Social Media | Brandtailers

Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

Jul

by Brandtailers

If you’ve visited our Brandtailers office you probably noticed that we have books everywhere. All on marketing and advertising. We’re fanatical about staying ahead of the curve, so we read a lot.

But, if you only have time to read a few books over the summer, how do you choose from Amazon’s 33,000 titles in marketing, advertising, and social media? Ugh.

We filtered through our library and found what we believe are today’s five best books to read. They offer you a well-rounded understanding of the latest consumer preferences, marketing strategies and technology need-to-knows. Hopefully you’ll have time to devour a few. (Oh, and for those of us who spend more time in their cars or at the gym than sitting with a book, there’s always Audible.com)

1. DON’T MAKE ME THINK – Steve Krug

Although it’s a couple years old, it’s still the best book on what makes a great website. It’s written in plain, and downright funny, language. We often give it to clients as gifts. It’s not for programmers. It’s for the rest of us.

2. TRIBES – Seth Godin
Seth hit another home run with Tribes. He took what is happening in the world of marketing and applied it to basic human behavior. By the time you finish this short book, you’ll feel like you’re viewing the world through a whole new lens.

3. THE NEW RULES OF MARKETING AND PR – David Meerman Scott
David just revised this book with new updates, so make sure you get the latest edition. It has the best examples of how things have changed for marketers, along with the new rules of engagement. It’s simple, useful and inspiring.

4. TRUST AGENTS – Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
For anyone who has spent a year or more in social media, this book may seem a bit simplistic. But the overall message of how trust drives today’s world of marketing is the most important and valuable take away. It makes you want to be a better person (and marketer).

5. WEB ANALYTICS 2.0 – Avinash Kaushik
OK, maybe sections of this book get into a little too much detail, but you can skip those parts. Avinash is so entertaining in the way he explains current web technology, you’ll be chuckling while learning. Don’t be afraid of the title (or his name).

What books would you add to this list?

Tags: Avinash Kaushik, books, Chris Brogan, Consumer Behavior, David Meerman Scott, marketing strategy, Marketing Technology, Seth Godin, Social Media, Steve Krug, summer reading
Posted in Consumer Behavior, Marketing Strategy Research, Marketing Technology | Leave a Comment »

May

12 Social Media Tips <140 Characters

by Brandtailers

This is a great list of 12 short tips on Social Media from Shane Gibson, international speaker and author of several books on Social Media, including his latest, Sociable. For some of us, it’s “the basics”, but it never hurts to be reminded of them.

Keep giving and contributing more than the competition. Pay back will be huge.
Every tweet, blog entry, comment and status update will be saved forever and is permanently part of your brand.
Before permission to market comes permission to connect. There’s a lot of trust building in between.
Make it easy for people to find you. While you’re out looking for business there is an entire market looking for you.
It’s not about B2B or B2C it’s about person to person marketing in social media.
Use the back links function in Google to see who is linking to your competitors. Reach out to those connectors.
Go wide with social media then build strong deep networks by going deep with the phone, Skype, webinars or in-person.
Twitter search and tools like Twellow.com can dampen the noise down from millions on voices to the exact ones you’re targeting.
Picking a fight publicly stays on record long after the battle is done. Rarely is it worth it.
Not getting the results you want? Are you asking for help often enough? It’s about community. Reach out.
Share and give more than you think is practical… then do it again. It will build positive momentum for your brand.
When partnering with other social media influencers start by making sure your values and principles are aligned.

Tags: Facebook, google, Social Media, transparency, Twitter
Posted in Brand Management | Brandtailing, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter | Leave a Comment »

2 Responses to “12 Social Media Tips <140 Characters”

Franklyn Osika says:

June 11, 2010 at 3:59 pm

Hey can I reference some of the information found in this post if I provide a link back to your site?
Brandtailers says:

June 11, 2010 at 4:14 pm

Sure thing!

Apr

Does Online Media Offer Lower Production Costs?

by Brandtailers

Clients often ask us how much it costs to produce an online video ad. Their initial thought is that, because the media is usually free, the production cost should be lower. Sorry. There’s no correlation.

Think about the process of inbound vs. outbound marketing for a moment. Outbound marketing includes traditional advertising. Intrude. Repeat. Intrude. Repeat. You didn’t ask to see the ad, but it’s going to be pushed in front of you anyway in the hopes that you will like it, remember it, and respond to it. Oh sure, the option is usually there to fast forward past it on TV, push the button on the radio, or flip right past it in print. But, you at least get a glimpse of it before you make that choice. A glimpse you didn’t ask for. A glimpse that cost the advertiser a lot of money.

But inbound marketing is different. Inbound marketing puts the exposure responsibility on the consumer. This is why it’s often called “viral”. It’s based on making something so compelling that people will not only see it and share it, but also search for it. Quite the opposite of traditional media, eh? This viral effort often requires spectacular creative that comes in the form of incredible production, or just a brilliant simple idea.

Does that mean it always has to cost a lot? Not always. Like we said, it’s about the idea more than the production (see Levi’s successful viral video campaign that cost less than $10,000). But usually the few successes in the online viral world have involved substantial production costs.

Take the Evian Roller Babies ad above. When totaling its US and international versions, it just surpassed 100,000,000 views online, making it the most viewed television ad in online history. In comparison, this year’s Super Bowl had 106,000,000 viewers and the average 30-second spot cost was a little over $3,000,000 dollars, and that’s before any creative production. Media costs for Evian’s 100,000,000 viewers? Zero.

But when you find out the production costs for this spot were well over $1,000,000, you realize the cost of the ad production has nothing to do with the media on which it airs. In fact, in addition to the message needing to be even more impactful online for the viewer to become your media distributor, the beauty and curse of online ads is they’re not limited to :30 seconds. And those of us in the production world know, with TV spots, the longer they are the more they cost to produce. Ouch.

Just now, after almost a year of online exposure, Evian is taking this ad to traditional television in markets like New York, LA, London and Paris. Will their traditional media exposure pay off as well as their viral campaign did? Time will only tell. But we, the media world, will all be watching.

Tags: inbound marketing, Social Media, viral, You Tube
Posted in Brand Management | Brandtailing, Marketing, Social Media | Leave a Comment »

Feb

What does the term, “Social Media” really mean?

by Brandtailers

As many savvy marketers have already noted, all media is social. Especially when it works the way it’s supposed to. So what’s all the buzz about this term, social media, as if it’s a completely new form of communication?

Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Stumble Upon, etc. are just new communication tools. Tools that will most likely change and morph into new formats as technology advances and they improve their ability to create, manage and grow powerful online communities. Remember forums, chat rooms, even My Space? They’re all just tools that have enabled multiple-way communication, the core of what has changed.

We believe the term, social media, will go into the history books sooner vs. later. At least we hope so.

Tags: online advertising, online marketing, Social Media
Posted in Consumer Behavior, Facebook, Social Media, Twitter | Leave a Comment »

3 Responses to “What does the term, “Social Media” really mean?”

Kerry Chatterson says:

March 3, 2010 at 2:31 pm

This is a good article, I was wondering if I could use this piece of writing on my website, I will link it back to your website though. If this is a problem please let me know and I will take it down right away.
repair computers jacksonville says:

March 8, 2010 at 12:36 am

I am always searching into things on information that I don’t know about. It is not an easy task to find things that you don’t know of, because what do you look for? This is right up my alley regarding something new to me. Awsome read! Thank you.
Cheril says:

March 15, 2010 at 8:42 am

No problem at all. Thanks for the link!