What impact does social media have on politics? In this episode, Mark Schaefer and Tom Webster look at current events in the marketing space including Twitter's marketing strategy, the impact of social media on politics, the expectation of authenticity and Millennials in the workplace.

The Star Wars editon of Google pants. Let's just get that out of the way. Yes this is part of the cherished and much-anticipated Marketing Companion Holiday Catalogue. It's not just the dream book of 2016. This may be the Dream Book of the Century.  At this point you may wondering, "Mark, where can we get this spectacular book of wonder?" The answer my friends is blowing in the wind. No it's not. There is no wind on a blog. The secret is in the latest edition of The Marketing Companion podcast.

In our annual holiday extravaganza, my scintillating co-host Tom Webster and I tantalize and tease your deepest desires with brand new products such as CrapChat and your very own You Can Be An Influencer Starter Kit. And thanks to our creative friend Ralph Cipolla (ralph.cipolla@me.com) for the Catalogue design. Alas, The Marketing Companion is a serious podcast for serious people and we also grudgingly cover a REAL topic -- our projections for the marketing trends to watch in 2016, including:

• The rise of advanced new opportunities for sampling and trials
• The fourth digital epoch is ushered in by Facebook Oculus, opening amazing new business models.
• Two trends that will make podcasting the best advertising value.
• We begin to leave our content "homebase" and build a stronger presence on Facebook as the content "magnet" drifts away.
• Why computer-generated content could transform the marketing function.
• Why personal branding is even more important in the marketing world of 2016.
• ... and more! Seriously. There's more.

And did I mention CrapChat? Yes! Get you some. OK, time to put down the holiday punch and click this audio file to check out our marketing madness for the month ...

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

 gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations." 

I went into the business for the money and the art came out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I'm sorry. It's the truth. -- Charlie Chaplin

There are lots of amazing ways to use content for your business. You might want to establish your voice of authority, use content to educate, to help with customer service, perhaps even to entertain. But some of us want to make money. The opportunities to make money from content have changed dramatically in the past 18 months. Traditional methods like inbound marketing and advertising have been under attack while new models like "rented" content and patronage have emerged. In this environment, what is the best way to make money from your content? In this new episode of The Marketing Companion, Tom Webster and I assess every opportunity for monetization including:

• Indirect
• Subscriptions/paywall
• Advertising
• Affiliate links
• Sponsored content
• Native advertising
• Rented content
• Inbound leads
• Re-purposed content through events, book, webinars
• Micro-payments
• Patronage

Which ones are going up? Which are going down? Which do you need to keep your eyes on? Tune in to the latest episode of The Marketing Companion to find out! Resources mentioned in this podcast: Ian Cleary Kim Garst Written.com Patreon NBA Savant

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations. Illustration courtesy Flickr CC and Photos of Money

I'm a data junkie. So this is a good time for me to be in marketing because we sure have a lot of amazing facts and figures at our finger tips. But once in a while I see some fact that is mind-blowing and I thought it would be fun to share some of these with you! On our latest podcast episode, Tom Webster and I dug deep into the bowels of the Internet to explore some of the most amazing facts and figures from the social web. It's social media BELIEVE IT OR NOT!

• The number one pinned item on Pinterest (MOUTH-WATERING!)!
• The most photographed brand on the web (BY FAR!)!
• Mind-boggling data on Snapchat (GASP!)
• The biggest messaging app in the world (NO WAY!)
• The number one social network in the world (it's NOT Facebook?)
• The magic of Kik (WHAT???)
• The huge slide in Facebook posting! (MIND-BLOWING!)
• Ads -- the most effective content type (HUH??)
• The mind-numbing impact of mobile on content distribution (DEATH DEFYING!!)

... Plus SHOW TUNES!!!  You simply have to hear to believe it! Are you ready for this? Here we go ...

