Latest News from Christine Fife

Don’t Try to Boil The Ocean: You’ll Just Kill the Fish

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:39:00 EDT

If only there were more hours in the day… I probably still wouldn’t get around to blogging more. But two things kicked me in the backside today and got me motivated. First, the #sm51 tweetchat (guest @johncass with topic Importance of Content and Engagement Strategy in Social Media) and second, Seth Godin’s blog post today, Driveby Culture and the Endless Search for Wow. Since there aren’t more hours in the day, why do some people and businesses try to boil the ocean?

Influencers: How Influence Manifests Itself

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:55:50 EST

During today’s #hastagsocialmedia.com Unconference (#sm48)—with guest moderator Ken Burbary—the topic of Influencers was raised. The topic of today’s discussion was actually Social and the New Model For Market Segmentation, but within the new world of social media, Influencers play an even bigger role in defining and reaching segments. (Side Note: If you are a communications professional [...]

Marketing Is Dead, Long Live Conversation

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:49:00 EST

I’m not sure when “marketing” became a 4-letter word for so many people, but in my recent experience more and more people think of “marketing” as sleazy. This sucks if you’re a marketing professional, which I am, but I don’t advocate any marketing practices that people associate with the dirty-word sense of marketing. I had several [...]

Conversing with Customers vs. Writing Right to Them

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:14:27 EST

What the heck does this post title mean, is probably what you’re asking yourself, right? Well, my intention for this post is to raise the topic of being “conversational” in your communications with customers and prospects vs. writing perfect, grammatically correct informational conveyances. For that information, I recommend a few writing classes with text books [...]

Listening, but are They Hearing?

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:33:37 EST

I’m always preaching to businesses to keep in mind the 5 keys of true participation when they are looking at getting into the social media/Web 2.0 options to expand their company reach and product awareness. Listening Speaking Caring Sharing Building relationships Lately, I’ve been talking with a number of engineers from startups who are in Alpha stages with their products, thus [...]

Making Conversation to Build Relationships and Grow Your Business: 2010 Style!

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:03:29 EST

The definition I like best for the word “conversation” comes from Dictionary.com: “Conversation: the informal interchange of thoughts, information, etc., by spoken words; oral communication between persons; talk; colloquy.” But notice that the dictionary hasn’t caught up with the times. It’s 2010, Dictionary People! This definition specifically says “spoken” and “oral” and leaves out all other forms [...]

Getting Social Media to Work

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:00:00 EST

Social media isn’t just for the Fortune 500 world, but it isn’t a just a simple, free, easy 1-2-3 proposition, either. In fact, as major corporations build out their social media strategies to expand their place in the market conversation, increase market share, differentiate from competitors and expand their offerings and refine their customer support, [...]

Appealing to People for Community Participation

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:10:00 EST

If you’re on Facebook or connected to a charitable organization who has a Facebook page, you may have already heard about Chase bank’s philanthropic social media outreach program, Chase Community Giving. A brilliant communications outreach idea to show current and potential customers how they support and give back to the US community, which in turn, [...]

Building Relationships: What It Means to Participate: 6th of 6 Posts

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:38:55 EST

We’re finally here. Post #6 on what it means to participate in the market conversation. Building relationships is a key part of that participation, but who should you be building relationships with and how? Every market space has a conversation going on by an ecosystem of individuals and organizations. These people include Influencers, Participants and [...]

Evolutionary Graph Theory and Social Networks for Marketing

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:45:00 EDT

Came across an interesting blog post today: The Evolving Face of Social Networks. A bit more science-ish than I normally would be interested in, but as it pertains to social networking I was intrigued. The blog post raised two interesting thoughts (and I am paraphrasing): 1) If social networks are so popular/widely being adopted, why [...]

