Digital Marketing, Media, PR Analysis And Insight – The Future Buzz

It’s interesting to me which industries decide to engage in social media. It is even more interesting to see who does so in a way that makes sense for their brand and is seen as authentic and true.

The QSR industry (QSR stands for Quick Service Restaurant, if you aren’t aware) in particular seems to have a big opportunity here, as many people are already quite fond of their brands.

In fact, the tactics they can take don’t have to be anything crazy and could be quite simple, especially if there is pent-up demand for their presence in the social space.

Everyone is marketing web products like crazy online. Physical products are used by people online too, and the realization that most reading this already know is that those active on the web don’t see a difference between interacting on and off the web. It’s a big missed opportunity here not to join the conversation about your own brand.

First up, full disclosure: Joffrey’s Coffee & Tea Company is a client of mine…

With that said – previously I wrote a case study on building buzz in the blogosphere regarding a viral campaign I implemented for Joffrey’s called “Joffrey’s Java Beta Test”. With the help of Wake Interactive for web design(they do fantastic work by the way, I cannot speak highly enough of them), we were able to make a lot of people happy and bring together a plethora of bloggers for something really fun.

Some highlights from the beta test were:

Read a great post recently at Twist Image on selling 2.0 – letting the customer do the communicating. Mitch writes on the great strategy used by e-commerce sites for empowering consumers to be vocal about products and what they like and don’t directly on the same page as the product.

Amazon comes to mind as a site that does this extremely well. When making a purchase (which is pretty frequently as I’m addicted to reading) I always read the consumer reviews there, especially when it comes to new authors. The consumer reviews always tell the real story about the product. And everyone knows it, I am willing to bet a heat-map of an Amazon product page shows consumers spending more time reading reviews than the publisher copy someone painstakingly drafted.

Why is this? Simple – we know the publisher copy is going to gush praise. While it is worthwhile in getting someone’s attention and providing them an intro, what provides real value in a consumer site that is unfamiliar territory with a potential new visitor is other consumer’s opinions and thoughts. It is social proofing.

image credit: adstream via flickr

Smart organizations and individuals across industries are building their brands through gathering organic audiences and encouraging dialogue.

By organic, I mean people who have opted-in to receive messages. And, encouraging dialogue not only between individuals and the organization, but also between fans of their brand as well. When you function as a connector, you become even more valuable to your audience than merely providing content.

Blogs function great as connectors because they publish not only a reader’s name but a link to their blog or website when they comment. So, when someone posts an interesting comment, it not only adds to the conversation on-site, but it allows the readers of that comment to potentially connect with the writer.

image credit: bbsc30 via flickr

I receieve a decent amount of reader questions via email. I always take time to give a response, as generally email questions are quick one-offs, and I’m happy to answer.

Once in awhile I get an email question asking for detailed, specific advice and seeking a more in-depth response. When that happens, I give the writer two options:

1) I can answer the question in an open-format for all my readers to see and get value from. In this case I can either give detailed advice to your company if you’re willing to let me disclose your company name and issues publicly, or I can tackle the question from a general perspective and keep your company name private (unfortunately with this method, I can never be as thorough with an answer).

image credit: a wordle of the gmail blog

I will be perfectly honest. When I see people with an @aol.com, @hotmail.com or @comcast.net address they instantly lose any and all tech credibility with me. I’ve had discussions with several people on this, and I’m not the only one who feels this way.

I have used and experimented with quite a few of the free, web-based email services. Let me save you a lot of time: Gmail is above and beyond the best.

Using web-based email is a great portability solution for your email, whether it is for personal or business use. However, Gmail is light years ahead of AOL, Hotmail and Comcast. It boggles my mind that anyone still uses them (I single out these other brands of webmail because they are so popular).

Findability

image credit: aoifecahill via flickr

Is your business findable? Are you findable? These are key questions. Yes, you may think you’re findable, but just how findable are you really? It is highly worth testing.

In the last 30 days alone, well over 1,000 absolutely unique people found this blog through Google. That isn’t even my highest traffic source (social media is above and beyond the highest), but I want to focus on the Google traffic to this site just for a minute to share with you why this matters for your business/blog/online store/whatever you’re doing on the web.

Disclaimer to Digg and Reddit users who also read my blog: this post is to educate those external of these communities. If you’re an active member of either of these sites, the content below may not be new to you.

Digg and Reddit are two of the most powerful communities of social media users on the web. They are the evolution of message boards and message forums that were the previous forefront of the social web (and continue to be popular as well).

image credit: victoriapeckham via flickr

As someone who works at a firm with a diverse array of clients, I spend a good deal of time reading trade publications across industries. It is always interesting to me when they go into how the specific industry in question is using technology and the web.

The non-tech trade publications actually do a pretty good job of covering things their industry is doing on the web. Never quite as good as the web publications written by web pros, but of course those are written by people who work in this space 24/7.

image credit: amayzun via flickr

What I work best with as a marketing professional are finished web products, blogs and web sites. And, when it’s something which has been designed properly, logically and cleanly – all the online marketing/PR/advertising and social media promotions really compliment something that has been created with usability and SEO in mind.

Without a properly designed site, however,you are already at a huge disadvantage with trying to grow your brand on the web to your competitors who are doing it better. Trying to grow a web property that wasn’t built properly through social media marketing is like trying to put a jet engine on a car. Yeah, it might go a little faster, but it’s still not going to fly.