Those folks born between 1980 and 2000 might be the toughest crowd for marketers to win over, but at 82 million strong, it’s imperative for companies to rise to the challenge.

And what about Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) on the other side of the spectrum? Historically, only 5% of marketers have paid any attention to Baby Boomers.  But the tide could be changing.  In a recent report, Nielsen called the group, “marketers’ most valuable generation,” noting their buying power and social media habits.  In five years, boomers will control 70% of the country’s disposable income.

A USA Today article even discussed whether Baby Boomers are “Hollywood’s hot new target demo.” And Amazon is clearly taking note of the generation, unveiling a new 50+ Active and Healthy Living Store just this spring.

But what if you want to appeal to both Millennials and baby boomers in a single campaign?

Finding a Connection Between Millennials and Baby Boomers

Even though the two groups have very different attitudes and habits, finding common ground is not impossible. For example, everyone enjoys being treated like a VIP.  People like to be recognized and rewarded. And humor is another way to bridge the wide gap between Millennials and boomers.

At my company, Front Flip’s loyalty program attracts a wide range of people from teens to 65 and up. Our mobile app is fun, exciting, and definitely not intimidating.  Consumers of all ages are getting tired of the same old punch cards. Plus, they love the chance to win a prize every time they go out to eat or shop.

When the Front Flip executive team decided it was time to roll out our first consumer video, I was late into my pregnancy. So, I quickly decided I wanted my mom, Randee Heller, to play a starring role. Mom isn’t only a Baby Boomer—she’s an actress, best known for playing Mrs. Laruso in the 80s classic movie The Karate Kid.

I called her super-early LA time with a rough idea. After she got over the fact that I wasn’t calling about going into labor, she accepted the part.

The Karate Kid is one of those films that spans generations—whether you took your kids to see it in the theaters, developed a crush on Ralph Macchio, or tried to re-create the crane. If you weren’t around when the movie came out, chances are someone has  told you, “It’s a classic, and you have to rent it on Netflix.”

I turned to my sister, a TV writer in Hollywood, to help concept the piece. We settled on a mockumentary-style video. In it, my mom thinks that Front Flip is only for A List celebrities. While she talks about using the app several times a day with ease, she reminds the audience she’s a Boomer when she calls it “the” Twitter.

With this video, we tapped into the common desire for VIP treatment and a good laugh. And we did it leveraging an 80’s classic. My mom (the Boomer) engages with mobile technology just like your typical Millennial. She uses Front Flip not because she’s addicted to her phone but because the Front Flip program makes her feel like a celebrity.

On day one of the release, I watched the comments on Facebook come from vastly different points on the age spectrum: 22, 35, 65, and so on. They’re getting a kick out of the piece and the chance to win a DVD signed by Ralph Macchio!

We’re only a few weeks into the campaign, but my hunch is we are onto something.

We all know we need the Millennials to embrace our products and share the love with their friends on Facebook and Twitter.  But isn’t it time Boomers also got some love?

My company, Bullhorn Reach, recently published the  2013 North American Social Recruiting Activity Report, based on data culled from the activities of more than 160,000 recruiters in the Bullhorn Reach user network in 2012. Here’s what we discovered.

Which Platforms Are Popular for Job Recruiters?

LinkedIn continues to be the dominant social network for recruiting due to its age, reputation as a professional destination, and penetration among recruiters and jobseekers alike. Some 64% of recruiters relied exclusively on LinkedIn for their social recruiting efforts in 2012. LinkedIn yields considerably more job views and applications than Facebook and Twitter.

A key finding was that while social recruiting has gained momentum in the past year, a smaller percentage of recruiters are taking advantage of all three major social networks. Interestingly, early adopters of social recruiting are considerably more likely to use all Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter for recruiting than later adopters.

Twitter, while still ahead of Facebook in terms of adoption, isn’t yielding impressive dividends. While in last year’s report we speculated that Twitter would gain ground from LinkedIn in 2012, that prediction has proven inaccurate. If anything, Twitter lost ground in the past year as a social recruiting resource. While Twitter is actively working to further monetize its features and recruiters are becoming more adept at sharing both job posts and content with their followers, the effectiveness of the social network’s micro-messages is highly dependent on timing.

Despite Facebook being the least-used network in Bullhorn Reach, data suggests that Facebook provides recruiters with candidates of the same and potentially higher quality than Twitter. The real barrier to successful recruiting on Facebook may be an unwillingness to try it and acknowledge that it works differently than other networks. Only 22% of North American recruiters used Facebook in 2012, despite it having one billion active users.

However, new use cases for Facebook recruiting such as Graph Search and nascent initiatives like the Social Jobs Partnership signal that Facebook is serious about courting recruiters and may prove to increase its popularity in the staffing industry. We predict that in next year’s report we’ll see Facebook overtake Twitter in terms of applications per job post and grow considerably in average network size.

Visit here to download the full report.

Allow me to expand on that.

Alan Gerding, associate professor of Psychology at Cuyahoga Community College, is using gamification in his classroom to drive class participation, encourage cohesiveness in randomly assigned groups, and increase overall grades.

He divided his Psych 101 classes into three teams and issues them quests that they must complete to advance. Each team is not only striving for good individual scores on their assignments but also to pull their own weight and help support their team.

The first quest determines which mascot their team gets to select. With three teams and four potential mascots, the quest may not have been much of a competition but, interestingly, two teams were chasing the same mascot. That proved critical to the dynamics of the groups as study groups were formed that may not have been to ensure the highest grades possible to guarantee their first choice of mascot.

The Force Is Strong With This One

After assignments were tallied up and mascots selected, the next quest was to hunt for a weapon for their mascots. (Remember, these are college students who have grown up on Star Wars, The Walking Dead, and video games. It’s critical to tailor your gamification efforts to not only elicit the desired behavior but to connect with your audience. This approach would not have worked as well to, say, get retirement home residents to comply with medication guidelines.)

The winner of Quest #2 gets to select their weapon of choice to give to their mascot. A bonus is that the weapon will be customized to match your specific team color. Also, anyone who receives a 100% on the assignment earns a mustache for their mascot. Because, what’s scarier/classier than a shark wielding a crossbow? A shark with a mustache wielding a crossbow!

Finally, other activities allow the mascots to earn headbands, wristbands, and arm adornments, serving no purpose other than to look cool and act as a source of pride for a job well done.

And in This Corner…

At this point, the teams enter the arena. The goal is to knock the other mascots out and claim victory. This is achieved by a combination of attacks that are decided based on (surprise!) grades from specific assignments. Based on how the teams rank up they can choose to attack or defend.

The arena looks like something out of a popular video game, to give it more context.

Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken

After the first round of combat, the bear has taken some licks (as evidenced by the arrow in his arm and a black eye) and the shark and badger are still OK.

With four weeks left in the semester, who knows how things will pan out? But so far, Alan has seen a marked improvement in class attendance and participation as well as an increased effort put forth from students to ensure that their grades are high enough that their team succeeds.

He has not changed his lesson plans, his rubric, his syllabus, or his assignments. He simply has challenged them by giving them something to care about and his students have responded.

Four Tips About Gamification

As you can see, gamification can also work in marketing. Just keep these four things in mind.

1. Identify the behavior(s) you want to modify. Don’t simply use gamification tools to make something more fun; make it more fun with a goal in mind.
2. Know your audience. Every audience has different needs and will respond to certain triggers in different ways. Use a trigger that appeals to your customers and makes sense.
3. Set realistic goals. Goals should be attainable, but they shouldn’t be no-brainers. Folks have to do some work to feel a sense of accomplishment.
4. Recognize and reward. One of the most powerful features of gamification is the social aspect. Ensure that people are rewarded for doing what you want them to do and encourage social sharing of good news. People love to see their names in lights!

So, how can you challenge your customers? How can you give them something that they care deeply enough about to impact a particular behavior? The answer is different for every company, for every customer base, and for every behavior—but gamification can be done in a fun and engaging way. It’s all about finding the right levers to pull!

Got a question or comment on gamification? Post below!

Seems simple right? Just offer low prices and people will come. That is not necessarily the case, though.

Feelings Affect Our Shopping Decisions

An economist would say that customers are rational beings who try to get the most value for their money. In a tough economy, people should be especially focused on savings and prefer shopping at a store that always offers the lowest price. Psychologists, however, know that people do not always make rational decisions that offer the greatest economic gain because emotions play a critical role in guiding decision making and behavior. For example, positive emotions tend to evoke creative thinking and persistence when trying to solve problems.

An important study describes how specific emotions like disgust can reduce how much people are willing to pay for something and how sadness can increase how much we

are willing to pay. The expression “retail therapy” confirms that many people might attempt to change their sad mood by shopping purely for the entertainment value. Though shopping may serve a basic utilitarian need to acquire goods for nourishment and comfort, people are also motivated to feel competent and socially connected. Satisfaction might be gained when a shopper has a sense of expertise in selecting the best product for the best price, from knowing that some effort on their part resulted in a savings. Shoppers may get an additional self-esteem boost when they share their market expertise with other members of their community.

When J.C. Penney recently ousted CEO Ron Johnson, industry insiders began speculating what went wrong with its pricing strategy. A recent NY Times story describes some of the psychology behind discounting and what factors go into creating the sense in a customer’s mind that she got a great deal.

1. Deals are motivating

The first involves establishing what a fair price should be. Who knows what a box of cereal or a pair of boots should really cost anyway? Morning game shows, such as “The Price Is Right” or Let’s Make a Deal,” have taken advantage of the difficulty people have when guessing the price of everyday retail items. People make their best guess typically from how other similar items are priced. Psychologists who study decision-making call this type of estimation anchoring and adjusting. We fixate on a number that we have paid in the past and adjust our guess from there. We feel like we are getting a great deal when the anchor is a high “list price” and we pay a lower sale price that may even be below what we originally adjusted for in our mind.

2. You can’t change the way the mind works

The Times article points out that J.C. Penny stopped offering discounts due to the complexity and effort involved with constantly changing prices and managing inventories. It simplified by offering everyday low prices much the way Walmart or Costco does. Unfortunately, customers stopped buying because without the anchor of a higher retail price, they no longer felt like they were getting a deal.

3. Discovering a great deal is a fun game

Another aspect touched on in the article was the game price-conscious shoppers like to play by clipping coupons and feeling the satisfaction of earning a lower price. Everyday low prices at a certain store may result in savings but shopping there might not be as fun or at least provide the satisfaction to a savvy shopper who realizes anyone can get the low price without any effort or special knowledge.

4. Sales should be engaging

Les Wunderman, the direct marketing ad executive, famously increased sales for Columbia House records by mentioning a “Gold Box” treasure hunt in late-night TV ads for the company that would appear later in TV Guide and Parade magazine ads. The treasure hunt created a cheesy but amusing game that created customer interest and potential for increasing how customers interact with the company. Today, social media affords another platform to engage customer interest by making digital platforms a source of insider information and a potential “treasure” of future discounts.

5. Sales are naturally social

Finally, people love to share inside information with those in their social networks. People gossip and share funny videos on YouTube in order to feel like a valued member of their social group. People also derive more pleasure from giving to others than spending the same on themselves. J.C. Penney’s everyday low price strategy likely fell flat with customers because savvy shoppers had nothing of value to share with their friends when discussing purchases at the store.

6. Sales are satisfying

In the end, effective pricing strategies not only need to give customers a tangible sense of satisfaction that they got a good deal by using anchoring techniques—but offer interactive methods to keep customers coming back to social media and marketing campaigns for future deals. The trick is to make these efforts somewhat challenging and fun to keep customers interested. Once they realize the gains from their efforts, they may be more likely to spread the word and create the desirable buzz that every retailer wants to sustain about their brands.

For those folks who couldn’t make it to iStrategy Miami, here are some key takeaways from an action-packed two-day event.

Harness the power of simplicity. “Simplicity is instantly likable,” says Ken Segall. To best serve your audience, boil complex concepts down to simple turns of phrase, and use common words, familiar to your audience. This makes your content accessible to everyone.

Also remember the human element. What story are you telling and why does your audience care? Simplicity and the human element infuse every aspect of Apple’s organization, and brand loyalty reflects that.

Digital is a valuable part of the marketing mix, but it’s still just one part, as keynote presenter Jason Falls reminded the audience. An integrated approach is necessary to attract and maintain your audience’s attention. Social metrics, such as likes and retweets, are also not as valuable as comments. Falls derided “likes” as the virtual equivalent of a high five in the high-school hallway.

@jasonfalls: 56% of social users follow brands. Of those, 77% do it for a deal or coupon. #istrategy twitter.com/KerryGorgone/s…

— Kerry O’Shea Gorgone (@KerryGorgone) April 24, 2013

Fortunately, Facebook has more to offer than likes, but you need to cultivate engagement, not just maintain a presence.

Mari Smith’s presentation, “Five Facebook strategies for maximum impact, reach and ROI” comprised a mix of insights and tactics. Smith recommends first growing your fan base, then engaging them with audience-centric content, and ultimately using this momentum to move fans to action.

RT @ponderful: 3 Tips To Improve Engagement on #Facebook via @marismith at #iStrategy #Miami bit.ly/167WV61 #latism #socialmedia

— Engelo Imperator (@BelieveTheHyp) May 7, 2013

In Smith’s estimation, 80% of your content should focus on the audience, with the remaining 20% left to focus on your business.

“For every Facebook fan you engage, there are 34 more reachable friends,” said Smith, but this doesn’t necessarily mean you need to resort to promoted Facebook posts. Smith suggested posting first to allow more “organic” following, then promoting the post later to expand your reach.

Schedule posts for optimum visibility among your target audience. Smith was actually posting tweets from her Twitter account while speaking on stage. She let everyone know she scheduled those tweets in advance. Don’t be afraid to schedule posts. If you can’t be online when your audience is, scheduling makes sense.

Remember to include calls to action (CTAs). You might drive engagement on Facebook itself or direct traffic from the social network to your website, but whatever your goals are, support them with clear CTAs.

Also be mindful to actively monitor your Facebook presence and to reply to posts from followers there. Smith pointed out that Facebook’s algorithm now factors in negative feedback on a post, which means that negative feedback can undermine your post’s reach. Addressing any negative comments can help to turn the overall sentiment around, thereby saving your visibility.

There are more tangible benefits to engagement than brand sentiment: 80% of Facebook users who receive a response after they post go on to make a purchase, said Smith, citing a 2011 study.

Once you have your audience’s attention, Dorothea Bozicolona-Volpe emphasizes the importance of continued engagement. Remember to continue interacting with your audience after you’ve gotten the like and/or follow you were seeking.  “Twitter is like a one-night stand,” she observes. “After that first encounter, what’s the relationship?” Know your audience and continue to engage them once they have accepted your invitation to connect.

20 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools You Should Consider Using: bit.ly/ZN1fiu #iStrategy

— Dorothea Volpe (@SocialEspionage) April 24, 2013

For more information about iStrategy Digital Marketing Conference, visit http://www.istrategyconference.com.

But many businesses aren’t operating on an all-star budget; when a company is growing, the funds are tight and the stakes are high. As CEO, I’ve always thought of myself as my team’s GM and now–as we’ve entered baseball season–I’ve been thinking about the success of Billy Beane, who, as the general manager of the Oakland A’s, used one of the smallest budgets in Major League Baseball to drive the A’s to 20 consecutive victories and the playoffs.

I know more about business than I do about baseball, but that’s why the plight of the Oakland A’s is so inspiring. The strategies Beane employed that led to his team’s victories in 2002—the ones made famous in the book Moneyball (also the basis for a successful movie starring Brad Pitt)—are the very principles in which I have come to believe so strongly when it comes to building a successful company.

Marketers need to optimize their budget

A significant amount of your budget is probably spent on advertising, but if you’re unsure which ads are bringing in leads, the dollars you spend on those advertisements are wasted. Whether you’re advertising on your local cable station, a grocery store shopping cart, the radio, print, or the web, you need concrete proof of which ads are working and, more importantly, which ones aren’t. Unique call tracking numbers are critical when narrowing down the marketing efforts that are generating leads.

That simple information, gleaned from merely tracking your phone calls, could save you a significant amount of money and takes the guesswork out of your marketing analyses. With call tracking metrics, you know exactly, for example, how many of your phone calls come from PPC ads versus television ads. For example, if you’re spending big bucks on ads in local listings yet your metrics indicate they’re not generating any calls, you can stop wasting money on those ineffective advertisements. It’s too easy to keep increasing your PPC spend without knowing if these efforts are actually driving calls… but with the ability to track leads down to the keyword, you know exactly where the root of success is. That kind of data arms you with the information you need to construct the most effective campaigns—online and offline.

Marketers should take advantage of new channels

The beauty of marketing metrics is that they enable you to explore new channels and measure your results. With the ability to monitor your efforts, you may find that certain channels produce results that are unexpectedly successful. Like many companies, you may decide to explore social media platforms for lead-generation opportunities. But without metrics, you’re in the dark about their results. You have no way of telling if your foray into Twitter and Facebook actually produced any leads when metrics might have revealed to you that social media is driving more activity than any of your other channels. Metrics tell you what efforts you can save money on, but they also inform you of where to focus your budget more effectively. Don’t make marketing decisions based on what bigger businesses are doing; make those decisions based on what works for your company and your budget.

Marketers should search for insight into the effectiveness of their sales team

Your strategy might be solid, but what does your team look like? If the strategy is good—quality sources, relevant leads, good lead flow—but the leads aren’t converting, then it’s time to look at the players and see what needs to be optimized there. Quality metrics can show you the average time an agent spends on the phone with a lead, how quickly they’re responding to phone calls, and how many of their calls turn into customers. Depending on what your metrics tell you, you may need to make some adjustments to your processes, or to the team itself.

What set Beane apart from his peers was his ability to dig into the details: to look past big names and high salaries and into the repeatable, measurable activities that meant a winning season. Marketers must learn to do the same thing with their stats if they want to see the kind of success that made the story of Beane and the Oakland A’s famous. A metric-centric marketing strategy means a robust, data-rich view of your activities; a concrete understanding of what works and what doesn’t; and where you should be investing more of your budget.

Ice cream scoops are thrown from one worker to another and caught in cups balanced on their chins… while standing on one foot… hopping. You’ll see ice cream slingers sliding across the counters on their knees and bellies. It’s a carnival ride in there.

Finding people who are fearless and creative enough to come up with stunts like flinging scooped ice cream across a room just can’t happen in the normal interview process. How exactly do you ask, “Are you a little bit nuts?” You can’t. So, at Amy’s, applicants receive a white paper bag that must be brought back within a week turned into a creation that tells Amy’s about who they are.

Without the Right People, This Is Just Great Ice Cream

By using a plain white paper bag as its job application, Amy’s management gets to know the creative soul lurking within the teen candidate standing before them. That idea began with an applicant who was given the bag instead of the boilerplate job application because Amy’s had run out of the forms. The applicant floated the bag back into the store with helium balloons; inside the bag were items about her life. She got the job. Now that is how Amy’s fills their shops with people who make getting an ice cream feel like going to the circus.

Revel in “Being Real”

Amy’s exceeds $6 million in gross annual sales and one million ice cream servings. The Amy’s Ice Creams Web site says, “Amy’s looks at ‘going out for ice cream’ as a total sensory experience that can revitalize a less-than stellar day.” Part of the joy of going to their ice cream shops is wondering what kind of floor show you’ll be greeted with. Getting the right people to work at Amy’s has spurred their growth from a single location in 1984 to over 15 stores 26 years later. In 1984, Amy’s served 125,000 servings of ice cream. Now, they sell well over one million a year, with gross annual sales exceeding $7 million.

Like many beloved companies, Amy’s Ice Creams doesn’t advertise. Word of mouth builds the business, and they redirect marketing money to community development, which fuels more word of mouth. Amy’s represents the power of the small-business owner and how service and exceptional experiences can build their business. Amy’s Ice Creams prospers because it revels in being real. In being their kooky, nutty selves. That people love. This translates even to the Amy’s Web site, where the front page welcomes you with “Life is uncertain, eat dessert first!” Sound advice.

So, what can marketers learn from Amy’s?

Get real in how you hire and bring people into your company.

• First, define the core values of people you want to fill your company.
• Next, determine the personality of your company. Are you serious and deliberate? Are you whimsical?  Have you thought about it?

Examine your current hiring process.

• Are you deliberate about selecting people who will deliver your dis­tinct personality to customers?
• How would your customers say you are doing?
• Do customers rave about how unique you are today?
• Do your decisions for selecting people earn you “be­loved” status today?
• Are you selecting “memory makers” or filling slots?

Decide to be real.

What’s YOUR version of a white paper bag to select people who will become your company to your customers?

Fiverr is a website where people offer an insanely wide variety of services for only five dollars. Advertised listings include helpful services, such as “I will fix your Wordpress issue” to the creative “I will write a sweet ukulele song for your business” (I have used this guy twice) and the bizarre “I will kickbox in my bikini and say whatever you want.”All in exchange for a fixed rate of five US dollars.

Fiverr launched in 2010 and now hosts more than 1.3 million services. There is no price negotiating—everything offered on Fiverr always costs a fiver. Customers needing services can use Fiverr’s search or “surprise me” functions to find and commission services directly through the site.

Now Fiverr is by no means going to be the saving grace for every one of your marketing campaigns. But it can be a fantastic way to differentiate your messaging and provide a uniquely fun way to tailor your content for the various social channels.

One way that I use Fiverr is for a quick fun video to introduce a new campaign to the world. There are hundreds of options and vendors to choose from. And for only five bucks, what do you have to lose? Here’s an example of a video that I produced with the help of a vendor on Fiverr.

The idea here was to use this video as a vehicle to drive traffic and engagement around this particular piece of content. I was able to get this video completed in only three days then used it across Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and embedded it onto a landing page. Within three days, the video had more than 1,000 views and hundreds of Likes and shares. How’s that for ROI?

