There are a few brands that I’d gladly display on my blog without any compensation because I believe in them so much because they’ve changed my life for the better (Apple, Lululemon, RescueTime, WordPress off the top of my head). I’d like to display the relationships I have with trusted brands using microformats that denote them as personal sponsors (one day) or just be a fan of them.

Thinking further ahead… I could travel the web with my open identity and my trusted contacts follow me. I can already use my open id to log into plugins built with Jetpack. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch for Ad Block Plus to grab my ID and replace the ads it blocks with ones from my trusted list of contacts.

Better yet, get some amazing offers from your trusted companies based on your community influence. Companies that have something real to offer wouldn’t need “spammy” targeted Facebook or Google ads, they could just ask you what you like and deliver on it.

This is all very preliminary, and I’m sure I don’t have enough expertise to be any expert on the topic, but these are some of the things I’ve been kicking around in my brain. I appreciate any insight on the topic.

However, when he said “people only comment when we make posts about the product”, I could just feel his disappointment.  I know he puts a lot of effort into blog posts that have broader content than than just product updates.

On the one hand, I was thinking, “Wow! That’s amazing that you can post about your product and people consistently give you feedback. You have an awesome insight into the community.  Your readers actually want to know what they can do with your product!”

But… I could also sense the ego blow he was feeling with his writing on the topics he cares about personally.

We all want to be the next Seth Godin or 37 Signals. (I know I do.)  It’s hard when you pour your blood, sweat and tears into posts and no one seems to care. Sometimes, all the things we want to write about and be respected for are the things our current community doesn’t care about.

Maybe it’s time to start a personal blog and vent to your hearts content and use your company blog as a voice to communicate with the users that love your product. The guys at 37 signals wouldn’t have the audience they do today if they hadn’t first engaged the community about BaseCamp.

Keep your head up my friend, I think you are off to the races!

[For a similar perspective, my friend Ron talks about how he's using his personal blog as an umbrella to the various other community sites he participates in.]

For me, I’ve simplified the process by having a category in my feed reader reserved only for  people I have a relationship with.

When I tackle my feedreader (feedly) I  start with my “relationship” category and  try to comment on at least one of the blogs there before I continue to surf the information fire hose.

Do you have any other strategies or tips for how to get more involved on other blogs?

It also had the bonus effect of getting more people to participating in online conversations by commenting.

If you have a personal relationship with the author (like in Facebook), does it influence the 1% rule?

The one percent rule is the rule is that all of the user-generated content is created by only 1 percent of people who read it or use it.

So I ran a few super-scientific numbers:

# Comments on “25 Things Survey” / Total Facebook Friends = 2.49%

Apparently, the fact you have a personal connection to the author of your Facebook survey does make you more likely to comment, but the numbers are still really low.

Or perhaps a different perspective:

The more friends you have, the more likely you are to have a “content creator” in the bunch.

Either way… if you have 2 comments on that 25 Things survey you slaved over, then you can assume that at least 100 people read your list even if all of them didn’t drop you a line.

A few thoughts for bloggers:

• Think of ways to build relationships with your readers – get to know them by participating on their blog regularly. Reading alone is not active participation.
• Try writing about yourself more often. If not on your professional blog, why not in Facebook notes?
• A comment does not have to always be the most well-thought-out and well written piece to be of value to the author.
• Spread some comment love today
• (You can view my own 25 Things About Me if you want.)

Before the “age of social media” this commercial would have been just as offensive, but now mothers have a united voice online. Women allover have bonded together and expressed their disgust with this ad.

See twitter responses here:

See the original commercial here:

How do you think Motrin should respond to this conversation? Do you think their message (taken from motrin.com) is sufficient?

Face-to-face service can make all the difference in how your brand is perceived by your customer. You might have the greatest offering in the world, but one bad experience with a cranking customer service rep can change that customer’s opinion in a heartbeat. In this age of new media, one bad experience can be a big deal for your brand. Information spreads like wildfire on the web.

Service industries (restaurants, photographers, doctors etc) check Yelp.com and see what people are saying for you. If you are in a smaller city, without Yelp, then monitor local forums for ratings on your service.

A poor rating on Yelp isn’t the end of the world. Use it as valuable incite as to what you can improve. I’ve seen tons of companies on Yelp respond to a customer who gave them a bad review to apologize and ask what they could do to fix it.  Nine times out of ten, the unhappy reviewer returns to update their rating and explain how awesome it was that they were heard and what was done to make it better.

Companies and techies make sure that you are on Satisfaction – People Powered Customer Service.  Make sure you are listening to what your customers want from your product. Encourage feedback and open dialogue and encourage your employees to interact with the people who use your product.  If your users are techies and bloggers they can have a huge impact on how you are perceived by the blogoshpere and the technophile masses.

