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http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/search-marketing/39752.html

The above link leads to the article below:

It’s what you want. The very popular StumbleUpon concept is simple: when you sign up, you provide the service with some of your interests, and you install the neat little toolbar. Once you’ve got the application installed, you can simply begin stumbling and you can tell the system how you feel about the page that was served to you. By clicking on the thumbs up “I like it” button or by clicking on the thumbs-down button, you teach the SU system what content you truly enjoy. By stumbling and sharing your finds to other users, you’re personalizing your own experience and the experience of your peers as well.

The personalization concept — where content is being provided based on your own desires — has proven to be quite successful. Since it was introduced two years ago, StumbleUpon now boasts over 1.8 million users, and is continually expanding. Version 2.90 of the toolbar, which came out earlier this week, is incorporating the relatively new video social search engine that it unveiled in December. StumbleUpon is truly growing…

And so is Digg.

At half the amount of subscribers that StumbleUpon has, Digg is aiming to emulate the SU concept, a recent BusinessWeek article has reported. Hot on the heels of StumbleUpon, Digg (which launched its own video extension five days after StumbleUpon did) is aiming even higher to SU’s core success model: a recommendation tool.

According to Kevin Rose, Digg’s founder who is quoted in the article, “Digg will be smart enough to know what interests you” and it will serve content that fits within the tastes of its users. For current subscribers, this means that Digg will serve content based on the stories users have dugg or buried. If you used the service to promote pages that you truly liked, the Digg system appears to not be much different from StumbleUpon.

More and more companies are involving themselves in what can be an imminent threat (well, perhaps not just yet — and it still depends on who you ask): personalization. Google’s personalized search is being promoted more heavily. As more and more people realize that there are only a few items that may be of interest to them when they search, systems are learning to adapt to user preferences through their own algorithms. As Google explains it, if you’re searching for “dolphin” because you want to learn more about the football team from Miami, you’re not overly concerned with results pertaining to marine life. Depending on the types of pages you visit and the domains upon which these sites are located, Google’s personalized search will rank these pages higher than the undesirable results, thus providing you with a searching experience that like that of no other user. To Google, this is a move provide quality results and reduce the unnecessary clutter.

To make our websites shine through these results and be obvious to the viewer, there will likely be obstacles that we’ll need to overcome. Good content is a necessity. Telling your friends is a good way to get the word out. Promoting these pertinent sites through social search is still going to be very useful.

We’re bordering on a new era, one with incredible challenge and obstacles, but one that does have the end user — you — in mind, and hopefully everyone in all communities will be happy with the results.

34 Rules for Maverick Entrepreneurs

1. It’s got to be a BIG idea that you, your team and your customers can “get” in seconds.
2. Strive to create 10x – 100x in value for any price you charge. Your rewards are always proportionate to the value you provide.
3. You must charge a premium price so you have a large margin to provide an extraordinary value & experience.
4. Provide a ‘Reason Why’ customers should do business with you and pay you a premium.
5. Get paid before you deliver your product or service.
6. You get to make the rules for your business. Don’t let industry norms dictate how you’ll work or who you’ll work with.
7. Create your business around your life instead of settling for your life around your business.
8. Consistently and constantly force yourself to focus on the ‘critically few’ proactive activities that produce exponential results. Don’t get caught up in minutia & bullshit.
9. Seek to minimize start-up risk but have maximum upside potential.
10. Get your idea out there as fast as possible even if it’s not quite ready by setting must-hit deadlines. Let the market tell you if you have a winner or not. If not – move on and fail forward fast! If it’s got potential – then you can make it better.
11. Find partners and team members who are strong where you are weak and appreciate being paid on results.
12. Your reputation always counts. Honor your obligations and agreements.
13. Never, ever get paid based on hours worked.
14. Leverage your marketing activities exponentially by using direct response methods and testing.
15. Measure and track your marketing so you know what’s working and what’s not.
16. Bootstrap. Having too much capital leads to incredible waste and doing things using conventional means.
17. Your partners and employees actions are their true core – not what they tell you.
18. Keep asking the right questions to come up with innovative solutions. “How?”, “What?”, “Where?”, “Who Else?” & “Why?” open up possibilities.
19. You’ll never have a perfect business and you’ll never be totally “done”. Deal with it.
20. Focus most of your time on your core strengths and less time working in areas you suck at.
21. Make it easier for customers to buy by taking away the risk of the transaction by guaranteeing what you do in a meaningful way.
22. Always have something else to sell (via upsell, cross-sell, follow-up offer, etc) whenever a transaction takes place. The hottest buyer in the world is one who just gave you money.
23. Always go back to your existing customers with exceptional offers and reasons they should give you more money. It’s 5x less expensive to sell to happy customers than go find new ones.
24. However the flip side is - fire your most annoying customers. They’ll be replaced with the right ones.
25. The marketplace and competitors are always trying to beat you down to a commodity. Don’t let that happen.
26. Develop and build your business’s personality that stands out. People want to buy from people.
27. Create your own category so you can be first in the consumer’s mind.
28. Go the opposite direction competitors are headed – you’ll stand out.
29. Mastermind and collaborate with other smart entrepreneurs if they have futures that are even bigger than their present.
30. Celebrate your victories. It’s too easy to simply move on to your next goal without acknowledging and appreciating the ‘win’.
31. Make your business AND doing business with you FUN!
32. Do the unexpected before and after anything goes wrong so customers are compelled to ‘share your story’.
33. Get a life! Business and making money are important but your life is the sum total of your experiences. Go out and create experiences & adventures so you can come back renewed and inspired for your next big thing.
34. Give back! Commit to taking a % of your company’s sales and make a difference. It this becomes a habit like brushing your teeth pretty soon the big checks with lots of zeros won’t be scary to write. If you think you can’t donate a percentage of your sales simply raise your price.

