The more I work in social media, the louder the chant becomes.

It’s a chant that has the power to make any social media practitioner cringe – the befuddled mantra of social media naysayers echoing: “What’s so hard about Social Media? I can just get a college student to do it for free, right?”

Wrong.

Many feel that social media should be entrusted to a select few who play all day on Facebook and are fluent in the OMG LOL dialect. However, what many professionals who are new to social media don’t understand is the complex nature of social media and that building a social program is much like building a house. As it is in every marketing practice, social media has many levels, ranging from tactical execution and everyday maintenance to strategic planning and program evolution. When artfully crafted, these levels exist in a co-dependent state, creating a strong and resilient structure that is both simple and innately complex.

Continue reading »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

The last year has seen enormous pressure on the advertising business as we know it. Beyond all the well-documented ills that have troubled the sector, an additional staple of the way media has been planned and bought is seeing its popularity come to a crashing halt. And that hallmark is the use of ‘perceptions’ and ‘panels’ to drive decisions.

In a digital age, guessing what people think about your business and validating it in test settings is an outdated concept. There was a time when the speed by which media was produced and disseminated would allow for the assurances that come with the model of targeting large swaths of the public through small segment tests. Unfortunately for some, and opportunistically for others, that time is ending.

In no better way does this show itself than the emergence in the past 10 years of Google, and in the past 12 months the emergence of Twitter. In today’s social and search marketplace, there is a unique opportunity to use intent for insights instead of perceptions and panels for planning. Allow me to demonstrate how any business can use these insights from search and social to redefine its approach to broader media application.

Continue reading »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Having an online business can have many challenges – designing a website that ensures a positive user experience, ensuring your shopping cart works properly and promoting your product or service appropriately through online and offline advertising.

And there is also your competition.

Competitive intelligence has become an essential part of initial business planning.  Knowing who is competing for your customers in the online space is critical to your success, and knowing what they are doing in the online space is even more important. 

So just how do you find out whom your direct online competition is?

Continue reading »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

“[Social media] is giving us another way to help influence people’s propensity to search.”

Barbara Basney, Director, Global Advertising, Xerox
Wall Street Journal, 10/22/09

The Wall Street Journal reported today in an article, “Shift in Search-Ad Tactics Seeks More For Less,” a shift in thinking and strategy around search marketing for advertisers as they seek to capture a broader audience online with greater efficiency. The shift, which includes more relevant targeting and the integration of search and social media, is evident in the marketing strategy of three leading advertisers highlighted in the article.

For example, the WSJ reports telecom giant Sprint Nextel is prioritizing keywords based on where the consumer is in the purchase funnel, including tying to “phrases consumers tend to search for when they are close to making a purchase.”

Volkswagen, whose advertising in the few decades of my life has always seemed to capture the essence of the changing generations, is “driving” efficiency by coordinating the brand’s search marketing program with hundreds of dealers at a local level. They’re also using search and social to support the launch of their 2010 GTI hatchback, bringing mobile, Twitter and YouTube together with an innovative racing game for the iPhone and iTouch.

Continue reading »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

I have never kept it a secret that BlogWorld Expo is one of my favorite conferences. The core messages that we heard throughout wasn’t “use Twitter for content distribution” as all the other conferences I have attended in the past. The panelists and keynotes emphasized the importance of authenticity, credibility and transparency. Although those are common themes, it continues to be in the core foundation of every successful social media program.

Continue reading »

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!