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There is plenty of buzz out there about how the economy is slowing. Companies will begin pulling back on expenses and unfortunately cut on staff, too, if it gets worse. But smart companies know that there is no better time to surge forward and leave competition wondering what happened.

Social marketing, with authentic messages, is the most important recession-time marketing tool any company can have. But waiting until a real recession to try it is a huge mistake. Now’s the time to get involved. But involved in the right way.

The trouble is, many companies jump into blogging, digging, and you-tubing blind and clueless, hoping that the magic beans will carry them into the clouds. An old-marketing approach to spreading the word will not work in today’s social sphere, but you’ll still see it - blogs that read like press releases and TV commercials posted to youtube without tags of any type.

Successful Social Marketing can give protection against economic downturns. But it’s not easy - and it requires a change in the way you think about customers, communications, and the very core of your business model. With a constant application of authentic, easy-to-spread messages, you encourage distribution of the message.

You already know if you build it, they won’t come. So, how are you going to get people to join in your social media effort? What is the best way to identify key blogosphere influencers that might already have access to your market(s)? In which communities/listservs will you place ‘moles’? Once you identify them, how will you engage them to make your destination attractive to them? How will you increase the ’shareability’ of your blog/podcast? - Lena Wes

For one thing, authentic messages go further down the customer’s consideration cycle than average marketing messages. Especially if they have an anchor - such as a specific example close to home or a highly visual image that sticks. This makes it easier to re-tell the story to others, without worrying that you’re inadvertently feeding bullshit. If your customers join the conversation, they can spread the message for you - the most economical and effective marketing method available.

Those applying social marketing methods need to know about the people whose behavior to change as well as their relevant beliefs, behaviors and attitudes in context of social and cultural factors influencing behaviors. By knowing this first, the marketing message can be designed to spread naturally, and inexpensively, between marketing mavens.

People distrust old-school marketing messages - and they’re trusting them less all the time. So while you may feel as if you’re “putting the word out there” - people may not be buying it. If you can’t afford to put the word out there in an authentic way, you can’t afford to do business today. You’re wasting your marketing dollars pushing messages that do not work.

Lastly, those who take the time to integrate social media with market segmentation techniques can have a multiplier effect on the post-click element of this process the same way raising another mast of sails does to a ship.

photo: Pedro Simões

I saw this myspace-promotion for the first time on a site-placement campaign, and if you click, it auto-adds myspace to your sites list for that campaign or you can look at myspace placements. I guess not enough people were advertising on myspace or perhaps it was just getting lost in the mix?

I’m pretty sure a lot of people will just click putting them into the entire myspace adspace. I hope people will at least think about the individual placements.

Clearly part of Google’s late summer deal with Fox Interactive, I’m guessing it will be tricky to convert unless you’re very careful on this unless you have a site marketing to 13-18 year olds and something free to offer them. Definitely need to approach this kind of audience with a new media plan that builds community rather than the traditional sales funnel.

My prediction?  Google will start offering free analysis/consultation on placing on the myspace network.

Mark Nickolas, Kentucky political blogger and founder of award-winning blog bluegrassreport.org is joining former CNET founder and CEO Shelby Bonnie in the formation of politicalbase.com. The site, which is open to all political affiliations, looks to have a lot of very Web 2.0 features.

The site is focusing on the presidential races and has tools such as campaign finance and polling databases. Web 2.0 features include traditional blog comments and Wikipedia-style content about candidates, players and issues.

Kentucky Politics gets interesting, as usual.

Bluegrassreport.org made lots of waves, including big news in Kentucky when Gov. Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky blocked the site from State employees’ computers, later claiming the ban was strictly to keep them productive. But subsequent information provided by Michael Inman, the former technology commissioner of KY stated that Mark’s site was singled out.
Good luck Mark.

In September, Yahoo! closed down their Podcasting search service. Odeo is still languishing in my opinion. Podcast Alley is well designed and easy to use, but is full of horrible horrible content leaving me to question the voting system they have as being seriously gamed. Google’s stayed pretty much out of the game, but there is a Google custom search that’s pretty good.

So what is going on?

• Has iTunes declawed podcasting with it’s search tool and lack of features?
• Is it too hard to get current podcasts onto listening devices?
• Are we seeing a “normal” hype-cool-settle cycle?
• What about the new in-car technologies?
• Will the iPhone and wireless iPod help?
• Are podcasts inherently non-viral?

