Conversational Media Marketing

If you are at all interested in social media marketing, especially as it relates to branding, there is a blogger you should be reading, Leili McKinley.

Which is true?

Consumers trust company blogs less than any other channel.

or

Blogs have long had an avid following, but corporations are finding that blogs can be a secret sauce to building solid relationships with their customers.

Depends on who you ask, Forrester or eMarketer.

The first statement comes from a hotly-contested Forrester survey on corporate blogging. The other from an eMarketer article which based its conclusion on studies done by BuzzLogic and Jupiter Research.

The Forrester survey goes on to say that, "Not only do blogs rank below newspapers and portals, they rank below wikis, direct mail, company email, and message board posts" and "only 16% of online consumers who read corporate blogs say they trust them."

Conversely, eMarketer states "[B]logs have more impact on purchasing decisions than social networks. One-quarter of readers said they trust ads on a blog, as opposed to 19% who trust ads on social networks."

Yesterday, I read that December marks five years that Top Rank Marketing's Lee Odden has been at the business of blogging. (Congrats Lee!)

That post jogged my memory and caused me to realize that this month marks my fifth year as well. I started in December 2003 using a Typepad blog for the Internet marketing consultancy I owned at the time, Radiant Marketing Group.

Blogging has not only been a game-changer for me, but a life-changer as well. It's led to a career in Internet marketing, blog and social media consulting, a book (and another to be published in 2009) and the opportunity to serve as president of IBNMA.

More importantly, it's led to the development of a network of friends and connections that literally spans the globe. For a country boy who grew up at Rural Route 1, Hickory, Mississippi, that ain't too bad. Not bad at all.

Unlike Lee and many other veteran bloggers from the class of 2003 and 2004, my blogging path has been a bit eclectic (shall we say even "schizophrenic") While Lee, Toby Bloomberg, Yvonne DiVita, Denise Wakeman, Wayne Hurlbert and many others have "plowed the same field" on one blog for years, I've had the privilege to ply my trade at quite a number:

• Radiant Marketing Group (no longer live)
• Weblogs Inc
• Creative Weblogging
• Allbusiness.com
• Blogging Systems (now Respond Media)
• Active Rain
• Strategic Business Blogging (no longer live)
• Bizzuka
• MarketingProfs Daily Fix
• and this blog, Conversational Media Marketing

IOWs, just about everyone but b5media. Like I said, a bit schizo! :-) (Chalk it up to a short attention span.)

If I had more time today, I'd create a list of favorite posts, events, etc. Unfortunately, my day job won't allow and, besides, we're about to close shop for the day and my wife and I are headed to celebrate the holiday with relatives.

To my fellow veteran business bloggers who have persevered over the years, here's to you. May blogging be very good to us in 2009 and bring us all continued business and personal success.

If you've yet to read Joe Pulizzi's you should because it contains some eye-opening predictions from leading marketing professionals.

While, as you might expect, there is a wide range and divergence of opinion, some themes emerge.

1. Advertising will gradually be replaced by information.
2. Content and conversational marketing strategies will converge.
3. Social media marketing will continue to gain acceptance

Let's take these one at a time.

"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus," said Francis Church, and I know of at least two of his elves: Frances Flynn Thorsen, Community Manager at Trulia, Lee Odden, CEO of Top Rank Online Marketing.and the Blog Squad's .

Fran surprised me (pleasantly) by inclusion as one of the Top Ten Real Estate Speakers of 2009 which, considering that I'm not a Realtor, is a pretty phenomenal thing if you think about it. I join the likes of Bernice Ross, Ilyce Glink and Jeff Turner. It's an esteemed group to be sure.

Here is Fran's rationale...

A second present, one received by not only myself, but Bizzuka CEO John Munsell, is inclusion by Top Rank Marketing's Lee Odden on a list called Best Podcasts on Social Media for Bizzuka's User Friendly Thinking Radio show which airs every Friday at noon central on Blog Talk Radio. (BTW, though I'd never come right out and ask you to do it, there is the option to vote for your favorite, uh-hum.)

Last but not least, Denise nominated me for a Shorty Award. (And I think she meant the one for micro-content, not actual height. Considering I'm only 5'8" and that's on a good day, I suppose it's reasonable to think she could have meant it either way. :->)

Though there's a good likelyhood I'll see coal in my stocking come Christmas morning, these are serendipities I didn't expect. On that other hand, maybe I've been better this year than I thought. If that's not the case, don't tell Fran, Lee or Denise please.

