The Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius

Note: Names and identities have been changed to protect the innocent.

My friend “Jane,” a whip-smart marketing professional with a sharp eye and devilishly good looks, called me over the weekend in a state of near-homicidal rage over the fact that her boss had “once again climbed 10 feet up my ass” (her ass, not mine, of course). Naturally, I probed her for details (get your mind out of the gutter), and after a 5-minute swear-fest that would make a sailor blush, she managed to divulge the following:

Jane had joined the marketing team of this very-hip-and-innovative-Web-2.0 company just a few short months ago. Since then, she’s worked till her fingers bled, breathing life into their lead-generation engine, turning wimp-a-rific brand messages into clever, compelling gems, and single-handedly orchestrating a multi-channel marketing program so precise and well-timed that it could make a Swiss watch turn green with envy. What’s more, Jane was creative and frugal in her efforts—spending a teeny-weeny fraction of what her dim-witted boss spends on hair plugs and hookers each month—and her impressive arsenal of non-traditional marketing tricks paid off:

- 385% increase in registered users
- 6-fold increase in website traffic, yielding 3x the number of page views
- 200% Conversation Index
- 20% jump in Technorati “Authority” rank

And all of the above results were achieved within the first 45 days of the program. Not too shabby.

And that’s precisely when Jane’s boss, anti-genius that he is, woke up one morning (probably feeling particularly anxious about his receding hairline and his growing need for ever more Viagra to “get the job done”—but I’m just guessing), and marched into her office proclaiming that “user acquisition costs were too high” and therefore, her budget would be reduced by 70%, effective immediately.

Yes, I’m serious.

Yes, he’s an idiot.

Obviously, this course of action put a kink in Jane’s ability to continue producing the kind of dramatic results previously described. And when user acquisition rates took a sharp dive south, just weeks after Anti-Genius put the kibosh on the only successful marketing program his fledgling company had ever seen, he marched back into her office, denounced the possibility that the lack of actual marketing activity might be responsible for the lack of new business, and proclaimed, “The problem, Jane, is that the messaging is all wrong.”

DOH!

This logic is the metaphoric equivalent of training daily and vigorously for the Olympics (and watching your level of fitness and athletic skill improve accordingly), then suddenly becoming a complete couch potato. After a month of eating bon-bons and watching soap operas, you realize that you’re not in the Olympics as planned… and conclude that if only you’d worn a red shirt instead of a blue one, that gold medal would have been yours!

JESUS CHRIST.

This reminds me of the old adage that I continually try to impress upon my children: You reap what you sow.

Don’t think that you can plant sunflowers and grow roses. If you plant sunflowers, you’ll get sunflowers.
And perhaps, more importantly, don’t expect anything to grow if you don’t care for and nurture the garden itself—constantly. Water, sunlight, food, love. In Jane’s case, the “garden” required cash, creativity, and a whole lot of “measure, rinse, and [improve or] repeat”—all of which she was 150% committed to. Until the Anti-Genius (distant cousin of the Anti-Christ) decided to get involved.

My message to Jane?

First, find yourself a new boss, preferably one that isn’t such an idiot.

Second, never send a CEO to do a smart marketer’s job.

Period.

Last week, I shared my not-so-humble thoughts on the “Do’s” of social media marketing. And while most of you are probably still recovering from the shame caused by facing your ignorance, I feel it’s my responsibility to finish what I started.

And hence, here are the “DONTs”.

Social Media Marketing “DONT’s”:

1. Don’t expect a windfall.
It’s very tempting to be seduced by the promise of overnight success now that the Internet has become a communication platform for all. Lord knows any idiot can get his or her 15 minutes of virtual fame, simply by making a public ass of himself online. Take this guy, for instance. Not only has his desperate plea to “Leave Britney alone!” been watched over 13 million times (Jesus, people), but has also earned over 2000 video “responses,” 200,000 comments, and been “favorited” 34,000 times. Last I heard the eyeliner-slathered youth behind this bit of viral history was on CNN or The Today Show or some other network media outlet that calls itself “News”. Heck, I even saw a death threat aimed at the little video star posted on YouTube this morning. You know you’ve “arrived” when anonymous morons are expressing their homophobic rage and threatening to kill you. How American!

