When that bad story first hits your computer screen, you can be excused for feeling just a little bit panicked. If you’re like most companies, you aren’t prepared for a PR crisis. You might have some action plan in mothballs, but if it doesn’t include social media readiness, you’re not prepared for a full-blown 21st century PR imbroglio. If you haven’t thought through how social media transforms your PR crisis planning, it’s time to do so now.

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“If you don’t eat your meat you can’t have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat!” Pink Floyd, The Wall.

That quote from Another Brick in the Wall reminds me of the cart horse situation with social media marketing:  If you don’t know your customers you can’t engage them. How can you ever hope to engage your customers if you don’t understand who they are?

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Just about every business with a web site does something to market and promote it. When those companies are asked about web analytics, it’s surprising how many look back with a blank stare.  This isn’t the case with mature online marketers but it does happen a lot with new business web sites and blogs.

For many companies that are new to web analytics the idea of digging in and finding useful information can be daunting.  It’s common marketing sense to measure what you’re marketing, but making sense of analytics data doesn’t always find time in the mix of duties a small business or new web site owner is responsible for.

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Last week Erik Qualmann posted a list of “All Star Social Media” players in his ClickZ column. Being included in such a list with the likes of Chris Brogan and Scott Monty was humbling to say the least.  Erik qualified the list by saying they were mostly people he knew and he welcomed suggestions.  I noticed few women were mentioned and knowing there are so many power players, I decided to create a list of my own featuring women that I think “rock” the social web.

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For a long time, small businesses struggled with search marketing, because to succeed, they had to specialize, rather than being all things to all people in a local area. That’s still good advice, but changes in how people use search (and in how search engines work) are suddenly making your location every bit as important as your specialty, at least for some businesses.

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As we move into a new year, we also are experiencing a shift in budgets towards social media, as well as how they are allocated in the social space. This is evident in Pepsi’s decision to choose social media over Super Bowl ads, but it is also evident in our experiences with our own clients who are putting more resources and budget to ongoing social efforts.  In this post, I will acquaint you with some of the ways I think we’ll see social media budgets changing over the course of 2010.

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Do a Google search for “emotional marketing” and you’ll find a whole bunch of views on what it is and how to tap into it.

One of the best examples I’ve seen recently was the one put forward by Nick Desbarats at this weekend’s TEDx Ottawa event. Nick is one of the brains behind ChoiceBot and has some great ideas about how we make decisions, and how marketers can tap into that.

There’s no doubt that tapping into the heart and minds of customers is the Holy Grail for any marketer, and platforms like Nick’s are making it more of an exact science.

But imagine for a minute if we didn’t even need to make physical decisions – it was all captured subconsciously. This is where I feel what I call emotional marketing 2.0 has the ability to step in.

Emotion Isn’t a Choice

While there’s no doubt that the choices we make when presented with options gives marketers a clearer picture of what we want, it’s still semi-forced. By giving a limited amount of options, we’re saying to consumers they have to choose something from the path we’re placing them on.

The problem is, emotion isn’t a choice; instead, what we choose to do is based on emotion without limits and there’s a big difference.

The way we react to sounds; to images; to melodies; to voices; to stimulation – these are the emotional pre-actions that define where our actual emotions will take us next on the decision path. Not just choices to be ticked off, or eliminated by “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree” scales.

And this is where true emotional marketing 2.0 comes in.

Technology and Emotional Marketing 2.0

Consumer electronics giant Toshiba has released a series of laptops that work on face recognition software. Fellow Japanese company OKI has technology that allows increased cell phone security thanks to eye scanning software.

Imagine the possibilities if you combined the two.

Imagine browsing the web and adverts or pages open automatically because your eyes sparkle when you smile, and your eye and face scanning-enabled laptop has recognized the change in the emotional picture of your face. Once the page is opened, it continues to open other sub-pages automatically depending on where your eyes are focused and the reaction from the iris.

Without doing anything but look at the items that attract you, your emotional profile is building your marketing profile.

• Non-profits and charitable organizations can see whether you take action and donate from hard-hitting adverts or softer calls to action.
• Car manufacturers can see if you’re a speed freak or family guy.
• Food companies can see what foods make your mouth and eyes water and what ones make you grimace.

And these are just the basic ideas. Suddenly, every single advert and promotional web flyer is tailored to you and your needs. All from the simple knowledge of what makes you tick emotionally.

Is emotional marketing 2.0 a future pipe dream? Perhaps. But the basis of the technology is already there – all that’s missing is the emotion. And that’s where you come in.

Comments

I don’t consider myself a real blogger. To me, real bloggers don’t have jobs, they just get paid for writing about their opinions. Kinda like journalists.

I’m just a small business owner that happens to blog on a few times a week. But since my source of income is my business blogging takes a back seat to business needs. Most small businesses can’t afford to hire a full-time blogger or ghost writer so they have to work blogging into their many business-owner duties. And because those duties are so heavy on the business owner, blogging generally falls by the wayside as more pressing matters are attended to.

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A recent study revealed 20 percent of tweets published are actually invitations for product information, answers or responses from peers or directly by brand representatives. Now we learn that Twitter users are actively paying attention to brands on the popular information network.

According to research conducted by Performics and ROI Research, about half of Twitter users who were introduced to a brand on Twitter were compelled to search for additional information.

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Did you notice that Twitter added  list functionality to follow this week? I have had a few people ask me what is the purpose? So with that; here is 4 ways to use Twitter lists:

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