Sorry Folks: Go Social or Go Home

This is very much a topic that has been top of the mind with all types of industries lately, no wonder the Internet Consumer Behavior professor asked us to write about it this week. In a nutshell, I wrote that I believe marketers of these industries are learning a whole new approach to getting brand awareness out. Those that know how to do it, are killing it! Those that tinker a little...well...not so much. To summarize it, today's marketers have the task of strategic persuasion. I talk about this with my Boomer clients all the time. The goal is now to get the public to ‘pull’ their marketing message down into the trenches vs. the prior ‘pushing’ of one’s message from 5,000 ft. What does this mean in regards to control over that message? A lot of getting comfortable with 'losing control'...fingers crossed. Basically if the word that gets around throughout ground zero trenches where the people eat, sleep and live does not have the power of persuasion, that company’s marketing message has just failed. And the days of throwing a little bit of money at it no longer exist. Even search engines are subscribing to the fever that social media is creating. Basically, if it’s not viral, it’s dead.

I especially enjoy this climate of strategy...maybe it's the little evil side of me rearing its face. It totally lends fair playing ground to all who wish to enter the race of brand awareness. Call it rooting for the underdogs or just plain competitive nature, I see it as a simple fundamental: All is fair in love and war. In the spirit of brand loyalty and killing the competition, my opinion is that marketing is both love and war. Earlier this year, I picked up a book called: Dirty little secrets of Buzz by David Seaman. The book is wittily written with lots of references about how to get the media to pay attention to one’s message; however, my favorite parts are especially in chapters four and five. If one is going to ever become a buzz whore, these two chapters are a must read. Not digressing I hope, just want to share some context as to where I’m going with all this. You see the name of this new game is to build it fast and dirty. The days of minding one’s p’s and q’s by romancing the press and worshiping the the budget gods are no longer necessary. If properly designed and executed, a marketing message can not only wipe out the largest contender, it can create world known fame out of thin air.

Social media has given the power back to the people. That means that no matter how high the building, plush the marble floors or padded the budget, if the people down on ground zero don’t like it, no one’s going to move that block of steel and metal. Even the precious news sources are losing leverage to the power of sophisticated village gossip. Brandrepublic.com just reported on March 10th that the most prestige news sources such as CNN and Fox are fiercely competing with news spreading across social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. People are sourcing social media outlets to learn what their sphere says before an unknown reporter breaks the news through the talking box. This alone creates a large shift for a marketer that has been accustomed to reporter attention in meeting their client’s pr needs.

The search engine game, one that was thought to be conquered and owned by the large budget conglomerates of the corporate world, is now turning a deaf ear to the high rise gods. Instead, search engines like Google and Yahoo are coming down to ground zero, observing and listening to the people. They are understanding that selling giant banner ads or key word placement is no longer the formula to maintaining interest, traffic or delivering relevant information. Instead, these popular search engines are developing added value intelligence that caters to user search patterns, offers side wikis where users can comment and discuss a website, brand, even an entire company's culture! Search engines pay special attention to the number of times a company or brand is linked, referenced and talked about. Specialized link sharing websites such as Furl.net and Propeller.com only feed the frenzy more. Search engines are all in the name of invigorating traffic and now creating more reason for social activity ‘on their turf’. They’re buying into this new format of marketing and for those that understand the power of it then use it, it’s working.


In conclusion, I’m not out to bash or reprimand traditional marketing practices. I’ve been in this industry long enough to have great respect for the way marketing/pr protocol was organized and followed. I’m just very much a change agent that understands that without change, there is simply no growth. Like the rest of participants in the circle of life, corporate entities will need to adhere to these new growth patterns, understand that the good ol days of ‘word of mouth’ advertising are alive and well and get a major strategy in place before their competition does. And in the name of this new game of love and war, competition might be as small as a stay-at-home mom with a cool idea and lots of time on her hands. You've been warned.

Class Discussion: How do people search online?

This is a recent class discussion about our findings when we were asked to study three different people’s behavioral patterns online. Here’s my perspective:

Q: Does anything about the results surprise you??
?A: No, not at all. I think the general synopsis is that Google is still the search engine of choice. I very much lean in that direction when I'm in need of information.???

Q: Do you think our group’s results are representative of the broader population??
?A: Yes, In fact I read in the marketingprofs.com site you referenced Google’s still maintaining market share of 71% in comparison to Bing coming in this month at 9%. I think that's a large margin and personally, I don't think it's going to dramatically change in the near future.???

Q: What do the results suggest about the ways in which consumers use the Internet to find the information they need??
A: I think it demonstrates how loyal consumers are to a brand they trust. I believe that consumers want the source they know will access what they are looking for and Google does a great job at ensuring they have many options to enhance that search.

