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A new report from Forrester Research, 2011: Now Social Media Marketing Gets Tough, predicts that spam filters will begin to block many Tweets and Status Updates this year.
The new filters, designed to cut clutter, will stop not only many of the messages sent by marketers, but those same ones passed peer-to-peer.
Forrester also predicts a spike this year in worries about privacy, especially among Boomers and seniors, who are rapidly warming to social media.
Growing mistrust will make it harder to engage customers and gather friends and followers in 2011.
Should an association replace its magazine with an e-book?
One group who'd answer no: advertisers.
That's according to "Five Reasons Not to Go Digital Only with Your Association Magazine," a new white paper from Ideas Communicated, a design firm in Washington, DC.
As the white paper makes clear, while e-book readership is on the rise, response to the ads in e-books isn't.
This finding should make any association executive think twice before substituting a magazine with an e-book.
Of course, when it comes to curbing expenses, a cheap substitute for almost anything can be alluring.
In fact, cheapness is the chief reason e-books are such "bright and shiny objects."
But the switch may cause advertisers to abandon the association, triggering losses far greater than the gains made through savings.
In other words, killing a magazine may spare some expenses, but could cost more in the long run.
Or as Ben Franklin, a publisher himself, once said, "The best is the cheapest."
Disclosure: Ideas Communicated is a client of mine.
Event planners are experimenting with people-friendly designs to improve the productivity of medical meetings, as my recent article in CONVENE illustrates.
Planners' efforts to reinvent the "soft side" of these gatherings makes sense in light of hard data we have from neuroscience.
According to Cornell University’s just-published white paper, The Future of Meetings, the value of medical meetings derives in large part from the “emotional contagion” they feed.
“In a nutshell, people tend to express and feel emotions that are similar to and influenced by the emotions of others,” according to coauthors Christine Duffy and Mary Beth McEuen. “Research has confirmed that emotions, attitudes, and moods do, in fact, ripple out from individuals and, in the process, influence not only other individuals’ emotions, thoughts, attitudes and behaviors, but also the dynamics of the entire group.”
By humanizing the meeting space, planners can create a positive “emotional contagion,” instead of a negative one. And if positive emotions rule, the whole medical meeting becomes significantly more productive.
Disclosure: FutureShow, the event design firm profiled in CONVENE, is a client of mine.
Wall Street Journal columnist Sarah Needleman suggests publishing may be the key to acquiring more customers.
She profiles a Richmond, VA-based dentist who's published five books recently, including This Won't Hurt a Bit.
The books have brought the dentist 450 new patients, at an acquistion cost of only $90 each.
Most entrepreneurs-turned-authors seek not only to capture new customers, but to generate "invisible income," writes Needleman.
The latter comes from consulting, media appearances and speeches.
"The trend wouldn't have been possible without the emergence of print-on-demand publishers," she notes.
Thanks to firms like iUniverse.com and Lulu.com, authors can publish for little or no cost, in exchange for a percentage of sales.
I've been researching a hot technology lately. My efforts have included reading the Websites of 40 firms in the "space."
In doing so, I've encountered statements like these on every, single site:
"We are committed to continually driving innovation within the industry."
"Innovation is the backbone to everything that we collaborate, develop and deliver."
"Our passion for developing innovative software solutions is surpassed only by our commitment to our clients‘ success."
"Our team ranks among the best in the industry."
"Our goal is to empower your organization with the revenue it needs to advance its mission."
Not persuasive.
You might advise the firms to ditch such drivel as, "Our team ranks among the best in the industry." That would help a lot.
But what else could they do to improve their Websites?
- Tell me why the technology matters to me. Who cares if the firm is "continually driving innovation within the industry?" What's in it for me?
- Deep-six the fuzzy words. Don't require me to think so hard. Words like "collaborate" and "empower" are way too vague.
- Paint me a picture. Use language the way it should be used. "Show, don't tell." And employ clear, colorful words. As Winston Churchill (pictured above) once said, "Short words are the best, and the old words when short are best of all."
