Mas o que a Colgate fez? Bom, a Colgate criou o "Eles 3", uma espécie de blog reality show com 3 jovens "plugados" - Fernando, Thais e Helton -, que participam de desafios e contam seu dia-a-dia no blog. A apresentação na home resume bem a idéia: "três pessoas como você. Diversão, baladas, surpresinhas no dia-a-dia, mimos constantes e ainda por cima, de quebra, uma graninha no final do mês. Esses 3 sortudos foram escolhidos pela Close up para ficar bem pertinho de você durante 3 meses. Tudo rolando no blog que mostra o cotidiano desses 3 participantes." 

Você deve estar pensando "A Colgate deve encher o blog com barnners de produtos e promoções de vendas". Engano, não há nada disso, é pura experiência de marca. Depois dessa você pensa "Fácil, branding falando de higiene e beleza, tudo ligado à pasta...". Engano novamente, o blog fala do cotidiano desses jovens. Agora você deve estar perguntando "Que cacete então eles querem com isso?". Simples, inserir a marca no cotidiano desses jovens - há algo mais cotidiano do que escovar os dentes? Ainda mais essa garotada na onda dos "beijos" (época boa...). Uma boa estratégia de branding deve se focar na essência do objeto segundo o ponto de vista de quem usa. Na web esse preceito deve ser mantido, porém, agora com tradução simultânea ;)

J'ajoute un lien vers la plateforme de vote Wikio et l'interview sortie dans le Journal du Net ce matin :

Interview au Journal du Net - 01er juillet 2008

Yann Gourvennec (Orange Business Services) : "Nous sommes naturellement positionnés sur la sécurité de bout en bout"

ygourven | depuis 7 minutes

Lespécialiste des solutions de communication d'entreprise lance un espaced'expression et de communication dédié à ses experts en sécurité. Lesdétails du projet. Vous lancez des blogs d'experts, pour quellesraisons ? Notre démarche de lancement de blogs d'experts répond en faità plusieurs objectifs. Il s'agit d'abord de positionner Orange BusinessServices sur des segments innovants où nous sommes ...

Le marketing est-il mort ou doit-il simplement se réinventer ? C'est la question que je posais et que j'ai développée dans une intervention récente au CRC (centre de formation continue) d'HEC, à Jouy en Josas.  Dans un article en 2 parties - dont la première est publiée sur mon blog Anglais - je retrace le cheminement de la présentation. La deuxième partie - encore à venir - décrira comment le web et le marketing de communauté sur Internet peut apporter une réponse à cette problèmatique de base marketing.

• Lire l'article ici :community marketing (part one): UGC is part of the Internet DNA

Rejoice ye visionary readers, rejoice!  The tide of marketing is turning at last.  After more than 13 years of battling against autistic -- and largely inefficient -- old world marketing techniques and visions, we are now witnessing a few cracks in the ice of top-down marketing strategy.  Firstly, Regis Mc Kenna and Geoffrey Moore introduced new ways of dealing with clients mainly in the IT world at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s.  The approach was no longer demographic but behavioural.  Secondly, European researchers Badot & Cova wrote their ground-breaking opus entitled "neo-marketing[Fr]" in 1992 (many were to follow) introducing so-called "societal" approaches to marketing and even suggesting we use the term "societing [En]" instead of marketing.  (Wasn't that visionary?  Bernard Cova now teaches mostly at the prestigious Bocconi school in Milan, and I've also had the pleasure of becoming friends with him in the meantime).

The end of the 1990s were the founding years of -- not only of the Internet but -- the revision of marketing as we know it.  Seth Godin taught us that ideas are viruses -- and so are products and services -- hence the newer and more pervasive notions of Buzz marketing.  He also re-educated us (yes, I insist, really re-educated) in order to ask permission from our clients to do business with them.  Not only was that the early sign that e-mail marketing had to be done differently, but it also sent a clear warning sign to mass marketers that business habits had to change in view of evolving consumer behaviours.  1999 was the kick-off year for the much revered Clue-train manifesto, a source which is still quoted today as the reference for online marketing.  And more recently, Tara Hunt has developed and notion of Pinko marketing, a rather weird and politically orientated way of putting that communication power is handed over to the people. Yet, this is very effective when it comes to getting the message across.  Even more recently, François Laurent published a new book entitled marketing 2.0[Fr].  Marketing 2.0 is in fact the sequel to his influential blog: marketing is dead[Fr], but what is really striking is that François -- a former marketer at European ex-consumer electronics manufacturer Thomson -- is more widely known as the president of one of the two French associations of marketing, Adetem.  Lastly Alain Thys is adding to the bargain by expostulating in his excellent marketing accountability presentation that marketing is not only dead but that it committed suicide in front of its shareholders, clients and even the earth!  Nothing less.

