One Year Later

Today, there is freedom in marketing. No longer is the loudspeaker of the media controlled by a select few. As a result, so much more can be gained than ever before, all with fewer resources and less risk. The playing field has been officially leveled—and not a minute too soon.

With those words, we launched the first Fame Foundry Magazine and began leading a revolution.

Recognizing that the world of marketing is riddled with misinformation and con artists, we set out on a mission to cut through the static and get to the truth of the challenges of growing business today.

Each month we bring you articles that cut through the muck of jargon, myths, speculation and the outmoded ways of old marketing to give you the clarity and perspective you need to thrive in today's marketplace. As we mark our first anniversary, we take a look back at the fundamentals of new marketing that we’ve established over the past year.

The end of marketing as we knew it

Prior to the advent of the Digital Age, our culture was based on a handful of media. Television, print and radio were the anchors of mass information exchange and business promotion.

As a result, if you owned a business or were charged with growing a company, you were shackled to promotional entities such as television commercials, newspapers and the Yellow Pages.

Those days are long gone, and those systems are now dying. In their place are unlimited channels of conversation not only between one person and another but between people and business.

No longer does mass media claim a chokehold on the lines of communication between companies and customers. No longer are information gathering and sharing the exclusive domain of mainstream news organizations. No longer are consumers willing to passively absorb the web of lies concocted by marketing’s spin doctors.

Today the means of communication have been revolutionized, and the old methods marketing to the masses have been rendered ineffectual.

Read more:
Prying the Torch From the Dead Hands of Old Marketing

All hail the virtual agency

The only thing deader than old marketing is the traditional agency, and its business model is in the grave right along with it.

Today's marketplace is ruled by survival of the fittest. It's time to get faster, leaner, smarter and more agile, and marketing agencies are no exception to this rule.

The new marketing company is one that hasn’t forsaken business principles that are timeless but takes advantage of all that’s afforded by today's technology to shave off unnecessary expenses.

OUT: Deals with a select few in a position of control.

IN: True, choice-based media, entertainment and communications.

OUT: Expensive payments to big, traditional, bureaucratic agencies that still attempt to use carpet-bombing tactics to grow your business.

IN: Fresh and nimble development firms who know how to build a brand and grow a following around it using today’s communication systems.

OUT: Paying the price for enormous overhead expenses for big buildings and lavish offices filled with excessive personnel.

IN: Virtual and hybrid marketing firms that work fast and don’t pass the bloat of unneeded expenses on to their clients.

OUT: Working through layers of costly production managers, account executives and supervisors before you get to the people that really do the work.

IN: Having access to the key architects and creative talents who are integral to the ideas and concepts essential to your success.

Read more:
10 Things You Pay for From Traditional Marketing Agencies

If marketing is dead, what's next?

Getting and keeping customers is what it's all about. That much hasn't changed. What has changed is what's needed to achieve it.

Gone are the days of growing your brand by marketing to the masses. Today’s consumers are disengaged from commercial culture as we once knew it, disenchanted with marketing’s shallow messages and misleading claims and disillusioned by promises unfulfilled. Instead, they are ever in search of the authentic. They are driven to seek out companies they can believe in and to identify themselves with brands that inspire them.

In a world of unlimited channels of communication, loyalty is no longer a commodity that can be bought rather than earned. In the new millennium, trust has become the currency of a marketplace driven by the consumer, and the new way to grow business is through trustcasting.

Simply put, trustcasting is the ongoing process of building and maintaining trust between a business and its customers. The practice of trustcasting requires that any and all resources dedicated to the promotion of business be directly or indirectly founded in trust.

Trustcasting approaches customers as people, not numbers. For those ingrained in the old practices of mass marketing, this represents a daunting ideological shift, but the task of earning and keeping trust cannot be reduced to statistics or demographic segments.

Recognizing word-of-mouth as the primary medium by which today’s customers are won, those that practice trustcasting engage in two-way communication with their customers on a human level, demonstrating genuine respect and value for their time and attention. While this approach undoubtedly requires a more significant investment in time and resources than traditional marketing, the return — cultivating a community of evangelists around a brand – is also much more profound and lasting.

Read more:
Put Away the Smoke and Mirrors
The Trust Manifesto
Goodbye, Marketing. Hello, Trustcasting.
10 Resolutions for Success in 2010 and Beyond
10 Keys to a Successful Marketing Partnership

A brave new world

In today’s marketplace, the Web is where customers are won and businesses grow.

