Earn Clout with Social Influencers

Do you current acquisition campaigns include social influencers? They should.

Social media is lauded for its high engagement value, yet many marketers are struggling with how to measure it, never mind how to use it to move the needle on sales. Hell, many marketers and companies have yet to commit the time or the resources to leverage SoMe effectively for engagement — despite the benefits.

That’s why I love the great examples out there like this article on how the Sacramento Kings used Klout to tap into the power of social influencers. There are tons of articles out there that discuss all the reasons you have to use social — this blog alone offers up a bunch. Yet this article touches on the true viral power of brands tapping into social influencers who are capable of shaping behavior across their whole social networks.

Nothing like other people doing your job for you.

Think this approach has merits? Take a good, long look at it’s application on the micro-local level, where community-based doctors, restaurants and other local business could reach out to prominent local influencers — perhaps members of social programs, sports leagues or PTA boards. Give them a good experience or an offer, and the word spreads fast and drives local business as soon as those influencers tell their social networks about it via Facebook, Twitter or other means.

Think of it’s application to healthcare, where innovative academic centers and community practices could reach out to prominent patient advocates and community leaders. Work with those influencers to create events in the facilities and practices or host Twitter chats, and the social impact spreads to core consumers of healthcare services in those networks. Recent studies show a “graying” of social networks due to the huge number of older Americans flocking to them, and one of their most popular online activities is searching for and sharing healthcare information. One of my blog posts for Oncology Times discuss this phenomenon. So the opportunity is definitely there to make an impact among healthcare consumers with the right outreach to social influencers.

How do you identify and reach social influencers? Well, you can work with experts like Klout, or you can set up an effective social listening station of your own and begin to closely monitor and filter the conversation in your markets or areas of interest. Many tools out there set up those powerful filters that can be as granular as you need, and you can build your own dashboard to analyze and rank influencers. Radian6 and Alterian are two of the better products available, and the cost is not significant.

Need another example? During an online demo of Radian6, I tweeted about it. Less than 10 minutes later, I had a tweet back from Alterian acknowledging my interest in social listening software, with an offer to access information about their product. Now here I sit, virally spreading that experience and education. It’s a whole different and more meaningful way to influence customer behavior.

We’ll discuss more about social listening in an upcoming post, yet in the meantime I recommend you charge ahead and become more familiar with it starting right now.

Updated: 3 Steps to Improve Your Social Network

Being a sociable person is more important than ever. And I don’t mean just with your family at the holidays.

It’s not like you don’t know that. As a marketer, social media is an important part of your everyday habits (I hope), and it’s one of the most engagging and effective tactics you have at your disposal. And now more than ever, it’s an important part of being a business professional, whether you’re in marketing or any other profession.

Back in May 2009, I wrote a post about steps you can take to improve your social network. So much has changed since then that it’s time to take a good, long look and update those original steps. It’s important not just in the sense of building a network of people — it’s a key part of becoming an effective and knowledgable business professional in today’s real-time world. You have to sell yourself and your ideas to your peers and your customers (cause if you’re in marketing, you’re in sales), you have to sell your experience to potential employers, you have to connect with peers in your field, and you definitely have build your Brand Y-O-U.

Hence, here are 3 steps you need to take right now to do just that:

