A Blog About Digital Marketing…

We write about what we do. Digital marketing ideas that are approachable, through the lens of our work; that’s what you’ll find in our posts.

Stay in Touch

Receive Our Email Newsletter

  • Basecamp project management and collaboration
  • Protect your brand or identity on 120 social media sites

    • Archive for April, 2010

    5 Ways To Make Your Marketing Manager A Publisher

    Monday, April 26th, 2010
    No Gravatar

    If I were a small business owner, here’s what I’d do with my marketing department:  Make them publishers.

    This isn’t news to anyone who’s been looking at news from the digital marketing world.  Social media marketing, content marketing, and digital marketing are increasingly losing their definition and melting together.  The heat that’s melting them, to keep the metaphor going, is publishing.

    So what does that mean to small business marketers? It means you’ve got to get yourself some content (preferably with some heavy content strategy on the front end).

    Here are five tactics to do exactly that…

    Create an editorial calendar If you’re using project management software, you should have one of these at your fingertips.  You should have one even if you’re not using any PM software (google calendar, anyone?).  Get organized from a publishing standpoint, and your efforts will be much more effective.  Never write a “sorry we haven’t blogged in a while” post again.

    Don’t Stop At Text Photos and videos, like publishing itself, has become so completely accessible that there are really no excuses not to start.  Just like your text, you need a schedule to produce graphic content.  A picture is worth some specific number of words.  Video even more.  You don’t have to be viral.  You do have to be consistent.

    Put Social Media First Never think that social media is a fad.  It’s not.  Invest in it.  The tools of social media will change, but the premise won’t.  So from now on, you can’t broadcast your message to everyone online (you never could, although most websites were written and designed that way).  Not possible, unless your plan is to out-amazon Amazon.  So drill down and connect with the people that you’re interested in.  And remember this: if you’re not having a conversation with them, you’re spamming them.

    Read Your Analytics Numbers are scary to me.  I’m a writer.  An English major, even.  But that doesn’t mean you should be (afraid of numbers, that is, not an English major, though there’s an argument for not being one of those either).  Read those reports.  How else are you going to understand what content works and what doesn’t?  I’ve even gotten better myself.  Publishers know the numbers.

    Own It By that, I mean put an emotional investment into your content.  Don’t just publish because you have to.  These tools, this framework, allows you to do what direct mail, what your brochure, never could.  The connections are there to make, if you want to.  If you publish content that’s personal, not just your mission statement or your sale.  That requires your marketing to break away from traditional thinking.

    It requires you to become a publisher.

    Tags: , , , , , ,
    Posted in Digital Marketing | No Comments »

    Quiet, Please

    Tuesday, April 20th, 2010
    No Gravatar

    I used to have a bad, bad problem with putting my foot in my mouth.

    I mean really bad.  I’ve asked fat women if they’re pregnant, inquired about the status of dead spouses, and mocked the developmentally disabled for being drunk.

    And I’m a nice guy.  I genuinely meant no ill will.  But due to circumstances that I wasn’t able to perceive, I was left looking like, for want of a better term, a total jackass.

    Check that.  There is no better term for want of.

    But, just so people understand, I’m not malicious, or stupid.  It’s just that, when your foot goes into your mouth, you look both malicious and stupid.

    Now imagine reliving that one embarrassing moment when your toes pass your teeth and your foot lodges ankle deep in your primary speaking orifice forever, with thousands of people watching.  They share your horrible experience as an example to others on behavior and ettiquite.  Did I mention that this moment lives on forever?

    Oh.  Yes I did.  Twice.  In italics.

    So here’s a tip that my social inept brain learned to send my social media brain: be quiet.

    Quiet solves so many problems, it’s amazing there isn’t more empty space on the internet.  But that’s a question for another post.

    The gist here is that, just because you have a cursor, it doesn’t mean you have to curse.  Er, speak.  There are some rules of thumb to remember in social media concerning the sound of silence…

    No One Looks Good In A Fight On The Internet Notice how movie villains always have the polite lines in the evil scenes?  There’s a reason for that.  The context around what they’re saying makes them darker.  Thing is, the internet rids speech of context.  There’s no inflection, and there isn’t enough text in social media to give context to speech (It’s why people use emoticons, BTW). That’s why, when arguments happen on the internet, it’s so easy for others to ridicule.  Avoid arguing online.

    The Internet Is A Great Place To Have An Opinion And it’s a terrible place to tell someone that they’re wrong.  Part of it, again, is context.  The other part of it is space.  People have social media space, just as they have personal space.  You wouldn’t get all up in someone’s grill, as the common parlance has it.  So don’t do it online.

    Better To Remain Quiet And Be Thought A Jackass than to start typing and remove all doubt.  It’s an old saying right?  Well, how do you think sayings get old?  They’re true.  And online, it goes back to that whole forever thing.  If you say something inappropriate, it eventually gets forgotten (usually. certain restrictions apply).  But if you post something inappropriate, it’s out there for as long as you’re online.  Longer.

