If you thought that New Yorkers were a tough bunch to sell to, Seoul Korea is going to surprise you. Seoul “is the largest city proper in the developed world” according to wikipedia. The city itself has 10 million people in it. And the greater metropolitan area has over 25,000,000.

The competition in seoul is the harshest in the world. 

Recently the minister of education banned late night studying for school age children as it was common for kids to get 3-5 hours of sleep per night.

So you can imagine how hard it would be to sell to this stressed out, frenetic, jaded, and harsh crowd. The Social Media Expert in Seoul, Bob Wan Kim Reveals Twitter Facebook and Naver Secrets in the Above Video. You may find them intriguing. 

]]> http://sparkah.com/2011/11/15/social-media-expert-agency-seoul-reveals-how-to-sell-to-seoul-koreans/feed/ 0 http://sparkah.com/2011/01/22/the-marketing-mix-google-seo-vs-google-adsense-vs-twitter-vs-facebook-vs-blogging/ http://sparkah.com/2011/01/22/the-marketing-mix-google-seo-vs-google-adsense-vs-twitter-vs-facebook-vs-blogging/#comments Sat, 22 Jan 2011 14:36:00 +0000 admin http://sparkah.com/2011/01/22/the-marketing-mix-google-seo-vs-google-adsense-vs-twitter-vs-facebook-vs-blogging/

Back in the old country (not geographically–two decades ago in the 90′s), there was one brand of mobile phone, there were two brands of jeans, vaccines were definitely good for you, and you could do advertising or you could do marketing. Life was simple.

If you were going to do some advertising for you business, you’d consider magazines, tv, newspapers, or the yellow pages. On the outside chance you were big enough, you’d sprinkle in there some billboard ads.

If you were going to do some marketing, you hire a PR person to get you writeups in those same magazines and papers you are considering advertising in. You’d go to some entrepreneurs’ round table, you’d go to trade shows, and you’d mingle. This was marketing.

Today, prospective clients ask my team for marketing help. And frankly, I’m not really sure what that means.

If you ask us for marketing help and then tell us that you want to market via Twitter and Facebook, which are social environments but then tell us that you have nobody on staff who can write and be a full time web customer service rep, that’s like saying, I want to go to a big industry trade show for networking and I have nobody to send (yes, can can hire out but it’s much more cost effective to do it inhouse).

So here are the pros and cons; strengths and weaknesses of each medium of communication and each of their requirements for successful implementation. Special thanks to Orange County’s Top Solar Panel Installer for inspiring this post!

The Pros and Cons: Google SEO vs Google Adsense vs Twitter vs Facebook vs Blogging vs Forums vs Banner Ads

Google Adsense
Pros: Instant Traffic, Precise Measurement

Cons: $1-$5 per click, conservatively 800 clicks per sale (Do the math)

Requirements: Just sign up with a credit card

Google Organic Search
Pros: High credibility and conversion rates (lower every year due to SEO spammers);  generally 1200% higher conversion rates than Adwords Sponsored Results; long term residual traffic

Cons: None, if you’re already a leading reference site for your niche. If not, Cons: significant labor and strategy required to secure page one position; if done incorrectly, you could end up being sand-boxed or blacklisted

Requirements: A good honest writer; Finding and paying for a very experienced Google Strategy Team (avoid SEO people. many tend to be Sleezy. See SEO is a SCAM); picking keyword terms that people will actually click (trickier than you imagine See #2: Nine Dark Google SEO Trade Secrets)

Twitter
Pros: Immediate direct access to millions of users internationally; Bio search to precisely target location and demographic; Direct two way communication; Unlimited messaging; Strong mobile penetration; Direct penetration to SMS text for many users; Real Time Search: Eaves dropping on live conversations by key word (How useful would it be to know what people are saying about you, your competitor, your products, theirs, etc in real time?); High impression to CRT ratio

Cons: Direct two way communications; People can arbitrarily report you as spam; You can only message a practical maximum of 5 people per message; ZERO Google Page Rank Value (links don’t help your Google rank–practically SEE LINK); Easy to acquire hundreds of demographically precise followers daily (labor intensive)

Requirements: Highly senior customer service person; Skilled terse writer; 10 minute response time; Availability 12 hours a day for non international companies; Consulting from an experienced Twitter culture consultant or every book ever written about Twitter; A Tweet lasts about 60 minutes before it disappears downstream; Impression rate is very low at about 4% of total follower base. More: http://journik.posterous.com/tag/twitter

