Latest Online Marketing Ideas and Articles

As the online marketing world turns there’s an ever changing list of updates notifications and ideas to ponder. From Chris Brogan discussing the discipline and benefits of regular blogging to soup to nuts primer on creating a social media marketing plan to the New York Times article explaining the benefits an drawbacks of Facebook’s new News Feed to writing contests for college kids, there’s a little here for everyone. Here’s the latest crop of my favorite links from the world of online marketing, tech, social media.

1. ScribeMedia.Org: Good video site covering the Business, Technology and Culture of Digital Media: http://bit.ly/2fCz66
2. Hurston/Wright Writer’s Workshop call for submissions http://bit.ly/45e3fk
3. Berkeley J-School and the Knight Digital Media Center launch the new Bay News Network: http://bit.ly/3KMYjy
4. A Public Can Talk To Itself: Why The Future of News is Actually Pretty Clear: http://bit.ly/3BZAJN
5. Organized Chaos: Viral Marketing, Meet Social Media: http://bit.ly/3zUzAe
6. Discipline and the Bloggers Opportunity: http://bit.ly/12vObJ
7. Resources for Building Your Social Media Marketing plan: http://bit.ly/2D4Ae8
8. 10 popular Twitter tools: http://bit.ly/3MgNtN
9. What the new Facebook News Feed Means: http://bit.ly/2M875k
10. Social media goes corporate: http://bit.ly/3XjJpN

 

*Blogging image courtesy of cambodia4kidsorg. Used under a Creative Commons licence.

Grow your own social network: Digital dia de los Muertos

While the help of services like Ning.com it’s pretty easy for any business or individual to create their own social network, filled with whatever particulars and peculiars your company and clients might find useful. But just because it’s easy doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea. Read more

Journey into new media: The launch of Oakland Local

There’s been a lot made of the rapidly changing media landscape, particularly as it relates to the newspaper business. Often hesitant to move online and unsure of the exact strategy for online success and profit, the large news chains have seen their advertising dry up over the last couple of years and their readers migrate to smaller, more nimble news outlets that operate solely on the internet.

Last week we threw our hat into this ring of new media entrepreneurs with the hopes of better serving the Oakland public, promoting a broader community dialog and moving closer to establishing tangible next steps for the media and a sustainable journalism model.

This past Monday we launched Oakland Local, a new hyperlocal news site thats an innovative blend of traditional journalism, multimedia, user generated content and citizen journalism.

While we worked hard to be innovative, being inclusive was just as important. The site features reporting on crucial but often overlooked issues in and around Oakland along with a full stock of forums, blogs, community updates and directories featuring 320 Oakland nonprofits and 180 active Oakland bloggers.

The team core team is made up of myself, media maven and editorial genius Susan Mernit, and Amy Gahran a well known and highly respected mobile reporting, environmental and tech know it all.

There’s often a lot of discussion on the hard results of social media and online community building and I think that in our first week we’ve provided a pretty impressive case study. We have been “priming the pump” online for about a month before launch, sending out semi regular updates on Twitter, spreading the word through PR and Media and in general being very strategic about our online marketing.

So far we’ve been successful in turning buzz into readers and while we’re not doing New York Times numbers (yet) I think the results are pretty impressive and speak for themselves.

Here’s an updated assessment of our 1st week’s stats, from Susan Mernit’s end of the week update:

We had 4,432 visits from 2,958 unique users.
The average time spent on the site was 3.93 minutes; average pages viewed per visit, 3.2.

Where did our traffic come from?
46% came right from the web; 12% came from Facebook and another 12% from Twitter. 7% came from Google, 4% each from Stumbleupon and SF Gate, 2% from the NYTimes and from Berkelyside.

Our Facebook page went from 3 fans to 512 fans in a week, we signed up 50 new members, and we gained roughly 200 new followers on Twitter.

Out on the Net–what folks said
There were dozens of blog posts about the launch, most from media bloggers and folks outside of Oakland proper, though Zennie62 gave us a welcome shout out. Among the blogs and media sites that posted were the following, whom we wlil dub Friends of OL:

• Ext 337, Marnie Webb: – “Congrats to the Oakland Local team for this launch. It’s wonderful to see new models for sharing local news emerge.”
• Economy Beat: (Great post about OL’s blog directory)
• Berkleyside
• Zennie Abraham
• CBS5 Eye on Blogs,Brittney Gilbert
• The greater good blog
• Silicon Moon
• SocialBrite
• Kelsey Group blog
• NAA Blog: Alt.Civic-Minded: Oakland Local Gives Voice to Social Activists
• Amy Ward Sample

Go to the site and have a look around, register and participate in the discussion. While we still have a ways to go with building a readership and sustaining an online community, our 1st week stats prove that it is possible to run a successful online marketing campaign and start seeing your results almost immediately.

