CluetrainManifesto

213621 Resource 76407 24 24 1222888699466 1222889926322 Controlled The Single Biggest Success Opportunity in Web Marketing

Conversations. Above all, social media is the biggest success opportunity for small business marketing on the web.

<a title="Michael Kurz, President/CEO, Vail Valley Partnership" href="mailto:mkurz@visitvailvalley.com" target="_blank">Michael Kurz</a>, CEO of <a title="Vail valley partnership" href="http://blog.visitvailvalley.com/" target="_blank">Vail Valley Partnership</a>, recently posed this question for an upcoming panel session on web marketing - it's an excellent question.<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">"Where do you see the single biggest success opportunity in Web marketing for small businesses?" -- Michael Kurz</blockquote>No other Internet movement or consumer adoption phase surpasses the breadth and depth of social media; without question, marketing opportunities abound for clever businesses.The promise of engaging and helpful online forums and conversations on the Internet, popularized in the late 90’s and early part of this decade, is realized in <a title="Wikipedia: Social Media" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media" target="_blank">social media</a> and <a title="Wikipedia: Web 2.0" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0" target="_blank">Web 2.0</a> applications. The <a title="Cluetrain Manifesto" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cluetrain_Manifesto" target="_blank">Cluetrain Manifesto</a> is the watershed work on this subject - originally penned in 1999, this work asserts that Internet is unlike traditional media - it's about conversations.<blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">"A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies." -- <a title="Cluetrain Manifest" href="http://cluetrain.com/" target="_blank">Cluetrain Manifesto</a>, 1999</blockquote>Nearly 10 years later, evidence this document predicted the future can be found everywhere you look today - user-generated content (<a title="Wikipedia: UGC" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_generated_content" target="_blank">UGC</a>) has recently begun to dominate the Internet and will continue to grow at double digits rates in the coming years. Blogs, syndicated content, second-tier search, and flow applications represent the dominant activities by consumers on the Internet.Why?Consumers have always wanted transparent, engaging conversations to help them decide how to spend their money. Historically, businesses have been reluctant to engage in direct conversational marketing on the Web. But consumers are relentless; they seek out advice, cultivate relationships with domain experts, and engage in networking to facilitate their knowledge and understanding about everything that matters. As a business person, you must ask yourself - when they start searching for knowledge and socially-based content about your market segment, do you want to be invisible and leave a void for your competitors to fill? Or, do you want to be part of the conversation?What is Social Media?Social media is a term that describes the topology of online conversations. It includes blogs, forums, social networks, and flow applications. Anywhere users can publish, share, consume, and participate in dialogue are considered elements of social media.How do small businesses get started?While much of this may seem overwhelming, here are three tips to help you get started:<ol><li><a title="7 Simple Steps to More Effective Business Blogging" href="7steps" target="_self">Download</a> and read our 7 Simple Steps to More Effective Business Blogging. This will set the stage for more productive use of your time while engaging in social media.</li><li>If you have a small business, create a "business blog" using a good (but free) blog tool such as <a title="Wordpress" href="http://wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Wordpress</a> or <a title="Blogger" href="http://blogger.com/" target="_blank">Blogger</a>. If your business is large enough to have a chief marketing officer, give us a <a title="Info@MyST..." href="mailto:info@myst-technology.com">shout</a> - there are some additional tips you need to know and we have some additional whitepapers we can provide.</li><li>Get a <a title="Twitter.com" href="http://twitter.com/" target="_blank">Twitter</a> account for your business name and start making daily observations about your brand and your business. Trust me on this - it will generate new leads. ;-)</li></ol> 9 application/xml false small business social media marketing web marketing CluetrainManifesto Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. http://cluetrain.com Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; Dosware Team Internet Browser; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 bfrench 76.120.48.245 false true false false true 174050 false false true false false false true 213666 Resource 174050 173239 24 1222960884201 1222961773571 Controlled So much utopian optimism needs to be moderated

The proof may not yet 'be in the pudding' about social media's contribution?

Mmmm, let's see... :)The Manifesto says, in typical hyper-optimistic 2.0 fashion, that "markets are getting smarter", and you suggest that 10 years later 'the proof is in the pudding', so to say. Let me temper such optimistic outlook with a slightly more skeptical view:<ul><li>Markets don't get smarter with improved networks: they get more efficient (See "unleashing the killer app"), and that is not necessarily a reason to cheer (Witness the very efficient money-lending market set-up by the last two republican administrations)</li><li>As Shirky warns us in "Here comes everybody", demolishing publishing and aggregation costs makes possible networks that before could not compete with Coases "the firm", and that includes ALL types of networks. That means Boston's pioneering group against Catholic Church priests' abuses (which transaction costs prevented before from happening) on the good side, but it also includes David Hasselhoff's Social Site, Hoffspace, the most inane and moronic aggregate of content to ever meet the Internet.</li><li>With so much time spent socializing, is anybody still doing antiquated things like, say, deep thinking or working?Have you ever sat at a conference next to somebody tweeting, and tried to guess what that person's average attention span time is?</li></ul>So, let's keep the possibility open for the outrageous hypothesis that social media may be just another circular cause and effect of the fact that the total planet intelligence is a constant (and the population keeps growing): newer generations need to socialize more SO THAT they don't have to think more. 9 application/xml false Hoffspace Are you sure you want to go there? I need to put the link as proof, but you don't really need to click on it... http://www.davidhasselhoff.com/ Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; Dosware Team Internet Browser; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 bfrench 76.120.48.245 false true false false true 213670 Resource 174050 24 24 1222963244824 1222963267701 Controlled No Doubt -- HoffSpace Is Puzzeling

But HoffSpace (like many social networks) is probably turning a profit.

Carlos:Great comments. I have been to HoffSpace BTW - there are some things you can never un-see and I will require therapeutic counseling for a long time. ;-) However unappealing HoffSpace may be to you and me, it is a "conversation" that probably creates new business transactions. Sure - it seems like worthless droning about a nut-job actor, but the fact that you know about it, is yet additional evidence that social computing is effective.In contrast, Linkedin is not really a social media site - sure we refer to it as a social network, but the degree of user generated content is very limited. Twitter (a flow application) embraces conversations far better than Linkedin. I've used Linkedin for 5 years - not a single new business deal has ever emerged from that effort. Using Twitter for 8 months, I can point to three deals as a direct result.While it's easy (at an academic level) to debate the value of online social connectivity, the point of this post is to discuss the value of conversations that lead to business. There is certainly a possibility that your outrageous hypothesis is true, just as the outrageous valuations for systems such as FaceBook suggest there is ample evidence that Cluetrain was right.Setting aside the possibility that the planet is becoming increasingly ignorant (or maintaining a constant level of ignorance), whether affected or disaffected by social media, aren't conversations emerging as a primary means for determining how to spend income?-- bf 10 application/xml false Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1; Dosware Team Internet Browser; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727) 127.0.0.1 127.0.0.1 bfrench 76.120.48.245 false true false false true 76407 blog blogsite/Blogsite/web