That was the subject of my first appearance on the Lab with Leo, and at last I have the embeddable video of that conversation.

Mr. Laporte and I talk about how to set up a Google News Alert, as well as how to monitor tags and search within Technorati. (Scroll past the obligatory G4 Tech TV promo, if you prefer)

Big thanks to Ryan Yewell and the rest of the producers for having me on the show, and then even being kind enough to have me back!

Stay tuned for my second appearance, where we discuss using social media tools to market your business, including a discussion about Facebook profiles, apps and groups.

I’m proud and delighted to report that Tell Ten Friends has been selected to be among the Top 30 Canadian Marketing and Advertising Blogs, by Experience Planner, authored by Scott Weisbrod.

Membership on the list is based on a number of factors including # of subscribers, link count, Page Rank, and a few others. Having been around a while, I still have enough “juice” to be on this list, even though I’ve been posting a lot less frequently over the past several months.

It’s an honour (spelled with a ‘u’ today, thanks) to be among such bright, talented and well-informed bloggers such as the rest those that grace the list along with me:

1. adgoodness
2. One Degree
3. Canuckflack
4. Twist Image
5. Pro PR
6. My Name is Kate
7. Leo Burnett Toronto
8. chroma
9. Common Sense PR
10. Buzz Marketing with Blogs
11. Crap Hammer
12. PR Works
13. Buzz Canuck
14. Student PR Blog
15. Transmission Content + Creative
16. social media group
17. The Client Side Blog
18. The Praized Blog
19. Experience Planner
20. Canadian Marketing Blog
21. BPWrap
22. The New PR
23. ADS-Links.com
24. Blogging Me Blog You
25. Mutually Inclusive PR
26. FlackLife
27. The Other Blokes’ Blog
28. Tell Ten Friends
29. Happy Pixels
30. Youngblood PR & Marketing

Go Canada! With lists like these popping up all over the web for various categories in various areas, it’s nice to see that someone is willing to take the time to index all of the incredible Canuck blogs on the web each week.

Thanks Scott!

The week seems to be flying by, so I thought I’d better quickly post an update.

Joel Burslem’s talk at the Real Estate Tech Meetup Monday night was great; he hit upon the changes in the markets in the States (their bubble has has done what bubbles always do) and how it is affecting the businesses and professionals in that industry.

His words come as a bit of a warning to Canadian Realtors; there’s still time to establish a level of service and interaction that will keep people coming back lest our markets suffer the same fate as down South, and the web is a key piece in the puzzle.

Sidebar: I taped my segment with the Realty TV folks yesterday, it went pretty well. It airs first on Thursday the 27th at 11pm PST on City TV, channel 13 in Vancouver (plug that into your DVR now, Mom) and again the following Saturday the 29th at 9:30 am.

To highlight just some of the changes that digital media is having on all industries, Joel closed his presentation with this great spot for Kodak that I thought was really entertaining, and just had to share it:

I don’t know what it is about “Boo-Ya!” that always makes me chuckle.

You don’t need me to tell you that Vancouver is a hotbed of activity in the tech industry, especially when it comes to the web.

If you haven’t already, jump on over to Techcouver.com to see a map of just a few of the many web trail blazers that call this city home. And if you’re sitting on “the next big thing” for the web, hit up the “Get on the Map” link to have your venture added.

It’s fitting that this post contains a large map image too, as the real estate (technology) industry is today’s subject. After all, tomorrow night I’ll be downtown at The Real Estate Tech Meetup, checking out a (free) presentation by Joel Burslem, author of what I think is the best real estate technology blog on the web; Futureofrealestatemarketing.com.

Joel, who works for Inman News, is based in Portland but is making the trip back up North to share a few insights about trends in online marketing in the real estate biz. Give credit to the guys at Ubertor, Vancouver’s leader in web content management solutions for Realtors, for luring Joel to Ceili’s Irish Pub for his speech with promises of beer and good cheer. If local real estate technology news is what you’re after, Steve of Ubertor pumps out fresh info every weekday, too.

I suspect that I’ll be nodding approvingly at most of what Joel has to say tomorrow night, and I hope to learn a few new things as well. The timing is great too, as the following day I’m taping a segment with the folks of Realty Television on CityTV, on the subject of the web and social media, and their part in the rapidly changing real estate industry.

