Blog Business Summit Business Blog -- Publish and Prosper

I recently got an e-mail from a very nice chap by the name of Jim Kukral responding to my call for interesting blog stories. Jim told me all about how he got Mark Cuban to hate him, which is really the story of how easy it is to get the attention of the mainstream media by combining blogs with the power of PR Web - which is, incidentally, the official newswire of the Blog Business Summit.

I won’t rehash the whole story, but in a nutshell, Jim blogged about how much he would love for Mark Cuban - owner of the Dallas Mavericks and blogger extraordinaire - to call him. He then sent out a press release over PR Web about his little experiment to see if Mark Cuban would indeed call.

So far, Jim hasn’t heard from Mark Cuban, but he has heard from a reporter who did a story about the experiment.

What does this prove? In truth, nothing that hasn’t been proven before by the many successful business communications initiatives that have included blogs and RSS driven newswires. But it is a very compact and entertaining example of how powerful these tools can be when used effectively. To quote Jim:

Blogging & Promotion Experiment Gone Bad?

The reporter did ask me if I thought my experiment was failed because Mark didn’t and won’t ever call me. What did I say? Of course it’s not a failure! Let’s look at the facts and results.

Fact #1: I spent $10 on a domain name, $80 on a press release and about an hour of my time writing and setting up a blog.

Fact #2: Within a few days of my idea, and within 8-hours of my press release going out, I had my name put in front of Mark Cuban himself, and a reaction from him about me. Regardless if he got me confused with someone else, I was able to get his attention indirectly.

Fact #3: I had a reporter from a major newspaper interview me for a story which was syndicated across the globe.

Fact #4: I met with and the owner of the web’s most prolific promotion company (prweb.com) who in turn featured my experiment to a crowd of hundreds, including attendees like Robert Scoble and Matt Cutts. I also was able to get him to do a podcast with me about the story to be re-released across the PRweb network.

I think this story is a nice little nugget for anyone who is trying to make the case for a blog to the higher ups at their company.