Technology is always advancing, and as it does can either improve the value of marketing, or make it even more difficult to get an effective marketing program across to the target audience.

Are you sending SPAM emailing or a valuable newsletter?

Does anyone read your emails?

Does your brochure actually help people want to hire you, or give too much information (the average person doesn’t even read)?

Are the networking events and luncheons and trade shows you are going to actually generating new business?

Does your website bring you customers? Do you even know who reads your website? Have you ever seen a traffic report on your website?

These are all very important questions that a marketing professional must ask, and that an owner or CEO must always balance against the daily needs of running the business. What we specialize in is using technology to economize these activities – to provide a higher level of accuracy in reporting, adaptability to alter course in days instead of weeks should a program be ineffecient, and the experience to know what usually works better than most practices.

How many times have we sat through a marketing workshop that told us we needed to use some new gizmo to reach a trillion new people, only to go through the implementation process, the learning curve, and the complete headache of creating staff policies – only to find out 3 months later we saw no new business, got no new clients, and all in all wasted our time? If it’s not your ideal client you are talking to then there’s no point in talking at all – save your breath, your energy, and your time for the clients and colleagues that make your business and your profession better for the effort!

At the end of the day no one knows your business as well as you do, you’ve been doing it for years and you know your clients better than anyone. Our job is to bring the best practices from a variety of business climates to your doorstep and make it possible for you to reach new heights with new technology at your feet.

Sending Announcements
In response to overwhelming demand from group managers, we have created the ability for you to send group announcements directly from your LinkedIn group to your members, via email. Your announcement will also automatically be posted as a discussion within the group so members can comment on it together.

As membership in LinkedIn groups continues to explode, we hear increasing concerns from our members about how their privacy is protected. Now that we have the Announcement feature, and in response to these concerns, we have removed the ability to download or view member email addresses.

RSS Feeds into Groups
Posting news items into groups has become very popular in the past couple months. So we’ve made it even easier for you to spark discussions around news and other Web content by enabling you to add RSS and Atom feeds to your group. You can pick up RSS and Atom feeds from your favorite sites around the web. News items from your feed will automatically show up under the News tab.

Managing Job-Focused Discussions
Group managers now have full control over whether to enable the jobs discussion capabilities within your group. The jobs area enables members to discuss job opportunities in these difficult economic times without cluttering the main conversation, and like all discussions it’s free.

LinkedIN’s made all email addresses private in groups – good for the group member but not so good for the group owner, especially if you were merging that group into your newsletter databases. The other thing we’re missing is the geographic management – I’ve got a colleague who has one group for her entire association – regardless of chapter preference – so now we’ll all get eachother’s notices… because she can no longer filter “only orange county” like she could in her email marketing platform. As is the case with upgrades, once they start they rarely stop, so I’m sure we’ll see more over the next few weeks…

Rebekah

For those of us that know being in business is by no means stationary, the idea of not updating a website for 2, 4, or (gasp) 6 years is appalling. Apalling and Dismaying.
Before you go running away convinced that I’m one of the greedy monsters that want you to pay me $50k for imaginary work (how does something invisible cost SO MUCH??), take a deep breath and read on… Streamline before you Redesign

What is streamlining?

<a href=”http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/streamline”>Websters </a>has a great definition as “to alter in order to make more efficient or simple.” BINGO.

The internet works very simply. People walk around looking for stuff. These days we now have computer programs that walk around and look for stuff for us. When people (or computers) go walking around the internet looking for stuff… if they can’t find it, they don’t buy it. Pretty simple.

Some of you will tell me you don’t sell anything on your website. Bullcrud. There’s an old adage that says “you’re always selling something” and that’s not just true for salespeople. You are always selling YOU and your website’s job should be to sell people on whatever the website is for.

If you sell stuff, then your site should make it easy for people to buy stuff.
If you sell a service, then your site should make it easy for people to know what you mean by service(like, literally!! – who, what, when, where, why, how)

DUH, if I can’t find what your stuff is and how to buy it in the first 15 seconds I’m not buyin it. Don’t just think I’m the jerk, <a href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4616700.stm”>studies </a>say people make their buying web first impression in as little as 1/20th of a second.

So sit down and make a note to yourself – why do you have a website? What should people do/find/learn on your website? Now your job is to make your website accomplish these goals. Go to your website as a consumer and try to do/find/learn. Here’s some rules:

1. Can I get there easily (less than 3 clicks – preferably no clicks)
2. Can I see it clearly (even if I haven’t updated quicktime or flash in the last 3 months)
3. Can I learn more online?
4. Can I ask questions?
5. Can I find a real person?

