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.

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.

An Interesting Option From YouTube (Yet Probably Thought of by Google)

We knew it was only a matter of time before the advertiser-friendly wisdom of Google seeped deep into the business model at YouTube.

Well, that time has come. YouTube is selling video ads against its search volume. For YouTube, it’s another effort to monetize its search volume and sizeable user base — they’ve also done a few other things recently with the same purpose. It’s a play for the paid search dollars we’re all pouring more of our budgets into right now.

Sponsored video ads appear at the top of search results

For marketers, it could be an opportunity to stand out amongst a tech-savvy, diverse audience. And the concept works, feels and sounds very similar to another language we all currently understand: AdWords.

What? You don’t understand AdWords you say? I don’t believe you. Every marketer worth their salt understands how paid search works, and AdWords is the biggest kid on the paid search block.

(If you read that last paragraph and it sounds like a conversation that you could seriously be a part of, then type in http://www.google.com and go take a good, long look at AdWords right now.)

Does Your Message Make Anybody Take Notice, Part 2

Just to expand slightly on the last post, here’s an interesting post from Search Insider on how we process all the different messages and information we’re bombarded with each day. And it’s just getting worse…now even YouTube is dipping into posting ads at the end of video clips. Granted it’s only on vids from select content partners, yet these things tend to expand if users don’t rebel. Good opportunity for marketers…yet maybe it’s only making our problem of customer overload even worse?

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.