No doubt this time, things are moving ahead, even though the proportion of UGC is still low, there is an underlying trend of change, and this is not coming back to what it was before. So as it is becoming more and more obvious to all that markets really are conversations there is this requirement for a growng number of enterprises to quickly be in sync with this evolution and gear up to community marketing

And then there is Forrester research VP and Principal Analyst Laura Ramos, with whom I had the benefit of being acquainted a few days ago, as we were exchanging on the subject.  In May 2007, Laura (see links to some of the most recent and most relevant articles) had a story entitled: "B2B marketers fail the community marketing test".  Her conclusions are clear-cut and uncompromising.  To sum them up in a few words:

1. marketing needs to change in the light of evolving behaviour and rising power of clients (is not only consumers guys, we are talking b2b here!)
2. top-down and patronising, self-centred, at marketing messages and must be adapted to reflect these changes.  A new tone of voice must be adopted.
3. current marketers are doing a pretty bad job at tying the knot with their clients and -- to put it in the words of the blue train manifesto -- engaging in conversations with them.

Strangely enough, I see hope through this report of Laura's.  After years of evangelisation I am not now feeling that there is this shared requirement -- I get it from talking to managers themselves -- to turn marketing practices around and better use web (even though it was her lately rebranded ‘social media', see my other comments on Frederic Cavazza's post here) techniques to better market.

This is why Corporate Web content policies have to change too in order to accomodate these evolutions. This was the gist of my presentation at HEC (the leading European business school) on June 20, in which I depicted my vision of the business world and how we web professionals should respond to that requirement. The title of my presentation couldn't be anything else than 'reinventing marketing', and moving towards what I call 'addictive' web content policies.  In essence, there is nothing new with things I did even more than ten years ago. When wanting to position our new Internet Banking venture at Unisys rather than build yet another web page on our supposed capabilities -- and few could believe us because we hadn't proved our point yet -- I went on building the 'Internet Banking Barometer' (still visible here at archive.org, the memory of the Internet) based on a comprehensive review of all British banks I had made. Since we couldn't prove our point with declarations of our own making, we could evaluate existing initiatives instead and ensure that, through the design of pertinent content and comments, we were establishing the credibility we lacked and could engage in discussions with people who didn't even know we existed before. Each review was carefully worded and validated not only internally but also with each of the representatives of each bank, included the then state-owned Bank of England. How encouraging that was, and how useful too in our engagements with newor existing clients. This was sufficient to prove our point that we too had something to bring in the Internet banking arena. To an extent we were only applying Seth Godin's ideavirus principle ... 5 years before it was written though.

Thus we have established the requirement for reinventing marketing, in part two we will soon investigate how the web can support community marketing.

I was interested in this new web site because just recently someone said that a twitterer version of Alltop.com ought to be created. Lo and behold, a few days later, here it is in the form of Twellow. I scanned the main categories and they looked like a typical yellow pages. There was no category on the home page for 'finance', and none for 'social media.' So I really didn't give it a second thought. However, some of my twitter friends (CUWarrior and Christopher Stevenson) were more thoughtful, and plugged 'credit union' into the search field to see the results. The results showed 15 credit union twitterers. By default, people are shown in descending order by the number of followers. At the time of this writing, the Top 10 results were: @CUWarrior, @TonyMannor, @weatherchaos, @RobWright, @CreativeBrand, @Clint_Williams, @mfagala, @markiev33, @Kent_CULifer, and @BenJoeM.

I took at look at who was being listed, and have deduced some of the ways in which the site works to list people.

Up until now, the only real purpose of your Twitter bio (limited to 160 characters), was to be interesting. If someone was interested in being your Twitter friend, their decision might be influenced by your bio. But if Twellow takes off in popularity (Mashable calls Twellow the people directory that Twitter itself ought to have built. Review hat tip: Ginny Brady), then your Twitter bio becomes much more important.

Twellow uses your twitter bio to categorize you.

Suddenly a creative bio is much less attractive than a straightforward bio if you are interested in being listed "well" in this directory. Each of the 15 people on the search results for 'credit union' had (surprise, surprise) the word "credit union" in their bio. This prompted Tim McAlpine to question why he wasn't on the list. The answer is that right now Twellow is DUMB when it comes to singular vs. plural. Searching for "credit unions" yields a different list of five people than "credit union", and includes Tim. We'll see how long Twellow remains "dumb" in this way.

One last point about how Twellow categorizes people: Twellow has an algorithm that puts you into certain categories based on the keywords in your twitter bio. This is different than the simple and straightforward search (i.e. searching "credit union" yields the results of those who have "credit union" in their bio.) Keywords have been sorted, so that the word "CEO" in your bio puts you into three categories: Management, Management -> Executives, and Management -> Executives -> CEOs. Check out the categories that other people have been put in, and examine their bios to deduce what keywords have put them there.

I have updated my twitter bio armed with this new information. I am wondering how long it will take for Twellow to re-index me. I'm guessing I'll be waiting for a re-index longer than it takes the Twellow programmers to get "smart" about singulars vs. plurals.

***Update 11:50 pm***
@William Azaroff cracked the code after reading this post, of how to get Twellow to re-index you after you change your Twitter bio. Once you've changed your Twitter bio, go to the Twellow page Get Listed, and submit your twitter username. Twellow will give you an error message, saying that the name is already indexed. However, within a couple of minutes, Twellow will re-index your profile and get the latest information available from twitter, including latest tweet and bio. Within five minutes, your changed bio will be reflected in Twellow's search results. Feel free to mix, experiment and optimize how you want to be found on Twellow.

But I contend that social media never really began -- not on the web anyway.

