Ah, marketing bloggers

[chronarchy]

Looks like my mention of the Cheeseburger in Paradise restaurant in Columbus, OH, caught the eye of someone in CiP Corporate.

Read their comment in response to my post.I'm somewhat amused. . . the "libations" have improved, apparently, but no mention of the central issue I had, the cheeseburger, is made

Comments

[singingwren]

"...I suspect it has something to do with too many young professionals, fresh out of college, who think that the cutting-edge tools are the way to go in all things..."You know, you would think that, but that's not the case! As someone who is RIGHT in the middle of this I can tell you that the real problem seems to be too many OLDER professionals who THINK that tech-savvy youth are an essential tool for competition. They snap us up like oil at $1.00 a gallon and unleash us onto the Internet, spouting out buzz-words like "blogs!" and "Twitter!" without really understanding what they are doing

[rfunk]

"For people like me this is frustrating. I don't WANT to be an internet marketer, but job after job everyone waxes poetic about my electronic accomplishments."

Heh, I sorta get this from the other side: "Oh, you're an email expert? We've got clients wanting to do email marketing, and your skills would be perfect..."

"I would have seen that you are laid-back and written you a comment as one person to another rather than as marketer to customer"

I actually read your sample comment more as good-marketer to customer, while too many others try to be person-to-person and come across badly because they're still a stranger coming in out of the blue. People who don't use Google Alerts tend to be frightened at its power to draw strangers into their obscure little corner of the net. (As I recall even you have been surprised at Google's power. :-) I think your first sentence in the sample comment makes all the difference in making it less annoying.

[singingwren]

Awww you did NOT just call me a good marketer... *blushing*

That's one free pass to the Tower of Doom for you! Meet me in the Cafeteria of Chaos and we can drink the blood of consumers together ;D

[rfunk]

But I thought I escaped the Tower of Doom a few months ago.... but I *am* getting kinda thirsty.....

[chronarchy]

Seems it depends on where you are as to who drives it: rfunk has had a different experience with the age group. That's to be expected, though: any marketing agent is going to be after the latest, greatest thing so they can get a step ahead, so I can see older execs being convinced this is the way to go (and maybe that other advertising is somehow "dead") and really jumping on board hard. When conservative leadership changes their mind about something, they stick to it, damnit

[singingwren]

I dunno, I think Google Alerts is actually pretty active and efficient. I guess if they want to convey the "yeah I was surfing LJ at work" vibe (which I might... if only bosses would not monitor me so much, I could probably be a hell of a lot more effective... oh so everybody says in every job XD) then you're right, but I wouldn't think they were sitting around if they had set trip sensors everywhere and were immedately responding to whatever triggered them.

Then again, I rather fancy the idea of a giant marketing tower of DOOM.

New career goal.......

[chronarchy]

I suppose. Knowing nothing about what Google Alerts is, though (as a consumer), it sounds like a set of tripwires. Which are great for a giant marketing tower of DOOM, but not for customers. Unless they visit the giant marketing tower of DOOM, of course. Then you need tripwires.

But, from my response and rfunk's response, it's pretty clear that different people have different responses to the same thing: for him, your initial response is great. Of course, he knows what Google Alerts are. I haven't managed to wikipedia it yet. :)

[singingwren]

Google Alerts is a way to have Google notify you when the search term you specificed shows us / is captured by google.

For example, if you put "Chronarchy", it would let you know whenever someone mentioned this word. I follow "Skate Zone 71" to track viral calendar updates (yayy they spread to one another), read reviews people post, etc.

"Google Alerts" is quite terrifying as a blogger and absolutely the reason why I was naive to think I could blog about companies (remember the infamous post that closed my journal to friends only?!)without getting caught. I bet RMD had that notification in a second. WHOOPS!

I only abbreviate company names when I blog publically now. Friends-locked posts are fine though I think. But still, careful...

[chronarchy]

Yes, I recall that post. It's also why my posts aren't often about work, or mention work in anything but the most vague terms. The idea of having my online background checked is a bit disconcerting, but I temper that with the knowledge that there's so much information of mine online that they'd be hard pressed to locate things I'd be ashamed of quickly, and if they don't hire me for things that are easy to locate, then I don't particularly wish to work for them, anyway.

It's astounding how many places you can find me online, and how prominent I am in Google under my (somewhat) unique legal name.

Giant Marketing Tower of DOOM!

[rfunk]

It IS a set of tripwires! :-)

But I like knowing that they're using the tripwires, and what tripwires they're using.

[rfunk]

I think the age thing depends on the individual's goals. I worked with people whose explicit purpose is to get more clients and get more business for those clients. I think singingwren's goals are a bit different.

The younger people I saw were at least more savvy about the technology and how best to use it. The saddest examples (e.g. "spam the students") were from older people trying to do the new thing (usually seeing it as cheap and easy) but not really understanding it.

I think the mention of Google Alerts is good, if that's what happened. I like honesty, I like people saying where they came from, and I hate people pretending it was random chance when it wasn't. Of course, the fact that Google Alerts seems to be primarily used my marketers is a little scary (along with what it does), but it's way too late to fight that one.