The Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius

Attention brands, business owners, advertising agencies, and media peeps!!!!

I have some bad news. And it’s not about the financial markets, the election, or your expanding waistline. Nope—it’s far, far worse.

Are you sitting down? Good. Here it comes…

TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING IS IN A DEATH SPIRAL.

That’s right. DEATH SPIRAL.

Now before you freak and jump out a window (or worse—post nasty anonymous comments in reply to this statement), allow me to explain. And yes, to propose a solution… I am a Genius, after all.

Traditional Advertising’s “Death Spiral” can be attributed to 3 recent phenomena:
1.    Clutter
2.    Trust
3.    Social media

Let’s talk.

Clutter
I don’t know about you, but I hate clutter.

A little bit of nice, clean white space feels so much better.

If traditional ads were spaced like these last few paragraphs, they might actually WORK.

We might actually even ENJOY them.

But instead… most ads are more like this:
piledandsquishedrightontopofoneanothersothatwehardlyhaveachancetotakeabreath
letaloneprocessanyinformationordecodeanyoftheproductmysteriesorevaluatewhat
makesthembetterfastermoreeasiernewerDIFFERENTERorinanywaynecessarytoour
existenceonthisincreasinglyoverpopulatedplanet
GASPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!

Clear as mud? ☺

The worst part is that the Clutter Problem is escalating at a DEATH-SPIRAL-INDUCING rate.

Consider this:
In 1998 Google had an index of 25M pages. As of this summer, its index had hit the mind-blowing milestone of 1 TRILLION UNIQUE URLs.

A F**KING TRILLION!!!!!

Still more to consider:

There are >100,000,000 videos on YouTube.com—with >65k new ones being added DAILY.

In 2005 (most recent data I could find), there were roughly 40 BILLION product catalogs published. That’s equal to 134 catalogs for every man, woman & child in the US.

Yes, folks, the average person is exposed to some 3000 marketing messages per day… but the American Association of Advertising Agencies says we’re only able to absorb (at most!) 100.

And let’s face it, that’s probably an inflated number.

PS. 90% of people who can skip ads, do.

Yes, but most of those messages are crap. What matters is good creative. Killer copy. Pretty women with big boobs wiggling around to a HAWT soundtrack.

Ok… NO. Neither creative nor copy nor boobs—nor any combination of the three—are likely to solve the clutter problem. Besides… you’ve got 2 more hefty problems to solve.

Trust
“Lets talk about trust baby, let’s talk about you & me…”

People don’t trust advertisers. Period.

You know it. I know it. Let’s call a spade a spade and move on. But in case you’re still skeptical (or just plain crazy), here’s proof:

“In a 1998 Gallup poll rating honesty and ethical standards across a range of professions, advertising people ended up near the bottom, sandwiched between lawyers and car salesmen.”

SANDWICHED BETWEEN LAWYERS AND CAR SALESMEN, people!!!!! And perhaps, if we were to redo this poll today, they might change those to “Politicians and Pimps” (both of whom are better-dressed, frankly-speaking).

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum is the trust that most consumers have in the opinions of other consumers.

“‘Word-of-mouth’ the most powerful selling tool…78% of consumers say they trust the recommendation of other consumers.” - Nielsen, Trust in Advertising, 2007 Global Consumer Survey Report.

And the trend is particularly true among younger consumers—namely, the ¼ of the US population (ONE F**KING FOURTH!) who are 14-24yo and were born wired.

Raised in a time where “SPAM” and “COOKIE” don’t automatically conjure images of food, today’s youth LIVES and BREATHES online:

• They spend >16 hours online/week (online > TV)
• 56% spend >1 hour daily sending instant messages
• ¼ prefer social networks to F2F time with friends
• Have an average of 53 online friends (vs. 11 “close” friends)
• 96% use a social network DAILY

And they don’t care about your ad, people. They care what their friends think.

Trust me.

Social media
Ah… every traditional advertiser’s favorite topic! YAY! Let’s hug.

Seriously, now—it’s common knowledge that people don’t like intrusive, one-way conversations. What is traditional advertising but an intrusive, one-way conversation?

The paradigm is shifting. Fast. Hard.

Ahh… The Solution!

Should we make the logo bigger?

Craft a catchy new tag line?

More girls? Bigger boobs?

No, no, no, no, NO!

Traditional Advertising’s Terminal Illness (aka Death Spiral) shall not be cured by a larger helping of the Same Old Shi*t. You’re going to have think different. Act different. BE DIFFERENT.

REALLY DIFFERENT.

Start by shifting your focus more on branding and less on advertising. Yes, branding. That magical je ne sais quoi that ultimately results in the feelings/thoughts/attitudes that people have about your product/service/company.

You mean our tagline?
No.
Our logo?
No.
The killer copy on our website?
No.
…..Our tagline?
No.
Are you sure?
Yes.

Your brand isn’t what you say your company/product/service is. It’s what THEY say it is.

Branding isn’t advertising.

In fact, it’s more like… your child. You can’t control it (though it’s natural to want to try)… but you can [and should] certainly influence it, enable it, embrace it, and inspire it.

Start by listening. Really listening. No, REALLY listening.

There. Doesn’t that feel better already?

My newest startup adventure has seriously cut in to my blogging time lately… which means the 14 MILLION(!!!!!) people who faithfully hang on The Genius’ every word have been left cold, alone, and without even a teeny tiny Genius Snack upon which to nibble. [sigh]

Spanking for you, @viximo!

No, wait—scratch that. There will be no spankings for Viximo. They’d like that too much.

Instead, I will intentionally NOT talk them up to my legions of followers.

I wont mention the fact that they embody the Next Big Business Model or that they’re building the most kick-ass community of Rock Star design talent in the history of the world.

I wont glorify the notion that Viximo’s platform will enable online communities, gaming sites, virtual worlds, and others to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in the next 12 months alone.

I absolutely will NOT point out that Viximo is enabling major brands and ad agencies to connect with young consumers in an experiential, immersive way that builds brand loyalty, cranks the word-of-mouth engine, and *bonus!* even opens a new revenue stream.

And dammit I will NOT describe the opportunity that Viximo presents to online publishers, retailers, ad agencies, and interactive designers alike as a chance to drink from the udder of The Virtual Goods Cash Cow.

No f**king way.

For those of you scratching your heads, wondering what the f**k a virtual good is, well… I’m sorry, but I refuse to help. It’s not my place to explain that technically, virtual goods are nothing more than a series of 1s and 0s on your computer screen… or that those 1s and 0s collectively represent a $1.5 Billion market—that’s expected to exceed $7 Billion in less than 18 months.

I wont explain that virtual goods provide functional, expressive, and social value—or that they increase social interactions, and hence user engagement and time spent online.

I definitely wont point you to this article which projects that Facebook is expected to rake in $100 Million over the next 12 months—entirely through the sale of virtual gifts and myriad other virtual items (including my personal fav, food and gifts for my Fluff friend, Mar-Mar). Or this one, which celebrates Gaia and IMVU’s success generating $1M/month through the sale of virtual goods “ranging from puppy dogs to lightning bolts”.

I wouldn’t even consider bringing your attention to Second Life’s success with virtual goods ($80M annually), let alone that of our Asian friends like Nexon, which sells more Mini Coopers (virtual ones, of course) than BMW; or Habbo Hotel, which sells more furniture (virtual!) than IKEA.

Last but not least, I won’t bother regaling the efforts of retailers like Kohls, JCPenney, K-Swiss, and Sears, all of whom have celebrated notable success selling branded virtual goods on sites like Zwinky.com, Stardoll.com and others. I mean, really, who would be impressed by numbers like these:

•    2.2 million visits
•    1.8 million items sold
•    97,000 click-throughs to Kohls.com
•    ALL WITHIN THE FIRST 16 days!!!!

