B2B Marketing, Digital Media and Marketing Strategy
As a marketer it may be difficult to believe, but marketing is not a business objective.
Marketing must maintain or advance the business in order to be valuable and there is no single right way to do this.
Unfortunately, when ideas need to be encapsulated in 140 characters or forced into a list post template, marketers end up talking about a path instead of how to select the right path or uncover new innovative solutions. [Read more…]
Dan Zarella and Hubspot gave the “what is your social media audience worth” pot a good stir last week.
It doesn’t matter if you like Hubspot’s formula or not (at least not for this article). One day many businesses will put a value on their social media audience, if it is in the form of monthly impact to their business or the average value of an audience member.
Then what? How do you use the value of a like, follower, circler, or similar to improve the value of your marketing and your business? [Read more…]
What would a jet engine say if it was on a social network?
The CMO of GE talked about this in a video earlier this year at Dreamforce. Wow, what a question. To think, soon your refrigerator, car and, yes, jet engines may be part of your social network.
But as devices join you on Facebook, Twitter or other social platforms, are they really becoming social? [Read more…]
B2B marketers are so anxious to generate leads from social media they are turning Twitter into a list for cold calls and mass email blasts.
In the last couple weeks, two companies have emailed or called me because I follow influential sales and marketing accounts on Twitter.
There is nothing social about this! Marketers are just turning social into a source of email or telemarketing lists for mass outbound marketing.
Here is a better way, along with actual results, that companies can use to drive leads through social media. [Read more…]
What, it’s changing? Quick, call it dead! Write an article about how social media is killing advertising!
Advertising is Dead. SEO is Dead. Television is Dead. Magazines are Dead. Newspapers are Dead. Websites are Dead. Agencies are Dead. Media companies are Dead.
Did TV kill radio? After more than 50 years, radio is still here. Like everything else, it has changed. Like everything else in marketing, it lives on.
See the pattern here? Most marketers want everything around them to be dead. But the only thing dead in marketing are marketers. [Read more…]
A number of publishers and blogs covered the launch of LinkedIn’s new follow feature for 150 thought leaders or influencers over the last few weeks. However, labeling it the ability to follow thought leaders (as LinkedIn did) misses the real point.
LinkedIn did not launch a new feature to follow thought leaders or the ability for select individuals to publish articles on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn just launched as a publisher with 150 thought leaders, influencers and public figures as their first journalists and contributors. [Read more…]
You can share. You can publish. You can broadcast. You can spam.
Today, communication is more accessible than ever before. Anyone with an internet connection can email or Tweet.
With more people publishing and more competition for our attention, free and easy-to-use communication channels lead to spam. Even well-intentioned individuals, marketers and publishers can fall into the spam trap. [Read more…]
If you have viewed a LinkedIn profile in the last couple days, chances are you have seen a new box at the top of the page prompting you to endorse the individuals skills.
Here is a screenshot of the endorse box on one of my connection’s profile page:
With one click, I can endorse Lauren’s skills in these five areas simply because we are connected. But wait, there’s more! Scroll down the page and there is a prominent call, again, to endorse Lauren!
Is this really a good idea? [Read more…]
You cannot please everyone all the time.
One of the places this truth is on stark display is when media companies attempt to balance the demands and expectations of advertisers and users.
As Twitter evolves from a technology company that was focused on serving users to a media company (at least in its business model) attempting to balance the demands of both marketers and users, the conflict is in full view.
I am both a Twitter user and an advertising buyer. As someone with a perspective from both sides, I believe Twitter is in a position to overcome this challenge by making a pledge that protects the experience for users while allowing them to develop effective offerings for marketers. [Read more…]
Successes and failures spill over into social media. But they are rarely social media successes or failures. They are successes or failures reflected in social media.
Consider the following examples and assume traditional media, not social media, was used. [Read more…]