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Marketing Pilgrim One of Top 20 Most Read Marketing Blogs

cgseo — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 21:14:17 +0000

The Marketing Executives Networking Group is a group of 2000 marketing executives (10 points if you already guessed that ) at the VP level and higher. Recently, the group’s leadership asked members to name their favorite blogs by non-MENG members—and guess who was part of the top 20? Oh, I guess the title kind of gave it away, didn’t it? That’s right, Marketing Pilgrim . Seth Godin’s blog took top honors, with 59% of execs naming that as a favorite. Mashable was second with 38%. Tied for third were Chris Brogan’s Community and Social Media and Guy Kawasaki’s How to Change the World (30% each). One in five named Tom Peters’ blog , tied with Duct Tape Marketing to round out the top five (with six blogs ). The rest of the top twenty: Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim Avinash Kaushik’s Occam’s Razor Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba’s Church of the Customer Brian Solis’s PR 2.0 David Armano’s Logic + Emotion David Meerman Scott’s Web Ink Now Denise Lee Yohn’s Brand as Business Bites Jeremiah Owyang’s Web Strategy John Moore’s Brand Autopsy Joseph Jaffe’s Jaffe Juice Mack Collier’s The Viral Garden Shelly Palmer’s MediaBytes Steve Hall’s AdRANTs Valeria Maltoni’s Conversation Agent What do you think? Are there any you’re surprised to see there? What do you think is missing?

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Marketing Pilgrim One of Top 20 Most Read Marketing Blogs

Social Media and the Future of Sports

cgseo — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:40:05 +0000

In an attempt to give our readers some real world application of all this social media theory swirling about we will be occasionally speaking with some real people who do the real work. How about that? Today we look at social media and the sports world. Regular readers of this blog know that I am a bit of a sports fan. I say a bit because I am no longer playing any fantasy leagues etc so I am not a sports fanatic. I am primarily a New York area sports fan but not the usual kind (Giants, Mets, Devils. I could care less about the NBA). People in that area are pretty passionate about their sports and that’s how I learned to be a fan. Now times have changed considerably. It is difficult for the everyday fan to afford attending actual games (especially if a family is involved). As a result the connection to sports is changing and social media is creating a whole new channel for the fans to interact and be a part of the action that they may not get at the stadium or the ballpark. Pat Coyle of Coyle Media has been involved in the social side of sports for quite a while now. Pat has worked as the Director of Marketing for the Indianapolis Colts and helped create MyColts.net, which is an active online community for the fans of the NFL franchise. I talked to Pat about this and other social media projects he has underway. Frank : Since most people in the social media industry came from somewhere else what is your background? Pat : I have always had an interest in ways technology impacts human communication. I am a Chicago native came out of a direct marketing and sales career to be the Director of marketing for the Colts. I left to start a company and returned to the Colts after five years to be the Director of Digital Business for four years. Coyle Media, my consultancy to the sports industry, is now 2 years old. Frank : So tell us about Coyle Media and what you are doing? Pat : Coyle Media has two legs at this point. One is Sports 2.0, which has its own community at sportsmarketing20.com . The focus of my sports practice is to help teams (and other properties) make money through digital media. The main revenue sources we assist with are sponsorship, ticket sales and community building. The other part of Coyle Media is a social media platform called SmallerIndiana.com , which is a hyper-local online community we launched 2 years ago. It has grown to 8,000 members, and is driven by a sponsorship business model. The consulting business keeps me very busy so the communities, while growing, could use more of my time. That’s the nature of the online community business but I’m not complaining. Frank : You started and have grown MyColts.net. Tell us about that. Pat : The theory is simple: connect fans to each other and you connect them closer to your brand. Colts fans want to socialize with other fans. They want to be seen and recognized and they want to feel like they’re getting inside access. MyColts.net was designed to give fans all three of these things. We figured if we could engage fans through social media, it would give us another way to help sponsors engage with fans and it would give us another channel through which we can sell merchandise and tickets. So far the site has over 28,000 registered members. Research showed as well that while there are ticket buying fans that are in the Indianapolis region the greater number of Colts fans actually reside throughout the country. This site gives them a chance to become more involved in the team without ever likely being able to attend a game. Frank : What are your thoughts on the NFL and their attempts to limit social media interaction with the athletes and fans? Pat : I run a little counter to the “let it be wide-open” crowd. I can see the side of ownership and the need to protect their investments. While most think that the owners are just rich guys getting richer, they are actually taking on all the risk so their desire to keep things contained to protect the brand are less about being “old school’ and more about doing good business. I do, however, think ownership must face the fact that fans are gaining control, so their habit of controlling content may have to evolve rapidly in order to allow fans to do what they do. While it will be an interesting transition it will be best for everyone in the long run. Frank : How will social media effect how sports are marketed and sold in the future? Pat : There is a HUGE opportunity to tap Facebook and Twitter in combination with team social communities in order to add value to fans’ experiences, create opportunities for sponsors and make money for the team. But these things won’t happen by accident. Teams need to make them happen. So far, most teams do not have anyone running their digital channels. I think that needs to change if teams are going to tap the full potential of digital. I hope to see teams begin to optimize their sites for sponsorship and ticket sales. In fact, that’s the focus of my Sports 2.0 service…to help teams optimize their digital channels to drive profits. The biggest idea in my brain right now is a way to help teams sell tickets through the social graph. I am working on this one and will let you know more when it’s ready. I am really excited about the prospects for sports teams as a result and I think the future of sports marketing will be heavily concentrated here. Frank : Thanks for your time. We look forward to seeing how the sports industry embraces social media and how you will help shape the way we interact with sports teams in the future. You can see more of Pat’s thoughts on these subjects at patcoyle.net

