Engaging with and empowering your customers as an extension of your marketing efforts isn’t new. However, in the era of Social Media, there are new tools and philosophies to more effectively listen and engage with customers and in turn, cultivate a more significant community, enhance your brand, build relationships, and hopefully create evangelists along the way. Participation is marketing. Intention is everything. Actions speak louder than words. Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t about spam or doing what marketing seems…
Social Media is Not The Final Frontier of Marketing
Pierre Far has a thoughtful post asking whether or not Social Media is the final frontier of marketing. He concludes that if you could answer the question, then you might be the next Seth Godin. Well, not even Google can help me turn up the consensus on the subject. However, the Holy Grail of marketing is an active discussion. To be fair, Pierre’s path to staging the original question and exploring potential answers is interesting and insightful. The history of…
PR People: Do As I Say, and, As I Do
…bloggers, reporters, that goes for you too. Tom Foremski and me at a recent PRSA event, holding “Now is Gone” You’ve heard it a million times. Read the work of the person you’re trying to reach before you pitch them. Sometimes we do. Most of the time we don’t. And, we’ve all witnessed what happens when you don’t – thank you very much Mr. Chris Anderson. Tom Foremski is not only a brilliant journalist, videographer, and blogger, he is also…
The Value of Online Conversations
No, blogs are not dying. No, blogs are not going away. Blogs will continue to serve as one of the driving forces for the democratization of how content is created, shared, and also internalized. All forms of user-generated content will continue to excel…maybe to a fault. In conjunction with how blogs are continuing to influence the evolution of online conversations, micromedia is also inspiring new forms content creation and in turn, contributing to the spike of mostly irrelevant conversations. Steve…
New ebook: The Art and Science of Blogger Relations
Happy New Year everyone! The discussion around blogger relations is more relevant now than ever. And quite honestly, with every debate, exploration, and analysis, these conversations only fuel the advancement and improvement of Public Relations overall. It makes us think. Lest we forget, there is a significant percentage of bloggers, reporters, and analysts who think we’re useless – we’re merely spin artists who focus on pitching, blasting, and cranking out poorly written press releases. We contact people without caring or…
Now is Gone, Now Available
Wow. It’s real. Now is Gone is now officially available. The book that Geoff Livingston and I worked on together is finally out there and I am humbled. It’s currently available on Amazon and Bartleby Press (autographed edition). For those on the West Coast, we’ll be hosting a launch party in early December and for those on the East Coast, we’ll see you in either December or January. Thank you Geoff for this opportunity and thank you to everyone out…
Conversational Marketing Versus Market Conversations
The much discussed and highly revered Cluetrain Manifesto is proving to be more relevant than ever. As Social Media becomes more pervasive in marketing, it’s imperative that we become gatekeepers to prevent opportunistic marketers from bankrupting the conversation economy. As someone noted, aren’t all marketers opportunistic? Yes and no. It’s the difference between leveraging an opportunity because you can bring value to the discussion vs. selling an opportunity simply because you can capitalize on it. Jakob Nielsen added a unique…
Defining Social Media
After publishing, “The Social Media Manifesto, A Manifesto for Integrating Social Media into Marketing,” I decided to take a short break. I wanted it to reside online for people to discover before it was pushed down the page with every post to follow. Afterall, we do have a very short attention span these days and the important posts that exist across the blogosphere are unfortunately quickly forgotten. But that’s the point of the manifesto. There are conversations taking place across…
