Mediaboss Marketing

Yesterday I reviewed the leading social network for book readers, Goodreads. In the second post in my Social Books series, I'm checking out a brand new social network for book writers. Called Writer's Bloq, it was founded by a young wannabe writer from New York named Nayia Moysidis. In a phone interview, I discovered that Moysidis, a graduate of Columbia University's creative writing program, started Writer's Bloq because of the frustrations she encountered trying to get her first novel noticed by publishers. She'd sent 93 individualized letters to publishing houses, but only received a few generic rejection letters in response.

Like many entrepreneurs, Moysidis is a very determined person. After being largely ignored by publishers, her next step was to take an intern job at Simon & Schuster. There she was dismayed to find her very own novel - submitted under a pen name - in the slush pile! On the plus side, Moysidis saw first hand that it was impossible for a publishing house like Simon & Schuster to pick up every book sent to them. They simply receive too many manuscripts.

After seeing the writer submission process from the other side, Moysidis concluded that publishers are so overwhelmed that they aren't discovering enough new talent. She felt that writers needed a better way to try and get noticed, which ultimately would help publishers too. So she created Writer's Bloq, a wonderfully named social network where writers can post snippets of their work and network with others in the industry.

The first thing that struck me about Writer's Bloq when I signed up for a nosey, was its crisp and clean design. Goodreads could learn a thing or two from it there!

There are two main sections: a writing section and a reading section.As with any social network, it's advisable to have a look around first before posting your own content. There are many ways you can discover the writing of others on Writer's Bloq - by genre, format, status (published or unpublished), or tags.

You can choose to read a piece immediately, or save it for later. You can also send it to your Kindle. The staples of social networks are all there: comments, likes, sharing via Facebook and Twitter, the option to subscribe to the author.

Writer's Bloq is clearly very early in its evolution - there isn't a huge amount of activity on the site right now. That is of course the problem every new social network has. Goodreads is at the opposite end of the social network spectrum. It's a mature social network that reached its tipping point a few years ago and is now in the midst of mainstreaming (10 million users and counting!).

So the challenge for Writer's Bloq is to get its core user base - budding writers and people in the publishing industry - to sign up. I asked Nayia Moysidis why new writers should post their work on Writer's Bloq. Why not just self-publish, if they aren't able to land a traditional publisher? She replied that when writers submit a manuscript to a publisher, essentially they are after the following three things:

Originally posted here:
Social Networking For Authors & Overcoming The Rejection Slip

13 September 2012 Last updated at 20:12 ET

Yosemite park rangers have expanded a health advisory about a killer virus to nearly a quarter of a million people who have stayed there since June.

The mouse-borne hantavirus is now known to have infected nine people - three of whom have died. There is no known cure.

Officials at the California park insist their letters to more than 230,000 people are purely precautionary.

Deer mice, which spread the infection, have increased in number and now the rodents are being trapped and killed.

Yosemite initially sent a warning last month to 1,700 campers who stayed at a specific campsite, before gradually expanding that figure as infections emerged elsewhere.

Most of the cases involved guests at the Signature cabins in Curry Village, but one case involved someone who had stayed at multiple High Sierra camps in wilderness areas.

A ninth person is now recovering after being stricken with the disease following a visit to Yosemite in early July, said National Park Service spokesman John Quinley on Thursday.

It can take six weeks for the emergence of early symptoms such as aches and fever, or in half the cases headaches and sickness. It then moves into the lungs.

One third of cases are fatal, but identifying it early through blood tests increases a person's chance of survival.

Original post:
Yosemite virus alert to 230,000

A poll shook up the political outlook in New Mexico... again. This time it was a poll by Public Policy Polling, a pollster with ties to liberal groups and the Democratic Party. But the poll also was in line with many other polls in the Senate race -- every poll since July has shown Martin Heinrich with a lead between 7 and 9 percent over Heather Wilson.

The Presidential race is murkier. It showed a double-digit lead for Barack Obama over Mitt Romney, but did not include Gary Johnson, at the behest of the conservation coalition that paid for the poll. After double-digit leads by Obama for many polls, two straight polls showed his lead at just five percent -- including a July poll by PPP.

As The Word has said many times, the fact that neither the campaign is expending resources in the state is perhaps the best indicator that the state is closer to double-digits in favor of Obama than five points for Obama.

On to the Word:

Some of the gains in health insurance coverage can be attributed to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which has required private insurers to allow parents to cover their children up to age 26. Even though the majority of the provisions in the federal health care reform dont go into effect until 2014, it is clearly having a positive impact, particularly for young New Mexicans, Bradley said.

