Digital Marketing And Social Media PR – The Future Buzz

Trust is a gray area to measure using quantitative metrics. Measuring an idea as subjective and nuanced as trust is difficult because you can never escape the simple fact that trust is relative. Someone may have a personal blog with only 20 readers, but those 20 readers soak in every word and trust the author deeply, taking any calls to action suggested and studying each word carefully. That person may be more trusted by their small, but loyal following than far more popular bloggers with greater numbers.

In a previous post defining the real value of your network, I touched on the point that raw numbers are irrelevant, what matters is if your network is activated, connected and determined – all indications of strong trust.

Hopefully we’re all on board with the fact that popularity is not trust. This of course begs the question, is it possible to put trust into an objective measurement?

The web loves to measure popularity and influence, and does so via several number-driven methods and tools including (but not limited to):

I’ve never felt overwhelmed with the rate of information published to the web, but I know some do. To address those who feel this way, I wrote on the fact that there’s no reason to feel overwhelmed, and in it stated the basic facts that you:

• Are in control how many RSS feeds you read
• Choose who you follow on FriendFeed/Twitter
• Can easily use tools to filter out the noise
• Should never worry about missing something, everything is archived – you can always go back if you’re busy

Louis Gray recently put these ideas and more into a great SlideShare worth clicking through:

Jeremiah Owyang recently outlined the future of the social web: in five eras

The Five Eras of the Social Web:

1) Era of Social Relationships: People connect to others and share
2) Era of Social Functionality: Social networks become like operating system
3) Era of Social Colonization: Every experience can now be social
4) Era of Social Context: Personalized and accurate content
5) Era of Social Commerce: Communities define future products and services

Writers block, unsuccessful brainstorming sessions and other creative stopping points generally occur from one of two things: stress or overthinking. Stress I’ll leave you to handle on your own – but overthinking is something I can help you with.

It’s a problem that happens to the best of us, but it’s curable. The first step is a brief understanding of the physiological reason why overthinking is harmful:

A recent article from Scientific American outlines some interesting research:

Trying to concentrate on monitoring the quality of your performance is counterproductive because the cerebellum, which controls complex motor tasks, is not consciously accessible.

If you didn’t guess by now, I love quotes. I’m also a fan of books, and frequently mark pages to pull quotes/excerpts from my favorite authors to comment on. Today I wanted to reference one from Seth Godin’s latest book, Tribes:

Managers manage by using the authority the factory gives them. You listen to your manager or you lose your job. A manager can’t make change because that’s not his job. His job is to complete tasks assigned to him by someone else in the factory.

Leaders, on the other hand, don’t care very much for organizational structure or the official blessing of whatever factory they work for. They use passion and ideas to lead people as opposed to using threats and bureaucracy to manage them. Leaders must become aware of how the organization works, because this awareness allows them to change it.

Are you leading your marketing team or managing them? There’s a big difference, and in fact the best marketing professionals around aren’t just managing projects, they’re leading change – both internally for their company and externally.

Lists continue to be a popular format to publish content to the web, and with good reason.

As I wrote previously, lists:

• Are scan-able
• Provide easy to read and consume content
• Have the novelty factor
• Are many times “must-share” content
• Engage people
• Are at times humorous, entertaining or incredible
• Are a strong social web meme
• Get traffic