Here's how I am gearing up to tweet for eBay tomorrow (eBay is an Edelman client). You can follow me Monday through Wednesday over on the . I detail the gear I am packing as I venture to tweet the sites and sounds of this special event. More details are here.
With this in mind, my colleagues and I have co-authored a 13-page position paper on Search Engine Visibility. We released it to our clients last month but now we are making it available to the public today at the Edelman New Media Academic Summit in Washington. You can download it here (PDF). It's also embedded below. This is the second in a series - the first is here.
In the paper we posit that today there are two primary search visibility tactics: Paid Search (more widely known as search engine marketing - SEM) and Optimized Search (e.g. SEO). Both of these are generally not managed by public relations professionals.
Now, however, there are two new disciplines emerging. And both sit squarely in the public relations professional's domain...
I am writing this blog post from high above the US as I fly back to NY after a quick overnight trip to Chicago. However, I am not writing it on a computer, rather I am using just a smartphone.
This trip was unusual. For only the second time I left my laptop at home and traveled with just a smartphone (in my case an iPhone), a Verizon Mifi router and an 8gb Lacie Iamakey USB drive. Nevertheless, I was remarkably able to do just about everything I needed.
Despite the challeneges of working with a virtual keyboard I have become rather adept at typing on the iPhone. I use apps like The Thumb to train myself. In fact, I am composing this post using the outstanding QuickOffice suite, which is available on virtually every mobile platform. My experience this week is encouraging me to go "laptopless" on short trips from here on in, unless I feel I will need a computer to work on a PowerPoint document or to project one.
All of the excitement in technology sector these days is in the mobile space - especially this summer with the gaggle of new devices that are launching. TechCrunch even calls this the summer of smartphone love. But beyond all the hype of the devices, there is a fundamentally bigger story here about how these platforms are tranforming society.
What's notable is that pundits in the tech press aren't even calling the new devices "phones" - as much as they used to. Notice how both Ed Baig from USA Today and Walt Mossberg from The Wall Street Journal refer to the new Palm Pre not so much as a phone but rather a "pocket computer." (Palm is an Edelman client.) The same of course can be said for the entire group: Android, Windows Mobile, iPhones and Blackberries .
This language represents a subtle but important shift. The phone isn't a phone any more. It has become the connected computer that is with us all the time. And just as our PCs serve as a virually endless fountain of information and entertainment so too do our "pocket computers." And it's going to become the focal point for marketers in a short order
Even though I am disconected from the ether as I pen this post I am awed by the sheer amount of content that's sitting on my device just waiting to be consumed. It includes a rented movie, three video and audio podcasts, two thousand songs, five Amazon Kindle ebooks, 10 games, 125 unread RSS items in NetNewswire plus dozens of cached articles in Instapaper, the New York Times and WSJ apps. It would literally take me months to go through it all. Plus once I landed my magical pocket computer filled up with even more - emails, tweets, feeds, etc.
What this has me thinking is that it is simply impossible to be bored anymore. Anyone with a mobile phone (and these days that's everyone) has infinite choices to keep them occupied no matter how idle he/she might be. In addition we have a myriad of ways to use the device to create content as well. Just look at the runaway success of the Brushes application for the iPhone.
So boredom is dead. I for one am happy to see it go. However I wonder how this will impact those of us who grew up at times bored as well as subsequent generations who will never experience it. As always, I am eager for your thoughts either here or on Twitter, Facebook or Friendfeed.
A larger, much more readable version of the above is here.
Yesterday during my keynote on the future of Twitter at the TWTRCON conference in San Francisco I decided to do something different. For one day, at least, I put away PowerPoint and fired up a mind mapping program (in my case I use Mind Node for the Mac).
I really enjoyed the experience and, anecdotally from what others told me, so did the audience. For one, It made the session more interactive. Second, because it was different, it seemed to capture people's attention more than a deck would have. (Hmm, is PowerPoint making us blind and deaf?) Still, since this was my first time out mind mapping with the audience I know much can be improved.
To build the mind map I started (conceptually) with a framework that built off of Brian Solis' great Twiiterverse diagram.
Then, I divided the map in half - Twitter as an OS (think "Twitter Inside") and Twitter and the Ecosystem (think Twitter and others). Then, for the next 25 minutes, I took the audience through my initial thinking but opened it up to more feedback and input so that we grow it. Now it's your turn.
I have published the mind map on Flickr. In addition, you can download it here in PDF and OPML format. The OPML file should open up in any mind mapping application like MindManager for Mac or Windows or Mindmeister (a web app).
Let's see if we can take this concept to the next level and perhaps use it to bring Twitter new ideas, which they seem quite open to - at least that's what they said during the session that preceded mine. Leave comments here or on Twitter with the hash #futureoftwitter and let's see where we can take this.
Technorati Tags:
Twitter, TWTRCON
For more than 100 years brand marketers have largely focused on push - a mix of tried-and-true tactics that include paid and earned media. However, that was before the Attention Crash, which is changing the economics of digital marketing.
The endless supply of content is taking a toll. It has forced consumers to make hard choices about where and how they spend time. Today people are browsing less and going deeper into a small number of sites. The exact mix of destinations change. What they have in common, however, is that they are all useful.
This habitual shift is resetting the way marketers think. To remain relevant today brands realize they increasingly have to create valuable utilities that consumers pull. These need to seamlessly integrate into the hubs where consumers are investing their shrinking attention.
Kraft, for example, circumvented the Attention Crash with the iFood Assistant, a database of 7,000 recipes that can be accessed from the iPhone. Even though it is clearly Kraft branded and costs 99 cents, the app has remained one of the top paid lifestyle programs on the iTunes store for nearly six months. (Kraft is an Edelman client but we didn't develop this app.)
Utility, however, isn't just about the iPhone or mobile applications. Others are successfully building relationships via rich iGoogle widgets and/or games that consumers find downright irresistible. So, the business case is simple enough. However, the economics are disruptive.
As more marketing becomes utilitarian in nature, marketers will need to invest in not only in developing "high concept" applications but also marketing them. It's very similar to Hollywood where studios spend millions on big-budget blockbusters that have no guarantee for success. Consider, for example, the typical iPhone application. iPhone development costs range from $20,000 for the basics, up to $150,000 or more, according to Forrester Research. That doesn't even include the budget to promote the application.
Unfortunately, this is the new reality of the digital age. Still, the economics and benefits of utility marketing are very favorable when compared to TV advertising - and more marketers will therefore shift their dollars. Success, however, is far from guaranteed.
Blackberry Storm icons via the Gadgeteer
This idea didn't occur to me when I started and this blog five years ago and named it Micro Persuasion, but in all honesty it could have. It's been percolating in my subconscious for a long time. In the digital age - where every second there is something new tugging at our attention - we are influenced more than ever by tiny little icons. And there's no sign of the trend abating.
It used to be that in the old days only brands could afford nice logos. However, today almost everyone and everything has an icon. These little logos say a lot about a brand's persona and what they stand for. However, icons are not just for products and services anymore, it's for individuals too.
I don't know about you but I make decisions about the digital tools/services I use and the digital personas I choose to follow on Twitter or Friendfeed not just based on their attributes alone, but their icons. I bet that I am not alone. Icons also influence the mobile applications we choose to put on our handhelds, the sites we bookmark (because of their favicons) and the apps we run on our desktops.
For all of the conversation around personal branding and social media, there's not nearly enough attention paid to the art of iconography. With that here are some of my favorite icons and how they influence me...
Scoble - I have been following Robert Scoble for years. However, ever since he became the Incredible Hulk on Friendfeed (thanks to Thomas Hawk) he cried out to be read even more closely. Unfortunately Scoble just changed his icon back to the old one but I wish he hadn't. In fact, he should take the Hulk icon leverage it everywhere!
Evernote - Evernote is one of those products I want to love. However, I am constantly picking it up and putting it down. However, every time I see the elephant icon in my dock or on my phone or look at the t-shirt that they sent me long ago (pictured below), I realize that Evernote has so much promise because, like an elephant, it never forgets. That keeps me coming back. (In fact, am composing this post with Evernote.)
Seesmic - Every time I look at this icon on my desktop it cries out to be clicked. There's no doubt that the icon is a draw, even though I find the desktop application to be slow. Still the cute icon encourages me to be patient that the service will be just as speedy as the cartoon.
Seesmic Logo by Leah Jones on Flickr
What icons influence you? And how?
Apple's iTunes App Store is one of the hottest things going right now in the mobile space. Apple in fact just hit one billion downloaded iPhone applications. But there's a mystery behind the scenes here - one that's bigger than "Who is Batman?" Namely, just who exactly at Apple controls the iTunes App Store home screen (depicted above) and what goes into the featured choices they make each week?
On the surface, the App Store appears to be truly democratic and open to any developer. Like clockwork, every Tuesday at midnight PST the deck is reshuffled on both the desktop and iPhone stores. It highlights new and notable applications that Apple's team selects. These apps remain in "heavy rotation" on the home screen for seven days or more.
However, the reality is that the selections are truly anything but democratic. Apple has been known to deny or approve applications randomly and at it's own discretion. One such app was initially denied for featuring the UK's Daily Sun, which often runs objectionable photos. And most weeks Apple appears to highlight applications from marquee names - big media companies, major marketers and game developers - complete with giant graphics and call-outs.
This is not as trivial as it may seem. As mobile applications grow in popularity, the App Store home screen is becoming one of the hottest tickets in marketing. The app selections Apple makes probably have a huge impact on initial downloads and purchases.
I don't have the time or the inclination to investigate this further. It would be great if someone can follow up on this to find out just want goes into the mix. Presumably, Apple's team looks at the schedule for when apps are set to hit the store (which developers can set) and then makes choices just like any editor. I do not believe these spots are paid for although Apple does nothing to keep us from wondering.
However, the iTunes App Store kingmakers are not just ordinary editors. With more and more companies developing apps it's in Apple's best interest as a semi-open platform to provide more guidance and transparency around what goes into the mix - for example, why is one tip calculator highlighted on the home screen over another? Some of this may be forthcoming. Perhaps if we elevate the conversation and shed some light on the process it will encourage Apple to do more. Microsoft ( an Edelman client) appears to be far more transparent here.
Technorati Tags:
iPhone, Apple, marketplace
Photo credit: Décoration du château de Versaille by Djof
For the last 15 years marketers lived like kings online. We built ornate palaces in homage to ourselves in the form of web sites and micro sites. Each acts as a destination that embodies our meticulous choice of aesthetics, content and activities.
We still put a lot of time, effort and money into erecting these palaces, much as Louis XIV did in planning Versailles. And, for the most part we have been rewarded handsomely for our efforts. For years consumers flocked to our sites, reveled in all we had to say, played with our toys and, sometimes, were motivated enough as a result to buy our stuff.
That's what life was like in the good old days. But now we're in the age of online enlightenment. People (rightfully) have reasoned that they too can be creators, not just consumers. Content choices became infinite and peers are trumping pros.
After years of erosion it now it appears the destination web era is drawing to a close. This a trend that digital thinkers like Om Malik have long noted. In fact, the numbers prove it.
In March the average American visited a mere 111 domains and 2,500 web pages, according to Nielsen Online. What's worse, our attention across these pages is highly fragmented. The average time spent per page is a mere 56 seconds. Portals and search engines dominate, capturing approximately 12 of the 75 hours spent online in March. However, people-powered sites like Wikipedia, Facebook and YouTube are not far behind, snagging nearly 4.5 hours of our monthly attention.
In the post-destination web era the secret to breaking through won't be advertising. A new study from ARAnet in conjunction with Opinion Research Corporation confirms what PR execs have known for years - we are far more likely to take action when reading online articles that include brand information (51%) compared to search engine advertising (39%) or banner ads (25%).
