I like marketing; I don’t like selling. Various jobs have asked me to perform varying levels of both. One I enjoy; one makes me feel dirty.

First, let me define marketing and selling for you. Marketing seeks to offer solutions for the needs of a group of people. While marketing is targeted, it is targeted at those with this need rather than a specific person. Selling is done to a specific person.

Let’s say I make lunches. Everyone in my office is my market for lunch. I can put up posters marketing my lunch and some people will buy it. If I’m selling my lunch, I go up to a specific person, relying on them to buy it. If they don’t, I’ve wasted lots of time trying to convince them.  Think about the difference between seeing a car commercial and going to the car dealership. One is exciting, the other leaves you feeling dirty.

I recognize I am coming at marketing with an idealistic view. I believe that marketing is a worthwhile endeavor when handled in a needs based manner. This is why often the best products need no advertising, relying instead of word-of-mouth and brand trust. While that’s an extreme (it worked for Google), most companies and products can benefit from smart marketing rather than selling.

Now social media throws some new tools in the marketing arsenal while also complicating my definitions (is promoting something on Twitter marketing or selling?). I think the best way to approach any marketing is to focus on building your brand and then letting that trust (and the quality of your products) sell themselves). For instance, marketing on Twitter or on your blog should be more about providing a service to your readers, whether by providing information on a subject important to them or highlighting research in your field. Corporate blogs are excellent tools to show your company’s expertise and provide valuable information to users, ensuring readers will turn into future customers when you have a product they might want.

With the rise of Twitter and social networking news streams, many techies have been debating the value and livelihood of RSS. RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a common format used to share a constant stream of articles. Popularized by blogs, RSS can be imported by RSS readers (like Google Reader; here’s my little guide to them).

Back in May, TechCrunch already pronounced RSS dead which makes it more shocking that today, again, Sam Diaz reveals he’s not using RSS anymore. And so the conversation begins. Marshall Kirkpatrick defends RSS as another of his many research tools while Robert Scoble has moved on to Twitter and FriendFeed for news.

Let’s not confuse death with evolution. RSS has always been a tool, a tool still used by, shockingly Twitter, Facebook, and Friendfeed.  While some find basic RSS readers less valuable, this is because innovators have found ways to make finding information on the web more useful and more valuable.  New tools like Feedly and LazyFeed are making RSS more valuable, and in some cases, unrecognizable from its original state. The internet is, obviously, moving so quickly (just watch Twitter update), that it’s impossible to believe the same tools we use today will be the same tools used next year. Nothing disappears, it evolves into something better.

Of course, I still love my RSS Reader.

One of the major appeals of social media marketing is the ease with which few can reach many at almost no cost. But for many small companies, this can be a fear rather than a blessing. Social media might expand your client base, but it does little to improve productivity to the same degree.  While having more business than you can handle is certainly better than not, it is possible overload can harm your business and brand. So how can you make sure social media is working only how you want?

Be honest about what you want

The focus of any social media campaign should increasing user value, but that doesn’t mean you ignore your own needs.  If you provide luxury services, be forward about it (and include some price examples so passersby know what they’re getting into).   If you only serve local clients, say so. Make sure you know what you want and base your marketing on that.

Niche versus mainstream

Don’t focus on Facebook if your demographics are only a tiny percent of the population.  Find niche social networks, forums, and blogs to network with that will help build your small but more valuable community.  You can always broaden your reach if you find your current strategy too limited, but it’s much harder to put the internet genie back its bandwidth bottle; even worse would be harming your brand because service suffers under the overload.

Control communication channels

I hate when a company only gives me a generic email (like blog@prodigeek.com, but I’m the only one, so you know I read it). But deciding the right communication method could be the difference between hours of sorting and a few moments of weeding.  If overloads of emails and phone calls really concern you, a contact form can help soften the pressure.  You can ask demographic questions to help sort through inquires. And best of all, contact forms will deter more casual inquirers.  A great benefit of Twitter or Facebook messaging is you can see many of the sender’s demographics, but turning those into your main communication channel is more effort than its worth.

Change your promotion methods / lower costs

Some of the highest costs related to marketing can be printing and mailing.  Moving more of your marketing online, like your catalog, can save tons in printing and add more value by being searchable and more interactive (don’t just turn it into a PDF).  Plus, email is free. Free. How’s that for cost-per-prospect?

