So I’m standing in Detroit airport Wednesday evening when I get a call from Tim Keenan of Creative Media Recording.

He said that he produces a podcast called “Audio Follow Friday” and he wants to do an interview with me about Faffcon because everybody else he really wanted to interview about Faffcon said no and he knew I was too narcissistic to turn him down.

Well I never!…turn down an interview so we recorded it today and here it is. Thanks Tim!

If you are in or around the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area and have a new or continuing interest in social media as it pertains to you life (business or personal) I highly recommend you attend Podcamp Philly 2010.

Of course if you have a Podcamp ANYWHERE near you, I recommend you attend it.

The cost is only $20 (which basically weeds out the real attenders from the pretenders and makes headcount more efficient for the volunteer organizers) You can sign up HERE.

Download audio file (voxmarketising_episode104_090315.mp3)
Click here to download the episode!

► (0:00) Show Open: (Voxmarketising Episode #104, Show date: March 15,2009)

► (1:00) Welcome:

► (1:41) Oversight (Stuff You Might Have Missed):
• Mitch Joel – Don’t force your decision about marketing to consumers using social media based on YOUR uses of social media…focus on their usage of social media. common sense adoption of social media into each consumer or each company’s marketing strategy towards consumers
• Facebook has a new home page or should we call it Twitterbook? The Advance Guard’s Facebook White Paper
• In Memoriam: Paul Harvey and Brian James (Facebook link)

► (7:14) VMT Interview (On voiceover or marketing or advertising or all of the above):
Seattle, WA based male voice over talent Jeffrey Kafer

► (17:12) Brain Spanking (Funny, Weird, Annoying News of the Day But Stuff That Usually Makes You Think):
• How Google Got Its Colorful Logo
• Review- How to Work a Room: Your Essential Guide to Savvy Socializing.

► (20:01) Show Close:
Comment Line – +01 716-989-6151
Email – peter at audioconnell dot com
Blog – audioconnell.com/blog (Subscribe)
Twitter – @audioconnell
Add us to your Linked In or Facebook

While an idea that has come to my mind is not original in the blogosphere, it is original to my blog as I have never invited guest bloggers to participate here with their thoughts. While comments and discussion are more than welcome always, I just never organized guest blog posts before.

Now that’s changing.

Those of you involved with voice over may have opinions on our industry that you’d like to flesh out a bit further. But you may not want to blog regularly or even have your own blog…so use my soapbox for a moment. I may act like I never get off it but I am truly interested in your opinions.

Here is what I am proposing and inviting any of you to participate in on voxmarketising.com’s latest experiment

• I will present a topic for anyone to submit their blog post on within a set time frame (likely a week).
• Depending on the response (hopefully not crickets) I’ll post them with your by-line etc. NOTE: If I think your post has no merit or is poorly written…I won’t post it. Know that now and don’t be mad/sad with me later. My house, my rules (just practicing that line for when my kids get bigger)
• Please keep your length to about 500 words or less if possible.
• Please include a one to two line infomercial about you, your company name, web site and something interesting about yourself so that I can include that as an “author’s information” tag at the end of the post.
• Be polite etc., if you’re rude or slanderous (or even rude and slanderous etc.) I won’t publish you. (again, my house, my rules)
• Make sure you properly credit any sources, especially if you include any audio or video clips (obviously include their embedded code etc)
• As it’s my blog I reserve the right to append your post for grammar, length or any other reason as I see fit. No I don’t intend to screw with your intent and if you don’t like my changes you may ask me to take down your post and I will. (MYMR)

Now here’s a cool twist (or what I think is a cool twist). Again based on responses, what I hope to do is take a few of the authors on the topic, Skype them and do a round table recording where they can chat (debate?) the topic with points from their posts. The give and take would make a cool VMT interview for my podcast….with added exposure for the participants.

>>> My first topic?

If you were advising someone at any point in their VO career how to produce a terrific commercial voice over demo – what would you tell them are the top 5 elements that they need to include in that demo and why?

This idea may be a resounding success or a dismal failure but I believe you miss 100% of the shots you never take.

Email your posts to me at peter at audioconnell dot com and let’s enjoy the ride together! Thanks.

Download audio file (voxmarketising_episode102_090227.mp3)
Click here to download the episode!

► (0:00) Show Open: (Voxmarketising Episode #102 (which is actually 103 but whose counting/ Show date: February 27,2009)

► (1:00) Welcome:

► (1:41) Oversight (Stuff You Might Have Missed):
• Tropicana bags new packaging
• Facebook’s Term of Service challenges
• Podcamp Toronto #pcto09
• Steve Saylor
• Dave Delany
• Sean McGaughey
• Dave Fleet
• Bernard Hellen
• Victoria Fenner
• Tommy Vallier
• Podcamp London, Ontario #pclo09
• Podcamp Ohio 2, #pcoh09

► (12:44)VMT Interview (On voiceover or marketing or advertising or all of the above):
The winner of the Unofficial Late Night With Jimmy Fallon announcer auditions

► (24:02) Brain Spanking (Funny, Weird, Annoying News of the Day But Stuff That Usually Makes You Think):
• Twitter Search
• Tweet Deck

► (27:01) Show Close:
Comment Line – +01 716-989-6151
Email – peter at audioconnell dot com
Blog – audioconnell.com/blog (Subscribe)
Twitter – @audioconnell
Add us to your Linked In or Facebook

>>>PROMO LAST UPDATED JANUARY 27, 2008<<<
Download audio file (080127_podcamp_toronto_2008_promo.mp3)
Right click here (“Save Target As…”) to download the promo to your computer!

Podcamp Toronto 2008 will be happening on February 23rd and 24th at Ryerson University in Toronto. This second annual new media gathering is free but requires folks to register here.

audio’connell Voice Over Talent is a proud sponsor of Podcamp Toronto 2008 and has created this promotional announcement for any and all new media friends to use in their podcasts or on their web sites to promote attendance and awareness of the event.

PLEASE SIGN THE COMMENTS SECTION below to let us know which podcasters and web sites are using the promo.

Well, it’s a blog and a podcast so you can’t really taste it but to say “see the difference” seem so ordinary and that’s nothing like what I want this blog and podcast to be about.

So, we look different.

The reasons for the design change were many:
• Finally inaugurating a podcast, I thought such a big shift in communication deserved a new look. Hey if CBS did it for Katie Couric and NBC did it for Meredith Viera, well I certainly play in those leagues!

• The other look began to strike me as a bit cluttered and that was certainly my fault. I was adding widgets and elements that individually looked attractive, but when I stepped back seemed visually confusing

• Some of the newer blog templates had features the old one didn’t

So what should you notice about the changes here?
• A big change is the name. What was once called voiceover blog on! is now called voxmarketising. That name was conceived for the podcast because congeals my favorite subjects: voice over, marketing and advertising. Then I quickly realized:

a. Those are the same things I blog about
b. Why confuse readers and listeners with two different brands and if you add the audio’connell Voice Over Talent web site, three brands.

So it seemed to me branding them voxmarketising – the audio’connell blog and voxmarketising – the audio’connell podcast will be easier. Plus people will just call it voxmarketising after a while and know it’s a blog and a podcast. Aren’t you sorry you asked?

• Less graphic stuff but easier navigation (and more to come). This stuff is still being worked on but you’ll notice for example you can connect to me easier on all my social networks under the heading “social networks and links”. So if you haven’t connected with me, please do. Recent posts can viewed more quickly

• Better marketing for the podcast. By clicking on the ever present album art, people can immediately go to the voxmarketising podcast page

• Easier to subscribe. This is oh so important, especially as I build the podcast, and it will continue to get better, but be on the lookout for improved subscription tools

• Updated blog links. Boy had I fallen behind on this. Some links were old or dead (people just stopped writing for like six months so I dropped their blogs) and some new bloggers hadn’t been added. If you’re one of the new ones, return the love

So, it’s a fresh face with some new tools and some old favorites (me, I hope) still around. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

Download audio file (voxmarketing_episode100_102507.mp3)
Click here to download the episode!