• Build a network of references — An important part of building a personal brand is not only having a track record of experience and achievement, but having allies who can and will attest to it. And given the legal risk that companies now face with managers providing online references, it’s important to have references that go beyond your LinkedIn profile. Certainly ensure some references on LinkedIn from key managers, direct reports, colleagues and others as you can — yet also secure letters from key contacts (if possible) and promises to serve as telephone references as well. Some executives avoid providing written recommendations of your work on social networks, yet will certainly provide references to your personal priniciples and business acumen over the phone. Don’t discount LinkedIn, and continue to build a powerful list of LinkedIn contacts and references — yet have a strong list in the background of people who will put their mouths to work saying what their corporate counsel won’t let them write.
• Engage social influencers in your field — As you know, there are plenty of social communities and outposts where you can listen and learn a whole helluva lot about marketing or whatever vertical market(s) you’re in. (If you actually don’t know that, you need to go to work on Google right this second and figure it out!) Yet while it’s wholeheartedly critical that you listen and learn, it’s now equally valuable to engage the social leaders and influencers in your field. You want your voice heard? Then engage the people talking the loudest and smartest. Comment on their blogs, share ideas, ask thought-provoking questions. Become part of the conversation and make your thoughts heard, put them in the social record. Let them get indexed and searched and read. It does more than just build your personal brand — social influencers are hubs of knowledge, and if you’re in their network you benefit from that. You learn about jobs that come open, new research, compelling content, receive introductions, and more. Alll valuable commerce in the context of building your own network.
• Keep your network active — Much like we engage our customers in social media, engage your network along the same lines. Share content with it, challenge it with thought-provoking questions, throw ideas at it. Don’t let social influencers languish, or the information they share with you languishes also. Many times people lose sight of this simple necessity as the responsibilities of our jobs outweigh the time in our days. Yet you must carve out a section of your day precisely for activating your network, it’s vital to building a personal Brand Y-O-U. Much like our brands, we have to engage our contacts and social influencers with the same principles we use to engage our customers in social media. And just like marketing, using a mix is important — Twitter, LinkedIn (both profile updates and status updates), targeted emails, blog posts, Facebook, comments, social sharing of news and content, etc.

These basic steps will have your social network humming in no time. If you listened to the advice in my original post from last year, you’re ahead of the game and you’ll add to an already-strong network. There are still other things you can do — start your own blog, seek speaking opportunities, and become a social influencer yourself. Either way, the steps above are important since a strong, active network is now a must-have for any savvy professional. You can start the proverbial business in your garage, but to be successful it can no longer stay there in a vacuum.

I’ll leave you with the same advice I left you with in my original post:

You’ve invested the time, money and effort in being a good marketer — don’t let it go to waste because you didn’t invest in your social network and Brand Y-O-U.

Take the steps above and charge ahead starting now.

Sharing Some News — and You’re More Likely to Remember It

Where’s the first place you take a good, long look for information when you need it?

If it’s for a purpose that’s meaningful to you, the first place you turn is likely your social network (no, not the movie…your real social network). The power of a recommendation from someone your trust is priceless — both for yourself and for marketers as well. If we can earn customers’ trust and deliver a good experience, we can make it into customers’ social networks through recommendations. Makes our job a whole lot easier.

That’s why I’m sharing news about a CNN global research study on the power of news and recommendation (POWNAR). The study looks at social sharing of news studies, and has some interesting results on how marketers benefit in terms of brand recall and other metrics.

It’s interesting that the average global user shares 13 stories per week and receives 26 stories through shared social media links or emails, and that 43% of news sharing comes from social media networks and tools like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace (wait, that’s still around?). In other words, if you’re not active in social media — either listening to and/or participating in conversation with and between customers — you need to start doing it now. I’ve been saying that for a while, so I’m actually tired of saying it. More importantly, become a creator of branded content that your customers can share with their networks.

Hope you find value in my socially-shared news.

Is This the Browser of the Future?

Sometimes it’s the little things.

In this case, the little thing may turn out to be a big thing. It’s been fun to take a good, long look at and play around with Rockmelt, the new browser that integrates a variety of social elements to make browsing a true social experience. At first playfully called the “Facebook browser,” it’s built on Chromium, has Facebook integration, and certainly has an interesting feature set.

Now, instead of having a variety of windows, tabs and programs open, you can have full access to major social media sites as part of your one browser window. At various points around the window there are toolbars and icons that provide rollover and/or one-click access to your information streams from Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other places. You can also perform the standard set of functions like share, retweet, like, etc. There’s also a search bar for access to dynamic type-to-search results and a navbar listing your most important friends on the left, with mini-window access to detailed info, wall commenting, etc.

