Will you be in Cleveland on June 3rd? Join me and Lewis Howes in this exclusive 2-hour social media and online marketing workshop event. (10 spots left at the time of my posting this).

Me and Lewis, and you, all in a room together showing you, not telling, SHOWING YOU how to be a social media master. Not theories… real examples and instructions.

Social Media and Online Marketing Workshop (Cleveland)

Join Cleveland native, Award Winning Blogger and ultimate Business Web Coach, Jim Kukral and myself as we walk you through a two hour training workshop to help you increase your business profits through social media and online marketing. This event will be in the morning before the Cleveland Business Networking Event at Rock Bottom on June 3rd.
During this workshop we will teach you:

* How to get started with online networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter
* How to utilize these sites to find your target audience
* How to generate quality leads
* How to monetize your online efforts
* How to build a following of raving fans for your product or service
* How to save and manage time with advanced online tools
* How to build a positive brand image online
* How to create an online plan and maximize your time

Book now before it’s gone!

I did a photo shoot the other day, pic below, to promote that myself and 3 other Cleveland bloggers are taking the trip out the Blog World Expo show in Las Vegas in November.

Represent Cleveland! Want to learn more about the blogging industry? Sign up for the free event here in Cleveland on Nov 1st.

From our press release…

Cleveland lights up Vegas

Four Cleveland-based social media experts invited to world’s largest blog convention
Bloggers host public event on November 1

Cleveland, Ohio, October 24, 2007 Four Cleveland-based bloggers and social networking gurus have been invited to present featured sessions at the world’s largest blog convention, BlogWorld Expo in Las Vegas on November 8 & 9, 2007.

Representing Northeast Ohio at BlogWorld in Las Vegas are: Jim Kukral (left) of Ask The Blogger an expert in the field of internet marketing, George Nemeth (center) of Brewed Fresh Daily, the region’s top blog compiling hundreds of sites and user comments in the areas of economic development & coffee, Thomas Mulready (right) of Cool Cleveland, an influential weekly e-blast focusing on arts, tech, videos, and economic development, and Eric Olsen (not pictured) of Blog Critics, an online magazine featuring the work of thousands of writers, reaching millions of readers monthly with critical commentary on music, art, sci/tech, books, sports, gaming and pop culture.

By me. :) Please excuse the horrible link bait-ish headline, but I wanted to get your attention for a special announcement I need to tell you about.

You can view the announcement at JimKukral.com.

Got 10 bucks, an hour of time and a creative idea? Because that’s all it really takes to get all the media publicity and exposure you or your business could ask for, all for almost free.

Don’t believe it? I can prove it. This is a story about how I did it, why I did it and the results I got from it. You can do it too. What, you don’t like free publicity for little work? I know you do, read on.

The Setup

I live in Cleveland, Ohio, and I’m a die-hard Cleveland Browns football fan. If you don’t follow football, the team has not been good for close to 10 years with losing season after losing season… the fans stay true, yet at the same time, they get very disgruntled come the end of the season. The Browns had one final home game left in December 2006, on Christmas eve, a horrible day to leave your family to go watch a losing football team in the snow and cold.

The Opportunity

This is key in your strategy to get publicity and attention. You have to focus on what is a “story” to a news person. You have to have the awareness to understand how a news person or show producer thinks. They’re thinking, “What stories are available that are topical and timely and most importantly, interesting?”

Those are the stories they want to cover. So your opportunity is to create a story. You need to figure out an angle about something that gives that reporter a story, and then present it to them in a manner which makes it attractive. It’s not that hard, read on.

What I Did To Exploit That Opportunity

So I asked myself, “what does a reporter want right now?” The Browns are always a huge story here in Cleveland, so I decided that I’d concentrate on them and their final game in 6-days. All I needed was an angle.

The idea came quickly. I’d call for a boycott of the Browns game on Christmas eve. But wait, that’s not good enough. That’s been done before, and a reporter isn’t going to bite on a story that simple unless there’s a hook, or a unique angle to it.

Aha! I thought of a unique, cheap and effective angle. Something that could be done in an afternoon or less.

Here’s Exactly What I Did

1. I registered a domain name called www.fanprotest.com. It cost me $10 at Godaddy.

2. I built a one-page website on the domain and wrote a few paragraphs about how I was calling for a protest of the game on Christmas eve.

3. I recorded a short, unedited, simple computer webcam video at my computer in one take where I wore my Browns jersey and called for the boycott. Here’s the video.

4. I uploaded the video to Google and YouTube (free) and added the video to show on my webpage.

5. I looked up all the local television news stations in town and found their contact emails for stories, and sent off a simple email with a short summary of what I did and a link to my page to view the video.

That’s It. It Took Me About An Hour And A Half Total

I sent the emails off at about 3:30 on a Tuesday afternoon, and I went back to my regular working day. At 6pm I got in the car to drive home, and at home I was chatting with my wife and playing with my kids when the phone rings, my wife picks up, she looks confused.

She says, “Scott from Channel 3 news is calling and wants to talk to you about some fan protest story?” I hadn’t even told my wife what I did yet, hence the confusion in her eyes.

The Results

The reporter asked to come to my house to film a story about me and my website and idea. I said “when”, and he said, “now”. So less than an hour later, and less than 4-hours after I sent the email, I had a television news crew and reporter in my kitchen filming me for a story. That story then ran that very same night, about 4 hours later, on the 11 o’clock newscast.

You can view the actual story here on the Channel 3 website in video form.

Summary

Why did I do this? To see if I could. Could this be done by anyone? Yes. What did I get out of it? Well, I get to tell you about it here, and I get to prove a point that it’s not that hard to do.

