Be forewarned: My apologies for the number of times this item will appear in my feed over the next few weeks, more explanation below.

Update #1: In the spirit of full disclosure, I spent most of yesterday and today convincing myself that I didn’t have time to do any of this stuff, and then I realized how RIDICULOUS I sounded, and got down to it. This post is getting some traction, and I made a commitment. See new crossed-off items and notes below.

Update #2: After a busy week that included a PR campaign, I can cross off even more items. 

The Buzz Marketing Challenge

I’m incredibly late to the dance on this, but I couldn’t help but join in on the fun.

Ben Yoskovitz of the Instigator Blog is embarking on a buzz marketing project, pulled straight from the pages of Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing, by Ron McDaniel.

This concept is very much in line with what we do here at Tell Ten Friends, so not only did I think it would make a great blog post and experiment to share with readers, but it will also be good for business, and for generating buzz for our company.

The experiment itself consists of a checklist of ethical and effective activities to start a bit of buzz. No fanfare, no fluff, just good old fashioned conversation starting and web marketing; two of our favorite pastimes here are at TTF.

What follows is the list, with crosses through the activities I’ve been able to complete, and where applicable, a few short notes. In some cases, I have already done the activity several times over, (ie. Squidoo lens) but in the interest of the exercise, I’m making myself do them again.

I’ll update this several times over the next few weeks, hence the number of times it will be appearing in the feed.

Here’s the list of ways to generate buzz, copied directly from Ben:

1. Email an Old Friend or Acquaintance (It was great to catch up, Dan!)
2. Contact a Stale Connection
3. Email Extended Family (Annyong, Helen!)
4. Call Someone You Have Never Talked To
5. Congratulations Call or Note (haha, Rob)
6. Send a Surprise Letter
7. Any Day Card
8. Mail a News Clipping
9. Social Networking (got this one covered!)
10. Online Directory
11. Squidoo Expert Lens
12. Tag Your Website or Blog
13. Blog/Message Board Comment
14. Join/Participate in an Online Group
15. Talk to a New Person in Person
16. Contact a Reporter or Writer
17. Contact an Old Employer/Employee (Dom and Tony in one week!)
18. Customer Follow-up
19. Call/Email a Person You Respect
20. Mini Announcements
21. Digg Your Site
22. Flickr Fun
23. Personal Success Email List
24. Did You Know? - Trivia
25. Instant Messaging
26. Text Messaging
27. Email a Useful Link to Someone
28. Testimonials
29. Celebrate Success (Have a steak, has Howard says)
30. Write a Blog
31. Have a “Get To Know You” Meal
32. Host a Dinner Party
33. Arrange a Networking Lunch
34. Publish an Article
35. Meet More Neighbors
36. Send a Press Release
37. Give a Speech
38. Volunteer
39. Online Interview/Podcast (I swear, I’m getting to this!)
40. Conduct a Survey
41. Local Government Involvement
42. Open House
43. Interview a Leader
44. YouTube.com
45. Meet Business Neighbors
46. eNewsletter or Newsletter (I’m well over due here, too)
47. Produce an eBook (and here)
48. Nominate an Organization
49. Challenge a Coworker to a Buzz-Off (I challenge you all!)
50. Podcast Show
51. Host a Seminar or Training Session (more news on this one coming soon, right Jeremy?)
52. Unexpected Booth
53. Organize a Group
54. Become a Board Member
55. Conduct a Focus Group/Roundtable
56. Conduct a Customer Contest (I’ve got one of these in mind, too)
57. Organize a Charitable Event

I welcome any and all of you to join in with me, and share your experiences; either through comments, or as trackbacks from your own blogs. Some of this stuff isn’t easy, so don’t be surprised if months or even years later, the list still isn’t finished!

Any time something exciting happens as a result of one of the items on the list, I’ll publish it in a separate blog post.

The nice lads over Elastic Path (from right here in Vancouver) have put together a great white paper called “Blogging for Retailers.” (Follow link to download your copy)

If you blog for business’ sake - at all, then you should read it. They talk about retailers, specifically of the ‘large scale’ variety, but literally every word applies to any blogger who uses their content and conversation as a marketing tool; be it a service business, or any-sized online retailer. Toward the end is a glossary of terms for the uninitiated.

Also, Dave O had fellow ‘Elastic Pather’ Jason Billingsley and Bryght’s Boris Mann join him for a podcast on the same subject. A great listen to go with a great read.

Many thanks, Gents.

We’re in here having a great chat, and we want you to join us.

You see, now you are not just welcome to join us for lively conversation here on the blog, but now we can get a little more interactive, in the brand-spanking-new Tell Ten Friends Forum. A truly “2.0 enabled” chit-chat spot. Check out the separate RSS feeds for individual topics and threads. Oooh! Aaah! Marvel at the cleanliness of the design; the ease of use.

Why a forum? Because sometimes, blog posts are too one-way, even with comments enabled. Not only that, but this way our questions and discussions can be discussed within a community, effectively “crowd-sourcing” for a more cohesive, collective uber-answer. Or something like that.

I’m creating two “topics” to kick things off; more on that in a bit. First, I have pay special thanks to the Architect of this new, fully-functioning fantastic forum. For real.

Rob Masefield, our Creative Consultant here at TTF, built it for us to show off his talents. If you haven’t done so for a while, have another poke around our site, and then check out his own blog and portfolio while you’re at it. Both are excellent examples of sites with Wordpress built in; something of a specialty of ours, thanks to Rob’s considerable talents.

I used to think that he was a rare commodity in the fact that he could design incredibly well and manage code intuitively too. Now, I’m beginning to think they broke the mold. And I’m not just saying that because he built me such a stunning new forum.

Please, pop in for a chat. Just click through to register, log in and start posting! Two topics to get us started:

1. How do you generate coverage and word of mouth for a non-profit horse show event, with no budget?
2. From Digg: Should MySpace allow parents to download a special spyware to monitor their kids activity on the site?

Let discussion begin…

We are growing in numbers. We are are extremely polite, almost to a fault. We say “eh” a lot, even if we try not to. We work in Marketing and Communications and we are…

Canada’s 1% Blogging Army.

We spread the word about new media marketing and PR tactics, and we evangelize the things we love. We get to know one another through generous linking to one another, and then of course, we say thank you. A lot.

Big thanks to Sean Moffitt for creating the list of 150 ‘MARCOM’ bloggers in Canada. It’s a great list, and one that I sure am proud to be part of. Click the image above the read the list over at Buzz Canuck.

Is just days away. Seriously!

I had originally set out to give instructions as to how to use Windows Movie Maker to show all the ‘PCers’ the easiest way to get video online. That is, I was going to do this even though I usually use Sony Vegas to edit and render my vids.

And then Lisa informed me via email that she isn’t able to render her video small enough (<100 MB) to be uploaded to YouTube. So, before I try to figure out the magic formula in Windows Movie Maker (I can hear you all laughing by the way), perhaps someone would like to recommend a web-based app that I can demo for all of the folks?

Has anyone tried Jumpcut? They have a cool little demo, here. If no one has a better suggestion, and the Windows app can’t make it happen, then maybe this is our tool. By the way, all we’re looking for is a suitable, easy-to-use editing/compression program.

Apologies again to Sean, who is also waiting patiently for my the rest of my series.

John of Obviousness.net tells us of his favourites, and I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time, so here’s mine:

Like John, I couldn’t get on without:

• Gmail- Email me for an invite: jordanbehan[at]gmail.com

• Bloglines- Although I hype Netvibes for its simplicity, I’ve been monitoring my favourite feeds in Bloglines since the beginning.

• Wordpress- She drives this site, and many client sites as well. And we love her. Code is Poetry, after all.

• YouTube- for the same reasons John gives. (Except the part about the kids) It’s the most widely used, and it has everything.

• Flickr- If you don’t love Flickr, then I’m not sure you and I can get along. Just kidding. Or not.

Also, I’m rather dependent upon:

• Basecamp- For project management, to do lists, etc.

• Pandora- So I can rock out while I work!

What are your favorites? The ones you just can’t live without…

Well, wouldn’t you know it? According to Read/WriteWeb, Yahoo spent a cool $10-12 million to acquire MyBlogLog, the latest social media web 2-point-whatever tool that all the cool kids are using.

