Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

Illustration by Max Scratchmann

Anastasia Goodstein offers some pretty sound advice for attracting today’s tech-savvy, multi-tasking teens to the library in her article What Would Madison Avenue Do? Marketing to Teens: To attract today’s teens, think like a marketing pro in the May 1st issue of School Library Journal. From her experience studying young people’s online habits Goodstein shares the following lessons for dealing with the Millenial generation:

• Teens are multitaskers.
• Teens prefer byte-sized entertainment.
• Teens expect content on demand.
• Teens want to participate.
• Enlist teens to manage your social media.
• Don’t try too hard to be cool.
• Know your audience.
• Don’t sweat the design.
• Support causes that kids care about.
• Use text messaging and IM appropriately.
• Teens love making mixtapes… online.
• Tweens like to break virtual worlds’ rules.
• It’s not just about MySpace and Facebook.
• Beware of anonymous gossip sites and applications.
• Dance videos are all the rage.
• Miley’s YouTube channel.

Aliza Sherman at Web Worker Daily discusses the rules for Building Online Community Brick by Virtual Brick and then provides some suggestions for social networks and other online destinations which offer community building opportunities. According to Sherman, the rules of online communities include:

1. You can’t own a community.
2. Communities aren’t free.
3. Every community needs leadership.
4. A community dies if it is all about you.
5. At some point, organic communities need roots.
6. Community building is not all about the tools.

New York Times technology columnist, David Pogue asks; Are You Taking Advantage of Web 2.0? He talks about dealing with the well-placed fears about using these social software tools by embracing moderation.

“Yes, you’ll have to moderate this stuff. Yes, it means spending money with no immediately visible return on investment. Yes, it’s more work for everyone.

But you’ll gain trust, goodwill and positive attention. You’ll put a human face on your company. And you’ll learn stuff about your customers that you wouldn’t have discovered any other way.”

Ask a Blogger comes up with 16 Top Social Media Strategies for Success which discusses ways to wisely utilize new social marketing avenues. The article suggests following these guidelines in order to optimize your social media efforts:

• Increase your linkability
• Make tagging and bookmarking easy
• Reward inbound links
• Help your content travel
• Encourage the mashup
• Be a useful resource, even if it doesn’t help you
• Reward helpful and valuable users
• Participate
• Know how to target your audience
• Create content
• Be real
• Don’t forget your roots, be humble
• Don’t be afraid to try new things, stay fresh
• Develop a social media optimization strategy
• Choose your social-media optimization tactics wisely
• Make social media optimization part of your processes and best practices

via Social Media

BusinessWeek has come out with a series of articles, a podcast, and a video interview about using widgets such as Facebook applications for social marketing campaigns. If you are at all interested in using these viral social networking applications, you’ll want to check out these sections of the special report:

• Building a Brand with Widgets:
  The customizable bits of software on Facebook and other social networking sites are the latest trend in viral marketing. But are widgets here to stay?
• Widgets: The Future of Online Ads:
  Look to the evolution of television advertising to understand the necessity of widgets in today’s online world
• The CEO Guide to Widgets:
  Widget Podcast
• When Facebook Ads Flop:
  For every marketing widget that takes off on the social network, dozens bomb. A look at why
• Why Widgets Don’t Work:
  Marketers are mistaken if they think these easy-to-forward applications will help them make deep inroads to the MySpace generation
• A Widget Mogul in Between Classes:
  Ankur Nagpal, a 19-year-old UC-Berkeley student, finds the keys to viral success and rakes in the cash on Facebook
• Making Money From Widgets:
  How creators of small apps can profit - BusinessWeek’s Catherine Holahan interviews VideoEgg CEO Matt Sanchez about earning a wage from widgets

Inside CRM compiles a list of 50 Social Sites That Every Business Needs a Presence on which includes some familiar names such as Del.icio.us and LinkedIn as well as some you may not have heard of including Care2, Ziggs, and BuzzFlash.net. The listing is divided into the following categories:

• Social-Media/Social-Bookmarking Sites
• Professional-Networking Sites
• Niche Social-Media Sites
• General Social-Media Sites
• Job Sites

