Chris Webb's Publishing Blog » conversation http://ckwebb.com Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:40:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 Looks Like We Are About to Get Bum Rushed by the Age of Conversation http://ckwebb.com/publishing/books-and-writing/looks-like-we-are-about-to-get-bum-rushed-by-the-age-of-conversation/ http://ckwebb.com/publishing/books-and-writing/looks-like-we-are-about-to-get-bum-rushed-by-the-age-of-conversation/#comments Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:10:48 +0000 Chris http://ckwebb.com/books/looks-like-we-are-about-to-get-bum-rushed-by-the-age-of-conversation/ Join the Age of Conversation Bum Rush on March 29thChris Wilson over at Fresh Peel has put together a very social-media centric marketing blitz for the upcoming Age of Conversation book by Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan.

Age of Conversation is a self-published work that the authors describe as follows:

In what began as a half dare, the editors, Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan challenged bloggers around the world to contribute one page — 400 words — on the topic of “conversation”. The resulting book, The Age of Conversation, brings together over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators in a ground-breaking and unusual publication.

All proceeds (less costs) will go to the Variety, the Children’s Charity.

It will be really interesting to watch Wilson’s marketing plan in action, which is a literal bum rush on Amazon.com on March 29 in an effort to push the book to the top of the bestseller list. Wilson’s call to action:

With the infinite amount of social sites and connections on the web, this is a huge undertaking. That is why I came up with this plan of action list with the highest priority items at the top. The idea is to generate as many touch points around the web as possible so that it will be hard not to spot the Age of Conversation activity.

  1. Buy the Book & send others to buy the book. This is the number 1 call to action, because this is where we want to see the most impact. NOTE: Please buy 1 copy at a time because Amazon counts bulk orders once, and please use this affiliate link, which will help us in tracking sales. Remember, all the proceeds from the book sales and referrals will go to charity. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1847992994?ie=UTF8&tag= drewmclellan-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325& creativeASIN=1847992994
  2. Blog About It - Make sure you have a prominent link to the Amazon listing so that readers can easily purchase the book. (Remember to use the affiliate link above. All of these earnings will go to charity as well.)
  3. Twitter Commentary - Join Drew and I as we give a Bum Rush play-by-play on Twitter. (Follow us: @Freshpeel, @DrewMcLellan, @Servantofchaos) We also ask that everyone saying anything about the Bum Rush to use the code #AOC so that it can be picked up by Twemes.com
  4. Trackback or Comment on the post that I will leave here on March 29th at 12am CST, so that everyone can follow the conversation and help promote exposure on social sites (Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, etc.)
  5. Digg the posts listed here & send emails and shouts to friends requesting Diggs.
  6. Stumble the posts listed & tell friends to do the same.
  7. Bookmark your posts on Del.icio.us
  8. Add your post to other social media outlets ( Technorati, Ma.gnolia, Furl, BlinkList, Newsvine, Facebook, etc.)
  9. Send an Old Fashioned email to your friends about the Bum Rush for AoC.
  10. Keep talking – Get on ooVoo, iChat, Aim, or where ever you like to talk, and start talking.

(Hat tip Douglas Karr)

]]> http://ckwebb.com/publishing/books-and-writing/looks-like-we-are-about-to-get-bum-rushed-by-the-age-of-conversation/feed/ 0 Can Brands Be Social? Shel Israel says “No.” http://ckwebb.com/social-networks-and-media/can-brands-be-social-shel-israel-says-no/ http://ckwebb.com/social-networks-and-media/can-brands-be-social-shel-israel-says-no/#comments Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:52:14 +0000 Chris http://ckwebb.com/social-networks-and-media/can-brands-be-social-shel-israel-says-no/ Wrox logoWiley author Shel Israel has started an interesting conversation with Jeremiah Owyang about wither or not “brands” can be social.  Jeremiah asked if brands should build their own networks, or use existing social nets.  Shel says brands can not be social, only people can.  I’m not so sure I completely agree – yet.

As I have written before, I keep 2 Twitter identities, one of which is one of our brands, Wrox.  The identities are distinctly different, but both “me” – @chriswebb is Chris Webb, editor who talks about publishing, social applications and their occasional intersection.  @wrox is still Chris Webb, editor, but the conversation focuses on programming, web development, .NET and other topics of interest to Wrox readers.

Why keep them separate?  Well, followers of @wrox may not care at all about what @chriswebb has to say about social media and publishing in general, while @chriswebb followers probably are not interested in the latest ASP.NET MVC release.  It is not obvious to @wrox followers that it is Chris Webb behind the username (although I don’t really hide that fact,) and I don’t think they care.  To them it’s just Wrox – a source of programming books and online content.

I touched on this subject briefly via Twitter earlier today, and got an intersting comment from a follower of both @wrox and @chriswebb:

@wrox is fundamentally different than, say, @mcdonalds or @tylenol
@wrox has the ability to gather a community (in this case developers) into one, big conversation. it’s a great experiment.

But back to Shel’s point – is Wrox being social or is it all just Chris Webb?  Is part of what defines the Wrox brand already social?  What do you think?

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