Unfortunately, digital marketing is still wired for the destination web era. To succeed going forward we have to change our thinking. "Earned media" through direct public engagement in the venues where our consumers spend time will become the only way to truly influence a behavior change. The greatest advantages will go to the first movers who embrace this shift. It's not too late.
Photo Credit: Open on Flickr by Mag3737
The following is also my column in this week's issue of Advertising Age.
As Edelman's crystal ball guy I can't go to a meeting without being asked what will succeed Twitter or Facebook as the future king of community. It's unfortunate, but it's just how history has conditioned us to think.
Remember, however, that Second Life was digital marketing's Vietnam.
Communities come and go. Hubs seem to lose their innovation edge just as consumers grow more fickle, new venues emerge and viable monetization options remain scarce. If history repeats itself, Facebook and Twitter will one day be replaced by something else. However, this time it will be the open web.
A group of standardized technologies are emerging that will evolve social networking from destinations we visit into something bigger - a federated address book that makes every single web site that chooses to adopt them entirely social.
Jeremiah Owyang at Forrester Research has been thinking about this deeply. This week Forrester is releasing a paper that outlines a five year vision for how the open web, thanks to connective technologies like OpenID, will become one giant social network. This global brain will follow us everywhere and influence every purchasing decision.
While Forrester doesn't get this tangible, here's a fictional scenario to consider.
Today online shopping means visiting Amazon.com, reading reviews from strangers and conducing a transaction.
Tomorrow, as everything becomes social, you will be able to shop Amazon directly from within your iGoogle page without ever having to visit the site. What's more, Amazon will show you what your Gmail address book friends have publicly said about a product and/or its category in any one of thousands of online communities. Finally, to help you further Amazon will offer an aggregated view of your friends' friends opinions in a way that protects their identity.
So how should marketers prepare? Owyang advises to focus on advocates, evolve models from push to pull and adapt internal cultures. I think, however, it starts with something more fundamental.
Marketers need to really embrace the fact that it's peers and their data, rather than brand, that will become the primary way we make decisions. The greatest rewards will go to those who embrace and participate in as many communities as they possibly can in credible ways.
There's endless speculation about how Twitter will make money - and when. Twitter is really hot right now, making it attractive to advertisers for both outbound marketing and deep insights. However, I don't think Twitter will be able to build a long term, sustainable business through advertising revenues.
The brief history of online communities (all 15 years worth) informs us that it's virtually impossible to make money around them. No one has been able to build a sustainable business doing so that has lasted more than five years. The reason is, people online are fickle. We come and go. This is why I wrote that Twitter is peaking - at least as far as in its ability to grow users.
What Twitter has done, however, that very few companies have achieved, is build an amazing platform that developers love. That ecosystem, if they invest in it, changes the game.
Suddenly, Twitter is no longer a web site. Rather, it is becoming the web's first major social operating system. Twitter is to rapid fire online communication what Microsoft is to PCs, Apple and Blackberry are to mobile phones, Google is to search and advertising and Facebook hopes to become to the social graph. The numbers from comScore don't tell the real story. This BusinessWeek photo essay, which shows the innovation in the platform, does.
If Twitter invests in growing its platform and empowers developers to do more with its API (i.e. build profitable companies), it can create a remarkable business much as these other giants have before them. The beauty of it is they will never have to worry about the ever cyclical online advertising market or the fickle consumer who is in search of the next hot site. What's more it can spur all kinds of innovation, as the platform has already done.
This is the surest path for Twitter: mold the robust platform into a social OS and add premium services for developers and Twitter could become a giant business that weathers the ever-changing fickle nature of online communities. Choose instead to focus on growing site traffic and advertisers and it will fall prey to the same fate as The Well, GeoCities, Tripod, ICQ, Friendster and every community that walked before it.
So Twitter, be Microsoft, not AOL. Focus on the developers. Enable them to monetize and to grow with you. Become the Internet's first social OS and the rest will take care of itself. Do not chase Madison Avenue. Build the platform, monetize it with value-added services and inspire innovation and Madison Avenue and the rest of the world will plug into you.
