Tomorrow morning, Strutta.com will launch. It will be the glorious apex of over five months of work (in my case) to prepare for opening the doors to the general public. Not to mention the year or so of prep by our founders and our extremely talented development team.

When I took the job, I promised to publish a few tips about community building here based on my experiences. Two things have prevented me from doing that until now: the fact that the site has been in private beta, and that preparing for a launch like this keeps you pretty busy. Even without a place for us to officially congregate, save for our Facebook Page and our blog, we’ve been busy getting ourselves involved with the people that matter most- the “future” Strutta community. I’ve prepared a list of values that I knew we had to hold near and dear to our hearts before we even began, and examples of how I put those in action. Using our own work as a marketing case study, if you will.

Joining the Community

Taking a page out of Mack Collier’s book, I knew that our staff had to show that we were willing to play our own game, long before it was ever released. In the spirit of that, we started publishing staff videos on YouTube just a few days after I first sat down at my desk, and we haven’t let up since. We made a conscious decision to produce all of our videos with tools that are accessible to most people: consumer quality digital cameras, web cams and iMovie. Since our site is all about video, I’ve used it for lots of purposes: event coverage, outreach, shameless self promotion, recruiting and more. One of our more recent efforts has been something of a hit:

Office Lip Dub - Blister in the Sun, by Strutta.com from Jordan Behan on Vimeo.

Sidebar: Empower Your Best and Brightest

This is where I pat myself on the back for finding the director of the above lip dub video, Mark Freeman- I originally hired him on a very short contract to give us a hand with researching content, but he is now a key member of the product team, handling QA and assisting with community outreach. I’m taking credit where it’s not due though; of the two of us, Mark is the genius.

We also sponsor a lot of local events in the Vancouver tech community. The founders of Strutta, Danny Robinson and Maura Rodgers are the driving forces behind Launch Party Vancouver, a bimonthly event that helps bring exposure to local tech startups in a social setting. We’re also sponsoring the upcoming Drupal Camp Vancouver, an “unconference” for the open source CMS platform that our site is based on. At Christmas time, we headed up a “Hardware Drive” here in Vancouver, donating the booty to Free Geek, a non-profit that recycles and redistributes used computer hardware. Perhaps most importantly, there is nary a tech event in Vancouver that doesn’t have a strong turnout by members of our staff. My doing? Not at all- again this one should be credited to our founders, who hired a bunch of passionate and talented people that love to get involved and show their support, myself included. Here are just a few of their many blogs and other sites.

Tell the Truth

Until we had all of our ideas for Strutta fleshed out, we were in top secret “stealth” mode, so it wouldn’t be accurate for me to say that we have always told the whole truth. But we have been very upfront with people about everything that we were ready to talk about, and started getting community feedback early. When we launched our Alpha product several weeks back, we invited a group of trusted friends and bloggers to come in and test the product. They may be our friends, but these folks weren’t shy about telling us exactly what they thought needed changing, and what parts they wanted to see more of. We listened and responded, and the new site reflects many of those requests. We’ve had to admit to a small number of mistakes along the way as well, and we’ve done so graciously.

Getting the Word Out

Even before I started this gig, our founders were in talks with Voce Communicatons, the Valley PR firm that is helping to dispatch the message on our behalf. After many talks with Tiffany and Shanee and even some crazy nights at SXSW with VP Matt Podboy, I am quite comfortable saying that these guys “get it,” and have been extremely helpful. More on that later when some of the resulting stories hit the many tech community sites and blogs. For my part, I have done some local outreach- some private video pitches for bloggers that we especially love, and even some video responses to some of the folks we are big fans of on YouTube.

