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The Marketing Edge, one of the longest running marketing and public relations podcasts.
Host Albert Maruggi weaves his 25 years of marketing and PR experience across business, technology and national public affairs in interviews with newsmakers, authors and business leaders.
Maruggi is a frequent speaker and conducts workshop sessions on new media. For more information or to discuss your business challenges and goals, e-mail him.
The year-end blog posts about marketing ideas for 2012 are endless. The one constant included in the majority of them is the importance of content. Now now, everyone and their brother has a book out about the latest consultant buzz word “content marketing”. Stop it; this should almost insult your intelligence, if you are a thinking person, for consultants to raise the content flag as what’s new in marketing.
The irony here is that digital and social media have created an environment similar to advertising. Here’s what I mean, in the last 20 years every space is open to place a logo for payment, from sidewalks to mobile apps. That same environment applies to content of all types, from “how to” videos to tweets about your blog post. The challenge is how many ways can you essentially say the same thing and how will it convince those who receive the information.
We get into a conversation about content with long time social media advocate Laura Fitton aka @Pistachio. She is one of the early adopters in the social community, an entrepreneur founder of OneForty, co-author of Twitter for Dummies, and is now an inbound marketing evangelist for Hubspot. I have no affiliation with Hubspot. Hubspot was all about content and digital crumbs long before today’s latest push for content marketing.
In this Marketing Edge podcast episode Laura and I discuss the shift from seeking customers to customers seeking. A difference that requires a shift in how you approach your own company and it’s role in the world of information. People have written books about this topic, I sum it up in one messily blog post Newsroom PR saving you time and money : ) .
Hubspot has a new twist on the way they analyze website content. Give marketing.grader.com a try, it will give you a report on whether the content on your website is attractive to readers and can help generate inbound marketing inquiries.
Maruggi’s Trends for Social in 2012
Mobile will drive foot and digital traffic so be there
Bloggers and customers want more to do your marketing
Companies will demand more feedback from consumers in exchange for something you value
You thought the TV remote was the greatest invention for men, check this out. You can order men’s underwear online from Manpacks. You can even get packs of the boxers, briefs, or boxer-briefs for the uncommitted delivered on a regular basis. That’s right, now men have more time to use the TV remote with the time he saves not walking the asiles of some local Target store.
This podcast with Manpacks co-founder, Ken Johnson, reveals that while the idea of automating the purchase of essentials may be the next wave in retail, there is considerable learning, Johnson has done since launching Manpacks in January. Among the take aways:
Twitter is a better relationship building platform for Manpacks than Facebook,
Listen intently to customers for danger signs that you’re not providing the right products or services,
analyze customer buying patterns to anticipate what they need in the future.
I’m joined in this interview by Justin Dessonville who gave Manpacks the idea of a cause marketing promotion, Buy One Give One. The sales of Manpack underwear in the month of October will be matched 1- to – 1 from Manpacks with donations to Saint Stephens homeless shelter. Web entrepreneurs like Johnson, have an unquenchable desire to execute their idea, and the successful ones are married to the learning, not chained to their ideas. Enjoy the podcast and leave your ideas on whether you think subscribing for essentials is a good idea.
Is social media at a resting place being evaluated by companies perhaps to be adopted by more or has it seen its best days? A Marketing Sherpa survey makes be pose this question. After all that social media has been through in the last year or two I’m surprised by today survey results published by Marketing Sherpa called Perceptions of Social Media at Budget Time. Only 7% of 2300 marketers surveyed at moving ahead with increased budget and time for social media. Really, 7%?
click to enlarge
You mean the Dave Carroll United breaks guitars video wasn’t enough to inspire more than 7% enthusiasm from marketers working with customer relations departments?
You mean with more than 80% of all business travelers booking more than half of their own business trips themselves using online tools like PriceLine and Hotels.com and TripAdvisor with the hundreds of thousands of comments about destinations those sites have, you mean that is not enough to generate double digit confidence in social media?