What it seems to me that people fail to realize is that social media is not some fad like the Pet Rock or Ugg Boots (ugh indeed); it's been going on since the dawn of time as club-wielding cavemen built -- and leveraged -- social networks to snag a bigger feast or a more spacious dwelling.  And it has continued throughout history as large sects of the population broke off into sub-sets forming religious groups, political parties, and public houses (today known as 'pubs' -- isn't the web really just a virtual bar that never closes?), all leveraging some type of social media vehicle to organize like-minded individuals and gather together.

And while most of that 'gathering' today happens online, the concept itself was not born with the advent of the Internet.

It's an inherent part of our make up as humans to congregate and socialize.  Where that congregation takes place is irrelevant.  What matters is that it does take place, and more importantly, that substantive relationships are formed through it.

Relationships.  A critical element of the process that no one ever seems to talk about, opting to latch onto the word 'social' because it's 'hot' right now.  And, interestingly, where most sites -- and initiatives -- fail.

The social aspect of the engagement is only step 1, and the easiest part of the process in my opinion.  And it's really just a catalyst for communication and conduit for connection anyway.  With the right amount of hype and viral buzz, you can easily draw the masses (e.g. Plurk).

But the trick is keeping them there.  And building, cultivating and sustaining the relationship.  That's the attraction -- and the power -- of the social web.  Creating meaningful encounters that are relevant to you and your circle of friends/peers/colleagues.  And then leveraging those relationships -- and your sphere of influence -- to some actionable end.

As a marketer, social media is just a set of tools that I employ for clients.  And it's not even the only set.  Nor is it limited to the web.  When the focus is aptly centered around connecting people, in this case, a business with its customers, the relationship is paramount, and then you simply bring in the tools needed to achieve that objective.

One of the tools employed could be the web.  Or it could be an e-mail.  Or a text message.  Or, dare I say it, even a print communication.  And, in all likelihood, it's a combination of all these things (or, at least, it should be) so that you have a fully integrated marketing mix -- and multiple touch points -- to engage in a two-way conversation with your audience.

What makes it 'social' is that conversation.  And the ability to interact directly with customers.  Not shouting one-way at throngs of users, with little to no relevancy, on oversaturated social networks under the guise of 'social media' or 'social marketing' or some other equally glib term.  It would be more accurate to refer to it as 'harnessing relationship media for social sustainability' but that's not just pithy enough for the divas.

Vous pouvez consulter l'interview que François m'a accordé pour les  Entretiens du Futur sur le lien suivant :

http://entretiens-du-futur.blogspirit.com/archive/2008/06/21/marketing-2-0-l-intelligence-collective.html

NDLR: vous pouvez aussi consulter la revue du livre de François Laurent intitulée 'le sans culotte du Marketing' en cliquant ici

Les réseaux sociaux, les forums, les communautés, sont d'excellents moyens pour les débusquer. Encore faut-il, au delà d'en parler, les fréquenter et être en écoute active.

Ce qui est valable pour ces co-créateurs / innovateurs orientés plutôt technologies l'est pour tous utilisateurs, clients consommateurs de produits / services." (sic)

Ils constituent ce que j'appelle dans l'article "la longue traîne des talents 2.0" à lire dans son intégralité sur le Journal du Net ici :

http://www.journaldunet.com/expert/crm-marketing/28647/la-longue-traine-des-talents-individuels-2-0-un-gisement-mal-exploite.shtml

Bonn lecture

Denis Failly
http://www.entretiens-du-futur.com

C'è sempre più desiderio di trasparenza, trasparenza come eticità, aziende non come nidi di segreti da strappare al concorrente, ma come veicoli di esperienze. Il che ci introduce al tema del brand, l'ipostasi, l'icona di questo rapporto, molto ben trattato nella successiva presentazione di Univisual.

Abbiamo sondato il terreno, a contatto con direttori marketing e responsabili di agenzie, e abbiamo visto che il modo migliore per introdurre il 2.0 è non sorprendere nessuno con la "guerrilla", ma essere semplici riguardo ai vantaggi concreti di una presenza nei network sociali, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, MySpace, a diretto contatto con la pancia del mercato espressa nella Long Tail.

E alla fine questo è stato il risultato, per nulla scontato alla partenza

Not only free, an exiting event as well I must say. A lot of interesting and inspiring speakers, among which Richard van Hooijdonk from Marketing Monday (NL). Richard is one of the most important consultants in Holland on Marketing 2.0. We had a short interview with him.

There was more: Joris van Heukelom (NL), the new CEO of Ilse Media (NL), the largest internet publisher in The Netherlands, told us that the internet is still in its infancy, more and more changes are to be expected within a short period of our time. Those of you who think that we've just passed the biggest wave of change are wrong. Says van Heukelom.

That significant changes are to be expected shortly was demonstrated by Menno van Doorn (NL) of VINT, a research institute in new technology. Together with VINT colleagues, Menno wrote the book, Me the Media, about the history and future of the third media revolution. An interesting book (which we immediately have ordered, a review will follow).
But that was not the most astonishing of the presentation, the demonstration of augmented reality was. Soon, it will be possible to pull up graphics out of your tv, computer or mobile phone that will become an integrated part of you environment. (See also How stuff works). In the demo a virtual car appeared on he table. And if that wasn't enough, someone in the audience was asked to park the car in a parking lot, that was drwn o a piece of paper. Talking about experience...