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Social Media and the Future of Sports

Spam Works for Weight Loss

cgseo — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:36:07 +0000

No, it’s not the latest fad diet: Marketing Pilgrim. Marketing news, folks. How many of us have stared at the thousands of spam messages and wondered, “Why on earth do they keep sending this crap out? It can’t possibly be effective . . . can it?” Unfortunately, incredibly, in some industries, the answer is yes. As MediaPost reports, a small study showed that even recipients without weight issues opened and purchased from spam weight loss emails, as published in the Southern Medical Journal this month. Though the sample size was only 200 (and probably not representative—students at a single New York commuter college), the findings are startling: 18% of those without weight issues opened the spam emails and 5% actually purchased. Of those who identified themselves as having weight issues, 40% opened the spam and 18% purchased. MediaPost clarifies that these numbers aren’t necessarily great on their own: “The study does note that the purchasing behavior is at a lesser level than a six-country survey for any health or pharmaceutical product.” However, the fact that even those outside the target audience opened and bought from a spam email is pretty significant. MediaPost also notes that the emails appeal to a “captive, maybe even desperate audience” (and if you’ve ever really battled your weight, you know that feeling), so these findings probably won’t apply across the board. And given that one out of twenty non-target audience members also purchased, suddenly I’ve lost hope that those dozen daily Viagra ads will go away. What do you think? Is the study skewed? Or is spam really that effective (for some products)?

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Spam Works for Weight Loss

The Joy of Tweeting

cgseo — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:28:41 +0000

Image by luc legay via Flickr How we interact with others can either cause joy, pain or leave no impression at all. What impression are you leaving behind you on Twitter and other social networks ? Pain is caused on Twitter when… - Spam and hacking occurs and we feel our safety and privacy is compromised. - An opinion we make is “flamed” by others or they fail to get what we are saying - We use Twitter to be negative about others. Think about high profile cases this year where it has been a case of “tweet in haste, repent at leisure” (or not leisure, in a world where reaction is global and swift!) To avoid causing the pain on Twitter: - Review your account often and report any spam appropriately - Make your posts meaningful and value laden - Don’t spam others, ratio your tweets about your biz with conversations and helping out others - Don’t get involved in an argument - Treat others as you wish to be treated yourself Joy of Twitter… Twitter can be a joy. It is a way to reach out to people, to build new relationships online, and to gain valuable feedback. Some tips to help keep your use of Twitter Joyful are: - Tweet about what you are interested in rather than what you think you should be tweeting about - Be mindful in your tweeting. Tweet from the heart. - Treat Twitter as one of your social media and other marketing activities and don’t get sucked in to feeling you have to be there every single minute – have some fun!! - Connect with other like minded people and use the @reply and RT to start great conversations - Reach out to connect and grow your relationship with your most regular twitter contacts The anonymity of neutrality… Sometimes on Twitter I think it is easy to get sucked into posting “for the sake of it” and this is where neutrality can sneak in. Think value, think connection, think first. And have a joyful time connecting using Twitter. © 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips . The Joy of Tweeting

