YOUTILITY

Why Smart Marketing Is About Help, Not Hype

The difference between helping and selling is just two letters. But those two letters are critically important to your company’s success.

You’re not competing for attention only against other, similar products. You’re competing for attention against everything. To win in this hyper-competitive environment, you must ask “How can we help?”

If you sell something, you make a customer today, but if you genuinely help someone, you create a customer for life. This is Youtility.

Includes interviews with dozens of companies practicing Youtility, and provides 6 blueprints for building Youtility in your company.

Available for pre-order soon (get up to 7 exclusive bonuses) at http://YoutilityBook.com

How Huffington Post and Obama Killed the New York Times Online

AdAge revealed recently that the New York Times reported a steep 17.9% decline in ad revenues for July. Not unexpected, as many print behemoths are getting pummeled in this economy. (See related post “Is Digital Marketing Killing Magazine Ads”) However, NYTimes.com and the company’s other online efforts grew only .9% in July, compared to double [...]

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Bloggers: Who Is In Your Fab Five?

Thanks to Jason Falls for the inspiration (okay, it’s a straight rip-off) for this post. Jason pointed out five lesser-known bloggers that he reads regularly (including Convince & Convert). His post seems to have triggered an a-ha moment, as several other excellent social media bloggers including Mack Collier and Amber Naslund have posted similar lists [...]

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Why the Murder of Old Media is PR’s Best Chance

Since the advent of the printing press, professional opinions have helped shape our own. From Hearst to Murdoch, from Cronkite to Brokaw. Huge companies that employ thousands of trained journalists have helped us understand what’s good and bad, and whom to embrace or fear.  Not for long. This is not a flesh wound. The Internet [...]

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Joseph Jaffe – The Twitter 20 Twinterview about Social Media and Conversation Marketing

Joseph Jaffe of Jaffejuice and Crayon was the first interviewee in the Twitter 20 series from Jason Baer at Convince & Convert. 20 questions and answers live on Twitter. A twinterview. If you sat in, I’d love your feedback and ideas in the comments below. Who would you like to see interviewed in in a [...]

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Announcing Twitter 20 – Interviews on Twitter

Starting Soon. Follow @jaybaer and @jaffejuice to see Questions and Answers. I’m happy to announce a new Convince and Convert initiative – Twitter 20. On a regular basis, I’ll be interviewing social media and digital marketing luminaries on Twitter and posting the interviews here for review, comment, and posterity. 140 character questions (x20). 140 character [...]

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The 6 Dangerous Fallacies of Social Media

(Amazing Gangsta Chimp image by the talented Matt Cioffi) You may have heard of social media. There’s been a bit of news about it recently. However, a lot of people making that news have created expectations and beliefs about social media that aren’t true. 1. Social Media is Inexpensive False. As Charlene Li said recently, [...]

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Why Twitter Is the Anchor of the Social Media Team

Because of its simplicity and immediacy, Twitter enables brands to win the 1:1 battle with customers and potential customers in ways that even other social media constructs cannot. The density of Eureka! moments on Twitter is quite high, and if brands use it right, it’s the ultimate weapon for turning lemons into lemonade. Let’s examine [...]

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NHL Misses Net in New Campaign – Where’s Social Media?

The National Hockey League has rolled out a series of compelling TV spots featuring some of the game’s biggest stars. And while the new commercials – with a theme of “Is This The Year?” will run nationally on Canadian broadcast and U.S. cable television, like so many campaigns, it’s being forced to go it alone. How [...]

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The Social Networking Friendship Development Scale

It used to be that you actually met someone in person first, and then developed and nurtured that relationship into its natural culmination – helping them move. The Web and social networking has changed that, and now friendships are developed in a variety of digital forums, eventually moving offline and becoming three dimensional. Below are [...]

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A Conversation, Not a Monologue – Digital Marketing for Colleges

I just finished giving a speech at the western region meeting of the National Council for Marketing & Public Relations in Sedona, Arizona.  NCMPR is the association of community and technical college marketers. A really interesting group that needs to harness social media and work with prospective students on an individual, relevant, highly personal basis.  [...]

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