Thanks to the response received (@gyutae @AlbertMaruggi @AnnBernard @briansolis @martinbowling) from a Twitter post (follow here) on the topic of social marketing vs direct marketing, this post invites your opinion.

In a recent strategy session, some colleagues and I were discussing a promotion where one position was to focus on a direct marketing approach and another position involved social media, networks and communities. Compared to direct marketing efforts (snail mail, DRTV, email, etc) where an offer is created based on what the company wants to sell, a social marketing effort focuses more on involving communities with creating the offer as well as promoting it.

Continue Reading »

I was working on writing a comment for the latest blog post by AJ Vaynerchuk at ShoeMoney.com but it turned out that the comment morphed into something more, so I thought bringing some attention to the post as well as my thoughts on it might be a good thing.

AJ selected the names of fifty prominent internet marketing veterans and compared where Twitter and Facebook ranked respectively for their names on Google. The results were unexpected.

Continue Reading »

The New Speed of Mass Communication
The past few conferences and events that I have attended witnessed the party-crashing technology of Twitter. If you are new to Twitter and not sure what it is, or haven’t even heard about it, here is the best way to describe it: imagine seeing all of your friend’s Instant Message conversations with each other and you – and being displayed to the world. It’s a new way of communication that is transforming communications and the speed at which news, articles, happenings and events are passed.

Continue Reading »

I get soooo many PR pitches each day, most of which are boring–I hit delete before I get to the end of the first sentence. Then there’s this gem, from Rachel Weikum at Weikum Communications.

Instead of the normal pitch format, her email was more like a blog post. It drew me in, gave me the info, and impressed me with the outcome. I thought about re-writing the pitch, but have decided instead to simply paste it below for you to read.

Continue Reading »

Two blog posts made headlines on Techmeme over the past few days and I don’t agree with either of them.

First Erick Schonfeld complains that there’s just too much noise coming from social media.

…I don’t have time to sift through thousands of Tweets and Friendfeed messages and blog posts and emails and IMs a day to find the five things that I really need to know…So where is the startup that is going to be my information filter?

Erick’s basically complaining there’s too much output from social media, and he can’t keep up.

Continue Reading »

If I were one of the stressed out digerati–constantly overwhelmed by the demands of social media–I could probably list out a dozen existing tools that Google Reader’s new sharing options borrow from. Instead, I have my social networking habits under control, so will stick with just the obvious comparisons.

Continue Reading »

Lots of people have opinions about Twitter, ranging from a complete waste of time to the indispensable connector with your community.

Continue Reading »

If you read Marketing Pilgrim, or if you read online marketing blogs, you’ve probably heard of Twitter. It’s the rage at tech conferences and in certain communities. Outside of these circles, almost no one has heard of it. But while it may not have reached critical mass, the growth is pretty impressive.

I’ve noticed that people either haven’t heard of Twitter, have a mad crush on it, or HATE it. I asked a room full of paid search managers if they tweet, and one did. Out of the total number of people I work with (most of us do SEO or PPC) my guess is there are about 5 people on Twitter.

Continue Reading »

Facebook once again made a step in the right direction with consumer privacy. I’ll admit I’m not exactly sure how it happened, and based on conversations I’ve had with others in the social media space, it seemed to happen pretty quietly. Yet the whole brouhaha over Facebook’s social ad policy that really irked me at the end of last year, and bugged others to varying degrees (some much more, some less), is now more or less a non-issue.

For those who missed all the fun last December, Facebook’s Social Ads allowed marketers advertising on the site to include mentions of users’ friends who were fans of the marketer’s page or who added the marketer’s applications. In the example below, this ad is what my friends saw (and some still do, as Howard Greenstein recently informed me) after I became a fan of Blockbuster (just to test it out - I actually care little for the brand):

Continue Reading »

I originally knocked twitter - and in my mind, the jury is still out - but I AM using it - Click here if you feel like following my twitter nonsense.

Twitter is the opportunity for bloggers and nerds to chat WHEN they want to - I can chat on aim, or yim, or msn or whatever, but everytime I log on for work, or decide to leave it on and get busy, I feel like a dick when I don’t actually get to screw around and talk with friends or fun random people I met.

Continue Reading »