In my opinion, they are doing the best jobs. For the video podcast I host called Marketing Voices, I recently interviewed Pete Blackshaw EVP of Nielsen Online, who just completed an analysis of the campaigns and how they use social media. He gave me good insight on what corporate marketers need to do to make their brands better.
One of the more interesting thoughts he had involves reaching out in numerous languages. That seems like a no brainer but so many times i believe marketers forget to translate their messages.
Just as a promo point, Peter Blackshaw also is releasing his new book in July 2008 called Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends; Angry Customers Tell Three Thousand. I am sure it will be a good read.

I just interviewed him for Marketing Voices and here is the interview, below. His advice on how marketers can effectively reach word-of-mouth influencers validates the use of blogs.
Rick discussed three ways that he thought were most effective: 1) set up a company blog 2) use next-generation PR tactics to reach out to bloggers and 3) advertise on blogs.
That last point is only still just catching on among marketers, but may be the most effective of all three strategies, both in terms of reach and influence. Rick cites Doubleclick’s research paper “Influencing the Influencers: How Online Advertising and Media Impact Word of Mouth,” which concluded that influencers pay considerably more attention to web ads than non-influencers when in the purchase decision process.

Rafe was once at the magazine Red Herring and he has an interesting perspective on why audiences are responding to their own passion points and reading the blogs that matter to them rather than general interest newspapers.
We discussed the frustration I often see of my journalist friends who have academic training in journalism, but see bloggers not respecting journalism’s ethics yet getting more traction with their blogs. There are really no answers just observations.
Needless to say, journalism schools around the country are developing their curriculums differently to deal with these social media influences.

Roy is also co-author of a book called Marketing Champions: Practical Strategies for Improving Marketing’s Power, Influence, and Business Impact. He has worked with numerous marketers from IBM, Wells Fargo, Microsoft and Visa – resulting in improving the stature and value of marketing at these companies.
In this podcast, Roy advises marketers to speak the language of business and not just the language of marketing, He also recommends that marketers should develop systematic processes for their marketing similar to processes developed by finance so that outcomes for marketing can be better measured and tracked. All good advice and I would love to hear how corporate marketers in the community achieve what he suggests because I believe many do.

Crumpler explained how his company can help marketers better determine who is driving online opinions.When the service launched earlier this month, news coverage highlighted the potential value to marketers who have been searching for effective ways to participate in discussions and debates online in communities where some of their most passionate potential consumers are already sharing ideas.
The bottom line for BuzzLogic customers is that the social media universe can now be managed as one single channel, with the new ability to cut through the noise to the 10 or 20 most influential bloggers – a slight tweak on competitors’ offerings in that the focus is not necessarily on the most popular blogs, but specifically the most “influential.”
In his conversation with me, CEO Crumpler says this conversation targeting ad system delivers more than two times the performance than what could be done just a few months ago. The cost is $12,000 for an annual subscription which to me seems very reasonable given that many PR clipping services cost that for an annual fee.
I am not promoting the product, but I found the capabilities impressive and I wanted to draw attention to it for the MarketingProfs community.

On my podcast show called Marketing Voices , I recently interviewed Charles Pizzo, a communications expert, about his tips for what you do when taken to task by a blogger. How do you “fight back”?
Pizzo mentions that it is all about setting up an online monitoring service and he refers to a free service called MonitorThis. Pizzo also talks in the podcast about how people can track and identify these cyber-smearers. All very good information in about 10 minutes!

I host a show for PodTech called Marketing Voices, and I wanted to discover team blogs that have made it work. I spoke to Paula Berg, PR manager of Southwest Airlines, who has been managing the corporate blog for some time. It has been really successful, and they have more than 30 contributors, all of whom are making it work because they don’t have to blog daily or weekly, but quarterly.
Additionally, the Southwest employees represent all functions of the company–pilots, flight attendants, operations –and they have a passion for what they do. In my opinion, that is why it works, the passion for what they do shines through in what they write.
They don’t have to contribute unless they want to. Paula told me not all the people are great writers but their styles work and minor editing is all that is required.
Any more team blogs that people know about that are successful?