Facebook (Organic)
Pros: Impression rate is high at about 70% of friend base; Instant response is generally less necessary than Twitter; Low maintenance;

Cons: High resistance to acquiring new friends and “Likes”; More challenging than Twitter to precisely target by demographics

Requirements: None if you’re happy with low volume reach. If not, you’ll need an experienced marketing team to build your Facebook friend count (See: Facebook Marketing Trade Secrets)

Facebook (Ads)
Pros: Near instant release and traffic; Absolutely the most precise demographic targeting system on the web; Pay per click; Generally less expensive than Google Adwords

Cons: Low click through rates compared to Google Adwords and much lower than Organic Google. Generally even lower CTR than Twitter; Second most costly PPC medium next to Google Adwords

Requirements: Experienced marketeer to pinpoint target demographics or web savvy business owner; Understanding of value of a “Like” vs direct click through to destination site; credit card

Advertising on Discussion Forums and Blogs

Banner Ads PPC (Pay Per Click)
Pros: You can precisely target which readership you want by making a direct deal with a blog or forum owner; Relatively inexpensive per impression; You can create deep branding impact and messaging inexpensively if you pay per click and design the banners to prevent click throughs (Why you would do it is the subject of another post)

Cons: Low conversion rate; Moderate cost

Requirements: A very senior and experienced direct response copy writer; very experienced designer; blog and forum stats/media kit; Relationship with Blog and Forum Owner

Banner Ads PPI (Pay Per Impression)
Pros: If you design a banner with a touchdown call to action, you can double or triple your click thrus while paying a flat rate per impression. Each click through is calculated to cost you about a dollar and occur at about every 700 impressions. So if you design your ad correctly, you can get a click every 200 impressions and still be paying the same amount. This math also applies to Facebook Ads.

Cons: No matter how high your CRT (Click Through Rate) is, your conversion to sale will be low. After all, this is still just a cold ad with no rapport of credibility.

Requirements:
A very senior and experienced direct response copy writer; very experienced designer; blog and forum stats/media kit; Relationship with Blog and Forum Owner

Youtube Marketing
Youtube always get preferential Google positioning. This is because Google owns Youtube. This is also because Google wants to start selling Google TVs. So if you have a Youtube video with exactly the same content as a blog post, your Youtube video will be on Broadway while your blog post is off-off-off-Broadway.

But Youtube and is a huge topic. So we’ve focused and expanded on it exclusively here: Youtube Forcast and Trend Watch: How to Double Your Sales With Youtube

Build Your Own Blog and Discussion Forum Empire

Building Your Own Discussion Forum
Pros: You don’t have to pay a forum owner to advertise on his website; You have full control over conversational direction; You wield adminstrator / moderator influence

Cons: You’ve got to build the forum

Requirements: Forum builder; Forum moderator; Forum admin; Marketing to drive traffic to forum

Building Your Own Blog
Pros: You don’t have to pay any other bloggers to advertise on their blog; You have full control of content (See http://journik.posterous.com/tag/blogging )

Cons: You’ve got to blog twice daily;

Requirements: A+ Level Blogger; Designer

So now that you’re totally confused, let’s take you back to the old country. Back then, there was advertising, marketing and sales. That was it and everyone knew what was what. Now, not so much.

So to give you an industry veteran perspective of all your choices today, just think of Advertising as a shotgun blast. If you shoot often enough, you’ll hit somebody when they’re in the market to buy. But advertising doesn’t do a good job of building rapport and credibility. There’s no good-will associated with advertising.

People buy on rapport (relationship depth) and credibility (demonstrated expertise). That’s why people buy from friends and celebrities.

So here’s where marketing comes in. Marketing is designed to bring you to your market in an intimate way. Marketing builds relationships. Your marketing is what generates referral business. I don’t know the last time anybody email forwarded a buddy an ad. Finally, Marketing is what gets that phone to ring on your salesman’s desk.

So by this historic definition, Google Search Engine Marketing isn’t marketing at all. It’s just advertising. All it does is make you available should a prospect be looking for what you sell. Marketing develops relationships. And this difference is critical when you’re goal is to develop the least expensive immediate lowest hanging fruit sales and create long term relationships that deliver long term recurring business. One pays your bills. The other builds your empire.

