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How to Get Invitations to Mixergy Parties and Events
To join the mailing list, just enter your email address. I know you’re worried about spam and aren’t sure whether to give up your email address, so here are two points that I hope will reassure you:
1. I’ll give you my email address first: mail[at]awarner.com (All email sent there goes directly to my iPhone.)
2. I use a 3rd party system that will let you unsubscribe at any time.
How to Organize a Master Mind Group - The Max Alexander Interview
Andrew Carnegie, who came to the US with nothing and became the richest man in the country, advised people who wanted to follow in his footsteps to create master mind groups. To learn how to do that, I called Max Alexander.
He and Keith Ferrazzi are writing a book about the power of working in groups. It’s tentatively titled “Who’s Got Your Back.” Here are some of the things Max taught me when I called him.
Simple works - When Olivia got her job at Intent.com, she emailed people in related companies and organized a group lunch. Max says that kind of meeting is effective. You don’t need a rigid, formal structure.
Vulnerable - You can’t be in a group with people who are too proud to tell you the trouble they’re having. Look for people who are willing to be vulnerable because you can’t solve problems that aren’t being talked about.
Don’t bitch - You’re getting together to solve problems, not wallow in them. Look for ambitious people who want to achieve, not slugs who want to complain.
Tech’s cool - You don’t have to meet in person. Meeting by Skype or phone is fine. Max told me about a group whose members have never met in person.
Right click to download the interview!
Learning from Obama, McCain and other politicians - The Revere Strategy Group Interview
Have you noticed that most people can’t get more than a few hundred readers to their sites, let alone get their audience to pay money to buy something? Ever wonder how some politicians, like John McCain and Barack Obama, cleverly work the Internet to build movements that are millions of people strong–and get their supporters to donate money?
I wanted to learn how they do it. So I called Randy Skoglund and Curt Mercadante, Principals at Revere Strategy Group, a consulting company that helps politicians and advocacy groups properly use the internet.
Download my full interview with them and you’ll hear politicians’ most powerful secrets. Here are a few that I wrote down as I spoke to them.
Fight! - Politicians and movements that try to fight the system are more likely to build movements online. Think about how MoveOn.org fought the Republicans. We see this in online businesses, too. Gary Vaynerchuk is building an online wine business by fighting the snobbish, old wine world.
Lose the tie - Check out how Michelle Obama stands in her t-shirt and casually talks to a camera in this video. Online, you’re more likely to connect with an audience if you’re unpolished. McCain benefited from this when his campaign ran out of money and he had no choice but to shoot casual videos.
Get on TV - Television is still incredibly powerful. Ron Paul, for example, used his appearances on televised debates to build his online audience. We heard this in my interview with Timothy Sykes too. He grow his online audience by being on reality tv.
Tiny - You can’t get everyone to agree with your whole message. So The Revere Strategy Group helps politicians build micro web sites for single issues. The goal is to capture people who agree with a candidate on one issue, but may disagree with other positions.
Petition them - There are some issues that people are so fired up about that they’ll “sign” online petitions. These petitions can be magnets for supporters–and they’re a good way to collect email addresses. MoveOn.org started this way.
Download the full interview to hear many more techniques that you can learn from and use.
(Olivia Kuhn-Lloyd thanks for introducing me to Revere.)
Right click to download the interview!
Mixergy Strut Your Stuff - Recap
If you attended, see how Sun will help your startup.
Startups could show their web site and get feedback from our panel of four experts:
- Nicole Jordan of the Rubicon Project showed the startups how to use public relations
- Sean Percival of docstoc showed the startups how to use search engine optimization
- Jackie Peters of Heavybag Media showed the startups how to use social media
- Alex Funk of digital-telepathy showed the startups how to use widgets
These startups presented:
- ACTORSandCREW
- Creative Citizen
- Oops I’m Late
- Quiz School
- eCarServices
- Rate My Ideas
- FD Career
- gigzee
We were sponsored by:
- Sun (Check out sun.com/startup and, for social application help, see zembly.com)
- NTT (Contact Chris Davis, our presenter who helps Web 2.0 companies get huge, by emailing cdavis[at]us.ntt.net)
- APOC @ USC (The program that teaches online communities.)
- TechZulu (The media company that covers tech.)
If you have ideas for how the startups who presented can grow their businesses, contact them directly or add your input to the comments below.
Update: Lacy over at digital-telepathy did a much more thorough recap.
Get Traffic to Your Site - The Sean Percival Interview
Sean Percival seems to be a social media ninja. You don’t see some of the techniques he uses, but you feel their impact.
