Marketing Today

Who's Doing Social Media in the ProductCamp Crowd?

Steve Robins led a great session on Social Mediaat ProductCamp this past Saturday in Cambridge, MA.  I found it interesting to be in a crowd of product marketing folks from organizations of all sizes with the opportunity to see where they were with social media.  Its fascinating to see social media programs start in "old school" organizations and that attitude of employees towards adopting change or hiding from it.  Here are my notes from this session.

We all agreed that an effective social media program begins with your organization’s goals.  But, when the group was asked what their goals were, there were a variety of answers that included:

• We want to gather market requirements
• We want to gather leads
• We want to make sure that we aren't getting burned "out there"
• We want to hear what people are saying about our competition
• We know people are doing their research online so we want to make sure our information is there
• We want more evangelists for our products

These are all good goals, but in a big organization (or even a mid-size one), chances are these goals fall under different departments and no one stepped up to say that they were coordinated across their organization with a company-wide social media strategy.

So where should an organization start?  How about by listening before you start talking?  Everyone agreed that "Frank" at Comcast Cares on Twitter was doing a great job at staying ahead of the pack on customer complaints online. Why?  Because he asks "how can I help?" to diffuse the emotion and to change the conversation. 

We also agreed that just because the world is on Twitter doesn't mean that your company belongs on Twitter.  There's nothing worse that jumping into social media without a strategy so that when some sort of action occurs, you're not prepared to respond.  An example that Joseline Manebrought up was with Sprint. Last spring, there new CEO ran ads with his e-mail address on it asking for customer response.  When folks accepted his invitation and start writing in, they received an auto-response e-mail.  Talk about a way to backfire your campaign!

In all, about a third of the crowd said that they were using social media in some fashion within their organizations.  When asked how it was working, no one jumped up and said "Fantastic!"  Instead, we heard that it takes a financial and resource commitment and until my company is ready to commit to that, we can't start a social media program.  And, that social media is something that you need to measure so that you can demonstrate success to senior management for buy-in. 

While I think that the ProductCamp crowd was conservative, I think their approach towards adopting social media is typical of many organizations today.  They get that they need to be doing it and they want to learn more, but they are hoping that someone else will figure it out for them and tell them what to do.

Read Inbound Marketing Because The Rules of Marketing Have Changed

The rules of marketing have changed.  Marketing today is a combination of traditional marketing methods strategically pushing the message out coupled with online marketing methods that strategically reel in your prospects.  So, how do you build and execute a marketing plan that best meets your business goals?  Get your hands on Inbound Marketing for starters.

Hubspot co-founders, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, have written THE book on how to get found using Google, social media, and blogs.  Inbound Marketing begins with a refresher on how customers shopping behavior has changed.  It goes on to discuss how your website needs to be a marketing hub that attracts your customers rather than an online marketing brochure that talks at your customers.  The book moves on to give ideas on how to get found online and then how to convert prospects into customers.

By reading Inbound Marketing, you will be able to: 

• Hire the right people to market your organization most effectively
• Improve your rankings in Google and other search engines to get more traffic
• Build and promote a blog for your business that is integrated into other your online marketing
• Grow and nurture a community in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
• Measure what matters and learn to do more of what works online

My Inbound Marketing Experience

As for me, I've learned a lot reading the book.  And, I've already been to two Inbound Marketing Summits and I put online marketing methods into practice every day for myself and my clients.  I am constantly learning about inbound marketing all because a) there are so many new tools that seem to come out every day, and b) I have to constantly test what's working and what's not in order to readjust my online marketing to keep it effective.

More interesting than what I've learned from this book, watching my friend Jennifer, who runs a local gift shop, learn as she reads her copy of Inbound Marketing.  Everything she learns is immediately put into use on her website, her Facebook page, and her Twitter account.  She's found the Hubspot site and has been running Graders on everything!  (I probably shouldn't confess this, but now we both talk online stats, stats, and more stats until we realize that anyone else who tried to join our conversation walked off about five minutes before we noticed.) 

Inbound Marketing book specs:

Hardcover: 256 pages

Publisher: Wiley (October 19, 2009)

Language: English

Price (on Amazon):  $16.47 (discounted from $24.95)

Lots to Learn from the 2009 Inbound Marketing Summit

I just got back from the Inbound Marketing Summit in Boston.  This was my second year to attend. Except for the part where I got food poisoning on Day 2, I learned an awful lot and had fun doing it.  There were 21 sessions crammed into two days and while some sessions were naturally better than others, there was something to take away from all of them.  Here are a few things I learned:

What Hash Jacking Is

Like any tech conference these days, the event had a hashtage - #IMS09 - so that we could all tweet about the event and see our comments all in one place on Twitter.  As the event started trending high for tweets, a porn site found us and began using our hash tag to post their images and 140-character messages too.  This, I learned is called "hash jacking" and made for some interesting tweets!

