News I Choose

I probably read more marketing blogs than the average person. But that’s my job. I read and keep up on things that you don’t have time to. Which, I hope, is one of the reasons you read the Friday Traffic Report!

Here are some posts that have really stuck out for me recently. If I have done my job, some “aha” moments and inspiration are in store for you today!

1. “3 Secrets to Massive Online Marketing Success” - Sonia Simone, Copyblogger
2. “Why No One Links to Your Best Posts (And What to Do About It)” - Jonathan Morrow, Copyblogger
3. “Using AideRSS to Help Identify Hot Topics to Cover On Your Blog” - Very cool RSS research tool! Problogger
4. “Social Networks Get Down to Business” -Big business is spending cash on social networks at record highs this year, eMarketer.com

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Tags: blogging news, social marketing, social networks, top blog posts

Webside Chat with Nathan Anderson from SEOClub.com

Nathan Anderson is my personal go-to SEO expert. He’s one of the most prolific testers and search engine analysts online today.

Find out what he has to say about today’s search engine optimization tactics and how social media comes into play with link building and raising your rankings!

Nathan’s sites: SEOClub, Blog

Check out my other Webside Chats!

Tags: jack humphrey, nathan anderson, sem, seo, social marketing, social media, Webside Chats

Webside Chat with Jay Deragon

Jay Deragon is a social media expert, consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and co-author of an excellent book entitled “The Emergence of The Relationship Economy.”

Forward by Doc Searls, Co-Author of “The Cluetrain Manifesto.”

Stay alert, I’m going to show you how get his book for free below!

As a bonus for checking out this 100% content podcast, Jay is giving my listeners a free copy of his book. The ebook version is normally $14.95, and paperback, $21.95.

All I ask in return is that you subscribe to mine and Jay’s feeds if you aren’t already subscribed. Then download his great book!

Tags: doc searls, jay deragon, relationship economy, social marketing, social media, Webside Chats

10 Important Blogger Hangouts

Where are all the cool bloggers hanging out these days? 

Well, with the hundreds of thousands of blog sites that are out there, social marketing is sweeping the web and certainly becoming the number one way to do any internet marketing.  Here’s a list of 10 Important Blogger Hangouts (note:  these are listed in no particular order, they are all important and each have a little something different to offer)

• Blog Catalog:  This blog hangout claims to be the Ultimate Blog Directory.  Blog Catalog lists a wide variety of blogs, for every topic you can imagine.  Blog Catalog offers free submission of your blog to their directory, making your blog more visible to other bloggers.  FTR Profile

• MyBlogLog:  One of the original social sites, MyBlogLog is a great way to see what others are interested in.  Develop a network of friends, and find out what links they find great.  Track information about your website, find out what your users are interested in when they visit!  Join the FTR Blog Marketing Group

• Facebook:  Facebook keeps you connected with your friends and makes it easy for you to build networks to include other bloggers with similar interests.  You will find that you can get many, many social marketing tips by using words that relate to your niche as a search topic and joining the right networks!  FTR on Facebook

• Social Marketing Central:  This blog site is crammed full of people who are all clamoring for the top spot as an authority in their own expert niche.  Getting involved with this group will help you get insider secrets to social marketing strategies, and you’ll see your traffic and your profits increase substantially!

• Twitter:  Twitter helps networks and friends stay connected by having everyone answer one simple question, “What are you doing?”  Bloggers use it as a mini-blogging tool, making frequent posts is easy with Twitter.  Lead others to your blog almost effortlessly.  Follow Me

• FriendFeed:  A great way to hook up and monitor your fellow bloggers and friends across a decent selection of popular social sites.  You can run your FriendFeed on your blog or on your profile pages at Facebook and elsewhere to show off your network and get more attention.  FTR Friend Feed

• YouTube:  No blogger misses a day on YouTube.  This is a great place to find video clips for your blog, and other interesting topics to blog about.  Just about anything goes on YouTube, and it has a huge slice of Internet traffic each day, one of the biggest draws on the Internet.  Find out what the buzz is all about.  FTR Videos

• Digg:  Digg offers a major clearinghouse of “all things interesting” on the web.  Find out what’s hot, get tons of information for your blog, and get your information out there to be “dug.”  Millions of visitors decide what makes the front page, based on submissions from all over the globe.  Friend Me

• Technorati:  Make your blog even more powerful by using Technorati.  Live updates and incredibly dynamic indexing makes Technorati a great tool for your blogging toolbox.  Search the site for any relevant information, and instantly be greeted with the most up-to-date results for any topic.  Fav the FTR!

