Social media and the new 30 second spot

As a direct marketer by inclination and a 1to1 marketing consultant increasingly involved with social media, I have a growing sense of unease.

This concern stems from a growing belief that the ‘new’ generation of marketers, those enamoured of social media, are ignoring a key lesson of the last 20 years of relationship marketing… The critical marketing asset for a company is the customer relationship and relationships are rarely anonymous.

The 10 notable incidents for Social Media in 2009 – a personal review

Here we are in the run-up to Christmas and the New Year, so I thought I would jot down the things that I found amusing, noteworthy or just plain strange about the business we are in for the past year. A personal list and personal opinions...

10 signs your company is ready for social media

Take this little quiz to see if your organisation is ready for a customer community or conversational marketing;

  1. There is a process in place to constantly measure customer satisfaction&sentiment. Not just on-line and not the annual customer satisfaction survey. Regular sampling. Y/N
  2. Management calls a number of customers, happy and unhappy each day or week as part of their regular duties. Y/N
  3. You have a social media policy for staff that as a starting point assumes they are already participating. Y/N

Google sidewiki: encyclopedia, conversation or graffiti?


WTF micro-blogging on mictro-blogging?

ROFL: micro-blogging on micro-blogging?

Why guess when you can know?*

estimation

Online Community Managers: Do you have the passion?

ReadWriteWeb's Guide to Online Community Management... is an interesting mashup of news, views and resources on the emerging role of Community Manager. Unfortunately not a free (open source) offering but interesting nonetheless.

I figure Community Management is one role worth keeping tabs on - afterall, we are the "least connected we will ever be" - as Don Peppers reminded several of us recently.

Social media strategy: not the Marketing Department alone

Forrester have published a pretty good taxonomy, based on the business objectives you have, for branded online communities. Communities can be set up for you to;

  1. Listen to your customers
  2. Talk to your customers
  3. Energise your advocates
  4. Support your customers (or let them support each other)

In a connected world marketers need ... nectar

We occasionally (and happily) hear exponents of social media remind us that marketing cannot actually make up for poor products and services - (for any length of time of course), customers eventually and inevitably wake up to shonkey products. In the past, the lag between marketing claim and customers voting in mass with their wallet was often long enough for snake oil salesmen to make a good living - as long as they kept moving, negative communication was inefficient and they kept finding new customers.

They don't make markets like that anymore.

The Business of Believing

"The market for something to believe in is unlimited..." (Hugh McLeod)

And guess what, that new fangled thing - the internet and its social media offspring - just lowered the threshold on entry to that market!

Storytelling

Don Peppers - a walking mash-up?

Don mashing-up marketing as we watch

Don mashing-up marketing as we watch

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