JournaMarketing

MLB further restricts baseball coverage

[via smays.com]

Cory Bergman at Lost Remote writes that Major League Baseball is restricting the ability of media outlets (or anyone else) to post content about MLB online:

"Major League Baseball is instituting new restrictions for web content. Websites will now be held to two minutes of video (or audio) a day gathered at MLB facilities — but formal press conferences are exempt to this rule. Similar to the NFL, there’s no live streaming. But in an unique twist, sites will be limited to 7 photos per game. And no photo galleries, either (it’s unclear what they mean by that.) All non-text content must be removed after 72 hours. If you don’t follow the new rules, your press passes could be revoked. The Sports Business Journal has the story here, but a subscription is required."

smays theorizes that MLB wants to control its content from creation to the fans, because it wants to ditch media networks and become the sole provider of game information. I think he's right about that. But even if MLB were ready to take that leap, I think this is a lousy idea. It makes it more difficult for fans to find the stuff they're looking for, and it misses out on an opportunity to continue growing the relationship with those fans online. Sure, there's MLB.com for "official" information. But limiting and controlling information is a lousy marketing idea, no matter how much you want to control information.

Diva on relationships

Marketing Diva Toby Bloomberg has a wonderful Valentine's Day post on business relationships:

In all honesty, I have always been a bit confused about how one has a relationship with an animate object like a box of cereal, a computer or even a red rose. However, what I do get is that I can develop a relationship with a person. That's one of the reasons why this social media world makes so much sense to me.

Toby's stuff is always good, but this time she has a bonus -- 62 contributions from other bloggers and marketers about the role of relationships in online marketing. Go read the whole thing when you get some time. You'll find great insights, and you'll also discover some wonderful blogs you probably haven't seen before.

Technorati Tags: marketing, relationships, Toby_Bloomberg

How to keep up with lots of information

Mike Sansone at ConverStations has good advice for keeping up with a lot of information feeds. Having a strategy for dealing with information overload is essential, because you need to keep up with what's happening in you area of interest/expertise -- but it's no longer possible to read everything.  Mike calls it "Skim, Scan & Save:"

As you read your feeds, starting with the headlines and moving fast, save those you will want to digest further (and later). Go back three or four times a week (or daily) and get the full dose of those items you save.

Mike subscribes to about 600 feeds. I don't have that many and I can't even come close to reading everything in my feeds. But I do something similar to Mike -- using Google reader to "star" the stuff I want to read more closely later. (My trouble is finding the time to go back and read that stuff again -- but I try!)  The important thing is not to digest everything you can find, but to quickly find the most important information, and stick to your strategy for digesting that.


Technorati Tags: rss, blogs

Think small -- and big

Spike at Brains on Fire suggests you start thinking small. He lays out the pros and cons of mass-media advertising vs. small-scale communication with a select group of people.

When you focus your efforts on say, a small group of people that love you, or that belong to a very specific demographic or community and speak directly to them (or even better – invite them to have a conversation instead of doing all the talking), you now have something to work with that isn’t a complete shot in the dark. You’re able to start to form a relationship that isn’t based on the surfacy façade that people are so weary of. And now it’s not just about the product or service. It’s now about how that product or service fits into your customer’s lives. In other words, it’s not about you. It never was. So get over it.

Thinking small is a great place to start, especially if you don't have a lot of money in your marketing or communications budget. But some of you have a little money in your budgets for traditional marketing. If you do, think about ways to combine the pros of mass-media with the pros of online conversational marketing. If you're going to be advertising already, use those ads differently Instead of promoting your product or your cause, promote the service you're offering online as part of your conversational marketing effort. If you have a blog that offers parenting tips, run a series of radio ads that include a different parenting tip every week. If you have a legal podcast, include information from that podcast in your ads in the local newspaper.

Turn your advertising into a service, instead of a commercial. When you do that, you get the benefit of reaching more people -- and the added benefit of directing them to a place where they might come to trust you, instead of forgetting about you in 30 seconds.

Technorati Tags: nptech, marketing, advertising

How to benefit from joining the conversation

Anna Farmery lists ten ways brands can benefit from joining the conversation online. These apply, too, to your small or medium-sized organization. My favorite is #10:

Understand that value should be placed on leaders/managers who can build relationships, inspire to action, communciate, take decisions,....i.e more emphasis on emotional intelligence as a reason for promotion.

It goes back to connectedness and building relationships. Communicating is an ongoing 2-way process, not a 1-time, 1-way effort. Conversing with people online is the best way to plant seeds that turn into ongoing relationships. And relationships are good for your organization.

Which Muppet are you?

Noel Green (who happens to be my cousin) has put together the most accurate online test ever. It will correctly tell you which Muppet you are, every single time.

Organizational story-telling

Everything you do is a story. The biggest challenge for your organization is getting into the mindset to see those stories and tell them.  Ed Cotton at Influx Branding tells a compelling story of corporate story-telling.  This is what online communications can look like for a business:

Etsy is an online storefront for makers of handcrafted goods.  It's a great site, with lots of cool features. But the point of this post is not how Etsy is selling stuff.  It's how Etsy is communicating with people.  When the company raised $27 million in funding, founder Rob Kalin didn't just put out a standard press release.  He explained the situation with a story about Etsy's history and its future.


Go read his post to see a wonderful example of personal storytelling in corporate communications.  (And you should check out Etsy, too, just for the heck of it.)


Technorati Tags: etsy, storytelling, communications, PR