Anyone that knows me, knows that I’m a gamer. You can read all about it on my other blog. Sometimes I spend some time looking through videos on YouTube of games that I’m interested in buying so that I can see if they’re worth the purchase or not. Why then are video game companies forcing YouTubers to take down videos of playthroughs and such? Don’t they understand that this is how gamers find their products? I just saw a video by a well known YouTube commentator that pretty much sums up my feelings as well. He uses some vulgar language so it may not be safe for work, but here’s a link to the video anyway.

This is what happens when you let accountants and financial folks take control of your business. They do a great job of organizing, and re-investing your money. But why are marketers letting them do their job for them? As a marketer, it’s your decision as to how your products and / or services get promoted. I’m of the philosophy that you should use any and all tools in the box to get your message across.

In this day in age where consumers (especially gamers) are spending less time watching / listening / paying attention to commercials, why would you want to take your products out of a media that they are paying attention to? It makes no sense to me. I was just talking to a friend yesterday about how video game marketers usually do a horrible job (someone please hire me, I won’t let you down), and today I see yet another example of that.

If you are a decision maker at your company, please do not limit your marketing opportunities, or alienate your customers by trying to stop them from using current technology to promote your products or services. Use these guys to your benefit, and profit by them. 

What do you guys think? Agree, disagree? Are there any other examples out there that you can think of where companies have done this? Let me know in the comments below. 

Back when I was in college studying marketing, they showed us the marketing funnel. I’m not sure if they still teach this, but if you’ve studied You’ve probably seen it too. It’s basically a process where you start with a large number of prospects then proceed to a shorter number of qualified leads, then to customers, then to clients. This is the old way of doing things. In the past, marketers had no choice but to interrupt people and inform them about your company’s offerings… whether they were interested or not. The focus was on mass. Marketers needed to constantly fill that funnel with fresh prospects constantly. My how things have changed. Seth Godin discusses the shift away from mass (yet again) with his twelfth trend in Meatball Sundae, “the shift from how many to who”.

We’ve talked about it before, and we probably will again. Now is not the time to waste resources spamming people. Instead you should focus on exactly the people that are interested in what your company offers. Think of it like this. If the old approach to marketing was a hand grenade, then the new approach is like a phaser from Star Trek (or a laser for my readers that aren’t cool enough to watch Star Trek). It’s very focused on individuals not on random groups. These individuals, if targeted correctly will be your biggest fans and will go out and spread the word to others in the community. If you’ve segmented the market properly, finding these communities online should be a piece of cake.

Even if you have a product that appeals to a large group of people (say beer for example) it doesn’t mean you should spam random people. There are appropriate places for your message, and it’s your job as a marketer to find them. Maximize your resources (time and money) don’t waste them, marketing to an audience that doesn’t care or can’t afford you’re offerings.

The problem with a lot of online marketing is that many companies try to focus on using the new tools of the internet to focus on doing things the same old way. They look at things like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and online ads to interrupt masses of people and spam them with their message. It just doesn’t work that way, no matter how much you want it to. Especially online, it’s very easy to click away and ignore your message. In order for me or any other consumer out there to be interested in what you are offering, it must be relevant to what I’m looking for at that instant.

Anyways, you get the point. Focus on individuals not on mass. Only two more trends to discuss!

Notables quote from this section:

• “Let’s be really clear: the web is the single worst medium ever devised for interrupting people who don’t want to be interrupted.”
• “Marketers who are in sync with this new tool realize that it won’t let you do the old thing better, what it will let you do is find people to spread the word for you.”

I’ve been talking alot about social media and online marketing. Why not? Everyone’s doing it now. Unfortunately many are doing a poor job at it. It’s not enough to just have a facebook fan page, twitter account, a youtube account, etc. You must create community, otherwise it’s a waste of time. So what if you post videos of satisfied customers, or announce a new promotion. It doesn’t matter if no one is looking at your content. I’ve visited many corporate social media sites, and many of them simply post commercials, promotions, and/or testimonials. Who cares really? I mean, the only reason I look is because I’m a marketer, and I’m interested in how companies are promoting themselves online. However, as a consumer, I don’t care.

I was going to post something about one of my favorite brands, but I think I’m going to go in a different direction, ‘cause I’m just evil like that. Let’s take a look at one of my “favorite” booksellers, Barnes and Noble. They do some decent marketing every now and then, but their youtube site is garbage. So what do they have on their youtube channel? Exactly what you’d expect, interviews with authors, and not much else. It’s no secret that Barnes and Noble is a huge brand, so I’d expect them to have tons of subscribers. As I write this, they have a total of 287 subscribers, and I’m wondering just how many of those subscribers are actually employed by the company. This is what happens when you post the most boring content known to mankind on your site.