We're curious where marketing is by the time of the second National Marketing Day...

Woah, Ron, hold on there. You may be right, but I think you are wrong on this point, and here's why: Why haven't banks and credit unions gone running to develop their own P2P Lending solution as of yet? For most FIs, there are many reasons: 1.) They haven't heard of P2P Lending. 2.) They don't see why lots of people would jump on this. 3.) They aren't legally able to do it. 4.) They don't see it as significantly different than what they are currently doing. 5.) It would canibalize their own lending business 6.) Their field of membership/geographic reach is too small to make the investment in technology infrastructure worthwhile 7.) Most FI's don't have the resources in time, expertise and dollars to invest in such an effort.

But say you ARE a huge bank, and do have the time, expertise, and resources to roll your own P2P Lending solution. You still have a number of strikes against you.

1.) Prosper has a multi-year headstart on you. This headstart is significant in customers, transactions, reputation, and expertise, both technological and tactical.
2.) Why would people choose you over Prosper? This is where reputation is all-important. If you've been fee'ing your customers to death, they're not going to come running to you just because you announce you have P2P Lending.

I can hear the counter-argument now: "Prosper is a niche presence that most Americans have never heard of."

Indeed, while the current membership of 725,000 is a small percentage of all Americans, it is nevertheless big enough to make it the fourth largest credit union in the nation if it were a credit union. And Prosper is growing fast, and is now starting to advertise. Also, while this membership is still relatively small, it is composed of the early adopters. While the mega-banks have advertising budgets that may exceed Propser's entire operating budget, for the most part, the people who would go online and use P2P lending are not the ones that would be influenced by television and other mass-media. The people who utilize P2P Lending are the people who are involved in social media, such as blogging, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Brightkite, etc.

Prosper has what I call the eBay advantage. eBay is not the best auction technology that exists. I'm sure Christie's and Sotheby's have superior auction sites. But eBay is where everyone is, which is an upward cycle. All the buyers are there, which means that all the sellers go there, which means that all the buyers go there, etc. And the other thing which continues to make eBay the place to go for your online auctions is the issue of reputation. Hundreds of thousands of people have carefully managed their reputation in online buying and selling on eBay, and this reputation is not transferable. All these folks are not going to leave behind their reputation on which they've expended huge effort. And now that Prosper has community reputation features in P2P lending and borrowing, all the more reason why Prosper will remain the place to go in P2P Lending.

Okay, that's my two cents, tell me why I'm wrong! :)

With e-commerce growth rates predicted to decline, online businesses wishing to outperform competition and gain market share, are increasingly required to invest in order to differentiate themselves, deploy richer and innovative applications and deliver more personal, compelling and engaging online user experiences.

Scene7, part of Adobe Systems, released the results of a business survey entitled "Web 2.0 Experience 2008 and beyond", identifying and analysing how online businesses will be investing in order to enhance their customer experience. Key findings indicated that more than 50 percent plan to deploy new features and rich Internet enhancements including ...

- Eu (ou alguém da minha empresa) sei "conversar" com esses líderes de comunidades e/ou blogueiros?

- Eles conhecem realmente tudo o que minha empresa faz?

- Eu posso imaginar estratégias de comunicação que contem com a participação desses "hubs"? Como faço isso?

- Como devo tratá-los? Como mídias? Como público? Como consumidor?

- Esses canais estão prontos para discutir comigo (e minha empresa)?

- Esses canais estáo dispostos a discutir comigo (e minha empresa)?

- Eu sei como potencializar eventuais resultados positivos em rede?

- Eu sei como gerenciar uma crise em mídia social? :(

(Cliquez ICI pour voir les gagnants de l'édition 2007 du concours)

Comme chaque année, je lance mon concours des meilleurs conseils en marketing. Le principe est simple : c'est à vous de proposer vos meilleurs conseils !

Il vous suffit de trouver un conseil, une astuce, un truc, une manière de faire… pratique et concret pour développer ses ventes, fidéliser ses clients, faire connaître son entreprise, trouver des prospects, une technique de vente… que cela soit sur internet ou dans la "vraie vie".

Ce conseil peut tenir en quelques lignes, ou être un article complet ! Envoyez tout simplement un email avec vos conseils à fred@conseilsmarketing.fr

Pour cette deuxième année c'est 450 € de cadeaux pour VOUS !