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

 gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

Bollywood dancing. You know you love it. You know you want to do it. So join Tom Webster and me on The Marketing Companion to learn of our new "product line" (many thanks to out friend Ralph Cipolla for the awesome graphic!). Tom and I also get a little prickly on the new edition of podcast. After a brief dance routine (really) we tee-off on online trends that drive us a little nuts:

• Faking your way through the work-life balance
• The "live your dream" fallacy
• Bizarre eMail marketing mis-fires
• Android podcast dreams
• Inane round-up blog posts
• LinkedIn spam

Ready to join our podcast Bollywood-style? Put on your dancing shoes and let's dive in:

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

 gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

There is no corporate function that has been transformed more quickly -- and more dramatically -- by technology than sales and marketing. In this episode of The Marketing Companion, Tom Webster and I look at the state of the art of sales and marketing, and discuss the role and relevancy of this career path in a digital age. Some of the incredibly interesting topics we cover include:

• Emerging technology focuses on many traditional marketing functions. Are marketers becoming redundant?
• Are we in an era of real-time sales ... or real-time marketing? Or both?
• Sales has always been day-to-day/tactical, marketing is normally more long-term,  and cerebral ... but is this still true? Are the roles merging?
• We unpack the key ideas behind marketing today -- maneuverability and demand.
• Daniel Pink and the idea of the age of "servant sellers" -- Isn't that what content marketing is about? Is that enough?
• Google's Moment of Truth -- People consult 10 pieces of content before making a decision, double what it was a few years ago. What is driving this?
• Content Shock and analysis paralysis -- How is this affecting sales?
• Does content mean anything in the decision process? Isn't much of what we want simply an irrational and emotional decision? Can content contribute to that?
• Forrester projects that a quarter of the sales job will be eliminated in the next few years. WIll algorithms replace marketers?
• Why Tom believes CMO's are an endangered species (and why I disagree).
• Why start-ups are particularly vulnerable to marketing issues.

You will NOT want to miss this. Ready? Here we go ...

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

 gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

Tom Webster and I have the opportunity to experience a broad swath of marketing ideas, organizations and people during our travels and it's always fun to compare notes on what we're seeing out there. In this episode of The Marketing Companion we look at some interesting things that will be transforming content marketing efforts in 2016 and beyond. Some of the things we cover in this new episode of The Marketing Companion ...

• Is content marketing about leads or relationships? How is this shifting? What is Inbound Marketing? Is it merely a source for potential cold calls or something else?
• Ad blocking. What does this have to do with content marketing? A lot!
• New investments in influence marketing are on the way. Trusted friends -- and even celebrities -- matter. Why are ad agencies in an influence feeding frenzy?
• The impact of Millennials -- how their buying habits will make us adjust our content marketing.
• Back to the Future -- the return of true sponsorship?

Scintillating? Of course. Provocative? You bet! Let's dig in ... Resources mentioned in the podcast A list of all the podcasts and show notes for the Marketing Companion Scott Monty Mike Hind Joe Chernov Social Brand Forum Crystal Ad Blocker Article: Crystal impact on legitimate eCommerce sites like Wal-Mart

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

 gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

2015 is going down in the books as a transformational year for the discipline of marketing. There is just so much going on ... and it's going on so FAST! As Tom Webster and I compared notes from our recent journeys we began to see some themes and marketing lessons that we thought would be entertaining and useful to discuss on our podcast. So ... we did! On the latest episode of The Marketing Companion we get into some wild discussions on some thought-provoking developments such as:

1. Branding is more important that ever. In fact we're at a tipping point where every person must be a brand to be relevant in this digital age.
2. Relationship mode versus sales mode in content marketing
3. Facebook is slipping through our fingers as a business tool, as the most important social channel evolves into something new.
4. Content monetization at the point of contact
5. The renaissance of social media engagement and interactive media
6. Growing sophistication of social media marketers
7. Courage as a core marketing competency

This is a podcast you cannot miss. Here we go: Resources mentioned in this podcast

Kristian Strøbech

Kelly Michael 

Ulrik Heilmann CEO of Bolius

gShift's new URL innovation that will allow marketers to track the value of content and influencers.

