by tradesmeninsights | Dec 30, 2009 | Marketing Tips, Social Marketing
We all want to do our best when it comes to social media, and I find I’m always looking for suggestions and processes that can help me improve my end product. One of the ways I stay in touch and hopefully ahead of the curve is to follow industry leaders. Their insight and expertise is very valuable to me.
One such leader is Jason Falls who has a blog called Social Media Explorer. Jason recently posted The Four Spheres of Social Media Strategy, which focuses on the key areas we need to keep our focus on.
While each of these four areas are important by themselves, the impact to a social program comes when they overlap. Here are some highlights of the circle:
- Brand Intelligence – This is pretty straightforward. You need to know and understand what your brand is and stands for.
- Consumer Insights – This revolves around the customer, profiling and audience research are two examples.
- Community Behavior – You need to know and understand how people interact. Is Twitter a better way to communicate to them or is Facebook?
- Tools & Platforms – You need to have an understanding of the tools and options out there to best promote your brand.
The key is to keep your eye on the ball and focus on elements such as Jason has outlined. Jason, thanks for your insights.
by tradesmeninsights | Oct 20, 2009 | Marketing Tools, Social Marketing
Another new tool that needs to be on your radar.
I don’t know if the world is ready for this, but it’s here and it’s from Google, so you know that there’s been a lot of thought behind it.
Google Sidewiki allows you to contribute helpful information next to any Web page or even critical information to a competitor’s Web site. Google Sidewiki appears as a browser sidebar, where you can read and write entries along the side of the page. Google uses an algorithm to display the most relevant and helpful posts up top.
Click for detailed view
The key benefits:
- You can publish helpful information about any Web page from any browser
- Read insights in context from Sidewiki entries added by others
- Share Sidewiki entries through Blogger, Facebook, Twitter and Google profiles
Google could eventually put ads in the Sidewiki space – monetizing another company’s content.
As Jeremiah Owyang points out in a recent post, Google’s Sidewiki Shifts Power To Consumers – Away From Corporate Websites…
“There’s nothing stopping them from allowing advertisers to put ads on Sidewiki as “sponsored” information. For example, Coke could run their latest ads on the Pepsi.com Sidewiki area. HP could run ads on the Dell.com site. This ‘already’ happens in the search engine result pages on Google.com, why not in Sidewiki?”
I agree with Jason Falls‘ assessment of Sidewiki, “It will force every company in the world with a Web site to get hip to social media and do it now.”
If you’re ready to start exploring the Web with Google Sidewiki, visit google.com/sidewiki to download Google Toolbar with Sidewiki and contribute your own entries alongside pages on the Web.
So what are your thoughts on this new tool?
You might find this post by my mentor, Michael Gass, useful, How to keep up with social media.
While each of these four areas are important by themselves, the impact to a social program comes when they overlap. Here are some highlights of the circle: