Curation Revolution

"Everywhere Marketing"

I'm not going to pay Forrester the $500 they want for their Fragmented Path To Purchase Demands Everywhere Marketing report, but I bet I can guess what it says. 

When I was a Director of Ecommerce 2 years ago it drove me crazy that customers would leave our shopping cart looking for deals on RetailMeNot.com. The solution was to reduce the friction and make it easy to find our coupons on our website. 

Life was QUIET then compared to now. Social shopping is great when it is working in your favor, when friends and friends of friends are acting as a Greek Chorus and helping you move visitors into customers. 

The shifting sands of social media and real time marketing (see Expion panel from 2 days ago: http://sco.lt/68DJj7 for more on real time marketing) mean your brands are only as strong as their weakest point. 

What Forrester calls "everywhere marketing" I think of as "Tapestry Marketing" - the idea that the more tapestry you weave the more fish you catch (to mix a metaphor). The elements of Internet marketing play best TOGETHER so you are only as strong as your weakest link and your brand, messaging and campaigns need to be everywhere. 

Here's the rub, YOU can't get anything everywhere. The only way to achieve the spread you need, something marketing teams used to just BUY, is to create advocacy, to have a supportive tribe willing to carry your message across their social nets. 

The even trickier part is you can't pay for true advocacy. Advocacy, for all but the 30% of mercenaries you can buy, is an issue of intrinsic not extrinsic motivation. Your tribe will help you because they LOVE you and are willing to sacrifice to help. 

Wow, if that felt like your marketing just got CHANGED you are getting the idea. No matter WHAT you sell from the dry cleaner on the corner to an Internet only B2C play generating millions you depend on the kindness of strangers (http://scenttrail.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-kindness-of-strangers-and-new.html ). 

This slide deck provides good "everywhere marketing" supporting facts. If you can't sell social media to your C level, drop back and see if you can pass Everywhere Marketing by them.  

Why does our increasingly social economy make some companies uncomfortable? It isn't easy to embrace an ever-increasing amount of vulnerability; to not play or cling to the tyranny of perfection are both doomed strategies already extinct. 

This piece explores how companies can dare to be great in a socially connected time.  

Join New Media Leaders
When my friend Phil Buckley asked me to join his new age Internet marketing think tank - New Media Leaders - my first thought was COOL!.

New Media Leaders (or as Iike to think of us New Riders of the Purple Sage) Include:

@1918 Phil Buckley - Best SEO I know.
@ MarkTraphagen - Recognized G+ Expert around the world.

@CommsNinja Amy Lewis - Community Evangelist for Cisco

@ScentTrail (me) - Atlantic BT Marketing Director & Content Marketer

Phil's idea, one I agree with and embrace, is the sum of our Internet marketing parts is greater than the whole.

My first post to this unique collective is Why Big Internet Marketing Ideas Will Rule:
http://newmedialeaders.com/ideas/why-big-marketing-ideas-rule-343/ 

 Stay Tuned :). 

Put On the Beret, Clinch the Fist and REVOLT
I love the linked article's feisty "pick a fight" attitude. I also agree that we've lost our way. I'm reading Seth Godin's new book The Icarus Deception and Seth doesn't mince words with how lost we've become. 

The irony of having so many "phone home" tools such as social media marketing and becoming even more distant isn't lost on me :). We featured The Great Social Customer Service Study a few weeks ago on Atlantic BT's Blog and the results to Tweets for help were miserable by most major brands. 

There are secrets in Seth's book including:

* YOU are the most important "product" you sell.

* YOU are exposed warts and all the time now.

* YOU are in control. 

YOU in the bullets above could be your personal brand or the work you do for your company. Your humanity, expressed in real and flawed ways, is what matters now.  Greatness is required and only available to those willing to risk, fail and risk more to earn the AWESOME badge. 

Internet marketing will beat the perfectionism out of you.

