Janet Lee Johnson | The Art of Marketing

I’ve been awake in a strange bed since 4:30 a.m., obsessing over story telling.

I’m in Eugene, Oregon, attending the Oregon Wine Industry Symposium, and speaking on a panel on “How to Make Your Web Site Work Harder For You” in a couple of hours. At our panel’s practice session and the annual wine industry dinner last night, I was impressed by simplicity and effectiveness of the storytelling going on… every award had a story, every acceptance speech had a story, and every vineyard, vintner and enthusiast had a story.

It seems the wine industry itself is a compilation of stories, and the people in it are natural story tellers, which is a great attribute for making the web work harder for you…

So the theme that’s going to be called out this morning, as I speak to my section of the panel - Engagement - is the art of online story telling.

It’s simple: people are captured and compelled to action by great stories.

As prospects and shoppers go online, they might be researching people, products, healthcare decisions or (like millions of us) posting our random thoughts, photos, videos, for friends, family and perfect strangers to see.

(”You’re either on the screen, or watching the screen, baby!” my friend Paul shouts in my ear…)

Simple, engaging stories serve to: 1) attract our attention; and b) provide the power of persuasion, once we’ve offered it. And so, in an effort to capture my thoughts about storytelling before I share them with attendees, I find myself here… in the quiet of my hotel room, at my desk, looking at a laptop, telling a story.

Our room is going to be the smaller of the two large rooms at the Hilton Hotel, which was built sometime in the 70’s and hasn’t been updated since. Three things that could have an effect on our attendance:

1. We’re the first session of the dreaded “Morning After…” You know the drill, the big dinner (with lots of wine) was last night, and everyone had a good time. The last thing they want to do is get up and go anywhere but The Big River Grille, and order up an “exceptional northwest cuisine-themed” breakfast.
2. We’re up against a session called “Impact of Grape Maturity on Wine Flavor” and I’m hoping people will say, “Yep, it does!” and come listen to our session instead of the learned folks from Oregon State and UC Davis. And another session called “This Just In: Extension Research Updates,” with speakers from Oregon State, Cal Poly and USDA Prosser, where ‘Short Shoot Syndrome’ and ‘cover crops’ will likely attract a healthy audience.
3. We’re in the “not geeky” track for oeneophiles. What a hoot.

I expect (fingers crossed) 100 or so people to brave their way in to listen to us. We’re focusing on simple, effective, FREE tools you can use to improve your web presence for attendees.

Our Panel’s Story:

Digital Footprints Don’t Lie - Debora Geary from Fireweed Analytics, will show us that using Google Analytics, which is a free analytics tool (and Google is the only one you’ll ever need, no matter what your ISP says, according to Debora), anyone can see the ‘digital footprints’ their customers will leave as they walk around a web site. What captures their attention, and what you can tell about their paths and meanderings are quite telling.

She studied the Sokol Blosser site in preparation for the panel, and found one of the top pages people visited on the site has been the “meet us” page - a simple compilation of photos of the people behind the wines. (JLJ: People love to buy stuff from people they like. Especially foods and wines.)

Capture Prospects with Content - Katherine Gray, content strategist, will speak to the importance of content on a site that will both support your brand and deliver the message you think most important. She’ll speak to authenticity of voice, and how to use words (first and foremost) and design to effectively tell your brand’s story. But it doesn’t stop there.

She’ll point out the critical links to a site’s shopping cart (JLJ: when they have them… most wineries take their orders by fax, and the abandonment rate off of “buy now - send us a fax!” pages are huge.) that could be vastly improved by simply adding a bit of contextual content here and there.

Think Like a Spider - Ben Lloyd of Amplify Interactive will tell attendees to go online, turn off the graphics in their browser, and look at how search engine spiders “see” their sites. (JLJ: go to your browser’s Preferences… Content… Uncheck the “Load Images Automatically” button. You’ll be amazed at what you see or don’t see…) Then sprinkle relevant keywords (pinot noir, pinot gris, pinot blanc…) in your title tags (most importantly!) body copy and headlines to give the spiders a notion of what your site is about. That will give you the opportunity to come up in search results when people are looking for a lovely pinot to take to the party Friday night.

Get Into the Magic F - I will wrap the panel by talking about how easy it is to use blogging, sharing, tagging and social networks to engage readers, tell great stories about your wines (and the people behind them), and improve your chances of showing up at the top of a Google search results page (”the Magic F”). And how to easily manage and monitor your online reputation using free RSS readers (like those from my client Attensa), so you’ll know exactly who’s talking about you, when they do, delivered right to your inbox if you like.

