As you can see from the lack of recent posts on Cobbsblog, things have been particularly busy this month. My November started out with a trip to a trade show in New York called ad:tech. This event brings together a very interesting mix of companies that are in some way or another related to digital marketing.

Digital marketing is one way to describe what my work for Monetate is all about, so I was at the show checking out the digital marketing scene and looking to learn whatever I could. (Quote du jour: “A real expert always looks to learn more and does not always try to look like he’s learned everything.”)

Judging by the huge crowds, digital marketing is doing well these days. For all our sakes I am hoping that the larger-than-expected attendance bodes well for the economy in 2010.

Shortly after I fought my way through the check-in lines and gained entrance to the exhibit hall I was interviewed for WebmasterRadio by marketing guru Bryan Eisenberg. Here is a link to the interview. (I apologize for sounding out of breath but I had to shout to be heard above the crowd–the sound engineers at WebMasterRadio did an amazing job of filtering out background noise but they couldn’t change the fact that I was shouting.) Oh, and here’s a link to Bryan.

Anyway, if you take a listen to the interview you will get an idea of what Monetate is about and what my role as “evangelist” for the Monetate technology involves. (If you can’t listen to the audio right now, the short answer is that my role as an evangelist is to get people excited about what the technology can do.)

I carry out my role by communicating across multiple media, most of which don’t charge for participation. Over the years I have learned how to do this out of necessity, often working for startup companies that did not have a marketing budget to speak of (or we had a budget but it got eaten by engineering, or product delivery, or something else that was deemed a priority over marketing at the time).

Starting from back in the days when this type of thing was called guerilla marketing, I have pioneered the idea that if you offer up free content that is also valuable content, people will find that content, consume that content, and give some respect to the content creator. So when I created a web site back in the mid-nineties that was full of high quality computer security information, people who had read the content would call up looking for security advice, which we sold as security consulting, creating a blue ribbon client portfolio that became very valuable and was eventually snapped up by a much bigger company that paid us a premium for it.

A dozen years on and I am working on marketing a marketing product, finding that a lot of people have twigged to this strategy, so things are not quite so easy. But the strategy is still sound and I will keep persevering, adding new tactics like social media (an umbrella term for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and blogs) to my arsenal. And of course, radio interviews whenever they present themselves.

This is a quick attempt to put into one place various bits of advice that I’ve been giving out to various people over the past few months with respect to raising the profile of a person, place, or thing.

The idea is that you have something you want to publicize. It could be a band, a brand, a product, a company, or an indie film; or it could be you.

Before you go out and hire a PR agency or pay for a press release, you might want to try these things. They are free, except for your time and an Internet connection. In the old days they would have been called guerilla marketing. Now it’s called Web 2.0 marketing or New Rules marketing. The strategy is to create interest–in whatever you are promoting–by being interesting. You want to draw people to the object of attention rather than subject them to a message. I will try to post something later on how to be interesting. The following are 19 things to get started with. I’ve broken them down into 3 phases:

Phase I

1. Start your blog (if you haven’t already). You can also have a web site but a blog can substitute for a web site (the reverse is not true). Blogging is free at Blogger and WordPress.com.

2. Get on Twitter (if you aren’t already) but be sure to Twitter nicely (some tips on that later).

3. Get on Facebook (if you aren’t already) and create a page for the band, brand, whatever.

4. Weave items 1-2-3 together with links from one to the other. Have your tweets feed into Facebook and your blog. (If you’re a business professional, add LinkedIn to the mix.)

Phase II

5. Keep the blog fresh. The Twitter feed will help with this but you need to post to the blog at least once a week.

6. Tweet! A lot of people create a Twitter account but forget to post updates. Aim for at least 4 per day including re-tweets, but avoid over-tweeting.

7. Use tr.im to shorten any URLs you post in Twitter. This will allow you to view stats about who clicks on your links. [Update for 2010: I think bit.ly is a better choice for this.]

8. Get familiar with an enhanced Twitter app like Tweetree where you can quickly spot replies to your tweets.

9. Set up an RSS feed via Twitter Search to catch tweets that mention you/your brand, band, film, etc.

10. Set up twilert so you get a daily roundup of relevant tweets via email.

Phase III:

11. Sign up for the Help A Reporter Out emails.

12. Read and abide by the HARO rules.

13. Sign up for the Gift Bag mailings.

14. Follow helpareporter on Twitter.

15. You are now ready to respond to HARO queries and gift bag requests as appropriate. This is a good way to get noticed by the press, influential bloggers, and other persons of interest.

Phase IV:

16. Comment positively and wisely on blog posts and news stories.

17. Create a tr.im link for each blog post or story on which you comment, then tweet that link (you can also turn some comments into blog posts).

18. Create Google Alerts for yourself, your brand, band, product. Also create them for your competition or related persons/things.

19. Rinse and repeat. No seriously, these 19 things are just steps to take. Raising a profile is an iterative process, one that is hard to force. The intended outcomes from following these steps are a. making sure you don’t miss any opportunities and b. getting ready for when opportunity knocks. Of course, these are not all the steps that can be taken. (One glaring omission is MySpace, which is still the place to be in terms of music and film but probably optional for people and products.)

Good luck!

P.S. Someone asked me to give some examples of my tweeting, blogging, facebooking, etc. So here you go [updated 2010]:

• My personal twitter: @zcobb
• The Dare Not Walk Alone twitter: @dnwa
• The Dare Not Walk Alone blog
• Twitter for Celtic Curse: @CelticCurse
• The Celtic Curse blog
• The Hemochromatosis page on Facebook