Posts Tagged ‘book review’
Book Review: Social Media Marketing
Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010With Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media
As she notes in her introduction, Li’s book is organized around four main themes:
Research: start by using search and social media monitoring tools to discover where your customers and prospects are congregating. Don’t automatically assume they use the most popular social networks. This saves time, effort and money in the long run, but it’s a step too many companies skip over.
Strategy: it isn’t just the tools you’ll be using, but also establishing goals for what you’d like to achieve in social media, and allocating time and resources to do the job.
Involvement: understand that everyone in your company has a stake in social media success and most of your employees are probably already members of at least one social network. Explain your goals and establish clear guidelines for any mention of the company on social media sites. This presents misunderstandings (at the least) and enlists your people beyond just the marketing and PR groups.
Measurement: as Li notes, “Measurement comes in many different forms, from website traffic to the number of retweets your content is getting.” Though measuring direct ROI is challenging, a successful social media program should increase engagement with customers and prospects, provide direct website traffic and increase branded search traffic. Choose metrics that make the most sense for the tactics you’re employing, and monitor results to determine which activities to increase and where a change of course may be needed.
Li really “gets” social media from the social, search and business perspectives, and this shows throughout the book. I wore out a highlighter on this one, but here are a sampling of representative quotes:
“The difficult part of finding success in social media is dedicating the resources and time to your social media strategy. This hard work behind the scenes makes the ‘overnight’ successes seem so easy.”
“Participating in social media isn’t just about creating a page, making a blog post, posing a question, or tweeting. You can’t just ‘leave your mark’ and expect success…Members of social media communities are no longer swayed by a coupon for 10% off or an invitation to try a new product. Instead, they want to connect. That is why social media marketing is not a quick process—it takes time to nurture relationships into conversations and create those solid, trusted connections…these real conversations lead to real relationships,and those trusted relationships lead to referrals and sales. These real conversations also produce some of your most loyal fans and greatest evangelists.”
“Diving into social media without a strategy in place is the best way to set your company’s efforts up for failure.”
And those are just from the first chapter. Li addresses social media at all levels, from grand strategy to nitty gritty tactics. She provides an excellent taxonomy of the social media landscape, categorizing the different types of social media tools into:
- • Social News Sites (Digg, Reddit, Kirtsy, etc.)
- • Social Networking (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.)
- • Social Bookmarking (Delicious, Diigo, Bmaccess; the distinction from social news sites is s bit blurry)
- • Social Sharing (YouTube, Flickr, SlideShare, etc.)
- • Social Events (e.g., Eventful, Meetup, Upcoming, etc.)
- • Blogs
- • Microblogging (Twitter, Jaiku, Identi.ca; Li helpfully notes that “the power of microblogging for a business can be huge, if you add personality into your Twitter stream and not just allow it to be automated.” Amen!)
- • Wikis (Wikipedia, hundreds of specific topic-focused wikis)
- • Forums and Message Boards (the oldest and second-most commonly used forms of social media)
In chapter 3, Li notes importantly that “with social media, there’s no direct click to purchase.” Too many companies focus only on measuring the traffic back to their own site driven by social media, rather than focusing on and valuing the engagement on social media sites themselves. Sure, social media can in some cases drive lead generation and even direct sales (so can PR), but that isn’t its strength or its primary purpose. Confusion over these measurements has fueled the social media ROI debate. Her detailed descriptions of what can be measured on each type of social media site alone is worth the price of the book (at least).
And there’s so much more. Chapter 6 details the importance of social media conversation. Chapter seven provides an excellent outline for a corporate social media policy. Chapter seventeen notes the importance of providing not just a policy, but social media training for all employees so that the understand the policy, the power, and the potential dangers of social media. Chapter 19 addresses the “personal branding” issue that many companies struggle with in social media. Chapters 36-39 present a great outline of web presence optimization, though Li doesn’t use that term.
It’s difficult to find anything to quibble with in this outstanding book, and what quibbles there are, are minor ones. Li comes down a bit hard on PR agencies; true, most of them are ham-handed when it comes to social media, mass-blasting out press releases to bloggers (Li offers an excellent guide to conducting blogger outreach the right way in chapter 11) and generally treating social media like a broadcast channel. But the best ones take the time to understand their clients’ businesses, help craft social media policies and plans, and can even productively engage on their clients’ behalf. In chapter 14, she drops the phrase “social media campaign,” though this may have been an inadvertent slip; she demonstrates throughout the book a clear understanding of words that shouldn’t be used with social media.
