Web Ink Now

B-to-B marketing fundamentals do not change

Times change.
Markets change.
Technologies change.
Fundamentals of B2B marketing don't.

I keynoted the Business Marketing Association's 2009 “UnLearn” national conference in Chicago last month.

Just prior to my gig was a live staging of McGraw-Hill's classic 1950s "Man in the Chair" ad. Fortunately it was captured on video because it is terrific. (Tough act to follow!)

It's fascinating how the fundamentals of business-to-business marketing are the same today as they were 50 years ago. It's still about relationships although today we have new tools and techniques at our disposal.

Direct link to the video on YouTube here.

Times change. Markets change. Technologies change. Fundamentals don't.

How are you changing? How are you staying the same?

Social Media is the new punk rock

Thanks to Trevor Young the PR Warrior for alerting me to this wonderful video produced by Engage | ORM.

Back in the day, I was into punk rock. It was loud, it was NOT disco, there was a culture surrounding it, and the cult-like followings for the bands were intense. Although I didn’t do the hair thing, I did dabble in the clothing and attitude a bit (well, as much as a suburban kid from Connecticut going to Kenyon College in Ohio could).

This will date me, but… The Ramones played my high school at the time their first album came out. That was Rock and Roll High School. I was fortunate enough to have seen a bunch of other cool bands live including: The Clash, Sex Pistols, and the Talking Heads.

Watch the video now. I think the gang at Engage | ORM are onto something with this analogy. It does seem a little like the late 1970s.

Are we social media punks?

photo credit: Shutterstock

Launching ideas at the U.S. Air Force

I recently spent the day at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, AZ to meet with public affairs officers and senior leaders of 12th Air Force / Air Forces Southern Air Combat Command.

In this video, I ask my friend Capt. Nathan Broshear about his current role as Director of Public Affairs, how he uses social media, and a little about his 6 months in Baghdad working in public affairs in a war zone.

Capt. Broshear says of his work: "We're not launching missiles, we're launching ideas."

While mainstream media is critical for launching ideas such as the 60 Minutes story that Capt. Broshear worked on with Lara Logan reporting On The Increasing Use Of Drones In The Battlefield, he frequently uses social media to get the word out.

Regular readers of this blog know that I am a fan of what the hard-working public affairs officers at the U.S. Air Force are doing with social media. Here are some other posts on the topic:

The US Air Force: Armed with social media

U.S. Air Force Web Posting Response Assessment

The U.S. Air Force and social media: A discussion with Colonel Michael Caldwell

Free social media ebook and video: New Media and the Air Force

Do it Right Now: Set your Facebook username

Starting today (four hours ago as I write this), you can set your Facebook username.

Do it now!

Previously, Facebook URLs were a series of random numbers. Now you can have a username and provide friends an easy to remember URL. This is an important component of personal branding.

I set my Facebook username to be the same as my Twitter username. So now I just tell people to go to Facebook.com/dmscott and Twitter.com/dmscott

Here is the URL to get your username.

Here is more information from Facebook.

Stop reading this damn blog and get your username! Do it right now! Today!

If you don't do it, you'll end up with some AOL-like name like SmithJohn4562

Image credit: Shutterstock

Hey Twitter: What are you doing? Wrong question!

It seems like every week, I'm explaining Twitter to people. You probably are too.

I don't know about you, but I frequently find it challenging to describe Twitter. I was at a dinner party this weekend and there were four people who had (of course) heard of Twitter, but none had used it.

When I showed a few things on my iPhone, they seemed perplexed.

Reactions were something like: "Who cares what I'm doing for lunch?"

Well, that's true!

Unless there is something very special, nobody gives a rat's ass about what you or I are doing!

I think the problem is that damn What are you doing? question posed at the top of the Twitter Web client.

When people have been using Twitter for a few weeks, they usually have a light bulb moment as they realize that Twitter is much more than answering that stupid question in that dumb little box.

Then they begin to really make use of Twitter and gain followers.

Based on how I personally use Twitter, here are a few suggestions for better questions to answer in a tweet:

"How can you be helpful?"

"What's got your attention and why?"

"What's interesting, or funny, of valuable that you can link to?"

"What's cool?"

"What's frustrating?"

What do you think?

The New Rules of Social Media book series

Today, my publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc. announced a new series of books that I will be editing called The New Rules of Social Media book series.

The idea of the series is to expand on the ideas of my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR with books that provide valuable insights and detail on different aspects of social media marketing.

We've got two amazing books to kick off the series:

The first book, scheduled for publication in October 2009, is Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, founders of HubSpot.

I chose Brian and Dharmesh to write the first book in the series because they are social media marketing pioneers and have tons of amazing ideas for companies to get found online. In my work on HubSpot's Board of Advisors, I’ve learned so much from Brian and Dharmesh and I know their book will be a hit.

The second book in the series is Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business by Steve Garfield, a media advisor, video producer, and new media teacher, currently scheduled for publication in December 2009.

Steve is a videoblogging pioneer, and has a rabid base of fans. I've come to respect Steve's amazing grasp of online video. His engaging writing style and video expertise is perfect to help people understand the power of online video.

We will be working on a third title for early 2010 and plan three books per year. I will write forewords to each book. I’ll be at Book Expo America this weekend to talk up the series with booksellers and the media.

I'll be coordinating with Shannon Vargo at Wiley to help choose the books for the series. Shannon has a keen understanding of both social media and the book business and is an ideal partner in the series.

I am very interested to hear what ideas you have for future titles to include in The New Rules of Social Media book series. What book(s) would you want to see?

Anti-Starbucks filmmakers hijack Twitter marketing campaign

Simon Owens points us to a fascinating example of what can "go bad" on Twitter. The instant, always-on aspects of Twitter can make a well-organized "campaign" take off in an unintended direction.

Check out Simon's blog post Anti-Starbucks filmmakers hijack the coffee company’s own Twitter marketing campaign to learn how an anti-Starbucks filmmaking group hijacked the Starbucks hashtags developed for a multi-million dollar marketing campaign and forced the company to abandon the contest within hours after its launch.

A few things stand out for me:

With social media, people don't have to agree with your message when they talk about you.

It's fascinating how quickly a big Madison Avenue-style "campaign" can go wrong.

Starbucks seems to have reacted quickly to what was happening when they took down the contest.

What do you think?

A Flip Video camera in every marketers and customers pocket

I love my Flip video camera.

It is a small and inexpensive digital video camera that I take with me on every business trip. You never know where a great video interview might present itself like the one I did with Scott Monty, Ford's digital and multimedia communications manager or where an idea that is best told in video such as Do you sell camels? Which I filmed outside Riyadh, Saudi Arabia might pop up.

Marketers should carry one to interview customers, employees and industry analysts and post the video on your site or your blog. You can shoot short clips showing how your products are made or used.

No professionals required

This thing is so damn easy to use. There's a big red button on the camera to start and stop the filming. If you want to get fancy, there is also a zoom. That's about it. Even a technology challenged person like me can use it. The "flip" name comes from the USB drive built into the camera that flips out, making it simple to upload videos to YouTube, Vimeo, or other video sharing sites. Really, it's that easy.

When people push back on the idea of creating a corporate blog or writing an ebook, I always suggest making some simple and short videos with a Flip as an easy way to create valuable content that helps to get the word out. Hey, did I mention that this is easy?

Some companies have started experimenting with providing cameras to employees and even customers.

For example, Sven Patrick Larsen, Chief Marketing Officer for Zemoga, a digital agency based in Bogota, Colombia told me that he gives custom designed Flip video cameras to all of his employees and customers.

Zemoga puts what they call a "Z Portrait" onto Flip video cameras. "The customized Flips started as a cool employee and client gift but they've quickly become an essential tool for all Zemoga team members," Sven says. "We've used them at work (to capture client meetings, discovery sessions, and interaction tests), home, and play and our clients and team members have spread their experiences (and the Zemoga brand across the Web). It's a terrific example of empowering clients, giving up control of the brand message, and seeing it spread like wildfire as a result!"

Click the image to enlarge

Chris Brogan: popular with jocks, nerds, cheerleaders, and teachers too

I'm fascinated by online popularity. Why does one YouTube video have 100,000 views and another seemingly similar video only 100 views? I believe that popularity is something that you can help to influence and I wrote about it in World Wide Rave.

But what about extreme popularity?

My friend Chris Brogan has a blog at chrisbrogan.com that's ranked by Technorati as one of the top 100 blogs in the world. He regularly gets 50 or 100 comments on his posts. And @chrisbrogan has 69,000 followers on Twitter as I write this.

WTF? How does one achieve this extreme popularity?

Bottom line is that Chris is helpful and friendly and funny and smart. People like to be around him. And he's prolific.

I'm reminded of High School. Remember those people who could move within any group and be friends with all of them (even the teachers)? That's Chris. I have no doubt that in High School he was tight with guys on the football team, had friends who played Dungeons & Dragons in dank rec rooms, and could sit with the cheerleaders at lunch. And he likely hung out with teachers after class.

And that's true for him online today.

BTW – Chris writes VERY FAST. I sat with him at the MarketingNow conference in Wellington New Zealand a few weeks ago and watched him bang out a blog post in about the time it took me to write a tweet. Get this: Chris has updated twitter over 40,000 times. That’s forty thousand tweets. Yikes. Photo credit @SiobhanBulfin

I asked Chris about extreme popularity and in this video he shares some thoughts.

Watch the video to learn about online popularity. Direct link here.

Scott Monty of Ford Motor Company discusses social media

Yesterday I was at the worldwide headquarters of Ford Motor Company and had an opportunity to connect with my friend Scott Monty, Ford's digital and multimedia communications manager.

I asked Scott about what social media initiatives are happening at Ford. Watch the video to hear Scott talking about the new Fiesta Movement, working with bloggers (hint: they are not all the same!), and why all large companies need to be active in social media.

Direct link to YouTube video here.

It was particularly interesting for me to learn about the Fiesta Movement. Ford chose 100 "agents" to spend 6 months behind the wheel of their own Fiesta, "lifestreaming their experiences, and completing monthly missions to show what the Fiesta is all about." The Fiesta Movement is a very interesting social, media experiment and worth checking out.

Disclosure: While at Ford's offices I delivered a paid presentation to a team of communications and marketing staff.