Discovering business opportunities

Ann Handley is the Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs (www.marketingprofs.com). She directs all of the content in various forms produced on the MarketingProfs Web site and is the Primary Caregiver of its blog, the MarketingProfs Daily Fix(www.mpdailyfix.com). She also blogs at The Huffington Post. A lifetime ago, she co-founded of ClickZ.com.

1. How the Internet as a media is changing? What are the major trends?

Well, in terms of content on the Internet, there’s a whole lot more of it – and many more voices creating it and extending its reach.

That’s a huge change, obviously, from when only professional writers and editors were creating the content that most of us read and were therefore influenced by. Now, anyone who is armed with a computer and an internet connection has a voice, anyone can create and share content, and everyone can be one of the “who’s who.”

The ease of creating and sharing content has huge implications not only for those of us who make our living via it. But it also has huge implications for marketers. For years, marketers have talked to their customers. Now, they are hearing those customers talking back. (Read the article)

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Mr. Paul Chaney is Internet Marketing Director for Bizzuka.com, a web design and development firm based in Lafayette, LA.

Mr. Chaney has been an Internet media consultant for the past four years and is widely known and respected in that field. He understands at a granular level how conversational media tools can be used for marketing purposes and has worked with a number of clients assisting them in deploying online marketing strategies.

Mr. Chaney has served as Technical Editor on a number of For Dummies series books related to blogs and Internet marketing, and was contributing writer on the book Buzz Marketing with Blogs For Dummies, published by Wiley.

Specialties: Business blog consultant, online marketing consulting, conversational media marketing, real estate blogging, blogging

Great thanks, Mr. Chaney for sharing your experience!

1. What is the role of blogs nowadays? How they are changing the Internet?

Blogs were the forerunner that ushered in the social media movement and they still play a vital role. However, that role has changed thanks to the likes of Facebook, Twitter and other social tools. By that I mean you see less “day in the life” blogging and a greater emphasis on what some are calling “value” blogging. Let me explain.

In the early days, bloggers had one place to share their thoughts, ideas and opinions, and that was on their blog. Now, the more spur-of-the-moment, anecdotal posts are finding themselves being placed on micro-blogging tools like Twitter, Pownce and Facebook, leaving the more thoughtful, well-researched posts for the blog. That’s not to suggest bloggers don’t still write impromptu posts. They do. It’s just that other tools are now available allowing for greater choice and flexibility in where to publish. (Read the article)

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Geoff Livingston, CEO  Livingston Communications  (a company specialised in public relations and social media), Marketing, PR and New Media Strategist, Author of the book “Now is gone”

1. Nowadays a new (and old in the same time) term has appeared – c2c (consumer-to consumer). What is the importance of c2c marketing and how marketers should deal with?

My big issue with the term “C2C” marketing is that it assumes consumers make a conscious decision to market products. That’s not necessarily what’s happening, although affiliate programs and eBay are certainly examples of true C2C.

When Word of Mouth (WOM) referrals occur it’s because a customer believes in a product.  The brand promise of marketing has been matched by the actual user experience.  Thus, they are happy to confirm the marketing and lend their credibility to the product/service/solution.  This is third party credibility, a result of good public relations using social media tools, not a conscious paid-for-marketing action. 

Word of mouth cannot be paid for so easily.  It can be inspired, but products and services must also be inspiring.  Marketing can only accelerate the consumer’s excitement for a product they would generally like anyway.  At the same time marketing and WOM can also accelerate a bad product’s failure.

(Read the article)

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 Mr. Milko Georgiev is a ITC Entrepreneur, Management and Marketing Professional, Member of the Board at Mail BG (www.mail.bg), Founder, Owner and Editor at www.yvox.net, the leading Marketing & Communications portal in Bulgaria
 

Great thanks for sharing your vision, Milko!

What is the place of the traditional marketing in the changing new reality?

First of all, in my humble opinion, there are no such things as ‘traditional’ or ‘modern’ marketing.  Being more a craftsman work, marketing is a set of rules, tools and approaches to resolve the problems in the product-customer relationship. Every marketing professional with a broad vision has the opportunity to express himself using this broad range of solutions that marketing science has built over the years. However, we should not perceive any of those tools and rules as a one of God’s Commandments on Marketing. Technology, being the most rapidly changing element in our environment, has created the biggest challenge since ever commerce exists – the one-to-one relationship opportunity between sellers and buyers. This dramatic shift is changing how marketing is applied, not the marketing science itself. We’re facing new opportunities and threats in terms of research, segmentation, differentiation, positioning and communication of our products and services, but we’re not challenging the basic rules of marketing. So, at the end, my answer is – marketing has a growing and already overwhelming role in the new market reality.

(Read the article)

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Veronique Aboghé – Speaker “Negotiation skills” in IFAG Paris, Founder, Executive Coach – CoachingLeader

Veronique is a top professional coach. Her job is assisting the company employees to better perform their work. She works with them on their potential and suggests ways of developping their professional effectiveness. Another side of her coaching activity is the assistance of the career management. As now, it is more than essential to take the career in hands and to think of the employability. It is also important of lliving better the everyday professional life. She is also a consultant in management, assisting the companies in their management transition.
Another part of her job is dedicated to teaching: in commercial school to train the students in negotiation and marketing.

1. How do you see the future of the marketing? Is there some evolution/regression?

The consumer is very powerful: he is much better informed than ever. He is more demanding as he lives in a world where the infinity of choice arises.
He is at ease in all the channels of communication and he uses them all. He is extremely reactive, he takes part fully by delivering his opinion (blog, forum, wiki…) about the products offered to him.
 He is so much at ease in his channels. He can do without traditional marketing, as he uses other platforms of social networking as my space (the musical tubes are imposed by the artists not by the houses of disc not by the advertizing) or facebook. Thus the word of mouth has become very important and the consumer shares his experience with the rest of the community.
The only evolution I see more than ever, is that the consumer is in control and it’s out of a question to try to manipulate him. (Read the article)

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