Being Disease Ridden in Marketing

Seth Godin has another great blog on gimmicks. I didn’t pull much from the actual blog pertaining to gimmicks but he had a great thought at the end:

As you sit down to consider ways to be more remarkable, the challenge is to be worth talking about… at the same time you are adding value for the person who’s talking about you.

I encourage all members in Smaller Indiana to invent your “gimmick” for Smaller Indiana. Does it add value when you are virally spreading? What will it take to create a Smaller Indiana that is worth spreading like an epidemic from city to city? Are we already there?

I will leave you with this:

I was playing Oregon Trail on Facebook and well, I died from a virus (my body was probably eaten by a pack of ravenous wolves but that is beside the point). It made me chuckle and ponder on how a virus spreads and infects.

And much like a small pox outbreak on Oregon Trail, Smaller Indiana is turning into a virus.

Eventually Social Media Will Dissapear. Remember What Matters Most.

Jason Falls has an awesome video over at Social Media Explorer. The post is entitled: When Social Media Doesn’t Matter. Check out the video and then check out my response.

My Video

This One Goes Out To Everyone I Love On Social Media

This video was created by Colin Clark, my friend over at IndyAwesome Blog. Watch it and Love it.

The Importance of Content in Internet Success

We had some great discussion surrounding the effectiveness of the Internet Marketing Success equation yesterday. There was one comment in which I wanted to discuss further because I feel it is extremely important.

Mike Seidle of IndyAssociates left a comment about content being involved in the Internet Marketing success equation.

Kyle, last I looked, content is pretty important. Of all the items you listed:

(data + software + skills + network)/time

Nothing has more effect on your denominator than does the creation of content. It’s time consuming, expensive and usually ignored at the price of things that are more fun – like software and network building.

I replied to him with:

@Mike In my opinion Content is involved in DATA. You need the content first and then the software and the skills.

I wanted to expound  upon the notion of content being involved in the 5 Steps to Marketing Success.

Content is involved as a subset of Data and Skills. Data could mean a variety of things depending on the strategy and tools you are using to reach internet marketing success. We will speak in terms of blogging. In blogging the Data you are gathering is two fold.

1. You are gathering data and information to write posts and gain more insight into certain topics.

2.  You are using tools like Google Analytics to measure traffic and visits.

The skills subset of the equation is also two fold:

1. The skills you gain over life through reading, learning, and experiencing are what give you the ability to write content. I am obsessed with social media. I immerse myself in it on a daily basis (data) and because of this, I have the ability to write content.

2. Skills also have to do with your ability to use the SOFTWARE and tools necessary to take the data and skills and apply them to an Internet marketing strategy.

The learning curve for skills, data, and software can be wide but there are always professionals out there that can help you with the process.

Read some blogs. Develop your skills. Use the free software. Strategize and Destroy the competition.

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5 Steps to Internet Marketing Success Not Four

I was reading Lorraine Ball’s blog over at Roundpeg.biz and she has a post called Four Steps to Internet Marketing Success which piggy backs off of a Hubspot post called 4 Components of a Successful Internet Marketing Strategy.

In the post they both talk about the concept of:
Data + Software + Skills + Network = Internet Marketing Success

The formula makes sense. You need all four components to realize marketing success. I couldn’t figure out how the time involvement fit into the equation. Time is THE most valuable asset to a marketer, small business owner, or entrepreneur when it comes to social media marketing.

In the Hubspot post it talk about time in the skills category but that didn’t make much sense to me. Skills and time are not related in my opinion. You can have all the skills in the world but if you do not make the time to use the data, tools, skills, and software… the 4 components are kind of a mute point.

A new equation could look something like this:

The new equation takes in the time aspect of social media and internet marketing success. You need to divide time evenly over the four tools of success. Time is the crucial element in this equation without time you have nothing.

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Social Equity Is More Important than Financial Equity

I was surfing through some Gary Vaynerchuk videos and stumbled across this post from March 28, 2008: Legacy Is Greater Than Currency.

The video basically breaks down Gary’s thought on Financial decisions compared to legacy and social decisions. I have been debating internally about the concept of personal branding in the social media marketing realm and this video hits it right on the nose.

As an entrepreneur (and I think I speak for most) a legacy concept is much more important than the financial return a business may bring you. Let’s face it… the first five years of owning a company is pretty much scraping, unless you are a Mark Z, the creator of Facebook.

In the world of social media it is far more important to put emphasis on building your personal brand and personal equity than putting cash in your pocket. This has a lot to do with how you use social media. If you are a business owner and you are using social media as a marketing tool you CANNOT… let me repeat.

YOU CANNOT

Treat your friends and followers as financial equity. You will be eaten alive. I am saying this more towards the people who use Twitter Auto-Response or just write a blog for financial gain. Become a part of the community. Give back to the community. Join the race and enjoy the race.

