Have you had the experience of coming home from an event and thinking: “I wish I could have captured that booth demo on video or at least taken a photo”? When it comes to events, the decisive moment cannot be recreated. If you’re serious about capturing it, you have to come prepared.

The capability and skills to capture photo and video content that is presentable and usable in a business context is becoming more valuable (and marketable) in the workplace, regardless of what our individual job roles may be. At CMD, our earned media team regularly makes the rounds of shows with clients, and we serve as embedded journalists—capturing demos, executive sound bites and b-roll to use on owned social networks during show week and throughout the year. Our work takes us to shows as varied as New York Comic Con, National Retail Federation, HIMSS, GDC, IDF and more.

Coming back to the office with a gem of a video sound bite that your communications director can actually use for YouTube, or a still photo that might make it into a newsletter or onto a web page is something that we can all contribute to. It just takes a little bit of advance planning.

In the tips below, we’re assuming a video shoot at a tradeshow booth, with demos and spokespeople from one’s own company and external parties.

1. What’s your story? Even a short 90-second YouTube video should have a discernible story. Whether it’s a sneak peek of a new technology or an expert’s perspective on an industry trend, think about what you’d like the “headline” of your video to be. That will guide what you shoot at the event.
2. Give an ear to your audio setup. Tradeshows are extremely noisy environments, meaning the ambient microphone built into your camera is totally inadequate. In this setting, to be usable, even an informal video requires pro audio equipment. Check to see if your camera has a mini audio input for a microphone. If it does, you’re in luck because you can easily add a professional microphone setup. Consider renting, borrowing or otherwise scrounging a lavalier microphone kit. This is a common rental item at professional photo shops, usually renting for about $25 a day. If you’re serious about capturing presentable video, it’s worth it.
3. Give an eye to your lighting. Although a tradeshow booth may seem bright to your eye, it is quite often dark from the camera’s point of view. Work with available lighting and maneuver your subject into a brighter area of the tradeshow environment. Consider stepping outside and shooting in daylight, if it works for your story.
4. Shoot “b-roll.” When creating a short video story, take some additional footage that can augment the main subject. Don’t worry about sound for this kind of thing; the point is to gather additional visuals that can be edited together with your subject.  When it comes to b-roll, always shoot more than you think you need.
5. Make a plan for editing. Even the shortest and simplest videos can benefit from an editor’s touch. If you are handing off your footage to someone who has editing software and skills, this is where your b-roll will come in handy to enliven the visuals of your story. Consider adding slides with explanatory information and your contact info at the beginning and end.
6. Be mindful of permissions. If your story includes interviewing people who are not full-time employees of your own company, come prepared with your company’s standard photo release form and ask each person interviewed to sign one. It’s easier to get this done onsite than it is to do it after the fact.

As an example, here’s a short video shot at a tradeshow with a commonly used consumer HD video camera, available light and a professional mic kit:

http://youtu.be/LROmfc503X8 (Timber Products)

Along comes a reference book that stands a chance of changing this thinking. Paul Gillin and Eric Schwartzman are carrying the torch for the benefits of social for B2B marketing with Social Marketing to the Business Customer ($18.72 at last check). They’ve put forward a solid reference text that can help communications professionals get up to speed quickly in this rapidly changing space.

The book is divided roughly into thirds, and its first part is aimed squarely at communicators who may be new to social marketing. Part one focuses on building the case for social marketing and setting up the policy infrastructure to govern the use of social media within an organization.

I’ve certainly talked with many managers in the last three years who feel pressure to adopt social media, yet the speed and exposure brought about by these marketing tools overwhelmed them at first. Gillin and Schwartzman have clearly been there too. They put forward practical advice and a framework for organizing efforts that help make sense of the space for those who are starting out.

Part two dives into tools and tactics. I heartily agree with the authors because they advise listening to customers intensely before any “talking,” or marketing, begins. Schwartzman is an SEO guru, and I appreciate the overview of search best practices presented in part two. These tips truly benefit any online marketing activity, regardless of the specific components.

Another benefit of part two is the “non-techie’s guide to choosing platforms.” This is a skim of commonly used content management systems (CMS) and community platforms, such as Jive, that a communicator will want to add to his or her social marketing toolkit at a mature stage.

The last portion of the book runs through several quick case studies that describe uses of the major social networks, such as Twitter and LinkedIn, wholly in a B2B context. Kudos to the authors for looking deeply at the activity online and finding unusual B2B case studies, such as an interactive game launched by Cisco.

Gillin and Schwartzman make you wait for what I consider to be the holy grail of social marketing. The final chapters address lead generation and ROI from communities and other social marketing. Given this year’s merger of listening platform Radian6 and SalesForce.com, lead generation is fast becoming the tip of the spear for many B2B social efforts. To accomplish this, integration throughout all levels of activity is key. To me, that means breaking down silos, working in interdisciplinary teams and much more intense planning.

The authors offer some helpful tips on ROI, but don’t expect mystical answers to the meaning of life here. Like most of the book, the ROI formulas put forward represent practical thinking and require organizations to put a dollar value on customer and fan acquisitions. If social media practice is still the “Wild West,” (debatable, but indulge me), ROI is its Main Street where the duels are taking place. There is as yet no standard that we can all work from, so it’s up to communicators within their organizations to set up logical, consistent systems to demonstrate ROI. This at least gives us a common reference to consider as a community.

What social reference books do you have on your shelf?

1. What It Takes to Power the Cloud. The team picked this up from our friends at ReadWriteWeb.
2. OK, here’s the nightmarish one: Radiation Absorption Rates and Lethality.
3. 100 Awesome Marketing Stats, Charts and Graphs. I will admit to cutting and pasting from this little gem for a couple of presentations lately. Thank you Hubspot.
4. A very cool visualization of the Demographics of Social Networking Users from AdAge.
5. Finally, time travel! A look into our future with the Growth in Mobile Marketing and Tagging.

What’s your infographic eye candy?

Priebatsch’s position is pretty simple: We’ve spent the last 10 years building the social layer, culminating in Facebook’s Open Graph, and the next 10 years will be spent building the game layer—motivating behavior through rules and rewards, with the standards very much still up for grabs by entrepreneurs like him. And his vision is much more wide-ranging than earning those cute badges on Foursquare.

What’s more, this shouldn’t sound like a new idea to you, Priebatsch explained in his lively keynote. We’ve been playing social games our whole lives, starting with school, which he views as an almost perfect game system with rules, willing players and a system of rewards. Proud Princeton dropout that he is, Priebatsch defined school by its problems—built-in potential for failure, lack of student engagement, and cheating. He then proposed alterations to the rules of the game that re-engineered those problems.

Priebatsch set out five fundamental problems that can be solved, or at least made less daunting, by applying game mechanics. His presentation started with school, and took the audience through a logical progression until he demonstrated his proposal to solve global warming by approaching it as an interactive game. Of course, to solve such complex problems as though they are games, there can be no holdouts—we all have to be willing to play.

 Is this more than clever thinking? What are the takeaways here for marketers?

• We’re in pilot mode. If we accept Priebatsch’s logic, our current social landscape of Facebook and Foursquare check-ins, GroupOn deals and opt-in discounts can be viewed as pilots of the game layer to come. SCVNGR launched a pilot of its own called Level Up during SXSW. Residents of Boston and Philadelphia can participate in three levels of deals. The deals get progressively sweeter, but users have to participate in level-one deals to unlock the others.
• SCVNGR is clearly betting that one of its pilots may become the foundational architecture for the game layer, but so are many others. Dennis Crowley of Foursquare nearly got down on his knees and begged developers at his SXSW keynote to build on his platform. That means what catches on as the winning social game may come from an unlikely app or an as-yet-unknown developer. As a measure of interest, there were several conference tracks focusing on game mechanics following Priebatsch’s keynote.
• Priebatsch’s vision has given marketers a different way to evaluate the new apps that pop up in the coming year, as developers and marketers continue to pilot social games. We should be asking ourselves: Does this new app tap essential game mechanics, such as communal play, compelling incentives and a countdown?

 In the end, the winning foundation for the game layer, like all other compelling systems, must create an emotional connection with users. It’s that connection we are always seeking to forge with our audiences. We’re going for “epic meaning”—that moment in a game when you are part of something bigger, when you can be blissfully productive. In Priebatsch’s future game world, we will work hard for a larger goal, like solving global warming, and be happy doing it. 

You might have if you’re rounding the top of the bell curve of consumer spending. Consumers love their shiny new electronic gadgets 19 percent more than they did in dusty, dismal 2009. That’s according to comScore’s annual study of what made consumers swoon, click, consume, join and buy online last year.

In total, consumers spent upwards of $227 billion online in 2010—that’s a 9 percent uptick for those of you who are keeping score along with the analysts. It warms my heart to think that consumers are finally feeling the love from marketers and once again cracking open their pocketbooks. We’ve certainly been working hard to court them, no?

