For years now we’ve been suggesting to clients that their tagline should be two to four words long … not one, and avoid five or more. While watching the Patriots beat the Giants last night (GO PATS!) we were treated with three relatively new two-word corporate taglines:
Fabulously brand oriented, not product/service specific and oozing with nuance and meaning. All I can say is “I’m Lovin’ It.”
A long-standing rule of search engine friendliness is web site owners need to create inbound links … links from other sites pointing to your site…. Ten-ish years ago, when Google started the shift away from code to content (including inbound links) as the preferred way of determining ‘relevance’, the world changed…. Immediately, businesses owners started scrambling, and begging, for every link they could get…. Thank goodness things have changed!… This doesn’t, however, mean that inbound links are no longer important…. In many ways they’re more important than ever before.
How then, does one go about getting those precious nuggets of hypertext anchor tagging?… Here are a few strategies;
Any good car salesman will recite the old adage, “plan your work and work your plan.” This especially holds true for your inbound link strategy.
In a post titled “Your Ad is Not For You“, Seth writes:
“… stop advertising to yourself. You’re already sold. You’re not the target market.“
I would also suggest that this applies to; marketing, brand development, logo design, tagline writing AND specific campaigns/initiatives withing advertising, marketing and branding.
Very seldom is a business owner their own target market, yet it’s an all too common story in the agency businesses to hear, “… let’s change that, I don’t like it…. It doesn’t really fit me.”
Instead of zeroing in on what moves you, shift your paradigm and put yourself into the shoes of your ideal target audience…. Better yet, go out and actually ask them questions that will help focus your ad, marketing and brand efforts!
Rewind to when you were first invited by a friend to attend your first birthday party … probably at the age of 4 to 6-ish…. This was the time when friendship (outside of your immediate family) had real meaning…. The nervousness you felt at that time was because you didn’t know what to expect. You didn’t know the rules of the game. You were, rightfully so, afraid of making some kind of mistake.
This defense mechanism you had back then was VERY good for you…. The problem is, as adults, we’ve lost some of this sense of caution with new social settings…. Many business people are (poorly) assuming that the world of Social Media is just another business marketing forum…. Sadly, they’re not unlike the kid who blows out the candles, instead of the birthday-boy, and sprays spit on the cake. This kid is going to be a social pariah for a lonnnnng time.
How do avoid this fate in the new world of Social Media and Social Networking? — other than NOT spitting on the cake?
Here are some tips:
Let’s return to our birthday party metaphor to give you my perspective;
These nightmare scenarios actually happen daily on the web as business people are stumbling into the world of Social Networking. They’re making these social faux pas by not knowing the rules and by assuming it’s just a new marketing medium…. It’s not.
My advice to you: Take me up on my personal invitation to the Social Networking party … everyone is having fun!!! However, until you feel comfortable with the rules of the game, don’t make a fool of yourself. Don’t stand on the tables and keep the lampshade off of your head!
We have all received customer service that’s soooo poor we were compelled to lodge a formal complaint. The next, not so shocking step, is to endure the employees rote, canned, emotion-less reply that there’s nothing in their power to do anything about it…. Their inability to provide service is compounded by the fact that they really don’t even care…. Worse yet, they’re not even willing to take the time to query what would make the situation “right.”… (heavy sigh)
A glimmer of hope shines through every now and again, however…. A. Hildebrandt recounts, on The Consumerist Blog, what starts as a tongue-in-cheek letter disguised as a customer service complaint to Amazon.com about their recent “Amazon’s Customer’s Vote” competition…. The post is long but WELL worth the read. Ms. Walker, in charge of Executive Customer Relations replied on behalf of Jeff Bezos…. Her reply, indeed, took thoughtfulness and (here’s the important part) TIME…. Time demonstrated that she cares … and time enough spent to demonstrate she has a sense of humor … and time enough to show she know’s what it takes to deliver exemplary customer service.
Bravo! Ms. Walker. Bravo!
