I work at an advertising agency. Not surprisingly, social media is on the minds of a lot of people, not the least of which are clients. Unfortunately, one more than one occasion, client conversions around social media have gone something like this:
- Client: We want to do social media. Let’s put a banner on Facebook.
- Me: That’s not really social media marketing. Social media is participatory, you can’t take old advertising models and try to apply them to social media. It won’t work.
- Client: Ok, then. Let’s make a viral Facebook application.
Whereas before, the client was tried to transpose traditional advertising to the social media realm, now they are trying to do so with non-traditional, guerilla methods. I’m not sure I would call that much of an improvement.
Social media marketing is much more than marketing on a social venue. Even if a viral campaign on a social venue were to be successful, that would only serve one possible purpose of a social media campaign, building awareness.
An all-encompassing social media campaign should also involve branding, brand monitoring, connecting and engaging with customers, providing support, etc.
Let’s not confuse viral with social media marketing. Likewise, let’s not confuse tactics with strategy.
by Nuno on February 9, 2009
It’s an interesting time to work in marketing. Every day there is something new to learn, some new technique to discover. Miss a beat, and you risk making yourself obsolete.
By trade, I specialize in search engine marketing. About four years ago, when I entered the field, search engine optimization was the marketing buzzphrase. If you were good enough at it, you could get paid thousands of dollars for very little work. I know because I did.
Below are the searches for “search engine optimization” (red line) from 2004-2008. As you can see, interest in the subject has fallen year over year.
But for every marketing buzzword that dies a slow death, there are a dozen more ready to take its place. At the moment, that seems to be “social media marketing” (blue line).
As someone recently told me, internet years are like dog years. Online display advertising is on its last legs, search engine optimization, in demand only four years ago, is now a commodity, and not far behind it’s display cousin.
It took roughly two decades for the internet to kill newspapers. How long before new delivery mechanisms kill old models and leave all of those unwilling to adapt out in the rain?
Photo credit: renatotarga
by Nuno on January 30, 2009
I’m always scouring the web for inspiration on how to make nikkoSHOPS better. Following are the web sites I keep coming back to.
DesignPublic.com
DesignPublic.com is an online retailer of modern furniture. When you visit the web site, you get exactly what you would expect from a modern furniture retailer, a modern, clean and classy design.
They are a small 8-person operation and the fact that they admit to being so just screams “personal” and “service” to me, two things I am increasingly looking for in an online vendor.
They also answer the question “Why Buy From Us?” very explicitly. In at least two locations, they list the reasons why they are the vendor to shop with (free shipping, no tax, etc.).
And last, but not least, is their Hatch Blog. This blog is definitely not the normal e-commerce blog that attempts to push products. Not only does it serve to show that there are real people behind this company, it also positions them as experts in modern furniture and design.
2Modern.com
2Modern.com is also an online retailer of modern furniture. They feature selections from some of the most “talented and innovative international designers.”
Much like DesignPublic.com, they remove themselves from the commodity market of modern furniture (IKEA-world) by only selling high-quality products. They are to Mercedez-Benz what IKEA is to Toyota. (Nothing against IKEA, I am writing this entry on one of their desks.)
They also feature a modern furniture blog called Design Talk that features commentary on contemporary furniture and design. They distinguish themselves from being just another corporate blog by featuring contributions from designers, manufacturers, architects, artists and more.
The one place where they really separate themselves from the competition is the “2Modern Design Directory.” They have build a Craigslist-like directory of architects and interior designers that connects consumers looking for such resources. (As if you needed any further proof that 2Modern lives and breathes modern furniture and design.)
Target.com
Target is a competitor insofar as it is a retailer of home furniture and decor. But they are the 800-pound gorilla so it’s a bit presumptuous for me to place nikkoSHOPS.com in the same league.
Nevertheless, theirs are one of my favorite stores on the web. From their modern design, to their breadth of products, there is very little they do wrong.
But what amazes me most about their online shop is the functionality. From their layered navigation to their wishlist system and even their product image zoom feature, there is a lot there to be impressed by.
The irony is that they do everything so well that it’s easy to miss. Everything just works the way it’s supposed to.
Zappos.com
Last but not least is Zappos.com. I have to admit, I have never shopped for shoes online. Given how picky I am when it comes to the fit, I can’t imagine doing so anytime soon.
Nevertheless, Zappos.com is a case study in how to run a social media marketing campaign. From their blogs to their high visibility on Twitter, they are really doing a good job making their operation transparent.
After watching this Nightline story on Zappos, I almost want to apply for a job there. They have an amazing company culture and, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from their business model, it’s that “Your Culture Is Your Brand.”
by Nuno on January 29, 2009
Mark Dery, a man much smarter than I (Time Magazine called him one of “the smartest people we know”) was one of my college journalism professors.
