8 Things Every ‘Marketing Technologist’ Should Know

Recently, I came across an article by Scott Brinker titled, “8 Things Every Marketing Technologist Should Know.”  The article examined the term “marketing technologist”, which is sometimes broadly interpreted as anyone who exerts technology in the field of marketing. However, since Brinker believes everyone in marketing should be doing that to some degree these days; it makes sense to differentiate what a marketing technologist does above and beyond that.

He drafted a set of skills: the inner ring being what every marketing technologist should be familiar with — and proficient or expert in at least two or three of them. And then the outer ring, extrapolating more specific capabilities that they should be getting themselves familiar with.

By implementing all of the techniques in the inner ring, you can start getting the full effects out of your marketing efforts.  By learning and becoming familiar with the more technological, outside ring, you will start to really see the internal and external benefits.

Best of luck 😉

Elizabeth

A Very Social Royal Wedding

The Royal wedding is set for this Friday, April 29th, and you better bet your bottom dollar it is going to be a social media frenzy. Little girls (myself included) all over will be setting their alarms to 4amET to watch this magical event. Back in 1981, there was an estimated 750 million people worldwide who watched as Diana and Prince Charles exchange vows. Twenty years have gone by and media has gone social!

According to the Hollywood Reporter, for the past couple weeks, online statistics have shown the Royal wedding is getting a new mention every 7 seconds. The article also mentions a 700%+ growth in social media measurement since last month – an these stats will continue to climb as the big day approaches.

Buckingham Palace even says the high focus on social media is “in line with the couple’s wishes to make the wedding as accessible as possible for as many people as want to participate.” Makes me love those two even more.

People will be watching on smartphones, iPads, computers and television screens worldwide. There has even been an advanced Apple application designed to allow users to actually take a virtual walk up the aisle in Westminster Abbey.

Tracking the Royal wedding:
• Find more info on the Official Royal Wedding Website
• Check out the Royal’s photo album on Flickr!
• Follow on Facebook. The The British Monarchy Facebook Page has over 300,000 fans and growing. Add your name to the The Wedding Book Facebook App to wish them a happy marriage.
• Follow @BBCroyalweddingand @ITNroyalwedding on Twitter to keep up with the wedding route from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey. NBC also has @royalwedding for all things Wills and Kate. Also, track the #royalwedding and #rw2011 to engage with other royal wedding fans.
• Download apps: iPhone and Android Apps have appeared dedicated to the wedding, including the official Royal App about past weddings. For a full listing, check out appolicious’s Royal Wedding Android Apps and Royal Wedding iPhone Apps.
• Watch the Royal Wedding route in 3D. Google has has expanded its 3D imagery available via Google Earth to cover the entire royal wedding procession. You can view the procession on YouTube: Royal Wedding Procession in 3D.

How will you be watching the Royal wedding coverage?

Super Bowl Ads: A Look Back at the “WASSUPPP!” Campaign

With Super Bowl XLV right around the corner, I decided to take a look back at one of my favorite ads…

WASSSSUPPPPP!? Why “WUSSUP”? Why did Budweiser beer not show up once through this ad? And why is this all acceptable in the advertising world? Well, the answer is simple; Reputation. The Budweiser campaign is designed to maintain popular awareness – to make sure that when a thirsty beer drinker has a choice of beers he will always say, “I’ll have a Bud.”

A product like Budweiser beer has a long-held reputation for being a good beer. Budweiser is the beer that my grandfather drank. Their commercials never make sense or relate to their product, but they are humorous and therefore, they are well remembered. Over ten years ago, you may remember the start of the “WUSSUP!” Budweiser “campaign”. Budweiser began throwing the scream of “WUSSUP!” throughout all of their commercials, and soon enough, people could relate this shout out to the beer itself. A commercial like the “alien-dog” doesn’t need to sell the actual beer. The “WUSSUP” slogan speaks for itself. The slogan is meant to reinforce the “When you want a beer, you want a Bud” conditioning of the beer-drinking public. Budweiser is such an established brand and has such known animal mascots that their commercials can skip the “hard sell” and go right for the entertainment.

