Wednesday, May 27th, 2009
We’ve all heard the claims; “Cured my cancer!” “I am now off all of my medication!” “My Diabetes and depression are both gone!”
Without calling them out on this blog, there are several large and successful MLM companies that seem to have very loose compliance departments.
I am always shocked when I see a YouTube video made by a distributor that makes outrageous product or compensation plan claims. Maybe I shouldn’t be.
The surprise is from the lack of action taken by the corporation to enforce their terms of use. There have been many MLM companies that have been shut down by the FCC for misrepresentations on the part of the distributors.
A good MLM corporation does two things…
1. Educates their distributor force on what legal issues they must abide by. This education should focus on how a distributor can effectively share their story without interjecting the “cures” and “medical claims” that so many have as part of their story.
2. Actively enforce their terms by monitoring what is said, written and distributed, particularly on the internet.
A serious network marketer does two things as well…
1. Searches for a great company with great products, that also follows the above mentioned two steps. Why does a distributor care? Because a corporation that follows those steps mentioned above, is less likely to be shut down by the government and therefore is poised to be a long-term opportunity for the distributor.
2. Preserves the opportunity for themselves and others by abiding by the legal terms of their distributor agreement, and helps their down lines do the same.
This often overlooked area of a distributors business is key to having a long-term, successful network marketing business.
*shameless plug* It seems like a good place to mention that we here at IgniteHQ have solutions for our clients on how they can effectivly monitor the web and educate the distribtuor on “how not to ruin the opportunity.” Our technology platform also allows your distributors to pubish safe content to social networks, like facebook and twitter, without you (the company) losing control. Send us an email if you’d like to learn more.
Posted in MLM, MLM Legal, Network Marketing, consulting, interaction, social media | No Comments »
Friday, May 1st, 2009
Loved reading this article about Stewart Cink taking Twitter by storm. I’d love to get in-tournament commentary to my phone from Cink. I’d feel like I had the inside scoop, much like when Ryan Seacrest tweets during commercials (or so I’ve heard).
You can follow cink on Twitter @stewartcink
The ability to connect with people (fans) is what makes Twitter an excellent tool for deepening relationships. Follow us @ignitehq
Posted in interaction, listening, social media | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008
In reflecting on the growth of social media during the year, I recently dug up an article from february by business week that appropriately stated…
“Social Media Will Change Your Business: Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up…or catch you later”
It has been good to see how fast companies have begun adopting a social media strategies, including blogging, as the business week article discussed. If business week were to re-write their february article they would probably devote much more to the other aspects of social media because blogging is simply one aspect.
Hindsight is always 20/20 and this topic gets me thinking about 2009 and what my predictions regarding social media will be? Its late, I’ll save the post for another day.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Friday, December 5th, 2008
Last week New York Times president Scott Heekin-Canedy released an eight-page memo praising the success of the newspaper’s Facebook advertising campaign, which went live in the days following the Presidential election.
“The goals […] were to increase our number of Facebook fans; raise awareness of NYTimes.com as an interactive news center; and engage the Facebook community in a conversation about the election outcome,” Heekin-Canedy premised.
According to Nieman Lab, Facebook users were invited to answer NYT-sponsored question, “What should Barack Obama do first as president?” They could also send virtual gifts: a Times front page with “Obama Wins” headlined at top.
The gift was sent to more than 400,000 people. The exposure also helped quadruple the number of New York Times fans on its Facebook page. (As of this writing, the total number of fans is 183,913 from an initial 49,000.)
Heekin-Canedy said the figure “far exceeded our 2008 goal of 100,000 fans.” But the “greatest success of the campaign […] is that our fans continue to rapidly grow […] into a powerful, free word-of-mouth network that we will leverage for future marketing messages.”
As a final touch, the paper purchased exclusive ad space on Facebook’s front page, featuring a video of Obama with an open comments section. The ad was viewed by 68.3 million users, and over 34,000 comments were submitted.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
It appears that SanDisk gets it. They are planning a marketing blitz across several social sites, including facebook and twitter to help promote sales of their data storage devices on Cyber Monday.
They have done it right by looking for a specific target, in this case they sought to reach people that are passionate about movies, music and photography. Some of the things they did in this push include, placing short promotional clips featuring tech personality Gadget Grrl on video-sharing sites (YouTube, Vimeo, Veo, Blip, MetaCafe, etc.), they created branded pages to promote the sale across social sites like Facebook and on Twitter and they enlisted some key bloggers for editorial coverage.
They are measuring success by the number of email addresses collected, video interaction, Facebook ad results, and traffic to Sandisk’s Cyber Monday website.
Posted in Small business, gathering, social media | No Comments »
Monday, December 1st, 2008
Goodnite Latitude, it has been a good time and you have been kind, however, its time for more meaning behind the name of the company.
As you know, we offer social media services - from private online communities, to social media campaigns on the web including managing clients brands throughout the social web and on other social sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. Its is time for a new website, name and brand to better express our talents, services and technology that we offer. We are re-branding the company officially as Ignite Media, LLC - IgniteHQ.com.
The new logo above is an attempt to demonstrate our forward thinking, and creative offering. The word ingite itself gives a feeling of fl ames. We went with a green color as a sign of “growth and nature” to avoid the usual orange and yellowish colors of fire (which give out a negative feeling). The green has softened the concept and is more organic, which is similar to our message of grass roots marketing, word of mouth marketing, social media marketing, and natural traffic flow from good content.
Some feedback we’vre received is that it looks like a logo for an “Energy Drink” company or a skateboarding company. My answer is…so. Our services are not traditional marketing and our technology is cutting edge, so I think it fits. But what you do think?
Leave a comment and let me know.
