Given that these are things Serengeti helps our clients with, I was excited to get a peak into Greg’s thoughts on how harnessing social media and thinking and acting small is absolutely a proven and successful mindset.

While micromarketing is not a new concept (it’s been around since the late 80s), social media and social technology certainly enhance the “micro-ness” of how organizations can, and should, connect with their customers, clients, stakeholders, etc. today. With this mindset, Greg explores micromarketing for a new age through three key trends: 

• Microcultures;
• Microcontent; and
• Micromavens.

Think Small 

Repeat after me: microcultures, microcontent, micromavens. All are the very opposite of MASS. Marketers are taught, practice and hedge their marketing budgets on mass. You know exactly what I mean… How many people can we get into that lead pipeline? How many names can we buy for our direct mail or email marketing campaign? How many thousands of people surfed our website this month? The more, the better, the happier the sales and marketing management team will be! Right? 

Wrong. 

Unfortunately, there are situations where mass marketing just doesn’t work—and is quite expensive to boot! All of those names you cram into your lead generation machine, well they typically aren’t qualified and require a lot of nurturing (Read: coercion). What does this mean for your business? Flipping that lead funnel might just work better for you…less in, more out. 

Act Small

Wouldn’t it be much, much better to have people willingly lining up to knock on your door because they want to buy your product or service or donate to your cause? And how great would it be to have people out there evangelizing your brands to their entire network because they feel so strongly connected to them? After all, who doesn’t want BIG results?

So then, how can you start acting small?  You’re first priority is going to definitely include changing your marketing mindset. This can be a challenge, especially when marketers count on mass! Second, you’ll need to shift your thinking by asking “How can we… 

1. Resonate with masses of communicators;
2. Tap into pass-along power and peer-to-peer potential of the network effect;
3. Deliver mutual value through two-way interactions;
4. Make a commitment to engage people directly in real time;
5. Build meaningful relationships;
6. Earn attention; and
7. Have success through lots and lots of small things?”

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus… and he is bringing you customers and revenue!  

From large (Ford, Best Buy and Samsung) to small (author J.C. Hutchins and makeup artist Lauren Luke), Greg dives into how companies and professionals have used micromarketing to connect with their customers and grow their business by thinking and acting small. And Greg’s promise to help you become a micromarketer is as solid as the worksheet (40 Questions!) at the end of the book. 

What are you waiting for? It is a small world after all. 

[Disclosure: Greg Verdino is a friend, but I purchased this book and read it with only the scrutiny a traditional marketer turned micromarketer and Client Services Director could. Great job Greg!]

Image: Greg’s Website

Related posts:

1. Cause Wired – a book review
2. Integrating Social Media Engagement Across the Marketing Mix
3. Shiny Object Syndrome or Strong Strategy?
4. Thinking of starting your own Social Network?
5. A Little Early Summer Reading

• Letting Go Of Your Ego
• Using Content To Extend Your Reach Through Social Media
• You Don’t Always Have the Best Ideas

Integrating Social Media Engagement Across the Marketing Mix 

Often when you hear about social media, it’s from a marketing communications perspective. That’s where most strategies start… “Are you listening, engaging, sharing” and all of the other buzz words that are floating around these days. We can and should also talk about social media (the concept and the tools) from an overall business perspective. Meaning, how is social media not only affecting our communications with customers, prospects, employees, stakeholders, shareholders, etc., but how is it affecting or impacting our business operations. 

The notion of “if we build it, they will come” is fraught with idealism that unfortunately causes a lot of businesses to fail in their efforts, especially when it comes to product/service development. No amount of listening, engaging or sharing will have people banging down your doors to buy if there isn’t a want or need for your product/service. 

I know what you’re thinking… Apple does this all the time, just look at the iPod, iPhone or iPad! Nope. Apple is just innovating and capitalizing on technologies and wants/needs people already had. But, starting from scratch to create a new want/need is very difficult. And its product/service development that usually starts the cogs of the marketing mix. 