Tomorrow morning, we find out what kind of effect these efforts will begin to have, and personally thank anyone who says a kind word. Where challenges are made or questions asked, we answer with grace and efficiency. After the site is public, our marketing efforts turn to promoting the people that matter most to us: the players of the game. The content creators whose brilliant content are what makes the game so fun to play and vote on. People like Freddie Wong, who proved his status as a Guitar Hero demigod when he demolished our CEO in a head-to-head battle at SXSW this year. Or like Piotr Walczuk, whose celebrity impressions are both plentiful and accurate. Is he the Rich Little of a new generation? First and foremost, we care about these folks, and we will continue to improve the product based on their feedback and suggestions.

If you like what you’ve read and you’d like to give us a little boost in the form of a link or even better yet, by dropping by and checking out the site or commenting on the blog, I for one would be genuinely grateful .

(Cross-posted from the Strutta blog)

On Saturday, the inaugural Bridging Media Conference took place, bringing together delegates from the worlds of digital media creation, film, broadcast and many other disciplines.

Organized by local digerati darlings Megan Cole and Erica Hargreave and held in the "Hangar" at the Masters of Digital Media program on the Great Northern Way campus, the goal of Bridging Media was to better align the talent and experience of both the broadcast worlds and that of "new media."The discussions throughout the day on the various panels did exactly what they set out to do; ask and answer some of the tough questions related to "Where do we go from here?" In that regard, I would call the day a tremendous success, in my humble opinion. At the close of the day, I was asked what I would like to see done differently next time around. Overall the event was just right in most ways: size, content, format, and the fact that they sevred Vera's burger's for lunch! Yummmy. If there was something that needed changing, it was the diversity of folks in the audience, which I'm quite sure is no fault of the organizers. For an event meant to bridge the gap between the broadcast and online worlds, there seemed to be a noticeable lack of folks from the broadcast side, aside from a few producers who already had a great understanding of web content and how to leverage it. And I'm not afraid to say it- it's the folks from mainstream broadcast who needed the information and discussion the most.

I was invited to sit in on a panel entitled "Monetize, Monetize, Monetize," and prepared myself for a contentious discussion about how the current broadcast/advertising system has been broken by the web, and we need to figure out a better model to support the true value of content on the web. I didn't exactly articulate that point as well as I had hoped (isn't that always the case?) and I was quickly reigned in by the bright and inquisitive audience. Thankfully my brilliant co-presenters had plenty to add about other ways of adding value to various forms of content. And thus concludes my passive apology for spending too much time talking about advertising, when the crowd wanted to know more about ways to continue to make money off of their art.

I'm glad to have attended the Bridging Media Conference, I think it's a great idea that needs a lot more attention and a lot more discussion, so I sincerely hope that the organizers are keen to continue the discussion in subsequent forums. If there was one thing that we accomplished as a group on the weekend it was asking a lot of the right questions and I for one think we should reconvene until we have them all answered.

Bravo, Megan and Erica!

On Friday, Feb 22 I will hosting a Video Blogging 101 session at Moosecamp as part of Northern Voice, a two day blogging conference here in Vancouver, BC.

My co-hosts will be Roland Tanglao and Warren Frey, and we hope to cover all of the basics of video blogging; from live streaming, direct to web from cellphone, basic video production and a little bit of everything in between. The presentation is just a half-hour long, but we hope to allow plenty of time for audience questions. Roland has set up a wiki page on the Northern Voice site, where you can add your questions in advance if you wish, and we can add to them to the agenda.

Want to meet the presenters? Check out this short video clip by Roland, which was shot on his Nokia cellphone and uploaded live to the web, via Qik:

As promised, I’ll be sharing more details about my marketing and community building with Strutta.com soon. We are just days away from letting in our first users, and at that time I’ll start to share some notes and welcome your feedback on our community-building plan.

You may recall that a few months back I received a pitch in the form of a comic strip, asking if I’d like to test-drive and review a Brother printer.
I agreed to do so, and the timing was great as I was able to set it up at our new headquarters at Strutta, and let everyone have a chance to try it. What follows is my review of the unit that we chose to have as a guest in our offices. We haven’t really put the MFC-9440cn through its paces per se, but we did run several tests and try most of its features.

