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Getting noticed in the new word-of-mouth network

Robert Scoble: Keynote Speech: Naked Conversations

Talks about history, blogs are best way to get stuff indexed in Google.

There is an informal conversation network. Tells the story about how a few people he told that he was leaving Microsoft. How that spread and then a largely unread blog was the one that first posted it is why you need to pay attention to *ALL* bloggers, not just him.

Talking to bloggers is more important than covering Walt Mossberg.

People who read blogs are far more likely to click and take action.

The auto blog reader is more likely to click through to other auto sites.

Most people understand search engines. Talks about google.com and how people search “Yahoo” and vice versa. It demonstrates that it’s a Google world.

If you pipes are leaking, you need a plumber. So you type in “Chicago plumber leak” and you need to be on the top of the organic search results. Links are important and so are other things. Changing the content every day helps the algorithms. Blogs, due to the frequency of content update are excellent tools to do this.

He talks about the plumber blog that gets link due to the knowledge. Also talks about how he got a ripped off once with a carpet and is blog entry ranked higher than the company.

A dirty secret about Google is that the ad click through rate is lower there du to the higher educational level of a typical Google user.

People will link to audio and video more than they will text. Suggested video press releases. Be different. Hugh’s cartoon’s are different. Video and Flickr and other sites can create buzz.

Talked about the “Dell Hell” issue. (strangely few in the room had heard of it – shows how far we have to go) Tells the well known Jeff Jarvis story.

Talks about how to listen. (I would say this is Robert’s biggest gift)

Then gave examples of how he linked to complaints directly when he joined Microsoft, fascinating!

Currently, HP story is a great example. They have not listened to the blogosphere. It is making the ethics crisis there worse.

Every project should have a story behind it. Talked about channel 9 naming story and how Microsoft built transparency. The PR folks didn’t pay attention to our blogs and Channel 9 until we were in the New York Times. It’s so funny how that works. Tells more about telling good stories and how important that it. It’s all about story telling process.

If you post something it shows up in my RSS aggregator. Using RSS is far more productive!

How do I get my content viewed in new places…talked about second life.

Valleywag recently wrote about a bad pitch. Democracy Now, Z Fank, Ipod can aggregate. Steve Jobs used Rocketboom to do the recent Apple launch.    

Again, HP – where is the engagement in the ethical issues?

Ragan PR conferece 2006

1 thought on “Getting noticed in the new word-of-mouth network

  1. Left a comment with Mr. Thornley too…in essence, the Dell Hell story is certainly a key learning, but the new chapter is underway and thats where the excitement is.

    We are investing significantly in our customer support. We are correcting processes and systems and retraining people and hiring new people.

    We have entered the dialogue and conversation on the web with a corporate blog. And, we have announced Dell 2.0, as the only major computer company investing in its future and investing in its direct relations with customers

    Sounds like a great dinner– next year you’ll hear about well dell in the blogs, on the phones, in person …wherever we are with customers 🙂

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