McIntosh Marketing Blog

Here are some statistics from TrendWatching.com illustrating the ever-growing popwer of social media in our world:

• Twitter has more than 100 million users who send 50 million tweets a day.
• Facebook has close to 500 million users with an average of 135 friends each.
• LinkedIn has more than 65 million users, with a new user joining every second.
• Meetup, a social networking engine that creates real world events for members of virtual networks, has 6.1 million members.
• Nearly three quarters (73%) of online teens and (72%) young adults (72%) use social network sites. Seventy-three percent of adult profile owners use Facebook, 48% have a profile on MySpace and 14% use LinkedIn.

The challenges that social marketers and businesses face is the utilization of this massive network of potential clients and converting them into actual marketing ROI. What we are seeing are a face paced growth of social networking, but yet a lack of education at the most basic levels of the brick-and-mortar businesses on how to harness its power and growth.

While the numbers from this market research report are absolutely staggering, so is the disproportionate numbers of how few businesses are using social media correctly and consistently. But when it comes to blogs, according to an article in Bloomberg Businessweek, 71% of bloggers have increased positive visibility for their company. When utilized correctly, a blog can automatically feed its posts into the various social media outlets.

With your blog providing original content that is informative, educational and even entertaining, one now has a voice and a positive means to generate interest, new customers and eventual ROI. Social media can be a powerful means in which to distribute that message to literally millions when you know how.

I look forward to your comments or questions on this new research.

One of the most tired and true forms of marketing and PR for any business is to put on events. Even with the proliferation of social media and internet marketing tools, event planning still plays a major role in how we do business, connect with new potential clients, as well as reinforce our brand message with core players.

A great way to advertise and market your event is using all the internet based tools available. And now one resource, Eventbrite http://www.eventbrite.com/home/, any business can now utilize their resources to effectively and broadly promote any event or special occasion. To date, Eventbrite has help to sell over 13 million event tickets for their members.

Eventbrite really offers a simple, yet comprehensive package that allows you to:

• Build a customized and professional online page for your event.
• Promote your event with social media sites, i.e. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Digg, etc.
• Manage system that allows you to track your events, plus prints check-in lists and badges.
• Has several methods of collecting payment, with a very small fee for collecting the money for your event.

Eventbrite has done a great job in meeting the needs for the B2B world in helping them to put on professional looking events that taps into the power of online marketing tools and social media.

You wouldn’t think that luxury entertainment and high-end marketing would be surviving, but it is in fact thriving.

And no one else proves that better than Lux5. http://www.lux5events.com/ In a world swirling in bad news on unemployment, recessions, bank repo’s and credit crunch, Lux5 has taken the ultimate high road to success.

Based in Orange County, CA, The Lux5 Group has become one of America’s premier live media providers,  focusing on luxury entertainment and high-end brand marketing. Lux5 stages ultra exclusive events that span from rare and exotic automobiles to million dollar yachts, haute couture fashion shows, VIP lounges to the most glamorous  brands from all over the world.

Since Lux5’s inception, this savvy group of marketing mavens has been setting the stage for spectacular venues around the nation and even across the globe. Lux5 have become specialist in creating a unique environment where luxury is put within reach of progressive individuals, and where high-end brands fuse fashion and glamour with modern lifestyle.

And like Lux5, the rest of the world of glamour and fashion, they too are recognizing the power and influence of web marketing tools and social media.

At the recent Reuters Global Luxury Summit, (http://in.reuters.com/article/idINIndia-48980520100602) that has drawn international companies, is where senior executives from design houses and prestigious store chains brainstormed and networked about business trends and strategy. The Web interface may not have been the obvious alternative to traditional marketing channels, like magazines and television once upon a time, but it has evolved to become an inevitable solution.

If you had asked me two years ago, I would have said there is no way we are going to have any sort of evening clothes business online,” said Alexander Bolen, chief executive of U.S-based fashion house Oscar de la Renta according to Reuters.

Luxury firms are essentially riding the wave of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter where a loyal following creates interactivity with obvious benefits like word-of-mouth and statistics producing marketing results.

“The Internet is becoming more important—not so much to sell (products), but as a communication tool,” said Francesco Trapani in an interview with Reuters. Trapani is the chief executive of the Italian jewelry, watches and perfume group Bulgari, which is the world’s third-largest jeweler.

Face to face contact and tactile approach still has a role to play when it comes to the luxury goods market.

Imagine being in an industry that has more demand and need than is being fulfilled. This is the sad, but opportunistic story of the CPA. While so many businesses are being penalized by the IRS for bad accounting and tax handling, the lone CPA himself suffers for lack of new customers.

About seventy percent of CPA’s and accountants are single practitioners. Many of these CPA’s are never formally educated in marketing, advertising, much less SEO, blogging and other vital internet marketing tools. According to Sterling Management Systems http://www.sterling-management.com/ of Glendale, CA, these CPA’s are seen by other business professionals as the experts on how to manage a business. While accounting is most definitely an important factor in managing costs and profits, it is an after the fact analysis point.

What most is most deficient in a CPA’s acumen is how to generate leads, sales and higher levels of profits. And this is why they have been losing past clients while not adding enough. Their clients are dying from a lack of marketing “how-to” to stay afloat and even expand after the storm has subsided. Most of their clients are not even blogging from their existing web sites.

Another option is for the accounting world to partner up with the SEO and web design world, forming an allied partnership to help businesses do what needs to be done to not fall into the traps that so many businesses do. ANd believe me, there are many SEO guys out there that could utilize a new channel of business referrals, particularly from a trusted source – the CPA. When you consider the opportunity, having one place to keep your books and taxes IRS “bullet proof”, while also showing effective web marketing techniques is one powerful package of services.

While the partnership is ideal for both, universities and colleges will need to recognize the need to include in a CPA’s education the need to understand the basics of web marketing, blogging and basic marketing strategy.

Ask any business person, “What if you had infallible financial records and a profitable marketing plan?’, and I think you will see the opportunity that exists to two industries, both looking for more clients.

If you aren’t familiar with digg.com, you submit a link to your content to the site and let people vote whether it is good or not. Get enough votes, and it will appear on the front page for millions to view and thousands tens of thousands of hits to your website.

The problem is, only the top 100 stories a day get any real traffic. This has meant that many of us stopped bothering to submit stories to digg since Twitter and Facebook yield better results.

In the newest redesign being released soon, digg is making changes to make it more beneficial to publishers (companies like us) to post their content to digg.

It is worth looking at – it could be a viable source of traffic in the coming months if it isn’t already working for you now.

At no other time in Man’s history has there been such a challenge to make a better world. And at no other time has the playing field be leveled to such a degree to give a voice to those who want to make that change.

With the advent and proliferation of social media, those who want to bring about positive social influence have a powerful venue to find their voice, as well as access to an almost unlimited audience to hear their words of wisdom or dissent.

Imagine if Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. had access to this powerful medium. They would have not only embraced the technology, but the opportunity to reach tens of millions with their powerful message of social justice and equality.

If you are someone who is trying to bring about positive social influence, regardless of your cause or dream, you need to embrace social media, blogging and all internet marketing tools. One such example is The Route Out, http://www.therouteout.org/. They have come to realize that we need to have ethical leaders in order to get our country out of the many messes it now faces. At the core of our problems of our nation, The Route Out recognizes that we need leaders with integrity.  Using the non-religious book, The Way to Happiness, http://www.thewaytohappiness.org/ as their main text, they aim to bring about social reform at the very top with our Congressional leaders.

And the people at The Route Out are not alone. Hundreds of millions of people are members of social betterment, civic, political and religious organizations trying to bring about a better world. To truly be effective in delivering your message, you need to develop a comprehensive online marketing and social media strategy. And that strategy starts with a commitment to not only your cause, but equally to become a dedicated student, educating yourself on how to bring that message via your web site.

Suggestions: Read “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” by David Meerman Scott, subscribe to our blog, attend seminars on social media and internet marketing tools, read books and in general learn from those that are experiencing success.

If you are trying to change the world for the better, I salute you. Now take your commitment and as well become an educated denizen of internet marketing and social media.

Best Buy http://www.bestbuy.com/is a major brand whose brand marketing most definitely includes social media marketing.

Brad Smith, Director, Interactive Marketing & Emerging Media from Best Buy opened things up talking about a “new marketing reality”. Customers are out there, but they’re bombarded with messages. Customers are not listening to us (marketers & advertisers) anymore. Social media is all about communicating.  Customers are listening to each other instead and tuning out marketing messages.

Each company’s journey in social media is different. If your social media consultant starts the meeting with suggestions about starting a Twitter account, leave the room. Treat social media like any other major undertaking with planning, understanding the marketplace, goals and objectives.

Tenets that support Best Buy Social Media Marketing:

• Deliver
• Blow you away
• Never leave you hanging
• Make a difference
• Make sure you know all we know

Brad makes the distinction of social media tools and the behaviors we seek to engage and influence. “I don’t use Facebook, I participate. It’s a two way thing.  You’re not half way into social media. When you’re in you’re in.”

Best Buy’s Social Media Marketing Mission:

To connect customers and employees with the Best Buy brand and each other through the right tools platforms and collaboration delivered when, where and how they want.

The focus is on the customer, not the company. “It’s not about what Best Buy wants customers to do, it’s about giving people the tools to connect with each other and employees whenever and however they want.”

Best Buy Social Media Guidelines:

• (Essentially don’t be stupid)
• Listen
• Be findable, think distributed
• It’s about people
• Enable creation
• Make it social
• Listen some more
• Be authentic
• Be transparent
• Keep it simple
• Make a commitment

Best Buy and Twitter – @Twelpforce
The thing that makes it work is that they didn’t start with a “Twitter strategy”. It was born of a customer need. Best Buy simply leveraged an asset they knew they had with a customer need. Customers needed advice and there are 150,000 Best Buy employees world wide that are already being helpful. Twitter proved to be an effective platform for that. 2,500 employees are signed up to work as part of @Twelpforce.

When Best Buy started their social journey with Facebook, Brad says they were overzealous and promoted commercial messages to the community. The community responded, “not to do that”. Customers want access to the brand, advice, tips exclusive access that others don’t get.

Best Buy Learnings From Their Social Media Experience:

• Listen first, talk second
• Its OK to fail
• The same social mores apply online as offline
• Customers don’t care about channels
• We have to be ready ro respond
• Customers will tell us and everyone else where our organization is broken. And expect a fix
• People are forgiving

Overall Best Buy is treating their social media experience as a journey. Best Buy has learned the importance of listening instead of pushing.  It’s an impressive example, not only of a very large brand finding value in a humble and transparent, customer focused social media effort, but one of true Minnesota ingenuity when it comes to new technology and marketplace innovation.

Have I become a big fan of Foursquare or what?  I want more badges and I want them now!

Having never been a boy scout, I now get to live the dream of earning badges at the age of 47. I looked in earnest on how to earn them and what it took to build up my badge collection. Not only is there quite a long list of potential badges to earn (http://www.4squarebadges.com/foursquare-badge-list/), but when you visit Foursquare’s site you will find that they even take suggestions on developing even more badges.

Now other than an intense dose of self-indulgence and egocentric gathering, how can this Foursquare be used to benefit your cause, business or efforts to market yourself? Now realize that I am a newbie. I even have the Foursquare badge to prove it too! So please add to the list of ideas. In fact, share them with me as you see fit.

1.  Plan an “Swarm Event” with your top customers. This is when you get 50 or more people to check in at one time. This not only brings back the old customers, but events like this ignites word or mouth advertising, key to the survival of any business. Plus events like this just plain fun! The more the merrier.