Here are a few comScore statistics that consumer marketers should embrace, or at least hug:

• Primacy of Facebook: With a 38 percent gain in usage in the United States, a surging number of impressions served and a spot as the number-one organic search word, let’s face it—Facebook is a viable option as a campaign launching pad. It’s now the fourth-most visited Web property and has recently taken steps to make its pages more company-friendly. Marketers considering campaigns based on microsites would do well to reevaluate Facebook as an option—complementary or standalone.
• Rethinking email: Email usage declined by 8 percent for people ages 35 to 44 and by a whopping 18 percent for the 25 to 34 set. The traditional “email blast” is rapidly following in the footsteps of postal mail—a specialized tactic that is likely to be used in specific circumstances, when the audience is proven to consume content this way. As one blogger recently said to me: “Get my attention in 140 characters, or not at all.” Be prepared to distill campaigns into tidbits of information that reach the target at the right time and place and, needless to say, on their social networks and devices of choice.
• Finally, one word—smartphones: For the first time in 2010, more than a quarter of U.S. consumers owned a smartphone. The most frequent uses of smartphones tell a more compelling story—and placing a call doesn’t even rank. Text messaging, snapping pictures and reading the news are the top activities for smartphone users. Brands must become a natural part of these behaviors if they want to stay relevant in the mobile space.

Did you read anything in the comScore report that blew your mind?

There’s tremendous potential on both sides. We recently completed a low-cost, sponsored program with a blog network that delivered 1.7 million impressions for our client in one week.

So what’s the best point of connection? And how do all the pieces of a successful blog sponsorship come together? While there are many marketing-savvy blog networks out there, I believe there are also many professional bloggers who have built up influential, mature communities, but are still uncertain about how to forge sponsor relationships. For those folks, I’d like to offer this advice. Call it Brand Partnership 101.

Who do I talk to about working with a big brand?

As in many things, it pays to do your homework. If your community is strongly aligned with a lifestyle or brand, take a look at the company’s communications team, usually listed in the media center or newsroom. Do a little searching to see if the company has a PR or marketing agency working on its behalf. Although sponsorships often fall to the same staffers who negotiate paid ads, often it’s the public relations or communications team who are looking for ways to fundamentally extend their outreach programs, and they may be open to a pitch.

What’s the best timing to work with a brand?

Think like your favorite retail store. Consumer brands plan ahead for retail buying seasons: winter holiday shopping, Mother’s and Father’s Days and Graduation Day, for example. For B2B bloggers, think buying cycles in your industry. How does this match up with the conversation that happens organically in your community? A sponsorship is best placed when seasonal conversation naturally reaches a fever pitch. To hit that spike in attention and interest, you’ll need to plan ahead so that your sponsored content is waiting in the wings for just the right time to go live.

OK, I’m really starting from scratch here, what’s my best pitch to a brand?

Step aside from the blood, sweat and tears you’ve poured into building your community, and look at it objectively, like an advertiser would. Brands want to work with communities that match their target demographics: gender, age, income level and spending habits. They also want to get a sense of the intangibles. Is this a community of people who influence others? Is this community likely to talk favorably about my brand online? Any initial pitch you put together should answer these key questions so that a marketer can easily see that there’s a match.

What do they mean by messaging?

When you land that sponsorship and get down to the nitty gritty details, you may be asked to have a look at the company’s desired messaging. This often strikes marketing outsiders as odd, so I hope to translate. Think of it as the brand’s mission statement. This is what they want people to learn and remember about their products or services—that is, the message they want to send via content on your community. Demonstrating how you will tell the brand’s story and make what is likely to be a dry messaging document come to life in your community is all-important.

How can I maintain my voice while staying on message for big brands?

Well, I don’t think bloggers should ever feel that they are in a position to compromise on their voice. After all, that’s what has drawn your community to you; it’s your greatest asset. Smart marketers know that the key is to tap into the interests that brought your community together, not to manufacture something that won’t pass the sniff test. So I’m going to take a stand here, if a marketer dictates something to you that doesn’t feel right for you or your community, you should push back. Force-fitting a program will only end in tears.

How do I follow FTC endorsement guidelines?

If you haven’t yet visited the government’s web pages on this topic, please do. Today. The FTC is very specific about how bloggers need to disclose marketing partnerships. The bottom line is that you must clearly and conspicuously disclose a marketing relationship as part of the content you create, even if it seems as small as a loan of a product to try out. The FTC has a handy Q&A and guidelines for common scenarios to reference.

What is CMD’s interest in posting this advice?

It’s simple. It is our goal to delight our clients with strategically sound, creatively brilliant solutions that help everyone succeed. The more professional bloggers out there who understand the value they can offer and abide by best practices and FTC guidelines, the better it will be for everyone.

What success stories can you share about marketing partners for your blog?

