In good old ARG (alternate reality game) tradition they have started this game off with a couple of clues, in this case a fictional Mayor called Juan Ramon has put a video on youtube and created a pdf letter to share.

The pdf seems to have some writing hidden in it that alludes to some dates and times, who knows maybe there is even clues as to a prize or something, you would hope

Here’s a link to the pdf

It will be interesting to see how this unfolds, I’m also interested in if they actually hired an ARG type agency as well as the ad agency.

Some more posts on ARG’s as marketing tools:

Nine Inch Nails ARG

Beyond Viral Marketing, engagement, narrative and passion

More on ARG’s

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Focus – I think one of the most important choices a blogger makes when they start their blog is what their focus is. Think about a first time visitor getting dropped on your blog from a search engine or stumbleupon, are they going to understand in 2 seconds exactly what your blog is about? If the answer is yes you will have a much better chance of building a readership quickly and you will have a successful blog. If not, you may well build a successful blog but it will take years as opposed to months.

Passion – This is the only possible way that you will be able to sustain regular posting of a high enough quality over the course of years. If you don’t have the passion your blog will become a ghost town very quickly. People talk about the passion in the writing, and how important it is for readers, but IMHO the passion is all about the ability to sustain you through the emotional roller coaster ride of writing a blog. Sure your passion will come through in your writing, but it is your passion that will keep you plugging away when no one is coming back, no one is commenting, and no one is linking to you. Passion may not be the only thing that will drag you along, but it is the most enjoyable so unless you are a masochist you better love what your talking about.

Originality – In branding terms, what differentiates you from the crowded playing field of blogs all talking about the same thing. They don’t call the blogosphere an echo chamber for nothing, because most of the time everyone is reflecting and amplifying what else is happening around the blogosphere. Original content and original ideas in the blogosphere stand out like beacons in the night, and not to labor the metaphor but they also attract other bloggers like moths to a flame

Beyond blogging I actually think these are often the ingredients for great brands as well, which begs the question is good blogging good branding?

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PR/Marketing folks have been busy doing more than playing with social media. Here’s a quick, incomplete and unofficial list of pointers.

Chris Thilk’s passion for film has landed him a semi-regular column at BrandWeek.

David Armano is redefining conference attendance with his Always in Beta site. Armano is attending Forrester’s Consumer Forum where they announced their Groundswell Awards. Plenty of award-winning projects to check out.

Jeremy Pepper and Luke Armour have left agency life and now work at social media startups.

Geoff Livingston and Rohit Bhargava are writing books on social media.

Colin McKay launched a blog for his employer, Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

C.C. Chapman offers the latest example of the social media news release while Todd Defren’s team continues to do so on behalf of their clients.

Ike Piggot has been quietly working on several initiatives for the American Red Cross.

The above projects follow many others and this list is by no means exhaustive. If you do not see your latest work here, please add it in the comments. I know these are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to social media case studies.

Needless to say there will be plenty of fodder for Constantin Basturea’s recently announced PR Blog Week 3.

So what’s my story? I’ve been working on a few things, but nothing worth linking to just yet. Our team here is small and plenty busy on all things marketing…not just social media. That said my firm does have a blog. I’m pretty proud of it, but I had nothing to do with it. It was created by a passionate co-worker who needed a better way to get product info and inspiration out to her clients. Mission accomplished.

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With content that you freely distribute you are primarily trying to build relationships with people who don’t know you and have never bought from you. Since attention is limited you have to make your content accessible to gain market attention.

Highbrow = Low Readership

Most potential buyers can not distinguish between great information and average information, but most people…

• can distinguish between well formatted information that is easy to read and information that appears too complex Formatting plays a big roll in selling content.
• follow the crowd and look for signs of trust from others (recommendations, on site comments, etc.)
• care about enthusiasm and topic selection (why read a site that is not unique and/or too negative?)

Some of My Errors

One of my biggest problems from a conversion standpoint is that I often write copy that does not sell…content that speaks well to some, but not to the buying market. Many posts exhibit the following traits:

• are focused on big picture ideas and broader market relationships
• are seen as being negative for being too blunt & honest
• offer too much information for people to get through
• try to convey too many different ideas

People want to feel the comfort and accessibility of reading a for dummies guide one page at a time while being told they are becoming gurus / experts in the process. Which creates an interesting problem for anyone trying to sell how to information. Do you aim to make it as accessible as possible? Or do you aim further along the learning cycle and write at a higher level?

Where to Aim if You Are Looking for Profit

There are more people at the bottom of the pyramid, and if you capture their attention that will likely make you considered an expert to most outsiders looking to your field. As the online experience improves hobbiests use the web much more frequently. Yahoo! and MediaVest have done research about hobbyists, calling them Passionistas:

Passionistas heavily engage with communities of like-minded consumers who use email, text messaging, and instant messaging significantly more than typical users, and are more likely to create and share user-generated content online such as photos, blog posts or videos about their passions.

Because of their intense engagement around sharing information, Passionistas are 52% more likely than typical users to recommend or influence others about brands aligning with them.

In the SEO market (and probably most business related markets) it seems passionate hobbyists new to a field are much more likely to exuberantly promote brands than those who have been in the field for a great deal of time. I am not sure how well that translates to other fields though.

How Can I Use This Post to Help Market My Site?

Become a Platform for Passion

If top rated competing sites lack passion you can own your market in well under a year. If they are passionate then to stay competitive you have to raise your game and become a platform for passion.

Microsoft recently held a search event for SEOs to show they are serious about search. Google gives passionate charities free services to promote YouTube and Google Checkout. Cater to the passionate and create purpose driven media – use the same marketing techniques that Microsoft and Google use.

Make Your Site Look Alive

You can always add interactive features to build community interest. When you do so people are more likely to participate (fueling more people to participate) and they are more likely to market your site because they feel a sense of ownership.

My designer place the recent comments and this week top 5 sections on this site before I ever saw it. And I love it because it gives the sense that the site is dynamic, alive, and active. If you receive awards or have many feed subscribers publishing those signs of validation help improve your credibility and bring in new visitors.

Virtual Demand is Becoming Real Demand

Amazon tapped some of their top reviewers to review transcripts for a book publishing contest. How long until publishers are no longer required? You can look at the success of shows like American Idol to see how much people want to be engaged with what they consume. Also look to the stats about how often passionate hobbyists turn to the web to fulfill their wants. Deep profit margins exist in deep pools of passion.

Eventually consumers will go from hell to create the markets THEY want. The businesses with passionate communities will grow while the remaining businesses go to hell. Look for new ways to track demand and get feedback to create what people want. You don’t even need a product off the start…just an audience willing to give you honest feedback.

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Event: Converting Your Passion into a Real Business
Date: Tuesday, December 5, 2006 from 6:00PM to 8:00PM
Location: Stanford University, Room 420-040 in the Quad (map)

From the vlogging/blogging community to seasoned entrepreneurs, our panelists have done everything from covering internet celebrity smut to running an adult luxury goods business!

Panelists will share their stories with us and talk about how and why they decided to do what they did – with topics such as getting started, getting funding, and how to run a successful business.
Free with a valid student ID and $10 without (some exceptions apply). Please register here. Food and drink will be provided.

What is Women 2.0?

Women 2.0 connects like-minded, motivated young women to swap energy, ideas, and experiences with each other. They promote the collaboration and growth of women in entrepreneurship, technology, and business and provide opportunities to interact with other successful women from a broad spectrum of industries.

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Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Yahoo! My Web | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Brian Solis is principal at FutureWorks PR, an award-winning PR and Social Media agency founded in 1999. FW PR bridges the communications gap between companies and their customers, and between products and their specific benefits for their target markets. Solis blogs at PR2.0, http://www.briansolis.com, and regularly contributes to many industry trades. He is also frequently quoted in articles relating to technology trends and Marketing/PR strategies.

… next week, I was reading the Financial Times online when I came to an article by FT columnist Jonathan Guthrie yesterday entitled Don’t be seduced by PowerPoint (paid subscription-only access).

Guthrie says:

Death by a thousand slides has become a feature of business events ranging from small presentations to speeches before large audiences. With 300 million users worldwide and counting, PowerPoint is too often a substitute for communication rather than an adjunct to it.

That best sums up what’s been going through my mind as I prepare the concise PPT I’ll be using next week – avoid such a situation at all costs by making sure the presentation is a simple guide to what I want the workshop to be about and focus on, with the PowerPoint’s content clear and concise in supporting overall communication that enables participants to easily understand why they’re there and what’s expected of everyone.

In other words, the presentation (inappropriate word, really) is a visual aid – a tool – to my being able to effectively communicate with my audience in a way that helps them understand everything I’m saying and showing, which will help them frame responses (questions or comments) that is the start of a dialog – two-way communication.

Guthrie comments on a book about public speaking called Lend Me Your Ears by Max Atkinson, a speaker and trainer who uses the findings of scientific research combined with the rules of classical rhetoric to highlight the secrets of successful persuasion:

[Atkinson] argues that templates and guidance built into PowerPoint encourage users to compile tedious lists instead of making sparing use of pictures and simple diagrams. Speakers should “approach PowerPoint with caution”, cautions Prof Atkinson, as if warning against an escaped lunatic. He told me: “If you follow the model presentations in PowerPoint, you are almost guaranteed to give a bad presentation.”

Then Guthrie adds some on-the-bullet comment (pun definitely intended) on some different thinking business people should employ when planning and using a PowerPoint:

Better still, if you must use slides, switch the projector off and the lights on after 10 minutes – tops. [...] Use reversals of meaning, so your audience will ask what they can do for Allied Grommets, not what Allied Grommets can do for them. Deploy three-part lists to inform, intrigue and, um, inspire. Make a splash with imagery, your similes glittering like sunbeams reflected from the wavelets dancing in a Mediterranean harbour.

That last sentence paints a nice picture: you can almost see those sunbeams.

I then popped over to Beyond Bullets, Cliff Atkinson’s blog (I assume the same surnames must be purely coincidental!) – an excellent resource for everything you want to know about effective presentations and getting the most out of PowerPoint – and see a recent post by Cliff (Zen and the Art of PowerPoint) about imagery and metaphor and talking with passion.

This is how it all must be, I believe – present and talk concisely, persuasively and with passion. If not, you will lose your audience and become one of the ‘statistical PowerPoint failures’ Guthrie mentions in his FT article.

But if you’re passionate, you have every chance of really engaging with your audience and taking them along with you towards the point you want everyone to reach. They will see where they’re going.

Cliff’s concluding paragraph in his post sums this up perfectly:

[...] A classic book of the 1970s, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance told the story of a guy riding a motorcycle. By the end of the story, you realize it never was about the motorcycle after all, but the rider’s attitude toward life. Will there come a day when our presentations are not about bullet points, but our attitude toward our audiences, and ourselves? The day that happens, we will all be on a high-octane journey toward positive change.

(Cliff has written a book about using PowerPoint effectively called Beyond Bullet Points, to be published by Microsoft Press next month).

Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.

On many different occasions Michael Jordan clearly stated that determination, focus, and persistence is what helped him reach his amazing accomplishments. There was one feeling in particular that gave Michael the strength, power, and desire to succeed as the greatest player to ever play the game. PASSION.

Webster’s dictionary defines the word passion as a powerful feeling or an outburst of strong feeling towards something. This powerful feeling towards something can motivate us to accomplish anything. Passion is also the same feeling that has allowed hundreds of individuals run a successful online business.

Think for a moment of the many different occasions that a friend, coworker, or family member has told you that you didn’t have the ability to accomplish something. After they tell you that your plan will not work then they advise you to move on to something else. This is the first obstacle that anyone who wants to start an online business has to bypass.

