By Josh Cline
For the past 15 years, I have worked for more than 100 companies, mostly in the emerging business and start-up technology worlds, helping them to reach their utmost potential. From my years both at large agencies and working in-house, I have learned the keys to success. People who know me well will recognize the short examples below and the crucial lessons they teach on how marketing and public-relations professionals at agencies should act.
By Josh Cline
Over the past five years, many public-relations professionals (some have called them publicists) became “social-media gurus” overnight, writing books and helping to spin what social-media marketing and SEO allegedly really are. Then, they became “digital-marketing specialists” or gave themselves other titles. Eventually, many woke up and realized again that, in the end, they are still marketing and communication specialists. Several have written three or more books since 2007 to regain their places as true marketing professionals.
If you want to understand why pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has become a less and less viable option for small businesses and start-up companies, ask Tom Telford.
According to a recent article in the New York Times, he had founded a vacation rental-management firm named Blue Creek Cabins and had been paying Google roughly $0.60 per click in paid-advertising campaigns since 2001 in return for many leads and sales.
However, his success did not last:
By Samuel Scott
At one point in my career, I was hired to manage the digital marketing for a particular Israeli start-up, which would ultimately end up folding over two months later due to a lack of successful fundraising. During this period of time, the CEO had asked me to create an Excel spreadsheet and PowerPoint for promising investors on the potential for market penetration.
Supposedly, the start-up had had a way to convert speech to text in some new, exciting manner (the product would automatically transcribe voicemail and then send it to you over e-mail or text message), and the goal, I was told, was to exit by selling to Google. First, however, they needed to obtain investment and subsequently show successful sales and usage within various test markets.
Note: This is the first part in a series.
In 2008, Forrester Vice Presidents Carlene Li and Josh Bernoff published “Groundswell,” a revolutionary book about business and marketing in what was then the beginning of the mainstreaming of social media. Four years later, their thoughts have not only become predicative of the growing trend of social media but have become essential for understanding the greater context in marketing and public relations.
The nutshell: For practically any product or service, there are thousands, if not millions, of Internet users who would love nothing more than to become unknowing brand ambassadors and help to spread the digital word. You just need to locate and then inspire them.
Note: This is the third part in an ongoing series. Parts one and two.
By Samuel Scott
Social media is all about the “social.” On Twitter, you want to converse not only with influencers and journalists but also with current and potential customers. On LinkedIn, you want to brand both yourself and your company as experts in your particular sector while still participating in group discussions and LinkedIn Answers.
On Facebook, however, the rules have changed. Now, the social-network giant has set its sights on establishing its monetary benefits. (More on that later.)
Note: This is the second part in an ongoing series. Part one and three.
By Samuel Scott
In the first part in this series, I introduced how I have been using holistic, integrated marketing to build and market a personal, hobby website of mine at night entitled Buffy the Vampire Slayer Online that aims to sell advertising and merchandise. (Yes, it is a website of the 1990s cult-television show because I have been a fan ever since I first saw it in college.)
By Samuel Scott
Note: This is the first part in an ongoing series. Part two and three.
If you are using a social-media marketing strategy without a corresponding content-marketing one, you are most likely wasting your time. As different parts of the Internet increasingly affect and influence each other in marketing terms, it is also increasingly important to use an integrated strategy that incorporates these numerous factors.
