Conversational Media Marketing

• Decker Marketing: A Free Web 2.0 Tool For Every Need
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• Study Shows Blogging Now 'Mainstream' Among Women - Advertising Age - Digital
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• The Many Challenges of Corporate Blogging
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• How to Effectively Buy Into Facebook - ClickZ
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• When User-Generated Content Goes Bad - ReadWriteWeb
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• Bizzuka Partners with National Jeweler and Stuller to Create Jeweler Web Sites
  Announcement about a new partnership between National Jeweler, Stuller and Bizzuka to produce ecommerce Web sites for independent jewelry retailers.
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• Social Networks' Sway May Be Underestimated - washingtonpost.com
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• New Report Shows Social Media Growing Worldwide | VisInsights
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• Buzz Marketing for Technology: Personality Not Included – a podcast with Rohit Bhargava
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• Email Insider » Blog Archive » Inbox Evolution May Force Facebook To Change Its Business Cards
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• Internet Evolution - Editor's Blog - Suffering From Social Networking Anxiety Disorder (SNAD)
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Imagine, for a moment, a world without the Geico gecko or the Mac vs. Microsoft guys. A world where advertising no longer exists, at least not as we now know it. Can you? Neither can I, but a post from Mediapost blogger Dave Morgan got me thinking about it.

"Is the age of the brand slogan and advertising ending, about to be displaced by the 'age of authenticity' and conversational marketing?," Morgan asks.

Morgan, himself, suggests that notion is extreme and I have to agree. Yet, in an age of conversational media and the fact that most people trust "other people like me," branding as we've typically conceived it has changed.

The strength of a brand is now commensurate with the amount of conversation about it. As Morgan puts it, "[B]rands now live and die by how they perform for their customers, because the Internet permits those customers service stories to be amplified and shared. The power of those experiences is already starting to eclipse anything that marketers can do with advertising."

To that I reply, "Yippee!"

How many times has this happened? You compose a blog post, usually in a hurry, then hit the submit button, only to read it later and wonder how in the heck you missed what is a glaring error. I am the world's worst.

Years ago, a veteran magazine editor gave me this advice, "Never edit your own stuff." It's advice which, when possible, I've taken to heart. The only problem is, how many of us are in a position to have another person, preferably an editor, proof our copy? Most aren't, for sure.

In lieu of that, here are some blog copywriting tips I've picked up along the way that can almost guarantee what I intended to say is what I actually said.

Firefox is going for a Guinness World Record for the most downloads of their upcoming Firefox 3 browser within a 24 hour period, a campaign they're calling Download Day 2008.

While I'm not sure exactly when that is (there doesn't seem to be a date certain listed on the site; correct me if I'm wrong), I think the idea qualifies as great word of mouth marketing for a number of reasons.

• Bizzuka Enters "Blogosphere" with New Blog Component
  Web content management software provider offers state of the art blogging capability, benefits of which include increased customer satisfaction and search engine optimization
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• Guest Comment: Ads versus the customer voice- who wins? — Digital marketing news | Digital marketing events at Netimperative
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• The Five Best Pro Blogger Job Boards
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The more I think about the use of blogs and email together as complimentary marketing tactics - a topic I've discussed - the more I'm convinced they are truly a marketing power duo.

Email is without peer as a tried-and-true marketing technique. Blogs have entered mainstream awareness to the degree they are no longer considered tangential. It's becoming commonplace to see a blog associated with a company's Web site. Since both are content-centric, they pair very well. (I call them a digital "peanut butter and jelly sandwich.")

That's why I feel strongly that some company should create an integrated blog/email marketing platform, and I know just the company to do it too, Compendium Blogware.

Bizzuka, the company I serve as marketing director, recently rolled out its own blog component, part of its more comprehensive web content management system. Big whoop you say. In the world of all things blog, it probably isn't, but to us it's a big deal.

The platform doesn't pretend to offer the same level of functionality as WordPress or Movable Type. That was not its intended purpose. Rather, it's designed to be a light-weight, but highly useful blog that's completely integrated into our CMS.

(First, sorry for the latency in posting. We had a death in the family, then going crazy trying to catch up at work. First one thing, then another.)

For a time it was fashionable to "dis" email as a marketing tool. With the advent of blogs, RSS and social networks like Facebook and Twitter there were those who foresaw its demise. Well, somebody better inform online marketers because, according to eMarketer and others, email is far from dead! In fact, it appears to have a very bright future.
 

I have long been an advocate of using blogs and email as complementary online marketing strategies. Blogs serve a customer acquisition function, while email serves a customer retention role. That belief was recently reinforced when I attended a webinar jointly sponsored by a new company, Compendium Blogware, and well-known email reputation service provider, Habeas.