It is definitely a highly social experience, yet I expect a slow adoption rate. There are still a ton of folks who just want to search for things, do research and read online — without the omnipresent stream of information from the socialsphere. I think that eventually the overall ease of monitoring your socialsphere at the same time you’re doing whatever you do online will be something that’s inevitably hard to refuse for most. It’s certainly gotten mixed reviews, but I think Rockmelt has something here, even if it takes time to grow in adoption.

For marketers, it means not necessarily having access to fans and followers in the confines of your fan page or a Twitter client. Your fans or followers may now see your updates and offers in a small window in a nanosecond.

All the more reason to make your social strategy built upon solid content, so you have engagement and your customers find value that lets you stand out from the crowd.

What do you think about Rockmelt — fab or flop?

Interesting Effort: ESPN Audibles

Sometimes it’s just lose-lose, and that’s all it is. You try new stuff to try to improve and be different, and people find something to ding you on anyway.

Marketers always search for that Holy Grail of integration, where the message sings the same across all channels and the customer experience is stellar no matter where the customer finds you.

In pursuit of those lovely things, brands certainly look for ways to facilitate interaction and dialogue to make the experience customer compelling. Enter an appreciable effort in that regard that deserves a good, long look: ESPN Audibles.

It’s a new football talk show on ESPN where — much like a quarterback calling an audible play at the line of scrimmage — fans can change the topic of conversation by posting a question via Twitter or Facebook. Talk about interaction. Who wouldn’t be interested to see their question change conversation among experts on national TV?

I think this is one of the most tangible examples to date of integrating a traditional channel with social media. We all know sports fans are fanatics — hell, they drop billions each year on fantasy sports. So it’s not a stretch to expect a large throng of social-savvy fans to show up on Twitter and Facebook to tweets questions during the show. And for the broadcast lovers, what better way to draw them into social than empowering them to influence their preferred medium?

While Audibles has its share of critics — even for the panel’s choice of socks — it’s not just another contest or discount offer that marries social into the picture. It’s a solid effort to integrate social and traditional channels using content as the backbone. And it provides the audience with real-time control over the content to some degree. That’s a pretty enhanced experience.

And for those football fans out there, it’s an interesting mix of some of ESPN’s most opinionated analysts, including Trent Dilfer, Keyshawn Johnson, Steve Young, and Herm Edwards. Check it out.

What’s Your Approach to Social Already?

You’ve had ample time to learn all about social media.

Surely by now, you’ve read articles from experts, tested the waters, followed conversations, found customers, began dialogue, produced content, set up outposts on Facebook and the other places where your customers congregate, integrated social with your other channels, and set up a social listening station for your brand/company. You’re a social authority now.

Right?

Unfortunately — and unbelievably — the answer is still “Wrong!” for many marketers. More importantly, many who have make the foray into social media aren’t doing it right. I go back to the great point made in one of my earlier posts about the ways to approach social media:

Social media is like a cocktail party. Do u shout “BUY MY PRODUCT”? Ask for business cards? Or just meet people and talk?”

If I could only count how many times I get cheesy emails through LinkedIn offering nothing but a pitch, or shallow @ replies on Twitter with a salesy comment and a link. Even when used as a “sales tool” social media is no less consultative than face-to-face selling — does the ease of typing and sending email diminish my own interest as a customer in finding the right solution?!?!

Even in this salesy slide deck on using LinkedIn as a sales tool, the salient point is that you have to invest time in building a meaningful network based on knowledge and trust, not used-car-salesman-quality emails and tweets.

Please, marketers — if you haven’t yet gotten up to speed with social and how to leverage it, take the time to read a few articles, talk to some experts, and integrate it into your strategy and with your other channels.

My next post will explain exactly how.

New Acronym, New Urgency to Measure Your Social Media Metrics

It used to be so simple.

