Marketing Pilgrim

Now that all those Black Friday sales are over and we are getting closer to the online holiday rush slowing down, we can shift our attention to the more altruistic part of this season. People are often looking for a way to give back at this time of year, and, given the current economic climate, there is certainly a lot of need among nonprofits of all types.

From volunteering to feed the homeless to helping raise funds for school supplies for children in need, we are presented with many opportunities to get involved. If you’re not sure where to begin, try the Corporation for National & Community Service’s serve.gov site.

A couple of days ago, we were discussing book bloggers, reviews and their place in modern marketing. Though blogging may not be as hot as it used to be, it sounds like blog reviews are still worth the time and money.

Fleishman-Hillard and ModernMom.com, surveyed 700 mothers in regard to their online brand interactions.

Overall, the moms said that social media was changing the way they shopped both online and off because it made them better informed about products, deals and coupons.

Where are moms getting all of this info? 84% said they subscribe to brands on Facebook, but 69% said they’re getting branded info from blogs. Online communities came in a close third at 63% and Twitter fell short of the majority with only 48%.

Keeping things private on the internet is like having a personal chat with a friend in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. You can try to find a safe haven. Pass notes instead of shout. Chances are it won’t matter anyway, since 99% of the strangers couldn’t care less about what you have to share. Still, it only takes one person to overhear and spread the word and private goes out with the old year.

Still, people keep saying they expect privacy on social networks. Look at these numbers from eMarketer.

I get that people want photos to be private, but 53% expect comments they leave on other people’s posts to be private? Have these people never been to high school where everything you say can and will be used against you?

As marketers we often have to pay attention to areas of life that we ourselves have no interest in. Many people get turned off when we talk about sports but guess what? Whether you, as a marketer, watch or not is COMPLETELY irrelevant. If your market is there you better be there as well no matter what your personal peccadilloes.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, many marketers are just beginning to understand the power of getting in front of the sports fan while they are at the event or anywhere for that matter. Sports fans, it turns out, aren’t all beer chugging galoots (how the heck to you really spell that anyway?). In fact they are, gulp, social media savvy! This goes WAY beyond beer advertising and Cialis as well. Check out this poll from Coyle Media and see which winter sport attracts real social media users.

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We still have around 10 days left in the online holiday shopping season (that’s leaving a few days for shipping by Christmas) and the news thus far to the activity is good despite the worldwide jitters about economic factors. The chart below from comScore tells a story of holiday online sales cheer with nothing but positive numbers.

How much of your shopping this year has been online? More? Less? Do you still get out and press the flesh with those offliners? Sound off on this good Monday morning.

Before I owned my own business, I worked in-house for a large real estate brokerage. If you want to learn about sales go work for a real estate company. Apart from a handful of support staff most are completely run by sales agents. I learned a lot about sales and business while working there. But the two lessons that stuck out the most were: