I was going to read about social media tools that bring customers and companies together, but then I realized digging into that would take more time then I have this morning.

Instead, I am sharing what I have actually read this morning. This week’s reading is so inconsistent compared to how I normally prepare for this weekly endeavor (which to pick a topic and stick with it) that it seems to be a sudden flare up of MADD (marketing attention deficit disorder). Enjoy!

Jason Keath: Sometimes brilliant creative tells the whole story

Proves that smart advertising just might not be dead, just yet…

Mack Collier: Ford CMO Jim Farley: Social media leading to ‘massive cost savings’ for Ford

“As Jim explains above, social media is lowering the amount of money that Ford has to spend on traditional advertising.  That’s money that can then be spent on product development, customer service, and other areas that improves the quality of the product, as well as customer satisfaction. Which ultimately…increases sales.  So this is another example of social media working indirectly.”

Examiner.com: Marketing Mix -101 – 4C’s The next generation, a historic view

“In 1973, Japanese Professor Koichi Shimizu, who deemed ‘consumer-centricity’ the new strategy to marketing success, helped launch the “4C” model. Differentiation between products or services became a winning proposition. The ability to provide a product or service with higher quality than your competitor and that met the consumer need would likely assure success. This strategy remains paramount in marketing today.”

AdAge: Why You Need Satan on Your Marketing Team

“You need your basic assumptions challenged, and the declarative truths of your agencies and experts (and the media that cover them) not only questioned but aggressively dared. Is conversation inherently good? Is the problem that consumers don’t “like” ads anymore? Are clicks the same thing as handshakes, or lists a synonym for friendships? Do the words you use to describe online behavior have any relevance in the real world?”

Logic + Emotion: Learning To Fly: The Four Stages of Social Business

“…you have to “walk before you run” and as it turns out, the same is true for organizations looking to move from social media as a set of un-connected, chaotic collection of skunk work initiatives to a coordinated and purposeful initiative that works through the entire organization.”

Social Media Explorer: The Social Media Echo Chamber Makes Me Not Want to Listen

An oldie, but goodie. Is this still an issue?

Happy reading! Happy Easter! Happy Passover!

[Image source: The Irreverent Lawyer]

Dear CEO:

The last two years have presented us with a rough economy and no doubt, many people—employees, stakeholders and customers alike—are feeling its tight squeeze and so are you. Layoffs, cutbacks, delayed product and service upgrades, lack of innovation, competitive pressure, unsure stockholders, lost supply chains, and more, likely keep you up at night or at least in the office for countless hours when you would rather be home with your family.

With or without a bad economy, the business tides have certainly shifted over the past five years.

Customers are now more vocal than ever when it comes to your brand and the promises made on its behalf. Yes, even B2B customers.

It used to be that customers would share their positive and negative experiences through customer satisfaction surveys, focus groups, industry association meetings and even with the media. Now they have tools right at their fingertips that allow them to reach thousands—if not millions—of buyers in your target market via the Internet. These tools put a microscope on your brand and magnify it more than you have ever known was possible.

I am sure you have read or heard about social media and its importance. However, it is not enough to be aware that your customers are using social media channels. It is your job to understand why. The why lies in the fact that you do not know them… not really.

I am sure your focus is on what products and services your company makes, what is the highest margin you can earn without overpricing compared to the competition, what distribution channels make the most sense without adding more cost, and generating media attention and leads to generate revenue.

That mindset is broken. Your customers don’t care.

They care about whether you sell a product or service that they need or that eases their specific business challenge. They care about what their overall cost is (and that cost goes well beyond the invoice they will be paying you). They care about the convenience they will experience in doing business with you. They care about being able to search for a solution to their problem and not being interrupting with needless promotions for a product or service they could never use.

See the difference? They really want you to know them.

So how about it? Will you consider leading from a customer-centric perspective?

Best of luck,

Beth Harte
The Harte of Marketing
@bethharte
beth@harteofmarketing.com
www.theharteofmarketing.com

I know that you also have smart advice that you’d like to share with CEO’s to help them understand today’s business environment!

Here’s your chance.

The first ten people to share customer-centric advice get a FREE PDF copy of Dear CEO via e-mail.

Let others benefit from your advice by sharing this post using the #DearCEO hashtag on Twitter and sharing it on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. There’s no better way to learn then from one another’s experiences.

If you’d like to buy a copy of Dear CEO, head on over to Arment Dietrich’s Spin Sucks, where they are available for purchase.

[Image sources: life123.com, Spin Sucks]

(Note: This is a personal post.)

As you might know, I am looking for my next career opportunity.