Finally, as wonderful as the book is, its a tad long. For example, she devotes six pages to why companies shouldn’t rely on interns for their social media strategy or execution. Her advice is spot-on, but shes beats this fallacy beyond death. She states that “link baiting isn’t social media marketing”—which is true, though it doesn’t mean that link baiting is an unethical or ineffective tactic. In chapter 37, she almost seems to defend the insidious nofollow tag, which has outlived whatever useful life it once had and should be banished. Particularly in social media, let the community decide what content has value and what is spam.
Minor quibbles aside, Social Media Marketing
Other reviews of Social Media Marketing
Book Review: SNAP Selling
Wednesday, August 18th, 2010Don’t you love it when you pick up a book and realize in just the first few pages that the author really gets it? Even better, they don’t just get “it,” but offer a fresh and compelling approach to dealing with the specific problem, situation, condition of modern life, etc.?
Well, SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers
Before even fully awake, “you’re on the computer checking what seems like an endless stream of email. When you look at your to-do list, you wonder how you’ll be able to get everything done. You have a dozen people to follow up with on the phone, three meetings, and a proposal that needs to be finished…Rather than take a break for lunch, you grab a quick sandwich at the vending machine and eat it at your desk. That way you can update your files and take care of paperwork that needs to be processed. Then you head out for that presentation that you wish you’d had more time to prepare for. After the presentation, you have a ton of questions that now need to get answered before the end of the week…By the time you get home, you’re tired. But rather than turning in for the day, you work on a proposal for a while, then finish up by checking your email one last time. The next day you get up and do it all over again.”
People are reluctant to add anything more to their frenetic schedules, least of all spending time listening to a sales pitch. No matter how compelling the value proposition for the product or service, it involves change, more work, and more time out of an already overburdened schedule. As Jill notes, for sales (and marketing) people in this environment, “what worked before doesn’t work anymore…the advice of many ‘traditional’ sales gurus is now hopelessly outdated…(and) things are never going to to go back to the way they used to be.” SNAP Selling
According to Jill, today’s buyers make three distinct decisions that sales pros need to aware of. The first is when they evaluate your approach and determine whether it’s even worth their time to meet with you. Once past that hurdle, their next decision is determining if making the change required is worth the cost, time and effort required. Finally, the third decision is, having committed to making a change, selecting the best product / service / vendor for their company.
Jill describes the SNAP selling process as:
Simple (eliminate as much complexity and effort as possible from the decision-making process)
iNvaluable (products and services can be copied; your expertise can’t)
Aligned (it’s crucial to be relevant — always)
Priority (maintain a sense of urgency)
Before delving into the detail behind the SNAP model, Jill notes that “Knowing as much as you can about your targeted prospect is more important than your knowledge of your own product, service, or solution. Most sellers don’t realize this, but it’s true…(but by implementing SNAP selling processes) you won’t have to work as hard as your today to achieve significantly better results.” Now that’s a compelling value proposition!
After describing the SNAP method in more detail, the book walks you through the application of these principals and practices to achieve success in each of the three major decisions (and all of the smaller decisions involved in keeping the buying process moving forward).
Though written primarily for sales professionals, SNAP Selling
In short, SNAP Selling
Book Review: Social Media Marketing – An Hour a Day
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010Despite its airy title, Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day
While many types of marketing and PR pros will find value in the book, it is aimed primarily at mid-level marketers (entry-level staff will lack the business acumen to pull this off, while senior executives will delegate it) at midsize to large organizations, possibly in b2b but more likely in the b2c space.
Author Dave Evans (@evansdave) once worked as a systems analyst for the Voyager deep space exploration program with the Jet Propulsion Laboratories/NASA. Yes, this really is rocket science. From there, as Strategy Director GSD&M IdeaCity, he developed integrated communications programs for clients like Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Southwest Airlines, AARP, the PGA Tour, Chili’s and other big brands. Later, he founded his own marketing technology consultancy. He’s a ClickZ columnist, frequent speaker, and has served on advisory boards for ad:tech and the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. In short, he’s an extremely smart guy, though with an analytics-heavy, big organization background that shows through in this book.
