Archive for July, 2007
Social Media Questions For Lee Odden - Part 2
We are really excited that Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank® Online Marketing, a Minneapolis, Minnesota search marketing agency has agreed to be the interviewed in our social media optimization series.
In part one of our interview,Lee discussed how TopRank uses social media tactics to distinguish itself in the market. In part two Lee talks about how TopRank’s clients are using social media to grow their business online.
1. TopRank Online Marketing has an impressive customer base. Are your clients asking you for an SMO strategy? What social media tools or tactics are you seeing them use? What works? What doesn’t work?
Filed under Brand Marketing, Interviews, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (1) : Jul 31st, 2007
Social Media Questions For Lee Odden
We are really excited that Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank® Online Marketing, a Minneapolis, Minnesota search marketing agency has agreed to be the interviewed in our social media optimization series.
Lee is very active as a blogger at industry conferences including: ad:tech, Search Engine Strategies, WebmasterWorld Pubcon, ACCM, DM Days and the annual DMA conference.
TopRank has been recognized as a leading SEO firm by TopSEOs.com and PromotionWorld and has been included in Marketing Sherpa’s guide to SEO firms for the past 3 years.
Filed under Brand Marketing, Interviews, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (7) : Jul 30th, 2007
Week in Review
Another interesting week in social media. We started the week with an interview with blogging expert and author John Cass. John spoke about the five steps that every company should take before launching a blog. They are:
- A company should understand their marketing goals?
- Conduct an audit of their blogging community.
- Understand the resources and capabilities of their company to determine if there is value in blogging.
- If a company starts blogging, conduct training within the company on how to operate within social media communities and set expectations about what will happen and what will not.
Filed under Brand Marketing, Interviews, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (1) : Jul 27th, 2007
Third Time Lucky For Wal-Mart?
Wal-Mart is making yet another attempt to add social media to its web site according to Advertising Age. Wal-Mart which has failed miserably in its other social media attempts has decided that that consumer-generated content is the new way to go.
Wal-Mart’s previous social media attempts included a MySpace-like offering aimed at teens was a miserably failure and was shut down after less than three months. It failed mainly because Wal-Mart screened all the content, informed parents when their children joined and forbade users to e-mail one another. Wal-Mart tried again earlier this year with a travelogue “blog” that it was forced to stop when news got out that the blog was created and paid for by its PR firm.
Filed under Brand Marketing, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization, Social Retailing : Comments (2) : Jul 26th, 2007
SMO Hits the Links
Golf ball manufacturer Titleist fails to find the fairway with SMO campaign to promote its NXT series of golf balls.
If you’re an SMO professional or interested in social media marketing, last week was a great week to e a golf fan. Not only did we enjoy a thrilling and dramatic British Open at Carnoustie golf links, we also witnessed the launch of Titleist’s SMO campaign promoting its line of NXT golf balls, one of, if not the earliest SMO campaign for golf.
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (4) : Jul 26th, 2007
BrandWeek Struggles With Social Media
I was shocked when I came across an article in Brandweek titled “What To Do About Web 2.0”. The theme of the article was that social media marketing or web 2.0 is overblown and full of hype.
Brandweek targets brand marketing managers and I am sure that many Madison Avenue agencies are really worried about social media marketing and what role that they will play. So there is a certain bias in the way that the argument is written.
Some of the choice quotes from the article:
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (2) : Jul 25th, 2007
Social Media Links for July 24
Some of the interesting posts that I have came across recently:
- Great interview with Kris Jones by Wendy Piersall
- Social Networking Site Review: Hoverspot
- Paris Hilton to teach a Personal Branding seminar for $1 million
What have you been reading?
CommunityNext Viral Marketing Conference Notes and Slides (http://www.emergence-media.com/2007/07/communitynext-viral-marketing-conference-notes-and-slides/)
Filed under Social Media Optimization : Comments (0) : Jul 24th, 2007
Interview With Blogging Author John Cass
We are really excited that John Cass, author of “Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging has agreed to be the interviewed in our social media optimization series.
John is a research fellow and advisory board member for the Society of New Communications Research and his blog can be found at pr.typepad.com.
1. John, you were one of the early evangelists of blogging when you launched your blog in 2003. Can you tell me about your decision to launch a blog?
Filed under Brand Marketing, Interviews, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (2) : Jul 23rd, 2007
Borders Gather Six Months Later
When Borders announced that they were partnering with the social networking site Gather.com I was not in favor of the partnership. I think my quote was:
The fact that they chose Gather.com and not Facebook.com indicates to me that Borders is not really serious about social marketing. Combined with a press release that basically says if this doesn’t work we will try something new in 3 months tells me that this relationship will slowly fade out by summer.
Well it is summer, and the Borders-Gathers.com relationship is still going strong. Borders is finding out that social networks can increase sales of books.
Filed under Brand Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization, Social Retailing : Comments (2) : Jul 20th, 2007
Social Media Marketing Success Stories
An increasing number of marketing managers are slowly buying into the benefit of social media marketing. The one question they all ask is, can you tell me some social media marketing success stories. Rather than focus on the big brand successes, I thought it would be interesting to focus on the success that two small businesses are having with social media marketing. My thanks to The Arizona Republic for doing this research.
Last year, Scottsdale-based ice- cream chain Cold Stone Creamery used the popular video-sharing site YouTube to disseminate a video it created to promote a new flavor. In the video, two ice cream flavors fell in love and got married. The ice-cream couple even had their own MySpace profile.
Filed under Brand Marketing, Case Studies, Podcasting, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Optimization : Comments (4) : Jul 18th, 2007
