Your website, social media presences, and other marketing and communications channels are like teenagers – they’re always hungry.

“What’s for breakfast?”

“What’s for lunch?”

“What’s for dinner?”

“I need a snack.”

“Where’s the dessert?”

You feed them, then they burn it off and are back asking for more. They never seem to get full. Never satisfied. And you never seem to be able to keep the refrigerator and pantry full.

English: A hamster and a hamster wheel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s easy to feel the same way about satiating your online and traditional outreach arenas. You can’t seem to stock up enough stories, photos, videos, podcasts, testimonials, and other storytelling items to keep the beast fed. So you spend every waking hour writing and creating so you have enough content to make it through another week – or maybe even just the day.

But if you’re spending all of your time on the hamster wheel of content creation, you are doing it wrong. If you’re constantly asking yourself “How can I create more content?” then you’re asking the wrong question.

The question you need to ask yourself is, “How can I get others to tell their stories?”

It’s a simple, but profound shift in approach. By engaging others to share their own stories from a first-person perspective, you get to spend more time curating, chunking content into digestible pieces for different arenas, distributing and shining a light on others’ content, and telling deeper, richer stories from multiple viewpoints.

The tools to scale storytelling are at your fingertips

The best websites are no longer online brochures. They are brand connection and transaction hubs. Use them to encourage visitors to share their personal accounts and experiences with your brand. Then showcase those on the website and in other channels.

Use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social channels to drive personal storytelling and to highlight and tease to the best stories.

A majority of Americans now have smartphones. A mobile website, or site that scales to mobile, is becoming essential. But do you know how powerful just a smartphone, data plan and/or WiFi, and a cloud storage account can be for your brand? Or a mobile app that facilitates brand storytelling and/or customer service?

Newer smartphones feature solid cameras – some have high-resolution front cameras for photography as well as back cameras for self-video or chatting. Many also now shoot HD video. Some come with native cloud storage apps, and those companies often offer free basic packages.

Not everything you get will be as polished or as professional as what you might produce, but I guarantee the potential is there for much more authentic, compelling, and personal content than anything you can produce. And tons and tons of it.

How can you leverage today’s technology to drive real-time, user-generated content? How would that benefit your online and social programs? How could  that support your traditional media relations efforts? How can that help you build stronger relationships with customers, clients, donors, or other key constituencies? With that much content at your disposal, would you be freed up to tell the stories that otherwise wouldn’t be told?

Now, you can either get back to creating content, or you can start building the hamster wheel that runs itself. It’s up to you.

My 2-year-old threw up all over my shirt tonight. At a restaurant. Right after the food arrived. Anyone who has a 2-year-old, or has had a 2-year-old knows this is not surprising. What happened after that was.

Tonight, we visited a burger joint - Jax Burgers, Fries & Shakes in Magnolia, Texas – that is still pretty new and that we visit every few weeks. They have super awesome burgers, fries, and shakes (love when a restaurant lives up to its name), their owner is friendly and takes great pride in her work, and the place is defined by top notch service and cleanliness. And tonight, even without the owner, her employees demonstrated that this small business operates according to a consistent set of customer-focused values. Not corporate values – human values.

When my little one vomited all over me, restaurant employees not only mopped up, but then took a shirt off of the sale rack and gave it to me and wouldn’t let me pay for it, as much as I tried. This is the closest thing they could have done to giving me the shirt off their back.

Maybe this seems like the obvious thing to do, and it should be. But it is not what most businesses would do. Because at most places, employees would question whether they had the authority to do that, how they would account for it, whether that would raise questions in the mind of other customers… Here, there was no question. Their reaction was based on how they would want to be treated and how they would treat someone in their own home.

It reminded me of when I waited tables one summer in college. My first night on the job, I spilled four drinks at one time on a man who was having dinner with his wife and son. After apologizing profusely and nearly breaking down in tears, I worked up the courage to tell my manager, who resembled Ving Rhames. He said, “Come with me. I’ll show you how we handle this here.” We approached the table together and he told the man, “Sir, we are very sorry. This seldom happens, but when it does, we do everything we can to make it right. First and foremost, we will take care of your dry cleaning – we have a relationship with the place just a few doors down and you can tell them I sent you and it will be covered no charge, or if you prefer to go elsewhere, we’ll just give you cash to cover it. Second, your meal is on us tonight, and you may want us to box it up halfway through because you’ve got dessert coming too. Your next meal with us is covered too, but you have to ask for Petri. Wear your grubbies next time, and if he spills a drop on you next time, I’ll cover your meal every week for a year.”

