A cou­ple of new things to tell you about today.

First off, I’m try­ing a new exper­i­ment. I’ve decided to close and remove com­ments on this blog. Just to see what hap­pens. Why? Here’s the thing…

When I post a new blog post, it will be cross­posted to a few social net­works. Some, by design with the help of a few tools and plu­g­ins. Oth­ers, by sub­scribers and read­ers who retweet, reblog, or track­back to my posts.

What I’ve noticed is, on these social net­works — Twit­ter, Face­book, Friend­Feed, Digg, and now with the new Google Buzz — my posts seem to incite dis­cus­sions on these loca­tions. Dis­cus­sions I love to par­tic­i­pate in, too, when I have a chance.

I want to har­ness that social media power and divest myself of the con­stant mod­er­a­tion of this blog. I feel that, since there are so many dis­cus­sions tak­ing place else­where, why not take advan­tage of social media and bring the dis­cus­sions to the pub­lic instead?

Read the rest of this post or share it »

In the sec­ond com­mand­ment, you learned that you should be the leader in your cat­e­gory or in your unique area of exper­tise. Now you need to be known as such. And one of the most effec­tive ways to do this is through publicity.

I met a fel­low once while work­ing in New York City who ran his own show on cable tele­vi­sion — his very own cable show! Cable and com­mu­nity tele­vi­sion sta­tions are won­der­ful medi­ums to get the word out effec­tively. This is an area in which you can get a lot of pub­lic­ity at lit­tle or no cost.

Read the rest of this post or share it »

In today’s Inter­net, con­ver­sa­tions are crop­ping up all over the place. Peo­ple are talk­ing. They are talk­ing about prod­ucts. They are talk­ing about busi­nesses. And they are cer­tainly talk­ing about their expe­ri­ences.

When you look at how blogs, forums and social net­work­ing sites have exploded in the last few years, you can see how pow­er­ful word-​​of-​​mouth is. But the ques­tion is, is it all really impor­tant? Can it really help your business?

Yes.

And I’m not talk­ing about traf­fic. And you don’t need to be con­tro­ver­sial, either. I’m talk­ing cre­at­ing sys­tems to lever­age, man­age and profit from the “buzz.”

Read the rest of this post or share it »

The next ques­tion is, what does Web 2.0 have to do with saleslet­ters, if any­thing? And how does it affect them? For mar­keters, Web 2.0 presents a num­ber of new oppor­tu­ni­ties and avenues that allow more interaction.

More specif­i­cally, tools cre­ated by Web 2.0 can help to not only human­ize but also mag­ne­tize a web­site, which, in turn, gives mar­keters the abil­ity to cre­ate bet­ter rela­tion­ships with prospects, and sup­plies them with bet­ter tools to offer more proof, com­mu­ni­cate more effec­tively and develop that trust they so seek.

In terms of mar­ket­ing, it can lever­age a viral mar­ket­ing cam­paign by cre­at­ing a cer­tain buzz about the busi­ness, which can enhance a website’s traf­fic, expo­sure, stick­i­ness and, to some degree, believability.

But in terms of saleslet­ters specif­i­cally, which is what I really want to focus on, it can serve up a sales mes­sage in the way the user wants, not how the busi­ness behind it wants or thinks their users want.

Read the rest of this post or share it »

Long, scrolling saleslet­ters are dying. It’s a fact. There are two main rea­sons for this. Remem­ber, I said an evo­lu­tion and a rev­o­lu­tion are cur­rently tak­ing place. And both of these are con­tribut­ing to the death of the salesletter.

The evo­lu­tion is this: users are demand­ing for bet­ter qual­ity, more con­tent, more proof, less has­sles and greater inter­ac­tiv­ity. New tech­nolo­gies there­fore help to enable that expe­ri­ence. And really, that’s what it’s all about:

It’s about the expe­ri­ence.

As more and more peo­ple enter the web, get broad­band, and gain access to groups of peo­ple who they can con­nect and inter­act with, as well as with the pre­pon­der­ance of appli­ca­tions that fight for that person’s atten­tion and inter­ac­tion, the long-​​scrolling saleslet­ter no longer works as effec­tively as it used to.

Read the rest of this post or share it »

As you remem­ber from my pre­vi­ous post, I exposed myself to the world for a good cause. And I chal­lenged my friend Armand Morin to see who gets the most “buzz” (com­ments) to either of our blogs.

The week is not over yet, and I’m a lit­tle early. But I wanted to show you a lit­tle 3-​​minute video to prove that I wasn’t kid­ding. Would you like to know who’s win­ning? So far it’s (hold on tight)…

Read the rest of this post or share it »

“Buzz cut,” that is.

You see, a few days ago, my friend Armand Morin posted on his blog about his recent shave, and asked his fel­low read­ers to com­ment and vote on which one they liked best:

  

With the goatie? Or without?

I teased Armand a bit about it, so I decided to grow one myself. But that’s not fair, since Armand has had a beard for years. Me, I’ve had one on and off for years, too.

So I decided to shave some­thing else. And now, I’m expos­ing my “naked” self to the world, because I have shaved…

Read the rest of this post or share it »