Six Apart News & Events

One of the things we love most about blogging is the community it builds. One blog post can create a dialogue across the web that features divergent opinions, thoughtful comments and a real sense of conversation.

The Question of the Day on Vox has helped us spark some of those conversations amongst bloggers who might otherwise suffered from a case of writer’s block. Because we’ve seen such great success with the Vox QotD, we decided to introduce the same feature to TypePad. We are really excited to see how this new feature inspires creativity amongst TypePad bloggers and their loyal readers.

Learn more about the TypePad Question of the Day in the FAQ and let us know if you have a question you’d like to ask!

If your question is chosen, we will publish it, along with a “submitted by” message and a link to your blog. It’s a great way to connect with bloggers, and also to get more readers to your blog. Please keep in mind that QotDs should appeal to a wide audience and should be no more than 95 characters.

You can send your submissions for QotDs to qotd@typepad.com.

In April, we told you about our partnership with One Million Acts of Green brought to you by Cisco, and our Green Badge program designed to encourage everyone to go green, one act at a time. We promised that when the Green Badges received 100,000 impressions across the blogosphere, Six Apart would donate $1000 to The Climate Project. Less than six weeks after that post, we surpassed our 100,000 goal by nearly two million impressions. Needless to say: a check is in the mail to The Climate Project!

So many of you adopted the Green Badges that we designed, we couldn’t help but wonder… What if we asked YOU to create an earth-friendly badge? After all, our bloggers are some of the most creative and eco-friendly out there and who better than you to spread the message that when we all do one act, we act as one, and help the planet? No one!

That’s why Six Apart partnered with One Million Acts of Green brought to you by Cisco to create the “Green by Design” contest. To enter, all you have to do is create a Green Badge with an earth-friendly design and/or message. One winner will be chosen each week in June and that person’s badge will be available on EverythingTypePad for people to put on their blogs, and will appear on blogs all across Six Apart Media’s advertising platform. Plus, when the badges receive a million impressions, Six Apart will donate another $1000 to The Climate Project.

Visit EverythingTypePad for all the details on how you can enter the “Green by Design” contest.

And don’t forget to record your Acts of Green on the One Million Acts of Green website. Because together, we are making a difference.

Lauren Kozak, Social Media Director for Britney Spears, recently stopped by our San Francisco offices and shared her views about how corporations can use social media to grow their brands and engage with customers in meaningful ways.

We enjoyed her talk so much that we videotaped some of her advice to share with you.

Lauren's advice is the real thing - it not only comes from her current experience creating social media success for one of the biggest brands in the world, but also from her pre-Britney Spears work as a social media advisor to corporations when the medium was still in its infancy.

We hope you find Lauren's insights helpful. Let us know what you think!

Comcast’s digital approach to customer support has certainly attracted a lot of positive media attention recently, from both mainstream and online outlets. What a contrast from a year ago, when a video of a Comcast repairman who accidentally dozed off on a customer's couch made the rounds in snickering blogs and emails. Congratulations to the Comcast team for starting to steer a very large ship away from a potentially endless negative current.

Check out the BusinessWeek article  that covers a Twitter-ful afternoon with director of digital care Frank Eliason. Or the report by TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington a few weeks ago of getting frustrated on the phone with Comcast customer support, only to find that a simple Tweet would deliver a solution to his problem in minutes.

Considering the company’s success on Twitter, it’s not surprising that they are augmenting their social media strategy by adding a blog to encourage longer-than-140-character conversations between customers and employees about all things Comcast.

The blog is called ComcastVoices, and it’s on Movable Type. It was launched just five weeks ago, and already the conversations are proving to be lively, informative, and respectful.

Let the folks at Comcast tell you directly what they’d like to achieve with the site:



For you marketing and customer support pros out there who might find the idea of such openness with customers a little daunting, here are a few things to note about the blog:

• Comcast can set the tone and keep the conversation productive because this is their platform.
  

• The “Rules of the Road” define expected behavior for the site. It’s very clear that comments are moderated by Comcast and that only polite, on-topic and respectful comments will be accepted.
• The “About” page tells customers what they can expect from the blog, and refers them elsewhere for their personal support issues while encouraging them to tell Comcast directly what’s important to them.

• You can see the negative comments of some customers turning positive as they engage in conversation with employees. For customers, simply being heard goes a long way.
  

• It’s hard to view Comcast as a monolithic, monopolistic behemoth when you see and hear from employees and executives directly.

As we mentioned, the blog is still young, so we wish Comcast as much success with it as they’ve had with their Twitter account. And we hope that other companies will be inspired to open up new conversations with their customers in the same way.

Welcome, Comcast!

Earth Day was founded to inspire awareness and appreciation for our environment, and while today might be the official Earth Day, at Six Apart, we believe that every day is new opportunity to help make our planet clean and healthy. That’s why we’ve partnered with Cisco to promote the One Million Acts of Green website.

One Million Acts of Green is a collaborative environmental campaign encouraging everyone to go green one act at a time. The goal? One million acts of green. Because, as we all know, we’re more powerful together than we can ever be apart.