Jeff Jarvis' new book, What Would Google Do?, is a must-read and a real eye opener. Here is a Q&A that Jeff graciously participated in for my column in Advertising Age...
Four years ago I wrote this...
"One day CRM systems will bolt in blog monitoring functionality so these posts automatically get funneled to the right place. For now, they need to be handled onesie twosie - but handled nonetheless."
Now today Salesforce.com has added Twitter customer service tools to its already formidable suite. Forrester Analyst Jeremiah Owyang sees Twitter's future as social CRM.
However, I don't think Twitter will be the only game in town. There will be lot of venues to vent, all of which can have an impact on brand reputation as journalists discover all of this conversation through Google, Twitter Search and other search engines. GetSatisfaction.com is growing. I wrote about this in our most recent white paper (see trend one).
In addition, I cover this in my first vlog on the Edelman Facebook page (forgive the acting!). My takeaway is that this isn't just a CRM concern, but rather it requires close coordination between customer service and PR. There's a great study on this from SNCR. What's your view?
Twitter traffic data from comScore (via TechCrunch)
I have been active Twitter user since January 2007. And it's been remarkable just how much it has changed since.
In the last six months, Twitter has gone nuclear. There are three reasons why and I explore them in this post. However, they also point to why Twitter is about to jump the shark and we should begin asking ourselves what's "the next big thing."
As long as Twitter maintains a following I feel every business should join it and converse with their customers - just as I said a year ago. Still, it's always important for everyone to see the big picture. That's why predicting a market top is something I thoroughly enjoy doing. In part, it's what I am paid to do - think about what's next. This disicipline keeps me and others like Robert Scoble like from getting stale.
In December 2006 when Evan Williams first showed me Twitter in the back of a cab in Seattle, I thought it was going nowhere. But after I played with it, I got hooked. My early fascination with Twitter began because, like now, I was scanning the horizon for what's next. I sensed that in late 2006 that blogging was cresting. Twitter replaced it for me and, later, millions. Now the same can be said about RSS, which many of the early adopters who first embraced it have also now ceremoniously dumped. (More on RSS in a subsequent post.)
As I have written before, no community has ever had staying power. Twitter right now is poised to fall victim to the same trend. Let's take a look at three reasons why Twitter has witnessed incredible growth, all of which point to why the service is peaking right now. (Note: Many of you will disagree. Daniel Terdiman today wrote that at SXSW, Twitter was the new Twitter.)
1) Celebs Flocked to Twitter - Just six months ago, the list of the top 100 users on Twitter read like a who's who of geeks. That's what made it a draw, for many, initially. Now, however, the list looks like People or US Magazine. Twitter is losing it's geek creds as celebs flock to the service.
Historically, as the geeks go, so goes social media. I believe that the Founding Fathers and Mothers of Twitter - people who gave the service it's wings, will soon tire of it and seek the next shiny object. Already, Dave Winer is playing with Jaiku. Scoble is deep into Friendfeed. I am finding a lot more value these days in both Friendfeed and Facebook, which leads me to my next point.
2) Twitter is Disorganized - Twitter attracted a following because it's disorganized. Since replies are not threaded, celebs and corporations do not feel they have to respond to every Tweet. It's a tree in the forrest thing. There are no comments to moderate. And this makes it more attractive than blogging.
However, what was once "a feature" could begin to be seen as "a bug" and lead us to seek more organization. As Jeff Jarvis explains in his book What Would Google Do, other services like Facebook and Google provide elegant organization. This is something Friendfeed does well too. It's also a big reason why Tweetdeck is succeeding. Twitter would be wise to acquire Tweetdeck now before someone else does, especially as it adds more social tentacles.
3) Twitter is a Mile Wide but an Inch Deep - Brevity rules on Twitter. And this has encouraged time-starved celebrities and corporate types to jump into Twitter much more so than blogging. It also supports anonymity. You can be "a corporation" on Twitter, which you really can't do with a blog. Here people want to see the faces.