Posted in Small business, social media | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
One of the great results from a more open and social internet is the power that becomes vested in the people. It allows them to get the things they need - information, products, negotiation power, support, ideas - from each other instead of having to rely on companies.
This is great for us, and can be troubling for businesses. Many companies have learned to adapt and to harness the listening and speaking power that is found in a more social internet. They adopt their strategies and engage with their customers effectively. These companies get it and are benefiting from it.
Occationally there are uprising within the social web that cause headache and trouble that companies are not used to. Recently
Johnson and Johnson pulled an online advertisement for its over-the-counter pain pill Motrin after it triggered protest on the Internet from consumers who thought the ad was an insensitive portrayal of women’s pain.
The incident illustrates how quickly consumer response on so-called social-media sites can influence corporate behavior.
Johnson & Johnson are one of the companies that “get it” and I beleive responded well to the uprising. Their response helps keep loyalty to their brand and, I imagine, spared them additional costs in marketing and in brand repair.
With my new company, Latitude Interactive, we have begun helping businesses thrive in the social media space by helping them create and monitor communities. We are targeting certain industry’s right now and will roll our services out to other industrys soon.
Tags: customer service, social backlash, social media
Posted in listening, social media | No Comments »
Monday, November 17th, 2008
It isn’t new, yet it is. The ability to evolve in order to survive within a competitive landscape is a consistent business principle and, with the growing popularity of interactive tools like wikis, blogs and social networks - which give customers the ability to engage with firms as never before - CMO’s and global marketers find themselves at the evolve or die point again. Businesses must put users at the center of their operations to respond to this new and challenging reality, which is the core of a new study of global CMOs conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Google, reports MarketingCharts.
The report, “Future Tense: The Global CMO” (pdf), finds marketers are increasingly able to reach out to consumers at all points along the value chain, not just at the moment a purchase decision is made. Because of this, global marketing of the future must engage all corporate stakeholders with consistent, constant and accurate messaging. At the same time, it must encourage and be able to respond quickly to customer feedback and involvement, pulling stakeholders closer to the corporate brand.
In terms of progress toward this goal, 56% of the 263 marketing executives surveyed agreed that their company is highly customer-centric and that marketing functions are interwoven throughout their operations.
CMOs are also responding to the fact that consumers have many sources of information and are becoming more sophisticated in their purchasing decisions. “Now when you push a marketing message out there, something comes back. If it’s a great message, if it resonates and it’s real, the boomerang is going to be positive,” said Lauren Flaherty, CMO of Nortel Networks, an interviewee for the report. “But if it’s off message and it’s not genuine, or if it’s perceived as being disingenuous, you get slammed.”
Currently, CMOs view the most important media for meeting marketing objectives as conferences and events, consumer/business magazines, TV and trade magazines.
In contrast, a year from now, they anticipate that the top-four most important media will be conferences and events, TV, online content sites and consumer/business magazines. This reflects the growing influence of online media.
The report provides the following recommendations based on findings:
Balance global brand awareness with local market relevance: Centralizing global marketing functions, such as advertising development and production, can create economies of scale and save money, but they must be guided by the needs of the local market. At the same time, marketing budgets must be decentralized so that regional directors can make appropriate decisions based on market demands.
Integrate marketing with other corporate communications: Both the interactive nature of Web 2.0 technologies and the transparency of corporate messages among different constituencies require the integration of various forms of marketing and communications. Businesses can no longer segment audiences and messages as if audiences don’t talk to each other.
Adopt new media: Organizations should consider setting aside a specific budget for experimenting with the newest Web 2.0 technologies. The CMO should have the foresight to anticipate how different constituencies will respond to different events, messages and channels, and should be able to deal with the proliferation of new-media tools and expanded audiences.
Develop new skills, capabilities-and partnerships: CMOs must understand the fundamental business model, brand, culture, policies and values of the organization. Equally important in terms of adapting to the evolution of new media are partnerships with vendors whose expertise can be used to take new initiatives to market faster-and more effectively-than a company would on its own.
Champion innovation: The need for greater accountability for marketing expenditure is pushing global companies towards digital marketing campaigns with higher returns than traditional media. The interactive nature of the latest digital-media vehicles provides the opportunity to develop deeper insights into customer dynamics and allows the CMO to become the corporate champion of customer insight.
“The CMO of the future must be the chief proponent of close engagement with customers,” says Nigel Holloway, Director, Americas, Industry and Management Research, at the Economist Intelligence Unit. “Rather than merely pushing out the corporate message to consumers, marketers must draw them in so that they are regarded as helpful participants in the development of the brand.”
About the survey: The research is based on a global survey of 263 marketing executives conducted in February 2008. Among respondents, 30% held C-level titles. In terms of geographic distribution of respondents, 35% were based in Western Europe, 29% in Asia-Pacific and 20% in North America, with the remainder coming from Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. Respondents hailed from nearly 20 industries and their organizations had annual revenue of $500 million or more
Posted in consulting, gathering, interaction, listening, social media | No Comments »
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
When making a decision to buy, word of mouth marketing takes the cake. Word of mouth marketing takes shape on the web in the form of conversations between customers. These conversations never die, meaning, they never end and can never be forgotten. They remain immortailized online for countless potential customers to read and gain value from.
Which leads to the two questions we typically ask business owners…how are you involved in the online conversation about your brand and industry? and, What is your social media business strategy?
A recent study shows that an overwhelming majority (93 percent) of online Americans say companies should have a social-media presence, and 85 percent believe these companies also should be interacting with consumers through social media.
The 2008 Social Media Study also reveals the depth and breadth of social media interaction with companies. Some 60 percent of Americans interact with companies using social media, one in four interact more than once per week, and 56 percent feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they interact via social media.
The news here is that Americans are eager to deepen their brand relationships through social media.
Posted in Small business, interaction, social media | No Comments »