This episode of ye olde Q’n'D, I filled in for co-host Jennifer Leggio (@Mediaphyter). This week the fearless Aaron Strout (@AaronStrout) rang in this episode with a little primer about Postling.com, the social site of the week, followed by an awesome and insightful discussion with special guest Sylvia Marino (@SylMarino), Executive Director of Online Community Operations & Social Media for Edmunds.com. The Twittererererer of the week was none other than one of the rockstars of #agchat, Jeff Fowle (@JeffFowle). Last but not least, what was intended to be a point/counterpoint discussion back and forth between Aaron and I about whether or not the iPad is truly unique and necessary as opposed to just an oversized iPhone.
Social Site of the Week: Postling.com
First up on the call Aaron brought his site of the week to the table, Postling.com. In a nutshell, it’s a way for you to add multiple accounts (Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, WordPress, etc.) so that you can post updates/links/photos to them simultaneously. Where this app is NOT similar to sites like Ping.fm and some of the other atomic status updaters is that you have a nice dashboard and you can actually take your account posting management up a couple notches by organizing a group of accounts into a “brand” so if you are managing multiple accounts for multiple brands you can keep it all nice and organized, able to drill down into each “brand” and watch conversations, comments, etc. This is pretty cool and easy to use. Curious to see how popular something like this gets as the age of the personal brand continues. It definitely seems to have that type of thing in mind.
Featured Guest: Silvia Marino, Edmunds.com
Silvia, @SylMarino on Twitter, has been at Edmunds for quite awhile, helping the company connect with car buyers, building/managing their communities, proactively tweaking their social media strategy to meet customer needs, and ensuring that the latest social media tools are integrated into Edmunds service offering in a way that is seamless, engaging, and personal. She’s done and amazing job and was terrific to chat with. She talked to us about her background, some of the transitions from the old days of using only forums back in the mid 90′s, into the nimble age of social media, augmenting the already a successful community reputation that Edmunds.com is known for. Her closing meaningful tweet was awesome and is advice that every seasoned marketer should follow: “Explore, participate, share, measure & repeat….until dead.” Amen Sylvia. We look forward to witnessing more stellar examples of customer satisfaction through methodical and smart engagement from Sylvia and her team at Edmunds.com.
Twitterer of The Week: @JeffFowle
I met Jeff Fowle at the #140tc in Seattle in early March of this year. He’s a farmer. He’s not just any farmer though. What makes him special is his ability to leverage social media to educate people on food/agriculture. Honestly I had no idea before we met that that industry would even have a use for sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. He continues to do an amazing job educating people on how their food makes it from the farm to your dinner table, issues and the science behind agriculture and how it affects our food, and as a food consumer advocate helping to correct misconceptions about what what we *think* we’re buying at the store, and what we are actually buying. He’s heavily involved in #agchat discussions on Twitter. He’s a really nice guy and knows his stuff. You can also check out the website, KK Ranch. Check back here soon as I will be publishing a more in depth interview with Jeff about his experiences in bringing social media into the folds of the farming industry.
Point/Counterpoint: Is the iPad Bitchin’ or Just a Gluttonized iPhone?
This part of the show didn’t last that long but Aaron made the mistake of allowing me to talk first after I had just consumed my quad tall cappuccino. It ended up being more of a Point/Point instead as we are both kind of on the same page. At first both of us had wondered if this thing was kind of silly. I particularly thought Job’s portion of the launch keynote for this thing as a little silly. After I started reading about how universities were handing them out to newly registered students, seeing people use them for presos, and in one case, actually embedding one into a kitchen cabinet (check out the video), I started to get it. I can see how non-smartphone owners who don’t want to pony up for a Macbook but would still like to be able to send email, view videos, and enjoy Facebooking and surfing the web while en route to wherever would make sense. Plus, to Aaron’s point, it has a battery life that makes the iPhone seem like it’s running on hamsters. What do you think?
[Giant iPhone image borrowed humbly from an old Gizmodo post.]
In 2008 I designed the UI for a How-To skateboarding iPhone/iPod Touch app called GoLearn Skateboarding. In December Apple approved the application, and this month they said they wanted to feature it! The feature went live yesterday and as of today it is ranked #2 in the top paid apps within the sports category at the iTunes app store! I’m super proud of and stoked on this project and we have a few more apps we plan on rolling out. I only did the front-end UI design so I have to give credit to Erik Florio/Giuseppe Taibi from 
Humanize Your Business Or Fail
Because profitability for any business comes from human beings making the decision to invest in you or your company, I believe that the old school is now officially backwards and can almost be hurtful to your cause. In the last year or so, the concept unearthed, thanks in large part by the social aspect of the web, is that companies need to spend more time using their market research and user group studies to construct a strategy around presenting their offering as an integral part of someone’s life, rather than as a “great product or service at a great price.” The “Hey look at me! Look at me!” syndrome that so many companies and business people fall into when they don’t know what else to do with their time and budgets and feel like nothing else was working, is no bueno.
Like It Or Not, Warm Fuzzies = Revenue
I’m not saying the quality of the products or services aren’t a priority. Hell, they have to be if they’re are to successfully become a part of someone’s life, solidifying their purchase decision to make that initial investment in their relationship with you, ensure customer loyalty and retention, and increase the frequency of word of mouth (now more valuable than ever). I’m just saying that assuming quality is already there, the next step is to make sure you are a part of your customer, not just someone they handed over money to for products or services.
If you want to know what I’m talking about, just watch Apple. Love them or hate them, Apple knows how to create the notion that their technology products are seamlessly already part of who you are as a person. The concept of the iPad, and the iPad itself, is a perfect example. It doesn’t matter if you are selling car insurance, lamp shades, financial advice or skateboards, make sure that the presentation layer of your marketing plan does the following:
The above is how I would handle marketing/campaign methodology in this day and age. Catering to people’s emotions is nothing new in Marketing. Catering to segmented human emotion in a way where they can also interact with you and quickly, followed by easily doing business with you immediately, is new, thanks to the technology and tools. Pull your weight in the relationship with your customer and they’ll stick it out with you, even when your industry or company hit some rough spots.
Onward.