Blogging and E-retailing Debbie Weil Author of The Corporate Blogging Book Oct. 20,

1.Retail blogs (and Twitter) 2. Good writing 3. Defining community 4.The importance of walking the talk Let’s talk about… 2 Hey, ask questions!

Does your brand need a blog? 3

Fear Why aren’t more CEOs and companies blogging? of being criticized of losing control 4

“We shop, therefore we blog” 5 Example on page 66 in my book

800-CEO-Read blog 6 Another example on page 66 in my book

Zappos.com blogs 7

Zappos on Twitter 8

Zappos CEO on Twitter 9 He has15,081 followers and he’s following 17,573 Twitterers

Why do these e-retail blogs work? 10

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You want to be #1 in the online conversation about your brand 12

What else? 13

“It’s the content (and the writing), stupid” 1. Simplicity 2. Unexpectedness 3. Concreteness 4. Credibility 5. Emotion 6. Story - from Made to Stick 14

Good blogging is good writing and good writing is storytelling… 15 Read Andrew Sullivan’s essay, “Why I Blog” in Nov issue of The Atlantic Monthly andrew-sullivan-why-i-blog

To blog successfully, take off your marketing or PR hat and adopt a new mindset… Deliver value without selling 16

Let’s define community 17 From Seth Godin’s new book, Tribes**: “A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.” ** Highly recommended

Blogs are one piece of the social media puzzle How do you use these tools to create community? 18

Get to know the tools. You’ll be ahead of the game. 19

- One in 5 U.S. adults has no landline - 49% of young adults (18 – 29) are cell phone only users Harris Poll April 4, Mobile

Parting Thoughts 21

This is a revolution 22

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Walking the Talk 25 How many of you have your own blogs? How many of you are Twittering?

Selected Resources Books Groundswell (Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff 2008) New Rules of Marketing & PR (David Meerman Scott 2007) The Corporate Blogging Book (Debbie Weil 2006) Tribes (Seth Godin 2008) Blog / Social Media Tools (search/compare your brand) (blog search engine) (get alerts for your name or brand) (the new micro-blogging) 26

Thank you! 27 Please visit me online Subscribe to my blog at