That family came in every week – sometimes two or three times in a week – and asked for me every time. They were happier leaving our care that night than they were before I spilled the drinks on him. That was a huge lesson for me.

And now I want to find a way to repay the employees and owner at Jax. It’s sad that I was so heartened by their response. But that is the reality. And it will be rewarded by my loyalty and my sharing of this story every chance I get. It’s not just about their bountiful and tasty burgers, buffalo fries, and brilliant shakes. It’s so much more than that. Apparently they listen and actually respond to feedback in a meaningful way too, according to this H-Town Chow Down review.

The rise of social media has brought with it renewed calls for businesses to act like real people. To interact with people on a human level. To show that they care. To develop relationships between the brand and its stakeholders – supporters, employees, volunteers, customers, donors, and on and on. But many businesses – no, MOST businesses – still don’t get it. They don’t know how to act human. How to be human. And that is because they keep approaching it from a corporate brand level, when they should instead be empowering their employees, starting on the front lines, to just act like they would with someone they know.

Jax gets it. And they aren’t even active in social spaces.

My manager got it.

Do you and your employees get it?

If you had the opportunity to relive one pivotal moment of your life again, would you make a different choice – even if it meant altering the course of your life you lead now? It’s a lasting question that we all face at some point. One that never gets old.

It’s the basis for a new movie, TOUCHBACK, starring Kurt Russell, Brian Presley, Melanie Lynsky, Marc Blucas, and Christine Lahti, and opening in theaters Friday, April 13. It’s directed by Don Handfield, his first big-screen production. Here is how Don summarizes the movie:

“TOUCHBACK tells the story of former high school football star turned farmer and family man, Scott Murphy (Brian Presley) who finds himself with a unique opportunity to revisit his glory days during the state championship game where he permanently injured his knee in a game-winning play. Given a second shot at his destiny, Scott seeks counsel from Coach Hand (Kurt Russell), Scott’s longtime mentor on and off the field, to help him decide whether to let his fate unfold, or follow a path that will change his future.”

I can’t wait to see this movie, and I’ll tell you why after you watch the trailer:

My last memories of Don Handfield (aside from Facebook), are from 23 or so years ago. He was a 119 lb high school wrestling standout and I was a 98 lb shrimp who just hoped to dominate one opponent on the mat like he seemed to do in matches every week. Our Coach was Coach Bobby Hand, who was Don’s inspiration for the Kurt Russell character (although he’s a football coach in the movie).

COACH BOBBY HAND (back when life was in black and white – heh)

Coach Hand was tough, and tough on us. I’d like to see him and Kurt Russell duke it out. Kurt would win in a beauty contest, but Coach is a scrapper and would at least make Kurt a little less pretty. Not all of us were destined to be technically great wrestlers, and Coach put us through cardio hell to ensure we would always be at least the best conditioned against any opponent. My only saving grace in a number of matches was that I could ramp up in the third period while others tuckered out.

Coach Hand also pushed me to wrestle those much better than me in practice, instead of those I could beat easily (which was a short list anyway), because the quickest way to learn how they crush opponents is by being an opponent that they crush. It’s a masochistic approach, I know, but it worked. And Don was one of a select group who regularly doled out the ass kicking, for my benefit of course. I learned a ton from him, because he took time out, and not just to whup up on me, to teach me and answer questions.

I was a pretty consistent B-student. An A or two, a C or two, and lots of Bs on every report card. At one point, my grades slipped. Not below the limits for school sports participation, but more Cs and fewer As and Bs. Coach Hand pulled me out of wrestling practice for a meeting in his office – a little cave in the locker room. Never a good sign. He gave me a pretty stern talking-to and asked me a lot of questions to determine the issue and what needed to be done. At one point, I recall asking why he cared, since my grades were still good enough to wrestle. That lit him up pretty good. He asked if I saw a problem with the fact that he expected more from me than I did of myself. That hit me hard. It stuck with me from that day on. Still today. And he told me that if my grades didn’t improve in short order, he’d pull me from the active roster until they did. You can bet I moved fast to right the ship – not as much because of the possible punishment, but because I didn’t want to let Mr. Hand down, and I realized I was letting myself down.

