A little bit – not too much. Here’s why:

The strategy for the formatting vs. not on the daily blog subscription is that when it looks too “formatted” then people assume it is a sales message (through their internal filter) since we scan through our email in box so quickly. When it comes across as text, we are more likely to perceive it as an actual message. Subscribe to Seth Godin’s feed and see how it comes through. It’s more about the content than making it look a certain way. Ultimately, this is up to you. I am a proponent of simple.

If you use the service and would like to make a few of those changes, Feedburner does allow for a bit of html customization with the addition of a header, and choose a background and text color.

In this case less is more, and if you content is good it’s more about the message than the formatting.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIfWrcmhN8s[/youtube]

Meet Meem

Seth Godin has mentioned them on his blog, and they’ve made the news. Think trading cards meet business cards, and social media all bundled into one. (If you have been following InSights blog posts, you know that we are huge promoters of the photo on a business card concept.)

From: http://blog.firstedgesolutions.com/bobbysblog/

Meet-MeMe

July 8th, 2010

I have written and blogged numerous times regarding the world of Cross Media Marketing and/or Multi-Channel Marketing.  We have just delivered a product to the market in the last month that will be taking that concept to a whole new level!!

Please allow me to paint a picture for you.  Currently, by and large, a Fortune 500 retailer gains a new customer through direct mail and other traditional marketing methods, radio, TV, etc.  Great, congratulations, they gained one new customer.  However, the real art is in making them become a brand ambassador/loyal shopper so you can calculate and maximize their lifetime value thus driving a higher ROI per customer.  So what is the retailer doing to keep the conversation going?  How can they help each of their customers feel like they have a local presence, voice, and know they are actually cared about?  Our product Meet-MeMe is a social media aggregator trading card printed and tradeable on-line at www.meet-meme.com and has major areas in which it can make a HUGE impact:

How it all began:

Meet-Meme was launched at unGeeked (the SxSW of the Midwest), a digital and social media conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  The idea behind the cards (and soon the full online experience) is that your trusted online connections can be met offline. The Meet-Meme cards are a tool that aggregates personal online networks to use for offline experiences and interactions, that then return you back online to continue the conversation with new contacts.

The Meet-Meme cards can be a replacement for business cards or moreover in addition to because they are traded with people you know, you like, and you trust.  Please click on the link below to see our recent spot on Fox.

http://www.fox6now.com/news/witi-100617-social-media-cards,0,3313602.story

We have received incredible feedback from CMO’s and CEO’s of Global Brands already as they see the immediate impact this can have with their customers as each day more people are tweeting, facebooking, getting LinkedIn, etc.

I look forward to everyone’s comments and questions…We have already had many from across the country pouring in and we know many more will be coming.  This is an exciting and a perfect tool to utilize Social Media the correct way to help corporations grow market share and improve ROI!

Seth is creating a buzz. He took his newest book Linchpin, and launched in a new way using the internet as his primary method…Al and I were lucky enough to travel to NYC for his official launch earlier this week, and had advance copies pretty early. It’s a must read, you can check out what “>HubSpot has to say…

Here are some thoughts from Seth on the Web 2.0 tour…

Watch for this book to make waves!

Seth Godin, as always, is on track.

Click here for Random Rules for Ideas Worth Spreading

His talks are worth watching! We enjoyed an incredible day with Seth in New York City in January, and want to share this with you today. Enjoy!

Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library, Springfield, NJ and Seth Godin in NYC  Amazing people we are privileged to know!

What are you doing to stand out and be noticed? Change your business title, record a new outgoing voicemail message, and put your photo on your business cards. What else will help you to be noticed rather than a “business conformist?”

Check out what Seth has to say on the topic. Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Seth Godin is promoting a new ebook and it’s worth sharing. We’ve found that everything Seth touches has the ability to inspire, clarify and energize just about anything.

Here are more than seventy big thinkers, each sharing an idea for you to think about as we head into the new year. From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O’Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here. The ebook includes Tom Peters, Jackie Huba and Jason Fried, along with Gina Trapani, Bill Taylor and Alan Webber.

Here’s the deal: it’s free. Download it here. Or from any of the many sites around the web that are posting it with insightful commentary. Tweet it, email it, post it on your own site. I think it might be fun to make up your own riff and post it on your blog or online profile as well. It’s a good exercise. Can we get this in the hands of 5 million people? You can find an easy to use version on Scribd as well. Please share.

Have fun. Here’s to a year with ideas even bigger than these.

The reason social media is so difficult for most organizations

It’s a process, not an event.

Dating is a process. So is losing weight, being a public company and building a brand.

On the other hand, putting up a trade show booth is an event. So are going public and having surgery.

Events are easier to manage, pay for and get excited about. Processes build results for the long haul.

Well said. It is a process, takes time, and strategy. There is much to understand, and even somethings you don’t need to understand up front, you just need to practice. You can try things in social media, see what works, make changes, and revise your plan. The most important part is to be actively doing something. Don’t just watch from the sidelines and poke it with a stick. That won’t get you anywhere.

I enjoyed this and thought I would pass it on to you. To subscribe to Seth’s posts, visit www.sethgodin.com

This is a video of about two years old, still worth watching!