Blueline: New Media Conference

Be Your Own Media was the title of a one day conference held yesterday at BSU by a local grassroots marketing firm Blueline on using new media to create more authentic two way connections with your customers. It was the second event by this name held this year (first event was in April), and based on some questions asked of the audience early in the morning by Blueline New Media guy Tac Andersen it was encouraging to see that the concept of new media has definitely progresses in the past 6 months from being limited to the local innovators to at least the early adopter crowd based on current spread of knowledge on new media mechanisms, active bloggers in the crowd as well as conference attendance in general. And similar to the shift and emergence of new media marketing - so has Blueline itself, with a new look and feel as was as a company strategy that appears to be focusing more clearly on grassroots marketing. Congrats on finding focus.

Couple concepts I found interesting:
1. Napsterize your Knowledge

Not a new concept, but I like the way they phrased it. This is the concept that if you give knowledge away for free, you can still have a viable business (disregard the fact that Napster got sued out of business for their disruptive business model:). Many companies think that if they give information away, they will have nothing to bring to the table for their clients, but it is completely the opposite. The information builds trust between you and your customer on your ability to deliver. Maybe they could take this information and do it for themselves, but typically that is not their business and when they need someone to deliver a service, who will be top of mind for them?

2. Four points raised from a Book called Pyro Marketing by Greg Stielstra as it related creating customer evangelists (high on the metaphor scale which makes it easier to burn into your mind)

• Gather the driest tinder
• Touch it with a match
• Fan the flames
• Save the coals

3. Rule # 1 with New media marketing: Its not about generating traffic, its about creating relationships

Many people equate blog readership as the yardstick of success, and while this can bring notoriety and possibly some add revenue, blogs can still be a success with only a few niche readers. The 'Volume = success' is a carry over from legacy media in my view (e.g. TV media). If you have 10 readers of your blog, that actually would hire or recommend to you, wouldn't you consider that a success?

All in all the conference was a great value for the $25 attendance fee with the content as well as the opportunity to network with others people interested in this space.