“While the overall goal of marketing remains the same, the advent of social media has changed the role of the marketer from a broadcaster pushing out messaging and materials to an aggregator who brings together content, enables collaboration, and builds and participates in communities.”
Paul Gillin, author of “The New Influencers,” suggests four books on social media. He gives a short and sweet description of each.
Everything Is Miscellaneous by David Weinberger
The New Rules Of Marketing And PR by David Meerman Scott
Marketing to the Social Web by Larry Weber
Join the Conversation by Joseph Jaffe
Marshal K has a very interesting post about “putting social network functionality on top of existing sites.” He describes a conversation with a startup that was trying to decide if they should build a social network and he advised them they didn’t need the “baggage.” Instead, just provide the kinds of tools that would enhance the site and the users experience. This might very well include enhanced user profiles, better communication among users, etc…but it’s not another social network.
Ideablob.com is near and dear to my heart. Here’s the best article we’ve seen written about us yet. Jennifer Laycock from Search Engine Guide really nails it. I don’t think I could have written a better piece myself. She actually “tested” the site by encouraging a nonprofit Mother’s Milk Bank to enter the monthly $10k prize…and she was super impressed by the process and the results. Worth a read for sure.
Alex Iskold, on AdaptiveBlue’s blog, has a really good post on PR tips for startups. It’s pretty long, but well worth the read. My favorite quote was in the section titled, “Community - The Best PR Strategy.” Here, he challenges the value of going after top bloggers to score ‘big hits.’
“By building community of passionate users you are able to fight the problem of short-lived buzz. You can create a sustainable and steady stream of news, which is genuine, thoughtful and factual. Getting your users to talk about your product is going to not only bring more users, but will start a conversation that will immediately and ultimately help you improve your products.”
Marshall Kirkpatrick, who I’m sure I’ll be linking to quite a bit, did a post a little while ago about how to simply explain the value of Blogging & RSS. I’m aspiring to find ways to explain social media tools and approaches as simply and as succinctly as possible. I like Marshall’s first effort, but I really like the comments as well. Check it out.
Using simple quotes, metaphors, anecdotes, images, etc. can really help when we try to articulate the basic distinctions between new media marketing and traditional marketing. Rod Amis on ‘Leverage Social Media‘ succinctly describes two very different ways marketers can perceive their ‘target’ groups:
“What is too often missed is the distinction between an “audience” (Old School Thinking) and a community (”the future”). Most people from the old J-School set think “audience”. Like most Marcomm (corporate Marketing and Communications people) they haven’t gotten how the Internet has changed the landscape. Fact is, they don’t even see the landscape…”
Paul Gillin, author of “The New Influencers,” has a newsletter with an article that he promises is the first in a series about how “to figure out who are the most important sources of influence in a given market.” This is a crucial question for the most basic social media marketing efforts. In his first post, he provides links and info about some very useful search tools that anyone can use. I hope he keeps this info coming and I look forward to reading the book.
Simple but good article in the Dallas Morning News about the growth of advertising within niche social networks that “cater to specific interests, backgrounds, professions and age groups.”
Some good stats too:
“ Overall, ad spending on social networking sites is expected to grow 75 percent next year, to $2.1 billion, according to eMarketer, a research firm that tracks online advertising.
But smaller sites’ share of that money is growing. Of the $920 million spent this year to advertise on social networks, 8.2 percent went to niche sites, up from 7 percent in 2006, according to eMarketer. Next year, niche sites’ share of ad revenue is expected to grow to 10 percent, according to an eMarketer report released in December.”
“Bottom line, there is no silver bullet or secret formula. To be successful in social media is much harder than ’starting to Blog.’ It’s about building a real relationship. That’s hard for Marketers to do and it’s not something that all consumers want.”
(From a comment in ‘The Top 3 Problems of Social Media’)
