there’s so few people who have great speakers pages, I think the ones who do it will just jump ahead because it’s a commodity to get somebody to get up there and deliver a keynote or presentation, or be on a panel that engages a Twitter-crazy, iPhone-nuts, Blackberry-insane audience is a commodity. Not a commodity, sorry, it’s a non-commodity,

JH: It’s a rarity, a rarity.

MJ: You think that was the word I was looking for. And, it boggles my mind, I gotta tell you Jim, like how few people, even on this list, and, just guys, girls, the whole thing, gay, straight, black, white, Asian, whatever it is, the majority of people, really, and the speakers you and I know well, the Web 2.0 speakers, get up there and speak from their hearts. And, it’s very powerful if you’re in an audience where people are following you on Twitter, but when you get up in front of a Google, or a Walmart, or who knows who else, you gotta be polished to the point if you know the beginning, middle, end, you know how to deliver the message, and so that the audience will be engaged. And it is, it is a rarity, so, I’m always like, “Hey, you want to speak, great, but you gotta do the basics, too.” You also gotta let people know you’re alive; no on knows, how would I even know that you want to speak?

JH: Great advice, great advice. What is some other advice, I know many of my listeners are in online marketing, social media, do you have some case studies that would be valuable for marketing professionals, maybe like stuff from the books that you hit on?

MJ: Yeah, I think there are the standard case studies that we’ve, sort of, come to know and love. I was in the car today in New York City, and turned to the New York Times, and saw that Gary Vaynerchuk has a huge photo spread on him on the food section with all the Wine Library TV, and he’s sort of one of those guys who are the Craig Newmarks of the world, there are those stories, they’re in Huffingtons of the world. I think the best stories have really yet to be told; I think one of the main things I really learned in writing the book for businesses is that we’re in the middle of it, and it’s really to kind of show you a conclusive white paper-type thing that’s really going to move the needle for like a Chief Marketing Officer, or even and entrepreneur. And, so, part of it for, the big case study is really about trying stuff. In the book I talk a lot about what versus why, and I think that’s the best place to start is people tend to start with, “What should I be doing on Twitter, what should I be doing on Facebook?”, and it’s the wrong question. It should be ‘why’, “Why should you be on Facebook, why should you be on Twitter?” And, the logic is, “Why is strategy, what is a tactic?”

And, I think a lot of times we jump to tactics really, really quickly; strong strategy always wins over time. And, so, my advice is like forget the case study, is think about your strategy ‘why’, and why people love you, why they connect, but also, like, why? Like, I’m a writer, for me blogging and Twitter was the way. I’m not a video guy, I’ve got a Flip, I’ve got a Kodak, I’ve got all these HD tiny cameras I still don’t carry around cause I’m not a fan of video, it’s not my thing, I don’t’ like to video edit, I’m bad at it. So, I’m always of the mind set of focusing on the strategy, which also ties me to what we talked about earlier is the consistency – if it ties well into your strategy, the consistency becomes really easy because it’s working. The more it works the more you’ll do it.

JH: Yeah. And that’s what you do. Your agency builds marketing strategies for companies. So, what do you do on Twitter, you Tweet about different marketing strategies people can do, and it’s funny cause that’s so obvious the answer when I tell people, “Well, how should I use Twitter, what should I do”, and for example, here at Conde Nast, it’s, well, “How does Conde Nast make money?” Well, we make page views, when people come to the website we sell banners on it, and we get page views. So what we do is Tweet about a cool article, and it links back to our pages. And, if you’re a speaker, then you talk about your speaking, and if you’re strategy you talk about strategy. If you’re Dell and you sell, you have products that have been refurbished, and you send a link to refurbished products – you do what your business model is.

MH: Yeah, I tell a story, I think I tell a story in the book, if not it’s on my blog. I love, I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to my laptops and stuff, and I was switching to another ultraportable, and I was unsure about solid state hard drives just cause they’re so really expensive. And, I went on Twitter and I was like, “Looking to buy a new ultraportable, considering solid state hard drives, what are you’re thoughts versus standard worth it – yes, no?” And, some Dell people had hopped on and answered the question; didn’t promote latitudes or anything like that, it was just sort of helping me, and I have to tell you, in all of the 10,000 people that follow me, I really trusted their feedback. It actually was quite good compared to some other techy guys who I know, who I thought would be on, as well. Ironically, I actually did buy Dell in the end, which is sort of a weird part of the story, but, what was interesting to me is they weren’t pushing, they were being helpful as computer experts that aligned me for who I stand for, my personal brand, to them a lot better.

