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- Marketing 2.0 What Does it Mean?November 30
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This podcast is a brief introduction to Bernie Borges’ forthcoming book: Marketing 2.0: Bridging the Gap Between Seller and Buyer. Targeted publish date April 2009.
So, what exactly do I mean by Marketing 2.0?
Marketing 2.0 is a play on words on which parallels Web 2.0. As you know Web 2.0 allows for an interactive experience on a web site (blog, social network, podcast, wiki, etc.)
In Marketing 1.0 we interrupt, we intrude, we disrupt our prospective buyers through various advertisements, direct mail, email messages and cold calls. Marketers have tried for decades in 1.0 to interrupt the buyer in hope of getting a message across with a call to action. Then, if we get a 1% response to our interruptive marketing, we think we’re doing well!
Some forms of Marketing 1.0 can be effective, such as advertising on the side of a shuttle bus at a convention to a targeted audience. Or, some banner advertising can be effective in a very niche industry website. If you are a supplier in a narrow niche and there are good niche portals in your industry this can be an effective marketing strategy.
But even effective 1.0 marketing should be supported with 2.0 strategies comprised of great content on blogs, podcasts and other social web platforms where you c
- Twitter Users Unite for ThanksgivingNovember 27
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Most of us know the history of Thanksgiving. It’s admirable that we stop to give thanks once each year in the form of a national holiday. For many of us it makes us think about how much we have to be thankful for even in the face of hardship and uncertainties for many.
This year there is one charitable cause on Thanksgiving I want to highlight, not because it is more special than others. All charitable causes are admirable. This one demonstrates the power of social media and the hearts of people who use social media.
Epic Change is a charitable organization using Twitter as a platform to raise funds to build a classroom in Tanzania. They created a Twitter stream using #tweetsgiving which allows anyone in the world to follow the comments of people on Twitter about this charitable cause. It also allows us avid Twitter users to spread the word to our network (following) and point them to this Twitter stream conversation about a worthy cause.
Most notable is the Tweetsgiving website which is where the fund raising takes place during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
I sincerely believe the vast majority of people generally want to help
- Is SEO Ranking Dead?November 21
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At the annual SEO geek-fest at Pubcon last week, there was a lot of buzz over predictions for 2009. Specifically, SEO guru Bruce Clay made some predictions about changes he expects to see from Google. Additionally Matt Cutts from Google went on camera and gave us his insights into what we might expect to see from Google.
Here are some of the highlights and my take on these predictions.
Getting Personal
We don’t have to wait until 2009. Google launched GoogleWiki yesterday. You now have the ability to personalize your search results by editing out irrelevant search results, moving around your favorite rankings and even adding some. Google will remember this so your future search results will be more relevant. You can also comment on search results similar to commenting in a blog. You must be signed into your Google account. The idea is to get more personalized results when you search in Google. But, beware the rankings people see will no longer be exactly the same or predictable. Search engine rankings can vary from one person to another due
- Social Media Lines are BlurringNovember 15
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This podcast is a discussion about a guest blog post I recently wrote on Hubspot entitled: The Lines are Blurring between Social Networks…Let Them!
As we spend time on social networks, blogs, Twitter, YouTube, etc., the lines are blurring between them.
As I’m sure you know there are three types of social media destination sites
Content Publishing sites - Blogs, YouTube, Twitter
Content Sharing - DIGG, Reddit, Mashable, etc.
Networking - Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, etc.But, most of these are starting to cross over into each other. For example, people show their updates on social networks. LinkedIn and Facebook both have a “what are you working on now?” status which you can update or you can link to your Twitter account.
The social media lines are blurring….
Is Facebook just a social networking site? What is Twitter?
Twitter is a communication tool as evidenced by how many companies and non profits are using it including Apple, Jet Blue Airways, Zappos, Tampa Bay Red Cross, ABC Action News, etc. The list of enterprise Twitter users is growing
- Viral Video Pays Big at BlendtecNovember 13
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Yesterday’s keynote at Pubcon was George Wright, the Marketing Director at Blendtec. He told the story of how they have used viral video to exponentially grow their business in the past two years. If you’re not familiar with the story, it’s a textbook case study on viral marketing on the social web. Here it is…
Blendtec is a Utah Manufacturer of commercial high performance blending products for restaurants. They also have a retail product called the Total blender that uses the same technology as their commercial products.
George joined the company less than three years ago. He quickly learned that Blendtec has great products but didn’t have brand recognition. Great products with a weak brand equals weak sales.
He recommended to Tom Dickson, Blentec’s CEO they do a brand campaign. Tom, said sure go ahead. And btw, your budget is $50. Not $50 per month. Just $50.
George turned lemon into lemonade….
With his $50 he bought:
The URL www.willitblend.com
A lab coat
McDonalds Happy MealOne day George was walking through the warehouse and saw a lot of sawdust on the floor. When he looked into it, he learned the engineers were running 2 x 4 chunks of wood through the blenders for testing purposes. That’s when a light bulb went on for George!
He came up with the idea to build a separate website called WillitBlend?
The strategy is to provide videos that answer the question “will it blend?” On this website, Tom Dickson their CEO, very casually (no script) answers the question “will it blend?” and puts odd objects into their industrial strength Total Blender (for consumers) while wearing a lab coat and sporting protective eye wear. He blends things like golf balls, marbles, a Happy Meal and one of the most popular is a video blending an iPhone.
Did this strategy work?
Here are some of the results…
- The Total Blender retail sales grew 700% in the past two years.
- The videos have more than 5 million views on YouTube and more than 7 million views on their website.
- They’ve received national media coverage that is equivalent to millions of dollars in advertising.
- The brand strength of the consumer product has increased pull through in their commercial products.
- The SEO value from their videos drives more traffic to their website.BTW, Blendtec auctioned the blended iPhone on Ebay which sold for about $1,000. Those proceeds were donated to a children’s hospital. That’s awesome!
Blendtec’s viral video strategy is nothing short of brilliant. George says: “using viral video even a small company can have a big presence.”
Using some creativity and a willingness to experiment on the social web, the Willitblend website and YouTube strategy has paid great dividends for Blendtec.
If you’ve never seen their popular iPhone video, here it is: