If Craigslist cost $1

My Take on Seth Godin's 9/29/09 blog.

We can certainly speculate on what might happen if the cat weren't out of the bag and the genie was still in the bottle. But there is literally no going back.

The "free web" is not perfect. But neither would a "pay for everything" web. Think about the great sites we enjoy because, due to their 0 price point, many enterd, enjoyed, spread-the-word and gave the sites the traffic to thrive.

Sure - monetization is often an after thought. But the Web is still in its infancy.

As far as tightness, well, I would not be more loyal to a mediocre "pay for" site than I am to an excellent free site. So it's all about quality.

We are each committed to pursuing quality for ourselves. The creators who make sites that bring value and enrich others' lives will flourish - until some regulation comes along mandating fees.

I believe that's called a tax.

in reference to:

"If Craigslist cost $1"
- Seth's Blog: If Craigslist cost $1 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Note - this blog was composed using Google's Sidewiki (http://www.google.com/sidewiki/intl/en/index.html#tbbrand=GZEG). It's new and it's free. With Sidewiki you can remark on any Web page. Your remarks can be read by others.

It integrates with Blogspot blogs. It stores Sidewiki blogs with your profile so others may read your Sidewiki entries.

If it cost $1 I would not have tried it. Hope you like it.

- - Tim

Read This If You Want New Clients Who Are Affluent

Excerpted from article by Helen Leggatt

Social media used by all demographics

Social media is influencing all kinds of consumer decisions. And now it's seeping into life's more mundane moments.

According to new research from Ad-ology, consumers' decisions on home repair services are being swayed by social media. The study also found that affluent consumers are more likely to be influenced by social media when it came to home repair services than other income groups.

It's not just the young and tech-savvy generations using social media to research purchases. People of all ages and from all walks of life are reading review sites, Tweeting about brands and using social media to make better, more informed purchase decisions.

"Some companies may be quick to dismiss social media as something that's only used by young people, and not worth their effort," said C. Lee Smith, president and CEO of Ad-ology Research. "In reality, social media usage is growing across all demographics and can clearly be a way to reach some very lucrative audiences," he added.

My Take

The trend continues - and it's becoming more predictable. Use of social media is increasing across all demographics. It is seeing rapid increase among the affluent. If you want educated, home-owning high earning clientele, you should connect with your customers, neighbors and friends on social media.

Social Media - Revolutionizing Major Media

Excerpted from

My View On 'The New Socialism'

by Dave Morgan

The title of this year's OMMA Global was "The New Socialism" and a key focus in the sessions was the growing importance of social media and micro-blogging as a central means of online engagement -- and the role of those services in tapping the $500 billion global spend on offline brand advertising.

Online social media is growing at an extraordinary rate, already representing an extraordinary share of the total time that many consumers spend on media. Those services will become significant factors in reshaping the media and advertising landscape.

Media is changing, not shifting. Distribution, once scarce, is now plentiful. Media exposures, once scare, are now plentiful. Audience attention, once plentiful, is now scarce. These are the facts on the ground and they are changing the underlying foundation of media, not just shifting it from one channel to another.

Business models and pricing models are changing most dramatically. There are no better examples of the changing business and pricing models than newspaper classifieds and Craigslist. The former has made all participants -- sellers, advertisers, subscribers -- pay dearly, while pocketing outsized profit margins. The latter only requires a tiny fraction of the participants to pay relatively little, and still pockets outsize profit margins. Of course, the $100 million that Craigslist might generate this year is only a fraction of the billions of dollars that it displaced.

Platforms changing, too. It's not just about the PC anymore. It's becoming more and more about the person -- on mobile, on connected TV's, viewing digital out-of-home, on e-readers.

Everyone is now media. You no longer need to be CBS, The New York Times or Sports Illustrated to deliver "consumer contact" to a marketer. Everyone and anyone on Twitter, Facebook or a blog can now do that -- and millions and millions are doing that.