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The Joy of Tweeting

Search Neutrality?

cgseo — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:02:44 +0000

As expected it looks like this week may be a bit light in the news department. That’s fine. Everyone needs a break from time to time. So as I am looking around this morning I come across an op-ed piece in the New York Times that is written by Adam Raff, a co-founder of Foundem, an Internet technology company. From what I can gather, Mr. Raff is upset that his site was banned from Google’s index. There is no explanation as to why this happened so I am not going to assume anything although an article from eConsultancy looks at his plight and we get some insight as to why Google is so ‘mean’ to him. As a result, Mr. Raff contends that Google simply is too powerful and that the government should be considering a ‘search neutrality’ platform that falls in line with the ‘net neutrality’ platform. Here is a bit of his concern: Today, search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s new Bing have become the Internet’s gatekeepers, and the crucial role they play in directing users to Web sites means they are now as essential a component of its infrastructure as the physical network itself. The F.C.C. needs to look beyond network neutrality and include “search neutrality”: the principle that search engines should have no editorial policies other than that their results be comprehensive, impartial and based solely on relevance. I had to shake my head that this was actually put in print but I kept reading. I bumped into more ‘complaints’. Another way that Google exploits its control is through preferential placement. With the introduction in 2007 of what it calls “universal search,” Google began promoting its own services at or near the top of its search results, bypassing the algorithms it uses to rank the services of others. Google now favors its own price-comparison results for product queries, its own map results for geographic queries, its own news results for topical queries, and its own YouTube results for video queries. And Google’s stated plans for universal search make it clear that this is only the beginning. I guess my question is “What is a company supposed to do in that situation”? Why should anyone in the free market be obligated to being relegated to a ‘public service’ status just because they do something better than most? I admit that it seems a bit creepy at times to see just how far reaching Google is with regard to services. I also believe that as they get bigger there are likely to be many vulnerabilities that will be discovered and exploited as the free market has seen in the past with seemingly invincible powers like IBM and Microsoft. It just happens. There’s a lot more to this op-whine piece that I am surprised the Times even allowed to see the light of day. Without search neutrality rules to constrain Google’s competitive advantage, we may be heading toward a bleakly uniform world of Google Everything — Google Travel, Google Finance, Google Insurance, Google Real Estate, Google Telecoms and, of course, Google Books. Some will argue that Google is itself so innovative that we needn’t worry. But the company isn’t as innovative as it is regularly given credit for. Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Groups, Google Docs, Google Analytics, Android and many other Google products are all based on technology that Google has acquired rather than invented. Ask Cisco if they ‘invented’ everything they own. The folks who make Flip cameras are thrilled that Cisco likes to buy good ideas. Interestingly enough, Mr. Raff actually shows that Google PROVIDES market opportunity for the little guy. There are small companies out there that make good things that Google could buy thus making the companies that were innovative enough to be recognized successful beyond what was likely to happen on their own. Maybe Mr. Raff needs to think about making something worthy of being purchased by Google rather than worming his way into the media to complain about his issues. I do have a solution for Mr. Raff. If there is this need for an impartial search engine (which is a ridiculous concept because in order for anything to be ‘ranked’ in numerical order there needs to be some guidelines thus implied ‘partiality’) that is based solely on merit (Whose definition of merit? Someone has to be judge and jury here, right?) and relevance (as defined by whom?) why not let the government build its own search engine? Why put this constraint on the private sector? Our current situation here in the US is that the government wants to be knee deep in everything so why not let them create the engine ‘for the people and by the people’ then let the people decide? Are there any Googlers out there who would like to address this kind of thinking? As for Marketing Pilgrim readers how do you really feel about Google’s place in the market? Is there any validity to this argument? Is Google’s dominance something to be concerned about or just accepted? Is there a real threat of this becoming a Google world? What if that did happen? Is there any validity to the concept of ’search neutrality’? Weigh in please. I have a better idea. Would someone please make some news so we can move on to other things?

