image credit: Hugh MacLeod for the “self-proclaimed experts” graphic and Shutterstock for the stock photo images.

Modern Marketing And PR Pro Fluency Matrix is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

While at the SES conference in San Francisco last week, I noticed the above sign in the front of the session hall.  And I had to stop and snap a picture to share with you here – because I think this messaging is misguided.

I understand Bing is trying to target techies, geeks, early adopters & “super-nerds” (whatever they mean by that last one).  Except advertising isn’t the way to reach this crowd.  It never was.  The reason Google owns this audience is simple – Google deserves them.  They deserve them through a remarkable product, through a focus on experimenting, delivering a high quality experience, market innovation and creativity.  And then sharing those stories in a compelling, real way.  Not because they proclaimed themselves “the official” search engine of the audience.  Official?  According to who?  In this case, themselves.

Not to totally knock Microsoft, Bing as a search engine actually does deliver a good experience.  But their advertising to this audience (many of you reading this) seems to try to tell us what they want to be vs. what they actually are.  Maybe one day, but not yet.  Actually, from discussions with a few marketers at the conference, this messaging may be working against them.  To quote someone I had a discussion with, “it appears they have Google envy.”

Let’s not forget, Microsoft did unsuccessfully try to pay people to use their search engine.  I know MS is likely trying organic approaches such as social and PR as well as paid tactics like the above, but unfortunately the organic messages haven’t reached me in a way that resonates.  Their paid approaches, while reaching me, don’t seem to be aligned with persuading their market.  Organic propagation of the right messages is what they need if they want to sway the early adopters.

What do you think?

Bing Is The “Official” Engine Of Early Adopters…According To Bing is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

Last week I was in San Francisco for the Search Engine Strategies conference covering the event for Online Marketing Blog.  Last year we put together the different digital pieces, from creating a web analytics culture to turning the social web into real ROI.  This year was no different, and I tried to liveblog a variety of sessions that cover the spectrum of digital marketing.  Be sure to check them out:

• The Four Pillars of Building Instant Trust Online
• Real-time Storytelling
• The Power to Change Behavior
• Content Marketing Optimization
• Conversion Optimization Secrets – 21 Must-Follow Tips

If you don’t already — follow me on Twitter to not miss coverage of future online marketing events and content I publish externally of this site.

image credit TopRank Marketing via Flickr

Search Engine Strategies San Francisco 2010 Liveblogging is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

The reason I didn’t is – to be perfectly honest – modern marketing and PR professionals should already be able to devise their own ways to create a compelling, well-read blog.  It’s not really a new skill set.  In fact, it doesn’t even have to be on marketing, they should just be able to create a popular web publication they own about something.  Otherwise their competence will always be questionable.

However, a commenter – Jeremy Meyers from Waggener Edstrom challenged me to list out my reasons:

I’m wondering if you wouldn’t mind defining your terms a little. Calling blogs ‘unreadable’ without giving any context for what you mean doesn’t really give anyone any room for improvement.

I agree that a lot of blogs run by companies in general can lack a strong editorial focus, and come off as sales tools rather than honest opinion pieces and writing meant to clarify a POV or put something out there for the community, but I’m really wondering what your criteria is.

I left a short reply in the post, but I promised Jeremy a better response via email.  So I jotted down the following list of some specific problems I see:

1.  They don’t have opinions or take sides

No one cares to read those who blindly agree with others or rehash what’s already been said.  If you are doing this, you’re easily skip-able.  I don’t care if other people are telling you to ignore analysis/commentary/controversy because they are “risky.”  That’s nonsense.  It’s riskier to be invisible – in fact, the largest risk for any agency in the social web isn’t upsetting stakeholders or prospects, it’s obscurity.  Further, prospects actually want you to take a stand on things.  No one wants a consultant who sits on the fence, the whole point of hiring one is because they’re confident and embedded enough in the industry to be at the edge of discussions.  If I were client side I’d rather hire a consultant with a mind of their own vs. a drone who wouldn’t tell me the truth.

2.  Missing passion

Hint:  passion is a secret of the social web.  You can’t outsource this,  you can’t assign it away.  Either your team members have passion for what they do or they don’t.  It’s cut and dry, and that’s one of the best aspects of blogging.  This extends far beyond marketing and PR – anyone with a product or service who has raw passion behind it can put that on display for the world to see.  If done right, this can be a huge reason to be chosen ahead of purely profit-driven competitors.

3.  Lack of personality

Who are the people/voices behind a blog?  If you’re an A-list marketing or PR firm, your team members should likely be involved enough in the industry personally to have a known voice.  If not, that’s okay (do try and get some if you can) but your own brand of media still shouldn’t hinder the personality behind writers.  For some of the best multi-author blogs, I can immediately know who drafted a certain piece even without reading the author title – and that’s powerful.  It’s powerful because I’m already going to trust what they’re saying (they’ve built that with me over the years) and  I’ll be far more likely to share it since it’s by someone I’m a fan of.  For agencies, it’s about people as much as the brand.

4.  Content fails the “so what” test?

Agency blog content especially needs to pass this – think about it, clients are likely hiring you for your ideas.  Your blog puts them on display for the world to see.  As Chris Garett succinctly describes:

A much overlooked aspect though is “So What?”. What should the reader take away? Where is the benefit? Why should we listen to you?

5.  They aren’t consistent enough

This one speaks for itself, if you’re not updating what’s the reason people have to come back?  This one is obvious (if un-followed) so I’ll just leave this link here if you’re not sure.

6.  They’re trying too hard

Yes, it’s possible to try too hard.  As I noted in the post linked above, natural dialog flows easily and effortlessly, like art.  It’s less the product of a process and more the product of a flow experience — improvisational, not mechanical.

7.  Lack of differentiation point

Marketing agency blogs are a dime a dozen.  Only a few razor sharp groups like the team at Outspoken Media have launched agency blogs that became ultra-successful, fast.  Note that team was personally experienced well before they launched their blog, which sort of proves my original point.

8.  Fear of making enemies

The truth is most agencies wouldn’t dare make enemies with another blogger or web personality.  They’re afraid of ruining relationships with others they think they’ll forge organically in the future.  Oh, if only they understood basic psychology or how the social web actually works (enemies link to you, hate turns to love much easier than indifference turns to love, etc.).  If you’re not making any enemies, you’re doing it wrong.

9.  Digital marketing strategy problems at the agency level

When there is no internal digital marketing strategy the whole team is following (or there are internal conflicts over who owns digital, no unified effort, etc.) it quickly becomes apparent in an agency blog.  A firm needs their own marketing down pat before engaging in a dialog with the web.  Far too many (even large) agencies lack this.

10.  No effort at forging connections

As I noted in a post on content marketing mistakes:

Without actively connecting to others, you will never form a network of your own.  Your content should be forming connections organically as part of your process.  Doing something like making every post a link post is a simple enough way to do this, but you should be doing multiple things which forge connections on a consistent basis.  Get creative, there are really no limits on how to do this.

Quite a bit for being off the top of my head, right?  I could have added more.  But that’s my point, you can only learn the nuances of successful digital publishing by doing it yourself.

What else do you see agencies doing with their blogging that could be improved?

image credit: Stephen Aaron Rees via Shutterstock

Reader Question: Why Are Most Agency Blogs Unreadable? is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing

• Have just totally unreadable blogs
• Maintain blogs but barely update them
• Have updated blogs, but traffic was pretty sad

It just felt like they were slapping blog marketing on their existing consulting menu but didn’t know the first thing about the social web themselves.

Not to mention when questioned on their consulting/client successes to see the types of projects and the team I’d be working with, I was unimpressed.  But we’ll set that one aside for now.

There is the old story of The Cobbler’s Children in business everyone has heard of – except in digital marketing I don’t buy it.  Marketing consultancies (or even marketers) who don’t blog or have results behind their efforts says something about their competence.  If they were that capable of doing it themselves (and really understood the benefits) they would be.  This is one area that if you can’t get it right personally, there is no way you can help others.

The reason behind this is simple:  a good consultant can help point a client in the right direction, but only if they have traveled the path.  And so few agencies have done this.  In fact, it’s even worse – as I hinted at above, most agencies now do have blogs but they’re basically unreadable.

This bothers me, and if you are client-side it should bother you too.  It should bother you because nearly every marketing and PR agency (qualified or otherwise) has added blog/social media consulting to their list of services.  And almost none of them have real success metrics from their own efforts.

You need to walk the talk, it’s just not something where the reasons for success are understood by distribution or proxy, even if advice is everywhere.  Experience and experimenting trump “best practices” if there even exists such a thing in the social web.

If you’re a modern marketing agency, your practice isn’t defined by your website, it’s defined by the ongoing story you’re telling to the world through the social web.  As the most passionate team members become savvier and want to work with consultancies truly at the edge, your blog will make or break your hiring.  As clients look to the social savvy of consultancies, their writing will be closely scrutinized and be a factor in gaining or losing new business.  If you don’t blog at all you’re telling a similar (perhaps worse) story by not even trying.

Yet with social media not being new, I can’t help but think agencies who fail at blogging are going to fail at the future of marketing and PR.  I understand there exists demand for all aspects of marketing, not just digital, but if I were client-side why would I hire any type of agency unable to succeed using modern communications tools?  After all, it’s the job of agencies to stay at the edge.

Most Marketing And PR Agency Blogs Are Unreadable is from The Future Buzz, a Blog Covering Digital Marketing