Million Myles | Be Genuine. Go Further.

In the old days, life was easy. Easy brand choices, clear USP’s, mass media dominance, overall advertising acceptance, very few media channels, and you could apparently reach 80% of people with three spots on prime-time television.

But the times they are a changin’.  This animation dramatizes rise of new media, convergence, mobility, individualism, consumer attitudes, and the impact of technology on marketing.  It was created by German filmmaker and ad-man Michael Reissinger of Deli Pictures.

“Authenticity” is defined by Webster as: “True to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.”  It is also a synonym for “Genuine”, which can be defined as “free from hypocrisy or pretense.” When you craft your marketing messages, How can you create them free from overblown or cliche claims while still delivering a story compelling enough to sell your product or service?

Consumers are as skeptical as ever, and the world is getting smaller and smaller by the day due to the always-on, always-connected way of life.   As traditional media advertising loses it’s audiences slowly but surely, and customers are increasingly unenchanted by advertising in general, the real communication has come full circle and back to the individual level.  New media is based on conversation.

Not only is word of mouth one of the most influential forms of marketing (always has been), it is now spreading rapidly through new social media channels. One could argue that creating the perfect ad copy isn’t really what should be at the top of your priority list.  People do not use tag-lines in normal conversation.  They do not recite your ad word-for-word when making recommendations.

They will tell their story (experience with your company) or your story (something interesting worth telling about you).  Either way, you must give your customers, clients, and prospects something to work with if you expect them to spread your message and/or converse positively about your company, online or off.

This is where being authentic and genuine always carries you through.  Read the rest of this entry »

People often champion the use of social media to reach customers and enhance marketing efforts…but what about using these tools to innovate from within? In this video, Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson describes how they have used social networks, Wikis, and other Web 2.0 tools to harness the expertise of it’s 175,000 employees and spur collaboration among them.

Peter Hirshberg, co-founder of The Conversation Group, interviews Anderson about several of their internal social media initiatives. As they grow, the scope of their business is evolving from “product distribution company” to a “service and solutions company”… and to address this challenge they have to reverse the roles of leadership and turn the structure upside-down.

Best Buy realized that the employees interacting with customers on a daily basis were the ones who could provide the best feedback. They gave them the tools to collaborate and gave management the power and resources to nurture and execute grassroots ideas. This has created a culture of innovation and creativity in the organization. They are experimenting more and utilizing employees in order to reverse the sluggishness and lack of innovation that is often the side effect of becoming an incredibly large company.

I can’t help but think of the leadership style of Sam Walton, who often interviewed his own employees to get serious feedback about processes. He knew that they were where the rubber truly met the road. The Best Buy social media initiatives take this philosophy to a new level.

This slideshow, created by John Moore of Brand Autopsy, highlights the best quotes taken from the new book, The Age of Conversation 2. This book is the follow-up to a collection of essays published in 2007 by a group of writers advocating the new age of marketing, where the message is centered around conversations. The second edition challenges companies to let go of their old ways to embrace and adopt a new perspective on marketing.

It encourages business leaders to face the reality that they cannot control the perception of their brand in a marketplace that has been armed with open, archived communication channels. They must view the Internet not as another medium, but as a 2-way conversational tool. They can use it to refine and evolve products and services with valuable customer feedback. They have to let go of the fear and join in on the conversation in order to use it effectively.

On October 30th, I had the pleasure of attending SWOMfest in Austin, a conference organized by Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell from Church of the Customer blog who created the Society for Word of Mouth network. In addition to the points made in the video above (created by Jay Ehret), there were plenty of other takeaways worth noting:

Defining Your Purpose is at the core of breeding word of mouth:

• People vote for candidates that share the same values, they want to buy from companies that do as well
• Companies who establish a purpose outperform other companies by 5 to 1.
• A purpose is not a cliche, empty “mission statement”.  It is a defined reason for a business to exist other than profits.
• A purpose can also be defined as a definitive statement of the difference you want to make in the world.
• But… your purpose must be relevant to your audience.
• Advertising is not a differentiator.  A purpose is.
• Purpose fosters meaningful innovation… Do not innovate just for the sake of innovation.
• Look at every opportunity and ask: “Does it help fulfill the purpose?”

A story is essential in delivering your message through word of mouth.

• Stories are packets that you give to customers that help word of mouth spread.
• You must provide your customers with a story and make it easy to tell yours to others.
• The story must interest, amuse, instruct, and inspire.
• A story is an account of events…with vivid, specific details.
• A story must have a “neat” element that makes it worth telling.
• 4 Elements of a story: Character, Setting, Problem, Resolution.
• The “theme” of your story aligns with the defined “purpose” of your business.