• MySpace:  Originally intended for teens and young adults, MySpace has become a powerful networking site for Internet marketing.  By targeting particular networks and groups, MySpace offers bloggers a way to gain exposure quickly and share anything of interest easily.  Friend me!

If you are serious about blogging, you must be using most or all of these tools to keep connected to the world, via the Internet!  What other great blogger hangouts do you think should be added to this list?

Tags: blog communities, blog promotion, blogger hangouts, social marketing

Top 142 Social Marketing Blogs on the Web

Below is the most complete list I’ve ever seen of the top social marketing blogs. We created it because it is a list that is much needed by marketers who want to get great news, opinions, and insights by credible, popular bloggers and experts in social marketing.

If you could put a dollar value on the information shared across all these sites it would impossible for most people to afford. Luckily, you can access all these sites and keep up on social marketing trends and news for free.

The sites are not ranked in any particular order, nor did I come up with a complicated algorithm to sort and sift them into any order of importance. They all have something to share and they are all popular sites with their own following, large and small.

Enjoy this big resource!

Social Marketing Blogs

Looking for a social marketing blog? The following is a list of 142 of the top social marketing blogs on the web right now. Consider this a digital library of social media, marketing how-to, social news sites, and communities.

• ReadWriteWeb: http://www.readwriteweb.com/
• Mashable: http://mashable.com/
• CenterNetworks: http://www.centernetworks.com/
• Tom Raftery’s Social Media: http://www.tomrafteryit.net/
• Problogger: http://www.problogger.net/
• Noah Kagan’s Okdork: http://okdork.com/
• Publishing 2.0: http://publishing2.com/
• Marketing Voices: http://www.podtech.net/home/category/marketing-voices?v3
• Bokardo: http://bokardo.com/
• Chris Brogan: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/
• Trendspotting: http://www.trendsspotting.com/blog/
• Scobleizer: http://scobleizer.com/
• The Social: http://news.cnet.com/the-social/
• Nowsourcing: http://nowsourcing.com/blog/
• Outside the Lines: http://news.cnet.com/otl/
• Somewhat Frank: http://www.somewhatfrank.com/
• Collective Thoughts: http://collective-thoughts.com/
• Community Guy: http://www.communityguy.com/
• Lead Inspectors: http://leadinspectors.blogspot.com/
• 123 Social Media: http://123socialmedia.com/
• PR 2.0: http://www.blogger.com/profile/15267529747951332602
• Dan Zarrella: http://danzarrella.com/
• Bazaarblog: http://www.bazaarblog.com/
• Rajesh@blogworks: http://www.blogworks.in/blog/
• Soshable: http://soshable.com/
• Brains on Fire: http://brainsonfire.com/blog/
• A Thousand Cuts: http://adamcohen.typepad.com/adamsblog/
• S Studio by Shai Coggins: http://www.shaicoggins.com/
• Terrainnova: http://terrainnova.org/blog/
• Bare Feet Studios: http://www.barefeetstudios.com/
• Jacob’s Morgan’s Marketing Ideas and Rants: http://www.jmorganmarketing.com/
• The Relationship Economy: http://www.relationship-economy.com/
• Buzz Networker: http://www.buzznetworker.com/
• Ignite Social Media: http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/
• SocialButterfly: http://fly4change.wordpress.com/
• BlogWrite for CEOs: http://www.blogwriteforceos.com/blogwrite/
• HorsePigCow: http://www.horsepigcow.com/
• Technosailor: http://technosailor.com/
• Favorite (fvrit) Blog: http://fvrit.com/Default.aspx
• Marketing Roadmaps: http://getgood.typepad.com/getgood_strategic_marketi/
• VisInsights: http://www.visinsights.com/
• Emily Chang: http://www.emilychang.com/go
• The Social Customer Manifesto: http://www.socialcustomer.com/
• Koka Sexton dot Com: http://www.kokasexton.com/word/
• MarketingProfs Daily Fix: http://www.mpdailyfix.com/
• Like It Matters: http://www.brianoberkirch.com/
• Digital Trends: http://www.digitaltrends.com/
• The Social Times: http://www.socialtimes.com/
• Webware: http://news.cnet.com/webware/
• BizGrowth News: http://www.krishnade.com/blog/
• Mashup Awards: http://mashupawards.com/
• Techipedia: http://www.techipedia.com/
• Stay N’Alive: http://staynalive.com/
• Bubblegeneration: http://www.bubblegeneration.com/index.cfm
• Social Media Marketing: http://www.blogger.com/profile/17710406470860389078
• Deborah Schultz: http://www.deborahschultz.com/deblog/
• Colin Walker: http://colinwalker.me.uk/
• Social Media Mom: http://www.socialmediamom.com/
• Quick Online Tips: http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/
