Social networking is a prolific tool.  Ya think? It continues to connect us to friends, products, services and information faster than anyone could have ever imagined. While social networking is now a fact of life, it has been been hailed as the holy grail of marketing, or at least one of them.  An interesting byproduct of social networking is the natural emergence of social search.  Yup, social search is just peeking its head, and the implications for businesses, products, and brands could not be more profound.

Your friends tweet, write and update their statuses on various topics. They also read tweets, status updates, blogs and retweets, or share links and other information with their network. And while Google is busy snapping up social search start-ups who include your friends’ content in their search from the broader web, for example if you search for “New York Restaurant” on Google, and your friend has a blog about “New York Restaurants” then your friend’s blog will show up in your search.  Not sure the relevancy or value of this type of search, but like a lion waiting in the bush, I have learned to carefully size up new technologies and their uses, so I am taking a wait and see approach before I go after the game.

Here is another way to look at social search.  Everyone is already doing it, although businesses may or may not be listening. “What’s a hot spot in Barcelona?” one of my facebook friends asked?  Another, “Who know a good Ridgewood area wedding dress tailor?” Yet another, “Can anyone recommend a good pediatric dentist?” And so on…so intra-personal network search is indeed taking something that is alive and well, and with the emergence of sites like FourSquare and facebook Places, social search happens as people eat, shop, and do, yes, as people do.  So how do businesses best leverage this fast moving consumer behavior?  Here are three sure fire ways to get your enterprise going:

1. Understand it’s about integration of your marketing – All of your marketing communications assets must work together, especially the web. Ensure that your web assets speak appropriately to the depth and breadth of your market as well as your products and services.  Note that today, you will need more than a website to compete, in fact if you have a website in the traditional sense, then you have a typewriter.  Your Mar/Com campaigns must engage the tools of the web, including apps, social networking, and location based web services.

2. Your Web Reputation is Your Reputation – So true, so dangerous, so full of opportunity. Understanding what people say about you online, and where they say it is crucial. This is a great opportunity to listen to your market, adjust, and engage.

3. Cultivate Web Brand Ambassadors – There are people who love your brand and who will gladly serve as brand evangelists.  Engage these folks, on and offline to help you grow your business’ influence.

My next post will be on social commerce…stay tuned.

This past Monday I interviewed veteran Journalist, author, and cultural commentator TaRessa Stoval, managing editor of The Defenders Online. We talked about the changing face of the media and the medium and what that means to how we consumer, use, and interact with media.

You can listen to show by clicking here.

Many thanks to TaRessa for being on the show!

Writing a new post on “The New Normal.” Coming at you soon…

As technology continues to grow and the internet becomes a more common platform for business (believe it or not, many businesses still haven’t harnessed the internet), the amount of money spent on online ads has become, as you can imagine, fairly substantial. Although online advertising can be a more efficient way to target certain demographics than traditional media outlets, this does not always lead to greater results. According to a new study from MIT Sloan School of Management, the same search, and other technology, that has enabled advertisers to target particular audiences, such as men between 25 and 35 who work on Mac computers, is also creating greater online competition for the same audience, thus reducing profitability of advertising on any targeted web site.

If you think about it, this all makes all the sense in the world. And it isn’t enough that many online advertisers have only themselves to blame for fragmenting their own markets by hopping from one sexy technology or site to another, but now there is evidence that there is a finite amount of scree-estate available to compete for the attention of the viewer.

MarketingVox data suggest that the study’s findings take on greater relevance as vertical and hyper vertical ad networks continue to grow. Adify’s Vertical Gauge for Q3, brand advertising CPMs for various verticals continue to rebound from early 2009. Also, food CPMs are up 91% from last quarter and Real Estate CPMs are up 17%. As far as vertical brand advertising, both automotive and healthy living and lifestyle verticals contracted substantially.

Clearly this article suggests to advertisers and consumers alike that targeted ad dollars don’t necessarily create more efficacy or revenue, in fact, evidence, in this case, shows more targeted ad dollars are less profitable. It is critical that advertisers note the importance of integrated marketing strategies in their marketing communications campaigns…more to come.