Pour le 1er c'est 238 € à gagner !
- Un chèque de 150 €
- 3 Casquettes Playboy (valeur 12 €)
- 1 DVD "Combien vaut l'entreprise que vous désirez céder ou racheter" par Robert Papin (valeur 76 €)

Pour le second : 154 € à gagner !
- Un chèque de 70 €
- 2 Casquettes Playboy (valeur 8 €)
- 1 DVD "Réaliser le diagnostic financier d'une entreprise" par Robert Papin, valeur 76 €

Pour le troisième c'est 58 € à gagner !
- Un chèque de 50 €
- 2 Casquettes Playboy (valeur 8 €)

Voici ci-dessous un modèle de réponse dont vous pouvez vous inspirer :

Thème: Conseils Buzz Marketing
Titre (100 caractères maxi): Proposez un mini guide en PDF pour faire connaître votre site !
Contenu (600 caractères environ): Un très bon moyen de faire connaître mon site internet, c’est de compiler les meilleurs articles que vous avez rédigé sur votre Blog et d’en faire un mini guide en PDF. Pour cela faites un simple copier-coller de vos articles sous Word (avec bien entendu une couverture, mise en page….), puis faites en la publicité via un communiqué de presse et une campagne d’emailing sur des sites influents (portail, blogs…) pour obtenir une bonne visibilité. C’est exactement ce que j’ai fait en publiant mon guide gratuit de 58 pages “25 conseils pour faire connaître son site internet”, qui a été téléchargé plus de 5 000 fois en 3 mois ! Par contre faites attention aux illustrations dont vous ne possédez pas les droits (par exemple les cliparts Microsoft ne sont utilisable que pour des documents � but non lucratif).
Votre nom : Frederic Canevet
Votre fonction : Webmaster
Site internet : www.conseilsMarketing.fr

Si votre ou vos conseils sont retenus parmi les meilleurs conseils marketing vous serez publié dans le guide 2008 “Les meilleurs Conseils en Marketing” (cliquez ICI pour voir l'édition 2007 et les conseils de nos participants !). Le résultat de ce concours sera annoncé le 15 septembre prochain (fin des envois de conseils 1  semaine avant) !

Pour départager les vainqueurs, le jury sera composé de Stéphane Moreau responsable des blogs Playboy, Maximal.., Thierry Debarnot de www.marketing-etudiant.fr et de moi-même !

But Nickell is at the vanguard of a new innovation model that is quietly reshaping a host of industries. Whether it's called user innovation, crowdsourcing, or open source, it means drastically rethinking your relationship with your customers. "Threadless completely blurs that line of who is a producer and who is a consumer," says Karim Lakhani, a professor at the Harvard Business School. "The customers end up playing a critical role across all its operations: idea generation, marketing, sales forecasting. All that has been distributed."

This idea goes against a basic principle that has been taught in business schools since the invention of mass production: Employees make stuff, and customers buy it. But this notion seems anachronistic in a marketplace of ever-narrowing niches and nearly unlimited consumer choices. Meanwhile, a generation of so-called Web 2.0 companies has succeeded by encouraging customers to contribute to, and in some cases create, the product being sold. Not only do we have instantaneous access to countless television programs though video websites, but anyone with a YouTube account and a digital camera can create a show of his or her own. Professionally edited, dead-tree newspapers are besieged by digital news sites that are produced and edited by their readers. The 240-year-old Encyclopaedia Britannica finds itself eclipsed -- at least in terms of readership -- by Wikipedia.com, which pays its writers nothing and requires that they possess no expertise at all.

Microsoft España ha lanzado una nueva campaña muy similar a la filosofía del Search and Give llamada Un Clic Solidario.

En una primera fase la ayuda se hará a los 8 temas principales solidarios según la ONU, comenzando por la creación de un pozo en Gao (Mali) conjuntamente con Acción contra el Hambre.

Además, si tienes la Windows Live Toolbar puedes ampliarla para esta campaña descargándote una ampliación.

Ficamos todos muito felizes com a audiência, a participação e a simpatia de todo o pessoal da Amcham (especialmente do Bob Wollheim, presidente do comitê e um entusiasta, empresário (Sixpix) e "amante" das novas mídias e formas de comunicação); mas algo que realmente nos entusiasmou foi ratificar que a nossa principal missão é "evangelizar" e criar o mercado, tanto pelo lado das empresas quanto pelo lado dos hubs sociais (blogueiros, líderes de comunidades, etc.). Agora é correr!!!

Unfortunately, there's a gigantic gap between coining a term and embodying it—and thus we hear a lot of talk and see very few results on any of the above fronts (though the Genius does her best to chronicle those rare gems that do).

Today's Bonafide Genius Awards go—for better or worse—to two shining examples in the "talk" category. (It seems my search for examples of "results" this week has been fruitless.) Clever, pointed, entertaining, and spot-on in their articulation of the industry cross-roads that smart marketing pros are responding to, they're shining examples of how dull, cliche terms get a new shine when someone puts a little Genius into their message.

Congrats to Openhere for The Break Up and Paul Isakson of space150 for What's Next in Marketing & Advertising.

Advertising 2.0 Genius (a.k.a. "The Break-Up")

Marketing 2.0 Strategy (a.k.a. "What's Next in Marketing & Advertising")

[slideshare id=318143&doc=whats-next-in-marketing-advertising-1206247156803190-3&w=425]

P.S. A good number of you (the smarter ones, that is) have already seen these, but for the rest of you... watch and learn.

For those of you not knee-deep in credit union world, you probably didn't even know that these two organizations even existed. And by some chance you have heard of CUNA, you most definitely didn't know that there are two distinct organizations with different buildings, purposes, and personnel, located in Madison. (The buildings are located about two feet from each other in the same corporate park, but they are separate buildings, and both very large.) CUNA is the national trade organization for credit unions in the United States, and its primary goal is to advance the credit union movement, primarily through political advocacy. CUNA Mutual, now CUNA Mutual Group, or CMG for short (as if that is less confusing), is an insurance company, which provides insurance to credit unions and credit union members nationwide.