That’s where you—our bloggers and readers—come in. We’ve come up with a few easy ways to inspire you to help the planet because we truly believe that every act of green makes a difference.

Here’s how you can do your part:

1. Adopt a Green Badge for Your Blog & Six Apart Will Donate $1000 to The Climate Project

We created four Green Badges for you to choose from. Each badge links to the One Million Acts of Green, brought to you by Cisco website. By putting a badge on your blog, you’ll not only be spreading the message of the importance of going green, you’ll be participating in an environmental campaign that will impact the world forever.

Plus, when the badges receive 100,000 impressions across the blogosphere, Six Apart will donate $1000 to The Climate Project.

Visit Everything TypePad to learn how to add a Green Badge to your blog.

2. Add the Million Acts of Green Widget to Your Blog

Learn and share tips and advice to help make the world a greener place with the One Million Acts of Green widget. In addition, you can track the total acts of green being performed as well as the greenhouse gases saved as a result of those acts.

Get the Million Acts of Green Widget Now.

3. Answer today’s QotD on Blogs.com

How could you better “green” your life? What’s holding you back?

Read what other people are saying, get new ideas, and share your thoughts at Blogs.com.

4. Visit the One Million Acts of Green Website

Change can start with one person. One action. One million acts of green. Visit the One Million Acts of Green website and register your acts of green.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post and for doing your part. Because when we all do one act, we act as one, and help the planet. And that is what today, and every day, should be about.

Update 4/29: Thank you for the comments on the seminar. If you missed the seminar, you can view the recording here. Please have a look and let us know what you think.

Update: Thanks to the hundreds of you who attended the seminar. Please leave a comment and tell us what you thought. Or please fill out our survey here. We'll post the link to the recording as soon as it is ready. Thanks!

This morning at 10 am Pacific we’ll host a seminar for marketers that looks at how companies can easily and quickly join their customers online in conversation. We’ll show many examples of companies that are already building their brands, nurturing relationships with customers, increasing sales and cutting costs through social media. The seminar will be led by Anil Dash, Chief Evangelist for Six Apart. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can do so here.

After the seminar, please check back here to get the link to a recording of the event and to discuss the content. We’re interested in your experience with social media in marketing. 

For years, the goings-on inside Guantanamo Bay were a closely held government secret. Now, for the first time, National Geographic exclusively captures what life is like in one of the world's most famous prisons in the television show "Inside Guantanamo."

In order to create interest and engagement around this controversial subject, Six Apart Media spent this week asking relevant questions on Vox, LiveJournal and Blogs.com. Bloggers have been weighing in on everything from which food they'd miss most if they were sent to prison to whether or not the prisoners in the War on Terror should be protected by the Geneva Conventions.

It's not too late for you to weigh in on these topics. Join the conversation at Blogs.com.

And be sure to tune in to "Inside Guantanamo" on the National Geographic Channel this Sunday at 9 p.m. to learn more about what life on the inside is really like.

It's been about a year since we announced the launch of Six Apart Services and Six Apart Media and our new role as a full-service blogging company. These days, Six Apart provides just about everything bloggers, publishers and companies need to achieve success: great technology, personalized services and innovative advertising. As always, our community and customers tell the story better than we ever could. Take the University of Phoenix, which approached us to build Think Ahead California, a new political action site focusing on the issues surrounding the upcoming workforce shortage in California. Their smart and thoughtful ideas were hugely inspiring, but we were also excited because we knew that the combination of technology, services and media that we offer at Six Apart these days was perfect for the job.

For the past few days, the arresting new design of the website for Skittles candy has sparked a pretty interesting conversation. There have been a ton of responses, covering what the company has done well (embracing what their community is doing across the social web) and what they've done poorly (making a candy site that forces kids to pass an age check before they can view it). And the company's gotten loads of free press for making a few smart choices with their new site.

Last April, we launched Six Apart Media, our innovative advertising program that helps make bloggers and advertisers successful.

Today’s bloggers are savvy, outspoken and influential, inspiring a record number of people to join conversations throughout the social web. We’re happy to report that to date, Six Apart Media reaches over 2.4 million of these influential bloggers with more than 85.5 million engaged readers. Since our launch, we’ve had some incredibly talented bloggers join our advertising program, including:

• Unreality Magazine
• Cake and Commerce
• Silicon Valley Moms Blog

Most recently, we’ve been hard at work on a campaign for Nature Made, who asked us to help inspire people to share their stories of greatness. Since we know how much bloggers love sharing and because we believe that each of us has a personal story of greatness to tell, this was a campaign we couldn’t wait to kick off.

You can share your story of greatness by answering today’s QotD on Vox, LiveJournal and within your TypePad profile. If you don’t have an account with any of those services, don’t worry, anyone can answer the Question of the Day on Blogs.com! Once you’ve answered, be sure to submit your story on the Nature Made website. You could win $1,000 and appear in the Nature Made “Fuel Your Greatness” documentary.

With so many great bloggers and advertisers on board, we are very excited for what the future holds. Are you ready to join the conversation? Whether you're a blogger who wants to generate income from your blog, or an advertiser looking for creative ways to reach your target audience, we have a solution for you.

Visit Six Apart Advertising to learn more.