EvoBloggito

The Social Media Revolution: Still Think It's a Fad?

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Oct 5, 2009; Category: Marketing, Video, Zeitgeist; Tags: Blogging, Marketing, social media, Zeitgeist; No Comments

This video, from Erik Qualman of socialnomics.net, purposely looks and sounds a lot like the most recent version of "Did You Know", an earlier version of which was published on EvoBloggito in January 2009. The video above is about social media as a means of engaging customers. If you’re in business, you need to watch it.

FYI, the data sources for the statistics cited in the video are listed at www.socialnomics.com.

Seth Godin's Book Roundup

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Sep 9, 2009; Category: Book Review; Tags: Books, Marketing, Seth Godin; No Comments

Take a look at Seth Godin’s Book Roundup, a list of mostly business and marketing books, but even those that are not have some application to business and marketing. No doubt the list could be longer, but this is what Seth has been reading.

I’d like to mention another book that I think deserves your attention: Stories that Sell by Casey HIbbard tells you everything there is to know about using case studies for marketing.

Blending Traditional and “New” Media: Doing it Right Makes All the Difference

Author: Guest Author; Published: Aug 19, 2009; Category: Business, Communication, Guest Post, Marketing; Tags: Marketing, New Media, New Rules, Public Relations; 3 Comments

This is a guest post by Bonnie Harris, the founder of Wax Marketing, Inc. She has over 20 years experience promoting businesses and products of all kinds. Read her blog or follow her on Twitter for more ideas!

It’s easy to find articles and blog postings about the "new" PR—and how traditional media is dead. At the same time, everyone still wants a hit on the Today Show, even if it’s that dreadful fourth hour. National, traditional media reaches millions of potential customers at one time. Social media can reach that same number of customers over time, one at a time. The trick is not to throw away one medium in favor of another—the key is to find the right mix for your product or service that will serve up the highest number of targeted customer impressions consistently over time.

My greatest success comes when I find the right combination of messaging channels to achieve the greatest amount of promotion possible for my clients. Based on my experience across a pretty broad range of industries and products, the BEST results come from blending traditional media with social media and/or online PR. It’s not so easy to do! To give you a headstart, here’s my process for creating the right recipe for integrating your PR activities between traditional and newer media.

• Build a list of all the different places your customers get information. If your demographic is pretty small—maybe you’re targeting young men between the ages of 18 to 22—this is easy. But most of us want to reach a wider range of consumers—some may still read the print paper in their hometown, others might have sophisticated RSS feeds that bring their daily news to their Google homepage. Baby boomers are notoriously all over the board in terms of what they read. I recently did a pitch for a client that had print newspaper stories running at the same time as postings on their Facebook page. Note: if you don’t know where your customers get their information, stop. Go back and further define your target demographics so that you can figure it out.
• Take a look at the list and decide what’s realistic. For example, if you own a services firm, it might be really tough to get on television as they need really strong visuals. If you’re an author promoting your first novel, it might be nearly impossible to get a book review in the New York Times. Choose media that’s easier to get initially so your short-term results are good. But stay persistent and go for the big ones too because like winning the lottery, those national hits pay off in spades. One non-profit client of mine just taped a CNN national news package. Although the producers had never heard of them a year ago, consistent pitching plus keeping the producers apprised of their work via Twitter (love those @ replies!!) finally got us a huge hit.
• Make sure your list has a good mix of different types of media and includes both traditional and new. I would include at least one broadcast channel—public radio for example if you’re a non-profit, maybe commercial radio if you’ve got a great hook for your book. Don’t throw all your eggs in one basket—like social media—just because it’s the cheapest and you can do it at night after the kids go to bed. TV producers look online to find ideas for sources. Bloggers pick up story ideas from their local morning newscast. Different kinds of media feed each other The more you show up in multiple channels, the better your chances are for getting strong, possibly national, placements down the line.
• Figure out the story for each channel. If you’re going to do a strong online pitch, know what bloggers want and make your pitch short and snappy. If you want to go for broke and pitch national news, understand how to pitch that medium with a well defined segment outline. Each media requires a different approach—you can’t use the same press release for everything.
• Keep pitching your channels consistently and simultaneously. It will work in the long run, as long as you keep your eye on the prize and stay patient.