A reader wrote about the irony of Wilson, a Republican, hoping for debates on publicly-funded PBS, a service that Republicans have voted to defund time and time again.

On Pearce's $7.48 million net worth:

Pearce's biggest holding was at least $5 million of stock in Trinity Industries Inc., an equipment rental company of which Pearce is president. His wife had a stake in Lea County Bancshares worth at least $1 million. In 2011, the lawmaker also reported selling an airplane that netted at least $500,000.

Just for kicks, ask a campaign worker what they think about campaign signs off the record over a beer. It will be fun.

Read more here:
Morning Word, 09-13-12

By The Canadian Press

WATERLOO, Ont. - BlackBerry's instant messaging service has found a new home, nestled between BBL and bbq.

The term BBM is being added to the latest edition of the Collins English Dictionary.

Shorthand for Research In Motion's BlackBerry Messenger software, the dictionary is listing it as an abbreviation as well as a noun and a verb.

The company says making it into the dictionary shows just how popular BBM is around the world.

RIM (TSX:RIM.TO - News) says 70 per cent of its customers use BBM on a daily basis.

The company noted several recent references to BBM including Olympic gold medal sprinter Usain Bolt saying he had to thank a "few people on my BBM."

RIM says singers such as Tinie Tempah and Sean Kingston have also both mentioned BBM in their songs, "Miami to Ibiza" and the aptly titled, "BBM."

T.A. McCann, vice-president of BBM and social communities at RIM, says the inclusion in the dictionary recognizes its status as one of the world's most popular mobile social networks.

RIM is planning to release a new generation of smartphones early next year in a bid to regain ground lost to Apple's iPhone and smartphones with Google's Android operating system.

View post:
BBM being added as a word to the latest Collins English Dictionary

BURLINGTON, MA--(Marketwire - Sep 13, 2012) - Awareness, Inc., provider of on-demand social marketing automation software, today announced results of its State of Social Media Marketing Survey, available in the report 'The State of Social Marketing Report: 7 Major Findings & In-Depth Analysis'.

The survey, which Awareness conducts bi-annually, was administered in July 2012 and received responses from 450 marketers from a cross-section of industries, company sizes and levels of social marketing experience. Survey respondents represented executive and senior management roles (45%), mid-level management (28%) and marketing support roles (15%). Content areas covered in the report include:

"Our State of Social Media Marketing report reveals that brands struggle to measure ROI, despite the volume of marketers with social media presence and experience," offered Brian Zanghi, CEO of Awareness, Inc. "Brands remain ill-equipped to tie their social marketing initiatives to business results. However, companies experienced in social marketing are applying new technologies to identify and segment prospects and buyers, such as social CRM and social marketing automation to drive business value."

Survey Findings

Overall, the report revealed that marketers have yet to tap into the full potential of social. Few are using key enabling technologies such as social CRM, which when adopted more widely, will be used to integrate social prospect and customer data with traditional sales and marketing data, providing a layer of insights that will help marketers be more effective and efficient in the social age. Only 16% of marketers who responded to the survey are currently using a social CRM, although an additional 21% plan to by this year's end. Socially mature brands are adopting Social CRMs faster -- brands with a social marketing budget of over $100,000 have a social CRM adoption rate of 44%, with an additional 26% who plan to use such a system by the end of 2012.

While 68% of marketers state they are interested in further expanding their social footprint, followed by an interest in publishing content more frequently, a full 50% see the need for tighter integration between social and the rest of marketing and 35% want better integration between marketing and the rest of the business. This metric points to a maturation of social marketing, as integration of social data with other marketing disciplines creates a more complete customer picture.

Savvy marketers are interested in measuring their effectiveness, by measuring ROI, brand effectiveness, and customer engagement. To measure revenue generation, marketers look to:

In addition to these key findings, the State of Social Media Marketing Report identifies top-level trends including the leading challenges faced by marketers, cited as proper ROI measurement (58%) and managing and growing social media presence (44%). More mature organizations cite their top challenges as measuring ROI (64%), full integration with the rest of marketing (41%) and integration specifically with lead generation and sales (32%).

"We expect leading social marketers to apply new frameworks and strategies to measure social ROI, including a growth in social prospecting and social scoring to turn the broader social web into a lead generation pipeline," says Zanghi.

The State of Social Marketing Report: 7 Major Findings & In-Depth Analysis is available for download here.

Link:
New State of Social Media Marketing Report From Awareness, Inc. Identifies Top Trends and Challenges Facing Marketers