However, as Twitter grows and people begin to crave reading Tweets from personalities and others they trust, I wonder if they will want a deeper relationship - one with less anonymity. This is something other services, notably Friendfeed and Facebook, do well. You can use either to create a community around all your stuff, not just 140-character tweets. Also, I suspect they will want to weed signal from noise. Right now that's tough to do.
So you heard it here first, folks. Twitter is peaking. Now I believe Twitter can get through "the dip" that stares them in the face, but it will need to adapt by: keeping its core users intact, remaining attractive to corporations and celebs and by becoming more organized. Search will help with the latter, but expect a battle as Facebook and Friendfeed both make a concerted push to become the place for all your social stuff.
Forrester Research is out with a new brief this morning by analysts Sean Corcoran, Jeremiah Owyang and Josh Bernoff that says that sponsored conversations on blogs - akin to what how Chris Brogan partnered with KMart - are going to become more commonplace. Further, they recommend the tactic provided that there are clear disclosures all around.
Sponsored posts are nothing new. Although the tactic always raises a fair amount of controversy. Daring Fireball, one of the most popular Mac blogs, regularly runs sponsored posts inside its feed. Techmeme has them on the site too. However, where these are different is that they act more like advertorials. Where it gets prickly is when bloggers themselves write about their personal experience with a product (usually balanced) in exchanged for compensation.
Forrester makes five recommendations in the brief: mandate disclosure, ensure freedom of authenticity, partner with relevant blogs, don't talk and walk away. All good advice. Further, as you can see from the chart below they sit sponsored conversations somewhere between advertising and PR in the matrix.
Source: Forrester Research, Inc.
The report misses something, however. This is nothing new. Magazines have run advertorials for years. And radio stations run promotions where the DJ gets involved. What is new is that on many of these sites the editor and publisher are the same individual. There are no hard church/state boundaries as there are with other media.
The way to get around this is to write and submit your own content as a sponsored post. Have the blogger run the copy but with an advertorial label. This has worked in magazines for years.
Further, I would suggest working with an organization that represents bloggers and has experience running such programs - such as Federated Media. In addition, sponsored conversations work best when you integrate tactics across the spectrum that Forrester has here. Sometimes, earning media can lead to additional opportunities to get to know the personalities behind a blog and then additional opps. down the road.
However, on the whole, I agree that we're going to see more of this in the future. I am hopeful that everyone, publishers and sponsors, will bring their ethical A-game.
PSFK notes that the web has historically rewarded individuals and companies that share their knowledge regularly and liberally...
Good question. In the past you couldn't argue with this approach. For decades knowledge sharing and thought leadership have been a winning PR strategy. The folks at Hubspot talk about this a lot when they talk about "inbound marketing."
However, as I look over this short list of folks (thanks to PSFK for including me!) I wonder if people who work for larger companies - both those who are well known and others - will be as willing to share knolwedge so readily in a recession.
You can bet that the folks named (myself included) and independent thought leaders like Charlene Li will continue in this tradition. In my case it's part of the culture at Edelman. But what about people who work for companies that sell their IP and whose livelihood depend on it? For example, industry analysts like Jeremiah Owyang who work for Forrester. Will they continue to rely on a strategy that to date has sparkled?
In tighter times my bet is that an iceberg of information that last year was unlocked might now remain more submerged.
I share a ton of content online with you. Much of it has moved to my Friendfeed page. However, these days I am now also producing more stuff for internal use - exclusive content for our staff and clients. This has allowed me to add value everywhere. I am just more strategic about it than I was before. That's what comes with the territory of working for a big global organization. I am lucky that Edelman is incredibly liberal here and they are great to work for. The leave it to me to judge. But what about others who aren't so lucky?
What's your view? Should all information be free? I don't feel that way. To a large degree it's what keeps information workers employed. There will always be limits. They just might be tighter now.
One of the five digital trends to watch as outlined in our white paper is what we're calling "The Power of Pull." In essence, this refers to creating value-added digital content and utilities that people will find on their own online and engage.
