Emanuel Rosen sent me a review copy of his new book, The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited — he took the time to personalize the inscription and send along a card — this is WOM done right — I would expect nothing less from the Maestro! How cool is that? I will report on the book as I read through it. Updates forthcoming.

BL and I adore eachother so I was very excited to receive an email from her last night with a link to her latest article on Business Week, Using social media to market your business is a good idea. Just don’t plan on getting your whiz-kid nephew to do it for free — check it out and check BL out over on her blog, What’s Next Blog. Oh, and when BL asks “how many of them have actually created a successful campaign for clients using social media tools? I bet you’d be hard-pressed to find half a dozen with real track records,” I can proudly state that Abraham Harrison LLC has the expertise, the experience, and the track record to boot!  Anyway, here’s the article:

Debunking Six Social Media Myths

For companies, resistance to social media is futile. Millions of people are creating content for the social Web. Your competitors are already there. Your customers have been there for a long time. If your business isn’t putting itself out there, it ought to be.

But before you take the plunge, bear in mind the many myths that surround social media.

1. Social media is cheap, if not free. Yes, many of the tools that can be employed in social media marketing are free to use. These include Google’s (GOOG) video-sharing site YouTube, Yahoo’s (YHOO) photo-sharing site Flickr, the social-network building tool Ning, and content aggregators such as Digg and eBay’s (EBAY) StumbleUpon. Free blogging tools abound too; among them are WordPress, Twitter, and FriendFeed.

However, integrating these tools into a corporate marketing program requires skill, time, and money. The budget for an effective social media marketing campaign begins at $50,000 for two to three months. I’m sure companies have spent less, and I know they’ve spent more.

Building a site that incorporates interactivity, allows user-generated content, and perhaps also includes e-commerce doesn’t come cheap from anyone who knows what they are doing. Even taking free software like WordPress and making it function as an effective interactive site, incorporating e-commerce, creating style sheets that integrate with the company’s branding, takes more than time. That takes skill, experience, and money.

As a rule, a $50,000 to $100,000 budget can cover the creation of a simple multimedia microsite that becomes the center of an online community. Add in some widgets to help distribute the content and form a credible group on Flickr, Twitter, or Facebook and other networking groups to enhance the community aspect of the campaign. Complex functions add to programming and design costs.

A high-yield, highly targeted blog advertising campaign to kick off and support the program will cost an additional $25,000 to $100,000 a month. Advertising through Google’s AdWords, e-mail support, co-registration, and other tools that drive traffic would be additional costs.

2. Anyone can do it. A surfeit of whiz kids and more experienced marketers are claiming to be social media experts and even social media gurus. Search the bios of Robert Scoble’s 56,838 Twitter followers using Tweepsearch (www.tweepsearch.com), an index of the bios of Twitter users, and you’ll find:

• 4,273 Internet marketers
• 1,652 social media marketers
• 513 social media consultants
• 272 social media strategists
• 180 social media experts
• 98 social media gurus
• 58 Internet marketing gurus

How many of them have actually created a successful campaign for clients using social media tools? I bet you’d be hard-pressed to find half a dozen with real track records.

A successful social media campaign integrates social media into the many elements of marketing, including advertising, digital, and PR. Opinion and theory are no match for experience, and the best social media marketers now have more than 10 years of experience incorporating interactivity, blogs, forums, user-generated content, and contests into online marketing.

Video contests by companies hoping for viral buzz and Google juice are as plentiful as mosquitoes on a humid summer night. But, like their insect counterparts, most video contests suck.

It’s the rare video contest that gets as many as 2,000 entries. Many, like Denny’s (DENM) recent disastrous effort, get fewer than 10 entries. Apparently, 48 Denny’s breakfasts over four years wasn’t a big motivator.

3. You can make a big splash in a short time. Sure, sometimes a social media campaign can produce substantial and measurable results quickly.

Social media is great if you’re already a star, but that doesn’t happen overnight. Amid the recent launch of my T-shirt design business, Pawfun.com, I have relied heavily on my 4,000-plus Twitter followers and 120,000 readers of my What’s Next Blog, which I’ve updated as often as five times a day since 2003. Because that network already exists, with not one dollar spent on advertising, we were able to generate more traffic in our first three days than some major companies get after years online.

ZapposChief Executive Tony Hsieh, whose company has millions of customers who are evangelists for the great service that built the brand, quickly became a Twitter star, with more than 32,000 followers. When Dell (DELL), JetBlue Airways (JBLU), the Chicago Bulls, and other love-’em-or-hate-’em brands joined Twitter, they immediately developed huge followings.

Tweets can be used to drive traffic to articles, Web sites, contests, videos, and so on—if people already care about your brand, or if you have a truly original idea that people will want to share with their followers.

One recent example of a Twitter-generated success is Savvy Auntie, a community for aunts, godmothers, and “other women who love kids” that was launched six months ago by Melanie Notkin. She has counted on Twitter to drive traffic, help her find suppliers, products, and even investors. She developed a Twitter following before launching her business, then tapped into it for help when she launched.

4. You can do it all in-house. Wrong! You need strategy, contacts, tools, and experience—a combination not generally found in in-house teams, who often reinvent the wheel or use the wrong tools.

It is rare indeed to find an in-house team that can not only conceive and execute a social media campaign but also drive traffic to it with effective e-mail segmentation, search optimization, blogger outreach, blog advertising, Google ads, and more.

5. If you do something great, people will find it. Quite simply, that never was true. Until you can drive traffic to your social media effort, you’ve got a tree falling in the forest, heard only by those standing nearby. A great number of tools can drive traffic, including StumbleUpon, Digg, and Twitter, but nothing works better than word of mouse—one friend telling another, “Hey look at this!”

6. You can’t measure social media marketing results. You can use a variety of methods, including mentions on blogs and in media; comments on the content; real-time blog advertising results, and click-throughs to your company Web site. You can get very precise statistics from a variety of sites, including Google Trends, Twitter search, Google Analytics, BackType, and Compete.

The tools are there. The gurus who know how to use and interpret them—not so much.

Ochman, president of Whatsnextonline.com, has been creating new media marketing and online brand strategy since 1995 for companies including IBM, Ford, McGraw-Hill, Budget Car Rental, Stacksandstacks.com, and American Greetings. She tracks online marketing trends and campaigns in What’s Next Blog.

I spent three years working at New Media Strategies, from 2003-2006, doing buzz marketing and have spent from 2007-2009 doing some semblance of word-of-mouth and public relations.

As a result, I am fascinated by what Emanuel Rosen, dean of buzz, says 9-years after the publication of his book, The Anatomy of Buzz.  Thank you, Ben McConnell, for this interview!  Check it out at the Church of the Customer Blog.

1. Do you define a difference between word of mouth and buzz?
I use the word “buzz” as an umbrella term to describe all the person-to-person communication about something. I like the definition you gave in your first book: “Buzz = Word of Mouth + Word of Mouse” but I would add to this formula any other type of communication (for example: learning through observation). By the way, the first person to suggest the word buzz to me was Everett Rogers, the late diffusion scholar. I told him that I didn’t like this term, but over the years I grew to like it a lot.

I read your latest blog entry on word of mouth vs. buzz and, although we use different terms, I agree with the spirit of the things. The foundation of buzz is a great customer experience. No doubt about this. But even customers who love you sometimes forget and run out of opportunities to talk. My whole focus has been on ways to trigger and stimulate additional conversations, and there’s more than one way of doing this.

2. Network-theory scientist Duncan Watts disputes a lot of what’s in Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point,” specifically that if marketers just reach a few influential tastemakers then word of mouth should flourish. Where do you stand on Watts’s research?
My approach is practical: there are people who talk more than others. Whenever you can, cost effectively, identify these folks and work with them — go for it. Watts’s work is an important reminder that not all buzz is created by hubs or influentials, but it does not prove that connecting with these people doesn’t work. In the new edition of my book I dedicate five pages to this debate but the above is my view in a nutshell.

3. What’s your assessment of how social media affects word of mouth today?
Social media let text-based buzz explode, but perhaps more important is the effect it has on visual buzz. Buzz is not only about telling, but more and more about showing. My friend doesn’t have to tell me that he likes Lego Mindstorms. He just posts a video of the latest robot he built using these Lego bricks. My cousin doesn’t have to tell me that she supports a certain organization.  I see on Facebook that she’s now a fan of that cause. A lot of the value of social media comes from this type of implicit recommendation.

4. How prevalent is fake buzz, whether its agencies creating astroturfing campaigns for clients or companies comment-stuffing review sites like Yelp?
I didn’t investigate how prevalent it is but I’m sure that undercover marketing is out there and that’s such a shame. Anyone who cares about word of mouth should fight this type of manipulation. I like the approach of Zagat and Angie’s List, that see it as part of their job to ensure the integrity of their sites. On a related issue, I think we should encourage everyone to generate more experience-based buzz (“I read this book and I liked it because…) as opposed to secondhand buzz (“my friend says that his cousin read this book and it’s cool.”) With too much secondhand buzz, we’ll end up with what can be best described as a buzz bubble as illustrated by a review posted on Amazon: “I haven’t read this book, but judging from the online reviews below, I don’t think it’s a very good book.”

5. In the big picture, what do you think is more helpful in understanding buzz and word of mouth: marketing or psychology?
Psychology. I think that the first step is always to understand what motivates people to do certain things. Marketing techniques come and go, but if you understand why people talk about products, you can find new ways to motivate them to talk about your brand.

My friend Todd Tweedy popped me the following press release that I would love to repeat for him, back-scratching and all.  Don’t judge me!  For more information, check out the Audience Machine website!

Social Networking Pioneers Launch Audience Machine To Help Online Brands Leverage Shared Interests Across Social Networks

Audience Machine to provide unique social networking technologies and viral marketing services to Brands, Entertainment, Health & Wellness and Education Companies

Los Angeles, CA and Charlottesville, Virginia - February 17, 2009 – Social networking and viral marketing expert, VBMA (Viral & Buzz Marketing Association) board member, and Perceptions, Practices & Ethics in Word of Mouth Marketing author Todd Tweedy today introduced, Audience Machine Inc., a unique technology company helping online brands who want to identify, cultivate and mobilize communities of individuals with shared interest across social networking sites to build their businesses using Audience Machine’s online marketing tools.