Wow, and marketers are supposed to be a source of innovation and creativity in American companies? There is either A) much more work to be done to inspire the profession that is charged with inspiration or B) the lipstick on the social media pig ain’t doing the trick.
Marketers, does social media work in your world, for your company’s product or service?
You know I could have done the solutions headline and just throw a number in there, but I hate those things. The hungry part is because in some of this podcast we talk about Facebook and restaurants. Facebook Marketing, An Hour A Day is a book by Chris Treadaway and Mari Smith. In this podcast we talk to Chris Treadaway about some of the ways Facebook is used to market companies. Facebook is a place that requires attention, lesson one if you are not prepared to give it attention, forget it. This is where the hour a day comes in.
To pull a favorite useful idea out of this podcast I’d call attention to using Facebook as a market research tool. Creating an ad in Facebook will give you insights into potential online market size. Here is an example where I took the city of Chicago, people age 21 and over that self identified interest of football or fantasy football. The kind of information of interest to a sports bar owner. Targeting by interest, geography, age and other variables is a great feature of Facebook.
We are holding a drawing for the book Facebook Marketing An Hour A Day. Email MarketingEdge AT Providentpartners DOT net – put Facebook in the Subject line. Link should do that for you.
Other Examples of Social Marketing to Hungry Patrons
Smalley87Club – Tied Twins ticket drawings to items people like on the menu with a link to the Smalleys 87 Club menu page. (I helped on this one)
Dino’s Gyros IAMDEZ – Guess random number between 1 and 10,000 on Tuesdays before 7PM, closest 10 get a free gyro.
Izzys Ice Cream incorporates a variety of platforms and communities. Also has unique notification of the availability of limited time flavors Dave Erickson
This series, Social Media Innovators in the Midwest, profiles several business communicators in the Midwest, a place where innovation that’s practical gets high marks. I developed it in part because I believe that innovation is not limited to the few, or the brightest, but is born along a path of experience. Some on that path challenge convention to create innovation, some are innovative within the parameters of convention. The latter may well be a more difficult feat.
On my road trip to the South by SouthwestInteractive Festival, I thought of the enormous collection of ideas, opinions, and individuals that social media presents to our society. As a consultant in this field I’ve established relationships with many of them who are generous with the time and experiences. This makes everyone richer, which is recycled as others build upon and expand the conversation, keeping the community nourished.
I decided to turn the camera on a few of these individuals during this 3,000 mile journey from Minneapolis, through Des Moines, Omaha, Kansas City, and Wichita, to ask three general questions.
1) Why are you participating in social media?
2) Have we seen all the benefits social media can provide or are there more?
3) What types of innovation have your seen in the Midwest?
I hope you enjoy their commentary and this series, contribute to enrich the path, and share these videos as you see fit.
Nathan T. Wright – Lava Row
Nathan Wright, founder of the firm Lava Row, has his foundation in advertising, but saw the potential of incorporating social media to achieve business objectives for clients. Follow Nathan on Twitter as @nathantwright
Nathan has the perspective of small business and large corporations which is typical of the dynamic of the Midwest. Des Moines is home to high finance and agriculture, a fairly wide spectrum that gives Nathan a good view about the practical applications of technology.
Disclosure Credits:
I developed this series while on assignment for the Midwest region of Verizon Wireless. Verizon Wireless is an active participant in social media communities in the Midwest, follow Karen Smith on Twitter @karenVZW
Social media is at its best when people come together. That was the case when I met Joel Price, the manager of interactive services for the NFL’s San Diego Chargers at the February meeting of the Social Media Breakfast San Diego. Joel, who can also be found on Twitter @joelprice, is the guest on this episode of the Marketing Edge, which we produced on video. Joel takes us through some interesting topics around the tools they use including Twitter, Facebook, and even an efficient way to use Posterous as a news release distribution system.
