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New Comm Biz

New media strategies for business

I’m No Political Pundit but I Know the Power of the Web.November 13

Image via Wikipedia

On two occasions here, on this blog, I’ve stepped way out of my comfort zone and made political predictions. They were both made on the same theory though. I’m a pretty good judge of people and their capabilities and I know how powerful the Web is.

Back in April of 2007 I made the claim that Idaho Republicans would lose a record number of elections in 2008. That prediction was made because of John Foster leaving his position at the Idaho Business Review where he revolutionized the paper’s Web presence and taking up the role as Executive Director for the Idaho Democratic Party.

Later in July of this year I had to *adjust* my prediction because John left his position at the Democratic party to head communications for Walt Minnick’s Congressi

What if you don’t live in Silicon Valley?November 12

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Building Social Media Communities in the Real World.

Some of my astute readers (if I have any left) may have noticed that I haven’t posted here in almost a month. Don’t think that this means I haven’t been blogging.

OK and no I haven’t been blogging on my HP blog, Marketing Impressions. And no, I haven’t been contributing to the Conversations Matter blog (sorry Michael Brito).

But I still hold out that I’m not a slacker. I have been building a tech/social media community… in Boise, Idaho.

Many of you know that I am an Entrepreneur in Residence at Highway 12 Ventures. I of course still have my day job at HP. But you may not know (although you probably do) that I also run the TechBoise blog, hold monthly events as well as regular Boise area Tweetups.

Those of you who don’t live in a major tech sector no what I’m talking about when I say that Silicon Valley isn’t the *real world* (heck many of you who do live in SV know what I’m talk

Using Return on Marketing Investment to Save Your AssetsOctober 16

You hear a lot of talk about ROI (Return on Investment) in marketing these days. Especially these days. Many of you may not be as familiar with ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment).ROI is important but often difficult to prove. In an integrated marketing campaign how do you determine which tactic lead to which results? In today’s Web 2.0 World it gets even trickier because the traditional measurements don’t fit the tactics.

SOV - Share of Voice
PR uses Share of Voice measurements. For a doohickey company they would look at all the press coverage on doohickey’s and doohickey companies and see how many times their company was mentioned against the overall total coverage. What you want to be able to show is either an increase in coverage and/or that you are getting more coverage than your competitors.

CPM - Cost per Thousand (M of course being the Roman numeral for thousand).
I’m not a big fan of CPM but this is the standard that all media and advertising companies measure on. I’ve even seen advertisers use SOV, but that seems weird since all it really shows is that you spent more money than your competitors.

CTR - Click Through Rate
This is the performance measurement for online a

What’s your DBQ?October 15

The Douche Bag Quotient.

A while back I first started to hear my friends Justin Foster , John Hardesty (John created the logo) and Sam Swenson using DBQ as a term for those people you know who are real douche bags but don’t realize they are douche bags.

Douche bags seem to gravitate towards social media. It’s probably because of the opportunity for shameless self-aggrandizing. Kommon Kraft even has a great video explanation of the New Media Douchebag.

The other day I was thinking about what is it that causes someone to be a douche bag? The thought came to me while trying to manage my ever growing Twitter account. At times it can be seem overwhelming to even follow just 1200 1300+ people (which is nothing compared to the Twitterati). So I started thinking about being a little more picky as to who I’d follow.

And right then it struck me: who was I to judg

Entrepreneurs! Start Your Engines!October 10

At the end of the worst financial week the World has ever seen, bankers and stockbrokers may be ready to jump out windows, but I’m feeling rather optimistic today.

Barring a complete meltdown of society (some may argue we are already witnessing that) the coming months are going to be a great time to start a business.

If you already have your own business, Brad Feld has two amazing posts that demonstrate why he’s been a successful entrepreneur, Angel investor and VC: Fear is the Mind Killer and OK Entrepreneurs, Time to Step Up.

Starting a Real Business

When I say start a business, I mean a real business. Something with a revenue plan. Something that scales as the revenue comes in. Something that is built on the premise of what VC’s are telling their portfolio companies (Sequoia Benchmark);