Social media has given customers the means to provide feedback on products/services they’d like, where they want to buy them, how much they are willing to pay and how they want to hear from you or where they’d like to talk about you.

Let’s check out some examples of how social media engagement  is changing the marketing mix and business operations. 

Product:
Have you ever heard of Fiskars? They make things that cut other things. Doesn’t sound like you could do much socially with things like scissors, right? Wrong. Fiskars reached out to their loyal customers to help create a community called “Fiskateers.” I won’t get into all of the details here, because you can read that story here, here and here. What’s most interesting is that Fiskars is now tapping into the Fiskateers for product development. Yes, you heard that correctly… The Fiskateers have a hand in creating new products! Apparently, engineers who doubted the community renamed themselves “Fiskaneers.” If you are a “social” company or considering social media, how would you handle product development insights? Would you be open and flexible to suggestions or would you hang out a “this is our turf” sign?

If you think that this type of social media engagement only works in the B2C space, I urge you to check out IBM’s product development story. It’s another great example of customers wanting to be involved and creating a service that they want to buy!

Price:
Most business professionals and MBAs know how to determine price in their sleep. The problem is the methods learned are inside-out focused. In today’s world we need to think about price from the perspective of the customer or prospect—how much are they willing to pay for your product or service (you might even want to know this before product/service development!). That mindset causes issues, doesn’t it? What if the price people are willing to pay is below your costs, etc. One example of social media providing insights on pricing that lead to a new service is Charles Schwab. Charles Schwab took the approach to listen to a community of Gen X non-customers and based on the feedback, they lowered their account minimums to $1,000 (among other changes), resulting in a 32% growth of Gen X customers.

Place (Distribution) & Promotion:
It’s no secret that the beer industry has always been social and that’s especially true for the microbrewing industry. Microbrews have always relied on word of mouth for their success and social media just enhances that WOM. An example of how social media has changed one brewery’s distribution and promotional efforts is Victory Brewing Company. Of course, Victory has a Twitter account, Facebook Fan Page, and YouTube channel, but their marketing efforts also have to do with all of the ‘social information’ they collect—that’s what makes the real difference. In short, all of this data helps them to determine the next markets for their distribution efforts. Where should they be selling Victory based on social demand. 

And social media isn’t just helping with distribution efforts, but also promotional efforts too. According to Dave Speers, Victory’s marketing guru, Foursquare is one tool that has “unlocked” (pardon the pun), insights into their customers. Victory has teamed up with the Foursquare developers to launch the very first ‘Mayor promo’ via Foursquare. What does this mean for Victory customers? Well, if they grab the mayor badge for Victory upon check in at the Victory Brew Pub in Downingtown, they are treated with a special Mayor Hat, sash and two beer tickets per visit to give away to anyone at the pub. These efforts to reward customers came as a direct response to patterns and trends recognized in social media.

(A special thanks to Dave Speers for sharing some insights into Victory’s marketing mix efforts!)

So, there you have it…three examples of how social media engagement is changing business operations as we know them (and are comfortable with!) today.

How has social media engagement changed your marketing mix?

[Image Sources: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4]

Related posts:

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2. Authentic Engagement with Word of Mouth Marketing
3. Is Social Media Really Free?
4. How Audience Research Can Help You with Your Traditional Marketing Efforts
5. Authentic Engagement in a Web 2.0 World

• Is Your Social Media Strategy Flexible?
• Setting Goals for Your Overall Social Media Strategy 

Shiny Object Syndrome or Strong Strategy?  

strat·e·gy: noun. A:  A careful plan or method; B: The art of devising or employing plans toward a goal. 

