Interesting piece in the Baltimore Sun by Garrison Keillor on the death of publishing and intellectualism. The best part of the piece is the title “When everyone’s a writer, no one is.” Keillor simultaneously applauds and mocks (more of the latter I think) the number of people writing online and the freedom with which they can write, and with which readers (implying low attention spans and lack of commitment) can freely skip from place to place.

I don’t completely agree with Keillor, and although it is indisputable that there is a lot of crap writing on blogs and social networks, so it went with web sites, newspapers before that, vellum manuscripts (did you see that s**t Brother Jonathan illuminated yesterday?), and so on.

Keillor takes on the self-publishing movement (as might any author of a “real” book):

“And if you want to write, you just write and publish yourself. No need to ask permission, just open a website. And if you want to write a book, you just write it, send it to Lulu.com or BookSurge at Amazon or PubIt or ExLibris and you’ve got yourself an e-book. No problem. And that is the future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75.”

Ironically, his pull as a writer is being used to draw people to the Baltimore Sun web site which is supported by Google contextual ads that supposedly complement the editorial content. Here are the ads that ran alongside Keillor’s piece:

Tags: Garrison Keillor, writing, self-publishing, lulu

Last month I took my daughter to 31-Cent Scoop Night at Baskin Robbins. I was so impressed with how effectively the company used social media to promote 31-Cent Scoop Night, I got in touch with them and did an e-mail interview with one of their PR managers. (The interview is a little later on in this post).

The landing page for 31-Cent Scoop Night breaks an old school Web marketing rule: Keep people on your site. Below the two girls is a link to a Facebook page, and to the right, links to Facebook and Twitter.

How did I find out about 31-Cent Scoop Night? It was all over Twitter and Facebook. And I mean all over. I saw someone tweet about it, and I retweeted it. So it went to all my Twitter followers and then over to FriendFeed and Facebook. With a couple of clicks, I sent Baskin Robbins’ promotion to thousands of people who sent it to thousands of people…

On 31-Cent Scoop Night customers can get up to three scoops of ice cream for just 31 cents a scoop. It’s a brilliant promotion that fills BR stores around the country, but more brilliant still when built on a social media platform.

I asked Andrew Mastrangelo, Manager, Public Relations, for Baskin Robbins, a few questions about 31-Cent Scoop Night and social media at the company:

Joel: Who is responsible for Baskin-Robbins’ social media strategy, and what is it?

Andrew: Baskin-Robbins’ social media strategy is a natural build on our traditional media outreach strategy.  We engage consumers through conversation about the brand and products, rather than push out product information.  We converse through many online platforms including Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare, but are always looking for new ways to strike up a conversation with our fans.

Joel: Is the network of Baskin-Robbins social media something that was carefully planned, or does it work well because that’s just the way social media works?

Andrew: Honestly, a mix of both.  Social media works because it’s founded on the idea of everyday people talking about everyday things.  People naturally want to share stories about their recent trip to a Baskin-Robbins store and talk with others about their favorite flavors.  We set up a fan page and a Twitter handle so people have ways to speak to their brand and fellow fans about their experiences.  Being a fun and outgoing brand, we can easily fit into that conversation and even suggest new flavors for fans to try.  If social media didn’t work, we’d be talking to ourselves.  And if we didn’t have a strategy, no one would be responding to fans.

Joel: Has social media contributed significantly to the success of 31 Cent Scoop Night?

Andrew: Word of mouth marketing is one of the top trending ways that people get news.  Social media, specifically Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare, is a great way to help spread the word about brands and events such as 31 Cent Scoop Night.  We highly attribute our success to tactics such as the Donate Your Status application, Facebook event page, 31 Cent Scoop Night Twitter background, 31 Cent Scoop Night Facebook page, consistent updating and encouraging fans to post pictures during the event.  Facebook users can easily “like” a friend’s status, RSVP to the event, and fan the Facebook page.  Twitter users can @reply the handle or retweet a post at the click of a button.  As a result, Baskin-Robbins 31 Cent Scoop Night as the #1 Hot Search on Google on April 28th (31 Cent Scoop Night) and Baskin-Robbins was one of the top ten trending topics on Twitter in the United States on April 28th and April 29th.

Joel: Do you have any notion of how many mentions 31 Cent Scoop Night had?

Andrew: We received hundreds of @replies throughout the day.  We also encouraged followers to @reply the handle with photos from their local stores so we could retweet them.

Joel: What’s next for BR in social media?  Is there an iPhone app for finding the closest store AND checking the availability of your favorite flavor?  Or voting on flavors?

Andrew: We are always looking for new ways to interact with our fans online.  Over the next few months we will be testing out Mayoral specials on Foursquare in a select few markets.  We love Foursquare’s platform of publicly recognizing people who visit a location more than anyone else.  We are jumping at the chance to reward our most frequent customers.

The Democratization of Ice Cream

There are many reasons this campaign is so successful. The value proposition offered by a 31-cent ice cream cone that is normally many times that much is hard to pass up, and the whole thing is a lot of fun. We went to our local Scotts Valley Baskin Robbins. Lots of people show up in families, and everyone seems to be having a great time.

Second, the company takes advantage of social media sharing (a category I use here to lump together Twitter, Digg, Facebook, ShareThis, TweetMeme, etc.) to use its customers and friends as a high-speed, near zero-cost network. The sharing effect is amplified because people love to share good news or a good deal. Who wouldn’t want to be the one to let his or her friends know about 31-cent ice cream?

