Need a Social Media Marketing Director

It's been almost two weeks since I began my active search for a corporate position.  Updating resumes, writing cover letters, scheduling interviews its as though I am graduating from college again.  It's been almost four years since I've written a real resume, and boy did it need an update.  I've even engaged a head hunter to help find a suitable position at the salary I require.

My ventures in self-employment have been devastating to my personal finances, but no risk equals no reward.  It will take some time for me to dig out of this hole and repair my credit, but it can be done.  To help me get my resume current for the positions I am seeking my head hunter gave me a list of social media job descriptions they have found to be common.  I had to keep myself from chuckling a little as I read a few of them as they are things I do on a daily basis now.

Here are a couple of excerpts from some of them:

Blogger: Responsible for opinionated, stylish writing and frequently posting new content on the Internet.

Online Community Manager: Acts as the front line brand manager by interacting with customers and fans in real time on various web platforms.

Director of Social Media: Responsible for developing and overseeing the execution of strategic social media and digital initiatives, including developing and managing viral marketing campaigns, creating and supervising high-profile channel accounts, and integrating interactive media into the overall business strategy.

Social Media Account Manager: Responsible for setting up social media accounts and maintaining daily activity.

Social Media Coordinator: Responsible for daily posts/tweets to all applicable social media outlets.

As I said all of these are things that I do on a daily basis for my own personal branding, Stigmare and Emerald City Fashion Week.  Any leads or referrals  for these or similar positions would be greatly appreciated.

Offering Local Internet Marketing Class

While at a local gathering of small business owners in the Kirkland area to learn how to more effectively use TeachStreet.com I was a bit taken aback by the lack of basic Internet marketing knowledge. What is taken for granted by so many of us active with web 2.0, social media, and sites like Facebook and Twitter is lost among the vast majority of small business owners. One of the most notable comments was a woman complaining of the lack of relevance of her search results because of companies paying Google to rank high on the page.

Needless to say I felt obligated to help educate the other participants at the event. The first myth to be dispelled was that of having the ability to pay Google for organic ranking. Google does not and will not accept payment for organic ranking as it takes away from the user experience. This is why the randomly change their search algorithm to prevent deceptive optimization techniques. If you want to show up high on organic results you need to have reliable, relevant and authoritative content. It really is that simple, keywords play a role but are not the end all be all.

Proper use of approved SEO and SEM techniques will help you achieve these three qualifiers, so be highly selective when choosing a service provider. Ask them for their certifications, has their company won any awards, ask what industry blogs they read and enewsletters they subscribe to. Personally I get emarketer.com and adage.com daily& clikz.com weekly. Although I must admit I've fallen behind on my Google AdWords Certified Profession status. Something I plan on rectifying by the end of this quarter, as well as Yahoo Ambassador status.

So, if you are in the Seattle/Bellevue area check out my classes on Teachstreet.com. I look forward to meeting you soon.

Web Site Issues

To all my loyal readers,

I would like to apologize for my lack of posting recently. I picked up a virus in my laptop last week and have been battling it ever since. I write this post to you now from a local public library. It has also affected our primary website at http://azimuthbranding.com/ which has made things even more frustrating. Please know that we are doing all that we can to overcome these challenges.

Until that time please check here for updates and visit our online store at http://www.logomarkportfolio.com/azimuthbranding. This site is dedicated to our promotional products customers. You can search for and order your promotional products online, but please feel free to contact us via phone if you have any questions. Our number is 206-818-9648 and we are available from 9:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. PST for your convenience.

Thank you again for your patience and we look forward to helping you achieve a prosperous 2009!

Sincerely,

Steven Paul Matsumoto
Principal

2009 Promotional Products Purchase Strategies

As 2008 draws to a close and a looming recession on the horizon effective use of your marketing budget has never been more important. As we all shift our focus to 2009 with hopeful optimism I offer you these few tips to help maximize your promotional products purchasing. Some of which will make sense and others may seem a bit counter intuitive.