InfoGraphic To Clarify All This Coming Up… To be alerted when our infographic is up and ready, just subscribe to our RSS feed http://journik.posterous.com/rss and follow us at http://twitter.com/journik

Now, the issue becomes which medium of outreach is the best fit for you? To discuss marketing with the author of this post, “Google SEO vs Google Adwords vs Twitter vs Facebook vs Blogging…” see http://sparkah.com/marketing.php

Also: Why A Powerful Marketing Strategy Incorporates Them All To Some Extent: The Tao of Making Tough Decisions (Business Philosophy)

Posted via email from Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Closet Revolutionary

Can we all agree that if you were the first Mormon you’d be rich. Well, let’s back down a bit. Let’s say you were one of the first. Hell, if you were among the first Brits to hit the New World via the Mayflower Compact, you’d get a free ride to Harvard. If you were among the first to start a McDonald’s franchise; If you were among the first to invest in Apple; If you were among the first to sign up for Facebook (not due to volume of friends. Due to the fact that you’d have 5,000 cell phone numbers to original Harvard Alums); If you were the first to start a youtube show (no matter how banal and useless: @ijustine @hotforwords @karenalloy); you’d be very successful.

Well, it’s the same with Twitter. If you were among the first to use Twitter, you’d be a lightning rod. You’d be the village elder-sage. But it’s too late. So you’re going to have to paddle out past the breakers and wait for the next set (ask a @surfer). And frankly, even if these sites go nowhere, the people you meet before a site goes belly up, and the events you get invited to, will help you fill your own belly up.

Here they are:

Top New Websites Where You Can Develop a Rapport, Build Influence, and Your Business Network

http://quora.com

http://plurban.com

http://Path.com

http://twitter.com/#search?q=usguys

http://mahalo.com

http://empireave.com

http://foursquare.com

Each of the above sites give you the opportunity to meet early adopters. Most of the early adopters are high up in the tech world, VC world, media, or enterprising college students. In any case, these are people you want to get to know. In the end, it’s not what you know. In fact, it’s not even who you know. It’s who knows you.

Posted via email from Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Closet Revolutionary

You and I both know that the decision maker who could be your next client is on Twitter. We also know that banner advertising, print ads, and even emailing him or her just won’t work.

If you could just contact him/her and roughly 10,000 more people who have the same demographics (even locality), you’d have found a gold mine of new clients. But how do you squeeze that level of data from Twitter?

Like this: CEOs in Houston

We also know that banner advertising, print ads, and even emailing him or her just won’t work

Let’s talk about your marketing strategy personally. We’d be happy to see if there’s a way we can team up and pitch in. Call 310 598 1606 or email bob.wan.kim@gmail.com … happy prospecting!

Posted via email from Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Closet Revolutionary

According to @Adage, the rest of 2010 and beyond is going to be led by digital media buys from ad agencies. Sure, this is not good for print and radio media. But it’s even worse for ad agencies.

To really see why, we have to understand the evolution of advertising. Back in the day, the media was owned by William Randy Hearst. He was the only person who had a relationship with the public. If you wanted to talk to the people, you had to pay the piper.

He, through his political and editorial voice, won the trust, interest, and ear of the people. He developed rapport with the public.

The agency world has become so used to the role of court jester that they cannot imagine themselves as king

Then, you had all the creative maverick types who couldn’t possibly work under such a tyrant. They became the court jesters who tried to sneak out inside jokes by the king.

The agency world has become so used to the role of court jester that they cannot imagine themselves as king. They buy media placements from Google, Facebook, Engadget and any other high traffic blog because they cannot possibly imagine owning a direct relationship with the public. With all their catch-phrase, slogan, and trademark spawning creativity, they cannot imagine how to directly create rapport with the public.

All they’d have to do to stop paying the piper his column inch price, is engage the public directly instead of letting a writer like Dear Abby, hired by the piper, do the piping.

When’s the last time @adage replied to you?

To build your own targeted community, all you need to do is throw rice in the streets. Call 310 598 1606 or Message bob.wan.kim@gmail.com to talk about what flavor rice to use.

Posted via email from Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Closet Revolutionary

four

About three years ago, before Oprah had even heard of “Twitter,” Twitter was making new millionaires. No, not just @Ev and @Biz. Twitter made the most sought after CEOs and VCs in Silicon Valley directly accessible. It was as if there was a new tech security breach in their multiple secretary and executive assistant firewall. All you had to do is send @fredwilson a Tweet and he would meet with you.

Youtube did the same for hundreds of starving film school students. Youtube needed content so they pushed their early adopters using Google’s checkbook. Overnight, singers got MTV deals and record label deals. Overnight, producers on iBooks got pilots on major networks.