Back in 2005, three years after graduating from college, in the midst of writer’s paralysis, I reached out to Prof. Dery looking for inspiration.
Following is his response. I don’t have permission to publish it so I hope he doesn’t mind but I’d be selfish not to share it.
“So sorry to hear. Writer’s block, in my experience, is usually the result of excruciating self-consciousness — the grotesque swelling of the Superego, to the point where it shoots down every idea before you even put pen to paper.
“Stop second-guessing yourself. Stop assuming someone, somewhere, has said it better than you ever could. Tell yourself that being indelibly YOU is more important than being the best. Fact is, there’s no such thing as The Best.
“Once, when I was interviewing the novelist Paul Bowles (THE SHELTERING SKY), I asked who he thought was the best writer, or some similarly inane, jejune question. He sighed wearily and said, in effect, that my question was meaningless. ‘Who’s good?,’ he said. ‘Bach? Beethoven? Gogol? Balzac? The ones history winnows out for canonization? How many geniuses, better than them by far, died unknown? By definition, we can never know. So how can the question be answered? And how can we judge everyone, everywhere, at all times, with the same aesthetic yardstick?’ (I’m paraphrasing, here.)
“Remember, finally, that soldiering on is the better part of success. Writers are people who write. If you intend to write, write. Better to suck and be productive than to sentence yourself to silence because your standards are unattainable.
“Sit down at the typer and grind out that pound of flesh, every day. Let history, and people you value, and the almighty marketplace, decide, over time, if you should keep soldiering on. Give it three years. If, after writing every day for three years, you haven’t sold a single piece and people you respect offer little comfort in the way of compliments, *and if you aren’t sustained by the sheer joy of writing despite those grim truths*, give it up. But not until you’ve typed your fingers bloody for three straight years. That’s my sage counsel, for what it’s worth.”
Wow.
Photo credit: Laineys Repertoire
by Nuno on January 27, 2009
Let me start off by saying that I am not one of those people who gets a cheap thrill by writing about the next Google-killer, or iPhone-killer, or Twitter-killer, for that matter. Google is not going anywhere anytime soon. Yahoo and MSN have a very long way to go before they’ll catch up.
But those services aren’t Google’s greatest competition. I reserve that title for services like Delicious, Yahoo’s social bookmarking service.
Years ago, when I began researching search engine optimization, I went to Google and did a couple of searches. The results were mainly SEO companies who did a good job using the tactics they were selling. But I didn’t find a lot in terms of information about how to “do” SEO. (For those unfamiliar with SEO, it used to be a lot more of a black (box) art than it is today.)
The few sites I did manage to find of real value were the likes of SEOBook and SEOMoz. From there, I visited every single resource that Aaron Wall and Rand Fishkin proposed.
So, even then, I depended more on trusted referrals than on search engine results.
That is exactly the role that Delicious fills for me today.
The problem with Google is that, for a lot of major terms, the results aren’t a list of the “best” resources, but a list of the best SEO’d sites or the ones with the most purchased links. (Can anyone think of another reason why TheGeneral.com appears on the first page of Google results for an ultra-competitive term like “auto insurance”?)
Today, when I am researching a topic, I head straight to Delicious.com. There I am able to find what the “crowd” deems to be the best resources.
This is not to say that Google’s results aren’t up to par in some cases. But even in such cases, Google cannot compete on the timeliness of the results. When I go to Google, I am liable to see the same results for at least three months, if not more.
On Delicious.com, the crowd is always voting, ensuring that I have a combination of the most important and most recent resources available.
Google uses a complex algorithm to determine the importance of a web page. Delicious uses the most complex computing mechanism of all, the human brain, to make the same determination.
Search engines killed the directory model, in which users had to scour the web and “index” (in the librarian sense) dozens of web sites, by automating it.
Social bookmarking sites are nothing more than the web 2.0 directories. The major difference is that each user is “tagging” web sites out of self interest, which, unlike with directories, makes the process scalable and self-perpetuating.
Search engines are here to stay. But could social bookmarking sites be the next evolution in the quest to index all of the net’s data? Could a combination of the two models make today’s search engine results pages look quaint by comparison?
And finally, is Yahoo, as a result of its ownership of Delicious, indeed the best poised to dethrone the giant?
Photo credit: Bruce Turner
by Nuno on January 24, 2009
When we began thinking about rebranding our business, we took it as an opportunity to rething and retool every piece, from the backend system powering our cart to the marketing strategy.
