Posts made in March, 2010
Building Reader Communities: A Q&A with Follow the Reader – Part Two
Charlotte Abbott released part two of our interview today—freeing it from the torment of pre-stage jitters. I have excerpted a few of the questions (and my responses) below. Please read the complete conclusion to this gripping yarn at Follow the Reader. What are the top two or three technologies have you found most valuable in engaging audiences online? Twitter for daily conversation. A blog as a conduit for book, author, and community content. Blip.tv for serving up high-resolution video with no size or time restrictions. For tracking your success and progress, ChartBeat, HootSuite, and Google Analytics are essential. [...] Do you see any downside to giving away...
Read MoreBuilding Reader Communities: A Q&A with Follow the Reader
Recently I sat down to do an e-interview with Charlotte Abbott—of Follow the Reader fame—about how authors and book publishers can build communities of readers online—and why it works. It was a blast to do, and thanks to Charlotte’s clout and well-earned reputation in the industry, the interview was picked up by the Shelf Awareness daily newsletter as a top article. Charlotte has posted part one of the article on Follow the Reader. Part Two is waiting in the wings with a nervous belly and unbearable stage fright. Let’s start a slow-clap to get him out here…eh? I have excerpted a bit of the Q&A below. For the full article, please reward...
Read MoreBoost Your Site's Productivity with 3 Easy Updates
I realized the other day that I’ve now spent over ten years working with small business web sites. Has the internet even been around 10 years?! Was it really 13 years ago that I was ducking class and hiding in the school’s computer lab so I could “email” the fellow geek sitting at the computer next to me? (Apparently yes, it has been over ten years.) Over the last decade, I’ve built, rebuilt, optimized, launched, tracked, and torn down some pretty great (and pretty bad) sites. And I’ve learned a thing or two about how to squeezed the most out of a site’s visitor traffic. When business owners are looking to boost the effectiveness...
Read MoreThe Slow Marketing Movement: A Social Media Presentation
Last week, Kat Meyer and I had the privilege and opportunity to lead a workshop at O’Reilly Media’s Tools of Change Conference in Times Square. Kat titled it wonderfully: The Slow Marketing Movement: A Social Media Workshop for the Bookish. The benefits for book publishers and other companies that participate in the world of social media are well known at this point: community, word-of-mouth promotion, instant market research, etc. So we didn’t want to simply rehash the tired “Pie in the Sky” hullabaloo about social media. The folks attending our workshop were already sold on “why.” We wanted to present them with...
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