As a human being, I’m naturally driven to master the skills I practice on a daily basis. Whether it’s improving the effectiveness of my writing, developing my proficiency with Photoshop or running a bit faster during my workout, I strive to reach a level of expertise with everything I do. It’s a combination of my own curiosity and innate ambition to succeed.

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As a marketer, I’m accustomed to wearing many hats. I frequently switch gears between creative and analytical thinking to solve business problems. I write blog posts and press releases, develop business plans, conduct SEO audits, communicate with clients, design landing pages, film video, code websites–the list goes on.

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So as a marketer that’s human (the latter which sounds like a prerequisite but is an absolute necessity nowadays), I’m naturally driven to reach a level of expertise with a whole host of different skills. But, reaching that level takes time. If Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule (the amount of time it takes to succeed with a certain trade) is spot on (which I think it is), then it’s going to take quite a while to master all the skills I practice.

Okay, let’s shift gears to baseball for a moment.

If you’re a fan of the pastime, you may have picked up on the subtle statistical reference in the title of this blog post. For those unaware of what I’m hinting at, a “Five Tool” baseball player is an athlete who excels at:

1. Hitting for average (i.e. lots of hits)
2. Hitting for power (i.e. home runs)
3. Baserunning skills and speed (i.e. stolen bases)
4. Throwing abilities (strong throwing arm)
5. Fielding abilities (little to no fielding errors)

Five tool baseball players are highly sought after for their versatility and cumulative value. Willie Mays (left), Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols and (gasp) A. Rod are all considered five tool players. Notice that these players don’t need to be the best at their abilities–they just need to excel.

Now let’s shift back to marketing. As I mentioned before, marketers like myself struggle to fully master all the skills we practice because of (a) their variety/amount and (b) the large chunk of time required to reach a level of expertise for each. But instead of perceiving this as a downside, a marketer can be defined much like a five tool baseball player— and as a result, highly valued. Here’s how.

A five tool marketer is a human who excels at:

1. Creating Content: Likes making things. Likes building things. Loves showing off said things.
   • Why it’s valuable: Content is king in today’s marketplace. Knowing how to create valuable, effective content is a highly important skill for today’s marketer.
2. Being Creative Minded: Lives for the light-bulb moment and gets excited when it illuminates.
   • Why it’s valuable: Jumping on the bandwagon is easy. Driving it? Not so much. But those with a license to drive will take you far.
3. Analytical Thinking: Can derive actionable insight from numbers and does so with gusto.
   • Why it’s valuable: Discovering and understanding what the numbers are telling you creates a foundation for directed thinking. Valuable? Yes.
4. Remaining Current: Likes being digital, is active on the channels and as a result, knows it inside out.
   • Why it’s valuable: You can have the most creative cold-calling pitch ever, but it’s probably not going to work in today’s business environment. Digital is hot and it makes sense. Use it.
5. Staying Hungry: Not in the literal sense. Has an appetite to learn about the latest developments and is motivated to be a part of it.
   • Why it’s valuable: There’s always something to learn, whether from someone with experience or through your own efforts. Actively embracing this concept will give you alternative perspectives and more food for thought. No pun intended.

Mastering  three or four of these skills would craft a pretty decent marketer– but what you really want is to be able to successfully demonstrate all of them. Much like the five-tool baseball player, a five-tool marketer can provide serious value by effectively excelling at a variety of skills. Now, only if we had similar salaries…

What other tools should a marketer focus on? Did I miss any?

Throughout July and August I led a three-part seminar series on Social Media. The presentations were hosted by Studio Crossings, a wonderful little collaboration space in Waltham, MA. Because the audience invited was comprised of baby boomers who were unfamiliar with the medium, each of the three segments focused on a relatively basic aspect of social media. The first presentation (embedded below for reference) introduced the Five W’s of social media, the second focused on the available outlets and the third was a workshop to help get the audience members started.

