The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, a global executive affinity group controlling more than $200 billion in annual marketing spend worldwide, has announced a multi-channel, multi-format publishing initiative that will deliver an in-depth and engaging peer-driven quarterly print journal and digital formats for web, mobile, tablets, like the iPad, and mail delivery to members and subscribers worldwide. The first edition of PeerSphere, the official journal of the CMO Council, will be launched in the fourth quarter of 2011.
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Using Twitter for Marketing and PR: Do the Pros Practice What They Preach?
It seems that everyone claims to be a Twitter expert these days. Of course, most are not. But several of the real Twitter pros I know—including those who have written books about using Twitter as an effective marketing and public relations instrument—have figured out how to best leverage the 140-character microblogging tool to promote themselves, their books, their firms, and their clients. And some of them actually follow their own advice!
How Smart Marketing Book Authors Use Twitter
For example, Mark Schaefer of Schaefer Marketing Solutions is the author of the book The Tao of Twitter: Changing Your Life and Business 140 Characters at a Time. He and his firm provide affordable outsourced marketing support to address both short-term sales opportunities and long-term strategic renewal.
Mark uses Twitter to help deliver on that promise for a number of his blue-chip clients, including Nestle, AARP, Anheuser-Busch, Coldwell Banker, Scripps Networks, Keystone Foods, and the U.K. government. He also very effectively promotes himself and his book on Twitter as part of his own marketing, branding, and relationship-development strategy.
B2B marketing without creative has no punch
The purpose of this post isn’t to argue the merits of inbound marketing with creative content. I believe that any B2B marketing professional still debating against that is probably not open to the points I want to make.
Since I speak as senior creative director, you may be surprised at how broadly I apply the word “creative” to B2B marketing. I think every part of the process, from assessment of an opportunity or problem, to the formulation of a strategy and budget, to the creative development of messaging and imagery, to the way your story is told all benefit from being more creative.
Fight for your right to be more creative.
Quite a few years ago, I was introduced to an assistant general manager of a client’s field office by one of their marketing directors. She mentioned I was a creative from the ad agency and, as we shook hands, he said,“Oh yeah, you guys are the ones that do all our fluffy stuff!”
Engagement as a Universal Constant
How familiar are statements like these?
“Gee I really wish such-and-such would just engage.”
“Be engaged in order to be successful in social media.”
“Social media is different than marketing because it’s about engagement.”
“We really want to engage our community.”
All fair statements, through their own lenses.
But the trick is that the definition of engagement is in the eye of the beholder. What you perceive as an “engaged” customer might not suit their definition at all. And the limited online periscope through which you view someone’s behavior (and consequently judge it) may not be all-encompassing.