When ever a new disruptive technology ramps up, early adopters get unique positioning. All they have to do is sit there and the platform’s growth becomes their growth. It’s just like surfing one of those waimea swells during a storm.

Timing is Everything. But Location, Location, Location is Everywhere
It’s the virtual equivalent of what happened to an Armenian friend of mine. His father built a gas station on a parcel of rural land in the middle of nowhere. A year later, fortune 500 corporations moved in all around him. You’ve probably filled up your tank at his station. It’s the one in the middle of Cupertino. And he also owns the one across the street. He doesn’t even own an iPod.

Imagine how your business and marketing strategy would change if you could forecast what a billion people like Gus were going to do tomorrow.

Now, Foursquare is that new disruptive vehicle. But personally, I think the more interesting story is not how Foursquare will empower your business. I think what’s more interesting is how Foursquare will empower Foursquare.

Just today, Foursquare was reported to be in talks about selling their data to Bing, Yahoo or Google. If you don’t know why this is a big deal, read on gentle reader, read on.

I used to have an office in Cardiff by the Sea, CA. It was on the strand just between the San Elijo Lagoon and the Pacific Ocean. Blue water was everywhere. And so was old Gus. Gus hobbled up and down the most beautiful stretch of San Diego coast line with a shopping cart filled with soda cans he’d dug out of public trash cans. Nobody ever figured out what he did with the cans since he obviously couldn’t drive to a recycling facility. What’s more, nobody ever figured out how he got to this stretch of beach from whatever bridge he slept under.

You Don’t Even Have to Use Foursquare to Be Profiled
At this point, you might be thinking that if Gus used Foursquare, we’d know everything about him. But that’s financially useless information. What gives Foursquare and you extraordinary business leverage is the implied data about Gus.

Toward the end of Gus’s life, we noticed he was missing from his usual beat every now and again. He was the topic of conversation at the Chart House where staff and guests all grew to take comfort in his cameos.

The staff and guests all used Foursquare. It was Dodge Ball at the time. But that’s not even the exciting part.

Even if You Omit a Check In, Your Location Pattern Implies Your Hidden Rendevous
If Gus was alive today, his entire demographic profile would be transparent using the data Foursquare wants to sell Google or Bing. It would be obvious that he visited Dr. Malone off of Santa Fe Ave. He’s the top cancer specialist in the area. It would be obvious that Gus went to the county court house after seeing a notary public.

Then if you run a DB query to find all users who had the same “check-in” pattern, you’d find that many of the users also met with Steven R. Jennings Esq, the most expensive estate planning attorney in San Diego.

Even if Gus never used Foursquare, his fans driving around town checking-in saying they “spotted” @Gus would be enough for whoever has access to the Foursquare data to realize that Gus was an eccentric multi-millionaire looking for someone to give his money to. Turned out, he gave it the to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Multiple Millions changed hands because one of them drove him to the dump on a weekly basis.

Imagine how your business and marketing strategy would change if you could forecast what a billion people like Gus were going to do tomorrow.

Follow me @journik. My next post will demonstrate how your “location patterns” reveal your age, sexual orientation, income, and even health prognosis into old age.

Posted via email from Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Closet Revolutionary

prequel: How to Get Your Boss to Pay for Social Media Marketing

Before you begin to write up a budget for your boss or client to approve, you’ve got to create a landscape where the final numbers you present will create a sigh of relief instead of a ghasp of panic. Right?

If you try and educate me about the value of VVS, flawless, white 1 ct diamonds after you’ve shocked me with a $23,000 price tag, you’ve already lost the sale (not that that is too expensive for you, ladies, I mean, ummm… the right woman). You’ve gotta create appreciation for the hand stitched Corinthian leather dating back to biblical times, the hand machined throaty V-12 that delivers to your passenger seat the exact same vibrational resonance as an Oral-B battery operated vibrating head toothbrush (?), and the $2000 a pop P-Zero soft rubber tires you’ll need to replace at the end of summer. Then, when you tell me it only costs $128,000, I’ll think it’s a steal.

So here’s your ground work:

1. People are spending much more time entertaining each other than via 1 way media.
Newspapers, Magazines, Billboards, and even TV is losing attention. Instead, people, you, are buried nose deep in your iPhone or Android’s Facebook, Youtube, or Twitter.

Facebook says that over 50% of their users login every day. If they spend 23 minutes per login checking friends photos and returning messages, thats the length of a primetime sitcom.

Facebook has 400 million active users. The #1 rated primetime sitcom Friends had 52 million viewers.