We all know that content fuels social and Fiverr is a horn of plenty that overfloweth with fun, helpful, and sometimes bizarre ideas that can add pizzazz to your marketing campaigns. It’s another tool for the modern marketer who understands the brains over budget mentality when it comes to creating content.

Many of those people at the events are extremely accomplished marketing professionals with a ton of creds—don’t get me wrong. But I’ve noticed that many seem to struggle with one topic in particular: How do marketers reach Millennials and successfully engage with them?

I’ve sat in many a packed convention conference hall while guys my dad’s age explain to their peers what Millennials are like. Everyone refers to what those kids these days do with their smartphones, with much chuckling in the audience. (I try to stifle a groan whenever someone makes a joke about how much his teenage son or daughter texts.) To save you the same fate, let me sum up the majority of what the marketing profession thinks about Millennials: They’re stupid.

Like, seriously, pants-on-your-head stupid.

What Marketers Think About Millennials

Millennials, we’re told, have the attention span of a hyperactive squirrel. They cannot think more than 140 characters at a time because they’re addicted to multitasking. They want mad lulz, not substance. They are overconfident in themselves and need constant stimulation and affirmation. And boy, are they into this social media thing.

Obviously, I disagree about much of that. In all seriousness, I submit to you that Millennials are different from other generational cohorts—not because of how we were raised or any inherent difference but rather because of how extensively we’re connected. We are connected not only to the web but also to one another and through various channels.

Millennials have adopted mobile devices, mobile internet connectivity, and social networking more than any other group. A recent report lays out these trends in fascinating detail and portrays a pattern that many of us are now familiar with. While my Boomer parents are now online and know how to “do the Google” and what-not, their peers have not broadly adopted mobile technology to a large degree nor have they fully embraced social media. (That results in some hilarious websites like When Parents Text and my personal favorite, Postcards From Yo Momma.)

That last part is key. Real-time interactivity with my hundreds of friends on Facebook or Twitter (where Millennials alone make up over 50% of the US users) means I can easily rely on crowdsourced input on my buying decisions, easily text friends for quick advice, and, of course, engage in showrooming—all on my smartphone. Older folks can do this perfectly well, of course, but haven’t shown a taste for doing so, and a majority of them don’t have the large connected social networks of their Boomer peers to tap for the same advice.

When you grow up with constant connectivity and social networking, wherever you are, you come to expect the same kinds of things from the companies you do business with. Millennials want to engage with your brand. We want to tweet you a complaint (or compliment!), and hear something substantive and human in return. We want to “like” you on Facebook to be a part of a shared experience—not just as customers, but as individuals with shared interests. (REI, you guys rock about this.) We want to pin your cool stuff on Pinterest, in part, to express who we are—and also to save it for later, when we’re prepared to actually buy. This isn’t about showing off on social media. It’s about the same kind of self-expression that every generation engages in among their peers—just our peers happen to be online.

In short, we want it fast, we want it now, and we don’t just want it online; we want it mobile-ready. I do not want to wait in a line down at your store, which is 25 miles away.

I can hear the eye-rolling from the Boomers reading this already. “Spoiled brats,” they say. “When I bought things as a young’un in the 60s, it wasn’t this complicated!”

They’re right. The world has gotten more complicated. And now I’m going to throw another wrinkle at you, lest you get the wrong idea from what I said above. While immediacy and mobility is incredibly important, I think the most important part of this is engagement.

Why Engagement Is Crucial

Stay with me here. There is a widely held Commandment of Online Video prevalent out there that holds that to keep your viewers’ attention, you must not go over two minutes in length. By 2:30, you’ve lost over half of your audience. And at 3 minutes, you might as well be showing an epic film. And this is even more true for Millennials… right?

Well, except that last year, the Kony 2012 video, which clocks in at 1 second shy of half an hour, raced across the millennial internet in just a few days. In three days, 72 million people had watched the video (I repeat: They sat and watched a 30-minute YouTube video! When does anyone actually do that?), and by the end of the first week, the number was 112 million. Almost a quarter of 18- to 29-year-olds in the US had watched it. The organization’s email system broke, and their sales force was locked out of their own store by the crush of traffic.

The point is not that Kony 2012 was a great cause. (It’s worth noting that they were later revealed to be a slipshod, amateurish organization with a very shallow understanding of the causes they purported to champion, but, as much as this returned Peace Corps volunteer might relish it, a discussion of so-called “slacktivism” is for a different article.)

The point is that the video treated its viewers with intelligence. It offered not only substance, but an opportunity for people to join something—call it a movement, a shared experience, whatever you like. Viewers could be a part of this movement just by raising awareness of it, and they did so by sharing this video widely with their friends. And share they did. I don’t know about you, but my Facebook feed was pretty much chock full of it for a week straight. Naturally, those interested could also contribute money or buy Kony 2012-branded merchandise on their online store. (Well, they could before it crashed.)

It’s not hard to find other examples as well. The point is that while quick, mildly amusing or clever “tagline marketing” is as relevant as it’s always been, Millennial customers—like anyone—also respond to substance and intelligence. And they’ve demonstrated plenty of willingness to carry your message for you, given the right campaign.

In short, you don’t need Buzzfeed-ify your marketing to appeal to us.

1. When the Foundation Is Clear, the Execution Is Successful

In essence, yoga is the continuum of theory and practice. As a marketer, isn’t it our job to create a theory (or strategy) through marketing research and execute upon the theory’s key findings or practice?

A successful marketer does not use one or the other; the back-end research is needed to support the execution. A like-the-back-of-your-hand knowledge of your brand’s intangibles (demographic or psychographic customer insights) drives the tangibles (revenue, product development, sales). Marketing theory and practice can be executed with the smallest tasks or biggest campaigns. When the foundation is clear, the execution is successful—ergo the transference of yoga’s theory and practice to marketing.

2. A Mental Clean Slate Helps You Think Without Preconceived Notions

Yoga is what is traditionally called a liberation teaching (or moksha-shâstra). Liberations of any kind seek to admonish any notions of “why we are” or “what we know.” Liberation allows for a mental clean slate, which allows us to think more clearly and profoundly.

Think of the transference to marketing. We are often clouded by pre-conceived notions of how we should be communicating with our end customer, even though those notions may not even be relevant or effective. It’s just the time-tested way within your organization to do something, so we continue to do it.

I was in a client meeting last week, and I asked, “Have you ever polled your current customers on how they view your company?” The answer was no. Many companies have a hard time trekking out of their offices into the “field” to chat with folks who have first-hand experience with your business—your customers.

Having a clean slate or a liberated notion of your business will allow you to uncover brand promises that could be one step away coming right from the mouth of your valued customer. Why do you think consultants exist—for an unadulterated perspective, right? From there, you will be able to move forward with marketing activities that allow you to better reach your current customer. It all starts with a clean slate, free from preconceived notions.

3. Small Gestures of Kindness Can Establish Customer Loyalty

A yogic life is guided by the principle of dharma, which means “law,” “order” and “virtue.”

Just last week I watched a TED Time Square lecture by famed HARO founder Peter Shankman. His presentation was “Why Nice Finishes First.” He shared cases about corporations going the extra mile to make small gestures of kindness—and how these gestures turn one-time customers into brand advocates for life. Those gestures seemed to be founded in good virtue and morality,

So what can you learn from the principal of dharma? Not only should we be virtuous for the sake of being virtuous, but we should also transfer the principal of kindness and morality to our marketing and business practices. It pays off with customer loyalty in the end.

4. Simplicity Helps Consumers Know Your Brand Better

Yoga teaches us to get back to basics; the more we untangle our lives the better off we are said to become. That yoga principle transfers to marketing perfectly. Are our marketing messages or campaigns clouded by “too much”? Too many graphics, too much copy on our websites, too many calls to action—just general clutter?

Think about the most famed advertising taglines. They are simple yet memorable: Nike’s Just Do It, Apple’s Think Smarter, the Dairy Council’s Got Milk? and Avis’ We Try Harder. Their websites are equally as succinct with simple, profound, and uncluttered content. That simplicity allows for a clear understanding by consumers of what the brand is all about. As a result, those brands have saturation in just about every home in America.

Here at MarketingProfs, we’re hard at work pulling together the final agenda for our B2B Forum 2013 this fall. We couldn’t do it without the insight of a select group of trailblazers in the B2B marketing space. Some of those advisers we are highlighting here, in a series of interviews centered around this year’s B2B Forum theme, “Marketing is full of choices.”

Now through the event kickoff in October, we’ll occasionally feature those Q&As on the Daily Fix, so you’ll get plenty of tips and insights about the adventure known as B2B marketing.

Our Q&A guest today from the B2B Forum 2013 is Ann Handley, chief content officer at MarketingProfs. Ann is a veteran of creating and managing digital content to build relationships for organizations and individuals. Ann also is co-author of the best-selling Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business, now out in paperback from Wiley.

1. What surprised you about B2B marketing in 2013?

I continue to be excited by the opportunities we have to tell our stories in inherently richer ways, and I’m amazed at the speed at which B2B marketing is evolving. Social media, a renewed realization of the importance of content, mobile, and more have changed marketing forever. Never before in the history of history have businesses had the opportunity to connect with buyers, join conversations, and build audiences. That’s a pretty inspiring thing, isn’t it?

I think so, and it’s spawning marketing that’s increasingly useful, inspired, and empathetic to the needs and desires of our customers. For example, do you think that this would have been part of a B2B marketing program a decade ago?

Or this?

I don’t. (And I was in the business of producing B2B content a decade ago. So, I speak with some authority!)

“The best doesn’t feel like marketing,” as my friend Tom Fishburne (marketoonist.com) says. And I think B2B companies in 2013 embraced that notion in a big way, and will continue to in 2014 and beyond. That’s why we designed this fall’s B2B Forum program to be relentlessly focused on this new world of marketing—the program is designed to help marketers navigate that incredible array of choices, to find the paths that work best for them in reaching and connecting with their audiences.

2. If you could only choose one marketing tactic to use, which one would it be? And why?

Content. Why? Because content…wait for it…  RULES.

But seriously, content has always been an important part of  marketing. But as social, search, and sharing have evolved (as I said above)… content is increasingly marketing’s cornerstone.

3. How do you break through a creative block?

By doing wacky things like the following “cartoon roulette.” (Note: The images move really fast by design. Click to stop it randomly.)

or this, based on your slide show:

Creating with no agenda is a fun, freeing exercise for me—it’s play. And it often inspires a bigger idea.

That’s also why I love Instagram—it inspires me (and pretty much anyone!) to see content moments everywhere. What kind of inspiration can we draw from our ordinary?

Instagram, Vine, and other content creation tools (like my latest discovery, Takes) make me question: What is boring or commonplace to me that is interesting to others?

4. Which “Princess Bride” character do you most relate to?

Hmm. This movie is, by far, the most-quoted movie in our house. (“Have fun storming the castle!” “No more rhymes now, I mean it/Anybody want a peanut?” “I do not think it means what you think it means!” “There not a lot of money in revenge.” I could go on. But I’ll stop now.)

