The bloggers have invaded Las Vegas. There was no stopping it. For the third straight year, thousands of bloggers, twitterers, and affecianados converged on sin city to hear from some of the best and brightest in the industry and learn from their experiences.

This was my first year at Blogworld and I must say that it lived up to its hype of one of the largest conferences in the technology and social media scene. It was also the first year of Blogworld ever since it merged with the New Media Expo. You wouldn’t think that the conference was that large since there were only about 10 rooms and a giant exhibition hall, but most of the time it was packed.

To my dismay, I thought there would be more empirical data and facts that I could take away. However, when I’m listening to the panelists and even some of the keynotes, I don’t think that I got anything like that to write about – but there was more valuable information that would be useful from a personal level.

The 2009 conference kicked off with Laura Fitton talking about how to be awesome that had a close tie-in with Gary Vaynerchuk’s upcoming book “Crush It”. Her address helped provide a good impression on what to look forward to during this three day conference and also motivated the audience to be better than they are and to strive to be rockstars. But, of course, she couldn’t get away without mentioning Twitter during her keynote…more than a few times.

Then panel discussions were had until the lunch keynote that featured Wall Street Journal writer Kara Swisher interviewing Scott Monty about the social media work that he does for Ford Motor Company. While a great value, the dismal audio system made it hard to hear and, combined with, the incessant noise of chatter by people interested in networking instead of learning, made the whole affair rather meaningless.

More panels were held until the NEXT keynote – stay with me here…we’re only on the third keynote of the day. This time it was a panel discussion with Altimeter Group’s own Jeremiah Owyang leading the talk on whether sponsored conversations were any good. It was a bit of a lively debate and what helped this panel was the fact a genuine lawyer was on the dais to help explain the recent FTC disclosure guideline to everyone. Still, I had hoped to see more of a combative nature to the topic which would have made it more entertaining to observe.

Day 1 ended with the comedic and marketing stylings of Chris Brogan who left us with the message that bloggers need to get out of our own way and to be more helpful to others. Nothing really mind-blowing but always good to have a reminder of the potential we have to make a change in our community. I found it a great way to end the day especially since it was very much like a reality check.

To me, day 1 seemed very much like a source of inspiration. There was a lot of information passed through and that’s what people were expecting. Panelists shared their experiences and success stories, not necessarily facts and figures that you can take back to work and share it with your boss. This is probably one of the biggest things that I’ve enjoyed about Blogworld…it adds a very different feel to it and lets you just sit there and absorb the knowledge and then you can write your own success.

Photo Credit: All photos shown here were taken by Kenneth Yeung.

According to Brogan & Smith, there are six parts to becoming a Trust Agent:

Make Your Own Game: This is the first step. Sure, it’s great to follow the same process that everyone else is, but in order for someone to really consider you as trustworthy, you’re going to need to stand out. What are you doing that makes you unique from everyone else? In order to create a value differential, you’re going to need to find a way to be different. Brogan and Smith suggests that it’s best to take advantage of areas in the existing system that no one has chosen to exploit.

Become “One of Us”: An example most commonly cited in this part is Greg Cangialosi, founder of a successful email marketing service companies, Blue Sky Factory. There’s a reason why people have flocked to Cangialosi and his company for email marketing assistance. It’s because he’s one of us. He understands the industry and he’s also there for us when we need him. He’s become a trusted source. I particularly like this quote from Trust Agents which explains why Cangialosi first this mold:

We tend to buy from people who are like us. Becoming One of Us means being dedicated to nurturing a relationship. It means being the customer advocate, and sometimes the advocate before someone is even a customer. Greg Cangialosi…was a friend long before Chris was his client and long before Chris passed on two more sales to him. He was there, and he was One of Us. Cangialosi’s company is successful…because he is always around, being friendly.

In being One of Us, you’re an insider. It’s perfectly acceptable for those on the inside to make mistakes – you’re forgiven because you’re in the “circle of trust”. For those not One of Us, you’re an outsider and it’s harder for people to accept your insights.

Brogan & Smith suggest that you find what they term as “Agent Zero” – a person who can connect you with other insiders – a professional matchmaker of sorts. They also think that in order to be considered One of Us, you need to be everywhere and work on creating & maintaining the bonds of professional friendship.

Understanding Archimedes Principle: This is all about leverage. Find some way to leverage your existing networks and programs so that they’re not all operating in their own silos. It’s all about integration. As Brogan said at Gnomedex: “Don’t ever rest on your ass.” Always find a way to build off previous success. An analogy would be like gambling: the winnings you make at one table are going towards the next game for you to play.

Agent Zero: As alluded in being “One of Us”, this is where the idea of building a relationship is where it truly matters. Become the relationship before the sale.

Human Artists: In order for you to be a trust agent, Brogan & Smith says that you need to have the skill of being a human artist – someone who they say understands how to communicate with people in “a real and thoughtful way”. By this they mean that stop treating people as niches. If you think of people as “out of the ordinary”, then they too will think of themselves as being “out of the ordinary”.  It’s all about the new form of customer service – answer the phones, acknowledge, apologize and act on problems, and understand that customers now have a voice to complain about your product. Practice simple touch points of loyalty.

Build An Army: You can build relationships and gain influence just by yourself. In order to truly have influence online, you’re going to need to learn how to create a group – this is where you build yourself an army. It’s the step where you try and find evangelists who will help spread the word and tell people how good you are and that you’re trustworthy. Brogan and Smith both think that one person can’t scale beyond certain limits. An example that they give is the recent presidential election with Barack Obama and John McCain. One candidate chose to reach out to their supporters with traditional means (e.g. phone, mail, etc.) while another chose to use more social forms – reaching out to where the voters were and as a result helped win him the election. What’s most important in this step is that you need to not help the clients/army. Rather, it’s the old adage “give a man a fish and he eats for a day, but teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.”

When it’s all said and done, these are some really important steps that you need to take in order for you to be considered a trusted source. From carving out a niche for yourself to building that image into something where you can have an army of evangelists promoting your good name, there’s a lot to be said about Brogan and Smith’s philosophy of trust agents. More information can be found about these individual parts in their new book Trust Agents out in stores now.

…in a good way. His post “Backwards Work” stuck with me for a solid day, because he’s absolutely right. You’ve got to know the rules to break them, and you need to know what you want your end result to be before you start swinging for the fences. As Chris said, “know what it is you’re shooting at before you draw back.”

So without rehashing everything Chris wrote (its damned fine blog post on its own so go read it), I want to talk about the one thing that will help secure success…excitement in marketing your own company.

Excitement in your company period. Because, if you aren’t excited about your own business…no one else is going to be!

If you really want a good example of what passion and excitement for your product, brand, service or what it is that got you to start your own business, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better example than Gary Vaynerchuk. When I’m getting frustrated in what it is I do for a living, I go to YouTube and check out his talk from Web 2.0 Expo NY from September 2008 on “Building Personal Brand Within the Social Media Landscape,” and I get pumped all over again.

Now calm down, Sparky. I’m not telling you to go out and be Gary, but you can take a few things away from that talk that will help you. Gary’s passion for the things he loves (like wine, personal brand, and the New York Jets) is empowering. He loves what he does, and it pays off in spades? Take a lesson from that, and apply it to your own business. Whether it’s plumbing, coffee, design, legal work, the medical field, or, hell, even turning? paperclips into life size replicas of the entire 1969 winning Super Bowl team. In his talk Gary says, “if you love it you will win,” and that’s something I’ve always believed in.

Whatever it is…you started a business for a reason right? I mean, you didn’t start a business because one day you woke up and said, “I’m really good at (insert your whatever it is you want to do here), but I really don’t care about it…maybe I should go into business for myself doing that.” No. Something inspired you to shuffle off the 9-5 coil and strike out on your own. Now I’m saying this, and I am making the assumption you didn’t have a large bank roll behind you. I’m assuming you stepped out into the cold dark unknown of self employment, looked at the horizon, and smiled like a Cheshire cat. I’m assuming you looked out at whatever it is you wanted to tackle as the boss of a new business and said to yourself, “I can do this… and I want to for the rest of my life.”

You’re going to fail sometimes, but it’s that excitement for whatever it is you’ve decided to get yourself into that pulls you through to the next achievement. If you don’t have that, go back to the 9-5’er, lick your wounds, figure out what went wrong, and let someone else worry about where the monies coming from for a while.

If you’re on the fence about whether you’re excited about what you do or wherther the shine has worn off… pick a side and go there. It’s going to suck at times. It’s going to be exhausting at others. There are going to be days where you look at your loved one, friend, employee, or business partner and think, “What the hell did I get myself into?” The answer to that question is the very same thing: “I love what I do for a living!”

Chris Brogan wrote in his post: “Someone had to hunt the first mammoth. Oh, and that poor bastard died a bloody death.”

Bring me that mammoth and my rock. I’m ready to go down swinging. I’m willing to put in the hours, the time, and the effort to move forward regardless of the obstacle. I’m ready to get called crazy, loud, determined, passionate, and…a success. I am going to fail, and I look forward to it so I can get back up, dust myself off, and attack whatever knocked me down in a different direction.

I am a Small Business owner, and I’m excited to wake up every day and say that.

In Gary Vaynerchuks’s talk. he says, “if you love it you will win.” That’s something I’ve always believed in and something that, even before hearing Gary say it, has been the key to all of my successes.

Until next time…stay wicked.

* Photo courtesy of istockphoto.com

Chris and Violet "discussing" social media

Many of you out there are looking for ways to maximize your social media efforts to gain customers and I share your experiences of striving to correlate every investment to direct return that is more than what I put in. But when it comes to social media, it is not as straightforward as we wish it is compared to other forms of marketing.

Reading Chris Brogan’s article “Best Fits for Social Media in the Sales Cycle” a few things struck me. First he breaks the sales cycle into:

• Awareness
• Prospects
• Leads
• Customers
• Evangelism (Evangelists)

For most sales people, the middle three – prospects, leads, customers are the usual elements that comprise a “Sales Funnel”. Many think this wouldn’t be about social media since awareness and evangelism is where the real value of social media resides. However, we can use social media to continue our conversations and our outreach to those all throughout the sales cycle into the customer phase where outreach and community are critical. As Chris states “A paid-up customer is not the end of the sales cycle, any good salesperson knows. He or she is a trusted part of your next successful sales, or at least, a referral to other potential prospects.” So true but yet so easily forgotten.

He is very forthright that much in social media can not have direct correlation to sales unless their are promotions tied to the effort that could be tracked. However, other metrics using awareness monitoring tools like Radian6 is a start to optimize your social media efforts or at least see some impact.

Chris wraps up nicely something that I agree with and why I got into social media in such a big way:

“Building awareness, maintaining good business relationships, communicating thoroughly, listening, and encouraging evangelists are all ways your efforts in social media will pay off sooner rather than later.”

Couldn’t have said it any better myself. Check out his full write up here and I am curious to hear your thoughts on this and how you have applied social media to your sales efforts.

(Photo credit: Chris Brogan)

We arrived from our quick flight out of Dulles to a cool building with an awesome view of downtown Chicago. When walking into the room it was bustling with people clustered around tables and it reminded me of the blogger lounge at South by Southwest (SXSW). If you took the blogger lounge times four put all of the top bloggers from around the country in one room and added content to the discussions you have SOBCon. An awesome feat to acheive and Terry Starbucker & Liz Strauss did an outstanding job.