► (0:00) Show Open: (Voxmarketising Episode #100/ Show date: October 25, 2007)

► (1:00) Welcome:

► (1:55) Oversight (Stuff You Might Have Missed):
Podcamp Boston 2- http://podcamp.pbwiki.com/PodCampBoston2

Voice Talent In Trouble- Will Lyman’s narration work for the Internet Innovation Alliance ticks off PBS and WGBH http://broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6487874.html

A Younger You: Voices.com looks for early recordings from today’s voice talents
http://blogs.voices.com/voxdaily/2007/10/old_audio_recordings.html

Voice Over Marketing- Review pending regarding Voices.com’s new book “Internet Marketing Plan for Voice Actors”.

New Gadgets- The very new AT&T Tilt instead of the i-Phone

A New Kind of Press Release- Social Media News Releases

How Business Reacts to Social Media- Mitch Joel’s link to a report from McKinsey & Company http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/mckinsey-reports-on-how-businesses-understand-social-media-and-web-20/
Sad Spirit Robert Gorell at Grokdotcom on how bad Spirit Airlines customer service has become. http://www.grokdotcom.com/2007/10/24/spirit-air-you-dont-have-to-turn-on-the-red-light/

A new Holiday: Holiday Inn gets a $1 billion makeover from logos to mattresses and everything in between

► (10:22)VMT Interview (On voiceover or marketing or advertising or all of the above):
Steve Chazin, Marketing Apple, on the turning tide of the i-Phone

► (19:22) Popular Demand (Voice Comments, Emails and Blogs Posts from Listeners):
Voting on the voxmarketising podcast slogan with advice from Leesa Barnes http://www.leesabarnes.com/developing-your-unique-podcast-message/

► (21:04) Show Close:
Comment Line – +01 716-989-6151
Email – peter at audioconnell dot com
Blog – audioconnell.com/blog (Subscribe)
Add us to your Linked In or Facebook

The question has been buzzing around my brain because I wonder if I am writing too many words? Should I edit my posts more for length? These folks say maybe.

Editing is not a bad thing.

Are readers put off by long posts? Is just the shape and the length of the post enough to make somebody want to click off (and is “click off” a new kind of social media vulgarity that I just ignorantly/innocently spewed forth? Hope not, if yes, sorry.)

I have a short attention span sometimes, so does that mean that all content has to be boiled down to 10-20 words to be read, let alone understood by most readers?

Is there too much rambling in my posts? Am I writing with the voice inside my head, a voice which many readers (regardless of my demos) have never heard when maybe I should be writing with a more informational style, like a journalist?

Blogs serve a myriad of purposes: creative and emotional outlet, search engine optimization tool, community builder, credibility enhancer and on and on.

I want to build the on-line presence for audio’connell Voice Over Talent and SEO-wise, this blog is one tool that helps that happen. It’s also good that I have a great deal of experience and a great many contacts in the fields of voiceover, marketing and advertising so that I have many resources and topics about which I can write and podcast about.

And I think the posts are interesting (including the posts that have nothing to do with the above).

So while I write about topics that I think will be of interest to my friends (known and unknown) in those industries, I guess if I am honest, I am writing for me.

Well, and you, because you and I are really the only two people who read this stuff. And thanks for that

Let me know what you think (and I am not fishing for compliments either, just taking the reader’s “pulse”, if you will).

While I was in Boston the wiki mail came down from Jay Moonah that registration is now open for Podcamp Toronto 2008.

The date for Podcamp Toronto is February 23-24, 2008 which may not work for me as that’s the week that O’Connell Part Deux is deux, uh, I mean due. We’ll see.

But at any rate, if you are nearby, you should attend Podcamp Toronto and I hope you will.