Web-Savvy Seniors? 65+ boomers ARE online

via emarketer.com

Seniors are NO slouches. And baby-boomers participate in a variety of ways, and at different levels of participation, many of them spectators, while a few of them creators and/or critics.

But they certainly are a savvy group, and if you want to tap into the groundswell, see Forrester Research for more info on this fascinating area.

It appears from the research that most of the respondents of the study have e-mail, followed by shopping online and looking up health/medical information.

Savvy seniors information gatherers, and if they are looking for information, what better way than to tap in, with an understanding of how they use the medium? The research is out there, and still growing!

What are your thoughts?

Posted via web from vickie_smith's posterous

How to get more attention with your social media messages - 4 Tips

Get more attention with your social media marketing messages?

La la la la I'm not listening! Just think of fighting that uphill attention battle every time you want to be heard in “free” social medium forums. There is more clutter now than ever, and people are going to get savvier at learning how to filter out the noise.

Do you Tivo/DVR? Get frustrated when opening up a video and seeing a pre-roll advertisement? People will continue to look for VALUE, and will get better at being able to search for relevant content. Here are tips to help you break through and get people to really want to listen:

1. Headlines - Extra! Extra! Read All About It!
There is a definite art to headlines, and to tweets that grab attention. Guy Kawasaki is a master, and Personal Branding Expert Dan Schawbel is another - if you don’t believe me, just check out their twitter feed, better yet, follow them, and you will see that the reason you should click through is apparent RIGHT AWAY. If it’s a REPORT, OPINION or ADVICE, I know if I should bother finding out more. They saved their audiences time, and it is definitely appreciated. Be open and honest (transparent) as to what VALUE someone will find and people will be more likely to NEED to find out more.
2. What’s your hook song, or first track?
If you’ve ever bought an album, you know that the opening track has to really grab your attention for you to feel the rest of the album is worth your time listening. Same thing with your social media content - Don’t give people a chance to shut you out too soon. If you’ve got a very relevant piece of content for your target audience, think of what part of your content is going to be catchy enough to make them want to keep listening!
3. Keywords, people!
On a social media project recently, I was assigned the task of broadcasting social media content across a wide variety of platforms. Problem was, in order for me to broadcast it, I’d have to rewrite most of the headlines, so I’d have to take time looking through a lot of content to feel if I could put my own brand on the line by broadcasting it. The professionally produced video content, I felt was valuable information, but hidden beneath rather weak descriptions. Don’t make any effort you have wasted, especially with professionally produced content like video, or even a blog post you took time writing - think of it as your front door!
4. How Tos and Tips
It has been found that tweets most likely to get retweeted contain the phrases “How To” and “Tips.” People want to know how they can learn how to do something better, or even just how to do something period. And tips, well, by breaking this blog post down into four easy to digest chunks, you could quantify right away how many tips you were in for. There are too many decisions we all have to make as technology makes life ubercomplicated. If we can save each other the trouble, it makes life so much easier, and gets people to want to listen that much easier.

Isn’t that what this is all about? Please help me by sharing your comments and suggestions with me on these tips, and thoughts on others you’d like to know more about. Thanks!

Social Media Marketers Sidle Up to the Female Blogger Bar?

Marketers Court Female Bloggers - eMarketer

Marketers want to head on over to the social media cocktail party and join the conversation. At this Bar, there's no cover charge, no age minimum (more than likely), and no last call. I love articles that challenge thinking, so you can be smart about preparing a social media plan. Read the rest of my blog post, and then click through on the image above to take you to the latest eMarketer article.

I share this with you as it struck a chord with me. Yeah, I guess I'm a female blogger, but also because as a marketer, I understand it's critical to understand your audience before your plan a strategy to communicate with them. But even moreso, HOW are they using the social media space? That's a virtual world all its own, as it's consumer generated content, and conversation that makes it so valuable.

If your market includes mommy bloggers, know that not all female bloggers fit that bill. We women aren't all the same, nor are all males, and our purchase behaviors and the way we choose to live our lives is based on our own unique experiences and values. But you can work with this, if you just know something about them, and what kinds of social media they are taking part in already. That's where research and monitoring comes in handy, particularly in the area of social media usage.

But if you are an organization that is fortunate enough to have communication with a female audience already, you're ahead of the game. You've got an audience that is ready and waiting for you - now all you've got to do is have a plan.

I share this article that has valuable research provided by ShesConnected, BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners, based on studies done with a sample of over 1,500 women, with a wide range in age (18-77), about weekly social media participation, conducted by the US Census and Nielsen.

Women bloggers are more than willing to help marketers out when it makes sense to do so.

40% said they provided marketers with information collected on their blogs.

53% said they would consider doing so if asked.

If you really want to help fill a NEED, (as use marketers strive to do), whatever part of the mix it may be (direct, e-mail, display), then understanding your audience is crucial.

