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

Brands Must be Social Media Selfish

Are you protecting your social media brand? I was followed on Twitter last night by @trynetflixfree As a long-time Netflix member, I clicked the link to determine whether I should follow back. Much to my surprise, @trynetflixfree is a Netflix affiliate, trying to drive new subscribers via banal appeals on Twitter. I don’t begrudge the [...]

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Mack Collier – The Twitter 20 Interview about Blogging and Being Helpful

Are you as good at social media as Mack Collier? Probably not, as proven in this sweeping, live Twitter20 interview. Mack opines on how to write a good blog, how to help others in social media, and why you need to know where your traffic comes from.  Mack is a social media consultant and trainer, [...]

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The Loneliness of Social Media

Is social media creating confusing collisions and separations in your life? It is for me. I sometimes feel like Jason Bourne. I can’t remember who I know, what I know about them, or what they know about me. I spend more time on Twitter than in other social media outposts, so people on Twitter know [...]

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Strategy Destroys Social Media Tools

I’ve written a lot about social media strategic planning and how to find the “hook” for your social media efforts. Why do I write more about strategy than I do about social media tools and tactics? First, because I’ve been an Internet marketing strategist for 15 years, so that perspective is my home turf. But [...]

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7 Critical Elements of Your Social Media Strategy

(Originally written for MarketingProfs Daily Fix) It’s fantastic that interest in social media is so high, but I’m alarmed at the number of brands and agencies that are ready to jump into social media to take “advantage” of audience concentration in Facebook, Twitter, and other fast-growth outposts. What’s lacking in most social media programs is [...]

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Find Your ONE THING Before Launching in Social Media

(originally written for MarketingProfs Daily Fix) The history of marketing has been an unending stream of “biggest sale ever,” “now with extra raisins,” and “easy financing available.” The power of social media is that it allows consumers to peek behind the curtain of brands that have historically been stoic, pushy, and unresponsive. Successful social media [...]

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The Ultimate Social Media Quote

As I go dark for a few days to enjoy some family (and snow shoveling) time, I wanted to give you this quintessential social media quote – which I believe is suitable for cutting out and taping to your desk. Think about it as you consider your plan for 2009, which will be the Year [...]

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The Incredible Efficiency of Social Media

(originally written for TalentZoo) The explosion in marketing and message conveyance opportunities is simply breathtaking. We’ve gone from 3 TV stations to 500+. Satellite radio. Hundreds of new magazines. Out-of-home advertising on every available surface. And a little something called online advertising that’s now larger than radio in ad dollars spent. As a result, audiences [...]

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Build Your Brand by Marketing Sideways

Marketers have been told for years to focus on benefits, not features. In this new era of marketing, you can toss both out the window. I wrote a post recently on Marketing Profs Daily Fix about finding your one thing in social media, and building your outreach efforts around it. The one thing isn’t something [...]

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