The Social Customer Manifesto

Chaff and Flares for Marketing

The Hoosier Contrarian gave me the big thought of the day.  He writes:

"I just read parts of the US Army Manual, FM34-60 COUNTERINTELLIGENCE ( I have way too much time on my hands), and a thought occurred to me. We all have, or should have, firewalls for our personal computers, passwords for our banking and communication over the internet, etc. But what about consumer tools that have been specifically designed to act as “countermarketing” aids? And if they exist, what do they look like, how are they configured, and managed? It may be a bit of a stretch to visualize, but for me, it might mean that I can begin to manage how I want various companies to incorporate my internet behavior into their computerized marketing machinery. Imagine the possibilities. If enough people used such a tool, it might even force companies to do the hard work. Actually get to know me." (emphasis added)

The link is here.

Now, I do a fair amount of this currently, primarily by trying to use plus addressing on my email address whenever possible in order to know who is selling my email address to whom.  (Plus addressing allows me to determine the source of the leak.)

What kinds of marketing countermeasures do you use?

Mobilize

"Advertisers should not make the mistake of trying to recreate classic Web advertising models that gather metrics like impressions and click-throughs...a better strategy is to create great branded mobile experiences that drive interactive usage and brand awareness. Successful brands have leveraged mobile to extend their overall brand equity, not necessarily to turn on a new revenue stream in the mobile channel." - Dave Sloan

image: gizmodo

VRM Workshop 2009 at SAP Labs - May 15-16, 2009

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

The first VRM West Coast Workshop (tag vrm2009) will take place on Friday-Saturday 15-16 May, 2009 at SAP Labs at 1410 Hillview Street in Palo Alto. The event will go from 9am to roughly 5pm on both days.  The cost is a recession-friendly $0.00.

As with earlier VRM gatherings, the purpose of the workshop is to bring people together and make progress on any number of VRM topics and projects. The workshop will be run as an "unconference" on the open space model, which means session topics will be chosen by participants. Here is the Wikipedia page on open space.

In open space there are no speakers or panels -- just participants, gathered to get work done and enjoy doing it. Participation includes contributing to the VRM Workshop 2008 wiki.

The workshop is scheduled to come just ahead of the Internet Identity Workshop (IIW2009a) in Mountain View (a couple miles away), which takes place on Monday-Wednesday, May 18-20. Many of the people involved in VRM are also involved in the user-driven identity community.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

B2B vs. B2C?

There's historically been a separation between businesses that sell directly to end customers ("business to consumer," or B2C) like Best Buy or Wal*Mart, and businesses that sell primarily to other businesses ("business to business," or B2B) like IBM or a large automotive component supplier.

The question:  with social media, where people deal with other people and not an abstract "organization," does this change?  (Chris Brogan has some thoughts here.) 

What do you think?  Are B2B and B2C outmoded terms as we all start to interact as "people?"

Mobile Marketing, From The Customer's Point of View

My April article is now up at Mobile Marketer: Mobile Marketing, From The Customer's Point of View.

Listen Carefully

Brian Roger over at The Customer Collective and I had a nice chat on the topic of listening to one's customers.  You can eavesdrop here.

Owning Your Own Data

This one's important, and a worthy read.

The Industry Standard: Owning Your Own Data (April 2, 2009)

Solid article about one of the cornerstones of the VRM initiative, that of taking control of the data that is currently floating around about us in various systems, both financial and vendor-based.  The lede:

"The idea of you 'owning' the data about yourself is both emotionally and intellectually appealing. This data, which ranges from the critical (your medical and financial records) to the theoretically trivial (what you buy and search for, and which Web sites you visit) defines, quantifies and describes your preferences, resources, habits and health. It is a proxy for you. It is also what every marketer in the entire commercial universe wants to get their hands on."

Read it here.

photo: ian-s