Carmine Gallo of BusinessWeek breaks down the elements of an inspirational presentation through his analysis of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ Macworld ‘08 keynote. He offers us the following advice when delivering a presentation:

1. Set the theme.
2. Demonstrate enthusiasm.
3. Provide an outline.
4. Make numbers meaningful.
5. Try for an unforgettable moment.
6. Create visual slides.
7. Give ‘em a show.
8. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
9. Sell the benefit.
10. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

Read more about this 10-part framework in the original article, and for a breakdown of Jobs’ keynote address announcements, (including the MacBook Air laptop), check out this slideshow.

Transparency and participation are hallmarks of today’s Web, but what do organizations and individuals do when users leave negative comments on blogs, social networking websites, message boards, etc.? According to JupiterResearch, only 12% of Internet users have left negative comments about a company or product online, however, these people tend to be influencers and so this is a valid concern. Here are some suggestions for dealing with the negative.

• Stay Informed. Monitor your blog comments and social networking profiles so that you are aware if you have received negative feedback and can be ready to respond to it. Run periodic Technorati vanity searches (search for your url) to see what people in the blogosphere are saying about you.
• Moderate with Discretion. You have the ability to moderate comments on your own blog, but bear in mind that if you don’t allow people to have a voice, they will go elsewhere to be heard. It is often better to enable people to introduce their criticisms in a forum where you can respond.
• Create a Conversation. Respond in a positive manner to the criticism and encourage others to join in a discussion about the topic. Demonstrate that you respect that your readers/patrons/customers have a right to their own opinions, and that you’re willing to hear them.
• Keep Your Cool. You don’t want to engage in a confrontation with your critic. While we can all think up snappy comebacks, putting that person down will only leave them and the rest of your readers with a bad feeling. Instead, view this as an opportunity to address concerns that others may have been keeping in check, and to learn something valuable.
• Be Yourself. Don’t pose as a reader/user to challenge negative comments. Believe it or not, most people will see right through this and you will lose the respect of your audience. People respond best to honesty and authenticity, even if it’s not perfect, so be yourself!
• Pass it Along. An immediate response to dealing with anything negative is to get it over with and move on, however, dealing with negative feedback can often lead to positive change. After dealing with the PR end, pass the feedback along to the appropriate department in your organization. Was the negative comment about your customer service? Forward the feedback to that division so they can consider making some changes.

Want more suggestions? Here are a few helpful articles on the topic:

• Dealing with Negative Comments
• When Good Social Marketing Goes Bad: Combating Negative User-Generated Content (subscription required)
• The Transparent Library: Coping with Anonymity
• When Blogging Goes Bad - How to Handle Negative Comments
• Troll Management
• Negative Blog Comments - Keep Your Focus!
• Blog Comments: How to Handle Negative Comments
• A Comment About Comments

As many of you may have heard, The Library of Congress has partnered with Flickr to display their historical photo collections in a social environment. They have uploaded two sets of photos with over 1,500 images each and have invited Flickr users to help describe them by assigning tags to photos. Users can also place comments on the images. The collections include “News in the 1910s” - a collection consisting of sporting events, crime, politics, and entertainment news photos, and “1930s-40s in Color” including photos of farming, factory life, railroads, and women working from 1939-1944. Check them out and add some tags!

ProBlogger offers some useful advice about blogging and generating traffic in their 7 Types of Blog Posts Which Always Seem to Get Links and Traffic. They advise writers to experiment with these seven content methods to increase their readership:

1. Resource lists
2. Lists of tips
3. Good advice
4. Arguing a popular point of view
5. Anything with a killer headline
6. Q&As with high profile people
7. Best-of lists

While you’re there, you may also want to check out:

• Using StumbleUpon to Get on the Radar of Other Bloggers
• Prolific Blogging: Five Methods I Swear By

This powerhouse post rounds up a list of the best Web marketing blog posts of the year in an annotated list subdivided into categories:

