Alert Blog Reviews

The online space is certainly trying hard to cut the apron strings associated with traditional media techniques and practices. It can be hard though, to completely separate from something that may still have value. Think about how nice it was (or still is) to go back “home” and get that meal that you just can’t make on your own. While you never want to be back there 24 / 7 again there are certain things that are part of our past that will always have great value and we get to take the best of those things with us. The same concept may apply to the Internet marketing world as well. As much as we try to break away and create our own identity separate from the traditional world of content generation, advertising, PR and every other piece of the overall marketing mosaic, there may be some things that will always have a place. One of them might even be snail mail. An article in the Wall Street Journal talks about how there may be certain aspects of snail mail that carry importance even in the rush to digitize everything in our business lives. While not right for every business, part of the relationship building that we talk of as the most important aspect of the social web can be cemented with a good old fashioned handwritten note. For instance: Looking to cut costs amid the recession, Alicia Settle initially thought it would be a good idea to eliminate her company’s annual direct mailing. Spending about $20,000 on the personally signed letters, which offered customers a discount on early orders, seemed indulgent for Per Annum Inc., which sells city diaries, albums, and planners in the struggling corporate gift market. But after swapping snail mail for email last year, Ms. Settle saw a 25% drop in early orders compared with the same period the previous year. “We realized we had made a huge mistake,” says Ms. Settle, president of the New York firm. This is one of the dangers of taking established businesses and preaching that since online is the wave of the future that you need to go there. Damn the torpedoes and full steam ahead into the future! Sure businesses do need to evolve but to what extent is completely dependent on what kind of business it is, what their existing customers are used to and how new customers can be attracted to the offerings. As a result, you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater so there may be room to get rid of some traditional marketing that is certainly unproductive in the new world order while keeping others. These “old school” activities like handwritten thank you notes and other techniques now are part of the whole social marketing fabric that can serve to benefit the new and the old customers. They are actually part of social media. The idea is to send something that’s more appealing than “junk” mail and potentially more noticeable than an email message, says Eric Anderson, a professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. That allows business owners “to offer a personal touch the larger firms may not be able to have,” he says. Prof. Anderson says other business owners are trying to figure out how to integrate Web marketing—such as email campaigns, banner ads and social-networking sites—with direct mail. “The introduction of new media has forced [business owners] to go back and revisit the whole playbook on what’s the best way to communicate with customers,” Mr. Anderson says. Ms. Settle, for instance, plans to use e-marketing to complement the hand-signed direct-mail piece, not replace it. So how do you incorporate the best of the old and the new in your business? Have you made a “pendulum swing” adjustment and taken away too much of what was once effective? Did you then find that part of the old way of doing things could still serve you well? Where is the happy medium and what might it look like moving forward?

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Can Snail Mail Be Part of Social Media?

As marketing professionals, we usually have to justify ourselves to our bosses, our clients and everyone in between—especially in the less-tested, sometimes-hit-or-miss arena of social media. But now Ad Age wants accountability, too, as they ask “if you’re getting enough out of all the volunteer work you do for Biz & Ev and Mark,” or, more specifically, “Are we all just toiling mightily to make a bunch of rich nerds (Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his employees and investors, Twitter’s Biz Stone and Evan Williams and their employees and investors) richer, while we impoverish ourselves?” That’s both a literal and a figurative question, since using those social networks is exactly what makes their founders and investors money (well, sort of), and, as the argument goes, we’re essentially a volunteer labor force creating content for these sites—an interesting point. Meanwhile, using social networks (at all, as the argument here seems to go) means sacrificing time (true), actual interactions (possibly true but not always)—and our very souls and identities. They mean this to be a discussion on a personal level, since a central thrust of the argument is that these social networks have sacrificed so much of our privacy that we’re allowing them to steal (don’t we call that “giving” in English?) “the sole ownership of our own thoughts, emotions, personal expressions, etc.” from us (yes, if I post “I’m sad” on a social network, that means that they also own my emotion…. right….). Of course, if you’re using Twitter and Facebook as a marketer, you’re there looking for business ROI from publicity—being public. Ad Age (you know, “Advertising” Age? About . . . could it be . . . advertising ?) does acknowledge that social networks might work for these purposes, if they’re worth the sacrifice: If you’re a brand marketer, chances are good that you’re extracting real value from investing time and energy in social media (and you’re happy to have consumers volunteering their time to be your “brand ambassadors” or whatever you want to call them); good for you. (And if you’re a consumer who gets off on connecting with big brands — or just wants to interface with customer service in a forum, like Twitter, where certain marketers seem to be hyper-responsive — well, good for you too.) In general, if you’re soft-selling something — like content or an idea — that can benefit from free publicity, Facebook and Twitter are your friends. Even if, well, they’re the two-faced sort who think nothing of riffling through your handbag or backpack when you get up to go the bathroom — you know, glad-handing “friends” (those are air quotes) who are obviously using you for something, only it’s not always entirely clear what. Um . . . I hate to bring this up, but aren’t we as marketers just using our social networks as those same kind of “friends” (and possibly even the friends and fans we acquire on those social networks)—we’re just using them as the means to an end? I do agree, of course, that on a personal level, excessive use of social media can rob us of time and valuable interaction with the people we care about most. It’s good to examine our relationship with the Internet and social media on a personal level and decide whether it’s really worth the time and effort we put into it, or if we might put that time to better use. While that’s the brief summary of the argument at the conclusion of the article, the main thrust is that using social networks is such a great sacrifice of ourselves (even without a time investment) that it’s not worth it. What do you think? Do you demand ROI from personal social network use? Or are you glad that most people don’t ?

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Are You Getting Enough out of Twitter & Facebook?