But I digress. My point was to assure you that although the occasional freak of nature does occur, most social media marketing efforts don’t earn this kind of infamy. I’m not saying it can’t happen; just that you need to align your expectations with reality. Lest you get your little heart broken.

2. Don’t lie.
This might seem obvious, but I swear, not a day goes by that I don’t see some corporate poser trying to “fake” their way onto a blog, making ridiculous claims about their product/service while pretending to be Jane Doe from Anytown, USA.

Haven’t we learned enough from the Whole Foods blogging debacle?

But don’t take my word for it (lest you believe a GENIUS!). Take a gander at this public flogging I ran across on BzzAgent’s “90 Days” blog some time ago:

Yesterday, I sat in on a break-out session about buzz marketing with ten fellow lux delegates who are involved in getting the word out about various brands. The talk was all about how to get and build word of mouth.

The president of a start-up company called SwingJuice, a new high-end energy/sports drink aimed primarily at golfers, told us about how he took a bunch of samples to a golf tournament and gave them out to the staff at the hotel where the golfers were staying. Pretty soon the bell staff and bartenders were chatting up the golfers, who started swigging the stuff, and, before long, SwingJuice was the talk of the tournament. (I tried it today after a six-mile run, workout, sauna, and a Lavender Escape back, neck, and scalp massage — it was pretty good.)

Everyone at the round table liked the SwingJuice approach to seeding WOM.

But then came Dr. Evil, the president of a marketing communications and pr firm based in New York. His idea? To promote their products, companies should write stealth posts on relevant blogs, pretending to be regular people, but actually talking up the product. Wine companies infiltrating wine-lovers’ blogs. Hotel companies anonymously recommending themselves to visitors to travel sites.

I said, “People will know that the corporate commenters are fakes.”

Another guy said, “It’s wrong. Don’t mess with the genuine nature of blogging.”

Dr. Evil didn’t say any more. But I doubt he was chastened. So watch out for shills on your favorite sites.

And here’s a user response to the thread:

“I frequent a gardening forum, and it is incredibly obvious when someone tries to sneak in a shill post. The Dr. Evils of the world tend to underestimate how well the on-line community regulars know each other.

Usually the shill will post something along the lines of, “Has anyone tried the new Super-Duper Plant? I just got one and it’s the best plant ever.” Someone will immediately look at the poster’s member page and find out that the poster just registered today and will then start suggesting that the post is a shill. The funny thing is, if the shill posted something along the lines of “I work for XYZ Flower Company and we’re very excited about our new Super-Duper Plant. I’d love to hear your experiences or reactions to the plant.”, then they would get a lot of genuine responses and they would succeed in generating buzz about their product.

Remember, the basic currency of all social media is sharing, engagement, authenticity and community. If you can’t resist the urge to cheat, I suggest you save it for your tax return. I hear the IRS is a lot more lenient on the issue of fraud these days (thanks, Dubs!).

3. Don’t assume it will be “free” or even cheap.
I know how disappointing this must sound. And to be fair, you can get a decent amount of mileage out of things like Facebook pages and good ole fashioned email. But… and this is a BIG but (not a big butt)… time is money, which means that even if you’re going to piggyback off of another campaign or reuse creative assets, there’s still the cost of planning, executing, and measuring your efforts.

Then again, at $5.50 an hour, maybe your time actually is pretty cheap?

Well, even if you do get that 25 cent raise, I still say that if you’re going to build social media marketing into your plan, you’ve got to build it into your budget, too.

4. Don’t give up too quickly.
You know the old saying, “Winners never quit and quitters never win”? Well, it applies to social media marketing as much as it does to dominos. Sure, you might launch the next great ElfYourself campaign and retire to a private island three months later… but more than likely, you’ll have to take a few turns at bat before you hit a home run.

Dear God, did I really just use a baseball metaphor?!

Clearly, the Genius must rest.

TTFN, my pretties!

Hopping on the Social Media Marketing bandwagon? You’re not alone. Seems user-generated content and social media marketing are becoming as ubiquitous as the tacky inflatable snowmen with which my neighbors continue to pollute their yards.

