Friday Roundup 1st August 2008

It's all digital media this week on the MarCom Professional roundup.

And if you're looking for evidence that working with social media can improve your reputation, Brian Solis guides us through how Comcast has started to turn things round. A company slated for its customer service, I guess they didn't need any further feedback from the social Web than the launch and subsequent popularity of the website ComcastMustDie.com!

But it's the action following the alarm bells that's the important bit.

And to ram home this week's theme, Graham Jones references recent research that indicates we're all increasingly more likely to consult the big ole Web ahead of friends and family these days when researching impending purchases. Who'd have thought it?!

Best regards, Andrew and the MarCom Professional team.

Is the Internet your best friend?

by Graham Jones of Internet Psychology

Before the Internet came along there were two main ways of finding suitable suppliers for things we wanted to buy. If we knew we wanted something but didn't know who to get it from, the first thing we used to do was ask a friend or colleague. And if they couldn't come up with the answer we had to thumb our way through Yellow Pages.

Then, the Internet arrived and we had a "third person" we could ask. Gradually, web sites replaced the Yellow Pages. Indeed, each year now we get two copies of Yellow Pages delivered (because we have two phone lines) and both of them sit in a corner gathering dust. More...

The power of social bookmarking and how to use it in your organisation today

by Philip Sheldrake of Racepoint Group UK

The more stuff there is, the more difficult it is to find the right stuff at the right time. Guess that's almost Google's raison d'etre, but have they got it right? Is there a better or alternative search approach for you and your colleagues, and what would this mean for your marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO)?

Google's highly secretive approach to working out what might be more relevant to your search query is called PageRank. Fundamentally, their innovation counts a link to a website as a vote for that website's content. More...

10 Sticky Content Tips for Keeping Visitors Glued to Your Website

by Matt Ambrose of The Copywriter's Crucible

[Image courtesy MarkDM]

Brochure websites need to be consigned to a museum as relics of the internet’s evolutionary history. There I’ve said it. Websites, and the thinking behind them, has evolved a lot over the last few years. If you just want to recreate your company brochure into pixel form then, please, go ahead. But the longer you can keep prospects on your website the more time you’ve got to build a relationship.

People surf the web for information. Not sales messages. More...

Companies’ revenues at risk through not understanding Gen Y

by Ben Matthews of Pudding Relations

Companies are having trouble keeping up with Generation Y consumers, according to a recent article on Silicon.com.

This is a worrying fact for some companies as it is these Gen Y consumers that are increasingly setting the technology agenda and becoming a vital audience to reach in determining which products and services will succeed in the tech space.

Gen Y consists of 18- to 28-year-olds who are leading the way in technology adoption and are the most internet-savvy group, spending more time online than they do watching television. More...

The Old Celebrity Hook That (Almost) Never Fails: Mr T & Snickers Show How It's Done!

by Trevor Young of One19

It's not a foolproof tactic by any means but the concept of bringing out to Australia an overseas 'celebrity' still pays handsome dividends in terms of publicity for companies willing to take the chance.

Further to a previous post on the subject, hat-tip to Mars (and its PR agency) for a job well done on the recent touring of US actor Mr T on behalf of its Snickers brand.

Mr T - best known for his work on TV's A-Team and the movie Rocky III - generated heaps of press and broadcast coverage for himself and the brand. More...

Should you worry if your online social group isn't very active?

by Graham Jones of Internet Psychology

Social networkers who form groups, clubs and the like, often worry that they are not getting enough participation. They point to the fact that even though many people may have registered, few take part. Indeed, there are social networking clubs and forums dedicated to helping club owners increase their participant rate..!

However, new research suggests that the "lurkers" (the people who just read the group, but don't contribute) may actually be getting something out of it. So More...

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

by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott

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. More...

Comcast Cares and Why Your Business Should Too - The Socialization of Service

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

Bradley C. Bower for The New York Times
Frank Eliason, digital care manager at Comcast

There's certainly no shortage of discussions in the blogosphere that examine and spotlight companies that are listening to brand-related conversations across the Social Web to improve customer service, retention, and loyalty. But, when the New York Times decides to profile the emerging and critically important trend of two-way dialog between company representatives and stakeholders, we actually begin the process of crossing the chasm into the mainstream. More...

How to Sell More Products to More Visitors to Your Website

by David Knowles of

So you’ve just built a spanking new website with your company brochure recreated in pixel form. Now you’ve just got to wait for visitors to arrive before the sales start rolling in, right? Wrong. Selling your products and services online presents unique hurdles compared to the bricks and mortar world. Your website has to be able to build trust and confidence with visitors before they’re going to buy.

Make your website ‘sticky’

People search the web for information. More...