We really want to emphasize taking a fresh look at your resume and ensuring it communicates what you do, and perhaps more importantly, who you are. Your accomplishments and identity simply need to jump off the page at hiring managers if you want yours to stand out among the flood of cover letters.

Here are a few choice examples, taken from real-life resumes that have passed through my inbox.

“… experience including writing, content creation, media outreach”

OK, that’s a good start describing the basic skills that I may be seeking for a job opening, but I really want to know what the outcomes and successes have been as a result of doing these things in the business world, or in blogging life. Here’s what catches my eye a bit more:

“Writing for client pitches in a variety of voices from a ‘playah’ to a women’s rights activist.”

Now that tells me this is a skilled writer who can research and adopt the appropriate tone for various target audiences and then get down to the business of networking with them online. What would make this event stronger would be to articulate the outcome, such as, “secured a client interview with top-tier blogger reaching an audience of thousands.”

Here’s another example of going beyond “event planning.”

“Grew audience from a forty-person gathering in a crépe shop to sold-out theater crowds.”

Now that, I like. Who doesn’t want to bring on a team member with this kind of gumption? This is also the type of detail that helps you get the interview and builds up an identity–the perception of who you are–prior to that interview taking place.

Do you need a translation service for your resume? If you have a quick description that needs a brushup, post it in the comments below and we’ll throw you a few thoughts by return.

There is a mix of awesome topics and unusual approaches that I surely hope will make the cut for 2011:

Social Contests: Brand Loyalty Builders or Lazy Marketing?
Proposed by Kelly Feller of Intel’s Social Media Center of Excellence

Social Media Death Match
A hyper-planning communications director goes head to head with an off-the-cuff improv comedian in a battle to the social media death. This one promises to please!

15 Slides, Three Writers, Three Ways—One Hour
The “Rashomon” approach to presenting, I suppose.

Guerilla Research Methods—Live!
How do I get my boss or client to buy into doing research for my project?

Will News Apps Reinvent Journalism?
A group of experts will discuss the current state of news apps, emerging trends, and the future of professional news delivery.

What’s catching your eye?

And given the volume of job seekers out there, it must feel like swimming upstream. Our recent job posting at CMD drew many candidates, but only two made the final cut for interviews at the agency. And of course, there can be only one who is hired.

These days, it seems like the planets have to align in order for both parties to find the right fit. Are you feeling that way, too?

This happens to be on my mind because Melissa Lion and I are going to speak to bloggers at Portland’s WordCamp in September about translating their skills into the workplace. It occurred to us that we shouldn’t work from our assumptions about job hunting in this environment. We need help from you—the bloggers and job hunters of Portland—so that we can directly address your very real concerns.

If you’re in job search mode, what’s weighing on your mind? We want your burning questions, especially the ones from bloggers.

• What did you really want to ask that hiring manager, but didn’t bring up for fear of objections?
• Have you been in a situation where you and the hiring manager had very different expectations?
• Have you had a good experience lately? What made it good?

Leave your question in the comments section here, or if you can fit it in 140 characters or less, we’ll take it on Twitter too. The really juicy questions we’ll take with us to the WordCamp discussion this fall. We’ll also let you know where to catch the live stream of our Wordcamp session if you’re not able to attend in person.

OK, let’s have it. We want to hear your top questions for hiring managers.

When contemplating a job search, most people naturally take an inventory of their professional experience, acquired skills and natural talents. That’s the right place to start, but to really impress a hiring manager, you have to dig deeper.

Just saying that you’re a great writer doesn’t distinguish you from the other writers in the job market. Ask yourself: “What am I really good at?” Is it telling personal stories in a compelling way? What results have you experienced from doing this? Exercising a skill and demonstrating the outcomes is what will set you apart and provide the conceptual path for translating blogging skills into the business world.

Once a job candidate has passed muster and comes in for an interview, a key element that I’m looking for is if this person can play well with others. Although experiences vary, blogging can often be a solitary endeavor, and we need job candidates with the full package of experience and the ability to work well as part of a team of 10.

Highlight your collaborative projects, or seek some out during your job search. There are certainly tons of nonprofits and events that can benefit from having a blogger on board!

Finally, ask yourself: “Is this a grass is greener situation?” Income potential aside, it’s important for job candidates to determine if they will be happy in a new environment, especially if it’s a change from a flexible home office to a nine-to-five workday in a cubicle.

Are you a blogger who’s looking for a full-time job? Was this discussion helpful to you, or are you at a different place in your search?

This post is the first in a series leading up to the talk, “From Personal Blogger to Professional Marketer” by Melissa Lion and Julie Yamamoto at Wordcamp Portland.