My Skechers Shape Ups arrived today. It’s neat; when you wear these shoes, you don’t walk–you sort of roll.

It’s an odd motion at first, but one that keeps you moving. That’s kind of how social media is, too. It may feel odd at first, but once you get moving you wonder how you managed to communicate before being connected to your friends online.

Flickr Blogger Book Launch Group Disclosure

My company contributed to the social media strategy along with Beth Rosen of 4 Keys Media; we created a flickr blogger book launch photo group; facilitated the Naked Fitness book tour event blog, and I was a member of the event’s social media team. Along with the other participants, many high profile social media celebrities, I received several promotional giveaways, including a NordicTrack weight set, Coach’s Oats, Muscle Milk, EA Sports Active 2, lunches and dinners at Hotel Arista in Naperville and Sunda Sushi. Today, I’m sharing a few ideas with you about how to promote a blogger event and book launch.

Posterous is a great place to set up a free blog. We set up 27 posts, including this one that recognizes the Naked Fitness, which is the name of Andrea Metcalf’s new book, event sponsors.

15 Social Media Marketing and PR Suggestions for a Blogger Book Launch

1. Encourage sponsors to interact with bloggers and to feature them on company blogs.

2. Set realistic expectations of the kind of coverage sponsors can expect, both directly and indirectly.

3. Give the social media team clear guidelines regarding content and frequency.

4. Interview bloggers and invite them to guest post on the event blog.

5. Host communications briefs before, during and after the event.

6. Give the bloggers an RSS feed they can follow and plug into their stream, if they want.

7. Invite local people with high klout scores to participate in a social event.

8. Propose that local officials declare a special day to honor the event.

9. Connect with schools and community centers to set up special appearances.

10. Allow time to plan, create, review, edit and then schedule tweets and Facebook updates.

11. Set measurable social media and marketing goals.

12. Collect all communications on one site with a back channel for check-ins.

13. Develop a series of releases, one for each event and sponsor.

14. Distribute releases online via prlog.net [free] or prweb.com [paid].

15. Publicize all blog posts with updates throughout social networks.

What would you add?

Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business

I missed the free Kindle download that 14,000 people got, but I got something better: a dinner with Josh Bernoff and Social Media Chicago friends at Boka.

Are you like me? I’m kind of a somewhat, make that a huge fan/author groupie who goes out of the way to meet the writers behind books I like. So, when I got an email asking if Social Media Club Chicago would like to invite our board to dinner with Josh Bernoff, co-author of Empowered, I immediately replied yes. Special thanks to Beth Gwazdosky and Rusty Shelton of Shelton Interactive for the invitation.

As a recently published author myself [I'm the LinkedIn author in Success Secrets of the Social Media Marketing Superstars], I’m studying what works in book promotion.

I like the idea of a private dinner with key influencers.

What was Josh like? He said he liked our SMC group in Chicago, he wished he had time to go to a Cubs game [he will be at US Cellular tonight] and cut us off from tweeting a few comments that I would write here, but I promised not to. Let’s just say that Chicago knows how to roll out the welcome mat and he did say our end of the table was the most interesting. That’s what you get when you talk to enthusiastic PR and effervescent social media types.

“Empowered: unleash your employees, energize your customers, transform your business” starts out with dirty laundry. Make that Dooce’s washing machine repair horror story. Josh told me he wanted to mix a business book with personal stories, like this this and the one about @interactiveamy and her husband @joshkorin‘s experience with Best Buy. As a storyteller, I love this approach and I enjoyed hearing Josh Bernoff retell the stories in his book about companies like RentVillas.com.

Want to know more about Empowered? Here are a few resources for you.

Harvard Business Review Empowered Announcement
Far better than trying to prevent such activity is to acknowledge that your employees have technology power.

Strategic Generosity: Who How and Why to Give Out Free Stuff

Here’s the lesson for marketers. Concentrate on the customers most likely to talk – Twitter users, bloggers, social network denizens – and give them advance access to your products and ways to find the greatness in it. Then they’ll do a lot of the marketing for you. – or write blog posts.

Two Key Concepts from EMPOWERED: IDEA and the HERO Compact

The Four-step IDEA process from Empowered by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schindler

1. Identify the mass influencers. Concentrate on the people most likely to spread messages about your company.

2. Deliver groundswell customer service. Reach out through groundswell’s channels – twitter, blogs, YouTube, Facebook, for example and serve these vocal and influential customers.

3. Empower your customers with information, especially mobile information. Keep people happy by surrounding them with the inforamtion they need, thoruhg mobile technologies like text messaging, moblie sties, and smartphone apps.