2. Ask your regulars to tell their friends that they are there, when they are there. Offer incentives, discounts or freebies for doing so. People love making a difference, being a force of change and helping others to make money. Use incentives to do so, like Contest Burner offered by McIntosh Marketing.

3. Ask Foursquare to develop a special badge for your own place. Come up with a unique idea on why this should be. The fact that your place earns Foursquare followers a special badge is just great viral marketing. Check in with Foursquare on how this could be done.

4. Let your imagination run wild. I am sure that there are many people out there much more proficient in social media and Foursquare possibilities. Let me know some of your ideas so that I may share them with others who would love to expand their Foursquare knowledge, skill sets and above all – earn more badges.

The words we use have so many meanings that they have begun to represent the same ideas. As they have become garbled, we have become confused. And so it is with the two words, marketing and selling. They seem so interchangeable that they have list there important distinctions and how they operate one with another.

In plain English, marketing is senior to selling. Selling is simply one part of marketing.

Marketing starts with ideas, and from there a survey of opportunities, possibilities and needs within a market. Someone had to conceive of the pet rock before it could be sold. Marketing is large and often complex mix of technologies, of which sales is one part. Marketing also includes market research, industry trends, sociology, surveys, design, branding, beta testing, PR, packaging, social media, web sites, copy writing, distribution, pricing and host of other methodologies and branches of business.

I hear many small businesses call their marketing efforts selling and many of their efforts to sell more, marketing. It may seem like I am being anal, but in reality it is important to not only know the difference, but to also understand the totality of what those words mean and represent in terms of action and depth of planning and application.

I have seen people struggle in their sales, not because they were unsociable or had halitosis. They simply had no marketing strategy, as well as basic marketing skills, and thus thought too small. Or in some other way went about their small business venture like Helen Keller driving a car. They were completely able and capable as a person, but yet still blind.  Helen Keller was an amazing person. She changed the world more than most people who can hear and see. But putting her behind a car and having her drive the Hollywood Freeway at rush hour is far from prudent.

While it may seem time-consuming, becoming educated on the techniques and methods are far faster and more effective than being ignorant. Short cuts never build success or empires. In fact, short cuts are just that. They cut things down and your goals come up short.

George Washington Carver once said, “There is no short cut to achievement. Life requires thorough preparation.” Never was this more true in small business, particularly in the fields of marketing and sales.

Madison Avenue must be reeling at the fast changes within our media world. How could they have predicted the sheer transformation of how YouTube, social media and the worldwide dominance of the celebrity mentality would shape how we market.

Nike just released a new advert that say’s so much about the changes of not only how world revolves, but how we interact with each other. Moreover, this advert from Nike indicates to businesses on how the majority of marketing has yet to really caught up with those fast-paced changes. The Nike advert that they just released, featuring soccer phenom Ronaldo, is not only a strong message in itself, but a commentary of where we are at as a global community.

Let’s look at the critical aspects of this advert from Nike:

• The advert is three minutes long, not 30 or 60 seconds. This is because YouTube has extended our ability and expectations from a video and an advert. Nike is not buying a traditional TV spot; they are telling a story and letting viral marketing run its course.
• The video shows how addicted we are to sports, but how much it is a part of our lives and even the ability to gain power, affect markets and transform the pride of an entire nation with sports. True sports heros are national treasures and icons, just as Ancient Greece revered their gods.
• Featuring in that video is how YouTube videos are not only watched, but how then drive new jargon, dances and even how we communicate, establish reality and that we understand each other, knowing we belong to the same “tribe.”
• The new slogan, “Write Your Future” captures the desire to determine our future in these uncertain times. Just like Nike captured a generation with “Just Do It”, they have now found three new words to embed the minds of a new generation looking for empowerment, even if vicariously through a brand and a hallowed sports figure. It offers hope and that one can do something about it without looking for government entitlement.

Nike has struck marketing gold once again, showing that like any art form one can capture and articulate a new feeling through a strong brand and simple message.