So what should they be posting? Well, in this case, I think they could post some interesting employee interactions, video of excited fans meeting their literary heroes in the store, a review program where they get random customers’ opinions, book recommendations (if you enjoyed this bestseller, here’s some other lesser known books you may enjoy), people getting busted for shoplifting, whatever really. As long as it’s interesting. If the content is good, maybe they would have more subscribers, and might actually be on their way to creating community.

It’s not just a problem with the big boys, smaller companies are also guilty of this. If you’re not going to post good, creative content then you really are not taking full advantage of the social media tools available. I could go on and on, and will probably discuss this again in the future, but I just got a new batch of books from the library and am ready to dig in. The bottom line, just having an account with these social media sites is not enough, doing what everyone else is doing with these sites will not differentiate you. Create excellent content

What’s the difference between Barnes and Noble and Borders? Comment below or email me. You know the address.

There are basically three different formats that you can choose from to produce content on the web, video, audio, or written word (or a combination of these). In chapter 6, Choose Your Platform, Vaynerchuk discusses some of the more popular online platforms…

Wordpress and Tumblr:

All other platforms you use should lead here to your blog. It should be your headquarters. Wordpress is an excellent service, and incorporates many features. It can be challenging to master, but can pay off in a big way. Tumblr is an alternative to Wordpress that is very easy to use and while lacking some of Wordpress’ bells and whistles, succeeds in getting the job done. Personally I recommend Tumblr (this is what I use), especially for the person with a $0 budget, for one big reason. They will host your domain for free. Awesome I know.

Regardless of which blog platform you choose, you should always take advantage of the call to action buttons (Like that button on the right that says “follow on Tumblr”). These buttons allow one time users to become continuous visitors to your blog. You should also take advantage of share buttons (like the button at the end of this post that says “Share”). Having this type of button on your page can be an excellent way to build some word of mouth.

Facebook:

I love Facebook. It’s an excellent way to share all types of information, photographs, news articles, videos, etc with your friends and contacts. You can set up a personal profile for yourself, as well as a fan page (like my favorite local comic shop Keith’s Comics… http://www.facebook.com//keithscomics). The advantage of using a fan page is that you can have an infinite number of fans (there’s a 5,000 person limit on your profile). Also, it’s an excellent non-intrusive way to get your messages out to your customers (as opposed to spaming them with emails).

Twitter:

I’ll admit, I’m a bit puzzled when it comes to Twitter, but after reading Vaynerchuk’s book I’m definitely reconsidering using it. Basically you can use Twitter to put out content, and follow other people’s content. Most importantly, it allows you to start conversations with people. As with other social media platforms, Twitter can be used effectively to lure people to your blog… assuming your blog is relevant and interesting to your followers. Vaynerchuk suggests the following website (www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business), and I agree. It is an excellent resource for those interested in using Twitter to effectively market a business (or your personal brand).

Flickr:

Flickr is a picture hosting site that can be used to either post pictures that lead back to your blog, or you can post intriguing comments on other people’s pictures that will lead back to your blog. Just remember, if you are posting comments, you should stay relevant and tasteful; don’t just post something for the sake of posting it.

Youtube and/or Viddler:

Youtube is one of my favorite time-wasting websites. I use it all the time to search for music concerts, classic boxing matches, video game playthroughs, and tons of other fun content. It’s such a huge site that it’s very easy to get lost among all the other people out there doing the same thing that you’re doing. Viddler is a smaller site, and you can even put your logo at the bottom of your videos (instead of having a Youtube logo on it). Viddler also allows you to earmark specific segments of your video which works well for someone posting reviews and such. If video is your thing, there’s no reason to not use both.

Ustream.tv:

Ustream.tv is a live video program that includes chat functions. Vaynerchuk suggests that it is excellent for radio shows or a home shopping network style show. I haven’t tried it myself, but if you’ve had success with it, I’d love to hear your story (email me at edwardviator@evil-marketer.com).

Everyone is starting to use these sites, but don’t let that discourage you. As long as you do things your way in your style, you will be able to differentiate yourself with no problem.

In addition to these sites, you should look into using www.ping.fm which allows you to post small updates on a bunch of sites (like facebook and twitter) all at once, and www.tubemogul.com which essentially does the same thing, but for video content. Tube Mogul is also excellent for analytics (as is google analytics). Vaynerchuk recommends www.somewhatfrank.com/2008/12/social-media-my.html for a full list of social media tools.

Notable quotes from this chapter:

• “The difference between promoting your brand via traditional marketing and advertising mediums and doing it via social networking platforms is like the difference between sending a message by pony express and chatting on instant messenger.”
• “Twitter is perhaps the most powerful brand-building tool in your tool box.”
• “The best business tweet of all time… What can I do for you?”
• “It’s not about how many viewers you have, it’s about how passionate they are.”