My RSS Feedhttp://www.sierra2.com/index.htmlHot News!ensteves@sierra2.comCopyright 2011 Steve2012-04-14T16:17:58-07:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 Thu, 26 Apr 2012 13:20:19 -0700A lesson for not putting all of your social eggs in one basket!steves@sierra2.comNone2012-04-14T16:17:58-07:00http://www.sierra2.com/page5/files/f0195751ecbc391910a8eaaca909daf3-6.html#unique-entry-id-6http://www.sierra2.com/page5/files/f0195751ecbc391910a8eaaca909daf3-6.html#unique-entry-id-6Obviously, everyone who is using/managing a Facebook page is now well aware of the big changes Facebook has recently instituted. Business owners, particularly micro-business owners who have invested heavily in the old format will now have to spend additional time and/or resources redoing their new pages.

In a pretty comprehensive article on those changes in socialmediatoday.com, the author, Pam Moore is forced to say things like, “it’s important you don’t waste too much time complaining…[n]ow before you go off on a wild rant about how terrible this is…Facebook can make any changes they see fit, whenever they decide to do so,“ begins the article with the sentence, “[y]up, Facebook did it to us again,” and has an entire section entitled, “[d]on’t freak out.” If this leaves you with the impression that Facebook has just done an awful disservice to it’s small business users - and made their agencies very very happy - yeah, me too. And I’m an agency owner.

http://socialmediatoday.com/pammoore/476234/15-must-know-tips-rock-your-new-facebook-timeline-business-page
]]>Going for Brokesteves@sierra2.comNone2012-02-27T18:50:06-08:00http://www.sierra2.com/page5/files/0644623437bcb99dbe8b624230a4ed16-5.html#unique-entry-id-5http://www.sierra2.com/page5/files/0644623437bcb99dbe8b624230a4ed16-5.html#unique-entry-id-5Proctor & Gamble have just gone on a big cost-cutting spree, especially around their advertising costs, “as it moves more spending into digital media, where the sheer number of options and availability of largely free distribution drives down expenses.”

This is a particularly interesting quote by Chairman-CEO Bob McDonald, indicating the thinking behind the move:

"In the digital space, with things like Facebook and Google and others, we find that return on investment of the advertising when properly designed, when the big idea is there, can be much more efficient," Mr. McDonald said. He cited the 1.8 billion in free impressions generated by the Old Spice campaign in recent years, adding "there are many other examples I can cite from all over the world."

I’d love to hear them. And then the ratio of those viral mega-success stories to all corporate social-media video promos. Prediction: it’s rather wide.

Far be it from me to second-guess the CEO of P&G but if he’s relying on a strategy of Old Spice ROI, I also predict that he’ll be disappointed (so will his shareholders).

I’m not suggesting that the continual move from traditional to popular social media shouldn’t continue apace. But to bank on the idea of a social media free lunch is probably a strategic mistake. The Old Spice spots had good creative/talent and that’s not free. Neither is the staff/agency that writes the strategy and implements the marketing, even (especially) the “free” social media.

http://adage.com/article/digital/p-g-cut-1-600-jobs-bank-digital-long-term-savings/232385/
]]>Big Brother+steves@sierra2.comNone2012-01-24T16:31:20-08:00http://www.sierra2.com/page5/files/5ffe94283baa7f6e5cba161d2402de23-4.html#unique-entry-id-4http://www.sierra2.com/page5/files/5ffe94283baa7f6e5cba161d2402de23-4.html#unique-entry-id-4Who knew that the vast, omnipresent surveillance state would come with an account sign-up and a cookie?

Google recently announced that it would track all of the on-line activity of almost any Google product user with no ability to opt-out or block Google tracking or the resulting, even more highly targeted, marketing. As Alma Whitten, Google’s director of privacy, product and engineering wrote, “In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”

From the Washington Post: “Google can track users when they sign into their accounts (e-mail, search…and other services). It can also use cookies or find out where people are [YouTube, Facebook, etc.] if they use a Google phone or its maps program. The company will now attempt to mix all of that information together into a single cauldron for each person”.

Obviously, this bold action is designed to try to take market share from competitors Apple and Facebook who have been more successful at keeping users “within their ecosystem of products,” and increase advertising sales based upon a more highly targeted demographic of less mobile customers. What remains to be seen is whether current Google customers (gmail, Google maps, Google, phones, etc.) will resist Google’s unilateral actions and cancel accounts, when these changes will actually result in more customer time in Google’s “ecosystem,” how useful will the data that is accumulated really be for marketing, which advertisers will find the new data useful and what future advertising proves compelling to Google customers.

In the meantime, come March 1, Google will be watching.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-tracks-consumers-across-products-users-cant-opt-out/2012/01/24/gIQArgJHOQ_story.html


]]>Social Media Sanitysteves@sierra2.comNone2012-01-10T10:27:25-08:00http://www.sierra2.com/page5/files/8e8b24cc1e6d5ee59e7eaac58138d48c-3.html#unique-entry-id-3http://www.sierra2.com/page5/files/8e8b24cc1e6d5ee59e7eaac58138d48c-3.html#unique-entry-id-3You can’t build your marketing plan these days without a social media strategy. The opportunity to create buzz for your brand and the necessity to stay in front of your competition in your customers’ eyes require you to develop social media content and deliver it where it counts.

And gone are the days when a Facebook page, updated weekly, and few tweets will keep you front-and-center to the right demographic. On the other hand, how can you possibly manage those media effectively along with YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Yelp, Instagram, Vidddy, Tout, Pinterest, and whatever latest hot social media that comes along next week. The answer is: you probably can’t.

The name of the game is the same as when dead dinosaurs dominated the media landscape in the form of paper-pulp, printer’s ink and broadcast media: a media strategy based upon media analytics, delivering relevant, attention-grabing content in a disciplined fashion where it will generate the biggest bang for the buck. The good news is that new apps to digest and analyze how social media has performed for you in the past, why it performed the way it did and opportunities to model and predict the future are coming to the market as we speak.

Analytic software as service tools (SaaS) will allow your agency to better utilize social media metrics to deliver your creative content effectively. You can’t be everywhere, nor should you diffuse your brand and your marketing resources by trying. Simply put, great creative content and highly targeted marketing have become more important than ever.

]]>Cart Meet Horsesteves@sierra2.comBlog2012-01-07T10:21:25-08:00http://www.sierra2.com/page5/files/e140b665dc7a4f0116ba956cf5b2a892-2.html#unique-entry-id-2http://www.sierra2.com/page5/files/e140b665dc7a4f0116ba956cf5b2a892-2.html#unique-entry-id-2A recent issue of Northern Nevada Business Weekly quotes Barry Smith of the Nevada Press Association saying, “[f]irst, consumers need to start spending, and marketers of consumer goods need to be feeling good about the direction of the economy. Only then will marketers resume the levels of advertising that help broadcast stations, Web site operators and newspapers get back to full health...”

Let’s be clear about what that means. What Smith is saying is that business will only start marketing for customers once customers start to arrive at their doors. I’m guessing that everyone can see the self-defeating nature of that thinking but the numbers of ad buys, insertions and other measures of marketing and advertising don’t lie; that’s exactly how a surprising number of businesses tend to operate in the real world.

The fact is, even in the worst economy, consumers are still buying things. What happens is that the same number of businesses are chasing fewer customers and purchases - or simply waiting for them to come back.]]>What is a Brand?steves@sierra2.comBlog2011-12-20T09:00:02-08:00http://www.sierra2.com/page5/files/6e1f338fe8790ca1d836dfb88563e70d-1.html#unique-entry-id-1http://www.sierra2.com/page5/files/6e1f338fe8790ca1d836dfb88563e70d-1.html#unique-entry-id-1
A logo (trademark and its associated visual language) is the symbolic representation of a whole narrative story built into an organization over time. Brand equity is the result of successfully delivering on the promise your brand represents in the hearts and minds of consumers.


So the trademark is the most basic representation of your brand. The logo and identity (visual brand) includes the trademark along with how it will be presented - for example, color schemes, position and page architecture - and the brand is the associations, particularly the emotional associations, people perceive when they see your logo. So the logo, to successfully represent your brand, should help to convey the emotional associations you wish your brand to impart to both existing customers and potential customers alike. And, to make sure those emotions are associated with your brand and your brand alone, it must be unique in the marketplace.

http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2011/01/branding-debate-does-logo-design-really-matter.html
]]>Welcome to S2 Marketingsteves@sierra2.comBlog2011-12-16T15:19:13-08:00http://www.sierra2.com/page5/files/086298fac4fe28e3b6a83c56fc603ca9-0.html#unique-entry-id-0http://www.sierra2.com/page5/files/086298fac4fe28e3b6a83c56fc603ca9-0.html#unique-entry-id-0