Guided by Tweedy, and video technology pioneer and advertising veteran Dan Bates, Audience Machine helps brand and product managers, chief marketing officers as well as ecommerce executives to establish new networks of social networking connections and dialog in support of purchasing preferences and participation in word of mouth referrals.

“Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are relationship amplifiers for brands, products and services that can have a profound influence on preferences, referral behavior, information consumption and internet usage if advertisers are prepared to listen to, act on and match the right technology and community practices to support a desired purchase outcome or subscription,” noted Todd Tweedy, co-founder and CEO of Audience Machine. “There is a natural migration of dialogs from offline sources to online social sharing sites. Marketing executives want to embrace customer-facing ad strategies and incorporate social networking processes in their firm’s online marketing DNA that can boost product perceptions and potential sales but many enterprises lack the expertise and resources to realize those objectives. Audience Machine was founded to give online brands unique technology solutions, community development processes, marketing services, analytics, and expertise they need to engage and collaborate with audiences.”

Audience Machine also announced that is has signed a strategic business development consulting agreement that will be led by Provident Financial Management, a prominent established leader in entertainment and media business management.

“Audience Machine is at the heart of an evolving consumer-facing marketing phenomenon that is transforming connections on social networks into a powerful audience generation channel. Led by an experienced executive team and founded on concrete business fundamentals with a number of high-profile clients already on board, Audience Machine is a rising star among our media and communication clients,” stated Craig Sussman, Business Development Director at Provident. We’re excited to support Audience Machine as they grow their technology and services business practices with customers that want and need to expand and sustain business growth by creating networks of social commerce.”

Word of Mouth Communications Opportunity

The eighth annual Burson-Marsteller/PRWeek CEO Survey published in November 2008, which surveys CEO’s about the changing influence of different types of media as well as plans for digital communications including social networking, reported that 60% of CEO’s noted that word of mouth has the fastest growing influence on business in the past three years but that just one-fifth of firms have used social media to communicate with stakeholder groups.

The proliferation of social networking and community sites has transformed viral and word of mouth marketing practices into a practical and necessary communication solution due in part to research findings that note that nearly 80% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know over all forms of advertising and marketing. These authentic and trusted voices serve an important role by distributing compete information for others to act upon across search engines and into indexes of shared knowledge that people can access along with advertiser-generated experiences and evidence whenever 1,463,632,361 internet users from around the world – based on Internet Usage and Population in North American data provided by Internet World Stats – need to research a brand, product or service.

Audience Machine Team

Led by Tweedy, who’s career started in the political grassroots mobilization arena working on Presidential, Senatorial, Congressional, Inaugural and issue-based public relations campaigns, the Audience Machine team has 35 years of combined leadership experience in online marketing, real-time communications, ASP development, video ad technology, viral marketing, search engine optimization, and community development practices.

Dan Bates, co-founder, president and COO brings a vast wealth of knowledge in community technology development, online video, online advertising and a decade’s experience in filmed entertainment and music. Bates previous served as CEO of Avant Interactive, an object-based video ad serving technology provider.

About Audience Machine

With offices in Los Angeles, California and Charlottesville, Virginia, Audience Machine is a provider of unique community technology solutions and online marketing services. Audience Machine works with online brands to identify, cultivate and mobilize communities of shared interest to establish social commerce that CMO’s, brand and product managers, and ecommerce executives can enlist to grow their business. The company is privately held. For more information, please visit Audience Machine’s website – http://www.audiencemachine.com, email info@audiencemachine.com, or call 1.800.573.1536. Audience Machine is presently engaged with several beta customers and will release its first product in Q2 of this year.

About Provident Financial Management

Established over twenty-five years ago with offices in Los Angeles, Woodland Hills, San Francisco and New York, Provident has become a leader in various entertainment and media business management practices. Provident recently established a strategic and business planning department to assist mid sized and emerging entertainment and media companies with their growth and business development needs. Provident Financial Management is part of RSM McGladrey one of the largest and most prominent accounting firms in the world. For more information on RSM McGladrey, please visit http://www.rsmi.com.

Keyword Tags:
social networking, online marketing, viral marketing, audience machine, provident financial management

PR Contact: Todd Tweedy
434.996.6370
todd@audiencemachine.com

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Bloody great, best-in-breed, article about online PR and marketing ethics by my buddy David Gelles of the Financial Times — he is surely a golden child and new media journalist rock star… be sure to put this article in front of your boss, whether you are a PR flack or are a corporate stooge — I think this article is actually going to be printed into the pink pages of the FT on Thursday, February 12 — go pick it up and hand it to the members of the C-suite, Blogs that spin a web of deception:

A web of deception By David Gelles

An overenthusiastic em­ployee from the computer supplies maker Belkin posted an offer online last month – $0.65 for anyone willing to write a positive review of Belkin products on Amazon.com. Several people took up the offer, producing gushing appraisals of Belkin products they had never used.

After a blogger exposed the scam, news organisations jumped on the story. The offer was removed and Belkin’s president weighed in with an apology.

The incident was a public relations disaster for Belkin. It was also a prime example of “Astroturfing”, the unsavoury marketing practice of generating fake grassroots enthusiasm for a product.

Given the anonymity afforded by the internet, it is hardly surprising that deceptive marketing is on the rise. Consumers are spending more time online and companies are seeking new ways to reach them.

But now, in an effort to regulate how employees behave on the web, companies and industry groups are developing their own online codes of ethics. They want to ensure that when staff do engage with social media, they act ethically.

Last year, Coca-Cola established its own set of social media guidelines and distributed them in a memo to all employees. The policy emphasises the need for transparency and encourages employees to use common sense when discussing the brand online. “We’ve always had very diverse channels to reach consumers,” says Adam Brown (pictured), digital communications director. “Wherever they are, that’s where we go. That’s now evolved into the need for a social media policy.”

So when Mr Brown went online to promote Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl advertisements, he followed the guidelines. On Facebook, Mr Brown announced that he was a Coke employee and pointed other users to the Coke ads on YouTube. On Pittsburgh Steelers fan forums, Mr Brown, who is from Pittsburgh, named his employer and then directed fans to the Coke blog, which had an interview with Steelers’ defensive star Troy Polamalu.

Mr Brown said more deliberate engagement with online conversations was a necessity for a global company such as Coca-Cola. “We’re mentioned several thousand times a day on blogs, and there are several hundred tweets about us on Twitter,” he says. “There is a lot of conversation taking place about our brand without us. Where appropriate, we wanted to start getting involved.”

Companies began interacting with social media years ago. But only recently have those involved with the industry perceived a need to develop ethical standards. Among the first to do so was The Word of Mouth Marketing Association, an organisation for the viral and buzz marketing industry. Womma published an ethics code in 2005, emphasising honesty of relationship, opinion and identity.

Since then, many companies have used the Womma code as a blueprint for their own guidelines. “Companies are learning every day that there is a right way and a wrong way to engage with social media,” says Paul Rand, vice-president of Womma’s board and head of its ethics project. “Some companies are learning by touching the burning pot; some companies are learning from the mistakes of ­others.”

One company that “touched the burning pot” is Shelfari, a social networking site for book lovers, owned by Amazon. As it battled for market share in late 2007, it came under fire for its poor design and clunky user interface. Soon, comments appeared on more than 50 blogs attesting to Shelfari’s greatness. “I have been on Shelfari for a couple of months now and absolutely love it,” read one. “Shelfari is such a great site. I joined a couple of months ago and I have been hooked on it ever since,” read another.

But all the comments were posted by the same user, “schaufferwaffer”, who was soon exposed as a Shelfari employee. Shelfari’s chief executive admitted to the Astroturfing (he blamed it on an intern who knew no better), and promised it would never happen again.

Such behaviour is declared out of line in the “disclosure best practices toolkit”, an ethics code drawn up by the Blog Council, an organisation for heads of social media at big companies. The document advises employees and agencies to announce whom they work for when communicating with blogs or bloggers. It also encourages employees to provide a means for contacting them directly, if someone they interact with via social media wants to follow up with a two-way conversation. The toolkit also warns against using pseudonyms.

IBM was one of the first companies to develop its own social media policy. In 2005, it published its “social computing guidelines”, which insist that employees write under their own names, using the first person, and make it clear they are speaking for themselves and not on behalf of IBM. It also prohibits employees from referencing clients, partners or suppliers without their approval.

UPS is developing its own online ethics policy after recognising how damaging Astro­turfing and other online misbehaviour can be for a company’s reputation. “If one of our airplanes goes down, we have a very clear plan for getting information to the media,” says Norman Black, director of global media services. “We realised we did not have a good plan for responding to a crisis on the ­internet.”

In some countries, deceptive marketing practices are not only frowned upon but also illegal. In the UK, the law identifies “falsely representing oneself as a consumer” as a punishable offence. And in 2006, the US Federal Trade Commission issued regulations stating that word-of-mouth marketers must disclose their relationships. But in spite of these new rules there has been little enforcement of the measures.

Even without prosecution, Belkin seems to have learnt its lesson. Melody Chalaban, speaking for the company, says Belkin will soon be holding seminars to teach employees how to interact ethically with social media, and is also considering joining Womma. “We want to stress that this is an isolated incident,” says Ms Chalaban. “We don’t endorse or condone unethical practices like this.”

Side Bar: The last post: underhand tactics can end in a PR disaster

* Flogging. Fake blogs can help companies get a personal voice behind a marketing campaign – but they risk a PR disaster if they are uncovered. When Sony tried to boost sales of its PSP portable gaming unit, it started a blog supposedly by two boys who wanted PSPs for Christmas. When it was revealed as a fake, Sony apologised and took it down.

* Astroturfing. A technique that gets its name from the practice of generating fake grassroots enthusiasm. One Florida company, PayPerPost, serves as a matchmaker between companies willing to pay for good press and bloggers willing to plug products that they have never used. After receiving criticism, PayPerPost now requires bloggers to disclose that their posts are sponsored.

