Adventures in Candyland

Our weekly Friday guest post is up over at GoBigNetwork.  The exciting news is that it talks about target audiences and key messaging for startups and small businesses.  (There’s a slight tinge of sarcasm in that part about exciting…)

Catch ya next week.

Did you know today is Blog Action Day? It’s a cool idea. Basically, a group of bloggers set out to heighten the awareness of one of the most important topics, environmentalism, throughout the blogoshpere and all on the same day. This mass blogging event will be the topic of the day on 15,000 blogs and reach 12 million readers. So - of course I wanted to participate. What is more important than preserving our earth?

So full disclosure, I am kind of a dork (yes, I like Sci-fi) and I love the NEW Battlestar Gallactica. The premise is humans invented robots, the robots rebel, kill many and take over the world, so the humans left have to flee into space to preserve the what’s left of the race. The characters are constantly craving earth’s environment, so they all want to get away on this one ship that replicates the beauty of earth’s outdoors. A reoccuring theme in shows of this nature for sure, but it always reminds me of how many of us take what we have here for granted. So, hopefully all this awareness will turn into action and not peter out because the reality is: this kind of revolution takes time. This month’s issue of Wired focuses quite a bit on this topic of time and trial and error particularly in regards to the future of energy.

One of the articles addresses the very prevalent molecule, cellulosic ethanol. This molecule is the answer to all our energy woes and even better, it’s just waiting for a good use in everyone’s lawnmowers! Problem is - it’s hard to break down. So even though there are ways to do it, it can’t be done at the proper scale and speed at this point. Sort of the like the whole corn ethanol deal - fuel can be made from it, but it’s not effective and efficient enought. I’m not going to get into the chemistry of it, but I think the underlying topic here is creative solutions and raising awareness regularly so people will continually clamor for solutions even if there isn’t a real answer for many years. Because in truth, there is no option for the US or the world whether due to the environmental or financial ramifications. Therejust isn’t a choice. And there needs to be mavericks who make it their goal to not let these issues just coast along.

In fact, check out these two guys, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger. These two probably might not being having a lot of “coffee talk” with mainstream environmentalist. A result of their controversial manifesto from 2005, “Death of Enviromentalism” and new book titled, “Break Through: From “The Death of Environmentalism” to the Politics of Possibility,” but I bet they do inspire passion and hopefully change. They opine current mainstream ideas proposed aren’t extreme enough to make an actual dent in the reality of greenhouse emmisions and the only way for change to be had is if the solutions are, “pro-growth, pro-technology, and pro-environment.” Seems like common sense right, but apprently these are the non-conformist ideas that will turn the enviromental movement onto its ear so something actually gets accomplished. Well, that and money of course.

Whatever they inspire, at least at least they inspire something! Me, I am going to do something too, not world changing big, but world changing in my life big. I drink coffee at least once a day, so I going to make it a point to to use my own cup because it kills me when I see the 30 cups from the past week piling up in the trash. It’s definitely not going to make the impact Nordhaus and Shellenberger want to make, but we all got to start the change somewhere. What are you doing?

Check out how Sweet Talk is helping to differentiate HalloweenMart in a crowded field of competitors in today’s San Francisco Chronicle small business column, “Mind Your Business.”

Social networking can be a powerful and inexpensive tool for small business owners to market their business, but they need to be creative and know how to use it right!

Hopefully not - but even if you are, that wouldn’t stop us from opening our big mouths! In any case, we thought we would throw some fresh simple syrup into the mix. So, every so often, we’re going unbolt our candy cane gates and let a new gingerbread person in (is it enough of the sugar references?).

This time, Gina Controneo, president and creative director of Soul’s Calling, is who we’ve called to task. Gina, has been a creative director at numerous ad agencies and is probably one of the most creative people I know! So - what’s she gonna blog about - the optimal way to unleash your creativity. I’ll be the first to take her advice.

Speaking of guest blogging, guess who else are going to take the plunge? Umm, Danielle and I of course. This Friday and every Friday, see us go big on gobignetwork.com, the world’s biggest community of startup companies. It makes perfect sense, we have big mouths and we’ll be on Go Big - obviously the perfect fit.

Since starting Sweet Talk last year, we have been asked countless times, “What industry do you specialize in?”  In fact, the question is so prevalent, and so automatic at networking events, that we have found ourselves trying to formulate an answer to it.

