The Carnival of Marketing is HERE

I've been selected to be the host of the Carnival of Marketing this week. The catch is the person hosting the carnival will only post their favorite 7 from the week. No more, no less since carnivals are getting out of control with over 30 links.

Today's selection is the gethuman Web database that a technologist set up to get past the corporate voicemail maze by using the secret codes to reach a live human being.  It's set out just below with post.

How does it work?
Once a week, a different site will host a bunch of links from other sites that are talking about marketing. The topics can be case studies, interesting ideas, cool examples, things not to do, exposure for a product, etc… People can send in any new articles for the week from their blogs and Web sites to me at Lbodine@aol.com.

Why should I host or submit to the carnival?
Submitting articles is a great way to get exposure to people interested in marketing. As well, hosting will draw lots of traffic to your site. Plus it is fun and you get to be a part of an online marketing community.

Additional Hosting Rules:

1. Don’t submit an old post. The post needs to be from at least the past couple of weeks, and preference will be given to posts from the past week.

2. Submit posts that are actionable. Tips that people can actually apply will almost always win out over abstract stuff. “How” beats “Why”.

3. Submit posts that are complete. As a corollary to the above, posts that refer out to articles or other sites for more information, or that have anything to the effect of “Watch this space for more information” are going to be among the first to be cut.

4. Don’t submit posts that are nothing more than a pitch. It’s possible to sell subtlety within a good, actionable post. But a couple of the submissions were basically an ad for the company’s product. An occasional post like that may work in the context of your blog, but if you think it’s a good idea to submit that for a carnival, you’ve definitely got a thing or two to learn about marketing via blogs.