WEB 2.0–EASY AS ABC

The hoopla, confusion, and fears surrounding the use of Web 2.0 tools continue to drag on.  And, again, I am weighing in with my thoughts.  Here is its, plain and simple.

A simple plan with a clear and concise message is where to start.  Get a pen and pad and

start putting your thoughts down.

Be open to using traditional marketing concepts with the new free tools that are user-friendly.  (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs, Vimeo, Flickr, LinkedIn, Meetup.com, and a host of others)

Carry your plan out and include a straight forward maintenance strategy.

Do it now.  What are you waiting for?  With a devised plan in hand and the tools available—go ahead—roll it out.

Expect those initial results to provide the feedback necessary to revise, where needed, and lead you along a path that will help you perfect your plan.

Fight the urge to give up if you don’t get instant results.  A plan is not a magic wand.  Persistence pays off.  Good plans and the appropriate tools working in concert over a period of time will produce desired outcomes.

Get aggressive and exercise temperance. Commit to abandoning fear, move forward with confidence, and don’t overwhelm you targeted audiences.

Have the discipline to quiet the “voices” of the many gurus.  Too many “voices” give birth to confusion, delays action, and muddles the message.  Trust your instincts about what you are doing.

I speak to you from personal experience.  If I had allowed the confusion of the many “voices” to continue, I would have “stayed on stuck” and this blog would have never come to be.  Put your mind to the task and your hands on the tools.  You will be amazed at what the end brings.

TWITTER WHO? FACE WHAT?

The tug or war between social media marketing advocates and detractors rages on. I personally think that a timely and engaging message creatively presented to the appropriate audience can effectively yield greater exposure for an organization, increase traffic to websites, build new relationships and nurture existing ones.

Taking advantage of social media marketing tools such as Twitter, Blogs, Linkedin, and Facebook proactively opens free avenues of marketing that are virtually maintenance free, and allows for mobile use—making access possible from almost anywhere. When strategically and judiciously used, social network marketing can save an organization marketing dollars that can be directed toward other areas of need while keeping its message positioned with the audience with which it desires to sustain ongoing contact.

Essentially, social media is a 21st century shift in how people discover, read and share information. It’s a unique blend of information dissemination and technology that is transforming communication from one to many into an exchange of ideas between organizations and their targeted audiences. It has become extremely popular, and continues to experience rapid growth because it allows people to engage the online world to form relationships and stay abreast of what interests them.

The social media marketing buzz and gurus can make using these simple tools appear overwhelming. But it’s really quite simple. I suggest taking a few minutes to set up an account with a couple of social media sites—and it truly only takes a few minutes. Play with the pages, and in a matter of a few days not only will you find yourself comfortable with them, but you will gain personal insight about how they work and how you can work them into your marketing strategies. I challenge you to go ahead and try it for yourself. You will find there is no mystery to unfold and no technical dragons to slay. You will just be a bit more web sophisticated than you were the day before. And, that is a good thing!

WHO’S LISTENING TO PUBLIC RADIO

Could you be missing your niche audience because you forgot to remember public radio?  Can you find your demographic in this group?  If so, consider public radio in your media/marketing mix.

67% are married

62% hold college degrees

31% are in gruaduate school or hold graduate degrees

51% have houshold incomes above $75,000

48% are professionals holding managerial positions

51% regularly attend live music/theater

53% own stocks, bonds, mutual funds

31% consider themselves conservative

33% consider themselves middle of the road

CONSIDER THEM WHEN DEVELOPING YOUR MARKETING STRATEGIES

DON’T FORGET RADIO

According to the Arbitron Inc./Edison Media Research 2006 study*, developments in technology have dramatically increased options for audio programming. Internet streaming is leading the way in this emerging field, and online radio is poised to capture a significant segment these audiences.
In your marketing mix with so many options, it’s easy to overlook one of the most basic, pervasive, effective and cost-efficient tools – RADIO. Cost is an important factor particularly in economic tough times when you desire to maintain message consistency with your core audience. It’s reach has always proven effective mostly because it is the only medium with 100% saturation. That saturation is rapidly bubbling over onto the Internet as well.

Online Radio Statistics:
• Internet radio listening is growing at a rapid rate and attracts a wide range of ages
• Eight in ten Americans are online from various locations at all times of day
• At work streaming has increased an average of 43% each year over the past 5 years
• Internet radio attracts upper income audiences, with more that a third from households with income above $100K
• Almost 50% of online radio listeners are directed to websites by ads
• Internet radio is used as a soundtrack for online shopping/buying, with almost two-thirds of weekly internet radio users listening while making purchases at a website
• Radio website visitors are loyal, returning frequently, some even daily

IPHONE HOME –MY APPS

If you’re like me, a Baby-Boomer trying to keep at least a minimal pace with the technologically savvy in the 21^st century, then I have good news for you. One major nemesis for us boomers is the ever-increasing complex cell phone with all of its bells and whistles. Seriously, do you have to hold a Ph.D. to use a cell phone?