• Linas Simonis on Positioning Strategy: http://www.positioningstrategy.com/
• Take a Peck: http://www.jasonfpeck.com/
• PR Squared: http://www.pr-squared.com/
• That Canadian Girl: http://www.thatcanadiangirl.co.uk/
• The Responsible Marketing Blog: http://responsiblemarketing.com/blog/
• NewMediaWise: http://www.newmediawise.com/index.php/blog/rss-fullText/
• Web Strategy by Jeremiah: http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/
• Jon Burg’s Future Vision: http://jburg.typepad.com/future/
• Crenk: http://crenk.com/
• Confessions of an eBbiz Junkie: http://lensblog.typepad.com/ebiz/
• Experience Manifesto: http://blog.brandexperiencelab.org/experience_manifesto/
• Paying Attention: http://chrissaad.wordpress.com/
• Managing the Gray: http://www.managingthegray.com/
• Dosh Dosh: http://www.doshdosh.com/
• MetzMash: http://metzmash.typepad.com/folderone/
• Des Walsh dot Com: http://deswalsh.com/
• Social Media Today: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/
• Zac Johnson Super Affiliate: http://zacjohnson.com/
• Andrew Chen Futuristic Play: http://andrewchen.typepad.com/andrew_chens_blog/
• Jeff Pulver: http://pulverblog.pulver.com/
• Brandflakesforbreakfast: http://www.brandflakesforbreakfast.com/
• /Message: http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/
• MyTestBox: http://www.mytestbox.com/
• ComMetrics: http://commetrics.com/
• Know Your RSS From Your Elbow: http://www.bpodr.co.uk/blog/
• Six Pixels of Separation: http://www.twistimage.com/blog/
• Common Craft: http://www.commoncraft.com/
• Reality Overlaps: http://rebeccarachmany.blogspot.com/
• Every Dot Connects: http://everydotconnects.com/
• Ben Metcalfe: http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/
• Data Mining: http://datamining.typepad.com/data_mining/
• Social Media/Social Networking: http://socialmedia.vox.com/?_c=feed-atom
• Social Media Explorer: http://www.socialmediaexplorer.com/
• The Marketing Minute: http://www.drewsmarketingminute.com/
• Age of Conversation: http://www.ageofconversation.com/
• Micro Persuasion: http://www.micropersuasion.com/
• Center for Social Media: http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/
• Social Media Club: http://www.socialmediaclub.org/
• The Extreme Buzz Marketing Guru and His Killer Bunnies: http://deanhunt.com/
• The Buzz Bin: http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/
• Greg Verdino’s Marketing Blog: http://gregverdino.typepad.com/greg_verdinos_blog/
• Invisible Inkling: http://ryansholin.com/
• RSS Applied: http://blog.rssapplied.com
• What’s Next Blog:  http://www.whatsnextblog.com/
• Global Neighbourhood: http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/
• Christopher S. Penn: http://www.christopherspenn.com/
• Go2Web20.Net: http://www.go2web20.net/
• Social Media: http://www.socialmedia.biz/
• Gauravonomics Blog: http://www.gauravonomics.com/blog/
• OnDemand Beat: http://www.ondemandbeat.com/
• GigaOM: http://gigaom.com/
• Brent Csutoras: http://www.brentcsutoras.com/
• Sphinn: http://sphinn.com/
• E-Consultancy: http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/tag-6/social-media.xml
• Go Big Always: http://gobigalways.com/
• Grow Your Wiki: http://www.ikiw.org/
• FeverBee: http://www.feverbee.com/
• FaceReviews: http://facereviews.com/
• Daily Blog Tips: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/
• Poetslife A Z-List Blog: http://www.blogger.com/profile/05967137681621055985
• PandemicBlog: http://pandemiclabs.com/pandemicblog/
• Nate Ritter: http://blog.perfectspace.com/
• Sarahintampa: http://www.sarahintampa.com/
• Louis Gray: http://www.louisgray.com/live/
• SheGeeks: http://shegeeks.net/
• Broadcasting Brain: http://broadcasting-brain.com/
• Socialutions: http://linktosocialutions.com/
• Ryan A. Graves.com: http://ryanagraves.com/
• Skribkin: http://www.scribkin.com/
• PitchEngine: http://mediapitch.ning.com/
• THINKing: http://www.my-creativeteam.com/blog/
• Digitalia: http://blog.firebellydigital.com/
• Converstations: http://www.converstations.com/
• Diary of a Reluctant Blogger: http://www.diaryofareluctantblogger.com/
• Principled Innovation: http://www.principledinnovation.tv/
• RyanSpoon.com: http://ryanspoon.com/blog/
• Web 2.0 & Social Media: http://www.deanwhitney.com/
• Content Nation: http://www.contentnation.com/news
• Emerson Direct Marketing Observations: http://emersondirect.wordpress.com/
• The Engaging Brand: http://theengagingbrand.typepad.com/the_engaging_brand_/
• Going Social Now: http://shivsingh.com/goingsocial/
• Stage Two Consulting: http://www.stagetwoconsulting.com/
• Mighty Interactive: http://www.mightyinteractive.com/blog.php/

Tags: social communities, social marketing, social marketing blogs, social news sites

Social Marketing Zen

The Web is a bit different than it was 10 years ago. Finding places where your target market was spending time back then was a matter of finding the one or two forums that were active, if there were any at all, in a niche.

Today groups of of people are lined up on the web, neatly and categorically, and can number in the hundreds around a single topic across myriad social networks. One need only Google their top keywords to find an endless supply of places to hang out to generate interest and links to their site.

Belly Up

Social media offers site marketers an All-You-Can-Eat buffet of links and tools to interact with like-minded people in every niche you can think of.

So why do I get emails from newer site owners who are just as perplexed about generating publicity and search engine rankings as we were 10 years ago? If everything is easier today than it was then to generate near instant traffic and notoriety, why do people still fail to deliver the traffic they need?

A lack of perspective doesn’t help. Who cares how much harder marketing online was 5-10 years ago? We’re in the “now” man!

The other problem is the same as the solution. There are tons of places today to get traffic. Now marketers can become frozen in place wondering which sources they are going to focus on to deliver that traffic among the thousands available.

Horse Sense

There are over 400,000 search results in Google for “horse lovers community,” for example. Not all of those results are social media sites. Some are old fashioned forums which might also be traffic producers for a horse related ecommerce site or blog. Others include a surprisingly high number of horse lovers’ dating sites. I guess horse lovers want to find love within the herd as much as anyone else does.

The point is, there are a lot of places to check out, and with a lot of the market research is already done for you. Markets are lined up in well-defined, easy-to-find groups on the web these days. You know right from the start where the major groups of people in any market niche like to hang out just by Googling keywords.

Too Many Choices?

After Facebook, Digg, Mixx, BlogCatalog, MyBlogLog, Propeller, and the various niche-specific social communities that exist around a single topic, a marketer has a lot of choices to make about where to spend precious time meeting, greeting, linking, and advertising.

This is where the Type A personality gets bogged down. Type B’s don’t do much better. In the face of so many choices, many marketers freeze up and wonder if social marketing is going to be worth the time to get organized and effectively go after the traffic available to them.

Questions many people are asking me about social media marketing include:

1. How do I know spending time in these communities and on Web 2.0 sites is going to pay off?
2. Which sites to I focus on most?
3. Which TYPES of social media sites will produce the most traffic and interest?
4. Is “social traffic” as responsive as search engine or paid traffic?

Most Common Comments:

1. There are too many choices.
2. I don’t seem to be getting anything other than sporadic socializing done.
3. It doesn’t feel like a “business” and it is hard to measure the effectiveness of the time I am spending.

Taking the Zen Approach to Social Marketing

Following is my advice for the overwhelmed and “not-so-sure” marketers.

1. Break off a dedicated amount of time each day to focus on the sites you’ve isolated as the “core” social sites to interact with. These will include the biggest sites with the most concentrated group of prospective customers. You should only have around 5 sites to deal with, so choose among all the sites you find your target market hanging out on wisely.

2. Set aside another block of time weekly to research new places to set up accounts and test them for interest. Interest is measured by the amount of traffic you can pull out of these sites with the least amount of interaction. For example, how many visitors can you generate from a site by blogging there once a week? Or once a month?

3. Over time you will build a pretty sizable network of places you feel you need to visit often. This is where people usually break down. And this is where the Zen approach comes in handy.

For sites that are moderate to “unknown” traffic producers, just let them be. Give them what time you can and stay focused on your main traffic earners with a concerted effort.

Let email notifications from sites you interact with only occasionally be your reminder to step back into them and do a little blogging, posting, voting, friending, or commenting. Otherwise, keep them off your “must do” list.

4. Pay attention to your stats and only spend time on sites that are producing traffic for you. You will find some of your top 5 sites will change over time as you find new sites that offer more potential. That’s okay, but you must keep your top 5 list at 5 sites. Many people’s top 5 list expands to 10 or 20 and, again, this leads to burn out and frustration as they try to keep up a demanding schedule of social marketing.

This inevitably leads to something else suffering in your marketing plan. And it will cause many to question whether the whole social marketing thing is worth it at all.

Be like water and flow through social sites. Let the activities each sites “wants” you to participate in flow around you and don’t freak out thinking you must interact with every site you are a part of just because you can. Many times are not the right times to drop what you are doing to go answer friend requests.

Do it when you can do it. The people and the sites are not going anywhere.

Social Marketing Really Works

With a perspective gained from over a decade marketing online, I sometimes get frustrated by how “spoiled” we are today as online marketers. I would have killed for all the choices we enjoy today for pulling traffic to our sites outside of the search engines back when they were among the few choices we had for getting traffic.

When sitting at an all-you-can-eat buffet of traffic, just like a real buffet, you will get full fast. And you will lament the fact that you wanted to eat so much more before you got full.

Realize that you have tomorrow, next week, and next month to sample from this social media buffet. It is the largest buffet ever created and you’ll never get much out of it if you try to eat it all at once.

Get into the flow of social media marketing. Swim in the opportunities that exist to bring your site targeted, willing readers and customers. Don’t try to master it in a month. Put it to work for you in the time you have allotted each day, week, and month.

Gradually you will feel at peace in your part of the vast ocean of places to grab traffic and links and you will become comfortable in the knowledge that it will always be there to supply you with what you need, when you need it.

Social Marketing Resources

• Authority Black Book:  Jack Humphrey’s free guide to social media marketing.
• Social Marketing Central: A free community to learn what other marketers are doing with social media marketing, ask questions, and find new places to check out.
• Social Power Linking: The most inexpensive way to learn absolutely everything there is to know about ranking well in the engines and getting a lot of traffic with social media marketing.