It starts with a great website – one that has successfully confronted and conquered the challenges of providing a beautiful interface, engaging content and utility beyond your primary offering. However, even the best site is only the first step; it’s the foundation upon which you can start to develop a community around your brand.

Once you’ve launched your site, you’ve effectively set up shop and opened the doors. That’s when the real work begins.

To get and keep customers, you must master the Web marketing universe beyond your own site. You must actively seek out those whose needs, desires and interests align with the products or services you offer, draw them in and engage them in conversation.

While it may initially feel like daunting and unfamiliar territory, the key to navigating this new landscape successfully is to ensure that all of your efforts are driven by the motivation of establishing and keeping trust. As long as you always follow the principles of trustcasting, you will inevitably turn contacts into customers, customers into fans and fans into evangelists, all while cultivating a vibrant virtual community.

Read more:
The Web Marketing Universe
On the Right Path
Best of Charlotte Website Design
The “No Duhs” of Social Media
10 Principles of Trustcasting in the Web Marketing Universe

Be yourself or be nothing at all

It’s a mantra worth repeating: People follow people, not companies.

PR done right in today’s marketplace is about people. Cultivating a fan base and creating rich relationships with your public requires that you drop the corporate mask and be a real person.

The public has no affection for the face of corporate America. No one wants to see standard form-letter responses and press releases on Facebook, Twitter and the like.

You must stop being corporate and start representing your brand on a personal level. Be real, flaws and all. Be prepared to be honest through and through. Share your time, your action and your help. Be present every day – accessible and responsive – without fail.

If you try to play it safe and fabricate a personality that shows the world the face you want the public to see, this artifice will be found out quickly. No one will invite you back to the conversation. In fact, you will be banned from the conversation.

By contrast, engaging in real relationships creates fans. Fans are more than just loyal customers; they are brand evangelists that do your marketing for you.

Read more:
The Cult of Personality (Part 1)
The Cult of Personality (Part 2)
Breaking Boundaries

The Age of Tribes

Behind every major movement and successful marketing engine there is a tribe.

What is a tribe? Simply put, it is a group of people that connect around a common goal, shared passion, similarities in background or a need for solutions to improve their lives.

The facts are simple: if you want to grow and thrive in today’s marketplace, you must identify, become a member of and lead the tribes that are relevant to your business and your bottom line.Your organization, your business operations and your products or services must be shaped by and around the tribe.

Tribes are ready and waiting for the next big thing that is going to solve their problems, meet their needs or make their lives better. If you’re the one that delivers that idea, they’ll rally around you, spread your message like wildfire and fan the flames of your success. The power and influence you command as the leader of your tribe is unrivaled by any form of traditional advertising.

Read more:
Tribes in Today’s Marketing
Mastering Tribe Marketing
Shaping Business for the Tribe

Following the leaders

If you need living proof that the rules have changed, look no further than the Fame Foundry Podcast. Each month we spotlight the people and companies who are leading the way in setting new trends and redefining how business is done today.

Take, for example, best-selling author and video blogger extraordinaire Gary Vaynerchuk. When it comes to the gospel of personal branding, there is perhaps no one so well qualified to preach as Vaynerchuk, who has not only turned his family business into $60 million-a-year wine empire but has cultivated a following of more than 100,000 for his daily video blog.

For a true testament to the power of Twitter, we introduce you to Comcast’s Frank Eliason – the man behind the Internet’s most advanced social media-based customer service program. Eliason has achieved the impossible by lending a human voice to the cable giant and transforming formerly dissatisfied customers into brand evangelists.

Then there’s the inspiring story of Amélie’s French Bakery in Charlotte, N.C., which defied the unfavorable odds of launching a new restaurant in the midst of an economic downturn by cultivating a reputation for authenticity and a fiercely loyal community of ardent evangelists.

Perhaps you are sold on the importance of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but you’re still dubious of the value of viral video. Meet self-proclaimed “Internetainers” Rhett & Link, whose reputation for creating highly popular video content has brought major brands like Cadillac, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Starburst to their doorstep.

Read more:
Gary Vaynerchuk: Profit from Your Passion
Comcast’s Frank Eliason: Creating a Better Customer Experience One Tweet at a Time
Amélie’s French Bakery: Staying True to Success
Rhett & Link: The Business of Viral

More to come

The revolution is far from over, and Fame Foundry is just getting started. Keep reading for more intelligence on the new rules for business growth and what it takes to compete in today’s marketplace.

