Marketing in 2010 (free eBook)

When we talk about brand awareness, consciously or not, we correlate "brand" with one specific phase in the marketing funnel. Many have defined brand as a set of expectations and experiences.

These in turn generate stories we identify with as we develop our relationship with the brand and the company and people who represent it in our minds and interactions over time. Brands that set themselves apart command a premium.

Brand impact in valuation has been a challenging, but not impossible, feat to measure. It's a mixture of qualitative and quantitative data collected about the brand's public profile, its present role in creating demand, and its future strength as an asset.

I equate brand with the infrastructure upon which everything else sits. It needs to contain the integrity of a good reputation, the capacity for trust, the flexibility for evolution over time, and the simplicity to be understood and infused with your customers and employees stories.

Applications like sales, product development, engineering, customer support, and all of the other functions you associate with operating a company sit on that infrastructure and borrow from its characteristics.

Brand also includes the environment or context a company builds around itself to operate, its culture.

This is the sum total of rites, stories, and dynamics that bind people, inside and outside the organization. It includes channel partners and joint ventures. It may also include vendor relationships. An important point to consider as the service and media industries continue to consolidate.

Now think about social. Through the tools we have at our disposal we extend the reach of those interactions and experiences. The results flow back into how we think about our products and services (or they should). The stories your brand creates extend it beyond the company walls and, by reflection, deep inside them.

Execution in social media enriches brands and the people or tribes that make them work. It means you are changing the world and allowing the world to change you as a business in commensurate parts, while you interact with it.

What are the ingredients of this exchange that make social operational?

1. Tribe and networks (people)
2. Direction or compass (objectives)
3. Action and outcomes (measurable goals)
4. Maps (strategies)
5. Tools and tactics (media)

Engagement and outcome derive from the active - and continuous - participation of individuals and groups in the knowledge flows - within their tribes, and outside them. We constantly evaluate, consider, test, experience, adopt and filter information and ideas while we get them and us done.

How can we use these connection points between ideas and people to change businesses and their stories? This is the question for 2010 - social media becomes operational. Read on.

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Thanks go to the generous contributors: Jason Baer, Olivier Blanchard, Danny Brown, Mark Earls, Rachel Happe, Gavin Heaton, Jackie Huba, Jonathan MacDonald, Amber Naslund, Shannon Paul.

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Download the free Marketing in 2010 eBook here.

Source: http://www.conversationagent.com/2009/12/marketing-in-2010-free-ebook.html

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Marketing in 2010 eBook from Valeria Maltoni

December 18, 2009

Perhaps better known as the Conversation Agent,  Valeria Maltoniis one of the most respected marketers around. Her views are much sought after by the likes of  Fast Company,  Marketing Profs and the  Blog Herald to name just a few.
She’s also a hugely popular speaker on marketing, new media and conversations between brands and customers, and has one of the most respected blogs over at Conversation Agent by Valeria Maltoni.
She’s just published a free eBook entitled Marketing in 2010 – social media becomes operational, which looks at how you can move your marketing and social media efforts from theory to full-on operational and tactical. To do this, Valeria gathered some of the brightest minds in marketing and social media today:
Jason Baer, Olivier Blanchard, Mark Earls, Rachel Happe, Gavin Heaton, Jackie Huba, Jonathan MacDonald, Amber Naslund and Shannon Paul.
Valeria was also kind enough (or simply temporarily mad!) to invite me to share my thoughts. So you can find me talking about Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. Yes… all these smart brains and I’m talking Looney Tunes. Plus ca change…
Anyway, the eBook is a great collection of varying views on how you can turn social media operational next year, and a great resource to turn to to help you meet some of your goals. So stop reading me and head on over to Valeria’s blog to check it out and download it.

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Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day

By Ruth M. Shipley
Published December 4, 2009

Suppose you met an experienced marketing consultant who promised to give you one-hour assignments five days a week for three months to teach you a brand-new marketing channel.

And the result was a detailed marketing plan for that channel.

Suppose the marketing channel was social media? And suppose he only charged you $30?

Would you accept his offer? I thought you might.

The consultant is Dave Evans, a communications expert who now focuses on using social media to market goods and services. His 400-page book is Social Media Marketing an Hour a Day. Here’s a comprehensive review of some of the main tips from this excellent book.

