Friday, May 23rd, 2008
Yesterday, I asked the Twitter folk for recommendations of Social Media books to check out. I got a lot of great recommendations, all of which I ended up buying if I didn’t already own it.A couple of people were interested in the book list I ended up with, so here it is, in no particular order:
I also picked up a more fundamental view of the underlying changes that are happening:
Finally, some Social Media books I’ve read that I think should be on this list for potential purchasers:
Let me know if you have any others that you think should be added to the list!Twitterers who helped contribute:
Monday, March 10th, 2008
This kept me up late last night. Really. That’s how awesome I am.
I was thinking about the constant comparison between Social Networks and Search. How I keep hearing people say that Facebook might be the next Google because of how it’s going to directly generate huge revenues for so many businesses.
But I think that’s an overly-simplified comparison to the point of inaccuracy. The businesses are completely different, the financial upsides are completely different, and the impact that each of the businesses directly has on businesses is completely different.
Searchers engage in an active process to find solutions to very specific needs.
Social network users engage in an active process to socialize. It is an extension of one’s identity through their own interpretation and through the details of their social connections and interactions.
One directly correlates with the purpose of business, while another directly correlates with the purpose of identity. That is the fundamental concern for determining how a business is to integrate with social network users.
The comparison that Social Networks will change the way that we interact online, to a similar degree that search has, is undoubtedly true, as people spend more and more and more time on Social Networks that continue to see double-digit growth, month over month.
The problem in the comparison, though, lies in the expectations that people (mostly marketers) have in the way that search and social media benefit their businesses.
Last week, I kept seeing an article get passed around on Twitter and various blogs about ads on MySpace and incredibly low clickthrough rates. This isn’t new news, but I often ask myself; what do people expect from a platform of that nature?
Social Networks are like TV and radio: they resonate with passive observers in a passive way. Advertising through Social Media platforms via banners must be done with the same strategy: Get as many targeted impressions as possible, align your message with the desires of your market, be there when they are wanting and willing and able to accept your offer, and until then, continually let them know you are there by consistently reinforcing your message as a solution to a problem they may have now or in the future.
As search marketers, we have prided ourselves on our ability to count every penny out and every penny in. We have gladly accepted the obligation of producing a return on investment. Now that our attention is shifting to Social Media, we continue to do more of the same and expect the same strategies, tactics, and opportunities to be available.
Those same opportunities that exist in Search do not exist in Social Networks (Dare I say: all of Social Media?). It is a wholly different ecosystem. There are different rules and capabilities. With that, old offers are irrelevant and new offers become possible.
The marketers that understand this, are the ones who will be designing very different strategies here. They will see new objectives and opportunities that Search doesn’t offer. The passive resonance of banner advertising and performance is completely irrelevant to the nature of Social Media’s active participants.
If you truly want to maximize your Social Media campaigns, start asking different questions. Design new and different offers for your market. Facilitate the interaction rather than directing it, or merely being a billboard alongside of it. Most of all, allow yourself to have new (if any) expectations of the platform.
The marketers who understand this are the marketers that are teaming up with developers to understand these new opportunities. They’re working together to develop the necessary applications to facilitate the interactions that Social Networks now allow.
Most importantly, they’re creating new possibilities that never existed before.
And, finally, they’re not counting the pennies out and the pennies in.
Friday, November 10th, 2006
I’ve been planning on writing about this in the next couple of weeks, but after reading Bruce Prokopets at Social Caster vent his frustration (Stop Yapping and Show Me The Results) regarding the lack of real performance data showing the value of Social Media Marketing, I decided to get some of it out now.
As a self-proclaimed SMM Evangelist, my instinct is to quickly defend social media as a marketing strategy. But, instead, it lit a fire under my butt to at least put this problem out there, sooner rather than later, for people to start crunching on.
But, alas, defeat must be conceded. For now…hint, hint.
Show Me the Data
One of the largest problems that I see with SMM becoming more widely accepted as a viable marketing strategy is that performance data hasn’t been disclosed by those who are having success with it. I have seen sites such as The $15k Challenge which disclose strict performance data directly tied to ROI, and HitWise has some great data that they disclose (though this is mostly in regards to inward and outward traffic).
If SMM is going to become a widely-accepted practice, people need proof. They need evidence. People need to know that the time, energy and resources that they are going to devote are going to be worth it.
Quite frankly, while it’s a risk that I’m willing to take with my career, I don’t blame others for not taking the same risk. If a newspaper called me tomorrow asking me to advertise with them, I would certainly expect hard performance data. Plus, when it comes to business and marketing, in the end, it is about the performance.
Make it Valuable to Me…oh, AND my boss.
I sense that part of the reason that numbers haven’t been released regarding successful campaigns is that people aren’t quite sure yet what to measure. We saw this with search marketing 5-6 years ago, when all of the independent affiliate marketers were screaming about the value of search and raking in cash, while everyone else blew them off.
It wasn’t until the right tools came along to make it easy to measure performance that search became valuable.
It wasn’t until metrics were defined and the tools to record these metrics were made accessible that search marketing became valuable. Until this happens with Social Media Marketing, it, too, will remain unnoticed.
The point is that until the perception of value is easily accessible and understood, that anything is worthless.
It then becomes our responsibility to define what these metrics are to become. “Engagement,” “Attention,” etc, those measurements are crap. They’re marketing speak for marketers who lack a focus on results.
What is needed is something that outlines how each social media tactic, Social Networks, Blogs, Messageboards, etc, should be measured. Then the tools need to be put into place to measure and present this information in a clear and compelling manner.
Stay tuned for updates on what should be measured and how you can measure performance of your social media campaigns. It’s a lot more fun to talk about marketing when you have numbers anyway. ;-)
Tuesday, October 31st, 2006
The longest-lasting online resource that I’ve come across for the nitty gritty of online marketing and business, WebmasterWorld.com, has just had a post on the front page of their site titled: No Need For Google, Myspace Works For Me.
It is in their subscriber’s section, so if you’re not a paying member, you won’t be able to access it. But, the discussion is a great example of how Social Media is being noticed at all levels as a potential avenue for marketing a product, service or business.
Here, “carlr,” outlines the success that he has had as a photographer through his MySpace profile, especially as compared to the success he has seen from Google.
“My commercial photography website has been launched over a year ago.. PR4 now and about 100 on-theme inbound links and no outbound links. Still sandboxed so i get 4-5 hits per day from Google - a joke. Oh well. I signed up at MySpace with a custom template with portfolio etc. It’s been a month only and got many calls from clients, a major magazine and i even unexpectedly met somebody for real in a bar.. “hey! by any chance.. are you …?”
In this age where we must as webmasters wait and pray to get a decent position in google before we get out of business, this is refreshing. Maybe some of you guys should have a look.”
The entire discussion is definitely worth a read for those of you who are paid subscribers. And for those of you who are not, I highly recommend that you consider paying for membership here. As someone who runs a website with a community of members over 60,000 members large, I can truly say that this is one of the best online communities out there.
I’ll also be at PubCon for those that might want to meet up - I’d love to talk to anyone and everyone who has seen success or failure from their Social Media Marketing campaigns.
Monday, October 30th, 2006
So, my submission for the Marketing Pilgrim SEM Scholarship Contest is up and ready to go. :)
What I’ve found is that Social Media Marketing/Optimization is such a rogue discipline at this point, that there’s very little structure for how people are discussing its philosophies, principles, strategies and tactics.
In The Five Pillars of Social Media Marketing, I discuss the five key forms of communication with your marketplace and how those conversations transpire.
The first three are:
- Declaration of Identity
- Identity through Association
- User-initiated Conversation
I’ll let you read the full article for #4 and #5 (it is a contest, btw :-P), as well as specific channels for creating a conversation with your market in these 5 ways.
Monday, October 30th, 2006
Note: These events are not in chronological order in order to lead up to a point that is relevant for the impact of Social Media Marketing.
Communities Dominate Brands cited an FT.com report, saying:
“The more fascinating were the two community sites, YouTube and MySpace. MySpace has a bit more users, at about 85 to 75 million…”
ComScore reports:
“Of note were the gains experienced by Wikipedia Sites and Youtube.com during September. Both sites were up 12 percent versus August.”
12 percent growth in one month?!
In the UK, HitWise says that Bebo is quickly closing the branding gap (as far as online searches) with #1 searched brand, eBay.
—–
So, the growth evidence is there. You have the numbers to show the impact that Interactive Social Media is having on Internet use. But how much impact can it really have on your (non-profit? for-profit?) organization?
Well, Project Red got a 7000% boost in UK market share from MySpace alone:
“(RED), the charity backed by Bono established to raise awareness and money to invest in African AIDS programmes. The campaign offers a good case study for brands looking for innovative ways to advertise on social networks.
Hitwise data show that the (PRODUCT) Red website experienced a 70-fold increase in market share of UK internet visits to become the #1 website in the Hitwise Communities - Humanitarian category last week, up from #73 the week before.”
—–
I just have one question: can someone tell me, what is a search engine?
Monday, October 30th, 2006
Rand Fishkin presents several great ways to kick-start your Social Media Marketing campaign.
Not only does he provide some high-level considerations to make as far as where and how your market interacts online, but also provides a great starter list of sites to begin searching for, and connecting with, your marketplace.
Each of these sites have different foci, unique benefits and demand attention to detail and a sub-strategy that considers the quirks and peculiarities of the userbase. For example, making it to the top of Reddit with a politically focused article is far easier than doing so at Digg (or Del.icio.us/popular).
Monday, October 30th, 2006
This list was originally only 5 items long, and first proposed by Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy PR. True to the essence of both Social Media Optimization and Social Media Marketing, it quickly spread and turned into 17 Rules, with additions from all over the industry.
- Increase your linkability
- Make tagging and bookmarking easy
- Reward inbound links
- Help your content travel
- Encourage the mashup
- Be a User Resource, even if it doesn’t help you
- Reward helpful and valuable users
- Participate
- Know how to target your audience
- Create content
- Be real
- Don’t forget your roots, be humble
- Don’t be afraid to try new things, stay fresh
- Develop a SMO strategy
- Choose your SMO tactics wisely
- Make SMO part of your process and best practices
- Don’t be afraid to let go of a message or idea and let others own it.
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