Input devices

• The Magic Mouse. For the Mac user, the Magic Mouse is a multi-touch mouse that is itself a button that allows you to click anywhere on its surface to scroll, swipe, and click. Simply brush along the surface of the mouse to scroll, or use two fingers to swipe left and right and flip through pages or photos. Cost: $69 from Apple.
• The Phantom Lapboard. This is a combination wireless keyboard, laser mouse and hard surface that you can use from your sofa or arm chair. The keyboard opens to a hard surface for use with your mouse, and with rotating angles which allow you to find a comfortable setting for creating a mobile desktop. Cost: $130 from Phantom Entertainment.

Power devices

• The TruePower U-Socket power outlet. This power outlet provides two USB charging ports, in addition to two standard three-prong power outlet ports, making it perfect for charging any USB-powered device without a computer, including your mobile phone or PDA, iPod or MP3 player, and digital camera. Cost: $23 from FastMac.
• The Sanctuary. The Sanctuary is a universal charger and USB port for electronic devices (currently compatible with 3,767 devices, or so its product page touts). Charge your mobile phone, iPod or MP3 player, Bluetooth headset, and PDA in this single charging station. Cost: $130 from BlueLounge.

Mobile phone accessories

• The Jawbone ERA. This Bluetooth headset eliminates background noise and auto-adjusts inbound call volume to match your environment. With HD-quality sound, you can take calls and listen to your music collection from the one headset. Cost: $130 from Jawbone.

Audio gadgets

• The Pod à Porter. Pod à Porter is a light-weight neckband for the iPod Shuffle that allows you to listen to your iPod, while keeping the controls accessible, but out of your way.  Simply run the headphone wire through the Pod à Porter, attach your iPod, and you’re ready to go. Cost: $30 from Shapeways.

Video gadgets

• Kodak PlaySport Video Camera. If you’re looking for a sturdy digital video camera, look no further than the Kodak PlaySport. It’s waterproof up to 10 feet under water, has built-in image stabilization, and can handle being bumped around a bit. Cost: $150 from Kodak.
• Veho Muvi Pro Micro Camcorder. At less than three inches high, the Muvi Pro comes in as one of the smallest camcorders, yet still manages to capture high quality digital video and sound and can record up to three hours of footage. Cost: $65 through Amazon.

What are some of your favorite media gadgets?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Jorge Quinteros

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Waiting to be discovered, however, probably won’t get your business to the level of success you hope to achieve. You can’t wait for people to stumble on your site, thinking that that’s going to be enough to generate the leads required to sustain your revenue goals. You have to be proactive. Here’s how.

1. Find a way to quell the nerves. This starts with being willing. I’ve approached many business owners in recent months to ask them to be guests on my blog, podcast and radio show. Most of them emphatically accept, but occasionally, I do run into people who turn me down simply because they’re too nervous. In many of the cases, I convince them to start with an interview for the blog, and if they feel comfortable moving on to the podcast or radio show from there, great, but if not, at least they’ll get the traffic from the article. Inside tip: Start small. Inch your way into bigger and more visible media outlets.
2. Be prepared. Another concern I run into when asking business owners for interviews is that they worry they’ll look or sound silly. What questions will I ask of them? What bio or leading information will I use for the article, podcast or segment? What photo of them will I put on my site? These are just a few of the questions I’m asked from prospective guests. Mostly, their concerns stem from wanting to control the image that is presented of them and their companies. I reassure them by letting them know that I intend to portray them in the best light possible. Inside tip: Be prepared. Create a media page on your site that houses this kind of information (topics you’re prepared to discuss, sample questions you can answer, your bio and your photo). From my own experience, I can tell you that the job of a writer or interviewer is hard enough, and any bit of information like this that you can provide will not only be appreciated, but will also be used, so you can better control the direction of your media appearances.
3. Take the initiative. I’m finding this out for myself, so I know other media outlets, reporters, bloggers, podcasters and anyone else who generates any kind of content on a regular basis are always on the lookout for great stories and great sources. With a business to run on top of that, it’s especially helpful to have someone approach me with an idea or source for an article or segment, but I can tell you that it doesn’t happen nearly as often as I’d expect. What does that mean? Most small business owners don’t think about approaching bloggers and podcasters to pitch their stories (let alone radio shows, magazines, and larger media outlets). Inside tip: Go for it!  Pitch your story to that blogger or podcaster. If their content focuses on the audience that you target, then you have valuable information that could be shared. Make their lives easier. Send them a quick note to say, “Hey, I’d love to be on your [blog, podcast, show, etc.]. I’m an expert on [your topic of choice], and I think it would be a great topic for your [site/program].” It’s really that easy.
4. Get help. If you’re still worried about tackling media and publicity for your company. Find an expert to help you get started. These folks often have direct access to the media reps and can help you get your foot in the door. Nancy Juetten of Main Street Media Savvy is a personal favorite and has an arsenal of free and reasonably-priced resources to get you started in the media.

