Tech Forward:

Over the past few weeks, I have been listening to the podcast of a woman who bills herself as a business coach and internet marketing pro. I kept listening to her show, hoping that it wouldn’t be the same train wreck week after week. Hoping that someone who calls herself an internet marketing expert would consult with someone for an hour or two on how to deliver a top-notch podcast. Good thing I didn’t hold my breath.

She violated the following five cardinal rules of podcasting…

1) Don’t be chatty Cathy (or Carl). If you have this tendency…curb it. The ideal length for a podcast is 12 to 15 minutes. If you are using the podcast format for an internet radio show, you can go as long as 50 minutes. But whatever you do, don’t call it a podcast and offer 50 minutes of content. That’s a tell-tale sign of an amateur!

2) Be relevant. This is BUSINESS! It’s OK to interject with a personal note or two, if that’s your style, but resist the temptation to share your personal business with your audience…unless, of course, that’s the theme of your show. In short: Keep it professional.

3) Bookend the podcast audio with a male (or female) voice. There’s a reason that the nightly news is one male and one female anchor (usually). I cannot tell you how absolutely boring it is to listen to one person’s voice for 15 to 50 minutes straight. Have a male/female introduce your podcast (the intro), its “segments” and the closing (the outro). And, for goodness sakes, pay the $40/hour and get voice-over talent.

4) Let guests be guests. Don’t have the guest segment take up the entire podcast. Don’t have a guest on more than once per month. That’s not a guest, that’s a co-host! People tune in to hear YOU: YOUR opinions and YOUR recommendations. If they wanted to hear someone else, they’d tune in to a different show. Now, if the format of your show is guest interviews, that’s great, but if you started the podcast to build your platform or to showcase your expertise, you’re certainly not achieving those goals by having guests on every week! Ya think?

5) Drop the expense excuse. A good podcast doesn’t have to be professionally mixed and remastered. This is not Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”–just make it professional. As my Aunt Lucy used to say, “You might not have a lot of dresses, but if the ones you have are cleaned and pressed, no one will notice.”

And, don’t worry…I’ve already contacted Ms. Biz Coach to give her some feedback.

If you’re a public relations professional–or an above-average entrepreneur–you’ve probably wondered how you can get bloggers to talk about your business…in a favorable way.

Late last year, I was a guest speaker on a webinar that was geared toward PR agents. Prior to that I had had extensive conversations with business owners and PR pros about social media–and most honestly admitted they had no idea how to make social media work for them. They saw it as this black hole of yet more new technology that wasn’t going away as previously thought but, in fact, was taking the world by storm.

During my speaking tour last year a frustrated woman actually asked, “Who are these bloggers? What do they want from us? What drives them? Why do they care?”

Truthfully, most companies DO get it all wrong and end up angering the bloggers with whom they want to become allies. But, you? You’re lucky…you know me and you read this blog. That doesn’t have to happen to you.

That’s why I wrote The Blogosphere Cluebook–to show you, step-by-step, both what to do and what NOT to do when befriending bloggers. It’s not the War and Peace on social media influencers by a long shot, but it will serve as a bit of a North Star in the confusing world of widgets and wikis.

The book is free to download, post on your site or blog or e-mail to colleagues and friends.

Some social media pals of mine want to know exactly what California businesses are up to when it comes to Web 2.0 and social media, so they’ve decided to ask in the Web 2.0 Adoptions & Challenges Survey. The survey deadline is February 29, so move your feet or lose your seat.

Here’s the skinny:

Web 2.0 media and technologies are transforming business, society and life. Although Web 2.0 is a lively topic of debate in boardrooms, blogs and in the mainstream media, there is a lack of practical insight into how businesses are using these emerging technologies. What does Web 2.0 mean for your business?

Invest three minutes telling us what’s in your 2008 emerging technology project plans, and we’ll provide you with the data on how other California businesses are using Web 2.0.

Click and be counted.

Bottom line: Invest three minutes, get access to the data when it’s available–and leverage the data to make key business decisions.

Before I left town to start my four-city, West coast speaking tour, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Dan Wool of the Valley PR Blog.

I talk about where social media is today, the trend toward transparency, my latest e-book, “The Blogosphere Cluebook,” and what REALLY motivates bloggers.

Take a look: http://www.valleyprblog.com/?p=631

I’m writing this from my my hotel in Sin City (Las Vegas).

I’ve been here for the past three days attending BlogWorld Expo and speaking at the PostieCon conference.

Yesterday, Mark Cuban delivered a rousing closing keynote at BlogWorld Expo. Mark was approachable, honest, real and generous with his time. BlogWorld Expo was an honest effort by the organizers to say something real about the current state of social media and where we’re headed. Admittedly, there were little snafus like the famous Mike Arrington no-show and Arianna Huffington canceling at the last minute…but, what’s news about that, right? And, every conference has something go wrong here and there.

Overall I thought BlogWorld Expo was solid–with great speakers like Jeremiah Owyang, Marc Harty, Jim Kukral and Dan Rua. Although I heard from some exhibitors who felt they were nickeled and dimed and that the attendance that BlogWorld promised them was not there–even though 1,700 people showed up.

PostieCon book-ended the conference today (Saturday) and offered some awesome speakers as well. I spoke on a panel with Jim and Shirley Frazier, and Dan Rua was our moderator.

PostieCon had a great fan-like energy to it and Ted was right in there with us…even during the cake plow!

It certainly was good to see Shirley Frazier again and I also ran into Mark Harty and met Dave Taylor and Nate Westheimer for the first time in person.

Many times people ask me why I attend these events. Well, mostly because I’m usually a speaker, but also because it helps to put faces to names. I have lost count of how many times I’ve met someone at a conference who I had previously only known via email.

It builds community, and that’s what this ’social media thing’ is really all about.

P.S. PayPerPost (now IZEA) has totally overhauled its platform. The developer, Pete, is a god among men. We all got a sneak preview of SocialSpark today–and all I have to say is that it turns conventional metrics and social networking on their heads. Wowie! Read more about it on Jim Kukral’s blog here.

In my travels around the country speaking about social media, I’m noticing a thing or two about how businesses approach (or don’t approach) social media.

Many are desperately afflicted with ‘analysis paralysis’ (too much information so they do nothing) or they’re immobilized by the fear that someone is going to say horrible things about them - or their company - on their blog.

The former scenario is simply because very few experts are really letting entrepreneurs know what they should DO about social media. They do a lot of talking AROUND the topic and rarely offer information on ‘how to’ - scared that this will make potential clients want to do it themselves. As a result, I stand out because, my delivery style is much more ‘knowledge transfer’ and less ‘talking head’.

The later scenario is purely fear-based and it’s also because the so-called experts have not done a good job at presenting the value proposition of social media. Yes, there are risks, but that does not mean you should watch from the sidelines.

I say, let’s start acting on what we already know. Is it always going to be correct? No. But, what is? Let’s just START somewhere and develop risk management strategies for ‘worst case scenarios’.

To that end, on Tuesday, November 6th, at 2:00pm, EST (11:00am, PST), I will be doing a free, Live Chat Session for InfoWorld’s IT Exec Connect.  You’ll be able to ask questions and get my expert recommendations.

If you’re sick of rhetoric and want the straight dope about to DO about social media, click here to be there. (Use the link at the top of that page to access the chat room on November 6th.)