Posting—or “lifestreaming” as the cool kids like to say—on a site like Posterous.com is just so much easier that frankly, I have no choice.

So while I will keep you here as a digital archive of the Genius we shared for several years in the early 2000s, I’ll be moving my more frequent (daily, weekly) rants and raves to http://mzkagan.posterous.com, which will now effectively become the NEW & IMPROVED Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius.

It’s been fun, Diary.
-M

Dear Diary,
Yesterday’s #unfiltered Lunch & Learn at Radius was the best yet! We tackled some of the thorniest questions around the topic of social marketing (my new fav way to describe the Thing Formerly Known as Social Media) over incredible food and a near-perfect bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The Genius was pleased!

In fact, the questions raised and discussions shared were so juicy, that I thought I’d share a few tidbits here. In no particular order…

1. What advice do you have for brands just starting out on Facebook?

Tip #1: Know the platform.
Seriously. The best brands on Facebook are the ones that genuinely know and “get” the platform.

If you haven’t already done so, set up a profile. Invite some friends. Check out some of the popular applications. Snoop. Yes, snoop.

Take a close look at some of the brands that have a large, engaged following; notice their approach to growing and cultivating community within this channel.

Start with these great examples: Red Bull, Victoria’s Secret, Ford Models, BestBuy

It’s also helpful to understand who’s using Facebook and how. Here are a few key stats to get you started:

• Facebook has more than 300 million active users worldwide
• 50% of those active users log on daily
• In the US, Facebook reaches nearly 50% of the population
• Over the past 30 days, the average US user has visited the site 28x, at an average of 20 minutes/visit
• 60% of Facebook users (worldwide) are over the age of 35; this is the fastest-growing demographic on the site
• 57% of users are female
• The average user has 130 Facebook friends

sources for the above data: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics and http://www.briansolis.com/2009/10/revealing-the-people-defining-social-networks/

Tip #2: Social marketing is social > marketing.
Facebook is first and foremost a social medium. Marketers who venture onto the site (and considering the statistics outlined above, why wouldn’t you?) should focus more on communicating with, entertaining, and engaging their audience than “advertising” to them.

That said, Facebook offers plenty of opportunity to advertise, including standard display ads, Facebook Flyers, Newsfeed ads, and sponsored groups. But paid advertising on Facebook is still paid advertising. CPMs are low for display ads and Flyers—and so are click-through rates.

Which brings me back to my initial thought: social > marketing. Growing your fan base on Facebook—and keeping them there—requires you to think more like a host/hostess than a marketer. Forget the desire to sell stuff (for just a moment) and focus instead on creating an environment that draws your audience in and invites them to stick around (and maybe even bring a few friends).

Think: “How could we make the experience even better when shared with friends?” This is the mindset from which the very best Facebook marketing efforts are born.

Of course you’re in business to sell stuff, so you’re going to need to sprinkle in ties to transactional opportunities. I’m just saying that if you lead with that objective, you’re toast.

2. What should our brand “voice” be on social channels? Who should be tweeting/posting/updating on behalf of the brand?

We had a pretty lively discussion on this one with quite the variety of perspectives. Yet we did all agree on one thing: these are social channels. What’s the one crucial ingredient to being “social”? People.

Which means your brand has to find some way to bring humanity, authenticity, and intimacy to the act of engaging in social channels. Otherwise, why bother?

A classic example of this: the Boston Celtics have been actively working to grow their Twitter following, and with over 1000 tweets under their belts, have accumulated a modest 20,000 fans.

Celtics star Paul Pierce, meanwhile, has tweeted a mere 48 times and has 1.2 Million fans.

To be fair, I will note that neither account is actively engaged in “dialogue” at the moment—so there’s still plenty of opportunity for growth. There’s not an “@” or a “RT” in sight. But clearly, it’s easier for people to relate to and “follow” a real person than a real brand.

Which is why my two cents on the subject is simple: make it personal. Regardless of whom you choose to be the voice of your brand on social channels, please encourage them to be as human as possible.

K thx.

3. How much is “too much” (or too little) social marketing? How do you know if you’re doing enough on social channels?

I’d answer this question in terms of the target audience: Are they engaging with you (actively and genuinely) on the social channels in which you’ve chosen to participate?

Where else is your audience spending their time online?

The beauty of social marketing is that it enables your loyal fans to market on your behalf and your critics to be converted to fans before a live audience. You don’t need to be everywhere to make that happen. But wherever you are… really be there!

Another classic example: Blendtec, the folks that make those pricey commercial-grade blenders, have done a phenomenal job of utilizing YouTube to increase brand awareness and boost sales (by 300%!). They’ve got a few dozen “Will It Blend” videos with over a million views; in fact their foray into social marketing has been so successful that their YouTube channel is now a profit center for the company.

But take a look at what Blendtec has done on Twitter or Facebook and you’ll find they’re virtually nonexistent.

My advice? Pick the channels that make the most sense for your target audience (ie where are they already spending their time online?). Get really cozy with that/those channels. Set clear, distinct, measurable objectives. Take great care to build a strategy that emphasizes marketing with your audience, not to or at them. Constantly monitor, measure, evaluate, and refine. Oh—and keep in mind that everything that holds true today is likely to change dramatically over the next 12 months. ☺

4. How do you quantify the value of your fans/followers? We’re struggling to justify our social marketing budget, but haven’t cracked the nut on projecting or proving ROI from our social programs.

Ah, yes! The million dollar “social marketing ROI” question! [insert dramatic music here]

First, let me say this: anyone (agency, consultant, guru, or otherwise) who tells you that it’s not possible to measure or quantify the impact of social marketing programs is either lying, ignorant, or stupid. I know that sounds harsh, but it’s also true, and frankly, I’ve had it with this discussion.

Digital is inherently measurable. Period.

That doesn’t mean that proving ROI is a snap, but it’s certainly not impossible.

If your agency/consultant/social media “guru” tells you otherwise, RUN! Run fast in the other direction!

Ok, now to answer the question.

There is no “set” value for a fan or follower. That value will depend on your business, and more specifically, on your business’ transactional data, ie $ per transaction, # transactions per month, # new customers per month, etc.

To get to the “per fan value,” you’ll need to overlay that transactional data with the social data you’re collecting (ie. net new followers per month, # of friends/fans per follower, # of links shared/follower, # of comments/posts, Net Promoter Score, etc. *Note, the specific social data that you’re tracking may vary, depending on the specific objectives you’ve set forth at the start of your program).

Then you’ll need to layer in web analytics, and ideally, any loyalty or relevant behavioral data that you have available.

All of these data points should be superimposed over the same span of time, say January to June, so that even if you’re not able to track a unique sale back to a unique Facebook fan (for example), you will be able to identify trends, spikes, and deltas over time.

Ideally, you dive into this analysis with some solid benchmarks or at the very least, a clear understanding of your baseline and your [distinct, measurable] objectives.

For a big-picture thinker like myself, the above process is about as painful as a root canal (possibly more—at least the root canal comes with novacaine), but trust me, it’s worth it. When you can walk into your CMOs or CEOs office with some hard numbers that prove your social programs are not just effective in “building buzz” but actually drive sales and are insanely cost-effective, you’ll thank me.

Oh yes—one more thing. Let’s be very, very clear about the definition of ROI.

ROI is not a ‘subjective’ term. It’s not “whatever you want it to be” like some social media marketing experts will have you believe. It stands for Return on Investment, and it refers specifically and unequivocally to dollars and cents, calculated like so:

ROI = (gain from investment – cost of investment)/cost of investment

Usually, this is expressed as a percentage, but ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS it refers to dollars.