Here’s a quick list of pros and cons, followed by a video review as well:

We Liked:

• Scan to network, wirelessly. Options to scan to file, image, directly to email etc. Very handy.
• It does it all: print, scan, fax, copy and the aforementioned scan to email.
• Does all of the work of a much larger unit with a reasonably small footprint.

We Also Noticed:

• Still needs to be hardwired to access network, although it can transmit wirelessly
• Noticeably poorer print quality for color prints when compared to other (more expensive) color laser printers

Thank you again to Darren of Capulet Communications for a great blogger outreach campaign, and to Brother as well for trusting a gaggle of geeks like us with their equipment.

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…

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that last year I committed to running the Vancouver Marathon this year; while I am still 30.

Well, my sister moved back to Vancouver this winter, and decided to train with me. Early on, she made the wise decision to go the distance (the full 26.2 miles, it hurts just to type it) and enter the race with me as well.

So while we’ve been training, I’ve been “blogging out loud” while she absorbs whatever she can about marketing and social media. And she’s a quick study. I had been waiting for her to decide on her own that it was time for her to start a blog, and on Saturday while we were bouncing along the trail finishing 13 miles, she announced she was ready.

To my surprise, with very little help (at all, really) from me, she built and launched her own Wordpress.com site: Janisbehan.wordpress.com.

While we were still on the trail, we also decided that we were foolish not to have been blogging about our marathon experience all along, and we subsequently also launched our official marathon blog: Teambehan.wordpress.com.

To make me even prouder, my little sister beat me to it, and even wrote the first post.

So subscribe yourself, (I’ll have to get a proper Feedburner feed for it if I get time) and follow our adventures as we get closer to our goal of finishing our first marathon. We could really use the support.

I’m sitting back at home after a long day at “Moosecamp,” day one of a two-day blogging conference here in Vancouver called Northern Voice.

Those of you who subscribe to my feed will already have seen a few of my pics trickling in throughout the day. Expect more of the same tomorrow, but I thought it would only be fair to share my observations after this first day of action.

I attended sessions all day, ranging from “Mash-ups for Non-developers” to “Photocamp.” Oh, and I got my purple t-shirt with “Bloggable” across the front. Damn, that’s clever!

(purple t-shirt photo by Kris Krug)

The first thing that always strikes me about conferences of this kind, is how I “fit in.” See, in most of the crowds I find myself in, I am a different breed; an uber-user web kid, who everyone turns to for all matters related to the in-ter-nets, and computers in general for that matter.

In a crowd like the one at Northern Voice though, I’m just a wide-eyed “noob,” all slack-jawed because I’ve just seen a live demo of feed mash-ups that never knew were possible, or because someone confirmed that it really is Robert Scoble sitting over there in the corner.

If you’re not a habitual, obsessed blogger-type like me, and you’re reading this wondering what the hell I’m talking about, then don’t give up on me just yet. My point is simply that in the world of the web, I am but a fledgling student when compared to the kind of power-users, developers, and…let’s just say it - downright A-list bloggers that tend to show up at the kinds of conferences with “camp” as a suffix.

(me scratching, as seen by Cyprien, whose NV shots are many)

The second thing that strikes me is how many familiar faces I recognize. Thanks to the presence of little 60×60 pixel avatars on many of my online haunts, I can put the face to the name for a lot of personalities in the room, even when we’ve never met. I feel like I know them, such is my familiarity with the frequency of their blog posts, or their photo feeds, or even the sound of their voice on their podcast, if that is the case. That, I don’t mind telling you, is ultra cool IMO.

Since attending Barcamp way back in August, I’ve gotten to know a few of “the people behind the blogs,” through emails, coffee meetings, lunches and various other meet-ups. In fact, Jeremy and I carpooled to UBC together, and our firms collaborate on projects as well.