1. If you all ready know what your 2009 budget is now is honestly the best time to be purchasing the old standards like pens, calendars, note pads, etc. Why you ask because many of the suppliers to you promotional products distributor are offering year end blow outs. I have a calendar supplier that is offering 2009 saddle stitched calendars for $0.79 each with a minimum order of 200. These same calendars were a $1.49 each for the same quantity three months ago.
2. You all ready know which trade shows you plan on attending so why wait until the last minute to make your purchases. This only adds stress to you and your distributors lives that doesn't need to be there. Sit down now or right after the New Year and brainstorm ideas and themes for these events. Don't go overboard, come up with one to three items for general distribution and a special gift for top tier clients. The best example of this I saw was a Pharmacy Buyers event in Las Vegas. One vendor had nothing but a nice duffel on rollers and it was the most popular item at the show. It was essentially used to put all the other vendors' swag in for the plane ride home. On top of that you had to provide your contact info to get it, now that's smart lead generation.
3. Start looking at creating a merchandising program for your business whether you have a retail environment or not. You can easily create an online store and some distributor's will even manage the back end and fulfillment for you. Be sure to ask them about inventory requirements, warehousing charges, and revenue distribution. This is a great idea if you own a real estate brokerage to put a level of control on your agents, if you own a fitness business, coffee or tea shop, or a restaurant in a tourist destination. Really just about any business where you want to increase revenue and allow employees and customers alike to show their loyalty to you.

I hope that you have found these little tips helpful and I look forward to your comments. Please tell me what has worked well for you in the past. I love sharing success stories with everyone.

Ezine Article - How to Market in Troubled Times

I had a great conversation with a counter part of mine today that told me a story about one of his clients. This client stated to my friend that they were going to have to spend one and a half times what they spent last year on marketing this year to get the same amount of revenue. You read that right the client knew that in order to just keep the status quo they were going to need to spend more money. This statement really got me thinking so I of course went to every one's favorite search engine and here's what I found.

The below article is taken directly from eZine, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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How to market in tough times? Take advantage of the opportunity! Economic downturns are Darwinian events in the marketplace. The weak perish and the strong and agile survive, even thrive. During downturns, some companies disappear or are swallowed up by rivals. Others emerge stronger than ever. There are basic principles which apply during all downturns. How those principles are dealt with determine which companies will eat and which ones will be eaten.
What's a marketer to do? Cut prices? Ask Detroit how rebates worked for them. When sales stalled, the three American car companies flooded the market with so many off-price deals that nobody would buy Detroit again without a big rebate or a 0% financing offer. Cut product quality or service? Remember Schlitz? Just thirty years ago The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous was America's second-best-selling brew. Someone decided to trim costs by switching to high-temperature fermentation. Customers wouldn't notice, right? Wrong. Six years later the company was out of business. Cut advertising? When Netflix began making serious inroads into Blockbuster's customer base in 2005, Blockbuster cut its $154.2 million advertising budget to $44.7 million. No surprise that Netflix grew from 4.2 million subscribers then to 7.1 million now. How'd the ad cut work for Blockbuster? In 2007, they closed 500 stores and saw a $33.4 million profit turn into a $125 million loss through the third quarter.

The Opportunity? Absolutely! Advertisers should go all out in the media that produce quantifiable results, especially since their messages will be more prominent as competitors reduce spending. No matter how deep the recession is or how long it lasts, it's the perfect opportunity to become aggressive and grab market share as competitors scale back their marketing efforts.

An aggressive approach will pay some dividends early but down-the-road rewards are even greater. Companies that gain share during downturns historically keep that increased share when the economy bounces back. Each share point gained during the recession is worth incrementally more as the market eventually recovers.

A McGraw-Hill study showed that four years after a downturn, companies that maintained or increased marketing communications during the economic slowdown typically experienced 14 times more growth than companies that cut back. As far as today's overall gloomy consumer confidence, there is one thing that is emerging. Even though consumers are cutting back, they're not doing so entirely. Consumers are finding ways to maintain their quality of life.

Even in a time of belt-tightening, Americans are demonstrating a strong reluctance to give up on everyday pleasures. According to CNNMoney.com on 7/15/2008, many are leaving the car in the garage and staying home. A whopping 50% of Americans plan to buy an HDTV in the next year.

Also, despite the expense, consumers are refusing to give up entirely on vacationing. Even in these tough times, 59% of Americans plan to take a trip of 100+ miles in the next six months. To grapple with fuel costs, they just plan on closer-to-home trips: Epcot instead of Europe.

Pete Michuda is a Certified Radio Marketing Consultant and Certified Professional Commercial Copywriter working in the Chicago market radio industry. He's successfully worked with many small to mid-sized businesses by helping them learn how to properly market their companies and how to realize a positive net return on their marketing investment. He can be contacted via e-mail at pmichuda@nextmediachicago.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Pete_Michuda

How brands thrived during the Great Depression - iMediaConnection.com

"Everyone likes to throw around the comment, "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." I myself have even tossed it out there a few times in the last eight weeks, but this post by Dave Chase reinforces alot of my previous blogs."

Companies can and do prosper during times of economic turmoil. Take a lesson from brands whose Depression-era advertising strategies were key to their survival.

View >>

Brand Strategist Heal Thy Self

When I was in the Marines we had a saying, "Steel sharpens steel." We used it to describe the importance of continuing education as you progressed through the ranks. When you enlisted every recruit regardless of their occupational specialty went through the same grueling 12 week boot camp, followed promptly by another four weeks of combat training. Thus the saying, "Every Marine a Rifleman."

As you progressed through the ranks you would attend Non-commissioned and Staff Non-commissioned officer training. By now I'm sure you're asking yourself what the hell does this have to do with branding? The answer is simple, the Marine Corps did this to reinforce its core values or in our term its brand. The Marines recognized the importance of managing their brand and realized that over time the edge wears off the blade if not honed.

Tonight I had a very similar experience after attending a three hour seminar by another brand strategist Mr. Steven McDonald of Studio HDV. Now I all ready knew a lot of what Mr. McDonald spoke about, but as with all of us we get into our comfort zone and forget or worse yet ignore that knowledge. I also took away a couple of new concepts and ideas as well. If you are in the Greater Puget Sound or Phoenix, AZ area I highly recommend you attend one of his seminars.

Why You Should Blog Too

Search Engine Strategies has some great statistics they're using to promote their webinar, "Consumers and the influence of Blogs: What it Means for Your Marketing Mix." I am going to share some of them with you now.

1. Frequent blog readership has spiked 300 percent in the last 4 years.
2. Blogs command 77 million unique visitors monthly
3. 90% of bloggers say they actively blog about brands, and 4 out of 5 organically post reviews
4. Half of blog readers say that blogs influence their purchase decisions

These stats were taken from Jupiter Research and Technorati, you can learn more by clicking on the title link.

If this hasn't convinced you that this is a worth while form of viral marketing then I humbly suggest that you do a bit more research. If it is just a matter of you not having enough hours in the day I can totally get that. There are actually people out there that will ghost write your blog for you. Get ready for it, shameless self-promotion coming up, we're one of them and we'd love to hear from you.

Recession Marketing

In my post To Blog or Not To Blog I touched on why it's important to maintain if not increase your marketing budget during these challenging times. Today while on LinkedIn I came across a discussion by a graphic designer echoing my calls to sanity. Here is a blog post from Bnet that he referenced on the matter; http://blogs.bnet.com/intercom/?p=1573&loomia_fb=t0:a17:g14:r4:c0.415. Check it out and draw your own conclusions if you weren't convinced by my previous post. I am a huge fan of third party data.

When you're ready to launch your new campaign to beat the recession and capture additional market share visit our main website azimuthbranding.com to contact us.

Cheers

Social Media Burn Out

At a networking event the other day a friend and I were discussing the pros and cons of our new Social Media existence. It has gotten to the point of addiction in some cases. Between Biznik, Facebook, LinkedIn and countless others we both admitted to spending countless hours of the day keeping up with them.

Don't get me wrong, I am whole heartily a believer in UGC and Social Media. I am just recommending that a little temperance and a lot of time management be exercised. As with any business endeavor planning comes into play. When going to these sites have a clearly defined purpose or task in mind, execute it and then get on with your day. Ultimately our businesses survive by closing deals, not by spending hours answering every question we can on LinkedIn.

Look at your Social Media as you would any other marketing campaign. Define your audience, their needs, and your message. Then deliver that message in a consistent, measurable and effective way.

The Business of Weddings

According to www.costofwedding.com the cost of the average wedding in Seattle is between $24,157 and $40,261. With numbers like these it's no wonder the wedding industry is a $70 Billion a year business in the United States. That number doesn't even include the engagement ring or honeymoon. It's no wonder that a group of high end wedding providers in Seattle have banded together to promote one and other via The Wedding Circle.