It would be more fun to measure the ROI of social marketing efforts in hugs or smiles or “good karma,” but that wont cut it at your next board meeting. Sorry.

5. What’s the next Twitter/Facebook?

Great question! Personally, I’m less inclined to introduce you to the Next Killer App and more inclined to urge you to bone up on today’s essential social tools (and yes, I’d put Twitter and Facebook at the top of that list).

But since you asked… my newest/latest fascination is with Foursquare and technologies like Wifitti that tie social networking together with mobile technology in some awfully interesting ways. Feels like we’re finally approach that notion of “convergence” that was the big buzz word of the late 90’s.

Man, I’m getting old.

So what do you think about these topics? Agree? Disagree? Let’s hear your two cents! (Please)

Thanks again to the fine folks who joined me at yesterday’s Lunch & Learn and helped kick off this conversation. If you’d like to join me for a future Lunch & Learn, add your comment to this post.

Talk soon,
The Genius

Why would I, a Genius, and a married woman with two f**king amazing children, [and a mouth like a sailor] brag about a sexual conquest at 30,000 feet?

Well… because it will get me GREAT SEO rankings, that’s why!

And also, I am not actually referring to a sexual conquest. I am referring to the fact that I am officially BLOGGING, emailing, Twittering, Facebooking, Flickring, and otherwise CONNECTING… at 30,000 feet.

I can’t get over it! Tears of joy stream down my Genius-y face.

But it’s more than that… it’s not just the ability to connect that I love about my current in-flight adventure. It’s the ENTIRE VIRGIN AMERICA EXPERIENCE!!!

I know, I know, I’ve raved about JetBlue before. And prior to this experience, JetBlue was totally my darling. Every time I took a JetBlue flight, I had to resist the urge to plant a giant, happy smooch on the kisser of the adorable pilot-in-question!!!

BUT NO LONGER. VIRGIN IS MY NEW LOVE. (Sorry, JetBlue—you’re still 2nd best, but in-flight wifi, a touch-screen food/bev menu, and a SEPARATE security checkpoint is hard to compete with).

Damn, even the in-flight coffee tastes good.

This, my dear Diary, is why I made that big fuss a few weeks ago about focusing more on creating amazing “experiences” instead of amazing “ads”. Who the f**k cares how amazing your advertising is anyway?

If your product sucks, amazing advertising is ONLY going to piss people off (when they discover the truth of your suckiness).

If your product is average, amazing advertising is going to ring hollow. And with all the “connectivity” people have these days (including a sick proliferation of 24/7-handy mobile devices… AND EVEN BLOGGING AT 30,000 FEET), it’s going to be hard to keep that one under wraps.

If your product is one of the rare AMAZING products in this world (and I can think of only 3 brands that have qualifying products at the moment: Apple, Virgin America, and ShamWow. But hey, I’m only 17 years old, so…), then amazing advertising is really unnecessary. Overkill. Excess. Do like the folks at Apple and ShamWow do and just SHOW people how awesome you are. Then keep pouring the real bucks into making more great products, thank you very much.

For the record, I’d also like to add that if I WERE going to have sex in an airplane bathroom, I would definitely want it to be a Virgin American airplane bathroom. They are simply bigger and cleaner than any airplane bathroom I’ve been in recently.

Now get your mind out of the gutter, Diary, and get back to work!

Dear Diary,

Hard to believe it has been a whole year since I first suggested that ready or not, the social media train is leaving the f**king station (remember that? Ah, sweet nostalgia…). Since then, the train seems to have only accelerated. Now, the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is over the age of 35, Oprah’s on Twitter, and the Leader of the Free World was able to mobilize a grass roots movement that rewrote history.

Not too shabby for a little ole train.

Anyway, I thought it was high time to revisit some of the data in the original What the F**k is Social Media preso and to add a few more f-bombs pearls of wisdom.

The only problem with sharing the presentation with you, Diary, is this: I may be a bonafide marketing genius, but apparently I am not a WordPress genius, as evidenced by the fact that I can’t figure out how to embed my latest, greatest masterpiece here for you to enjoy.

*sigh*

So for now, I’ll have to just leave a link here and hope that you’re curious enough to click it.

We shall see, Diary. We shall see.

I’m not the first or only marketing genius to point out that if the average person is exposed to [bombarded with?] 3000 to 5000 ads or marketing messages each and every day, then it’s highly unlikely that an average, run-of-the-mill billboard, flyer, banner ad, postcard, TV commercial, radio spot, etcetera! will yield much of a result—since it’s not very likely to be remembered.

Given these pitiful odds, The Marketing Genius suggests, quite strongly, that you either:

a) Spare us (and yourself) the agony of enduring another piss-poor ad campaign. Instead, try donating all those marketing dollars to a nonprofit? Or just set them on fire and roast some marshmallows, why don’t you? Really, it will be so much less painful than putting up with that mediocre crap that litters the streets and screens [*sigh*]; or…

b) Put on your Big Girl panties and do something truly memorable for a change.

Really, it IS that simple :).

Now when I say memorable, Diary, I mean forget advertising for one blessed minute. Forget marketing, too. Think EXPERIENCE. Create something that will surprise, entertain, enrich, and/or enlighten us. Hell, you’re better off enraging us than going quietly into the night.

But what do I know? I’m ONLY a Marketing Genius!

For inspiration, here are a few examples of memorable experiences that are in fact actually ads—ads that you’ll talk about, blog about, laugh about, gasp about, and definitely, most certainly REMEMBER.

Enjoy!

1) Wash the blood off your hands!

2) Perfect for the NHL Beard-a-Thon, no?

3) Yeah, I do wish.

4) Rapunzel, Rapunzel! Buy some Pantene!

One other thought, Diary. Given the recent rash of HORRENDOUS customer service I’ve endured, I will add this morsel of wisdom to my recommendations above:

Don’t waste a penny on marketing or advertising till you get the service thing right.

Honestly.

In fact, I firmly believe that the day when every company provides DECENT customer service, world peace will immediately ensue.

And the day that every company provides AWESOME customer service? The friggin’ second coming of Christ.

Until then, let’s face it, we’ll probably have to endure a lot more crappy ads.

Dear Diary,

In November of 2007, the marketing Genius whom you know and love (MOI!) wrote an entry entitled Search vs. Social Media Smackdown, Round 2 in which I made, in my oh-so-humble opinion, a very compelling case for taking one’s SEM blinders off and dipping a brave little toe into the murky waters of social media.

At the time, of course I was unequivocally sick of search engine marketing with it’s CPCs and CPAs and various other annoying acronyms [blech!]. While I still find the acronyms and the tediousness of setting up and managing a successful search campaign quite excruciating, I have amended my view on which tactic wins “the smackdown”. In fact, I am now 150% certain that the two are not mortal enemies… but soul mates!

As you would expect, Dear Diary, I’m quite anxious to wax poetic about the hows and whys of this revelation… but first, I wish to indulge my enormous-beyond-comprehension ego by revisiting said brilliant entry.

Read it and weep, baby! Read it and WEEP…

***
[BEGIN EXCERPT, originally posted November 13, 2007]

Search vs. Social Media Smackdown, Round 2
A few weeks ago, I applied for a job with a popular travel search engine. The VP of Marketing was looking for an experienced online marketer to manage the company’s SEO/SEM programs—which, for a bonafide genius like me, is child’s play. In my cover letter, I told him upfront that I wasn’t interested in a search-only marketing position. In my characteristically brilliant way, I explained that my talents would be wasted on a search-only marketing strategy and that I had infinitely more valuable capabilities to offer.

Whether he never read my letter or simply found my insubordination irresistible, I’ll never know… the point is, he invited me for an interview.