At first, social media was easy because the standards of traditional marketing didn’t fit. It was new and different. It was personal and customer-driven and you were just feeling it out. It was Facebook and Twitter and what was to measure? If you knew how many Duggs you got on Digg you were ahead of the game.

But now that you invest time and resources in those customer conversations, it’s time to take a good, long look at what you get out of it in the traditional sense of marketing ROI. Even if you can’t or don’t need to measure down to an actual sales or revenue-driven metric, you should look at some the standard metrics of involvement and engagement in social media — followers, friends, comments, retweets, etc.

That’s where this helpful blog post from MediaPost (courtesy of @B2BOnlineMarketing) comes in. It suggests adding a new choice to the marketer’s toolkit of measurement metric acronyms: CPSA, or Cost Per Social Action.

The main benefit of CPSA is that marketers know they’re paying for something social and relationship-oriented. More importantly, marketers know they’re not specifically paying for exposure, traffic, conversions, or interactions (though those can all provide additional value). It’s an acknowledgement that social media is something else, so it’s deserving of a new model, one that stresses relationships above all else.

I like this logic alot. In social media, engagement and interaction is the holy grail, no matter what your goal. Whether you need to plant a flag as an industry thought-leader, or build followers for a Facebook page so you can reach them for a much lower CPA than other channels, the need to measure CPSA at some level is now an expectation. And it’s different that traditional measurement, because relationships are less tangible yet potentially more valuable in the long term.

The article does post a great question that only you can answer:

What’s a social action worth anyway? The further anyone veers from reach and sales, the harder it’s going to be to tie this into marketers’ traditional metrics.

Depending on your ultimate goals for your social media involvement, the true worth is for you to determine. For some, bigger Authority on Technorati may be the most valuable thing for your blog, while for others it may be Facebook followers, Twitter retweets, overall size of your social network, or something else. Or maybe you have a different way of measuring worth already that’s more complex and gives you a sales-driven ROI.

No matter what the answer to the question is, it’s definitely important to charge ahead and embrace CPSA as a new and valid metric that we look at often.

The Future of Content, Part 3

I feel refreshed today.

No, it’s not because I got to the pool today after along day on the road at a conference. 😉

It’s because, for all the journalists who don’t get it, like I mentioned in my last post, there’s one who takes a good, long look and sees it like it is. And by “like it is,” I mean “the customer now dictates what constitutes content.”

The Twitter phenomenon epitimizes the kinds of technology-enabled shifts seen in the ways consumers communicate and seek information over the past few years.

And yet again, I emphasize that the opportunity is there for marketers — we have as big a role in the future of content as journalists do. Bring people together with the content they want, and you are their trusted source. It’s news they want? Tweet from a show floor (like I’ve been doing all day at this conference), an event, a concert, a press conference. Expert analysis? Create a path to experts — a CEO blog, a unique Twitter solution like ExecTweets, or a mashup of content. Personal viewpoints or reality reporting? Build a community where people can identify and network, like Facebook or Sermo in the healthcare space. The list goes on.

The beauty of Twitter is its simplicity. Of course, that’s also what some dislike about it. But that simplicity, in all it’s brevity, makes for one whole boatload of content when you add up a few hundred followers, whether it’s your sister, five cousins and grandma or it’s Ashton Kutcher, Kathy Ireland and Sanjay Gupta. When you charge ahead with your particular solution, it may end up being as simple as Twitter or it may be much more complex.

Just make sure it delivers the content your customers want and you’re golden.

The Future of Content, Part 2

In a recent post, I discussed how marketers have a role in the future of content. Sitting here on yet another JetBlue flight, I came across two articles that highlight this position even further.