Think of the unique challenges of social media in professional sports:
Vocal fan base (yes fans come in all sizes and dispositions on any given day)
Huge amount of content under a variety of licenses and parameters
Not the only game in town, these days there is intense competition for disposable income and sports is a entertainment/hospitality combination
The players themselves are social media celebrities
One might think it’s a double edged sword. Me thinks social media is not only perfect for sports, but mandatory. And here’s why:
It’s all about fans following the team and players, right? sound familiar
Candid conversation, from bars to talk radio, tailgates to multiplayer Xbox Madden draft day, bring on the topics. It’s the one category of conversation universally allowed to be raised in any venue, even church.
Personal brands, yes every player is one and the type of interaction players have with the fans will have an impact on revenue, don’t believe me, ask any parent who’s kid just got an autograph.
Tweeting while you work (game time) or about sensitive information (personnel changes before they are official) can be a dicey situation that require clear policy guidelines for sure. However, the overwhelming majority of the time, social media is a unique communications experience and an extension of what has gone in for a hundred years in sports. My father would tell me when growing up in New York, it would not be uncommon to see members of the Yankees, Giants, or Dodgers around town. Those days may be gone, but that’s where social media can bring the fans closer to the players and still accommodate the barriers erected by celebrity in the 21st century.
Some in professional sports are a bit confident and out spoken, no surprises here right? Ozzie Guillen, manager of the Chicago White Sox, was ruffling some feathers because of his Tweets. I say that’s a bit odd, you let the guy give press conferences, yet you are nervous about Twitter?
What’s your take, if you owned a team, what would your policy be for your players? Remember, every comment we get, Provident Partners gives a food item to a St. Paul, MN food shelter.
This podcast with the Social Media Explorer Jason Falls who is at South by Southwest highlights whether there is a new next big thing or not. Since SXSW is a place to unveil new technologies is there the next Twitter that will capture the fascination of early adopters. For Jason, his takeaways were inside the box and out in the cloud of computers sharing power around the world. He reports on exciting ways the chip manufacturer AMD is enhancing video and computer performance with new product sets.
The impact for marketers is to think visually. It’s similar to the change from dial-up to broadband. As the ability to distribute more information is available both to the desktop and the mobile device your ability to tell a more powerful story and create interactivity is enhanced.
This is an interview I found interesting with Charlie Rose and Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO Nvidia that paints, and I use that word almost literally if you can do such a thing, a future for the way society will share knowledge. It is one where the visual sense dominates and computer graphics that enhances the user experience and share greater knowledge is pushed to greater usage.
As a teenager when someone would say future, I interpreted that as a long time from the present. Today, when someone says future, especially when it involves technology, I think it’s couple of years and I’m going to have to deal with it. Now the ability to go from idea to usage is so fast that the things we are talking about in this podcast, are likely to be issues the typical marketer will need to address in the next two years.
Hope to See You at the NewComm Forum and InBound Marketing Summit
A terrific conference is scheduled for April 27-29 in San Francisco. It is a combination of the Society for New Communications Research of which I’m a senior fellow and the marketing conference produced by Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Paul Gillin and David Meerman Scott. Here is a $100 discount code for Marketing Edge readers and listeners, SNCRFRIEND if you only want to attend the New CommForum (see agenda) or if you want to attend the New CommForum and the InBound Marketing Summit use this code NCFCOMBO2 to get $200 off the listed price.
South by Southwest is the meeting of music, film, and interactive technologies. This makes it the perfect venue for Phil Wilson of Local Tone Radio in Minneapolis. The concept of Local Tone Radio is to feature local bands, allow website listeners to vote on the ones they like and essentially give greater exposure to bands who otherwise would have to work their way through the gatekeepers of radio stations. This concept of bypassing gatekeepers is something social media does very well. From using LinkedIn to by pass the regular screening of resumes to raising money without an ounce of ink or a single phone call, SXSW has an interactive track that discusses these disruptions.
We chat with Phil Wilson who can be followed on Twitter or on Minnov8 about how he is navigating the conference. Social media is causing many industries to take notice, and the music industry was among the first to feel the pressure from social sharing and the wisdom of crowds. Now bands sell their songs on MYSpace, and DJs, like my Twitter friend DJIRIE are business entities spinning unique mixes and branching off into merchandise and apparel.
