HACK by Michael Hackmer

A lot of buzz recently has been how Twitter was faster to alert people around the recent earth quakes than news organizations. This has led to some conversation about Twitter’s business model and potential applications for businesses.

A few weeks ago I had some thoughts about Twitter and its possible development of an emergency alerting tool (I’ll post sometime soon - though I may back-date it) – among other things. However, in reading some recent blog posts, I see Twitter’s ability as a Web 2.0 news and information aggregator as being the immediate advantage because unlike many news organizations – people consider Twitter “faster, unspun” with the negative of news organizations being that they are not participatory or focused on sharing.

WAIT A SECOND! HOLD THE PHONE!

No sooner had the statement about news organizations not being “focused on sharing” sprung forth and into this blog post, than I discovered a news organization mentioned in a blog post that IS using Twitter to reach out to its specific communities and engage people in conversations (I am sure there are many more, btw).

NBCi4 - MIDWEST

Using Twitter allows reporters, editors and columnists the ability to get real-time stories from people on the ground as well as drive content to people via Twitter, and get specific feeds mentioning their news organization in the different Twitter search engines. So, Twitter is a natural fit for every kind of mass media.

See page where I got the above screen shot at: http://www.nbc4i.com/midwest/cmh/news/nbc4now.html.

The value for radio, tv and newspaper is clear… engage your audience, expand your coverage, grow your audience, and help drive people back to your web properties (where monetization can in many instances occur).

From a marketing perspective, I think a key development strategy (for companies involved in the widget / desktop application space) is integrating Twitter with social communicators / desktop applications / widgets. Doing so would create a “must have” application for news organizations (as well as other markets). Direct Twitter conversations could fuel traffic to radio contests, news / network events, broaden community activism, and much, much more.

As far as emergency managers are concerned, using Twitter within a desktop application or somehow finding a way to convert the Twitter feed (this would take some technical experience with the Twitter API to determine if such an approach were possible) into a CAP (common alerting protocol) message, would create another inbound and outbound communication stream. Alert managers could receive real-time information that could be shared with first responders and others. Likewise, alert managers also could distribute messages via a CAP-based system to Twitter, and thereby reaching their constituents through another touch point. Such an option, for example, would prove enormously useful on a college campus.

In the end, I think the technical and business applications for a simple micro-blogging platform, like Twitter, are starting to come to the head. The question on my mind now is… is Twitter already working with a company on integrating its system with an emergency alert solution, and how many other widget / desktop application / social communicators out there will heed the call and integrate Twitter functionality into their products for the benefit of their customers.

It struck me as I was reviewing my plans for the upcoming Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition in June that there is not a lot of attention on using email to reach one’s customer base in the Conference agenda and session discussions about online marketing. In the not so distant past (which means a year in the new technology era), strategic email marketing was still regarded as the most effective and affordable means to reach an audience and maintain a connection.

So, what has changed?

For starters, people are suffering from email fatigue in a substantial way (Wikipedia actually refers to this as “email bankruptcy”, but I’ve since added the term today). According to some estimates email is a $650 billion drag on the economy, because people engage in too many unnecessary responses and waste time reading messages that they either should not have received in the first place, or simply add no value to their overall productivity (I’ve actually been guilty of that several times as I am writing this blog entry).

The other factor is SPAM. Heinz Tschabitscher, contributor to About.com, writes that “spam has turned email into a very costly undertaking,” citing the complaints ISPs have to cope with, the struggles of email users who try to manage their accounts, the inaccuracy of SPAM blockers where valuable email is sometimes lost, and marketing professionals and publishers who constantly try to justify it all. Ben Macklin of eMarketer calls spam “the scourge of the Internet” and organizations like Spamhaus are working to identify known spamming operations to help curb the abuse.

This is not to say that email is no longer a productive solution to marketing and lead generation. In fact, Spam exists not because a group of a few thousand people globally have nothing better to do until they get their Nintendo Wii, but rather because it is highly profitable.

