Here is an interesting graphic that I’ve taken from the MindJumpers blog.

I struggled to make a point about advertising the other day, but there is really quite a bit more to the discussion than what I had originally posted. One of my friends saw the post and sent me a link to a recent article by buysight.com (thanks Francisco). They post a graphic and host a discussion about how advertising has changed over the last 50 years or so.

This is some interesting stuff, so if you haven’t checked it out already, I recommend doing so now. There are a ton of interesting viewpoints on display, and really got me thinking. Not only is advertising more targeted, but people actually opt in for advertising and marketing messages (using twitter, facebook, and all that stuff), which was unheard of back in the day.

Also, check out the amount of spending on media (according to the chart). There are some interesting things going on there. I was completely surprised to see that spending on newspaper ads was significant in 2000 then started dropping off (coincidentally) as the internet spending started increasing. I think many advertisers used newspaper ads to communicate with local consumers, but now are starting to use the internet to reach these local audiences.

Anyway, check it out, and let me know what you think.

We’ve discussed it before, and we’ll probably discuss it again. Twitter search can be an excellent resource for any business. It’s a great way to research topics or companies. It’s a great way to find out what customers / prospects think of your brand. It’s a great way to seek out new prospects that haven’t heard of you. Most importantly, it allows you to find your customers and interact with them.

In this link, Chris Brogan explains some specific ways that you can use Twitter search for your business. 

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.”

Here’s a link to a pretty good article. If you use Twitter for business, you need to check this out.

There used to be only a few channels out there for businesses to communicate with their customers: radio, television, and print. Now there are an infinite number. The eighth trend in Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae is “Infinite channels of communication.” Today, every interaction with a customer is a channel of communication. Sure, your Facebook page is a channel, so is your Twitter account, but so also are the interactions your customers have with each other and with potential customers. Let’s face it, people talk to each other, and in today’s marketplace it’s easier than ever for people to have discussions about your company and your brand. In the wise words of Luke Skywalker, “you can either profit by this or be destroyed. It’s your choice, but I warn you not to underestimate my power.”

So what does this have to do with you? Everything. Before, companies had to broadcast their messages to anyone and everyone out there in the hopes that the message would reach their target demographic. This meant that it just wasn’t economically feasible to market niche products. Why spend a fortune marketing something using mass media that has limited appeal? Sure, there are specific demographics for specific programs on TV, radio, or print articles, and so it’s not impossible to reach your target demographic in this manner. However, you will waste alot of money reaching people that don’t care about your product. Not only that, but people are actively trying to avoid these types of interruption messages.

On the internet, it’s not only possible to reach these niche audiences, it’s actually preferable. You don’t need to interrupt anyone; customers will look for you and your products if they pertain to them. You can succeed with a smaller market, but a larger market share. All you need to do is stay relevant, and treat every interaction with your customers as a channel of communication.

Notable quotes from this section:

• “In order for a customer to make a decision, two things need to happen. The second is that she needs to determine that it’s worth the time or money or risk to take action. But first, she needs to know about the opportunity.”
• Instead of reaching everyone (because you have no other choice) and creating generic products for large audiences, you can now reach a tiny slice of the market - just the people who are passionately interested in your products and services.”
• “The product is everything the company needs to spread the idea itself.”

I’m sure it’s happened to you too. I’m sitting there talking to someone, passionately discussing something that’s important to me, and then I notice something disturbing; the person I’m talking to couldn’t care less, and judging by the look they give me, they haven’t heard a word I’ve just said. It’s a devastating feeling to know that no one is listening to you, especially when you feel so strongly about something. It’s one of the main reasons why I started this blog. Here I can discuss the things I care about, and at least a few people out there are listening (by the way thanks to all you guys that have started following me on Tumblr and/or Twitter, or you guys that have me bookmarked or whatever). Godin addresses this need to be heard with trend #2: “amplification of the voice of the consumer and independent authorities.”

Back in the day, companies needed to cater only to a small group of critics. If they got a good review in the newspaper, or magazine, or got featured on some television show, then they were guaranteed millions. Today though, everyone’s a critic. It’s nothing new really, people have always been this way. The difference is that they now have a way to instantly spread the word to millions. The internet, and blogs in particular, have given a voice to anyone and everyone that has something to say. And you know what? People are listening. Every interaction your company has with anyone can quickly be shared with the world.

This may seem like a bad thing, but in reality it’s actually a huge opportunity. As a marketer, it’s your job to make the most of every interaction with the customer or client. Shut up and listen to what the people that you market to are saying. They want to be heard, and if you care at all about your brand, you will listen to what they have to say. If you are unjustly criticized you can always address the situation directly. Set up a discussion board for your clients to talk, and interact with them. It’s not that complicated really.

Trend #3, “Need for an authentic story as the number of sources increases”, discussion coming soon.

Notable quotes from this section:

• “It’s not us and them. Now it’s us and us.”
• “A post on a blog anywhere in the world could very well rank higher in a google search than information on that same topic on your company’s website.”
• “The easiest way to understand blogs (text, audio, or video) is to understand that they (finally) connect three real desires: to hear our own voices, to be heard by others, and to hear what the crowd thinks.”
• “Big numbers matter when you run mass ads that are ignored. Small numbers are just fine when you deliver powerful messages with permission.”

We’ve discussed many concepts and strategies for building your personal brand online. In his tenth chapter, “Make the world listen”, Vaynerchuk reviews how to put together all the tools and ideas mentioned previously to use. Here we go…

1. Buy your domain name, preferably firstnamelastname.com When you sign up for Twitter, Facebook, etc, use this domain name (ex: www.facebook.com/edward.viator)
2. Start a Wordpress or Tumblr account and host your domain on it.
3. Hire a web designer to make sure your user interface is excellent. If you can’t afford one, get started anyway, but know that you should hire a designer in the future (as you can see, I can’t afford one yet).
4. If you’re doing video, buy a $150 Flip camera.
5. Create a Facebook fan page.
6. Open a Twitter account with your domain name.
7. If you’re doing video open a Tube Mogul account; if written word, sign up for Ping.fm.
8. Create content and lots of it. Use personal anecdotes and let your personality shine.
9. Tweet or post your content using Ping or Tube Mogul.
10. Go to search.twitter and start searching for subjects relevant to your blog. Start following many of these.
11. Go to blogsearch.google.com and search for blogs similar to yours. Comment and leave your name which should be linked to your webpage.
12. Search Facebook for pages that relate to your topic. Join the active ones. Do the same for groups.
13. Repeat 5, 8-12.

If you want to be successful, you’re going to need to focus on step 13. In other words, constantly create new content and reach out to the community online. If you’re content is great, you will get results eventually. Just remember, you should try to wait as long as possible to monetize your brand. Once you monetize, Vaynerchuk suggests that it is difficult to focus on content, so early on you should focus on building the community.

Notable quotes from this chapter:

• “Don’t forget to include a list of all of your social network links on your e-mail signature, letterhead, and business cards.”
• “Make sure you have a big fat button on your site that says “Want to Do Business with Me?” or something along those lines.”

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.”