Clearly someone’s been drinking the Kool Aide.

But I digress… the reality is, I’m simply waaaaay too busy to spend precious time discussing any of this, and the fact is, it’s Viximo’s fault.

I’m sure they’ll regret this unfortunate [and awfully selfish] little faux pas. But in the meantime, I’m standing by my punishment.

Yes, rather than divulge even a hint of how HUGE Viximo is poised to become, I’ll say only this—they HAVE done ONE thing right: They were smart enough to hire a Bonafide Marketing Genius.

Even if they have been a little bit grabby during these first seven days.

I got this entertaining email a few months ago from a fellow marketer who is an admitted novice in the world of social media. He asks, in the simplest of terms, Whether Facebook is in fact A “Power Tool” or a “Black Hole” of Wasted Time.

-An excellent question that even the savviest among us has surely [at some point] asked!

I’ve been too busy dealing with idiots clients to get back to him, but I thought, perhaps sharing this with you all—you Geniuses-In-Waiting—would spark a healthy discussion.

And so… please, take a read:

Dear F**king Marketing Genius,

I have just voted for your f**cking presentation, which is, of course, f**cking genius. Plus, I’m forwarding it to a client of mine who’s asking about blogging, and will therefore make me look like a f**cking genius. Or maybe just an old F**ck. Which is what you’ll think if you read on…

One of the frameworks that helped me understand the power of social media is that of the many-to-many learning model. If I have a problem with my Mac (rarely, but it happens), I don’t go to the Mac website. I seek out other users online, and get an instant read not just on the problem and solution, but how to feel about it. How pissed off/happy should I feel about my computer problem/new feature? And who should I thank or say “f**ck u” to? There’s an emotional content as fellow consumer that’s very valuable here. I’m learning from a whole community, not just one bored academic who half-answers my question.

But try as I might, and this is a question for you, o marketing genius, there are some aspects of the SM thing I do not get. A friend of mine signed me up for Facebook. Okay, I’m game, I fought LinkedIn for a couple of years until it actually brought me some very lucrative contracts. So I joined Facebook, or “MyFace”, as I was calling it for awhile until some savvy sprite like you clued me in. Soon after, I started getting emails saying that so and so had bought me a cocktail, somebody else had bitten me, others gave me hugs and kisses. Not a real cocktail, mind you. A mocktail I couldn’t even drink. And, as far as I know, they actually did have to buy it. I think.

What is this? This isn’t the many-to-many learning model I thought would change the world. It’s using the vast power of the internet to waste my valuable time! I’ve heard about another site that allows you to record your every trivial moment for your friends and all eternity. There’s a guy over at MIT doing this, too. It’s like Bucky Fuller’s Dymaxion Chronofile gone crazy, which is sort of an oxymoron in the first place.

Anyway, O Marketing Genius, throw me a line. Give me a clue. Facebook? Why?

Yours in Perfidy and CussWords,

J.

Being the Genius that I am, I have plenty o’ answers to offer my pal J to his well-expressed question. But I’m curious… what do YOU think?

What value [if any] do you see in Facebook as a tool for connecting and engaging with your clients, customers, employees, colleagues, and friends? For building brand awareness? For building your business?

Or is it, as J worries, just another way to waste valuable time?

The Genius has done it again: shocked the world with her astounding brilliance, wit, and [ahem] sharp tongue.

How have I done it this time?

Well, tots, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so how about I just SHOW you:

Aptly titled “What the F**K is Social Media?”, I am throwing my oh-so-fine hat in the ring for Slideshare.net’s World’s Best Presentation contest. VOTE FOR IT, if you know what’s good for you.

All modesty aside (and I’m not known for my modesty), I am looking forward to the conversation this deck will spur. Do you love it? Do you hate it? God help me if you don’t care either way.

Well don’t just sit there… SAY SOMETHING!

