Day: August 14, 2011

Five Themes for Succeeding in the “Validation Era”

One thing both consumers and marketers agree on is there is too much noise. What’s causing that noise are the 150 million users on Twitter, the over 700 million on Facebook and the millions across other networks of contribution. Last week Twitter reported they host 200 million tweets a day. Each is a person or company’s voice shouting for attention. Everyone wants to be heard, but our ears can only handle so much information.

Steve Rubel, social media thought leader and Executive Vice President for Edelman, referred to this shift in web dynamics as The Validation Era. The implications of this era apply to anyone trying to reach an audience: brands, retailers, broadcasters and publishers.

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My Single Most Powerful Productivity Trick

You could circle the world at least dozen times just by stringing together all the words that have been written about productivity.

In particular, managing information overload in a social and new media era is a topic that never ceases to draw the masses. There isn’t a day that passes that I don’t see at least a post from someone lamenting how they simply can’t keep up anymore, or keep track of what they have to do, or how they’re getting buried in information but not finding anything valuable out there. It happens to the best of us.

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A Consumer-based View of Data Gathering

The more social media use becomes a way of business and a way of life, the more we are seeing – and will continue to see – issues around data collection and user privacy.  It of course makes sense for marketers to leverage this data, but in my opinion, we’re going about it in the wrong way.

Brands MUST begin to view data as a relationship-building and consumer-engagement opportunity, rather than simply a targeting tool.  The targeting mentality is all about “catching” the customer, zeroing in on the customer like prey — totally counter to the emerging culture of social/relationship-based marketing!

Brands that embrace this targeting mentality are missing the boat and letting a huge relationship-building opportunity pass them by.  Let’s turn the table on the data collection/privacy issue and instead make it valuable to the consumer in the form of getting to know them and serving them better.

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