I’d say that my favorite character is Grandpa (Peter Falk). He’s the storyteller in the bunch. He tells (reads) a fantastic story with (as he says) fencing! Fighting! Torture! Revenge! Giants! Monsters! Chases! Escapes! True love! And (of course) miracles. But he also has the arduous task of convincing his unimpressed grandson that his is a story worth hearing.

I could suggest that convincing an unimpressed, doubting audience is a lot like what we B2B marketers have to do each and every day of our work lives… but that might be pushing the metaphor a bit.

Or would it? ; )

Please come to B2B marketing’s premier marketing event of the year. Click below to see the agenda and to register. See you in Boston!

Marketing agencies are being held more and more accountable for measurable results. General brand awareness isn’t good enough. Clients are demanding revenue-driving programs that have direct impact on the bottom line and are proven through big data and analytics.

And it’s at that point that many agencies stumble.

Most agencies I speak with are still using their creative services and promotional offerings just for building brands. They are communicating success to their clients based upon website traffic, top-ranking keywords, clicks, social likes, and form submissions for soft assets like whitepapers and ebooks. They put their time, energy, and client’s money towards brand attraction—while forgetting that 70% of the buying process is completed before a prospect ever speaks to the salesperson.

I believe that if an agency is going to deliver the results that clients demand, the agency needs to become responsible for brand building and revenue generation. That means evolving and expanding its service offering, so the company isn’t just feeding the sales funnel but actually nurturing those leads to improve sales readiness and to increase conversions.

I’m certain the idea of taking responsibility for brand building and revenue generation is a bit overwhelming for most agencies. Many lack the infrastructure, technology, and manpower to provide the services necessary to own it all. But consider this: Jeff Ernst of Forrester Research estimates that only about 5% of marketers (clients) use a full-featured marketing automation solution. That’s a huge opportunity for a marketing agency willing to assume responsibility for nurturing and engaging potential buyers flowing through the sales funnel.

The crossover from brand builder to revenue generator is not as daunting a task as it may sound.

Here are a few areas to focus on.

Positioning. Offer a comprehensive managed service line-up—soup to nuts. Companies are looking for external support to fill the gaps inside. Agencies that can manage the attract-engage-convert stream are the ones clients will increasingly select.

Services. Content planning, creation and management are demand areas for agencies. Delivering on revenue goals demands targeted, relevant content delivered at the appropriate time in the buy cycle. Companies are struggling to deliver this internally.

Systems and processes. Managing the funnel is a tough and demanding job even with marketing automation. Ensuring that you have a process in place that can be replicated easily for each new client you add allows you to grow without cutting your profit margin.

Technology. Marketing automation is a requirement for agencies looking to provide full support to their clients. It lessens manpower demand, ensures the right touch at the right time, and provides accountability to clients.

Accountability. The pursuit of ROI for the client needs to be the No. 1 priority in the form of revenue, not just campaign KPIs (key performance indicators). Leverage your marketing automation system and your client’s CRM to gather data that tracks performance every step of the way.

While I believe marketing agencies need to evolve for their survival, I can understand the hesitation to do so. Change is hard, especially when you’re not sure where to start.

My first step, of course, was to read the book. This seemingly simple step was an important one, considering much of the criticism that has come from people who hadn’t read the book. (See Anna Holmes’ New Yorker article and Alexandra Chang’s Wired article.) I tackled the text with an analytical eye, considering my company spends a great deal of time exploring the psychology that drives women’s behaviors. A few pages in, and I could see why the book is making our collective female pendulums swing from one extreme to the other.

Target

Sandberg makes an important declaration on page 10.

“I do not believe that there is one definition of success or happiness. Not all women want careers. Not all women want children. Not all women want both. Iwould never advocate that we should all have the same objectives. Many people are not interested in acquiring power, not because they lack ambition, but because they are living their lives as they desire.”

That is possibly the most important part of the book. Had press and critics noted this, it would have lessened the controversy. Which leads us to the next question: If the book isn’t for everyone, who is it for?

Lean In will appeal to 26% of women 18-67 in the US. I know this because my company has extensively surveyed women in the US, and we understand what values drive their behaviors and shape their perceptions. We noted Sandberg’s values, as expressed through the book, and compared them to what we know other women value. Our conclusion: Sandberg highly values professional achievement.

She expresses it through statements, such as…

• “It’s a cliché, but opportunities are rarely offered; they’re seized.”
• “Conditions for all women will improve when there are more women in leadership roles giving strong and powerful voice to their needs and concerns.”
• “Also, just being nice is not a winning strategy.”
• “Do not wait for power to be offered. Like that tiara, it might never materialize.”

The women for whom this message will ring true fit a psychological profile that we refer to as “achievement-oriented,” and they are best described as…

• Valuing power, wealth, and achievement.
• Working full-time. (About a third of them have children, younger than 18, living at home.)
• Having a stronger-than-average work ethic and tie self-worth to professional success and achievements.

When compared with all other women, achievement-oriented women actually have more in common with men. Consider these facts about women with this “high-achievement” profile:

• 49% of them agree/strongly agree that their “career gives their life purpose” vs. 39% of men and only 35% of the other women.
• 43% of them agree/strongly agree that “having people do what they say” is very important to them vs. 35% of men and only 21% of the other women.
• 41% of them agree/strongly agree that “being wealthy” is very important to them vs. 41% of men and only 18 % of other women.

Typical quotes from achievement-oriented women include:

• “Getting up in the morning, dressed and out the door by 8 a.m. and ready to take on the world… That makes me feel great!” (Lisa)
• “I have always known that I wanted to be successful, I was not always sure what I wanted to pursue, but I always remained positive and looking towards my future.” (Marlene)

But the majority of women (74%) see the world differently:

• “My family is my life’s purpose. Work is a way to allow my family to enjoy our life.” (Melissa)
• “It is not the work that gives my life purpose, but rather the work that enable the purpose of life to be visible.” (Maria)

Tone

The tone of the book also has women on edge. Through repetition, certain words set a very distinct tenor. Have a look at what we found in our analysis.

• “Work” is used more than 100 times.
• “Career” is used more than 100 times.
• “Leader” is used more than 100 times.
• “Success” is used 92 times.
• “Professional” is used 78 times.

Other words that could be considered more traditionally feminine are used far less frequently:

• “Progress” was used 31 times.
• “Strong” was used 23 times.
• “Balance” was used 17 times

It seems easy to assume that Sandberg values—and is imploring all women to value—professional achievement over all else. Perhaps the book is best summed up by this quote, from page 79.

“I learned from Fred that effective communication starts with the understanding that there is my point of view (my truth) and someone else’s point of view (his truth). Rarely is there one absolute truth, so people who believe they speak the truth are very silencing of others. When we recognize that we can see things only from our own perspective, we can share our views in a nonthreatening way.”

If the goal of this book was to start a dialogue, Sandberg has certainly accomplished that. According to our research, her story will resonate deeply with a quarter of women in the US. But for the remaining 74%, the book will not “reignite the revolution by internalizing the revolution.”

Most women will struggle to connect with the message because they do not see themselves and their values in these pages. Rather than lean in, nearly three quarters of US women will, in fact, lean back.

Here at MarketingProfs, we’re hard at work pulling together the final agenda for our B2B Forum 2013 this fall. We couldn’t do it without the insight of a select group of trailblazers in the B2B marketing space. Some of those advisers we are highlighting here, in a series of interviews centered around this year’s B2B Forum theme, “Marketing is full of choices.”

Now through the event kickoff in October, we’ll occasionally feature those Q&As on the Daily Fix, so you’ll get plenty of tips and insights about the adventure known as B2B marketing.

Our Q&A guest today from the B2B Forum 2013 is Joe Chernov. Joe is the VP of Marketing for Kinvey, a mobile backend as a service start-up in Cambridge, MA. Joe joined Kinvey from Eloqua, where he served as VP of Content Marketing. The Content Marketing Institute named him “Content Marketer of the Year” in 2012. Joe speaks at universities and conferences around the world on content marketing and social media.

1. What do you do to get inspired?

Not to get all Walden-esque, but every weekend, my family takes a walk in the woods. In the summer, we may do two walks per day. Something about the place, the people, and the frequency is just enough to clear the noise that blocks inspiration.

2. What challenge have you faced lately, and how did you choose to resolve it?

I work at an early-stage startup, which means I face several material challenges every day. How will we monetize our product? How should we spend our marketing “calories”—brand or demand? I deal with each very directly—not necessarily because direct is best but rather because I am not clever enough to be coy.

3. What marketing tactic would you choose if you could only have one?

Without question, I would publish intrinsically helpful content. It’s the one tactic that raises the impact of all other tactics. Search, PR, demand, social, support… all of these functions are improved with helpful content.

4. If you had a superpower, what would you like it to be?

I’d pick “not aging.” So many incredibly cool innovations are happening, and thanks to Moore’s Law, their rate of release is accelerating. I am going to be seriously bummed to miss all the cool stuff that comes out after I’m gone.

Please come to B2B marketing’s premier marketing event of the year. Click below to see the agenda and to register. See you in Boston!

1. An online community makes users feel like they belong.

Speaking from experience, I know that, as a user, I’ve got to love the community’s site, both aesthetically and in terms of content, as soon as I get there. If the visuals grab me, I’ll stick around and keep reading.

So, I try to make the PRO content on our site engaging and easy to digest. I also do everything I can to provide members with an open line of communication. PRO members need to know that we welcome their feedback and value their opinion!

2. An online community lets you know that folks care about you.

On a membership site, I want to know that the folks on the other side of the screen care about me. I don’t want to just be a number! Now, that is exactly the experience I’m working to build for PRO members.

I want our members to know that not only do we appreciate their business, but we also care about them and what they do. We care about what they think of their membership and how they’re using it, and we want them to help them be successful, smart marketers.

Plus, I want members to know that there’s a real, live person over here! I’m licking envelopes, packing coffee mugs, writing emails. I want to get to know our members and let them know that I value them!

3. An online community has active, involved members.

I like to create a sense of community among our PRO members. I want them to be active and engaged. I want them to be aware of each other and to have an outlet (currently, our PRO member LinkedIn group) where they can interact, pick each other’s brains, share thoughts, crowdsource ideas, etc. I want this to be an active, engaged community that marketers simply can’t (and don’t want to) live without.

A worthwhile, engaged community provides value … and that’s what we’re all about at MarketingProfs!

Want to learn more about PRO membership? You can do so here!

One of the best examples of cringe-worthy marketing is the late-night infomercial—the one you watch when you can’t sleep. After an hour, it nearly convinces you that you do need a Magic Bullet. (How have you ever lived without it?!)

To honor this strangely beloved marketing genre, we present to you the first ever infomercial Slideshare presentation, with guest appearances from DJ Waldow, Nick Westergaard, Lee Odden, Laura Fitton, Steve Garfield, and Joe Chernov. So, for this limited time only… ENJOY!