There’s your basics. We’ll get more in-depth later. Now get to it!

Rebekah

This gentleman (lets call him Ed) is of the opinion that LinkedIN was created to gather people’s information under the guise of social networking… until the owners sell it – making boatloads of money and taking all your private information.

For me, as an educated (I try to be anyway) user who has sat on the sidelines watching the tool develop before jumping on the proverbial bandwagon, Ed sounds like Mel Gibson from Conspiracy Theory.

It’s important to note that Ed’s fears are not entirely unfounded. In late 2007 a social networking site known as Quechup received alot of bad press for allegedly sending spam emails to the entire contact list of each user (without the user’s knowledge). While Quechup denies these issues in a statement September 17th, 2007.

This is exactly why I encourage people to not be “early adopters” of technology in which you put your personal contact information. Wait a while, until you see a couple of buyouts or until people smarter than you are using and recommending the software (not to imply anything about your IQ – having friends smarter than you are is an integral part to staying safe in the technology age).

It’s also worth knowing that Social Networking sites rely on a large membership to serve the real money-making activity: transactions in the online marketplace OR online advertising to the membership. Only a few sites actually charge a subscription model (like LinkedIN) and this is only because they operate in the business side – selling subscriptions for advanced communication tools. Myspace recently changed hands (being sold to Google) without any user privacy issues, Facebook and Linkedin both of recently received additional investment dollars… again without stealing user info.

The internet and social networking specifically, offer opportunities for business models we’ve not seen before. If we care to get the most out of the advances around us, we must stay wise to our legal system and the standards by which our information is handled. Dissolving into paranoia not only hurts us, it holds us back from the advances laying before us.

oh, and did I mention that between google, jigsaw, and linkedin/facebook/myspace/thelistonline searches you can find just about anyone‘s info…

Matthews, a former award-winning news anchor in the Washington, D.C., market and wife of “Hardball” host Chris Matthews, is settling comfortably into a life of making news, as opposed to reporting it, for the somewhat staid Marriott brand.

Her charge as executive vice president, global communications & public affairs, is multifold, which is what appealed to her when offered the job 18 months ago. In addition to handling public relations, her role was expanded to encompass politics; social responsibility, such as Marriott’s green initiatives; and new media. New media, by the way, is using nontraditional channels to get a company’s story out, such as the social networking site, Facebook, plus blogs and online videos viewed on sites such as You Tube.

One of her first coups at the hotel chain was to convince Bill Marriott, the 80-something chairman, to blog. His first reaction after learning the definition of a blog was that it would be impossible for him to do because he doesn’t type, nor does he use a computer. Matthews says she convinced him to record his message on a small, digital tape recorder for someone on staff to type. A hard copy is then printed out for his edits.

Stay tuned for more profiles of people to watch!
RK

If you’re a jerk, now the whole world knows it.
If you’re a nice person with jerk tendencies, now the whole world knows it.

Some people are freaked out by this, the merging of public and private lives, and often one must find a new set of boundaries (ie. stop twittering after 9pm – DUH!)

And often as these tools creep in to further degrade the private/public boundaries.. tools like myspace and facebook crossing over to LinkedIN, email, etc. We come up with more ways to waste time and to share our OCD with the world – tools like twitter and digg and del.icio.us

The trick in all this is balance – and one of the easiest ways to balance is to be a slow-adopter. Don’t necessary jump on every bandwagon… give it 6 months or so for the bugs to get worked out and the syncing tools to catch up. Sure you may miss a freebie here and there, but you’ll save yourself hours of headaches.

Take Myspace for example. I thought that tool was great and jumped right on… only to become a target for spammers of the world to unitedly blast. Every time I make an update, I get hit with half a dozen spammers… not to mention the porn and the current dramas in the news about kids publicizing their cruelty.

LinkedIN is one of my success stories. I signed up for it a year ago, but waited 6 months to really get into it… now it’s a huge tool for my networking and KIT systems.

Plaxo‘s a 50/50 split… the plaxo pulse is a weak attempt to compete with other social networking tools, while the address book and calendar syncing tools remain unparalleled for those of us that have to sync home computer|cellphone|office|laptop and aren’t interested in thousands of duplicates.