Here’s the big question. Are you going to pick a business that your peers recommend or are you going to pick an online business that you are passionate about? There are two important questions that must be considered before you start an online business. Is the business or product marketable, and do you feel passion for it? If you can answer yes to these questions, you can start building an online business.

Over 90% of individuals that start an online business fail. There is only one way to fail. You fail when you quit. Some of the responsibilities of starting an online business include:

Finding or creating a product Finding a web host Creating a web site Finding a domain name, plus much more.

More than 70% of the time that you use to run your business should be spent marketing. In the beginning you will have to keep your regular job and run your online business part-time. You have to set up a strict schedule and you must follow it.

Education is another important aspect of running an online business. You want to stay up to date with your competition and new marketing techniques. During the first few months of your business you may not see any profits. Any profit that is earned during the early stages of your business should be reinvested in the business.

Working when you are tired is another obstacle that you must bypass. There will be many occasions that you will feel like sleeping after working a full eight hours on your regular job. Friends and family can be another obstacle. You have to include your friends and family in your schedule and at the same time reserve time exclusively for your business.

All of the factors that we just mentioned must be taken into consideration when starting an online business. It takes tremendous amount of energy to build a successful online business. Will you do it? Only if you start with one thing. Pick a passion. Pick a business that you feel an outburst of strong feelings towards and you will fuel yourself with the intensity and power that only passion can supply.

Benjamin Scott operates a successful internet business
working from his home personal computer. Grab a FREE copy
of his 9 lesson e-marketing course at:
http://www.eazyhomebusiness.com/ Copyright 2005 Benjamin
Scott

The question captures the ennui that many people feel in mid-life. They look up at the clock, see it ticking, and begin counting in their heads all the mountains not climbed, the poems not written, and the songs not sung.

It’s time to stop asking the question idly. I’m offering five initial steps that you can take to evaluate your situation and to begin the transition away from a meaningless grind toward a new life that provides you with energy and fulfillment.

Vocational passion is an alignment of your abilities and interests in a role that gives you unlimited energy and happiness. This is not an overnight process. But it’s a process you can begin today.

Step One: Evaluate

Lots of people settle for jobs that pay the bills but leave them feeling empty. If you want to break out of this trap and find another kind of life, you need to evaluate where you’d like to go.

Examine where your passions lie. On a scale of 1-10, where are you when it comes to vocational passion? A “1″ is a living drudgery where you force yourself to your desk every morning and dream about the end of the day; a “10″ is a perfect alignment between interests and livelihood.

Too many of us are closer to “1″ than “10″. Anything lower than a “5″ suggests your working life may be feeding your family, but at the expense of starving your soul.

Step Two: Envision Your Future

You may have seen the U.S. Navy ad that asks: “If someone wrote a book about your life, would anyone want to read it?”

Here’s your chance to write that book – or at least the outline. Sit down and write a short biography that describes who you are five years from now. Describe exactly the life you wish to lead, doing work that you love. You will know you’re done with the exercise when your heart races with excitement.

Then imagine and write down your vision of a perfect vocational day. It’s difficult to achieve something that you have not clearly envisioned. Make sure your vision has clarity. Then document it and pull it out regularly, to refresh your desire to achieve that vision.

Step Three: Tune Out Negative Feedback

Understand this: The moment you announce plans to make a radical change in your life, many people will find the move threatening and they will not wish you well. They will try to talk you out of it and tell you what a big mistake you’re about to make.

Never let the naysayers dictate your life. People who listen to negative voices end up with the status quo.

Step Four: Shore Up Your Support Network

Anyone making a change needs supportive friends, and lots of them.

I suggest a three-tiered model for analyzing your personal support network. The three tiers will include people who are 1) “interested” in your work; 2) “supporters” who are not only interested, but offer creative ideas to move you forward; 3) “believers,” which includes your most active supporters.

Make your lists now. Examine whom you have in your support network and rank them according to these tiers. Focus on networking with your tier-one supporters, while trying to move those people in tiers two and three up the ladder.

Step Five: Assess Your Risk

When taking action to follow one’s passion, people trying to change their life fall into one of four categories. Each requires a different strategy.