The book begins with a fascinating trip through the early days of the web and the foundations of social media. Evans reminds us that the web grew from approximately 6,000 sites in 1992 to one million websites by the mid-nineties. One million websites. How quaint that number now seems! (Google currently indexes more than 10 billion sites.) Spam email led to a consumer backlash over unwanted advertising and the rise of ad-voidance. Technologies such as the iPod, DVRs, pop-up blockers, do-not-call registries and spam filters have empowered consumers to take control over the commercial messages they see. Marketers can no longer rely on interrupting prospective customers in order to get their attention; they need to earn it by producing content that people want and then making that content findable when buyers are searching.
Evans also makes an incredibly strong case for social media participation: “Your customers are already talking about you. The fact that you aren’t participating is your implicit endorsement of whatever it is that they are saying…You cannot choose whether or not your customers will see you on the social web. They will, because they will put you there. You can only choose whether or not you will join them there.” By not participating in social media, you embolden your critics while ignoring your fans. Research shows that two out of three word-of-mouth conversations reference a brand, product or service—and these conversations are increasingly moving online through social media.
From there, Evans’ hour-a-day plan is laid out, starting with an exploration of the different forms of social content (blogs, video, podcasting etc.). consumer-generated media, touchpoint analysis, measurement and metrics, planning a campaign (ugh, social media campaign?), using branded social media platforms, and social media monitoring, wrapping it all up with preparing and presenting your social media plan. This makes the book an excellent guide to developing a social media plan and justifying resource allocation in a large organization environment, if somewhat short on actual execution.
There are a few questionable statements in the book. For one, Evans cites the notoriously anti-business Wikipedia as “an example of why social media is useful to you as a marketer.” At another point, the author advises readers to spend 5-10 minutes “surveying” YouTube and “if you’ve never transferred content from a digital camera to the Internet, take a break now and try it.” Uh, at this point, if you don’t know what’s on YouTube or how to upload a file, perhaps social media marketing isn’t your ideal career choice.
One risk of writing a book like this is the speed at which the social media landscape is changing; though Social Media Marketing
He writes that participating in social media is essential for building trust with customers, then insists on developing robust ROI calculations for any social activity; which is it? The book focuses primarily on using social media to engage in brand conversations with consumers; certainly a critical application, but little acknowledgment is given to other uses of social media marketing including content sharing, media outreach and influencing the influencers. Evans claims that “there are so many good reasons to buy a hybrid other than pure fuel economy” without saying what any of those reasons are; perhaps the sporty styling? Finally, at one point, he actually recommends using an intern for social media data collection and metrics. Argh.
Still, quibbles aside, Evans is a sophisticated writer who brings great depth of insight his topic. He wisely notes that “on the social web, you can’t directly control the conversation. Instead, you influence it by setting an appropriate expectation and then delivering on it.” The book covers an incredibly wide range of social media sites, including some that many readers may not be familiar with. For those who haven’t read The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth
“The social web demands an active presence…if your profile isn’t up to date, if you’re not commenting, if you’re not making connections, you don’t exist. ‘Lights on, but no one home’ and you won’t get the results that you otherwise might. That seems obvious, but I point it out because I see a lot of profiles across a lot of social networks…evidently abandoned and now home to what look like virtual zombies taking up residence in so many empty storefronts.”
Regarding urgency: “Whether attracting and retaining key employees or attracting and retaining key customers, part of the challenge you face in tapping the social web is getting it done today.” While recognizing that measuring ROI from social media is challenging and requires skill and judgment, Evans provides a rich set of tools and models for keeping tabs on business results.
In short, Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day
Book Review: Maverick Marketing
Monday, May 17th, 2010In Maverick Marketing: Trailride into the Wild West of New Marketing
Hayes, Managing Partner and Principal at the New England Consulting Group, draws on his experience working with midsize to large clients across healthcare, consumer packaged goods, retail, energy and other sectors to illustrate both the theory and real-world examples of trailblazing marketing campaigns and practices. Along the way, he explains why maverick marketing is becoming essential, citing research from Yankelovich that 60% of adults say they feel overwhelmed by commercial messages, are interested in skipping or blocking ads, and feel the volume of marketing is “out of control.” In this landscape, maverick marketing practices are required to reach consumers in a manner that will be welcomed rather than viewed as just another advertising intrusion.
Traditional television advertising, for example, comes under the whip. A study by the Association of National Advertisers revealed that three-fourths of large marketers believe their television advertising is less effective now than it was just a few years ago. Another study from McKinsey concluded that traditional TV advertising has lost a third of its effectiveness over the last 20 years. Hayes concludes that “media, and particularly television, is taking on the role of General George Custer of the Little Big Horn, glorified as a past hero…but under attack.” He notes that going beyond reaching to actually engaging consumers is a much more complex and difficult task than traditional advertising, an observation that applies equally well to b2c and b2b marketers.
