Justin Case You Were Wondering

TweetShare                        When I got home from work the other day, my wife, Maggie, was not happy. And she let me know about it. No, it wasn’t anything I did…this time. She was miffed about an experience she had that day at a local hardware [...]

TweetShare                  Social media is a not a strategy. It is not a department. It is not a communications discipline. And it is not a type of agency…or at least it shouldn’t be. I don’t know how many times we have to address this topic. I feel like [...]

What was the most compelling research you read in 2010? For me, it was the Harvard Business Review piece on the need for marketing to transition from the traditional sales funnel to the customer decision journey. There were so many compelling POVs within that article – 1) how marketers need to spend more time on content and conversation and less time broadcasting information and 2) how customers increasing access to information has changed the way they make purchase decisions. But without a doubt, the most compelling part of the article for me was the consumer bond.

I’m sick of hearing about guaranteed impressions. Scratch that. I’m sick of hearing about guaranteed impressions as a stand-alone success metric for marketing campaign evaluations. Know what I mean?

As a very health-conscious person who makes smart choices at restaurants, I will never forget the day I decided to check out the nutritionals on my favorite “healthy” meal at Houlihan’s. The Ahi Tuna Salad, with seared tuna, light non-creamy dressing, cashews, banana, and cilantro. To this day, I cannot even speak of the four-digit calorie number and fat content. Maybe now I’ll think twice before making fun of people who order the Caesar salad because they want a healthier option.

Trying to get on a schedule with PR 2.0 Chat TV where we film every Wednesday and publish Thursdays or Fridays, fyi. This week’s topic came from a MarketingProfs article highlighting that only 12 percent of brands believe they are using social media effectively. Heather and I thought that stat was fascinating, considering the increased investment corporations continue to make in strategy and tactics involving social media.

I’ve been told I’m an early adopter, but others are earlier. At adopting that is. In fact, when it comes to early adopters, I like to sleep in. Thus was the case with Quora, the new (or not so new depending on who you ask) social network based on questions. Quora’s been around for a few months, but I only heard about it two weeks ago. The amount of “I just answered this question on Quora” posts in my friends Facebook and Twitter feeds have been on the rise for those two weeks, yet I had only spent five minutes on Quora before this afternoon.

Should all companies be engaging in social media? First, let me point out that I’m generally distrusting of absolutes like all, but for the purposes of this discussion lets just go with it. The answer to the question, in my opinion, is “no.”

Some old-fashioned things are great. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Playing board games. Vintage clothing. Heck, I’d probably gulp down an Old Fashioned cocktail if I liked bourbon. Something old-fashioned I don’t like is the thinking presented in The Economist’s recent article “Rise of the image men: PR man has conquered the world. He still isn’t satisfied.”

Last month, when we were all starting to check out for the holidays, Twitter launched a new online form allowing users to purchase promoted tweets and trending topics. Up until that point, Twitter had been testing these avenues under pressure — sort of, but they haven’t made any money for four-plus year anyway. But this development signified Twitter belief in this paid media option as a tangible business model. And then the rains came.

One of the beauties of social media is that it gives everyone a voice. We can all learn from perspectives and POV shared by people at all levels. I firmly believe that. But that same beauty can be a detriment because of how easy it is for someone to sound like an expert when they haven’t actually done the work about which they are pontificating.