#TBT: Government Marketing in an Age of Social Media

I've started to do some "Throw Back Thursday" (#TBT) type updates of old posts. This is a fun concept from Instagram and Facebook, and I thought I'd try it here.

This is one of my first blog posts back in 2007. Pretty terrible, no headline, etc.

Clearly, the impact of social media has changed from those early days.

...I recently moderated a panel discussion at a AMA-DC event in downtown DC entitled "Government Marketing in an Age of Social Media". The panelists (Jay McCargo, Toni Lee Rudnicki and Mark Root) were in general agreement that there has been minimal impact of "social media" among government marketers. However, all three agreed that web 2.0 marketing techniques will become more acceptable in time among the government contracting community.

This article in GCN backs this theory up: Web 2.0: Second verse, different than the first

...And Fall

Fall in DC is my favorite time of year.

Football.

Lower humidity.

Normal, comfortable temperatures.

Product launches and new clients.

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” — Albert Camus

All good things. Take a quick break from your busy fall schedule and check out these articles:

1. Poll: Executive responsibility for content marketing strategy growing, Fierce CMO
2. 5 Growth Hacks to Supercharge your Invite or Referral System, SaaS Growth Strategies
3. Execs Create Thought Leadership Content to Stand Out, eMarketer
4. Study: Customer network effects can improve B2B data accuracy to over 95%, Fierce CMO
5. Infographic: Cognitive Bias Codex, Ritholtz

Interview with James O'Brien- Part 1: How to Get Started with Mobile Marketing

Last week, in the first of a two part series, I interviewed mobile marketing consultant James O'Brien on the Straight to the Point podcast series about how companies can get a mobile strategy started and where mobile marketing is headed.

I've known James for twenty years and admire the expertise he gained from working with commercial, political and government clients in his career. An expert in online marketing, email compliance and privacy regulations, James is the founder of J Obrien Global and is currently a partner with MobiMKT, a mobile application development agency.

You can listen to the podcast here: Interview with James O'Brien- Part 1: How to Get Started

What did we cover?

• How marketing is being transformed by mobile technology and the movement of the audience onto mobile devices
• How important is social media to achieving marketing objectives now? 
• How important is mobile marketing to the marketing mix? 
• For a firm without a mobile strategy, what is a good first step? 
• What marketing trends do you see that are going to impact the industry most over the next few years?

Why would anyone go to a trade show?

Why would anyone go to a trade show? Back in the day, trade show attendance was a must in order to learn industry specific information, connect with prospects, clients and influencers, and raise awareness of your company. In short, all things you can do, for free, over social networks and the Internet.

Yet, even when we've seen an industry roiled by free Internet alternatives (record companies, newspapers, TV networks), there still remains a nub of value in these media. I still listen to music, read news and watch TV shows. I don't, as a matter of course, attend trade shows, unless there is a compelling reason to do so.

During Q1 and Q2, I've decided to attend three shows, mainly because each reaches an audience I'm targeting in my marketing and sales roles- RSA Conference (security), Satellite 2010 (satellite) and FOSE/GOVSEC (government/security). There are plenty of others that gave consideration to (CTIA Wireless, Interop, HIMSS) but, given limited time and money, they didn't make the cut.

What are your plans for trade shows this year? Are you spending more or less time and money on a trade show program? What could trade shows do that would make it worthwhile for you to invest more?

New SIIA Webinar Monday, Dec 7- Social Media for Brand Awareness, Thought Leadership and Other Traditional PR Activities

The good folks at the Software and Information Industry Association and I organized a four part series of Webinars looking at the various aspects of social media marketing for companies targeting the B2B marketplace. We have had three of them already and each was a fascinating discussion of how social media is used for business applications like lead generation, sales, cycle support, recruiting, competitive analysis and closing deals.

Our last Webinar is coming up December 7th and is going to focus on the public relations applications of social media. Most people, when they thing of social media, probably think of it as being a PR related activity, and it is. We have a great panel (including your truly!) which will talk about real world examples of companies using social media to target influencers, journalists, analysts as well as communicate directly with stakeholders.


Click here to register: Social Media Webinar Series: Social Media for Brand Awareness, Thought Leadership and Other Traditional PR Activities
DECEMBER 7 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm ET

Social media should be an integral part of your PR strategy, not just your sales function. To run a successful campaign Marketing, Sales and PR need to be integrated using today's popular social media tools. How can you effectively integrate your social media strategy across the enterprise?

Moderator:
Robert Carroll, VP Marketing, Clickability

Panelists:
Richard Dym, CMO, OpSource, Inc.
Kye Strance, Director of Product Management, Vocus
Jeff Majka, Director of Marketign and Business Development, Strategic Communications Group

(There is a $89 charge to register- however, since you’ll be my guest, you can register for free if you use the following code- PRMSTRAT.)

Grab Bag of Miscellania

The technology business is rolling along, March Madness starts, the Dow is down 5% then up 5%, Bear Stearns goes bye-bye (maybe!) and old school, hard nosed marketers are funding wild-eyed social media projects- it is a wild, wild month. In like a lion, out like a lion.

The outstanding team here at Strategic has been working with our client Tellabs for almost two years now. Broadband access is a huge issue in the telecommunications industry and Tellabs has been leader in promoting broadband. Today, we and Tellabs put out a survey of telecom professionals that captures their opinions on the penetration and regulation of broadband. You can read the release here: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080320/aqth501.html?.v=3

Take a moment and read Chris Parente's take on the survey and it's larger meaning.

In other news, the Wall Street Journal gave it's implied endorsement to social media resources. Watch out boys and girls- the days when social media was a romantic, cutting edge advancement in the progress of the human race is coming to an end. If the Wall Street Journal is endorsing it, then it's mainstream, normal and soon to be a regular boring part of marketing...like sending out a press release over telegraph wires...

XXX

Whew, I step away from the blog for a few seconds to get some work done, and almost two weeks go by. Bad blogger, bad.

However, I have been busy. I recorded an audio podcast with Charles Gold. Charles is the Senior Director of Worldwide Marketing for DataDirect Technologies. DataDirect focuses on providing data connection and mainframe integration services. Charles was very generous to spend some time talking about the challenge of marketing mainframe services, volunteering on the advisory boards of startups and the impact of social media in his marketing mix (psst: not much yet, but studying best practices now...)

You can find a link to the audio file at Strategic's Straight to the Point media library.

BTW, if you haven't taken a look at Blogtalkradio, please do. It is a free online service that allows anyone to set up a radio talk show program. The audio files are hosted at Blogtalkradio so there is no editing, no need to purchase microphones or no tricky audio editing software. Just call in.

As part of my company's new marketing campaign, I've been sitting down with local marketing leaders to pick their brains. My goal has been to develop content that can serve as valuable information, tips, inside scoop and help guides for fellow marketing peers.

My interview with Toni Lee Rudnicki is posted below. Here I'd like to share a video podcast I shot with Mark Root, Executive Director of Corporate Communications at ManTech International. ManTech is a publicly traded (NASDAQ:MANT) IT and technical services firm serving federal government customers. Mark has some very interesting and enlightening nuggets to share about the "how, where, when and why" of government marketing.

So, by popular demand, I'm going to carve out to time today to actually post on this blog. We spend a lot of time counseling our clients on the pros and cons of blogging. The number one negative? Finding the time to post consistently!

Wra!

In lieu of anything intelligent to say, I'm do the next best thing a let a true marketing star take the stage. Toni Lee Rudnicki is the Chief Marketing Officer for iDirect, a satellite and network services company. She recently sat down with me for a short interview on how she developed a marketing plan to address to business challenges her firm faces.

Earlier in March I pulled together an event with the local chapter of the American Marketing Association on the impact of "social media" in the government space. The general feeling of the panelists was that the government market was going to be particularly slow in adapting blogs, wikis, twitter and whatnot.

Now there is a McKinsey report profiled on BusinessWeek that shows that corporations in the private sector remain reluctant to embrace "social media." My feeling is that companies and government will do a little experimental toe dipping here and there, but most will stay behind the curve for a while more.

If even a master PR guy like Steve Rubel can get in trouble and have to apologize, imagine how much fear some traditional minded corporate executives are going to have.

This is a really interesting talk that Seth Godin gave to the folks at Google last year which I just recently discovered on Google Video. Seth is the author of "All Marketers Are Liars". Seth is, of course, a very, very good marketer.

According to IDC, tech companies are going to increase spending on marketing by 8% this year over last.

IDC forecasts 8% increase in tech marketing spending

The story in B2B Online points out that IDC surveyed 40 senior marketing executives. I'm no statistical genius but what kind of margin of error do you get with a sample size of 40...50% plus or minus?