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

A few days ago, I posted some insights from Twitter and as a next step asked you to share one of your own. Today I’m going to share the responses from the Twitter community with you.

Lots of great thinking, and as promised I will highlight my personal favorite 10 first with images and bios. Do take the time to read through them all though (not just the first 10) as everyone has their own unique and interesting viewpoint.

I haven’t written many posts about Twitter here because everyone else seems to be covering that beat just fine. But I’m going to join in the buzz today.

Instead of writing up tips for using Twitter(there are entire blogs devoted purely to that), I thought it might be even more interesting to share some personal insights from using the network.

And to make it interesting, everything is 140 characters or less:

Smart companies, bloggers and marketers are…

Aware

Those that are aware of trends and stay at the edge are positioned to disrupt the market, never the other way around. Some are aware to the point they’re self-actualized and at a level they are able to think several steps ahead, like a good chess player. To get to this point, you have to be…

I’ve been called a web “expert” or “guru” by others both internally due to success with client work and externally from personal projects/my writings here. I don’t relish those terms – the word expert signifies a total understanding, something not possible in a media landscape that is rapidly shifting beneath our feet. I also don’t like the word guru, if only because it implies superiority — certainly I am confident, but let’s not confuse the two. Yes I write on social media, but I’m exploring it from the perspective of marketing as it has huge potential for that in particular. I do not nor would I encourage any of you to self-proclaim expert status.

This is long, so I will start it with the Cliffs notes version per the request of a friend – but please take the time to read all my thoughts before commenting.

Summary:

• Cash for blog post companies potentially disrupt how search engines can properly attribute organic SEO.
• Search engines will find out about illegitimate cash-for-link disruptions and take corrective action.
• White-hat PR and web marketing initiatives may be called into question due to misinterpreting the intersection of marketing and search engines as more sponsored conversations occur alongside organic.
• Traditional linkbait campaigns may one day be worth less if search engines are forced to devalue links from bloggers (this is only speculation at this point).
• Bloggers and marketers engaging in outright cash-for-play are involved in risky behavior even with no-follow links due to halo effect of linking in viral promotions.
• Marketers/PR practitioners should not fear continuing to engage in honest, organic and ethical web marketing and PR that respects both users and search engines.

Are you in a corporation and see someone above you making mistakes? Put together a case and call them out, don’t ever let someone’s title stop you from that.

Find a better way to do something that’s more efficient than the way it has always been done? Don’t even ask permission, just put your new path into action.

Do you notice a vendor or agency you’re working with may not be the best choice? Don’t suffer in silence, find a better partner and cut those who are dragging you down.

For a while, I’ve been wanting to write an analytics post to share observations on traffic streams to provide insights to both marketers and bloggers. While I would love to share metrics and campaign successes from client sites, obviously permission is an issue there.

But since The Future Buzz is my own ongoing project for helping you create buzz, I thought I would take you through a few insights on some web analytics from this site for you to learn from. Plus it’s always interesting to look at someone else’s site metrics.

image credit: lexnger

How many barriers are there between us right now?

Just one – a little button that says publish – that’s it. It’s simple. It’s insanely efficient.

What about for your company? How many barriers exist between you and your customers? Probably many – lawyers, supervisors, departments, consultants, procedures, forms – all of these things are artificial barriers.

A recent survey from PEW Research Center for the People and Press confirmed what most of us already know: the net beats newspapers as a source for news:

Other interesting points from the survey:

• For the first time in a Pew survey, more people say they rely mostly on the internet for news than cite newspapers (35%).
• Nearly six-in-ten Americans younger than 30 (59%) say they get most of their national and international news online; an identical percentage cites television.
• The percentage of people younger than 30 citing television as a main news source has declined from 68% in September 2007 to 59% currently.

It is blindingly obvious that the future of communication belongs to the web – to believe otherwise would be to look backwards, not forwards. Despite a few reporters still pining for the “good old days” the rest of us are moving forward into a more free and open information society.

Politics and religion both are taboo subjects for marketing writers to discuss. This is so because neither institution would like you to know that at their core, they are the best examples of successful marketing in our society. They are so successful because most don’t even consider the fact that they are marketing.

By me even broaching this topic some of you are already shifting in your chairs.

Why? Because you probably subscribe to some sort of political belief and some sort of religious belief. Politics are often discussed openly, however today I would like to discuss religion from a marketing perspective as I have not seen that done nearly enough.

Religion is concurrently the most successful, yet most ignored example of the efficacy of marketing. If you are offended by me talking about religion as marketing, then the point has already been proven.