Leo Babauta of Zen Habits, author of the new best-selling productivity book, The Power of Less, is someone who shares our thinking so I have invited him to contribute the following guest post (although the views expressed are his own). We look forward to hearing your comments. Over to Leo...
Recently I ruffled some feathers in the marketing and advertising communities when I recommended, in my free ebook Thriving on Less, that people avoid advertising as much as possible in order to avoid having new desires created in them to buy more.
Advertising and marketing is designed to create new desires in us, I argued, and if you're trying to live a more frugal (but more full) life then you should avoid advertising.
So Steve Rubel -- a man for whom I have much respect -- asked me what the marketing world should do in light of my recommendations to consumers (also known as "regular people"). It's a great question, and something I've dealt with myself as I've worked on marketing my blog (Zen Habits) and my book (The Power of Less) to good success.
I built Zen Habits from nothing, with no resources, to one of the Top 100 blogs in the world within its
first year, based completely on principles of what I like to call "The Tao of Marketing" -- based upon principles found in Taoism. I've used the same principles to make my book an Amazon best-seller within its first day.
Let's take a look at The Tao of Marketing, and how you can use it successfully.
The Challenges of Marketing Today
We first need to assess the world in which we find ourselves -- to recognize the landscape for what it is, and to accept it and work with it. Marketers find themselves in a very different world than existed just a decade ago. The Internet has changed everything, from product marketing to personal branding to presidential campaigning. Just a few points to make:
Given these points, let's take a look at what marketing was (in the days before the landscape changed) and what it can be, with the Tao of Marketing.
The Old Way
Advertising, to start with, has spent decades refining techniques that create desires within the consumer, and this method of persuasion is a form of control. And it works, even to this day. People who didn't know they wanted an iPod before, who didn't know they wanted an iPhone or Macbook Air, or a Google Android device ... will instantly crave it when advertising is done with them.
The problem is that with the economy taking a dive, people are realizing they have to change their habits. With this realization comes the realization that they've been manipulated by advertising for years, and that it has to change. More and more people are blocking ads on websites, are using Tivo to skip TV ads, are shutting off ad-supported radio in favor of digital music.
Marketing faces similar problems. Marketing of old was (and still is) a pushy industry, forcing a brand down people's throats. The pushiness reached a pinnacle with junk mail and then, when email became big, spam. It's aggressive and it worked for awhile but people got tired of it quickly.
The result is that they are much more resistant to any kind of aggressiveness, pushiness, and don't like being controlled or manipulated. The landscape has changed, and so must marketing.
The Tao Way
Marketers must adopt an entirely new strategy -- more than that, an entirely new mindset. They must get away from trying to create new desires in people, trying to push and force themselves on people, trying to control people.
Instead, find a more natural way. Find out what people want, and then give it to them. Offer them value, and they will appreciate that. Be a resource. Give things away. Don't force -- let them come to you, because of all the value you offer. Here's how:
Read more from Leo Babauta at Zen Habits, or read his new book on achieving more by doing less: The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential ... in Business and in Life.
In my role as Director of Insights for Edelman Digital I am writing monthly white papers for clients on key trends. Sometimes we will release these broadly. For the first one, I drew on members of the Edelman team, as well as third party research, to highlight five digital trends to watch for 2009. Each includes specific recommended actions.
Even though the economy is slowing, all signs show that audiences are still spending a lot more time on the web. Marketers need to invest to meet them there. However, what's changed today they are smarter about where they focus their time, dollars and energy. Experimentation is giving way to tactics that deliver ROI. These include public engagement, search and social networking — three themes that connect the major macro trends.
There are five trends covered in this white paper...
Satisfaction Guaranteed - Customer care and PR are blending as consumers use social media to demand service
Media Reforestation - The media is in a constant state of reinvention as it transitions from atoms to bits
Less is the New More - Overload takes its toll. Gorging on media is out. Selective ignorance and friends as filters are in
Corporate All-Stars - Workers flock to social media to build their personal brands, yet offer employers an effective and credible way to market in the downturn
The Power of Pull - Where push once ruled, it’s now equally important to create digital content that people discover through search
You can download the full paper here(PDF) or simply browse or read it below. I look forward to hearing your feedback.