I’m reading an issue of Medical Marketing & Media — it’s actually a recent issue for a change, typically I’m catching up on magazines two or three months later. The first article touches on the launch of FacetoFace Health, an online community that lets patients find other patients based on similar conditions or medications. Many times, this is exactly the kind of content people want — not second-hand knowledge pieced together through interviews and research. Interviews that people can now do first-hand via Facebook, Twitter and other social networking communities. And research, mind you, that people can do themselves online via robust tools like Wikipedia. The FacetoFace site, like many social media sites, provides first-hand interaction with people based on experience, interests, likeness or non-likeness, or anything else. Your agenda…not someone else’s. It’s a real-time, ever-changing window into a give-and-take world of content. If you’re a marketer, talk to your customers, find out what they need to know or who they want to know, and build a community that delivers it. Welcome to the future of content.

The other article is written by a PhD and entitled “Healthcare journalism needs a recovery plan.” My impression (no evidence whether it’s accurate since I’m on a plane and can’t research it) is that this person isn’t an active participant in social media, and thereby not destined to be an active part of the future of content. A few pearls of wisdom from the article center on a new survey of healthcare journalists. 65% say the quality of health coverage is fair or poor, 48% think health journalism is heading in the wrong direction, 43% say training opportunities have declined. Really? The training opportunities have declined? When whole new communities like FacetoFace spring up overnight? Are they thinking about social media as an opportunity to get “trained” every day on meeting customer wants? Obviously not.

I can see why they feel journalism is headed in the wrong direction — because customers are now in control of content and where they get it. As I said in my earlier post, they want different types of content from different types of content providers. Time and again it sounds like journalists don’t see that journalism, in it’s traditional form, isn’t as tethered to the future of content as it once was. But the opportunity is there to them to take a good, long look and evolve and be part of it, just like it does for marketers.

Because comments like this one in the article sure aren’t the way to charge ahead into the future of content:

I’m going to hope that we’ll see demand for health and science reporting increase as we continue to shake off some of the anti-intellectualism that has bogged us down.

HUH? I guess I’m not an intellectual, because unlike those who think journalism is just going to bounce back, I’m with all the other marketers who are helping building solutions to meet customer demands in the future of content.

Wake up and maybe we’ll see you there.

A Letter to Marketing Professors

Dear Business School Marketing Professors–

First of all, I want to thank you again for all the kids you keep sending my way. So don’t take my letter out of context — I appreciate our relationship, and your work and dedication to education is what keeps me going every day.

It’s probably been a little while since I’ve written. I apologize, I know candid feedback is something you need to educate your kids properly. And apparently, some important information hasn’t gotten back to you about what these kids need to succeed out here.

These marketing graduates you’ve sent recently — and communications and management grads too — really need some additional grooming in order to have what it takes to succeed. It seems like they’re lacking both tangible and intangible things that are important to success.

Now, let me be clear, it’s not all of them. There are some definite winners in the bunch. Yet ALOT of them would benefit from some additional schooling on the following points:

Please tell them that a career in marketing means a parallel career in sales. If you’re in marketing, you’re in sales. You need to sell things — that may include products, or your own ideas. In many cases, the latter is just as important to your career as the former. You need to be adept at dealing with all kinds of people, networking with people you’ve never met, and convincing people you don’t know.

Please help them focus on the different facets of time management. It’s important — and I don’t just mean being able to update Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Myspace all at once. Out here, you need to manage multiple projects, all with the same deadline: yesterday. You need to figure out how to prioritize and make progress on everything, all on the fly. Help them get ready to manage their day and their workflow.

Please help them focus on managing expectations. Don’t go into work thinking about what’s on tap for that day. Don’t wait for something to become a problem. Work with some perspective, work with strategic purpose — think how your boss thinks. See when something could be a problem, and manage it in advance so it doesn’t become one.

Please tell them that appearance matters. Yes, I partially mean you need to dress appropriately. But I also mean it’s important to appear like you’re giving your all, like you’re focused and motivated. Like you work with passion and purpose. Like you want to get ahead.

Anyway, I’m going to stop there for now. I need to get back to breaking in the latest batch of newbies you sent last quarter, and making business a little harder for everyone in general over the next few months. I’ll make sure I write again soon.

Best Regards,

The Real World

Marketing has a Role in the Future of Content

This post is proof that a small spark can lead to a roaring flame.

I began the day reading a column from former colleague Ray Schultz, one of the best marketing journalists of the last several decades. Hours later I’m on a plane, some thoughts still kindling from reading the column, and a raging blaze emerged. Cue up the iPhone with mobile WordPress, and here we go.

The topic of Ray’s column is the future of publishing. To those who haven’t noticed, that particular future is not looking bright right now, with flagship entities like the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and countless magazines (both B2B and B2C) bleeding jobs and flat out disappearing. Not to mention advertisers slashing budgets unmercifully (for good reason). The column also speculates about the future of journalism — undoubtedly tied to the future of publishing with a heavy chain. Clearly jobs in journalism, especially in the print world, are not a good spot to be in right now.

After thinking about this for a little while, this key thought became obvious: it’s not at all about the future of publishing, or the future of journalism. It’s about the future of content.

Sure, as a business or industry or career field, you can speculate about publishing and journalism all day. Yet neither is necessarily connected at all to the future of content. People can get content in many ways without publishing or journalism involved. Many people don’t even want content from journalists at all. They want content from people just like themselves — or people not like them at all. They want content from people right in the moment — in the euphoria of victory, throes of defeat, fear of chaos, or other states of happiness or misfortune. They want dialogue, engagement and interaction — the hallmarks of social media — and not from an unreachable person behind a printed page. The future of content is give-take. It’s Twitter, it’s YouTube, it’s Facebook, it’s blogs, buzz and beyond. It’s still some printed media too. It’s whatever customers and consumers want, however they want it.

And so presents the opportunity for marketers to take a good, long look at how and where we can fill a much-needed role in the future of content. We can build communities of people (or, if you read Seth Godin, tribes) arguably faster and better than any publisher can, because we know our customers well (or at least, we’re all supposed to, right?). And customers want content. They want to talk to other customers. Happy customers want to share their experiences. Angry customers want a voice, too — and brands want an opportunity to win them back. Many people, customers or not, just want objective information. And don’t give me that “marketers can’t be objective” schpiel — time and again that’s been proven wrong, especially when it’s the community driving the content.. And journalists can be just as biased as anyone, you have to apply the same filters you’d apply when evaluating any information source.

So charge ahead and provide the types of content people want about your brands, or more importantly, about your market and about each other. Build communities of knowledge, and you’re building content. And your an active part of its future.

Twitter Partnership Lays a Blueprint

Talk about an inspiring partnership.

A while back I wrote a post on forging partnerships and the benefits that allies working together can leverage for a marketing campaign or a business. I’m sitting here in the Production Room of a studio in Boston, preparing for a live webcast today, and noticed on my RSS feed an article about a new Twitter feed and website developed by a partnership of Twitter, Microsoft and Federated Media.

Twitter Inc. and ad network Federated Media on Monday unveiled what might be a new way for the popular microblogging service to make money.

They launched an “ExecTweets” page built by Federated Media and sponsored by Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) that collects Twitter postings, known as tweets, by prominent corporate executives.

Despite the typical rants and raves of users any time a brand or corporate entity tries to leverage a mainstream social media community like Facebook or Twitter, this kind of partnership provides value. Other than digesting one these executives’ corporate blogs, this may be the next-best way to get into their heads. Possibly even in a more personal, less-jargon-filled way (wait, I’m a marketer…jargon is good!). It could be a bueprint for companies that want to leverage Twitter in a powerful, contextual way.

Again, I advise you to take a good, long look at potential partnerships, and think differently about how to accomplish goals that look unreachable by working with others.

The Demands of Social Media

There is a drove of companies flocking to social media right now, especially in B2B media, healthcare, and of course consumer products. There’s no doubting the magic that happens when brands build meaningful relationships with customers via social media.

If you’re among the people taking a good, long look at making the dive into social media, make sure it’s an effort that’s set up to succeed.

