Blog Consulting, LLC.

Nordstrom - A First Impression Social Media Study

One of the regular features, on this blog, will be to study the first impressions of well known organizations, and their use of social media.

Please understand, I am not here to criticize, merely to make observations.  I believe the world is moving to a more relational interaction, and I desire to see how various organizations might be accomplishing this.

First up to bat is:  Nordstrom

I was a little surprised to see that this world class organization isn't inviting me to a deeper relationship.  After all, I have a large collection of Allen Edmund shoes from Nordstrom.

At first blush, my impression of their site was that of an on-line catalog.  Certainly there is nothing wrong with that, they exist to bring the world first class, and quality fashions.

But I was surprised to see that the depth of the relationship is seemingly the sale.  I did notice that @nordstrom is using Twitter, but in a very brief glimpse, it seemed to be more about customer service, than relationship building.  I also found no evidence, on their website, that they are even using Twitter. 

I would have liked to have seen a blog, complete with RSS Feeds, where I could subscribe.  They must have an incredible amount of very interesting, behind the scenes stories to tell.  I presume their buyers are flying all over the world buying fashions.  Certainly there must be some excitement in the things that they find, and bring back to their customers.  I would love to see, and hear those stories. 

What if they were to bring along a Flip Video and shoot some behind the scenes live action, and let us see how these fashions make it to the shelf?  What if they told us about their #1 sales associate, and shared with us the remarkable service that he/she provides for his/her clients.  After all, Nordstrom is world famous for their customer service.

Well, that's my first impression, five minute low-down, on Nordstrom, and social media.  At first blush, it appears to be all out-bound marketing, and no in-bound relationship building.

Perhaps it is on their to-do list!

Stay tuned for further adventures, in coming days.

Our Second Blog Consulting Client - Scottsdale's Market Place Bible Study

Market Place Bible Study is the second client for Blog Consulting, LLC.

With this client, we built the blog from a concept, to the completed project.

Market Place Bible Study, in Scottsdale, Arizona, is a weekly men's Bible study, and their goals were fairly simple:

• create an attractive space to house the weekly audio messages from Scottsdale Bible Church's Senior Pastor, Jamie Rasmussen.
• create a social media site, that the 80 men, in attendance each week, could use to invite their friends, and co-workers.

Once again, in the interest of full disclosure, this project was done gratis to provide our company the opportunity to show our expertise, as well as help a wonderful organization get some market place exposure.

This particular blog highlights your organization's ability to post audio material to your social media site, and then make that audio available to subscribers on iTunes.

I am very pleased with the way this project turned out, and I look forward to working with them, in the coming months, to grow their organization.

Even more exciting is the fact that we have three more projects on the drawing board. 

If you found this article valuable, please consider four things:

   1. E-mail me, for a free phone consultation, to discuss how we might help you build your own social media site.
   2. Share this article using the "Share This" tool, just below.
   3. Re-Tweet this article.
   4. Subscribe to our blog by RSS Feed, or e-mail, in the top far right column.

Thank you!

The Top 3 Compelling Reasons your Company must be in the Twitter Parade

Twitter is very much akin to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

There are millions of people watching the stream of people parading by.  And just like the spectators, there are private conversations occurring through "DM" (Direct Messages), as the parade streams by.

Furthermore, as this mass of humanity passes by, each of the members of the band are playing their individual notes in the stream.  If you like, you can listen to the individual notes, by "following" the individuals.

If you prefer to simply listen to the overall parade, then you simply watch a search stream, and watch all the individual conversations stream by you.

So the question of the day is this, "How might this be valuable to your business, or organization?

I am glad you asked, please continue on...

Video Blogging with Scottsdale Bible Church

We have begun the process of posting blog content to the Scottsdale Bible Church Blog.  If you recall, Scottsdale Bible Church is our first client.

Austin Hamilton, the church's web technician, has been working hard to get the proper coding, and developing a cohesive category, and tag strategy to catalog all the data that will be streaming into the blog, in the coming months.