Be proactive. Take charge of your company’s publicity. Find ways to get in front of new and bigger audiences so that you begin to grow your own following. It doesn’t have to be so intimidating, and if youl inch your way into it, you’ll be a media favorite in no time!

How do you proactively market and promote your company?

Photo by Flickr user hiddedevries, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

I recently spoke with Nancy Juetten of Main Street Media Savvy about how to overcome the fear of publicity. The great thing about the tips that she offered is that many of them are things you might already be doing to some extent, which makes the whole idea of publicity a little less daunting. By becoming comfortable with these tactics, you’ll start inching your way into the limelight, and you’ll gain more attention for your business in the process.

Create a Compelling Bio

When someone takes the time to visit your web site, “About” page or social network profile, you have an opportunity to connect with that person and say something memorable that will help you stand out in his or her mind. By sharing what Nancy calls “succinct stories, stunning results, sassy soundbites and social information to help ideal clients connect,” you’ll attract more of the right kind of clients to your business.

Start and Maintain a Web Site, Blog and Newsletter.

While there are tons of new social media and networking opportunities online, it’s important not to neglect your hub, your primary home online, where you have control over the message you put out there. You want to shine the best light possible on your business, and consistently maintaining a high quality web site, blog and newsletter provides a sound foundation to establish you as the “go-to” expert in your field.

Contribute to Online Networks, Forums and Blogs.

With the base of your content covered by your web site and blog, you can branch out and find new prospects and connections online through a variety of social networking platforms, as well as other blogs that serve your ideal client or customer. Find ways to regularly contribute in meaningful ways, and you’ll start to capture the attention of people who are interested in what you have to offer.

Explore Audio and Video

Perhaps writing is not your forte. Maybe you prefer communicating vocally or visually, in which case, a regular podcast or videocast might be right for you. For search engine optimization purposes, it’s important to continue to write relevant content, but a podcast or videocast can help you connect with a broader market by appealing to those who prefer formats other than the written word.

Write e-Books and Special Reports

There’s no better way to position yourself as an expert than to offer a variety of helpful content on your site, and e-books, special reports and white papers are great resources to add to the mix. The best part is, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and start from scratch. Once per quarter or even once per year, go through your blog and collect articles that relate to specific themes. Then put that collection of articles into e-book format. If you don’t have the time, consider hiring a virtual assistant to put it together for you.

Host Tele-seminars and Workshops

Everyone has something to teach and unique experiences to share. Why not use this as an opportunity to reach out to more customers and clients? By providing occasional workshops and tele-seminars, you can highlight your expertise and perhaps prompt prospects who have been sitting on the fence to take action. Connect with other professionals who provide services that complement your own, and you’ll benefit from shared marketing and promotion of the events.

Write for Others

Opportunities abound for writing content, whether it’s for the local media, business journals, or other blogs. Regularly post to free services like Blogger Linkup with the types of articles you can contribute, or subscribe to services like HARO (Help a Reporter Out) and watch for opportunities that apply to you or your business. You’ll soon find that you have more opportunities to write than you can handle. By contributing to other blogs that focus on the same audience, you can grow your own readership and potentially find new customers and clients.

Publicity doesn’t have to be a scary thing. In most cases, it involves doing things that you’ve already considered that don’t seem like publicity at all. Nancy suggests starting with five things you’re comfortable doing and then form a habit out of them. Once you establish well-formed habits with those tactics, consider adding a few more to the mix.

How do you consistently promote your business? What tactics have you found to be most successful?

Flickr image by codepo8

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As web workers, of course, we get plenty of our news from the web. And there are those electronic media out there as well. And yet…I can’t help thinking of all the ways that printed information from periodicals has been useful in my own career. I learned a lot of coding skills from reading well-written articles, and I promoted my own services by writing articles.