Contact me if you’d like to know more about Oakland Local or need a consultant for your own online marketing efforts.

New American Media Youth Internships

Heads up all you future Moyers’, Woodwards and Bernsteins. If you’re a young reporter or student looking for ways to expand your skills then the New American Media/Youth Outlook intern program could be right up your alley.

With over 1200 publications under it’s umbrella, NAM is the largest collaboration of ethnic and community newspapers in the country. They’re youth program is known for producing quality multimedia teams and reporters with not just the hard skills to step into any newsroom but also a community first, grassroots media outlook that’s crucial in today’s new media landscape.
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2009 DIY Book Festival Early Deadline Approaching

Attention all you indie authors, publishers and literary types. The Annual DIY Book fair is on it’s way and the deadline for early registration is rolling around in a few weeks. The DIY fair is the largest independent publishing event in the country and it’s author’s regularly go on to huge things after winning, including somewhat ironically, major book publishing deals. Check out the details below and go to www.diyconvention.com for the whole scoop.

Good Luck!

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Social Media Social Action Training

So the trainings we’ve been doing over the last few months with the Public Media Collaborative have become increasingly popular with area nonprofits and media organizations. Attendees have stated how much they enjoyed the sessions and how important these low cost trainings are for organizations doing important work but without the funding to hire full time social medial staff.

So we’re happy to announce the next round of trainings will be taking place Oct 23 & 24, 2009 at Tech/Liminal, 268 14th Street, Oakland, CA. Read more

Low cost trainings for journalists in the Bay Area

The Renaissance Journalism Center is a new initiative of the San Francisco State University Journalism Department. The Center conducts research, training and other programs to identify and to spark promising journalistic models and practices that serve, strengthen and empower communities. On August 26 and 27th the center is hosting the Seize the Moment training conference, a two days of multimedia training and workshops. Here’s some info on the sessions and links to sign up.

Seize the Moment

This is an unprecedented time—and opportunity—for the ethnic and community news media.

Your combined audiences now reach well over 60 million Americans nationwide, a clear indication that you are indispensable to the communities you cover. At the same time, you have never faced such huge challenges: adapting to rapidly changing new media technologies, often on a shoestring budget; revamping business operations in the face of plummeting small business ad dollars; and remaining a vibrant and relevant voice for the diverse communities you serve. Read more

Seize the Moment media trainings begin today!

The Bay’s been bubbling about this conference for the last few weeks and now it’s finally here!

The Seize the Moment Media training is two days of budget conscious media trainings focused on community and ethnic media (but all are welcome).

There’s a long list of training sessions, including one on using online tools to promote your brand, which, ahem, I’m leading the with most fabulous Sarah Dopp.

The trainings are bring together some serious using media muscle with sessions being led by the likes of Susan Mernit, David Cohn, JD Lasica, Kara Andrade and a lot of other internet famous smart as hell new media types.

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The White House knows social media

It’s been noted time and again how well the new Prez and his team have harnessed the power of the web and social media throughout their various campaigns. From his initial email newsletter fundraising to the total revamp of the whitehouse.gov website. Team Obama has been on the cutting edge of online media for a while. Their latest effort is another brilliant example.

Knowing how controversial his new healthcare package is with a large segment of Americans, the Health Insurance Reform Reality Check doesn’t beat you over the head with screen after screen of text and stats. Instead they’ve enlisted the help of trusted top level decision makers from various health and social service organizations to do the job.

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From four hour work week to building a better blog

You probably have heard of Tim Farris already-he of the the 4 hour work week, tango dance floor assassinator and business adventurer extraordinaire. Tim rolled through SF for the most recent Wordcamp and gave this talk on how to build an audience for your blog. Being that “how do I get people to read my blog” is one of the top two questions we hear (right along with “Okay, social networking is cool, but how do you make money“) I thought this vid was appropriate. Sit back, grab a pen and paper and take notes.
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