Category One: Plenty of money and plenty of time. People in this category have a high tolerance for risk based on their relatively young age and solid financial means.

Category Two: Plenty of money and little time. Because of failing health and/or advancing age, those in category two have some risk tolerance. But they probably lack a solid support network, since most friends will advise against change because they are “too old” or “too sick.”

Category Three: Little time and little money. I define “little money” as having less than six months of cash flow in the bank. Risk tolerance is low in this category, and supporters are probably hard to come by. Most people are in this category.

Category Four: No money and no time. I define “no money” as less then three months cash flow in the bank. Anyone is this position will have a very low risk tolerance. They will find little support to help them move toward doing what they love.

What to do?

Talk to people who do what you want to do!

What’s the worst that can happen?

Remember this: You won’t die or become homeless if you pursue what you love. You may, however, find that your relationship to your money will change. You’ll respect money more, and you’ll find that you can manage on less of it.

Also understand that pursuing vocational passion doesn’t always mean making less money. But it does mean that money is not the only consideration – or even the most important consideration – in choosing your new vocational path.

If you don’t act to pursue your vocational passion, then every seven seconds someone else will come along and ask themselves: “Is that all there is?” Many of them will answer, “No,” and will do something about it. You can be one of the doers.

Craig Nathanson, The Vocational Coach, is the author of P Is For Perfect: Your Perfect Vocational Day, by Book Coach Press. He publishes the free monthly e-zine, Vocational Passion in Mid-life. Craig believes the world works a little better when we do the work we love. He helps those in mid-life carry this out. Visit his online community at http://www.thevocationalcoach.com where you can sign up for his next Tele-class coming up November 17.

He smiled and nodded. I don’t think he took it very seriously.

Everybody these days is trying to make money on the internet.

And for everyone trying, there are a dozen or more wishing they could do the same – with dollar signs rolling in their eyes.

The reality is that only a small percentage of those who do try ever really make any kind of serious money on the internet.

I don’t say this to discourage you, because the possibilities are endless if you know where to look.

A dose of reality is often helpful before you begin your journey, however.

And if you want to make money on the internet, you are preparing for an uphill struggle – don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise.

Here are some considerations to get you started.

Take Your Business Or Hobby Online

If you currently have a business or a skill, think about taking it to the internet. How?

First, you need a web site.

A good way to go while you’re still in the planning stages (and if you’ve decided to do most of the work yourself) is to use a free service until you have everything together and can then get a real domain name of your own and go full steam ahead.

With the free service you can experiment and put the site together without really drawing too much attention to yourself just yet while you’re learning the ropes.

A free service like Hypermart.com, Freeservers.com or Freeyellow.com is a good place to look.

These “free” hosting companys use a subdomain that looks something like this: http://www.freewebhosting.com/yourbusiness.

When you’re ready to do business, get your own domain name.

If you want to look legitimate this really is the only route to take.

With the free service, your credibility suffers and few take you seriously.

It’s about a $60 to $70 investment to begin (to register the domain for two years).

Then you need to seriously consider web hosting (who will host your site on their server on the internet?). You may want to start with a service that charges around $20 per month on up.

Even some of the free services offer great bargains to begin–once you leave the concept of “free” behind (like $8 per month to eliminate those annoying ads off of your site). And you really don’t want the annoying ads–because they siphon away customers, who with one mouse click can be off somewhere else–leaving your site behind. Besides, the banner ads promoting the free hosting service make you look cheap.

Do You Just Want a Showcase?

The next question to ask yourself is: Do you want to make money? Or do you just want a web presence?

That seems like a strange question to ask at this point in our discussion. But look around the internet. So many of the sites are just that: a “web presence” – nothing more.

Don’t get me wrong. They provide useful information and I’m grateful every day that they’re there! But, they’re not making much (if any) money for the site owners.

Someone has turned his or her passion into a nice hobby, nothing more, nothing less. What we have is a nice showcase for that person’s hobby, and that’s super! But if you want to make money on the web, you need more.

