#40 The Future of Marketing is...Social.

Audiences today do not want to be talked at. They want to be engaged in conversation. Social media gives us the power to do this, allowing us to define and control our brand. There is a shift from corporations and institutions to individuals and communities. Here are a few tips to take advantage of social media.

• Facebook. To help spread the word about a new campaign, why not ask employees to change their Facebook status to announce your latest campaign? If you have 20,000 employees, most likely 10,000 of them have Facebook. With the average person having 100 friends, your announcement could receive over 1 million impressions for free. Ask employees to include their LinkedIn Profiles – now you have 2 million impressions for free


• YouTube. Create a YouTube channel dedicated to teaching people more about your industry. This channel would feature a series of short, focused videos that educate your audience on related topics that help position you as an industry expert. The videos could highlight benefits and features of your products.


• Twitter. To help build and establish your company as an industry expert, top executives should create Twitter accounts to help position your company’s executives as thought leaders in the industry. Tweets should be business-related topics that talk about industry trends and forecasts. Zappos CEO has 1.6 million followers and is following almost 400K people. A total of 430 Zappos Employees have Twitter accounts. This presence helps Zappos engage and participate in conversations about their company.


• Flickr. Flickr is a great way to help promote events that your company sponsors. Photos can be optimized to show up in search results and increase brand awareness. Using Flickr to increase branding opportunities for KeyBank’s sponsorship of a 10K race, the Key “Bank to Bay” gallery has alone received 6,000 views following the event.

W6M: People visit social media sites every day, why not join them in what they are already doing?

#20 Social Media Map

Social media are the means for any person to: publish digital creative content; provide and obtain real-time feedback via on-line discussions, commentary, and evaluations; and incorporate changes or corrections to the original content.

W6M: A number of my posts talk about social media (YouTube, Facebook, Blogs, etc.). When I found this Social Media Map created by Overdrive Interactive, I thought I would include it for reference.

• When you create a viral video, the first site you think about uploading your video to is YouTube. But there are a dozen more Top Tier sites that you shoud also submit your video to.
• When you optimizing your site, people typically focus on Yahoo, Google and MSN. There are again a dozen more Top Tier sites that you should also try to get listed on. Your competition may be duking it out on Google, which would allow you to take over ask.com or dogpile.com.
• When you think Social Media, you want to create videos, get ranked on the search engines, blog, wiki and podcast. Try to take advantage of these and figure out what works best for you.

My advice would be to not focus on a single area or site, but get listed on as many possible.

#8 Running From Camera

The rules are simple: Muggezifter puts the self-timer on 2 seconds, push the button and try to get as far from the camera as he can.

W6M: I had to include my man Muggezifter on my blog. I found his site a couple years ago and keep returning to check out new pictures. He has a unique style and it works. When you are working on projects for your clients, try to keep Muggezifter in mind. Not suggesting you copy his style, he likes to call those people out "It ain't me babe". But rather do something unique that makes you stand out against the crowd. You will know you made it when people start to copy you.