The trick, my little sugarplums, isn’t to simply embrace the trend… but to master it.

Or in your case, not to make an ass of yourself the first time out of the gate! [sigh]

Lucky for you, I’m feeling rather generous today! And so, The Genius shall share her personal list of Social Media “Do’s and Don’t’s”—with the full knowledge that you’ll probably screw your program up anyway.

[sigh] It isn’t easy being so brilliant and flawless. But it’s my cross to bear.

Social Media Marketing “DO’s”:
1. For crap’s sake, please DO establish clear business objectives for your social media marketing efforts—before you even think about launching a campaign of any kind.

Seriously: If I see one more blog, podcast, or pointless viral marketing campaign launch with no clear strategy other than to satisfy the overgrown ego of some bonehead executive [who got their MBA when dinosaurs still roamed the earth]… well, I just might barf!

2. DO establish your metrics—yes, before you launch.
You can’t manage what you can’t measure, right, people? It’s Marketing 101.

Social media is no exception to this rule.

Now, I know that “goals” and “metrics” seem tedious and about as sexy as plumber’s crack, but trust me: it’s your only hope of having something more meaningful to say the next time your boss asks how the social media campaign is doing than, “Uh…”

[Side note: Why is it that so many businesses treat their marketing strategy like a leisurely drive through the country?

“No, we don’t have a map or specific destination in mind… but we’ll know we’re good when we get there…. Oh wait… I think we’re lost… and we’re running out of gas! Shit… I told you we should have asked for directions!!!!”

Don’t be stupid. And don’t be a wimp. ROI isn’t the only meaningful business metric, so don’t become a slave to it. Consider what’s most relevant, metric-wise to your company’s business objectives. For a cheat sheet on some of the best metrics for SMM, check this out.

3. DO your homework. (And I don’t mean “Do do your homework”, because that would be very messy.)
Social media isn’t rocket science, but it’s not your run-of-the-mill tool for broadcasting product features and benefits either. You’ve taken a great first step by reading this blog post; now go read a few others. This basic primer by one of my favorite marketing bloggers, CK, is another great place to start. If all else fails, I’m sure there’s a copy of Social Media for Dummies out there somewhere just waiting for a home.

Side note: If you’re a control-freak and can’t get jiggy with the idea of your marketing messages becoming a two-way communication, perhaps you’d be better off investing your correspondence-course education on something more suitable—like annoying pop-up ads or a nice, cheesy infomercial.

3. DO get to know the community before you ask something of them.
Like it or not, the same rules apply here as in the larger game of life, only amplified. Read: you can’t show up to a new school/office/neighborhood and immediately ask people for stuff. You’ve got to give a little first. Get to know them. Maybe even let them get to know you.

To do this well, you’ll need to a) actually spend some time observing and [gasp!] interacting with the communities that are relevant to your market segment(s).

I.e., What conversations are taking place? And who is shaping/influencing those conversations (and how)?

I know it may sound creepy, but you’ve got to do a little lurking before you barge in with your brilliant addition to the conversation. Get to know the topics, the people, and the tone of the dialogue. Remember the key word here is “ENGAGEMENT”—not broadcasting.

4. DO take an integrated approach to your social media efforts—particularly with respect to SEO.
Yes, yes, I know I’ve been bashing SEO since before the dawn of man… but the truth is, an integrated approach to search and social media makes a lot more sense than throwing either one under a bus. Social media marketing (and blogging in particular) can have a dramatic impact on organic search—assuming, of course, that you’re clever enough to pepper your blog with relevant keywords and phrases, and to keep the content fresh and the incoming links/comments/trackbacks a-flowing.

DUH!

5. DO start small and “fail fast”.
The skeptics who poo-poo social media as an effective marketing tool do so because, well… the vast majority of social media campaigns are pretty big failures. After all, there’s a learning curve. Plus… few of the folks that have come before you were blessed with the marvelous wisdom I’ve bestowed on you here!

The question is, will you follow in their mediocre footsteps? Or blow them away with your strategic, iterative, and flexible approach that treads carefully [and cheaply] into new territory, all the while honing your strategy on-the-fly.

Ooh, that’s so Web 2.0!