I’m proud to say that right now, my ABM Media Marketing committee is putting the final touches on a Web 2.0 best practices whitepaper. It focuses on educating B2B media companies about various social media and Web 2.0 tactics and technologies. In the process of putting this project together, I talked to several leaders in the industry about what’s needed in order to make social media efforts successful. Joe Pulizzi, founder of customer publishing dynamo Junta42, made this all-to-true statement:

B2B media companies now need people who live in social media all day, every day. They need a Chief Conversation Officer who follows online conversations about their brands, monitors Twitter and Google Alerts, and comments on key blogs.

Many don’t realize the effort required to make social media successful — it’s not as simple as creating a Facebook group or creating a blog and seeing the interaction blossom. It’s about living and breathing your industry, through the lens of social media, for hours every day. It’s about becoming part of conversations about your business wherever they happen — on other websites, other blogs, LinkedIn groups, Facebook discussion boards, Google Knol, Twitter, and anywhere else. It’s about being a proactive force all over, not being a passive voice on your own website and expecting people to come to you. It’s about making the interaction with your brands feel personal and real — without marketing copy or the corporate platform. It’s about honest conversation and knowing (and playing by) the established rules and expectations and dealing with opinions that differ from yours. It’s about making a commitment to spend the time required to make it work, and be patient for the amount of time it takes for genuine trust and interaction to build.

Make sure you know the effort required before you charge ahead. Your customers will hold you accountable if you don’t.

What Matters Right Now? (and Other Key Questions)

Have you taken a good, long look lately at your mix of tactics? At your communication frequency? Your investment (time and money) in social media? Do you know what tactics matter most right now to your customers?

Everything in your strategy has to be up for re-election in this economy. If it’s not making the grade, or more importantly, if you can find better ROI elsewhere…throw that tactic out of office!

Social media is becoming more important than ever according to several sources. That has to change things. You have to find your way into more places where customers are sharing and experiencing and passionate. What’s your plan to do that? Is it Facebook, LinkedIn, or somewhere more niche? Is social media an acquisition tactic for you, or an experiment? Is it authentic and customer-driven, or are you turning users off with brand messages?

There’s also word that email marketing will increase. Really? How is that a good thing? Isn’t it enough right now? I’m not sure how more email could be good in any way — despite its offer of lower costs for tighter budgets. I know I’m not increasing my email no matter what, but I will be increasing the relevance of my messaging, that’s for sure. I’m going to let my competition email more, annoy people, and get opted out. And my less frequent, more relevant emails will be the last man standing, showing up at the right time in a pristine inbox (sounds like a fairy tale, no?). Same for my keywords — I’m gonna drill down, find those long tail keywords that provide return, and fine-tune my strategy on Google and other search engines.

Working on a great whitepaper on Web 2.0 for B2B media companies. Stay tuned for that next week.

Time to Get Cozy With Online Video

You may think it’s too far-fetched if you have a small budget or your tech-saaviness is towards the low-end of the spectrum, yet online video is worth a good, long look if you need to connect to customers (which of course you do).

A recent study from eMarketer and subsequent analysis from Mashable highlight the growth of advertising via online video. Certainly our customers’ use of and expectations for online video will also grow along with spending — there may come a time when the lack of online video in an online campaign will be a detriment, especially if your competition has compelling video. Throw in some effective SEO, some paid keywords, some offline marketing to drive online views…and you have a recipe for getting your butt kicked.

Are you using online video as a marketing tool right now? It’s time to figure out how it fits in your strategy and charge ahead. Can it create launch buzz for a product, walk customers through a process, or paint a picture via testimonials? How often will you refresh it to keep the campaign engaging? How will you carry it through all of your messaging? Are you maximing it with SEM/SEO? Can you use it to solidify a presence on YouTube, Facebook or industry/market vertical sites?

If it’s not in your mix, or not in your plans, that’s a risky strategy.