Patrick O’Keefe

In the past four months, since I posted my last book coverage update, I’ve been honored by all sorts of coverage for “Managing Online Forums” and I wanted to take a moment to share the interest that has been shown in this period and thank those that were behind it.

One of the biggest things to happen was the Slashdot review, written by JR Peck of GeekBook. It propelled the book into the top 1,500 books on Amazon.com and kept it in the top 10,000 for a number of days. The Slashdot review was mentioned on the AMACOM Books Blog.

There were also reviews by Michelle L. Rodriguez of Mequoda Daily, Rich Villalobos of Cisco Systems, Dr. Natalie T. Wood in the Journal of Consumer Marketing and Richard Millington of FeverBee. The book received it’s first review on Amazon.co.jp, thanks to Kushi-book-reviews and it’s first review on Amazon.fr, thanks to Dominique.

I participated in text based interviews with Commania, AdminQuest, Des Walsh dot Com (also posted on the International Blogging & New Media Association website and Mr. Walsh was kind enough to mention the book favorably on his blog, as well) and sparkBB. There were new podcast interviews on Podcaster Training and WordCast. A previously recorded interview on PerfCast was mentioned on the Splashpress Media blog.

I attended South by Southwest Interactive 2009 from March 13 through 17 and I gave a book reading (really a presentation around a theme in the book) called “The Art of Responding to Feedback from Your Community”. I also had a book signing at the conference’s bookstore. I spent the signing next to Thom Singer, the author of “Some Assembly Required” and “Some Assembly Required: A Networking Guide for Women,” who was kind enough to mention the book, and some kind words, on his blog.

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Last month, when I wrote about the potential of Skimlinks, some people had asked me to share my thoughts after I had had the opportunity to use them. For those interested, I’ve been using their program for about a month and have written a full review over at ManagingCommunities.com.

I’m a little belated in mentioning this, but the publication date of “Managing Online Forums” was April 28, 2008. That means that the book has been in circulation for over a year. Has it really been a year already?

The book was and is stocked nationwide at Barnes & Noble stores. It’s cracked the Amazon.com top 10,000 on numerous occasions. It has received a total of 43 reviews on the Amazon international network of stores, including 37 on Amazon.com. It is in at least 223 libraries. I’ve been overwhelmed and flattered by the praise that I’ve received not just on review sites, but also in e-mail, on forums and in person at conferences.

I’ve been blessed to have been interviewed countless times for online media, print and even television and to have had the book reviewed by many people of very different backgrounds and levels of experience. I am truly thankful for all of the support that I have received and I have a lot of people to thank.

It starts with the people who support me, my family and my friends, like Brandon Eley, Chrispian Burks, Jared Smith and Stephan Segraves, who gave me kind encouragement before everyone else knew I was working on it. My agent, Neil Salkind and everyone at AMACOM who worked on it, from editors to sales people.

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed the book and/or invited me into their space to talk or for an interview. This includes Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Lee LeFever, Rick Villalobos, Jake McKee, Jim Kukral, Thomas Myer, MarketingSherpa, Des Walsh, Shai Coggins, Martin Reed, Michael Kimsal, Richard Millington, Geek Book, Michelle L. Rodriguez, Dr. Natalie T. Wood, Martin Kloos, Jessica Smith, Rob Diana, Kare Anderson, Manny Hernandez, ONLINE, Brad Williams, Heidi Miller, Travis Smith, Liz Fuller, eModeration, Dr. Jeffrey Barlow, Book News, Rico Mossesgeld, James Seligman, Ray Angel, Andy Staple, Vincent Lauria, David Berkowitz, Midwest Book Review, Ramona Iftode, Andrea Hermitt, Jonathan Bailey, Jason Bean , Jeff Henrichsen, James Fintel, Gary Pollock, Miranda Marquit, Ken Davidoff, Douglas Bell, Ethan Kwassman, Wendy Piersall, David Askaripour, Zack Urlocker, Douglas Hanna, Blake Thompson, John Wilkerson, Jim Turner, David Lewis, Jerry Stephens, Christa Casebeer, Joel Trigger, Jon Scheiber, Pete Carr, Chris Matthieu, Aric Cabot Hoek, Ahmad Jordan, Anne Marie Nichols, Marcquis P. Knox, Sniff Code, Ryan Zieno, Duncan Rawlinson, Edwin Vaughan, Danielle Williams, T. Hooper, Juana Pacheco, Brian A. Pomeranz, Simon Peter Lewis, Matt Whiting, P.J. Dixon, Mrs. K A Rowland, Catherine Archer, Kushi-book-reviews, L. Sutton, sparkBB, AdminQuest, Commania, BloggerTalks, Urban Lifestyle Report: New Media, Blog World Expo, Josh Klein, Performancing, lefora, LIVE Interviews Online, Bill Johnston, Website Magazine, Pete Prestipino, The Daily Advance, Talk Social News, Wayne Sutton, Kipp Bodnar, BlogTalkRadio, WordCast, Alejandro Reyes, The Tech Buzz, Scott Fox, WebProNews, Social Medialogy Conversations, Zane Safrit, New Media Pro.TV, Startup Spark, WordPress Weekly, Fitness Business Radio, WITN, Heather King, Meet the Experts, Inside Digital Media, Thom Singer, Lynn Terry, Esther Schindler, Blogs.com, Barbara Rozgonyi, Gwen Bell, Connie Bensen, Slashdot, Bradley Kelly and so many others.