So when in doubt – sign up but don’t email blast your address book immediately… sit around (aka “lurk) until you see a few friends in there, and then go forward. Always look for syncing ability to your existing technology tools, and never give up your right to wait.

Being the first one to adopt a new technology is very rarely worth being the first one to have a system crash.

Unless you’re in IT, of course.

Cheers,

Rebekah

So like a good nerd, I started researching other ways to use this new technology. I tried twitterific and twhirl and twillions of other twools that just made me feel lispy.

Meanwhile, I notice that all my other “social networking” tools are trying to get in on the action, with a series of “what are you doing” post options. These just added to the twitteration and twistication of my poor head. Being visible and “plugged in” is one thing…. but all of this stuff is just NOT WORK.

And then I found PING.fm
and my life was forever changed.

Ping let’s me post to all my blogs, all my micro-blogs, and even all the stupid little “status” messages across my metaverse. While it’s not perfect (thus is the world of beta) it is by far the easiest way for me to trick all the non-techies into thinking I’m a social networking queen.
(come on – you know you were thinking it)

Checkout Ping.fm on me – enter the invite code “pingfood” for access.

An economic downturn and technology advancements will lead to increased coupon usage among U.S. shoppers, according to survey results released today by Toronto-based ICOM Information Communications (ICOM).

Of the 1,529 U.S. consumers who responded to a recent ICOM survey conducted in mid-February, 67 percent said they are much more likely, or somewhat more likely, to use coupons during a recession. The breakdown was 45 percent much more likely and 22 percent somewhat more likely.

Which really seams like common sense. Interesting though was the breakdown included by age and by region, and this little tidbit:

When it comes coupon technology, 58 percent of respondents believe their coupon use would increase if they could download a coupon from the Internet and have it automatically connected to an electronically swiped frequent shopper card.

Of that 58 percent, 35 percent said they are much more likely to use such a card and 23 percent said are somewhat more likely. AOL, Kroger, General Mills and Procter & Gamble are currently testing such high-tech coupons.

Wha-whaat? you mean I don’t have to clip at all? I’d become die-hard in a heartbeat for sure. I’m lucky enough that I don’t need to use coupons in my shopping, but I choose to whenever possible. Why? Because who doesn’t love a great deal? Why not save a buck or two if you can?

And truly, I have to admit that if they go through all the trouble to make ‘em, I’ll use em.

I’m a total consumer.

Read the article yourself here, if you are so inclined.

Fellow MLPF friends,

I have a simple, very simple question: how to manage such a huge amount
of information when doing networking?

How many hours do you spend per day doing business networking? And hot
to manage that with our normal work?

Thanks in advance for all the answers and comments.

I hear you! Take heart though, I think feeling just a few steps behind is a good sign that you are actively networking – it’s that sense of drowning that I often take as a reminder to update my networking maintenance systems.

I use plaxo sync’d w/ my computers (both home and office) to keep my address book and calendar’s lined up. I sync my office computer to my treo and then everything stays in line very well. I don’t participate much in the “connections” portion – I just use the tools to update contact information quickly and easily (if anyone you know is in plaxo, when they change their information it will automatically update in your address book).

I use LinkedIN as an online networking tool, and sync that to outlook quarterly. I don’t do the LinkedIN blast invites – I just invite people one-on-one & I let them know it helps me to refer them to my network.

I keep a rolodex sorted by industry (vs company name) that I keep cards in – this is a 2 1/2 inch binder at this point… I only keep cards of people I want to refer, or that I work with. Folks that I know well or refer often I ask for several cards so I can give one away and still have one in the binder. I’ll look through it periodically when I need a networking brainstorm.

I know it sounds like alot, but it’s actually a very simple workflow when you come back from an event: enter the contact info to your computer (which syncs everywhere), put away in rolodex, when done w/ all cards from that event, sync linkedin… ta-da!!

In Followup Mode: I set aside 2 hours a week to go through my new connections and see what we have in common or who they know that I’d like to know. If I took notes at the event that the person was interested in something I can pass along, I will do that within a week. Often there are folks that want to be updated on interesting articles or groups I am a member of, so I will forward an invitation to the group or the articles on a weekly basis – nothing to take more than my 2 hours a week.

I also go to 5 or so events a week, but only take away the business cards that are relevant to what I’m looking for at that event (always have an objective before you walk into an event). Staying active in several particular circles keeps me in touch with the membership.

Cheers,

Rebekah