Crap. How many times can I make excuses for not getting our group’s weekly links out there. Not many more I guess.
With that as a backdrop, let’s skip right to the good stuff.
Beth Lopez (Marketing)
My article this week Social Media Is Changing the Content Marketplace by Heidi Cohen. Article focuses on the ways social media is impacting traditional media and what traditional media organizations can do to capitalize.
DP Rabalais (Marketing)
Good, quick read from MarketingProfs on the value of Online Communities in regards to market research. The article is titled Three Essential Market-Research Methods in an Online Community by John Kembel
—-
My second article is titled, As Economy Impacts Online Retail, Companies Shift Marketing Focus.
Bill Fanning (Business Development)
My article for this week is titled Why Twitter will soon become obsolete written by Jason Clark. I had to read this one given the title and I found it pretty interesting. To be fair, I don’t think he is saying that Twitter will not have a place at all, he is saying that Twitter is not the marketing miracle that it is currently hyped up to be. Furthermore, as Twitter becomes more “spammy” it will become a less effective marketing tool. Controversial topic and worth the read.
Jay MacIntosh (Business Development)
As the economy goes, so goes the marketing budget! Most corporations pull back their marketing spend, and therefore activities, during a recession. Though, I philosophically disagree with this strategy, it’s done because most of the marketing budget is hard to measure or not measured at all! I know, I know….just because you can’t measure something doesn’t mean it’s not valuable. Tell that to Wall Street where it’s all about numbers (revenue, EBITDA, comp sales, etc.). Anyhow, as a company whose purpose is to help marketers get smarter with their overall spend, it’s important to understand their top priorities, near and longer-term. This article summarizes an April 2009 study by the Association of National Advertisers about where marketer’s minds are now, during the recession, and where they anticipate being as we come out of the recession.
Doug Wick (Business Development/Social Media)
[Aaron here] Doug wrote a great blog post this week about Powered’s Offerings/Online Community serving as a company’s “401(k).” It’s too good not to include in this week’s update.
—-
My article for this week is from Gary Stein, who writes for ClickZ and is the VP of Social Media for Isobar.
The title is Open Position: Media Earner. Eventually there will need to be a way to unlock media dollars and let them flow into social, and the concept of “earned” vs. “paid” media might be conceptual connective tissue that gets us there. Here Gary makes it real by describing the person who is in charge of planning earned media. His mocked-up job description is really a description of what all marketing jobs will be in the future, where our job performance is measured by how well we are facilitating conversation, adding value to the conversation, and receiving positive mentions as a result.
Don Sedota (Product)
I’ve been involved in a few of the messaging/positioning discussions lately around the technology section of our new website and I fortunately stumbled across this great Pragmatic Marketing article on messaging/positioning that I think is well worth the read:
In the discussions I was involved in I think we were generally in line with this article but the article gave me additional clarity on architecting a top-notch product message that resonates with consumers.
—-
Really good blog post here on Comment Marketing by Shannon Paul . This is basically a guide for brands on responding to blog/forum/etc. comments with the intention of marketing the brand. She classifies several situations as green light, yellow light and red light situations based on the caution that should be placed on brands responding to an online comment.
Here are the highlights:
- Green light – Your company is mentioned in product comparison btw Company A and Company B
- Yellow light – Your company is left out of the comparison btw Company A and Company B
- Red light – No direct mention, only a general reference of industry or market segment
- Yellow/Green light – Reader asks about your company in the comments
Also includes some good links to related “comment marketing” posts.
Filed under: Social Marketing