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Search Neutrality?

Affiliate marketing: How to earn a lot without spending a lot

admin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:23:52 +0000

One of the problems that small businesses run into on a frequent basis is how to increase their monthly sales without stepping outside of their marketing budget. This is due to the fact that most small businesses have either a very small marketing budget or no budget for marketing at all. If you are in the situation where there is no money for advertising even though you desperately need to spread the word about your company you may want to consider using affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is a win-win marketing tool since it is a great way to spread the word about your business and help show your customers that you care about them and reward them for their efforts. The way that affiliate marketing works is simple and much less complicated than the term may appear to be. At its core affiliate marketing is simply the task of getting your customers to advertise for your company in whatever way they fit and rewarding them for each sale they make as a result of their efforts. Most of the time affiliate marketing is used online by spreading a link for your website around the web along with recommendations. It is your affiliate’s job to speak about your business and promote your products, and in return each time that someone makes a purchase from your website using their link you agree to pay them a commission on the sale or offer them a discount or reward certificate. This is turn will increase your sales and offer you new business that in turn may decide to be affiliates bringing in more long term business. The best part of offering an affiliate service outside of gaining new customers, is that since it works based on the word of mouth principle is the customers that you gain tend to be long lasting. Since customers trust their friends opinions they will not only make one small purchase, but may in fact purchase several items or services in one go which will make them even more valuable to your company.

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Affiliate marketing: How to earn a lot without spending a lot

Twitter Trends – Another Way to See 2009 in Review

admin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:21:08 +0000

Before we get into the meat of the article I have a challenge for you. Say “Top Twitter Trends” 3 times fast. Frustrating isn’t it. Every time I try it I end up saying “Top Twitter Twends” thus giving the Baba WaWa (Barbara Walters for you young kids) sound to it. As you have likely guessed I think I may have too much time on my hands so let’s get back to the real deal. Twitter is one of the Top stories of 2009 because of its tremendous growth, the tremendous amount of media attention it has gained and the general feeling that 140 characters is more than enough to form a relationship with. What the folks at Twitter have done, in particular Chief Scientist Abdur (don’t these people have last names or when they come on board the Twitter team do they have to even shorten their names as well?) is take a look at the top trends that have been ID’d by Twitter users for 2009. Fun stuff. Not earth shattering but fun. At the Twitter blog Abdur says : In 2009, Twitter’s Trending Topics helped us understand what was happening around the world showing us that people everywhere can be united in concern around important events; excited about a new movie; or geek-out about a major new technology. Among all the keywords, hashtags, and phrases that proliferated throughout the year, one topic surfaced repeatedly. Twitter users found the Iranian elections the most engaging topic of the year. The terms #iranelection, Iran and Tehran were all in the top-21 of Trending Topics, and #iranelection finished in a close second behind the regular weekly favorite #musicmonday. So while the blog lists the Top 10 in each category we here at Marketing Pilgrim have decided to shorten our presentation to the Top for each. Why? Because we are all about continuing the move toward abbreviated, half information that the world seems to crave. Oh, and by the way, if you are using Twitter for business purposes or if you are thinking that the users of Twitter are thinking ‘deep thoughts’ outside of Iran you can stop here. A look at the Top 5 people getting attention should be enough to tell you where the bulk of Twitter users minds are and that deep thinkers need not apply. News Events 1. #iranelection 2. Swine Flu 3. Gaza 4. Iran 5. Tehran People 1. Michael Jackson 2. Susan Boyle 3. Adam Lambert 4. Kobe (Bryant) 5. Chris Brown Movies 1. Harry Potter 2. New Moon 3. District 9 4. Paranormal Activity 5. Star Trek TV Shows 1. American Idol 2. Glee 3. Teen Choice Awards 4. SNL (Saturday Night Live) 5. Dollhouse Sports (Teams, Events, Leagues) 1. Super Bowl 2. Lakers 3. Wimbledon 4. Cavs (Cleveland Cavaliers) 5. Superbowl Technology 1. Google Wave 2. Snow Leopard 3. Tweetdeck 4. Windows 7 5. CES Hash Tags 1. #musicmonday 2. #iranelection 3. #sxsw 4. #swineflu 5. #nevertrust So there you go. The Top Twitter Twends (darn it…..Trends!) year in review. Your thoughts in 140 characters or less?

