I could start telling you a tale with "It was a dark and stormy night." Or I could hand you a photograph of a lightning strike across a black midnight sky.

But what if I took it one step further and I played for you a two-minute video of the thunderstorm that rolled through town recently? You'd see the darkness and the lightning, you'd hear the thunder and you'd have no doubt about the severity of the storm.

Three thousand members in your Facebook group! You're following 5,000 on Twitter! You're well on your way to social media nirvana, right?

Maybe.

The low barrier to entry for most popular social media tools today means that anyone can be in the game. But it also makes it very easy to abuse your audience, perhaps resulting in the opposite of what you intend.

We love to tell great stories. We love to hear them, too. That's why our ears are always perked for good ones. And sometimes, good stories come in the form of podcasts.

In a nutshell, a podcast is an audio file, distributed over the Internet, which is ready for playback on your computer or a portable MP3 player.

Although they started out as a way to distribute radio-type shows, podcasts are also being used to market new products, distribute class lessons to students and share news. Podcasting and other forms of social media like blogging and photo-sharing are popular and effective ways of telling a story. And a growing group of associations are embracing the trend as a new and popular way reach out to their members and potential members.

Here are a few good ones we've noticed recently.

We send all kinds of files back and forth to clients and vendors every day -- Word documents, spreadsheets, images, PDFs -- whatever you can imagine! But the need to email photos isn't exclusive to custom media companies. We frequently send and receive electronic files with people who aren't members of a creative profession -- and of course with our friends and families. We've found that outside of the small circle of us who regularly use electronic images in the course of our business, the proliferation of point-and-shoot digital cameras has led to some bad habits as we try to share images.

Make sure you are sending your electronic images in the best way using these tips.

Bill's post earlier this week celebrated all that we love about magazines and their punny, punny headlines. But you'll notice here ("How to Write Headlines for the Web") we're playing it straight. And there's good reason for that.

When you're titling articles, posts and features online, your headline has to do a lot more than look pretty and act clever. Since headlines may show up as links, and often help with search engine results, they have to cut to the chase: Just tell us what the page is about.

I'm tempted just to say, "Amen!" to this recent Slate post about intrusive linking policies. Jack Schafer's list includes my top three links-to-hate:

• Double-click the word, get a definition [NYTimes.com is a big culprit. I have, at least 3 times, clicked on the word "inside" while reading an article on the Times site. Trust me, after 13 years of primary and secondary, a college degree and nine hours of graduate work, I've finally figured out what inside means. Now, as for that tricky "outside...."]


• Pop-over boxes Often found on news sites to display ads, this blog tool was amusing when it first came out. Now that I've seen Snap Shots used more than a couple times -- indeed, far too frequently -- I am still waiting for an application of it that doesn't make me grit my teeth.


• Links that don't tell you where you're going The web allows for endless copy. I don't need much, but please do more than tell me you want to link here. [It's not a real link. I wouldn't do that to you.]

We decided about 18 months ago to create a new kind of website here at Hammock.com. As individuals, we were using lots of new online media approaches and technology -- and were incorporating them into work we were doing for clients. Our site, while attractive, was not a reflection of where we are -- as a company or as individuals. So we headed into a new direction.

[After the jump, read more about how Hammock.com is evolving.]

For example, the story, "The 21 Steps" by Charles Cumming uses a Google Maps mashup to present a round-the-world story. And the story, "Slice" by Toby Litt uses two different blogging platforms (LiveJournal and Wordpress) and Twitter.

Yes, we're impressed. Perhaps not with the stories themselves, but with the experimentation taking place. And by a book publisher, no less.

(via: Springwise.com.)

It's been a while since I've made an "audio post" to a blog (I'm more "video" these days). However, some recent blog posts and Twitter comments by Patrick Ruffini inspired me to dust-off the Skype account and Audio Hijack software and give him a call. In 2004 Ruffini had the very Web 1.0 title "webmaster" for the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. Despite the title, he ushered in some very Web 2.0 features and approaches to the site -- and the campaign. Over 30,000 off-line "meetup-like" volunteer gatherings were organized on the site and over 5,000 websites and weblogs hosted the badges and widgets (remember, this was in 2004) that Ruffini's team developed using RSS and XML. After the election, he ran the Inauguration website and later had a two-year stint as eCampaign Director for the GOP.

After the jump, read more and listen to the interview.

What do we do? Over the years at Hammock Inc., the way we've answered that question has changed. Back in 1994, we often described ourselves as relationship marketing experts. "Custom publishing" became a popular buzzword in the mid- and late-1990s. And sometimes, we've resorted to the shorthand: "We publish magazines and build websites for corporations and associations." Simple, but for those in the know, it didn't say nearly enough.

Today, we are a custom media company in the business of creating and managing magazines, videos and online media to help organizations build stronger relationships with customers, members and employees.

Just a sample:

Customers are aware of the various [digital media] features and functionality that are out there, but are still relatively unsure how they can specifically apply them to campaigns, which puts the publisher in the fortunate position of educator. “We’re seeing a lot of questions about what they can use and what makes sense to use,” says John Lavey, president of custom publishing firm Hammock Inc. “At the same time, the pressures of the postal increases, increases in the cost of paper, and the difficulty of selling advertising without a robust package of assets to advertisers, are favoring bigger ideas and packages.”

Read the article on Folio:'s website.

Rex, Summer, Patrick R. and I will be in Austin for the next four days, soaking up all the latest tech/Internet/social media/geek news. Stay tuned and keep up with the developments as we share them on our SXSW blog. We'll be posting via Twitter, Flickr and del.icio.us as well.

Here's to sunny Texas!

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Action for Savvy Marketers: