Blog Consulting, LLC.

Scottsdale House & Pool Watch finds deadly Black Widow spider in home!

Scottsdale House and Pool Watch - my step-son, Jerome Brunnemer, has just started a new business watching second homes for part-time residents, and pool cleaning.

Here, in North Scottsdale, the area is replete with potential clients.  The other thing that the market will soon learn is that here is a young man who will serve them with integrity.  Of course, I am biased.

Jerry was recently telling me of a client who was spending significant dollars in chemicals each month, and when Jerry tested the pool, there were no chemical in it! 

One of the tools that Jerry will be using, to build relationships with his clients, and help him find new clients, will be a new blog he is building.

Here is one of his recent posts:

"Terravita homes are surrounded by beautiful wildlife. But often the animals and insects that were there long before us end up in our homes.

I was doing a standard walk around a home the other day when I stumbled across this little guy. At first glance it looked like a harmless spider protecting it's egg sack. But after taking a closer look I noticed it was a deadly Black Widow spider. She was protecting her egg sack which was over three times larger than the spider it's self. If left alone these spiders will lay 400 to 1,200 eggs in a summer. Could you imagine several hundred deadly spiders crawling around your home while your gone for the summer?

If you are ever in this situation, it is important to get rid of the spider the proper way. Unless you destroy every trace there is a chance of future problems. The simplest way is to first spray the spider and egg sack with bug spray. Once it is dead move it to a safe place and light it on fire to make sure everything is destroyed.

Having a House Checking service look in on your home while your away has many benefits. Not only will a good House Checking service make sure there are no major problems with your home, but we can stop potentially small problems before the become much larger problems."

Not bad!  Informative.  Built Trust.  I would give him a call, wouldn't you?

If you are in North Scottsdale, why not give him a call?

Scottsdale Client Blogs from Argentina

My consulting with Scottsdale Bible Church's Blog continues along with blog posts now coming from Argentina!  Scottsdale Bible Church has a very active summer short term missions program, where literally hundreds of folks disperse around the globe giving back to humanity in various ways.

Austin Hamilton is the church's website coordinator, my liaison with the church, and is also currently in Argentina, blogging his experience.

What a wonderful way to share this amazing experience with all the folks back home.  Wonderful job Austin!

Video Blogging 101 with Scottsdale Bible Church

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am working with Scottsdale Bible Church to help them develop the use of social media, and blogging technologies,  within their church's website.

One of the things we determined, very early on, is that we wanted to use a great deal of video to capture the stories, events, and heart-felt glimpses of lives changed.  Video can accomplish these things like no other medium.

We have been doing a fair amount of experimentation to obtain the quality of product we are looking for, yet keeping the expense, and the hassle factor low.

The video below was captured using:

• a Flip Video Ultra HD ($199)
• a tripod ($30)
• two photographic lights (not required)
• a photographic backdrop (not required)

Please understand, the lights and backdrop are not necessary, but given the amount of video that we plan to shoot, it was decided to set up a dedicated, unused office to house our little studio.  I think, when you see the quality of video that we obtained through our little Flip Video, you will agree this was a good decision.

You will also notice that we are using a "phantom voice" type interview, where I am behind the camera asking questions.  This type of interview allows for very easy setup, greatly reduces the need for additional microphone equipment, lighting, seating, and camera equipment.  Although it may seem a little awkward to have this voice booming from the background, it does allow you to focus on your subject.

It is certainly possible to do these films with the subject simply speaking to the camera, and telling her story, but having the interviewer involved in the conversation, reduces a great deal of stress, on the part of the subject.

Marketing take-away:  how could you use these types of video communications to better inform your patrons, and invite them into a deeper relationship with your organization?

 

Visiting a Client's Tradeshow - Arizona Association of Mortgage Brokers

Today, I will be spending the day with clients, at their Mortgage Marketplace Education & Expo.

This is the Arizona Association of Mortgage Brokers large biannual gathering.

Furthermore, as we just launched their blog yesterday, this will be a wonderful opportunity for them to capture video, audio, and photographs of the event.

I am looking forward to spending the day with AAMB, and helping them gather valuable stories to share with their membership, main stream media, and the consumers of Arizona, on their new blog.

Our Third Blog Client - Arizona Association of Mortgage Brokers

Today, we launched our third client's blog:  The Arizona Association of Mortgage Brokers. 

The Arizona Association of Mortgage Brokers (AAMB) is not unlike many other trade associations.  They were feeling the pinch of declining membership, printed trade publications going extinct, and no real effective way to communicate, in extraordinary ways, with their members.