Here's the URL to the entire blogpost:  http://www.internetlifestyle.com/blog/?p=341

This is the question I posed to my contacts in LinkedIn.  The question was as follows:

"Should we 'make love' to our customers?"

"Do you think marketers should stop treating their customers like wallets and instead treat them more like the people they would like to be their dearest friends, or even a desired lover?"

I received a few interesting responses, and have decided to post them here:

Lucas Allmon wrote:

While I agree with Benny to a certain extent, business IS relationships. You are more likely to do business with someone that you like than someone you can't stand.

Companies need to start treating people more like humans than just policy numbers or walking products.

While you may get a sale by being a hardass, you aren't going to retain those clients as lifers.

Hamish Taylor wrote:

Only if you're married to them as otherwise invoicing becomes really difficult!!!

Ray Miller wrote:

There is the old expression……….you catch more flies with honey than…..

Benny Greenberg wrote:

Actually befriending your customer is a poor approach to closing a sale. I have given a few e-courses on the proper methodology involved in this strategy. You need to be the expert, the person your customer looks to as the one-and-only person to buy from. Not the person to go bar hopping with. Think people - it is much easier to say NO to a friend than to a stranger. The same way you would not present in jeans and a t-shirt, or show up with your cell phone in hand, a bic pen and torn post it notes, you do not turn your customer into your friend. If you want to know more - drop me a note

Eugene Rembor, MBA wrote:

OK, had some time to look at the viedo, but honestly - I don't understand a thing. What's your point??

Eve Morris BSc(hons), Cert DigM wrote:

I think the FSA stance on treating customer fairly gives some valuable guidance on how UK financial services businesses should treat their customers. This guidance can also apply to non-financial services businesses. We should all treat our customers fairly & with respect - not with a veneer of false friendship which could potentially be perceived as shallow & insincere.

Outcome 1: Consumers can be confident that they are dealing with firms where the fair treatment of customers is central to the corporate culture;

Outcome 2: Products and services marketed and sold in the retail market are designed to meet the needs of identified consumer groups and are targeted accordingly;

Outcome 3: Consumers are provided with clear information and are kept appropriately informed before, during and after the point of sale;

Outcome 4: Where consumers receive advice, the advice is suitable and takes account of their circumstances;

Outcome 5: Consumers are provided with products that perform as firms have led them to expect, and the associated service is both of an acceptable standard and as they have been led to expect;

Outcome 6: consumers do not face unreasonable post-sale barriers imposed by firms to change product, switch provider, submit a claim or make a complaint.

These 6 outcomes should be the foundations upon which all products are marketed & sold to customers.

As regards your love metaphor.. to take it literally - to smile at a customer can be to engage initial interest in your product, to cuddle them can be to comfort & reassure with credibility & brand reinforcement, to make them feel special is to target & personalize the relevance of your communications to them individually, and to love is to value them as an individual who interacts with your brand time & again.