Before the district wrestling tournament at the end of the season, Coach Hand would hand-write a note (such a lost art) to every wrestler on the team and tape it to his locker. The date on mine is March ’89 – I’ve kept it all this time because it meant that much to me. It reads:

Petri

I feel great pride in having an individual like you as part of a team I coach. Your smile and dedication serve as an example to all of your teammates – and your coach. For the kind of person you are – and you are developing into – I can imagine only a bright future. Enjoy it – you deserve it!

Coach Hand

He also was a prankster. Wrestlers are pretty transparent when it comes to communicating that they are injured – and not through words. They announce that they need the trainer to check them out, slather themselves in Icy Hot, or “get taped” wherever they have an ailment. Coach Hand found this comical and one day came in with tape around his head, his chest, his wrists, a few fingers, one quad, a knee, an ankle, and around the toes of his shoes. He was only my wrestling coach for a short time before another took over. But he will always stand as one of my greatest life coaches.

He left too soon. I still had a lot to learn from him. I still do. And I’m thankful that we reconnected via Facebook and even caught up over the phone recently. Hearing his voice again was awesome, although I must admit I threw up a little in my mouth in pavlovian response to the voice that used to push as as we ran sprints, stairs, laps, and on and on. But he never asked us to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. And I saw him running on the track nearly every day during lunch. The man was a machine – physically, morally, ethically.

Coach pushed us hard, but more importantly than wanting us to be good wrestlers, he wanted us to be good men. Some days I live up to that. Some days I fall way short. But I am always thankful for the high standards he instilled, the tools he gave, and the example he set.

That Coach Hand is being immortalized in a movie and played by one of the great badass actors of our time, decades after Don, and I, and many others, were impacted by his life’s teachings is a tribute to the type of coach and type of man that he is. I wish that I had the talent and platform to shine as big a spotlight on Coach Hand, and a few others who have influenced and guided me, both personally and professionally, often without knowing how much they have meant to me. For now, this, and my incessant thanks, will have to do.

I hope you will check out Don’s movie and report back. And I hope Don crushes it on opening weekend, as much as he crushed me in practice – but in a good way.

You can find theaters and showtimes at this link:

http://www.fandango.com/touchback_152222/movietimes

And here is a current list of dates and markets where the movie is slated to run:

April 13^th

ARIZONA:

Tucson, AZ

IOWA:

Des Moines, IA

KENTUCKY:

Louisville, KY

NEW MEXICO:

Albuquerque, NM

OHIO:

Cleveland, OH

Columbus, OH

OKLAHOMA:

Oklahoma City, OK

Tulsa, OK

TEXAS:

Abilene, TX

Amarillo, TX

Austin, TX

Beaumont, TX

Corpus Christi, TX

Dallas, TX

El Paso, TX

Harlingen/Brownsville, TX

Houston, TX

Laredo, TX

Lubbock, TX

Odessa/Midland, TX

San Angelo, TX

Waco, TX

Wichita Falls, TX

UTAH:

Salt Lake City, UT

April 20^th

ARIZONA:

Phoenix, AZ

COLORADO:

Colorado Springs, CO

MICHIGAN:

Grand Rapids, MI

This blog post reflects my sentiments, and my sentiments alone.

I was one of the panelists for the “What’s so [bleeping] hard about social ROI” session at SXSW Interactive last week that elicited a whole host of tweets, blog posts, and back-and-forth commentary. I decided to take a few days to think things over in the hopes that I would gain some additional perspective on what transpired.

I pored back over the #SMROI and/or#SXSMROI hashtags, which I had periodically monitored during the panel.

I read, and reread, Olivier Blanchard “The BrandBuilder’s” blog post: Where are the Professionals? Reflections on the #SXSMROI Panel Debacle.

I read Matt Ridings‘ (fellow panelist) thorough accounting of Monday’s events in his Storify piece: A Case Study in Making Up Your Own Mind.

I read Craig Daitch‘s (fellow panelist) blog post: Thinking Before Blogging: A Case Study in Bridge Burning at SXSW.

I read Tamera Kremer’s post: Respect and the #SXSMROI Panel.

And I talked it over with a number of people I trust and respect.

No revelations came. No new insight was gained. Only a continual reminder of principles and values. I cannot control what others do. I can only control my response.