Once in his office, he asked me about my experience with SEO/SEM as a marketing tool.

“Feh,” I said. “Search is dead to me.”

As the color drained from his face and his fists clenched in his lap, I dove into an impassioned monologue about why an online marketing strategy that leads with SEO/SEM was doomed to fail:

“It’s too narrow, too tedious, and frankly, it’s too 2006.”

I proceeded to tell him that to achieve his company’s lofty goal of becoming the #2 travel search engine in the world (first of all, who sets their sites on becoming #2?), they’d need to broaden their focus to include all that Web 2.0 has made possible—and all that Web 3.0 promises:

Sophisticated search + User-generated content + Social networking + Contextual/demographic/behavioral targeting + Portable personalization = Genuinely relevant content that I trust in whatever media format I prefer.

Simply put, SEO/SEM just ain’t gonna cut it.

He didn’t throw me out of his office… but I could tell he wanted to.

Now don’t get me wrong, I understand why Mr. Fancy Pants is so attached to his beloved Search. It comes down to one word: Measurability. As a direct response medium, Search is tough to beat. Experienced search marketers know they wield a lot of power in their SEO/SEM campaigns; they can deliver top-line metrics to their CMO or their CEO or whatever yo-yo is in charge. They can control their CPA and their ROI (had enough acronyms yet?) and make adjustments both large and small with the ease of a keystroke. And though it’s getting harder to produce big, fat results very quickly or without a big investment up-front (search ain’t the new kid on the block anymore!), Search is still King with many online marketers.

And dinosaurs once roamed the earth. So what? Change happens. It’s happening right now.

“Search is a unique proposition — this is why Google is Google and many Googlers are rich. However, search does not exist in a vacuum any more than television or direct mail does. A search engine is no longer the exclusive point of entry to the Internet for many people. Social networking sites like MySpace and FaceBook have become portals to a huge number of Web users. If the goal of the marketer is to reach the most potential customers online, thereby maximizing return on investment as a whole, it is critical to engage users throughout their online journey which, as we all become more sophisticated Web users, is increasingly not always begun at a search engine.” —excerpted from The Challenges of Measuring The Performance Of Emerging Media For A Search-Centric Advertiser by Nancy Adzentoivich, Friday, Nov 9, 2007

Here, here!

But don’t just take Nancy’s word for it, or mine for that matter… look at some of the data:

* WOM ranks highest in driving consumers’ purchase decisions—above TV, Internet, print, and radio [source: BIGResearch, simultaneous media usage study, 2005]
* Americans engage in 3.5 billion(!) brand-related conversations every day [source: Keller Fay Group]
* Two-thirds of marketing/communications professionals are planning to increase their investment in conversational marketing within the next twelve months; 57% project that in five years they will be spending more on conversational marketing than traditional marketing [source: TWI Surveys, Inc.]
* A whopping 96% of 9-17 year olds are connecting to a social network at least once a week [source: Alloy Media & Marketing]

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the next big wave is coming… and fast. You can stick your head in the sand and pretend it’s not happening… or you can pull yourself up by the bootstraps and learn how to take the reigns.

[Or you can see how many overused metaphors you can string together into one meaningless sentence...]

If you’re still quaking in your boots at the thought of exploring the Brave New World of social media, allow me to assuage your fears about its measurability: You can, in fact, measure the impact of your efforts. Here are just a few of the possible metrics you might plug into your neat little dashboard:

* Number of uniques
* Returning vs. new users
* Referring traffic
* Google Page Rank
* Technorati authority
* Time spent on site
* Page views
* Conversation index (ratio of blog posts to blog comments)
* Tone of conversation, comments, posts
* Speed or velocity of spread, viral

(above list excerpted from Kami Huse’s enlightening presentation on Measuring Social Media)

There’s also the soon-to-be-well-known Net Promoter Score, ideally-suited for measuring social media campaign efficacy:

NPS = % of Promoters - % of Detractors.