In our interview, he told me about how he uses social media for his site and for the companies he works for. Here are few ways (listen to the interview to hear more).
Jump on news - Because we’re living in Google’s world, if you’re the first to have a page about a big event, you’ll get traffic from it. If you don’t have the money to hire someone to pay attention to every media outlet try this method instead:
- Check Google trends for news.
- Write a QUICK page about anything that relates to your site. Do it quickly so Google can index it.
- Link to your page from sites like Digg and Delicious.
- Bulk up your page with more information.
- Grow your links by telling related sites about it.
Get alerted - If you create a web site about European license plates, there’s a good chance that Sean will know about it and he’ll email you to ask for a link to his site, Custom European Plates. One of the best ways to raise your profile in Google is to notice when new, related sites are launched and ask them for links.
Play - Have you noticed that Facebook will tell you when you or your friends are tagged in a picture or video? So did Sean. Before our interview, he got me to watch a video about his current employer, DocStoc, by tagging it with the names of people I follow in Facebook. He’s constantly playing with different ideas to see what works.
Right-click here to save the interview
(Photo by Wm. Marc Salsberry. Thanks Jackie for recommending this interview.)
New Tickets to Mixergy Event: Strut Your Stuff
We ran out of audience tickets early, so I found a way to make room for more people to sit in the audience. Get an audience ticket here.
Your best bet though, is getting on stage and showing your site to the panel and the audience. You’ll get feedback from the panel and support from the audience. Sign up to strut your site here.
PR Strategies for Startups - by Jason Calacanis
I’m grateful to Jason Calacanis for letting me post his articles on Mixergy.com. I think his ideas are incredibly helpful to startups because he’s an entrepreneur himself. (Plus every time he lets be publish his writings here, my site gets a nice traffic bump.)
Location: Mahalo HQ, Santa Monica, CA
Friday, August 19th, 6:28PM PST.
Word Count: 4,949
List Message #: 14
Jason’s List Subscriber Count: 4,223
List management: http://tinyurl.com/jasonslist
Message type: internet industry
Forwarding instructions: pr people, startups, VCs
Republishing rights: please don’t repost without asking
PR Strategies for Startups (Part One)
—————————-
For over ten years I’ve been in the unique position of being both a
CEO and a journalist in the technology space. My first company
produced Silicon Alley Reporter magazine, where I held the dual titles
of CEO and Editor. At my second company, Weblogs Inc., I was a blogger
and CEO. Today I’m the CEO of Mahalo, and the editor of an email
newsletter (Jason’s List–which you’re reading right now!).
Additionally, for over 10 years I’ve been the subject of many stories,
including features in the New Yorker and WIRED (twice!), as well as on
television programs including Charlie Rose, 60 Minutes, Nightline,
CNN, Fox News, Bloomberg and countless others. I’ve gotten more press
than any entrepreneur could dream of–certainly more than I
deserve–and I’ve never had a public relations firm working for me.
As both subject and writer it feels like I’ve learned a lot about how
the PR and the press works–especially in the technology business.
My philosophy of PR is summed up in six words: be amazing, be
everywhere, be real.
You don’t need a PR firm, you don’t need an in-house PR person and you
don’t need to spend ANY money to get amazing PR. You don’t need to be
connected, and you don’t need to be a “name brand.” Today, many
bloggers lament how much press folks like Kevin Rose and Robert Scoble
get. They say that they get too much attention and that they got this
attention too quickly and without earning it.
What’s funny about this is that “A-list” ceWebrities like Scoble and
Kevin Rose are overnight successes 10 years in the making. Scoble and
Rose have been everywhere for a decade. Me? I’ve been everywhere in
this business since 1994 when I was 23 years old in New York City
trying to get any meeting I could (for those of you who wouldn’t meet
with me back then I totally understand–chances are I wouldn’t have
met with me back then).
Things that look like an “overnight success” typically are not.
Now, I could tell you to “be amazing, be everywhere, be real,” drop
some buzz words and call it a day. However, that’s not why you’ve
invited me into your e-mail box. Nope, based on the feedback you guys
have given me since we started this e-mail experiment, I’ve learned
that what you really want is honest talk and clear tactics so you can
fight the good fight.
Here are my first ten tips on how to do PR for your startup.
How PostSecret Uses Social Media to Grow its Mission - The Frank Warren Interview
I used to think that Frank Warren had it easy. I didn’t think he had to do any work at all to grow his site: PostSecret. PostSecret is a collection of secrets that people write on postcards and mail to Frank’s house. It’s one of the top blogs and I thought that’s only because the idea is so extraordinary that people naturally have to talk about it.