As social media becomes more mainstream from a business perspective it is really important to understand that it is not another tactic or channel for marketers or businesses to add to their ‘to do’ list. That mindset can lead to “shiny object syndrome” where social media tools are selected and used just because they are perceived as the hip thing to do, they are everywhere, or competition is using them. Shiny object syndrome is the worst beacon of light to lead an organization as they consider social media engagement. That glimmer won’t be a guide, but a detrimental side effect leading to temporary blindness which will leave an organization in the dark.    

Social media isn’t solely about tools like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogging, forums, etc. Social media tools provide a conduit for people to connect. And it’s those connections—not the tools— that lead to business success.   

So what’s the key to social media strategy success? Purpose and Planning. 

Success comes from connecting with people in a purposeful manner. And it’s that purpose that should drive your plan and strategies so that they ultimately achieve your business goals. Otherwise, you are at risk to waste precious resources (time and money being two of the largest).  However, and it’s a BIG however, it’s important that an organization understand that purpose is a two-way street. It’s not only what you you’re purpose for engagement is, but more importantly, why people want to connect with YOU. 

As Nan Dawkins, Serengeti Communications’ CEO, often says “Tactics without strategy is like doing nothing at all.” It’s safe to add that “A strategy without goals and measurable objectives is also like doing nothing at all.” From these perspectives, it’s really important for all of the parts of a plan for social media engagement to work together like a set of well-oiled cogs. If one cog is weak, it affects the entire operation. 

Determining Purpose

What is the purpose for engaging in social media? Is there a business requirement? Are customers and prospects (or target publics/audience) using social media to try to communicate or search for product/service information? Are people using social channels as a way to try and communicate with the organization? 

Whatever the reason, it’s important to benchmark where an organization is within the ‘social realm’ prior to planning. One way to determine and set a benchmark is to perform audience research.  Audience research can shed a light on things like: 

• Where people are talking
• What they are talking about
• Who they are talking to
• What the competition is doing
• What needs/wants are met or unmet
• What are the rules of engagement 

 Steps to Writing a Successful Plan

There is no doubt about it…writing a solid plan is hard work that takes time, effort and often sweat and stress. But without one you will be aimless in your purpose and intentions. Your planning efforts will be time and effort well spent, promise! As well, all of the team players will know exactly, without a doubt, the goal they are aiming for.

1. Goal
Every plan should have a goal for what is trying to be achieved with social media (or even marketing, communications, business in general). For example, “to increase communication” or “to increase sales” or “to decrease customer service expenditures.” Whatever the case, there should only be one goal per plan. If you find yourself saying ‘and’ in your goal, that’s an indication that you’ll need two plans because all objectives, strategies and tactics need to focus on achieving one goal at a time.

2. Objectives
This is the part of the plan where an organization determines the specific aspects of the situation and how to address them in a manner that supports the goal. To be measurable, objectives must have four (4) key parts:

•  A specific desire communication or behavioral effect;
• A designated public/target audience among whom the effect is to be achieved;
• The expected level of attainment (percentage of change, increase, decrease, etc.) or accomplishment; and
• The timeframe in which those attainments are to occur

For example: To use social media channels to communicate new positions and engage with prospects in a manner that helps recruit 15 new engineers by September 30, 2010.

This example is totally measurable!

Objectives come in three flavors: Output, Outtake or Outcome.

• Output objectives address the items to be produced. If your objective is to set up a social media community on Ning by a certain date, targeting a specific group of people and getting 100 people to join, the community setup is the “output.”
• Outtake objectives address the messages, perceptions and understandings the audience will take away from your efforts. For example, did the target audience understand and comprehend your message or did your plan change their perceptions to positive? (Outtakes are based on the outputs).
• Outcome objectives show the quantifiable changes in attitudes, opinions or behaviors. A great example is to gauge a change in sentiment from negative to neutral or neutral to positive. Or, based on our objective example above… 100 new people were hired. Outcomes can be one of the most important objectives.

NOTE: A plan can have multiple objectives to help meet a goal.