No one can afford perfection's tyranny in their Internet marketing. Sistine Chapel an Internet marketing effort and you lose. To "Sistine Chapel" means you take too much time and become obsessed with every detail. 

Create Sistine Chapels and you end up with beautiful chapels no one ever sees because, while you were busy creating perfection, competitors scaled and are now beating you senseless. 

The other day I explained the conundrum as, "As perfect as we can be NOW," as a way of defining an Internet marketer's philosophy. You must create great stuff FAST. 

The loop back to the REVOLT article linked here is it is impossible to cost reduce your way to greatness. IMPOSSIBLE. Greatness in Internet marketing comes from having the courage to fail, learn and fail bigger. 

And the only species willing to do such an incongruous thing is humans. When we do the crazy thing (fail, learn, fail bigger) we express our humanity and THAT is what creates connection in this crazy web world. 

Join the HUMANITY Revolt!

Determining the "best" social network for your marketing is highly dependent on what you are selling and looking for engagement for and about. If you are a B2B company selling high end engagement to the C level you may be better off concentrating on LinkedIn. 

B2B companies shouldn’t abandon Facebook entirely since you never know what offer will resonate where, at least you won't know until you test. Create a campaign and then split your initial investment 70% on LinkedIn and 25% Facebook and 5% Twitter and see what you get back. 

Remember to set up generous Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in the beginning such as unique traffic, time on site and names into your list. You can worry about who makes it all the way down your buying funnel after you figure out what drives traffic in. You might find Facebook drives small amounts of traffic that convert better. Who knows. 

If you are a B2C play you might reverse those numbers focusing mainly on Facebook and seeding other social nets lightly to see if they have any ability to drive converting traffic. 

Bottom line is test everything and then doubles down on the social net that wins.  

Gret post about when to do what and how to have OPP (Other People's Platforms) work FOR you not just for THEM.

Don't Be Fooled, Blogs Rule Influence and Conversion

Social nets form a vibrating membrane of marketing communications. Social nets vibrate and bang off each other like bumper cars. Social signals are the confirming truth of the new SEO and so very important, but when it comes to conversion and sharable influence your BLOG rules. 

This post from @TMGmedia is very specific and helpful in reminding content marketers that blogging is about money. Social nets are moths to a light, needed and important but you won't be the only moth attracted to that flickering light. 

Blogs, especially blogs well supported by social media, create distinction and voice. There is only ONE company that sounds like YOU (hopefully that is true even if you have multiple authors writing for you). 

Resist the corporate tendency to smooth out all the edges and create a zombie voice. Distinct beliefs voiced with strength and confidence promotes shares and relationships. Be a human or accurately voice your company's human character.  

Remember to share as much as you preach and balance your approach (not all long posts, not all short posts). Do what fits the content and your discovery / message and do so with authenticity and honesty and your tribe will grow. 

Note: yes those are Magnetic Poetry Kit words, the cool gift item created by David Kapel the gift company I co-founded brought to market all thos years ago :).M

Everything is in the commons now. 

Writing aswers to questions from Guru.com is the most fun I've had all week. What a great TOOL, what a great way to bring wisdom of crowds to any project. Fair Warning - the piece attached to the G+ post goes to GEEKY fast and never returns. May bore you to tears.

Outlaw Josey Wales IM Advice CONTEST
What advice do you thihnk the outlaw Josey Wales would give today's Internte marketers? Enter on Atlantic BT's Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/AtlanticBusinessTechnologies

Don't Piss Down My Back & Tell Me Its Raining
Josey Wales had a way of using a few words to say amazing things. The article linked here discusses a company that got their Internet marketing a little right and a lot wrong. 

Writing the piece I wondered what other advice the outlaw Josey Wales would share with today's Internet marketers. What do you think? Share your outlaw advice on Atlantic BT's Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/AtlanticBusinessTechnologies

Deadline is Friday Feburary 15th.

Prize: Outlaw Josey Wales Internet Marketing badge.