Please come to B2B marketing’s premier marketing event of the year. Click below to see the agenda and to register. See you in Boston? Snuggies and ShamWows optional.

Here are the most popular social networks and a detailed overview of the main analytics options available for site managers.

Facebook

Insights, the official Facebook analytics tool, is available for all webmasters and provides information on Page performance, audience interaction, and the most popular means of Page discovery by users. Additionally, Page admins are shown how many people a particular post reached. That information can be very useful as it alerts webmasters to the times of day most suited for posting, the language best received by fans, and also how valuable EdgeRank finds the content. The latter is of particular importance to many brands’ social strategies, as Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm looks at the affinity, weight, and decay of each post when determining how to prioritize content on news feeds.

Facebook describes its Insights API as “methods by which Facebook Platform developers can access the underlying data that is presented on the Insights Dashboard.” Brands can also access comprehensive data via Facebook’s Query Language (FQL) and Graph API, which provides a detailed understanding of fan behavior and Page performance.

Twitter

Twitter’s Web Analytics tool was introduced in September 2011 and allows users to accurately measure the traffic converted from their Twitter account, understand how their tweets are shared, and assess the effectiveness of tweet buttons integrated into their website. Webmasters must request access to Twitter’s analytics feature before being able to study the information provided.

Twitter is slightly more complex when searching for brand mentions, and businesses cannot rely on identifying references and positive chatter through @mentions alone. With Twitter’s discover facility, businesses can assess their social presence via @replies, hashtags, and plain text mentions. That is vital for better understanding the overall impression a brand has within the network.

Similar to Facebook, Twitter also has a website for developers which shares the latest developments with its API, developer blog, and discussions boards. Page admins can use the developers website to find guides about everything from embedding tweets and timelines to integrating the follow button onto webpages.

Google+

Google+ Platform Insights allows businesses to optimize their Google+ integration by measuring user growth and the activity of posts. Platform Insights largely focusses on trends to help develop fan acquisition and their engagement levels, whilst also placing importance on accessing analytics for apps in Google+.

Google+ for businesses particularly looks at helping businesses identify influential users, listen to fans, and identify key areas for social return on investment (ROI).  It also has helpful information for brands new to Google+, such as how to be found on the network and tips on connecting within the network. This, in addition to Platform Insights, can provide great knowledge and direction for brands on Google+.

Pinterest

The official Pinterest analytics tool was launched on March 12, 2013, and it provides brands with interaction data such as what is being pinned from their site and the identity of influential pinners. In addition to this information, businesses will have access to the amount of views items pinned from their site have received, the true reach of pins, and also the traffic pins return back to the brand’s website. With the ability to track pins and their traffic from and to brands’ webpages, Pinterest’s SEO value provides good reason for its inclusion into social and SEO strategies.

To access Pinterest Web Analytics, Pages must be verified in order to officially associate a website with a Pinterest account. Users can request to do this in their settings.

LinkedIn

InMaps from LinkedIn visually traces professional connections and inner-relationships to enhance the understanding between users and their LinkedIn network. InMaps groups similar users into clusters to identify the relevant audience for targeted content based on connections and interests.

While official analytics tools provided by the network itself are often the most reliable and in-depth tools to use, it is also worth being aware of the third-party applications which can also offer a high-quality service and provide alternate ways to measure engagement.

The key thing to take away is that if your brand is active on social networks, analytics are vital for identifying and understanding your audience, predicting and responding to their behavior, and tailoring your content to maximize engagement levels. Social media agencies are often a brand’s first port of call when looking into managing analytics.

Bright orange, fluffy, and very self-possessed, Richard the cat recently hit the social networks to talk about life in a DIY home and share the story of Home Depot. The brand’s consumers can follow him on Twitter, create a meme (just choose the images and pictures, and the app generates it for you), and join in his cat-and-home-improvement observations on the internet.

To learn more about The Home Depot’s successful brand storytelling starring Richard the cat, I talked with Kathryn Emery, spokesperson for The Home Depot.

Tell me a little about Richard the cat.

To outsiders or people who first meet him, you might call Richard surly. However, once you get to know Richard, you realize he’s not so much surly as he is a mature feline who is impatient with the people (and pets) who surround him and are operating with less experience and knowledge than he has. For example, Richard provides quick-witted, sometimes sarcastic, advice and commentary an all of the goings-on during the spring. The Home Depot creates native experiences for Richard to engrain him in spring scenery, launching the campaign #DigIn.

What was the brainstorming session like? In other words, how did you decide on an orange cat named Richard for your storytelling?

We wanted to develop something that was authentic to and in the channels in which we were participating. The Richard the Cat character and his tone were the result of an internal brainstorm with our PR and social media teams, and it just evolved from there.

We latched onto the idea of using humor to have fun with the brand. From the beginning, we’ve worked really closely with a comedy writer from Funny or Die to keep our content fresh, sarcastic, and authentically Richard. We think that humor plays well in social channels and Richard’s voice gives our brand an opportunity to step outside that box and connect with new audiences. We’re testing some new things this spring as well. We’re incorporating video with Funny or Die and integrating shoppable content into our Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and blogs. We’ve also launched a meme generator on Tumblr, so fans of Richard can create their own content to share as well.

I can understand the “orange” decision (matches so well with the Home Depot logo), but why choose a cat? Was there ever a dog close in the running?

They’re cute, they’re surly, they do what they want when they want… We don’t think it’s necessarily for The Home Depot to answer or define why cats are internet gold, but we certainly want to tap into it. When we were originally brainstorming concepts it was for the holidays, and we liked the idea of a character that could be sustainable beyond that moment in time and that would cut through the clutter a bit more than Santa or an Elf.

Richard seems quite the formal name for a cat. In Richard’s Tumblr account, he says he is “never Rick or Ricky.” Why not?

The cat has spoken and we’re just left to follow. Richard prefers his full, formal name, not the nicknames we’ve all tried to make stick. He’s a sophisticated and proper feline, and nicknames have no place in his world. He believes it’s full name or no name.

How did you decide on Richard’s voice?

Richard’s signature snark was developed in collaboration with our comedy writer at Funny or Die.

Are you using comedic partners for the entire Richard campaign?

We are working with a creative copywriter from Funny or Die to maintain Richard’s pithy tone and persona. We have media partners in Funny or Die, Buzzfeed, The Onion, 140Proof, and Blip.TV.

How do you decide on what’s funny?

We decide through collaboration with our noted copywriters and media partners, and we try to trust our instincts. You should see some of the content that hasn’t made its way to Tumblr!

How do you handle disagreements, if any, regarding what is humorous?

It can be settled a number of ways but at the end of the day, we’re working with some of the best in the business, and we trust our partners and our team. That said, The Home Depot is not too proud to admit that many a cat video, meme, and joke has circulated around office email and instant message–and we think that kind of professional collaboration keeps the content fresh and even funnier.

What’s the response been to the @RichardtheCat Twitter account? What’s the funniest response that you’ve received? (Or the worst…)

Please see below for some of our favorite tweets from Richard; they were some of his most popular retweets.

Laugh at me for chasing the laser pointer all you want, but I’m not the one buying bags of soil when I have a whole yard full of dirt.

— Richard the Cat (@RichardtheCat) April 23, 2013

Congrats to the winners of the Mid-Ohio #Cat Fanciers Show. I didn’t enter because there was no evening wear portion: thd.co/10I2nWz — Richard the Cat (@RichardtheCat) April 8, 2013

In general, what’s the response been to Richard?

Richard’s launch over the holidays was a test and learn program. This is one of the first times where we’ve been able to pull all the pieces together for a truly integrated social campaign, pulled through 16 channels (owned, social, earned, paid). Over the holidays, Richard reached an audience of more than 54.6M over-indexed strongly for college-educated 18- to 34-year-old females. We continue to engage fans on Twitter and Tumblr with compelling, humorous, shareable content, and our impression and engagement numbers are looking great so far.

Which social network is your most active one? How do you decide which content goes to which social network?

Content is tailored to each network’s voice and tone.

What’s your marketing approach for spring/summer?

For spring, our content hub for this campaign remains on Tumblr (richardthecat.tumblr.com), and Richard will continue to have a voice through his dedicated Twitter account—@RichardtheCat. We are amping up our Tumblr experience through the introduction of a meme generator to drive more user-generated content (UGC). And we’ll continue to pull creative content through all of our other social channels. We are incorporating a video component into the campaign this year through a partnership with Funny or Die, and we were one of the first brands to work with The Onion on a sponsored article to help launch Spring Black Friday.

You’ll see other creative executions of content throughout the spring. Again, you’ll also see Richard the cat pop up on our HomeDepot.com properties, and we are using the #DigIn hashtag across all channels, in-store signage and in our broadcast, print and online ad creative to bring the conversation stream full circle. Also in-store, we are activating Social Booth in select cities that will feature a Richard the cat photobomb. To amplify the conversations, we’ve partnered with Tumblr to be a part of their beta test for mobile ads and also have media buys and integrations with Buzzfeed, 140Proof ,and Blip.TV.

What are future plans (beyond spring and summer) for Richard?

It’s a truth universally acknowledged in showbiz that children and pets can be the hardest to work with. We wouldn’t presume to make plans for this cat star’s whims, we’re just hoping to keep his wit around for as long as we can bribe him with catnip.

Advanced social intelligence has a wide array of powerful marketing and product applications strategically driving innovation and decision-making. The true resulting power comes from the unsolicited—and unbiased—insight that can be acquired across billions of comments from millions of consumers on million of open online sources, including, but not limited to, social networks. Companies are using this insight as next-generation market research, which allows them to see their markets with greater clarity.

No longer do Marketing, Brand, and Product teams have to cautiously rely on biased results extracted from limited populations of surveys and focus groups. Rather they can now access expansive genuine consumer opinion across massive market segments. Essentially, the ability to understand the billions of social comments broadcasted by consumers daily provides smart companies access to the world’s largest focus group without having to ever ask a consumer a specific question.

It’s that insight that is transforming how businesses across a myriad of industries—such as food and beverage, media, consumer packaged goods, and pharmaceuticals—develop and execute their strategic marketing.

Here are five ways advanced social intelligence is already revolutionizing marketing.

1. Purchase Path

Advanced social intelligence facilitates deeper understanding of specific consumer decision points that ultimately drive consumers toward a purchase decision. From this, a product or service’s path-to-purchase can be constructed, helping the Marketing and Product teams understand and influence these decision triggers. That results in smarter, more effective marketing in terms of message, channel, and audience. The results can be very specific and reveal valuable insight into barriers impacting a products sales growth.

2. Consumer Insights

Aside from understanding the decisions and paths consumers take to purchase a product or service, advanced social intelligence also provides clarity on the detailed personas within consumer segments. Again, those are constructed based on unsolicited, unbiased likes, dislikes, interests, actions, attitudes, and beliefs of consumers on an aggregate basis. That not only helps Marketing, Brand, and Product Teams to understand how and where to message these consumers but can also identify key consumer segments that were previously unknown. Many times, those newly identified personas drive an added dimension to the organization’s marketing strategy, which allows them to potentially find significant untapped markets.

