Telesummits: You’re Doing Them Wrong – Video

Originally I was going to call this post The Bus Ride, Best Guy and the Bald Spot, since I hopped on a 6 hour round trip bus ride while I’m in NYC, to get to PA to see the best guy I know and he shows you his bald spot, but dang nabbit, that takes too long to explain.

This get-together has been over 5 years in the making (we had never met in person), so Michael Port and I decided to film us chatting about one of our biggest online pet peeves: being asked to speak on telesummits. Have a look:

Should Levi’s Disclose Sponsorship of Viral Video?

Can a sponsored video go viral?

Like many things these days, it matters less about who created it, but the emotion/amazement that the video can evoke. That Old Spice dude showed us that and way back in the day, Where the Hell is Matt proved companies could sponsor a concept without hurting the video pass-around

Yesterday introduced us to a whole different area: An incredible video concept that was sponsored but not disclosed. Have a look at the video that I first saw mentioned on Mashable:

Why I Changed My Coffee Religion

The following is an excerpt from my new book “UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging” due to hit the shelves September 7th!

Scott BC (before coffee)

I have a morning ritual that I know many of you share. Coffee around here is a bit like a religion. You choose your brand, you pick your favorite, and then you stick with it. In the Toronto area, Tim Horton’s is the church of coffee. It is a part of the culture up here, part of the vocabulary. When you say you’re going for coffee you go to ‘‘Tim’s’’ or you’re going to go to ‘‘Horton’s’’

Word of Mouth Has Changed, Sort Of

“You have to see this!”

Well before computers were making our lives easier by making them harder, people reacted to content. Word of mouth was simply that: people spread the word to each other by talking (talking was an ancient method of communication where two or more people stood in the same room, and then by things called telephones and used voices to convey messages back and forth. Sounds crazy, I know, but apparently back then is was perfectly acceptable. Crazy pioneers)

Things shifted in the mid/late 90’s where we started to scale word-of-mouth with the use of email. We could now tell multiple people without having to re-tell the story and if we really wanted to be the talk of the town, we simply “CC’d” everyone, so all the replies went back to everyone again! Since I run a “viral marketing” company, whatever that means, my job was to ensure it was easy for our client’s projects were easy to pass around by viewers. The “tell-a-friend” script became popular until people started abusing it and it was a great way to get your domain blacklisted.

50,000 Tweets and All I Got Was Everything

Recently I surpassed the 50,000 tweet mark.

Holy monkeynuts.

That’s roughly 5,000,000 characters of typing, assuming an average of 100 characters a tweet.

And it’s been worth every one of them.

So the question is why? I’ve practically written enough on Twitter for five books, am a member of the 50/50 club (50k tweets, 50k followers) (I totally just made up that club right now. You’re welcome. I’m like the Jose Canseco of Twitter when he joined the 40/40 club in baseball, except I doubt I’ll be making an appearance on celebrity boxing anytime soon)

It’s not the fact that I’ve spouted off on Twitter 50,000 times, it’s the content of those tweets. The majority of them have been conversations. If you take a look at my stats you can see that almost 75% of my tweets have been replies. Over 37,000 of my tweets have been points of conversation. That’s why Twitter works for some and not for others. Twitter is a conversation.

Paying to Speak? No Thanks C.A.P.S.

I received an email a few minutes ago from a great friend, that I’ll leave out of this because I’m about to rant… he forwarded me a “Request for Speakers” email he received from the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers about their upcoming annual conference. He thought the theme suited my style (one of the reasons I think he’s great) so I clicked on the link.

I’m not a members of C.A.P.S. but thought I could bring some value to an event with an audience of speakers since I talk both about “Viral Marketing for Speakers” and that social media thingie… besides, with a book coming out in the fall I’m always interested in spreading the UnGospel and potentially waiving my fee. I’ve gotten high paying keynote gigs using multiple online methods and thought I could share those tools with my fellow Canadian audience.

30 Quick Tips For Speakers (now 35!)

I’ve done the “speak for free to five people in a room that holds 100″ thing (proof), I’ve been paid keynote fee’s and everything in between, I figured it was time to share what I’ve learned.

1. Don’t be a “speaker”. Be an expert who speaks. Speakers are a “nice to have” but experts are a necessity

Social Media Success for Non-Profits – Video

Ever since I graduated college and started my very short career of working for someone else at Goodwill Toronto, I’ve always had a soft spot for non-profit and charity.

Yesterday I spoke at Digital Leap, a “Digital Conference for Non-Profit Marketers and Fundraisers” where I talked about Social Media Success for Non-Profit. The entire session is below. I’ve also created an iPod/iPhone version for those that would like to watch it on the go. Just right click here and save it and then pull it into iTunes! (Big file: 160 megs)

Feel free to embed or share/save the below session, I would only ask that you link back to this post. That would be awesome of you.

Frequently Futile – How Often Should You Blog?

Busy at SXSWi, not blogging

Forgive me bloggers, for I have sinned. It’s been 6 weeks since my last post and I feel guilty about it.

What if I didn’t use Twitter?

I joined Twitter like most of you, cause it was cool and I have the attention span of a hummingbird on speed (picture that for a second). So in April 2008 I jumped in. Nothing happened really. For 9 months I dropped in once-in-a-while, read what people were having for lunch and passed it off.

Then January 1st, 2009 I made a deal with myself; live on Twitter for 30 days and see what would happen. Since I didn’t want to be another one of those marketing experts that dismissed something just because I didn’t use it, I was going to give it my all.