Software

• Web2Submitter: Submit content to the top social news and bookmarking directories easily. Reduce the amount of time you spend on promotion.
• Video Utility Poster: Makes video blogging (vlogging) super easy, putting the entire internet’s video content at your disposal for great, relevant, sticky content.
• TrackBoost: Software to drastically increase your links, traffic and rankings.

Tags: social marketing, social marketing tips, social marketing zen, social media marketing

Good social marketing resources on Traffickd

Giant List of Social Media Sites of All Kinds

Social Media Website Directory on Traffikd - this is a good, large list of social sites. You might discover some gems you haven’t heard of here.

On the Traffikd Blog

How To Target Social Media With Specific Posts - targeting certain social media with your posts and coming up with linkbait that works in social media.  Great, detailed post on the subject.

Tags: Link Building, linkbait, social marketing, social media sites

Quantum Marketing

Sounds kinda neat huh? I’m sure someone else has coined this phrase by now, so I didn’t even go searching for it before writing this post. (I swear!)

Besides I have a definition for quantum marketing I want to run by you.

Quantam Physics and Quantam Mechanics are said to be the study of the “little things” that make up the Universe. We’re talking the smallest stuff science has been able to measure and even things they know are there but are so small and fast that measuring them is not yet possible.

Yet what scientists have found in the last century about the little things is that they mean a lot. In fact, they mean everything, because they make up “everything.”

Quantum Marketing, therefore, is the study and application of the little things that mean a lot in business and marketing. Things like how approachable you are for clients, customers, prospects and possible associates and partners. Like how you treat an email from a client or prospect that, in the scheme of your day-to-day responsibilities, is seemingly insignificant or at least far less significant.

First, let’s look at the opposite of Quantum Marketing.

If you send a mail to your list of customers or prospects from a “do not reply” address and you don’t include any way for people to contact you personally IN that email either, you are definitely not practicing Quantum Marketing.

This is because such a setup prevents you from being open to the “little things.” Like a personal connection with a list member that could turn into a sale, a coaching gig, a member, or even a heavy-duty evangelist for your company.

Some people think this kind of marketing, where you are insulated from the “dirty masses” in a virtual impenetrable fortress of solitude, is the epitome of success. “I’m so busy and important that I automate everything to the point where I’m really not talking to ANYONE in my network of clients and prospects unless I decide to reach out to THEM.

Being so busy and “important” that you can’t be approached by anyone looking to buy your products or get clarification on some facet of your business is a CHOICE.

Marketing on the quantum level is about making human connections .  It’s taking the time to make those connections with people who can turn out to be the best customers and evangelists you can have in your business. Many people call it relationship marketing, but that doesn’t get to the true heart of it in my opinion.

To this day I keep myself open to people contacting me in various ways as much as I possibly can. Sure, a lot of “connections” are seemingly insignificant at the time and most don’t turn into business-altering relationships or sales, but that’s not necessarily the goal, is it?

Every little reply I make to everyone I can get to is another iron in the fire. The people who recognize how busy I am and act kind of surprised that I write them or call them back as fast as I try to are people who usually never forget such a thing.

John Reese is a Quantum Marketer

I remember my wife asking me to call John Reese’s office a long time ago about a commission check his office sent that wasn’t signed. It was a clerical error and I 100% expected a clerical person to answer the phone. When is was John himself who picked up the phone, I was flabbergasted.

I was a lot greener then, and to say I was star struck is an understatement. I couldn’t believe I was talking to John Reese about such a small thing and that he was handling this relatively insignificant situation himself. And here’s the thing: I didn’t think LESS of him because he answered the phone himself. I thought a lot more of him because of it.

I couldn’t imagine a person as busy and in-demand as Reese would ever answer his own phone. Dealing with other big name people before him had left me trained to expect an assistant to answer the phone if there was anyone around TO answer phones at all.

I remember that day as a business-altering check point. I was under the impression that success meant never having to answer your own phone or reply to customers or affiliates via email yourself. That was the attitude the previous dealings with big names had pounded into me.

