MarketUP: Marketing & PR Services

Some of the most interesting, observant and intelligent people I know are Bloggers (if I can use that term rather loosely). What I mean by that is they are individuals with thoughts, opinions and information to share - and they use an online platfom to publish on a fairly regular basis.

I won't go into a history of 'Blog' or blogging - only to add that it's come a long way both technically and stylistically from the early 'web log' format. Whatever publishing platform chosen: Blogger, WordPress, Typepad, Tumblr, or even Joomla or Drupal - we can now create sophisticated blogging websites, using design templates, widgets and plug-ins. There is little or nothing to distinguish blogs from corporate websites.

So anyone with time to write and something to say can publish day or night and compete with some of the 'big cheese' bloggers who've grown brands or businesses from their online writing: Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing fame, Jason Kottke, Perez Hilton, Jason Chen aka Gizmodo, Chris Brogan - to name a few.

And perhaps most famously, Arianna Huffington who turned her Huffington Post blog aggregator into a publishing empire, hired hundreds of other bloggers - famous and not so famous - and then sold it to AOL, all the while becoming a global communications guru in just six years!

These are the examples brought up at conferences, by online consultants, in self-published e-books on how to make money blogging. Blogging as a business. Getting paid to express yourself. Even my teenage daughter writes a respectable blog and dreams of a career as a writer. Nothing wrong with that!

But there is another kind of blog: one that is an extension of a business, that is about something other than blogging or social networks or how to get more from Twitter. Blogs published by folks who were already in business - marketing, PR, advertising, business development or entrepreneurs - who write about their expertise in a particular area: venture capitalist turned writer Guy Kawasaki, entrepreneur-author-permission marketing guru Seth Godin, Robert the 'Scobleizer' (via Microsoft), advertising and PR expert Danny Brown, lawyer cum business owner-writer-speaker Jonathan Fields, Amber Naslund, Shelly Kramer... the list goes on.

Where do you spend your energy? Are you trying to figure out 'How to Monetize Your Blog' - or do you use your blog to monetize your business?

--Donna

Blogging for business

Photo credit: Business Week

How many social networks do you engage in on a regular basis - and is the time spent worth it? This is a frequent topic of conversation that I've seen crop up on - guess what - all those social networks! And the answer may be different for you as a business versus as an individual. If you are an agency, as we are, representing both your own business and your clients' - you can multiply your social involvement by an X factor and imagine then how much time commitment is involved.

Evolution

More than a decade ago we started with the corporate website as online presence - and it was pretty much one-way content posting, maybe with an email newsletter sign up form and a few questions submitted. Blogs became a more popular form of individual expression, and were then appended to business websites - or replaced them if you were smaller - and responding to Comments was added to the mix.

Enter in rather quick succession the real-time networks: MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube - and many others (some defunct). Posting and responding to content exploded. The time commitment increased exponentially. Then we had to tie  each network to the other - to cover all the bases. LinkedIn jumped on the bandwagon - add another connection. Social sharing/rating increased: Blogger, digg, del.icio.us, Wikipedia, reddit, Posterous, and more. And don't forget - not in historical or hierarchical order - Flickr, Tumblr, StumbleUpon, FourSquare, GoWalla, Klout, Blip.fm, last.fm, Orkut, bebo, Google Buzz, Google Reader, Google+, SlideShare, Instagram, just-out-of-the-gate Pinterest... The latest count on the Share bar widget is over 330! I'm certain to have missed your personal favorite. Amplify this by mobile check-ins and gamification apps like EmpireAvenue (!) or the Zynga lineup - and who has time for anything else???

Opportunity?

Recent GetBusy Media blog post by Ryan McBurney repeats the idea that the next big business opportunity will be 'Social Assistance'. He in turn quotes Mashable's Nova Spivack's excellent post on 'Sharepocalypse', a catchy headline to be sure...that forecasts a whole new category of Social Assistance that includes SRM, curation, awareness, personalization, automation, and analytics (of course).

But what's the ROI? The ever-asked question by my clients and undoubtably yours.

The point to all of this busy-ness, connecting and sharing - from a business standpoint - is multifold: brand awareness, current and prospective customer engagement, and business development, all resulting in sales. The belief that larger numbers of followers, fans, likes or comments = greater revenue is one of the yet-to-be-realized dreams for most companies. But it doesn't mean we should give up all activity. It means we are still trying to figure out the right formula, depending on your particular goals, strategy and what you are selling.

Monetizing

Another yet-to-materialize theory is Social Media advertising results. We have experimented with Facebook ads - and while they have indeed yielded more 'Likes', that alone has not translated into more paying clients. Nor much meaningful additional engagement. Like all marketing strategies - it takes time to build trust and commitment. The Center for Media Research reports a study from the Pivot Conference this past Spring showing that with all the online activity, we have become really good at ignoring the stuff we don't care about - like ads. They call this 'banner blindness'. To quote, "Usability guru Jakob Nielsen demonstrated through heat maps where eyes are focused on a website screen. Consumer attention is shown to zero in on text and not the banners around it."

So what to do? Rethink paid media. Get creative. If creating a custom Zynga game hits your demographic - maybe that's the way to go. Realize however that we are all competing for eyeballs and TIME.

Just barely squeezing in time to write a blog post about this topic indicates that I might be on the 'overload' side of the equation - but it also could mean that I need to hire more people! If only the measurement of outcome and profitability were simpler.

Disclaimer: Lest you think this post was one giant self-promotion bit, because the many links go to my own profiles, they were linked as examples rather than just a generic 'welcome' page for each service. And they are not stellar examples in most cases - because I neglect many of them! Feel free to add your own sites/links in Comments - and I'll go check them out, like them, comment, etc. - as I have time. :)

Photo attribution: Ludwig Gatzke's photostream, Flickr, Creative Commons license

What an intriguing sort of title, and quite literal. I’ve spent the last few hours running search after search online in order to uncover precious market information for some of my clients. Fortunately, it’s something I usually enjoy - though as time passes, it seems to become more difficult to actually find what you’re searching for.

When I was a little girl, I used to ask my father - an amateur astronomer - how many stars were in the night sky. It’s the kind of question a parent has to dance around, make up a colorful myth, or flat out admit “I don’t know”. But today a similar line of difficult-to-answer questioning might run like this:

• ”How many websites are there?”
• ”How many pages are added every day?”
• ”How many can a search engine index?”
• ”Where do they all COME from??”

And the reason this matters... is the sheer volume of responses returned when running even a fairly detailed search. Maybe it’s my imagination, but the responses from my longtime trustworthy Google appear to be less relevant than I’m looking for.

It’s probably the fault of all those clever folks doing SEO. Yep, they’ve gummed up the engines with their vying for positioning.

Oops. Did I say that out loud?

-- Donna

Image source: NASA, Image of the Day Gallery from MPIA/NASA/Calar Alto Observatory

I just read one of the many informational email newsletters I subscribe to (in the vain attempt to keep up with what’s new and useful) - and was struck by the “negative” title: “What customer strategy is not”.

While that statement is certainly poorly worded, what bothered me more was that it really did only give a list of “It’s not just...” That list happened to be a number of discreet tactics, like ‘personalized email’ or ‘new sales training’ or the big buzz phrase ‘(audience) segmentation’. And instead of identifying these list items as TACTICS, the writer asked for submissions of definitions of good customer strategy.

HINT: Good customer strategy would be something that applies to your business, your products/services and the PEOPLE (also referred to as CLIENTS or CUSTOMERS) who need them. It falls on everyone’s shoulders, far beyond marketing or tools like CRM. It might seem impossible, but companies have been able to develop customer strategies and build enormously successful businesses ages before there was any such thing as CRM databases or the social media.

Historical reference: the Dutch developed a strategy in 1602 to gain control of the lucrative spice trade, which involved forming the Dutch East India Company (the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC), an association of merchants meant to reduce competition, share risk and realise economies of scale. This gave them control over a market that was highly desirable, and guaranteed a great relationship with their customers - since they could provide what was wanted and valued. Shocking - I know.

It’s not uncommon for organizations to mix up strategy and tactics. I recall painful sessions of business planning at one company where it was very difficult to get across the idea that what was needed was a better overall customer relationship strategy, which included communications and an efficient means to deliver them. That of course required an updated CRM database, a DB manager, email templates, editorial schedule of content and many other tactics that all had to be planned and executed. But they were only a means to an end: customer loyalty and retention = business (sales).

Seems a little obvious, doesn’t it?

--Donna

(Originally published in 2008 - and still relevant)

Image source: Illustration from the catalougue of P.Cos printed in 1637 in the Netherlands. Available online at library.wur.nl from Wageningen Digital Library. Use permitted with acknowledgement.

Around 4 am nearly every morning, I have the (dis)pleasure of being awakened by a hopelessly enthusiastic trilling bird. It’s not that the bird is not there every morning - or at least I assume it’s always there - but sometimes I sleep through it. But that’s not the real point of this blog. Communications and timing is the point. The bird has particularly bad timing, though he/she is definitely consistent. And since I was awake, it made me start thinking about communications methods and timing, and suddenly Goldilocks popped into my head.

Yes, it is a stretch, but not that big of one. If I had a little more time and creativity, I’d like to write my own modern day fable because they have such a tidy way of delivering the moral of the story. But for now, I’ll borrow a familiar one.

Goldilocks boils down to ‘too much, too little or just right’. Oh yes, and not intruding where you’re not invited. Marketing has the same issues. How do you go where you have not been asked in? And are you providing information too often, not often enough or just in time? Is it too hot - too cold - or just right? Too big - too small, too hard - too soft. You certainly remember the tale.

I procrastinate. Not on client work - but on our own company projects and updates. We are so busy being busy that time slides by rapidly and we don't employ those best practices which we strongly advise others to follow.

The proverbial 'Cobbler's Children Are Barefoot'. (many variants, since 1546)

Well, the complete make-over launch of our new website earlier this week is the result of a New Year's resolution to 'shod ourselves'.

Like most people, I have a definite body clock and mind rhythm that influences how I work. My most productive work hours are early in the morning, from about 6:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., which seems to be the time when I need a physical break. Then I try to fit in yoga, elliptical or other running/walking activity to sort of recharge. After exercise I can focus again for a few more hours before the dreaded mid-afternoon crash. And boy, it's a real 'clunk' feeling. I'm pretty well useless for any creative thinking or critical decision making after 3:00 p.m. Until late in the night when everyone else is asleep - oh, around 10:00 p.m. or so.

When we were frustrated as kids, we often shouted intended insults at each other to try to label someone 'not as good as us'. 'Liar!' - when we didn't want to believe something. 'Cheater!' - when we weren't winning, and clearly we couldn't be fairly losing. 'Stupid!' - when we felt inferior and needed a boost over an intellectual superior (or we were just plain mean).

Hard to accept that we're already in the second week of the year, and this is my first post. Have meant to write something every morning, and have done so, just not the blog. No slowdown going on here - as client requests have us rushing headlong into new territory - in multiple directions. Sounds like a frightening opportunity to get lost in the woods (or the weeds, depending on your POV and geography)...

It's that time of the year again - the END. For many days, even weeks, much has been written and verbally expressed about the demise of 2009 and the new millennium's 'aught' or 'nought' decade in general. (Pick your phrase, American or British). There are those who argue it isn't even the end of the decade, just as Jan 1, 2000 was not the beginning of it.