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Twitter Trends – Another Way to See 2009 in Review

A bit.ly of Interesting News

admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:47:12 +0000

So you are bit.ly and you just suffered through the announcement that your already crowded area of the Internet space has been sat on by the 800 pound Google gorilla with their announcement of the arrival of their own URL shortening service . That can make for a rough day. Sure competition is a good thing because all ships rise with a rising tide. Google makes those tides rise so fast sometimes though that the little ships get tossed in the air and don’t always land well. Well, bit.ly is trying to do its part in making the URL shortening industry a little more interesting. They have announced their new Pro service. One wonders if they needed to announce it a little more hastily than anticipated considering the new “Google’s in the URL shortening house!” scenario. At any rate they are offering a chance for users to provide customized / personalized / whatever-ized shortened URL’s for those looking t stand out from the crowd. Their blog’s description goes a little something like this : As part of our initial beta program, we’re making custom URLs available to a limited number of large and medium-sized Web publishers and bloggers, including AOL, Associated Content, Bing, Clicker, The Daily Telegraph, foursquare, GDGT, Hot Potato, The Huffington Post, IGN, kickstarter, Meebo, MSN, /Message (Stowe Boyd), The New York Times, OMGPOP, oneforty.com, The Onion, slideshare, someecards, TechCrunch, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network — which includes WSJ.com and MarketWatch.com — and blogger Baratunde Thurston (baratunde.com). Users and publishers benefit from the additional transparency that this private-label service provides. When you see a short URL like nyti.ms, you know the destination web site before clicking on the link. OK, good if you are one of the big boys. Goes on the wish list of most others. In addition the service is introducing a new dashboard as well. Go check out the picture at their blog which has itty-bit.ly print for you to strain over. The readable words from bit.ly about the dashboard are We’re also excited to be introducing a unique real-time dashboard that will provide publishers with even more information about their bit.ly traffic. It’s a real-time view of how a given publisher’s content is being distributed across networks like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace and services like email, SMS, and instant messenger. Now, I have to admit that this is cool. It’s fun to see this kind of innovation from someone other than the big names. I can’t help but wonder though just how long this kind of innovation will be available now that Google has entered the space. I have been a fan of Google for quite some time but it is starting to feel a little too ‘big brotherish’ at times. When Google talked about the 3 S’s of their URL shortening service (security, stability and speed) all I could think about is the speed with which they are going to take all of the air out of the room for the little guy in this space and determine who may be allowed to stick around. What if Twitter decides to remove bit.ly as their default URL shortener and creates Twi.tr for their own branding purposes? There may be too much muscle for a player like bit.ly to stick around no matter how much innovation they provide. Am I overreacting here? I’m sure you will let me know because that’s your job here at Marketing Pilgrim. Let’s hear it.

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A bit.ly of Interesting News

Talking Online Reputation Management with Dr. Ralph Wilson

cgseo — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:43:22 +0000

There are few email newsletters that I can recommend marketers subscribe to–we live in an RSS world these days–but Dr. Ralph Wilson’s Web Marketing Today is on the list! If you’re not familiar with Dr. Wilson, then I suspect you’ve entered your marketing career in just past the few years– Dr. Wilson is the grandfather of internet marketing advice. Hopefully, he’ll take that as a compliment Anyway, when Dr. Wilson asked me to jump on a video interview with him at SES Chicago, I made time for him in my busy schedule. The result? The video below will take less than 7 minutes of your time and hopefully give you a few tips for your own online reputation management efforts .

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Talking Online Reputation Management with Dr. Ralph Wilson

Will the New Google Chrome TV Ads Convince You to Dump Firefox or IE?

admin — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:54:23 +0000

When we shared Google’s first TV ad for its Chrome browser, Marketing Pilgrim’s had mixed opinions about it: some hate it, some loved it. OK, so now we have a new series of TV ads out of Google’s UK office. What do you think of these? My take? I grew up in England–and our UK readers can will relate to this–but the ads look like they were directed by the creator of Bagpuss ! ( via Mashable )

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Will the New Google Chrome TV Ads Convince You to Dump Firefox or IE?