Jumping on the New Tools
There’s always something new in the marketing pipeline that will supposedly someday change marketing. The latest of these is Google Buzz and FourSquare. Then the evangelism starts with a few marketers trumpeting the new tools as some sort of “killer.” You know the “Facebook Killer” or the “Yelp Killer.” That sounds awfully violent to me, but what the hype does is create some pressure on marketers and entrepreneurs to pay attention to this new stuff. Should you jump on the bandwagon and start using it?
I usually don’t recommend my clients jump on the new stuff immediately. The purpose of marketing is to reach people, and to reach them now. It’s about where your customers are not where they will be in a couple of years. So what’s your policy on using these new tools? How quickly do you jump on board?
The Twitter Follow Game
I got called out today by “Tim” aka:@hannibal666 for not following him back on Twitter. In his tweet he called me “gamey.” I found that humorous because I’ve created some pretty rigorous criteria about what links I tweet and retweet.
Mainly I think Tim was just upset because I didn’t follow him back, but he really didn’t make it possible for me to follow him back for these reasons:
1. He didn’t include his full, real name in his profile.
2. He didn’t include a link to a website in his profile so I could verify his real name.
3. His tweets were of no value to me. (Although they may have been to someone else.)
I get 20-30 new follows daily on Twitter, mostly from people trying to get me to follow them back so that their follower numbers look impressive. I may follow back 1 or 2 of those new followers, based partly on the above criteria. What criteria do you use to follow-back on social networks? Or do you have criteria and just follow everyone? Are you getting tired of the follow game?
Giving Your Stuff Away for Free
Some businesses struggle with blogging. Their primary worry is they might give away some of their proprietary information and systems. Competitors and ne’er-do-wells might copy their stuff. Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound, says this about what people might do with her free ebooks “I don’t worry about it. Period.”
Neither do I. In fact you can find most of my stuff for free on this blog, including most of my coaching system right here: Build Your Marketing Plan. But what you don’t get is me collaborating with you. I think that’s the real value that I offer. The information I give away on this blog and my podcast builds my credibility and authority (hopefully), and also forces me to organize and codify my stuff.
Do you struggle with what you might give away? What are you willing to share or not share with potential clients?
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