Seen a lot of big bellies on the web lately - like the ad above? How about ads you might normally see running on low-ranked blogs, like for Snorg tees (also above), popping up on mainstream news sites? Feeling like your credit might be in trouble, even if it's not? I would have the same feeling too judging by how many time trashy appeals for credit score reports are showing up on high-quality news sources. (Note - I am not picking on these products. For all I know they might be good.)
This is just an observation since I don't have hard statistics, but it seems like a lot of the banner ads from quality Fortune 500 advertisers have vanished as the economy shrivels. This despite signs that online advertising is alive and well.
In some ways it feels like we're a time warp back to the early 2000s when mainstream brand marketers had yet to invest in digital advertising in a big way. That all ended mid-decade but now we're back in the dark ages for banners.
If ad revenues are up, so what's going on here? The investment may be shifting to higher ground.
Some will argue this is cyclical. Brand marketers will be back using banners once ad spending increases. But you can argue the opposite might be true depending on how long the economy remains in a recession.
Banner ads have a notoriously low ROI. They are good branding vehicles but terrible for direct response and they require a significant investment to really be successful. You need to blanket the web with them. I'm inclined to believe that as marketers look for ROI in these times they will find success through search ads, public relations, email marketing and some, but not all, social networking programs.
If they get comfortable with other tactics beyond display ads - and the ROI is proven - then it could spell even more trouble for media companies that depend on banners for the bulk of their revenues. Reduced investment increases inventory, reduces the prices (and quality) and creates a vicious cycle.
So will quality banners be back? Yes, but not at the rate of adoption we saw before the economy began to sink. The money will have moved by then into other areas.
Not every company will want corporate all-stars on the team. But those that cultivate them will be in a strong position to be heard in the noisy social sphere. Here are three considerations:
Use blogs to connect customers and corporate all-stars
Blogs are fast becoming a key part of many brand communication plans. However, according to Forrester, only 16% of online consumers who read corporate blogs say they trust them. To mitigate this, turn boring product blogs into communities that connect customers and corporate all-stars around their shared passions.
Give all-stars independence, yet ensure they stay focused
To be successful, employees with personal brands need to carefully balance their roles as semi-independent thought leaders while maintaining a clear connection to their employers. The ideal situation is when the individual's and company's goals are aligned, the subject matter overlaps, and transparency reigns.
Equip and support personal brands in becoming active listeners
The advantages of having authentic online all-stars go beyond relationships, branding and overall visibility. These people also become active listeners. Equip them to act on potential crises and issues, and enable them to identify new ideas and unmet needs.
Photo: Google Cookie by Massless on Flickr
Note update from Google at the end of this post.
Google tonight made an important change to the Google Ad Planner that - at least as I read it - means they are now tracking every site you visit via a Google cookie and serving the aggregate data up to advertisers. If I am wrong I hope someone will tell me. (If this post is wrong I will correct it - but this is how I am interpreting what Google has put out there so far.)
Let's take a look at the facts.
First, Google yesterday made some subtle changes to its privacy policy. Coincidence? Maybe.
UPDATE 1/30:: A Google spokesperson emailed in the following statement in response to my post...
"Google does not track users in the manner described in the article. We do not track every site every Google user goes to, nor do we have the capabilities to track in this manner.
The updates to our privacy policy made on Wednesday refer to data collection only for the purpose of detecting and preventing fraud or other misconduct; Google Ad Planner is not using any of this data in our enhanced features. There is no relationship between our updated privacy policy and our updated Ad Planner features."
Seems to make sense. However, it doesn't explain where the cookie data comes from. Others point out in the comments that Google has a lot of cookies sprinkled across the web through Doubleclick, etc. and that - in theory - they could triangulate the data. I have emailed Google to see what I can find out.
