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The Viral Garden

Being a farmer versus beating a dead horseYesterday

As always, there seems to be a lot of talk about defining the ROI of social media. And I think Jason Falls has one of the better posts I've seen on the subject, along with an excellent video interview with the always amazing KD Paine.

But as I saw what seemed like the millionth post about defining the ROI of social media today, I realized that most of this talk seems to be coming from marketing and social media bloggers and consultants. In fact, in taxing my limited memory, I cannot recall a single instance where I spoke with a potential client, or a business marketer/owner at a conference, and they asked me about defining or proving the ROI for social media.

Not one.

Instead, they wanted to learn how these social tools might WORK FOR THEM. They want to hear about the benefits of blogging, they want to understand if Facebook is really worth their time. They keep hearing about Twitter but think it

The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs - Week 130November 26

Here's the standings for Week 130:

1 - Duct Tape Marketing - 256,000 (+3,000)(LW - 1)
2 - Church of the Customer - 244,000 (+3,000)(LW - 2)
3 - CopyBlogger - 45,286 (-449)(LW - 3)
4 - Web Strategy by Jeremiah - 16,874 (-150)(LW - 4)
5 - Chris Brogan - 13,108 (+273)(LW - 5)
6 - Search Engine Guide - 12,622 (-91)LW - 6)
7 - Logic + Emotion - 10,964 (+8)(LW - 7)
8 - Influential Marketing - 7,651 (-72)(LW - 8)
9 - Daily Fix - 6,417 (-25)(LW - 9)
10 - Jaffe Juice - 4,900 (-2)(LW - 10)
11 - Drew's Marketing Minute - 3,515 (+16)(LW - 11)
12 - What's Next - 3,346 (-53)(LW - 12)
13 - The Viral Garden - 3,298 (-26)(LW - 14)
14 - Converstations - 3,229 (-106)(LW - 13)
15 - Conversation Agent - 3,215 (-35)(LW - 15)
16

Social media is a trust-enablerNovember 23

It's been interesting to see how the marketing portion of the blogosphere has changed over the last few years. When I started blogging in late 2005, many of the posts were of a more 'philosophical' nature. We talked about why social media SHOULD help companies better connect with their customers, simply because there weren't really that many case studies that we could point to. Those of us that were using blogs to connect with each other could see how companies could benefit, but we couldn't really point to any working examples to help bolster our theories.

Thankfully, we now have plenty of successful examples that highlight the positive changes that can happen when a company successfully incorporates social media into its existing communication efforts. But a recent post by Hugh reminded me of why social media is so vitally important.

Social media changes the way a company and its customers communicate with each other.

The average company has average customers. The company likely doesn't make much, if any, effort at actually communicating with, or understanding its customers. Likewise, the customers probably don't understand the company, or have much of an incentive to.

Which means that since neither group understands the other one, neither group TRUSTS the other one.

So the average company is spending big bucks on blasting on

Company Blog First Look: GENovember 20

Thanks to a mention from Dan Schawbel on Twitter, I was alerted this morning that GE has started blogging, and has joined Twitter. It seems that GE Reports just went live today, and had been writing for the blog for several days previously, so there were plenty of posts waiting on those of us that have found the blog. Even though it is WAY too early to feature the blog in the Company Blog Checkup series, I wanted to give some first impressions, and some advice to GE moving forward.

First, I applaud GE for jumping in the social media waters. That should be said upfront.

Second, the blog is no doubt getting slammed by readers after apparently going 'live' earlier today, then posting that "Starting today, GE Reports is asking for your questions. Do you have a question about GE? Ask us. We’ll do our best to answer them right here on this site." So if they haven't already, I would advise GE

The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing & Social Media Blogs - Week 129November 19

Here's the standings for Week 129:

1 - Duct Tape Marketing - 253,000 (+4,000)(LW - 1)
2 - Church of the Customer - 241,000 (+3,000)(LW - 2)
3 - CopyBlogger - 45,735 (+753)(LW - 3)
4 - Web Strategy by Jeremiah - 17,024 (+242)(LW - 4)
5 - Chris Brogan - 12,835 (+340)(LW - 6)
6 - Search Engine Guide - 12,713 (-272)LW - 5)
7 - Logic + Emotion - 10,956 (+148)(LW - 7)
8 - Influential Marketing - 7,723 (+606)(LW - 8)
9 - Daily Fix - 6,442 (-10)(LW - 9)
10 - Jaffe Juice - 4,902 (-101)(LW - 10)
11 - Drew's Marketing Minute - 3,499 (+15)(LW - 11)
12 - What's Next - 3,399 (+49)(LW - 12)
13 - Converstations - 3,335 (+26)(LW - 13)
14 - The Viral Garden - 3,324 (+34)(LW - 14)
15 - Conversation Agent - 3,250 (+118)(LW - 15)