According to John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing fame, it’s going to be 2008 (read his full post here)…. Considering all that has happened in the past 6 months, I can’t disagree with that assessment one iota…. Consider; in the last month Acorn Creative has completed a social network for the Real Estate Investment industry (launching next week) … AND are well under way with a social network for the equestrian world … AND have had discussions about social networks for at least four other highly niched industries.
In each of these cases, the founders of the ventures were forward thinking, aggressive, entrepreneurial types who recognize the power and direction of social media…. Well ahead of the masses in their respective industries…. What will be interesting is watching the marketing efforts behind each venture and see how each network will educate the masses in an attempt to quickly gain adoption…. The first, fastest and best network in each niche will face this same challenge … and, IF they are successful, they’ll maintain their front runner status with all other followers scrambling to catch up.
2008 is indeed going to be an interesting year.
If you’re going to take on the ENORMOUS burden of developing, and then managing, a new Social Network, certainly one of the dilemmas you’ll face is how to monetize the venture. No cash .. No community. As a case in point, we’re about ready to launch a new Social Network for Real Estate Investors ourself (six months in the making) and an insane number of hours, just recently, have been spent on decisions revolving around this very topic.
There is a tactic that MAY be tempting but should be avoided at ALL COSTS. It’s the ol’ “bait and switch”.
Imagine signing up for a new social network and within just a few days you’re notified by the site administrator that you’ve had three visits to your page - with a convenient link to go to your home page. Cool! Now, imagine your chagrin when you click through to interact with these three new ‘friends’ to find that the link provided by the site administrator leads you first to a page that asks you if you want to upgrade to a paid account … NOT your home page. YIKES! THEN when you do get to your home page, one of the three visitors was the site administrator pitching the exact same upgrade!
This is exactly what happened to me yesterday with the Naymz network. I liken this to me driving home with the sole purpose of visiting a friend and encountering a roadblock from a sleazy sales person. After stopping my car to kindly saying no to this person and continuing on my merry way, I find that he’s pitching me again in my living room! WTF! Imagine what you’d want to do to this person in the ‘real world.’
As my Texan brother would say, boy-howdy does it make me wonder what other sales tactics might be coming my way. Had the offer been displayed in a side bar or even a pop-up (eww), I wouldn’t be nearly as upset. Take a look at the screen shots to see what I mean. Now granted it’s jussssst one little click (and I’m sure that’s what they told themselves to justify this decision) … but they’ve lost an enormous amount of my trust and even drove me to write this post.
[Refer to yesterday's post on trust to read about my view on the importance of that topic.]
Venture capitalists seem to be having a difficult time absorbing the concept of what social networking is really all about. In this post from Venture Beat, we find that Silicon Valley heavy hitters Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins have created fake MySpace pages. This act, in and of itself, is not a problem. What’s disconcerting is the list of tactics and commentary from the article:
The game has changed and if VCs (or any other industry, for that matter) is going to jump into the game of social networking, they have to learn the rules. Here are some tips:
Instead of joining other social networks using a corporate profile as your only social strategy, it would be better to create your own social network with the highly focused purpose of HELPING budding entrepreneurs.
If an infrequent member slams you online, don’t go into spin-mode. Instead, be fully forthcoming and honest about the situation and demonstrate that you’re a company comprised of human beings. Case in point, look at what Robert Scoble was able to do (via blogging), almost single-handedly, for the sullied reputation of Microsoft. Unlike sites like The Funded, whose purpose is to help entrepreneurs rate VC firms (throwing you into a defensive posture), this new network that you create would be designed to help entrepreneurs in a myriad number of ways; education, operational assistance, peer networking, mentorship, collaboration, etc.
To emphasize the importance of helping the customer, another great example is what Progressive Car Insurance has done with real-time quotes of their own packages, as well as their competitors. By being transparent and honest, they’ve been able to build a high level of trust with the general public. Even though they sometimes don’t have the lowest rates, consumers will still sign up for their services because of this new level of trust and honesety. Where trust is NOT something you can buy, it has almost infinite value from a marketing perspective.
So, go ahead … DIVE into the world of social networking, but be real … be honest … be human.
“On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.”
…€” David Ogilvy, Confessions of an Advertising Man
