Last week, I was invited to speak on a panel at Colby College about "Women in Leadership." The group consisted of six Colby alumnae, including myself; all women had established strong careers in leadership roles. One of the common themes I noted as each of the women spoke was the need to continuously evolve and learn in your career. We can't afford to become stagnant. 

I make an effort to read books on the topic of branding and social media. Currently, I am reading "Engage, The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web" by Brian Solis. My article this week is a review of this book.

Thanks to NMC Account Executive Greg Glynn for his entertaining piece on YouTube, and thanks also to Ross Lasley for contributing an article about the upcoming Web workshops he will be presenting with Eric Reynolds, NMC's internet project manager, on behalf of our client Skowhegan Savings.

Have a great week.



www.marshallpr.com


P.S. Respond to me by email at nmarshall@marshallpr.com if you'd like me to send you the PDF of our new Market Trends Report, including "10 Reasons Why Your Company Can't Ignore Social Media!"

(Copyright 2010, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.)

A book review of the Brian Solis book by Nancy Marshall

Recently, a friend who is promoting a summer music festival, called to ask me if it would be OK if he went on Facebook, found the pages for other summer music festivals, and posted on the wall about the festival he is promoting. I took a deep breath and said "No, that would not be OK. That would not be cool. That would not be polite." I explained to him that it would be much like going to the other music festivals and blocking access to the parking lots, while holding a sign saying: "Go to my music festival!" It would be just plain unacceptable.

I explained to him the premise of this new book by Brian Solis, that you need to get into the music festival sites and engage in the dialogue. I told him he needed to participate in the conversation for a while to gauge whether or not it would be cool to talk about his music festival.

There are no hard and fast guidelines on how to market a business through social media, and it is an area that is continuously evolving. One guideline has always remained - trust. Any interaction on the social web needs to be in the spirit of helpfulness and not in the spirit of salesmanship.

This book talks about the huge shift that is taking place in marketing from "the man" on Madison Avenue telling all of us what we should buy and why. You know the advertising agency types that are featured on the show Madmen? They don't exist anymore. Instead of creating ads that create a one-way conversation, companies are inviting consumers to share their own experiences, expertise and opinions in online forums.

Ashton Kutcher wrote the Foreword for this book and he describes how the 'old-fashioned' marketing types are freaking out because they don't control the message any more. I know of a person who recently lost his job after 25 years in marketing, in part because he was so intent on having total control. He couldn't figure out how to participate in this new kind of dialogue that companies are having with consumers in social networks. The first chapter of this book is "Engage or Die," and that's just what happened to my associate. He couldn't engage, so his job was given to someone who could.

The last chapter of this book may be the most useful to those of us who are accustomed to gauging the success (or failure) of a marketing program by gut feel. The author provides a way of measuring investment returns, how to define goals and objectives, and how to allocate personnel and budgets to your social media marketing program.

Ross Lasley and I are going to be giving a workshop to the Maine Public Relations Council May 21 on the topic of Social Media Marketing and Measurement. Thanks to Brian Solis for giving me a handbook to assist in preparing my presentation.