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Part of what a lot of companies are looking for in the social media space is to be able to integrate social media into their existing marketing efforts.  Before this can happen the company really needs to understand what their current marketing efforts.  I know this sounds intuitive but a lot of marketing is a “black box” for organizations and marketing “just is”.  I’m working with a client on socializing their existing marketing and integrating social media into their existing marketing efforts.  I thought I would create 2 off the cuff examples of how companies can “socialize” their current marketing:

Customer Purchase

Existing Marketing

Customer makes a purchase and at check-out receives a thank you email for purchasing from the company.  Sometimes this can be followed with a discount for a future purchase or a reminder to purchase something else in the future.

Socialized Marketing

Customer makes a purchase and upon checkout is asked to join the company facebook fan page to receive special offers, promotions, sneak peak items, etc.  In addition an email is sent to the customer with a link to the company twitter page should the customer have any questions or concerns with the product.  The option to  “tweet” the purchase is also given.

Visit to a website

Existing Marketing

Someone visits a site and is presented with standard information about a product or service.  If the visitor wants to ask a question or get more information about a product/service they are directed to a contact page where they can get in touch with a receptionist or someone at the company via phone/email.  The visitor is completely disconnected from any/all interaction directly with the company.  The visitor comes to the website and leaves…faceless and lost.

Socialized Marketing

Visitor comes to the website to find new and fresh content that is updated almost on a daily basis (thus the visitor has a reason to return).  The visitor has the option of commenting directly on most of the content that is shared on the site and can subscribe to and share the content.  In addition the visitor has the option to build a relationship with the company via social media channels such as twitter, facebook, and linkedin.  The visitor comes to the site and is now able to connect directly with the company to either purchase a product or get information for a purchase at a later time.  The visitor is retained instead of lost.

These are just two examples that I could think of off the top of my head at 1 am but I’m hoping that you understand what I’m getting at here.  Most marketing is about one way broadcasting.  Companies need to examine all of their marketing and client touch points to see how these one way broadcast messages can be transformed into relationship building conversations.  There are a lot of wasted opportunities  to build valuable relationships and communities with companies’ clients and prospects.  The next time you visit a company site or receive any type of marketing information think about how it can be socialized or made interactive.  How can a company build a relationship with you and bring you in to be a part of their community?

Do you have any other examples or ideas, I’d love to hear them!

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The amount of time that people are spending watching online videos is increasing, as is the amount of videos that are being created online.  When most people think of online video they think of site such as youtube, metacafe, viddler, vimeo, etc. which are all great online video sources.  As we move toward more mass adoption for video, statistics and analytics are going to become more crucial.  This is why I want to encourage anyone that is going to get involved with video to use TubeMogul.

After I got a bunch of interviews at a Wordcamp event that I attended in San Francisco I wanted to publish the videos online to various video sites.  Essentially I had two options.  Go to every video site and upload them manually or find some sort of an aggregator that lets me upload videos to multiples sites through one interface, thankfully I found the latter.

According to TubeMogul:

“TubeMogul is the first online video analytics and distribution company serving publishers large and small who need independent information about video performance on the Internet and automated upload to the Web’s top video sharing sites.”

Usually when you upload a video to a site such as youtube you are given access to a few basic stats and as mentioned above if you want to distribute your video you need to do so individually across individual platforms.  TubeMogul solves both of those problems.  You can see from the below screenshots that Tubemogul gives you more detailed stats than standard video distribution platforms do.

When uploading a video to TubeMogul you have the ability to select what platforms you want the video distributed to, i.e. youtube, myspace, metacafe, viddler, etc.  You can also control all of the tagging and meta information for all of the video platforms through one interface.

The level of functionality and insights that you can get for your videos is really quite amazing.  If you are in the video space then TubeMogul needs to be your best friend, oh and it’s free.  Check out the TubeMogul page for more info on their features.  Think of Google Analytics for video, that’s TubeMogul.  So to recap:

• more detailed analytics solution for video
• multi-platform video distribution from one interface
• control all meta data and information from one interface
• more effecient then uploading one video to multiple sites manually
• get neat charts and reporting functionality
• it’s FREE

Hope you find TubeMogul useful!

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I’ve been meaning to write a post like this for a while.  It’s great to follow the big name people and celebrities out there but there are a lot of extremely sharp and smart folks out there that definitely don’t get enough credit.  One post definitely does not do justice so I’m sure I am going to have several follow up posts.  So without further adieu here are some of the people that I think you should definitely get connected with.

Christopher Peri

Chris runs a site called Perivision.net and is by far one of the smartest people I know, not just from a technical standpoint but also from a business standpoint.  Chris has a very eclectic background ranging from getting a PHd from Berkley in architecture to running several of his own companies to building twittfilter to being the CTO of Mashable and a NASA employee (yes, NASA).  Think of a mad scientist who likes to test and build things, add a ton of business acumen, put on a dash of visionary, mix in some fun and you essentially get Chris Peri.  I have the pleasure of knowing Chris for a little while now and like to say I hang out with him on a regular basis.  Want to learn something (like I do every time I meet up with him)?  Follow this man on twitter, you will be happy you did.

Adam Singer

Apart from having kick ass taste in music (much like my own) Adam also runs The Future Buzz and has just started with Lee Odden at Top Rank Marketing (congrats buddy!)  Although I’ve never met Adam in person I have definitely chatted with him extensively online and have been reading his stuff for a while.  Adam has a unique spin on social media and marketing.  His content is a mix of practicality, strategy, logic, and creativity.  Adam doesn’t usually write about what everyone else is writing about which is what I love (I try to do the same).  If you’re not following Adam already then you should!

David Spinks

I know what you’re thinking, he has a porn star name right?  Ya, that’s what I thought.  Porn star or not (he’s not, unless he’s not telling me something), David is a smart fellow that runs David Spinks.com (no, not a porn site), is the community manager for Scribnia, oh, and he also guest blogs over at Mashable.  Although David doesn’t write as often as I’d like (around 1x a week, boo!) when he does write, he puts out some great though provoking content.  I’ve also never met David in person but rest assured I’ve been chatting with him online for a while now and I can safely say he’s another person that you should be following.

Arnt Eriksen

Arnt live in Norway and drives a red Ducatti, if that’s not reason enough to follow him then I don’t know what is.  Arnt works for Recommended in Norway and is currently their interactive art director and social media strategist, which basically means he’s a busy fellow.  Arnt also has his own site that he runs at Arnt Eriksen.com.  I’ve also never met Arnt but like several of the folks mentioned above I’ve definitely been chatting with Arnt for a while.  Arnt looks at the world through creative and strategic eyes and I can tell you from personal interaction that he loves working with, meeting, and helping people.  I’m hoping that I will have the pleasure of working with Arnt in the near future on a few projects.  Arnt has a positive outlook on life and the world and is a real pleasure to interact with.  If you’re not already connected with Arnt then you know what to do!

There are many other people that I could write about on here, but alas this post is already getting long.  I will try to several other such posts in the future to highlight amazing people that I think you should follow and connect with online.  In the meantime connect with these folks.

Who is your unsung hero that you think people need to know about?

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I found this on Digg a few weeks ago and thought it’s a great example of what I’m referring to.  Recently Dominos started aggressive marketing campaigns for a new product of theirs called the Dominos Pasta Bread Bowl (on a side note, I’m a bit of a health nut and looking at this things makes me feel uneasy, but that’s beside the point).  I’m sure you have all seen commercials or ads for this new bread bowl, if not, let me remind you what this so called food item looks like…according to Dominos.

mmmm delicious right?

So this product looks great after it’s been photoshoped, air-brushed, and perfected to bits.  But, what does this thing actually look like when you order it?

Well here’s what a Dominos customer received when he ordered his “bread bowl”

Remember that movie “the blob?”  that’s all I’m going to say…

Does every Dominos bread bowl look like this?  I sure as heck hope not.

So what’s the point of all of this?

Oftentimes when we create a product or service we look at it through color corrected and perfected eyes, aka the eyes of the company.  What we see and experience and what a customers sees and experiences can be two very different things.  This is a problem for obvious reasons.  Whether you’re a consultant or work for a fortune 100 company you have to remember to look at things from the point of view of the customer.  The problem you THINK you are solving or the service you THINK you are providing may not actually be the same one that the customer sees.

Applying this directly to social media, this means asking your customers what they want and where they exist before you begin creating a social media campaign.  If you start joining twitter and facebook just so that you can send out discount offers to your product then you might think you’re giving your customers something great, but guess what, from the customers point of view, you’re giving them a whole lot of nothing.

Have any other examples?  What are your thoughts on this?

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With all of the new social media and marketing terms floating around the web it’s easy to lose track of the actual business terms that we should be using when talking about…business.  It doesn’t matter if you’re talking to a business or talking to someone about business, at the end of the day you need to remember that it’s still about BUSINESS.  This means that if I ask you about ROI and you respond in terms of links and traffic that I can tell you’re a bit nuts (or drunk).  Having said that, I decided to put together a little list of some business terms that I think we all need to remember.

Return on Investment (ROI)

A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments.

ROI = (Gain from Investment - Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment

Profit

A financial benefit that is realized when the amount of revenue gained from a business activity exceeds the expenses, costs and taxes needed to sustain the activity.

Profit = Total Revenue - Total Expenses

Revenue

The amount of money that a company actually receives during a specific period, including discounts and deductions for returned merchandise.  It is the “top line” or ”gross income” figure from which costs are subtracted to determine net income.

Revenue is calculated by multiplying the price at which goods or services are sold by the number of units or amount sold.

Profit Margin

A ratio of profitability calculated as net income divided by revenues, or net profits divided by sales.  It measures how much out of every dollar of sales a company actually keeps in earnings.

Brand

A name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.  The legal term for brand is trademark.  A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller.

Brand Image

The perception of your product or your brand by the consumer.

The Eighty-Twenty Rule

A rule-of-thumb that, for the typical product category, eighty percent of the products sold will be consumed by twenty percent of the customers.

Unique Selling Proposition

The unique product benefit that the competition can not claim.

Social Media

Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content.

Have any others you think are important?  (I know there are tons but I tried to keep this simple).

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