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We’re Drowning In Marketing

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It’s daunting being a marketer these days. The lexicon in how we market has widened into an array of confusing methods to attract better brand positioning, growth, ROI, influencer authority, social this and that, and consumer loyalty.

The latest favorite is influencer marketing. Last week on this blog, we took an angular look at Google+, Google Authorship and Influence Marketing.

Buy Influencer Marketing Books

Several books written by peers in my own social circles are must reads to keep us thinking strategically and visionary.

You may pre-order Influence Marketing: How to Create, Manage and Measure Brand Influencers in Social Media Marketing (Que Biz-Tech) written by Danny Brown and Sam Fiorella.

Influence-Marketing-BookThey have been writing it up with a large amount of content on blogs, Google+ Communities, and in comments all over. It promises to be a must-buy and read.

 

 

Meanwhile, a dear colleague of mine, Mark W. Schaefer, has written a quick read,Return on Influence, The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing, his second book that has hit the corporate world (IBM recently bought 500 copies) and the social media sector by storm.

Mark-Schaefer-BookBecause I know all three of these peeps and vouch for their own cred and influence, you ought to consider purchasing these books for your reading pleasure.

Now, back to the topic at hand…If some marketers think they’re drowning, how does a company cope with that?

Does every marketing team need to know every aspect of marketing, or can they learn in a steady trickle?

The good news is, everyone is in the same boat absorbing knowledge and learning new tactics at the same time. How marketers execute on these evolving techniques is how one differentiates.

Here are my thoughts on how companies should stay the course with these basics and never mind the marketing buzz until prepared to address them head on:

Five Marketing Basics

1. Set up a solid team of people with the right mix of marketing for various types of organizations, someone in PR, another knows email and inbound marketing, a copywriter, a social media enthusiast, and someone familiar with advertising for all media.

2. Assess and solidify brand and dust off that mission statement! It’s critical to revisit this to ensure the company is growing in alignment with founders’ goals and vision.

3. Hire Jayme Soulati (shameless, I know) to do your message mapping exercise. No matter if your company is established or just starting, message mapping charts your company’s communication course.

4. Build a responsive website. I’m not talking about a website that looks good on a mobile device; I’m talking about a scalable site that conforms to smart devices and positions calls to action and contact information on the top of the screen followed by all the rest of the goodies. When your company keeps a website that requires visitors to slide windows back and forth, then the message you’re sending is pretty much, “We just don’t care.”

5. Pay attention to social media and engage already. You have to; you just do. In this post-social media adoption era, there are still companies without the basics in place. Companies owe it to consumers to connect via social media channels. If all we get is a direct mail coupon with no other channel, that is grounds for negative online reputation.

Confused about any of the above? Please ask me, I’m right here.

By Jayme Soulati

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Google+ Meet Influence Marketing

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Screen Shot 2013-02-25 at 8.56.06 AMBy Jayme Soulati

In developing my piece on Google Authorship, and another one this week on niche networks, I needed a link for the words, “brand evangelist.” What happened in the next three minutes shocked me into writing this piece and made me extremely nervous that Google+ is going to influence influence marketing whether we want it to or not.

The steps that occurred are spelled out here carefully so you can follow along. See what you glean from what I did; do you come to the same conclusion, or not?

  1. My search for “brand evangelist” was returned by Google. I saw a series of Google Plussers who had written a post or piece published on Google+ featuring these key words.
  2. Each of the folks listed were mentioned with their Google Authorship profile. There was a photo as well as the number of people this person had in circles and the number of circles this person was in.
  3. I scrolled down page one of my search on Google to see if I recognized anyone.
  4. Way at bottom, I saw Mack Collier’s name although his Google Authorship information was not included because his post was pre-Google+.
  5. Because I didn’t recognize an author or publication (there were few), I looked more closely at each person’s Google+ profile seeking anything that would help me discern influence.
  6. I saw the quantity of circles each person was in; wouldn’t that mean something? The peep with the highest number of circles would supposedly be more influential, right? And knew what they were talking about? (Remember, this was happening over a minute to find one hyperlink.)
  7. I set out to select the link for the person with the most circles.