Tune in next week for “Part 2: The DONTs.”

A few weeks ago, I applied for a job with a popular travel search engine. The VP of Marketing was looking for an experienced online marketer to manage the company’s SEO/SEM programs—which, for a bonafide genius like me, is child’s play. In my cover letter, I told him upfront that I wasn’t interested in a search-only marketing position. In my characteristically brilliant way, I explained that my talents would be wasted on a search-only marketing strategy and that I had infinitely more valuable capabilities to offer.

Whether he never read my letter or simply found my insubordination irresistible, I’ll never know… the point is, he invited me for an interview.

Once in his office, he asked me about my experience with SEO/SEM as a marketing tool.

“Feh,” I said. “Search is dead to me.”

As the color drained from his face and his fists clenched in his lap, I dove into an impassioned monologue about why an online marketing strategy that leads with SEO/SEM was doomed to fail:

“It’s too narrow, too tedious, and frankly, it’s too 2006.”

I proceeded to tell him that to achieve his company’s lofty goal of becoming the #2 travel search engine in the world (first of all, who sets their sites on becoming #2?), they’d need to broaden their focus to include all that Web 2.0 has made possible—and all that Web 3.0 promises:

Sophisticated search + User-generated content + Social networking + Contextual/demographic/behavioral targeting + Portable personalization = Genuinely relevant content that I trust in whatever media format I prefer.

Simply put, SEO/SEM just ain’t gonna cut it.

He didn’t throw me out of his office… but I could tell he wanted to.

Now don’t get me wrong, I understand why Mr. Fancy Pants is so attached to his beloved Search. It comes down to one word: Measurability. As a direct response medium, Search is tough to beat. Experienced search marketers know they wield a lot of power in their SEO/SEM campaigns; they can deliver top-line metrics to their CMO or their CEO or whatever yo-yo is in charge. They can control their CPA and their ROI (had enough acronyms yet?) and make adjustments both large and small with the ease of a keystroke. And though it’s getting harder to produce big, fat results very quickly or without a big investment up-front (search ain’t the new kid on the block anymore!), Search is still King with many online marketers.

And dinosaurs once roamed the earth. So what? Change happens. It’s happening right now.

“Search is a unique proposition — this is why Google is Google and many Googlers are rich. However, search does not exist in a vacuum any more than television or direct mail does. A search engine is no longer the exclusive point of entry to the Internet for many people. Social networking sites like MySpace and FaceBook have become portals to a huge number of Web users. If the goal of the marketer is to reach the most potential customers online, thereby maximizing return on investment as a whole, it is critical to engage users throughout their online journey which, as we all become more sophisticated Web users, is increasingly not always begun at a search engine.” —excerpted from The Challenges of Measuring The Performance Of Emerging Media For A Search-Centric Advertiser by Nancy Adzentoivich, Friday, Nov 9, 2007

Here, here!

But don’t just take Nancy’s word for it, or mine for that matter… look at some of the data:

• WOM ranks highest in driving consumers’ purchase decisions—above TV, Internet, print, and radio [source: BIGResearch, simultaneous media usage study, 2005]
• Americans engage in 3.5 billion(!) brand-related conversations every day [source: Keller Fay Group]
• Two-thirds of marketing/communications professionals are planning to increase their investment in conversational marketing within the next twelve months; 57% project that in five years they will be spending more on conversational marketing than traditional marketing [source: TWI Surveys, Inc.]
• A whopping 96% of 9-17 year olds are connecting to a social network at least once a week [source: Alloy Media & Marketing]

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the next big wave is coming… and fast. You can stick your head in the sand and pretend it’s not happening… or you can pull yourself up by the bootstraps and learn how to take the reigns.

[Or you can see how many overused metaphors you can string together into one meaningless sentence...]

If you’re still quaking in your boots at the thought of exploring the Brave New World of social media, allow me to assuage your fears about its measurability: You can, in fact, measure the impact of your efforts. Here are just a few of the possible metrics you might plug into your neat little dashboard:

• Number of uniques
• Returning vs. new users
• Referring traffic
• Google Page Rank
• Technorati authority
• Time spent on site
• Page views
• Conversation index (ratio of blog posts to blog comments)
• Tone of conversation, comments, posts
• Speed or velocity of spread, viral

(above list excerpted from Kami Huse’s enlightening presentation on Measuring Social Media)

There’s also the soon-to-be-well-known Net Promoter Score, ideally-suited for measuring social media campaign efficacy:

NPS = % of Promoters - % of Detractors.