Although the so-called “Social Media Press Release” (pioneered by my pals at SHIFT Communications) has received [arguably] equal doses of praise and criticism, the Genius, whose word is Gospel!—at least on this blog—has this to say about it:

PURE. UNADULTERATED. GENIUS.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Social Media Release debate, Brian Solis does an excellent job of recapping the evolution and arguments both for and against the SMR. Most of the arguments against, I’d like to point out, smack of a common syndrome I like to call “I-fear-change!”

The problem, my pretties, is that change is a-comin’. In PR, in marketing, and in media at large. And whether you get on the train now or spend the next decade chasing (or throwing stones at) it, it’s leaving the station—with or without you.

The Genius, of course, is not a PR professional, so my interest in SMR is perhaps conceptual—i.e., what value does it have for my clients? For my company? For my career? (Me, me, me!) And the short answer to all those is questions is: PLENTY.

For example: consider applying its principles—or those of the Social Media Newsroom (another SHIFT contribution)—to your resume. What if instead of keeping your entire professional history in a Word doc that you update only when you absolutely have to, you created a Social Media Resume that highlights your experience and interests, provides links to your various online profiles, invites comments, aggregates news, builds “link love”—and (if done well), becomes a virtual vacuum of career advancement opportunities? Heck, even if a social media resume doesn’t open the flood gates to opportunity, at the very least, it will save a few trees and eliminate the need to send monster-truck-sized attachments to prospective employers. And, for the time being at least, it will set you apart from the pack by [at the very least] highlighting your working knowledge of social media tools.

Think about it.

As a Genius who endeavors to practice what she preaches, I decided to do a little experimenting with the idea of a social media resume myself. First, I dug around to see if there were any good examples already out there (the Genius doesn’t like cliches, but will use one just this once: “Why reinvent the wheel?”). I found Chris Penn’s landmark example and the ubiquitous Bryan Person’s famous “Die, Resume! Die! Die! Die!” blog post (which, conveniently, included his own example and ‘how to’). There’s Rohit Bhargava’s social media bio and Matt Dickman’s social-media-enriched ‘traditional’ resume.

Armed with a satisfying portion of good ideas, I set to work on a first draft of my very own social media resume, cherry-picking among the infinite options, and surrendering to the idea that, like all things digital, it will always be a work-in-progress.

For those of you who believe that following in the Genius’ footsteps might result in a little genius rubbing up against rubbing off on you (Pervert!), here my recipe:

1. Create a Wordpress account.
2. Buy your domain name (if you don’t own http://www.YourName.com yet, first, slap yourself upside the head, then DO SOMETHING about it, puh-lease!)
3. Write a short “About me” intro. This is in effect your ‘cover letter’ or ‘executive summary’. That doesn’t mean it should be boring or lame.
4. Add all of your contact info, links to all of your social media profiles (I added LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Squidoo, & Slideshare—for now).
5. Add links to your blog(s) and any work samples readily available online. If your work samples aren’t yet online, consider posting them on Scribd.com, Slideshare.net or similar service.
6. Add a link to your traditional resume, so that folks that insist on killing trees can do so at their convenience.
7. Add a feed to your purpose-built del.icio.us links.
8. Consider adding any of the following: headshot, intro audio or video, your speaking/travel calendar, any rich media you’ve created (podcasts, videos, etc.), recommendations/rave reviews.
9. Turn commenting ON. This is a 2-way dialogue, remember?
10. Make it easy as possible for folks to reach you, blog about you, hire you, link to you, and so on.

For those of you wondering why it’s not enough to have a complete LinkedIn profile, I say—that’s a really good start. If you don’t have a LinkedIn profile yet, well… do not pass Go, do not collect $200… go directly to LinkedIn.com and start there.

But for those of you looking for an ‘edge’ or simply sharing Bryan’s “Resume, Die!” sentiment, this new approach just may be the ticket.

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…

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