4. Amplify your fans. Find the people who love you, and boost the impact they have on their peers. This section includes a five-step method for amplifying world of mouth.

Adapted from Empowered by Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler, Harvard Business Review Press, September 2010, thanks to Cave Henricks Communications for the content via a press release.

Forbes Video Interview with Josh Bernoff

According to Josh, companies need three groups to be successful

HEROES – in line with strategy

IT – doesn’t own technology and support HEROES

Management – has to support the HEROES and work with IT to manage risks

Have you read Empowered? What did you think?

Images: Josh Korin and Amy Ravit Korin with Josh Bernoff and Barbara Rozgonyi with Josh Bernoff September 14, 2010 – thanks to Josh for the picture and the book!

His name is Joe. He is a screenwriter. He goes to parties in Malibu. He flies to London. He will be famous. He wears it well.

He is not proud. He is not humble. He is who he is.

Last night at a techy-type social/networking event, I wondered who these people really were.

What if you could be anyone you wanted to be? 

I thought about “social camouflage” – a term I picked up from watching the movie “Catch Me If You Can.” Directed by Steven Spielberg, this is a true story about a high school student who successfully poses as an airline pilot, a doctor and a lawyer. Set in the 60s, it’s nearly impossible for anyone to pull off what Frank Abagnale did back then today. The movie’s tagline: The True Story of a Real Fake.

How did Frank get to be so convincing? He dressed the part, studied, interviewed experts, associated with people in the professions he wanted to be in and watched TV shows about being a doctor.

While I’m not suggesting posing an imposter, I wonder how many of us lay a real claim to who we are – or who we could be. Many times, our clients will ask to dial down their presence. Although what we say about them is authentic, their real  persona is too big for them. “Oh, we can’t say that. What will people think?”

What if we drop-kicked our humility and just accepted that we are who we are? Can you see yourself in any of these?

Social Branding Vignettes . . . 

We exchanged cards. Hers said: A Top Chicago Writer

I said: Wow! How did you get to be a top Chicago writer?

She said: I know I am. What do you do?

I said: I write, too.

She said: Then, you’re probably a top Chicago writer, too.

I said: Well, maybe . . . once I interviewed with the Chicago Tribune for a contract position and they said they were only interviewing the top writers in Chicago. And I’ve won a few contests.

She said: Put that on your card – a top Chicago writer. Because your are!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We exchanged cards.

She said: So, you’re a blogger?

I said: Yes, I write about social media, marketing and PR. I have over 400 articles and my blog is in the top 100,000 out of 12 million blogs.

She said: You’re a super blogger! There’s a guy here looking for someone to help him with his blog – let me find him for you.

The phone rang . . .

He said: Is this the super blogger?

I said: Well, not really, uh . . . let me clarify that for you.

He said: Come on, you know you’re good. I want you to help me get my blog started.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A comment appeared in the comment box

It read: You are the queen of networking!

I said: Hmmm . . .

A friend called

She said: You are the queen of networking!

I said: Hmmm . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your Turn

Who are you that you are not now? How could you be more like Joe?

If there’s one thing every speaker and author could use it’s more publicity.

“I See Your Name Everywhere,” the title of PR/PR founder Pam Lontos’ new book, was also the topic of her presentation to NSA-IL today. Pam covered what you need to know to get more publicity, media attention and bookings!

My top takeaways:

- start at the top and work you way down – it’s often easier to get into national publications

- keep at it: one author sent a new press release to Oprah every week – for four years! – before he got on the show

- write the book; you’ll get instant credibility

- contain media kit costs by limiting your information to one page

- produce an easy to reproduce and update speaker promotion book you can print-on-demand

- don’t be in a rush to get industry book reviews

- contact trade industry publications directly to place 800-1000 word articles

- author popular articles that can run over and over again – one of Pam’s clients’ articles ran over 120 times!

- grab attention with your headlines that list benefits or solve problems

- get in the habit of responding to news immediately with a press release

- tie your news into a special date on Chase’s Calendar of Events – today is Pi Day!

- accept every media interview – the smallest connections can pay off big time

- be patient, one story took almost two years to place in Fast Company

- visit Pam’s site to read her public relations articles

Your Turn

What’s your dream media opp – magazine, radio or TV?

Listen to an interview with a gamer . . .

I asked for it . . .Yesterday I did a live question and answer session for public relations students. On the call I asked for questions that I could answer on my blog. Here’s one of them that came in today:

Psychologist’s Book Slammed on Amazon After Fox News Debacle: Might this bad publicity ultimately be GOOD for her book sales?

Here’s where the question came from . . .