Dennis Hahn, ID Branding CEO and our panel moderator did a wonderful job of pulling all of our presentations together into a story… and he’ll lead our lucky attendees through the session in a memorable, compelling manner.

I’m off for coffee - fuel for the stories I’m about to share.

The guys over at SEMpdx know how to engage and reward the speakers for their upcoming SEM conference - by giving them “airtime” on their blog. My interview was posted over there this morning, thanks to Todd Mintz. I was a bit rushed, however, I didn’t put a link to my own blog in the whole thing.

So much for do as I say, not as I do… Sheesh.

As I’ve mentioned before, I think Pete Blackshaw is great. I have from the moment I sat across the dinner table from him in Newark, NJ - at the end of a blogging and social media conference - and listened to him glow about his kids.

He’s smart, forward-thinking and his advice to businesses about consumer generated media (CGM) is extremely well-rooted in reality. So when he announced his 2008 forecast intentions on Facebook and asked for feedback from the CGM group, I’ve been looking forward to reading them.

They were published last week on ClickZ in the CMO section. As far as I’m concerned, anyone interested in “Web 2.0″ should read, learn and enjoy.

Here’s a great answer to the question: What is Enterprise 2.0?

And a great new site discovery, slideshare.net. Where you can share presentations online - I’m signed up!

With thanks to Scott Gavin via Simon Revell, via Scott Niesen. Cheers, gents!

I’m at Innotech today in Portland, OR, about to hear a panel on “Media 2.0″- Scott from JanRain, Ray from AboutUs.org, Johnny from Feedia, Kent from Anvil Media and Brian from Intel.

JanRain works on OpenID, which is like your drivers’ license online - identity verification.

Intel’s Developer Forum recently was held in Beijing and was blogged live - a first for them, and probably for many there.

I’m working with Anvil Media on Search Engine Marketing PR - (SEMPR) for Attensa.

AboutUs.org is a wiki with information on 4million web sites - they’re like wikipedia for the “long tail” of the internet - for those of us who are not famous.

Feedia implements social networking framework so people can handle ipTV, podcasting, etc.

Q. What are the implications of social media?

A. Ray notes an increase in transparency is mandatory - people are being pulled over the threshold and taking the communications platform. Companies are being pulled with them.

A. Brian says, I’m trying to take marketing out of the equation, and give subject matter experts (SME’s) the opportunity to talk directly to the consumer.

A. Johnny said with millions of people playing with people’s brands, how do you control the brand experience? You don’t.

A. Kent - as a marketer, people are looking to agencies to help them negotiate this new world. Clients need to rely on agencies and marketers to help strategically advise companies on how to deal with it.

Thank goodness, because that’s exactly what I’m doing…

Q. How do you justify time spent on blogs vs. doing your regular job?

A. If you’re using the tools correctly, you might save time from a communication perspective. And at JanRain, they have engineers blog together with customers - it adds relevance for the brand.

A. At Intel, they encourage engineers to blog - and they make it really easy to blog. So it becomes fun and engaging for them.

A. Ray said wikis are even better at helping engineers interact. And in a wiki environment, everyone has the opportunity to “refactor” the conversation - so anyone can clarify a question or an answer which allows the group to make the whole conversation more meaningful.

A. Tip the funnel, let these collaborative technologies help people talk about your products themselves.

A. Pointing people to a publicly owned, collaborative site has more power in terms of marketing - third-party endorsement.

Q. What’s the difference between a blog and a wiki?

A. A blog is a platform for a single, knowledgeable individual / group to stream information. A wiki is a collaborative environment. ICANN wiki will allow you to create a blog-like wiki using wiki technology.

The culture of a wiki can be hard. You have to build a group of contributors - one person has to build an area of content that’s quality information - then get volunteers to help do the editing. Ray’s group welcomes their new contributors to further engage them. And comment moderation is important, because spammers will kill you.

PBWIKI has a great technology to allow regular people to start wikis. They’re “hosted” services - which means you pay by the month - and they hide the “wiki syntax” that will allow regular people who are familiar with Word to edit on a wiki.

Q. Is there a book about the strategic elements of all this?

The Long Tail, Wikinomics, Blogging for Business, any Seth Godin book, Naked Conversations…

I’m writing a book on both the strategic communication initiatives and breaking it down to practical how-to tips… will have to pick up that guy’s card…