3. Strategy
Strategy is the heart of the plan. Strategies are the overall guide or road map for meeting measurable objectives and ultimately the goal. Strategies should include each tool needed to achieve the objectives.

For example (based on our objective): Establish social media channels for the HR department. Train five key HR employees on how to use social media channels for communication. Share all new job postings on social media channels weekly. Engage in daily conversation with potential candidates. Report weekly on key performance indicators.

NOTE: Each objective can have more than one strategy.

4. Tactics
Selecting tactics that help achieve the strategy (or strategies) is exactly how an organization avoids shiny object syndrome! The key to on-going measurement is to make sure that your tactics are measurable too.

For example (based on our strategy):

• Setup Twitter accounts for Key HR Personnel (@Jane_XYZ Company)
• Setup a Facebook Fan Page Dedicated to Careers
• Work with Marketing to include Blog Posts from HR on Corporate Blog
• Etc.

Here’s what a plan outline would look like:

• Goal
  • Objective 1
    • Strategy 1
      • Tactic 1
      • Tactic 2
    • Strategy 2
      • Tactic 1
      • Tactic 2
  • Objective 2
    • Strategy 1
      • Tactic 1
      • Tactic 2
    • Strategy 2
      • Tactic 1
      • Tactic 2  

Wash, Rinse and Repeat 

Just know that a smart strategy isn’t a “set it and forget it” (thank you Ron Popeil!) thing. A plan needs to be fluid and flexible and if it isn’t work, STOP and re-plan. The notion that a planned strategy will expose weaknesses within an organization shouldn’t be perceived as a negative, but as a positive. Because at the end of the day, you’re customers don’t care about internal silos, politics or weaknesses. They only care about working with an organization that is willing to be a partner in solving their challenges with great products and services. A plan—or ten (yes, it’s normal to have more than one plan at a time!)—should reflect that.

[Image Sources: Image 1, Image 2, Image 3, Image 4]

Related posts:

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2. Social Media and Online Advocacy
3. Using Twitter in your Social Media Strategy
4. Social Media Training
5. How Audience Research Can Help You with Your Traditional Marketing Efforts

• Human Analysis in Social Media Monitoring: 5 Simple Steps to Navigate a Sea of Records
• Buzz Monitoring Tools Can’t Tell You Everything

How Audience Research Can Help You with Your Traditional Marketing Efforts

As traditional marketers, we have years of experience understanding our markets, what products and services they need/want, how to communicate best with them, and how they regard our brands, right? 

Well, maybe not… 

We have often relied on marketing research (primary or secondary), sales team feedback, customer satisfaction surveys, etc. to provide insights into those areas. The issue with most of those forms of feedback is that they tend to provide the answers we want to hear or find necessary to meet our internal business goals (either as an organization or a professional). 

Audience research, on the other hand, uncovers specifically how markets use products and services, speak about them, form communities, etc. It’s like watching a pride of lions in their natural habitat. Regardless if it’s a B2B or B2C market, when we take the time to watch people in their natural – or comfortable – habitat, we will see their true behavior and opinions surface. If you haven’t done audience research, it can be quite eye-opening. But more importantly, it can’t be fabricated. As an organization it’s your choice to ignore it (at your peril, potentially) or to embrace what’s really going on in the market. 

So how can audience research help traditional marketing efforts? 

Products/Services: If we build it, they will come… Not always. And more often “not” is the outcome (unless, of course, you are Apple). Many times startup companies fail or new products or services fail because they are built from the internal premise that people actually want to buy your product or service. And throwing your marketing communications budget at it isn’t going to help move the buying needle. Why not start with your customers and prospects and identify what their needs/wants actually are? If you aren’t a ‘social’ company, audience research is one way to tap into what’s being said online while standing on the sidelines. If you are a social company, why not just simply ask and then collect the data that the audience shares? 