And I can never thank everyone who has supported me or the book. But, if you have purchased the book, worked on the book, helped spread the word, stocked the book, liked it on FriendFeed, mentioned it on Twitter, bookmarked it on delicious or helped it to reach more people, from the smallest gesture to the largest, please accept my sincere thanks. I really appreciate it and the support means a lot to me.

Over at ProBlogger, Darren Rowse was kind enough to allow me to provide a guest post that I titled “Enhance and Grow Your Online Community Through Appreciation.” In the post, I discuss how simple acts of appreciation can have noteworthy impact on the growth of your community. Here’s the closing excerpt:

Appreciation is a powerful thing. It can open doors, start relationships, give people happiness, bring people back and give them confidence. In the interest of cultivating community, please consider how not just appreciating people – but making sure they know you appreciate them – can enhance your community.

Please let me know what you think about the post.

Yesterday, I published “Bad Boy Blog’s 10 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Twitter for Bad Boy Artists, Promoters, Employees and, Yes, Even Diddy” over at Bad Boy Blog. Yes, that is quite a title! Heh.

At any rate, the site is Bad Boy focused and I got the idea to write the article from watching Bad Boy artists, marketing people and others participate on Twitter. But, really, by extension… it’s 10 Twitter tips for anyone in the music industry that is wanting to get more out of Twitter.

But, for the most part, it’s also tips that will help anyone who is at least relatively new to Twitter and there might even be a morsel or two for those who have been using Twitter for a while. So, if you’re looking to enhance your Twitter experience, please give it a look and let me know what you think! Thanks.

I wrote a guest post for SmartBlog on Social Media that was published on Monday. It’s called “4 Simple Rules for Generating Traffic from Forums.” That title is pretty descriptive - it’s a simple, straightforward guide for those who want to participate on forums in an effort to drive traffic to their own site. The four steps are:

1. Observe first, act second.

2. Fill out your profile, especially your signature.

3. Want to be there.

4. Don’t mention your website.

The article goes into more detail. If this is something that you are interested in, I hope that you find it useful.

In November, I shared video from the “Avoiding Disaster: How Not to Use Social Media” panel at Blog World Expo 2008. The fact that I couldn’t get video of the other panel I was on, “How to Deal with Trolls, Spammers & Sock Puppets,” probably tells you how busy I’ve been! But, in any case, I’m sorry for the delay and the video has now been posted on ManagingCommunities.com.

Thank you to everyone who attended to panel and to my fellow panelists, Rick Calvert, Founder of Blog World Expo & New Media Expo; John Chow of John Chow dot Com, The Tech Zone and TTZ Media and Jeremy Schoemaker of ShoeMoney and ShoeMoney Media Group.

During the second week of March, I headed to Austin, Texas for South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) 2009. The conference itself ran from March 13 through March 17 and I arrived on March 12 and left on March 18. Since it is still fresh in my mind, as I did last year, I wanted to provide a recap of the experience. This is my epic and unnecessarily detailed and long (even boring by some standards) recap of the conference. This is the “WHY DID YOU WRITE ALL THAT? NOBODY CARES.” recap. It’s for me personally, to remember the event, as much as anything else, but if you want to read it, you are definitely welcome! Good luck.

