One of the first things I encourage businesses to consider as part of their Internet marketing is to take control of their listing in Google’s Local Business Center.
Just recently Google published the video below on YouTube and sums up the reasons why very well.
And it’s FREE!
If you currently spend money on Yellow Page advertising or want to test out something that is not social media that works, I would strongly suggest watching the video and signing up here.
Tags: Google, Google Local Business, Yellow Pages
I recently started following @griner on twitter who posted Web 3.0 is about taming the deluge of data this week.
The am entertained most by the Un-Sites he mentions, the most recent of which is Boone Oakley (embedded below) and their story of Billy.
I was reminded by his post of the Modernista! site mention last year on AdFreak which is a unique web presence.
Tags: New Media
I found Doug deGrood’s recent article, This Social-Media Kegger Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be, to be quite insightful and worth a read by anyone looking to start social-media and Internet marketing efforts.
Especially if you if you are considering handing money to a company to assist you with your efforts.
As one of the comments asks. “Didn’t ANYBODY pay attention to the Internet bust of 1999?”
I do remember and my business has survived it.
The absolutely outrageous ideas and services that people shelled out tens of thousands of dollars out for (on the low side) would eventually lead to the bubble bursting with only serious plans surviving.
My favorite point made in the article is:
“Marketing is no longer a one-way conversation; it’s a dialogue.”
For the record, consumers have always had “relationships” with brands. And we’ve always had means to communicate with them, and share our passion or disdain for them with others. It’s just a lot easier now. And faster. But on the other hand — THIS JUST IN — not every member of the human race wants to have a relationship with the company that manufactures his or her toothpaste. Freaky, I know, but true.
Further to the point of dialog is that in the past the relationship might actually have been stronger and consumer opinion more enduring.
Dominos recent public relations nightmare (which I am not detailing to help prove a point) is a good example. The issue spread like wildfire across the Internet and Social Networks in a very short period of time.
However a quick search today for Dominos Pizza in Google’s web and news sections returns only one result related to the incident and it’s the one result Dominos would want you to find.
In under 60 days enough new content has been published online so that unless you are looking for the incident specifically you would not readily find out about it.
A company’s online image is more fluid today than it might have been in the past and that while disasters can strike, time may in fact heal all wounds.
Tags: Social Media
AdCast co-hosts Carl Vervisch and Nic Lorden invited me to discuss Ad 2 Tampa Bay’s transition to interactive media that began during my term as president of the organization.
Prior to 2005 the organization’s Internet communications were limited to an obsolete website and inconsistent use of email blasts with little knowledge of the effectiveness of either.
The strategies implemented then have allowed the organization to achieve the following in the years since:
These achievements can be attributed to the implementation of Internet marketing strategies and development of subsequent leadership.
The complete Case Study is available via Google Docs.
Workshops
Vinny Tafuro offers workshops on Internet marketing that target local business and non-profit leaders in an effort to help others develop similarly successful strategies for themselves. The first of these workshops will be held Friday May 15, 2009 at the Hilton Garden Inn located in Ybor City.
More information and registration are available online.
Ad Insight Segment on YouTube
Tags: AdCast, Advertising Insight, Ybor City
This is a final follow up on my recent critique of newspapers and journalism. I hope my opinions on this subject have been valuable and constructive, as I truly value what good journalism provides for a free democracy.
In his closing remarks to the NAA, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google expressed an exciting optimism for journalism that no longer seems present within the newspaper industry.
Beginning at 36:16 in the video (embedded below) he paraphrased Tocqueville’s America from 1831:
America will do well because of its sunny optimism, abundance of land and absence of a king.
He follows with his own interpretation applied to the current situation:
When I think today, I think same thing is still true; the political dynamic, the enormous resources that we have, the ingenuity of our people; the sum of all that I think creates a next set of opportunities.
For us to seize, for us to take, for us to build businesses on top of.
From my perspective we have to embrace what users want together, and by doing that I think we can win big.
Newspaper executives remind me a lot of the music industry, Netscape and Microsoft and run a great risk of being doomed not by Google, but instead by a new innovative idea for distributing quality journalism.
The following quote from Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington in 1787 is used by many newspapers as a shield of entitlement (or endowment if some get their way).
“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Based on some of the quotes below, my opinion is that Jefferson was not tied to the medium itself, and if he was alive today, might have replaced the word newspapers with the Internet in the above statement.
“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807. ME 11:224
“As for what is not true, you will always find abundance in the newspapers.” –Thomas Jefferson to Barnabas Bidwell, 1806. ME 11:118
“From forty years’ experience of the wretched guess-work of the newspapers of what is not done in open daylight, and of their falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth reading, and almost never worth notice.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1816. ME 14:430
“Advertisements… contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.” –Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Macon, 1819. ME 15:179
These statements illustrate Jefferson’s displeasure with the quality of journalism found in newspapers over just a short period of time in American History
What would his opinion be today?
What would Jefferson think of Schmidt’s comment about a next set of opportunities being created?
February’s AdCast centered on the topic of diversity and featured D. Shenell Reed, MBA, Communications Officer for Moffitt Cancer Center Foundation, Patrick Mantiega, publisher of La Gaceta and Angelette Aviles, is the principal of America’s Marketing & Graphics.