It’s not a pure ROI calculation, but it gets to the root of whether a customer/reader/community member would recommend you—or not—as a percentage of the total activity on your social media platform.

So to those of you who—like Mr. Fancy Pants—fear social media because you think you can’t measure it, I say, Feh! You most certainly can. The only reason why there’s so much squabbling over the measurability of social media campaigns (vs. that of SEO/SEM) is that most of you boneheads are still struggling to understand what the heck social media is let alone how it can help your brand.

Whiny, frightened Brand X says, “But what if they write something bad about me?”

Yeah, what if? Sticks and stones may break your bones…

Or in other words, get over it. They will write something bad about you, because you can’t possibly please everybody. And you’re not perfect. Put on your big girl panties, then get educated about how to make social media work for you.

As for measurability: it ain’t rocket science:

Set your objectives. Pick the metric(s) you feel are most relevant to those objectives. Benchmark against yourself (and/or your competitors) over time. Measure. Analyze results. Repeat!

The Genius will now take your comments…

Is it just me or is the social media bubble expanding faster than Kirstie Allie’s waistline?

Between the buzz around Facebook’s recent $15 billion valuation, the hype about their much-anticipated advertising platform, and the steady stream of “one-of-a-kind” social media companies popping up daily, it does feel a bit like we’re all drinking the Kool-Aid.

Heck, even Oprah and Martha Stewart have hopped on the bandwagon.

With every Tom, Dick and Harry Venture Capitalist throwing their money at the next-best social media monolith, it’s easy to lose site of the fact that we’re not just in the thick of an investment-frenzy; we’re part of a revolution.

Social Media = Democracy
The internet is—in a very real way—becoming democratized (at last!). Not only can you reach virtually anyone, anywhere or get information about anything online these days… but you can actually participate! Have a voice! Share all of your [boring, ridiculous, unnecessary... or in my case, totally brilliant] opinions about everything from the HDTV you just purchased to the color of the lint you just found in your bellybutton.

It’s democracy in it’s purest form: everyone truly has a voice. No longer can we blame “the media” for drowning us in propaganda or tricking us into poor choices. (Instead, we can blame our friends, colleagues, and the self-proclaimed experts and “bonafide geniuses” whose blogs we foolishly read.) Where once you had to be famous, infamous, or very well connected to get in the public eye… now, you just need a live internet connection and a desire to express yourself.

Wrote a book? Self-publish it!

Took a picture? Post it on Flickr!

Aspiring filmmaker, actress, or musician? Whip up a sample video and pop it on You Tube!

Pissed off about the crap PC you bought and the even crappier Vista operating system that came with it? Post your raving mad feedback on Microsoft’s website!

Sure, everyone has a voice. But is anyone listening?
As the social media phenomenon gains momentum, so do the possibilities. The question is… beyond our own vanity and relentless desire to be entertained, is there any real purpose to all this “interaction”? Does anybody really care to watch, read, and listen to all this User Generated Noise?

Yes, yes, and undeniably YES!

Side note: I would assume that our sick fascination with reality TV is also responsible for fueling our fascination with social media (guilty!). If I were a geneticist, I’d place my bets on a single gene being responsible for both of these guilty pleasures—and probably for all the neck-craning that happens when we drive by car wrecks, too. But I digress…

Our appetite for new venues in which to assert our brilliance, our uniqueness, and our popularity is virtually boundless:

• 50 million Facebook users
• 3500 photos added to Flickr per minute
• 55 million YouTube users (11.6 million of these are over the age of 55)
• 713,00 daily active users of the iLike application on Facebook, which allows users to share, rate, and recommend music. Another 15 million registered users on iLike.com

Apparently, we have a lot of opinions and we’re not shy about sharing them. How very American.

Social media will save the world… Now what?
Even if I’m wrong about what drives our interest in both contributing to and consuming the social media bubble (though being a genius, I am very rarely wrong), this much is indisputable: it’s not going away.