Dan Buettner’s first book, The Blue Zones, is an excellent example of this. Dan’s name was fairly known, but for other work involving his career as a world explorer. We were determined to find the right mix of traditional broadcast and online impressions to put the book on the New York Times bestseller list. Guess what—through national hits like Good Morning America, favorable reviews from top Amazon reviewers and sites like About.com, regional radio (Dan did over 100 interviews on commercial radio) and one very lucky AP story, the team led by the brilliant publicist Laura Reynolds, myself, Dan’s staff and National Geographic, did it. Not only for the hardback, but for the paperback also one year later.

We don’t all have the luxury of a major publisher’s promotional budget. But we can remember that by including ALL the potential media in our plan, the synergy between them can often make the difference between failure and success.

If Markets are Conversations, Blogs are Natural Marketing Platforms

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Aug 6, 2009; Category: Blogging, Communication, Marketing; Tags: Blogging, Communication, Marketing; No Comments

I don’t know how many of you have read the iconic book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, which was first published in 1999, the same year I moved to New Mexico. I am almost certain I read a portion of it a few years earlier, however, because I was working for a corporation when I first read its 95 theses on marketing. Because I was a marketing communications manager in a corporation, the ideas it contained hit me right between the eyes. I almost ran up and down the hallways yelling things like, “Companies that don’t belong to a community of discourse will die!” (thesis no. 40). Fortunately, I kept a grip on my inner revolutionary and was able to depart corporate employment a couple of years later on my own terms rather than immediately, in a padded vehicle.

That bit of personal history aside, I am still amazed at how prescient the book was. Thesis no. 1 is “Markets are conversations.” Honestly, I’m not certain I completely understood what that meant at the time. OK, I’m not sure I completely understand what that means now. But social media has become common in the years since as a platform for the kind of conversations the authors were talking about. Blogs, Facebook, and Twitter are considered by some “marketing gurus” to be the three pillar plarforms of online market conversation.

Personally, I’m not that taken with either Facebook or Twitter (witness my lame showing on both), though I see lots of companies and individuals using them effectively to reach their markets on a conversational level. Business blogs, however, I understand. They offer business people the opportunity to address and engage their customers, offering assistance in ways that were not possible before blogs were common and before people went to Google so frequently instead of the Yellow Pages. The ability for people to comment on blog posts, and for business people to respond to comments (all the time creating new, searchable web content) creates relationships with customers that only conversations can create. Also, since we’re on the subject of the Yellow Pages, as Google search replaces the Yellow Pages search for information (MerchantCircle; Local SEO Guide), blogs are becoming more important as information providers.

Can businesses still survive without an active online presence? I’m sure many can, just as many did without a Yellow Pages presence in the past. The important question in my mind, however, is “How much business are you giving away to your competitors by not participating in the conversation?”

Hunkering Down: Local Business’ Dilemma

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Aug 4, 2009; Category: Business, Marketing, Zeitgeist; Tags: Business, Marketing, Zeitgeist; 2 Comments

Like a lot of people over the last several months, we’ve not been in much of a spending mood. We cut out some things that we judged non-essential, and one of those things was espresso. After several espresso-less months, however, my wife decided espresso was more essential than we thought. She headed to the local store (as far as we know, the only local store) that carries Illy espresso-ground coffee. That is, they used to carry it. They’d cut back themselves, no longer stocking low-margin, low-profit, or seldom-purchased items.

I should backtrack to let you know that this store is where my wife discovered Illy. The store contains (or used to) all kinds of “exotic” foods and wine, kitchen furnishings, furniture, and other household furnishings. We went there only on rare occasions, until my wife discovered Illy. Then she shopped there at least monthly, and she usually bought a lot more than espresso, which was the initial reason for the trips to the store. We’ve bought furniture there, which is not a low-margin item. I don’t mean to suggest furniture was an impulse purchase, but my wife’s familiarity with the store (we drank a lot of espresso) was a big part of the reason we bought furniture there.

Now, there’s not a huge reason for us to go to that store. No doubt we still will on occasion, but not monthly. Since we don’t know of another place to buy Illy locally, we’re looking for it online. Another local piece of business migrating online.

I can understand the store’s need to reduce it’s inventory to best-selling items where possible. But if you’re in the business of providing a range of exotic stuff, aren’t you shooting yourself in the foot (or your brand in the heart) by cutting back to best sellers? Isn’t that Albertson’s business model?