Strategically speaking

I found this B L Ochman post very educational for anyone considering social media as part of their overall marketing strategy.

Excellent questions to stimulate serious thought and sound planning prior to jumping in the pool. Even more welcomed than her straight-forward tone, it showcases how social media (when done right) is no different than any marketing campaign. Sure, there are a wealth of free to relatively inexpensive resources online to convey your story - as opposed to the often uneconomical path of traditional media buying or print advertising - but companies need to recognize a shotgun approach won't see results. And though the technology may not be costly, there still needs to be effort and resources put behind a campaign so it's not merely an after-thought. It's a marathon not a sprint.

The CMO/agency conversation struck me, as well.

Placing it on the personal level - how many of us want to be friends with someone who withholds information, or scrubs their language so as to never truly feel genuine? As though s/he is interested only in what we are sharing, not vice versa? How many long-lasting, valued relationships happen within weeks or even months of first meeting?

Social media isn't a quick fix; it's simply another way of communicating to consumers and prospective new consumers.

Building relationships takes time.

Inbound Marketing hurts Innovation

I went to the HubSpot blog to read about Inbound Marketing Lessons from Phish. I left a comment there, but wanted to raise the question here too.

We all see that inbound marketing has become a key part of our marketing lives. And the success stories are analogous to those of real-estate investments. We all hear the stories about people who put nothing into it and get back incredible returns. The flip-side applies as well. For every one who super-succeeds, there are fifty who do mediocre or worse.

But here's my real concern. If buyers shut down cold-calling, email blasts, postal mail, and other more traditional marketing mechanisms, it's going to shape the way that manufacturers design products. #1 priority is going to be ability to create the all-powerful buzz. Because that's going to be the only mechanism to which the buyers are tuned-in.

Will innovators prioritize creation of flashy/cool features over the traditionally more important "solid architecture" and "core functionality" underneath? ...because if they don't, they're going to get buried by companies that do. Even if their product is head-and-shoulders above.

Digital Hack Night

Over the course of 4 hours last night in Ohio, 2 things occurred:

- $100,000 was raised for the charity Feeding America.
- P&G executives learned - hands-on - the influence of social media.

The price-tag? $4,000.

Surely Digital Hack Night's charitable focus helped bolster the engagement and contributions of the marketing professionals' networks and those executives from other companies. But what impressed me most was how a basic training exercise was transformed into a major online event.

In essence, P&G spent $4,000 to help their marketing teams and executives become immersed in social media, while at the same time creating an excellent PR opportunity for the corporation, as well as Google, Facebook, and MySpace. Rather than simply hold internal training sessions on what 'social media' is, they got their hands dirty and let cross-functional teams compete in a widely tracked, online contest. No didactic presentations or PowerPoint slides. Competition and creative thinking. An experience vs. a class.

All of this resulting in a nice chunk of change for Feeding America.

Nice.

Google's Ultimate Power

Recently, I decided to make some adjustments to one of my Google PPC campaigns. ...normal stuff like adjusting bid prices, adding keyword phrases, and adding broad-match or exact-match phrases. Next thing I know, Google dropped my quality scores on just about every keyword in that campaign. ...from around 7-8 to 1-2. That's the difference between life and death in the PPC world. And then the ads weren't showing. Was it something I said?

A few months back, I attended a seminar on SEO that told me to use a domain name that matched my ad copy. So, I did. I bought domains that matched my keywords and ran ads back to landing pages on those domains. It seemed to work. I don't really know if worked better than if I didn't use a matching domain, but I was getting results. Then, Google decided to un-list my site. Why? Because it saw two domains with the same content and determined that to be fraud. I found this out only because I happened to be in the Google Webmaster Tools. Luckily, I removed the alternate content, applied 301 redirects, went through the objection process and they re-listed the site. What a Hassle.

Google has the power to effectively shut down a business if that business is relying on web traffic. And they don't give you a rule-book to play by. So, it's a game of hit-and-miss. And web has become the de-facto mechanism for B2B research. You don't use a phonebook or rely on the physical mailbox to find an enterprise software solution. You use Google. As a marketer, my audience is screaming at me to NOT use email and NOT use (cold) phone calls. So, we are choosing to limit our options to Google. It's dangerous.

Google is essentially limiting your choice to companies who have savvy-enough web marketing to survive. And sometimes simple mistakes or misinformation cause a de-listing. It's bad for sellers and buyers. I think it's time to start advocating a better way. I'm not saying that Google should do anything different. They're good at what they do and provide a fantastic service for navigating the billions of web pages out there. But as a B2B buyer, I can't rely on Google to help me find my best options. And I don't know where else to go.

The Facebook Facelift

My morning routine typically includes Headline News - or "HLN" as they've recently rebranded themselves. Their Morning Express with Robin Meade perfectly compliments my first cup of coffee so it's sort of stuck. I get a little Robin with my caffeine to ease me into the day.

What surprised me this morning was a feature about Facebook's upcoming redesign. Not that it isn't news, don't get me wrong. But that it was shown alongside HLN's regular stream of political pieces, who's who in bail out packages, and sports headlines. I wouldn't call Morning Express cutting edge when it comes to their technology coverage. Facebook's representation in the lineup clearly indicates its impact.

Facebook smartly released a preview of the new layout explaining 'streams' and the ability for enhanced filtering. In the past they've launched changes with little to no notice and dealt with the consequences from a very vocal community of users. Nice to see them evolving their approach towards their consumers.

Recovery.biden

In yet another slip of the Biden tongue, he's apparently reveling in his role of Old Man Capitol to Obama's Internet Savvy Outsider.

see clip on CNN

It's a "web address" Joe - not a "web number." I'd also accept "URL" as a response.

This single word faux pas has the internet lampooning Biden in much the same way Bush was skewered throughout his tenure for not *quite* getting that whole World Wide Web thing. Biden also pointed any number of people to the wrong site when he quoted the domain as Recovery.com vs. the actual Recovery.gov during a press conference. Sure it's an easy mistake to make, but when you've got an audience like the White House press corps at your feet, you want to nail that home run. Let's increase some web traffic, Joe!

Careful, everyone. Particularly those of us (I'm looking at you, politicians of a certain age) who aren't completely comfortable with the lingo or maybe even the entire concept of the internet. Whether or not you like it, you should respect its omnipresent impact on our lives. Especially its uncanny ability for sharing a verbal slip like this one!

Marketing via the Social Web

This week, eWeek posted an article discussing a study done on social technologies and marketing by Forrester Research. Something struck me as a bit off. Consider this excerpt:

But when it comes to being swayed to spend their dollars on business technology, 84 of the surveyed decision makers were more likely to rely on word of mouth from peers and colleagues, while 45 percent said they were swayed by forums, online communities and social networks.

I get that buyers are most motivated by word-of-mouth and people they trust. But isn't that the exact point of social technologies. The social web is a mechanism of communication – not a source of information. The buyers' peers and colleagues are still the source.

Maybe what they're saying is that they don't trust social web sites to paint a true picture of the people they're communicating with? Maybe they think it's a conspiracy amongst software vendors? I don't like the way that the data was presented here. Peers and Social Media are not alternative sources of information.