* Comment spamming. Flooding the comment fields of blogs with enthusiastic notes about a company, even with full disclosure, is not welcomed by web users. When a Motorola employee commented on dozens of posts on a technology blog – each comment a plug for the new Motorola Krave – bloggers responded with snide criticisms of his spamming, which duly ceased.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

When I wrote my scathing response to the Whopper Virgins campaign as perpetrated by Burger King over on Ad Age’s Global Idea Network, Ian Lurie responded with Whopper Virgins: Not Appalling. Not Brilliant, Either.

Whopper Virgins: Not Appalling. Not Brilliant, Either

Chris Abraham over at Marketing Conversations wrote an thoughtful critique of Burger King’s new Whopper Virgins campaign.

I appreciate Chris’s opinion: The video is at times jingoistic and, frankly, a little embarrassing if you’re an American. Burger King went out of their way to find people in local clothing minutes from major urban centers in Europe. How exactly did they do that? Much of the video is just more ugly Americans pointing and giggling at the rest of the world.

I also see Burger King’s thinking: This is a great viral piece. The effort alone – flying a broiler all around the world to cook burgers, for gosh sakes – is worthy of a documentary.

So, is the Whopper Virgins campaign ‘good’ marketing? Marketing should:

• Help the target audience make informed decisions about products. Nothing about this video does that. Nothing tells me why I’d want a Whopper.
• It should not make the target brand look foolish. Burger King ends up looking (in my opinion) a tad silly. They spent who-knows-how-much money to shoot this. Could they have better spent the money on other aspects of marketing? Or on their product? Also, “Whopper Virgins? Are you kidding me?
• Make me want the product. This video utterly fails to do that. Granted, I’m a classic middle-class liberal. So I have no sense of humor. But I’m also an avid fast food consumer. This video makes me want Wendy’s.
• Take risks. Good marketers take chances now and then. Nothing wrong with that. And this video clearly takes a gamble.
• It should generate buzz. It’s certainly done that, with headlines like “Socially Awkward” and “Just Bad Taste?”.

I don’t think this video deserves the controversy it’s generated. You could interpret it as offensive. But would you consider it as offensive if the video had been done by National Geographic? Probably not.

But it’s not good marketing, either. It’s an art project: A huge investment of dollars in something that probably won’t pay off, in spite of the kerfuffle right now.

How many burgers do you have to sell to pay for that rental helicopter, I wonder?

I am not willing or able to say that the following 91 blog posts about social media, blogging, new media, social networking, etc, are the definite top-91 posts because I didn’t have the time or attention to go through all of my 5,437 blog posts:

1. Social Media Reputation Management
2. The Social Mediasphere is Truly Global
3. Real PR Takes Real Relationships, Really
4. Imagine Meeting Someone in a Bar
5. What Motivated You to Learn About Social Media?
6. Strong Community Demands Strong Leadership
7. Three Mistakes PR Folks Make Pitching Bloggers
8. What in the Heck are Twitter Hashtags?
9. Do Social Media Solutions Stagnate After Acquisition?
10. What is the Difference Between Marketing and PR Online?
11. Should Your Business Tap Social Networks?
12. Comprehensive Online Conversation Marketing Campaigns
13. Marketing in the New Millenium is PR
14. Blogger Outreach is PR and Not Marketing
15. Only Public Diplomacy Can Heal the U.S. Brand Perception Crisis Abroad
16. PR Needs Geeks
17. Corporations Do Social Media Wrong
18. Online Field Marketing
19. Web 2.0 Mirrors America as She Actually Appears
20. Live Commercials are the New Black for Television
21. Online Outreach and Online Engagement Primer
22. Do PR Execs and Lawyers Have the Same Bad Rep?
23. The Gap Between the Geeks and the Wonks Needs to be Mended
24. Old PR Needs to Learn to Love Not Loathe the People
25. What is a Vertical Blog?
26. Online Communities are Real Communities of Real People
27. Caveat Emptor et Lector
28. Long Tail PR Requires New Media Marketing and Online Outreach
29. Control the Language and you Control the Mind
30. PR A-List Bloggers are Alexa Amateurs
31. Online Communities are Not Virtual
32. Bloggers Can Ignore Basic Journalism Ethics
33. What I Would Have Done if I Were Edelman Me2Revolution
34. The New York Times Code of Ethics is Mandatory for Journalists Not Bloggers
35. In Defense of Edelman over Bribery Charges
36. Online Publicity
37. RSS Feed and Syndication Strategy
38. People Talk Online Like They Do Over Coffee or Across the Cubicle
39. Hill Holliday is an Expert at Textual Healing Flash for SEO
40. Repost: Blogs the Main Stream Media Read Redux
41. Online Reputation Management
42. Ping Servers and Wire Services Converge
43. Prospect Bloggers Before Blogger Outreach
44. New Press Releases Need Not Be New Media
45. How Many Influencers, Influencials, and Opinion Leaders are There?
46. Effective PR Blogging
47. Search Engine Optimization Works like a Champ
48. Magical Misdirection in Public Affairs and Politics
49. We Bloggers are Kingmakers
50. Authentic is as Authentic Does in the Blogosphere
51. Your Key Online Influencers are a One In A Million
52. MSM is Losing Control of the Press via Blogging, the Next Gutenberg Revolution
53. The Gender Divide in the Blogosphere is Actually a Literacy Divide
54. How Can Main Stream Media and Bloggers/Citizen Journalists Collaborate to Produce Better News/Information?
55. Is There a Widening Gap Between Mainstream Media and Bloggers/Citizen Journalists?
56. What is the Diff Between Advertising, Media Relations, PR, Marketing, Selling, Branding, and SPAM
57. The Definition of Medium as in “Because the Medium is the Message”
58. Why I Blog What I Blog on this Particular Blog
59. Brand Protection on Blogs
60. Articles About Blogging for Business, Professional Blogging, Corporate Blogging and PR Blogging
61. A Sample of the Best Blog, Blogging, and Internet Articles
62. Online Advertising’s Tipping Point Approaches
63. PR Blogging for Brand Promotion
64. The Interconnectedness of the Blogosphere and Mediasphere
65. Top Ten Rules for New Media Branding
66. An Argument for Online Market Intelligence
67. Virtual Communities v Blogosphere
68. Caveat Emptor et Lector
69. Always Remember the 95 Theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto
70. Effective PR Blogging
71. Control Your Google Listing
72. Quick Blog Search Engine Optimization Tips You Can Control
73. Don’t Worry You Didn’t Miss the Height of the Blogosphere
74. The Blogosphere Exists and it Can Include MSM
75. Comprehensive Online Conversation Marketing Campaigns
76. Three Mistakes PR Folks Make Pitching Bloggers
77. Earned Media for SEO and Profit
78. Using Twitter for Branding and Engagement
79. Social Media Reputation Management
80. The Powerful SEO Benefits of Blogger PR Outreach
81. Always Remember the 95 Theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto
82. Should Your Business Tap Social Networks?
83. Blogger Outreach is PR and Not Marketing
84. Live Commercials are the New Black for Television
85. All About Word-of-Mouth Marketing AKA Buzz Marketing
86. Journalism Gods Agree with Me on The Bribe
87. Marketing Online
88. What to Do When Your Decide Your Company Should Blog
89. Fake it ‘Til You Make It Repost
90. Purina ONE is Role Model for Word-Of-Mouth Marketing
91. What Networking is Versus What Networking Should Be

I posted version one of this article on my blog already. I showed it to Matt Creamer, my editor over at AdAge, and he told me he didn’t care if I had already posted it but that I would need to add a couple primer paragraphs to bring people into the history behind the Whopper Virgins controversy. I wrote a couple-few paragraphs and submitted and Matt posted it yesterday, One Whopper … and Hold the Ugly-American Sauce:

One Whopper … and Hold the Ugly-American Sauce

Burger King Campaign Shows Off American Provincialism at Its Worse

Burger King has brought the Whopper vs. Big Mac taste test to the farthest corners of the globe in search of Whopper Virgins. According to the site, there are still people in the world who have never been marketed to by either McDonald’s or Burger King, to say nothing of having tasted the two flagship burgers of each fast-food restaurant. For these people, Whoppers and Big Macs were either spirited to them from the closest restaurants–In the case of Bucharest, Romania, both were within 15 minutes–or the burgers were made by hand by a quality expert on a specially-designed propane travel flame broiler.

Whopper Virgins promised to be a proper documentary film, I was assured. The filmmakers would simply find people who have not been market-bombed by McDonald’s — a few of the uncorrupted — and allow them to taste both burgers et voila! Nothing could go wrong, surely, from such a noble aim, right? I mean, their goal was to simply escape the mediasphere and find some folks who have remained (until, of course, now) pure from the media machine (Schrodinger’s documentary!).

Of course, a lot of the buzz about this documentary happened on Twitter, especially in light of Motrin Moms and the Pepsi suicide ads. People have been very leery of the entire endeavor. And, of course, it has been called American imperialism.

The Whopper Virgins documentary reveals as much about the provincialism of Americans as it does possibly about the “primitives” they’re documenting. Besides, the American obsession with the “Noble Savage” is so 18th century. And this sort of untoward behavior is the furthest thing from noblesse oblige. They are neither being noble nor are they honoring any sort of moral obligation.

My one question is whether authentic cultural garb was procured for these taste-testers. I hate to burst your bubble but Bucharest is a proper city with a major university. I have a friend who has her Masters in genetics and her Ph.D. in immunology. She almost never dresses in these Romanian costumes. Wait, actually never. Not only that, but this McDocumentary (sorry McDonalds) should have been edited because the open and honest interviews with the ugly Americans is appallingly insensitive and disgusting.

So, tell me, are those traditional cultural costumes authentic or monkey suits? Was this the decision of the bonehead producer or the director, or did this crisp, minty-fresh garb just happen to be what these folks were wearing? Were they just aching to be used there in the back of everyones’ closet? Or, was this the regalia these test subject were wearing when and where they were discovered? I really want to know!

