My latest article, 10 Ways to Make Your Message Resonate with Green Consumers, was published today on GreenBiz.com (Joel Makower’s very well-regarded enviro site).

For anyone into Green marketing, I recommend this. (Of course, my book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green, goes into far more detail.)

Creating original articles is one among several marketing and visibility strategies I’ve been using regularly for many years. In the last several months, I’ve posted quite a bit of original content (articles and guest blogs) on major environmental and PR sites—part of a strategy to become a go-to person for commentary on Green business. This doesn’t count making comments on others’ blogs or being interviewed frequently not only by bloggers, but by traditional media as well. If you’re trying to get known in your own industry, these strategies can get you there, and they cost nothing but time. Here are a few places of the places where you can see my articles:

Triple Pundit:
Coffee Activist Dean’s Beans Brews the Perfect Blend for Change

GreenMarketing.tv
Why Green Consumers Make the BEST Customers

Fast Company
At least 77 articles, 2008–2010.

Bulldog Reporter (a trade journal for PR)
Green Consciousness Creates Fresh — Often Unexpected — Opportunities for Savvy PR Professionals (I can’t get this link to load so am not including it here)

Now, the next goal, is finding markets that will pay for content. That’s harder, but not impossible. When I was actively freelancing, I got paid for as many as 87 articles in a single year. The publications I was writing for back then didn’t pay much, but they didn’t pay. It wasn’t a living, but it was part of one.

–>This is post number 10 of the ten posts I committed to writing in the last third of August, as part of Michele Scism and Michelle Shaeffer’s #Blogboost Blog Challenge–and there are still several days left in the month. I may keep it going through the end of the month, or even beyond. It’s good discipline.

10 Ways to Make Your Message Resonate with Green Consumers: Read My Article #blogboost is a post from: Principled Profit

I just read a “sleeper” article that may be one of the most important trend pieces of the year. If you have any interest in future trends in marketing, demographics, consumer culture, advertising, or where our society might be headed in a few years, go and read “Is Starbucks the Most Dangerous Competitor to Facebook?” by Jay Baer and Clinton Bonner. Appropriately enough, I found this article via a Tweet, from Olivier Blanchard, a/k/a @TheBrandBuilder.

The article posits that Starbucks is working to reposition itself as an in-store information portal, with all sorts of goodies available to those who go to the stores and log on to its network—and that ads on this network could become the premier place to reach certain consumers, as well as the favored online community that could displace Facebook in our affections…

I’m not sure it’s going to unfold exactly as they see it, but I suspect pieces of it will play out that way. That’s a future that leaves me with more than a little discomfort. It’s like a vertical and horizontal integration of the mind similar to, say, General Motors’ vertical and horizontal integration of the car market starting at least in the 1930s. I don’t like to see so much energy concentrated in one company, whether it’s GM, Google, or Starbucks.

Of course, competitors can arise. But it won’t be easy.

What do you think?

Starbucks as Ad Network/Social Media? OMG #blogboost is a post from: Principled Profit

I came across a real wasted opportunity today. A twitter profile with exactly two Tweets. One said “at work” (3 months ago) and the other, “bored” (21 months ago).

Three very uninteresting words in 21 months. And somehow, this person has managed to get 180 people following back. Not me, however. (Now, do you see why I think autofollow is pointless?).

Twitter is such a powerful tool! I’ve used it to connect and reach out, to learn about trends and issues, to amplify messages from people who are putting out great content, to build my network, to ask for advice and favors, to support people I wanted to do favors to, to give advice, to publicize events and products, to get speaking gigs and book sales, and simply to chat up with friends.

Of course, I’ve been doing social media for over a decade. I am very naturally comfortable in the Twittersphere after 15 years on e-mail discussion groups. My wife, novelist D. Dina Friedman, (@ddinafriedman) finds it a struggle, and limits her participation. But when she posts, she posts good stuff.

It’s possible my new follower is getting tons of value by lurking on over 900 Twitter feeds. But even if this person can’t think of anything to say, it would be only a couple of clicks to retweet messages that were especially compelling. Not to do so is leaving most of Twitter’s value on the table. In Twitter as in life, you gain much more value when you give as well as get.

How NOT to be on Twitter #blogboost is a post from: Principled Profit

I’ve just signed up for the Ultimate Blog Challenge (Twitter hashtag #blogboost), which means a commitment to add ten posts between now and the end of the month. Especially nuts because I’m speaking in Boston tomorrow and probably won’t even get on the computer. Fortunately, I happen to have one post already scheduled.

I’ll be honest. Despite the many benefits of participation (increased visibility, exposure to other people’s networks, and of course a nice boost in the search engines, etc.)—the main reason I’m doing this is because Michelle Shaeffer, a/k/a SmallBizMuse is one of the organizers (along with Michele Scism, who I hadn’t known before, but who seems to offer a lot of useful resources for solopreneurs). She’s been my Virtual Assistant for something like eleven years, and I’ve taken a sort of nachas (Yiddish word meaning pride in the accomplishments of one’s family) in watching her develop some marketing chops of her own, and a dedicated fan base, over the last year or two. She has 4989 followers on Twitter! All organically acquired, as far as I know; I only have 3395.