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

Have you figured out Facebook marketing? What if I told you that organic reach is GOING UP for many businesses in 2015? Impossible you say? Well, then you will need to catch up with our new episode of The Marketing Companion where we discuss the "secondary advertising ripple" and how it's creating new complexity for companies trying to figure out what's happening on their Facebook page. But wait! There's more! Some of the other ripped from the headlines topics on this episode include:

• A discussion on new data on how an increase in negative feedback can actually be a positive for some businesses that are increasingly turning to Facebook as a customer service channel.
• 1 billion people logged into Facebook on a single day last month. We discuss Facebook as a sociological driver of community and connection. Or, are they just in it for the money?
• Blab -- Meerkat killer or just another app in the line of streaming video innovation? I like it a lot, but Tom has some reservations about using this technology for marketing purposes. Bottom line: Live is hard.
• A live Blab for Mark and Tom and our loyal listeners? Yes, it is going to happen.
• The latest innovation from The Marketing Companion laboratories: Mashley Addison.

With no further delay, let's dive in shall we? Resources mentioned in this episode The worst song in history - Escape: The Pina Colada Song AgoraPulse The End of History and the Last Man Blab Kerry Gorgone's post on the legal issues with live video streaming

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

The entrepreneurial spirit was strong in me, even at an early age. I always had some gig going. I sold Christmas cards door-to-door. I raked leaves and cut grass. I watched kids and dogs. I did anything I could to make a buck. But my first entrepreneurial venture was also my shortest one and it occurred when I was five years old. That's right. I started my first business before I entered the first grade!

My family home at that time was at the intersection of two busy streets. When people stopped at this corner from any direction, they would throw their cigarette butts out the window. I noticed that most of these butts still had a lot of tobacco in them. So my idea was to unwrap the used cigarettes, recover the unused tobacco and sell it. Now, in hindsight, that is a pretty gross business. But for a five-year-old kid, this was a vision of money falling from heaven.

Of course when my mother found out what I was doing she made me stop right away (and take a bath). My first start-up literally went down the drain at that moment. Which brings me to today's topic. If you have an idea you love, and you're driving a new business as hard as you can, how do you know when it's time to finally call it quits? Probably one of the hardest moments in your life, right? My Marketing Companion co-host Tom Webster and I have both had to give up on start-up businesses and decided to devote some time to discuss ... when is it time to call it quits?

• Is the biggest problem quitting early or quitting too late?
• A discussion of the number one reason for new business failures
• Following your heart versus your head - the chronic entrepreneurial failure
• The pervasive and mythological legend of entrepreneurship in America
• Why "intrapreneurial" efforts are so difficult
• The rise of the entrepreneurial unicorn

And as an added bonus, Tom and I review the worst mobile apps of 2015. You won't want to miss this episode! Resources mentioned in this podcast Failure of Zirtual Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Peter Drucker Clay Hebert Chris Brogan's podcast

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

Advocate marketing is getting a bit ... prickly. While there are undoubtedly some wonderful programs out there, and many brands are doing it well, there is a rising tide of weird stuff going on in the influencer space, as we explore on the latest episode of The Marketing Companion. The ability for anybody to publish content and gain an active audience has transformed the media world and democratized influence. Many companies are becoming aaware of these "citizen influencers" and how they might be impacting the attitudes and buying behaviors of a target audience. Connecting to these trusted influencers and advocates and their engaged audience can provide an effective and rapid opportunity for content transmission. In this edition of our Internet radio show, Tom Webster and I crack open a case of advocate marketing topics such as:

• How companies are gaming influence and cheating brands blind.
• The advantages of advocate marketing
• Influence marketing done right -- What make an effective campaign?
• Examples of brands using influencers to successfully connect to new audiences and new platforms
• Why influence marketing is becoming a gamble
• The burned-out influencer
• Becoming a human NASCAR jacket
• Authentic Advocacy versus celebrity endorsement
• The model for influence marketing, Bethany Mota

Pretty amazing discussion, right? Let's do this thing! Resources mentioned in this podcast The book on influence marketing, Return On Influence Crowdly The book The Content Code: Six essential strategies to ignite your content, your marketing, and your business Augustine Fou's Slideshare channel on ad corruption New York Times article on why brands and influencers are getting picky

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

Real-time marketing is one of the hottest trends around, prompting entirely new agency specialists and tactics in the last few years. But it has also proved to be disastrous for several brands and the trend might even be losing some steam. This is an issue for rich discussion on the latest Marketing Companion podcast and, in fact, Tom Webster and I disagree on the promise and potential of this marketing trend. In our latest episode we discuss ...