There is no doubt that a number of people expressed their disappointment in the panel’s content. Those of us who were on the panel have to own that. It bothers me, partly because I want to please everyone, even though I know it’s not possible nor advantageous, and because I thought that a good, robust conversation unfolded that offered value on a number of levels. Some felt that we did not deliver on the promise of the session and that we didn’t offer enough specific examples or case studies. I accept that. I take responsibility for my part in not going deep enough into the core what what some attendees wanted. I am heartened that others found it thought-provoking and enlightening.

Let’s be clear though – this was a panel, not a workshop or a spotlight on one single person’s perspectives or approaches. Panels are designed to highlight and debate different perspectives and help you think about how to approach the subject, not deliver a hands-on workshop or reach a single resolution and an easy answer. That is the beauty, and frustration of panels. They offer multiple ways of thinking about a particular issue. They do not allow any one person’s viewpoint to dominate the session. Some people do not value panels, or value serving on them, because they only see room for one viewpoint – their own. To them, everything else is BS and not worth even considering or debating. Those people require their own stage, their own spotlight, their own microphone. And they usually find a way to achieve that, whether they are in the room or not.

I want to speak to a few of the glaring misstatements (or misstweets?) and misperceptions that presented themselves in the Twittersphere and that have been highlighted in at least one blog post:

Claim: The panel said there is no way to measure ROI.

FACT: Most of the panel said that measuring ROI is very important, when ROI needs to be determined. A formula (Results-Costs/Costs x 100) was shared for determining ROI in any marketing effort. Guess how many tweets that formula and part of the discussion got… Zero.

A discussion ensued regarding how the formula is easy, while the application of it is often challenging – because it requires measurable business objectives at the start of a campaign and extensive determination of all the costs – some of which we detailed – that went into the effort. We said that most people are not willing to go through that exercise, not that they never should. We indicated that, in many organizations, showcasing the VALUE, which is different than the ROI, is often good enough. Not always, but often.

Maybe we needed to spend more time fleshing out the preface. Maybe we needed to make it more tweetable. Or maybe some just did not like hearing that there is a lot of work involved in the calculations. I don’t know. But it was discussed. And it was re-raised several times.

There is no magic bullet. There are formulas that work with critical thinking. Unfortunately, too many people expect the former without need for the latter.

Claim: The panel said there was no ROI to determining ROI.

FACT: The panelist simply said that sometimes the road to determining ROI is so intensive and expensive that it doesn’t warrant pursuing and that sometimes determining value, as stated above, is enough. You have to determine when true ROI needs to be captured. Again, we could have spent more time on the specifics and highlighting case studies. The reality is that a 45-minute session with 5 participants is a challenging environment to dig deep. But the claim is not accurate.

Claim: The panel said social is only about relationships and trust and those cannot be measured.

FACT: I shared that 40% of all online donations made through the Make-A-Wish America website come in the last few days of December. It is not surprising that most make their donations at the very end of the tax year. Only a small percentage of our site visitors come to our website with the specific intent to donate, and another few percent convert while on the site. While we spend a lot of time focused on conversion and completion strategies and tactics, and measuring the ROI of those efforts, we also approach our social and online efforts from the perspective of leading indicators because we believe that what occurs throughout the rest of the year determines how well we do at the end of the year. So, yes, we do attempt to measure and track “engagement.” Unlike many others who use that buzzword flippantly, we have worked to define it and identify specific actions that are trackable over time, to see if there is any correlation between heightened engagement and increases in donations. LET ME BE CLEAR…these engagement metrics are not business success metrics – they are leading indicators that we hypothesize are tied to our ultimate KPIs. And we are working to measure whether that is valid.

For other companies, social media is a direct response channel. Dell approaches it from that angle, while Disney and PepsiCo come at it from the same vantage point as Make-A-Wish, at least from what I could glean from another SXSW session featuring representatives of those brands.

*(this next part is my attempts to paraphrase a back-and-forth, so if I am inaccurately representing Liz Strauss’ position, I’m sure she will clarify it for me)
Liz Strauss referred back to social as an environment that, when best fostered, is characterized by “love and trust.” She also challenged my assertion that love and relationships are built incrementally or that such a relationship progression can be measured. Here’s how that exchange unfolded from there:

ME: “So did you say ‘I do’ on the first date?”

LIZ: “I got married after 42 days.”

ME: “That is direct response.”

I disagree with Liz on this point, and other points. I said so. We bantered and I tried to convince her I was right. It probably didn’t work. And the audience got to decide for themselves. I didn’t tell her that what she said was BS, I didn’t tell her she wasn’t a professional. She disagreed with me, yet gave me the same professional courtesy. And she clearly believes in measurement – we just have some differences related to what you can and should measure.