In the end, you will find that will bring much more to your life than a new Infiniti or a Mercedes.

I am in business because I love what I do. I love everything about social media marketing and branding. If that means I need to make $20,000 a year for five years to truly build a company that helps people do what they love…

Sign me up.. over and over again.

Because in the end you will see far greater return in the long run both personally and professionally.

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Viral Marketing is last year. Enter Echo and Reverberate Marketing.

Boris Veldhujzen van Zanten from the Next Web has a great post called Forget Viral Marketing. It Is All About Reverberating Marketing! . I completely agree with his choice of HATING the term viral marketing. I have never been able to fully stomach the term “viral.” I understand the concept of spreading but Boris hits it right on the head when he says:

I never liked the term Viral Marketing. It just sounds like bad karma. Viruses are associated with diseases and death. Do you want to associate your product or service with that?

It also sounds too easy. All these marketeers being asked for, or offering, a quick ‘Viral Campaign’ by clients. That is like asking for a quick number one music hit or a quick successful start-up. Wishing for it doesn’t make it so.

He proposes to use the phrase Reverberate Marketing instead of Viral Marketing. I like the concept of Reverberation as an echo… spreading from individual to individual. You could also use the term Echo Marketing.

Echo and Reverberate Marketing has a lot to do with social media marketing. Whether you are a small business or corporate entity, we all strive to create a story that will be repeated (over and over again). Social media marketing is the one platform that allows for echo and viral marketing to happen.

How do you utilize social media to spread a story? How do you use blogging, facebook, linkedin, and Twitter to communicate with potential and current clients?

Do you Echo?

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Why I Hate Twitter Auto-Response And Why You Should Too.

I am fairly new at using Twitter. The concept and usefulness of the tool is by far one of the best on the web. I have been noticing an increasing trend in something I find completely worthless: Auto-Response. Whether you are using an @reply or a DM auto response I would prefer not to get them in my Inbox.

The beauty of social media is that (when used right) it turns into a BRILLIANT permission based marketing tool. Do you know what Auto-Response tools bring to social media? Nothing. An Auto-Response tool is simple a selfish method of promoting yourself or saving YOURSELF time. Notice a trend? Yourself.

I don’t care how much time you save using an AR tool. I wasted MY time reading your anti-relationship building response tool.

I don’t have much patience for someone who cannot take the time to type out a DM or a @reply. They are either:

A) Just using twitter as a marketing tool and don’t care about anything else.
B) They are extremely busy and wont be using Twitter much anyway.

Both reasons are enough for me to unfollow someone who uses an automated response system. Social Media is built on authentic communication and relationship building. If you want to break that down…Break it down somewhere else.

If you want to send me an auto-response be prepared to find my name in your Qwitter box shortly afterwards.

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Wouldn’t You Rather Shoot At Fish In A Barrel?

Image by israelavila via Flickr

With the launch of the NING platform it has been becoming easier to create niche social networks. As a user, you can join any network whether it is location or interest based. The membership could range from 500 to 20,000 depending on the network and the participants. I have been talking randomly about the power of using networks that are geographically based (if you are using social media as a networking and marketing strategy).

Chris Brogan has a post that further enforces my idea that SMALL is the new BIG in Social Media. His post entitled Do You Have To Touch Every Conversation? talks about the importance of fishing where the FISH are located. As a fisherman you would not try to cover the ENTIRE ocean. What would you do? Try and find the right spot with the majority of the fish. It doesn’t make sound business sense to cover the entire expanse of ocean.

The same applies to social media use. As a user you do not have the ability to cover every conversation online. You do not have to be on every social media platform. As a small business owner or marketeer it is extremely important that you focus on a set amount of networks and use them to the best of your ability.

You do not need to be on LinkedIN, Plaxo, Facebook, Myspace, Powne, Twitter, blah blah blah. Pick a niche geographic social network like Smaller Indiana (for the Hoosiers among us) and three global networks. Examples: LinkedIN, Plaxo, Twitter, and Facebook.

To quote Chris Brogan:

But is that really the goal? Or is the goal to fish where your fish are, to do what you plan to do, and to do it well?

Well said. I would much rather shoot fish in a barrell than cast a line in the entire ocean.

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An Amazing Social Network: Smaller Indiana

I have been a member of the NING social site Smaller Indiana since it’s inception in late 2007. Since the birth of this site by Pat Coyle and Douglas Karr.. it has been growing by leaps and bounds!

Here are some stats from the 3,798 strong SmallerIndiana.com

Global Traffic year-to-date 2008:

So far this year we’ve seen 193,970 visits from 453 Indiana Cities

The interesting stat is that 66% of the visitors are NOT from Indiana. Talk about a good way to get a state on the map!

Smaller Indiana is an amazing place to network and talk about Indiana as a major mover and shaker in the USA. I would encourage anyone who is thinking about starting a social network…

Go check out smallerindiana.com… it was done right.

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