    The echo chamber of the internet sounds the loudest when it says this one word:  Listen.

    Tags: , , , ,
    Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

    How Do You Make The Switch?

    Friday, April 16th, 2010
    No Gravatar

    A small business that I know pretty well made a big mistake last week.

    Here’s what they did:  they hired a person to do their social media marketing.

    Not a mistake on its face, right?  Right.  Having someone in a full time position to manage social media at this point should be obvious.  And if it’s not, you’re reading the wrong blogs.

    It’s so obvious, in fact, that for most small businesses, the marketing department and the social media manager should be the same person.  The ubiquity (one of my favorite words, and a good name for a band BTW) of social media is such that to separate it from the rest of your marketing strategy is, well, dumb.

    Back to our business at hand:  they hired a person to manage their social media marketing.  Nice.  Good job, small business that I know pretty well.  Way to go.

    Until I found out why they hired her.  She’s gen Y.  That’s it.  No experience other than having gone through high school with an ever-present facebook chat window open and an unlimited texting plan.

    How bad a decision is this?  Catastrophic.  It’s like hiring your high school newspaper editor to design all of your print ads (no offense to the high school newspaper editors, current or former, but c’mon- that piece you did on how the fruit cup didn’t contain cherries last week wasn’t exactly the NYT).

    Or hiring someone to run your shoe store because they’re bipedal.  The point is that an internet age does not an internet marketer make.

    Here’s how to switch:

    -Embrace Social Realize that marketing socially is better than marketing traditionally.  For small businesses, this is an absolute open-and-shut case.  Over the long term, the ROI is better, the research is better, the metrics are better.  At its core, it’s a better model for your business, because small businesses are about connections, and so is social media.

    -Get Familiar Do some research on the space before you make any decisions.  It’s said that the internet is an echo chamber, so maybe it’s ironic that the loudest echo is this: listen.  Listen to what marketers are saying about the direction that social media is taking.  Get familiar with the strategies and tactics.  Once you understand a bit about how the gears turn, you can make decisions based on information vs. what’s all this hubub about the Twitter.

    -Be True To Yourself Just because marketing is going digital doesn’t mean you have to all of a sudden become a geek.  Your company has a personality.  Lucky for us, that’s social media marketing’s strong suit.  Copywriting isn’t dead, but it’s looking a whole lot more like the text you sent your sales team.  Transparency is a bitch for most older businesses, especially the levels of transparency needed for good social media marketing.  Anyone that tells you any different isn’t looking hard enough.

    -Continuing Ed The big problem with most small businesses is that they’re static.  Marketing may get a new look each season, but the tactics are exactly the same.  Social media marketing is different.  It’s a space that changes fast, and your HPIC (Head Poster In Charge) should be changing with it.  And so should you.  The cool part is that, digitally, this can happen with amazing ease and grace if you let it.  It’s a matter of recognizing change and preparing for it, not just reacting to it.

    Put another way:  Everyone is aware of social media.  Not many people understand it.

    When you make the switch, be positive that you’re on the right side of that fence.

    Tags: , , , ,
    Posted in Digital Marketing | No Comments »

    4 Ways Web Writing Is Like Dog Training

    Thursday, April 15th, 2010
    No Gravatar

    I know the internet is run by cats and all, but I’m a dog lover.

    I’m just naturally that way.  Maybe it’s from when my brother’s cat did a 90 MPH run over the couch on my face.  Or when my wife’s cat pooped in my Christmas present.

    I can’t make something like that up.

    And I’m a big enough person to admit that it’s me, not you, cats.  As a species, you can’t be be trained, mostly, and you’re just too demanding of me, wanting me to hold my legs still so you can rub against them.  What’s up with that?

    Maybe that’s why I’m a web writer (stay with me).  Writing for the web is a lot like training a dog.

    Here’s what I mean…

    -It’s Going To Be Messy At First Take a look back at my earliest posts.  I’ve always been a writer, but I most definitely have not always been a web writer.   “Text is messy as hell,” says content strategist Christina Halvorson.  Maybe she was talking about new web writers.  You never know.

    -For Best Results, Use Comfortable Surroundings I can’t say that I started off liking my text editor, or even wordpress.  I’m a Pages guy (insert Mac fanboy crack here).  It took a while for me to get used to working, not just writing, in different formats.  But now that I have, I can stare at a black page in pretty much any format and chew it up (get it?  With the whole metaphor and everything?)

    -Repetition, Repetition, and Something Else To be a writer, you’ve got to write.  Don’t ever create a blog post that says, “Sorry for not posting in so long.”  If you do, then the terrorists win.  And in this case, when I say terrorists, I mean cats.

    -Lots Of Treats, All The Time Writers need praise way more than they need criticism.  And that’s going to come from yourself, not the masses. Sorry to break it to you that way. Don’t beat yourself up as a web writer.  It’s just not worth it.  Know how many blogs there are?  14 million or so.  If your voice is important at all, it needs to be important to you.  So don’t go hitting yourself on the nose with a rolled up newspaper (remember those?).  You’d look dumb.

