Have you heard these before “let’s make a lot of money and then do something for the community” or “if we get the right branding, we’ll get some great customers. ” I’m sure you’ve heard some variation of these. Or hinging success on some new marketing strategy – if we do the right seo, or the right social, or the right video. If, if, if.

While all these strategies are important, they are secondary to doing great work and celebrating our customers. Solving our customers and clients problems – that’s the reason we’re in business. Right? Doing great work can be about creating shared value.

Creating Shared Value (CSV) is not about your corporate responsibility, it is about the opportunity to create profits with purpose that simultaneously drive sustainability, economic growth and social progress. – Dawna Maclean on creating shared value.

“The next time you have a choice between chasing the charts (whichever charts you keep track of) and doing the work your customers crave, do the work instead.” - Seth Godin concluded his post for today with that sentence.

Wise words. Focus on the work.

One of the more difficult transitions to make (for all of us) as we dive headlong into this new world of marketing is that “Authenticity Beats Slick.” – Jeremy Epstein, Never Stop Marketing.

I’m in love with conversation and people. I’m convinced that great work that creates shared value does create stories. And, the stories will be spread by the people that you serve –  your customers. They’ll tell their stories in person. They’ll email. And they’ll spread via social spaces they hang out it in – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and all the other places people collaborate and communicate in.

Keep the faith. Stay focused on doing what you set out to do. Do great work, not good work, but GREAT work. And celebrate your customers.

BTW, If you’re in San Francisco next week, I’ll be speaking on using content and conversation to build community at All Facebook Expo with some brilliant people including Duane Brown, Creative Traction; Michel Jaindl, Buddy Media; Hyla Molander, Widowed Web; Brandon Pierce, Facebook; Ekaterina Walter, Intel Corpotation; and my buddy Todd Tweedy, Audience Machine. Wow!

Additional reading:

Low tech sincerity can build stronger relationships

Why our stories matter and how you can share your stories

Attention, community and the mayor of Indianapolis

I’m Duncan Alney the leader of the passionate Firebelly Social Media Marketing agency. We work on content, conversations & community to help brands develop relationships with people. You can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Video features search and social media marketing professionals

Greg Jarbo and his team made this video at SES Chicago, which stars a who's who on the search marketing and social media marketing scene. The questions were simple: were you naughty or nice? And what are you expecting Google to bring you for the holidays. It's hilarious. You have to check it out!

Duncan Alney Facebook | Twitter | Naymz | Social Media Marketing

Interview with Dave Evan, Digital Voodoo and author of social media marketing, one hour a day

Here's a quick recap of the video.

1. Look at your listening results. Fine tune your marketing and PR to focus in on what people are interested in
2. Take the information to the operations side of the house – customer service, R&D – and change the things that are being discussed (make things better for example)

The opportunity is for PR people to lead the way that business is done. Marketing is focused on listening and paying attention to what kinds of experience people are having. Which brings us to the power of the market constituents to influence each other. Social Search.

When it comes to metrics, we have social analytics, web analytics and pipeline metrics – these three metrics can start to establish a causal relationship between marketing investment and customer behavior and return on investment.

Lastly, social research is emerging as an area to watch carefully. Its affordable, its immediate, and its more tactile.

Duncan Alney Facebook | Twitter | Naymz | Blip.fm | Social Media Marketing

Matthew Inman who runs The Oatmeal site posted this recently. It's a top 10 list, but I think they're so good that we're going to feature them for you, our attention deficit reader, one at a time! No one cares about how many followers you have unless they're a mis-directed social media or PR firm that will give you more or less importance based on your primary and secondary reach. And I say, since when did it become cool to not think every one is important (regardless of reach). 

If you're a deep diver and want to see the full top 10 list – click here

Duncan Alney Facebook | Twitter | Naymz | Blip.fm | Social Media Marketing

A round up the Social Media Marketing: does it work panel at MBO 2009

I moderated a panel today at MBO 2009, put on b the dynamic Jim Brown from Ever Effect, specifically, the panel was "Social Media: Does it Work". The panel members were Douglas Karr (DK New Media), Kyle Lacy (Brandswag), Thomas Heed (EverEffect), Jacob Lefler (The Basement) and Chris Lucas (FormSpring). Here's the highlights.

• Does social media marketing fit your company's approach to business? Do you have a responsive way about you? Are you committed to deep and sustained marketing efforts? Is your leadership behind you? Are you customers deeply engaged in your brand? Does your brand have engagement value – content vise? Can you, are you willing to, and can you afford to develop content?
• If you have a good mix of yes's – listen to whats being said about you and your competitors online. Use google, google alerts, and other tools like this. Are people talking about your brand or competitors online – where? Why? what are they saying? Can you benefit from being a part of the conversation?
• Identify goals – awareness, lead generation, relationships/trust and so on. Make sure that social media fits in your overall marketing mix. Traditional still works. Integrate for best results.
• Set measurable objectives
• Choose workflow and measurement tools. Radian 6, Techrigy, trackur, or do it manually. Depending on the size of your program – you can decide what to use.

So social media marketing may be right for your company. Or maybe not. Either way – don't dive in. Think carefully before you act.

Duncan Alney Facebook | Twitter | Naymz | Blip.fm | Social Media Marketing

David Hoppe on the value of content

My friend David is a great human being. He's a writer, he's an advocate for change, he's an intellectual, he's a playwright, I could go on. David and I hung out this week to talk content. We're both believers in the paramount importance of stories. He says it best – so check out the video.

Duncan Alney Facebook | Twitter | Naymz | Blip.fm | Social Media Marketing