It’s not a pure ROI calculation, but it gets to the root of whether a customer/reader/community member would recommend you—or not—as a percentage of the total activity on your social media platform.

So to those of you who—like Mr. Fancy Pants—fear social media because you think you can’t measure it, I say, Feh! You most certainly can. The only reason why there’s so much squabbling over the measurability of social media campaigns (vs. that of SEO/SEM) is that most of you boneheads are still struggling to understand what the heck social media is let alone how it can help your brand.

Whiny, frightened Brand X says, “But what if they write something bad about me?”

Yeah, what if? Sticks and stones may break your bones…

Or in other words, get over it. They will write something bad about you, because you can’t possibly please everybody. And you’re not perfect. Put on your big girl panties, then get educated about how to make social media work for you.

As for measurability, it ain’t rocket science:

Set your objectives. Pick the metric(s) you feel are most relevant to those objectives. Benchmark against yourself (and/or your competitors) over time. Measure. Analyze results. Repeat!

The Genius will now take your comments…

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of speaking at Social Media Breakfast #14 on the timely topic of “Social Media Overload.” I’ll admit, I was tempted to call my presentation “What the F**K is Social Media Overload?” —but as a marketing genius, I decided it’s best not to play the One Trick Pony card.

I’m sorry you missed it, Diary. It was a spankin’ good time. And since I’d hate for you to feel left out, I’m posting the “transcript” below. Enjoy!

***
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT!

Has this ever happened to you?

Or someone you love?

One minute, they’re quietly updating their Twitter status… checking out their friend’s baby shower pictures on Flickr… or taking one of those fun “which celebrity boyfriend would you be” quizzes on Facebook… when suddenly they see a Tweet about a must-see YouTube video and BAM!, just like that, their head explodes.

Truth be told, I’ve struggled with a mild addiction to social networks [and the devices that keep me attached to them] ever since getting on board the Social Media Bandwagon. Sure, things start off innocent enough at first…You think, “I’ll just Reconnect with a few friends, what’s the harm? Maybe build a little buzz for my company?… Get “the scoop”.

Then your husband finds you blogging at 3am in your bathrobe, retweeting Ashton Kutcher and mumbling about a poke war you’ll never win, and you realize… I have a problem.

It’s tempting, once you’ve hit rock bottom like that, to just chuck this whole social media thing out the proverbial window. Go cold turkey. Retreat to the one remote corner of the planet where they still have dial-up. But who are we kidding? This is the world we live in, people. It’s wired. It’s social.

(Bob calls this “Social Media Breakfast”. I call this a 12-step program.)

All joking aside, the fact is there have been numerous ‘cautionary tales’ of both brands and individuals who’ve taken the “I’m not listening” approach to what’s happening online as a result of social technology… and they’ve had their asses handed to them, frankly.

From the Domino’s “gross out” incident that caused a heap of pain for the pizza-maker—and legal action against the not-so-sanitary employees, to the “oopsy” news reporting by CNN of Steve Jobs’ alleged heart attack that sent Apple’s stock price into a temporary tailspin, one thing is for certain: We have no choice but to listen; but to be diligent about what is being said about us, by us, and those pretending to be us.

The good news about all this social media “overload”… is that it’s easier than ever to spy on people (including yourself). The bad news is… it’s easier than ever to spy on people… including yourself.

But don’t fret! I come armed with suggestions.

First and foremost, don’t let fancy pants technology steer you away from the good old-fashioned basics.To name a few:

1. RSS feeds (I like Google Reader & more recently, Feedly)
2. Google Alerts (which you can set up to monitor news, keywords, events, etc “as it happens” or on a less frequent basis).
3. And of course, the always-Improving (at least a little) Twitter search.

Having mastered those basics, move on to the more sophisticated monitoring tools… tools that let you stalk, spy, and snoop to your heart’s content… in real-time, across virtually every social network on the planet.