MLB.com: Ignoring Requests for Removal from Email List

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:45:00 EDT

A few months ago I purchased Giants tickets through MLB.com to take my mom, nephew and boyfriend to a game. It was the first time I’d personally purchased tickets to a Giants game, so understandable that I would now be on their email list. Right away I started receiving emails from MLB.com. I like baseball, but not enough to want emails about it, so I scrolled to the bottom of the email and clicked to unsubscribe. A confirmation page came up confirming that I had indeed unsubscribed. But apparently, it didn’t take on their end.

Sharing: What It Means to Participate

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:15:00 EDT

To date, this blog series on what it means to participate in the market conversation has covered Listening, Speaking and Caring. We’ve now gotten to the 4th of the 5 most important objectives in a conversation marketing strategy: Sharing. This one is simple: share your experiences—positive and negative—and your insights as you grow your company [...]

Caring: What It Means to Participate: 4th of 6 Posts

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 15:12:53 EDT

Companies provide products and services to consumers who want or need them, right? So what difference does it make if the companies actually care about the needs and wants of their customers, so long as they keep buying their products? It makes a big difference if you want to keep customers and sell more. To truly [...]

Speaking. What It Means to Participate: 3rd of 6 Posts

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:48:58 EDT

The first amendment to the United States Constitution empowers the people of this country to freely say anything they want (unless it will cause a stampede, of course). Over the years marketers took this to heart and companies haven’t stopped talking at us since. But, just because you can speak doesn’t mean you should. For some [...]

Listening, What It Means to Participate: 2nd of 6 Posts

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:21:25 EDT

What did you say? I didn’t hear you, I was too busy talking, in fact, you’re lucky I realized you were saying anything at all. All too often, this is how companies have treated their customers, prospects, Influencers and everyone else with a stake/interest in their market space. Sad, isn’t it. So much can be [...]

What It Means to Participate: 1st of 6 Posts

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:11:52 EDT

More and more companies are realizing they need to engage with their customers, prospects, influencers and everyone else who has a stake in the market conversation, but what does it mean to engage or participate? True participation in the market conversation is much more than just talking—that’s what marketers and sales people have been doing [...]

How To Measure Your Company’s Social Media Presence

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:15:00 EDT

Social Media like Twitter and Facebook are hot, hot, hot right now — being used for everything from marketing to market research to customer support. But for all the buzz, the activity taking place in social media remains hard to measure, and there are still no clear standards on how to evaluate it. Web Metrics [...]

Integrate Social Media Tools Into Business, Not Marketing Campaigns

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 15:00:00 EDT

“That its not enough to focus on social alone. That nurturing the conversations in the social realm are the starting point not the end game. That it is indeed about getting customers to influence each other to make positive purchasing and brand affinity decisions. That the core philosophies around social can and should be deeply integrated into a business. And that, the more holistically you look at social influence marketing - across all touch points digital and physical, the more likely are you to harness it for competitive advantage. It is the social ideas that matter more than social media. Ideas that harness social philosophies but create new outcomes and not just new tactics.”

Eat Your Own Marketing Dog Food

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:45:00 EDT

Well said, Seth! I want to go a step further and challenge marketing and sales professionals to eat their own marketing dog food. Every time you and your company make a decision to post ads, email prospects/customers, send newsletters, cold call, email unsolicited sales pitches, flat out spam people, troll for leads in special intrest groups or forums, create self-serving noise in social media outlets, post ad-style comments on blog posts, etc., etc., etc. first think of all the conversation Locations you use personally (blogs you read, sites you visit, mags you buy, Twitter hashtags you watch, forums you go to, etc.) and consider how you would like it if a company did those “marketing” things to you.

Selling Conversation as a Strategy

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:45:00 EDT

Over the past couple of months, we at Idiom Strategies have pitched a string of proposals to companies who stated they had an interest in doing something different and wanted to know if they should “get into social media”. When we initially met with these companies and explained our view of Conversation Marketing being the convergence of all aspects of marketing and that some of the biggest thought-leaders in the marketing world have been talking about the importance of conversing with audiences as opposed to talking at them, they all seemed thrilled with the ideas. As you can imagine, not all of these companies chose to work with us.