With names like CUNA and CUNA Mutual, you can understand why people might not have realized these two organizations are distinct. It's really a bummer that the term "credit union" is two words, because it means that virtually any names that derive from it are going to be lengthy long. (Lengthy long is much longer than ordinary long and even longer than very, very long.) Because these names end up being a mouthful, insiders tend to reduce them down to their initialisms or acronyms. (Here's the difference between these two terms, which I had not realized until yesterday.)

Because there are SO many of these credit union organizations, one MUST NOT give in to the temptation to shorten them. ESPECIALLY NOT TO THE PUBLIC, who has no clue what you are talking about, and is therefore easily confused by them. See which of this jumble of alphabet soup you are familiar with:

CUNA - Credit Union National Association
CUSO - Credit Union Service Organization
CUES - Credit Union Executives' Society
CULAC - Credit Union Legislative Action Committee
CURIA - Credit Union Regulatory Improvements Act
CUMIS - CUNA Mutual Insurance Society
CUMAA - Credit Union Membership Access Act
CUSC - Credit Union Service Centers
CCUE - Certified Credit Union Executive
CCACU - Combined Council of Automotive Credit Unions (presumably CACU is already taken, or too confusing with California Credit Unions?)
CUIAA - Credit Union Internal Auditors Association
CUSIP - Committee on Uniform Security Identification Procedures (Did we not already have enough acronyms with CU in them that we had to invent some more THAT DON'T EVEN STAND FOR CREDIT UNION? yeeeeesh.)
CLIC - CUIS Loan Insurance Components (CUIS is CUMIS minus Mutual?)
NCUA - National Credit Union Administration
NCUF - National Credit Union Foundation
NACUSO - National Association of Credit Union Service Organizationss
NASCUS -National Association of State Credit Union Supervisors
NACUSAC - National Association of Credit Union Supervisory & Auditing Committees
NACUC - National Association of Credit Union Chairmen
NCUIS - National Credit Union Income Services
NAFCU - National Association of Federal Credit Union
NCUSIF - National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund
NARCUP - National Association of Retired Credit Union People (I did NOT make that up!)
NASCCU - National Association of State Chartered Credit Unions
ITCUA - Information Technologies Credit Union Association
ACCU - Association of Corporate Credit Unions
ACUCE - America's Credit Union Conference and Exposition
AACUL - American Association of Credit Union Leagues
ACUMA - American Credit Union Mortgage Association
OCCU - Office of Corporate Credit Unions
WOCCU - World Council of Credit Unions

Have your eyes glazed over yet? That's not even getting into state credit union leagues, which nearly always use their initialisms to give us:
CCUL • NMCUA • NYSCUL (now CUANY) • GCUA • MDDCCUA • FCUL • ICUL • ICUS • KCUA • MNCUN and so forth

And all of this doesn't even factor in that many, if not most, credit unions like to shorten their names as well. And in some cases, that has led to even more bizarre abbreviations such as DFCU Financial Credit Union (which if in turn were initialized would be DFCUFCU) and SOFCU Community Credit Union (which, if initialized would become SOFCUCCU). There are more than 8,000 credit unions in the United States. That's 8,000 more abbreviations that use the letters C and U:

BECU • BCU • DCU • PSECU • UCU • USFCU • LCU • RCU • TFCU • VCU • KSFCU • TCCU • CCCU (there are 9!) • CCFCU • CCU (there are 14!) • ACU • AFCU • AHCU • BFCU • UMFCFCU and on and on and on and on and on...

By the way, you will never catch me referring to EverythingCU as ECU. Ever.

So while I adore you, Alphonse Desjardins, Edward Filene, Joseph Boivin, Monsignor Hevey, and the other founders of the movement, a curse on you for not figuring out a better name than "credit union" before it was too late to change it. But at least it's better than Bank of the People, or else we'd be doomed with BOPs everywhere and in everything. And that's much worse.

And thank you to TexasT for the Austin-hippy headline inspiration.

"The sole purpose of Marketing is to sell more to more people, more often and for more money."  Sergio Zyman

I agree with Zyman's quote whether it's Marketing 1.0 or Marketing 2.0.  I say this at the outset because I've heard people in agencies say that they have better things to do than write blog posts and update their status on Facebook.  In the little picture of daily demands, this may be true, but in the bigger picture of using these tools to truly understand an emerging medium they don't.

You can go to conferences and training sessions about social media all day long, but the only way to truly learn it is to do it, and learn with everyone else who is still trying to figure it out.  Again, the best way to do it is to use Marketing 2.0 to promote your agency.

The second of five ways to promote your agency using marketing 2.0:

2.  Participate! Join the conversation. 

These days, the best way to get people’s attention is not to engage consumers with a brand, but to host or facilitate a context for people to engage with one another. Blogs and forums allow agencies to take off their professional mask and get comfortable with their customers. It gives a comfortable, informal voice to your agency. 

