Anderson Marketing Blog

1. Be a trendsetter, not a follower.

SXSW Follow-Up: Pondering the Perils of Social Media Analytics

It’s been two months since I attended South by Southwest (SXSW), but the experience hasn’t gone stale. The food was tasty, the music was invigorating, and the technology was pretty impressive. There were also some helpful and insightful pieces of information that I vividly remember, and continue recalling today.

Food, technology, music. There is much to be excited about at South by Southwest (SXSW). Three of us at Anderson will be attending, including me, to soak up the sights and sounds plus sit in on sessions so that we can bring you the latest in interactive marketing.

Customers and colleagues have been pondering the LinkedIn endorsement feature and wondering if it’s good or bad. There’s even a rumor that people get points for endorsing their network. I hope that this article sheds some light on the positives and negatives of the feature and dispels some of the rumors surrounding it.

Super powers aren’t just possessed by comic book characters and actors in movies—you can discover and cultivate them in all of your employees if you give them the opportunity. At Anderson Direct Marketing, we take pride in our high-quality relationships, products, production processes and services, which can only be achieved by having superstars within our organization. Starting in 2013, we began a new program to recognize and reward our Quality Superstars!

On April 24, 2013, Anderson Direct Marketing participated in its first Google+ Hangout. Creative director Carlos Perez represented ADM in the second episode of Xerox’s “Ask the Experts” series. Joining Perez were Gordon Kaye, editor and publisher, and Ilana Greenberg, creative director from the magazine Graphic Design USA. The question that brought these experts together was, “Is print dead?” All of the experts answered confidently with a resounding no. Kaye started the conversation with the subject of tangibility. With print, you can touch, hold and feel a piece. Other mediums cannot connect to us in this way.

It's that time of year where holiday lights are being hung, decorations are being displayed and marketing experts are looking into their crystal balls to predict the future. The Interactive team at Anderson Direct Marketing (ADM) is continuously researching marketing trends and has compiled our favorite recent articles about Online Marketing trends for 2013.

1. Participate often. You can’t just open the dialogue and then leave the room. You have to keep talking! Keep your posts fresh.
2. Don’t just talk; you’ve got to listen! Don’t let your followers think they are talking to a wall (or is it more appropriate to say “a blank screen”?).
3. Be honest. Honesty is the best policy—do I need to say any more on this point?
4. Don’t sell—engage! Use social media to build customer relationships and to interact with your customer base. Nothing makes your followers run for the hills and “unlike” faster than a hard sell.
5. Respond to complaints; don’t ignore them. Remember—an unhappy customer gives you an opportunity to create a happy customer (okay that’s kind of Pollyannaish but it’s true). An ignored unhappy customer can only be an unhappy customer. And through social media, an unhappy customer can make his/her disappointment widely known...very widely known.
6. Be creative. The same old, same old is really just old.

And don’t forget—have fun!

Hang around the marketing world long enough and you’ll likely hear some pretty interesting terms and phrases. For example, have you ever heard the term “full service marketing agency” and wondered what it means exactly?