I guess what I’m doing a long-winded job of saying is that the web has connected all of us in a way that was never logistically possible before, and conferences like Northern Voice were created to celebrate that fact; to organize the collective to spawn new ideas, share them, and for at least one weekend, to press actual flesh and meet the real people behind the web presence.

For this reason, I try to make a point of introducing myself to all of those people that I feel I already know. Sure, I might come off as a bit “fan boyish,” but that’s what it’s all about for me.

Strangely, I’m coming to this realization only after returning home at the end of the day (I opted not to give myself the burden of attempting a live blog this time). Thing is though, I’m back there tomorrow. So if you’re reading this and you’re attending Northern Voice this weekend, stop and say hello!

I’ll be the guy with the goofy grin and the outstretched hand, waiting to shake yours.

——–

I will add to this all weekend, but if you want to see a slideshow of my shots thus far, it’s here. Also, if you’re curious about all-things-Northern-Voice, the agreed upon tags are northernvoice for posts, and both northernvoice and nv07 for Flickr photos.

Blog on, Vancouver.

What follows is a case study of sorts; a real “look-behind-the-scenes” at some of the web marketing strategy we employ here at Tell Ten Friends.

A few months back, I replied to a Craigslist posting indicating that the poster was looking for some help with SEO. I replied, as I often do to postings of this nature in Vancouver, and a few days later Eric Burke followed up with a phone call. Eric is a local artist and professional graphic designer, and has for the last three years been working on a collection of prints that feature cityscapes and landscapes of Vancouver. To launch his new online gallery, Eric wanted to get his page rank up fast.

I was excited right away, because here was a client who already understood the value of the web and social networking, and he was gracious enough to listen to my harebrained SEO tactics:

• We started the same way you always do with a good SEO strategy; by first doing some keyword research, and later writing a list of keywords to be used in the meta data of the site, and in the copywriting on the home page. (I luuuv the optional flash presentation with music in the banner, don’t you?)
• Eric already had a blog, so we built into his existing domain, added the RSS icon, and he’s been posting regularly about Vancouver, the city that serves as both the subject and the inspiration for his art. View his latest post here, where he discusses the process of creating one of his prints.
• To increase his online social network and generate a few more incoming links, Eric went about building several online profiles to promote his site and blog:
  
  eric burke | MYSPACE

  eric burke | LINKEDIN

  eric burke | PANARAMIO

  eric burke | SQUIDOO

• We also submitted Eric to a number of artist directories online (too many to list) to open more doors to his site, and of course to generate even more incoming links for the sake of SEO.
• Perhaps most importantly, all of his prints plus his “photo-journalistic” shots are available at his Flickr account for free, under a Creative Commons license that requires attribution to the artist.
• Lastly, we embarked on a PR campaign that was exactly the right scale for a release of this nature. I submitted it to a number of my local press contacts (only the most relevant ones, and the ones I know personally), and we also distributed it online, with free submission to PR Leap (very cool, very “2.0″ PR site) Fast Pitch, and the Grandaddy of them all, a paid submission to PRWeb.
• We’re tracking Eric’s incoming links and media “traction” with just two simple tools: Eric’s existing Technorati account, and Google News Alerts, which update me “as it happens” every time an item is published on the web with the search terms I’ve specified. (Eric’s name, plus “Vancouver” in this case)

Admittedly, we had it easy in this example; The client is a very accomplished graphic designer with access to a web developer, and luckily the marketer (third person here) was able to get his ideas across very easily to these two industry experts. That said, these ideas can work for anyone who shares a few very vital characteristics with the client in this example; Eric is web savvy, and understands the value of joining these communities, making himself accessible online, starting and engaging in conversations with his expanding network of online contacts.

I hope you’ve found this little case study helpful; both myself and Eric welcome your feedback and input, and I’m sure Eric would be especially pleased if you subscribe to his feed.

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.