NEW YORK--Blogger and new-media publicist Brian Solis struck down one of the biggest marketing buzz terms of the past few years in a panel on Wednesday morning at the Web 2.0 Expo here.
"There is no 'viral marketing' per se," Solis said, referring to the marketing trend of creating a catchy online gimmick and hoping it will spread like the latest cat-does-something-funny video on YouTube. Rather, Solis explained, it's the people who make it viral. Getting a grip on online marketing is an ongoing strategy, he said. "This isn't a campaign. This is something new, this is something we have to do every day."
Getting brands onto social networks is one of the hottest topics of the marketing world these days, from partnerships with MySpace and Facebook to "appvertising" on their developer platforms.
Solis' tips for the audience: get to know bloggers as well as traditional journalists, be aware of what people are saying about your company or brand on blogs and social networks, and know that there's more to the Web than a Facebook fan page. "This whole thing is bigger than Twitter, (and) this whole thing is bigger than Facebook," Solis said.
"You're not a marketer anymore, you're not a public relationships professional anymore, you're just a person who knows what you're talking about, so you're just able to jump in and cultivate relationships," he said. "We're humanizing our story."
Idealistic, for sure, and Solis acknowledged that the rules of "social-media marketing" are by no means set in stone. Things can change fast, and companies need to be ready to adapt.
And the underlying truth is that this is all still advertising, marketing, and public relations, and too many attempts to mask it as "conversation" can come across as a gimmick. Indeed, Solis said that a lot of people are screwing it up.
"They're creating profiles on every social network and they're 'friending' everyone like it's going out of style," he said, talking about Twitter spam and showing a PowerPoint slide of the cartoon incarnation of trying too hard, Wile E. Coyote. "It's not about shilling, it's not about pushing, and it's not about faking it."
Meet my new octopus! What should I name him?
(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News)NEW YORK--In the press room at the Web 2.0 Expo at the Jacob Javits Convention Center here, there are a ton of fliers, stickers, and press kits lying around for us reporters and bloggers to peruse.
It's kind of hard for any one of them to stand out. Unless you're like collaboration software start-up Octopz, which we reviewed last year.
The company's strategy: Leave out some bright turquoise-and-green stuffed octopi, free for the taking. No corny company logos, no attached pitch, just a cute stuffed sea creature with a flash drive press kit tied around its neck with ribbon. They were way too adorable for me to say no. And it might actually serve its PR purpose of keeping Octopz in this reporter's memory.
But even if you aren't really into cute stuffed toys, there are plenty of uses for an octopus. I was sitting next to ReadWriteWeb contributor Blake Robinson in the press room, and he said he thought it might make a nice toy for his dog. Another reporter told me that maybe he'd pick one up for his kid.
And props to Octopz for aesthetics: the flash drive tied around the octopus' neck was lime-green and turquoise to match the color scheme.
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