3 eCommerce Phrases You Should Know When Using Social Media

E-auction:
A tool used in industrial business-to-business procurement. It is a type of auction in which the role of the buyer and seller are reversed, with the primary objective to drive purchase prices downward. In an ordinary auction (also known as a forward auction), buyers compete to obtain a good or service. In a reverse auction, sellers compete to obtain business. Used by many purchasing and supply management organizations for spend management, as part of strategic sourcing and overall supply management activities.

Web 2.0:
A trend in World Wide Web technology, and web design, a second generation of web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies, which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing among users. Web 2.0 websites allow users to do more than just retrieve information. They can build on the interactive facilities of “Web 1.0” to provide “Network as platform” computing, allowing users to run software-applications entirely through a browser. Users can own the data on a Web 2.0 site and exercise control over that data. These sites may have an “Architecture of participation” that encourages users to add value to the application as they use it.

Virtual communities/Community of Practice:
A group of people that primarily interact via communication media such as letters, telephone, email or Usenet rather than face to face. Virtual and online communities have also become a supplemental form of communication between people who know each other primarily in real life. Many means are used in social software separately or in combination, including text-based chatrooms and forums that use voice, video text or avatars. Rheingold’s definition contains the terms “social aggregation and personal relationships” to define a virtual community. The concept of a community of practice refers to the process of social learning that occurs when people who have a common interest in some subject or problem collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find solutions, and build innovations. It refers as well to the stable group that is formed from such regular interactions.

1 Million, 2 Million, 3 Million, Floor.

“To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.”

–Mark Twain

Is it pure brilliance or is it just plain obnoxious? A lot of people would argue that the idea of a 20-something year old boy from Wiltshire, England jumpstarting a million-dollar company to pay for his college career, debt-free, is a ridiculous idea; but, it happened, and it happened within a matter of just a few years.

In 2005, Alex Tew, created a website with one-million, 1 pixel-sized spaces. He had a brilliant idea to sell 10×10 pixel block banners for a meager $100 to companies for personal advertisement, eventually leading to an income of one-million dollars; thus generating, The Million Dollar Homepage.

Marketing to the Genders

[Please note: I am no feminist.]

What is gender code? According to general knowledge, gender codes are simply what define a male and what defines a female; boys versus girls, and stereotypically; blue versus pink. Well, what happens when it comes to advertisements and marketing? What happens when there is an invisible line that no one can see, separating these two categories?

I have become aware of the fact that often, some feminists feel that certain advertisements, specifically advertisements geared towards cleaning supplies and common kitchen appliances, are made for women, and women only. This assumption is made because at one time, there was a battle between women’s and men’s specific “roles” as humans. Women’s rights were a huge controversy in the United States, and yes, at one time women were not treated as equals. But, in today’s society, I beg to differ. Of course, as a woman, I am a strong advocate for women’s equality, but from another perspective, as a business gal, being educated in the true concept of marketing and advertising, I believe that women are becoming a huge paradigm in today’s working class. So much so in fact, that I strongly believe that advertisement companies solely base their commercials and ads on who are their top consumers.

Dove Evolution: The Power of Reality

It’s a typical morning before work. I am getting ready while listening to news updates on the television. I am drawn to a haunting image on the screen. Remember this Dove commercial titled “Evolution”? The commercial shows a regular woman being transformed through time-lapsed photography, excessive make-up, and plenty of digital manipulation, to a billboard beauty in a matter of a minute. A “plain” woman, attractive, but by no means beautiful, has her complexion smoothed, her hair lightened and heightened, her eyes made larger and more blue, her faced thinned, and her neck elongated. The resulting image is only vaguely familiar to the young woman who first walked onto the screen. Seeing the news anchor talk about this ad got me doing a little research…

The commercial was a part of Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty” back in 2006 and, according to the Dove website, http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com, was intended to be a vehicle to boost women’s self-esteem. Dove.com claimed the commercial was designed to show that the ‘effortless’ beauty depicted in ads and fashion magazines is not real. But, make no mistake, by persuading the audience to identify with the accepted idea of “real beauty”, Dove is still selling soap!

Hello virtual world!

Thanks for checking out Sweet Talk Marketing!  Get ready for some serious blogging! -EG