Claim: Return on Efficiency, Influence, Engagement are just beating around the bush

FACT: Who gives a crap whether you call something Return on Engagement, Return on Efficiency, Return on Influence as long as it is clearly defined, if it has real metrics tied to it, and it is represented for what it is – either a set of leading indicators or the your ultimate ROI? Buzzwords are too often just that, but sometimes they are mechanisms to simplify and provide context to concepts grounded in real world business underpinnings. Reading a handful of tweets out of context isn’t enough to justify feigned outrage, tearing people down, railing about how you would have ditched the panel if you had actually made it, saying that the people who fulfilled their commitment to serve shuttled the industry back 4 years, and then leveraging that platform to spotlight oneself and literally close with a call-to-action to buy one’s book. That is a little too much to stomach.

The headline of the first blog post was “Where are the professionals?” I ask “Where is the professionalism?”

Last year was my first time attending SXSW Interactive. With one year under my belt, I’m by no means an expert – but I learned a ton about how to maximize my time and experiences. And how best to prepare. After reading my good friend Aimee Woodall‘s blog post “SxSW: Amateur Hour is Over,” which offers some great tips, I decided to share some additional practical insights about what I learned that hopefully will aid others in squeezing every last ounce of goodness from SXSW.

1. Book your hotel early – or look for alternatives, like AirBnB

AirBnB - private homes, apartments, lofts, rooms for rent

By early, I mean six or eight months in advance. Hotels disappear quickly when 15,000+ people are converging on Austin at the same time for SXSW Interactive, and thousands more for SXSW Film.

If you don’t get a hotel, don’t want to pay through the nose for one that is close to downtown, don’t want to stay in a crap-hole, or don’t want to stay 20 miles out of town, try an alternative solution, like renting a house, apartment, loft, room, or RV (seriously, I saw some of these) through AirBnB. I am a procrastinator when it comes to event logistics planning, but still found a 2-bedroom house just 2 miles from the Austin Convention Center, for $225 per night through AirBnB. I’m splitting that with another attendee, so I will be much closer to the action and paying much less than I probably could have scored with any hotel, even planning early. I’m not suggesting you wait. I’m simply saying that if you still haven’t gotten your lodging squared away, options remain.

2. Start making connections before you go

SXSW SXsocial site

When you register for SXSW, you are given access to SXsocial, a micro-site within the SXSW website, that lets you search for other attendees by name, company name, keyword, etc, “star” their profiles, and message them through the site.

Using this tool, you can find people who you would like to meet and invite them to grab a coffee, beer, breakfast taco or meet at the blogger lounge, or whatever. Last year, I was able to establish a connection with top digital and creative agency reps, digital and traditional media outlet executives and reporters, corporate social media leaders, and several others well in advance of being on the ground in Austin.

As you can see, I’m already busy working on starring folks who I may want to connect with in advance of, and possibly at, SXSW. I know I won’t hear back from or meet up with every one of them, but the best “social” is the convergence of multiple channels, platforms, and strategies. Sure, technology can help scale and fuel relationship building, but when it comes to making strong connections and developing trust, there is still no match for face-to-face.

If you do not use SXsocial, you are missing a huge opportunity. And those of us who do use it, will thank you for that.

You also can organize your SXSW schedule through the website, starring sessions and presentations you want to attend. But this is only for the official SXSW programs. I’ll give you some scoop on how to find the associated events and socials (parties) a little further down.

3. Download and use the SXSW Go app

SXSW Go app

Once you’ve organized your planned schedule – and as Aimee indicated, don’t live and die by it, just use it as a starting point – download the official 2012 SXSW GO app and synch the schedule you developed on the site through the app. Once you have your schedule at your fingertips, the app will show you where each venue is, who is at that session with you, photo and sharing options, and provides integration with the SXsocial tool as well.

4.  RSVP and monitor social channels for interesting events and free food and drinks

People and organizations often coordinate pre-SXSW events and socials in their own cities. Find out who else from your area is attending and connect with them, research online and in social circles for these events, and attend. SXSW is best if you have a wingman/woman or a group that you already know. You shouldn’t spend all of your time with these folks, but it’s good to have a base group that you can hang with, debrief, plan who-is-attending-what strategies, and attend parties with. It can be daunting to take on an event with 15,000+ attendees without knowing a soul.

