Blog 101 - Lee Lefever style

Lee's latest "how-to" video tells a simple and concise story of why and how people blog:


Check out all of Lee's videos on his YouTube page or through his company's site Common Craft.

Social Media Snack Done Right

I follow some social media strategist on Twitter as their tweets typically provide snippets of industry commentary. These 140 character cliff notes help me quickly shift through the vast about of social media information out there and find what's relevant to me - *right* now.

This morning, it was Jeremiah Owyang's tweet that caught my eye:




The middle tweet in particular, given that I'm in web marketing. I clicked on the link to Jeremiah's blog and proceeded to read the specific posts that he recommended.

It was quick, simple and really h e l p f u l.

WOMMA + Viva Las Vegas = Recipe for Success

Start with an overview of the success of the Halo 3 viral campaign, mix in Hazelnuts - aka Sister Hazel fans, throw in a deep dive into the aftermath of Dell Hell with Lionel Menchaca who turned listening on its ear with passionate customer advocacy, a dash of Cranium flare from the Grand Poo-Bah, a pinch of love from Andy Sernovitz and pack in a few dozen relevant breakout sessions, mix well and bam!

You have a recipe for WOM success!

Yes, that was last week's WOMMA Summit. And it was lipsmacking delicious for this conversational marketer.

Though there were many nuggets of juicy social media information including commentary on metrics, brand case studies, influencers, ethics, and so on, my favorite summit quote which Spike captured, sums up social networking perfectly for me:

“From the outside looking in, you can’t understand it. From the inside looking out, you can’t explain it.” - Ken Block, Lead Vocalist, Sister Hazel, on the magic of communities.

Excellent summaries on the "No Fans, No Band" Sister Hazel WOMMA session:
John Bell
Kaitlyn Wilkins
MGH Bloggin Team

More to come...

Joseph Jaffe uses social media to practice what he preaches

Ok, this post is very late in coming and I apologize, I've just been absorbing other people's thoughts on Joseph Jaffe's crowd-sourcing, social media extravaganza.

You haven't heard the bumrush buzz? Read on...

I am a Facebook friend of Joseph Jaffe, part of his Jaffe Juice group on Facebook, read his blog, as well as follow him on Twitter. Yep, I'm a Jaffe Juice Junkie :).

Joseph invited me along with several other folks to join him in his "Bumrush the Charts" social media PR event.

Jaffe asked people to participate in a monumental event - purchase his latest book, Join The Conversation, on Sunday, 10/21 via amazon.com and help him break the Amazon.com Top 10.

Jim Tobin provides a great recap of Joseph's PR 2.0 tactics.

Joseph incorporated the social media elements he discusses in this book to sell it. It was an incredible event to experience.

Yes, I bought the book, see below in true socnet etiquette, Jaffe thanks me at 2:15pm:


and when will my name ever appear before Karl Long's again? Seriously, very nice touch, Joe!

And I'm over halfway through the book and using nuggets everyday in my current role, more to come...

Twitter - get it across in 140 characters or less

You ask a question on Twitter and you get a plethora of answers.

They are quick snippets refined to the gist of the point.

For instance, check out Chris Brogan's tweet from earlier this morning:



And look at the creative, across-the-board responses he got.

And critics say there's no conversation with Twitter. It's extremely interactive. Jump into the twitterati. Start by following me at zenaweist.

Lil'Grams - parent-style microblogging

Brian Solis blogged about the "twitter for parents" - Lil'Grams. The founder, Greg Narain, describes Lil'Grams as my memories, my way.

As a parent of 4 little ones, I'm looking forward to testing Lil'Grams, out because I need some place to brag and document about my kiddos that's easy to get to, shift through, and share. And can I tell you, I have all the scrapbooking supplies but do not have the time to keep up with all that. This looks promising, more later.