(Photo by Geoff Livingston)

Few things new this year:

Corporations that understand social media or are making a great attempt at engaging using social media

Sponsors like Colgate and marketing firms that brought in cool products we know (like Klondike Bars) and things we are going to see soon (reusable soap dispensers) to get feedback and engage a community of people that understand the concept of community and conversation.

Dual tracks the first day

This is only thing I didn’t like because it split the room up and made you choose between speakers you wanted to see. I guess I am more of a Gnomedex person with a single track, but that is just a personal preference.

Outstanding Content Examples from the First Day

Since our flight came in later I missed Chris Brogan and Julien Smith talk about their book “Trust Agents”. These guys wrote the book on trust in building community and participation in a 21st century business.

Photo: JD Lasica

I then was able to finally meet Brian Clark, Founder of Copyblogger and then meet the other half of the book Barack 2.0, David Bullock. I did an interview with his writing partner, Brent Leary about Social CRM (his specialty) and the Barack 2.0 project in October, five days before the election. David stated that their book was a matter of historical record and was not there to be political but a true analysis of the campaign’s use of social media through election day and beyond. He noted that many of the services used (Facebook, Twitter) didn’t even exist during the last election which was a very poigiant observation as to the adoption and rapid evolution of social media.

We had some other great presentations in addition to awesome networking in the halls and at your table. At the end of the day we had the opening day party at Hotel 71 on the top floor which was spectacular. On a side note, it was used as the set for Batman’s apartment in the movie “The Dark Knight” so you know this place was ultra cool and again showed that Terry and Liz know how to put on a conference.

More awesome sessions and content from Day Two

After a late night of umm, networking, we arrived bright eyed and ready for day two with started with a lively Q&A consisting of Chris Garrett, Lucretia Pruitt, Jason Falls and Zena Weist they had lots of feedback on social media in general and that basically we have only scratched the surface since 24% of people are even aware or planning to use social media.

We were then treated to a change in presentation with Kali Evans-Raoul talking about appearance and her image consulting business. We learned alot of major things (dress and ettiqute) to weird little things (your teeth move and change color over time without you realizing it). It was a very appropriate conversation since most of the mainstream media thinks that all bloggers work in their pajamas this session was to prove that we don’t, well most of us…

After lunch Geoff Livingston spoke about how to do a complete customer outreach program that consisted of online and offline components.

Photo by Shashi Bellamkonda

This was followed up by KD Paine and her awesome presentation on metrics and the ROI of relationships in social media. I have embedded the presentation here because it is that good and feature rich.

Wrapping up the day we had fun at Morton’s in Chicago and many headed off to Karaoke or off to bed.

Heading out and Wrapping Up

On Sunday morning they had a farewell breakfast and wrap up back at “Batman’s Apartment” at the top of Hotel 71. Not to let a good gathering go to waste, Terry Starbucker & Liz Strauss did some experimentation with this year’s conference and allowed sponsors to show a product (physical or software) to the attendees and get their input and feedback along with how they would leverage social media to maximize outreach and promotion of the product.

Think about it… Attendees get tapped for their expertise because they are experts and not just getting pitched to and sponsors maximize the investment in the conference and get some great feedback and free consulting from the top people in the social media space.

This was truly brilliant and I am sorry we had to catch a plane home. There is always SOBCon 2009 and I am looking forward to it next year.

The stars are in our midst … and small businesses can only benefit.

Late October, Network Solutions hosted the Solutions Stars video conference featuring exclusive conversations from BlogWorld Expo. Those in the Solutions Stars series talked shop on everything from building strong web presence to understanding social media strategy.

Say what?! listen, listen, listen
This week, I revisit another clip in the series about listening to your communities through social media. Watch the full clip below as these marketing leaders, top bloggers, and entrepreneurs discuss who to listen to online — and where to find them.