On Fox TV this week, author Cooper Lawrence commented on virtual nudity in video games in a story about Mass Effect, which set off a massive PR explosion.

According to Game Daily‘s post mentioned above, on Thursday negative reviews for Lawrence’s book, The Cult of Perfection, numbered 565, 502 [1-star] and 48 [2-stars]. Now that Amazon.com is reviewing and censoring negative ratings for The Cult of Perfection, the book’s amazon.com forum is buzzing with 45 discussions about the book and this practice.

I could stop here and answer, “No, this kind of bad publicity is NOT good for book sales.” But, the surrounding media attention is good for name recognition.

And, because one question always leads to another, I’ll add in: How far can you go with gamers -from a PR perspective?

First, let’s take a look at Cooper Lawrence.

With a radio show, The Love Doctor! – a dating and advice column – in CosmoGirl, mega media clips and several books, Lawrence appears to have mastered marketing.

From Cooper Lawrence’s site:

COOPER LAWRENCE is a relationship and psychology expert with a master’s degree in developmental psychology. She is currently finishing her doctorate in applied developmental psychology. She is the host of her own nationally syndicated radio show aptly named The Cooper Lawrence Show.

Key phrases from Lawrence’s book “Been There, Done That, Kept the Jewelry: Find True Love–Turn Your Tarnished Dating Past into a Brilliant Romantic Future” on Amazon.com suggest she’s a relationship or dating expert.

Back to question one: Might this bad publicity ultimately be GOOD for her book sales?

The biggest problem here is a mismatch. Lawrence’s new book is about overachieving; her column is about dating. Will commenting on virtual nudity in any video game sell more books about women’s self-esteem or dating? What does calling a video gaming expert “darling” on the air say about respect in a relationship? Do her readers date guys who play video games? What, exactly, is her niche?

I have to wonder why Ms. Lawrence was asked to step in to take this stand. With her level of media exposure and influence, it’s surprising that her publicist would agree to this assignment.

To be credible [and sell books], subject matter experts must match their interviews to their exact topic. And, they have to be sure there’s something to talk about before they take the interview. In this case, there was no real controversy to debate, only misinformation to contest afterwards.

Never mind the book sales, the publicity here is HUGE. So, who’s winning? Today’s New York Times reports Ms. Lawrence’s apology, but whose story is it? For one of the better takes on the reaction and a video from X-Play’s Adam Sessler, check out Joystiq’s coverage.

On to question two: How far can you go with gamers – from a PR perspective?

Take a look at how Mass Effect, the name of the game, also describes what happens when you take a misstep into the video game culture.

Gauging the Gamer Reaction to Cooper Lawrence

1995 Diggs as of this moment

http://digg.com/xbox/Gamers_Strike_Back_Against_Cooper_Lawrence_On_Amazon

2182 Diggs

http://www.digg.com/pc_games/Gamers_get_revenge_Quack_Gets_Amazon_Book_Rating_Spammed

A brief interview brought down book sales and opened up a new levels of criticism. Lawrence already apologized, but is that enough?

What do gamers think? I decided to find out. Going straight to the source, I interviewed a gamer about sex in video games, Mass Effect and whether or not gamers cared about what a psychologist has to say: listen to an audio interview with a gamer.

Gamers sound a lot like bloggers: frequently misunderstood, often perceived as misfits, passionate about our games/subjects, willing to communicate and create virtually, always ready to get to the next level, don’t mind spending hours or days in front of a screen and we enjoy meeting up with each other – both virtually and offline.

Studying the video game culture is smart marketing. Watch the launch campaigns, study the game sites, see how communities relate and check out the titles for ideas on how to attract an audience of raving fans. Playing the games will give you a feel for how to build up a challenge, develop characters and lay out storylines. From a PR perspective, know that gamers are ready to respond, react, defend and defeat en masse. So, be careful when you comment, especially when you haven’t played the game and you’re on national TV.

Helping out gamers can bring you good attention, though. I know from personal experience. In November 2007, I wrote about how we got the Nintendo Wii in eight minutes. But, wait a minute, this IS a PR blog – right? Well, yeah, but . . . after telling the story to everyone I knew, I just had to retell it here. So I did. At last count over 800 people have read it and hopefully our tips paid off for a few other families.

Parting Shots

Know what you’re talking about before your criticize – anything. Controversy polarizes audiences and can get you mega attention: both good and bad. Before you go there, consider how you’ll feel when the swarm against you stings all at once. When you make a mistake, apologize immediately. Be true to yourself and your audience. And if you want to sell more books? Make sure your publicity – good or bad – attracts attention from a supportive audience.

Care to leave a constructive comment?

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