I’ve transitioned to my new blog, Engage Daily. Here are a few more links that might be of interest:

Engage Daily is part of my new website, AgeofEngage.com.

I also have an AOE Facebook page. Become a fan!

Wondering why Microsoft would purchase Yahoo? It isn’t for the technology. I’m sure Microsoft considers their superior. It’s simply for the volume of users.

Even though Google has a significant lead over any other search company, Yahoo is always mentioned second. Microsoft is barely mentioned at all. Steve Ballmer wants this to be a two-man (uh-um, company) race. Volume gets Microsoft there. Now, every article written that talks about Google, whether it’s their commanding lead, their technology, their ad network, will also mention Microsoft. That’s an amazing amount of free branding.

Beyond that, Microsoft must have a huge volume of people using its search engine in order to build an online ad business that can compete. Will purchasing Yahoo narrow the gap with Google? In the short run, no. But in the long run, the increased brand recognition will draw many more users to Microsoft and possibly change the dynamics of the playing field. Show me more »

What matters most in 2008? Well, it’s both new and old technology and some fundamental marketing that we often forget when we’re busy. Here are 5 ideas to help plan your year.

1. Widgets
If you haven’t jumped on the widget bandwagon, get going. Widgets are a great way to distribute coupons/discounts, blogs, product data, and anything customers or prospects might want to know. You can get them free on Widgetbox and dozens of other places. Or, you could get creative and design something fun that might go viral. The Web today is more about others distributing your information and message and widgets are a great way to get that done.
2. Mobile
Google’s Android should be out in the spring, and along with spectrum that isn’t controlled by the major cellular carriers, I believe it will have a huge impact on what marketers can do on cellphones. Take a look at how your Web-based marketing activities can be remade and run on cellphones, or think up new ideas that make cellphones a key part of your marketing. After several years of hearing this is the year of mobile, 2008 might actually be it.
3. Facebook Business Pages
It’s clear Facebook has taken the lead in defining the evolution of social networking. You an set up a business page. You can create your own applications for others to download. There are groups you can define based on something important aspect in your industry. If you’re willing to pour some energy into developing relationships and building community online, Facebook is a cost-effective way to disseminate your ideas and get people to interact.
4. Value
Before you kick off that next program or product determine what the one core value is to customers. How will you surprise or delight them? What are you giving them that they don’t already have? Too often we opt for more programs and products that don’t stand out rather than focusing on the one thing we can do really well.
5. Interaction
This is the age of engage. If you haven’t found the time to blog or wiki, get started. Add profile pages, comments and tags to your Web site. Get your customers, prospects, and employees talking, interacting, and collaborating. Show me more »

Fortune 500 company CEOs automatically have an audience of customers, competitors, shareholders, Wall Street analysts, press and so on. Starting a blog is more about strategy and voice, than about marketing and attracting readers. For small company CEOs it’s a different story. Why blog every day if no one is reading it?

Blogging is a live, ongoing conversation which completely changes the dynamic between a CEO and customers. It’s virtually impossible to interact regularly with every customer, but a blog that enables comments, polling, and blog post ratings, encourages customers and prospects to offer an opinion. These interactions help develop a relationship, and they are filled with interesting data points which often drive CEOs to blog even more.

Blogs inform in a way we can only partially control. A CEO’s personality comes across as they write. And readers comment adding to the conversation. A small company CEO blog is all about building an audience to increase your sphere of influence. So marketing your blog is as important as writing your blog.

Here are some simple ways to market your blog:

1. Make sure your blog is listed in all relevant blog listings, and submitted to blog search sites
2. Add tags that describe your blog so that it pops up in search results
3. Focus your blog on a subject or dynamic that is higher level than your products or services to attract a broader audience
4. Invite guest bloggers or interview interesting personalities to spice up your blog
5. Get a blidget from Widgetbox to syndicate your blog as a widget so others can run it on their website, blog, or desktop
6. Note your blog on your email signature, text message signature, business cards, and on your website
7. Refer to your blog in customer meetings, at conferences, and in speeches
8. When used as a resource by the press, reference you blog along with your title and contact information

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It’s always good to have a watch dog around to assure public information on the Web is accurate, and multiple points of view are addressed. If you don’t personally know the resource producing the information, you can’t be sure whether or not to trust it. I use Wikipedia among many other wiki sites and I’m never sure who has had a hand in editing the information or if the point of view is from someone who has something to gain.

WikiScanner was designed to resolve this problem. The site can’t tell you exactly who has made edits, but through IP address tracking it can identify if edits came from a specific company and what the edit was — like deleting information that is damaging to that company.

It’s often better to request changes to pages rather than edit them yourself (which seems to make you look guilty).

Here’s the complete article in the The New York Times.
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There has been substantial controversy over Facebook’s Beacon, a service that publishes user purchases or service sign ups outside of the Facebook site (on third-party websites). Privacy groups are up in arms. And press and bloggers seem to be pushing Facebook to pull the service.

Beacon’s implementation could be better. Instead of requiring users opt-out of their information being used, it should require they opt-in. That way if you aren’t paying much attention, you won’t accidentally allow your identity to be used in an ad when you didn’t want to. But other than that, the service is brilliant.

We can put our heads in the sand or we can face it — this is the future. Consumers are much more interested in another consumers opinion than a company’s marketers’. If Facebook doesn’t do this someone else will. It’s an obvious evolution of social networking and marketing. And there’s more to come.

The key, of course, to any use of another person’s name/photo/identity/ideas/online behaviors, whether in Beacon or behavioral targeting is getting permission first. As long as those that choose to can opt-out, say no, and maintain absolute privacy, the service is a value add for those who opt in.