The most deplorable part of this documentary is the critique and unself-aware commentary of the way these test subjects took to the burger, along the lines of “These people are so authentic because they don’t even know how to eat a burger to say nothing of a sandwich.”

I have been very happy with Central Desktop as part of the Abraham Harrison business and client services platform.

We had previously used Basecamp HQ. I didn’t mind it but my team hated it so I had Sara Wilson and Saul Wainwright go out to explore all of the project management, task management, business management, and process management tools out there — a collaboration tool that my team and I could use every day to help synchronize our daily work.

We needed all the help we can get since Abraham Harrison is a virtual and distributed company, spread across 7 countries and 16 times zones. When Saul and Sara finally made their recommendation, they recommended Central Desktop.

Back in April, Saul wrote an article on Marketing Conversation, Central Desktop Does it for us!!, and we received the associated buzz from Central Desktop.

Central Desktop offers a lot of different things, including group shared calendars, collaborative wikis, intranet tools, project collaboration, task management, web conferencing, audio conferencing, extranets tools, project management, forums, group discussions, salesforce.com, global search, online spreadsheets, and iCal compatibility.

We have limited our Central Desktop usage so far to project collaboration, task management, group wikis, asset and file management and storage, group discussions, and the iCal feature. We use Google Apps (Google Docs, Google Mail, Google Calendar) religiously so there are certain things we don’t need from Central Desktop. We’re also slowly drinking the Salesforce.com kool-aid, so I am sure we’ll start making that work for us soon.

Anyway, I am posting Saul’s review of Central Desktop below because I think it is very interesting and I think you’ll learn a lot and maybe check Central Destop out.

Central Desktop Does it for us!!

So, I don’t know if I have mentioned this on our blog. But, we spent months, and I mean literally months looking around for a web based project management tool that met the needs of Abraham Harrison. You would think that this would be an easy mission. Hell no!!

We wanted to dump Basecamp so badly, yet we didn’t wanna go to something else that was kind of….well…ho hum!!! Just when I was at the end of my tether in the search a bit of synchronicity came along and a potential client mentioned Central Desktop to us.

So, off I ran and checked out this software – it was on my list but I hadn’t really give it much of a go. After a week of digging around, having my Executive Assistant dig around in CD – we both agreed that this was the one for us.

It is simple, clean, fast and does what it needs to do. There are elements missing, for sure, but that is a given. My biggest gripe is their need to integrate more time tracking/management capabilities. However, after a phone call with the CEO, Isaac Garcia (heck how often do you get to talk to the CEO of a company as a small time client) he assured me that they are working on many improvements.

What I found so cool about this company (besides their awesome platform) was that they had built this tool up without any major funding, with paying customers – no, “come use us for free” approach in the hope that it would make them popular. No, they did it while having to please paying customers.

So, last week I got an email from Isaac, following up on the phone call we had had a week earlier and he informed me that Central Desktop had just got its first round of major funding – $7 million from Openview Venture Partners. Not bad, not bad at all….especially when you realize that Openview is one of Central Desktops paying customers (well, maybe they will give them a free account).

I like seeing companies do it the old fashion way. Create a good product, get people to buy it and watch it grow. Hell, getting popular off “free giveaways” is always easier, but certainaly doesn’t guarantee a good product.

Congrats Isaac and the CD gang!! We over at AH look forward to more and more slick features and are stoked that you guys are around.

“Abraham & Harrison has been a critical catalyst for the online debut of SURVIVOR CORPS. They helped us create a blogging buzz around the launch of Survivor Corps, offering savvy counsel on strategically targeted audiences who would resonate with our mission. A&H cleverly leveraged the release of my book — I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis — to generate word of mouth promotion online and cultivate new supporters for our work to help survivors of war in the United States and abroad. Abraham & Harrison will jump into a campaign with passion and panache. They’ve been responsive to our needs and a pleasure to work with from day one.” — Jerry White, Co-Founder and Director, Survivor Corps

I am starting a new series of  blog posts called “What AH Does.” This is a series of free-form posts by members of the Abraham Harrison staff.  Instead of a book report, I asked my staff to write a company report.  While the request was generally free-form and I didn’t care what was written — everything is good — I did float some general questions that people could respond to. This week, we’re exploring What AH Does through the eyes of our Director of Operation, Saul Wainwright — Saul chose to respond directly and openly to my suggested topics and questions, and I quite love the response (Via Marketing Conversation):

Cocktail Party Synopsis:

Abraham Harrison is a PR agency that focuses on the social media environment – primarily blogs, and social networks like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. We help to amplify, create and promote conversations around client’s products and services.

We focus predominantly on getting bloggers to actively participate in the conversation by reaching out to them – via emails, twitter or comments on their blogs – with the intention of alerting the blogger to a product or service and to get them to blog about these products/services.

This ultimately increases the amount of online-buzz surrounding the client and leads to a filtering of the conversation in all directions. We never sell a product – we only talk about the product.
   
With longer-term clients we focus on building them a strong and active social media presence that we ultimately teach the client to operate in and to manage on their own. Our goal is to make our clients stronger and to educate them about how to actually participate and actively use this incredibly powerful resource.
   
Our methods are open, our conversation is open and we enjoy seeing our clients – who are often nervous of this space – moving actively and strongly into the realm of social media.

AH Business Plan:

I see AH moving into this arena with the goal of creating an agency that operates in as close to a non-hierarchical structure as possible – something fluid with nodal points. AH hopes to become an active agency in the social media realm and is open to partnering with multiple agencies providing the “services’ that are necessary to successfully implement an online social media PR campaign.

What we do that is cool?

AH is able to get people to talk – to talk to us, to talk to others and ultimately to help amplify the voice of different organizations and companies. All of this is done with out having to pay a single blogger for their time, their input! This shows a) how altruistic on one level people are b) the power of a story – everyone wants to hear a story, wants to tell a story and to feel like they have access to stories

What do you think we do that is most effective?

Our online outreaches are very effective – and I see them getting better and better. We are very good at this process and will continue to refine it. I think implementing my idea discussed below (and have mentioned in meetings and emails) will be an incredible tool to help us move more effectively into this space.

What could we do to grow our services?

The continued and growing presence of Chris will help – I would like to see Chris’s blog grow in prominence and I think this will greatly lead to increased business.

I also think a little bit of “specialization” or at least the “impression of specialization” will go a long way especially if this is expressed on the website. So – I think our work around NGOs could really grow – all of our most successful clients are interested in this.

Thank you very much, Saul, for sharing so openly and for pouring your passion, experience, and skills into the company.

While very many media outlets support del.icio.us in their bookmarking and social media strategies, there has been very little innovation in the del.icio.us social bookmarking platform — this has been a major problem with properties that have been acquired by big firms such as AOL, Google, and Yahoo!, in the case of del.icio.us. Allen Stern wrote a very insightful post, Did Delicious Lose Its Chance To Be FriendFeed?, about how FriendFeed has started to take del.icio.us’ lunch based on innovation and creativity:

[...]Had Delicious (and Yahoo) moved faster on the release could they have become what’s hot with FriendFeed today? I get that FriendFeed allows you to share your delicious bookmarks. But what I am talking about here is something much bigger strategically. By “sitting” on the release, the team lost their chance to move the strategy forward.

[...]Had Yahoo wanted to actually take their Delicious investment and do something with it, how hard would it have been to add the same functionality? If we look back a year, Delicious had a much larger “buzz share” than they do today. When I look at the CN logs, we rarely see any traffic from Delicious and haven’t had a frontpage link in probably nine months. Yet in the last week, I’ve seen way more traffic from FriendFeed. Yahoo’s Delicious service has a “close to mainstream” userbase and sure missed a golden opportunity to move forward – a fail whale if you will.

[...]If you look at the topic I’ve discussed here, it’s basically what Fred Wilson discussed when he wrote about stagnation when companies acquire startups. Who will come up next and displace Upcoming and/or Flickr as the techies choice?

Oh, and be sure to join me on FriendFeed as well as del.icio.us!

Jennifer Mattern just wrote a great post answering some of your questions regarding the important question, Should You Jump Into Social Networks to Promote Your Business? over at RedFly Marketing:

There’s a lot of buzz in the online PR world about social networking, whether that be traditional social networks like MySpace and Facebook or social networking through microblogging services such as Twitter.

Should you jump into social networking to promote your business? And if so, with so many options available, how do you choose which social networks to participate in?

Benefits of Social Networking

I’m not much of a supporter of diving into every new or large social networking environment or fad to promote a business. However, social networks do have some benefits that make them worth considering as an addition to your online PR efforts:

1. Social networks and microblogging services can serve multiple roles with a single tool. For example, you can network with colleagues, while also promoting offers or information to clients and potential clients of your company.

2. Social networking is cost-effective. Most networks are free to join.

3. Social networks and microblogging services can help you get news or a message out very quickly to a targeted audience.

Problems with Social Networking

Despite its benefits, there are also some drawbacks to social networking for promoting a business.

1. Social networking can be a productivity killer. Many businesses simply try to do too much – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, etc. The multiple updates aren’t always reaching different audiences, and it’s a waste of time that could be spent elsewhere if you’re simply targeting the same groups with the same messages, but in different locations.

2. It’s easy to get too personal, or too off-topic, when social networking, Twittering, etc. You may divulge more information than you wanted to (or than you should), and once you’ve said it, you can’t take it back. The instant gratification factor also makes it easier to communicate without thinking things through; contributing to negative “Web wars” at times.

3. The bulk of the population still hasn’t embraced these technologies, meaning your target audiences may not yet be well-represented there.

Choosing Social Networking Services for Your Needs

There are good things about social networking for PR. There are negative things as well. So how can you strike a happy balance? How do you choose the best social media communication tools for your business, without over-extending your resources to reach only a small portion of your audience?

1. Target, target, target! It doesn’t matter what the largest social network is if your specific audience isn’t represented there. Niche social networking tools may be a far better option than simply going with networks that always seem to be getting the buzz. For example, no network yet beats Myspace for promoting to musicians. If you’re trying to reach an adult audience as opposed to teens, you may be better off using a service like Gather.com. If you want to network with other professionals in your industry, LinkedIn might serve your needs more effectively. There are also smaller social networks targeted to very specific niches (webmasters, photographers, etc.). There’s no reason to try to “do it all.”