One of the biggest failings of our previous web site was the complete lack of a value proposition. In other words, nowhere on our web site did we explain to the shopper why she should purchase from us rather than a competitor with the same exact product.
When I sat down to craft one, I was immediately faced with two daunting challenges.
- We are a drop-shipper, which means we handle the order, but the actual manufacturer handles the fulfillment. There are thousands of other online retailers doing the same thing, many with our exact business model.
- Similarly, all of our products are available on other online furniture retailers. We do not offer any exclusive product lines, at least not yet.
As I sat racking my brain, I got a series of emails from Jessica. Hours before, I had asked her to send me over any customer testimonials that we’d been sent for posting on the new site. This is an example of a few of them:
- “We all appreciate your commitment for delivering an excellent service.”
- “I just have to say your company is awesome to work with. I’m so impressed with your service!!!”
- “Wow. I am totally impressed by your company’s action and your incredible support.”
There it was! We’d been sitting on this goldmine the whole time. Once I read those, it took me about 5 seconds to come up with our unique value proposition:
- “People-powered customer service.”
It’s simple but powerful. It doesn’t make any grandiose claims (“The best customer service online”). It just states what we, and many of our customers, feel to be the truth: Our customer service rocks!
Photo credit: Jim Patton
by Nuno on January 21, 2009
The internet did a lot to even the playing field between giant corporations and small businesses. Both could register a domain name, put up a website and, at least early on, compete for traffic on search engines.
If you’ve been a netizen for any significant period of time, you’ve probably come by a web site or two that clearly is a one-man operation but where every reference to the business is first-person plural: “we, us, our company.”
That was clearly an attempt to make a small company seem big. The issue, of course, is one of trust. If you knew that online vendor you were considering was run by a guy out of his parent’s basement, you’d be less likely to provide that web site your credit card information.
Social media has turned that on its head.
Today, large corporations are doing the exact opposite, struggling to appear like mom-and-pop shops with personal connections to individual customers. Take, for example, Dell’s Twitter presence or Zappos.com’s blogs.
The goal is to create more than a business relationship. In business, only one thing matters, and if I can get shoes at a cheaper price from another online vendor and have no personal connection to Zappos, Zappos will likely not get my sale.
By telling me about what is going on in the company, introducing me to the people that power the company, and allowing me to have a conversation with those people, Zappos is creating an invaluable personal relationship with the brand. It’s the equivalent of my choosing the local, family-owned coffee shop over the Starbucks because I know the owner and have a chat with her every time I walk in, even though she has to charge higher prices to stay afloat.
It’s the age-old question. If you sell a commodity, how do you convince the shopper to spend more money on your product than she otherwise would at another vendor? The answer is the brand association.
The lesson for small businesses: Open up your gates. Tell the world you’re a three-person company with big dreams. At the very least, don’t be afraid to act like a three-person company with big dreams. It’s all the rage.
Photo credit: Carl Mikoy
by Nuno on January 19, 2009
It’s been more than two years since three friends launched Prime Furniture Source back in 2006. At the time, our business model was strictly based on ranking highly on search engines. In other words: rank high on Google, sell lots of furniture. So the brand was not foremost on our mind when we named our website.
We always knew that a business model based on search engines was not sustainable. However, at the time, it was a means to an end.
A lot has changed since then. Not only has it become more difficult to rank highly in search engines through traditional methods, shoppers have become more discerning and have much higher expectations of the online shopping experience. As a result, we’ve undergone a rebranding. What does that mean exactly?
First of all, we’ve renamed ourselves nikkoSHOPS, something that is (hopefully) much easier for you to say. (See our About page to find out what inspired us.) And we expect that once you’ve bought from us, you’ll want to tell someone.
Second, we have completely redesigned out site. But that redesign is much more than just aesthetic, it’s from the ground up. We have rebuilt the very backend of the site to serve you better and to ensure that you find the products you need.
Third, we have opened our company doors to our users, so to speak. Shopping online takes a certain degree of trust and it’s difficult for an e-commerce website to develop that type of relationship. That is why we are building an e-commerce website around our people. Anyone who wants to find out more about us can simply take a look at our blogs, contact us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter.
To those familiar with Prime Furniture Source, we thank you for taking the leap of faith and allowing us to prove to you that we’re deserving of your trust. And we assure you that although our brand may have undergone a refacing, you can still be certain that you will receive the highest level of service possible.
For those of you new to us, welcome.
Photo credit: Christian Sisson
There has been a good deal of buzz this week about whether or not Twitter’s search feature is a threat to Google. The answer: yes.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=97309d6b-eecd-4beb-a31f-43d814af553d)
Note that I’m not expecting the favor to be returned.