A recent post by my good friend *John Jantsch asserts that "social media is a tool, it's not a religion, there are no real rules and we are experimenting every day."

At "Bizzuka Labs," we're creating a new social media marketing brand called User Friendly Thinking. While still in the process of clarifying the brand message, essentially it's a place where "technology and creativity intersect."

We refer to User Friendly Thinking as a "social media" brand, mainly because that's the channel through which it's being deployed.

Currently we offer:

UserFriendlyThinking.com
We're "eating our own dogfood" and have built a multi-blog, multi-author site using our own blog component, which is part of our overall CMS. While it's a work in progress, and certainly not on par with WordPress, Movable Type or WordFrame, we're rather proud of it. For the time being, contributors are members of the Bizzuka staff. We plan to invite outside contributors in the not-too-distant future.

User Friendly Thinking Radio
Every Friday at noon central we interview social media movers-and-shakers. Past guests have included Jason Falls, Ben McConnell, Anita Campbell, Charlene Li, Mack Collier, Toby Bloomberg as well as an assortment of Web designers, developers and our own staff.  The show is beginning to catch on too. Last week's episode with Mack was one In the near future our guest will include Wayne Hurlbert, John Jantsch and Michelle Miller among others.


This was a group started by our SVP of Global Sales and Business Development, Charles Lauller. Currently, it numbers some 167 members and growing everyday. We are getting our share of spammers though and figuring out ways to deal with it. We'd like to invite you to join if you're interested.

Plans for the future include a Twitter handle, video channel, Facebook group and online community.

The endgame here is to use UFT as a social media and content marketing "magnet" to introduce Bizzuka to a wider audience, but do so by focusing on the topics of Web design, development, content management and marketing rather than on Bizzuka itself.

As you can see from the UFT site, references to Bizzuka are minimal and non-invasive. We plan to keep it that way. It's "marketing by participation" that will drive the brand, not "hey, over here, look at us!!!!" forms of interruption.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this idea along with any advice you'd care to share. It's an experiment and we can use all the input we can get. Do you think we're on the right track? What suggestions would you have for future development?

BrightTALK's Conversational Marketing Summit is still going on and there are very recognizable personalities in the presentation queue: Anil Dash of SixApart and Marcel LeBrun, CEO of Radian6 among them.

My presentation, Conversations Create Customers, went well I think. At least those who left ratings seemed to think so. Whoo-hoo!!

You can listen to the archived version by clicking here.

Back in June, I was interviewed by MarketingSherpa reporter Natalie Myers for a report she was writing dealing with real estate online marketing strategies.  The report is now available as the second of two-parts: Online Strategies from Real Estate Marketers – Try Blogs, SEO, Social Media

I regard MarketingSherpa with the same esteem as MarketingProfs. For years, CEO Anne Holland and her crew have been creating high-quality content to benefit marketing professionals and I'm honored to have the privilege of participating in this report.

Last week I, along with Bizzuka CEO John Munsell and SVP of Sales Charles Lauller attended the New Marketing Summit up in "Bahston." Bizzuka was a sponsor and exhibitor.

The experience brought with it a number of key takeaways, but the one that sticks with me the most is the impression I get that "new" marketing (i.e., social media marketing) is "becoming mainstreamed."

Note, I did not say "has become mainstream" or even "becoming mainstream." Social media marketing tactics and tools are coming into more popular use to be sure, but I think full integration is still at least a couple of years away if not longer.

For example, when you consider that only 15 percent of Fortune 500 companies incorporate blogs into their marketing/PR mix, that's telling.

That's in spite of the eMarketer article which, based on report, suggested that " the lines between blogging and the mainstream media have disappeared." (You should read Read Write Web's assessment, which outlines in detail why blogging is yet to be mainstream.)

What I learned from the New Marketing Summit is that social media is coming alongside other, more traditional marketing channels to serve as an adjunct, not a replacement.

I believe the summit was designed to not only generate awareness of the need for and benefits of using social media, but to help formulate an understanding of how it fits into the overall marketing mix. And speaking of mix, MarketingProfs Digital Marketing Mixer, being held later this week in Scottsdale, will likely echo that same refrain.

Bottom line: The evolution taking place in the marketing world is not that new media is strictly a disruptive force, but that it is maturing to the point of becoming both accepted and expected. As I said, "becoming mainstreamed."

What's your assessment? Do you agree?