There are PLENTY of freely available tools that tag, rank, and report on conversations happening on blogs, microblogs, news sites, social networks, video sites, photo sharing sites… and so on. Personally, I think that most of the freely available tools just scratch the surface… for real insight into what all the data means, you’ll want to consider investing in one of the many ‘for-fee’ services. These provide a much more sophisticated view of the conversations happening online—and what they mean in terms of sentiment, frequency, momentum, and dozens of other metrics that arm data-philes like me with actionable information—in real-time.

It’s important to remember that Results May Vary—so experiment! Don’t rely on one single tool to provide the full picture, particularly if it’s a free one. And remember that individual data points are interesting, but it’s performance over time that provides the truly meaningful context for benchmarking and long-term planning.

That’s right… I’m saying you should wrap that rascal! Er, rather… leverage the tools that are readily available to PROACTIVELY care for your brand. Remember those cautionary tales? C’mon… even the social media addicts among us can forget from time to time that conversations are happening constantly—with our without our participation.

And as the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Or something like that…

If you haven’t already don’t so, you might want to use namechk.com to see if your “vanity” user name is still available on the 122 most popular social networks. Or course if its not, you’ll be sad, but at least you’ll know. Ignorance is bliss, until it bites you in the ass… in front of 23 million YouTube viewers.

I’ll end with a quick “reality check” – or rather, the nasty truth that most social media noobs learn the hard way.

This monitoring and engaging business isn’t a once-and-done activity. It really is a daily ‘habit’ thing. It’s an entirely different way of approaching how we communicate, interact, and view our relationships. The boundaries are being redefined and rewritten on the fly. That’s not going to stop anytime soon. At a minimum, we need to be diligent about learning new habits.

Furthermore, social media monitoring and engaging is not just the domain of the marketing or PR dept. It belongs just as much to customer service. To R&D. To IT, operations, and HR. In fact, I’ll posit that social media itself vividly and continuously illustrates the point that we are ALL so very connected. Literally.

So don’t bogart all the juicy good data you’re getting as a result of your daily floss-like activity. Share the love!

Finally, because as I alluded to earlier, dealing with social media overload is much like recovering from an addiction… you will always be in recovery… you will always be monitoring and engaging online… until the day you die.

Or you can sidestep this painful future and hire an agency to do the grunt work for you. An agency like Espresso? Hint, hint.

We’re happy to do the stalking for you.

***

The full presentation along with all photo credits is available here

Dear Diary,
Is it me or does it seem like a lot of marketers have lost their way lately?

Don’t get me wrong. I recognize that what was once a pretty simple discipline has become remarkably complicated thanks to competitive pressure, media fragmentation, technological advancement, migration from one screen to three, the rise of the Digital Native, globalization, broadband, and the extinction of the Dodo. Still, marketing does not need to be so complicated…   and marketers need not get sucked into over-hyped craptastic marketing just because “the competition is doing it” or because Joe Schmoe Marketing Expert says you’d better get on the f**king train or else! [ahem]

Listen, I understand that it’s easier than ever for consumers to TUNE SHIT OUT and harder than ever for advertisers—even those with an obscenely large media budget AND an amazing product—to capture mind-share in a media-fragmented/over-saturated/24/7 world.

Now, more than ever, it’s a good idea to stop all that spray and pray nonsense and GET BACK TO BASICS.

No, I don’t mean start drinking vodka for breakfast and banging your secretary. Those days—for most of us anyway—are over. I mean forget all of the myriad options and catchy buzzwords for a minute and focus on what marketing, at its core, is all about: getting the right message to the right market using the right media at the right moment.