March 12

Let’s start with this: I’m sitting in the Charlotte airport on wifi, waiting for my flight to Austin, and a guy walks by. He looks like a much older version of Kevin McCallister’s mean brother Buzz, from the movie “Home Alone,” which I loved as a kid. I tweeted this out at the time. The next day, after I’ve arrived in Austin, a girl at the convention center hands me a promo for a movie called “The 2 Bobs.”

I look at it and notice that this was the guy on my flight. And then the girl who hands it to me says that he was in “Home Alone.” So, it was the guy. His name is Devin Ratray and he was in town doing promo for the film.

On the flight from Charlotte to Austin, I sat next to Scott Brewster, the Director of Online Learning for The University of North Carolina at Greensboro and we got to know each other a bit, for the duration of the flight.

I got in town at around 5 PM and it took me an hour and a half or so to get to the hotel and get checked in and settled. After considering various dinner options, I saw a tweet by Paul Boag of Boagworld. I had hoped to meet up with him at some point, but he said he was having an informal dinner and I made my way over to his hotel lobby to meet up.

But, first, I went to the Austin Convention Center to pick up my badge for the conference. The line for the general attendee pickup was very, very long. About three quarters of the first floor - four people deep. But, the panelist registration had all of two people in line when I got there. Yes! So, I was able to pick my badge up very quickly, but not before chatting with Grant Robertson of Download Squad and meeting Victor Agreda of Weblogs, Inc.

When I made it to Paul’s hotel, I realized that I had only a hazy idea of what he looked like (basically, my best memory of his Twitter avatar, with him looking in a downward direction). But, I spotted him rather easily and joined him and a group that included Niqui Merret, Marcus Lillington, Phill Tran and John Morton. I actually ended out hanging out with Phill at various points of the conference, as well. All cool people. After dinner, they headed to Buffalo Billiards… I headed to bed.

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We had quite a bit of fun the last episode of the Copyright 2.0 Show. Toward the end, we mentioned a dispute relating to the company behind Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons and I mentioned how I had never played either in my life. Jonathan, my co-host, then jokingly questioned my geek credibility and my “nerd card,” in disgust. The story starts at the 48:15 and the back and forth continues at random moments through the end. I actually partially redeemed myself by admitting to having an Atari 7800 hooked up to my TV.

With the help of Nukirk, we then railed off a list of perceived geek culture media… have I seen any Star Wars movies? No. Have I seen any Star Trek movies? No, but I have seen a handful of the old TV series. Have I seen any of The Matrix movies? No. Ever used an iPhone? No. Seen E.T? Quite possible, but I forget… parts at least. Seen any Lord of the Rings movies? No. Read the books? No, not any of them. Played any Final Fantasy games? No.

So, Jonathan put the call out to help me restore my “nerd card.” He asks you to “give us ideas for things that Patrick should have read or seen or participated in to restore his geek cred and we’ll ask him on the next show.” So, what do you think? Please leave your suggestions in the comments.

Back in February, I wrote about how Commission Junction had charged me $10 for inactivity on my affiliate account without any notice. I was displeased and stopped sending traffic to Books-A-Million because of it.

While I was down at South by Southwest (yes, my epic recap is still in the works), I met Joe Stepniewski, the co-founder of Skimlinks. Skimlinks is a service that takes ordinary links on your website and turns them into an affiliate link, where applicable. It does it automatically, regardless of if the link was posted in the past. Their homepage shows this example: let’s say you were writing about a product from the Gap.

You don’t need to mess around with any affiliate code or apply to be a member of the Gap affiliate program - just post a link to the product like normal, just as if you were mentioning it in an IM conversation or something like that. With Skimlinks installed on your site, that link will automatically become an affiliate link.

Skimlinks keeps a portion of the revenue generated. But, their FAQ states that they are able to negotiate better affiliate rates than an individual affiliate would be able to get and, because of that, “you can earn up to 110%” of what you normally might.

As I was browsing their website, after the conference I saw that they worked with the Commission Junction network and it dawned on me. This is the solution! If you want to use Commission Junction’s affiliate network, but don’t want to worry about the $10 inactive fee - Skimlinks is perfect because, with Skimlinks, you won’t get hit with such a fee.

Of course, that’s a small point, really. The Skimlinks service looks quite interesting (I wrote about such a concept in my book) and I am looking forward to trying it.