As a basic premise - assume a mid-level spammer distributes between several hundred million messages to a billion messages in a month, and just received a .03% or .05% response to those emails, the number of leads would be in the tens of thousands. According to Consumer Reports, in one month last year, approximately 650,000 Americans made purchases in phishing scams initiated by spammers.

I think it is safe to say that the issue surrounding email as a marketing tool is not a question of profitability. Pound for pound, it still remains highly cost effective and can yield positive results. However, the shear mass of data coming through nowadays and the volume of Spam that each of us receives, truly minimizes the ability of email to really inform and engage people in a way that builds positive brand recognition. If anything, people are shying away from email marketing, because there is a growing stigma surrounding it, but also because they are finding that reaching the “Inbox” is no longer the value it once was.

This leads us to the question, “If not email marketing, then what?”

A lot of the buzz lately is around using social media to get your marketing message out to the masses. In fact, the IRCE agenda is filled with sessions on Web 2.0 strategies and social media solutions designed to help eretailers.

In our own experience, we have found using social media, such as blogs and webinars, social networking sites (For example, check out our ParentPower community on Facebook and join me on LinkedIn), Twitter, and the like, to be a very helpful way to both discover new solutions and new ideas as well as get more direct interaction with our customers and content providers, which enables us to hear about the user experience first-hand… sometimes as it is taking place. You simply cannot get that from an email that someone may or may not get a chance to read - assuming you reached the inbox in the first place.

The challenge surrounding social media, however, is often overlooked by its dynamic appeal, uniqueness and the subtle suggestion by the news media that everyone is doing it, and if you are not - you’re missing out. In fact, the challenge with using social media and networking is quite obvious when you think about it: it’s time intensive.

Just ask yourself, “How effective would I be if I walked into a room of 50 or 100 strangers, all engaged in their own conversations, and shouted, “I’m offering a 20% discount on a new product that will mean you never have to clean your kitchen floors again!”? Not only would you annoy a lot of people, there is a strong likelihood that you would discourage the very people who may be interested in such a product under normal circumstances from even approaching you.

The truth behind these strategies is that they are based on building relationships (see Livingston on wooing bloggers), and relationships take time. This whole concept of building relationships is what the new marketing paradigm is built around. In the not so distant past (we all know what that means now, right?)… email campaigns were the quick and easy way to broadcast your brand and offerings to the masses. Today, quick and easy is how you bake a cake or clean a toilet bowl (And yes, I lifted that from Tango and Cash). Is it how you run your marketing?

Right now, as you read this, the masses are worn out from it all, and they want meaning… they want substance. On the one hand, this forces all of us in marketing to take on more responsibility and work. But on the other hand, it gives us a tremendous opportunity to provide meaningful solutions to people (fyi - its the customer’s perception of what is meaningful that you need to address) and establish relationships that go deeper than a name on a message.

Of course, this brings us to another solution to the growing decline in the value of email and online marketing strategies, which are desktop applications.

The benefit of desktop applications, more so than one-dimensional widgets or email, is that they are all-inclusive communications vehicles. Not only do they engage your audience by providing a bridge to relevant web content, they provide a one-stop resource for video, audio / podcasts, flash-based games, and in the case of ActiveAccess, include a built-in RSS reader, interactive weather map and links to other resources. The multi-faceted nature of a desktop application, not to mention that the application is on the desktop all the time a person is on their computer, is more engaging for the user, less fatiguing, and helps build a content relationship between the provider and the user that is unique.

What’s more, desktop applications, as a piece to your Web 2.0 puzzle, are not nearly as time intensive as other social media strategies. In fact, they are used to enhance your existing web strategy by providing a portal for your customers to reach you when they are not browsing the Internet.

For more information on how ActiveAccess can help your company or organization, shoot us an email at: info@activeaccess.com.

Or you can DM us through Twitter at: http://twitter.com/activeaccess.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) 2008 Show is now in full swing, stacked with an agenda that is heavy on digital technology, video, social media and the latest product innovations. But those are not the only things going on this year at NAB worth noting.

In an effort to expand its marketing reach, not only does NAB have a very active Show Blog up and running, but they also have a NAB Twitter feed that you can subscribe to. Whether you are at the show or not, these are great ways to stay informed about what is being discussed on the show floor and in the sessions. Since the 2008 Show takes over the entire Las Vegas Convention Center, and is expected to draw over 102,000 people - it’s safe to say that you can’t be every where you want to be. Using these tools should help keep you informed and improve your overall experience.

Another way to maximize your time at NAB is to get some insider knowledge. In fact, last week, I helped organize a Webinar that provided an “Insider’s” view of this year’s show, including perspectives from Chris Brown, NAB’s Executive VP of Conventions and Business Operations, Peggy Miles, President of Intervox, and also Gary Arlen, President of Arlen Communications and author of many books on digital media. Even though the Show is currently underway, I highly recommend you take a few moments when you have some down-time to view the Webinar and see what our expert panel recommends (http://www.bia.com/webinars). Of course, exactly how much down-time you will end up having in Las Vegas is probably pretty minimal, but it is worth a shot, right?

The other idea (and less time consuming) is that you can refer to Rick Ducey’s blog entry at BIA’s blog, Perspectives (click here to read). Rick is not only the Chief Strategy Officer for BIA, but he also has been named an official NAB Show blogger. In his post, Rick outlines his Top 5 things to get out of NAB.

Lastly, BIA has it’s own Twitter feed that allows you to receive updates from NAB, Peggy Miles, and BIA’s Rick Ducey, Mark O’Brien and Ed Czarnecki - all of whom are tweeting and blogging from the Show. The feed can be pulled into an RSS reader, if you want. The main url is: http://twitter.com/BIAfn.

I’ll post more about the Show as word trickles back to me. However, given the rapidly changing environment of the broadcast media industry, NAB is certainly stepping up and using social networks to its marketing advantage.

As a member of the first generation of kids who really grew up with a computer in the home to my present-day work as a marketing professional, I have seen and experienced the changes of the online experience first hand.

From the lonely, late night and early morning hours on my CoCo 3, prowling local and regional BBS boards (trying like a madman to download Duke Nukem), to watching Darkplace and presidential debates on YouTube and CNN this year, what it means to be online or “on the web” continues to evolve… and quickly.

To say that the web has been reborn sounds a bit stale. I know that. The truth of the matter is - being online (whether via the pre-Internet days or not) has always been a social experience some way or another. And since the web has grown so much over the years, its rebirth or evolution has been a constant.

However, I believe one of the differences between then and now is the level with which we can interact and engage one another is greater than anytime in history. The last couple of years have seen the growth of social networks, advancements in digital and mobile technology, greater personalized content, rapid adoption of RSS, and the explosion of Twitter and similar communications solutions. Spurring all of these things along has been the growth of broadband and wireless technology, which has enabled more and more people high-speed access and grown the web substantially.

Of course, not only is the technology available and accessible, but people are using it and using it for many purposes. People are watching video online, listening to the radio online, getting their news online, meeting people and cultivating relationships online, more than at any time in history. We can bridge the gap of distance and communicate through Skype, follow the latest developments at a trade show (for example, see the NAB Twitter feed by clicking here), or join social and political causes all instantly and for free. And if we want, we can beam video of ourselves all over the world, purchase food and clothing, and, of course, complain.

What this brings me to - in a loose and rather unscientific blog posting - is that the web has emerged to become everyone’s social portal (well, almost everyone). If you want to reach people - you need to reach them online.

This holds especially true for marketing. In fact, I think we as marketing professionals have the most difficult job in the crazy life-cycle of business. Our job is to keep track of all of these portals, networks and communities, and devise ways to use everything the web is creating as a means to get our message to our target audience. The rebirth of the web as a social portal has come to mean that successful marketing is social marketing, and social marketing is only a success when you establish a relationship - preferably a positive one.

The purpose of this website and Hack Blog is to address the unique dynamics of social marketing, and to offer insight into how social marketing can and should be used. Another component of this site to connect you, the reader, with the skilled and talented people I work with on a daily basis at BIA Financial Network, intelligent PR professionals like Geoff Livingston, and others who can help you and your company or organization make the right marketing decisions.