Case Studies Still Make A Subject Real

The most interesting presentations for me where real world examples of how folks are integrating new social media tools into their traditional marketing programs.  We had some great presentations from Gary Vaynerchuck, author of Crush It!, on how to turn your ideas into business using the Internet the way he did for his wine business.  Greg Matthewsof Humana Consumer Innovation gave a presentation on who Humana is using social media to execute their strategy of changing health care from a focus on sickness to a focus on wellness.  It is an example of a social business from the inside out.  Most fun of the case studies was Paula Berg of Southwest Airlines who is "nuts about online communication."  From the video of the rapping flight attendant to stories of the highs and lows Southwest has had with social media, Paula showed how Southwest Airlines has learned to leverage social media to support company initiatives.

Why Online Marketers Publish Dead Tree Books

After listening to purposely controversial presentations by online marketers stating that PR is dead; advertising is dead; within 10 years face-to-face meetings will be dead, I tweeted " Why is it that everyone making a name for themselves in online social media comes out with a dead tree book? #ims09"  Shortly, there after, I heard from my friend W. Curtis Preston (known in the computer storage world as "Mr. Backup") who tweeted back "@cgunst bcs deadtree books are still where the money is (I have both & the $ from paper exceeds online by at least ordr of mag.)".  PR, advertising, and conferences are not dead, they are evolving.  Curtis is right in that the money is with the printed word not the blog although Twitter, blogs, online videos, etc. are a great way to build relationships with your base and spread the word.

Will I Go Again Next Year?

Inbound marketing has come a long way even in the last year as it becomes more mainstream and is more widely integrated into the marketing mix.  I left the conference with enough dead tree reading materials in the form of:  101 Content Marketing Tips, Putting the Public Back Into Public Relations, Inbound Marketing, and Trust Agents that I'll still be reading by next year's conference.  Seriously, we'll see were marketing is at this time next year.  With luck, my marketing consulting business, Gunst & Associates will take off and I'll get called in as a speaker!  Now, that would be fun! 

Happy 20th Birthday World Wide Web!

This month celebrates the 20th anniversary of the World Wide Web.  Given all that has changed because of the Internet, it seems like it must have been around longer than that doesn't it?

My First Web Experience

I was working in product marketing for desktop applications at Lotus when I got my first demo of the web in 1993 from Reed Sturtevant who was working with Lotus Notes at the time.  He told me that the Internet was going to be big and I believed him because I believe everything Reed says.  I have to say though, that when he demoed it to me, there wasn't a whole lot out there to look at.  It wasn't long before we had a company website up that was originally run by the PR department and treated like electronic marcomm.  After the purchase of Lotus by IBM, I was itching to go work for an Internet startup so I volunteered for every project we had that involved the Internet because, like Reed, I'd caught on that the World Wide Web was going to be big.

The World Wide Web Changed Everything

When's the last time you called a travel agent?  Read the print edition of a newspaper?  Went to the library to read back issues of Consumer Reports when you were looking to buy something?  It's been a while, hasn't it?  In the last 20 years, we've gotten whole businesses created around selling our junk online (eBay); posting movies online (YouTube); finding old classmates and friends (Facebook); blogging (Typepad) and microblogging (Twitter).  The web has created a whole new vocabulary for us.

Here's to Twenty More Great Years

Who would have guessed that when I first got my first demo of the Internet 16 years ago, that I'd personally own four URLs today?  Or that I'd create two websites by myself?  Who would have predicted that AOL would die off slowly only to get replaced by Facebook and other online community sites?  Who would have dreamed up microblogging on Twitter?  Who can say what's coming next?  People say that technology has pulled us out of the last few recessions.  Hopefully, new innovation on the web by entrepreneurs will pull us out of the current recession.  I can't wait to see what's coming next! 

Got $100? Start a business online!

So often, I have friends tell me about a great idea that they have for an online business, but that they don't know how to get started.  I always tell them to just give it a shot and see how it goes.  The journey is the reward.

I headed up PR & marketing for four decorator show houses in a 10 year period and had a lot of knowledge in my head as to how to make these fund raisers successful.  So, I started a little business called ShowHouse 101.  For under $100, I bought the URL on Network Solutions and used their templates to create a simple website.  Next I went to Vistaprint and bought business cards and address labels.  And, then I built a database of 100 people who I thought might be interested in my expertise; wrote them a letter and that I customized and sent out a mailing.

What did I get?  A call from a nice man in Cape Cod who was on the board of a not-for-profit who got my letter and had some questions as to how to handle in fighting by volunteers on a project like a show house because that's what he was dealing with.