2. Monitor how users tag and keyword you outside of your own site.

One of the beauties of tagging and social media is how easy it is to see the tags and categories that your customers give your content.  I recently read a post by Jeremiah Owyang called Use Delicious to uncover your brand (and improve your SEO). He explains how to use delicious to see how people have saved your posts and pages.  He shows how sometimes we, as bloggers or content authors, categorize our post in the way that we feel is appropriate for the user… or maybe, in some cases, the way we want to “spin it”.  But using delicious, the truth and appropriateness of our own tags can easily be compared with how your users actually tag it.

This can also be extremely valuable keyword research for SEO and figuring out a more organized user friendly information architecture for your own website.

3. Monitor all of the web’s channels.

Monitoring your brand on the “web” is no longer a simple as maintaining your corporate website. In fact it’s more important to manage your brand on OTHER people’s websites.

There are so many different channels that make an impact on your overall online presence. This graphic called People Streams from Elliance SEO Services is a great illustration of the many ways people can find you online and thus can influence by your brand’s rep.

The technologies in this graphic will constantly evolve (for example, the channel of Microblogging like Twitter isn’t on this graphic).  However, the principle is still the same: Go where the people are talking.

(Read the book Groundswell for more info on how to keep up with the technology curve.

Do this for each channel:

• Investigate if your brand is already being talked about in the channel by
  • Searching comments and tags for your brand name and your URL
  • Monitor referring links in your web stats
• Determine if it’s a viable channel for you to be involved in regularly by researching the demographic most involved in that channel. PS. If people are already on there talking about you, posting about you and commenting about you, then that’s a pretty big hint that you should be there too.
• Come up with a plan for measuring each channel on a regular basis. Try to increase communication through a particular channel and monitor the results.

“We don’t get him groomed, we use the Defurminator.”

“The Defurminator?”

“Yah, it’s amazing.  It totally pulls out his undercoat and there is so much less shedding. I think it’s around $50 but so worth it.”

It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen – well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but if you have a long haired canine, you know how much of your day is spent dealing with rogue hair all over the house.

I sped home, stopped quick at the pet supply store and asked if they had it.  I even called it the wrong name and she new what I was talking about.  (It’s really the Furminator.)  Of course, they did but they were sold out of the small ones.  I plopped down $80 for this tool that looked much like every other grooming tool I’ve bought over the years.   Somehow the value of what I was buying was well worth the higher price.  It wasn’t just a commodity.

Why?  The power of word of mouth – and of course seeing the results on pretty boy doggy too.  I didn’t even baulk at almost 40% more, cause I was sold before I got there.  Had I been browsing the shelves and simply come upon it, I’m sure I would have laughed at the price tag and the seemingly outrageous claim.

That said, 15 minutes of Defurminating and Parker doesn’t know what hit her:

I took some photos throughout the concert that are on Flickr, but unfortunately my camera DIED right as Derek and Matt posed for one final shot.  Grrr.

Anyways, after thinking about the autograph signing and considering how for so long Matt has given his fan base so much respect, I think he’s in a place that he could stop the signings and not damage his relationship with his fans.  

He has been blogging for 11 years, so he’s already made a HUGE effort to connect with his fans.  By blogging and being so transparent he’s brought his community close to him.  It’s a connection to his fans that most artists ignore.  It’s worth a lot more than him signing his name on a piece of paper or a book.  As long as he continutes to maintain a conversation with his fans in some form they’ll love him just the same.

Maybe, he’ll have secret location signings for his true fans that read his blog and won’t come stumbling drunk into his bus.  :) 

One thing I just learned (that really blows my mind) is that for all of the socially empowered content on the web (think Wikipeda, Digg, Blog authors and blog commenters) only 1% of the active population are contributors. Meaning only 1% will ever post a comment on a blog, edit a Wikipedia article, digg a site or write their own blog.

So for me to get 1 comment here on my blog, I have to have about 100 people actually read my post. Wow.

A similarly huge realization is the sheer volume of content the 1% has created on the web.

From a marketing standpoint, any effort to really engage or “fire-up” an online community relies on this 1% of fabulous people. These are the citizen marketers that emerge from the crowd and do the talking for you, becoming your out-of-house marketing arm. The thriving one percent can make your endeavor flourish for the other 99.

Seek out people who already care about your product or your blog and are naturally passionate and listen to them. Find the One Percenters.

• Raise the excitement – post news right when you start to redesign – engage the users and ask for comments on what they like and what they don’t.
• Create surveys and polls for your users that are easy to fill out and will encourage feedback that you can use while you make design decisions for the new website.  Polls that immediately show user feedback are most engaging for the user
•  You could even ask for feedback on comps you are considering.

Just make sure you make them a part of the buzz, you don’t want to suddenly change everything and make them feel confused the day you launch. Your users are your biggest asset, make sure they’re on your design team and feel super-important.