    I’m brilliant for even coming up with this metaphor.  My dog is 14, and isn’t trained at all.  But he does everything I ask him to.  I guess he’s pretty much trained himself.

    Like most web writers.

    Tags: , , , , ,
    Posted in Content Creation | No Comments »

    How To Write Like James Dean’s Face

    Thursday, April 8th, 2010
    No Gravatar

    James Dean was a man of few words, and it showed.  When he made a point (“You’re tearing me apart!”), you knew it.  No questions.

    If you know what your point is, here’s what you should do:

    Put it at the top.  First.  Up front.

    In practice, it’s tougher than it sounds.  Most people (and too many marketers are included in this group) aren’t comfortable writing or designing this way.  There has to be some pre-get-to-the-point staging for them.

    This is especially true when given a canvas such as the web and a palette like web design. So many options.  Businesses get tempted to throw everything up on a screen to see what sticks.

    Everything is a terrible option.  When you choose everything, what you neglect is focus.  Instead of having a point, you have a blob.  If your blob is big enough, yes, you can take over the world with it.  Just like in the movies.

    You’re not the blob.  You’re not trying to take over the world.  Your business can’t use that method, so you have to focus.

    But isn’t that a brilliant paradox?  The more you try to say, the less effective you are at saying it.  It’s an old adage, but sometimes it just hits you over the head.

    Those are the times you should listen.

    James Dean said more in the back of a convertible with a cowboy hat pushed down over his face than most people will say in a lifetime.

    Less is more.  Choose your words carefully.

    Tags: , , , , ,
    Posted in Copywriting | No Comments »

    It’s Basic Diction, Y’all

    Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
    No Gravatar

    That’s right.  I used “y’all”.  And I’m not stupid for doing it.

    English doesn’t have a good non-gender specific objective plural pronoun.  Really.  Seems like that’s something we wouldn’t have forgotten to include over the years.  But there it is.

    Plus, I’m from the south, so I get to pick and choose at will when I can use the word.  It’s a thing we have- ask around.

    A lot of people might write me off as soon as they see the word “y’all”.  There are attitudes and stigmas and predispositions associated with it that no amount of persuasion can help.

    But I use it anyway.  Sometimes.  If the situation is right.  Call it artistic license.  (And the same thing goes for grammar.  Double.)

    Correct word choice depends on more factors than calculus.  Audience.  Style.  Tone.  Structure.  They all play a part in what words you use, and also whether you decide to go out there and dangle your participle for the whole world to see.  Embrace it.

    Because word police are cold, sad people whose mamas didn’t love them.

    But they’re not entirely wrong.  There’s a difference between the diction mistakes a writer makes intentionally and, well, all the other mistakes a writer makes.

    So, like I said, I’m not stupid for using “y’all”.  But I would be if I didn’t realize what goes into choosing the word.  If I wrote an article for the WSJ that used “Y’all” without the quotation marks, the editor’s head would explode, Scanners-style.  But if I included it in a column in the AJC, the Atlanta paper, I’m one of the family.

    Same thing goes with your blog.  Your word choice calls to the audience you’re looking for.  Blogs are informal by nature.  Put your sales writing in one at your own peril.  Choose your words.

    But choose them carefully.  If your diction is screwed, so are you.  Don’t say “It is readily apparent” when you should use “See?”

    (Same goes with grammar, BTW.)

    You can have the best design in the world, but if your words are all wrong, your site will suck.

    Correction:  Y’all’s site will suck.

    Tags: , , , ,
    Posted in Content Creation | 1 Comment »

    No Headfirst Diving Allowed

    Friday, April 2nd, 2010
    No Gravatar

    If I’m a small business, I want to know about digital marketing.

    Here’s why:

    • It’s cost effective.  Most tools used for digital marketing are free or very inexpensive.
    • I can cater to my niche.  The internet is a place best served by very specific content.
    • It’s growing.  Most of my customers are already there.
    • I can create things quickly.  Establishing a brand is a lot easier than it was in print.
    • I can listen.  The Fortune 500 pays millions for market research that I can get just by tuning in.
    • I can measure everything.  That way, I know what to change without shooting in the dark.

    And on and on.  There are countless reasons to care about digital marketing.

    The one thing that I don’t want to do, if I’m a small business, is start a digital marketing campaign without learning about it.

    Here’s why:

    • It’s cost effective.  I can hire my nephew to do it.  He knows about computers.
    • I can cater to my niche.  If I only knew what that was.
    • It’s growing.  I better get in there quick and DO something.
    • I can create things quickly.  I don’t have time for a brand strategy.
    • I can listen.  As soon as I hear someone talking about my vertical, I tell them about my sale.
    • I can measure everything.  When I find out that direct sales aren’t taking off, I can write off digital marketing as a fad.

    Tags: , , , ,
    Posted in Digital Marketing | 1 Comment »