Discover where your target audiences are online and join them there. Instead of waiting for our audiences to come to your Web site or blog,  join the conversation wherever it is—on users’ blogs, Web forums, MySpace, course Web sites, team rooms, wikis, etc. Build a profile and offer content and services that attract links, contacts and begin to build your audience. 

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Michael Gass, agency new business consultant, primarily to small and mid-size advertising agencies.

Nous allons très bientôt proposer un dossier complet en 3 partie sur Comment optimiser ses campagnes Google Adwords, avec plusieurs dizaines de pages de conseils et d’astuces pour réussir ses campagnes d’achat de mots clés sponsorisés.

En attendant la publication du Dossier Adwords, voici plus de 35 erreurs à ne pas commettre dans une campagne Google Adwords.

1 – Mettre tous ses mots clés dans 1 seule campagne, sans faire des groupes spécifiques.
2 – Payer le montant le moins cher pour ses mots clés au lancement de sa campagne
3 – N’écrire que 2 annonces pour toute ses campagnes de mots clés
4 – Ne pas créer des campagnes spécifiques pour les mots clés avec un fort Taux de Clics (CTR)
5 – Faire atterrir ses prospects sur la page d’accueil
6 – Enchérir uniquement sur les mots clés qui viennent à l’esprit sans utiliser les générateurs de mots clés de Google
7 – Ne pas supprimer de ses annonces les mots clés avec beaucoup d’affichages mais qui ne génèrent que peu ou pas de clics
8 – Ne sélectionner que des expressions d’un seul ou 2 mots clés maximum, mais aucune expression avec 3 mots clés et plus
9 – Faire de la publicité sur les sites de contenus (Adsense) avec la même stratégie que les mots clés sur le moteur de recherches de Google
10 – Ne pas ajouter de mots clés négatifs
11 – Ne pas faire de ciblage géographique (région, département, ville…).
12 – N’utiliser que des requêtes au sens large, et ne pas ajouter des mots clés d’actions comme comme “acheter XXXX”.
13 - Oublier que c’est du vrai argent qui est dépensé sur Google et augmenter son budget sans bien y réfléchir.
14 – Ne pas réfléchir à sa stratégie sur Adwords, et ne pas définir si le but est de recruter des prospects ciblés ou ratisser large… et ainsi mettre en place des campagnes adaptées à chaque stratégie.
15 – Ne pas installer Google Adwords Editor et utiliser uniquement Adwords “online”.
16 – Ne pas créer des campagnes “Test” pour tester des nouveaux mots clés, et ne pas noter les changements et les tests effectuer…
17 – Hésiter à arrêter complètement une campagne quand ses débuts ont été un échec, pour la refaire et mieux la penser.
18 – Copier les annonces de ses concurrents sans se distinguer.
19 – Chercher à être en position N°1 quelqu’en soit le prix.
20 – Négliger les mots clés “challengers” et les erreurs de frappe / orthographe sur les mots clés leaders.
21 – Garder des mots clés inactifs dans ses campagnes.
22 – Se faire concurrence soit même en utilisant les mêmes mots clés dans plusieurs de ses campagnes.
23 – Vérifier l’évolution de sa campagne Adwords qu’une fois par semaine (taux de clics, impression…) et non pas tous les jours.
24 – Ne pas tester des optimisations sur une campagne qui fonctionne correctement.
25 – Ne pas faire des statistiques sur le CA généré par Adwords et regarder uniquement les visites générées.
26 – Attendre 2 semaines avant de tirer des conclusions sur la rentabilité d’une annonce.
27 – Croire que son Quality Score va s’améliorer au fil du temps.
28 – N’acheter que des mots clés en recherche “exacte” mais avec très peu de trafic.
29 – N’utiliser dans ses annonces qu’une URL directe non optimisée (ex: http://www.monsite.com/page3), ou encore pire renvoyer ses prospects directement sur sa home page… tout cela au lieu de créer une page spécifique avec un titre spécifique contenant les mots clés dans l’URL comme http://www.motcléprincipal.com/produit1
30 – Ne pas montrer un bénéfice exclusif / unique de votre produit dans l’annonce
31 – Ne jamais mettre des prix dans l’annonce pour écrémer les prospects
32 – Réduire fortement dans les quelques jours le montant de son enchère dès qu’on est arrivé dans les premières positions en espérant rester dans les premières positions.
33 – Considérer qu’un Quality Score “Excellent” avec une enchère proche du minimale suffira pour vous faire remonter naturellement dans le classement.
34 – Fixer un budget Google Adwords et être content de le dépenser entièrement dans la journée… Alors que cela pourrait peut être dire que le budget journalier est dépensé dès 10h du matin !
35 – Ne pas tester des heures d’affichage de vos publicités.
36 - Ne pas optimiser les mots clés de sa page d’accueil ainsi que son temps de chargement.
37 – Penser que Google Adwords c’est facile !

Abonnez-vous à notre newsletter ou à notre flux RSS afin de recevoir le prochain dossier Google Adwords.

Cierto es que el tema de la igualdad es mucho más serio que caer en analizar tan sólo una banalidad o un error lingüístico como este, pero como este blog trata sobre comunicación, voy a valorar este tema bajo ese prisma.