Now you can listen to us on our new web radio show “Hey Marketing Genius!” You can listen by clicking here http://www.blogtalkradio.com/heymarketinggenius

Today’s show discusses branding. Our guest is Erik Kent, President of NJWedding.com.

I am copying and pasting from this morning’s MediaPost because, well, this is well done…Enjoy!

Email Has Leading Role In Multichannel Engagement
by Chad White , Monday, October 26, 2009

Marketers are slowly catching up to their multichannel customers by ramping up usage of multichannel marketing tactics — and email is at the core of many of those efforts.  That’s the key finding of the “Retail Email Guide to Multichannel Engagement,” which Smith-Harmon created in partnership with ExactTarget. We’ll be releasing the guide next week, but here are some of the key points.

According to a study conducted by Forrester Consulting for ExactTarget, 84% of respondents agree that multichannel marketing is more successful than single-channel efforts. Email’s ability to play well with other channels is one of the key reasons that 81% of respondents said email would be as effective or more effective two years from now. Among those respondents believing that email will retain or increase its effectiveness, 58% say email is a key part of their multichannel initiatives, and 37% say that email boosts the ROI of other channels.

But in addition to supporting marketing messages in other channels, email benefits from pulling in content from other channels to boost relevance and subscriber engagement. Seventy-four percent of those respondents believing that email will retain or increase its effectiveness say that the relevance of their emails is increasing; 36% say that including more social features in their emails will make them more effective.

In the retail industry, there are great examples of email being used to drive traffic to and interest in…

Stores, as in this Mar. 11, 2008 Urban Outfitters email, which announces a new store opening.

Social networks, as in this Sept. 23 Dick’s Sporting Goods email, which asks subscribers to follow the company on Twitter.

Mobile sites and apps, as in this Oct. 3 Ralph Lauren email, which includes a promotion for an iPhone app for the company’s latest collection.

Direct mail, as in this June 27, 2008 Norm Thompson email, which asks subscribers to vote for their favorite catalog cover.

Online, as in this Sept. 27 HSN email, which promotes the top-searched items and departments from the company’s Web site.

TV, as in this Dec. 3 Victoria’s Secret email, which tells subscribers when the company’s fashion show is being televised.

As promising as these multichannel efforts are, the survey also revealed several barriers to taking a more multichannel approach to marketing. For instance, 62% of respondents couldn’t measure customer engagement. Also, only 37% of respondents knew which channel their customers prefer to use, and only 27% of respondents could measure whether efforts in one channel boost results in another.

These findings speak volumes about the need for better customer engagement visibility tools and more time spent unlocking channel synergies. What’s clear is that marketers who can best coordinate their channels and play to channel strengths will have a significant advantage over competitors who can’t. We hope the statistics and examples in the “Retail Email Guide to Multichannel Engagement” inspire you to take a leading position.

So it’s been about fouryears since facebook redefined networking (MySpace fans, I do recognize that your site came first, but I’m on a roll here) and since, the world has come to see things just a bit differently. So here are some thoughts on what we have and have not learned about the new world.

1. Rush to fools gold – believe it or not, people still believe that you can get rich through social networking. This is Fools Gold 2.0. Yup, this is reminiscent of what happened with “the internet” about 15 years ago. The fact is, social networking takes time and work…one other thing, it’s not free. The medium may be free, but the work is not.
2. Who you tweeting to? – “I can get someone right out of college to do this stuff,” one of my current clients said to me when I was pitching his firm. “Certainly, you can.” I replied, “But will this person have the strategic background to build your network because if your network is not relevant, then there’s no reason to do this. Oh, and how are you going to keep your network interested in your firm.” Guess what? We got the account and the client is happy
3. Protect Your Brand – We now know that we need to protect our brands, products, and services on social networking sites. So it’s important that we secure these accounts even if we don’t intend to use them.
4. Your Network is Key – Building your relevant network takes time, but once it’s build it will serve you well, but only if you keep your network engaged. Are you measuring network growth? Are you measuring engagement? What are you doing for your network?
5. Social networking is the tip of the iceberg – It’s about integrating all the tools that the web offers and doing it well. Social networking is not a silo, it’s not an activity, and it must be a key part of your overall marketing communications strategy. And if it’s not, you’re probably dropping marketing bombs.

More to come.