So my joining her blog challenge is as much a public thank-you for all she’s done for me these last 11 years as anything else. You, of course, will have different reasons for signing up.

Of course, when she’s rich and famous, I’ll probably have to go out and find a new Virtual Assistant. So it goes.

Another Blog Challenge–OK, So I’m Crazy (#blogboost ) is a post from: Principled Profit

Yankee Candle’s world headquarters is a few miles up the road from me. Today’s paper had a short article about recruiting people to dance in one of their commercials, to be filmed in the flagship store, in an attempt to go viral and be shared around thousands of times on YouTube.

The company is modeling the attempt after the very popular series of videos of performances appearing to erupt spontaneously in public places, such as the massive dance rendition of Do Re Me in the Antwerp, Belgium central train station, which has accumulated 18,245,307 views since March 2009 (an average of 1,140,332 views per month).

But I think the company fails to grasp something important: you can’t force social media, and it’s very hard to deliberately get a commercial to go viral. The ones that do, like Honda’s “The Cog” video, are innately interesting and only secondarily promoting a product or brand.

Interestingly, even that famous example has only had 759,774 views, 11 months after it was posted. I’d have expected several million at least. This was a commercial that must have cost a fortune to engineer and set up, and who knows how many takes to get everything in the two-minute sequence working perfectly. Yet only an average of 69,070 people are seeing it in a typical month. hen you consider that several million probably watched it as it aired on TV, that’s rather pathetic, ultimately.

Of course, I haven’t seen Yankee Candle’s commercial yet; it’s still being filmed. But I doubt it will have anything like the power of the Antwerp dance.

Why Do I Think this WON’T Go Viral? is a post from: Principled Profit

150 words a day for seven days. I can do this!

When Michelle Shaeffer first told me about Jeannette Cates’ Blog 30 Challenge to write 30 posts in June, I decided not to participate. It was already a week into the moth when I learned about it, and I knew that with my sister’s family of six coming for a week, I was going to be way behind (and in fact, my inbox ballooned by 1000 unread e-mails while they were here).

Jeannette has set up all sorts of systems that build on this commitment to get more traffic, Twitter fans, etc., and I was disappointed that it wasn’t going to work for me.

But now they’ve gone home again, life is getting a bit more sane, and Jeannette just announced a more do-able version: 7 posts in 10 days. Except that 3 of the 10 days are already gone, so for me, it’ll be a post a day for a week. Or two posts today while I’m in the groove .

I think I’m going to use these seven days as a laboratory to explore my next big project: a trade association for Green marketers. Stay tuned—and PLEASE comment on the ideas I’m exploring. If I find your comment especially useful, I’ll even send you a nice surprise.

OK, I’m In: The Seven-Day Mini #blog30 Challenge is a post from: Principled Profit

Computer guru Tim O’Reilly makes a half-hearted attempt to justify (or at least explain) Facebook’s latest privacy grab. But I find the San Francisco Chronicle’s Bill of Rights for social media users (which O’Reilly quotes at length) much more compelling:

Users have the right to:

1. Honesty: Tell the truth. Don’t make our information public against our will and call it “giving users more control.” Call things what they are.

2. Accountability: Keep your word. Honor the deals you make and the expectations they create. If a network asks users to log in, users expect that it’s private. Don’t get us to populate your network based on one expectation of privacy, and then change the rules once we’ve connected with 600 friends.

3. Control: Let us decide what to do with our data. Get our permission before you make any changes that make our information less private. We should not have data cross-transmitted to other services without our knowledge. We should always be asked to opt in before a change, rather than being told we have the right to opt out after a change is unilaterally imposed.

4. Transparency: We deserve to know what information is being disclosed and to whom. When there has been a glitch or a leak that involves our information, make sure we know about it.

5. Freedom of movement: If we want to leave your network, let us. If we want to take our data with us, let us do that, too. This will encourage competition through innovation and service, instead of hostage-taking. If we want to delete our data, let us. It’s our data.

6. Simple settings: If we want to change something, let us. Use intuitive, standard language. Put settings in logical places. Give us a “maximize privacy settings” button, a and a “delete my account” button.

7. Be treated as a community, not a data set: We join communities because we like them, not “like” them. Advertise to your community if you want. But don’t sell our data out from under us.

[This last sentence is O'Reilly's and not the Chronicle's] Everyone is right to hold Facebook’s feet to the fire as long as they fail to meet those guidelines.

Yes, the Chronicle Bill of Rights seems like common sense ethics to me. The problem is that I am not convinced Facebook’s latest privacy grab is even close to meeting these guidelines. Zuckerberg and others can continue to push the frontiers, but they should do it in ways that respect their members.