This blog will allow them to:

• immediately take control of their message.  They essentially now have a television station, a radio station, a magazine, a newspaper, and a newsletter, all rolled up in one convenient place on their new social media site.
• receive immediate feedback from their members, through the commenting features built in the site.
• control their public relations messages, with built in RSS Feeds, which will pipe directly into the main stream media portals.
• save money by eliminating expensive print materials.  Everything published at this site is immediate, and free.
• gain additional exposure to other mortgage brokers, who may not be familiar with the AAMB.
• find exposure directly to the consumer, to help them make sound financial decisions, and save money.

This launch will be a lot of fun,  as today is also AAMB's Spring Expo.  There will be 500 mortgage professionals, in downtown Phoenix, to hear industry updates, listen to expert speakers, and mingle with their peers.

Tomorrow will be a great day, and a most wonderful launch of AAMb's new blog, and social media site.

Congratulations AAMB! 

We are honored to have you as a client, and we look forward to working with you, over the course of the next 12 months, as we continue to work alongside you.

Click here to learn how Blog Consulting, LLC can help your organization build, and manage your own social media site.

Blog Consulting Client Story - Scottsdale Bible Church

Challenge:  each week Sr. Pastor Jamie Rasmussen delivers a message to around 6,000 people.  Is it possible to create a more intimate way to challenge the congregation to take the principles learned on Sunday, and implement them throughout the week?

We are still in the very early stages of formulating our blog strategy, but this "fire-side chat" format seems to be going over well.

In this particular example, Jamie was giving the congregation some homework, around the topic of "facing death - head on", from his Sunday sermon.

To apply this to your organization, or business, are there times when you wish you could give a pep talk, or speak on an urgent matter with your patrons?  A simple two minute video, on your blog site, just might be the trick.  Furthermore, a weekly video just might be the ticket, to help make your new social media site subscription worthy.

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.
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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:

Our First Blog Consulting Client - Scottsdale Bible Church

In the interest of full, and fair disclosure, let me start out this post by telling you that Scottsdale Bible Church is my home church.  Furthermore, under the current economic climate, we have also decided to donate a portion of our company's time, and experience.

With that said, this particular client journey is going to be a blast!

Scottsdale Bible Church was founded in 1962, and in most circles, would be considered a mega-church. The church has a great many ministries,  12 elders,  7 executive staff, 18 ministry leaders, and quite a large staff.

Certainly, in a secular setting, Scottsdale Bible Church would be considered a sizable organization.

A number of months ago, I reached out to the senior leadership, and suggested that we meet to discuss my business, and social media skills, and how they might be of use to Scottsdale Bible Church.  Ultimately, this resulted in an invitation to consult with Austin Hamilton, SBC's new website administrator. 

Being a progressive thinking Christian organization, Austin was hired to completely rebuild, from the ground up, the church's website.  Most remarkably, for the church, he built it on a WordPress platform, which essentially means that the church's website is a very large blog, with all the inherent ability to build community, with the 12,000 in its database! 

My role with Scottsdale Bible Church will serve in primarily two functions:

1. Consult with the social media team, to dream dreams of how we might better communicate with the church's database, the City of Scottsdale, the State of Arizona, the United States of America, and the world!  Furthermore, once we have a good dream, build systems to put them into place.
2. I will also be serving a role as one of their Social Media Managers.  In this role I will be consulting on the building of the actual church blog (a coming attraction), and the churches use of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outposts. Furthermore, in this role, I will actually be producing some of the textual, audio, and video content for their new blog.

Here are some of the thoughts that are currently in the dream stage:

• With the revolutionary change in social media, how does Scottsdale Bible Church fit in?
• How might we use the video, audio, and textual tools to drive down deeply into our congregation?  In other words, how can we share changed lives with these tools.
• In what areas do we need to re-think how we currently communicate?  Does the website offer a better, and yet less expensive delivery system?
• How can we foster micro-communities within the "mother ship" blog.
• How can we continually set before ourselves, the understanding that we now have, in essence, our own television station, our own newspaper, our own magazine, our own radio station, all within the power of our new website.
• How can this website help us to accomplish our vision, mission, and values.

We, at Blog Consulting, LLC., are very excited to be working alongside Scottsdale Bible Church.  We clearly understand their objectives, and believe we have just the right mix of skills, and vision to help them get there.

This is going to be a blast! 

Thank you Scottsdale Bible Church for the invitation!