Growing The CMB To It's Next Level: 1st Team Meeting

The Blog-Off Contest from a Community Marketing Blog perspective has met and exceeded its goals. Not only have we been able to assist a number of talented writers and communication/marketing thought leaders benchmark their strengths in relation to their piers but we've gone on to build that will become a robust community uniting in common goals to grow the CMB and benefit its contributing team.

Amazing People With Exciting Vision - With the exception of a couple people still on the list, I've taken the time to "meet" with everyone who has expressed an interest in not only writing but in creating a thought leadership community and a brand around the Community Marketing Blog. I've been wow'd time and again with everyone's level of knowledge, passion and drive as I've listened to individual accomplishments and goals. What's been equally exciting is the uniformity of everyone desire to build a CMB brand by working together.


Let's Get Stated Now - To kick things off, lets use the CMB to start collaborating and sharing ideas. Below is the agenda for our upcoming phone meeting. Please use the Comment Section below to share your ideas on the agenda topics.  


First Official Planning Meeting

Proposed Date and Time:  Either July 14 or 15 at 12:30 EST (New York)
Confiramtion of attendance:  Email andrew@solsolutions.ca
Duration: 60-90 minutes, pending individual attendee's ability to remain on the call.
Phone Conference #: To be supplied via email.
Attendees: Founder & facilatator: Andrew Ballenthin, CMB Growth Director: Julie Tyios, Catherine McQuaid, Chad Rothschild, Jenmy Huynh, Megan McQ, Leon Op de Beek


Agenda - Add Your Thoughts In The Comment Section Below

1.  What are your goals for the CMB, What is the brand we're building?
2.  About creating a new author's page.
3.  What strategic differences will set up apart and enable community growth?
4.  How often can you realistically contribute: once a week?
5.  What is the traffic model?
6.  What is the conversion model for your following?
7.  What's else?  Topics for future discussion.
8.  Planning for the next September Blog-Off - bigger and better like American Idol!


Optional CMB Blog Training - Tuesday July 7, 12:30 EST (New York)
30-45 minutes.

1.  A features tour for creating a blog on TypePad.
2.  Standardized blog layout.
3.  The importance of the title becoming the URL
4.  Making use of Technoratti Tags, Excerpts, RSS, Keywords
5.  Adding pictures, links, PDF, etc to increase SEO
6.  Adding Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn bookmarking: to be developed further
7.  Avoiding technical melt-downs: use Notepad to start with
8.  TypePad's great Help Department
9.  Other topics?

Our RSS outgoing feed is:  http://communitymarketing.typepad.com/my_weblog/rss.xml 
Please let me know if you have any issues with this format. andrew@solsolutions.ca

Comments

[@MeganMcQ]

Hey there,

I'm really looking forward to this meeting! I'm working on putting together my answers to the questions proposed so we can have a productive meeting and split-up responsibility for accomplishing our individual and collective goals!

[Jenmy]

What are your goals for the CMB, What is the brand we're building?
- To collaborate with other social media/marketing thought leaders
- Grow a larger online community for CMB and increase following on own site

About creating a new author's page.
- Yes, let’s do this!
What strategic differences will set up apart and enable community growth?
- Different industries, different followers, cohesive intention to grow CMB

How often can you realistically contribute: once a week?
- Once a week post on likely Gen Y issues

What is the traffic model?
- Grow separately (many of us have blogs already) and then bring to CMB?

What is the conversion model for your following?
- Would like to discuss this more

What's else? Topics for future discussion.
- Regular meeting times
- How will we interact with each other

Planning for the next September Blog-Off - bigger and better like American Idol!
- The first American Idol was the best. Kelly Clarkson is by far the most famous Idol winner :)

[@MeganMcQ]

Good points, Jenmy!

Here are some of mine:

1. What are your goals for the CMB, What is the brand we're building?
-Becoming a knowledgeable base for recent developments in social media platforms and their impact on social media campaigns.

2. About creating a new author's page.
-Yes, please! Perhaps we can determine a consistent page look that still allows for personalization from each author.

