Thanks to marketing consultant Rich Kelley for this piece. “Ever-evolving engines” was the theme of this year’s Search Engine Strategies conference in March in New York—but finding the tactic that gets the best results was much more on the minds of the 5,000 attendees. “Traditional direct mail generates conversions of two to three percent,” noted…Continue Reading
It’s often said that social media is no substitute for face-to-face interaction. But Twitter, Facebook, and other electronic modes of communication, along with the decline of bricks-and-mortar bookstores and the bad economy, have changed the ways authors communicate with readers, and have shaken up the roles of speakers’ bureaus since we last wrote about them…Continue Reading
PT thanks Judith Weber of Sobel Weber Associates for her reporting. Late in the week at the Symposium for Professional Food Writers, Chronicle editor Bill LeBlond introduced an efficient “information delivery device.” As he demonstrated, it enabled the user to open to a recipe, a block of text, or a beautiful four-color photograph. The device…Continue Reading
“Twitter is really the stupidest thing in the world,” Chris Brogan, blogger and social media expert, said in his Blogging and Social Media panel at the O’Reilly Tools of Change for Publishers conference in February. But he didn’t mean it. At first blush, Twitter does seem like a dumb idea. It describes itself as “a…Continue Reading
Yesterday, PT attended Chris Brogan’s “Blogging and Social Media” tutorial at Tools of Change for Publishing 2009. Brogan is a social media/community-building super blogger–check him out here. His panel wasn’t a lecture or traditional speech; rather, it was a conversation with the audience. He jumped from topic to topic; showed us his Facebook, Google Reader,…Continue Reading
To be on the Web or not to be on the Web—sorry, technophobic authors, that’s no longer the question. Rather, what should be on your website and how can you draw traffic to it? There’s no universal key to success. But with help from a recent groundbreaking report and four web designers who specialize in…Continue Reading
Dixie Chicks—and Beer