Traditional marketing research (focus groups) have been used successfully for years. Now your focus group wants to hear from you - they're waiting at the bar. Bartenders aren't shy and are usually good at conversation, adding value for your what could have been lonely cocktail/brewski.

What do YOU have on tap?

Let's tap in!
Shared via AddThis

Stop Collaborate and Listen - Social Media Marketing and Vanilla Ice??

via infrastructurist.com

Not to say that Vanilla Ice is a guru in the digital marketing area, but we CAN take a lesson from this song’s opening line (Ice, Ice, Baby) - “Stop, collaborate and listen…”

Yeah, that’s pretty much all we can take from him in online marketing tips…but I think it is a strong opening statement for anyone who wants to test the waters in developing a social media marketing strategy.

I believe that social media should be included as a part of a total marketing mix, which should have multiple channels for maximum effectiveness, reaching your audience however they are using media. But wait, even if you know what media they are using, do you know HOW they are using it? When I worked in radio, I would need to break down listenership into day parts. HOW were the listeners (that matched the particular demo/psychographic that an advertiser wanted to reach) USING the medium? Were they loyal to a particular program, then that might be where you would want to apportion some of the budget? Were they listening on the web? It was very important for my success as an account manager to understand how the audience was using the medium to maximize my client’s ROI so that the message was most likely to reach them. And analytics were crucial for me to understand that, regularly researching Arbitron data.

There are many tools available for online marketers to understand how their audience is using the online space. And it seems that new technologies are popping up every day - Google Analytics is widely popular in tracking the web usage of your site and seeing how people are using it, but you can also track trends on twitter (In a previous post, I discussed another valuable tool, Twitalyzer).

Ok, now you STOPped. Once you know HOW your audience is using social media, then you need to LISTEN. Collaborate with and listen to your audience. They will tell you what they want. And I don’t mean getting them to step aside from the space they are happily using and involved with their community, but I mean track the trends WITHIN their communities. Online surveys are a great tool, but if you have the opportunity to see how they are interacting with each other in their space, and maybe putting a poll in every now and then, how much more valuable is that - and in REAL time.

And in the days (almost 7 years!) when I was a jazz vocalist running my own business, it was CRUCIAL for me to understand what my fans wanted to hear. What places did they like to go to, so I could to some B2B and book venues for them to come. What headshot did they want me to use for my press efforts - yes, they even helped me choose a photo, from 6 images on a hidden page on my website in a private survey. And that photo had a major return for me, because I knew this was how my audience wanted to see me represented. What better marketing research is there, then one conducted with your own audience!

Don’t discount the value your customers can offer you if you just take a moment to STOP, COLLABORATE and LISTEN. Then you can effectively plan your social media strategy, and pretty much all your digital marketing efforts. Be appreciated for adding VALUE to the conversation. Your audience will let you know, if you just take a moment to let them know you want to hear them. They’ve got a LOT to say!

Posted via web from vickie_smith's posterous

Sing for your supper - literally

I've seen video of unique individuals using very creative ways of getting out there and getting noticed. I've seen a woman with a t-shirt with her resume on it going out there pounding the pavement and handing out resumes.

But, I haven't seen a way of using musical talents to get a job yet, until I peeked into Brad Karsh's blog, author of "How to Say it on Your Resume," who linked into Good Morning America's story on a talent show to do just this.

You can check it out for yourself: http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6894463&page=1

Now back to the book - I was so inspired that I had to come to the library, where I'm typing this on my laptop, keep your fast typing to yourself, section, with the intention of opening up all my past resumes, and seeing what really pops. Maybe I'll put some volunteer work back in, maybe I'll pick out more points of being a business owner. The writing in this book is very real, and applicable right away. Check out his site http://www.jobbound.com. I highly recommend it.

Marketing is always a work in progress - and focusing on words? A never ending process. For example, When I would create targeted direct mail pieces for different industries, I would always think of what it was that would get someone to take action immediately. Often, it was a "free" video or cd. So to think that connecting with someone to see me or hear me perform was an incentive at one time...hmm...

How do I turn the page and close the chapter on the performing world to fully transition back into the corporate world? It was great to break into radio and use sales to develop my marketing skills. You pool all your skills - nothing goes to waste, you just become more well-rounded, hopefully.

I just might dust off those karaoke tracks that I used when I was performing on a solo gig.

Ain't that a kick in the head?

Advertising After The Real Digital Revolution

This is a great article that discusses the new digital landscape of advertising. No one can escape it, not even businesses, who must embrace it to reach out to us, as we are now choosing the content we watch, read and watch. Just wait, smellovision.

I thought back to the days of studying Consumer Behavior at Baruch College. One exercise was to collect print ads from magazines and show how they try to motivate the buyer and induce a purchase. I can hardly remember ever seeing a website listed in the ads, and now I don't think there would be one without it.

Companies need to have deeper conversations with consumers, and in today's ever busying world, I don't think there's a way to NOT try to induce a visit to a website for a deeper conversation.

See my post on this article on TalentZoo:

https://secure.talentzoo.com/news.php?articleID=1713&