Am I just stuck in the past, like those people who thought television would never catch on? Or is there still a niche in your world for the printed periodical and the daily dead-trees newspaper? If the decline of the print media industry continues, is there anything you’ll miss?

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That said, I am so glad that I took the time to seek out a demo of Filtrbox. As someone who is a major consumer of information from the Web as part of my Web work, Filtrbox is going to be my new best friend. Initially, I misunderstood its purpose and saw it as another feed reader. But with some hand-holding from the company, I realize that their term “media monitor” truly is a better fit. And I’d add “little miracle worker” and “fire hose diffuser” to the description.

At its most basic, Filtrbox let’s you create filters and filter groups to parse online information based on keywords. The filtering process involves ranking algorithms that you can dial up or dial down based on the level of noise you want to keep out.

The rankings consider:

1. Popularity and credibility of the site or blog where the information was published.

2. Contextual relevance, for example, how many times and how high up in the article or post your keywords appear.

3. Smart attention to how you interact with the data you receive via your filters such as which articles you star and which ones you “x.” And if you keep reading certain types of articles, rank scoring increases for that domain on that particular topic.

At your Filtrbox dashboard, you have two sliders – Filtr Rank and Show days. With Filtr Rank, articles and posts are ranked from 1-10, with 10 being most relevant in every possible way based on the input you’ve given. You can increase the filtering by rank or decrease by simply moving the slider, and you can watch the results from your features appear or disappear depending on the direction you go. In seconds, you can watch the noise disappear and can end up with only the highest ranking articles if you don’t have time to go through a lot at any given time.

With Show days, you can decide how old or new you want the articles and blog posts to be in the filter results. If you only want to read the last day’s worth, slide the slider to one. With the free version of Filtrbox, you get up to 5 Filtrs and 15 days of history for a single user. I know in my industry, often reading something more than two weeks old can be a detriment when I’m looking for the absolute latest on any given event, technology or news.

You can also change the way your filter results are sorted and presented to you. You can Sort by Rank, Title, Date, By Filter or by the ones you have Flagged. You can review results as a list which requires more scrolling but with this view you can star and flag articles, “x” or delete them if they are totally irrelevant, and share them by email (it took me a while before I recognized their email envelope icon as an envelope – one of those little intuitive issues). You can also view your results in a data grid to see ranking, flags, title, corresponding filter name and date at a quick glance.

You can filter your articles by Sources which include mainstream, blogosphere, twitter and friendfeed. Adding twitter and/or friendfeed greatly increases your results, thus increasing the noise, but knowing what is being said in the most immediate ways via popular microblogs can be very useful when looking for the latest trends.

After making your filter groups and filters, you can turn each one on and off to vary the way information is sliced and diced and delivered to you. To start, I made three groups with a number of filters in each one:

• Social Media
  • plurk
  • social media

• Vanity Search
  • Aliza Sherman
  • Cybergrrl Oh

• Virtual Worlds
  • google lively
  • second life
  • kaneva
  • there.com

Besides an Articles view, you can view your information through the Analyze feature and see how the mentions of topics for each filter you’ve created ranks against other topics you’ve selected. While this is much more than I need to know on a regular basis about the data I filter and consume, I can see using this if I were filtering for a client and wanted to see which campaign or project generated the most online ink. Or when looking to explain to a client how much more popular Second Life is right now as compared to Kaneva or There.com, I could check the rankings to get a snapshot.

For Web publishers and bloggers, you can also embed a Filtrbox widget into your site or blog and provide your filtered news feed as additional content on your site.

According to the company, the purpose of Filtrbox is to drill down, analyze and control the noise. Now that I have a firmer grip on the many ways the company’s application does this, I’m impressed. The application offers two premium levels: Pro provides 25 filters and 45 days of history for a single user for $20/month or $200/year. Team provides 100 filters, 1 year of history, and up to 6 users for $100/month or $1000/year.

At the moment, I’m happy with the free version, but that doesn’t mean I may not upgrade soon. My only worry is that at some point, if I have too many filters, I’ll end up having to filter my filters and then filter the filters that filter my filters. Until that time, I can just let out a nice big sigh of relief as Filtrbox gives me control over the clatter of information noise and helps me to consume more quality stuff.

Disclosure: Filtrbox is backed by True Ventures, also an investor in GigaOmniMedia, the parent company of this blog.

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