And, I think people forget that, and I tell a story in the book, I make up a case study of a pen shop, and, it’s like, “Should the pen shop blog or not?” And, it was like, “Well, who wants to hear that a new Pilot or Sharpie pen is out?” And I pushed further down the industry, and I say, “But, if they did a blog on the art of writing, would that be interesting?” And, the answer is yes. Like your eyes lit up, and my eyes lit up, is like, “Yeah, I’d like to hear stories about writers and how they write.”

And, so, we also tend to forget, we tend to talk about our products and services, but, like the stuff that I do really, I talk about the industry. And, my hopes are that there’s a funnel effect, or halo effect where the more I talk about the industry, or the more empowered I make you as a marketer or someone else, that when it comes time to choose a digital agency, you’ll at least consider Twist Image in your portfolio.

JH: Mm Hmm.

MJ: And, that’s really for me the difference is, I never I talk about my products and services ever, in fact, never. So, that’s another angle to there, too, that I like people to consider.

JH: And what was the answer on the hard drives?

MJ: The answer’s definitely solid state hard drive, I gotta tell you, my brother actually bought a Dell, the same time as me, without solid state, and I thought it was broken, it was so slow. For those asking, it’s worth the investment, these things dance. We are getting to the point where computers are almost like light switches – you turn it on, and it’s practically ready to go.

JH: That was actually my final question. So, a lot of my listeners are also gadget freaks, and I know after we had dinner after your last speech, there was a whole discussion about like what laser pointer you used, and remote controls, and tell us about some of the things that you do as road warrior and a presenter.

MJ: Well, there are a couple of things, I sort of like my man purse, my backpack, that’s a big thing, too, so, I’m currently sporting a Briggs and Riley that I love, it’s a real ballistic nylon, it feels great, like it, feels very manly for me. I love my Logitech remote presenter, it’s the 2.47 GHz, but it’s got a couple of little things that I love, one is that it has a timer in it which gives me a silent buzz at five minutes and zero minutes, which is just amazing, so I can actually see that I’m actually speaking for 45 minutes, I know exactly where I’m at in the presentation, I know how much longer I have, it fells really good, a great little device.

I’m still a big fan of my M-Audio MicroTrack which is sort of a digital two-track studio that I carry around. It’s almost like the size of a pack of cigarettes, and it’s literally a studio, so I do all my audio interviews using it. We should have done it for this, but it would have sounded a lot better, trust me. I love that, I love my Internet Rocket Sticks, or Portable Internet everywhere I go, you dump in the SIM card, it’s pretty fast, 3G, it’s not blazing speed, but it’s quite good. I could go on and on. I, literally, was just walking up 5^th, going into all the Best Buys, and stuff like that. I just really…

JH: Maybe we’ll get a list. You should, that’s what Daniel Odio, who you talked to, had a ‘social media kit’, he called it. And, he had just like a dozen different things.

MJ: I’ll tell you something, on my blog, I just had a post called, What’s in My Bag, because there was this amazing, I don’t know if you’ve seen this widget on Amazon, have you seen it?

JH: Mm Hmm.

MJ: Amazon’s got this great widget where you can choose stuff, and then it just creates like a slideshow and you can put comments on it. So, I literally created this slideshow of the stuff I keep in my bag. And it’s there, it’s literally everything, it even includes my subscription to Wired Magazine.

JH: [Laughs] Excellent, I’ll have to link to that. Well, thanks so much for coming in, Mitch. Where can people find out more about you, your company, and Twitter, and buy the book?

MJ: Sure, well, first of all, great seeing you again. We should say that we would never have met were it not for social media.

JH: That’s correct.

MJ: We were connected through the smartest man in the world, Saul Colt, who I think connects everybody in the end of the world, right?

JH: He does.

MJ: Through Twitter, and then you actually came down; we met and had a great time. I just want to also put that out there that people think that this is just about people in their basement, or whatever, and I think the real value is this, which is, we met, I think, digitally, three months ago, and we’ve already seen each other twice in person, so, that’s better than some of my friends in the world, and my, sort of, long-term friends.

Um, twistimage.com/blog is everything for me to the catchall, it’s the blog, the podcast; I’ve also got another show that I do every two weeks in my podcast called, Media Hacks, where it’s me Chris Brogan, Julian Smith, C.C. Chapman, Chris Penn, and Hugh McGuire, and we just talk. It’s almost like a really noisy, inside baseball on the new media landscape, it’s been a lot of fun, too – it’s all right there for you.

JH: And the book?

MJ: Yeah, same place, twistimage.com/blog, or twistimage.com/book. In stores, definitely available online, and, yeah, if you’re so inclined, check it out. I think everybody will get a lot out of it, and, if not, pass it on to someone who keeps bothering you with those annoying questions of what should they be doing on Twitter.

JH: Great. Well, thanks again, Mitch.

MJ: Awesome, thanks for your time.

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