Bridging the Gap: How to Integrate Social Media Into Your Website

Your website is the home base for your company. It’s where you turn visitors into leads and prospects into paying customers.

Social media sites are outposts for your company. They’re where you go to find your customers and prospects and maintain an ongoing dialog with them in the places where they live online.

All too often, however, companies treat their web development and social media efforts as separate and distinct initiatives when, in fact, they should be working together seamlessly to promote the growth of your business.

Here’s how to maximize your online exposure by bridging the gap between your home base and social media outposts:

Start with the basics.

Make sure you have obvious links to every social media site where you maintain an active presence in a prominent location on your website. The header or footer is a good spot for these links because they then become a universal element of your website that every visitor will see no matter which page they might happen to land on first, last or in between.

You don’t have to use the standard logo for these social media sites, either. Instead, you can style these buttons in ways that reflect the look and feel of your own site.

Keep in mind, too, that the point of these links is to entice web visitors to “like” or follow you on these social media networks so that you can continue your conversation with them long after they’ve left your site. Therefore, it’s important that you include links only to those sites where you maintain an active presence. Don’t add a link to any site where you are not a frequent participant because there will be no incentive for that prospective customer to want to continue engaging with you on that platform.

It’s also smart to have these links open in a new tab so that you don’t risk losing your hard-earned visitor to other distractions on Facebook or Twitter.

Empower your advocates.

Today’s culture of the Web thrives on people finding great stuff and passing it along to others.

Make sure it’s easy for your customers and fans to share the stuff they like on your site with their own circles of friends and followers.

Again, use some discernment here and don’t include sharing options for every social site ever invented. Just pick a few key options like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ so that these buttons can be large enough to be easily seen.

Also, don’t plop these buttons on every page. Make sure they’re present on every product page and blog post. But what are the chances someone is really going to share your About or Contact page with the world?

Finally, pay attention to how links look when they’re shared. For example, Facebook’s API displays page titles and meta descriptions for shared links, so make sure these elements that live in the underpinnings of your site are formed strategically so that the shared content is presented in the most advantageous way for your brand.

Use social media to feed your website.

If you regularly use social media networks to keep your customers and prospects apprised of special promotions or events, you might consider plugging a Facebook Like Box or Twitter widget into your website.

However, don’t exercise this option just because it’s there and it’s trendy. Think carefully about whether the content you share on Facebook or Twitter actually pertains to and is appropriate for your average website visitor.

Also, while it’s almost always best for your blog to be an integral part of your own website, if you do maintain your blog on a third-party platform like Blogger or Tumblr, make sure you pull an RSS feed from your blog into your website so customers can discover your great content.

Get visual.

If you have a helpful how-to video or a series of photos from your latest event that you want to feature on your website, consider posting them to social sharing sites like YouTube or Flickr and embedding them in your site from there.

This approach makes your content accessible to the millions of users who search these social platforms for videos and images, making it that much easier for potential new customers to discover your website and your brand.

For example, Pink Cake Box, a gourmet cake shop located in New Jersey, reports that about 10 percent of their website traffic each month comes from Flickr, where they regularly post photos of unique cakes.

Just make sure when you post your photos or videos that you include a link back to your site in the description so users have a clear path to reach your home base.

Get social with service.

It’s standard practice to give your customers the option to contact your company via an email address or by submitting a form on your website.

However, many companies are now encouraging customers to get in touch via Twitter or Facebook as well.

There are several benefits to this approach. First, it gives the person who wants to reach you a quick, convenient way to do so. It also gives your company the opportunity to field both praise from happy customers and complaints from dissatisfied buyers in the public eye.

While you might be nervous about the idea of having complaints aired publicly, consider this: these people are going to be talking about you anyway. It’s best to give them an outlet to do so in a way that allows you to provide a positive resolution to the problem at-hand while demonstrating to the world that your company cares about your customers and is dedicated to providing the best possible experience for them.

If you go this route, just make sure that you’re prepared to monitor and reply to any communication directed at you via social media right away. If a question or complaint lingers unanswered, it will reflect poorly on your brand. Also ensure that anyone who is tasked with responding behalf of your brand is well trained in how to handle any imaginable scenario in a way that demonstrates strong values and a commitment to providing excellent customer service.

By bridging the gap between your activities on social media networks and your own website, you’ll create an even stronger promotion engine for your business that will help you capture and convert more customers.