Examine Yourself – What Do You Have To Offer?

Focus in. What is it you have to offer? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses?

What skills do you possess that could help others? What do you enjoy doing?

Or do you have a super fantastic idea?

It all boils down to this: What do you have of value that others would be willing to pay money for?

When you can answer that question, then you can begin to develop a strategy.

And remember this, if people aren’t willing to pay money for something, then it’s useless to try to sell it to them. Find out if there’s a market for what you have. (No use trying to sell ice to the eskimos – unless it’s some kind of unique ice that they’ve never seen before that’s so cool they’ve gotta have it!)

Plan Your Success – To Avoid Failure

If you have writing skills, you may want to offer a proofreading or copyediting service.

If you sell fancy craft “doo-dads”, maybe you want a site that will showcase your “doo-dads”. That means pictures and the means to scan them (using a scanner) onto your site.

No scanner? Try a place like Kinko’s copy centers. They can often do this for you.

Check It Out First Before You Leap In

Maybe you don’t have anything to sell. Maybe you’re seriously looking for something.

Consider each offer that comes along seriously. Do some research.

Enter the name of the company or individual into a search engine (like Yahoo, Excite, or Dogpile.com – a metasearch engine).

See what comes up. See if anyone is experiencing problems with the company or individual and what the nature of the problems are.

You may want to ask about this in a forum or discussion group also, and see what kind of feedback you receive from others in the group.

Since I live in the United States, I found the Better Business Bureau on the internet at: http://www.bbb.org/. From there you can find your local BBB!

A listing of international consumer agencies and organizations (as well as a more detailed listing of US agencies) can be found at: http://www.consumerworld.org/pages/agencies.htm

It pays to do a “check” before you jump into anything. Sometimes your check may not turn up anything. But at least you know you’ve tried and are not going in blind.

When you do find your “gem” remember, there are always skeptics and nay-sayers.

Sometimes it’s much, much better just to block them out completely and go forward if you are confident–despite what they say (unless it’s the BBB or similar agency issuing a warning).

Don’t Be Wishy-Washy – Go Full Steam Ahead!

Whatever you decide to do. Make the decision! Focus in! Then go for it.

Develop a detailed plan or strategy. Then follow your plan.

Here are a few resources that can help you plan:

MARKETING PLAN TEMPLATE

Here is a great template you can use. Just answer the questions and start to fill out the marketing plan form:

“The Entrepreneur’s Marketing Plan” by Arnold Sanow and Girard Perone at: http://www.smart biz.com/sbs/arts/asp5.htm

PUTTING THE PLAN TOGETHER

The following sites will give you more great ideas as you start to put your plan together:

http://www.aaabiz.com/i mi/plan.htm

http://www.web pageprofits.com/marketing.htm

http://www.bizpl ans.com/html/planning.htm

http://www .onlinewbc.org/docs/market/index.html

MARKETING PLAN ARTICLES

And finally, here are a few great articles on the subject:

“Creating Your Business Plan” by Liz Folger at: http://www. powerhomebiz.com/vol5/LizFolger.htm

“Marketing Your Business For Success – What Does A Marketing Plan Contain?” at: http://www.sba.gov/gopher/Busines s-Development / Business-Initiatives-Education-Training/Marketing-Plan/

“Purpose of the Marketing Plan” at:

http ://www.online wbc.org/docs/market/mk_plan_why.html

. . . and finally:

PLANNING YOUR PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY

“Creating Your Website’s Promotional Strategy” at:
http://www .soaringprofits.com/promostrategy.htm
or http://www.w eb-source.net /articles/Promotion/

This article provides an excellent promotional strategy to follow including daily, weekly, and monthly promotions and how to organize and follow a detailed plan.

Ron Knowlton is a former journalist and the founding editor at “Articles To Boost Your Success Online!” Subscribe to the Soaring Profits Success Ezine! Like a free monthly internet marketing course by email! Eight great lessons each month! Subscribe: http://www.Soaringprofits.com/spsubscribe. htm