Not only that, but Canada’s first significant real estate/social media/community site, Myrealplace.com recently launched here in Vancouver. Yes, that’s them on the Techcouver map. Their membership is growing, including a number of industry professionals on hand to answer questions (myself included, as a marketer of course). I gave my brother a little nudge and had him sign up, too. Everybody, users and Realtors alike, gets access to a blog as well so if you’re a Realtor and you’re reading this, hop on over and be among the first few who are quickly changing the way buyers, sellers and real estate service providers connect on the web.

With all of this activity, and plenty more to come I’m sure, it’s safe to call Vancouver a force on the scene.

If you’re reading this and scratching your head, I know a certain marketing consultant who can help you understand how to do better business with the web, or help you build that community site that you’ve had in mind. Oh, and here’s a quick note to any investors out there looking for a brilliant new real estate marketing vehicle: I’ve got a great idea for one…

Need a quick way to build a community around an idea, event or concept?

Want to generate some discussion around a topic that is important to you (and you’re pretty sure other people are just as psyched)? Start a Facebook Group.

It’s easy, and finding members won’t be a problem. Just invite the folks that you know are most likely to join, and watch as their like-minded friends and contacts spot the group in news feeds and start joining en masse. Perhaps even encourage the most influential folks among your invitees to spread the word- or even better, to add content to the group in the form of photos, videos, links, and discussion posts.

In part, this post serves to turn the spotlight on a group I recently created called The Social Media Bar. The idea was born during a session at Barcamp Vancouver, where I assembled a panel of some incredibly bright folks who are experts in the field of social media. I’m speaking of Monique Trottier, Linda Bustos, Lee LeFever, Tanya Davis and Geoff Gachallan, plus myself.

As a group of about 40, we talked for an hour about social media and marketing, and as you might have guessed, we merely scratched the surface. The group was created to continue the discussion, and just a few days later, membership is growing quickly. I have seen group members adding each other as friends after seeing them in the member list, and that alone is enough reason for me to call it a success. Everyone is welcome, so please join.

Surely there’s an idea or group that you can rally a community around, and start a discussion that the whole collective can contribute to. It might just be the best way to find out who else shares your interest in something that is important to you.

So if you haven’t already, start your very first online community in the form of a Facebook Group, and you’ll begin to get an idea of what it means to bring people closer together using the social tools of the web. Plus, it’s a whole lot of fun!

Bonus link: An “awesometastic” example of a Facebook group with a great message: The Kindness Crew group, started by the guys of ExtremeKindness.com. They’re from my hometown, and travel around committing random acts of kindness and matching short-term volunteers with worthy causes. Well done, guys!

Remember those guys that brought you the Crazy Messed Up World of Ecommerce that I linked to a few weeks back?

Well, now my friend Dave Olson from Elastic Path has informed that they’re offering a free webinar on the subject of “social commerce.” Put simply, they’ll discuss the pros and cons of enabling user-generated reviews on your ecommerce site.

For folks doing business on the web, that is cool all on its own (sign up here), but it also affords me the opportunity to post another one of those funny videos they started publishing a while back:

Haha. Ain’t that the truth. BUY NOW!

His timing is excellent, because over the past few days I have asked by several small business bloggers about how to make their blog a better business tool.

And who better to impart that kind of wisdom than Mack Collier of the Viral Garden. Better still, you can read Mack’s condensed version of “Eight Easy Ways to Grow Your Blog” on his own site, or read the full monty over at Marketing Profs (freebie article).

A quick excerpt:

#4 - Showcase readers who make special contributions. Do everything you can to make sure that readers that frequently comment, or link to your blog, know that you appreciate them. It’s just common courtesy, and when you have a reader that’s going out of their way to be a faithful community member, you cannot do enough to encourage and reward that behavior.

I for one can attest to the fact that Mack certainly practices what he’s preaching there. Great post Mack, and a great one-stop resource for business bloggers, all.

The episode of The Lab that we taped last month will air on August 7 on G4Tech TV (news about the Google Video “release date” coming soon), and I have been invited back to tape another segment on July 12, on the subject of using social media to promote your business.

So, in the true spirit of community, I’m polling everyone (rather informally, just use the comment form below) to find out what social networking sites you like, and how you use them to promote yourself (or your company, where applicable).

I’ve already drafted some notes on:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Virb
• Flickr
• and Bebo (which I actually know very little about. Erno? Can you help?)

Any tips or hints you want to share? Any others that deserve top billing in a lightning-fast, six minute talk on social networks? Linda, I’m counting on your input here.

I welcome any and all comments and suggestions.

I’ve been pretty silent about it until now, but I was selected as one of the 50 bloggers to receive a Nikon D80 DSLR camera for a review period of six months. The camera arrived yesterday ( coincidentally on the same day as a scheduled Gastown Photowalk- photos below), and now I’m finally going public about my involvement.

I suppose it’s likely that I was chosen because of my photography hobby in part, but I assure you that nobody is expecting any photographic magic from me. It’s more likely that I was selected because I’ll take an active interest as much in the campaign as in the camera itself. Or maybe they just didn’t want the list too heavily stacked with talent .

I’ll go into my take on all of this in a second, but to avoid any confusion, here are the facts, as I understand them:

Nikon hired the MWW Group to create a blogger relations program that they’ve called “Picture This.”

50 bloggers were chosen, 48 (To date, 46) of whom opted to participate

The trial period is six months, after which the camera can be purchased (at a discount, with the funds going to charity), sent back or kept for an additional six months.

There is no obligation or even expectation to blog about it, the only rule being that if we choose to, we must disclose that we are part of the program. Already, there’s some controversy over the program, which critics say is unethical. They wonder how a blogger could possibly be objective with such a generous loan in the equation?

It’s possible that sending me a camera will make me go ga-ga and cause me to start singing the virtues of Nikon, sure. But that is why there is only one rule: that I disclose my involvement, so the reader can take my opinions and feedback with the proverbial grain of salt. This mandated transparency is what separates this campaign from many of the others that have been under fire for avoiding this extremely important factor. As always, it’s up to the readers as to whether anything that I write rings true for them, and as long as they have all the facts they can make an informed decision one way or another.

I suspect that the dissenters share this one in common with me; we both wish we’d thought of this campaign first. But whether I had been selected or not, I would agree that it is a great way to spread the word online and is perfectly legal and ethical. The only thing that is different in this case of this campaign is the middle man has been cut out. The middle man in this case being the MSM (main stream media).

This time, the consumers are having their say, and have been contacted directly for their opinion. This has rattled the feathers of a few PR types, mostly because the model that they’ve “always used” has been abandoned. After all, what kind of future is there for the PR industry if there’s no need to kowtow to the media anymore? We’ll have to address that one another day, but for an example of how to adapt, start reading this post again from the beginning.

Now that I have been completely up front about my involvement and my feelings about all of this, I can move on to why we’re here; the camera in question. But first, a few more short words about the campaign. The box arrived via courier, accompanied by a hand-written letter on Nikon letterhead from a Senior Director at MWW. In the letter, they offered to give me a walk through of the camera’s features at my convenience. Even if I were being extremely critical (which I often am of attempts at blogger outreach) I have yet to find fault with the way they’ve conducted themselves.

Now, the camera. As I mentioned, I am a bit of a hobbyist photographer, and I used to shoot sports on the weekends while still in high school and between semesters of college. Since getting a new Olympus Evolt E-500 for Christmas, I’ve been trying to relearn the art, this time in digital. So although I’m not completely uninformed, running out on a Photowalk with nary a clue as to how to use this new tool was an interesting adventure. I took a bunch of shots, and I published them in their unedited form, in a set made specifically for my involvement in the program (equal parts disclosure and evangelism). Check out my first attempts with the D80 on our Photowalk by clicking this image:

I will continue to disclose my involvement each time I blog about this subject, and the meta data on my Flickr photos is all the disclosure I feel is necessary as to what camera took what shots (including my webcam, we now have four cameras in the house).

I welcome all feedback in the comments below. There are obviously a number of differences of opinion on all of this, and I’d like to hear them all.

That is the question asked by a new series of funny videos from Elastic Path, a local e-commerce software developer here in Vancouver. Here’s a sample:

Full disclosure: I am an acquaintance of a few of the Elastic Pathers, and the firm that produced the spots as well. That being the case, it should be noted that the email I received containing the link was a terrific example of blogger relations. Here’s an excerpt from the email from Darren Barefoot:

Hi Jordan,

How goes the Barcamp organizing? If that date is secure, I’m optimistic that I’ll stick around for a week after Gnomedex to attend.

I’ll spare you the usual pitch, but I thought you might be interested in these videos we made for Elastic Path.

We’ve done our best to make ecommerce funny (a tall order, I think). There’s a nifty jingle, and the second video prominently features a turnip. I have a bit part as the search engine in the first video–I apologize in advance for my dodgy performance.

Doesn’t sound anything at all like the emails that one usually sees from PR companies pitching bloggers does it? Exactly.