Using social media to spur word of mouth is more about process than technology.

• Select customers to become “customer evangelists.”
• Make them the face of your business, reward them, champion them.
• Listen to the online conversation.
• Join the online conversation and tell your story.
• Start small, don’t wait, fly under the radar if you must.
• Effective marketing through social media and WOM is 10% technology and 90% process and execution.

For help finding an original, descriptive, and memorable domain name for your web site, here are some great tools that will make your search more efficient.

Bust-A-Name: This is my favorite place to search for an available domain… because the results are instantaneous. I use the “quick domain check” tool on the top right. The availability of the typed name is updated on every keystroke. This is much faster than waiting for a page to load every time. Plus it saves you the 5 seconds of anticipation before the big let-down: “HOMES4U.COM” is already taken! You can also add words to a list and let Bust-A-Name find all of the available combinations. This is great for finding descriptive domains.

Dislexicon: This tool will help you nail that brilliant name by fusing a root word you enter with popular prefix’s and suffix’s. For example: Type “HOME” and it will return words like: Homeium, Homability, Endohome, and Homeize. This may not give you exactly what you need, but it is fun for inspiration.

DomainsBot: This tool will take a string of words and search for available domains that are similar to that query. It will take each word, and use related words to offer suggestion. So if you type HOME FINDER, it draws similar words to HOME (house, pad, residence) and FINDER (seeker, explorer, digger) and display a long list of available and for sale domains.

JustDropped: This is a great free tool that will search for names by keyword that have recently been dropped from the ICANN registered index. Many domains are dropped daily. You may find a great name that contains your chosen words that somebody else let expire. If you have some time, check back daily for the prime pick’ns.

Afternic & Sedo: Two popular places to bid for pre-registered domain names. If you are willing to spend a few hundred bucks, you may be able to find a prime domain that someone is trying to sell. Some of the domains seem ridiculously over-priced, but if you look into the recently sold domains area you can see what some of the domains are actually selling for. The ultra-high-priced domains are usually set by the seller, and you will rarely see bids on these.

PickyDomains: For an easy and risk-free way to get the best domain possible, consider outsourcing your search with PickyDomains.com. For a fifty dollar deposit, you give them the criteria, and they mail you lists of possible names. If you don’t like any of the names offered, you get a refund. See the left sidebar on their site for a list of some of the best domains they have come up with.

Michelle Miller of Wonder Branding, a blog focusing on marketing to women, examines how time influences the female purchasing process:

Where she gets her energy, combined with her outlook on life, gives you the underlying framework you need in order to build an effective, profitable marketing strategy. It will affect every part of your business, from planning to copywriting to customer service.

Michele Miller is a partner in the Wizard of Ads marketing firm, with a client roster that has included businesses of all sizes across North America, including Best Buy, Timberland, Sirius Satellite Radio, and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Michele is the author of The Soccer Mom Myth: Today’s Female Consumer - Who She Really Is, Why She Really Buys, a 2008 release that found itself on the “Top Twenty List” of Amazon.com’s marketing business book sales.

The Machine is Us/ing Us, produced by Dr. Michael Wesch of the Digital Ethnography Working Group at Kansas State University, elegantly explains the idea behind Web 2.0 and it’s impact on us. If you haven’t checked out some of the other fascinating projects by this group of undergraduates, it’s worth a look.

Dubbed “the explainer” by Wired magazine, Michael Wesch is a cultural anthropologist exploring the impact of new media on human interaction (and the impact of human interaction on new media). After two years studying the impact of writing on a remote indigenous culture in the rain forest of Papua New Guinea, he has turned his attention to the effects of social media and digital technology on global society.  His videos on technology, education, and information have been viewed by millions, translated in over ten languages, and are frequently featured at international film festivals and major academic conferences. Wesch has won several major awards for his work, including a Wired Magazine Rave Award and the John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis in Media Ecology.  He is also a multiple award-winning teacher whose teaching projects are frequently featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education and other major media outlets worldwide. Wesch is currently serving on the Editorial Board of Advisors for Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Recently, 1000 Watt Consulting created a single page showcasing some of the leading players in “Real Estate Web 2.0 “. The categories include listings, mapping, agent ratings, social networking, marketing tools, blogs, and more. It was very similar to a list posted on the vFlyer blog back in May. As you already know, the Internet changed the way we market real estate, and now, the Internet is in the midst of a dramatic shift in the way information is organized and how people access it …But in order to truly utilize the Internet effectively in our marketing, we must first understand the basics behind Web 2.0, and more importantly, the people who make it what it is.