Sage Lewis from Sagerock agency always makes me sit back and smile because of his entertaining style with solid tips and points. His newest entertaining video is titled, "Social Media for Farmers, huh!?" After watching the video think about what businesses/industries that Social Media would not work or be effective for them and post in the comment section below. I will compile the list and re-post.
Thank you for helping build our list of Businesses/Industries that Social Media is not effective.
Michael is a brand, marketing, and sales strategist who expertly positions brands for revenue growth.
7/29/2010
"Ship or get off the Pot", Inspired by Seth Godin
Yes, it's true, Seth Godin has finally inspired me. I profess to not being a huge fan like others of Seth, but don't get me wrong, he does deliver moments of brilliance in marketing and business but not just all the time. Today though, one of my Facebook friends posted this video and for some reason it just connected in the right spots for me.
Key points:
Key points:
- Knowing the deep soul-feeling of being responsible for the business to succeed. Unless you have owned a company there is no other feeling like this other than being a parent (not sleeping well, signs of sickness, wanting to buy every new gadget...)
- Discipline needs Strategy, period! You can have all the discipline in the world but if your not performing the right task it becomes a mute activity. This is why I am a Strategist, because after years of doing task from shipping, unloading trucks at 2am (UPS job in college), writing press releases to creating marketing plans - you have to think strategically in order to have the discipline to perform successfully.
- Live authentically by writing a blog or even daily Facebook post. Marketing has changed and as a marketer you must know how to write including tone, when, why... because no matter what business, its all social (media) now.
- Content online is invaluable for many reasons - Real time results (SEO), link building, SERP, customer segmentation...
What keeps you Shipping?
7/26/2010
Best Quote: "What is the Retail Climate Like"
"The best way to put it is that retail has a hangover right now. It’s awake (but not fully) and is hurting from the past 12 months of weak sales and low margin business. Dealers are beginning to see sales pick up, but they are still having a tough time paying for past purchases, making it tough to freshen up inventory." Darren Hawrish, Founder and President No Limits Distribution from interview with Shop-Eat-Surf.com
7/06/2010
Threadless goes Experiential for Summer Tour 2010
To celebrate its 10th Anniversary, T-Shirt crowd sourcing specialist Threadless, has launched a Summer mobile event campaign. The mobile tour includes a 25-foot Airstream trailer, pulled by a panel van designed for the tour with a collage of the most popular T-shirt designs from Threadless’ decade.
What is Threadless, according to Wikipedia, Threadless is a community-centered online apparel store run by skinnyCorp of Chicago, Illinois, since 2000. Co-founders Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart started the company with $1,000 in seed money after entering an Internet t-shirt design contest. Members of the Threadless community submit t-shirt designs online; the designs are then put to a public vote. A small percentage of submitted designs are selected for printing and sold through an online store. Creators of the winning designs receive a prize of cash and store credit. So basically, they are crowd sourcing geniuses along with Digital Savants.
Back to the tour, the tour launched from Threadleass headquarters in Chicago and heads out west then will head across the country to the East Coast. Tour Dates/Locations. Stops will include design shows, music festivals and other high-traffic venues. At the stops the trailer will be open for visitors to engage in art work, music, purchase t-shirts, music, enter contest and hang out.
The other aspect of this experiential program is the digital/social media mix that includes a micro site, twitter, facebook and location based fun with Gowalla. The tour will be thoroughly videoed, blogged and tweeted on the Threadless.com social network pages at Facebook, where the company has 132,000 likes, and on Twitter/Threadless, where Threadless has 1.5 million followers.
7/01/2010
6/21/2010
8 Transformational Leadership Lessons From Seth Godin
This is a post from Hubspot (on their blog) summarizing a recent Seth Godin speech in Boston promoting his book Linchpin. Admittedly, I am hot and cold on Seth's advice but believe that Seth would agree with me on my approach. This time the HubSpot members who attended the event summarized key findings and for a first time, I agree with all eight key take-aways from Seth.
***Thank you HubSpot for digesting this valuable information then presenting to us to absorb.
8 Marketing Lessons From Seth Godin
1. Spamming People Doesn't Work Like it Used To - People who spam others have determined that it doesn't pay for itself like it used to. If you look at companies that are growing (e.g. Zappos), they don't do a lot of advertising. They do just a little bit of advertising to keep their investors happy, but have realized that personalized messages will always do better than spam.
