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All Media Will Be Social Media

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This is a forward looking opinion post on the potential future of digital marketing.

The future of digital media is social. With the far-reaching tentacles of Google and Facebook, no digital marketer will be able to approach marketing without engaging in some form of social media.

Today, companies can choose to ignore social media. Although they cannot stop the conversation, they can ignore the conversation that is happening elsewhere.

In the future, social media will be harder to ignore. Social media will not be integrated into marketing, it will be integrated into our experience as individuals. As social media is integrated into the applications we use, marketers will no longer be able to ignore it or choose not to integrate it. Marketers will lose even more control than they already have.

Here are three predictions for what this future may include. [Read more…]

Buyers to Marketers: Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You

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“Why do you want my email and phone number again? So your sales consultant can contact me? No thanks, I’ll pass.”

Boonville Missing Bucky Walter PhoneMost B2B marketers are still fixated on capturing registration data, and no wonder. The marketing automation machine lives on a diet of email and your sales process is built on the telephone.

The problem is, your buyer’s process is not built on your email or your phone. According to research, buyers only engage with companies directly during the last 40% of their research process.

When you insist on registration, you are in effect telling prospects:

  • We don’t want to be involved in the first half of your research.
  • We are only willing to engage with you on our terms and timetable.

[Read more…]

Can We Save Twitter From Ourselves?

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Canyon ItaimbézinhoTwitter is not a communication channel, it is a platform that allows each of us to create and evolve our own custom communication channel.

If Twitter is not working for communication, it is not a problem with Twitter. As a platform, Twitter is developing and our behavior reflects its infancy, with the full spectrum of human behavior on display.

The societal norms for Twitter have yet to be established. The fact there are so many posts on Twitter etiquette is proof. A Google blog search for “Twitter Etiquette” returns 32,000 results, to just 11,000 for “Dinner Etiquette”.

If Twitter is no longer an effective channel, like Kary Delaria postulated in Three Reasons Twitter is Beginning to Suck, the problem stems from how people are building and evolving their own communication channels on Twitter. [Read more…]

Social Media, Opt-In Marketing, and When Valuable Isn’t Enough

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Please!What would happen to your marketing programs if every channel required explicit opt-in and opting out or unsubscribing was just a click away?

Although it may seem absurd, this question is relevant today for two reasons:

  1. Congress continues to consider privacy legislation every year, and although not well understood, it is broadly supported by constituents. In need of popular support, this Congress may finally take on extensive privacy reform.
  2. More importantly, social media is much closer to an opt-in channel than email. On Twitter or G+, the difference between spam and consensual contact is much clearer than it ever has been in email. On Facebook, it is the only option.

[Read more…]

Online is 77% Less Impactful than Newspaper

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This could be called a rant. And it briefly draws on basic economic theory. So unless you like rants based on forgotten college coursework, use the navigation or category links above to find another post. Otherwise, read on, and please share your thoughts below or with me on Twitter.

According to eMarketer’s Ad Dollars Still Not Following Online and Mobile Usage, on hour spent online drives 77% fewer advertising dollars than an hour spent with newspapers. Digital media proponents have been misled, believing somehow that time spent and budget should equalize. In reality, time and spend should never have been compared. Saying Online is 77% Less Impactful than Newspaper (like in this title) is just as accurate, and despite how ludicrous that statement may seem, is likely even more accurate than comparing time and budget.

[Read more…]