Hayes notes that as the six-gun was the great equalizer of the Old West, putting small farmers and townsfolk on equal footing with the biggest, baddest cowboys, so the Internet today significantly equalizes the marketing power of small firms with large global brands. Hayes writes that “Many marketing experts…concur that a brand should not even contemplate national advertising without a $20 million war chest for television and $10 million in print. This creates an effective barrier to entry to many marketers and startups. In contrast, with the Net, tiny niches and slivers of segments can be reached in an affordable manner for smaller ‘mavericks.’” The New England Consulting Group even coined a name for this phenomenon: “Netralization,” the equalization of marketing power between big and small firms enabled by the Web. And as with the six-shooter, the results can even be fatal; online music services like iTunes killed giant music retailer Tower Records, and NetFlix has wounded–perhaps mortally, time will tell–video rental chains like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video.
In the author’s analysis, a maverick marketing program “must include at least three of seven key components: marketing innovation, consumer engagement, buzz or public relations, new media usage, a viral aspect, promotion, or opt-in marketing. Tying this back to his Old West theme, Hayes notes that pioneers learned there were two ways to hunt: you could aggressively march through the forest hoping to flush your game (traditional marketing), or you could, like the Indians, study the feeding habits of your prey, set out bait, and then wait for the target to come to you (maverick marketing).
Even if Hayes didn’t share so many valuable marketing insights here, the book may be worth buying just for its trivia value. For example, after noting the ubiquity of brand names Motorola and Gatorade on the sidelines of every NFL game, the author points out that “Motorola does not even make headsets, and Gatorade is not necessarily in those green buckets.” And there’s much more:
- Viagra was originally developed as a heart medicine, but when its most notable, er, side effect, became apparent, its marketing was reoriented. Erecticle dysfunction was not a medically acknowledged disorder at that point, but it become one due to Pfizer’s marketing efforts.
- Research has shown that the average lifetime value of a customer acquired through search is roughly 70% higher than for customers acquired through other channels.
- Although most consumer marketing is geared toward younger age cohorts, retirees control two-thirds of all the wealth in the U.S.
- Coca Cola failed as a cough syrup before becoming the world’s most popular soft drink. Post-Its were the result of research into extra-strength adhesive tape, and Kevlar was originally developed as a material for panty hose.
Intentionally or not, Hayes hilariously points out the hypocrisy and outright stupidity of many in the “green” movement with reference to Ben & Jerry’s and, most entertainingly, Whole Foods: “Whole Foods smartly (?) takes the offense (with regard to not stocking live lobsters in its stores) and wraps itself in a flag of `ethical sourcing.’ It utilized a study from a European Animal Authority, think PETA, which indicates that lobsters may have feelings and can learn. This is despite the great weight of evidence from biologists and oceanographers, from numerous prestigious marine science universities, who point out that lobsters have no brains and only an insect-crude nervous system…In expressing its `animal compassion,’ (by selling only frozen lobsters, which are often sourced from large, migratory lobster breeders rather than small lobster operations), Whole Foods’ action very well have the unintended impact of harming the entire species. In fact in Maine, it is illegal to sell these ‘breeders,’ which are most likely to be sold, frozen, by Whole Foods.”
Hayes maintains his Old West theme throughout the book, frequently illustrating his points by throwing in references to wagon trains, life on the prairie, square dances, saloons, Boot Hill, the town marshal, horseshoes, lariats, sarsaparilla, cookouts, the general store, smoke signals, the open plains, etc. In the hands of a lesser writer, this style could quickly become irritating, but Hayes is deft enough to weave these references through his narrative in a manner than illuminates and entertains but never annoys. Each chapter helpfully concludes with a list of “trail markers,” the key points and takeaways from the chapter.
The book has a few faults. The sections on social networking are dated. He states at one point that “no ‘promotional consideration given’ notification is required on the Net,” which is no longer true. As a byproduct of being continually updated and produced using print-on-demand technology rather than traditional publishing, the book contains numerous typos. Only 22% of consumers read blogs (the actual figure exceeds 70%). Most bizarre is the claim that Google receives 25.7 million unique views per week; the true figure is close to 1 billion per day.