Communication: There is large misperception in marketing that people respond specifically to tactics (i.e.  ads, direct mail, messaging, emails, etc.). That is not the case. People respond only when they have a brand relationship (see below). When there is a brand relationship, people are open and receptive to receiving your message. Your task is to make sure you send the right message, at the right time, in the right format. Audience research can help you to determine receptivity levels. 

Branding: While organizations do control their brand identity and messaging, what they don’t control are the relationships that people form with brands. Are you aware of how people (customers, prospects, clients, employees, stakeholders, shareholders, etc.) see and talk about your brand? Do you know what the sentiment (positive, neutral, negative) levels are for your brand? You might just be surprised! The  goal of using audience research is to understand how people perceive your brand(s), to take that feedback internally and to adjust your branding efforts accordingly.

What would you add to the list? How have you used audience research in your marketing efforts?

[Image: BG-Hotel International]

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5. The Social Media Audit: Look Before You Leap

My tips on “Planning for Success” follow below.  

1.) Pick a “test and invest” goal.  As Jim Sterne points out in his new book (Social Media Metrics), there are only 3 real business goals.  Your “test and invest” goal for a pilot social media program should be a hard number that flows from one of these three:  Decrease costs; increase customer satisfaction; increase revenue. (Hint:  Increase engagement with our target audience is not a hard goal. Drive x number of conversions or leads is.)

2.) Choose tactics that shorten the sales cycle.  Use social to build direct relationships with prospects that are futher along the buy cycle.   This flips the sales funnel on its head by focusing on direct contact with a smaller base, but doing it this way doesn’t mean sales will end up with fewer qualified leads! 

Go back to what you know about thought leadership.  This has always been the holy grail of B to B marketers, but social makes it easier in so many ways:  social tools (simple twitter search for exampe) can help you pinpoint topics for your thought leadership content, publish that content more quickly, market it, and make it highly visible in search engines.  TL content that focuses on prospects who are further along in the sales funnel is powerful stuff!

3. Focus like a laser on the sweet spot. What sweet spot?  The one that lies between what your customers do and seek in social channels and what you can provide (content, tools, digital assets) that furthers your goal.  This is only possible if you are listening (hard) to what your customers are saying and watching what they are doing through social monitoring tools.  Yes, it takes some work, but the return on this activity is more than worth the investment.  The most common reason for failure is that companies create something that prospects don’t want or need, or ask them to do something they aren’t interested in doing.  Finding the sweet spot will save you from this fate.

4. Make peace with measurement. In fact, for pilot programs, work back from what you can measure (and there are plenty of things to measure in social media).  We all need to get comfortable with the fact that social media measurement isn’t perfect and there are no smoking guns (or very few).  This doesn’t matter.  We don’t have unarguable smoking guns for any other kind of marketing measurement.

5. Create the infrastructure for successful execution.  No seriously.  You have to do this.  Successful social media execution falls mostly to people on the inside — NOT to the agency!  These folks need the skills (training and coaching) to master things like the art of community building (in Facebook, on LinkedIn, in Twitter, etc.)  You will also need processes (for funneling leads, for measuring impact, etc.) and tools.  All of this must be considered well in advance of pulling the trigger.

Related posts:

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2. Social Media and Change Management: 7 Changes With Big Consequences
3. Social Media Marketing Strategies: You Need More Than Buzz Monitoring Tools To Get It Right
4. Nonprofits, Social Media and Web 2.0
5. Social Media and Online Advocacy

What’s the big deal?  We’re simply talking about helping employees develop new skill sets, right?  Wrong.  We’re talking about restructuring the organization in order to manage new ways of interacting (often in real time or close to it) with distributed communities throughout the Web.  Re-anything-ing in an organization means CHANGE.  And change can mean trouble if it isn’t managed and planned for in advance. 

Here are 7 changes that even a small social media marketing program could potentially require:

1.) Changes in job descriptions

2.) Changes in bonus structure for employees

3.) Changes in reporting structure

4.) Changes in KPI’s for departments

5.) Changes in internal communications between departments (PR, marketing, customer service, sales, IT, etc.)