At IDF, professionals from various groups and skill sets teamed up to share their IDF experiences using social media side-by-side with more traditional marketing and communications efforts.
We talked a lot about her strategy and challenges at melding marketing with public relations and advertising today. Intel is very interesting as a marketing group because they are expeimenting a lot with social media implementation–more so than any other corporation I have recently worked with.
As we all know, all communications is becoming more integrated, and there is an immediacy to marketing that only was only inherent in the recent past to PR activities at many companies. Intel really impresses me because they are taking social media implementation to the most strategic level and it is really working for them. Other companies could definitely learn from them.

Nothing like the Democrats debate on CNN/YouTube, where I was quite impressed with the way that YouTube made the debates more worthwhile and interesting.
Given that it is THE TV industry… and they are supposedly some of the most creative, innovative people, I was expecting much much more. YouTube could have been used to take questions from the world audience asking those TV stars why they wore the dresses they wore, or why they picked out those certain high-heeled shoes. Not that I really care about the answers to questions such as these, but I would have loved to have viewed the interaction.
In my opinion, this venue provides the opportunity for social media use given that it is all about conversation and the reporting of conversation.
Just think if some of the stars would be asked to Twitter their thoughts and the other stars could respond to them in real-time… and the audience could read what they wrote. The gossip rags would go nuts and the whole scene could be much more electric.
Oh well there’s always next year.

He and I have discussed lately how important storytelling is to Intel’s social media success. Being able to relate ideas and information through stories rather than just through the presentation of facts is what makes much of Intel’scommunication come alive. People’s passion for what they know and do gets illustrated through storytelling in Intel’s podcasts, videopodcasts and blogs.
Teaching executives how to storytell has been a well-used public relations tactic for many years, but I believe the ability to storytell is truly reaching a new level of importance given the prevalence of social media.
However, I am struck when I watch vblogs and listen to podcasts how many people today are not storytelling with social media. They don’t have a beginning, middle and end to their pieces, but instead often just list facts and thoughts, and don’t connect the information so that the viewer/listener etc. gets the point of the podcast, video blog, etc.
I suppose it comes down to media training for many of these individuals, or maybe others don’t feel as strongly as I do about this need for storytelling?

I was especially intrigued recently when I asked my 18-year-old son what pictures and memorabilia he would be taking to college, and he replied, “None. I have Facebook, that is all I need.” He continued, “Everyone I know and care about is on Facebook. All of the most important pictures I want and information I need is there.
“All my friends feel this way about Facebook, Mom.”
Wow. What power. To have an 18-year-old boy and his community think that all he needs is this one tool/place to go for information and social connection. No wonder many people are comparing Facebook’s power to that of Google’s. Nothing else that I know has captured my son’s loyalty (and obviously many of his friend’s, as well).
Despite enjoying Facebook and all it offers in social connections, I am not to that level of commitment to Facebook yet. I find it interesting and intriguing to play with as a social community development tool, but I do not yet feel like I have to read it daily to get my news about my friends and their friends.
I know that many of my colleagues and their professional contacts are registering on Facebook, but it seems that they do it more to “be on the site” than to necessarily “live” on the site. It does seem to be gathering momentum and stealing people from Linked In as the professionals community.
What are the rest of you thinking/doing/believing about Facebook?

We spent some time together talking about how with Ustream, marketers have a playground to try new ideas. Of course, convincing management to try interactive live video is not easy, but maybe some marketers will be ready to try something small, see if it works and keep building.
I would love to hear if anyone in the community is using live interactive video.

Now I come to find out that a recent survey of Nielsen/NetRatings reports that the online editions of The Guardian and the Times of London have more American readers than British readers. I think this is interesting news. People want views or opinions expressed in their newspaper –not just news.
The Guardian is providing that today. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, this is especially true for the younger Americans. I think it is interesting that no American newspaper has implemented the news and business strategy that The Guardian has pursued. Maybe the Wall Street Journal with its new owner will take this new path, and it would be wonderful if it did.
The fact that the “younger” generation is interested in reading newspapers by giving them “ViewNews” could be a boon to our education.