I would have to guess that most of the controversy is coming from people over the age of 35. We are used to our personal information remaining ours where no one has any access to it at all (unless we offer it up). But all of that is changing. A good bit of what we do online is tracked. That’s the new reality.

So you can no longer be passive about how your information is used. You need to manage the cookies on your desktop. You need to always look for opt-in or opt-out requests. You need to read privacy statements on websites! Make sure you know what companies are doing with your data.

But most importantly, think about how what you do adds to the collective knowledge and behaviors online. I constantly send my friends emails on products or services that I love. Why not allow advertisers show that I’m an advocate?

But marketers beware, if you post a user in an add and they later determine they don’t like the product or service, they will certainly find a way to make sure that all of their Facebook friends know about it. Show me more »

In an article in the Harvard Business Review, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, provides some timely insight.

Bezos comments that “It helps to base your strategy on things that won’t change.”

It took me a moment to consume that idea. I spent over 20 years in the computer industry where all you think about is change, what’s next, and what is everybody else doing. Instead of just asking his team to create the next breakthrough, Bezos asks “What’s not going to change in the next five to ten years?”

“At Amazon we’re always trying to figure that out because you can really spin up flywheels around those things. All the energy you invest in them today will still be paying you dividends ten years from now. Whereas if you base your strategy first and foremost on more transitory things — who your competitors are, what kind of technologies are available and so on — those things are going to change so rapidly that you’re going to change your strategy very rapidly, too.”

This is about getting back to core competencies, and focus. What advantage do you have in the marketplace? How can you keep building on it so that it will keep giving you returns for years instead of constantly spinning wheels to come up with something new?

You can get the summary of the complete article here (or purchase the article from HBR.org) Show me more »

If you don’t have a mobile strategy it’s time to get one. Verizon finally opened their eyes to the future and agreed to open up their network. That means any CDMA cell phones (the technical standard Verizon uses) will work, and any application can be uploaded to the phones.

With Sprint and others joining the Google Android (open cell phone software platform) community, and pressure coming with the new spectrum auction from the FCC (where open platform/network is required), cellular carriers need to think differently. Their proprietary world is going to come crashing down. AT&T (Cingular) is still the major hold out, but that will change when Android ships next spring.

So make sure your 2008 budget includes plans for applets, advertising, and communications activities over the mobile medium. You don’t want to miss out on the extraordinary marketing opportunities that will become available.

More on the Verizon announcement here. Show me more »

With numbers quoted as high as 50 million registered users on Facebook, and 100 million users on MySpace, it’s difficult to ignore social networking. But lots of people are still scratching their heads trying to figure out what this means for their business (or personal goals). Facebook has really grown up this last year, and there is a lot people can do to promote themselves and their interests.

1. Open a Facebook Page for Business. The options support small business, local business, individuals (artists, consultants), and products/brands, and so on. The business page allows you to focus and have an agenda while developing friends in a more natural tone (but of course, not unprofessional). Post on the page regularly and respond to friend’s posts quickly to keep the conversation going.

2. Use Facebook Beacon. This feature allows your friends’ comments (or other actions) on your site to link back to their Facebook page news feed with a link back to your site. The value of Facebook is that if you have 100 friends, and those friends have 100 friends, and those friends have 100 friends, your subject showing up on their news feeds can really spread your ideas.

3. Use Video. You can easily install and use the video application (free) on Facebook. That way you can post video to your page or in email. Video is engaging, and it can also be more personal giving others insight into you and your business.

4. Start a Facebook Group. Look for an idea or even a problem people who are interested in your business would relate to. Pick a very specific subject so people have a reason to join over another group that might sound similar.

5. Poll Your Friends to Get to Know Them Better. Facebook also offers a polling function. You can make this a regular part of your activities on your page and let everyone see the results. Or you can run short polls every few months to learn more about your audience and what they’re up to.

6. Create Your Own App. You can use Facebook Platform to create your own application. The goal is to attract more people and get them to interact with your product or your ideas.

Grow your connections. Ask people to join whether or not they are already on Facebook. Promote your Facebook page or group on your blog, business cards, email signature and anywhere else you can think.

There’s more, but I’ll save that for another blog. Doing all of this would be a great start! Show me more »

Web 2.0 isn’t just a set of technologies. It is a way of thinking, working, and behaving. It’s time to evaluate how audiences view your company and how you can update and enhance your interactions.

1. Provide a social space on your corporate Web site where your audience can interact. It can include profiles, comments, and voting on product features. Don’t censor negative comments. They offer the best opportunity to reveal the true nature of your company by the next steps you take over issues raised. This builds trust among your audience.

2. Monitor a variety of “neighborhoods” on the Web including blogs, social networking sites, user comment sites such as BazaarVoice, and price comparison sites to see what is being said about your company. Respond to negative comments with a plan of action not a position of defense.

3. Start a wiki that establishes an environment of collaboration with your customers and prospects and allows them to impact the product or service they purchase. By using Socialtext, Wetpaint, or one of the many other wiki hosting sites, this can be done quickly, easily, and cost-effectively.

4. Produce a widget which anyone can download and run on their blog or desktop which reminds them of your product or services through discounts, informative articles, or daily tips. If you have a little fun with the widget more people with use it and spread the word.

5. If you want to ensure your image remains authentic and clean, be the first to inform the public of bad news through your blog, wiki, or YouTube video. Don’t wait for pissed off customers to start demanding information so that bloggers start digging up the dirt. Get your dirty laundry out and offer a plan to resolve the issue. This builds trust and trust is more important than great products.

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