Marketing Cast of Wizard of Oz Characters

This is my version of the classic Wizard of Oz cast with a marketing-style remix.

The Cast:

Starring Dorothy, THE WIDE-EYED MARKETER, always up for an adventure and on an ever-changing journey.

"I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too" - Toto, YOUR COMPANY, can't be left behind. You must bring all of your colleagues with you, coaching, training, education along the way.

The Lion  as CONTENT, the heart of marketing. You must be brave, put yourself out there with original content. It isn't easy and you may fail a time or two. You will never succeed until you try.

Marketers: Get Your Head Out of the Sand and Into the Digital Age!

Throughout this Summer, I have been networking and interviewing with several Nashville-based companies only to find that I seem to be “on another level” than the typical corporate marketer in my approach to an integrated marketing strategy that uses technological trends to deliver relevant content to customers.

Forgive me while I step onto my soapbox and shout for a second:

If you are a “Marketing Director” or “Marketing Manager” in today’s technology, consumer-driven marketplace, it’s your freakin’ job to understand how digital and social media marketing fit into the landscape of who you are marketing to and how your marketing messages are being communicated.  It’s just another part of the marketing mix.

Guest Blogging: A Win, Win, Win!

Guest blogging is simply writing an article that fits with a blog's core topic, yet provides a slightly different perspective from the usual author. This gives audiences exposure to new people, thoughts, and is great for maximizing a blog's exposure to new audiences....not to mention a chance to expand ones' personal brand if you are the guest blogger!

This week, I'm guest blogging for my friend, John W. Ellis over at Crescent Interactive!

Check out my "Winning Google+ Hangout Strategies" article on John's Blog to learn how Google+'s Hangouts and Hangouts On Air can help your brand.


GUESTS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME! 
Interested in guest blogging for me or having me guest blog for you? 
I'm happy to entertain the idea....just Tweet me a message at @crossga and let's connect.

Spotlight on Social Fresh’s, Jason Keath

Who is Jason Keath, what is Social Fresh, and why should you care?

I first heard about Social Fresh a few months ago. As part of Social Media Club Nashville, I wanted to get involved in this social media conference that was announced to be coming to Nashville, TN January 11, 2010. I volunteered to help out with the event and promoted it through Facebook and Twitter. 

It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I really did a double-take on the magnitude of national connections to the social media and advertising industries Social Fresh’s founder, Jason Keath, has. I was reading ADRANTS, a popular ad industry pop-culture bog, created by Steve Hall- that I’ve been following for at least five years. There was Jason Keath, Chris Brogan (who I met when he came to Nashville to talk about his social media book, Trust Agents), and Steve Hall in a feature article about a Social Fresh Cruise for the who’s who of social media. That put Jason Keath on my radar, so I called him up to get more info about Social Fresh and what he hopes to bring to Nashville's advertising and marketing community.

Know when to kill the Beast

Social networking can become overwhelming with all the different social sites available. I personally have profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Blip.fm, Flickr, AAF Nashville’s ning, Digital Nashville’s ning, and a few more that I have signed up for in the past. That’s a lot of socializing to keep up with! I try to remain active on all of them. The frequency varies- some multiple times a day, some once a day, some weekly or monthly.

Have you ever played The Sims video game? The Sims are characters that you control through the game, but in order to keep them “alive” you have to feed them, make them talk to friends and neighbors, you even have to make them go to the bathroom- or they will “die”. There is usually a prompt in the game that tells you what they are lacking and allows you to manage their “health”. Unfortunately, our social networking profiles do not have prompts to let us know when our social networking skills are dying.

Interaction and frequent activity are essential to building your successful online networking community, no matter what social networking platform you choose. You must feed the monster that you created, or it will die.

Is your brand like Pinocchio?

Brands should strive to be “real” in social media, just like Pinocchio wanted to be a real boy. Social media enthusiasts call this being transparent. Webster’s dictionary defines transparency as free from pretense or deceit, easily detected or seen through, readily understood, and characterized by visibility or accessibility of information.

Some companies are totally transparent with who is managing their social media sites, For example, Scott Monty [@scottmonty] tweets for Ford Motor Company and Frank Eliason is the voice behind Comcast Cares [@comcastcares]. On the other hand, some companies are not transparent. This leaves an even larger responsibility on them: managing consumer expectations of the brand.

When I follow Doritos on Twitter [@DoritosUSA], I know there is not an actual chip tweeting from a bag in the back of the factory. I connect because I am familiar with the brand through other forms of advertising and my own product experiences. A couple of commercials, featuring model, Ali Landry, come to mind. I remember that Doritos had a contest for consumers to create their own commercial- that was aired during Super Bowl XLI. I expect edginess, creativity, and a youthful tone with this brand in how they communicate with me socially. I expect the brand to be consistent whether on TV, a print ad, their website, or Facebook fan page. I was pleasantly surprised to find that their Twitter bio describes their brand to a tee: “Not only are our chips packed with serious crunch and crave-able flavors, the DORITOS brand is all about intense experiences in snacking and beyond.”

How do companies manage consumer expectations through social marketing? Take a look at the brand’s marketing materials, website, and advertising in other media. If the brand were a person, what kind of person would it be? How would it speak with a consumer on a peer to peer level? Would the brand and its consumer be friends in a real-life situation? If you are not true to your brand, then your nose will grow and consumers will be turned off.

Want to learn more?
Read BusinessWeek’s article about Frank Eliason.

Read BrandWeek’s article, mentioning Scott Monty.

ABC's - Audience Before Content

One of the basics that I was taught in marketing 101 is that marketers must have a target audience to spread their message to. Meaning, there is already a need for the product/ service.  All companies have to do is find the consumers that have that need and tell them about what they have to offer. In the past, marketers did this through placing print ads in specific magazines, putting TV commercials on during certain shows, and placing radio ads on particular radio stations. If the consumer wanted what a company had to offer, they would buy. If not, the message was ignored as "clutter".

Today, the rules with social marketing are different. There is strategy involved in planning which social platform will most likely reach the target audience. There is now another level to that strategy, in which customers want something in return when marketers are in their social space. Consumers do not want to be bombarded with what companies have to sell, where the company is telling the consumer what to buy and why. This is considered "clutter", even though the companies may be speaking directly to their target audience that would otherwise buy from them. Instead, they want to be the voice telling the company what they want and how they want it.

Welcome!

This blog has been established to provide simple, sometimes humorous explanations and information about marketing on social platforms. I will share experiences from my background in traditional, digital, and social marketing as well as case studies from my personal contacts in the marketing, advertising, and digital technology industries.

Social Media is not a big, bad, wolf.