La insistencia en duplicar el género en todas las palabras empleadas no sólo es que no me parezca igualitario, es que es de un hortera subidísimo; mucho más aún si encima a la duplicación de género se le suma la femeinización forzada de una palabra, tal y como ha hecho con los términos antes mencionados.

Lo de tratar de reinventar la masculinidad me lo callo. Bueno no, no me lo callo.¿A qué se está refiriendo exactamente? Explíquemelo porque no lo entiendo.

La masculinidad no tiene que reinventarse, la masculinidad o la feminidad es simplemente educación; se ha de ser consecuente consigo mismo y con el otro, se ha de ser comprensivo, amable, afable, cortés.... y este tipo de personas ya existe en la sociedad. No se trata de reinventar nada, sino de realizar una gestión apropiada de lo que ya hay, de la proximidad entre padres y madres con sus hijos, de nuestro sistema de enseñanza, de qué estamos dejando que nuestros hijos vean por la televisión, de qué tipo de programas reclamamos los ciudadanos que emitan las cadenas...

Particularmente la igualdad para mí es la naturalidad total a la hora de tratar los temas, y si nuestro idioma utiliza el género masculino como genérico en algunos términos eso no es machismo, eso simplemente son normas lingüísticas.

Para intentar continuar con la normalidad a la hora de tratar los temas, y poniéndole una pizca de humor a esta historia, os dejo un spot de una campaña de publicidad que una entidad de seguros realizó para publicitar algunos de sus servicios

Bueeeeeeno, vaaaaaale, es un spot algo machista (pero, la verdad me he partido de risa viéndolo).

Para compensar, aquí os dejo otro que seguro os va a gustar.

Eso es tomarse el tema con humor... me encanta esta campaña de publicidad. Por cierto, el hecho de colgarlo en youtube la está convertiendo en un viral en toda regla: ¡¡viva el marketing 2.0!!

Los cambios en los hábitos de consumo, la creación de nuevas empresas en la red y las nuevas ideas de negocio de los emprendedores, han modificado el panorama empresarial en los últimos años. Algunas de las consecuencias de estos cambios en el mercado son la adaptación de las pymes a las nuevas tecnologías y la pérdida de los oficios tradicionales.

Sin embargo, es precisamente el avance tecnológico el que puede hacer que un negocio, que en principio por su carácter artesano podría parecer que está avocado a la desaparición, funcione. Muchas de estas empresas sobreviven a esos cambios gracias a su capacidad para adaptarse las nuevas tendencias de venta y aprovechar las ventajas del comercio online.

Buscando entre las pocas empresas que quedan dedicadas a oficios tradicionales, encontramos el taller Antonio Benlloch de Godella (Valencia) dedicado en exclusiva durante más de 30 años a la fabricación artesanal de abanicos. Se trata de un negocio familiar que elabora a mano cada uno de sus productos, ofreciendo a sus clientes la posibilidad de personalizarlos.

El trabajo prácticamente no ha cambiado; tres generaciones de artesanos mantienen la fabricación tradicional en su taller, cortando la madera, pegando las varillas y pintando las telas. Pero ahora su modelo de negocio es distinto. Si hace treinta años, los clientes llegaban al taller de los Benlloch gracias al “boca a oreja” y solían llegar desde Godella o municipios aledaños. Hoy, estos artesanos valencianos tienen clientes por toda España y en Europa y han convertido sus abanicos en los mejores de nuestro país.

Y es que gracias a Internet, cualquier usuario interesado en sus productos puede comprarlos online a través de su página web. Si el taller de los Benlloch no hubiera abierto su tienda en Internet y confeccionado un catálogo de productos electrónicos, su pequeña empresa se habría perdido por falta de conocimiento de su negocio y escasez de clientes. Sin embargo, Internet le ha abierto las puertas a un nuevo mercado, con casi 18 millones de clientes potenciales sólo en España y capaz de hacer llegar su oferta a cualquier parte del mundo.

“Tener éxito en los negocios online no depende del tamaño ni de la trayectoria de la empresa sino de saber diseñar una estrategia de ventas en la red que se adapte a los intereses de cada una de ellas”, comenta Jesús Lasso, Director de Marketing de webactiva, la empresa responsable del diseño y contenido de la web del taller Benlloch. “Existen muchos negocios que se van quedando obsoletos y, en este contexto, Internet se ha convertido en una herramienta esencial para relanzar una pequeña empresa aumentando sus ventas y su cartera de clientes”, concluye Lasso.

En estos días, cuando las tecnologías cambian de la noche a la mañana, los oficios artesanales han encontrado en la red la mejor solución para mantener su parcela de negocio y no sean olvidados. Este taller de abanicos artesanales es sólo un ejemplo.

¡Queda inaugurado este blog!

Pero no hay cocktail de bienvenida, ni vino español ni bocata pa viejunos.

Comenzamos con un post de Juan Freire en Soitu.es, el mejor periódico digital de la internet actual.

El post se titula "Anatomía de una campaña 2.0: el 'Aficionado profesional' de Alonso". En un post largo y jugoso disecciona la campaña de publicidad llevada a cabo por FA y ING buscando al supuestamente mejor aficionado del gambitero Fernando Alonso.

Disfrutarlo:

http://www.soitu.es/soitu/2008/06/09/pieldigital/1213027802_175148.html