Remember how I said social media won’t improve productivity? That might be technically true, but the internet can make you more efficient. Depending on your products and services, more and more can be done with technology, helping filter the amount of hands on time required, allowing you to increase your business without significant growth or sacrificing service.  From email to e-commerce platforms (like eBay or Amazon, the easiest) are great ways to sell products, for example.  Finding the best platforms and strategist, of course, means finding the best value for your users.

The mainstream media has been buzzing about this new and exciting web tool called Twitter.  Because Oprah now uses it.  Twitter, over the past few weeks/months, has been crossing the infamous chasm that separates early adopters with everyone else.  After Oprah promoted the three-year old company on her show, and sending out her first tweet, traffic spiked 43 percent.  Oprah, Ashton Kutcher, and CNN competed for the first million followers on Twitter.  Celebrities and brands have replaced the Twitter innovators like Robert Scoble and iJustine who helped evangelize the application and build the massive following it has now.

Social media bloggers are pondering what happens next for Twitter (beyond that nagging how are they going to make money question).  Will Oprah follow other people and engage in true two-conversations? Or will Twitter become just another broadcast marking tool.  I offer links to these questions and tackle one of my own: where do geeks go next?

I ask this because I consider Twitter a niche tool.  It has limited functionality and because of that is very hard to use effectively/creatively.  Twitter has obviously grown from being just another way to tell people what sandwich you’re eating – it’s a unique, rapid-fire communication platform thriving on texts and one-liners.  And this is, at least posed, to become popular with soccer moms and every brand with an email account (neither of which is bad, this is not a moral judgment).

To me, this says more about how tech savvy the mainstream is, than how useful Twitter is or how protective geeks are of their turf (we are).  Twitter is far more niche than Facebook or LinkedIn are, and if software like this can cross the chasm, how much more niche does niche get?

This is a credit to the rapid transition people are making into the digital world.  My mother is now asking me if she should join Facebook (no) and my 50+ year old friends want me to help set them up on Twitter. Definitions of what is part of the geek niche need to be redefined.  Geeks need to be a lot geekier to be geeks, it seems.

For web companies, this should be exciting news (though watching how Twitter traffic grows over the next weeks will affect my confidence in the following statements).  Twitter’s ability to appeal to a broad audience of users shows a society more willing to experiment with new tools, even if their uses are not so obvious.  I’m not saying this can be easily replicated – maybe Twitter is a fluke.  Instead, the next time you’re developing a product you fear might be too geeky, think about Oprah and your mother using Twitter.  Suddenly, your definition of geek, and the demographics for your product, are suddenly much, much wider.

Two Domino’s Pizza employees posted a video of themselves spitting on food, putting cheese up their noses,, and violating several health codes while preparing people’s food.  The video, posted on YouTube, became a sensation with more than one million views, spreading discussion to blogs and Twitter.  The New York Times today even profiled the threat social media plays for Domino’s and other companies.

I’ll still buy from Domino’s. Hopefully this is an example of two really bad actors and not reflective on the company. But this is a huge PR nightmare where even if Domino’s isn’t directly at fault (legally or morally, that we know of), it is still responsible to remedy this tragedy, making amends to the public for what it’s employees did.

Social media was used to damage Domino’s brand. Domino’s can use social media to repair the damage.

First, admit fault. With a press conference posted to YouTube and news outlets. Admit employees were not properly supervised, incentivized, and educated, and then outline how all these things will be fixed for the future.  Also publically compliment the rest of the Domino’s sales staff. We know Domino’s hiring is not the most rigorous, so oversight is important.

To repair its brand, Domino’s would best be served by opening up it’s serving practices to the world – through YouTube. I don’t mean hidden cameras showing you don’t trust your employees (that will only invite more trouble). Instead, show how much you value your employees by encouraging each store to make it’s own YouTube video about their favorite pizza creation.  So every Domino’s outlet will have the chance to create a special pizza, which customers can buy, and see online how the staff came up with and made that pizza.  This shows Domino’s trusts its employees to serve its customers’ best interests, and it gives something special to customers in the form of unique and special pizzas, customized for their location.  Domino’s can collect all these videos onto a YouTube channel and even make a U.S. map with links to the videos of locations closest to you.

The lesson to learn – social media can be a dangerous weapon in the wrong hands. But in the right hands, social media can be used for just as much good.  Embracing open communication builds and rebuilds brands.

For many people, social media barely extends beyond Facebook events and a few messages. For most, it’s hard to understand why people need to be constantly connected.  But social media and networking is a valuable tool for every person in every industry, from executive to homemaker to student to chef. How you use social media relies on your style, interests, and goals.  Everyone can find benefits in social media with just a little effort.

Make new connections / Revive old ones

Social networking gets lambasted for valuing acquaintances or people you don’t really know, but in reality, these networks are vast databases of everyone you’ve met. And who knows when you’ll need them again.  On a job search, you can search your network to see who works at places you’d like to work. LinkedIn makes this even better by telling you who in your network knows someone else who works at a specific company, and helps make the introduction for you.

Party planning

For convenience, having all your friends listed in one place can make it easier to plan parties, arrange reunions, or just find someone to hang out with this weekend.  Facebook has a built-in party planner making it a point-and-click affair to invite everyone (or someone some) you know. And with a master list, it’s harder to forget someone.

Discover new interests

Last.FM and Pandora Radio to make it easier to discover new music. Digg and StumpleUpon help you find exciting news or fun articles.  Netflix and Amazon help you find movies and books (and anything else) you might like. None of these are an exact science, but simply help wade through the massive sea of the internet to find things you might like. And each one has a social media component to help you see what other people have bought or liked or better, what your friends have bought or liked.  Tuning into these spaces can improve your own media and purchasing experience.

Promote yourself

Everyone Google searches people, from potential employers to co-workers to dates. This means you want to control your online brand. When someone searches for you, it’s better they find information you’re willing to share, like on your Facebook page or a personal blog.  You don’t have to detail every part of your life (once something’s on the internet, it’s no longer private). While it sounds cold, it’s reality – you are your own brand, just like Coke or McDonalds, and you want to control how the world views you.

Find out if that boy/girl you like is single

And the true purpose of an social network – social stalking.  Just kidding…

Any web 2.0 business model must, by law, include five or more buzz words from user-generated content to API to social networking to get venture funding.  Companies are desperately trying to use social media like Facebook, Second Life, and even the iPhone to manufacture marketing and attention. The result is start-ups and established companies focusing resources because that’s where the hype is rather than where the smart business is.

Hype is the keyword here.  An already popular company like Facebook or Apple launch something new and obviously there’s hype.  But this hype is not contagious.  A former boss of mine said the reason we were developing an iPhone app before we had a mobile site was to “Get some attention when the app store launches.”

For start-ups limited in resources, jumping on the internet bandwagon is more often a waste and at best a distraction.  It’s best to focus on building your own features and worth to make sure once people find you, they want to stay.  Building applications for other platforms fragments your audience and time - what you build on Facebook needs to be rebuilt for the iPhone and rebuilt for Netvibes.

Second Life has become a prime example of hype overblowing marketing potential.  Last year, just as another company I worked for wanted to build a Second Life presence, Wired wrote about the marketing waste the virtual world had become. Coca-Cola, Reebok, IBM, Sears, and dozens more build huge islands with style and zazz, paying high-profile Second Life consultants and expecting the viral marketing to take off.  But no one visited.  The hype came from companies trying out Second Life, but no one ever posting resulting.  Since Second Life accounts are free, the 4 million users it boasts is misleading.  Only 1 million had logged on in the past 30 days and only a third of that in the past week.  Only 100,000 of those live in the U.S.  Those who do sign on spend most of their time in sex shops or gambling, not looking at marketing campaigns.

Facebook is likely to follow. Facebook itself is having trouble monetizing its massive user base, how do third parties expect to do better?  iPhone applications can be sold for money, which makes them less viral.  And working with any closed platform like Facebook or Apple puts the platform in control of your future.  Facebook suddenly blocked some of its most popular applications, Top Friends, Super Wall, and Social Me, with little notice and challenges to get back in the platforms good graces.

The opposite strategy of releasing your own API is more worth the time (if it makes sense for your product and not just a buzz word for investors) but has its own risks.  Twitter’s success and constant downtime are both due to their API.  Without the API, much of the sites usefulness wouldn’t have happened leading so many to join.  But because of the API’s popularity, the site can barely keep basic features operational.

So this is a lot of don’t.  The dos, unfortunately, are the hardest because it needs to be case-by-case.  Because there are so many platforms and APIs and doodads to try and sync up with, it’s impossible to say everyone should do this.  The key is when deciding how you want your product to integrate with the greater web world, think about your own strength and goals rather than bullet list features.  Everyone is pushing the same bullet lists.  You’ll stand out more by not.

The most talked about new web 2.0 sites, from Facebook to Twitter, are facing business model challenges. Scott Karp points out the challenge of print advertising online while Alexander van Elsas goes farther in his post “Advertisement holds web 2.0 in a death grip.”