1. Engage – People who join your group or fan page want something. Find out what it is and give it to them. Give them coupons, suggestion, offers, new, meetings, rallies, contests…what ever it is, you must keep your network engage or else you risk loosing it…or worse, having a stale network.

2. Aggregate – Social networks allow you to bring people together around your issues, products and services. Once you build your relevant network, you can engage by polling, conducting market research, delivering offers, and so on.

3. Measure Online – Measuring your activities on your social networks. For example, how many people joined your group. How many people are attending your events, how many people saw your event, and how many comments are made.

4. Measure Offline – Use every opportunity to drive your “offline” audience to your online social networks. So if have a quarterly magazine, or conduct monthly direct mail, or advertise in print or television, invite people to join your online network. Now you can measure what’s happening offline and at the same time grow your influence in your social network.

Social networking is no panacea.  But, done right, it can be a slice of heaven, even though it takes hard/smart/inspired work.

I started my career working for legendary stock picker and investor Mario Gabelli. In my brief stint at Gabelli’s Rye, N.Y.-based firm, I learned much that has stuck with me to this day, including the basics of value investing. Value investing is about kicking the tires, doing your research from the ground up, and carefully evaluating a company and its stock based on its intrinsic value… before you pony up one dime for shares.

Value investing also looks at businesses in their totality and, just as importantly, over the long term. No flipping stocks, no short-term trades; value investors are overwhelmingly in it for the long run.

The era of managing quarter to quarter is over. If you’re in business, surely you’re in it for the long term, right? So your business, including your marketing approach, ought to reflect that reality. No one doubts Gabelli’s success, just as we all love to hear from Warren Buffet, the renowned value investor, pontificate about his latest corporate conquest. Both Buffet and Gabelli run their businesses the same way they invest: with an eye on value and for long-term success.What can we learn from these legendary investors about marketing and promotion? Here are four suggestions to include in your marketing plans that will deliver real value for your business:

Kick the Tires: Do your homework on marketing, including media. Not all media are created equal relative to your products, services, customers, and geographic service area. Take time to review all options before investing a medium. And because media companies are recognizing that we are in the age of engagement, many are providing advertisers with more venues to reach customers. They may include websites, networking opportunities, and direct mail, in addition to its core business offers. So do your homework on media and negotiate a good deal.

Avoid Marketing Bombs: Without a marketing plan, you’re dropping marketing bombs and wasting your hard-earned money. Recently, a CEO of a $500-million firm that sells telecommunications equipment said of his marketing: “Yeah, we got that idea, we tried it, and it didn’t work.” When I asked him about the context of that particular tactic within an overall campaign and why it did not work, he replied, “What campaign?” A tactical approach to marketing is far less effective than a strategic one, so invest in and employ market-driven strategy. Then measure your strategy in its entirety; don’t simply examine one tactic, no matter how important.

Know that People Buy From People: Bring your business out of the office. Target trade shows that have a close affinity to your firm. Investing in trade shows goes far beyond having a nice booth. It’s a great chance to network with other businesses, each a potential client. Trade shows allow you to measure yourself against the competition.

In addition, invest in opportunities to make personal connections, such as the simple act of taking potential clients to dinner. It may sound clichéd, but it’s the blocking and tackling that allows you to move down the field with consistency, and not the 60-yard “Hail Mary.” Very often, personal connections win more business than 9-to-5 sales tactics.

Do Good, Do Well: In the 1980s, American Express developed a unique campaign for their customers to help restore the Statue of Liberty. A penny for each use of the American Express card and $1 for each new card were donated to the Statue of Liberty Restoration campaign. In four months, $2 million was raised and, more importantly to American Express, its transaction activity increased by 28 percent. So integrating social causes into your marketing strategy will surely allow you to “do good”—while doing well.

PLAN FOR THE LONG RUN: The above are value-based tactics that should be included in your overall marketing plans. Don’t rely on one approach. Delivering value through marketing is ensuring that you integrate your tactics with business-driven strategy. So, if you agree with me that we’re in a new era of customer engagement, you’ll give your marketing plan a second look. If you don’t have a plan, build one around adding value to your business. And remember, that plan must deliver value to your market not just for now, but for the long run.

Here’s a brief interview with FIOS1 about social networking.