• Are brands still holding onto old business models because real-time marketing is disruptive
• How real-time marketing (like the Oreo moment) might be "extraordinarily dangerous" for brands -- why Tom thinks it is "improv advertising," and why I think it is something more.
• Can you sustain "clever" as a strategy? When companies like DiGiorno issue tweets that backfire, is brand value erased?
• Can real-time be successful when it creates provocations that lead to awareness and conversations?
• Why a company's organizational structure may determine whether "real time" works.
• Is real-time marketing a tactic or a strategy?
• Brands responding to each other on Twitter -- effective moments, or brands pleasuring each other?
• Seasonal Advertising Disorder -- latching on to weird trends to make a brand relevant
• Is real-time marketing about an ad or a relationship? Does this trend help describe why marketing business is coming back in-house?

Are you ready for this? Let's go!

Important resources mentioned in this episode:

PR News article on real-time marketing A discussion on several real-time marketing movements, including DiGiorno Pizza Jerry Seinfeld's Pop-Tart joke Post on bringing marketing work inside

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

In this era of complex and overwhelming information density innovation will rule as brands find ways to cut through the clutter. In terms of leading content innovation, there is no better leader to observe than Jay Baer of Convince and Convert. Two years ago I would have introduced Jay as a blogger but that is not nearly sufficient enough to describe America's foremost new media mogul. In the past 24 months Baer has introduced rapid short-form videos, a new curated content property, five new podcasts and flurry of new publishing innovations on channels like LinkedIn and Facebook. In this amazing episode of The Marketing Companion, Jay was my pinch-hit co-host and we cover vital content marketing topics such as:

• Why video rules as a content form and the demographic change driving growth in this channel.
• How to maintain a cost-effective content creation strategy
• The myth of audience overlap
• Why Jay has launched seven podcasts and his monetization strategy
• Why curation has opened up a new customer connection
• The content strategy pivot that was "scary" for Jay
• Thinking through a content "funnel" for your business
• The future of content marketing strategy
• The platform changes that are forcing "liquidity" in marketing strategy

Fasten your seatbelt. Here we go ... Important resources mentioned in this episode: Jay Today video series Convince and Convert podcast programs Blog and Definitive newsletter Mark's post on Facebook and content distribution strategy

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

If you read through one piece of research this year it might just be a new report from the University of Pennsylvania on marketers, consumers, and privacy. The research is important not just for its surprising revelations about privacy but also for its unapologetic scolding of the way marketers have been mis-leading their customers. The new Annenberg survey results indicate that marketers are misrepresenting a large majority of Americans by claiming that Americans willingly provide personal information as a tradeoff for benefits they receive. To the contrary, the survey reveals most Americans do not agree that "data for discounts" is fair. The researchers say that Americans are resigned to giving up their data -- and that is why many appear to be engaging in tradeoffs. Americans believe it is "futile" to manage what companies can learn about them.

Getting furious with marketers

The study reveals that more than half do not want to lose control over their information but also believe this loss of control has already happened. By misrepresenting the American people and championing the tradeoff argument, marketers give policymakers false justifications for allowing the collection and use of all kinds of consumer data often in ways that the public find objectionable. The researchers write that the futility they found, combined with a broad public fear about what companies can do with the data, portends serious difficulties for the institution of consumer commerce. This remarkable study provided a source of rich conversation for Tom Webster and I and we captured this conversation on our latest Marketing Companion radio show. You won't want to miss our observations on:

• The shocking way marketers are manipulating our personal data
• How most Americans overestimate the extent to which the government protects them from discriminatory pricing
• Why honesty can serve as a point of differentiation
• Facebook's leadership role in this issue
• How companies are using personal information to institutionalize a profound form of discrimination