What you may not know is that I have been looking for over 3.5 months with barely a nibble from potential employers. And I am not alone; there are a lot of exceptional marketing and PR professionals who have been unemployed for years.

Recently, a recruiter helped me to understand today’s job market with this advice:

“Remove all of your personal speaking, writing, blogging, and social media (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, SlideShare links, etc.) items from your resume. Companies don’t give a crap about that, they only care what you will do for them. Those items are red flags letting them know that you’ll request to be out of the office speaking or on Twitter all day and that you will not be helping to solve their day-to-day problems (i.e. tactical work).

There it is. A dose of reality.

While most of us may not agree with this advice,  I have a feeling this recruiter knows exactly what is going on inside companies and agencies. Surely, we can agree that companies and agencies are years behind the level of conversations that we have had, right?

I am now wondering if I have blogged, spoken, written and tweeted myself out of any potential for being hired.

I will definitely be A/B testing this advice with my resume to see which one opens up more doors. It should prove to be interesting.

What’s Reality?

I am curious. If you are a job seeker, what has been your experience? If you are an HR professional or a hiring manager seeking marketing and PR professionals, what are you looking for?

[Image source: dailybeeswax.com]

As marketers, how much psychology do we need to understand to make sense of what our customers are doing socially?

Are they trying to tell us what they want or need by engaging? Or, is it simply that they are utilizing social networking to become influential among their peers?

What happens when a customer becomes popular within his or her chosen social network? What are the chances that a brand can piggyback on this newfound influence (i.e. brand evangelism or word of mouth)? On the other hand, could popularity and potential narcissism cause a customer to leap to a more desirable brand that is as equally popular as them?

We know that people join social networks because they want to be part of a group. Should marketers be required to have a deep understanding of group dynamics in order to analyze group interactions and how they may or may not impact business efforts?

Will the more socially advanced organizations expect that their marketers will understand how social networks and psychology affect market dynamics in order to project future revenues?

Psychology Today: The Psychology of Social Networking

“One intuitive hypothesis is that “popular” people (those with vast, far-reaching, and significant networks or contacts) will have connections both in the real as well as in the virtual world; thus the number of people one deals with in the real or physical world should be positively correlated with the number of virtual or electronic contacts one has.”

Alexandra Samuel: Group identity and the psychology of social media

“One of the primary themes of my dissertation was the power of group identity as a motivation for participation. Reading the social psychological literature on group identity, it became clear that people join groups that reinforce positive ascriptive identity — those identities that are positively valued in our society. The practical implication is that you need to organize your community’s membership around identities people feel good about: I’m far more likely to identify myself as a member of ‘parents of gifted children’ than I am to join up with ‘compulsive nail-biters’.”

The Layman’s Guide to Psychology: The Psychology of Twitter, Facebook, and Other Social Networking Devices

“Narcissism is generally not a celebrated trait. Why then is social networking so widely accepted if it is so related to narcissistic tendencies? Is it possible that the internet merely allows an all-to-easy outlet for these tendencies to surface from people who may otherwise not possess them? According to one study, this seems to be the case.

Some people are far more shy than others but to a certain extent we all possess a little of this–even the “kings of narcissism”. Being shy is a defensive measure that allows an individual to protect themselves from ridicule, or worse. The internet has allowed individuals an uncanny intimacy while maintaining a near-infinite level of physical separation.”

CompuKol Connection: The Psychology Behind Social Media

“If you approach your social media marketing campaign from a psychological angle, you will see that people respond to your business offerings and to you as an individual. You will see that they will gladly spread the word about your products and services as well as your expertise in your niche. People will be speaking about you and on your behalf before you know it and that, of course, brings you another step closer to great success.”

MIT Press Journals: Simulating Market Dynamics: Interactions between Consumer Psychology and Social Networks

“Watts and Strogatz ^[18] proposed a model for social networks that describes the small-world and clustering characteristics in networks. This model includes empirically found characteristics of social networks, namely the small-world effect ^[11] and the clustering effect ^[12]. The small-world effect refers to the experience that despite the large population, the map of who knows whom is such that we are all very closely connected to one another. The clustering characteristic refers to the existence of clusters in social networks. People’s circles of acquaintance tend to overlap to a great extent. Your friend’s friends are likely also to be your friends.

Amaral et al. ^[1] showed that the scale-free network hypothesis is more complex. They analyzed different types of networks and found also networks that followed the power law up to a sharp cutoff. For example, a highly connected node may refuse to accept new connections because of capacity and cost constraints, or a well-connected node may die. Amaral et al. ^[1] proposed an adjustment of the Barabasi-Albert model by including the option that a node in the network becomes inactive with a certain probability. Since new nodes can only connect with active nodes, they are able to reproduce different classes of observed networks. This approach may be more correct in modeling consumer networks, as consumers functioning as a hub in a network will be limited in the number of contacts they have.