Personally, I go into the online world with the expectation that there is no privacy. And therefore the specific changes don’t bother me over-much. But as someone who writes about ethics, I have a problem with obtaining consent for one restricted set of behaviors and then wildly expanding it while requiring opt-out (and difficult opt-out at that) rather than opt-in. It’s nothing more than an electronic form of bait-and-switch–something I find unethical and in fact argue against in my latest book on business ethics, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green: Winning Strategies to Improve Your Profits and Your Planet (co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson).

Yet in the video included in the blog, O’Reilly makes a compelling case that Facebook’s privacy failures and the resultant pushback are essential to pushing the frontier, and that a lot of the innovations that seemed to threaten privacy were actually welcomed once people got used to them. O’Reilly says he’s more worried about Apple than Facebook. I, however, worry more about Google (which he also mentions in the video), which owns an extreme amount of personal data and has a very cavalier attitude toward copyrighted material

Tim O’Reilly & SF Chronicle on SF Privacy Changes is a post from: Principled Profit

An article on one of Newsweek’s blogs speculates that a movie scheduled for next October release will deeply hurt Facebook, and particularly the reputation of founder Mark Zuckerberg. the article also mentions Facebook’s much more immediate problems with various privacy and technical issues.

The movie, says the article’s writer, Nick Summers,

…portrays Zuckerberg as a borderline autistic, entirely ruthless conniver. Nothing sways public opinion like a movie—and this scorcher could counteract the entire body of good press Facebook has received till now.

But as a marketer, I’m fascinated that this writer sees the coming movie as having such a huge negative impact, months before it’s even released. Certainly the script does not appear very complementary toward Zuckerberg. But let’s face it: Bill Gates, Jr. was intensely disliked in his decades as Microsoft CEO. He was frequently described in similar terms.

Facebook, like Microsoft, has become far bigger and more important than the emotional health of its founder. And especially since users don’t pay to enjoy Facebook, I don’t see that kind of backlash coming. I believe the enormous utility of Facebook will easily survive blasts on Zuckerberg’s character, just as it has survived the many very valid privacy concerns. There is no such thing as privacy online. Anything you don’t want the world to know should not be posted–on Facebook, your own website, or anywhere else. You’ve been warned.

Will the Facebook Movie Really Hurt Facebook and Zuckerberg? is a post from: Principled Profit

Ever hear of the first-mover advantage? That’s a concept that Gravity Switch, a local web services firm here in Western Massachusetts, clearly understands. In three weeks, these guys came up with an idea (for a kiosk to frame an iPad, for touchscreen applications like museum displays), got the thing—called “iBracket”—prototyped and built, and started selling it.

In a situation where speed to market is critical, they were right there. Not surprisingly, they started coming up #1 on Google for “iPad mounting bracket”—21 days after coming up with the idea, seven days after finishing the prototype, and three days after taking the first order (which happened one hour after it was first mentioned on a blog).

By comparison, I have a publishing client who should have had his book out a year ago. This client is a walking testimonial to the need to understand that perfection is the enemy of good, and that good is good enough to move forward. The latest delay: I have been waiting for approval on a cover design since February. It would take ten minutes or less to look at the cover and tell us (me and the designer) if it’s good, or what changes need to be made. But no amount of prodding seems to get this person unstuck. Meanwhile, it’s already too late to have books ready for Book Expo America at the end of the month. Total missed opportunity because a false quest for perfection and lack of communication got in the way of good and moving forward and seizing the moment.

I think Gravity Switch’s approach makes a whole lot more sense.

Wow! Talk About Speed to Market: 21 Days from Concept to Release is a post from: Principled Profit

Copywriter Ryan Healy had an interesting post today discussing the reasons why people unsubscribe from his blog. Not surprisingly, many had to do with e-mail overload. But quite a few had to do with Ryan’s openly conservative Christian mindset.

I’ve been reading Ryan’s stuff for a couple of years now, and I’m very far from either conservatism or Christianity. But I still read him. Here’s the comment I posted on his blog that explains why:

I get some posts like those as well. And Ryan, while you and I are poles apart politically (I think Obama has sold out to the conservatives), and while I do consider myself a person of faith, I don’t happen to be a Christian, or particularly religious. But for me, those are not reasons to unsub. You always keep a civil tone, and I think core disagreements force me to rethink my positions, justify them to myself, and sometimes find them wanting and shift. If you were nasty about it, that’d be different. (I don’t read much of Dan Kennedy anymore because he’s way too shrill in his conservatism. I do read Clayton Makepeace, and have even contributed a few articles to his conservative news site as “The Unabashed Progressive”–but I tend to turn off when he goes political).

Anyway, in spite of my ultra-crowded in-box, I’m continuing to read your stuff even as I’ve cut back on a lot of others

And I love both your commitment to ethics (which I share) and your copywriting/marketing smarts.

I trust also that if you read my blog, you wouldn’t be turned off by the unabashedly progressive positions I often take.

Why I Read People I Disagree With is a post from: Principled Profit