We concluded the show with an Advertising Insight discussion about the sobering statistics around minority employment in Tampa’s advertising industry as well as the industry as a whole.
The segment focused on an Ad 2 diversity survey during the 2009 TBAF ADDY Gallery Night and an article in the December Adweek titled The Minority Report.
The survey found a surprisingly low Hispanic employment level in Tampa Bay, considering the size of the population segment.
A question of whether the advertising industry was doing its part to hire individuals from diverse backgrounds had these two responses.
“It has more to do with the applicant base”
“Yes, if anything they (agencies) are concentrating too much.”
The article featured numerous quotes and figures related to the track record of the industry, most of which we were not able to cover in the segment.
Cyrus Mehri, the civil rights lawyer behind several landmark racial discrimination suits is now targeting the advertising business.
“I’ve yet to see an industry that has such a consistent record of indifference to minority involvement. It has a history of purposeful discrimination. They’ve been on notice a long time, but they just go through the motions and allow a discriminatory climate to continue. They’re real laggards, and it’s hard to understand why.”
Other quotes/figures:
Sanford Moore, who brought a complaint to New York’s human-rights commission that resulted in 15 agencies committing to changes had what I felt was a very stinging quote.
Madison Avenue is one of the last places where undereducated whites can still make big money.
We closed the segment on the question of what we can do as an industry and trade organization and I think we agreed that we might need to take a more critical look at where we are rather than simply tout that we are aware of diversity without discussion of the facts.
Tags: AdCast, Advertising Insight
According to the Times, State Senators were not pleased to find that VisitFlorida outsourced marketing services to a company outside of the state.
VisitFlorida budgeted about $600,000 for one year to USA800, a Kansas City telemarketing firm, to field calls from and send brochures to tourists interested in vacationing in Florida.
A Senate panel overseeing tourism spending discovered the expenditure while reviewing spending by state funded agencies. The Kansas agency won as the lowest bidder while a consideration should have been made to secure a Florida firm.
Ad 2 Tampa Bay AdCast hosts Carl Vervisch and Kate Whatley welcome guest correspondent Vinny Tafuro of Tafuro Communications onto the show to discuss how the economy’s impact on this year’s Super Bowl advertising.
I was forwarded the NFL Fantasy Files “Pick Me” promotion which depicts some players preforming seemingly impossible drills.
After watching this I initially thought real, just well rehearsed; then switched to thinking fakes.
Unlike most “faked” videos that have gone viral, I cannot find any conclusive confirmation. Typically there is an article somewhere like Adweek or Ad Age that credit some agency for the creation.
Any references I find are very vague and seem to lean create your own opinion… which has led me to a final opinion (for now).
I think that the individual acts themselves are real, however I do not think that any one drill was performed without cuts and with out some creative post production editing.
That said, because the promotion is for Fantasy Football and named “Fantasy Files” the players, NFL and talented production company do not have a need to “come clean” on this one as the very nature of what they are promoting doesn’t warrant it.
This week Adweek examined the strategy of national companies that are using well connected bloggers to help create content and buzz surrounding their brands.
The article, Brands Tap Web Elite for Advertorial 2.0 provided insight on how national companies have learned from mistakes of the past when blogging was brand new and are now using the medium to successfully share consumer experiences with new potential customers.
Earlier attempts have backfired on companies and the bloggers who wrote about them due to the content not being considered genuine and in many cases the content and message itself being driven too directly by the brand that was being discussed.
According to Greg Verdino, chief strategy officer at Crayon:
“There’s not a direct quid pro quo,” said Verdino, who also blogged and Twittered about CES for Panasonic. “When you give people equipment and they love it, just like any other consumer they’ll evangelize it. We’re not looking for them to hit message points and in effect shill.”
This strategy and respect for disclosure by giving editorial freedom to the blogger has made given the practice a transparency is a wide departure from the past.
[Social media marketing company] Izea has a controversial past. It started its life as PayPerPost with the idea that advertisers would pay bloggers to write about their products. Its early iterations did not require disclosure by bloggers, which made the company a black sheep for many.
Using national strategies locally
These same strategies can successfully be used on a local level to help small businesses. The current economic climate has caused many small businesses like retailers and restaurants to be tempted to cut back on marketing.
Declining distribution of print publications and newspapers, high cost of television advertising and the clutter of competition for radio listeners have all combined to make traditional mass media a difficult prospect to afford and justify for small businesses.
Given the difficulty small independent business owners have of deciding how to spend marketing dollars; many wind up relying on word of mouth and saving advertising budgets to help cash flow.
Capitalizing on word of mouth
Most anyone will agree that word of mouth is one of the strongest forms of marketing, however that can be followed with a statement that if you don’t advertise, no one will find you to start talking about you in the first place.
Utilizing blogs, email, social networks and a solid customer loyalty incentive can accomplish both sides of this task.
Implementing this kind of marketing is very inexpensive with the key to success remaining solidly in the hands of the business owner.
The technical implementation is the simplest part of the equation and least expensive part of the equation. It is certainly the latter two that are much more difficult to carry out.
Why now?
In a down market there a few things that make this a perfect time to make this your focus.
It is said that customers will tell 10 friends about a bad experience and a good one far less.
Why not make it easier for them to tell the good stories?