Social Media – Marketing Without a Shelf Life
In marketing, social media is the gift that keeps on giving. The trouble with traditional communication is that it’s ephemeral. Your print ad, TV spot, outdoor ad or press mention can have tremendous marketing value, but only while you’re paying to make it so. It’s like trying to communicate with rainbows – momentarily fantastic, but […]
6 Ways to Revolutionize PR and Press Releases
Audiences are continuing to fragment. The explosion in TV channels, radio stations and magazines, combined with Tivo, the Web, and iTunes has made it possible for everyone to live the long tail dream. To create for themselves a hyper-targeted reality where they watch, listen and read precisely the things that reflect their personalized tastes and […]
7 Ways to Use Social Media to Build Stunning Brands
Social media is perhaps the most misleading name for a marketing-related concept ever, given that it’s grown to represent a philosophy of consumer empowerment and brand/customer partnership – far beyond it’s humble roots of user-generated content. As a result, social media has different meanings and connotations to different people, many of whom utilize social media […]
Shannon Paul – The Twitter 20 Interview on Social Media and PR
Shannon Paul burst onto the social media scene like a runaway freight train. Her blog is a must-read, and she’s transformed the social media stylings of the Detroit Red Wings, and most recently the innovative financial services company Peak6. Shannon’s insights on attaining internal alignment around social media, and the new role of public relations […]
Is Social Media Too Fast?
One of the greatest challenges of effective social media outreach is the need to be always on. Speed kills in social media, and that’s a difficult transformation for marketers (and especially agencies). If a consumer tweets something negative about your company, addressing it quickly before it festers and is retweeted everywhere is the best practice. […]
If Ford Can Embrace Chaos – What’s Your Excuse?
Much excitement today as Ford officially unleashes the Fiesta Movement project. To market the Fiesta’s introduction to North America, Ford selected 100 “Agents” from 4,000 applicants. The winners receive use of a Fiesta for six months, provided they create and post comments about their impressions of the vehicle, and participate in “Missions” Ford has cooked […]
Taking Consumer Reviews Viral with Facebook
The rating of movies is integral to Netflix and its ballyhooed recommendation engine. The more movies you rate, the more accurate Netflix recommendations become. Rating Ben & Jerrys ice cream flavors might not be as mission-critical to that brand as movie rating are to Neflix, but both companies are leveraging Facebook to ratings a group […]
Are New Customers Killing Your Company?
(Originally written for MarketingProfs MPdailyfix blog) I’m sure you’ve heard the maxim that it costs a lot more to get a new customer than it does to retain an existing customer. It makes perfect sense, right? So why is it that we spend so much time and money in violation of that credo? At the […]
The Answer Man – The Future of Business?
The family and I are headed to Anaheim, California for a hockey tournament and Disneyland as I write this. (my wife is driving, I’m blogging) We just went through Needles, California (near my hometown of Lake Havasu City, Arizona) and my wife asked semi-rhetorically “Why would you name your town Needles?” “There’s no positive connotation. […]
Join Me in Boston and Save $200
Fresh off the massively successful Digital Marketing World virtual conference (14,000+ registrants), the folks at MarketingProfs have extended a fantastic special offer for their forthcoming B2B Forum – June 8/9 in Boston. Save $200 on conference registration by clicking this link. A couple of notes on this conference: It’s a fantastic lineup, with killer content, […]
Lee Odden – The Twitter 20 Interview on SEO and Social Media
Lee Odden is the CEO of TopRank Marketing a first-class search, social, email and online PR consultancy based in sunny Minneapolis. A conference legend, Lee speaks somewhere in America about digital marketing on a seemingly daily basis. He is widely recognized as a leader in the convergence of historically separate tactics like search, PR, and […]
Should Facebook Dominate Your Social Media Strategy?
Join me and 21 other speakers for Facebook Success Summit 2010, a Webinar series with everything you need to know about Facebook for business. Sessions start October 5. Go to http://bit.ly/facebooksuccess to save 50% for a limited time. Chris Brogan, Darren Rowse, and Kyle Lacy popularized the idea that companies in social media need a […]
The Fuzzy Math of Ratings & Reviews
My wife and I took the kids to see Monsters vs. Aliens recently. Seth Rogen as Bob the Blob was funny, and Hugh Laurie was excellent as Dr. Cockroach. A handful of great one liners, but overall a middling effort in the kid movie genre. The next day – after an appropriate period of contemplation […]
Who Wins the Struggle for Social Media Control
(post originally written for MarketingProfs Daily Fix) How do we know social media is for real? Because the various marketing disciplines are locked in a critically important tug-of-war that will decide who owns it. This fight will be a central component of boardroom discussions, conference keynotes, and merger activity in 2009. While it’s true that […]
Optimizing the Impact of Please and Thanks
When was the last time you applauded a company? On a Southwest Airlines flight to Austin for South by Southwest a couple weeks ago, our plane was delayed due to a flat tire. The tire was changed in about 30 minutes, and we were on our way. The flight landed late in Austin of course, […]
Friend or Faux – 6 Ways to Activate Customers
Two questions. How many Facebook fans does your company have? What do you want your Facebook fans to do on behalf of your company? Way too many people can answer the first question, but not the second. And that’s the biggest weakness of company-based social media at present. The Friend Bubble Doing something (buying Google […]