2. Understand the numbers. Don’t join a social network simply because they say they have X number of members. Those numbers mean absolutely nothing. What you should care about is not the total membership, but instead the “active” membership (and those specifically within your target audience – it goes back to targeting).

3. Get to know a network’s policies on promotion, as it applies to your plans. The last thing you want is to be labeled a spammer. Understand that these tools are more about networking, building relationships, and communicating than blatant promotion, as in marketing and sales.

No matter how deep you decide to delve into social networking and / or microblogging, always make sure you’re making the best use of your time, and reaching your intended targets.

Here are her other suggested articles:

• Online PR vs. Internet Marketing
• The 5 Easiest Ways To Get Search Engines To Trust You
• Ten Tips for Building Authority Status in Your Niche or Industry
• Web Credibility Factors You Need To Keep In Mind
• SEO And PPC Should Be Friends – PPC Management & SEO Crossover
• DMOZ Submission Guide

Well, in the blogger-to-blogger dialog between Norman Birnbach and me, starting with How Do You Establish Metrics for a Blogging Initiative? Take a page from the campaign for Jerry White’s book then moving onto Guy Kawasaki on the impact of bloggers on PR and buzz, then Gifting Bloggers Doesn’t Mean Pushing Swag, Stevie Wilson on The Swag Culture of LA, finally onto To Swag or Not To Swag — Actually Chris Abraham Clarifies the Notion of Swag:

To Swag or Not To Swag — Actually Chris Abraham Clarifies the Notion of Swag

In response to my blog entry, Guy Kawasaki on the impact of bloggers on PR and buzz, Chris Abraham has provided additional perspective about swag in his post, “Gifting Bloggers Doesn’t Mean Pushing Swag.”

Check it out, but here’s some of what he said:

• “Gifts don’t have to be free stuff — like books or iPods — gifts can be in the form of knowledge, intellectual property, insider access, or blogger exclusives; gifts can be informational, gifts can solve a community problem, or customer service issues.
• “What a gift needs to be is super-valuable to the recipient — the value of a gift is based on perception. You need to be willing to give the gift that the blogger wants and not the gift you are prepared or want to give.
• “What is not cool is half measures or crappy, throw-away gifts, the Internet version of key rings and a bowl of candy. Offering throttled, limited or restricted demos (without access to the full version when it is released); offering a single book chapter (without the whole book being an option); or granting “exclusive” access to something that is already released is just plain lame and will result in severe negative consequences.”
• “It is pretty bad to not give a gift when you reach out to bloggers just because you feel entitled or represent a fancy client but it is worse to be stingy about the gift you do give. Make sure the gift is generous — give until it hurts.”

This is very useful. I’m sorry if I misrepresented what Chris was telling me about swag.

Thanks, Norman, I appreciate the follow-up post that better explains my methodology and the implemented strategy and best practices of Abraham Harrison.

Abraham & Harrison offers its clients comprehensive Online Conversation Marketing campaigns based on the core fundamentals of effective Marketing Communication techniques. We integrate Online Publicity, Online Grassroots & New Media Marketing, Business Intelligence and Search Engine Services to ensure that our clients’ message, the right message, is being portrayed in every corner of the digital space. Additionally, we offer our expertise in the areas of profiling, intelligence, forensics and crisis management. Although Abraham & Harrison offers its clients the ability to cherry pick the services that best suit their needs, we strongly suggest customized, tailored packages of services for most clients, as our experience has proven the power of an integrated, comprehensive approach.

Please see our website for further information: http://www.chrisabraham.com/

Abraham Harrison LLC Services

Online Publicity and Blogger Relations

Not unlike traditional public relations, the Abraham & Harrison Online Publicity and Blogger Relations strategy not only identifies the right people for you to be talking to, but also connects these people with your brand and your message. In targeting the true online opinion leaders, we are able to not only hone in on the demographic communities that matter most to your brand, but also promote your products and services in a favorable light. Online Public Relations is an ideal brand awareness and brand promotion solution for small to mid-sized businesses looking to increase their visibility online. In leveraging the constant flow of online chatter, the Abraham & Harrison team creates and fosters relationships based on like-mindedness, or the opinion leader’s likelihood to be receptive to your brand and messaging. It is the relationship building aspect of this program that makes Online Publicity an optimal solution for prospective clients that have the infrastructure to support and maintain relationships with interested parties.

Examples of typical Online Publicity campaigns include: Event Publicity, New Product Launches, Crisis Communication, Brand Re-Information Campaigns, Overall Brand Awareness/Promotional Efforts.

Online Grassroots and New Media Marketing

Also referred to as Online Advocacy or Online Guerilla Marketing, Online Grassroots and New Media Marketing is an integrated approach to identifying and reaching your targeted demographic from the bottom up. These programs are a quick and effect means of spreading news and information to a targeted network of online influencers within the blogosphere, message boards, video communities, social bookmarking sites, listservs, etc. This strategy involves the development of key creative and general messaging by the client and allowing our team of Online Grassroots experts to run with it, determining the best way to roll that up into what the demographic audience would be most receptive to. As opposed to the much targeted approach of Online Publicity, Online Grassroots Marketing allows us to capitalize on the “long tail,” or the complex nature of online chatter in which dialogue about our client’s brands isn’t always localized within its primary, secondary or tertiary demographic targets.

Examples of typical Online Grassroots Marketing campaigns include: Social Network Marketing, Asset Distribution, Social Media Marketing, Viral Marketing.

Business Intelligence

Collectively, the Abraham & Harrison Management Team has over 5 decades of global branding and marketing communication strategy experience. It is with these years of experience that we have learned that for some clients, their bottom line is most affected by having real-time, accurate business intelligence information about market landscape, trends in their overall brand perception and valuable online opinion about their competitors. The deliverable on these initiatives is a comprehensive, detailed report, evaluating and analyzing trends within the mediasphere; blogosphere; user generated content outlets, message boards and forums. The Online Business Intelligence service also gives the prospective client to determine which demographic communities about which they are most interested in gaining information. These reports can be delivered as a one-time State of the Union analysis or as an ongoing trend analysis, depending on the client’s needs.

Search Engine Services

Brand of the world, large and small, know that visibility of favorable content within key search engines can make or break your marketing and public relations initiatives. In addition to offering tailored marketing communication and business intelligence solutions to our clients, Abraham & Harrison is also a full-service Search Engine Marketing agency. Programs falling within this department include: Traditional Search Engine Optimization (Promotion), Defensive Search Engine Optimization (Protection), Domain Name Protection and Domain Name Services.

Online Reputation Clean-Up and Defense

Despite providing Internet users with a wealth of accurate information, some brands have faced the hard reality of the adverse affects that negative online chatter and mis-information can have. Fortunately, the majority of these trends can be reversed, if treated early and in the right way. By providing clients in need of Online Reputation Clean-Up and Defense services, the Abraham & Harrison team harnesses the power of an integrated approach to attach negative opinions and misinformation from all sides. In combining our Search Engine Services (including Domain Name and Defensive SEO), Online Public Relations, Business Intelligence and our Online Grassroots and New Media Marketing Programs, the Abraham & Harrison team is able to deliver quick results. In the past, we have proven effective in minimizing the visibility of unfavorable content online, countering misinformation with real information and creating valuable allies among online opinion leaders on behalf of our clients.

About the Founding Partners

Mark Harrison, Founding Partner and CEO

Mr. Harrison’s unique history of professional experience blends technology, education, business, and international affairs. Trained as a diplomat, Mr. Harrison has worked with UNHCR, the IMF, and the World Bank Group. He has served as a political functionary, technologist, and journalist in the US, Europe, Thailand, Israel, Tanzania, and Guatemala.

He has served as CTO and Technical Counsel to a companies ranging from Fortune 500′s to start-ups, and has guided projects across the globe. He served as a technology adviser to Primedia, the US media conglomerate, Channel One, the world’s largest in-school education and television news network, and largest minority-owned TV network in the US. He has built systems and infrastructures for the afore-mentioned organizations as well as a number of other major corporations including Booz, Allen & Hamilton, and Bell Atlantic/Verizon. Mr. Harrison currently acts as CTO and marketing adviser to Techcelerator, the Silicon Valley venture development firm headed by tomandandy.com’s Tom Hajdu. He is also an associate of Joseph Jaffe’s New York based new media marketing company, crayon LLC.

Over the past 15 years, Mr. Harrison has taught at the secondary, university, and post-graduate levels in the US, Canada, Germany &Tanzania, and has developed curricula in business, academic methodology, languages, and technology. Mr. Harrison has lived and worked in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America and speaks English, German, French, Swahili, and Spanish.

Chris Abraham, President and Founding Partner

Chris Abraham is an Internet analyst, web strategy consultant, and adviser to the industries leading firms, specializing in web2.0 technologies, including content syndication, online collaboration, blogging, and consumer generated media. Chris is a leading expert on corporate and PR blogging with a focus on citizen journalism, new marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO).

In addition to his roles as consultant and analyst, Mr. Abraham currently acts as Chief Marketing Officer and technology adviser to Techcelerator, the Silicon Valley venture development firm headed by tomandandy.com’s, Tom Hajdu. He is also an associate of Joseph Jaffe’s New York based new media marketing company, crayon LLC.

Mr. Abraham is one of the internet’s social media pioneers, having entered the scene in the early 1980′s in the days of BBS’s via dial-up over 200 Baud acoustic modems. Throughout the 1990′s, he was a core member of the ground-breaking, Washington, DC-based Meta Network (TMN), and its parent company, Caucus Systems where in 1999 what is today known as “Web 2.0″ and “Enterprise 2.0″ was defined in colleague Tom Mandel’s whitepaper “How Companies Think – Creating Collaborative Intelligence Online” and executed on a daily basis for companies, universities, and organizations via the seminal social media platform, Caucus Software. For more than a decade, Mr. Abraham laid the groundwork for today’s modern social media as an online facilitator with Caucus Systems clients serving such clients as IBM and the US Government, and teaching with the University of Kalamazoo in the Education for the Arts project – the world’s first accredited online high school course in creative writing.