• Social Media Sites: General
• Facebook
• Digg
• Reddit
• StumbleUpon
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Mixx
• del.icio.us
• Sphinn
• Social Media and Social Media Marketing
• General Internet Marketing
• Viral Strategies
• Link Resources
• Blogging: General
• Blogging: Inspiration
• Blogging: Promotion
• Content Generation
• Reputation Management
• Video Articles
• Business
• Search Engine Optimization
• Search Engine Stuff
• Web Development
• Search Marketing Tools
• Paid Search
• Recommended Books
• Affiliate Sites
• Domaining
• Miscellaneous
• Techipedia’s Best Posts for 2007

This post is definitely going on my “to_read” list for 2008!

via Micro Persuasion

Aaron Wall, author of the SEO Book, along with Giovanna Wall has created a custom guide to search engine optimization for bloggers. Providing screenshots and online video, this guide presents an in-depth, multimedia look at SEO topics and presents focused tips concerning:

• What Google Knows About Your Blog
• Why Blog SEO is Different From SEO for Other Websites
• Domain Registration & Hosting
• Keyword Research
• Keeping Up With the Joneses
• Writing Clear & Compelling Headlines
• Optimizing Site Structure
• Web Analytics
• Controversy
• Use Push Marketing After Launching Your Site
• Understanding Network Effects
• Learn More About SEO

I will be speaking today at the ACRL/NY Symposium about Social Software in Academic Libraries. My presentation is here on Slideshare.net. Thank you to all of the college and university libraries who gave me great quotes about their social software initiatives to use in my prez. Also, here is a quick guide to all of the websites I refer to in my presentation:

Wikis
Wikipedia
WikiHow
University of Minnesota Libraries Wiki
Antioch University New England Library Staff Training & Support Wiki
USC Aiken Gregg-Graniteville Library Wiki Webpage
Ohio University Libraries Biz Wiki
Butler University Libraries WikiRef
ALA 2007 Annual Conference Wiki
Library Success Wiki
Library Instruction Wiki

Social Bookmarking
StumbleUpon
del.icio.us
Southern Connecticut State University Hilton C. Buley Library
MIT Libraries Virtual Reference Collection
University of Pennsylvania Libraries’ PennTags
Libmarks
LIS901-06
Maui Community College Library
University of South Florida Lakeland Library Services
library2.0 tag
ALA2007 tag in del.icio.us

Media Sharing
YouTube
Flickr
Colorado College Tutt & Coburn Libraries
Arizona State University Libraries
Williams College Library on YouTube
School of Dentistry and Health Sciences Libraries at the University of Michigan
GeorgiaTech Webcasts
LIS901-06 Webcasts
SJSU’s School of Library and Information Science
American Library Association on Flickr

Social Networks
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library
University of Central Florida
StonyBrook University Health Sciences Library
Facebook Applications
JSTOR on Facebook
Library 2.0 network on Ning

Blogs
Kelvin Smith Library at Case Western Reserve University
Binghampton University Library
Mohawk College Library
Barnard College
University librarian at the McMaster University Library

IM
Ohio University Libraries
American University Library

Microblogging
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library
Lunar and Planetary Institute

Second Life
Nova Southeastern University Law Library & Technology Center
McMaster University Libraries
San Jose State University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Ohio University

Answers
Answer Board Librarians

Subject Guides
Boston College University Libraries LibGuides
LIS753 on Squidoo

Charlene Li, VP & Principal Analyst at Forrester Research discusses Why Your Company Needs To Be on Facebook with a recent post on the Harvard Buisness blog. She talks about using the social network to build relationships and enter into conversations with people while Tom Davenport, President of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, discusses Why Facebook and MySpace Won’t Change the Workplace.

via Social Media

The latest top 100 list comes from Laura Milligan at VirtualHosting.com who puts together a stellar list of the best and most read blogs in the following categories:

• Social Media
• Social Networking
• Web 2.0
• Investor Analysis
• Developer Blogs
• Industry News
• Social Media and Marketing
• Social Media and Google
• Miscellaneous

I noticed a few of my faves on this list including Social Media, Groundswell, Mashable, Dion Hinchcliffe’s Web 2.0 Blog, Read/Write Web, and TechCrunch.