SXSW 2024 was a gathering of thought leadership, providing a glimpse of “what’s next” in media, technology, and marketing, among other topics. I’ve been attending SXSW since 2010. It’s expensive, crowded, and — with 500 sessions a day — overwhelming — but I regard it as an essential part of my professional growth. Each year has its own personality. My first conference in 2010 represented the dawn of social media — unbridled excitement! SXSW 2024 seemed more somber as attendees pondered deep fakes, the existential nature of AI, humanoid robotics, quantum computing, inclusivity, and mental heal ..read more

The top headline in the U.S. this week was how a 21-year-old member of the Air National Guard was arrested for retaining and distributing classified national defense information through a social media community. This raised many grave security concerns, but there’s also a vital lesson here about the future of social media marketing and social listening platforms. Let’s get into it. The Rise of Discord The first lesson about the future of social listening is that this leak occurred on Discord … and it was undetected there. While Discord is a mystery for many right now, it’s becoming the de fac ..read more

On the latest episode of The Marketing Companion, I decided to take a deep dive into the nooks and crannies of social media marketing, and there’s nobody better to accompany me than marketing genius Dennis Yu. Dennis studies the art and science of social media success to the Nth degree and we get into some fascinating discussions that include: The ROI of a blue check mark The viral power of feel-good stories A social media platform that is killing it right now How social media platforms are using facial and image recognition to elevate content Why replay rate is the key to success on TikTok ..read more

A the urging of my website advisor, I did some housekeeping here on the blog. It was time to sweep out some older blog posts that were either irrelevant or ignored by the world. But I came across a gem — An old list of marketing predictions! In 2009, I made 12 marketing predictions about the future of social media. There wasn’t any timeframe specified … they were just predictions about “the future.” I thought it would be fun to give myself a report card and see how I did on the predictions. To set the stage, in 2009, social media marketing was just creeping into the mainstream. There weren’t ..read more

Today, I am proud and excited to introduce my new book — my best work — and an unmissable idea for this tumultuous marketing era. It is time for the next phase of human-centered marketing. It is time for modern marketing that works, marketing that customers actually want. It’s time for marketing that heals. My new book is called Belonging to the Brand: Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy. Today I’ll share a few key ideas from this eye-opening book that will prove this is a vital resource that is worth buying, sharing, and incorporating into your marketing strategy. 1) Three tre ..read more

A few short items for you today. Too short for a blog post, too big to ignore. Let’s start with a news item showing that we could be heading into a golden age for freelance content creators. Digiday reported that more agencies are outsourcing their content needs to freelance creators as the work becomes more challenging. A research report showed that 71 percent of in-house marketers and 68 percent of agencies are outsourcing their content needs to freelance creators. They also reported that the most effective type of content for driving results seems to be blog posts (!). They pointed to thes ..read more

On the new episode of The Marketing Companion, I thought I would have some fun debating the most relevant marketing trends for the next two years with Dennis Yu. Dennis and I don’t always agree and this made for a lively debate on our possible future. That two-year timeframe is essential. Change is happening so rapidly, and often, so unexpectedly, that I think it is useless to think beyond that horizon. But two years … we should be able to have some concrete ideas about that. Dennis and I debate 10 relevant marketing trends: Metaverse NFTs email marketing Influencer marketing Content marketi ..read more

I’ve been immersed in the world of measurement and influencers since the beginning. I wrote the first book on the subject. There has been a tremendous amount of progress in testing impact — a lot of money has been devoted to attribution models. But when it comes to finding relevant influencers, especially in the B2B space, it’s been disappointing. Today I will lament that we have made almost no progress in the last ten years. Influence based on breadcrumbs The first company to attempt assessing influencers was Klout. Around 2009, Joe Fernandez had his jaw wired shut after an operation and had ..read more

I’ve worked in marketing for about 40 years so I can say with some authority that it’s very difficult to succeed in our profession these days! In fact, this might be the most challenging time to be in marketing. Today I’m connecting a few dots to provide a perspective on why it seems so hard to be successful in marketing today. Before we get into these challenges, let me emphasize that I think marketing is an amazing field of work! I could not imagine a more rewarding career. But it is a challenging time to be in marketing … 1. Information density On June 24, 2009, an important milestone was ..read more

I’ve been blogging for more than a decade and I realized I’ve never answered this question — the most-asked question I receive — “What is the best social media channel for my business?” So I will try to answer it today. I normally cringe when I hear this question because to give a very specific answer, I would need to know a lot more about the company, competition, etc. The optimal marketing mix might be different for every business. But I do have a general answer … and it might surprise you. Is it really about the best social media channel? When somebody asks this question, it’s normally bec ..read more