6.) Changes in employee policies

7.) Changes in supporting vendors

Re-read that list.  We’re talking about changes that affect employees’ daily activities, their personal wallets, their titles, their authority, their departmental budgets, their relationships with co-workers…

Yes, this could hurt.   

It doesn’t have to.  Planning for these changes effectively can — and should — be a key piece of  the strategy development work you will do (you are doing this, right?) prior to pulling the trigger on any social media program.  (In fact, internal social media tools can play an important role in managing any type of change, including change that is driven by the implementation of external social media programs.)  Taking time to methodically develop a strategy  for social media engagement will give you the opportunity to solicit input from stakeholders, create a shared (truly shared) vision and a sense of urgency, quell any fears, and set the stage for successful execution.

We’ll be writing more on this topic in future posts and in our upcoming white paper on change management.  If you have stories about how your organization managed the change (or failed to!) please share!

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5. 5 Easy Social Media Wins for the Nonprofit Organization

I don’t really understand this rationale.  Here’s why:

1.) We aren’t achieving perfect ROI measurement in other channels (we can’t even fully measure the ROI of search in every scenario).  Even where measurement is pretty good, marketers often don’t take advantage of the measurement capabilities available to them (what percentage of your Web Analytics program do you really use?  10%?).  In other words, marketers regularly invest in tactics that can’t be measured, or can’t be measured fully, or that they don’t measure even if they can.  

2.) When you really think about it, there is no shortage of social media metrics (see our social media measurement white paper for some examples) and countless ways to slice, dice and calculate derivatives of data points from various sources in order to uncover valuable insights (this is what Social Snap does).  True, tracking results and analyzing indicative data often falls short of perfect, smoking gun ROI measurement…but, see #1 above.

I’m not suggesting that measuring social isn’t complicated.  It is, and in many ways it is more difficult than other channels.  Especially if you consider measurement complexities like the multiplier effect.  The multiplier effect may be more exaggerated, or at the very least, work differently with social in the mix than combinations we are accustomed to seeing/measuring (i.e., a prospect hears an ad on the radio and then sees an ad in a magazine for the same product, or sees a brand in various places on the Internet and then has it served up  in a search result, etc.).

Consider the recent Nielsen study found that advertising effectiveness was increased substantially when ads were combined with a social element.   Facebook users who were exposed to both a homepage ad and brand mentions in their newsfeed were three times as likely to recall the ad and be aware of the brand then users who viewed the homepage ad only.  Purchase intent was four times as high among viewers who were exposed to both an ad and a social component.

But would we expect to see the multiplier effect work differently depending on the connectedness and trust of a particular community?  Purchase influence varies widely based on trust and loosely connected communities will not have the same trust level as a community where relationships are stronger.

At the end of the day, measuring social will never be easy and never get “solved”.  Its just changing too fast and in a sense, we are (as is often the case in an environment driven by disruptive technologies) using our old ideas and understanding of marketing to make sense of something that lives on a very different planet. 

In that scenario, how wise is it to remain on the sidelines?

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The biggest piece of advice I can share from this video and elaborate on is that Buzz Monitoring tools are not the be all end all of finding conversations and relevant chatter for your strategy.  Buzz monitoring tools only give you a piece of the story.  They can point you in the right direction, help you uncover a lot of different and interesting conversations, but they can’t truly tell you the whole picture of why they are holding conversations, or many other facets that can be important to planning your strategy.  A lot of times that comes down to plain, old fashioned, human research.

Google can be a lot of help, and so can other tools, but at the end of the day computer programs, while aiding in speeding things up or making processes easier, can’t do everything for you especially Understawhen you are trying to understand a community.  Understanding the nuances that bind communities together takes another human to understand and relate back into planning an engagement strategy.

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David Meerman Scott is just as engaging in person as he is in his books and his presentation was chock full of great information for any audience to take back and implement into their own marketing strategies.