I first mentioned MyBlogLog a few months back, and since then I’ve started to make use of the widgets, stats counters and even messaging that it offers. Fellow blogloggers, hello! For fun, why not click through to the site to have a look at your own smiling avatar in the sidebar? I love that feature, it reminds me of some of the cool people that come by to have a read, and it makes me feel happy. No, really. And if it sounds like I’m gushing over MBL, it’s because I am. I like it, almost as much as my brother likes MySpace. But not quite .

Update: Duh! Here’s me on MyBlogLog.

The surprising thing to me is how good Yahoo is at acquisitions. Such a big company, with such an epic history on the net (relatively, of course), and yet they still have the wisdom to secure great web services like Flickr and the former example; ones that actually have a certain amount of genuine cachet among the early-adopting-power-user set. And they’re not afraid of spending some dough to get them either. (Update: Later, in the shower, I realized how funny that line must sound, considering what Google paid for YouTube) So, although I was starting to think that Google would always provide me with all of the tools I needed for absolutely free, I find myself migrating away from the big G, and oddly content with a handful of Yahoo products. Have you used Upcoming.org lately? It’s wicked good (Italics represent poor impression of a Boston accent) for events and networking, in case you didn’t already know.

I don’t mean to sound as if I don’t still use about a half-dozen Google products that I am just “chuffed” with, (Google, I am heartily sorry if I have offended you…) I just can’t help but notice that Yahoo is always upping the coolness factor too.

On a related note, I just finished re-reading Michael Gerber’s E-Myth Revisited, and I’m starting to build operations manuals as to “How we do it here” at Tell Ten Friends. You know, just in case someone were to one day make me an offer of 10 mill or so to buy this here small but thriving firm.

I would want to keep the chair, of course.

I’ve added some new gems to my blogroll (”Stuff I Read,” in the right column). As always I only add things that I read on a regular basis, and that I’m keen to share with readers.

You might find yours in the list, but don’t be heartbroken if it’s not there…I have several others short-listed that may be added soon.

Enjoy!

Update: How could I forget Converstations, and Obviousness.net?

Or so says the headline that I lifted from a new white paper on SL written by the folks over at Social Signal. It’s a free download, follow the link in their post to give it a read for yourself, and discover what all the fuss is about.

Regarding the white paper, excerpted from Rob’s post:

It’s a PDF, about 450 kb in size. It’s also a pretty quick read, so it’s perfect as a crib sheet before your next chichi cocktail party, where you’ll be the one who doesn’t have to fake-nod-and-laugh their way through the inevitable Second Life conversation.

Give it a read, and take advantage of your one free avatar. Come and say hi to BadBad Leroy (Jim Croce fans, anyone?), if you happen to catch him at any marketing events in SL, or flying around Info Island trying to make sense of this new 3D world.

2007 is going to be a great year, I can just sense it.

For one thing, my sister moved to town, and that means more quality time with family, plus a consistent running partner to keep me in line while training for the Vancouver Marathon this May. Call that my New Year’s resolution, but longtime TTF readers will recall I committed to this several months ago, and after a (admittedly light) season of occasional runs here in Vancouver last year, I’m ready for the real deal this year. The big one. I can feel the burn already, and I’m still a bit “festive” from the wine at dinner. This should be interesting.

Also of note: I got a new camera (yeaaaaah!) from my wife for Christmas, an Olympus Evolt E-500. And I’m loving it. Two seconds out of the box and it took me right back to my days as a sports shooter, firing away like mad on my 35mm SLR hoping I got the puck (or soccer ball, etc.) in the frame. I’m back behind the lens again, and this time it’s not a betacam, DV or a video camera of any kind, but my beloved still photography. I missed it, so prepare for an increase in the number of shots coming through my feed (pardon the duplicate, in this case). But sentimentality aside, it will have great business applications as well. Add photography to the list of services available from your favorite boutique marketing firm

Still, since Vancouver has been a rainy mess (surprise!) the past few days, I haven’t been able to snap much of anything that’s ‘flickr worthy.’ So I’ve defaulted to the obvious cop-out in times like these, where the first shot has to tell a certain story…and so here is a shot of my new camera, by my new camera:

Did I mention how terrific Mrs. Behan is at giving Christmas presents?

Have a terrific and prosperous New Year, all. I’m back in the saddle, so posting should resume just as sporadic and inconsistent as ever. Cheers!