Thought I’d pass on a great email marketing trend report (PDF) from ExactTarget…
Enjoy!
Archive for the 'business' Category
For the last few years, Fast Company has been promoting profit-driven socially-focused organizations.
Here is the latest Fast 50 list of fifty people of companies that are making a difference in the world.
And here’s a little shameless self-promotion for my posts as an Expert Blogger for Fast Company.
Stowe Boyd of /Message has been stirring up a hornets nest on how the traditional press release fits into this new world of social media. If you’re responsible for corporate or marketing communications you owe it to yourself to check out his posts.
As this social medium matures, I think it’s important to realize that for the time being, social marketing avenues are just one of many marketing tools. It’s far too early for most businesses to abandon everything but blogs, ratings, and user generated content. And it’s still a little early to hang your hat on RSS. There are decades of infrastructure and communication channels that businesses leverage to get their message out - though few will argue that most do a poor job of communicating effectively.
Having said that, the sooner that traditional businesses get up to speed with this “trend” that is quickly becoming mainstream, the better off they’ll be (i.e. their brand communications will be more honest, more human, and more effective).
Spike has a great article on MarketingProfs on the declining effectiveness of traditional advertising - regardless of how great it may be. The marketing methods to improves sales are shifting so quickly that most firms do not know how to react. There has to be a shift from pure brand-focused advertising to community-driven action.
Todd Andrlick put together a Power 150 list of American marketing related blogs. I thought, “this will be great, all the best marketing blogs in one spot.” And guess who’s #103? Little ol’ me. What an awesome surprise. Todd’s blog is a great read itself and I’m honored to be included in the list - in fact it looks a lot like my Google Reader RSS feed list. I’ve seen my subscription #’s and views go up steadily over the last year. It’s nice to know that others are paying attention and value my thoughts.
technorati tags: power 150, marketing, blog, todd andrlick
I’m still amazed at the power an individual brings to the table:
Kohl’s obviously didn’t ask for this, but more importantly, how will they respond?
A small collection of white papers and presentations for those wanting to learn more about how social media is impacting marketing strategy. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it is a great start on learning the basics to take advantage of current trends. Social media can be a great addition to your marketing toolbox.
- B2B Ready to Blog from Forrester
- Forrester Mplanet 2006 Conference Presentation
- Word of Mouth 101 from WOMMA
- 2006 in Your Words - David Armano Logic + Emotion
- Do’s and Don’ts of Corporate Blogging from FORTUNE
- State of the Blogosphere from Technorati
- What to do about Negative Blogging from brandchannel.com
On Monday, Jan 8, I will be talking at the ISBO (Independent Small Business Owner) monthly luncheon on “The Impact of Social Media on Marketing”. This should be a great group to present to. Social media is a great way for small businesses to take advantage of market conversations. I know I’m preaching to the choir in the blogosphere, but a lot of small companies haven’t gotten on board yet - and the primary reason why they haven’t is that they don’t know how or didn’t know it was available. I hope to open a few eyes to why mainstream media and advertising isn’t the best bet for budget dollars.
If you’re in the area, feel free to join us:
The private room at the Golden Buffet Chinese restaurant on Richmond Rd, Lexington, KY, 12:00p on Monday 1-8-07
Welcome to the January 2, 2007 edition of Marketing (r)evolution Carnival brought to you by Nick Rice @ Strategic Design.
This Carnival is an aggregation of some of the best thoughts on the future of advertising, branding, marketing and strategy. Enjoy and Happy New Year!
Advertising
Valeria Maltoni presents Where’s the Benefit to me? posted at Conversation Agent, saying, “Thank you for this opportunity to contribute to the conversation.”
Chris Houchens presents Users First posted at Shotgun Marketing BLOG, saying, “Your customers are what “monetize” a business. Stop developing short term strategies that kill long term gains.”
Murad Ali presents Three (3) Easy Ways to Optimize Your Blog posted at The New Marketing World.
Branding
Jack Yoest presents Rocky Balboa: Courage, Integrity, Faith, Victory The Movie posted at Reasoned Audacity, saying, “Your Business Blogger was in Philly recently and wondered about the Rocky statue that was briefly at the top of the 72 steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Since September, the statue is now at the base of the steps. So I decided to ask the man who might know, Sylvester Stallone. Why? I asked him. Rocky Sly says, It’s better where it is — at the base of the steps. At the top was the completion — the end — but it’s not the completion that counts — it’s the journey. The Effort; The Passion.”
Kevin Skarritt presents Jingle all the Way posted at Nuts and Bolts of Brand.
Marketing
C.B. Whittemore presents Shelly Lazarus on the Future of Advertising & Marketing posted at Flooring The Consumer.
David Maister presents I Can’t Believe This Worked on Me! posted at Passion, People and Principles, saying, “We all love to believe that we are very rational in our own buying, but there are times when marketing and selling approaches that we would like to believe don’t work on us, well, they actually do.”
Kevin Skarritt presents Control Freak! posted at Nuts and Bolts of Brand.
Matthew Paulson presents The Problem with Quixtar & Amway. posted at Getting Green.
Charles H. Green presents Bad Marketing 101: Trust Me! posted at Trust Matters, saying, “What are the two most trust-destroying words you can say? “Trust me!”"
Mike Sansone presents Is del.icio.us a Marketing Tool? posted at Converstations.
Strategy
Andy Nulman presents Theory 2-Intimate Goes Big posted at Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman’s Blog About Surprise, saying, “Happy to be at the carnival, and wondering if the rights to the cotton candy concession are still available.”
Tim Peter presents What Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft will buy in 2007 and why… » thinks posted at Tim Peter thinks…, saying, “This is from about a week ago, but I think it takes a broad look at media 2.0 in 2007. Enjoy!”
Tim Peter presents What’s the least you can do? » thinks posted at Tim Peter thinks…, saying, “This is an another post that you might also find useful. Enjoy.”
Matthew Paulson presents Gold: A Bad Investment posted at Getting Green.
That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of Marketing (r)evolution Carnival using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.
Technorati tags: marketing (r)evolution carnival, blog carnival, marketing, advertising, strategy, branding
I’ve watched viral web pieces gather steam and take off like a rocket to the moon. But I’ve never been a part of one until now. This all started with Mack Collier wanting to spread a little link love to a few blogs that he thought deserved a little more attention. A few folks added a few more links until it became a monster unto itself.
My story is an interesting case study in Technorati logic. I had been debating whether or not to move from Blogger to Wordpress. One thing that had always stopped me was the fact that I would have to lose my links and ranking. But I made the move anyway (looking back I should have done it much earlier).
When the z-list meme began, I had 2 blogs linking to me and a Technorati rank of roughly 260,000. After a week or so of the meme blowing up across the internet (including postings from marketing guru Seth Godin and Digitas Creative VP David Armano), this blog now has 67117 links and a new ranking of 49,372 25,448. Seth is even attempting to leverage the new functionality in Squidoo called Plexo for user ranking. Though is particular Plexo is turning into its own mini-Technorati, the technology is cool, if not a little slow. As of right now, Strategic Design is setting at #48 of 262.
But the best part isn’t the numbers, it’s the new blogs and people that I’ve been introduced to. As the blogosphere continues to grow, it gets harder and harder to find good content. And while I’ll probably never be a Top 100 blogger, it has been nice to let the power of the web do a little natural marketing for me.