David started off his presentation just like his book starts off, by relating the story of Cindy Gordon from Universal Studios Parks and how she launched the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  She only told 7 people.

That may sound like a small number, but those 7 people were very influential in the Harry Potter world of fans.  From those fans over 350,000,000 now know about the new theme park that Universal Studios is launching. It’s all about how big is YOUR world.  Sure you likely don’t have a “Harry Potter” in your arsenal of marketing strategies, but that doesn’t mean creating a World Wide Rave is going to be impossible for you.

It’s about knowing your audience and creating triggers for them.  Triggers are valuable content that just naturally want to be shared with others. During this keyknote David explains the 5 rules he sets out in more depth in his book and had some really great examples to go with the rules.

1. Nobody Cares About Your Product
   The most overused word in press releases is “Innovate” the 3rd most overused word is “Unique”.  Who searches on that stuff really?  This tends to be insulting to your customers, just like those stock photos of models who you choose to represent your company.
   
   
2. No Coercion Required
   Here David speaks to an ad he saw that featured a Fly V style guitar.  It was an advertisement for parents against explicit lyrics.  He clicked through and was lead to a landing page for the Toyota Matrix.  This is REALLY stupid, why trick people?  If your content is valuable, you don’t need to trick them.
   
   
   David shares the story of Girls Fight Back and how at the beginning of every session Erin has the girls turn off their cell phones.  At the end of the session she has them turn them back on and use them to take photos or videos of them doing the moves they learned in the self defense session.  What happens is these girls share the photos and videos, without even being asked.
   
   
3. Lose Control
   This is about understanding you don’t really control the message, no matter how you craft it, or spin it, you just really can’t control how other people interact with it.  When you loose control it allows the world wide rave to happen.  David starts to explain about how the Grateful Dead used this to their advantage by allowing people to record their concerts and share it with their friends.  To this date the Grateful Dead is still the most successful touring band.
   
   
4. Put Down Roots
   Don’t just be a lurker in social media, get involved in the community and make it your home.  Create relationships that are meaningful.  Henry Poser from B&H Photo does this so well that people in the photography communities he’s involved with find him to be a valuable asset because he helps them with their problems, not pitching the products B&H sells.
   
   
5. Create Triggers that Encourage People to Share
   You need to think about what makes people want to share.  David relates his own story of being asked to ring the closing bell for NASDAQ as his book was being released.  They told him he could bring 50 friends.  He shared this on Twitter and 50 people signed up, it was the first Tweetup ever that happened at NASDAQ and it made the main stream news.
   
   

These five rules can really help you when you are entering into the world of online marketing, but there’s something that companies wrangle with even more.  Fear.

Fear of loosing control, fear that they can’t do this or that, fear of the negative.  You can’t be afraid if you are going to be successful in engaging your audience.  Right now over 25% of companies still limit the access that employees have to the internet because they are afraid of what they “might” do.  This hurts companies more than they know.

David points to the US Air  Force and their use of Twitter and social media.  His story was even picked up and reported on by Wired magazine and he brought one of the US Air Force’s commanding officers to South by Southwest with him to speak to them using these social media channels.  They want to have 330,000 employees in public affairs – all of their soldiers.  When asked about restrictions and worrying about “what could happen”, the officer had the perfect answer:

“If these generals are trusting a 23 year old with a 50 million dollar jet airplane, why can’t they trust them to be on the internet?”

Lots of food for thought if you are a company entering into the online marketing space.  If you haven’t already, make sure you pick up a copy of  “World Wide Rave”, where David goes into more stories about how companies are finding success online every day.

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4. SEM Training New York
5. Cause Wired – a book review

Join us for an illuminating discussion as we peek into the next generation of digital marketing and predict what search might look like in the following five to ten years. What should be on your search radar for 2010 and beyond? Does the key to the future of search lie in personalization? Do social networks herald the end of search? Certain industry pundits have even been heard to say that SEO is dead. The future is coming. Are you ready for it?

