From the monthly archives:

February 2011

The Unspoken Evil Of The RFP

by Jason Falls · February 28, 2011

The RFP must die.

Or at least the way the process has evolved in today’s marketing world should. On the surface, it seems innocuous. A company or organization issues an request for proposal (sometimes masked as a ‘request for quote’) to several agencies, consultants for firms. They sometimes include ridiculous assignments jammed into even more ridiculous time frames and even sometimes have the audacity for the responder to commence work on creative concepts and ideas that solve the prospective client’s communications problem.

Then the company collects the RFPs, steals the ideas and doesn’t even change the account from the agency they were working with.

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50 comments

Twitter, Time Shifting, Technology & Television

by Adam Helweh · February 25, 2011

Are you a “Time Shifter”? No, I am not asking you if you have the ability to slip in and out of the time space continuum at will. I am asking if you are among the millions of people who record your favorite television shows via Tivo or some other DVR device so you can watch them when it’s convenient for you?

An article posted by the AP back in August states, “Sixty-two percent of viewers across the country interviewed in a poll conducted for the nation’s largest cable company, Comcast Corp., said they have used time-shifting technology. Six in 10 people said they owned a digital video recorder.”

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12 comments

The Executive’s Guide To Enterprise Social Media Strategy: Review

by Tom Webster · February 24, 2011

Statistically speaking, most of you probably work for someone else. At some point, if you are the social media evangelist for your team, unit or company, you will have been asked this question: so, what’s this all about? Do we need to have a Twankerbook account? Answering the “should we” question is probably easy for active users of social platforms (if not, see below.) If your entreaties are successful, you’ll be rewarded with this question: “OK, I’m in. What are our next steps?”

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10 comments

The Myth Of Blogging Buddies

by Jason Falls · February 23, 2011

Just exactly how much impact do various channels of social media have on your blog? Or even your corporate website? While your traction may vary and some precipitating factors probably skew my results here at Social Media Explorer, I thought my traffic referrals might make for interesting conversation.

Since Social Media Explorer launched in September 2007, almost one million unique visitors have been here. More specifically, as of end-of-day Saturday, there have been 942,021 unique visitors to SME according to Google Analytics. Of those, 35.6 percent are from organic search results. Think about that! Over one-third of my visits have been from people searching for something and finding a potential answer on SME. That’s pretty strong considering this is a blog, has never had a formal SEO strategy, nor has it ever had any back-end SEO work other than my little piddling with URL structures a month or so ago.

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34 comments

Forget the Glamour, Focus on the Grindstone

by Andrew Hanelly · February 22, 2011

A kindergartner came home excited after his first day of school. Talking a mile a minute, he began telling his mom about all the fun things he did: finger painting, arts and crafts, alphabet games. The list went on and on as he breathlessly detailed each moment, the story goes.

Bright-eyed and encouraged, his mom asked him, “So, are you excited to go back tomorrow?”

His shocked and frightened response: “You mean I have to go BACK?”

In another corner of the world, the late comedian Greg Giraldo had a routine where he talked about how working out is really a drag. To paraphrase his notion: “You know getting in shape would be a hell of a lot more convenient if you could just do it all at once. But you have to keep going back. Like, ALL the time.”

Amish farmer plowing fields with mules

Image via Wikipedia

The concept of consistency isn’t a new one, but it’s still a hard one to put into practice. Ours is a culture raised on stories like “the ant and the grasshopper,” quotes like “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” and slogans like “just do it.”

But in the world of content marketing we fall prey to the thinking that we are one big idea away from our breakthrough. One hit post, one brilliant infographic, or one key mention in the right publication away from notoriety, stardom, Klout and fat paychecks.

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21 comments

Who Are The Experts?

by Jason Falls · February 21, 2011

Sitting in on the Marketing Technology Show Friday with Doug Karr and the folks at The Marketing Technology Blog, my friend Erik Deckers offered up a discussion question around the subject of “experts.” An off-shoot of the social media douchebags discussion, which I loathe (and said as much about several years ago), but one that is certainly worth having from time to time.

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44 comments

6 Ways to Prep for Advertising Online

by Jason Falls · February 19, 2011

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Cam Lay, Director of Marketing for Yodle, a leading provider of local online advertising.

Before you can establish an online advertising plan for your local business, you need a few key marketing basics in place.  After you have that, you’ll know that you know what you need to know (follow that?), and your plan will be grounded firmly in reality and primed for success.  Although most of these basics hold true for traditional media advertising, the beauty of online advertising is that you can test it quickly and affordably —and make adjustments to your mix or your message in almost real time.  Here are the six building-block tasks that any serious marketer has to tackle:

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6 comments

Spring Book Reviews: Four For Your List

by Jason Falls · February 18, 2011

It’s that time again. When the stack of books I’ve been asked to review gets so high, I feel bad about not taking a few off the top. So I’ve put together another video review of four books I think are worth your time and effort for this spring. Each has some application to the social media marketing and online communications world.

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9 comments

What The Exploring Social Media Product Roadmap Looks Like

by Jason Falls · February 17, 2011

Since the launch of Exploring Social Media, I’ve had dozens of people ask me questions about where I’m going with this thing. It’s as if suddenly launching a product and being an entrepreneur outside of “just a consultant” suddenly means I’ve changed.

Sorry to disappoint, but I’m still the same guy. My goal is to help people understand the world of digital marketing, social media marketing and online communications a little better. Whether you’re trying to communicate with your kids (or grandkids) on Facebook or drive revenue for your business by connecting with customers online, I want to help those that don’t know much about it know more.

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6 comments

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