For shits and giggles, let’s focus specifically on this part of the above statement: “to the right market“. Any decent marketing strategy starts with the market—or target audience, if you prefer. Sadly, too many marketing programs forget [or ignore] this crucial part of the equation, typically because they don’t have the patience to go through a real market segmentation exercise or they don’t have the cahones to zero in on a segment narrower than “18-44 year old men or women anywhere in the United States”. [*sigh*]

The problem is that a wimpy or overly broad definition of the market leads to wimpy or overly broad [and therefore underly effective] marketing. What kind of message resonates with “18-44 year old men or women anywhere in the United States”? A wimpy, overly broad one! What kind of media will effectively reach “18-44 year old men or women anywhere in the United States”? Spray & pray, baby! At what moment are we most likely to reach “18-44 year old men or women anywhere in the United States” (when are they most vulnerable to wanting/needing your product or service in other words)? Who the f**k knows?!

Are you hearing me, Diary?

How about we all take a collective break from chasing every shiny new object or grasping on to tried-and-true-but-not-all-that-effective marketing strategies because we’re overwhelmed with options and underwhelmed with smarts?

How about we just slow down for a minute?

How about we FOCUS? Think? Maybe even breathe once in awhile?

How about we use all that fancy social technology to actually LISTEN to our customers for a change instead of shoving more annoying messages down their throats?

How about we use it to actually improve our products? Our customer service? Our humanity?

But I digress (what else is new)…

Mass marketing is mass poopy, Diary. Stinky, ugly, and generally something you cant wait to flush away.

I sure do hope that the Marketing 2.0 world isn’t built on a mountain of poopy. But I gotta run now… there’s a new, shiny object calling my name…

Dear Diary,
It’s no secret that I love Twitter. So imagine my glee when this week’s Time had an iPhone on the cover with this headline: How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live (in 140 characters or less). I’m goddamn giddy like a schoolgirl!

If you were a human and not a diary, I would insist that you go read the article yourself, then follow up with this “list” of 10 Ways Twitter Will Change American Business. Since you’re not, I’ll share the tastiest tidbits with you here and now.

1. “…the futurists had it wrong. We still have national events, but now when we have them, we’re actually having a genuine, public conversation with a group that extends far beyond our nuclear family and our next-door neighbors. Some of that conversation is juvenile of course… but some of it is moving, witty, observant, subversive.”

2. “This is what the naysayers fail to understand: it’s just as easy to use Twitter to spread the word about a brilliant 10,000-word New Yorker article as it is to spread the word about your Lucky Charms habit.”

3. “Put those three elements together—social networks, live searching and link-sharing—and you have a cocktail that poses what may amount to the most interesting alternative to Google’s near monopoly in searching.“

4. “If you’re looking for interesting articles or sites devoted to Kobe Bryant, you search Google. If you’re looking for interesting comments from your extended social network about the three-pointer Kobe just made 30 seconds ago, you go to Twitter.”

I know even a Genius like myself wont succeed in convincing die-hard skeptics that they need Twitter. But I am a little worried that some genuinely smart, curious folks turn away from it simply because it makes a bad first impression.

My advice to them? Spend some more time ‘listening’. Do a search for keywords that pertain to stuff you care about—your hobbies, interests, business, etc.—then “listen in” to a few of the conversations. If you find one that’s interesting, follow that person/people. Add your own 2 cents or just “retweet”. You might even want to see who those interesting people are following… and follow them. And so on…

For me, there’s simply no denying that Twitter is awesome. There was the time I was at the Apple store debating between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro. I sent out a ‘what do you think’ tweet and 30 seconds later the responses started coming in. 20 votes for the Pro, 2 for the Air. Real-time product reviews and ratings… gotta love it.

Then there was the time that a few choice tweets turned this presentation on Social Media into the Top 10 Most Viewed Presentations of All Time (according to Slideshare, anyway). And let’s not forgot that Twitter continues to be the 2nd biggest source of web traffic for this here Diary.

So I guess I’ll continue tweet tweet tweeting for awhile. In the meantime, I’ll thank @stevenbjohnson for writing an article about my beloved. Nicely done.