Being an egomaniac author with an inferiority complex, I commissioned a Helix Review to analyze Exodus against all published works within The Book Genome Project as well as making specific comparisons to titles in the science fiction genre. The big data… Read More »What Big Data Tells You About Exodus
Big data continues to confound the average marketer. The issue surrounds comprehending the data that matters.
Marketers need to understand how to use the technology. Big data has no value unless you can mine information sets to achieve better business outcomes.
Which data sets make for richer relationships with prospects and customers? How will it impact business? What should a marketer look for?
Go back to key performance indicators (KPIs). One worthwhile KPI might be return customers. Let’s apply that to both a hypothetical B2C and a B2B scenario.
If you are a retailer, instead of examining the immense amount of data produced from web site and social interactions, intentionally predetermine what will matter to your company. One thing we know about social media is that People Love Pets! They post pet pics, talk about them incessantly, and like everyone else’s pet pics.
Read More »The Dog Bowl of Big Data
Happy April Fool’s Day! We now resume our regular programming…
Five weeks ago at xPotomac, nine speakers and one emcee delivered speeches and conversation starters that sparked 25-30 minutes of questions and answers each. The following nine videos are listed in the order of presentation.
Special thanks to my client Vocus for providing videography services. Vocus is hosting the Demand Success 2013 conference in Washington, DC this June 20-21. The event focuses on marketing best practices for converging media, and includes speakers like Arianna Huffington, Content Marketing Institute Founder Joe Pulizzi, digital journalism expert Jay Rosen, and many more. Check it out.
Please feel free to leave comments and feedback about the conference here. We’re listening!
DC’s very own Shana Glickfield (Beekeeper Group) provides the introduction to very first xPotomac. xPotomac is where the digital media future meets businesses. This groundbreaking conference features seven media technologies most likely to impact businesses and marketers in the immediate future.
This smaller intimate conference features limited attendance to ensure maximum learning and networking. Speakers will present in a tight setting with the stage centered in the round or in a horseshoe formation. Each session features a gladiator like format with 15 minutes dedicated to speaking and 30 minutes of question and answer from the audience.
The opening keynote at xPotomac was provided by Vanessa Fox. Given how much of the current web — social and content marketing included — revolves around search, voice search represents a game changer, especially given mobile use with Siri and Google Voice Search.
Read More »9 Videos on the Digital Future
Andrew Keen remains the most constant and prolific critic of digital media advances and their impact on society. His books Digital Vertigo and Cult of the Amateur have made him a bit of a pariah in some circles, and an intellectual hero in others.
He was the ideal choice to close xPotomac on February 25, as the conference discussed future technologies. This podcast offers a sneak preview, which is also transcribed below… We got into all sorts of fun things, including big data, influencers, privacy and other digital termites.
GL: Well, we’re really excited to have you here in D.C. and I can’t wait to see you. First of all, for people that don’t know you, why don’t you quickly explain your background to them and what you did with Digital Vertigo.
AK: So I’m a writer, I’m a broadcaster, entrepreneur, accountant of a company, Audio Café, I have a weekly show on TechCrunch, columns for other people including CNN, written two books Quasi Amateur, which was critical of web 2.0 and the democratization of the Internet. I just came out with a new book this year Digital Vertigo, which is critical of technology’s obsession with transparency and openness.
Some people see me as a technology reactionary. I’m not really. I’m as wired as anyone.
But, I am more skeptical of some of the social and cultural consequences and see the way in which the web continues to disintermediate both the experts and the creative class: the writers, musicians, filmmakers. I don’t think generally it’s benefitted creative people. It’s been great for entrepreneurs, great for programmers, technologists, investors and VCs, but not so great for the creative industry.
GL: In your mind, how does big data fit into that picture and what are the challenges that we’re facing with it?
AK: Well, big data is the current buzzword when it comes to describing the world we’re living in. I fear this: On the web we’ve all essentially become data. There’s an excellent writer, he wrote a cook called The Information, James Gleick, and he writes we’ve become data, we’ve become data in the Digital Age.
I think he’s right. We are distributing ourselves on the network, and I’m fearful of the impact it has both on our privacy, in terms of our identity and of our relationship with each other. I fear that the more we reveal about ourselves, the lonelier we become, the more we actually destroy the social.
Read More »Big Data, Influencers, Privacy and Other Digital Termites
In building the program for xPotomac (February 25th), I sought to address a sea change in media evolution. That change spells the end for the social PR revolution, a marketing movement embodied by brand-led conversations over the past seven years.
We are currently experiencing a throttling of branded, online grassroots power. Specifically, it’s becoming harder and harder for marketers to be seen with branded earned media and social updates.
This evolution is best evidenced by the increasing role of owned and paid content placement (as discussed, content marketing is the 21st century nice description of advertising), and social or native advertising.
Other signs evidence this change, too. Social search and stronger policing of black hat SEO by Google has put a premium on paid search again. Facebook’s use of Edgerank to force companies and individuals alike to pay for attention is another harbinger of this fate.
The rise of big data and the forthcoming wearable computing revolution — themes that run throughout xPotomac — will cause a further throttling of online grassroots pipes.
BlogPotomac, my old social media conference, returns on February 25, 2013 under the new name xPotomac.
The opening salvo in the xPotomac series features seven new media technologies impacting businesses and marketers now and in the immediate future, hand-picked by myself and conference partner Patrick Ashamalla. We’ve already got our keynotes and emcee lined up, too!
To distinguish xPotomac, the event will feature a “gladiator” presentation format with conversations only and no powerpoints.
Speakers will present in a tight setting with the stage centered in the round or in a horseshoe formation. Each session speaker has 15 minutes dedicated to their topic, followed by 30 minutes of question and answer from the audience.
More on the revised conference after the raison d’être for the post, the seven must watch media trends for the first xPotomac:
Read More »xPotomac: 7 Tech Trends Changing Media
Why, why, why create yet another type of marketing?
Well, I’m not. It’s just a metaphor for emotionless marketing without personality, a danger we face in the age of marketing automation.
Vulcan marketing refers tongue in cheek to an over-focus on big data driven algorithms, automated paths, statistical decision making and content decisions.
For those of you not familiar with Star Trek lore, Vulcans do not experience human emotions. The beauty of Spock’s character — half Vulcan and half human — were his struggles to embrace humanity, much like today’s marketers.
Today’s release of Hubspot 3 marketing automation software at the Inbound Conference marks the rise of dynamic content, a method of customizing the way individuals view content, images or actions. Now small and medium enterprise marketers can easily deploy dynamic content segmented by niches.
Dynamic content harnesses database marketing to serve unique content to people based on a wide variety of factors, including their sales history, social media preferences, historical content preferences, and prior interactions with the company.
Delivery mechanisms for dynamic content include both online web pages and forms, and emails. Of course, if you engage in direct mail, you can deliver print pieces based on segmentation and individual preferences (depending on your vendor).
Read More »The Rise of Dynamic Content