Results for you, me and marketers are all that matters. There is a tough road ahead for exposure-based pricing of media. Online media exposures are growing at an extraordinary rate, maybe even exponentially. The future is not about delivering "cheaper, faster" impressions. It is about delivering results -- helping people find things, helping people buy things, helping people sell things.

My Take

Social media is indeed placing more of the share of media - its mindshare and marketshare - into the hands of media consumers. As this occurs then another change will unfold.

The distribution channels of media will change. The effects won't be limited to the struggling print media outlets. Prediction - in 5 years major sports and media events will forego distribution by broadcast media in favor of straight-to-Web technology.

As this occurs, the revenue streams traditionally flowing toward major media outlets will be diverted into new channels. These channels will cut out the traditional recipients. As social media results are measurable, the revenue generated by social media can be paid directly to those producing the results.

That's revolutionary!

Word-of-Mom is the Best WOM. Here's why...

Wooing Women: It's A Head Game

Excerpted from MediaPost article by Maria Reitan

A few years ago Mel Gibson starred in a successfully romantic comedy, "What Women Want." He played a hard-charging advertising executive who thought he knew what women wanted until one day he woke up, and he could hear the actual musings inside women's heads. He was stunned to discover he was way off base.

Wouldn't it be easier if marketers could just read women's minds? Women with children control $1.6 trillion in household spending. Looking at those figures, if marketers are smart they have an opportunity to "get it right" and "get the girl."

Here are some tips for getting inside the head of the home's chief purchasing officer.

1. Time crunched
Mom purchases from companies that are relevant to her multi-tasking lifestyle. Your communications to her must be multi-dimensional as well: pricing, service, messages and actions all play a role.

2. The friend factor
If you can't reach a specific type of woman directly, tapping her friend may serve the same purpose. Seventy-five percent of mothers research a product before buying it, about the same rate as men do at 74%, but 90% of women prefer brands recommended by other moms. That's nearly double the average consumer. "Word-of-mom" marketing is a significant way to make an impression that lingers all the way to the check-out aisle.

3. Technology is "queen"
Women purchase $55 billion worth of technology every year. Sixty percent prefer to be reached via the Internet, but because they are so connected, you can reach mom through a variety of mediums. If you are marketing in the technology space, you should be selling DTM (direct-to-mom).

4. The mom-stage
The cookie-cutter mom doesn't exist. Marketers who connect with women through their shared experiences based on lifestyles and lifestages, no matter what their demographic, will make their products more relevant and believable.

Be relevant. Deliver on your promises. Create some buzz. Get your message in front of mom in many places and many ways. Don't treat all women the same. Follow these tips, and like Mel Gibson's character in the movie, you too can capture her heart (and her disposable income in the process).

My Take

Staggering stats. But not very surprising. Local businesses with tight ad budgets should pay close attention to the data cited by Maria.

Tip from GasPedal to Increase Your Referral Leads

Excerpted from our favorite Word-of-Mouth, best selling author Andy Sernovitz's site GasPedal

Create word of mouth by giving your customers the tools for talking

One of the best ways to get a customer talking about you is to send them off with something great that they can share. It’s all about putting the tools for talking directly in the hands of your fans.

You can try some simple stuff, like extra coupons, lots of free samples, stickers, or treats. Or, you can do what wedding photographer Lindsey Turner does and go all out by sending potential clients off with a bag full of helpful goodies

The Lesson: Think about what your talkers could use in a kit that would help them tell their family, friends, and other businesses about you — and find a way to do it like Lindsey: Relevant, helpful, and inexpensive.

(Read entire article.)

My Take

"The right tool for the right job" helps you finish your work efficiently - and with the best results.

When giving your clients a tool for word-of-mouth referrals, what better than a direct connection between their "real-life", off-line relationships and your online social Web page?

