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Over the last few months, I have had the opportunity to either speak in front of several different organizations or participate in some panel discussions. I really enjoy this for a couple of reasons. First, these events provide me a great opportunity to meet new people or people who I have known through their own writings and finally get to meet them in person. The other big reason why I enjoy these events is that it really gives me the opportunity to listen to other people’s thoughts and questions.
I participated in a social media panel discussion with Jim Tobin and Nathan Gilliatt sponsored by Business Wire last week. It was a great discussion as we pretty much just had an open Q&A with Jim, Nathan and I giving our thoughts and opinions on social media to what I thought was a pretty interested audience.
As I have been participating in more and more of these discussions and presentations, one thing is becoming abundantly clear to me. As marketers, we are not doing a very good job when it comes to educating and explaining all this online mumbo jumbo that we do. It continually amazes me the type of questions that I hear during these events. They are usually incredibly basic, true “101″ online marketing questions. And please do not get me wrong, I am not blaming the people who are asking these questions. What I am trying to say is that I think we as online marketers need to realize that the people we are trying to reach, the marketing managers, directors and CMO’s of a great deal of companies are no-where close to truly understanding the basics of online marketing and we need to do a better job of educating them.
As this has been rattling around in my brain, I have come to the conclusion that one of the reasons why this might be happening is who we are writing for and reading ourselves. Before I started writing this, I took a quick look through my RSS reader to see the feeds that I try to read everyday. They consist of all top online marketers in one form or another. I read these authors stuff and think that I need to write at this level because they are setting the bar at that level. I also think I am writing at this level because a great deal of my readers are also at this same level. Though arn’t we missing out on a huge audience of people who are just not there yet?
So here is what I am thinking. I am going to start this week posting a few articles each week that are more basic and foundation posts than maybe what I have done in the past. I am going to title each of them, Online Marketing 101 with what ever the post is about. I want to see if some of these posts might strike a cord with people who may not be as inundated as I and others are in this world of online marketing.
We will see how it goes. What do you think?
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Cord, you’re absolutely right. I’d like to speak a little further about this topic with you, as it’s quite close to my heart. Drop me an email and I’ll explain!
- Jack
I think I know what you’re talking about. Even in the small circles I run in, I find that colleagues are not as well versed on the online marketing topic as I think they should be…and I’m a novice.
One thing holding back those who practice marketing is time and quantity of information. There is so much to read on this subject and yet too little time.
The other thing I believe holding people back is the lack of value being placed on online marketing…they don’t see the value in updating their marketing tools where social media is concerned. It’s almost as if some marketing professionals see social media as a toy…”yes it’s fun to play with but how could it help me? and besides, I’ve got this newsletter to get to the printer!”
What if there was a test a personor an audience could take to assess their online marketing know-how and skills? From there you would know who you are talking to. Divide them up into 4 levels…Newbie, Dangerous, Cookin’! Intrepid.
I think that’s a great idea! While it’s not entirely new to most of us, online marketing is something that many traditional marketers are just starting to grasp. It’s our job and the job of Interactive Agencies/Publishers to do this in the most coherent way. Internet marketers have created a language within themselves (SERPS, RSS, Meta Data, etc) and while they use this to best communicate within their peer group, it’s also being used to alienate those outside of it. Some Interactive companies take advantage of this and leverage it to confuse their clients and sell their ideas. Few clients will ask to know what it all means for fear of sounding dumb….the smart clients will ask.
Instead of shouldering the whole load yourself we should try to spread this approach across other online marketers. Creat a consistent tag or title. Maybe even an aggragation site of 101 posts, sort of a Social Media Today for beginners.
Lee,
Thanks for the comment and I think that is a great idea. I will absolutely open this up for others who would like to write 101 posts on their own blogs or they can absolutely write posts for this blog.
Cord,
Count me in! I’ll happily write a guest post or do a 101 blog post on my blog.
Once you decide how you want to do this, let me know. Just a suggestion, but collecting all 101 posts would make an excellent e-book!
Drew
Cord, I too would love to be involved.
One thing I’ve been finding as I speak with my marketing professors, etc is how real (and large) this disconnect really is.
I often send e-mails or videos and explain the various aspects of it, why they are important, etc. I would love to be involved doing that on a larger scale than just professors and others.
Cord: I think you’ve correctly diagnosed the problemwith the lack of knowledge out there, - the same 20 online marketing “luminaries” writing to and linking to each other. Speaking as a first-year graduate IMC student, I can say I will appreciate the sharing of knowledge immensely.
Thanks for doing this; I plan to share with my classmates. Krista
Good idea, Cord… Count Lisa and I in for some posts…
~Jim
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