• Moderator:
  Graham Mudd, Vice President, Search & Media, comScore, Inc.
• Speakers:
  Stefan Weitz, Director, Bing
  Brett Tabke, CEO, WebmasterWorld.com
  Robert Murray, CEO, iProspect
  Larry Cornett, VP, Consumer Products, Yahoo! Search

10:38- Waiting for the first panel to begin at SES New York

10:45- GM introduces the panel…

Steven Weitz up first-

-We know that a tweet has a geo log.  tremendous amount of information captured.
-engines blind to so many booking sites like opentable.com.  engines should be able to understand services on web and stitch them together in real-time.
-Lists all twiiter tools very quickly… not going to try
-Amazing canvas of objects out there.
“We didn’t have an engine in 2010″, umm yes you did.  It was called MSN!
“our vision of search is to make sure we can deliver knowledge”- focus on ambiguous 2-3 word query and understand what they are really looking for:

who, where, others, semantic, elves

task derivation- purchase, install sell, set fire to, impress friends

point is to take content, services, media, real time

“Intent should drive user experience.  More than just text”

Larry takes the podium-
Larry Cornett, VP Consumer Products Yahoo! Search

“Seeing much more diversity.  Much more than just web and text.”

“How do you take all the information and condense it into the answer?”
“Going to use search data to inspire”
“If we know who you are and connected to, can we give you something before you even stop to ask?”

3 Areas of Focus

1. Find things faster

search assist- yahoo’s version of autocomplete.  embedded in universal header.  stock quotes right in layer (pretty slick).

Shows a SERP- Yikes, look at all the ads.  not the best display to prove a point.

“95% of queries are about a thing”
“Trying to create a different type of web.”

Trying to connect the different assets with search.  Search for Avatar produces “Related People” on left (very cool).

“Starts to make search feel a bit more like a media experience.”

Shows new IPhone app.  Draw with your finger along a geographic area and it shows all the restaurants within that area.

Drills down by neighborhood for NYC-based searches.

Discussion

Weitz- indicates they use end user data to understand and serve results for keywords such as “boston flights.”  Goal of search should not be to facilitate exploration, but to provide answers.
Murray- it’s all about confidence and understanding the intent
Cornett- Future is clear, more aggressively providing answers right on the PAGE
Murray- No longer about meta data.  Won’t win with a single website anymore.  Need to have a holistic approach.

Cornett- Who’s to say you can’t someday you can’t file your 1040 right on the SERP?

Mod: What about from the paid side of the page?

Weitz: Opportunities for additional ad types open up.  Presentation layer may change away from set of links.  Profound opportunity.

Tabke: Ranking reports are dead.

Weitz: You can accomplish a tremendous amount of personalization with a tremendously few number of variables, such as location.  Big issue, people go to search to sometimes explore, the idea of over-personalization might prevent people from coming back.

Cornett: We’ve signed deals with Facebook and Twitter.  We don’t just blast raw tweets.  Gibe people a taste of something that’s fresh and unique.

Tabke: Consulting for top 50 company and they had 5 million FB fans in 5 weeks… had no idea what to do with them.

Murray: if the single webpage no longer reigns supreme.  You’re website is nothing more than a data aggregation site.  Why do you have to house that on your own website?  You can create a youtube channel, then your website becomes self fulfilled.

Tabke: Building a framework for the next Twitter, whether it Foresquared or something else.

Question: By providing thorough content on the search page, are we hurting websites?
Cornett: it might be a loss leader.  this is a decent answer, and then they click through.
Weitz: we have agreements with providers to display answers.  for recipes, we leverage data and offer snippets so you’re getting a very qualified click.

Related posts:

1. Universal and Blended Search
2. Google Launches Insights for Search
3. Personalization
4. So you want to be a search marketer?
5. Another SEM blog?