3. What strategic differences will set up apart and enable community growth?
-Having each author establish a niche.
-Having each author market the posts of each of the authors.

4. How often can you realistically contribute: once a week?
-Twice a month.

8. Planning for the next September Blog-Off - bigger and better like American Idol!
-Establishing more communication with contestants.
-Establishing a more comprehensive way of counting analytics data (qualitative and quantitative).

[Julie Tyios]

1. What are your goals for the CMB, What is the brand we're building?
- My goal is to become an interactive hub for online marketers where people can openly share ideas and help build on each others' knowledge. I think that with the right collaboration and connections, we can take CMB to the next level and create a new kind of professional social media outlet.
2. About creating a new author's page.
- Yes, I think if we each have our own unique brand as authors and marketers we could help our credentials. I think most readers would like to know what we do, and it will help us seem more approachable.
3. What strategic differences will set up apart and enable community growth?
- I see us taking this to the next level and not just being a blog, but being a hub for the marketing community. Interactivity is key, as is specialization.
4. How often can you realistically contribute: once a week?
- Yes, I would be able to provide one well-researched article once a week, and one smaller article on Twitter.
5. What is the traffic model?
- Each author will initially have to work to bring traffic on-site and promote the CMB, but I'm trying to figure out a way where we could streamline that process. We know LinkedIn works, I've seen Twitter work as well. Strategic alliances with established marketers would also be useful.
6. What is the conversion model for your following?
- What I'm primarily interested in is exploring social media and connection possibilities. In essence, I'm looking to quantify conversation and map out how it helps business. It's not quite a direct response model, but rather a larger research project.
7. What's else? Topics for future discussion.
- I would like to see each author specialize in a particular area and become the 'go-to' expert for that subject. I want to set each author up with the resources they need to improve their knowledge and keep on top of current trends in their niche. I also want to look at exploring the possibility of adding other authors with areas of specialization that we aren't able to cover at the moment.
8. Planning for the next September Blog-Off - bigger and better like American Idol!
- I like the theme. Social media idol? We can make this jazzy and catchy with great graphics and a panel of judges. I'd like to volunteer my creative talents to assist with this and plan out our strategy for picking a winner.

[Chad Rothschild]

1. What are your goals for the CMB, What is the brand we're building?
First to create a brand and community. One that is different, innovative and ahead of the curve. We need to really push the edge. If we are just another social media site, we will get lost. We need to really push the boundaries of creativity, differentiation, engagement, marketing.

- Like the Social Media Idol, Maybe we do a he said she said column where we take different stands on issues and make readers pick a side.

- Offer videos, podcasts, webinars, addl avenues to get out of the singular foucs of writing.

2. About creating a new author's page
Sure, it needs to highlight each person in the group.

3. What strategic differences will set up apart and enable community growth?
I answered that above. It needs to be radically different. Something that will be so different that people will want to talk about it. (like Seth Godins Free Prize & Ideavirus.

4. How often can you realistically contribute: once a week?
I think we all have to contribute a minimum of once a week if not more. Write a bunch of articles and have them in que. It is a marathon and journey not a sprint, but it needs to have tons of info out there. Maybe it is videos and podcasts and other avenues.

5. What is the traffic model?

I think we need to start out in phases.
Phase 1 We need to do a seperate CMB twitter account. The content and syndication through LinkedIn, our personal twitter, and ways we market our personal blogs.

As we get traction, we need to develop our own LinkedIn group.

We need to highlight a launch date for this endeaver. Like Sept 1 or something to start building anticipation and traffic etc. Come up with a pre marketing plan to create buzz & excitement. Share what is going to be different. Why people should want to check it out.

6. What is the conversion model for your following?
Not sure what we want to invest in the site to make it robust, etc. Depends what the output is...

7. What's else? Topics for future discussion.

8. Planning for the next September Blog-Off - bigger and better like American Idol! Cool Idea and need to start planting seeds now. Start discussions with LinkedIn groups, have them help shape what it will look like and also have them get excited and share. Create buzz & excitement.