What did I learn?  For $100, I learned that I had an idea that was interesting, but that wasn't anything to build a business around.  Not-for-profits don't always think like businesses when they start out to plan a major fund raiser.  Often they chose to just trouble shoot issues throughout the project and wait for a white knight to come in and bail them out.  And, not-for-profits don't pay what corporations pay for consulting work.

Got an idea for a business?  Test out your idea simply.  Research doesn't always have to be a cumbersome process.  For $100 these days, you can make yourself look pretty legitimate while you see if your idea has any merit.

Hey, my website was graded a "C"

At The Art Connection, we just launched a new website in August, 2008.  As a board member interested in making my not-for-profit more professional looking, I spearheaded the project and wrote the copy for the site.  Boston Interactive created the site and did a wonderful job that we're really pleased with.

When I learned about the free "Webgrader" tool from Hubspot, I just had to try it on our new site.  We scored 70 out of 100.  And the reasons why are pretty interesting.

Metadata Minefield

Apparently, we have way too much metadata.  Our description is too long and we have way too many meta keywords.  And, being an organization that is focused on art, we have way too many images on our home page.  What does this mean in English?  It means our Google ranking is low and we don't even have a Yahoo entry.  I'm happy to report that the readibility level is for secondary/high school level.

Social Media Could Be Better

Shame on me for killing the blog last week since I was the only one contributing to it.  Blogs are a great way to shift marketing from outbound to inbound because they are a great way to interact with customers.  They're also great for the search engines because they love searching for new content.  We only got 3 del.icio.us bookmarks and 0 Diggs which means that we don't have a great web presence outside of our own site.

Improving Our Website Grade

Hey, nothing I like better than a challenge!  I'll be downloading the free Hubspot Internet Marketing Kit next to learn how to improve our website grade.  I'll just bet the first step is in refreshing the content on our pages and resurrecting that blog again.  That will teach me!

Hello? Hey, It's the Web 2.0 Clue Phone!

I spent today at the IDC Decisions 2008 conference in Boston and really enjoyed it.  This is an annual event that's run on the West Coast one week and the East Coast the following week.  While the title of the event was "Tech X.0:  Mastering New Business Models and Markets," I gotta tell you it should have just been called "Get on the Web 2.0 bus." 

According to the Wikipedia (which could change tomorrow), "Web 2.0 is a trend in World Wide Web technology, and web design, a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies, which aim to facilitate creativity, information sharing, collaboration, and sharing among users."  At the Social Networking breakfast session, we discussed ways in which individuals use Web 2.0 technologies to find like-minded people, develop trusted relationships, and to share information in the consumer world and how social networking has made it's way to the enterprise world.

When I chatted with IDC analyst Rachel Happe after her presentation, she mentioned that the most forward thinking companies are out there monitoring their own blogs and others to see what people are saying about their products/services, and she gave Dell as a good example of that.  I asked if there were any recommendations to follow in the Web 2.0 world for the enterprise.  I shared with her that the rules around e-mail marketing always used to be that it only takes one e-mail to ruin your brand with your customers.  She said that direct e-mail campaigns are an example of one-way marketing.  Social networking is really two-way marketing.  "It's a way to learn what your customers are thinking.  Everyone knows there's going to be some negative feedback out there.  The point is that you're responding to the good and the bad and that you're having a two-way conversation with your customers."  By just being there, you're showing your customers that you hear what they say and that you are responding to it.

In chatting with my peers during the breaks and at lunch, I learned that almost all of them have some sort of social networking going on.  A former colleague of mine from Lotus, Joyce Maroney, told me about the Workforce Institute blog that she does for Kronos, a firm that delivers software and services to help organizations manage their workforce.   In February, Kronos did a poll with Harris Interactive focusing on how organizations deal with extreme weather with their workforce. They presented the results of the poll in a press release and they linked to the release from the blog entry that also talked about the results.  Both the blog and the release linked to a video of Bostonians talking about how extreme weather affects their commute and their work life.  What happened next?  Kronos got press pick up from the Boston Business Journal, AP newswire, and others.  And, Joyce was quoted in several of the articles!  The blog also started a dialog with readers who left comments because they could relate to the hassles of getting to work in bad weather and wanted to share that experience with others.  The comments lead to more subscribers to the RSS feeds of folks who wanted future entries automatically sent to them.

Is Web 2.0 for you?  Well, that's really not a "yes" or "no" question.  In these days of shrinking marketing budgets and declining results from the former tried-and-true methods of reaching customers like trade shows and expensive boondoggles, how can an enterprise not utilize the web to take the social networking that exists in the consumer space and leverage it for business and enterprise relationships?  If you're not there, figure out how to get there.  Chances are your customers and competitors already are.