Before moving to his current position, Mr. Abraham was a Senior Account Supervisor and a member of the Interactive Team at Edelman in Washington, DC, doing online public affairs. Before joining Edelman, Chris was Technology Strategist for New Media Strategies, a pioneer and industry leader in online brand promotion and brand protection. At NMS, Chris directed the technology strategy for the firm, including the development, deployment, and launch of client and internal corporate blogs, marketing blogs, vertical industry blogs, PR blogs, promotional blogs, public affairs blogs, social networks, and podcasts.

Prior to joining NMS, Chris was a Washington-based technologist for over a decade. As Managing Director for Berlin-based beehive North America, Chris focused on developing web applications and offering training for corporate clients such as Pfizer. As GNU/Linux SA and online facilitator for Caucus Systems, Chris hosted virtual online events and communities of practice for clients such as IBM and eForum 2000.

Chris Abraham maintains the PR and marketing blogs, Because the Medium is the Message and Marketing Conversation. The blogs were originally designed as a laboratories in which to explore the media, the mediasphere, the blogosphere, marketing, PR, and buzz marketing but has expanded to become a media filter, including technology, blogging, pop culture, memetics, news, and analysis; meaning just about anything. Chris recently spoke about the main stream media and citizen journalism on the BBC World Service radio program World Have Your Say during the We Media conference in London.

Mr. Abraham is an active member and attendee of former US Ambassador Phil Lader’s Renaissance Weekend conference where together with other industry leaders, US Senators and Congressmen, former US Presidents, renowned artists and writers, and other cultural, political, and business leaders he has spoken on topics ranging from new media to technology futurism to virtual company management. He is an experienced sailor with thousands of blue water miles to his credit, an impassioned rower with his own single shell housed on the Potomac River, an avid bicyclist, a trained and qualified dive master, and an accomplished photographer with over 20 years of professional experience and thousands of images with the world’s top stock photo agencies.

Abraham & Harrison Vision Statement

In the rapidly changing world of marketing and public relations, the lines between traditional strategies and new media strategies continue to shift as the line separating the two is constantly moving. What was once viewed as impossible, is now quickly transforming into more and more of a science, with the Internet emerging as a unique and remarkable platform for consumer and business communication. Faster now, more than ever, people around the world are able to communicate with rapid fire quickness. Formerly “untappable,” obscure word-of-mouth is now a medium that many brands are leveraging to disseminate information; promote their products and services; as well as protect their namesakes. In this day and age, we don’t need to remind you of the Internet’s effects (be it favorable or dismal) on many popular brands. It is this phenomenon that has made Online Conversation Marketing an ideal solution for a variety of notable brands, ranging from Internet start-ups to public interest groups to major consumer brands.

Abraham & Harrison is comprised of a trained team of media, marketing and public relations experts working together to drive positive online presence on behalf of our clients. Operating in a “virtual office,” the Abraham & Harrison team is spread across four continents, representing more than 10 time zones and almost a dozen languages. This dispersion has given us a notable competitive edge, allowing us to quickly and effectively employ comprehensive Online Conversation Marketing Campaigns within more than 50 countries. Despite its benefits, the “virtual office” does not provide for the ideal environment for rapid response communication, in a traditional sense. Though Abraham & Harrison has proven its ability to provide crisis communication and react to changes in campaign strategy and messaging, we do not operate in a newsroom and are unable to collectively stop on a dime and refocus in the same way that traditional PR houses are able.

Online Conversation Marketing grew out of the increasing importance of relationships as it relates to effective branding via the Internet. Despite the wealth of information and opinions “out there,” Abraham & Harrison understands that an elite few lead sweeping trends in Online Conversation tone, volume and reach. These Online Opinion Leaders or Influencers continue to break news and share opinions that reach hundreds of thousands, if not millions of consumers everyday. Thus, the overarching strategy of Online Conversation Marketing is influencing the influencers – much like securing online endorsements on behalf of our clients. Unlike the formalized world of traditional marketing and PR, an effective Online Conversation Marketing Program takes much longer to develop, as Abraham & Harrison is in the business of securing positive relationships with often busy Opinion Leaders. We have been able to complete campaigns on behalf our clients in as little as 6 weeks, however, the turn around for the majority of brands is generally several weeks, if not months, longer. The “public” that we relate to is not the mainstream media, whose relationships can often be bought and sold; the “public” that we do relate to are the online influencers, who oftentimes, are no more than regular Internet users with a well crafted, interested blog or website that has drawn in its own audience. Although Abraham & Harrison already has a sundry of these influencers in pocket, we often have to develop new relationships on behalf of our clients, given their diverse demographic targets and needs.

Abraham & Harrison leverages email to conduct the majority of relationship building with online influencers, however, we are not a direct or email marketing agency. Often times, the opinion leaders that we contact on behalf of our clients are being reached “blindly,” meaning that they have not opted into any particular program. In order to effectively carry out these campaigns and still remain CAN-SPAM compliant, we pick and choose our targets carefully, ensuring that we provide them with relevant messaging and “gifts” or promotions or information that would be of interest to them. At the end of the day, much like traditional PR, a poorly thought out Online Outreach campaign (the facet of Online Conversation Marketing most like traditional PR in which we build relationships with popular bloggers and influencers on behalf of our clients) can result in little to no positive outcome for the client. It is for this reason that the ramp up time on these programs typically runs anywhere from one to three weeks, as we prepare lists of appropriate, likeminded targets that will likely respond well to our clients’ brands as well as development of appropriate, effective “messaging.”

All things to considered, it is also worth highlighting that unlike other Online Marketing and Advertising agencies, Abraham & Harrison does not thoughtlessly disseminate links and off-topic messaging throughout the user generated corners of the Internet. We value relationships and act as persuaders, storytellers and attractors on behalf of our brands. In working individually with online influencers and Internet users as both a macro (Online Outreach) and micro (Online Engagement, Grassroots Marketing) level, Abraham & Harrison builds relationships and drives favorable, organic conversation in a compliant fashion. The Abraham & Harrison methods reflect the natural progress of organic word-of-mouth – starting small and progressively growing to reach a larger and larger audience. In respecting the online community, the Abraham & Harrison team stands firmly against online solicitation (SPAM) of any kind. Both in Online Outreach and Online Engagement, we are fully transparent, or “open kimono.” We have found these methods to be the most effective when working with the “online public.”

As common conceptions of marketing relate to Online Conversation Marketing, Abraham & Harrison does operate neatly into the bucket of branding, as our methods are a combination of Search Engine Optimization, Grassroots Marketing and Online Public Relations. Clients in the past have likened us to online brand ambassadors. Such being said, we do not fit any pay-per-performance or CPM model. Our metrics are based on conversation and relationships rather than conversions and impressions, much akin to tradition grassroots and brand ambassador strategies.

To conclude, Abraham & Harrison is pleased to offer its unique Online Conversation Marketing services to an array of brands and organizations. Our past clients have found the mix of SEO, Online PR and Grassroots Marketing to be exceptionally effective in achieving their overall marketing objectives. Millions of people are talking online everyday – are you listening?

My Director of Operations, Saul Wainwright, wrote a very fine blog post, Spread The Word: Blogs Matter We Just Can’t Measure It!!, over on Marketing Conversation today in response to a blog post by Norman Birnbach of PR Back Talk titled How Do You Establish Metrics for a Blogging Initiative? Take A Page (Via Marketing Conversation):

Another day, and another blog post thanks to our efforts at Abraham & Harrison. Norman Birnbach over at PR Back Talk wrote this great post, How Do You Establish Metrics for a Blogging Initiative? Take A Page from the Campaign for Jerry White’s Book”, which talks about our successful blogger outreach efforts on behalf of our client Survivor Corps.

The goal of every outreach campaign is to get the “conversation” started and help keep it going. How do you do this? Norman shows some of the elements that we have used to promote both the Survivor Corps brand and the book, I Will Not Be Broken, written by the co-founder Jerry White.

First: craft messages that are specific to the demographics you are trying to talk to – no cookie cutting here!!

Second: make it easy for bloggers to blog. In other words create an SMNR – check out the two we created for the campaign here & here.

Third: be passionate about the conversation. This, in my opinion, is always the most critical element – get your team excited, get them talking, get them thinking. Excitement is infectious!!

Norman mentions an article that was recently written by Business Week called, Beyond Blogs: Thee years ago our cover story showcased the pheneomen. A lot has changed since then. I am not going to to into great detail about the article but what I will say is it highlights how things have changed. How powerful a blogger outreach campaign coupled with utlizing social networks like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and Digg are in the world of PR.

The return-on-investment on a social media campaign is huge. Once you get the message out there it can keep propagating and spreading and you get to watch this happen. You get to see the blog posts go up, you get to count the visitors to your site, you get a sense of what people are thinking and feeling about your product. You never got this in traditional media – you sent out your message and then….well, that was the end of that.

What so many companies are still wanting though are metrics – how many people will “read” the posts, visit the blogs – how do you measure a conversation? How do you track where a story goes – where an email is sent, who read the post and then went home to tell their kids about the book? We can’t put numbers on this – it is “out of our control” just like the whole concept of social media – it is about loosing control and letting go. Ultimately it is a trust game. Trust your product, trust your social media team trust your demographic. Don’t get me wrong – we can give you certain measurements but in the end this is only a slice of the much bigger pie, and no one has truly figured out how to measure the much big network effect.

We are very stoked with the response that we have garnered so far for our clients. We know that we have done a good job getting the message out there and bringing it to people’s attention. I hope all of you get a chance to check out the book and ask any questions you have about all that we do over here (wherever that might be for a virtual company) at Abraham Harrison.

When clients come to us asking for conversion rates, metrics, CPM, penetration, eyeballs, and all of the rest of the numbers that are de rigeur in the world of advertising and marketing, we do our best to oblige. We really do. People want to speak numbers and they really want to be able to strictly quantify the spending of a budget with a nice solid number.

Truth is, as an insider, most of these numbers are sort of bullshit. Not because any firm is bullshitting, but because all the tools suck and because all the good tools are aimed squarely at easy-to-define web1.5 portal and ecommerce sites. Truth is, the influence of blogs and bloggers is generally not directly associated with how many folks visit but who.

Blogs are news sources. And, likes water sources, they’re generative dribbles that coalesce into mighty rivers, the portals and mainstream media. Bloggers and blogs are the source from which all downstream media trade is buoyed. New media bloggers, mainstream media columnists and pundits, and talk radio hosts have disproportionate influence on both the mediasphere in particular and on culture in general.

In my world, it isn’t a game of how many eyeballs, but whose. And since this is essentially a B2B campaign — PR exec to blogger and not PR exec to consumer — it is almost impossible to extract the kinds of metrics one expects from B2C campaigns. We’re not direct marketing, we’re doing pitches to folks who are in possession of their very own platform or organ: a blog or a forum. It is apples and oranges.

We use many of the same standards of success that traditional PR firms do: Are we getting coverage? Are we getting articles placed? Are we getting buzz? Is is the buzz good?

Are people picking up our news releases? Is the coverage directly connected to our outreach? Those sort of things. Also, is the tone of the coverage good, bad, neutral? Is the conversation infectious? Are we winning hearts and minds?

As part of our reporting we show volume, tone, penetration, influence, and trending; additionally, we offer analysis of the campaign as well as deeply consulting with the client in order to make sure our messaging is consistent with both who they are as well as steering towards who they want to be! See!

This isn’t marketing, this is PR stuff!

Chris Abraham is a Founding Partner and the President of Abraham Harrison, LLC, an international consulting group with specialties in online word-of-mouth/conversation marketing and online business & technology strategy advising. Abraham Harrison, LLC is based out of Washington, DC and Berlin and serves clients across the globe with associates spanning ten time zones. Via LinkedIn

Chris Abraham’s Specialties:

online business intelligence, corporate and pr blogging, online brand intelligence, online brand promotion and protection, online buzz and relationship marketing, online education, online messaging, online social networks, online technology strategy, rss syndication strategy, search engine optimization strategy, virtual community building

Chris Abraham’s Experience

• President and COO

  Abraham Harrison LLC

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Online Media industry)

  January 2007 — Present (1 year 6 months)

  Abraham Harrison, LLC, is an international consulting group with specialties in online word-of-mouth/conversation marketing and online business & technology strategy advising. Abraham Harrison, LLC is based out of Washington, DC and Berlin and serves clients across the globe with associates spanning ten time zones.

• Blogging Instructor

  The Writer’s Center

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Professional Training & Coaching industry)

  February 2006 — June 2007 (1 year 5 months)

  •Instructional courses on blogging, from introduction to advanced techniques
  •Marketing, promotional, and SEO strategies for writers and business people
  •www.appliedblogging.org developed to support blogging students

• Sales Representative

  Visible Technologies

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Information Technology and Services industry)

  January 2007 — June 2007 (6 months)

  Sales representative for Visible Technologies’ TruView and TruCast software solutions. TruView is the most effective service for individuals and companies to manage their reputations via what appears in the top search engines. TruView is the first corporate solution that helps organizations manage and protect their brand in the Blogosphere and other “consumer-generated media” communities.

• Associate

  crayon LLC

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Online Media industry)

  January 2007 — June 2007 (6 months)

  crayon will help marketers, advertisers and public relations professionals better understand the tremendous changes, challenges and opportunities in today’s dynamic and complex world of fragmented attention, increasing consumer control and hardening attitudes towards marketing communication.

• Consultant

  Comteg

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Management Consulting industry)

  December 2006 — May 2007 (6 months)

  COMTEG.COM is a consultancy focused on Online Advertising, Media Measurement and Publishing. Our consulting services are Strategy Formulation, Market Entry and Industry Political Initiatives. We operate globally with offices in Europe, The Middle East & Asia.

• Blogger

  Self-employed

  (Self-Employed; Myself Only; Publishing industry)

  January 1999 — March 2007 (8 years 3 months)

  Blogging strategist with a focus on PR blogs, corporate blogs, publicity blogs, grassroots blogs, SEO blogs, brand blogs, and media blogs. Current personal blog is Chris Abraham – Because the Medium is the Message (http://www.chrisabraham.com). Experienced blogging trainer and guest-blogger.

• Senior RSS Consultant

  Hinchcliffe & Company

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Online Media industry)

  January 2007 — February 2007 (2 months)

  Senior RSS Consultant at T. Rowe Price on behalf of Hinchcliffe & Company. Research, design, develop, and deploy T. Rowe Price’s client and prospect RSS syndication strategy.

• Consultant

  Abraham PR

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  October 2006 — January 2007 (4 months)

  Chris Abraham is a web strategist, focusing on search engine optimization (SEO), search engine markeing (SEM), online buzz marketing, online advocacy, blogger relations (BR), blogger outreach, and word-of-mouth marketing. Chris consults clients on new media public relations solutions, delivering strategy documents that include an analysis and audit of the current web strategy, recommendations, and next steps. Consulting, training, and client services are available and tailored to client needs, according to the next steps and client need.

• Consultant

  BoldMouth

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Marketing and Advertising industry)

  August 2006 — September 2006 (2 months)

  •Blog strategy and planning for high-traffic, high-profile blog relaunch
  •Customized Moveable Type installation on CentOS dedicated server
  •Transition from TypePad to newest Movable Type 3.31 install
  •Monetization of blog, including BlogAds and Google AdSense placement
  •Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of blog

• Senior Account Supervisor

  Edelman

  (Privately Held; 1001-5000 employees; Public Relations and Communications industry)

  May 2006 — August 2006 (4 months)

  •Direct client contact for Wal-Mart’s innovative blog outreach campaign, including prospecting and messaging
  •Spearheaded Working Families for Wal-Mart blog, newsletter, and activation list
  •Developed online word of mouth outreach for Taylor Hicks webcast from Wal-Mart shareholder’s meeting
  •Co-produced “Exposing the Paid Critics” website for Working Families for Wal-Mart
  •Co-produced successful online advocacy proposals to GE, Nissan, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute, and Wal-Mart Realty
  •Designed and developed opt-in membership Email and messaging campaigns

• Technology Strategist

  New Media Strategies, Inc.

  (Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Public Relations and Communications industry)

  September 2003 — May 2006 (2 years 9 months)

  •Developed online word-of-mouth marketing strategy and tactics used on Usenet, message boards, social networks, and blogs
  •Developed online advocacy and outreach campaigns for clients’ products, services, and message
  •Produced internal and client protective and promotional SEO campaigns and search strategy to highlight positive online conversation and supress negative conversation on popular search engines
  •Developed in-house expertise on blogging, new media, podcasting, technology, citizen journalism, and CGM, including training, teaching, and the development of blogging and online marketing strategy
  •Developed, deployed, and launched client and internal corporate blogs, marketing blogs, vertical industry blogs, PR blogs, promotional blogs, public affairs blogs, social networks, and podcasts
  •Managed online advertising campaigns using Yahoo and Google contextual ads

• Guest Lecturer

  Columbia University

  (Educational Institution; 201-500 employees; Public Relations and Communications industry)

  October 2005 — October 2005 (1 month)

  Lectured on the topic of blogging and viral marketing strategies for the Executive Masters in Public Affairs Program, for Advanced Management concentrators, at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University.

• Photographer

  Corbis

  (Privately Held; 201-500 employees; Photography industry)

  August 1990 — 2004 (14 years)

  Contracted stock photographer.

• Director of Sales

  eResources, LLC

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Computer Networking industry)

  September 2002 — September 2003 (1 year 1 month)

  •Managed sales force and new business for the ITonDemand™ and the eResources Content Management System products

• Senior Web Developer

  National Legal Aid & Defender Association

  (Non-Profit; 11-50 employees; Alternative Dispute Resolution industry)

  February 2002 — September 2002 (8 months)

  •Developed Web applications and content management system (CMS) developer using Zope, Python, and MySQL

• Managing Director

  beehive North America

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

  July 2000 — February 2002 (1 year 8 months)

  •President, co-owner, and co-founder of beehive North America, the North American office of Berlin-based beehive elektronische medien GmbH
  •Sold and marketed software Zope application development training and services
  •Clients included College of Exploration, The Nature Conservancy, and Space Telescope Science, and Pfizer Global Research and Development (PGRD)

• Online Community Builder and Linux System Administrator

  Caucus Systems, Inc.

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Internet industry)

  July 1999 — June 2000 (1 year)

  Linux/Unix system administrator and online community and event facilitator for Internet company focused on developing enterprise-level virtual online events and conferences.

• Senior Information Engineer

  US Department of Treasury Chief Information Office (CIO)

  (Government Agency; 51-200 employees; Executive Office industry)

  July 1997 — July 1999 (2 years 1 month)

  Senior application and web developer for the Office of the CIO for the Department of the Treasury. HTML, scripting, programming, graphic design, management, development, and deployment of the CIO intranet and public website.

• Online Creative Writing Instructor

  Online Creative Writing Course, EFA/Kalamazoo, MI, Public Schools

  (Government Agency; 51-200 employees; Primary/Secondary Education industry)

  August 1996 — May 1997 (10 months)

  Co-teacher of the first fully accredited virtual online highschool creative writing course. Education for the Arts (EFA) was an magnet program for highschool kids in Kalamazoo, MI. The program supplied laptops and dial-up access to the students. Course did include face-to-face four times a year as well as several field trips to conferences.

• Software Engineer

  Proxicom

  (Public Company; 51-200 employees; Internet industry)

  May 1996 — August 1996 (4 months)

  Web developer for the seminal web application and development company formerly called Proxima, now Proxicom. Amongst other projects, worked on Owens Corner and Garfield official websites.

• Technical Customer Support

  Picture Network International

  (Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Publishing industry)

  June 1993 — December 1995 (2 years 7 months)

  Industry’s first online stock photo agency with dedicated dial-up ISP-based client called “Seymour.” PNI was an online stock photography service with more than 30 stock houses supplying images. It had more than 250,000 images in its library.

