Simply put, it’s 100 Marketers. 400 words each. 1 Collaborative Book on “Project 100: Marketing in the Social Media Era”. The challenge for Jeff Caswell Get 100 marketers who are leaders in the Social Media/ Non-Trad Marketing. The Topic/ Theme: “Marketing in the Social Media Era. Building Dynamic Consumer Relationships.”
The skinny: a 400 words Limit per author. Each author can include diagrams, images etc.
The why: Jeff, “I am not doing this for the money. I am doing it because I think its cool, I am interested in what marketing leaders are thinking and I believe in Susan G. Komen”
Where can you get the book? Right here on Blurb
Little did I know that Jeff would turn a wild hair of an idea into something that is now complete reality. My hat is off to him and the 100 authors.
In part deux of my series on social media best practices for Ari Herzog’s blog Ariwriter, I had planned on talking about elaborating on the need to “experiment with effort” or “experiment with engagement”. By that I mean don’t just sign up or register on a lot of different social sites and expect the relationships to bubble up from there. Put forth some effort.
But in lieu of expounding on that I give you the second part in the series which covers hiding behind the brand. See what you think and let me know your thoughts.
As a follow up. I want to add that from the conversation that I did have with “the brand”, a dialogue did evolve, and a relationship with the person behind that brand was created. And you know what? That person turned out to be very engaging, enlightening, and earnest. And that would not have happened prior to our discussion about “People versus Brands”.
This post is inspired my Mother who is in declining health. She told me she was asked by her doctor, Where are you on the mountain, if your life is the mountain? Was she going up? Was she at the top? Going down? My Mom answered that she was on the backside of the mountain, but she had her heels dug in. Good answer Mom.
But this led me to a broader question about what we all do and how we do it, and it is this.
If you’re career is a mountain, where are you? On the way up? In a holding pattern? Trying to find an alternate route? Or have you given up and turned back, satisfied by how far you’ve gotten. Satisfied that you at least tried. Or are you going to recharge the batteries, reinvent, re-plan, and give it another go?
If you are a marketer, where do you guage your level of experience on the mountain? You are a social media marketer, how well do you know the space if your map is the mountain? Do you forge on? Do you try and follow the path? The road less taken? Do you do what the Sherpa tells you? Are you a team player? Or are you in it for yourself?How much do you help people tethered to you? Are you pulling them? Are they pulling you? Or are you pulling your own weight?
It’s funny but when you get to the top, you really can’t stay there too long. But some like going to the top so much, they do it over and over, and they are successful a majority of the time. However, sometimes, there are things that are out of their control that prevent them from reaching the summit. But it doesn’t stop them from trying again. Why is that? How does this reflect on you, and what you are doing now? Where are you on the mountain?
It pains you to read what’s going on. You hate watching the news. Prospecting and looking for new clients is becoming more difficult. The clients or prospects you are able to talk with are all giving you the same story.
We’re pulling back on spending
We’ve had to let people go
We are not doing anything this year
We plan on doing it in house
We have your proposal, we’ll let you know
Sound familiar? So what can you do? Maybe you need to change your focus, change your tact, change the way you are thinking? Perhaps rather than thinking about you and your company, you should think about the company you’re going after and THEIR customer. Or that companies employees? What can make them more productive? How can they do what they do better? How can they talk to THEIR customers and prospects better? Don’t think of you business process, think of theirs! Think about the client. They need your help, they just might not admit it.
These are not normal times. Thinking in a conventional Web 1.0 manner is not going to get it done.
In social media circles, we’re all guilty of back slapping and having a good ole’ time hanging with our peeps. But don’t we want to have clients? Of course we do! But if you get it, and I get it, and we both are always agreeing with each other, has anyone bothered to ask, “Do they get it?” If we are constantly talking to each other, then a few things are happening.
1) We don’t know if your prospective clients are there in the room listening
2) They might be too intimidated to ask a question, or scared to ask a dumb question
3) They might not even be there
4) You are talking to people who are of like mind. Peers not potential clients.
Go Find people who don’t understand and who don’t know, but want to. They are the one’s that will benefit the most.
If you don’t know who Toby Bloomberg is, then you should take the time to find out. She writes one of the top marketing/social media blogs in this space called Diva Marketing Blog, and it should be on your blog roll and in your feed reader as we speak. She is a warm, caring and brilliant strategic marketer.
Toby recently spoke at the AMA Marketing Strategy Conference in Orlando in which she gave a presentation titled First Generation of the Next Generation of Marketing.
One of the many great things about Toby is that she knows how to utilize the power of her networks. Case in point, she created the following slide for her presentation, from a conversation that she and I had on Twitter.
It’s no secret that Pro Football is a billion dollar business. As such this Sunday’s matchup of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals in the Super Bowl is as much a national holiday as any other day we have, with the exception that it is on a Sunday. Even those that do not like football, find themselves doing something that revolves around the game. With that being said, check out this viral Reebok spot. It’s been out since September, but not as a compilation.