I believe this is one of the most illuminating discussions we have had on the podcast and I hope you'll tune into this crucial discussion:

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

If you are looking for a cost-effective way to reach your audience, build your brand, and develop sales leads, try GoToWebinar, from Citrix. GoToWebinar is a great way to share live presentations right from your computer, reach, and influence an audience of hundreds of people. Its button-click simple and rock-solid reliable. All you have to do is work on your presentation. GoToWebinar does the rest. Learn more at GoToWebinar.com

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

In a scathing blog post, the co-founder of Ello blasts Facebook as monstrous entity dedicated to hurting people in the margins of society. In this episode, hosts Mark Schaefer and Tom Webster blast Ello back and explain why Facebook's "real name" policies provide a healthier and authentic social media platform.

It's hard to believe but Tom Webster and I have been making beautiful podcast music together for two years and in this anniversary extravaganza we have a long list of celebrity appearances. None of them could actually make it to the show, but we did have a long list.

Thanks to Marketing Companion Super Fan Rev Ciancio for this awesome graphic![/caption] Actually we do have moderately interesting guest stars on the show including the robot from Lost In Space. His price was right and he did not eat much. We also use this opportunity to explore the idea of the incredible rate of change and strategies we employ to keep up. We discuss things like:

• The surprising roles of conferences in knowledge transfer (not much impact)
• Appointing a personal board of directors
• Does grad school matter?
• Our top choices for reading material that keeps us ahead (check out a list of resources below)
• Can't miss resources to move your brain in new ways

BTW, if you are a regular listener of The Marketing Companion it would be great if you would consider leaving a review on iTunes and express your fandom. Ready to pick up some great new ideas? Here we go!! Resources mentioned in this podcast Fortune article on best graduate degrees Flowing Data Freakanomics McKinsey Quarterly Economist Daniel Kahneman Brain Pickings by Maria Popova Pew Center for Research on the Internet and American Life Scott Monty's This Week in Digital News Round-up Christopher Penn's blog Awaken Your Superhero Post on Gray Social Media Social Media Marketing World Rand Fishkin of MOZ Marketing Profs B2B Forum  

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

If you are looking for a cost-effective way to reach your audience, build your brand, and develop sales leads, try GoToWebinar, from Citrix. GoToWebinar is a great way to share live presentations right from your computer, reach, and influence an audience of hundreds of people. Its button-click simple and rock-solid reliable. All you have to do is work on your presentation. GoToWebinar does the rest. Learn more at GoToWebinar.com.

The Marketing Writing Bootcamp is our most popular course from MarketingProfs University and as a podcast fan you can get $200 off the normal $595 price. The course is 13 classes, each 30-40 minutes in length, for more than 7 hours of on-demand learning. Learn from your desk, on your commute, or your couch. The course begins June 11. You will be awarded a certificate from Marketing Profs upon completion of course. Register through this special link: http://mprofs.com/companion.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

On The Marketing Companion podcast, Tom Webster and I continue to plow new ground. For example, in this latest episode, we become the first on-demand radio show to mention The Kardashians and B2B buyer personas in the same sentence. We discuss why Zappos employees are fleeing the holocracy, and explain how this concept began with Star Trek. Sort of. And just when you thought it could not get any more interesting, Tom Webster defines the "rectally derived persona."  It's insane I tell you. But we also get into some pretty awesome discussions on the Verizon-AOL deal, why sender-centered content  is killing some businesses, and the critical difference between an audience and a customer. Please, for the sake of all that is good and true in the world of marketing, click below and listen to this jam-packed 30 minutes of awesomeness.

Resources mentioned in this show

Mark's article on customer personas

Interesting further reading -- Zappos War on Management by Gianpiero Petriglieri

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

If you are looking for a cost-effective way to reach your audience, build your brand, and develop sales leads, try GoToWebinar, from Citrix. GoToWebinar is a great way to share live presentations right from your computer, reach, and influence an audience of hundreds of people. Its button-click simple and rock-solid reliable. All you have to do is work on your presentation. GoToWebinar does the rest. Learn more at GoToWebinar.com.

