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New York Times Bestseller On The Perils Of Social Media

Back in April I wrote an article about the ill-timed and extremely insensitive Tweets put forth by a brand: Epicurious Uses The Boston Marathon Tragedy To Cross That Line. It was of course not the first nor the last example of social media gone bad in the context of a brand and those entrusted with the marketing of it.

Today, however, I want to talk about when social media goes bad from a human perspective. You do remember humans, right? Oh sure, there’s autobots and other techno-related gizmos that will Tweet, post and Like on we humans’ behalf – at least I think there is?

Cover of "Crucial Conversations: Tools fo...

But at the end of the day it is we humans who are traveling the highways and biways of social media on an ever-increasing pace.

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The Content “IS” the Ad

1There’s a lot of angst in marketing land right now. With Google’s Panda and Penguin changes and social algorithms that favor engagement, it may look as though SEO is dead, or that traditional ads will soon be going the way of the dodo. What’s a marketer to think? Are we supposed to throw out everything we learned about marketing and advertising to date and learn to ride a new horse? How the heck are we supposed to get in front of customers now?

Well, things ARE changing. Traditional advertising isn’t yet extinct, but there is simply too much noise out there, and people are sick of it. They’re shutting out the blast advertising that has crept into every aspect of their lives and centering in on the things they truly care about—friends, family, and social connections. You need to take a step back and study this shift in order to take advantage of it.

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I spread your idea because…

 

Ideas spread when people choose to spread them. Here are some reasons why:

  1. I spread your idea because it makes me feel generous.
  2. …because I feel smart alerting others to what I discovered.
  3. …because I care about the outcome and want you (the creator of the idea) to succeed.
  4. …because I have no choice. Every time I use your product, I spread the idea (Hotmail, iPad, a tattoo).
  5. …because there’s a financial benefit directly to me (Amazon affiliates, mlm).
  6. …because it’s funny and laughing alone is no fun.

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Blogging Strategy as it Relates to Building Relationships


Your personal and/or company blog, to me, should be at the heart of your social presence and be a driver for valuable content that can be used in so many places.

Here are a few things to consider in addition to just posting articles and working the SEO angle… four places to concentrate to enhance engagement:

1. User-Friendly Navigation: Keeping your blog easy to navigate with intuitive category labels will help people find the information they seek much faster. Here again, doing your research on what your customers are looking for is essential. Also, make it easy for readers to leave comments and share your posts on various channels.

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Irrefutable Proof That Inbound Marketers Need A Major Reality Check

Now I don’t know about you but being the sports fanatic I am, I am often in need of a “reality check” for sure. I think most sports fans need this from time to time as too often we get caught up in the hype or hyperbole of a given athlete or team.

It would appear that those who live, play and dwell in the inbound marketing world need to be “reminded of the state of things in the real world.” At least that’s the conclusion I drew from reading the findings of a study conducted by InsideSales.com which revealed that one sale lead after another is essentially being wasted as far too many in the position to respond to those leads – AKA sales folks, simply are out of tuch when it comes to reality.

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Vonage Takes Generosity To A Whole New Level

No matter where we come from or where we’re headed or who we are, we could all use a little more generosity in our lives, right? Wouldn’t the world be a better place if more people had “a quality that’s a lot like unselfishness — someone showing generosity is happy to give to or share time, money, food, or whatever with others?”

Those of us who live, work and play in the marketing, advertising and branding world would love to have consumers look at us and our clients as being generous, yes? How priceless would that be? In today’s relationship marketing world, especially.

voncupWell one national brand is doing something that they hope will convey their message of generosity in a somewhat “crazy” way.

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Plugging into the Future of Humanity: Exploring the Human API

 

I had the opportunity to present at LeWeb in Paris, arguably Europe’s largest conference dedicated to the future of technology. The theme of the conference explored the Internet of Things, where devices and things connect to one another to perform certain tasks and/or track activities to improve what we already do or make possible what we’re trying to do.

The Internet of Things is bigger than we may realize. We are experiencing a shift from a world of inanimate objects and reactive devices to a world where data, intelligence, and computing are distributed, ubiquitous, and networked. My fellow analysts and I at Altimeter Group refer to the Internet of Things (IoT) as the Sentient World. It’s the idea that inanimate objects gain the ability to perceive things, perform tasks, adapt, or help you adapt over time. And, it’s the future of the Internet and consumer electronics.