I hope this is helpful - I am open to connect
Kind regards
Eve

Pieter Dorsman wrote:

No that would be too much…

I do hope some of my suppliers say "yes" but preferably just the female representatives…

Hjörtur Smárason wrote:

Depends on what you are selling, Angela

But in general, the answer is no. You should not.

I like it when brands approach me personally and appear relaxed, secure and sincere, (the same goes for people). But if you start stroking my thigh, I'm off. So don't over do it.

Cheers
Hjörtur

Geri Rockstein wrote:

Hi Angela,

I believe that a business relationship should be a professional one where each party meets or exceeds the expectations of the other. I don't believe that is treating someone like a wallet. Being treated or treating a business relationship like a potential friend or lover does not enter into the equation for me.

Best regards,

Geri

Teemu Korpi wrote:

If there can be a person more reserved than a brit then he/she must come from Finland like myself. Like John W. I would find it very troublesome if someone in the position of a salesperson came too "close".

I would rather have that relationship in the right framework that being a customer one. Then again there are certain facts that make a good customer relationship.

One vital part of marketing communication mix is personal selling. That's the contact point where the promises are kept or not. That's the critical point where the basis of returning customer relationship are laid.

So, I would keep my pants on and hands in my pockets.

Tim Chattaway [LION] wrote:

In the industry I work In It pays to be nice, even through gritted teeth sometimes.

However I work with clients/people I get along with, I know this is not always possible, but if you find clients you enjoy talking to the desire to go that extra mile for them is there. Willing to take phone calls from Clients in various time zones at 3am in the morning for example.

We all work to get paid, thats life, but whats to say we can't be nice and treat people with a bit of respect whilst they are also lining are pockets?

John Welford wrote:

I'm not so sure! If a marketer treats me in this way, I will immediately know that they are only pretending to be my dearest friend. If someone said that they wanted to be my lover, I'd get really worried!

The point is that when the marketer is clearly acting out a falsehood, how can I trust anything they say about what they are trying to sell?

This may have something to do with cultural differences. I understand that Americans have a different attitude in these respects from Europeans. As a "reserved" Brit I do not want to be grabbed by the elbow when I meet someone for the first time, and I want people to earn the right to use my first name, not to assume it. In marketing terms, I am deeply suspicious of advertisements voiced in American accents, simply because they sound, to my British ears, less sincere than those that use British accents.

(What I find even odder is the public prudery in America that goes alongside the personal chumminess. Look at the absurd shock and horror generated by Janet Jackson's costume malfunction!)

No - in the same way that I will not jump into bed with you after only one date, don't expect me to buy your product simply because you "come on strong" with your first marketing contact!

Eugene Rembor, MBA wrote:

I don't need to watch the video to yell from the bottom of my heart "YES, they should!".

Thanks so much for all of your responses.  I will be contacting you all tomorrow with your downloads.

The question will be live for 7 days, but from the looks of things, very few people are watching the video.  The question in itself is enough to evoke a passionate answer.  And viewing my video without first reading the Attention Age paper is confusing, as one reader, Eugene mentioned in his second post above after watching the video.  However, when I took a look at my YouTube statistics before writing the post, there were 72 views of the video, so SOMEONE is watching out there!!! Yeah!!!

Apparently, a lot of people do not like the idea of becoming your customer's best friend.  Opinions are also divided.  Many of the interpretations are far from what my intention was.  Eve hit the nail on the head with her analysis and explanation, and I think we can all learn a thing or two from her answer.

For those of you who have not yet seen the video, here it is again:

http://www.strategicprofits.com/66-seconds-compelling/angela-wickenberg/

Talk soon,

Angela Wickenberg

Written by Emre Sokullu and edited by Richard MacManus

There are now so many companies vying to be the next YouTube, it's easy to lose track of them all. So let's take a look at the entire online video industry and categorize the major players. Our thanks to Ali Dagli of Savvian, for providing us a lot of the useful data listed here. 

In this post we've summarized the latest video industry innovations under the following categories:

• Video Sharing
• Intermediaries
• Video Search
• Video eCommerce
• Video Editing & Creation
• Rich Media Advertising
• P2P (Peer To Peer)
• Video Streaming
• Vlogosphere