More Than Marketing » branding http://morethanmarketing.net Todd Van Hoosear on social media and the evolution of marketing and business Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:56:50 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc en hourly 1 The hard sell is hard to swallow http://morethanmarketing.net/2008/12/the-hard-sell-is-hard-to-swallow/ http://morethanmarketing.net/2008/12/the-hard-sell-is-hard-to-swallow/#comments Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:02:53 +0000 Todd Van Hoosear http://morethanmarketing.net/?p=218 suessian megaphone by theparadigmshifterREAD MY BLOG! BUY MY STUFF! I’M THE GREATEST! I CAN MAKE YOU RICH! I AM A SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT, AND YOU CAN LEARN A LOT FROM ME!

Does this still work in today’s day and age? I guess the same can be asked of spam, and the inevitable answer is yes, it does. “He who blasts, lasts,” once joked a colleague of mine who ran direct marketing. Nevertheless, I and many others found Matt Bacak’s hard sell a little hard to swallow. His (social media-friendly, I might add) press release yesterday took every rule out of the 1995 Internet Marketing Playbook and ran with it. I haven’t seen so much hyperbole in one place since WrestleMania III back in 1987.

Now I’m told that Matt is a multi-millionaire, and probably has a lot of great techniques, but his credibility has been hurt a bit recently. This kind of blatant self-promotional, superlative-rich, content-free press release died back in 2002 along with sock puppet corporate mascots. And I should know—I’ve written plenty of press releases since 2002, and none of them have been anywhere near as bad as this one.

Press releases are designed to attract attention, and he did well at that. But can he execute on a strategy for responding to the criticism that’s cropped up all over the blogosphere and the Twitterverse?

I hope so. His supporters are speaking up, and he has come out of seclusion (he’s been teaching a class) to respond to at least one blogger (Media Pirate–you’ve got to scroll down a LOT to find his response). Here’s an excerpt:

I never suggested to my writer to have it even say that I am a twitter god or an expert in social media or to challenge anyone because I’m not. I am new to social media (as you can tell) and have a lot to learn. But, I am very good internet marketer and email marketer. I have over 300k subscribers to my online newsletter. That’s exactly what I teach my clients (email marketing and direct response marketing).

Kudos to Matt Bacaks for coming clean, fessing up, clarifying and apologizing (with just a little chest thumping on the side). Now, get to commenting on all those other blogs that may start to get some Google juice with your name… And think about revisiting your messaging and marketing strategy for the Web 2.0 world…

]]> http://morethanmarketing.net/2008/12/the-hard-sell-is-hard-to-swallow/feed/ 5 Building Your Personal Brand http://morethanmarketing.net/2008/10/building-your-personal-brand/ http://morethanmarketing.net/2008/10/building-your-personal-brand/#comments Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:43:07 +0000 Todd Van Hoosear http://morethanmarketing.net/?p=75 Last week, I kicked myself out of the happy little nest I had made for myself at Topaz Partners. “I’m on my own now,” I thought, at least when it came to building my personal brand. “I’m going to be a great SocialSphere employee, but also be my own social (media) person, my own brand,” I said to myself.

Was I wrong? By the very design of my new blog–which for the record is completely independent and wholly owned by me–have I indelibly tied myself to my new employers? Is this bad? Have I violated a rule of personal branding in tying this new blog too closely to my new employer? My good friend Jim Spencer (@fairminder on Twitter) called me on it today:

Thanks Jim! You’re right. I feel so old skool! I thought this personal branding thing wasn’t totally foreign to me, being so social media savvy, but I am busted! I’ll have to think of a clever logo/swirl with MM, M&M, MtM, or my initials or something…

Personal branding ain’t as easy as I thought it’d be! But it’s good to have friends to help you along.

]]> http://morethanmarketing.net/2008/10/building-your-personal-brand/feed/ 1 RD.com: Not just for the bathroom anymore http://morethanmarketing.net/2008/10/rdcom-not-just-for-the-bathroom-anymore/ http://morethanmarketing.net/2008/10/rdcom-not-just-for-the-bathroom-anymore/#comments Sat, 18 Oct 2008 20:45:45 +0000 Todd Van Hoosear http://morethanmarketing.net/?p=43 Reader's DigestWhat do YOU think of when you see a copy of Reader’s Digest sitting around? If you’re me, you think of a pile of them in your grandparents’ bathroom, perhaps sitting quietly next to Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader. I certainly don’t think “hip,” let alone “web 2.0.”

Or I didn’t until I visited their website. RSS feeds, multimedia content, comments, social bookmarking, voting–it’s got it all! And RD.com readers are Digging articles like there’s no tomorrow–the better ones are getting 500+ Diggs!

Don’t think your product can benefit from social media? Think your brand is too old school, or that your audience isn’t web-savvy enough to go online? I would’ve put Reader’s Digest in that category. I would’ve been wrong, and you probably are too!

Disclosure: SocialSphere Strategies has done work with Reader’s Digest recently.

]]> http://morethanmarketing.net/2008/10/rdcom-not-just-for-the-bathroom-anymore/feed/ 0