Don’t let your highly paid public relations firm tell you this kind of stuff isn’t possible. The media is begging for you to feed them stories that are interesting and unique and frankly, helps them not have to work so hard. I’m not saying that the media is lazy, not at all. What I’m saying is that the easier and more interesting you make it for them, the more likely it is that your story will be picked up.

Anyone can do this, the key is concentrating on what the media wants and giving it to them. What I do/did is use online media tools and marketing techniques to create unique angles to get attention.

Sales Pitch Alert!!!! – Jim Kukral is currently providing similar type consulting services to customers who are looking for more publicity, sales or leads, or who simply need to find new ways to be successful online. Find out how Jim can help your business.

Cleveland recruiting & blogging guru Joel Cheesman points out that blog results are beginning to show up in the regular Google results.

Yeah, they’re probably testing, but I argue it’s going to go further as time goes by. Look, there are now 63 million blogs out there according to Technorati. These blogs are like little tadpoles right now, but watch out, some are going to grow up.

And what happens when a blog grows up? It turns into a frog? No, it stops being a blog!

That’s right. In my opinion, and I’m betting that in Google’s opinion as well, a blog is only a blog when it’s small and young. However, as time goes by, and the information becomes more relevant and “high-quality”, Google begins to view it as not a blog, but a valuable resource to be indexed.

So what I’m saying is that eventually, as bloggers “grow up” and become better content producers and gain strength, etc… Eventually those blogs will be “good enough” to be in Google’s index.

Give it time, and watch out. In 3-5 years, how many trillions of blog content pages will be good enough to integrate. Still think blogs aren’t relevant?

The video below pretty much explains it all. Essentially, some things have changed in my job status and responsibilities, so I’m now open to go out and do what I love to do, which is to help people and businesses be successful online through use of creative online marketing techniques.

I’m based in Cleveland, Ohio, so if you’re a small business out there, or an individual who’s looking to get online, or take your brand online, and do it right, so that it makes sense, give me a ring at 216.272.4383.

Enjoy the short video!

You know, I always thought I was the only Internet marketing geek here in Cleveland. Not true, over the past year or so I’ve begun to find out that many talented Cleveland people are also pushing the envelope of web technology and creative marketing ideas. Here’s mashup of a few finds just from this week alone.

Cleveland’s own recruiting/HR blogging expert, Joel Cheeseman has just been featured in the Wall Street Journal.

“I can work in my pajamas and set my own hours,” says Joel Cheesman, author of Cheezhead.com, a blog about the recruiting industry. Notes Mr. Layne, who has worked at Wonkette for two years and generally acts as his own editor: “I get to be a national political columnist and comedy writer.”

Sage Lewis of Sagerock.com has been sneakily doing a new video blog called Webmarketingwatch.com, where he films himself talking about web marketing every day and broadcasts it for the world to see. This is amazing stuff Sage, and a great initiative. Here’s a sample video of Sage talking about the Overture keyword search tool. Very informative.

Greg H. has started a new blog called SMOMashup.com. Awesome concept.

I’ve decided to focus my efforts on a specific part of our industry: Social Media Optimization. Though most all of us deal in some way or another with various forms of marketing on the internet, I’ve decided to go where I’m unnaturally called… the land of MySpace, YouTube, Digg and beyond to see where it is the rest of us can fall into place.

Clevelander’s, or shall we say, North East Ohioans to be more general, are on top of the game. I’m going to have to step it up to keep up the pace.

This is my blog, so I can be self-promotional, right? That’s still allowed here right? :) Ok, good.

A few weeks ago I happened to win an award for “Best Blogger” from the Affiliate Summit event. You will notice the winning badge for it on the right of this blog. I also just got the actual award photo taken by my studio-mate and local Cleveland photographer Hal Stata.

It’s a very nice award, and I’m grateful for it. Having been blogging since 2001, it’s good to feel appreciated. :)

Today’s guest (@ 1pm EST, please call in! (646) 915-9539) on Free Online Marketing Ideas Radio Show is Joel Cheesman, award-winning blogger and fellow Clevelander, and yes, creative online marketer. Joel and I will be talking about a few of his projects, as well as a very interesting story about Joel auctioning himself off on eBay.

Cheezhead author Joel Cheesman, president of HRSEO and Oaseo, is one of the most widely-read bloggers on emerging recruitment issues in the world. He was the recipient of Recruiting.com’s Best Technology Recruitment Blog for 2005 and received Best Recruiting Blog in 2007. He has been featured in Fast Company magazine and its blog under FC Reads, as well as NewsNow, Workforce Management, AIRS and Crain’s Business.

Joel’s blog is a daily chronicle of how the Internet and technology are shaping human resources and how organizations can attract the talent needed to thrive in tomorrow’s economy. As an employee and insider of some of America’s biggest online job sites since 1997, Joel founded HRSEO to help employers and companies in the recruitment space move to a world where search engines deliver high quality and cost-effective traffic.

Video About Joel

Joel Cheesman Interview

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I have always been fascinated with people who share my name. Fortunately for me, now with the Internet I am able to monitor my name showing up anywhere in the world through Google and Yahoo news alerts. If you don’t use this technique, you’re missing out. You can, for free, setup news alerts on your name, your company names, your competitors, etc.. Anyone. I have about 30 setup and have it set to email me immediately when a “hit” is found. Go to http://news.google.com/ and click on the “News Alerts” link in the left hand side to set up your own.

Today I got notified that “Jimmy Kukral, 15, checks out skis at Outdoor Traders yesterday. He expects some ski trips he was planning to take to be canceled because of the unusually warm winter.”

The funny thing is, I know for a fact that there is yet another Jim Kukral living right here in NE Ohio, but have never met. Would worlds collide and the universe implode if we in fact did meet?