We still have a lot of plans on our task lists, but the project is moving forward nicely, and we look forward to sharing wonderful content with the thousands in the congregation, the greater Scottsdale area, and the world at large.

Here is a recent conversation I had with Jamie Rasmussen, Sr. Pastor at Scottsdale Bible Church, after his Sunday message:

How our company got to page #1 of Google in only 45 Days!

I don't know how I could possibly present better evidence for the power of blogs to create visibility. 

45 days ago, we started our new company, Blog Consulting, LLC.  It isn't the most flashy name in the world, but I had a purpose in mind when we chose that name.  If people were to look for a blog consultant, what would they likely type in Google?

Blog Consultant...right?

Well, there I am, the very last entry on page #1 of Google!  In 45 days!  How did I get there?  Through another well established blog I have been writing for about 18 months. 

A Boomer in the Pew is a theology blog that I write, and when we launched our new company, I wrote a post about our new company, in that blog.  Boomer in the Pew has 593 posts, and 18 months under its belt.  

So...what is the moral to this story? 

Remember, you are building a media site.  It will take time, thoughtful posts that people will want to read, and a fair amount of grit.

But, the few, I repeat, the few who actually do this, will be richly rewarded.  This is no different than anything else, the 5% will blow away the 95%.  Purpose yourself to be in the 5%!

Macon Phillips, Director of New Media @ The White House explains our Government's New Social Media Strategy

Did you know that the White House has a blog?  Furthermore, did you know that you can find the White House on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vimeo, MySpace, iTunes, and Flickr? 

As you watch Macon Phillips, Director of New Media, at the White House explain how they use these tools, give careful consideration to their examples for your business, or organization to implement.

A Random Tweet of Kindness for Chris Brogan

Tomorrow is Friday, and as is typical,  Twitter will be a spam land of #followfriday Tweets.

I will never forget the lady who spammed me all day long, with seemingly all 6,000 people who follow her.

It was a horrific offense, and I immediately quit following her.

Then it got me to thinking, why is the herd so quick to think that a large number of followers is the key to the kingdom?

After all, is not the whole premise of social media found in relationships?  Inbound marketing? 

Then why am I being spammed to death every Friday?  Huh?

So, in revolt, I have created my own little Friday tradition: 

A Random Tweet of Kindness!

Today, before all the spam start flowing tomorrow, I would like to give a hearty high five to Chris Brogan, and throw a Random Tweet of Kindness his way.

Chris is well know in the blogosphere, and has been a tireless evangelists for all that is Social Media, and blogging.  He has been in the trenches longer than most, is willing to be more transparent than most, and subsequently is enjoying the fruits of his labor.

Congratulations Chris!  You have earned the admiration, and following of many thousands. 

If you are not a follower of Chris Brogan, and you desire to gain understanding of Social Media, Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and the coming tidal wave of change in the main stream media, then Chris Brogan belongs in your RSS Feed.

We break for an important news update!  Friday, May 22 @ 6:15 AM - Now that I am using Seesmic Desktop, to manage my Twitter stream, #followfriday is no longer the annoyance it was.  Prior to Seesmic, I was using TwitterFox and the constant interuption in my browser was driving me bonkers.  Therefore, I take back my disdain for #followfriday.  However, I still like the idea of a Random Tweet of Kindness, and will continue the practice.

A Random Tweet of Kindness, and a Great Benefit to Social Media - a Good Friend

Wes Thorp is a recently retired newspaper man, Senate staffer, and a lover of stories, and communication.

I met Wes Thorp, through my first blog, a number of years ago.  We quickly became fast friends.  In fact, I hired Wes as my first blog coach.