During SXSW, companies take over restaurants, bars, food trucks, hotel conference rooms, and other venues to court customers and prospects and to build buzz around their brands and/or products. Search for “SXSW” on sites like Plancast and EventBrite for social events and be sure to RSVP. Once you find out who is coordinating the event, look them up on SXsocial and drop them a note to say hi. It’s always good to introduce yourself and say thank you in advance to the host.

Search Twitter for FREE FOOD!

Each morning, perform a Twitter search for “SXSW free breakfast” and you’ll probably find some breakfast taco truck or corporate breakfast offering, if you didn’t RSVP in advance for one. Follow the same approach for lunch. Hopefully you will have RSVP’d for evening adventures.

And if you are personal friends with the folks putting on AllHat IV, sponsored by Chevy, put in a good word for me. I was late to RSVP and am on the waiting list.
5. Beware of populist-sounding sessions

With close to 2,000 sessions, SXSW Interactive offers a lot of everything in terms of session topics and content. Unfortunately, as I found out last year, the sessions I attended that featured big broad titles were usually vacuous and so overarching that they offered little to no practical substance that I could take back to the office with me. Conversely, the sessions with very narrow specific titles were the most meaty. They were laser-focused and went deep on that topic. Decide whether you are seeking to understand how to think about a particular subject from a 50,000-foot level, or if you want the nitty gritty details about how to execute. Read the titles and descriptions closely and apply your criteria to those. And if you find yourself 15 minutes into session and wondering when they are going to deliver the value, get the hell out and at least make some connections.

6. If you are driving every day, get there early. Then Catch a Chevy.

Most surface lots will charge you for day AND evening parking – and it’s freakin’ expensive. The garages are expensive and the ones near the Austin Convention Center fill up quickly. If you get there early in the morning, you may be able to find some surface parking. If you can walk, ride a bike, catch a cab, or use public transit, do it. I arrived late to a couple sessions that were full by the time I arrived, because I tried to hoof it across downtown with little time to spare between sessions – until I found out about the “Catch a Chevy”program. After sessions, you may see Chevys on the street, dropping people off and picking them up. These are free rides for you to get from one session location to another. The drivers are super nice and can provide you with some background on the car while you ride if you’re interested. So. Much. Better. Than. Walking. When you’re in a hurry.

7. You want power. You need power. 
Aimee spoke to this and I can’t stress enough how awesome power is. Bring a power strip. Bring an extra cell battery. Bring an external battery. Charge your phone and laptop whenever you have a spare 30 or 60 minutes. I made a ton of new friends when I made my power strip available to them at a huge party last year. Sure, it wasn’t because of my charm or Brad Pitt-like looks, but power makes it easy to make connections.

8. Next year, get a free badge

If you’re not presenting or on a panel this year, consider pitching to do so next year. You get a free Gold Badge, which gets you access to SXSW Interactive and Film, and allows you to invest that sizable sum of money you otherwise would have to pay to attend, or at least reallocate that toward something else in your corporate budget. I’m serving on the “What’s so [BLEEPING] hard about social ROI?”panel. I can guarantee you that, based on my fellow panelists, this will not be a hollow populist session.
Of course there is a lot more, but some things you just have to learn for yourself. If you’re attending this year, leave a comment below, or star me and drop me a line on my SXsocial profile.

Today, CMO.com published a wide-ranging compendium of predictions for digital marketing in 2012 by 32 industry leaders. Scratch that – 31 industry leaders, and me. If you have been reading other digital prediction pieces, some of the prognostications will sound very familiar: the rising tide of mobile and tablets, a heightened focus on big data and the stories it tells, social coming of age, shifts from broadcasting to experiential engagement, content marketing, digital integration and convergence…

However, “Digital Marketing in 2012: Predictions from 32 Industry Luminaries” also included really thought-provoking entries that spark more questions than answers in my mind – and maybe you have some thoughts that can help bring more clarity. Consider this from Aseem Chandra, VP of product & industry marketing for Adobe’s Digital Marketing Business unit:

“There are several disruptive technologies that have emerged over the past few years–gamification, 3D video, IPTV, multiuser gaming, and augmented reality. Consumers will continue to lead digital marketers in the adoption of these innovations.”