If you’re a smart marketer (and let’s face it—most of you aren’t), you’ll get on the ball lickety split and formulate a solid strategy for leveraging this growing phenomena… bearing in mind, of course, that the rules ain’t the same old rules that have made you the fat, lazy dinosaur that you are.

For starters, forget about “positioning” or “packaging” or any of the other P’s you learned about in Marketing School. Social media scoffs at these! The power of User Generated Content embraces a more democratic set of values: like sharing, engagement, authenticity and community.

I’d love to tell you more, but I haven’t updated my Facebook status in at least an hour and my Photobucket upload is almost done…

In December of 2006, brand-building power-house JWT produced a list of “70 Things to Watch in 2007.” A copy of it landed on my desk earlier this year, and at the time, I thought… well, this is kind of interesting.

Being a genius and all, I dipped it in a healthy dose of skepticism and filed it away in my wait-and-see-what-the-idiots-think file, where it sat collecting dust until… this morning.

I am particularly fond of the intro that frames the list:

“As globalization continues to make our world seem smaller, localization will come to a head in 2007,” says Ann Mack, director of trendspotting at JWT. “We’ll put great emphasis on sourcing everything from food to textiles. Decadent and excessive consumption will fall to the wayside as we stress quality, minimal environmental impact and support of local producers.”

Right… and Hillary Clinton will ask Monica Lewinsky to be her Vice President, and a dozen purple pigs will fly out of my butt.

Of course the sad part is that I desperately wish Ann’s prediction came true… but then what in the world would I do for a living if there were no more interest in decadence and excessive consumption???

Anyway… here’s the list—with a few brilliant comments from Your Truly in bold. See how many of these things you’ve heard of—er, agree with. My personal fav has got to be #30: “brand sluts”. How and when did that become a cutting-edge trend???

Seventy Things to Watch in 2007 (by the folks at JWT):
1. Skype/VoIP
2. Wii and the next-generation gaming systems
3. The business of social networking (love it!)
4. Pop-up stores, restaurants and bars … installation style
5. Shrinky Dink technology (TVs are flat and hidden, iPods are down to half an ounce,
speakers are smaller and less visible, and so on)
6. The rise of nanotechnology
7. Sustainable construction/green buildings
8. Hydrogen fuel cell technology
9. Veggie-bus: school buses running on biodiesel fuel
10. Trans-fat fallout
11. Reality show talent searches (is that an oxymoron or what?)
12. Ohio State’s freshman basketball phenom, Greg Oden (who?)
13. Fear of agri-terrorism (Is that like, when McDonald’s runs out of Happy Meals?)
14. Halal foods
15. Participatory advertising (user-generated advertising and music video competitions) (love it!)
16. Premium-drink bars (thirsty just thinking about it….)
17. Organic fabrics
18. Stem cell research
19. Iceland (???? Really?)
20. Hybrid dogs (Dogs that run on batteries or solar panels? Huh?)
21. Locally sourced produce (how retro!)
22. Churchonomics: religion as big business
23. Reunions of donor insemination siblings (that’s an after-school special in the making, no?)
24. Hitting the off button: demanding downtime
25. Indian cross-over actress Aishwarya Rai
26. Home-schooling (EW!)
27. Natural building materials such as stone and wood
28. Binge chilling (sweet!)
29. Personalized diets
30. Brand sluts
31. Modernized tradition
32. Chindia
33. Alpha moms
34. Internet TV
35. Citizen journalism
36. RSS feeds
37. Fresh Direct
38. Google domination (Google as acquirer, and Microsoft as Google follower)
39. Mobile video
40. Rachael Ray
41. Inconspicuous consumption (like when I hide my copy of People under the whole wheat tortillas at the check-out line?)
42. X-Factor’s Leona Lewis
43. Dreamgirls’ Jennifer Hudson
44. Environmental causes
45. Companies going green
46. Barack Obama
47. Soft, natural hair
48. Microgeneration (generating one’s own energy)
49. Party planning for teens
50. Paying for user-generated content (sweet, maybe I’ll make a few bucks after all)
51. Higher-waisted pants
52. iPhone (this should have been at the TOP of the list!)
53. Co-branding (think Nike plus Apple)
54. Britain’s Amy Winehouse
55. The rebirth of raves
56. Energy-saving lightbulbs
57. Sacha Baron Cohen
58. Mash-ups (music, Web sites, everything)
59. Japanese apparel chain Uniqlo
60. Promoting “Brand Me” (uh… hello… that’s so 1999)
61. Ensemble TV casts (Ugly Betty, Grey’s Anatomy, Heroes, Criminal Minds)
62. Multilingual cinema
63. “Kidults”
64. Transformers (the movie)
65. Web-based microfinancing
66. Generosity (not that!!!!!)
67. Al Gore, the environmentalist
68. Unstrategic alliances (Paris and Britney, Tom and Brooke, Bush Sr. and Clinton)
69. Europeans getting fatter (it’s about time!)
70. Age shuffling (40 is the new 20, for example)