The Marketing Writing Bootcamp is our most popular course from MarketingProfs University and as a podcast fan you can get $200 off the normal $595 price. The course is 13 classes, each 30-40 minutes in length, for more than 7 hours of on-demand learning. Learn from your desk, on your commute, or your couch. The course begins June 11. You will be awarded a certificate from Marketing Profs upon completion of course. Register through this special link: http://mprofs.com/companion.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

One of my predictions for 2015 was that the incredible wave of information density we all face as marketers will force innovation in content forms. Let's face it, the way we create and consume content has not changed significantly in a decade. The need to stand out will finally force companies to help us create and consume in new ways. And change is in the air. A few new ideas are percolating out there and that is just one of the subjects covered in a very entertaining episode of The Marketing Companion (how many podcasts feature McDonald's characters, an imitation of Ringo Starr and talking apples in the same show?). Here are some of the topics on our mind as Tom Webster and I explore the depths of marketing goodness and light:

New content forms. Yahoo is preparing to release its first major consumer product in almost three years and the first product built from scratch under CEO Marissa Mayer. The company is said to be unveiling a mobile app that combines live and recorded video and text, blending aspects of live video apps like Meerkat, YouNow and Skype and the recorded video messages popularized by Snapchat.

Can this revolutionize video storytelling?

What about the hot new video creation app Storie? It allows you to easily piece together video stories on a smartphone.

New audio apps Opinion and Spreaker are creating what amounts to audio text messaging.

And of course Meerkat and Periscope have ushered in the era of video streaming -- and some legal concerns (The NHL recently announced a ban on streaming apps at their games).

Facebook is here to stay -- We discuss new research that shows (once again) there is no mass evacuation from Facebook. We have a discussion on Facebook and the apparent stranglehold they have on teens. Tom discusses why a Facebook account is the new driver's license. Finally some good news on the publishing front -- A newspaper success story? YES! Learn how the Harrisburg Patriot-News and its Penn Live site is the leading the way with a social-media-first news strategy. An inspirational and bold strategy! And what about the Google network? Last week, Google announced that it is working with carriers Sprint and T-Mobile to offer a wireless service that will seamlessly switch between Wi-Fi hotspots and 4G LTE cellular networks called Project Fi. The move isn't likely to threaten the dominance of Verizon and AT&T, by far the two largest carriers in the nation, but it's potentially a big deal to the cable companies. We discuss the innovation ... and the idea that Google may finally have to pay attention to customer service.

Podcasting -- The best advertising investment? Tom and I discuss the fact that advertising becomes trusted content on a podcast -- could podcasting become the most valuable advertising ever? Can it scale?

And if that were not enough, we also reveal a gigantic gShift giveaway -- The first 50 podcast fans to hit the Marketing Companion landing page and register for a cool eBook will get a copy of The Content Code for free! We also unveil a big discount for a new Marketing Profs writing course!

Now, you're probably wondering, how did we fit all that in a 30 minute podcast? Well, push play to find out!

Resources mentioned in this show Forbes article: Podcasts Are Doing To Advertising What Uber Has Done To Transportation

Don Imus

Chat app Kik.

Pew research on teens and social media.

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The Marketing Writing Bootcamp is our most popular course from MarketingProfs University and as a podcast fan you can get $200 off the normal $595 price. The course is 13 classes, each 30-40 minutes in length, for more than 7 hours of on-demand learning. Learn from your desk, on your commute, or your couch. The course begins June 11. You will be awarded a certificate from Marketing Profs upon completion of course. Register through this special link: http://mprofs.com/companion.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