The overriding issue that makes SXSW a “go to at least once” event is the integration of ideas, cultures, and innovation. From suits to shorts at the conference, new products and services are emerging from the synergies created in Austin, TX this week. But the irony here is that most of that knowledge is being shared online. Yeah, crazy I know, but much of the ideas in Austin on are online in discussions from Twitter, to Ustream, to blogs. Even more will fill the web in the coming weeks so stay tuned and connected to South by Southwest. Or follow the up to the Tweet action on this Twitter page using the SXSW keyword.
I have thought for a long time that for society to gain the maximum benefits from social media many current cultures in a typical corporate structure would need to change. From legal to finance, HR to PR, the ways of the last 100 years would need to change if transparency is to be rewarded, and improvement was to be an accepted continuing process.
I also believe that social media is more a movement than a marketplace. Not just a tool for someone to exploit, but an opportunity to engage in more of our shared humanity. Today, the actions of one courageous healthcare leader solidified that belief.
Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, has been a prolific blog writer since October 2006. Levy’s blog is called Running a Hospital.
On it he has had an open discussion about his hospital, its work, and his own performance. This openness about successes and failures has received acclaim in the press, praise from many and murmurs of dubious wonder from others. I know from speaking with many in healthcare during presentations and meetings there are some who wonder how Levy can get away with being so transparent.
It’s simple, he is about improving, every day, throughout his hospital, profession and life. He is also, it seems, sincere about caring for people, both those in the care of BIDMC and those employees who are on the frontlines of healthcare delivery. This has infected the other cultures around him so that they too are committed to a cause of caring in an environment that rewards improvement.
Paul Levy, President and CEO Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
credit Globestaff/Pat Greenhouse
This however, is not a rose colored glasses story about how social media is improving medicine, while it maybe true, this story is about how social media is making better people of us. It is a story about the human desire to be a part of something larger, to be acknowledged as of value and connecting to each other.
Levy doesn’t use corporate speak; his writing is about real situations, from surgery procedures to improving the use of protective equipment, from the joys of a moonlit backyard to numerous stories of hospital employees.
It is with this foundation of candor, this unprecedented transparency that Paul Levy stood at the front of an auditorium full of employees who came to hear his decision about laying off workers during difficult economic times.
Instead of an announcement, he asked for their opinion of a potential solution that may avoid layoffs. Levy travels his hospital corridors plenty, enough to know how many people it takes to deliver quality care. To keep the level of personnel that he believes necessary to deliver quality care, he asked the following as reported by Kevin Cullen of the Boston Globe.
“I’d like to do what we can to protect the lower-wage earners – the transporters, the housekeepers, the food service people. A lot of these people work really hard, and I don’t want to put an additional burden on them. “Now, if we protect these workers, it means the rest of us will have to make a bigger sacrifice,” he continued. “It means that others will have to give up more of their salary or benefits.”
The reaction according to Cullen was “Thunderous, heartfelt, sustained applause. “
The seeds of this applause were sown in the many places and people that Levy has touched. A fertile field for all to see is his blog with hundreds of posts. I believe this body of work, the hundreds of comments, and the dialogue he has participated in with patients, employees, supporters and critics are a measure of the man.
Which brings me to the cultures that need to change, for transparency to work in an organization, there needs to be a mutual respect and a commitment to improve. In reading the comments submitted to the blog from the Boston Globe story, listening is a major quality of Paul Levy. It’s not a coincidence that listening is also an important quality to have in a successful relationship and I believe social media is merely a channel for relationships.
Much of America has a very long way to go to eliminate the culture of “gotcha,” of confrontation, a culture of “keep the info, keep the power.” All these insecurities and tactics of greed will hinder the benefits of what social media can bring to an organization and our society. With each blog post, each honest answer to a criticism, each good idea raised and implemented, the organization becomes stronger.
This defining moment is an example of how powerful social media can be in the hands of people who are committed to make things better. Thank you Paul Levy and the wonderful people of BIDMC.
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