But first, the players … :

David Alston, VP of Marketing, Radian6
relates a key tenet of social media to sales & party-goin’ strategy

Ryan Anderson, Community Relations, Overlay.tv
tells more on businesses “answering the social phone”.

David Berkowitz, Director, Emerging Media & Client Strategy, 360i
reveals a source of inspiration for what your next step should be in a social media initiative.

Toby Bloomberg, CEO, Bloomberg Marketing
gives a Web 2.0 lay-of-the-land for learning what’s being said about your business.

Matt Dickman, VP of Digital Marketing, Fleishman-Hillard
recommends an easy approach to finding relevant influencers and customers in your space.

Robyn Tippins, Community Manager, Yahoo Development Network
shares how small business can “stand out” when it comes to listening to communities and customers online.

Chris Brogan, VP of Strategy, CrossTech Media
names (3) sources where small businesses can start finding online conversations about them.

Jason Falls, Director, Social Media at Doe-Anderson; blogger for Social Media Explorer
Outlines tips for keeping your business’ ear to the ground toward your customers.

Brian Solis, CEO, FutureWorks, and author of PR 2.0
gives the scoop on how to see what comes up online that’s related to your business.

Watch the whole series(!)
Just click below for the full clip on listening with social media or check out all (9) of Solutions Stars video conference interviews.

Questions for you
What ideas from the Solutions Stars video appeal the most for your interests, needs? Where have you unearthed conversations about your business online? And which tools or social networks helped you find them?

Photo, Stars at Your Feet, by Janusz I under Creative Commons A-ND-NC 2.0

In this episode our stars were able to provide some great insight on managing the demands on your time when you add social media into your bag of marketing tools.

Some highlights include:

- You don’t have to write everyday. It is all about quality over quantity
- Figure out what you want to say
- If you are using social media to interface with customers you need to “be in the trenches”
- Evaluate paid advertising to drive traffic and awareness to your blog
- Carefully manage your resources
- Solicit content from your users and customers. Including guest posting, case studies and testimonials
- Ask yourself “what would you do for the next 10 years if you couldn’t make money”. That is the passion you have and that will show to your customers, even on a blog.

The stars in this episode include Chris Baggot, Rohit Bhargava, Toby Bloomberg, Chris Brogan, Paul Chaney, Tim Ferriss, Tony Hsieh, Jennifer Openshaw and Wendy Piersall.

Here is the full episode:

Here are some recaps of what they said:

Guy Kawasaki, founder, AllTop: Twitter is a great way to find and spread information — it’s a way to reach thousands of people, immediately and free (which is great). It takes a little getting used to; give it a month or so — you might hate it for the first few days, but it’ll work out [which mirrors my own experience with Twitter, except I took longer because I am slow]

Ryan Anderson, Community Relations, Overlay.TV: They’re active on Twitter (including the executives), not just for promoting their stuff, but engaging with community. Their CEO will also use Summize weekly (now Twitter’s search) to get feedback directly from users, which is great for businesses, especially young companies.

Wendy Piersall, CEO Sparkplugging.com: You should also use other tools (depending on your business) like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. She doesn’t think you can conduct business online without participating in these types of communities.

Scott Monty, Global Digital and Multimedia Community Manager, Ford Motor Company: People have been networking since the Stone Age, but modern tools let us create networks of subject matter experts. “You don’t have to be the best accountant; you have to hire the best accountant” — online social networks let you tap into people who can help you — you’re not in it alone.

Liz Strauss, Social Web Strategist, Successful Blog: All this has changed the way she would start a business today. Use social networks to find out who’s out there; start on Twitter to listen to people and watch what’s going on. Open the door by promoting other people.

Tim Ferriss, author, The 4-Hour Workweek: Blogging isn’t for everyone, but there’s no excuse not to be on Twitter. You can use it as a blog, and you can be effective using it as a personality and brand on Twitter (like newspapers, activists, others are using it).

