10 comments

1. The “__________ is dead” line is so overdone and, frankly, boring. Podcasting, like blogging, tweeting, email marketing and all the rest of it is a tool in our growing toolbox – they are all conversation channels that, until absolutely no one uses them anymore, can never be dead. Each can be considered as a potential fit for a global communications strategy.
   We live in a fast-food culture where we’re always looking for the next best thing. We’re fortunate in that we live in times where the opportunities to touch base with interesting people are growing exponentially. Let’s embrace each one and use when appropriate, rather than be dismissive.
   Now that I’ve commented on the show notes 🙂 it’s off to listen to the podcast so I can add more arguments to my podcasting-is-so-not-dead arsenal.
   Thanks in advance, Mitch.

2. I can appreciate everything that is being said. Although, and I have made this point in other forums, it is not all about marketing and making money. One of the beautiful things about podcasting and blogging is the ability to communicate in a way that has never been possible before. Why does everybody have to make it about marketing and money?! Those things are nice, but I think it misses the fundamental point.

3. You’re 100% right Cameron. A huge part of Podcasting is the hobbyists. That being said, my Podcast is geared/aimed at Marketers, and they are looking to better understand these new media channels from a business perspective. Thankfully, Podcasting is such an amazing channel that the hobbyists and the businesses can co-exist 🙂

4. Hi Mitch, I’m actually listening to this at the moment. It’s a great discussion. But I have a comment on something you said. Something that I’ve heard many times from you, Joseph Jaffe and others. It’s not the quantity of people a blog, podcast or other online content provider reaches, but the quality. And as communications and marketing consultants, that’s what we need to be telling our clients. You went on to reference an example of that high-quality audience engaging an average of 20 minutes with a brand and that that is a better ROI. I agree to this intuitively. But where’s the data? Do you have the numbers that in fact document that smaller — probably significantly smaller — numbers of consumers engaging for longer with brand messages or content yields a bigger ROI vs. a vastly larger number that engage for shorter periods. If you do, it would be great if you could share it. But even if we have it for one product category or business, can we assume it will apply to another category or business? I don’t think so. I would love to believe that the “quality” story is true, but until we have the numbers to validate, we will have a tough time selling quality vs. quantity to clients.

5. I don’t mean this as a data-drive model, but from pure optics. Would you rather be slamming your message out to anyone and everyone or would you rather be present and available when someone is looking for your brand? I’d go with the latter before the former to get things going.

6. I don’t know what you mean by optics. I also don’t think it’s about slamming my message out to anyone and everyone. Mass media channels surely don’t allow for the more pinpointed targeting that is a clear and exciting advantage of some online media properties. But a well-tuned media plan using mainstream media can still reach an audience containing a subset of people who are likely to be in the market for my product. And my client can measure the ROI on that. Again, if I don’t have the data that can help him compare that to the ROI of a smaller, but “higher quality” audience, it’s a hard sell. It’s not a question as to which way I would rather go, it’s a question as to which one I can show delivers a better ROI. New media needs better metrics — certainly for products whose main distribution channel isn’t online.

7. From my perspective, it’s not about one or the other. It’s about doing both very well.
   Do you think someone typing in the keyword for your client’s brand/product is a qualified lead/further down the sales funnel? I do. The metrics for online advertising are totally measurable and way more efficient than the traditional ones – just do an Google AdWords campaign or an email marketing campaign or a banner ad campaign and tell me if those metrics and analytics are not better.
   My point was that there are way too many clients doing only mass media and no search advertising… this makes no sense to me. People are either actively raising their hands looking for you or on a website that has more relevance to them than a TV ad… it needs to be embraced and understood.
   From a social media perspective, I’d rather have 5000 friends connected to a brand on Facebook or Twitter than execute a print ad to anyone or everyone.

8. Hey Mitch,
   completely agree on doing both, embracing both, and learning. I ascribe whole heartedly to the notion of an and/and media world and that different channels/touchpoints can fulfill different, complementary objectives. There are times when more push media (still) can make sense, and times when pull, opt-in, communities, etc. is the way to go. Believe me — I am pushing my clients to learn and experiment with the new stuff. And they are.
   Regarding metrics of online, I know that things like click-through, links to sites, etc. are precisely measurable. But I’m not sure about (or at least am not knowledgeable enough) on the relationship between these and actual sales (with the exception products/services ordered directly from a web site, where the actual ROI in terms of sales can of course be measured). So this has always been a question in my mind. No doubt having 5000 friends connected to a brand on Facebook or other community (brand hosted or otherwise) is a good thing. Especially when the community is active, trading experiences, providing advice, sharing and generating content and all that good stuff. I just wish it were more clearly measurable in terms of relationship to eventual sales. And maybe the data, and cases, are out there. But even in Groundswell, where Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li work diligently to back their cases with hard numbers, the numbers tend to measure things like brand exposures via the community, brand related posts, spread of widgets, wallpaper, etc. But the metrics relating to sales are missing or somewhat tenuous.
   Anyway I think we’ve beat this dying horse to a pulp 🙂 I think we agree very much on the strategic thinking, if not completely on the state of measurement. XXXXOOOO

9. Hey Mitch,
   Thanks for sharing this. Great conversation.
   My comment would be that podcasting can’t be dead because to die something has to be alive first – which podcasting isn’t for 99% of the population. You make reference to this every time you tell us Six Pixels listeners that we’re already way ahead of most people. That’s true, podcasting is still the realm of early adopters and, as some of the panelist said, to it needs to get way easier to consume, participate in and produce to gain wider adoption. Two things that might help this that I’d like to see are:
   1) a “Send Audio Comment” button right on the screen of mobile devices so listeners could pause a podcast when they hear something they want to comment on, hit the button, and have their phone dial the podcast’s comment line right away.
   2) the second thing I’d like to see relates to what Joe Jaffe said about hearing something on a podcast, while commuting, that you want to follow up on, then forgetting by the time you arrive. I’d love to see a “Make Audio Note” button linked to a service like Jott that would allow listeners to pause a podcast when they hear something they want to remember and make an audio note that would get sent to their email box. A workaround for this is to get a free Jott number, pause the podcast and call your Jott number directly.

10. Mitch –
    Only because you asked for some feedback this week on this show from last week – I just wanted to say this:
    Since I also listen to Jaffe Juice, I was actually disappointed to find pretty much the whole Jaffe Juice episode contained inside your own show, as I had already listened to the whole show.
    I would have preferred a clip or two, and some conversation from you on it with a link pointing to the show rather than the whole show repackaged in your own.
    –*Rob

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