2. People Like Doing What Other People Are Doing - We like to be like each other. People strive to fit in and find their own groups, so marketers who facilitate this will win.
3. Ideas That Spread Win, and Free Ideas Spread Best – Godin explained that he made more money by giving away his book, Idea Virus, than he made on his previous New York Times best-seller. Free ideas create demand, and demand can always be monetized.
4. Remarks Make Something Remarkable - When people comment on something, then it is remarkable. The old model, which focuses on companies making average products for average people, is not remarkable. Companies that aren't remarkable can't grow quickly. By making products worth talking about, then companies can become remarkable.
5. What We Make and How We Make It Has Changed – In today’s economy, people are buying experiences and conversations. Godin provided the example of LittleMissMatched, a company that sells unmatched socks that provide a point of interest and conversation for young girls.
6. You Have the Opportunity to Lead a Tribe - Tribes exist today, and they're looking for leaders. You don't have to have charisma to be a leader. Leading gives leaders charisma. The internet is the ultimate extension of communication to help organize tribes. Don't waste time trying to convert non-fans; instead, work to strengthen existing tribes.
7. Lots of Alternatives Exist - Choices are now rampant, so people or companies that are perceived as the best or the leaders are more successful. People have been trained to be good at a lot of things, but not to be the best at one niche skill. Difficult opportunities are the ones worth doing.
8. Don't Be Afraid to Be Indispensable - Lots of opportunities exist to be a linchpin, but most people and companies are scared of being great and indispensable because it's hard and scary. By overcoming this fear, marketers can become critical to business success.
What was the key takeaway from these few hours? All of Godin’s ideas and books can be condensed into one simple word: Permission. After listening to Godin discuss a variety of subjects, ranging from the current economic revolution to the failures of higher education, one thing is clear. The man is completely obsessed with permission.
The Two Sides of Permission
Godin uses permission in two vastly different ways to address his points. It is clear through books like Permission Marketing and Tribes as well as his talk today that he believes effectively marketing to people in today’s culture requires their expressed permission. An individual or company needs the permission of a group or tribe of people to be able to join and then eventually conduct commerce with the group.
Godin’s other focus of permission is positioned sharply on the other side. While individuals and companies need permission to market products and services outside the company, to make great products, or “art,” as he calls it, employees need to do great work without waiting for permission. He maintains that most people are great at doing what they are told, but not good at solving problems that everyone else is afraid to solve. He believes that successful companies in the future will be filled with employees who don’t wait for permission and instead tackle the tough problems head-on.
Impossible and Perfect
Impossible and perfect are the two biggest principles stopping people from progressing, says Godin. Industries at certain times are perfect. For example, record companies in the 1970s. During this time, demand for their product was huge. They had free advertising through radio and a strong hold on distribution. Today, the record industry is in shambles because its time of perfection has passed.
Problems seem perfect because they can't be solved. Revolutions create opportunities for things that seem impossible. For example, when Henry Ford first sought to mass produce the automobile, it was viewed as an impossible task. The balance between impossible and perfect is what stops individuals and organizations from seeing opportunities in front of them. Godin believes we are in the middle of the biggest economic revolution in history.
He explains that now you don't need a big office building and a large company to create and distribute a product and build a successful business. Instead, he argues that today we need connections and problem solving skills to build great companies. There is no map in this economic revolution. Value today is created by solving a problem no one has solved before. It is easy to copy others, but the challenge is building your own map.
What Points do you agree, disagree or would add?
***Thank you HubSpot for digesting this valuable information then presenting to us to absorb.
8 Marketing Lessons From Seth Godin
1. Spamming People Doesn't Work Like it Used To - People who spam others have determined that it doesn't pay for itself like it used to. If you look at companies that are growing (e.g. Zappos), they don't do a lot of advertising. They do just a little bit of advertising to keep their investors happy, but have realized that personalized messages will always do better than spam.
2. People Like Doing What Other People Are Doing - We like to be like each other. People strive to fit in and find their own groups, so marketers who facilitate this will win.
3. Ideas That Spread Win, and Free Ideas Spread Best – Godin explained that he made more money by giving away his book, Idea Virus, than he made on his previous New York Times best-seller. Free ideas create demand, and demand can always be monetized.