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Emerging Best Practices in OmniCommerce Logistics Strategy

Every week I’m interacting with more and more e-commerce professionals who’s day to day job is coming up with the best methods of delivering OmniCommerce solutions for their customers. One thing I can say is there’s alot of angst and confusion out there, so I thought it might be helpful to share some of the best practices, opinions and trends that seem to be emerging.

Those of you who know me are aware of my work in coining and developing the ‘Matrix Commerce’ concept, however I’m sure you’ll have noted today that I’m using term OmniCommerce. This is simply a reflection of blunt reality, before any firm can even think of accomplishing a full Matrix Commerce implementation, they and their organizations have to master and implement the basics of OmniCommerce logistics. Think of how mountain climbers get to the summit of Mount Everest, the first step in that trek is to get to Base Camp and when it comes to implementing Matrix Commerce in your organization, the first step or Base Camp is to effectively implement OmniCommerce.

Simply put OmniCommerce is allowing your customers to effectively access, research and purchase your products in any manner they choose PC, mobile, tablet, kiosk, virtual store, in-store; and then deliver them, or have them available for pick up, when and where your customer would like. To do this you need to ensure that at ALL locations where stock is held or displayed for retail sale ACCURATE and TIMELY inventory information. Without this you don’t have a hope of delivering even a basic level of satisfactory omnicommerce customer experience.

As this post is about the logistics strategies to support Omnicommerce I will not deal with the front end ordering or online technology, but rather the logistics surrounding where product will be stocked, picked and shipped from for either delivery or pick up by your customers.

The major models being utilized to date are:

National Fulfillment Centre

Regional Fulfillment Centres

Ship From Distibution Centre

Ship From All Stores

Regional Hub Stores

Pick Up Centres and/or Lockerboxes

Direct From Drop Ship From Vendors

Each of the above will be briefly explained and then we’ll touch on some of the potential advantages and disadvantages of each approach. And of course it is important to note that the above are not mutually exclusive and many retailers will utilize a combination of approaches to support their online clients.

National Fulfillment Centre

To date this has been the most widely used model

Regional Fulfillment Centres

As customer’s continue to demand more rapid delivery service levels we are seeing an increase in

Ship From Distibution Centre

Although not optimal some have chosen to utilize their existing distribution centres to service e-commerce business.

Ship From All Stores

Some retailers rather than introduce a fulfillment centre or ship from their distribution centres have decided to ship their online orders directly from the closest store to the end customer.

Regional Hub Stores

Recently we have seen the emergence of Hub Stores (The Gap) (article link)

Pick Up Centres and/or Lockerboxes

One variant on traditional online delivery models is the introduction and use of Pick Up Centres or lockerboxes

Drop Ship From Vendors

As many online sellers seek to expand their assortment and cover more product categories in their online offerings they shift to an “endless aisle” model where products are listed on their site and kept in inventory at the original vendor’s warehouse. As soon as a product is sold on the website, the order is passed along to the vendor who then Drop Ships the product to the end consumer.

Blueberry pancakes and battleships

The typical industrial-era organization is like a battleship. Hundreds or thousands of people onboard, and most of them are essential–but most of them aren’t actually directly responsible for the work that we hired the battleship to do. Without the fuel people, the navigation team, the folks in the med corps and on and on, it doesn’t work.

The battleship can go far, with impact, and change the course of history. While it has exactly one captain, it’s the synchronized work of more than a million people (when you think about all the machinists and support folks back home) and it works. It does what we ask it to do.

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A New Social Media Muuver And Shaker

For those who don’t know me, I am a huge fan of (in no specific order): coffee, breathing, peanut butter and puns. The latter of course is the reason for my purposely misspelled word in the title above.

Ok, maybe it’s not a pun in the biblical sense but I think it’s a pun nevertheless. If you don’t agree with me, that’s perfectly fine. And while I am not the world’s greatest speller – although I did come in 2nd place in the 6th grade spelling bee a few years back, the reason for my incorrect spelling of the word “mover” is due to the fact that I want to tell you about something called “muuver.”

As per their description on the crowdfunding site indiegogo.com, “muuver is a simple to use social app that let’s you share your hypes and gripes, kudos & complaints, likes, and dislikes – about ANYTHING. muuver then takes your hype or gripe about an item and adds it to the ‘item page’ where you can see everybody else’s posts who hyped or griped about that item.”

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