Web 2.0 has focused on free services - free services that build virally fast and then, hopefully lead to a business model when the venture capitalists get impatient. But banner ads and tier subscriptions aren’t enough.

Advertising, as Karp and van Elsas point out, isn’t useful. Google pioneered ads that use your search terms so they are relevant and unobtrusive, whereas the only thing Facebook can sell me are gay dating sites (Google advertises better ones). The challenge isn’t simply advertising isn’t working, but that you can’t charge people for your services.

Most web services offer a paid option with valuable features. Remember the Milk charges $25 a year just to sync my tasks to my phone. Yahoo Mail wants another $20 to give my email portability. Each service doesn’t cost too much, but add them up, and suddenly the internet got expensive.

Bernard Lunn says social networking “is at a major fork in the road” (leading to web 3.0?) where they have to choose between walled gardened, open APIs, or mix. All the free on the web will need a business model, and every site from social to content providers will find charging customers harder and harder and advertising spread thinner and thinner.

Google’s strength came from reinventing advertising to its strength - search - creating a unique model that let companies and individuals advertise without upfront costs. Amazon and eBay have built retail businesses that couldn’t exist in brick and mortar stores. Most other sites have relied on 7-8 figure buyouts to make money.

Other websites will need to find new business models. Some ideas like market research and statistics, like I discussed for Facebook and other social networks, make excellent use of their large user bases, but will lead to a decrease in value when every social site starts offering this research. Further, with open source and APIs all the rage, regular pageviews will become less reliable as people use services how they want, not how the websites want them to. For example, advertising will work even less for content providers once RSS readers takeover the mainstream.

This is a lot of doomsaying without many solutions. I think sponsorships and product placement has potential, but again, it’s going to be impossible to control users. The best business models thus far have been enterprise level customer service, best seen in companies like Red Hat which provides customized Linux solutions and and MySQL’s Enterprise Unlimited. Companies will pay for customized services and research which individuals have no use for. Less than one percent of MySQL’s customers pay, but that was enough for Sun to pay $1 billion to buy the company.

The focus over the next few years needs to be on developing new and hopefully revolutionary business models that recognize the internet, software, and content want to be free (yes, even music and movies). The old business models required payment, but the future doesn’t have to be constrained by old-fashioned thinking. Think outside the tubes.

The social networking world has been all a buzz. First MySpace announced their Data Portability to allow some sites access to MySpace user information. Then Facebook releases Connect to share its users. The Google quickly unleashed Friend Connect to try to share everything. Facebook was having none of this. They blocked Google’s Friend Connect access in the name of privacy.

And let the Info Wars begin. The winner will own your data and you’ll be lucky if you have a choice.

Maybe I’m hyping this a little much, but the truth is user information is to the internet what oil is to the Middle East. Advertising has its place, but slowly websites, especially social networking sites, are learning their user information is the most valuable resource.

That’s why Facebook wants to block Google. Whoever controls the user info will control the internet.

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How did you discover that new web game or hilarious video? Between social bookmarking, social networking, socializing, the internet has made sharing information and ideas as simple as pointing and clicking. So do we need anointed trend setters anymore? Two conflicting theories are hashing out the marketing debate, but both forget to give credit to the real influencer - the internet. The internet has flattened the playing field for anybody to contribute to starting or spreading a trend.

Marketing conventional wisdom has followed the teachings of books like The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and The Influentials by Jon Berry and Ed Keller. These books claim a few well connected individuals inspire the vast majority in terms of the clothing we wear or movies we watch. These people are often called influentials. Marketing companies promote their connection with these influencers and often focus advertising budgets strictly to reaching this oligarchy of culture.

New research is challenging this conventional wisdom. Clive Thompson writes for Fast Company about Duncan Watts research on social trends.

[Duncan Watts] has analyzed email patterns and found that highly connected people are not, in fact, crucial social hubs. He has written computer models of rumor spreading and found that your average slob is just as likely as a well-connected person to start a huge new trend. And last year, Watts demonstrated that even the breakout success of a hot new pop band might be nearly random. Any attempt to engineer success through Influentials, he argues, is almost certainly doomed to failure.

“It just doesn’t work,” Watts says. “A rare bunch of cool people just don’t have that power. And when you test the way marketers say the world works, it falls apart. There’s no there there.”

Watts theorizes trends are more random, or at least harder to track. All the research done on trends has looked at successful trends. Trends that failed to catch on are harder to study. Watts computer simulations give more credit broader social networks, meaning marketing to a larger group is more important than a select group. Simply, if more people know about your product or idea, the odds are more likely someone will share that information.

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