Inadvertently, I had just discerned that I would select a hyperlink using someone’s Google+ post content in my blog post based on the quantity of circles associated with that unknown person.

I am agog. I believe strongly that it’s never about quantity; it’s about quality!

I did the exact thing that people complain about Klout for; I associated influence scoring of my own creation and subconscious to determining strength of content and influence.

I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, if I had automatically begun to select someone from a Google search with the highest number of circles, then every other company would be doing the same without a shred of second thought.

What does this mean for how influencers are screened?

Anyone who understands what’s written above understands what I’m getting at…we can hide behind a Klout score because it’s not well-known as an influence metric.

When someone in business plugs in a key word or phrase and watches those with Google Authorship turned on scroll by, then the ones with the most circles wins, right? (Based on what I just experienced first hand, to my utter chagrin.)

One can only hope I’m wrong. Danny Brown, Sam Fiorella, Neal Schaffer? Can you weigh in on this, perhaps?

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Fixing The Social Media Plateau

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Pinterest featue in Metro - 27th February 2012

Pinterest featue in Metro - 27th February 2012 (Photo credit: Great British Chefs)

There’s a social cultural shift on the ‘sphere and the ‘webz; have you felt it? More’s the question…are you experiencing a social media sea change plateau yourself?

Many in my community have been on this social engagement and blogging journey for an average of 18 months. For me, it’s almost four years.

When you look at that timeframe doing almost the same thing day in and day out, it’s time to grow or die.

The signs below may be an indication it’s time to step up your game, take it to the next level, and grow or remain complacent. See if these strike a chord and whether you might add a few of your own:

10 Indications You’ve Hit a Social Media Plateau

1. Learning new things becomes more rare; another 20 ways to use Pinterest blog post isn’t providing new insight over what you know now.

2. Your favorite bloggers seem to be echoing the chamber more frequently, and there’s a reason you’re spotting that — you’re ready to grow because you know.

3. Posting wit and banter on the channels is more of a chore and you find yourself sharing posts without reading to keep your Klout score up.

4. Facebook’s continued alterations and altercations have you yawning as you realize other channels may be a better fit.

5. You read some of the posts and shake your head at the nonsense.

6. When you find a new blogger with some awesome content and you write a comment saying so and get crickets in response.

7. When you see a favorite blogger MIA or changing it up so drastically you can’t follow whose writing you’re reading.

8. When whining becomes more the rant and a feeling of morose amplifies emotions in posts.

9. When the Triberr stream is populated with content that boils down to limited scope, repetition and topics you’ve seen already a dozen times.

10. When the road ahead is a question mark.

How To Fix The Social Media Plateau

Not saying you need to feel all of these or any, but when you begin to question your purpose and experience a few of those listed above, consider these possible solutions to fix The  Social Media Plateau:

1. Take a hiatus and refocus on your core business. You’ll buy back tons of time; yet, your social brand will suffer.

2. Reduce the time spent on the channels that don’t return much to you. That way, you’re not spread as thin.

3. Guest post on national blogs or other more high-traffic blogs (only after you engage and make a connection with the bloggers’ community, of course).

4. Tackle a whole new area, which can be any or all of the following — web design, analytics/big data, content marketing and lead gen, podcasting, webinars, passive income, affiliate marketing, speaking, e-books/books, and, and, and…

OMYGOSH…look at #4 — there’s my laundry list to push the envelope and avoid a social media plateau! What about you? Did any of that tickle the pink?

 

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Triberr Meets Influence

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ALT="Influence on Triberr, a tribe image, Soulati Media"We’re in the post social media adoption phase. Guess what? We’re also in the post Triberr adoption phase, too. If you’re a blogger and you’re not engaged on Triberr, well, you kinda missed the train; it left. (Kidding, there’s still time to jump on!)

Influence is a hot button. Many of us on the ‘sphere who have been blogging for more than two years were around with the launch of Triberr, and, boy, did the sparks fly with anti-sentiment. Perhaps DannyBrown will come back and join the tribes again? He was one who withdrew. Erica Allison said, no, then she said yes; hmm, I think that’s a flip-flop, right John Kerry?

Seriously, though, the inspiration for this post came directly from the horse himself. I spoke awhile with Triberr founder Dino Dogan yesterday. Dino and Dan Cristo and the gang are hosting TribeUp NYC in September, and the passion for that project is us. Yes, we bloggers who belong to tribes on Triberr. While I don’t know  Triberr’s mission statement, it’s pretty simple to say it’s all about being a resource for bloggers globally; to deliver tools and resources to take blogging to new heights and bring those of us who toil daily to keep our blogs alive along for the ride.

[Read more…]

Should You Delete Social Media Profiles?

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A man I respect as a peer and pal is a social media leader and A(mazing) lister who will deny that last descriptor as a slight, but he carries enough clout that he has deleted his and also his Google+ profile.

His hit my in box over the weekend, and I was fascinated with his announcement that he had deleted his and was lamenting that Google required him to re-up his profile IF he wanted to use .

So, I got to thinking about social media leaders who take proactive steps to change it up. Remember the leaders who deleted all their Twitter followers ? That was all the rage for awhile with everyone talking about what that meant, why they did it and what influence it had.

That said, I got to thinking about what it means to be in social media marketing.  Each of us engages with the next new channel. I kicked and screamed all the way to Pinterest to fall in love and then have that love wane to zero after the legal problems came to light. But, I didn’t delete my profile…yet.

is someone I fully consider a leader in this space. I feel as if I know him extremely well, yet we’ve never met IRL or via Skype. I need to change that up.  I remember when I started and I was in awe of his efforts with 12for12K.com.

And, we’ve f together, too. That makes us kindred . So, when I read yet again that Danny was justifying why he had deleted a profile after playing ball (he had met with some interesting obstacles and Wil E. Coyote shenanigans) I thought:

If you’re in social media, shouldn’t you have a Google+ profile? Then, I thought, Danny is now working for ; not driving his own company. Is that the reason he’s not as concerned with personal branding as before?

So as not to sideswipe Danny or speak on his behalf, I sent this post to him for his heads up in the hopes he would be able to shed some light on my curiosity. Let’s define what that curiosity means — it’s not gossip by any stretch; it’s learning.

Do I need to keep my Pinterest profile if I’m not going to be current or active? Do social media leaders have to engage on all the channels to show they know what’s hot? I seriously want to know the answers to these questions, and I’m hoping the king himself will help provide us with some insight…Danny?

(Thanks, Mr. Brown!) Danny Brown says:

“The way I look at it is this – does this platform really need to take up my time, and is it doing things at least in some right ways? When Klout first arrived on the scene, I was curious as I’m really interested in how messages are filtered through the channels, and what influence could mean for brands and business. Then I found out about their crappy privacy, their shady profile setting up and their inclusion of minors, and I deleted. It was simply a popularity tool as opposed to a true influence measure.

Now Google, with their Google+ platform, seems to want to follow the same path – force account creations, count “active users” as people who might click on G+ alerts in Gmail but never go through to the site, allow non-users to be emailed by their connections online to encourage sign-ups, etc. Its invasive marketing and so out of touch with Google’s lauded “don’t be evil” mantra. It may be a bit easier to take if the platform was good, but it’s such a stale experience compared to Twitter and Facebook (and, yes, you can say it’s down to the people you follow, but I followed some of the smartest folks around while their content was great, the user experience was still bland).

My time is very limited, due to professional and family commitments, so unless a platform stands out as being hugely effective, I won’t waste time on there. I’ve never felt the need to “build a personal brand,” as that always sounds forced and contrived. So not being on the “big platforms” doesn’t bother me too much. If I miss out, so be it – I’ll still prefer to be active on the platforms that matter to me, and for now that’s , Twitter and Facebook. Everything else is either a luxury I don’t need or a time suck that’s being hyped by those looking to push their own books, webinars and agendas.

My advice? Look at the platforms, evaluate your interaction and returns, and if they don’t seem to make sense, then spend your time where you’re more effective, both as a producer and a listener. That’s how you’ll get the results that matter.”