Still, such minor errors aside, Maverick Marketing
Book Review: The Truth About Search Engine Optimization
Monday, March 1st, 2010Despite being a quick, almost breezy read (how often do you read that said about a book on SEO?), The Truth About Search Engine Optimization
What’s most notable about this book, however, is that it’s an SEO book written for a broad audience. Unlike typical “how to do SEO” tomes, this book is more about what SEO is and how it works, in plain business language. Though it certainly contains instructive content, it can be read by and provide value to everyone on a web development team: designers, copy writers and developers, along with the entire marketing team, as well as line of business managers who aren’t directly responsible for site optimization but can benefit from understanding how it works and why it’s important. Rebecca deftly weaves together all of the important elements of SEO, from keyword research and link building to the role of social media, without excessive insider jargon or getting into the weeds on topics like file naming conventions, PHP vs. Javascript, or canonicalization.
Why is it important for executives not directly involved in search to understand more about it? As Rebecca explains in the book’s foreword and introduction:
“SEO…is the foundation, the bedrock of online marketing. It isn’t just the foundation of search marketing; I submit to you that it is the foundation of all marketing. This is exactly because we live in a world where increasingly, Google dominates the search landscape and Google has taught people to love search…In the 12 years or so since search engine marketing has been in existence, we have learned this one truth: Al media, all marketing, and all communications have one thing in common—they all drive people to search. And in a recent study conducted by Jupiter Research, of all the people who were stimulated by an offline cause to go online and search, some 40 percent of them actually made a purchase…A well-optimized website, therefore, is something akin to the Holy Grail of marketing. It provides the right message to the right person at the right time…Search long ago became the second-largest online activity (after email). Search has evolved from merely providing answers to stated problems and queries. Today, it’s the way most people navigate the Web.”
In her chapter on “learning to do the Google Dance,” Rebecca notes the similarity between SEO and public relations: both can help you influence the information that prospects find about your company and its products or services, but not control that information. Maybe your news (or your website) will make the front page, or maybe it will be buried several pages in. As she notes, “If you want to guarantee that your message will appear (exactly)…the way you want it to and where you want it to be, buy an ad.” In other words, SEO, like PR, can be important in terms of influence, but it’s unreasonable to expect complete precision.
(Interestingly, on the topic of PR and SEO, Rebecca writes that “Although many PR professionals still don’t know about or understand the concept of SEO PR, a handful of SEO-savvy boutique PR agencies have sprung up recently. These PR agencies specialize in optimizing and releasing news for their clients with the goal of increasing search engine visibility.” Actually, KC Associates, the agency I work with, has been doing this for years, and though we focus on b2b technology clients, I’m not sure we qualify as “boutique.” And having been around since 1988, we certainly haven’t “sprung up recently!”)
To put the challenge of SEO into perspective for marketers, PR professionals and line of business managers who may not appreciate its difficulties, the author notes that “with hundreds of billions of sites out there—and more every day—no matter how obscure or arcane your website is, chances are you have more than a healthy amount of competition. Heck, more than 2 million page in Google’s index are about beekeeping.”
Though the book doesn’t specifically address web presence optimization, it does touch on elements important to SEO beyond meta tags and directory links. For example, email can play an important role (through maintaining an online archive of search-friendly archived newsletter content), as can personal and corporate reputation management, online advertising (ads are links!) and social media activities.
There is a wealth of wisdom packed into this compact book: search is something to consider from the very start of a website project, not as an afterthought. Companies can no longer afford to build static “brochureware” websites—to be successful in search, sites must “now be ever-growing, changing, and evolving platforms for publishing content, news, and information about products and services.” Search is no longer simply even about website content, but has fragmented into local search, video search, blog search, image search and news search among other categories. Search is an ongoing activity, not a one-time event: results aren’t achieved overnight, and developing quality links in particular is a process that happens over time. Although, as noted, the book isn’t overly technical, the importance of technology isn’t ignored: the author touches on the importance of being careful with drop-down menus, using CSS in place of tables where possible, maintaining a relatively flat file structure and utilizing breadcrumb navigation to help both search engines and human users better understand your site’s layout.
From a pure how-to standpoint, Website Optimization: Speed, Search Engine & Conversion Rate Secrets
Still, these are minor quibbles. Overall, The Truth About Search Engine Optimization
NOTE: Still with me? Thanks! Here’s a reward: the publisher sent me an extra copy of this excellent book, so I will give it away to first person who tweets this review. Your tweet MUST include @TomPick, ad I’ll be the sole judge of the winner based on what shows up in my Twitter #replies feed. I’ll even pay the postage to send it you.
