As new media channels continue to emerge at such a fast pace, consumers are getting product information from more and more sources. Some remain traditional news sources like newspaper or TV, yet specialty and peer sources are becoming more important. How important? In the new world of editorial marketing, unbiased, third-party endorsement can be three to seven times more valuable than paid advertising. And with today’s analytics, we can even be more specific in our goals.

In the Web 2.0 landscape, editorial marketing dovetails perfectly into the world of social media. Earned media can come from a variety of sources: professional news sources, specialty blogs, user-generated social media sites. The new goal is to use this influencer media to promote a product or service. The key is to push customers to social media to engage in a dialogue about the product/service benefits. The combination of product promotion by a credible source, followed by peer engagement, produces increased likelihood for acceptance.

We know an editorial marketing strategy is more than the “regularly scheduled press release” method. It requires ongoing partnerships with a variety of media to introduce the product/service and educate them. We must fashion a compelling story about the product/service and engage consumers to build loyalty.

The successful strategy must include:

* Identification of the business opportunity or challenge the campaign addresses. The more specific, the better.
* A campaign goal. The more measurable, the more successful it will be (product awareness, event attendance, friend building, relationship management, sales conversion).
* Alignment of goals with the marketing strategy, creative campaign and messaging to reach the audience.
* Implementation of proper editorial engagement and consumer response tactics
* Analysis and appropriate adjustment

Success from editorial marketing can be determined in myriad fashions. The goal may be a huge profile in a major association publication. It might be a simple as 20 event mentions in various area blogs. Or a coordinated deployment of message across traditional and social media channels, as in the case of a major client of ours.

Last year, we launched a new creative platform for the $100 million company using a unique tagline.

We recruited the company’s fans to be a part of the message development through a series of open “casting calls.”  Through carefully timed release and follow-up with local broadcast and newspaper writers, the story found its way to the front page of the Features section of the Courier-Journal and on 5:30p, 6p and 11p network-affiliate newscasts.  On-premise marketing materials at area locations directed potential participants to a micro-site for details, times and location.  The result was more than 200 people waited in line to tell their story on the two designated shoot days.

The segments gathered were immediately uploaded to a YouTube channel developed specifically for the campaign, allowing participants to share their segments with friends and family.  The YouTube site received move than 3,000 views in the week following.

We recently held a social media etiquette session with the account service team here at CM and thought we'd share our insights!

Basic Rule of Thumb:
If you wouldn’t say it at a cocktail party in front of 35 people, don’t say it on Facebook or Twitter.

• Our clients may see your updates. It’s okay to show your personality, but remember who’s reading!
• CurrentMarketing is an aspect of your personality; you may think what you write is your personal thought, but it reflects on your CurrentMarketing identity as well.
• No typos or incorrect grammar PLEASE! This is very important, especially if you are administering a group or tweeting.
• Use proper capitalization and punctuation.
• Don’t use abbreviations like L8 and 4U. Those are for texting.
• If you can’t say it in 140 characters, don’t use Twitter. Write a blog entry.
• Be transparent. When you use your personal Twitter or Facebook account to tweet about a client’s product, make your relationship to the product clear.
• Come up for air! Pause between updates. You shouldn’t tweet more than once every fifteen minutes, unless you are replying to another tweet. And, most of us should not tweet more than 2-3 times PER DAY. You shouldn’t update your Facebook status more than once during the workday hours – after hours, have at it.
• Post something at least 2 times per week. You don’t want a client to look you up, only to find that you have 
never tweeted, or your last tweet was more than a month ago. Same goes with Facebook.
• Keep small conversations private. If you know someone well enough to have their mobile number, text them or send them an instant message through Google chat. A good rule here – if your conversation requires more than 2 messages back and forth, move it to a more direct and one-to-one method of messaging.
• Limit the use of emoticons – most people find them annoying. ;)
• Type your post, then read it twice before hitting submit.
• Avoid posts like “waiting for 5:00” or “just working for the weekend.” It impacts our culture negatively and makes our clients think we don’t enjoy working at CurrentMarketing (and we all love it here!).
• Never “poke” a client. Never.
• Choose your profile picture carefully. The general thinking among social media discussions is that if you wouldn’t be proud to show your picture to your mom and dad, you shouldn’t post it.
• Be careful about using our client’s names when discussing the work we are doing. “Working on a pitch” is good. “Working on a pitch for Papa Johns, who just issued an RFP” is not so good.
• Don’t post something personal unless you want to be asked about it...by everyone. Airing grievances is generally a no-no on Facebook and Twitter - save disagreements for phone, email or a nice meal on your patio.

  Got any others we should consider?

As Geek In Charge at CurrentMarketing, I'm a tough boss -- a veritable taskmaster.

For the past few months in our new suite upstairs, I've denied the other geeks a conference table to meet at next to our monolithic white board. They've been forced to huddle near it standing!  I know, I'm horrible, but at least it amused me for a time.

However, even I tired of their incessant whining and mewing, so I finally bought our new table.  I tried to find one that would be as ugly, uncomfortable and torturous as possible.  I think I succeeded:

Pay no attention to the whiteboard, that is our secret programming language. It might look like:

A skull
A submarine
E=MC2 ---> Web 2.0

But don't ask, your mind couldn't even handle it.  Seriously.

Other than the new table, I've also forced upon them two hideously devious chores:

First of all, once every few weeks, someone in the Geek Suite needs to give a post-lunch presentation.  It can be on anything they've learned, discovered, taught, read or so on.  In a few weeks, I'll be hosting an advanced SQL presentation to talk about some neat tricks I've been using in a recent project.  And just today we had our first volunteer.  Jonathan brought in his Arduino/Flex/Nintendo Nunchuck kit he's been hacking on and shared his code and app via a projector onto the whiteboard (and using our new table!)

Secondly, everyone can use a small part of every week to work on their own personal project that benefits CurrentMarketing.  If it is personal, how does it benefit CurrentMarketing?  Well, there are lots of cool ideas floating around that we don't always have time to work on, or that are necessarily billable work.  Flash/Flex apps we want to make.  Widgets for websites that are drop-ins.  Process automators that we've always meant to do, but haven't.  Without deadline, without a project manager hanging over you, bounded only by their imagination.

Sickening right?  I know I'm evil ...

... but sometimes when I'm not looking, I think they might be enjoying all this.

Masochists I say.