Comments on: Bad Advice Yelled Loudly Is Still Bad Advice

By: Mike Stewart

Mike Stewart — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:58:02 +0000

Wow. You guys are outspoken and I love it. Great advice Lisa. Keep up the good work. Webmarketers, “social media gurus” (tongue in cheek about this as I don’t have that much respect for those that claim guru or ninja status after 1 year in the industry), and those in and around the internet advertising community are usually the first to adapt to new technologies and applications. It is only smart business to stay ahead of the curve. If the application is viable it sooner or later trickles down. Just thing about Facebook, MySpace, and geo-location… even YouTube is only 5 years old… but hey, let’s all wait until the bus has passed vs getting on, checking out the scenery and seeing what the latest and greatest has to offer…

Am I right?

By: Rufus Dogg

Rufus Dogg — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:31:55 +0000

Julien Smith @julien writes:
In your business, you must find out what the inevitable is and act on it today. Place your outpost there when there’s no competition, because you’ll want it when it becomes obvious to everyone in your industry.

Read the whole thing here:
http://inoveryourhead.net/act-on-the-inevitable-today/

Where business will be tomorrow is geo-location. Or not, but if you wait until everyone else is there, you;re just going to be one more carnival barker in a very loud circus.

By: Mike Redbord

Mike Redbord — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 14:15:55 +0000

Thank goodness for AdAge. If we didnlt have an outdated, monolithic industry voice to turn the tide against, where would we be? Seriously – if every marketer out there blogged twice a week with good content, it’d be a LOT harder to get a sizeable share of voice ourselves. Let’s all give AdAge and it’s ilk a high five for making our lives as marketers that much easier. Maybe some day they’l learn.

By: Megan

Megan — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:55:05 +0000

Not only do my personal experiences with FourSquare contradict the original article altogether, but I too cannot believe that anyone would suggest “waiting” is a good strategy when it comes to social media. Everyone else has already addressed the many points I would make/agree with, so I just want to say THANK YOU for bringing it up!

By: Colin Gilchrist

Colin Gilchrist — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:47:32 +0000

Dare I suggest as a marketing / advertising business you rush into these new technologies, location based or otherwise and as Simon Francis (CEO Saatchi & Saatchi) has said try lots of little test campaigns to assess what works using traditional and new community driven actions rather than sit on your ass and do nothing.
Being early in the curve has previously been found to lose out to those that sit back – the major reason is “all your eggs in one basket” Simon’s business hasn’t employed a traditional advertising person in 2 years and the business is still growing, why is that? They push the boundaries and make you take notice without pushing it down your throat.
Use it and abuse it – you’ll make it work, just spread your bets.

By: Chris Miller

Chris Miller — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 23:02:08 +0000

Let’s say your a construction company. Your primary business is picking up Government bids, and other low-ball bids that other construction companies won’t touch. You don’t have a marketing person.

If anyone within the company takes time to learn how Foursquare could work for them, they risk loosing those low-ball bids that actually drive their business. They will either spend thousands of dollars in lost business, or thousands hiring a marketer to make a marketing / local search marketing plan.

… Does this post apply to everyone? Or are you just talking about the marketing/internet-inclined companies who only need to have the college intern spend an hour setting one up (which they already know how to do, because they happen to be a super-duper mayor?

By: Jen Grant

Jen Grant — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:44:58 +0000

I agree Lisa – our clients are also still seeing value and ROI from Twitter. Social Media is what you make it. Period. It’s a blank canvas.

At first I was shocked, and quite frankly disappointed by how short sighted AdAge was in their interpretation and POV in that article. But then again, considering it’s coming from a brand who’s Facebook Page has 1 photo and a Wall filled with an auto-import of their Twitter stream, I’m not really surprised. Rob said it best: Nuff said.

oh and hey – anyone ever heard of a little think called SEO and Link Building?? #justsayin

By: Patrick Sexton

Patrick Sexton — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:41:20 +0000

Jumping in is good.
It may not be marketing gold, but when you jump into anything, you get a fab view of the layout of the land. Good for adage to put out reports, but it is really just a movie review….
“Here is my observation on this.”

If you read movie reviews, you prob are missing some great movie u will love. Jump in. See what is there and how it can be useful for you.
Catch amnesia (phrase courtesy of the Pepsi refresh campaign)
It is good to forget all you know and try and discover.

By: Alan Bleiweiss

Alan Bleiweiss — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:25:03 +0000

John,

That’s an issue of who you get your advice from. If a business owner just jumps in, both feet, without getting sound guidance, of course they’re more likely to screw it up. And this is a great example of why business owners who listen to 20th century giants like Forrester and ADAge when it comes to 21st century marketing are more likely to screw up even worse.

By: Sully

Sully — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 22:15:35 +0000

Lisa,
I wish I could start an epic slow clap with your posts. The piece about waiting, or just keeping the status quo makes me #facepalm more than you can believe. Did you know that phone book ads (e.g. the Yellowpages, etc) still accounts for $13B/year?

A marketer won’t get fired for $3,000/mo on a Yellowpages ad, but fear getting canned for doing SEO, because their employer doesn’t understand it.

But, I guess it’s okay, because their competitors will.

-@sully