Reebok was and is one of the few companies that understand the viral effectiveness of sports, Pro football in particular, and it’s impact with fantasy football. The series was created by Blue Room
One of the most common aspects of Pro footballs involvement in the fabric of our society is from a fantasy football aspect. A great example of this would be the UFN or Ultimate Football Network. Which melds social media and fantasy football into one.
Speaking of social media, perhaps you want a MySpace page devoted to the NFL, the Super Bowl and Super Bowl Commercials? Look no further.
But perhaps you want your NFL information on the go? Then perhaps you would like your Pro football content piped right into your mobile device via Pro Football Weekly.
I’ve written in the past about what to watch out for, specifically 4 trends in the next 5 years. They are, mobile, social, search and mobile social. Well here you go.
Taking that a step further for this years Super Bowl, for the third year in a row, the NFL is asking fans to pick the pitch that will become its Super Bowl commercial. The pitches will be posted on www.nfl.com/superad and 48 of them will be eligible for voting. Fan participation, community and a built in audience-beautiful!
Building on that type of theme the NFL in an effort to trying to embrace the users and give them more reason to consume their content, NFL.com has been using feature over the course of this past season that enable fans to comment on articles archived on NFL.com. Fans can then post comments with social networking personas and rate articles they have read on the site.
There’s also a live chat function that was activated at the start of the season that has been letting people interact with a fantasy football editor every Sunday, and also engage in cyberspace dialogue with NFL officials.
They have also incorporated a multimedia feature called the Replay Recutter in which visitors can select from a menu of game clips the league uploads to the micro-site weekly and self-produce edited versions. The program also gives fans logos and music from the NFL Films archives, Now that is cool.
In short there is not a technology or marketing endeavor the NFL does not utilize in trying to empower it’s brand and it’s fan base. Whether its RSS feeds, blogs and personalized sites for each team, mobile & video and or audio which can be uploaded onto your social sites, your blogs, and your phones along with customizable widgets that continue to promote and extend the brand at every turn, the NFL leverages it’s brand better than any corporation in the Fortune 500 or Inc 1000.
I know this is going to ruffle some feathers, but right now your marketing initiatives, your social media efforts, your email campaign, your DRTV campaign and more- all of it will rely on one thing in the end. Consider the following scenarios:
You are going to launch a new product. You build a website but how are you going to drive people to the site? How do they find it?
You launch a new product with a new company, that no one has ever heard of before, how will people find out more about you, your company, and your product?
You launch a new social network, how will it grow? How is it found? You start a new blog and you want people to read your kick-ass content? How will they know you’re out there? You join a new social network, how do you meet others?
You launch a new brick and mortar business, how do you drive business? Newspapers? Radio? Magazine? What is a person’s first knee jerk reaction to your advertising?
Your reputation? Where can you find it? How can you find it? Do you know if anybody is talking about you, your company and your product?
Your friends? Your family, How do they find you? Old friends? How do they find you?
You need a new job. How will you get your next one?
I could go on. But I think you get the point. Everything. and I mean everything that you do revolves around…
I came across this preso on a new blog for me called Social Gumbo. Given my New Orleans heritage, it was worth checking out and lo and behold, some sweet content. Check this slideshare out.
Below is a quick compilation of links that I received or found this week that I either tweeted or retweeted that mattered to me or to the people that are in the Twitterspehere.
I received this this morning and it immediately raised a question for me in regards to whether Fortune 500’s should be on Facebook, The question:
2) Came across this and it seems interesting so I’m gonna give it a test drive later Eyejot
3) For job seekers Adobe Acrobat is looking for a part time Community Manager
4) I’m wondering if this should surprise anyone? Colleges are using social media more than Fortune 500 & Inc 500 in the area of blogging…
5) There’s probably a few here I have not used but perhaps you have not used any of these 33 trend tracking tools
6) Mashable came out with a great post yesterday about 40 of the Best Twitter Brands & the People Behind Them And I thought it interesting to see how some use or view the power of Twitter. Who do you think uses it most effectively?
7) Valeria Maltoni and Geoff Livingston did a duel post onTop 25 Ways to Stop Wigging Out and I have to tell you, I might have to tape it on the monitor or on the fridge, because to be honest right now, there is so much happening in all of our lives, I get the sense that we all are scramblin’ for scraps sometime.
8) I got such a tremendous Twitter RT reception for the following Tweet and post titled “Create the change“:
My advice to you is to not wait on Barack Obama 4 change. Create the change yourself, in your own lives
9) How timely and “in the mix” are your tweets? Check out Twitemperature I know, it’s one of those hit and run type of Twitter apps. But still.
I think I’m going to start doing this on a regular basis, simply because there is so much info that I miss and that you miss, maybe this will help. Send me one that is worth sharing that I might have missed. Educate me, please.
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