By picking up the phone, John added something to his business. He gained a supporter. An evangelist for his company and him as a person. This led to links and affiliate sales of his products over the years that made that call worth it.

Years later John’s “Quantum Marketing” is still paying off for him right here with me telling this story. Now multiply that by the number of times John picked up the phone and answered his email personally every time he possibly could over the years.

Remember how successful John is today. Some significant part of that success is absolutely attributable to Quantum Marketing. The little things really do mean a lot if you stop to think about it like this.

How Approachable Are You?

If some portion of John Reese’s massive success can be traced back to how he treats individuals and how he approaches being approachable, then Quantum Marketing is a big deal even if it deals only with the little things.

Little things make big things possible. The largest things in our Universe are made of the smallest things.

The biggest success stories and the largest, most profitable companies on the planet are made up of a conglomeration of little things that mean a lot. They mean everything.

The Social Web

Social marketing is quantum marketing. Little connections between people are the thing everyone is going so ga ga over right now on the web!

Rack up a critical mass of “little connections” and you have a serious amount of attention coming your way.  That fact is what all the SEO’s and traffic experts are talking about.  That’s why so many businesses desperately want to be a part of the social scene.

When people complain about how time consuming social marketing is compared to other marketing where you are more closed off to the connections that provide your business with possibilities, they are failing to see how important all the little things are to growing a business based on reputation.

John Reese is a reputation manager.  He can sell product today based on his reputation alone and he got his reputation in part by being open to connecting with people on the quantum marketing level.  This is evident in the myriad testimonials from previous clients and customers he’s racked up over the years that talk as much about Reese “the person” as they do the product or service he delivered.

Everything is Time Consuming

We do a lot of extremely time consuming things in our businesses.  The things we don’t complain about taking “too much time” are the things we’ve assigned a high value to based on the perceived and real return on that time.

Since social marketing is still widely misunderstood and no one really knows how to measure it yet to assign concrete value to it, you have tons of bloggers and experts rebelling against it in favor of what we know how to measure already.

String Theory is comprised of a bunch of things that cannot now nor in the foreseeable future be measured.  Yet physicists are talking about it and exploring it with enthusiasm in the hope that someday it will be proven or disproven and that they will be able to have been a part of that process of discovery.

Social marketing is much more measurable and concrete than String Theory.  Railing against it makes no sense at all in my opinion!

Make the Little Connections…

… and truly big things can and do happen for your business.

Whether “Quantum Marketing” sticks (and I hope by capitalizing it throughout this article it is seen as important enough to stick)  :)  at least some readers might remember to keep making little connections to build their reputation and their business.

Tags: quantum marketing, social marketing

Pete Cashmore From Mashable Getting Tanked

Wonder how many takes this video took. Seems like they are very “happy” here. Cashmore has some great insider wine tasting social metaphores in this vid.

Tags: mashable, pete cashmore, social marketing, wine tasting

Today in Social Marketing

Found some juicy bits this week in social marketing posts. Seems there’s never any rest for the well-connected marketer!

Will The Popularity Of Social Networking and Marketing Fade Soon? - Some may wonder is social networking will one day fade away. Among these people are those who worry whether or not the end of social networking will mean the end of social marketing. If this were to occur there will be a number of …

Social Blogging Using The Facebook Dashboard Widget For WordPress - If you like to keep up with what is going on with your friends on Facebook then you may like this handy little social blogging plugin. The plugin requires WordPress 2.5 and above. To quote from this social blogging plugin’s homepage: …

Twitter; Social Marketing or Just Social? - In her post, Social Marketing Pitfalls & The Twitter Time Suck, Lynn Terry’s definition of “social” explains exactly how I’ve tried to conduct myself in business all along; by being personable and not so personal. Lynn wrote, …

Direct Marketing vs Social Media Marketing - Thanks to the response received (@gyutae @AlbertMaruggi @AnnBernard @briansolis @martinbowling) from a Twitter post (follow here) on the topic of social marketing vs direct marketing, this post invites your opinion. …

Tags: social marketing, social marketing news

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