It certainly does seem as if digital marketers are prone to simply following the herd, reacting to where the masses seem to be headed. Is that a good thing or a bad thing, or both? Should digital marketers be out in front of consumers in terms of platforms, channels, and approaches – or should we simply be reading the tea leaves and then trying to deliver experiences that coincide with the way our constituents seem to want to go? Using Steve Jobs to make a point has become cliche, but it fits here. Jobs didn’t deliver products according to what people told him. He looked at how people lived and interacted with things, and then sought to make a better world with products that no one knew to ask for. Aseem is right – digital marketers for the most part are following trends, they aren’t innovating.

Gary Katz, chairman of the Marketing Operations Future Forum, proffered this:

“The Web is full of directional guidance and detailed ‘how to’ tutorials. What’s really needed is better middleware-structured experiences that instill actionable insight to help marketers bridge the gap between the why, what, and how so they can get to the desired outcome.”

The digital age has sped up everything for businesses and consumers, as Jay Baer and Amber Naslund so powerfully articulated in The Now Revolution, and that has led marketers to look for simple plug-and-play guidance and how-tos. The downside to having access to information on anything, anytime is that it is all too easy for digital marketers to resort to stock guidance, tactics, and tools, without enough consideration for the goals, objectives, and strategy. I certainly agree with Gary that marketers need to bridge the gap between the why, what, and how – and much of that can be gleaned from actionable intelligence. But what I think is the biggest problem is that we have too many marketers running at top speed at all times and piggybacking on what others are saying and doing, and not enough marketers actually thinking, really thinking, and then building a customized, cohesive strategy before actually doing. Middleware will be helpful in that context, but it requires a healthy commitment to apply it in the right way from the people investing in it.

Gayle Matthei-Meredith, chief marketing officer and principal of Cassidy Turley, said:

“This year we’ll see more premium investment on narrowcasting (reaching the few vs. many to drive deeper engagement with people who truly do value your brand)…”

Segmenting audiences and addressing them according to their defined interests and observed activities is definitely something to aspire to. I think of it more in terms of engaging with many groups of few, as opposed to focusing primarily on influencers or a small subset. There are many subsets, often at comparable levels of importance to your brand.

The last snippet I’d like to highlight is from Dr. Robert Pasikoff, founder and president of Brand Keys:

“Look for a desire for the coolness of beauty–whether a graceful delivery system or a gorgeous product–to escalate.”

Steve Jobs would have liked this one, but he also would have responded that most businesses, most business executives simply aren’t willing to risk making something beautiful, or just plain don’t know how to create an environment in which true beauty and user-friendly design can thrive, and make it to market. That takes strong, gutsy leadership, an understanding of the value of solid creative, and a leap of faith. And none of those come easy.

There were plenty of other great insights that will provoke, inspire, and perhaps piss you off. Check them out and let me know which ones really speak to you. Or which ones you think are totally off-base.

And if you want to see what I offered up for , you can find it here.

In Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” a computer known as Deep Thought spent seven and a half million years contemplating the great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. Seventy-five thousand generations passed before Deep Thought revealed that the answer was “Forty two.”

Responding to the confusion and backlash of the crowd, the computer said, “I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”

The concept of “engagement” follows a similar storyline and is quickly becoming one of those words that makes you throw up a little in your mouth. Like “buzz,” “leverage,” “ROI,” and “word of mouth” before it, engagement has become the word du jour for marketers. But few are measuring it and most aren’t asking the right questions to define it.

Everyone wants to know what the magic metric or metrics are to track website engagement. But here’s the secret (and it’s not 42)…

Read the rest of my guest blog post on Jay Baer‘s ConvinceAndConvert website:

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Tracking Website Engagement”

I recently penned a guest blog post for Beth Kanter, one of the foremost experts on nonprofit marketing, online and offline, measurement, and social strategies. Below is a note from her that prefaces my guest blog post, and a snippet from my post, along with a link to the full piece.

Note from Beth: I’m working on the sequel to the Networked Nonprofit – it is a book about using measurement to prove and improve results with the Measurement Goddess KD Paine.  (Her  recent book, Measuring What Matters, is a must read.)

So, lately, I’ve been on the hunt for good nonprofit measurement stories.   Last week, I read Jocelyn Harmon’s post about Nonprofit Facebook Fail and in the comments, Petri Darby refers to the dramatic increase of visits to his nonprofit’s Make-A-Wish Foundation Web site.  He goes onto say how they are focusing their integrated strategy on a metric that matters:  conversions.

