Digital Marketing Anti-Predictions: What I Hope Goes Away in 2009 - Jory DesJardins - MediaBizBlogger

This week I decided to spare everyone a 2009 Predictions column after reading the scores that have already been written by very smart people and when I realized that my predictions were more wishes for an improved economy than informed guessesAs a former quottraditionalquot media gal who discontinued most of her print subscriptions in 2005 then found herself clawing back to the Sunday Times in 3908 I couldn39t write my first piece of the year without acknowledging how the inexorable shift in content consumption still hasn39t changed our desire for real world experiences Why should Facebook change that But some of us have taken this push technology to the point of well pushiness It made me think that this week we might all be better served by looking at what didn39t work in 2008 Trends that I39d rather not see perpetuated in 2009Last year we saw some reactive tactics that spread among brands like bad rumors at MacWorld that have to abate if we are to extract the full value of social media Here is what I predict we will see less of in 20091 Use of social media tools for no other reason than because they existWe39ll be more strategic with Facebook and stop inviting everybody to our various projects We39ll realize that having 500000 weirdos er Friends on our product39s MySpace page isn39t necessarily building brand cache We39ll read many but only know what a handful of blogs in our RSS feed actually look like We39ll reserve email outreach for people we actually know Relevance will trump popularityConsider what39s possible if you attracted community and kept them there because you provided them with something mission critical and you could build on this bond of value Dell accomplished this in 3908 by building a resource on Facebook that gave more than it received Any visitor could visit Dell39s page and learn how to start a blog for their business learn to track and measure growth even start a Twitter marketing strategy Original content provides links to blogs and other resources not related to DellWith just over 1500 fans the group is not big enough to sway an election but Dell has captured all the right people to help spread the word and even taught them how2 Product blogsCompanies will realize they do not necessarily need their own product blogs but rather they need customer outreach strategies that increase the likelihood their product will show up in Search social shopping sites and bookmarks This is not to say that blogs will be going away They won39t despite recent hoohah suggesting blogs will go the way of the Betamax There is plenty of commentary that backs my own thoughts in favor of blogging suffice it to say the universe has managed to have both Macbeth and Cliff39s Notes and it still runs OKBut if you do insist on creating a site look at WalMart39s model of a community resource for valueseeking moms These unpaid yet highly motivated women bloggers mostly participate for two reasons 1 Because they get to help other moms who are trying to save money and 2 because no one is required to shill WalMart products It39s all about providing real sometimes even competitive solutions And the exposure that comes with being part of one of the most trafficked sites in the US doesn39t hurt the bloggers3 Mistaking Twitter for brand MiracleGro For a day or two Twitter was the bestkept secret of the most digitally progressive marketers How did Sandra get 150 Mombloggers to sample her product She asked in 140 characters But now engagement is harder to come by even with exponentially growing adoption of TwitterYou may have been successful getting bloggers to mention your brand even tout giveaways to their many followers on your behalf But how many times can you go back to the well of willing Twitterers Or better put how many times will followers continue to trust the same suspiciously willing supporters Pay Per Post had to class it up by revising its disclosure policy and renaming itself likewise organizations that pay per Tweet with cash or product will have reputation issuesBrands will use Twitter for deeper engagement in ways that are still rare but happening Companies like Comcast are building this kind of responsiveness into its operational DNA by enabling customer service on Twitter Before Thanksgiving Tyson partnered with San Franciscobased food bloggers in an effort to feed the hungry The blog and Twitter campaign resulted in 200000 pounds of product going out to the neediest San Franciscans4 It39s the ROI stupidWe39ll look at the marketing philosophies we39ve been extollingamp8212giving up control of the conversation and embracing the longtail are examplesamp8212and smack them upside the head with the realities of the business world With our budgets being cut to shreds it39s mighty hard trying to justify a quotshow us how you would run our businessquot campaign on YouTube We39ll look to these philosophies as nice to emulate hard to integrate and start burrowing into the muck of such things as lift data to justify our YouTube channel5 Overreliance on the Wisdom of Crowds This weekend my vacation was dedicated to catching up on my RSS feeds and I stumbled on a Business Week feature asking the community for nominations of Web 20 gamechangers of 2008 Full disclosure At the time my name was not on the list but it was kindly tacked on with my partners39 shortly thereafter This seemed like a nice thing to doamp8212ask the community to nominate leaders But accusations of linkbaiting and laziness on BW39s part by commenters ensuedquotSorry to be a curmudgeonquot wrote nominated marketing guru Seth Godin quotbut I really like BW best when they lead the discussion not referee itquotCustomers will applaud companies that crowdsource but they won39t look highly upon those that lead only by asking This is the year to say Thanks for the suggestions we39ve heard you Based on who we are as a brand we39ve decided to do THIS My prediction OK my wish for 2009 We39ll back away from these engagement quickies that became as popular as microblogging in 2008 and we use these distribution tools to build fansfriendsreaderscustomers in real life for life

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Digital Marketing Anti-Predictions: What I Hope Goes Away in 2009 - Jory DesJardins - MediaBizBlogger

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