GenX Marketing Advice from Forrester Research

Targeting Generation X? Try Word of Mouth

[Excerpted from 8/28/2009 Forrester Research article by Nate Elliott]

If you're a marketer targeting Gen X consumers (between 30 and 43), and you're not using social media or influence marketing, it's time to reevaluate your strategy.

This audience is surprisingly engaged with social media. They're more active than average on nearly every rung of our social technographics ladder -- especially as joiners, with 59% of Gen X consumers telling us they use social networks at least once each month. Best of all, many are using social influence to make product recommendations: 42% say they often tell friends about the products and services that interest them.

So if you want to leverage this sharing behavior to reach Gen X consumers (or any other socially active online audience, for that matter), what should you do?

• Give all your customers the tools they need to share. Tools like ShareThis and AddThis make it easy to add sharing functionality to your site. And don't forget: as valuable as Twitter and Facebook can be for driving word of mouth, most people make product recommendations through private channels like e-mail and IM.
• Find -- and leverage -- your brand advocates. Mine your sales database to find your most loyal and valuable customers, and run surveys to find users who think most highly of your brand and are most likely to pass the word along.
• Don't forget the power of offline influence. Online influence can work wonders, but offline influence is both more common (see Figure 11) and more powerful (see page 18). Savvy marketers are using social media to organize offline events where customers can energize each other around products and brands, and to create and manage ambassador programs that extend both online and off.

My Take

Nate's practical advice and clear data is compelling.

Bottom line - if your target clients are aged 30 to 43, they're using social media to talk about you. It's a race between you and your competitors - the earlier you engage your customers and neighbors on social media there the more new sales you'll book.

SMEs' Future is Connecting With 'Fans'

The Problem With 'Fans'

by Joe Marchese

Excerpted from 8/25/2009 MediaPost Blogs Follow the author on Twitter @joemarchese (www.twitter.com/joemarchese)

Fans, by definition, have raised their hand to indicate some sort of affiliation to a brand. The intent of that affiliation can vary widely, depending on the individual. Perhaps the "fan" simply wanted to tell her friends about a brand she liked, one time. Perhaps the "fan" wanted to get the coupon offered by a brand for becoming a fan. Or perhaps, and this is the one the brands want to hear, the "fan" wants to hear from and talk to the brand going forward.

Whatever the reason, an individual has opted to form a loose connection to a brand within social media. There is no doubt that this is the next generation of CRM (customer relationship management), and will be an incredibly valuable tool as brands better learn how to communicate in a social media setting -- but it is no way a complete answer to social media marketing.

Consider the number of brands the average person interacts with in his or her daily life. Now consider how many of those brands a person would be willing to become a fan of. Also, in what setting does marketing to your most loyal fans only constitute the whole of your marketing efforts?

The power of social media marketing is to reach out to people who are not already fans, outside the setting of direct communication between brands and people -- instead generating conversation between people about brands. The difference is between Nike talking to me on Facebook, versus a friend and I talking to each other about Nike on Facebook. Authenticity is found in peer-to-peer communication, not just within a core group of loyal fans, but reaching out to the community at large.

Activating this strategy will unlock significant reach and generate the ROI brands are looking for to justify social media investments (re: new customers).

People are spending more time in social media all the time. Adapting best practices to leverage fans/friends/followers is a must, and should be a major component of every social media marketing plan.

My Take

Marchese touches on several consumer trends:

• Increasing tendency of consumers to affiliate with brands (substitute Small to Medium Sized Enterprises - SMEs - for the purpose of this commentary)
• These fans' motivation ranges from sheer loyalty to desired connection to reward
• As consumers increasingly use social media, it is an ideal place for SMEs to connect with loyal and prospective customers. In fact, adapting best practices to leverage fans/friends/followers is a "*must".

These trends are early indicators of the emerging social economy which will recognize and incorporate social media as the most valuable advertising channel. The $100B US local advertising market will increasingly shift to social media.