I also think that Bing is graphic heavy, text is much more the hook and it seems that they do have several more user function features. I think the possibility of it topping Google will be determined by the user. Just like Firefox has quickly gained market share:
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/firefox-market-share.aspx?qprid=0&sample=28 , over Google, Bing could slowly become the 'sophisticated' user's SE of choice. I believe if Bing proves it's level of robust search return, it's possible as well.

Oh also found this in the readings today: If we find something that works, we stick to it. Once we find something that works—no matter how badly—we tend not to look for a better way. We’ll use a better way if we stumble across one, but we seldom look for one.

FREE LBL's (Local Business Listings) in Major Search Engines

Ever wonder how to get your business to pop up in major search engines when someone does a search on your industry in your city? It's actually pretty simple and even better, it's free. All you need to do is to go to the Local Business Listing section of your desired search engine and follow the steps. Many times you can add photos, logos and even video. Some refer to it as Geo Marketing and it's a trend that is here to stay. Here's some direct links to get you started:

1. Google: http://www.google.com/local/add/analyticsSplashPage?gl=US&hl=en-US
2. Yahoo: http://local.yahoo.com/
3. Bing: https://ssl.bing.com/listings/ListingCenter.aspx
4. Yelp: https://biz.yelp.com/

Oh and one more thing! Don't forget that your customers can add testimonials to these as well (good or bad), so make sure to keep in touch with your listings, see what people are saying about you. Finally, word of caution: Don't ask your friends to go in and post a bunch of fake testimonials...trust me these sites (especially Yelp) know how to spot this kind of stuff.

Good luck!

Internet Marketing - Intro to Internet Consumer Behavior

Greetings and Salutations. It's been a few weeks since I've posted but not to be mistakend for leaving my post. As promised, I've been hard at work mixin the minutia to see what comes about. I tweeted about the sassy little tech pod cast I was asked to create about how technology has affected the world as we know it (never used video editing software in my life BTW). Not one to follow the rules verbatim, I chose to narrow it down a bit and profile how technology has affected the Boomer generation while I was at it. Might as well kill both those birds, right?

So in case you didn't catch the earlier tweets, here's a link to my first video creation on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIqhK5t0nWs

Nuff said about that. This week was a super win when I realized that this next class Introduction to Internet Consumer Behavior had us reading Seth Godin's book: Tribe. Today's classroom discussion was centered around a case study where a group of students were asked to 'create' a communication piece for a potential client. Long story short, students were eager to start, create and present. None really spent time working on the front end discovery, so of course, missed the mark...blah, blah, blah.

So needing to answer the question: What's in it for my blog? I decided to use the opportunity to reflect on the work I do with helping Boomer execs create their niche in this new business climate. Of course I found this to be very ironic. You see, many of my Boomer clients are soooo full of knowledge and experience; however, ironically miss the mark when it comes to nailing their outreach efforts and later wonder: why? Sure they set up their Facebook pages, Tweet their hearts out and blog as much as they can, but more often than not, tend to be unhappy with the return of these efforts. I think the hardest part of my job is to tell a client that is a good 10-30 years older than me that they need to forget everything they thought they needed to say about themselves and just...listen. Shhhhh. Just listen.

If the client is not irritated with me by this point, he'll usually play along. "Listen for what?" they always ask. "Listen to your audience...what are they saying, how do they want to be reached?" Before we start ANY kind of marketing campaign, I give that client (and most likely his marketing team) the simple homework assignment of studying their audience and learning their behavioral patterns online. A week later I come back and it's AMAZING how much they have to share with me about their discoveries. Makes the whole "getting there" a whole lot more fun dontcha think? Tellin ya, it's a party.

Back to class...this is what I posted in the class discussion forum earlier today:

Triple Exponential Smoothers section in the Tribes Casebook made me smile. I spent most of my 20's learning this lesson the hard way. Back then my sole mission was to prove that I had the talent and skill to produce anything and everything the client asked of me. I spent countless nights creating and recreating brochures, logos, websites with only a bittersweet end reward. I kept asking myself why they didn't get excited nor see how hard I was working to please them. At times, the disappointment in a client's lack of enthusiasm almost caused me to rethink professions.

A good decade later, I realize now that it was never about how magical my talents were or how well I knew how to manipulate my treasured Adobe suite. I learned that people wish to be validated and heard. For the last decade, I've spent more time on the front end discovery than anything else. I not only listen to the objectives, I co-create their desired destiny...giving the client full ownership of the end result. A rewarding end result I must add. It doesn't matter how we arrive at that deliverable, the clients are always so thankful, so excited to have gone through the process with me. I very much favor this approach and reading Seth's book very much reminds me of that fundamental. I'm SOOOO excited that we're studying this book. I actually started reading it on the plane to Vegas a couple of weeks ago and once again think Seth is amazing. Here's to a fun class!