Here’s the thing…as entrepreneurs getting started, with somewhat varied backgrounds, we didn’t plan to start out specializing in any industry.  We figured we would take what business came our way.  But we also strongly believe that our expertise and the marketing/PR/communications principles we know can be applied to just about any industry and customized a little bit to fit each clients’ needs. 

Then we had a long conversation with a woman slightly older than us, who had had tremendous success in the marketing world by being a generalist - by applying her expertise to all industries, and we felt this justified the Sweet Talk philosophy. 

But the question kept coming…”What do you specialize in?”  And we started to feel like not having an answer was hindering us.  So we took a look at our clients, our backgrounds and what we enjoy.  And here’s what we know we specialize in:

We work with clients who are trying to reach a luxury audience - either with a high-end product or service, or as a nonprofit looking for donors.  

That’s our thrust.  That’s our answer.  BUT, we still strongly believe that our expertise and our knowledge can be applied to just about any industry out there, and we certainly don’t want to close ourselves off. 

Last week, I saw this post on the Blog of Tim Ferris (author of The Four-Hour Work Week) about the Top Five Reasons to be a Jack of all Trades.  And it made a lot of sense.  

Sooo…we continue to struggle with whether or not to specialize in a certain industry, or to proudly be generalists.  What are your thoughts?  Are you a specialist or a generalist?  Let us know!  

A few weeks ago I wrote a post that mentioned Google - you can see it below.  I said I’d follow up with some posts about the Google tools I can no longer live without, and so I’ll start by talking about Google Analytics. 

Google Analytics provides free, in-depth tracking - really in-depth.  The cynics out there say that Google blatantly sinks a ton of money into making Analytics the best so that they will increase revenue from AdWords…businesses can analyze their traffic and site marketing, and then make wiser pay-per-click purchases.  Frankly, I think that’s Google’s brilliance at work.  Sweet Talk can see the words people are using to find us on searches, and perhaps respond by choosing the appropriate AdWords for online advertising. 

Actually, we’ve yet to do any pay-per-click advertising, but we’re learning a ton about our site and it’s traffic by monitoring Analytics.  For example, our traffic volume has been much higher than we expected in it’s first quarter.  As a new business, that’s encouraging. 

In addition, we have a client with members all over the world, and they have generously promoted our site.  Its amazing to see that we now have people from places as varied as Ghana, Saudi Arabia and Smyrna, Georgia visiting our site on a regular basis.  

Also interesting is that we can track the networks our traffic comes from.  Sometimes, if we’re pitching new business or trying to contact the media, it is helpful to see if someone from a specific company or corporate entity has taken the next step and viewed our site for additional information.  And now, with a Blog, it is nice to know that not only are people from all over the world interested enough to check our posts on a near-daily basis, but so are people in organizations as close by as the mid-Wilshire district of LA.

Google Analytis is really an enlightening tool…one we will use to help us direct our online presence.                       

Apparently there are currently around 15 million blogs.  Pretty crazy considering this mode of communication seems only to have really surfaced during the last five-seven years.  Its obvious people have a lot to say and only needed a venue to say it. 

Even more incredible is that 57 million people are reading these blogs.  Because of this huge audience, bloggers have gained a ton of influence, credibility and control.  Where can you create an instant buzz these days?  Ta dah!!  Millions of blogs talking about every possible topic, and the people interested in the topic read the blog. Where better to reach the exact audience you need to reach?

As much as I know about blogs and read a good amount of them, and yes, even write one, I really didn’t get the breadth of their reach.  That is until I read this article and it’s accompanying survey in Ad Age.

According to a We Media and Zogby Interactive poll, 72% of adults said they were dissatisfied with the quality of American journalism today.  I just think people are cynical about freedom of speech these days – it’s easy to think that journalists are somewhat controlled by, or at least influenced by, the corporations that own the media outlet they are reporting for. Blogs aren’t governed by these higher powers, so bloggers can express their opinions freely.  Readers admire that.  Especially when the blogger has good information, writes intelligently and makes insightful observations about products, news or people. 

So – I don’t think blogs are a fad or will be going away anytime soon.  It’s cool to have a forum to discuss your thoughts and opinions.  And it’s even cooler to know people might be reading them.  And as publicists, we really can’t ignore that today bloggers may have just as much influence as a journalist at the NY Times.  Now that this entire blogospere exists, the key is really offering the right story to the right blogger.  That hasn’t changed.  No writer wants to hear about something that they or their readers don’t care about. 

We had a new business pitch the other day for an organization that wants to reach a very specific and targeted group, and I wasn’t really sure where to start, but then I read this article and was instantly reminded - the blogosphere is where it’s at.