1) You are what you publish today as content is king
2) Understanding one’s target audience(s) is paramount–know the needs and desires and communicate targeted messages to these audiences and segment messages based on the audience and
3) understand that marketing and PR are working more closely together today given what is happening in the business of communications.
David and I also discussed how the practice of “PR” has morphed from “communicating with one’s publics” to “MR” or communicating with the media during the last 15 years.
I have really pushed back on clients over these years who always assume the only audience for practioners of the public relations profession is the media. Many of those whom I counsel do not understand that PR, as all marketing and public relations practioners know, means communicating to all the publics or audiences that a company or person is hoping to influence– not solely working with the media to distribute information. PR practioners must develop strategies and programs that address many audiences not just the media. Programs like this are much more beneficial and results more widespread for a company.
I am eager to hear what the community thinks about the situation today as it relates to this topic.

One of the first steps for strategic marketing I believe is assessing a brand’s perception in the market, assuming it is an existing brand. The way that I have always determined a brand’s perception in the market is to talk to the market.
To me it is more than talking to the “customers,” it is also talking to those who influence the “customer.” I call this group of influencers, a brand’s ecosystem or the Circle of Influence™, a term I have trademarked. It is essentially the target audiences that can affect the perception of the brand.
I always tap into the thinking of the Circle of Influence™ members to hear their perceptions about a brand. I like to conduct interviews with these Circle of Influence™ members. I do this through one-on-one interviews either by email, phone or in person.
Ultimately after talking to the key influencers within this circle of influence I gain enormous perspective about a brand. It helps me lay the foundation for developing a strategic marketing plan for that brand. Normally I speak with 30-40 members of this Circle of Influence. It may take about 60-90 days to do this type of brand market assessment.
Here is an example of a venture capital firm’s Circle of Influence.

I would love to hear what others do to assess a brand’s perception in a market place.

I have been very fortunate to work with many great product and professional service companies during my career from Apple Computer and Intel to Levi Strauss, Mayfield Fund, Goldman Sachs and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. With all of these companies, I have been involved in their strategic marketing at some point in their business development–creating and defining products and marketing plans– and implementing more tactical marketing and communications programs.
I believe that there are many value points to marketing practiced strategically. They are:
1) Building a consistent advantageous identity in the marketplace
2) Building leadership/ownership in specific market areas
3)Translating leadership into leverage for more quality customers or deal flow
4)Generating more visibility/broadening market reach
5)Enhancing credibility/brand of the company or firm
What is striking to me today, is that it seems many companies are not practicing strategic marketing. They are getting involved in the programs and tactics of what they want to do, but when pushed and asked about what strategic business goals and objectives these programs and tactics ultimately address and what return they want to get on their marketing investment, many can not answer these questions.
I know that social media marketing metrics are hard to attain, but what I am hearing is also for marketing in general. I am wondering if what I am seeing is more commonplace today than it was three years ago or is it just my perspective? I thought I would throw it open to the community to discuss.

I believe that all marketers should pay attention to the implementation of social media by the politicians. Why? Because we can learn from them and their adoption of the technology and tools will help us all drive the use of social media into our companies.
Recently on Marketing Voices, I interviewed Peter Leyden, the director of the think-tank called New Politics Institute.

Peter used to be the editor for WIRED magazine, and Peter tells me how the use of social media will decide the outcome of the election. He feels social media allows the candidates to touch audiences in a way they never could before ( e.g. Edwards’ use of Ustream).
I agree with Leyden, and I will be watching Ustream on Monday night just to see how well the Ustream technology and Edwards work together to achieve the end result of building a stronger community and base of support for Edwards.

Recently one of my Marketing Voices interviews for PodTech was Neil Patel, co-founder of ACS Consulting, based in Orange County, California.
Neil’s business is search engine optimization and he helps blogs get found. Specifically, he supports lots of Top 100 bloggers. People such as: Guy Kawasaki, Jason Calacanis and TechCrunch.
One of Neil’s tips is that content is king for bloggers. He also uses creative and time-tested linking strategies and other tools such as Digg and Stumbleupon. Neil also mentioned that knowing the right tags and words to use in a blog is important so that the blog is found by the search engines. Neil and his team are praised for their work with General Motors, American Greetings, and Hewlett-Packard.
Guy Kawasaki, who I also interviewed on Marketing Voices, supports the idea that content is king for making blogs more viral.

Content obviously drives readers because they want to learn something and not waste their time. I know I only read sites that enhance my learning. Seems all pretty self-evident and simple, but there are so many blogs that don’t focus on content that I thought it was worth discussing.