Today, my business day was just starting, and into my blog's comment box comes this from Wes:

"David-- If we were drinking a bottle of Great Lakes Red back here in Michigan, I would offer an observation. It's not the pitch about your business. It's the conversation that you've started and you're wanting to lead. Take Seth Godin's premise about Tribes. You're a leader of a Tribe. Then go over to the Cluetrain Manifesto and look at what these thought leaders about the web observed about how the marketplace is changing. Markets are conversations and not pitches. You're sitting at the head of a big global table filled with coffee pots and wine glasses and you're getting people to talk about using social media and blogs for their organizations, whether profit or non-profit. I'd love to be in the elevator here in Lansing and say to somebody, "hey, you need to read this blog post by Dave Porter. Remember when he was in Okemos?" And then share how you are a real listener and a facilitator of information. I've already done that with your post on the Scottsdale PD using Twitter. Every cop and police chief in the country should be coming to your blog to chime in and ask questions and share observations. Just my opinions. I will be following, of course. Wes"

Wes, you are a good friend, and you have brought me great honor today.  I greatly appreciate your friendship, your willingness to speak up on my behalf, and your great love of the story.

Every man should be blessed with a friend such as you.  My life is truly richer with you in it.

I love you man!

Please give my best to your beautiful family.

Want to help us with our Blog Consulting Elevator Pitch?

Elevator Pitch - An elevator pitch (or elevator speech) is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds and 100-150 words). 

When I started this blog, a few weeks ago, I quickly whipped up my elevator pitch.  After using it a few times, and looking at the dazed look in people's eyes, I quickly learned that I need to completely rewrite the thing.

Look at this nonsense I wrote:  Blog Consulting, LLC. is here to help businesses, organizations, and individuals harness the powers of the new media, to build stronger community with their patrons, significantly lower their costs to provide this communication, and appreciably raise the value proposition for both sides of the equation.

Yawn!  I think that statement could quite possibly put the sleeping pill companies out of business.

Here are three cool things about having a blog:

1. If you are smart, you will be transparent and let people see that you are human.
2. With a blog, unlike a normal website, changing your text is incredibly easy.
3. With some things, you can use the wisdom of the crowd to help you along.

So what is the pain that we recognize in companies, and organizations?

Businesses, and organizations are frustrated because their "business card websites" are not effective in telling their story, communicating with their clients, finding new clients, keeping fresh with current ideas, making it easy for clients to refer them, or allowing clients to communicate back. 

What's makes me think that I can solve this problem?

For 20 years, we successfully ran, and sold, a business in Michigan.  I had the same frustration.  I spent a lot of money on web technologies, but in practical terms, the only people that visited my website were people that I drove there.

Coming home on a plane, I read an article in Business Week, on how "Blogs were going to change my business".  It made a great deal of sense.  To make a long story short, in 6 months I had the nations #2 blog in my particular niche.  To top that off, I was personally interviewed by NPR, quoted in Business Week several times (online), interviewed by U.S. News & World Reports, and became a valuable resource to my local main stream media.  I also immediately had 85% of my clients subscribed to my blog, reading my business advice, and easily referring their friends to my articles. 

It changed my whole business communication paradigm!

How are you going to help businesses, and organizations solve frustrations with their business card websites?

Well, I am so convinced that every business, and every organization is going to migrate to a social media/blog model, I started a company to teach them the things I have learned along the way.  I have made many mistakes, and I have had some great success.  With our company, businesses, and organizations, do not have to reinvent the wheel. 

So, there is the nuts, and bolts of my elevator pitch.  Now to craft all of this into an easily understood, two minute conversation, that my grandmother, and a 10 year old could understand.

If you feel so inclined to chime in with your two cents, and offer help/wisdom, we are all ears.

To be continued...

Scottsdale Police Department buys advertising on Facebook

About a week ago, I broke a story about the Scottsdale Police Department posting bank robbers pictures on Twitter. 

Now, during the past few days, I have seen targeted advertising from the Scottsdale Police Department, on Facebook.

I find it very interesting the my local police department has so taken it upon themselves to be known in the social media world.

I hope you see the wisdom of their strategy.  They are building a local audience of people, who will find value in their police alerts.

If you are a local criminal, you are very likely to find your smilin' face on the cover of the...well...the cover of the Scottsdale Police Departments Twitter alerts!

My hat's off to you @ScottsdalePD!