This resonated after reading KD Paine’s “Social Media Measurement Meets Sex in the City” that talks about the importance of tracking your strategy to understand how to get people to become life long supporters.    The goal is not exposure.

Petri’s post shares a few thoughts about how his organization is focusing on the relationships through connection, not just traffic.

Recently, we adopted a new vision for wish.org and our online channels, including social networks.  Our focus has shifted from transactional to connecting and engaging key constituencies over the long-term, and empowering them as brand ambassadors and advocates.

Read the rest of this guest blog post featured on Beth Kanter’s blog.

Do you know what’s driving spikes in your website traffic? Or increases in website sales or donations? You probably get the same questions I do from colleagues or executives. “Did that PR launch drive website visits?” “Did we see an uptick in online revenues after that big TV program aired?”

An event dashboard can help you identify what might be driving measurable changes in your key website statistics. Here’s how to create one.

Step One: Identify Popular Inbound Links

Hopefully you are already tagging urls from your blog, social media sites, web banners/badges, email campaigns, and other inbound links with campaign tracking codes, through Omniture, Google Analytics, or another analytics platform so you can track clicks from your own channels. If so, you will want to make a list of the ones that drove significant traffic. But even after you look at those numbers, you probably still have a large segment of website visitors that are unaccounted for – whether from search engines or direct or bookmarked visits. So the question is, what is driving those visits.

Step Two: Aggregate Cross-Departmental Calendars of Events

If your organization keeps a master calendar of major events and activities, congratulations. If yours is like most organizations, these calendars are housed in departmental silos, and some departments may not keep a calendar (I know, hard to believe). Compiling calendars will be easier than convincing departments that they need to start keeping one. But both are worthwhile efforts if you truly want a clearer picture of the external influences on your website.

Step Three: Isolate the Important Events

Look through the aggregated calendar and highlight the items that have the most potential to trigger a response – whether general interest or a direct action – from the audience or recipients. Yes, be sure to identify those items that reach a wide constituency, but also those that are particularly targeted toward your strongest supporters, customers, and prospects. Product launches, national events, earnings reports, email solicitations, major media relations efforts and placements, direct mailings, corporate sponsor promotions, and ad campaigns are the types of things you will want to compile.

Step Four: Chart Website Traffic, Sales/Donations, and Revenues Along with Events

Once you have all of the raw data, you can create a spreadsheet graphic that tracks website visitor trends, the number of people who completed a sale, or a donation for nonprofits, and the total daily revenues from those transactions. Then plot your major events in conjunction with the charted metrics over a designated time period – we track these items monthly. Here is an example of our dashboard from one month:

We also look at separate dashboards for weekdays and weekends, as we see different trends Monday-Friday vs Saturday and Sunday.

Step Five: Analyze the Dashboard for Insights

You probably will immediately see some obvious signs of causal relationships between particular events and your key metrics – whether some outreach efforts or events drive traffic, but not sales or donations, and vice versa. But, like us, you probably also will see some spikes where you don’t have any major events listed, or some peaks and valleys where you might not have expected them. So the dashboard represents a good tool for identifying where more information is needed, where you might need to dig deeper to confirm whether particular events truly were responsible for heightened activity, and what questions to ask in order to get these answers.

Step Six: Repurpose the Dashboards

Once you have your dashboard in place, don’t limit yourself to general weekly or monthly tracking. Think about applying it over the course of particular campaign timelines to compare against traffic, sales/donations, and revenues from past years during the same period, and against your goals for those campaigns.

Using benchmarks and targets, tracking real-time progress, and having a sense of what is driving what will provide you with the hindsight and vision to know what needs to be done to fulfill your goals.

Is this helpful to you? Do you do something similar? Or do you take a different approach that you think works better?

Several years ago, I handled marketing, PR, and business development coaching for a national B2B professional services company. After getting up to speed in the new role, an executive asked me to develop a marketing plan for a local office. I of course asked for the business plan.

I knew something was not quite right when he responded with “What?”

I clarified that I needed to understand the goals and objectives for the organization – in what areas there existed opportunities to grow and what metrics defined success – so I could base the marketing plan around that.

His response: “You’re a marketing guy. You don’t need a business plan. Just come up with a marketing plan.”

He opened a desk drawer and said, “You know what we really need? I was in a client’s office earlier and he had this cube on his desk that unfolds into different shapes and has lots of cool pictures on it. My eyes were drawn to it and I couldn’t stop playing with it. I think what we need is a cube like that. Can you get me a cube?”