I know the Blackberry is the hot ticket right now. But for me, one of the technically challenged, the iPhone is my ticket. It’s simple to use and sophisticated enough to keep me on task with time and project management, and has helped me increase personal and professional productivity. This is all done with something called “Apps” which are simply Smartphone programs. To me, apps are my little worker bees that assist me in getting tasks done quickly and efficiently.

· When I am pulling together business correspondence, I use:

Dictionaire for quick spelling and definitions

Thesaurus for alternative words

Icon Memos to fire off a quick note

· When I need to update one of my blogs or send a tweet, I turn to:

WordPress

Twitterific.

· For task management:

SmartTime is my choice as a project management and scheduling tool

· For getting an impromptu interview recorded or saving an audio reminder for myself, there’s:

iTalk

· When traveling, I find the following apps useful in helping me to navigate new environments.

Flight (a cool flight tracker)

Yelp (my favorite restaurant finder)

Maps (a Google GPS app–preloaded on iPhone)

· When I find myself with downtime, I entertain myself with:

Word Warp

or listen to my personalized ratio stations on

Pandora.

· Just for fun, it’s:

Flixster to point me to what’s at the movies, which theater, and the time of the next feature

Shazam — If you hear a song and want to know the name or the artist–SHAZAM IT!

· Oh yeah, I just downloaded a copy of “The Art of War” to read on the run from a selection of free ebooks.

There are tons of apps in 20 categories ranging from productivity to entertainment, from reference to social networking, from news to finance and education, and a lot more. These are few of my favorite “must have” apps. Try them and you’ll discover your own. And, it gets better–the ones I use are all free.

REVERSED MENTORING

Traditionally, in the workplace, the scenario was one where the seasoned veterans would take a rookie “under their wings” and help direct his or her professional path through what was is commonly referred to as “mentoring.” Those companies thought to be on the cutting-edge viewed this as progressive, forward-thinking, and an excellent way of passing on the proverbial baton to the next generation.

However, the ever rapidly emerging new technology has caused many Baby Boomer executives to realize that the direction of the flow of information, as it relates to particularly technology, is now flowing upwardly from the much younger Generation Xers who are more technologically astute. Major corporate concerns like General Electric and Procter & Gamble are leading the way in adapting what is now being called “Reversed Mentoring.” Last year, the Center for Coaching and Mentoring in Bartlesville, Oklahoma conducted a study on the subject and found that 41 percent of respondents used reverse mentoring by younger staffers to help executives gain a more youthful viewpoint and better understanding existing and emerging technologies.

In shifting the gears to reverse, good mentoring programs cannot materialize by happenstance. They require thoughtful planning and careful structuring to insure the avoidance potholes and pitfalls.

Setting up a successful reverse mentoring program requires a good deal of planning. It’s essential to create a structured program so that participants don’t wind up overwhelmed with regular work and skip sessions.” . . . Finally, both the mentor and the student require training. “The mentor must learn what’s important and how to show patience, and the student has to check his or her ego at the door,” . . .”Reverse mentoring is a great concept, but it doesn’t just happen on its own.” – Crain Communications, Inc.

Reverse mentoring provides an opportunity for gaining technical expertise and gives one a chance to take a fresh look from outside of the box. It is not a superior-subordinate relationship, but one that fosters peer-to-peer engagement. While mentoring is not a new process, it is one that has re-packaged itself to meet the demands of changing times and can be mutually beneficial to those who approach it with an open mind and expectations.

IT’S BUSINESS, IT’S PERSONAL

A long held belief in the advertising industry was that you had to appeal to the majority. But, the rising number of ethnic minorities in the United States with billions of dollars in disposable income has imploded that notion. It is marketing suicide not to customize messages that are ethnically appropriate. Those same rising ethnic numbers are also changing the faces of government and other key areas. But, that is a story for another day.

Public relations and marketing firms have learned that people want to be specifically marketed to and not marketed at with some generic message that is “one size fits all.” People want to know that they are important enough to merit specificity in message. Until early 2002, African-Americans were the largest ethnic group in America. Hispanics are now the largest and Asian-Americans are rapidly rising in numbers.

To keep pace with the changing demographics, media is becoming by necessity, more segmented. The increasingly diverse public is forcing those with messages to the public to rethink their approaches from en mass to highly targeted niche marketing strategies in print and broadcast. The internet is following suit, playing host to specialized programming and content. Diversity is more than the latest buzz word to be bantered about. It is a reality, and one that commands that we change the way we do business in all areas including public relations, advertising, and marketing. There’s a popular cliché that says, “It’s not personal, it’s business.” Time itself has flipped that proverbial script. “If it is to survive as a business, it has got to get personal”—customized to reach specific groups.