In my interview with Frank, I learned that a lot of work went into developing his community. So I asked Frank to teach me some of what he did. Here are a few ideas that I learned (listen to the full interview to learn more, directly from Frank):
Know the tools - I foolishly tried using every single social media site for one thing: to get more people to pay attention to my company, Mixergy. Frank uses each site differently. He uses Facebook for his event invitations because the site’s news feed makes events go viral. He uses MySpace’s blog features to interact with his readers. And he uses YouTube to co-create viral videos with his audience, based on the secrets he gets.
Live - Frank takes his community offline by speaking at colleges. He meets his readers in person at book signings. And he displays the postcards he gets at art shows.
Mission - If you listen to my interview, you’ll hear me pound Frank with questions about how he uses different tools to grow his audience. He answered all my questions and gave me good advice that you can use to grow your your onlien business. But when I listened to the interview again while editing it, something hit me: all of these tools work for Frank because there’s a sense of mission behind what he does. He’s not just an audience or a business–though he readily says that PostSecret is NOT a non-profit and he IS a businessman. There’s a sense mission behind what he does. He wants to give voice to the people who mail in their secrets. He wants to touch his readers. And he wants to connect with everyone who sees him in person.
Right click to download the interview
(40 minutes)
Scrabulous Co-Founder Jayant Agarwalla
I’ve been exchanging emails with Jayant Agarwalla, who co-founded Scrabulous, the Facebook game that’s been getting 500,000+ user per day and whose company was recently sued by Hasbro. Thought you might want to read some of what he’s been telling me.
I asked him what he thinks it takes to build a successful app on Facebook.
His Answer: “I think applications need to be sticky and not fade away after being used a few times. A lot of applications on Facebook attract thousands of users but are not sustainable. Developers should focus on giving quality products and fill a void rather than simply offer new alternatives.”
I asked him what blogs he reads.
His Answer: “Mashable, GigaOm, TechCrunch, are some of the blogs I enjoy reading.”
I asked him about the resources that social app developers need to know about.
His Answer: “We have been using Google AdSense ever since we started on Facebook and it has performed really well. Their system is stable, easy to implement, and we have never had even minor problems with Google so far. Another great network is Videoegg. So if you have an application with high page views try one of these networks. For stats, Google Analytics should be good enough, although for someone who is building new apps, they should focus more on getting users and retaining them rather than analyze stats for hours.”
I asked him what he thought of the lawsuit.
He wouldn’t comment.
His background:
Jayant Agarwalla (22), from Kolkata, India, is the co-founder of Scrabulous.com and the Scrabulous application at Facebook. Currently, he is the VP of business development and marketing for Scrabulous. Earlier, he had founded BingoBinge.com - a word game site - with his brother Rajat. Prior to BingoBinge, he had some experience working with RJ Softwares, a web solutions company founded by his brother in 2000. He has a keen interest in Chess, Scrabble, and Table Tennis. Jayant graduated with an Honors degree in Commerce from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, in April 2008.
How to Organize a Conference - The Rick Calvert Interview
The interview I did with Rick Calvert is meant to be a primer for anyone who wants to put together a new conference. Rick, the co-founder and CEO of BlogWorld and New Media Expo, walked me through the process, step-by-step.
You can listen a recording of our conversation to hear the full walk-through, but here are a few of my notes:
Companies - One of the first things you need to do is get buy-in from your industry’s best companies. When Rick considered putting BlogWorld together, he reached out to companies like Six Apart & Automattic, makers of two of the most popular blogging platforms. Getting companies to buy in early can help with sponsorship money and introductions to other supporters.
Rock Stars - The next step is to get some of the industry’s high-profile leaders to participate. Rick goes after the “rock star” bloggers because he knows that if they come, you’ll want to come meet them.
Evangelize - Talking up your project is important, but isn’t it more powerful to have others evangelize on your behalf? For Rick, that means reaching out to people who have the most authentic voices in media: bloggers.
Parties - Outside parties help make a conference more fun, but they also help bring in a bigger audience. At the coming BlogWorld, Mashable is organizing a party. BlogWorld helps Mashable get new guests to its party and Mashable helps BlogWorld get new conference-goers.
I think of this interview as a 2-for-1 download, because in addition to teaching me how to organize a conference, I asked Rick to spend some time telling me what he learned about blogging from the top bloggers who spoke and attended BlogWorld. What he taught me is helping me become a better blogger. I know it’ll help you too.
Right click to download the interview
(55 Minutes)
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Recent Interviews