This book could be used as the textbook for a college course on social media marketing. If you think of it and use it that way, you should be an expert social media marketer by the time you “graduate.”

If you have a traditional advertising or marketing background, you will love this book. You don’t have to abandon your other marketing channels!

“The social web is not an advertising platform per se, but is rather an adjunct to what you’re doing elsewhere,” Evans says. “Use TV, radio, direct mail, sports, and event marketing to seed the conversations, to set the expectations and to create the beginnings of a demand. Then tap social media and the conversations generated by direct experience with your brand, product or service to reinforce your messages based on the genuine interest and comments of others.”

Part 1: The Foundation of Social Media

The book is divided into four parts. In the first part of the book, Evans talks about traditional “interruptive” advertising. The advertiser “pushes” product information out to a mass audience and hopes people notice it. Ads have to interrupt you in order to get your attention.

But on the social web, spam filters and popup blockers show that consumers are getting tired of interruptive ads. They still want product information, but only when they need it.

Evans talks about the “purchase funnel,” where consumers first become aware of a product/service, then they consider buying it and then they buy it. For the first time in advertising history, people who bought a product/service can give their opinion of it to a total stranger on the other side of the planet who is considering buying it!

In other words, that post-purchase opinion feeds back on the consideration phase that other consumers are in. So before I even buy a product, I can see what people all over the world think about it.

Part 2: Prepare for Social Marketing

Evans then introduces marketers who know nothing about social media to all of the basic tools such as blogs, wikis, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Delicious, RSS, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn. You must use each tool and answer several questions about it. Evans even gives you worksheets in an appendix for each assignment.

He gives more detail about the effect of social feedback on the purchase funnel. He introduces BlogSearch, BlogPulse, Planet Feedback and other metrics you can use to measure the online conversations about your product/service. He talks about creating touchpoint maps. He tells you to find customers who can be evangelists for your product or service.

And you start rethinking how you can use social media to promote your product/service. You cannot control your message and reputation in social media, but you can influence it. That’s your primary job.

“Your customers are already talking about you,” says Evans. “Marketers, ignore your invitation to participate in the conversation at your own peril. This is your chance to be part of it and to influence the outcome through your participation.”

Part 3: Social Media Channels

This is the “meatiest” part of the book. Evans describes in detail:

• Social platforms such as wikis, Facebook, MySpace and other online communities
• Social content such as blogs, microblogs, photos, podcasts and videos
• Social interactions such as email, SMS/texting, status updates and event notices

And he encourages you to experiment with all of these tools, as he has throughout the book. He even encourages you to subscribe to his FriendFeed stream, which might not be a bad idea if you want to stay in touch with your social media marketing mentor.

Part 4: Complete Your Plan

Evans talks more about metrics in this part. He describes Blogsearch, BlogPulse, Cymfony, Techrigy, DIYDashboard and Google Alerts. You can even track your competitors and suppliers.

He talks about audience, influence, engagement, loyalty, action, content metrics, relevance metrics, impact metrics and ROI. It may be difficult to link a conversation about your company in the blogosphere with a visit to your website, but you can make an educated guess.

The final chapter encourages you to define your opportunity, select your channels, select your metrics and write and present your plan to corporate executives.

Yes, this book was written for Fortune 500 companies who have a sales and marketing department, an IT department and maybe even a chief marketing officer (CMO).

But a sole proprietor may still benefit from this book, if he or she can find the time to spend three months in the process! Here’s what Evans says about that: “The social web is all about relationships, and relationships take time—and information—to build.”

He scatters social media resources throughout the book. Fortunately, he includes a list of all the social media sites he mentions in the book in an appendix. And he summarizes the main points at the end of each chapter.

“The Internet and the communities that ride on it [have] become the ‘first place’ for a whole lot of people,” he says. “As a marketer, you really need to be there. The social web, used correctly, is all about what your community of supporters can do to help you build your business.”

Social Media Examiner gives this book a 5-star rating.

Related article on Social Media Examiner: 3 New Social Media Studies Worth Reading

Have you read this book? Do employ some of these tactics? I welcome your comments below!

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Top 5 Must-Read Social Media Books

Steve Cunningham is the CEO of Polar Unlimited, a digital marketing agency. To win a signed and personalized copy of each of the books mentioned here, visit Read It For Me.