3. Product Development

Many companies are already using advanced social intelligence to clearly understand markets they may enter. That insight helps product groups understand the competitive landscape, players, products and feature sets, consumer attitudes and behaviors, unmet consumer needs, and decision points to aid in their product development. That mitigates many risks in the process and provides a deeper understanding to effectively drive innovation based on understanding of genuine consumer feedback.

4. Competitive Analysis

One of the fastest-growing strategic areas advanced social intelligence is being used for is with competitive analysis. Companies can now gain powerful insight on the competition based on consumer behavior, product usage, and more. Companies can now understand their competitors often better than they understand themselves. That knowledge delivers great power to set and execute strategy on a wide array of fronts.

5. Media Planning

Marketing teams are starting to understand consumers beyond the interactions with their products or services. Using advanced social intelligence, those companies are now able to delve into understanding consumer likes, interests, hobbies, and media consumption to provide efficacy with their own media planning. That helps with identifying channels and developing messaging for greater audience impact.

The Bottom Line

To take advantage of the wealth of insight from social network and open-source commentary and achieve advanced social intelligence, many organizations are relying on turnkey solutions. However, simplistic keyword tools typically will only provide “noisy” results focused on “buzz” that cannot be strategically acted upon. Given the sheer amount of content (billions of daily comments) out there, more organizations are realizing they need a streaming Big Data solution to keep pace with the volume, velocity, and variety of the social data.

Aside from this, companies are also realizing they need expertise on the social intelligence front to track and analyze the findings.

The simplistic, true value of advanced social intelligence is within the ability to clearly understand consumers, prospects, influencers, and competitors within billions of daily comments, across tens of millions of individuals, on millions of social and open-source channels. Disappearing are the days in which marketers have to rely on biased results from limited sample focus groups and surveys.

The key to achieving this advanced social intelligence is to go beyond the traditional buzz and sentiment, which is typically inaccurate and often not actionable. To achieve this intelligence, companies are realizing they need powerful streaming Big Data processing, complex concept modeling beyond simply keyword lists, and often specialized expertise.

These capabilities exist and are being used today by leading corporations on a variety or fronts by their Marketing, Brand, Product, Consumer Insights, and Innovation teams. Aside from serving an integral role with marketing strategy, product development, innovation and overall decision-making, advanced intelligence is transforming the basic understanding marketing organizations have of their markets, delivering an understanding clearer than ever.

To help businesses manage content and determine how to set up a content team, Altimeter Group published the “Organizing for Content: Models to Incorporate Content Strategy and Content Marketing in the Enterprise” report today. The company created the report based on 78 interviews with executives actively engaged in the evolution of content strategy and/or content marketing in their organizations.

Before organizing content, however, a company needs to be clear in how it defines content.

“Content is owned media created by the brand and published or distributed on media channels the brand controls. Content marketing is the practice of creating and publishing it in owned media channels, as opposed to advertising, for which media always rented time or space.” (Altimeter Group)

After defining content, the report makes the case for an organizational content structure then discusses the organizational content requirements. For example, it covers the elements that need to considered for every piece of content.

• Strategy
• Authority/management
• Staff
• Technology
• Measurement
• Audit
• Unified guidelines and playbooks
• Training

To meet those requirements, a content department is ideal. So, the Altimeter Group covers the different types of enterprise models. The six scalable organizational models are…

• Content Center of Excellence (a consortium of experts from various organization divisions)
• Executive Steering Committee (a cross-functional strategic group comprised of senior executives)
• Editorial Board or Content Council (content creators and/or marketing executives from divisions, including marketing, communications, PR, and social media)
• Content Lead (an executive who oversees an organization’s content initiatives; also known as the editor-in-chief or global content strategist)
• Cross-Functional Content Chief (chief content officer, also known as head of digital strategy; the senior executive who presides over content)
• Content Department/Division (in-house or agency)

To find out more about incorporating content strategy into your organization, check out the embedded report below.

Market research, however, is essential to you and your brand’s long-term success. Market research will keep your brand afloat while companies who fail to make research a high priority drown.

Market research should be bumped to the top of your priority list for the following five key reasons.

1. Market research centers your business on your consumers

We all get tripped up by internal politics, agendas, and internal brand priorities. However, some of the best advice that I can give marketers and researchers is to remember that your customer is always your boss (even above your company’s CEO). You need to keep the lines of communication open with your “boss” through research. Work hard at understanding and continuously meeting and/or exceeding consumer and customer needs. Even if you purchase your company’s products, you are not your consumer, and therefore, focusing on your consumers and their perspective is critical.

2. It keeps you focused

All marketers and marketing researchers today have a tough job multitasking and rightfully so. They are managing multiple projects, running businesses, and often playing many roles within their organization. However, when used properly, marketing research should tell you what’s most important to your consumers and help you to prioritize and maximize your time effectively. It can inform both your short-term and long-term marketing playbook, helping you feel less frazzled and overwhelmed in the long run.

3. It allows you to pursue the most lucrative growth opportunities

Marketers want to grow their business,  but we are not always clear on which is the right path to do so. Marketing research can help you weigh and quantify opportunities to prioritize those with the highest revenue potential for your brand.

4. It keeps you relevant and future-oriented

We have all heard of the phrase “Adapt or Perish,” and that is true for our businesses and brands. Conducting regular research with consumers and customers enables us to make sure we are constantly adapting and evolving our brands to meet long-term needs. While focusing on maximizing short-term results is easy, focusing too much on the short-run limits your brand’s longevity and relevancy in the future. If you aren’t keeping up with consumer, and product and category disruptions, someone else will.

5. It improves your decision-making capabilities and reduces your risk.

Market research can provide insightful information about your market, product, audience, competition, and more. When you use a comprehensive research library, you can make decisions with greater clarity and confidence. By having research to backup your marketing decisions, you can optimize your brand strategy choices and minimize your risk for failure.

So now that we have established why marketing research should be a top priority, let’s discuss for the best ways to use it! After all, a research study’s results are only as good as its ability to accomplish its key objectives.

The Best Ways to Use Marketing Research

The uses for market research are vast. However, at Insights In Marketing, we have found that most marketing research projects we encounter have the following five critical marketing objectives.

1. Optimize brand strategy and positioning

Every marketer’s objective is to position themselves uniquely in the marketplace ahead of their competition. Quantitative (numbers-based) and qualitative (conversation-based) marketing research can be used to identify where your brand stands compared to the competition, what metrics you should be tracking over time, and what brand benefits matter most to your target market.

2. Identify or better understand your target market

Market research is an excellent way to find the best market or target demographic for a product or service. By focusing your efforts to the right markets, you can see faster results, improved efficiency, and greater overall performance from your marketing campaigns. In addition, if your target is already defined, you can use marketing research to better understand your target consumer and to uncover critical behavior drivers and attitudes that inform their purchase decisions.

3. Elevate your messaging and communication

Marketers often find ourselves talking at consumers rather than with them to determine how we may fit into their lives. Our messaging must resonate with our audience, whether through our advertising, package design, or website. Marketing research is a great way to test concepts and key messages to evaluate which ones our target customers can relate to.

4. Innovate with impact

Innovation is a key part of any brand’s growth. However, conducting marketing research enables you to focus your innovation efforts on the highest growth opportunities for you and your brand, design a product or service with the optimal benefits and features, and zero in on the ideas or concepts that address your consumers’ desires, needs, and interests

5. Assess your category and competition

Whether you are a small local business or a multinational corporation, understanding your competition and category is a crucial part of dominating the market. Market research can help to reveal key aspects of the competitors’ products, services, marketing strategies, and target audience. Using this information within your own campaigns can help to lead in the market over your competition and add value to your business or brand. In addition, regularly monitoring your category and potential major industry changes will enable you to stay ahead of the game and prepare your brand to adapt and innovate.

In the modern global market, marketing research is not just helpful; it is essential to success. Put it on the top of your marketing to-do list and don’t forget to set your research objectives to get the best results for your business!

We took a light-hearted approach to that question and asked the MarketingProfs Facebook group to finish this sentence: “You know you’re a marketer if…”

As we expected from the energetic and savvy group of marketers, the answers were fun, engaging, and—in some cases—absolutely cartoon-worthy.

So, I took our favorite responses and drew cartoons to match the definitions then put them in a slideshow to share with you.

Here’s a peek at some of the responses in the slide show…

From Libby Eddleman Spears: “You know you’re a marketer if you give your kids ideas about how to market their lemonade stand.” (Click to tweet!)

From Corey O’Loughlin: “You know you’re a marketer if your family thinks you ‘do Facebook’ for a living.” (Click to tweet!)

From Tara Sundaram: “You know you’re a marketer if you get excited at every beep of a new lead arriving in your inbox.” (Click to tweet!)

From Sherice Jacob: “You know you’re a marketer if you study informercials instead of changing the channel.” (Click to tweet!)

From Arié Moyal: “You know you’re a marketer if you can guess a brand by its typeface.” (Click to tweet!)

From Shelly Lucas: “You know you’re a marketer if you’re a little pitcher with big ears.” (Click to tweet!)

From Veronica Maria Jarski: “You know you’re a marketer if everything is a potential blog post.” (Click to tweet!)

From David Pittman: “You know you’re a marketer if you use unique spelling in your child’s name because of the branding potential.” (Click to tweet!)

From John at GoSoLoMo: “You know you’re a marketer if you successfully sell your son the benefits of a clean room.” (Click to tweet!)

From Nicole Rodriguez: “You know you’re a marketer if you analyze good placement on shelves at the grocery store.” (Click to tweet!)

Find out more answers to the phrase “You know you’re a marketer if… ” by checking out the illustrated slide show.

Seriously? Must everything we do require an American-Idol style freak show? (Side note: One of my daughter’s friends recently made it to the second round of tryouts for the TV show but was told that while her voice was good enough to get her on the show, she didn’t have an interesting enough story for television. So, it’s not a talent show, it’s a made-for-TV dramatic series.)

Here’s how the Heineken spokeswoman described the process: “At a time when it’s very tough to catch a career break, Heineken wanted to encourage young adults to stand out from the crowd by being inventive, resourceful, and innovative.”

You Need Some Grabbers?

So now, let’s bring this concept back around to what it means to you and me as marketers. It is all about standing out from the crowd.  And it’s getting harder to do and outdo the next person when it comes to crazy, made-for-TV antics.

At a minimum, you need to make sure that your message captures the attention of your audience very quickly, regardless of whether it is a tweet, your website, a campaign, or a sales presentation. In our recent book, “Conversations that Win the Complex Sale,” we described a technique called grabbers. As the name implies, grabbers are designed to be hot openings for your message that get prospects and/or customers emotionally involved—both figuratively and literally—in your message.

Here are just two examples of the grabber ideas we cover in the book to help you get started:

Number Plays

Wrap several numbers into a story to capture your attention.

Example: Opening a meeting with a prospect

“When does 1 equal 11? (Draw “1 = 11” on a whiteboard.) Well, according to McKinsey and Company, a 1% change in discounting can have an 11% impact on operating margin.

“With that in mind, these four numbers tell a story: 10-100-9-11 (Write the four numbers on the whiteboard.) Your current average discount is 10% on $100 million in operating margin. If you could reduce that to 9%, it would mean an additional $11 million in potential profit for your company.

“Where are you going to find that 1%? Well, that’s what we’re going to talk about in our meeting today.”

Now, compare that to the typical opening of a meeting… You put up your PowerPoint slides and talk about your company, such as how big you are, how old you are, and how many locations you have (with the obligatory map of the world with dots). You also show the logos of all your customers; you describe the operating units, along with your products and services…  You get my drift.

Guess what? Those are the same opening slides your competitors showed. Where’s the difference? How do you stand out? You’ve lost attention before you even started. There’s no leaning into your message from the audience.

2. Words-in-Common

Use a set of words or phrases that have something in common but don’t immediately or obviously connect them to the situation you are in.

Example: Highlighting a key differentiator during a new business presentation

“What do these three things have in common?” (Write them down on a whiteboard.)

• Hail Mary
• Buzzer Beater
• Walk-Off

“If you are a sports fan, you will recognize these words. They are all risky, last-second plays, often in desperation, to win a game. In football, it comes down to that big bomb into the end zone hoping for a miracle catch. In basketball, it’s the half court heave in the hopes it will go in the basket. In baseball, it’s the big swing for the fences to win it with one blast of the bat.

“They all make for spectacular highlights, but no team counts on them as a part of their strategy for delivering a winning season. They prepare a full game plan designed to win the game outright and avoid these last second do-or-die attempts.

“In the same way, it’s hard to salvage profits in the waning moments of contract negotiations with purchasing agents. What’s different with our approach is that you will be creating and capturing value upfront with the executive decision maker instead of trying to ‘rescue’ it at the end. This improves your ability to protect more margin when the deal eventually gets to procurement.”

I hope you were able to put yourself into these role plays to see how a grabber can be used to stand out from the crowd and create a memorable impression on your prospect or customer.

Hey, it’s got to be better than turning your fate over to a fickle voting public!

A lot of things don’t work when you don’t use them properly (you can’t take a shower in your dishwasher), however, and eBay seems to have conducted a shocking number of silly things in its AdWords account.

The good news for marketing professionals is that eBay provides an excellent example of how not to run a search marketing campaign.

eBay Puts Its Account on Cruise Control

AdWords accounts require thoughtful account build-out and maintenance  to ensure best results, but eBay appears to have left its account on cruise control, as demonstrated by its aggressive use of Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI).

DKI allows AdWords advertisers to automatically have a user’s search query automatically appear in the headline of their ad text. That can be a great technique when used correctly. However, eBay appears to have copied around 170 million keywords and run them all using DKI. From those ads, it would appear that eBay has some pretty disturbing items for sale.

For example, someone should notify the folks of Sleepy Hollow.

And drunk college students have finally found a way to make some extra cash—cash to further their poor drinking habits.

You can check out some other examples here.

In AdWords, Dumb Ads Cost More

eBay has done a pretty bad job with its ads. Bizarre, boring, and repetitive ad text combined with aggressive use of DKI is a recipe for disaster.

The company could also benefit from the use of negative keywords, which let advertisers specify exclusionary words for which they do not want to appear. (Vomit would be a fantastic negative keyword, for example.)

However, eBay’s weird ads aren’t just ineffective—they also cost eBay tons of money.

In an effort to motivate advertisers to create quality ads, Google created a factor called Quality Score. In AdWords, Quality Score determines how well crafted your ad text is and rates your ad on a score from 1-10. Highly rated ads are rewarded with reduced cost for clicks and premium ad positioning, while ads with low quality scores cost ridiculously high sums for even one click as a deterrent for creating terrible ads, which are often useless and not helpful for users.

Considering how strange many of eBay’s ads are, the company is probably paying a fortune for the few clicks its ads do receive—clicks that probably rarely convert to sales (no vomit or severed heads to purchase here). The combination of high click costs and low conversion rates likely makes positive ROI difficult to achieve.

eBay Took Years to Figure Out It Was Failing at AdWords

I’m most surprised that it took eBay around 10 years to figure out it has been failing at AdWords. eBay’s funny ads have been a fixture on Google search results pages for many years. Yet rather than fixing the problem, eBay has been sitting back and watching its AdWords account run into the ground.

What’s truly sad is that paid search is one of the few advertising mediums where measuring ad performance is relatively easier than conventional offline advertising. With the right tools and know-how, online advertising technology allows advertisers to track impressions, clicks, and conversions, and to conduct A/B testing, which enables advertisers to pinpoint what is going wrong (or right) in their account.

I estimate that eBay had previously been one of the biggest online ad spenders in the retail and shopping industry, but  it appears that for more than 10 years, eBay still hasn’t quite figured out its account performance, despite conversion tracking being one of the most fundamental online advertising best practices.

How can eBay expect online advertising to work for it when the company has been sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into a broken setup for years?

Paid Search Doesn’t Work for eBay Due to Laziness

Any online advertising expert will tell you that a paid search campaign needs ongoing attention to be truly successful. Online ads can bring great results, but they require some effort in terms of keyword selection, ad copy creation, and other factors.  eBay’s history of poor AdWords ads demonstrate the lack of effort and creativity that eBay has been putting into its account over the years.

The good news is that eBay’s failure doesn’t have to be yours. The eBay’s AdWords account is a prime example of what you absolutely should not be doing in paid search. Learn from eBay’s blunders to make paid search work for your business.

Consumers have embraced the experiential restaurant concept with open arms, and they now approach trendy dining experiences as culinary events. In growing numbers, diners are Instagramming and snapping TwitPics of their meals, leading some restaurant owners to crack down on a practice they see as invasive and a breach of common courtesy.

On the surface, the debate over customer-driven “food porn” focuses around restaurant policies and diner behaviors. But on a deeper level, “foodstagramming” raises serious questions about how businesses can harness consumer-generated social media as a catalyst for positive mentions and increased brand advocacy.

The Foodstagramming Debate

In general, restaurant owners who object to “foodstagramming” claim that it violates the dining experiences of other patrons. It’s a valid point—after all, who wants their meal to be interrupted by the glare of a neighbor’s flash? In extreme cases, diners have even gone so far as to stand on tables or set up tripods to capture the perfect shot of a savory dish.

To combat foodstagramming, many restaurateurs are prohibiting diners from taking photos of food. Instead of snapping pics of the dishes they’ve anticipated eating, customers are now being approached by restaurant staff and told that photography is simply not allowed.

The ban on foodstagramming may also provide a convenient cover story for other concerns. The advanced camera features of today’s mobile devices combined with instant access to vast social networks can be intimidating to food service providers and other businesses. If a single dish or product is deemed inferior, customers can distribute negative messages to hundreds or even thousands of followers.

But in an attempt to maintain a tighter grip on brand messaging, restaurants are missing out on a powerful promotional resource. Rather than banning foodstagramming, restaurants—and other businesses—should learn how to use social media to their advantage and work with (not against) social technology trends.

How to Make Social Engagement Work for Your Business

No matter what industry you’re in, the foodstagramming concept has the potential to benefit your business. By properly managing customer experiences and encouraging customers to share them via their social networks, you can achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy for your brand.

1. Create Exceptional Customer Experiences
Exceptional customer experiences are the foundation of brand advocacy. If you’re concerned about customers sharing their experiences with social networks, you need to evaluate your brand’s customer experience and make customer experience management a top priority.

Customer feedback can play a pivotal role in highlighting possible shortcomings in the customer experience. With the right tools, you can empower customers to offer insights that will guide improvements and create closer connections with target audiences.

2. Emphasize Consistency
The foodstagramming concept is scary for businesses that lack food or product consistency. But instead of companies turning their backs on social engagement, they should redouble their efforts to provide customers with the same high-quality experience every time they connect with the brand.

Multisite restaurants and retailers face additional hurdles because they have to maintain consistent customer experiences across all geographical locations. To address the problem, consider implementing technologies that enable managers and employees to share learnings and deliver the same customer experience across the brand.

3. Monitor Social Media Feedback
Social engagement and social media monitoring go hand in hand. Regardless of the quality of your customer experience, some customers inevitably will post negative mentions of your brand online. So, having visibility about brand mentions on popular social media networks is important.

Although you can’t prevent negative brand mentions, you can leverage them to repair customer relationships and improve customer experiences. By following up with dissatisfied customers, you may convert a negative mention into a positive experience and maybe even recruit a new brand advocate.

4. Amplify Customer-Generated Messages
Customers who take the time to photograph and post images of food or other products are usually satisfied customers who are eager to promote the quality of their experience to social audiences. Because consumers trust customer-generated messages more than messages that have been generated by brands, it’s in your best interest to amplify—not stifle—positive customer-generated messages.

In addition to soliciting positive feedback through customer surveys and other mechanisms, listening and monitoring solutions can help promote positive customer-generated messages. The best solutions take amplification a step further by enabling your company to embed real-time advocacy feeds into your homepage, Facebook page, or other online asset.

Most restaurant owners admit that bans on foodstagramming are largely unenforceable. Like it or not, consumers are going to find a way to photograph their favorite dishes and products, and then quickly disseminate comments about the brand to their social networks.

So, the key takeaway for brands is that while social engagement may be impossible to control, it can be effectively managed. By equipping your customers with the tools to successfully promote your brand and products socially, you can achieve higher rates of brand advocacy and a more satisfied customer base.

A video blog is simply an online video documenting something that you want to communicate. It can be used to highlight the following…

• An interview of the commercial director and/or employees giving information about the company.
• A tour of business’ offices/plant/farm/lab explaining how things work.
• Somebody reporting and offering opinions on contemporary news.
• Reviews of a product, or demonstrations of company products.
• Something funny, wacky and shareable.

So, what’s the point of blogging? Here are five ways a video blog can boost your brand.

1. Video blogs humanize your company and give your consumers a face to relate to your business. That means that your corporate identity is more approachable—and a more approachable business usually leads to more sales and results in increased consumer trust and brand awareness.

2. Video makes potentially boring content interesting. People are lazy; many choose to watch a video over reading a post just because it’s easier to do. By communicating with your target audience through speech and image rather than text, you are making it easier for them to engage with you.

3. Video blogging gives you the opportunity to engage and interact with your audience. Social media is a great tool for businesses to use to constantly remind consumers of your presence and get feedback from your clients.

4. A video blog demonstrates that your company is web-savvy. If the content is engaging and interesting you will always have people watching it. Remember, if you do it right, consumers will share it and promote your brand for you!

5. Video blogs show that your business is keeping up with technology. With the-ever improving internet connections, more people are watching videos online, whenever they want, and from wherever they want, such as their smartphones. Video blogging lets you stay in touch with technology and create something that is accessible to your audience whenever and wherever they want.

Remember: Your content does not have to center around your brand. It can be about anything you think is interesting or you think others will find interesting.
Still not sold on the fact that video blogging is great for your brand? The following stats may change your mind:

• comScore report that in the US, 182 million internet users watched online video content for an average of 23.2 hours per viewer during just one month. That number is predicted to continue rising.
• Marketers used video 81% more they used to and 52% of marketers report to using video with email marketing programs.
• SEOMoz found that posts that contain videos are three times more likely to attract in-linking domains than a plain text post.
• KISSmetric’s blog reported that folks who have viewed a product video are 64% to 85% more likely to purchase the product after watching.

Is your company involved in video blogging? Why or why not?

If you don’t use storyboards when creating  your presentations or videos, I highly recommend that you start using them. As a visual storyteller here at MarketingProfs, I rely on storyboards to create our illustrated slides shows. Here are five reasons why you should consider using them, too.

1. A storyboard creates a path amid the creative mayhem.

A storyboard works like  a track on an amusement park ride. You still get all the excitement of a ride, with its surprises and quick jolts and great heights and plunging lows, but you don’t crash or end up flung somewhere else. You remain focused on your story from beginning to end.

In creating a storyboard, you are putting down the track for what you hope will be a captivating ride for your listeners or viewers. You get to plot out the little twists and turns along the way and figure out where you are planning to take your audience.

2. A storyboard reveals potential problems or challenges.

Halfway through putting down the track for your story, you might discover a few problems with it. Maybe you realize that the fabulous anecdote that you wanted to share no longer fits into your overall story. Or you find out that you only have seven strong points in your talk—instead of the twelve that you had promised to deliver.

Those discoveries are good. In fact, they’re wonderful—for they are why you created the storyboard in the first place. You’ve worked out what problem areas to avoid, what things to look out for, etc. Now you can fix those points along your story. And fixing a small-scale storyboard is far easier than fixing a huge presentation that you thought was ready to go.

When I first storyboarded the presentation Eight Misconceptions About a Remote Workforce, I realized that the tongue-in-cheek text I had written wouldn’t work for the purpose of the slide show. So, I had to scrap my draft and start over. Also, I had planned for 12 important misconceptions to write about—but not all the misconceptions would work in terms of imagery nor, to be honest, was every point strong enough for the presentation.

Fortunately, I learned those facts in storyboarding, where the only waste was one sheet of paper and an hour… as opposed to having done 12 slides, then drawn, written, scanned, and prepped them, and made the same conclusion. So, I just reworked my storyboard, which proved to be better focused and more visually appealing. The final slide show came from that second storyboard.

3. A storyboard saves you time.

A storyboard might sound like a waste of time, but it actually saves you time in the long run. Rather than spend three hours staring at your computer, wondering how to visually represent your story, you’ve already spent an hour storyboarding it—so when you need to map out the images, they are already prepped for you.

part of my storyboard for the Writer's Block illustrated slide show

4. You can adapt a storyboard to suit your style of planning.

You can make your storyboard as rigid or loose as you want. Some folks like to use downloadable storyboards (just Google it and you’ll find tons of free storyboard templates)  and carefully draw or write in each square. Some folks head out to their local art supply story and grab storyboard paper from the comics section. Others are more of a “Grab a piece of paper, draw some crazy squares all over it, and then sketch something out.”

Storyboards are your look behind the scenes, so enjoy the freedom of no one else looking at them. Be as minimalist or detailed as you want. Write tons of text or scrawl the words in a different app or piece of paper. The most important part of a storyboard isn’t whether the piece looks professional—it’s whether your storyboard works for you.

5. Storyboards can help you track your progress.

For folks who like to check off items on their To-Do List (on paper even!), a storyboard can create a visual checklist of sorts. As you work through each point made in your storyboard, you feel a sense of being that much closer to your goal of having a fantastic finished piece of content.

So, do you storyboard for presentations, videos, talks, etc.? What tips would you share with someone getting started in storyboarding?

Charitable efforts continue to play a significant role in our culture, traditions, and identity, as they have since the beginnings of civilization. According to Giving USA’s Annual Report on Philanthropy, Americans donated nearly $300 billion dollars in 2012. (BILLION, folks. That’s more than the GDP of say Greece. Or Finland. Or the Kardashians.)

As you’ve probably noticed, there’s been a veritable explosion of charitable initiatives in recent years. Not from your local church, Red Cross, or United Way, or even the Girl Scouts (Thin Mint or maybe the nouveau Dulce de Leche, anyone?) but from the vast galaxy of for-profit consumer brands. Why this explosion? Call me a cynic, but we marketers have the data to back up the fact that Americans across socio-economic strata want to get involved and make an impact, and will reward a company that they perceive as making charitable contributions on their behalf. Good for the consumer–good for the brand—good for those in need. A win-win-win.

One noteworthy example is the venerable Newman’s Own, which started giving away all of its after-profits to charity way back in 1982.

Paul Newman’s brainchild paved the way for hundreds of other companies, and it inspired the one-for-one purchase-to-donation model practiced today by TOMS shoes and trendy eyewear company Warby-Parker. Most recently, the (RED) campaign has partnered with companies including Nike, Gap, Bugaboo and Starbucks to help eliminate HIV/AIDS in Africa, and the One Laptop Per Child and Charity. Water initiatives have both achieved a great deal of success and garnered enormous amount of media attention and goodwill. Each of those campaigns appear to provide seemingly altruistic programs for the common good, without an overly zealous attachment to its host.

But has the whole idea of branded charity and its almost ubiquitous presence at retail, on packaging, in advertising, on television, via celebrity endorsements, on apparel, etc. become so widespread, so expected that consumers will become progressively numb to it? Are charitable campaigns perilously close to becoming counter-productive? Have they become white noise that actually begins to demotivate consumer behavior?

Take, for example…

StreetKing, an energy drink that wears its gang-cred on its graffitied sleeve, is endorsed by 50-Cent and, by the way, also provides a meal to a hungry child through the United Nations’ World Food Programme, with every purchase made.

Sheetz, the massive convenience store chain, sells two private label charity  products: Buy this Water. Help Kids. (water) and Buy this Energy Drink. Help Kids. (Yup, this is an energy drink talking.) That reminds me of the original cover of National Lampoon: ‘Buy this magazine or I shoot this dog.’

The Oregon Public House, a pub in Portland, purports a lovely sentiment and/or subversive marketing ploy:

Hmmm. Drinking for charity? I’ll buy into that, however far-fetched it may be.

So, I ask, what’s next? Fly Business Class, Give Hope? File your Taxes, Prevent Malaria?

Look, I get it. Businesses are playing a relevant role in helping pull the loose change out of your pocket (which you might not have done on your own) and redistributing it to a worthy cause. But given this undeniable rise in branded charity, can marketers simply choose charity as a marketing strategy without the gimmicks, the spin, and the self-congratulatory back-patting?

Tell me that your charity work is a pillar of your brand. Tell me you do it all the time instead of sometimes. To be effective, differentiated, and become a positive voice for change, branded charity–like “regular” charity—needs to be well intentioned and believable. Not accompanied by a shot of 50 Cent’s favorite energy drink.

An app (or application) is a piece of code that you create that is completely separate from your website. That means that you have to create something entirely new and manage the app completely separate from your website. So, why would a company want to go to all of that trouble?

The truth is that creating a mobile application isn’t much trouble at all. But before creating one, consider whether you should.

Here are some reasons why a company may want its own mobile app.

1. Convenient for users. Once users download the app, all they have to do is click it, and they’re ready to go. Although some companies may think having to download the app is a disadvantage, people are beginning to make using apps commonplace. The whole idea behind applications is convenience for users, and they know that.
2. Customization. Because an app is a native piece of code, you can customize it in any way you see fit for your company. That means that you have complete control over how relevant and helpful your app is to your customers and clients. If there was ever something about your company that you hoped could be easier, an app just might be the answer.
3. A longer reach. Apps may help you reach a new audience. More and more people are beginning to shy away from desktops and traditional websites, and are using apps and their mobile phones as their connection to the web.
4. Easy integration. Apps can be created to sync up with information that users may have in their phones. For example, if your customer wanted to get a content update from your website, an app can allow them to sync this up with their mobile calendar.
5. Extra cash. Many companies choose to create a free app as a way to help customers make purchasing decisions easier, but some have been successful selling the actual app itself. Either way, it usually can’t hurt to create an app.
6. PR use. Apps are a huge trending topic in the media. Lists of some of the latest apps do well because there is such a demand for that type of content, so you can use your app as a PR tool and help get your brand into that discussion.
7. Competition. Many of your competitors will start creating apps, so you don’t want to fall behind. At this point you might be one of the first in your industry or in your area, but having your own app is a great way to stand out and grab an audience for the type of work that you do.

One of the most important things to realize about a mobile app is that it is not a mobile website. A mobile website is simply using your website and customizing it for the mobile screen and the mobile user; it is not a native piece of code.

Creating a mobile website should probably be your first plan of action, and an app second.

When Creating an App Might Not Be Right for Your Company

With pros come a few cons. In general, there are two things that deters companies from creating an app.

First, you can only run your app on one platform, which means that you have to develop multiple apps if you want it to be available for different operating systems (BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Android, etc.).

Second, users have to download and find the app from an app store. You can advertise your app on your website, but they can’t get it right then and there. It’s something to consider.

Have you ever created a mobile app for your company? Did you find it successful, or would your time have been better spent elsewhere? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Here at MarketingProfs, we’re hard at work pulling together the final agenda for our B2B Forum 2013 this fall. We couldn’t do it without the insight of a select group of trailblazers in the B2B marketing space. Some of those advisers we are highlighting here, in a series of interviews centered around this year’s B2B Forum theme, “Marketing is full of choices.”

Now through the event kickoff in October, we’ll occasionally feature those Q&As on the Daily Fix, so you’ll get plenty of tips and insights about the adventure known as B2B marketing.

Our Q&A guest today from the B2B Forum 2013 is Tim Washer. Tim Washer is a comedy writer and producer who has worked on Conan, Letterman, and The Onion, and at IBM and Cisco.

1. What do you do to get inspired?

My best ideas always come during my spinning class. Maybe because I’m getting more oxygen to the brain, or maybe because I’m supposed to be focusing on something else. Usually, the moments when I need inspiration the most are when I’m being criticized for taking risks and doing things differently. I find that watching Moneyball is encouraging in those dark moments.

2. What challenge have you faced lately, and how did you choose to resolve it?

I’ve had two recent tough challenges that are a little too personal to share details. But they have reminded me that, even though I may sometimes be reluctant to ask friends for advice and help, they are always more than willing. And I am consistently surprised at how helpful their wisdom and guidance is. It always helps me to have faith that everything will work out for the best.

3. How do you break through a creative block?

If spin class doesn’t work, I’ll head to a beatnik coffee bar and try an approach my high school Latin teach taught me: web brainstorming with pen and paper. Sometimes, getting away from the blank screen for a while and watching a favorite movie or even a few YouTube clips helps to restore the creative energy.

4. What marketing tactic would you choose if you could only have one? And why?

Comedy videos. The world needs more laughter, so why not create it with our marketing content?