Cluetrain Manifesto

According to Paul Chaney, Internet Marketing Director for Bizzuka, the fifth P in Marketing is Participation. Paul concludes that companies and individuals can take advantage of this evolution by adhering to the following 10 Social Media Mindset Markers:

1. Every voice matters and some matter more than others(influencers)
2. WOM is more important now than ever
3. Listening is the new marketing
4. Lose control of your message (e.g. grant free access)
5. Information has to be findable (search) and shareable (social)
6. More “shared communities” and less “destination silos”
7. Watchwords of the new web are aggregate, curate, and filter content
8. Facebook is the operating system of the social web
9. Twitter is the new email
10. The web is real-time and all-the-time

Paul cited examples of companies that have capitalized on this new marketing dynamic such as Blendtec which turned a $50 investment into 700% growth and Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library who grew his retail wine business from $2 million in revenues to $50 million in revenues in just 3yrs. You can read more about Paul Chaney’s insights on how to use Social Media to grow your business in his book, The Digital Handshake.

David Montfort

Top 20 (Non-MENG Member) Marketing Blogs

MENG Members,

This morning MENG announced, via press release, the results of our study of the Top 20 (Non-MENG Member) Marketing Blogs that Marketing Executives (you) Are Actually Reading.

VIEW Press Release . I encourage you to take a look and to peruse some of these excellent blogs. You may find the content to contain advice that may be of great value to you in your executive leadership roles.

We would sincerely appreciate it if those of you on Twitter would help us by tweeting the link/announcement and certainly encourage any of you who would like to blog about the study to do so.


I just tweeted the study as @MENGonline and as @LisaPetrilli and would appreciate any RTs that you can provide! Additionally, I encourage you to tweet any of the bloggers that you know personally… (Sorry, I know this is obvious to you Twitter pro’s)!

Thanks to all of you who participated in the survey - we appreciate your support. We recognize that there are a number of highly acclaimed MENG Member-written blogs as well, and will be making it easier for you to access and read these blogs in just a few months.

All the best,
Lisa Petrilli

Small Town Rules

Gary Vaynerchuk, the driving force behind the Wine Library, a retail wine business, and Wine Library TV, his video blog about wine, woke up the audience at the early morning meeting of the NJ Meng chapter on Friday, January 8th with his impassioned plea to capitalize on the massive culture shift underway as a result of the internet and social media.
According to Gary, the internet has leveled the playing field and given the small entrepreneur the same capability to market their business as any large multinational corporation. While mass media converts 8-10% of the audience for a product or service into customers, the conversion rate for word-of-mouth is close to 70%. Based on firsthand experience, Gary realized that Twitter and Facebook did more to build his business than any traditional media channel he tried and at a fraction of the cost. It’s metrics like these he concluded that put mass marketing within reach of the average business person.
Gary stressed that because of the internet, we're connected like never before and now the critical small town business rules of listening to your customers and providing excellent service are paramount. He supported his insights with real world examples such as Zappos, Amazon, and Yelp as well as his own experience building the Wine Library.
Gary cautioned, that in today’s connected world, there is no hiding and only authentic, passionate, and committed businesspeople will be truly successful.
Gary’s passions run beyond the business world as he excused himself to catch a flight to Cincinnati to watch his beloved NY Jets play in the NFL playoffs.

David Montfort

Zappos Retails Its Culture

Interesting article in Business Week about Zappos......Gary was right on or maybe he already saw this.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_02/b4162057120453.htm

Jeff