Chris Brogan, VP of Strategy, CrossTech Media: Small businesses should use social media tools to create  outposts where people can get to know you — put your face and presence out there, just like shopkeepers hanging out and meeting people in a town. “It’s all the same, it’s just different… but it’s all the same.”

Jason Billingsley, Co-founder, Elastic Path Software — Retailers need to build relationships and community; once you do that, your message is accepted. There are many avenues, like YouTube — many people are educating consumers by doing how-to and instructional videos. They’re informing, not selling, and by creating trust, then they look to you when they need to do transactions.

Mari Smith, Relationship Marketing Specialist: “Radical Strategic Visibility” — using Facebook, social bookmarks, blogging, Friendfeed, etc, — all the tools, in an integrated strategy.

Jennifer Openshaw, President, WeSeed.com: Bringing credibility online is important, and positioning yourself as an expert. A way to do this is to create content on your site, which you can also distribute through partners and social networking sites, so you can add value to people, even when you’re not trying to sell them stuff.

Agree or disagree with something from one of our ten social media experts? Please leave a comment below.

If you’ve been enjoying the events that we’ve been bringing you, then you will NOT want to miss this one! This one requires no travel you can attend it from the convenience of your office or home! We’ve created a free video conference that’s jam packed with insights & online marketing tips for small businesses!

Mark your calendar because on October 29 at 1 pm we’re providing the Solutions Stars Video Conference! Geoff Livingston, author of Now is Gone, & Network Solutions Social Media Swami Shashi Bellamkonda met with 32 top bloggers at BlogWorld Expo. We asked them to share their insights & tips on online marketing for small businesses for you. It was all captured on video & now we have a conference features nine different documentary style video sessions:

• Building Web Presence
• The Social Opportunity
• Start with Listening
• Strategy Drives Outreach
• You Need Social Networks
• To Blog or Not to Blog
• Visibility Through Search
• Rising Above the Noise
• Time Demands

In addition to the Solutions Stars Video Conference site, please visit the event pages on Facebook and Upcoming.

Here are the steps:

a) Bookmark this page – http://www.solutionsstarsvideo.com/

b) Create a calendar event for themselves

c) Choose the event time

d) Come up with good questions for the chat room

We’d love it if you’d grab a badge for your blog or site.

Above are Chris Pirillo, his wife Ponzi and Kat who works for Chris. They are the three that held the center tight so everything around did not fall apart. Here are some highlights of people there that evening:

Robert Scoble, meet the Robert Scoble of Network Solutions

In a funny exchange, Shashi met Robert Scoble and talked about our work on Solutions Are Power, I interjected that everyone calls him the “Robert Scoble” of Network Solutions. He jokingly said, “be careful you don’t fired” but was really glad to see a company like Network Solutions using social media to reach out to customers and evangelize what we do here. Below is a picture of the two Robert Scobles. I will leave it to you to figure out which one is the real Robert Scoble.

The two funniest guys in the room discuss social media

Dave Delaney and Chris Brogan are funny dudes. Both are passionate about social media and are very successful evangelists for the companies they work for. They are also really funny.

I met Dave for the first time here at Gnomedex 2008 and he has traveled all over the world and even to Ireland where he met his wife – who is from Tennessee. I mean, he goes all the way across the world to find and marry another American. There is a joke in there somewhere. It is the reason that he lives in Nashville and just got a job as the social media guy for Griffin, the iPod accessory people.

Chris Brogan is Social Media. As the originator of Podcamp Boston he is someone who has been at the center of the social media tornado these last few years. His personal blog ChrisBrogan.com has 8000 subscribers and his work on events for his company, CrossTech Media, allows him to put together events with serious social media angles.

Both guys were talking about the future of social media and how this year’s Gnomedex compared to last year’s. For a great perspective on this year to last year’s event, check out Chris’ post.

I am turning in early while most are still going until close. Looking forward to a fantastic second day at Gnomedex 2008. See you in the morning.