Image by luc legay via Flickr How we interact with others can either cause joy, pain or leave no impression at all. What impression are you leaving behind you on Twitter and other social networks ? Pain is caused on Twitter when… – Spam and hacking occurs and we feel our safety and privacy is compromised. – An opinion we make is “flamed” by others or they fail to get what we are saying – We use Twitter to be negative about others. Think about high profile cases this year where it has been a case of “tweet in haste, repent at leisure” (or not leisure, in a world where reaction is global and swift!) To avoid causing the pain on Twitter: – Review your account often and report any spam appropriately – Make your posts meaningful and value laden – Don’t spam others, ratio your tweets about your biz with conversations and helping out others – Don’t get involved in an argument – Treat others as you wish to be treated yourself Joy of Twitter… Twitter can be a joy. It is a way to reach out to people, to build new relationships online, and to gain valuable feedback. Some tips to help keep your use of Twitter Joyful are: – Tweet about what you are interested in rather than what you think you should be tweeting about – Be mindful in your tweeting. Tweet from the heart. – Treat Twitter as one of your social media and other marketing activities and don’t get sucked in to feeling you have to be there every single minute – have some fun!! – Connect with other like minded people and use the @reply and RT to start great conversations – Reach out to connect and grow your relationship with your most regular twitter contacts The anonymity of neutrality… Sometimes on Twitter I think it is easy to get sucked into posting “for the sake of it” and this is where neutrality can sneak in. Think value, think connection, think first. And have a joyful time connecting using Twitter. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . The Joy of Tweeting

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The Joy of Tweeting

This is part two of Secret to Getting Rich on the Internet , series. If you haven’t read part one, you probably should do that first. So if you are reading this you probably read last week’s post, where I promised that I would reveal a secret tactic that can make you rich on the internet. Before i do that, I want to talk about secrets in general for a moment. Quite honestly, most “secrets”on the internet are BS. This is because oftentimes they are bits of knowledge and advice that seem obvious to many, but practiced by few. This is generally because the best tactics are the ones that don’t show their true value until you have years of experience trying them out. Many of the most valuable “secret” tactics (including the one below) are things that many of us do everyday but are not aware of it. And the secret is… Building strong relationships with the people that matter most . Building strong relationships has historically been the cornerstone of success. Sometimes the internet and social media fools us into thinking that we can do anything we want without anyone’s help. If you think that, you are dead wrong. No one lives on an island–we all work and play in the same cyberspace. Building strong relationships can be a powerful tactic in advancing your personal and professional life because it enables other people to feel empowered when you succeed. The only downside to this tactic is, to do it effectively, you have to focus on the people that matter most. People that matter most?? Don’t all people matter? Unfortunately if you are going to use relationship building as a tactic you have to segment people effectively in order to get the most out of your effort. In short, you can’t be friends with everyone! So who matters and who doesn’t? For each person this may be different, but I like to break people down into two groups. People that are excited about what you are doing should be your first target for building relationships. When people are excited about something they generally tend to talk about it early on, and then as their interest passes they find something else. If you can effectively build a solid relationship with that person then you will be at the forefront of their thoughts as long as you keep the relationship alive. They will then turn into your strongest brand advocates because they want to see you succeed. People that you want to be excited about what you are doing should be your second target. These are the folks that are maybe influential in your industry. They are the ones that can help spread your vision into other networks that you aren’t a part of yet. Or they might just be the person that you know would truly benefit in what you are doing. So now we know which types of folks to target, the real question is how do we actually build these strong relationships? Well, I think that’s a topic for another post, but one way to start learning how to develop strong relationships is to follow a few folks, that I saw in Vegas, that are amazing relationship builders. Relationship Building Gurus: Dana Lookadoo Joanna Lord Jon Henshaw Dave Snyder

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Cup of Joe: The Secret to Getting Rich on the Internet, is in Las Vegas – Part 2

Earlier this month, StumbleUpon started showcasing their new homepage design, when they touted their “Google + Twitter” social search . Now they’ve gone through the rest of the site to make it more consistent (less customizable), easy to understand and streamlined. Read Write Web reports: The new interface is streamlined and more social with an updated relationship system. A focus on consistency (e.g., limiting user control of visual elements) and removal of clutter (e.g., presenting tags in a drop-down menu rather than a cloud) characterize the design changes made. Also, a few tweaks to group sharing were made to help reduce share-spam. The most significant UX changes have occur[r]ed in the way friendships and subscriptions work on the site. Now, your friends are you “Mutual Subscribers,” which makes the relationship a little clearer. They’re the people users can share pages with directly from the toolbar. However, the redesign is largely changes like those—clarifying various site functions, streamlining the design, making things easier for users. The homepage, same as the beta featured earlier this month, highlights recent activity from Mutual Subscribers—but doesn’t place a big emphasis on the social search aspect they were talking about earlier this month. So is StumbleUpon shying away from that? Or are they worried that their core user base was confused? I know I was a little worried when I first hear the social search news—even though I’m now an infrequent Stumbler, I didn’t want to lose that original “discovery engine,” even if it would be for a working social search model. However, the actual stumbling part of the service would remain—and maybe this is just to remind and reassure their users of that. But it still seems like they haven’t really played up the social search aspect enough. While I remain highly skeptical of social search, it’s one of those brass rings for mainstream search engines—like Google, which announced Social Search in Labs , using sites that your Google contacts have viewed, as well as sites you’ve seen before in your Web History, Google Reader and associated Google services. However, with StumbleUpon’s more targeted “Mutual Subscribers” option, you have the ability to control what friends you’re getting information from, instead of results from everyone you’ve ever emailed. What do you think? Does StumbleUpon have a better chance of getting social search right? Is it shying away from that—and should it, now that Google’s officially thrown its hat into the ring?

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StumbleUpon Updates Design Again (Abandoning Social Search?)