• Vice President

  Pacific Rim Productions, Ltd.

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Photography industry)

  October 1994 — November 1995 (1 year 2 months)

  Vice President of multimedia production company. Primary role as producer, photographer and script writer. Clients included General Motors and Hawaii Visitors Bureau.

• Photographer

  Abraham & Dunn

  (Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Photography industry)

  May 1983 — July 1988 (5 years 3 months)

  Family-owned photography company. Have been shooting corporate and travel photograhy since I was 13-years-old.

Chris Abraham’s Education

• George Washington University

  BA, American Literature, August 1988 — May 1993

  Activities and Societies:

  Phi Kappa Psi, Crew Team

• University of East Anglia

  American Studies September 1990 — June 1991

  Activities and Societies:

  Crew Team

Additional Information

Chris Abraham’s Websites:

• My Blog
• My RSS feed
• My Company

Chris Abraham’s Interests:

RSS, blogging, Blogosphere, emergent systems, emerging technology, futurism, buzz marketing, blog, blogs, content management, rowing, sculling, biking, running, blogging, nlp, writing, reading, lecturing, driving, new technology, emergent systems, emergent technology, new media, Internet, viral markeing, memetics, systems theory, emergence, politics, popular culture, culture, trends, programming, news

Chris Abraham’s Groups:

Renaissance Weekend, Viral and Buzz Marketing Association, VBMA, Howard Rheingold Associate, HHWinc, Haft, Harrison & Wolfson, Inc., Urban Institute Communications Advisory Board, DC Zope Python User Group, zpug, da Vinci Group

Chris Abraham’s Honors:

Most Likely to be Famous, Saint Louis School, Honolulu, HI, 1988

I am a huge fan of watching cars buzz through cities. Well, I like to keep Firebrand running sometimes in its “broadcast mode” which just plays and plays through 30-second spots. Well, I heard the sweetest little buzz of the Ferrari and ALT-TABBED to see what was playing. Well, it was this commercial:

The best video until this Shell ad came out was the video of a Ferrari 275 GTB buzzing through Paris at 140+ mpg:

Leonid Rozhetskin, David Arquette, and L+E Productions got some great news this week when his Sundance movie, Hamlet 2, was bought for $10 million making it one of the biggest deals at the festival ever! Congrats! Via Pop Sugar.

Focus Gets “Hamlet 2? for $10 Million – highest Acquisition ever achieved at Sundance!

Andrew Fleming’s “Hamlet 2” has been acquired by Focus Features in a $10 million worldwide deal swiftly sealed within 12 hours of the film’s world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The film was produced by L+E Pictures‘ Eric Eisner & Leonid Rozhetskin and Aaron Ryder, from an original script by Fleming and Pam Brady. In the words of a description, “In the irreverent comedy, a failed actor-turned-worse-high-school-drama teacher (Steve Coogan) rallies his Tucson, AZ students as he conceives and stages a politically incorrect musical sequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Cast joining Coogan include David Arquette, Melonie Diaz, Catherine Keener, Amy Poehler and Elisabeth Shue (appearing as herself). Calling the film “an amazing New Year’s present,” in a statement, Focus’ James Schamus and Andrew Karpen, added, “We can’t wait to share this riotously inventive movie with the whole world.” [Eugene Hernandez] Via indieWIRE

More information on the Hamlet 2 sale made at Sundance

Sundance BuzzCheck™: The festival’s top seller, ‘Hamlet 2′ January 24th, 2008 From EW.com Popwatch Blog The raucous comedy had been the subject of tremendous buzz coming into Sundance…before it was even completed, and without a mere mention in the event’s catalogue. Indeed, the unfinished film was such a late entry into the festival that Park City’s primary premiere location, the Eccles Center, was fully booked. But that didn’t stop Hamlet 2 from knocking Sundance out of its mid-festival doldrums with a rowdy debut screening Monday night at the Library Center theater. The room erupted in hysterics about two minutes into the show, and things stayed that way for nearly two hours. Read the whole post Sundance, Day 7: Why Hamlet 2 Is Hot, Hot, Hot From E! Online, Reel Girl Blog Read the whole post. ‘Hamlet 2′ is big buy at Sundance Fest January 24th, 2008 From The Miami Herald By Ryan Pearson Read the whole story. Studios cautiously open their wallets for Sundance films

 

 

Read the whole story. Trio of deals wakes up Sundance ‘Hamlet 2,’ ‘Henry Poole’ and ‘Choke’ reap big sales From The Hollywood Reporter By Steven Zeitchik and Gregg Goldstein Read the whole story.

PRINCELY SUM NETS ‘HAMLET’From The New York Post By Lou Lumenick

 

A late entry to the Sundance program, “Hamlet 2,? produced by Leonid Rozhetskin, was described by several distributors as the first indie this year to have commercial crossover possibilities like “Little Miss Sunshine.”Read the whole story.What a piece of workFrom The Hollywood Reporter, Risky Biz Blog By Gregg Goldstein and Steven Zeitchik

 

 

Throughout Sundance, distributors have been asking “Indie hit, wherefore art thou?”

The answer may have come Monday evening with “Hamlet 2,” Andrew Fleming’s frequently hilarious story of an overly dramatic high school drama teacher (played by Steve Coogan) who attempts to salvage his department by putting on a controversial musical sequel to Shakespeare’s play. Produced by Leonid Rozhetskin

The late addition to the fest had intermitent lulls, but it also had every top film exec unreservedly gushing outside the Library screening room. The Weinstein Co., Fox Searchlight, Lionsgate, Focus, ThinkFilm, Paramount Vantage and other execs all openly agreeing about how funny it was.

“I heard before I came that it needed a lot of work, but it doesn’t need that much work,” said one buyer. Others said some judicious cutting could bring it big success. At a “Hamlet” dinner afterwards, veteran studio director Fleming (”Threesome,” “Nancy Drew”) said he’d be open to working with a distributor on a refined edit, despite saying he avoided the development process initially. “It”s nothing I haven’t been through before,” he deadpanned.

The film’s satirical take on theater types, modern musicals, high school and high school movies like “Dangerous Minds” resonated with the audience, as did top notch performances by Coogan and Catherine Keener (pictured above), Amy Poehler and the amazing newcomer Skyler Astin, who plays a budding drama student many will recognize.

(Full disclosure: after seeking out Astin to speak with him at the dinner, I realized he currently stars in the Tony-winning best musical “Spring Awakening,” co-produced by an old friend, Amanda Dubois. — Gregg Goldstein)

“Hamlet 2? came together thanks to producers Eric Eisner and Leonid Rozhetskin as well as “Little Miss Sunshine” producers Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger.” Editors were still cutting the movie as late as December with the possibility that it wouldn”t have made into the festival.

But the filmmakers finished it and got it into the festival just under the wire, not unlike the way the fall’s big indie hit, “Juno,” snuck into Telluride at the last minute.

CAA is selling the title, and top distributors began gathering at their Park City house immediately after the film ‘Hamlet 2′ Sells After All-Night Bidding War From The Wall Street Journal By Lauren Schuker, January 22, 2008

 

 

This just in: After receiving an uproarious reaction from crowds last night, “Hamlet 2” provoked the first major bidding war of the festival. After an all-night battle, the film sold early this morning, according to producer Eric Eisner and Leonid Rozhetskin who only arrived home at 7:30 a.m.

The comedy, which stars Steve Coogan as a failed actor turned high school drama teacher, tells the unpredictable, charmingly offensive tale of a high school drama class that stages a sequel to Hamlet. The film is complete with time machines and a modern-day version of Jesus Christ — with sex appeal and a cell phone. Equal Opportunity Insults, In Five Acts From The New York Times, The Carpetbagger By David M. Halbfinger

 

 

Sundance looks to have its first unqualified hit, and a Cinderella story at that, in “Hamlet 2.” A late addition to the film festival, this bawdy romp, starring Steve Coogan as a failed actor-turned-pathetic high-school drama teacher — who stages a musical sequel to “Hamlet,” with a “sexy Jesus” Christ in a starring role — enjoyed a riotous reaction at its premiere in Park City’s library Monday night.

One of the festival’s running themes has been hope and optimism, as most evident in films about people facing down death, among them Amy Redford’s drama “The Guitar” (which didn’t wow audiences on Friday) and Mark Pellington’s lighter-hearted “Henry Poole Is Here” (which played quite well Monday afternoon and immediately drew interest from several buyers).

But “Hamlet 2,” even as it made sure to insult Christians, gays, Latinos, Jews, the A.C.L.U., Hollywood movies about inspiring teachers and one of its lead actresses (Elisabeth Shue), also managed to puncture the death-defying optimism that has hovered over Park City.

As the acquisition teams from Focus Features, Fox Searchlight, Lionsgate, Miramax and the Weinstein Company, among others, filed out into the night – some of them, presumably, to huddle and come up with offers – the non-buying audience hung around for a quick Q-&-A with Andrew Fleming, the director of “Hamlet 2,” and several members of his cast.

Mr. Fleming said he and his writing partner, Pam Brady, had been working on the script for five years, but the idea of a “Hamlet” sequel was much more recent, and the actual play-within-the-movie was written on deadline. “It was this kind of panicked, last-minute thing – ‘let’s write some songs and put on a show,’” Mr. Fleming said. The film was produced by Leonid Rozhetskin.

In the movie Ms. Shue plays herself, oddly enough – or a version of herself that could be so smitten by Mr. Coogan that she’d lick his face (as she did again onstage, for good measure). Why’d she take the role? “I just got the script and it said ‘a famous actress who’s a has-been, lives in Tucson and is a nurse,’” she said. “It was hilarious and I had to do it.”

Industry watching for strike-inspired bidding wars, hot films at Sundance

 

Hamlet 2 is cited as a movie title “that could sneak up under the radar.” Produced by Leonid Rozhets

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Tour Bus and the Lincoln Memorial, originally uploaded by Chris Abraham.

On the way home from the Hill (picking up wash-and-fold laundry) I took a detour through Haines Point and then buzzed by the Lincoln and tool this photo of the Lincoln Memorial and an angry tour bus.

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