What’s even more perplexing is that our on-demand society craves time-shifted, portable entertainment. Podcatchers are the ultimate web audio “Tivo” equivalent. You can isolate items of interest and let it fill up unaided…then listen to a stream of custom audio.

The Google Trends chart to the right could be slightly misleading when it comes to the “Christmas Spikes.” Since more people have MP3 players already, the height of the spike, and thus the novelty of podcasts, will probably be shorter, but the overall trend is compelling and consistent with the premise of this post.

Wizzard.tv claims 1 billion downloads in 2007. That’s big.

My suggestions to improve podcasting include:

• Podcasters must create content people want. Please quit spewing poorly-tagged, over-hyped garbage.
• Connect podcasts to GPS and stream local content (especially for the tourism industry)
• Podcasts should STOP when there is nothing else to talk about. They are too long! Get to the point already.
• Make it easy to find podcasts based on your interests? Hasn’t behavioral targeting come far enough for this yet?
• Podcasters should prepare for their shows. I’m so sick of “I didn’t have time to get ready” type shows. If that happens. Don’t do it!
• Podcasters need an easy way to translate their shows to non-English.
• Stop with the fancy, 3-minute long intros. I don’t want to hear the tractor-pull-style hype buildup.
• We need to improve tagging and chapter marks. Podcast producers must take the time to tag their work as well as isolate sections when the subjects change drastically.
• Itunes must improve podcast search. Top-ten podcasts within a genre would be a good start. Editor’s Picks and better identification of video podcasts would help too. Someone should raise the barrier to entry into iTunes podcasting. If the podcast doesn’t get subscribers, kill it.
• Make it simpler to subscribe, right from the device. More explanation to the newbie of what’s going to happen when they click subscribe would help. Why must I surf the web for 30 minutes to find a good show? Why not let me set up my interests (ala Tivo) and just let the system fill up my podcast-allocated area on my player?
• “New Podcast Suggestion” tools need to be developed based on meta search.
• Auto-transcription systems or Human-transcribed systems will help with indexing content (though they may not be terribly useful to users as readable text) and, if well-engineered, allow “fast forwarding” to a certain point in the podcast as well as enabling translation to other languages.

Postscript:  Complete post that PodShow Podcasting Network Grew 29144% in 2007.

Let the top 10/20/30 lists begin! Here’s my top stories round-up, using information I collected as I write my latest article for Business Lexington. I’m almost certain to come back and adjust links, so bookmark me, and add your own - cause I know I’m missing some!

iPhone Stirred the Mobile Internet marketplace. While the iPhone earned raves for its interface and sleek styling, it still was designed to operate only on the AT&T/Cingular wireless network, lacked a keyboard and did not operate on 3G broadband networks. Buyers still swooped in after the device, buying one million iPhones in 74 days. The iPhone platform readily integrates a number of Internet technologies that will benefit greatly from the planned 3G version in 2008. Still, it’s worth keeping in mind that the iPhone is still only around 1% of the marketshare. Later it was announced that a 3G iPhone will be available soon.

Merger and Aquisition Madness in the Search Advertising Google acquired Internet Advertising Company Doubleclick for $3.1B, Microsoft bought Ad Agency aQuantive (including Avenue A/Razorfish) for $6B, and Yahoo! bought Right Media creating a potential for conflict of interest in the web search advertising giants that some see as an unfair monopoly.

Google’s Street-Level View Google’s “Street View” solutions for Google maps allows a “virtual drive” of certain cities via 360-degree images captured by specially equipped cars. Privacy advocates quickly found people in compromising positions on some images and Google offered a “blur-out request form” on their website. Microsoft’s version garnered some attention as well, showing scenes through the windows of a race car.

(more…)

The small transit operator Fredericton Transit Division had their routes added to Google Transit tonight for the Fredericton (85k) area, adding yet another Canadian location for the terrific trip planning service. The University of New Brunswick and St. Thomas University students in the area will surely benefit from this trip-planning service.

The City of Fredericton Transit Division operates 28 buses on eight routes, Monday to Saturday, 6:30 am until 11:00 pm, providing safe, affordable mobility to those in the community who do not have access to or choose not to use a private vehicle. In addition we operate chartered busing to various school, tour, and conference groups in and around Fredericton, and a parallel service , Dial-A-Bus, for persons with a disability.