The Engagement Principles

Second Life continues to get a great deal of online buzz — and a lot of attention from corporate marketing departments afraid of missing the boat – but a German marketing agency found that most Second Life Users weren’t impressed.

From the odd-but-informative folks at Collateral Damage: 
The German marketing research agency Komjuniti surveyed 200 Second Life users and [...]

Engagement occurs anywhere a company connects with clients around the shared passions and values orbiting the brand — something that could easily happen on a message board.
So why do I recommend blogs to my clients instead of message boards?
BlogWrite for CEOs (Debbie Weil) tackled this issue, and while she stole my next blog topic (I’ll [...]

David Airey’s blog delves in the SONY Playstation 3 mess, and showcases a devastating anti-PS3 YouTube video that’s been viewed better than a half-million times.
This comes on the heels of the Sony Flog (a fake fan blog) that seriously pissed off readers (click to see the typical reaction from the gaming blogosphere).
Clearly, Sony’s practicing a [...]

Patagonia has long been a leader in the outdoor clothing and equipment industry.
They’ve also pushed forward on the “green manufacturing” front, making low-impacts and environmental projects a key part of the company’s charter.
With that as a background, I’ve long been amazed they didn’t have a blog presence–one that allowed their supporters a place to [...]

Economists call them “switching costs” - the monetary, physical and convenience penalties that keep customers “loyal.”
For example, ordering a new computer is fairly easy. But transferring all your data, installing your software and getting it set up exactly the way you want is time consuming.
It’s a switching cost.
It used to be you were stuck with [...]

Because I’m busy writing and I miss things, I depend on other blogs like the The Copywriter’s Crucible to keep me up to date.
In this case, the Crucible published an analysis of Edelman Research’s â€“ A Corporate Guide to the Global Blogosphere.
One point really hit home:
Businesses need to engage the blogosphere to find their advocates and [...]

 A tongue-in-cheek post from Mike at ConverStations made me laugh, but also highlights a weakness in how many approach interactive media channels like the Internet:
Do you know what the most popular first name is in business today? I see it everywhere. Info. Contact Us: Info@mycompany.com.
There must be thousands of people named Info answering emails and phone calls, making [...]

Like most writers over the age of 35, if you scratch my word processor, Internet-enabled surface, you’ll find a pen and paper guy hiding beneath.
But is it possible to appeal to that old-world psychographic via a blog? Can you really engage a pen-and-paper audience online?
The US distributor of Moleskine notebooks (currently enjoying a huge renaissance) thinks so, and [...]

The Deep Jive Interests blog references an interesting study which exposes a certain amount of hypocrisy in the Public Relations industry (yes, we’re shocked too). According to Deep Jive:
Yes, you can file this under “talking a good game”, because the results show that while most PR executives believe in the blogging as an effective tool [...]

Communities Dominate Brands - a European-based engagement marketing site and one of the first to trumpet engagement marketing - posted about Peugeot’s success using SMS and WAP to roll out their latest model (the 207):
The results of the campaign were impressive. One in two people who interacted with the campaign ordered a test drive. One in five [...]