Launched in July of 2008 by Tolga Ural, founder and CEO of ImagineCDs, participation in The Wedding Circle is strictly by referral only. This ensures that the quality of service is consistent across all 30 different service categories. You're not going to find a photographer that just graduated from high school or a caterer using their home kitchen here. The service providers featured in The Wedding Circle are best of class, and serve a discerning clientele.

Mr. Ural uses a three pronged approach to his marketing strategy:

1. Theweddingcircle.com web site


2. A Patent Pending multi-media CD based technoloy


3. Word-of-mouth referrals from participating service providers

The real power of the program is in the CD technology, of which I only have a very high level understanding. Each service provider is given a minimum of 50 CDs, valued at $34.95 msrp, and asked to give them to prefered clientele as a thank you. The CDs contain an hour of classical music by world class guitarist Andre Feriante. Yet when put into your computer it hyperlinks you to The Wedding Circle website as a wedding planning reference guide.

You can purchase the CDs on Amazon.com and CDbaby.com.

Are you leaving advertising dollars on the table?

As I was refining my filing system today I came across some old co-op information and it got me thinking. I remembered how few of my clients at the Yellow Pages were even aware of their co-op programs, let alone taking advantage of them. This was free money they were leaving on the table!

Now, I'll admit I had a bit of an advantage when it comes to understanding the value of co-op programs. As a parts manager at a Chrysler dealership I had a thorough knowledge of how to use this valuable resource to promote my business. Whether it was a direct mail campaign, purchasing promotional products, putting an ad in the paper, or running a spiff program for the sales floor there were ways of claiming varying amounts of co-op to off set the cost.

At this point you have either just had a Homer moment, or you're asking yourself what the hell is co-op? While they vary greatly in format, co-op programs are simply a cost-sharing program in which manufacturers and suppliers will provide financial assistance for customers' advertising programs. The amount available for use is generally a predetermined percentage of your purchases from that supplier. Ironically most business owners either never take advantage of these programs, or don't utilize them to there fullest extent.

Why would the manufacturers and suppliers want to do this you ask? It's really quite simple:

1. It generates increased awareness for their brand.
2. If you're selling more of their products, you're also buying more of their products.

If you are unsure if your suppliers offer co-op advertising assistance the easiest way to find out is to ask your sales rep or account manager. Here's a list of some of the industries I know have co-op programs:

• Automotive Dealers
• Boat Dealers
• HVAC Dealers
• Eye Glass Manufacturers
• Billiards Supplies
• Cosmetic Injectables
• Dental Supplies

If you don't see your industry on my list don't be disappointed. Unfortunately I am still human and have a finite memory. Ask your suppliers, or if you don't feel comfortable doing so give us a call. We'll contact them on your behalf. You may be pleasantly surprised by what we find.

Cheers!

To Blog or Not To Blog...

I must admit that at first I really didn't think that I really had that much to say when it came to my chosen profession. But as I laid in bed last night wide awake it seemed a never ending stream of thoughts came rushing to me. Everything from basic advertising and marketing principles to obscure industry facts that most small businesses aren't even aware of. I guess necessity truly is the mother of invention, or in my case inspiration.

With bleak news from Wall Street and other global markets today what is a small business to do? Me, today consisted of cold calls and follow ups. Slow economies aren't an ad man's best friend, that is unless they know what I know. I reached into my filing cabinet and dusted off some articles from recessions past.

Like this one from l-aadvertising.com circa 2001 titled "Should you cut advertising during a recession?" There's a great statement in bold in the second paragraph. "Cutting advertising may be a quick fix for the bottom line, but savvy marketers know it will be much less expensive to maintain market share now than to try and rebuild later."

It's too bad The Sharper Image didn't heed that advice, they recently filed for bankruptcy after slashing their ad budget according to an article in the August 4 Advertising Age Magazine. Mervyn's and Bennigan's where both mentioned in the article as well.

Kellogg over took Post as the dominate dry cereal provider when Post cut their advertising and Kellogg didn't during the depression of the 1930s. In 1975 Chevrolet increased its advertising for its economy models while Ford cut its spend by 14%. The result a 2% increase in market share that Ford still hadn't won back five years later.

Brad Williams, Marketing Manager, Levi Strauss & Co. said in 2001, "Don't allow short-term conditions to interrupt long-term goals."

I could ramble on for a while about this and I've got about a dozen articles and studies from the likes of Inc. magazine and CRM Associates. However I believe it is time for me to get off my soap box for the evening.