Finding Your Voice to Join the Conversation

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 19:01:55 EDT

While reworking our company presentation I’ve been thinking of all the different “types” of marketing. And this morning I read through a new piece by Laura Ramos at Forrester, B2B Marketers: Tap Into Social Networking Sites to Energize Community Marketing. Then I read Seth Godin’s blog today, Find Your Voice, and something clicked. As a [...]

“Start-Up the Conversation” Conversation Marketing Contest

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:52:26 EDT

Yep, you read that correctly. This is a contest to win a Conversation Marketing plan valued at $25,000! The biggest challenge facing start-up companies is generating awareness for new products or services. Traditional advertising and marketing activities are costly and showing serious drops in effectiveness and RoI. Not to mention, the economy sucks and all businesses [...]

Conversation Marketing Tips eBooklet

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 18:55:00 EDT

Wow, what a week. I think I have summer fever. The weather here in San Francisco has really sucked and I’m feeling the need for a vacation! But before I run off to find a beach somewhere… We wanted to share a new conversation marketing eBooklet with you. Conversation is the Thing: Tips for Engaging in [...]

Knowledge Networks Report Misses the Point

Sun, 31 May 2009 22:45:00 EDT

I recently posted a discussion topic on a couple of marketing-focused groups on LinkedIn. It was suggested that I post the info on the blog so that it could be more easily shared with others who might not be on LinkedIn (but I invite you to join in the Idiomatic: Conversation Marketing discussion group on [...]

Conversation Marketing: Dog Explains

Wed, 20 May 2009 15:34:12 EDT

Ah, we finally found our funny bone. Conversation Marketing video series takes a new turn. Watch for future videos. A Duck, a Dog and a Donkey walk into a bar… Conversation Marketing: Dog Explains

Fight Club & the 8 Rules of Conversation Marketing

Thu, 14 May 2009 18:55:24 EDT

Fight Club & the 8 Rules of Conversation Marketing. How is Conversation Marketing similar to Tyler Durden's '8 Rules of Fight Club'? Find out here...

Marketing Budget - Decision Time

Thu, 14 May 2009 18:51:14 EDT

The other day a CMO told me she didn’t have budget to fund her Conversation Marketing initiative. She explained budgets are already tight…and now we have to layer Conversation Marketing on top of our other marketing initiatives. Yes. Smart marketers will find a way. It’s not a matter of jumping on the [...]

“Date-ing” and Conversation Privacy

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:07:16 EDT

We all have put our foot in our mouth at one time or another. We all have had conversations in the past that we choose to not share. Our views have likely changed or evolved over the years. People change. So when my colleague Christine recently wrote about how to correct conversation flubs, it made me wonder…. How [...]

The Conversation is the Thing: Duck and Donkey Talk Business

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:49:45 EDT

We’re doing a series of Conversation Marketing videos and this is the first one. We think there is a paradigm shift happening in marketing’s market conversation–a change from the concepts of just social media marketing to conversation marketing–strategic and tactical ways in which a company chooses to participate/engage/interact in the market conversation. As opposed to the [...]

Responding to Negative Comments: Conversing After A Flub

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:03:16 EDT

(Please Note: Our comment system broke! We are working to restore it, but if you don’t see your comment listed, please understand that we are aware and trying to fix the problem. Cheers) My Idiom Strategies partners and I have been working our way through the long list of social media monitoring tools that have suddenly [...]

The Irony of It: A Sales Person’s SM Mistake

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:45:22 EDT

One of my new favorite daily activities is to read through the comment spam folder for this blog. Not that I find smam (social media spam) funny, in fact, I find it totally annoying. But the Irony of receiving smam on this blog is that the point of this conversation marketing blog is to share [...]