Why "do you use social media?" is the wrong question for marketers to ask

Have you noticed there are a bunch of polls and research reports that ask people questions such as "Do you read blogs?" or "Do you use social media?" or "Do you go to video sharing sites?" Often the resulting data show rather small use compared to those who, say, use search engines or email.

From the perspective of the value of social media in an organization's overall marketing and PR efforts, this data is misleading and dangerous. Why? Because the data is used by social-media-resistant executives to justify sticking exclusively to the methods that worked decades ago like image advertising, direct mail, and the yellow pages. I frequently hear CEOs, CFOs, and VPs of marketing say things like: "See, social media is not important, so we won't do it here. It is a waste of time." Other people say: "I don't read blogs, so how important are they?"

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How well do you know your buyer personas?

If you've read my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR or spent time on my blog, you may recall that I stress the importance of "buyer personas." In fact, I believe they're one of the most fundamental aspects of great marketing. A buyer persona is distinct group potential customers, an archetypal person whom you want your marketing to reach.

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Gobbledygook banned by English and Welsh local authorities

Valerie Conyngham points us to a fascinating story.

The Local Government Association (LGA), an association of English and Welsh local authorities representing over 50 million people, has told local government officials to ditch meaningless jargon.

According to an article in The Telegraph, the LGA has sent a list to Town Halls of 100 words and phrases that should be avoided. The list includes "empowerment," "synergies," "revenue stream," "sustainable communities," and "stakeholders."

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Do not read this blog post

So you're reading this post, huh? Kind of a compelling title, isn’t it?

Why is that?

Read_this_post

I have strong evidence that "negative" Web headlines and links often generate lots more clicks than "positive" ones. For example, my Worst Practices blog category gets more clicks than any other category on this blog.

Several years ago I worked on a site where we included a link "For Executives Only" and this generated more traffic than other links. It turns out people react to negatives. Words like "Worst", "Not", "Don't", and "Only" are interesting and people want to know what’s there.

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David Meerman Scott

The http://www.webiknow.com/ blog is the official blog of David Meerman Scott, an online marketing and public relations guru. I have read his book "The New Rules of Marketing and PR". Its a very practical book and is a goldmine of web sources about re-tooling marketing and public relations in an on-line environment. It is also incisive as it provides "in your face" analysis of emerging PR realities amidst time tested theoretical and traditonal banalities held sacred by practioners of the craft.

It is with this that two websites are put forward. http://www.davidmeermanscott.com/ and http://www.webinknow.com/