4. Remarks Make Something Remarkable - When people comment on something, then it is remarkable. The old model, which focuses on companies making average products for average people, is not remarkable. Companies that aren't remarkable can't grow quickly. By making products worth talking about, then companies can become remarkable.
5. What We Make and How We Make It Has Changed – In today’s economy, people are buying experiences and conversations. Godin provided the example of LittleMissMatched, a company that sells unmatched socks that provide a point of interest and conversation for young girls.
6. You Have the Opportunity to Lead a Tribe - Tribes exist today, and they're looking for leaders. You don't have to have charisma to be a leader. Leading gives leaders charisma. The internet is the ultimate extension of communication to help organize tribes. Don't waste time trying to convert non-fans; instead, work to strengthen existing tribes.
7. Lots of Alternatives Exist - Choices are now rampant, so people or companies that are perceived as the best or the leaders are more successful. People have been trained to be good at a lot of things, but not to be the best at one niche skill. Difficult opportunities are the ones worth doing.
8. Don't Be Afraid to Be Indispensable - Lots of opportunities exist to be a linchpin, but most people and companies are scared of being great and indispensable because it's hard and scary. By overcoming this fear, marketers can become critical to business success.
What was the key takeaway from these few hours? All of Godin’s ideas and books can be condensed into one simple word: Permission. After listening to Godin discuss a variety of subjects, ranging from the current economic revolution to the failures of higher education, one thing is clear. The man is completely obsessed with permission.
The Two Sides of Permission
Godin uses permission in two vastly different ways to address his points. It is clear through books like Permission Marketing and Tribes as well as his talk today that he believes effectively marketing to people in today’s culture requires their expressed permission. An individual or company needs the permission of a group or tribe of people to be able to join and then eventually conduct commerce with the group.
Godin’s other focus of permission is positioned sharply on the other side. While individuals and companies need permission to market products and services outside the company, to make great products, or “art,” as he calls it, employees need to do great work without waiting for permission. He maintains that most people are great at doing what they are told, but not good at solving problems that everyone else is afraid to solve. He believes that successful companies in the future will be filled with employees who don’t wait for permission and instead tackle the tough problems head-on.
Impossible and Perfect
Impossible and perfect are the two biggest principles stopping people from progressing, says Godin. Industries at certain times are perfect. For example, record companies in the 1970s. During this time, demand for their product was huge. They had free advertising through radio and a strong hold on distribution. Today, the record industry is in shambles because its time of perfection has passed.
Problems seem perfect because they can't be solved. Revolutions create opportunities for things that seem impossible. For example, when Henry Ford first sought to mass produce the automobile, it was viewed as an impossible task. The balance between impossible and perfect is what stops individuals and organizations from seeing opportunities in front of them. Godin believes we are in the middle of the biggest economic revolution in history.
He explains that now you don't need a big office building and a large company to create and distribute a product and build a successful business. Instead, he argues that today we need connections and problem solving skills to build great companies. There is no map in this economic revolution. Value today is created by solving a problem no one has solved before. It is easy to copy others, but the challenge is building your own map.
What Points do you agree, disagree or would add?
6/13/2010
Diaper Dude goes Experiential Marketing to raise brand awareness
Diaper Dude is a lifestyle and a Brand that was born from the idea that fatherhood doesn’t have to be complicated or un-cool. Diaper Dude, created by Chris Pegula, is a movement that began after the birth of the first of his three children by turning feminine-style diaper bags into ones that dads would want to carry. Pegula noticed that most diaper bags and accessories sold at retail stores were designed with women’s sense of style in mind. Instead of carrying his baby-stuff around in a gym bag or backpack, Pegula created The Diaper Dude for dads. By merging hip styles with functionality, The Diaper Dude appeals to image-conscience men everywhere looking for ease of use.
Diaper Dude is a growing brand within a very competitive industry and knows that in order stand out from the marketing noise they had to launch marketing strategies that put a face to the brand, use creative PR with strong social media. The result is a brand that is reaching out directly to its ends users with a mobile experiential marketing program that is based on the design of an ice cream truck that is shows up at its retail partner locations.
The experiential marketing program sends out pre event notices via social media and incorporates social objects (pics, videos, promotion flyers, ect). The best marketing part is that they give free ice cream at the events. Diaper Dude is helping today’s dads ease through parenting by letting them have it all “in the bag.”Check out their growing facebook page for event notices.
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