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)
They 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.
Because 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.
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Thanks very much for the shout-out!
@markwschaefer You’re welcome, Friend! I hope I can sell you 500 more books!
You posts are always so smartly written. Here’s a thought. I love to read Danny and Mart’s blog’s along with yours answer as my volunteer efforts expand with my professional organization ARIDO the relevance of these blog’s is essential inmy ability to keep pace with the tide of on-line marketing and activity.
Now, I was listening to a podcast with Mitch Joel and Vivika (somebody- sorry, name escapes me) and Mitch pointed out something very interesting. Her book, LinkedIn in an hour a day, had references and data relating to 2 year old platforms because it took so long to produce. Still relevant? Sure but unfortunate.
I simply wonder if a book in hardcopy is the best way to share this type of business insight?
@rdopping Morning, Ralph! thanks for coming by…I noticed from your post (as well as many others) that you’re also being selective where you go for info and comment. It’s a sign of the times, and I’m ever so grateful you’re here and learning something.
You were listening to Viveka Von Rosen (@LinkedInExpert) who was born the same day as I, incidentally, and she is one to absolutely follow and learn tremendous info from.
That said, you raise a great point…while I can’t speak to a LinkedIn book two years in the making, I know for certain that Danny Brown’s book is ahead of its time. In fact, all of this information on influence marketing is quite new and everyone is learning daily and sharing in real time what’s happening on the ‘sphere.
I also know that Danny and Sam have a Google+ community on influence marketing and they are taking much of what happens there and incorporating it into real time writing for their book. If you get the book and it sounds Greek to you; that’s a good thing…you’ll be in on the ground floor. Then, when you begin to see these terms used, you’ll understand b/c you’ll have read the book or referenced it.
I pre-ordered my copy yesterday…while I may think I know it all, ahem, these guys are spending hours with proof points to back up theories.
In your neck of the woods, I believe you could benefit from influence marketing or at least the understanding of scoring and discerning the wheat from chaff. This entire area is brand new, and Klout launched it by putting a score on all of us.
Thanks for the smartly written comment; I appreciate that very much!
@Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing @rdopping Hey there Ralph,
i can’t speak for Viveka’s process, as each publisher is different, as is topic of book. For samfiorella and myself, we started talking about this last summer, and we then pitched the publisher around Fall. The writing process itself began in November, and we submitted 25% of the manuscript in 4 consecutive months.
The biggest challenge for us was the topic we’re talking about – one of the platforms we feature in the book is traackr , and they released a major update to their platform yesterday. Considering our last submission to Production was February 15, you can imagine the fast turnaround we had to do to make sure the information was up to date! 🙂
That being said, this isn’t a technology book. It’s a business book that uses technology to provide a framework for businesses to truly understand influence, and how decision-making can be disrupted by so many different factors that trying to gauge (and utilize) influence using scoring is futile.
Instead, we’ve designed a methodology that I think businesses will be able to use for years to come. Of course, I’m biased, so I would say that…. 😉
Because our focus is on business and not technology, I think we’re fortunate enough to not be restricted by something that could be out of date soon after publication. We’ll see.
Cheers, sir!
@Danny Brown @Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing samfiorella traackr Excellent retort.
Once again, based on my experience, way beyond my ability to assimilate cohesively. Yikes.
But, it’s good to think that your approach can stand the test of time.
I was actually angling for an idea like why not produce this work digitally and have a subscription fee to access it. It can be one time just like to book (just one thought). The bonus is building on educating membership by offering updated thinking, evolving strategy and assimilation of new ideas.
I love books, especially business books, but I see “analogue” books living successfully in the world of fiction. Business is forever evolving so why limit the content in print form.
Lots of argument for as against, I suppose.
@rdopping @Soulati | B2B Social Media Marketing samfiorella traackr Well, funnily enough, there will be an online component when the book comes out…;-)
Hey there miss,
First, thanks for the shout out, very much appreciated. We’re really proud of the book’s content – it’s very much a business book first that discusses where influence plays a part, versus looking at influence today (scoring models) and how to grow it. Early feedback is beginning to come in, with the first comment we received being “…excellent an truly groundbreaking.” We’ve worked very hard on it, so I’ll take that. 🙂
Now, to the point of marketing. For me – and it ties in perfectly to your points above – marketing is no different from any other facet of your business. Be strong in the areas that matter, and let other disciplines be strong in the areas that matter to them. Marketing is so multi-faceted (service, sales, PR, research, etc – that trying to do too much will just weaken you.
Concentrate, be strong there, complement others, and reap the rewards.
Cheers!
Jayme,
What may be interesting is if YOU led a reading and discussion group that illuminated the relevance of these evolving insights.