Last week I was having a new Internet line installed at my home. I explained to the workers, all under 30, that I needed a period of quiet during the middle of the day because I was about to record a podcast. "What's a podcast?" one of the young crew asked. "It's an Internet radio show," I explained. "Oh," he said, "I have heard a few of those. But what's a podcast exactly?" I then launched into an impromptu lesson on podcasts but it dawned on me that this fellow, like about 20 percent of Americans, was indeed listening to a podcast ... and like the majority of the world, he didn't know what a podcast is. This underscores some very interesting research revealed on the latest episode of The Marketing Companion. Calling a podcast a podcast is confusing to many people. We don't call an online magazine a printcast. It's still a magazine. We don't call an online newspaper a journalcast. It's still a newspaper. Why do we treat audio differently? One podcaster who has broken away from the podpack is Mike Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner and the talented host of the SME podcast. "We call the Social Media Marketing podcast an on-demand talk radio show," he said, "because everyone knows what talk radio is, and on-demand is an easy way to distinguish it from traditional radio." This might seem trivial until you hear the explanation from my podcast ... er ... on demand talk radio show ... co-host Tom Webster and why this nuance might be a huge hurdle to mainstream growth. I learned something important through this discussion and I think you will too. Let's dive in, shall we?

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

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Remember when social media was about engagement? I could argue that the biggest trends we are witnessing are all about NOT engaging! For example,

• The hottest apps right now are Meerkat and Periscope, essentially turning you into your own live-streaming channel. In other words, you're broadcasting.
• One of the fastest-growing platforms is podcasting. In essence, there is no engagement.
• Likewise, fast-rising channels like Pinterest and Instagram don't have the engagement levels we used to see on Facebook and Twitter.
• Several popular blogs including Chris Brogan, Jay Baer and Copyblogger have eliminated their comment sections.

Without question, "engagement" is not as fashionable as it once was. Does it still have a place in the social media eco system? This is the topic tackled with my erstwhile podcasting partner Tom Webster on the latest edition of The Marketing Companion. We would be most pleased if you listened to it. Here it is, in all its auditory glory:

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

In the latest Marketing Companion, we take a "behind the scenes" examination of The Content Code, a new book that charts a course for winning in a world of overwhelming information density. But along the way, Tom Webster and I also discuss ...

• A few takeaways from SXSW 2015
• The virtures of a sub-premium dating service
• Why the four benefits of traditional publishing are obsolete, and what I did about it.
• The reason why this is the hardest time to be in marketing -- ever.
• The Alpha Audience -- Why this is the bedrock of your business.
• Why you should be writing for the smallest possible audience.
• Why it's time to re-evaluate the sacred cow of SEO.
• Why the success of digital marketing might rely on gray social media.

Wow. That sounds like one great podcast, doesn't it? Well let's stop this dilly-dallying and get right to it!

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new games, contests, analytics, polling platforms, and other innovations.

I used to work for a big metals and mining company called Alcoa. Whenever I worked on a new customer contract, we always had an extremely conservative legal position, especially when it came to anything that had to do with the competition. Everybody in sales and marketing had to go through annual training programs about what to do if we ever saw a competitor, or a competitor spoke to us. If we were attending a trade show where a competitor would be, we had to get written permission ahead of time from the Legal Department and brush up on our training again. Does this sound like overkill to you? It might make more sense if you knew that the company was the subject of the most famous lawsuit against a corporate monopoly in U.S. history. Alcoa actually lost the suit, leading to the break-up of the company into smaller parts that eventually grew into the company's competitors. Can you imagine what that would be like? Your former manufacturing plants and employees turn into your competitors almost overnight? Obviously something that dramatic would have a powerful impact on the company culture. No wonder Alcoa was so conservative when it came to anything that looked like monopolistic behavior. Oh by the way ... that famous legal ruling?  It occurred in 1944.

Company culture rules.

Can you see how complex and important corporate culture can be? An event that happened decades ago still influences the company culture today. You really have to dissect the cultural DNA of a company to understand how it works. And I believe there is no more powerful influence on a company's ability to change and adopt new marketing practices than culture. This is the subject of an extremely interesting new Marketing Companion podcast. Of course Tom Webster and I also introduce three new Marketing Companion products including a discount escort service and subpar child care. Simply a natural connection, right? But that's another story. The challenge of corporate culture and how to get over the resistance to change is a struggle for almost all of us today. In this podcast we discuss:

• Why so many executives are slow to change and what to do about it
• How to get a change effort started: education, quick wins and the safe sandbox
• The foundational blocks of leadership
• Why you MUST document your progress as a buffer against future change
• The social media quote that gives Mark a stomach ache.
• The march of Milennials is on. How will this impact culture?
• Culture swap -- Can we cross-pollinate cultures?