So you want to get up to speed fast on the latest social media thinking. Maybe give your colleague, boss or friend a dose of new social strategies. But where to start? Amazon nicely suggests 44,444 titles that they would be delighted to overnight direct to your bookshelf. Ummm, no thanks. Fortunately, you’ve got your own social media fairy right here. (Hi!) We’ve already done the hard part for you, and have narrowed down those 44,444 titles to 5 killer must-reads that can get you on the road to social media stardom. Abracadabra!

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5 Social Media Lessons

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This story is magically formatted for 2 types of people: readers and watchers. Look up for the video, or scroll down for the text. Magic. You’ll learn why trust is the new currency, from Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, how the social media revolution has “turned the bullhorn around” from Tara Hunt, the two pillars of social media success from Mitch Joel, why you need to work your face off from Gary Vaynerchuk, and lastly, the nitty gritty of some of the most effective tools out there to grow your business and personal brand with Tamar Weinberg. These 5 ideas are (almost!) all you need to create and execute a powerful social media game-plan. Let’s go…

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Lesson #1 – You Need to Build Trust

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This lesson comes from Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.

The first step in building trust is to turn yourself into Donnie Brasco. That’s right, you have to become a member of the community. The movie Donnie Brasco is the real life story of Joe Pistone, the FBI agent who infiltrated the Mafia and brought them to their knees. Joey spent 6 months sitting on a barstool in New York, drinking, eating peanuts, and watching the scene around him. He knew that the only way to integrate himself into the mafia community was to watch and learn how it operated first.

You should feel free to take the same approach, sans peanuts. Go to the websites of the people you want to connect with, and watch how they interact with each other. When you feel comfortable knowing how to interact, start leaving thoughtful comments on other people’s blogs. That lets the blogger know you’re listening and it helps them build up credibility. Your credibility will follow.

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Lesson #2 – Turn the Bullhorn Around

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This lesson comes from The Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt.

What you’ll learn, while sitting on your virtual barstool, is the fascinating part: you’ll learn quite literally how to transform your products and services. And that’s a big deal. Hunt gives us some great tips on how to properly put all this new information to work to your advantage: (1) use it to design a product/service for the broadest possible community, (2) make sure you respond to all feedback, even if it’s with “no thanks,” and (3) give credit to the people whose ideas you implement.

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Lesson #3 – Learn the Pillars of Social Media Success

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This lesson comes from Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel.

You’ve listened to and integrated feedback, and now you are ready to communicate. The 2 pillars which should guide your communication arepermission and content. Permission is grade-school easy: only share relevant and timely information with the people who have agreed to receive it. Content comes next. As Joel says, your ability to create compelling text, audio, video, and images is what’s going to build your story and get people excited about staying connected. He says to ask yourself these hard questions to decide what content to create: (1) What expertise and knowledge do I have, and how can I best share this with my customers? (2) Is there something I can create that will empower my consumers to connect to one another better? (3) Which medium am I most compelling with – text, audio, images, or video?

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Lesson #4 – Work Your Face Off

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This lesson comes from Crush It! by Gary Vaynerchuck.

Vaynerchuck’s not drugs, it’s drive. He wants you to work your 9-5 day job, go home and hug your spouse, kiss your baby, and then get working again from 9-2 AM on the thing you love. As he so eloquently puts it, “you’ll be bleeding out of your eyeballs at your computer.”

When you want to change the world, there’s no place or time for couch surfingGrey’s Anatomy, Wii, Scrabble, book clubs (there’s always time for 10 minute reviews on Mashable, of course), or online poker. So, be sure to pick something you are very passionate about, because there’s NO way you will work this hard at something you don’t enjoy.

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Lesson #5 – Get Smart About the Tools

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This lesson comes from The New Community Rules by Tamar Weinberg.

Editor’s Note: Tamar Weinberg is Mashable’s Director of Community.

Want the nitty gritty details of social media success? Weinberg (the Queen of Smart) has literally hundreds of great tips in this book. Some of the gems include: submitting your blog to various directories (a simple but often overlooked step), learning how to run contests on Twitter to drive traffic, how to become a power account user on the social news sites, and how to use Yahoo! Answers to create thought leadership for your brand.

So that’s the scoop. Five killer social media must-reads. This is a tech democracy we’re living in here – where the net and content overcomes traditional media gatekeeping. These 5 books are your roadmap to becoming a social media rockstar in 2010 – rock on!

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