If you could get an ad for just 30 seconds on Friends or on Facebook, which would you do?

If you want help designing and building your social media marketing, I’m more than happy to chip in or just answer questions:

Bob Wan Qi Kim
310 598 1606
http://twitter.com/journik
http://www.facebook.com/bob.wan.kim

Posted via email from Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Closet Revolutionary

Stephanie Marcus, a new Mashable editor, just posted an anecdotal list of the Top 10 Gowalla check-in locations. On the list are Disneyland, Pike Place Market in Seattle, Trafalgar Square in London, and surprisingly, the Alamo Draft House Cinema in Texas (Turns out Gowalla is a TX native and born from SXSW).

At first glance, this data seems like simple coffee table trivia. But it’s not. This data and visibility into consumer activity verges on divine omniscience. It will mean billions of dollars for one party and total irrelevance for others.

Think about the last traffic accident you witnessed, the last survey you filled out, or the last focus group you joined. All three witnesses called three different colors on the defendants vehicle. You fudged. And you said you’d watch “The Gates,” but you just kept watching “Fringe.”

People don’t know themselves. So marketeers and entrepreneurs have the darnest time predicting them.

Now, with Twitter, Gowalla, and Foursquare, projections about what you might do become fuzzy crystal balls. By mining data, they know exactly what you will do, when and how often. It’s like bing a 4th dimensional god in a world of blind 3d people.

Why You Will Let Evil Corporations Know Everything About You. The Consumer Benefits
This isn’t all bad for the consumer. Soon, eHarmony.com and Match.com’s million dollar business will go the way of the dot com. Seriously. If they are public, short them now.

Think about it. Instead of paying $20/m (or whatever these services that I DON’T USE cost), you just set up a location/demographic profile and corresponding filter. Basically, you describe yourself in a premium version of Foursquare and Gowalla and you describe your soul mate in your location based filter. My profile would look like:

Male
90401
Santa Monica
Very Attractive
Athletic
Wealthy
1977

Etc.

I’d then set up a location based filter to find:

Female
Los Angeles
Super Model
Athletic
Heiress
1980-1986
M.S. Columbia (JK! =p)

Etc.

And the moment she checks in, whether we are “friends” or not, we both get pinged. She can see my full profile and then has the right to opt-in to my precise table or bar stool geo-coordinates.

The potential is literally divine omniscient. You can ping for a cardiologist for that 57yo man who suddenly grabbed his left arm. You can ping for a lawyer as soon as you see the flashing lights in your rear-view. You can even ping for a mercenary wing-man as soon as that blond opts-in and smiles back.

Location based services will go this way. Integrate them into your long range corporate strategy. If you want me to help you do that, contact me at 310 598 1606 and bob.wan.kim@gmail.com … or just speak your mind at http://twitter.com/journik .

How Can I Help You Spread the Word?

Posted via email from Social Media Marketing Strategies for the Closet Revolutionary

You ever feel like unless you’re already a bigshot, nobody will follow you back on Twitter? Well, this video will make you a micro-bigshot. You’ll atleast be big enough to have 70% of the people you contact follow you back… here’s how to get twitter tweeple to follow back fast: Followers:

Drop me a hello over twitter. Let’s team up and work together on whatever you are marketing. I’d love to hear about what you do.

Posted via web from I’m just amazed.

It’s an easter-egg hidden feature

In the good ole days before Twitter started locking down their API, you could use a program like Guy Hagen’s Twitseeker and it would automatically find people based on their tweet or bio content. Then, you could select up to 50 people at a time and follow them all. Following all these people would send out a Twitter generated “You have a new follower” email. But even better, Twitseeker would @message everyone automatically and say, @you followed @target using @twitseeker.

You’d get a 70% follow-back rate. That was astounding. Not any more.

Now, you have to be smarter. You can use a webapp like my http://untweeps.com … after you authenticate, you unfollow people based on the date since they last tweeted. Then, on the results page, you’ll see a tiny link asking if you want to follow new people. It’s an easter-egg hidden feature.

Or you can also use Google to isolate only twitter user pages based on their bio and location. While you can’t tell google to differentiate between their bio and the tweet content that appears on each twitter user’s page, since Google has a really cool “proximity relevance” feature, you can just include the words, “bio,” and “location,” to tell Google to focus on that section of any twitter user profile – Just like I did below.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at http://twitter.com/journik

PS. If you have a blog or busy site and want to trade ads, let’s do it – lemme know!

Posted via web from I’m just amazed.