First, an apology for yesterday’s rant. I’m not one for apologizing, given that I’m a bonafide genius and all, but… well, I may have been a bit harsh on those poor, inexperienced CEOs who are blindly burning through their investors’ foolish generosity with a cockamamie “all things to all people” marketing strategy.

What was I saying?…

Oh right—I’m very, very sorry I was so hard on you. Fuck Walk it off.

Now, on to one of my favorite heated debates of late: Search vs. Social Media. It seems that every marketer worth her or his salt has placed their eggs in one of these two baskets. Interestingly enough, the split often follows the left brain/right brain phenomenon which divides marketers into the “creative” and the “analytical” categories. But I digress…

Let’s talk data:

According to IDG, traffic coming from organic search has dropped 7% as a percentage of total traffic in the past year (actually April 2006 - April 2007), while direct visits (from bookmarks and type-ins) increased 4%. Even more meaningful is this bit of data: according to IDG’s research, 70% of traffic to web sites does NOT come directly from organic search.

Meanwhile, social networks are driving more traffic than ever to targeted shopping and classified sites (data on this point ranges from 45-85%, depending on the source). Add in the greater sophistication of Web 2.0 tools and a markedly more experienced, savvy pool of users… and you’ve got yourself a juicy opportunity for creating a deeper, more direct relationship with customers—assuming, of course, that you deliver a satisfying (ie personalized, user-friendly, don’t-make-me-think-just-give-me-what-i-want) online experience.

My point? We’re seeing the first marked shift away from search (since Google reinvented the idea of it) and toward the slightly creepy [but certainly more convenient] future of personalized, interconnectedness that social media and Web 3.0 (that’s not a typo) promise. And I’m betting it’s just the beginning.

Should companies stop investing in search? That depends… on the type of business, industry, and audience, as well as on budget, access to search expertise, and competitive environment. A solid organic search program aimed at landing your company page 1 ranking on Google or other major search engines [for those of you who still believe there are any] could take 6-9 months; perhaps 3-6 if you’ve got the talent and expertise in-house. And by the way, page 1 organic search ranking only matters if your product or service correlates to common and [if you're lucky] inexpensive search terms (meaning people actually KNOW what they’re looking for). Meanwhile, a solid social media campaign can yield measurable results in a matter of days/weeks and typically costs a whole lot less.

Aside from the advantages of speed and savings, there’s a lot more value to social media programs than simply the number of clicks generated or transactions completed online. It’s about connection, loyalty, transparency… big words that tend to scare big brands… yet those who embrace them will undoubtedly trounce their competitors. Denying what’s right in front of you isn’t what I call “strategy”. I’ll quote CK, one of my new favorite marketing bloggers to drive this point home:

“One must modernize (or face irrelevance). In using the British monarchy as a metaphor for social media…find out why it’s important to modernize, and why it’s critical to reach out to your constituents (if you want them to like you) right here.”

It doesn’t take a genius to see the benefits of hedging your SEO/SEM bets with low-cost social media as just one of the many tricks in the bag. Do it right and you’ll build your brand, strengthen direct-navigation traffic, and possibly even put an end to the Search Engine Monopoly once and for all.

Sorry, Google. (Although if you’re hiring… I’ll gladly reconsider this post