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"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.  

AGREE - Google Plus Disrupts
I was in a conference the other day and people actually chuckled when Google plus was mentioned, they laughed. "Perfect," I remember thinking; "no one gets it yet time to double down on Google Plus". You don't make millions online by doing things the way others are doing them. 

You make money by being remarkable, distinct and disruptive. Money is simply the currency we use to keep score. You can't make money online by setting out to make money (irony). Authentic honesty is the table stakes of online poker. 

Insincere disruption or disruptions not supported by social signals don't last long. Once you know the story you want to tell, I would tell it on Google Plus. Don't forsake the other social nets, just use G+ as your main horse, the one you ride the most and the one who gets the best oats. 

Why? More than just G+ comes from Google; Google Plus is less crowded (at the moment) and less defined. "Less defined" means common groupthink and best practices are less established. Since Google Plus is a suite of tools with many possible combinations it may stay "less defined" for a long time. 

The way you combine and use the suite of tools that make up G+ may be very different than the next user (and this is what you want). It is easier to use a suite of tools to disrupt than a platform. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have their own very defined structure, a structure largely controlled by someone else. 

Tools Rule
Google Plus is not perfect (by a long shot). Many of its elements and tools are counter-intuitive and infuriating (at first). Hang in there and keep creating, combining and re-combining and you will like the end result (eventually). 

Google Plus is more conducive to long form content and conversations too. Don't just repost. Make sure you add some original value even if the piece started somewhere else. Can't have conversations on Twitter and Facebook friends want to hear about your children and trips. G+ is where I go to have meaningful conversations about Internet marketing.

The environment can turn contentious on strange things, but adopt the attitude that all feedback is GOOD, praise and listen and your ideas will get BETTER on G+. How disruptive is that?

 Conversation continues on G+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/102639884404823294558/posts/HhimtJ7CPg9 

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