Not only is the distribution network free and efficient, each sharing constitutes a consumer endorsement of the company, the product and 31-Cent Scoop Night. There’s much more going on here than I can discuss in a single blog post. Baskin Robbins uses 31-Cent Scoop Night to raise money for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. Also, once in the store, I was given a handout that explained that I could use my mobile phone to send a text message and join an ice cream club for birthdays, discounts and other promotions.

Baskin Robbins really seems to get social media and online marketing (and the importance of a compelling offline component.)

Tags: Baskin Robbins, sharing, 31-Cent Scoop Night, TweetMeme, ShareThis, Facebook, Twitter

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz is unquestionably one of the best, and first, CEO bloggers in the world. He’s not only a pioneer, but an intelligent, articulate, engaging writer who sets a difficult standard for others to match. I was writing a column on CEO blogging this afternoon and noticed that Jonathan’s blog has not been updated since May 18 of this year.

As Jonathan writes on the blog, in the May 18 post:

“I recognize it’s been a while since I’ve posted a blog. For reasons why, just click here to read the background. And before you ask, SEC regulations and securities laws limit what I can discuss about the Oracle transaction, so don’t expect any insights on the topic.”

Oracle announced its intention to acquire Sun on April 20. Whenever companies are in this mode, strict SEC regulations govern all communications material to the deal, so silence is sometimes the best policy. It’s interesting that Jonathan was still active nearly a month after the announcement. Sun’s Twitter account linked to the blog was tweeting six-month old blog posts up until October 15.

I look forward to seeing Jonathan, one of the industry’s unique voices, blogging again.

Full Disclosure: I worked for Sun Microsystems for five years and knew Jonathan. I am a huge fan of the company.

Tags: Jonathan Schwartz, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, CEO, SEC, blog, blogger

I was reviewing my Twitter follower list this morning and came across a potentially disturbing account tweeting what appears to be someone’s private information.

I reported this account by sending a Direct Message to @spam on Twitter. The service doesn’t seem to have any overt mechanism for reporting Terms of Service violations, though apparently, if enough people block a certain account, Twitter may decide to suspend the account.

I hope this is someone’s idea of a joke. If it’s for real, I hope Twitter shuts it down soon. People may not realize that every tweet is visible across the web the instant it’s published. Even if a tweet is deleted, it might still be visible in Twitter search and elsewhere.

This serves as a reminder of the potential privacy risks of social networking.

Tags: Twitter, TOS, privacy

I went to journalism school, which just might make me a “better” blogger. Here’s why I think so.

First of all, I learned to write in the “inverted pyramid” style, which says “start with a lead that exposes the most important elements of the story first, and then work down the page to aspects of the story that are of decreasing importance.” It’s a simple way to organize my writing.

I also learned how to properly use attribution, something which, when done wrong (by my standards) drives me crazy and is borderline dishonesty and/or theft. When I reference someone else’s blog, or an article, I’m very thorough and conscientious about clearly pointing out where the information came from. A typical attribution I might write would look something like this:

Tom Goldstein, writing in the August 21 San Francisco Chronicle, quotes Scott Rosenberg’s Book Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters:

“blogging could be journalism any time the person writing a blog chose to act like a journalist - recording and reacting to the events of the day, asking questions and seeking answers, checking facts and fixing errors.”

It might be a little pedantic, but heck, with that much information, you could find the source of the article I quoted without the link. And by the way, Rosenberg is on to something. There are plenty of bloggers who don’t act like journalists, but should.

As far as I’m concerned, for a blogger to “act like a journalist” is for the blogger to apply a few basic principles to blogging, like research, fact checking, correcting errors, using some kind of consistent style of presentation, distinguishing fact from opinion, and so on.

What else did I learn in journalism school? Keep paragraphs short for readability. There’s no magic number of words or sentences, but if your paragraphs look too dense, break ‘em up.

Emulate the pros. Some great bloggers to learn from are Dave Winer, and Tom Foremski, the first professional journalist/blogger.

Use a style guide. I don’t always follow it, but I do my best to write to Associated Press (AP) style. A style guide will tell you things like “write out numbers that are less than 10, and use numerals after that.” A little consistency is awesome.

Find your own unique voice. I’ve found mine, but I’m not sure it’s the right one. I can be a little too sarcastic, and (You might have noticed), I get all parenthetic. It’s my way of representing online the way I really talk. I tend to wander and introduce tangents, parallels and diversions, hopefully returning to the original thread. But I digress.

Write about something new, but if you can’t, find a new way to write about something that already exists. I recently wrote a column for Talent Zoo titled “Famous Dead People Weigh In On Social Media.” I quoted McLuhan, Einstein, Edith Wharton and others and used their quotes to make various points about the state of social media. I’m not saying this was an act of genius. And I didn’t write about anything “new,” but I did write about something in a new way.

Read voraciously. I mentioned emulating the pros, which I try to do, but I also read constantly. I have a book in bed and another in the bathroom. I read in the bathtub. If there’s nothing else to read I’ll read the ingredients on a toothpaste tube. I have a reading compulsion, and much of it happens offline.

So there’s a bit of what I learned in journalism school. I hope you find it helpful. I went to a state school, so if I was going to charge for this it wouldn’t be much, so you can have it, gratis.

Tags: blogger, journalist, journalism, inverted pyramid, attribution, Tom Foremski, Dave Winer