When Consumers Revolt Against Traditional Marketing, What Should You Do?
When little-known, first-term Illinois senator Barack Obama faced Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign, he knew he couldn’t compete with her financially. He couldn’t afford telemarketing and direct mail campaigns or TV and radio advertising.
So instead of playing by the old rules, he made new rules. He started blogging and he created profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
He also hired the co-founder of Facebook, Chris Hughes, to be his Internet strategist. And he won the Democratic presidential nomination even though he spent a lot less money than his opponent.
At the time of the election, Obama had five million fans on Facebook—over four million more than Clinton. On MySpace, the numbers were approximately 800,000 and 200,000, respectively. On Twitter, he had over 100,000 followers and his opponent had about 5,000.
And he did all of that by following the principles of inbound marketing. 
How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy
Canadian grocery store chain Loblaws knew they had a great BBQ sauce based on customer comments. But they didn’t understand why sales were so dismal.
Until they invited customers to post product reviews on their website. Only then did they discover the problem was the bottle – it was too tall to fit in refrigerator doors! They redesigned the bottle and their sales immediately increased.
That’s user-generated content directly leading to an increase in sales. That’s the power of social media marketing.
Are you still sitting on the sidelines when it comes to social media marketing because you know you can’t control the conversations about your company, your products and your services? And because you have no idea how to respond to negative comments?
Blog Your Way to Corporate Success
“But whether it be dream or truth, to do well is what matters. If it be truth, for truth’s sake. If not, then to gain friends for the time when we awaken.”
Sounds like something from one of Shakespeare’s plays, doesn’t it? Actually, it’s a quote from Pedro Calderon de la Barca, a 17th-century Spanish playwright.
You may wonder where I found such an obscure quote. It was a comment by someone named Vigrx on my blog post titled “Using Social Media to Market Your Business.” He or she was promoting the site vigrxdeals.org. The fact that the quote had absolutely nothing to do with social media was a sure sign that it was spam.
Are You Ready for a Real-Time Marketing and PR Crisis?
“Marketers no longer have control.” Have you heard this before? Maybe you’ve lived it firsthand?
Social media has enabled people to rapidly swarm—creating monsoons that can cause serious damage to your business OR create serious opportunities if you’re ready.
The upside to real time goes way beyond crisis management. Real-time firestorms can create once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for businesses that are prepared and can quickly respond.
In this article, I’ll review what you can do right now to prepare for your next real-time situation.
Social Media Marketing Made Easy
Do you remember the spoon-bending scene from the 1999 movie The Matrix?
It occurs the first time Neo goes to see the Oracle after he was rescued from the Matrix. In the Oracle’s waiting room, he sees two girls floating blocks above their heads and a young boy bending a spoon.
Young boy: “Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead … only try to realize the truth.”
Neo: “What truth?”
Young boy: “It is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.”
Facebook Marketing in Only An Hour a Day?
When fifth-grader Kane Swift had to do a science project, he decided to help raise funds for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure campaign.
So he set up a Facebook fan page with the help of his parents. In just one week, he got more than 1,200 fans and raised $400!
“I can understand using Facebook for a fifth-grade science project,” I hear you saying. “But how do I use Facebook to market my business? I keep hearing that I should include social media in my marketing campaigns, but I don’t have a clue how to do that.”
Are You Looking to Track Social Media Metrics?
When Intuit wanted to analyze market sentiment about TurboTax, they used Radian6 to collect approximately 40,000 blog posts about Intuit and its competitors between January 1st and April 15th of 2008.
“None of [the team working on this project] felt artificial intelligence was going to come to their aid any day soon,” says Jim Sterne in his book, Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment.
How to Grow Your Business With Live Video Broadcasts
Three 30-something guys are surfing The Long Tail and demolishing the boundaries of traditional television broadcasting along the way.
Adam Quirk, Erik Nelson, and Aaron Valdez are the sole employees of Wreck & Salvage LLC. In addition to making customized videos for clients, they create a monthly, hour-long online video show called Tricorn.
But you won’t find them out on the town, shooting original videos of breaking news stories. They do that occasionally, but they are primarily “remixers” who take snips of existing videos and splice them together to create a mashup. And they broadcast many of these mashups on their show, streamed live on Livestream.
Socialnomics: It’s a People-Driven Economy
An Illinois senator who was virtually unknown in 2004 defeated Hillary Clinton in 2008 to win the Democratic U.S. presidential nomination.
And he used social media to do it.
His YouTube videos got 110 million views, estimated to be 14.5 million hours of viewing. Mass media advertising to reach that many viewers would have cost $47 million.
A famous rapper made a promotional video that gave him even more free publicity.
At the time of the election, he had five million fans on Facebook — over four million more than his opponent. On MySpace, the numbers were approximately 800,000 and 200,000, respectively. On Twitter, he had over 100,000 followers and his opponent had about 5,000.
And he rode that social media train all the way to the White House.
How to Cash In On Your Passion With Social Media
Have you heard of Joseph Campbell?
He was the famous mythologist—author of The Hero With a Thousand Faces and many other books—who told us all to “follow your bliss” in his Power of Myth PBS specials with Bill Moyers in the late 1980s.
“That’s all well and good,” you may have thought at the time. “But I have to make a living. How do I make money by following my bliss?”
If you’ve been asking that question for the past 20 years, you’ll be happy to know that someone has finally answered it. Gary Vaynerchuk has written a book to teach us how to make money by following our bliss.
Many of you may know Vaynerchuk as the host of the video blog WineLibraryTV.com. Now he has written a book titled Crush It! Why Now Is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion.
