Marc Sirkin's Mindnumbing Thoughts

I ran across this little blurb in the 10/27/08 issue of BusinessWeek that I found endlessly interesting. People, apparently differ radically on what makes things similar (from a study in Cognition ). As a marketer, this really is fascinating. The study showed that about 50% of ~200 subjects defined similarly in a "categorical way," lumping does with cats because both are animals. The other half though more thematically, meaning that they paired dogs with bones instead for example. The blurb points out a lesson for marketers: if you sell cake online, include "milk' in the search terms you buy! The human mind continues to fascinate.

Here are some of the details of my upcoming seminar/speaking thing. The basic gist is trying to outline the core differences b/w traditional and engagement marketing and then giving some good examples and strategies around both. About Social Media What exactly is Social Media? Social Media is media that users can easily participate in and contribute to, like blogs, message boards, forums, wikis and social networks. It’s dynamic and flexible, thrives on the notion of making connections and brings with it the power of every user on the planet. As marketers, we are used to carefully crafting and honing our key messages and measuring results. Social media turns that scenario upside down. Control is shared by all users, and feedback is immediate. There’s a lot of buzz surrounding social networks these days and companies have been quick to get in on the action by establishing profiles on these web sites to promote their products and services. Online social networks attract millions of users ...

I'm gonna ask you this only once. Do you or do you not know about the birds? From: Prisament, Robert RPrisament@birdistheword.com > To: Marc Sirkin msirkin@yesthatstheword.com Date: Fri, Oct 10, 2008 at 10:14 AM Subject: Important message regarding the word! BA BA BA BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. BIRD BIRD, BIRD IS THE WORD. ...

I was asked to speak to a group of Healthcare CMOs about social media and marketing. In fact, I just had a prep call with them and I have lots of thoughts floating in my head right now. In particular, I found myself really pushing hard on the distinction between traditional marketing and "new marketing." When I talk about "new marketing," I'm referring to "conversations" and building customer communities. I've been thinking lately about the distinction between the two, and while to some of us it's fairly obvious, to others it's not so clear. Traditional marketing includes direct mail, telephone, advertising and more. It also now includes ads on social media sites like Facebook and Myspace. It even includes in my own mind, much of what we call viral marketing. To me, traditional marketing is all about manipulating your customers to get them to buy your crap (that's my cynical, I'm wearing my conversation hat definition and I'm st...

Someone over at the MS Society is paying attention. They've apparently asked for Andy Sernovitz to give a keynote speech and in doing so, Andy's sent out an e-mail presumably to a bunch of folks asking for the answers to 3 question. I just sent him mine, and decided to do a quickie blog post about it (I've been struggling to find stuff to blog about lately!). Here was Andy's e-mail, my answers are bolded. I'm giving a keynote speech to the National MS Society ( http://nmss.org/ ) in November. I want to help them learn to earn great word of mouth, motivate volunteers, and raise money. Please help: 1. Answer the following 3 questions and email me your answer 2. I'll blog all the replies, link to you, and share your ideas with all 1,500 participants at their annual conference 3. Blog about the whole thing when it's posted in a few weeks Here we go: 1. To get more word of mouth for the National MS Society, they should try ... > open source their fundraising...