Are you ready? Let's do this thing!

Resources mentioned in this podcast episode:

Merav Chen

Douglas Burdett

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new game, analytics, and polling platforms.

A lot of people are ga-ga over the "social enterprise," a nirvana state where every employee is a brand advocate blissfully tweeting and posting on behalf of the company each day. Obviously this is far-off dream for many organizations, and perhaps not even desirable (gasp). The issue came to the forefront again last week when the web blew up over possible legislation in the state of South Carolina banning the use of social media in the workplace. Outrageous you say? Unheard of? Dystopian? You might be surprised to know I agree with the legislation, and after Tom Webster heard my argument, he changed his mind and agreed, too. Luckily, we have the whole conversation recorded on our podcast this week. We also have a lively discussion of the best and worst Super Bowl ads ... and we have some pretty divergent views! Ready to listen to another awesome adventure with The Marketing Companion? Let's do this!

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new game, analytics, and polling platforms.

In the latest edition of The Marketing Companion podcast, Tom Webster and I climb all over today's hottest marketing topics. Here's a sampling of our latest audio adventure:

• Tom amazes Mark with his knowledge of the Seven Dwarves.
• Cancelling Google Glass -- Is this a blip on the wearable tech radar or has Google set the industry back a step?
• Under-used social media platforms -- Mark tried an experiment that increased his page views by more than 10X. Would it work for you? What platform seems to be attracting more thought leaders than any other? Clever ways to use a new Soundcloud with audio content.
• Mark declares that they are the World's Dumbest Marketers. Tom agrees.
• Personal marketing priorities -- What are Mark and Tom working on to get more bang for their marketing buck?
• Mark's advice on the very first step you should tackle if you are starting a new marketing job.
• Tom embarrasses himself by momentarily forgetting he is on mute.
• What are most exciting digital trends? Mark and Tom weigh in the most interesting digital developments to watch. One of them could turn into a big business.
• SoundClown. You need to hear it to believe it.

Now I know it's hard to believe we fit all of this into a 30 minute podcast. You're just going to have to hear it to believe it:

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new game, analytics, and polling platforms.

This week we scrapped plans for the podcast we had planned to address a controversy that emerged at Edison Research, Tom Webster's company. It was time for us to reflect on the great two-edged sword we all face on the Internet: the historically important opportunity to publish and be heard, and the vulnerability we face to be skewered without compassion ... or facts. Overall, the Internet is a good place. A VERY good place, in fact. But it is also a reflection of the human race and about 2 percent of the population discovers some psychological reward in being angry. Twenty years ago, a business could probably ignore those people without much damage but today there is a very real chance that strategy will make the problem worse. Big business or small, we must be aware of these risks and the appropriate responses. In this discussion, we cover ...

• Guidelines for responding or not responding to Internet haters
• The fear of toxicity ... real and imagined
• Learning to handle trolls
• When to go to the mat and when to walk away
• Showing your true colors in the face of hate
• Is 100 percent customer satisfaction possible?

Ready to do this thing? Here we go: Resources mentions in this episode The Infinite Dial blog post by Larry Rosin A six-step plan to respond to negative comments on the web Research on 98 percent customer satisfaction survey Illustration: Check out the beautiful peace sign art by Laura Barbosa

Please support our extraordinary sponsors. Our content is free because of their generosity.

gShift’s Web Presence Analytics platform provides agencies and brands with search, social and mobile content marketing data in one place. Monitor and report on an entire web presence. Create smarter, faster content through gShift’s proprietary data. Report on the engagement and performance of your content marketing investment.

Our podcast is also brought to you by Voices Heard Media. Please check out this tremendous resource for scaling social media engagement. Take a look at building an engaged and relevant audience through innovative new game, analytics, and polling platforms.