Word of Finger

I recently read in Wired magazine about this term, “Word-of-Finger”.  They defined it as:

adj. Marketing communicated via the keystrokes of social media.  It attracts advertisers because, unlike traditional word of mouth, it can be monitored through Twitter and Facebook.

I love this phrase.  It communicates perfectly exactly what you should be doing in your business’ marketing efforts.  You want people to review your business on Yelp and Google Maps, you want people following you on Twitter and you want fans on your Facebook page.  The more people that are “typing” about you, the better it is for your business.

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Brand Marketing; How Best Buy Utilizes Social Media Marketing

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.

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Why Twitter is better than Real Life

Someone posted a question on a forum today about whether Twitter was actually worthwhile or not in the marketing of their brand new website. It got me thinking about how people use Twitter, how I use Twitter, and what people who haven’t been on these social networks like I have for years think of it. So I thought it would be a good idea to write about it here, and come up with a few reasons why Twitter is an awesome marketing tool, perhaps even better than what you could do in three dimensions pre-internets.

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Bad Online Marketing

Although there are a million ways to market your products incorrectly, the big mistake I see is to forget that your public are humans and fail to build relationships with them.

Making 5,000 “friends” on a social network like Twitter or Facebook is a good idea. But if all you do is send them bulk advertising messages, it’s not going to work.  You’re dealing with live people who have interests and ideas and opinions. The more you find out what is needed and wanted and deliver THAT, the better off you’ll be.

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The Big Three of Internet Marketing

The Big Three has meant for decades, “GM, Ford and Chrysler”. But with their problems comes the next evolution of that term, particularly when talking about web marketing, SEO and SEM.

The Big Three in the internet marketing world is Facebook, Google and YouTube. Make it big with these three media giants and you will make it big in business. Let’s be real. Facebook is social media, Google is how you find almost anything and YouTube is the new TV. Hopefully you are gearing your mind-set, your marketing budget and how you interface with the world’s newest Big Three.

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Small Businesses Using Social Media

Never a day goes by when I am asked by a business person if they should actually engage in social media or not.

Have you noticed that phone books are getting thinner and smaller? Well, it’s not because the business is not dying. It is migrating to a new media that is reaching hundreds of millions per day. That is social media.

This CNN article is a case in point: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/04/08/social.media.small.biz/?hpt=C2

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