The results presented in this article indicate that besides psychological needs and decision processes, also the size and shape of the network involved in consumer decision making have an important influence on how the market organizes itself. Especially when the satisfaction per unit of consumption is high, as is often the case with products that satisfy lower needs, the results suggest that the shape of the network has serious consequences for the number of products that dominate the market. The results show that a scale-free network yields a market dominated by far fewer products than in the small-world network with a limited number of random links. Even for low visibility products the hubs have a strong influence on which products other agents consume.”

Happy reading!

[Image Source: thisismarilyn.com]

You may have heard around the social media water cooler that I am looking for a job. It’s true!

The economy is in the tank and jobs are limited—especially marketing, PR and communications jobs. Thankfully, I have been able to tap into a network of friends and colleagues that have been supportive, generous, and helpful.

People have been asking me “What are you looking for?”

One can hardly provide a smart response in 140-characters, no matter how many years they have been on Twitter.

Marketing, Communications & Public Relations – Not ‘Just a Job’

For the past 16 years, I have successfully led integrated marketing, communications and PR—traditional and digital—efforts for companies of all sizes (start-up to Fortune 500) and global reach.

This isn’t ‘just a job’ for me. It is my career and a passion that gets me up in the morning and keeps me up late at night. I have worked diligently to become a nationally recognized authority, writer and speaker on integrated marketing & communications that not only bridges traditional and digital media, but does so in a customer-centric, data-driven manner.

I also teach graduate level PR and marketing at Immaculata University, PA and Rutgers University, NJ.

Integrated Marketing & Communications—The Gift That Keeps on Giving

The economy has decimated many marketing budgets. Now, every dollar spent must do double duty, provide results and get customers to take action. A scrutinized budget also requires employees that think both strategically and tactically.

Are you worried? I’m not. You’ll be amazed what I have accomplished with so little budget.

It all starts with planning and understanding the market (that means listening to and understanding what your customers really need & want). Tactics can be cool and fun, but if they are ignored or don’t deliver they are a waste. When you see the bottom-line results of integrated marketing & communications, you’ll wonder why you ever did it differently.

What Can You Do For Me, Beth Harte? Glad You Asked.

This is just the short list. For an in-depth look at my career, review my profile and recommendations on LinkedIn.

Integrated Marketing:

• Strategic Planning, Execution & Measurement
• Marketing Return on Investment (ROI)
• Customer Research & Competitive Analysis
• Branding & Identity Management (Specializing in re-branding)
• Digital Marketing (Website, SEO, SEM)
• Product Development & Marketing
• Channel Development & Distribution (Domestic & International)
• Pricing

PR & Corporate Communications:

• Strategic Planning, Execution & Measurement
• Analyst, Media, & Blogger Relations
• Customer Relations
• Social Media
• Reputation Management
• Crisis Communications
• Advertising (Offline/Online)
• Trade Show & Event Management

Click here to download my resume.

Speaking of Customers…

Integrated marketing & communications is customer-centric. That means being comfortable with working with customers and really listening to what they are telling you they need to solve their challenges. Doing so allows a marketer to meet customer needs as well as corporate objectives.

A lot of companies have trusted me to work directly with their customers to grow their business and bottom-line. You can too.

What I am Looking For

I am looking to secure a position with a company located in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area that is financially stable; fiscally responsible; values marketing, communications and PR; and more importantly—respects their customers.

Depending on the company size, I would be interested in any of the following positions:

• VP or Director of Marketing
• VP or Director of Marketing Strategy
• VP or Director of Marketing & Communications
• VP or Director of Communications
• VP or Director of Public Relations (real PR, not solely media relations, publicity and getting ink)

(This list is in no particular order of ranking!)

If you are okay with virtual work, so am I (I worked virtually for Serengeti Communications and Marketing Profs). You only need to provide a laptop and phone.

You Should Hire Me Because I…

• Deliver results without wasting budget
• Provide strategies that are measurable (ROI)
• Work best when challenged (Read: Lots of fires to be put out!)
• Enjoy working with cross-functional teams
• Focus on data and analytics to tell me what’s really going on in the market or with publics and stakeholders
• Have worked with management teams and boards of directors closely

Are you in need of a strategy & results-driven VP or Director of Marketing, Communications, or PR that can bring you closer to your customers & stakeholders while delivering value to your bottom-line? Or know of a position? Let’s talk. You can reach me via:

• E-Mail
• Cell: 610.864.0175
• Twitter: @BethHarte
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/bethharte
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bethharte

[Image source: iStock.com]