After working as a social media marketing consultant for over two years, I thought developing this series would be a piece o’ cake. After all, the point of the whole project was to introduce the fundamentals of social media to those unfamiliar with it. However, I soon learned it was less a piece o’ cake and more like trying-to-bake-a-cake. A three layer cake. Before I dive in, here’s the first layer, free to check out in Slideshare format:

Social Media: Is It For Me?

Although the series went well, I ran into a couple problems as I attempted to get it off the ground:

1. Where do I start? This was perhaps the toughest nut to crack. Social media is so robust that it can be difficult to pinpoint where to start– and where to end. If I wasn’t restricted to 45 minutes to present and an hour for discussion, I could’ve made this a serious pow-wow.
2. Assumptions: Being part of the millennial generation, I oftentimes assume people understand elements of technology that are innate to me. My audience probably understands email, but is most likely unaware of the difference between a Facebook personal profile and a fan page. Then there’s the oh-so-difficult-to-explain functionality of “Liking” a page as a fan and “Liking” a piece of content. That was a tricky one to cover.
3. Gauging my Audience: This was more for my own preparation, but I did anticipate that each audience member would have different levels of (basic) social media mastery. I wanted to ensure that the content I delivered would strike a fine balance between the newbies and the not-so newbies. I needed the latter to not be bored and the former to not be lost. Easier said than done.

So considering these challenges, how could I introduce social media, keep it relevant and engaging for all audience members and ensure that all (or at least most) who attend garner some value from the presentation?

My Answer: The Business Conference scenario. Using this analogy, I explained the etiquette, function and value of social media. I told my audience members to picture the social media universe as an online, digital business conference. Both scenarios have plenty of interesting people who exhibit multiple opportunities for engagement. Just like the online social landscape, how you find and approach these people at the conference (and determine what opportunities they present) is completely up to you.

This connection worked especially well, since social media etiquette was a popular question theme (i.e. how often do I tweet? How do I respond to a question? etc.). Social media newbies have trouble determining the answers to these questions on their own, simply because the tools are foreign to them. My audience members understand their businesses better than I do, so putting the social sphere in perspective for them really triggered a light-bulb moment. Sure, there will be annoying people that won’t shut up. Yup, there will be people who talk about themselves. A business conference has a social dynamic–just like social media. Making that connection made social media easier to explain and really cut down on the challenges that we preventing me from kicking this thing off. In retrospect, I baked a pretty tasty three layer cake.

Two and a half years ago I was in a rut, searching for a job in a recession. It was a dark time. Although I did make some headway with the musical resume, it ended up reaching the same limitation as my childhood Stretch Armstrong toy–it could only go so far. I was fresh out of Bentley University–motivated, ambitious and very, very green. Lack of experience couldn’t justify hiring me for a majority of positions I interviewed for. Plus, the absence of an established network was a thorn in my job-hunt morale’s side.  Luckily, I ran into fellow Bentley alum Andrew Nadeau at a networking event, interviewed with his then current employer and a week later, started working.

Of course, it’s not always that easy. It can be a hugely frustrating experience, especially for recent college grads who are in the same unemployment boat that I was. Looking back, I can’t think of a solution that would’ve steered me in the right direction. My advice back then probably would’ve been something like: “uhhh, make something creative and hope it goes viral! Then knock ‘em dead at the interview with that new skinny tie.”

Today my advice has changed. The first piece of advice is “don’t take that first internship for $12 an hour–customer interaction is just a fancy word for cold-calling.” The next bit of advice would be to have a thick skin and remain resilient. It’s a tough, arduous process to find a job and getting your hopes up is far too easy.

The last piece of advice? Join ConnectHive.

In a nutshell (or honeycomb?), ConnectHive is a professional network for the Facebook generation. It’s a project that Andrew Nadeau (the guy from a couple paragraphs ago) is leading. I’m offering creative input, marketing consultation and helping create a cool video. But enough about us.

How ConnectHive works:

ConnectHive leverages your existing network of social contacts—friends, classmates, colleagues, and family–to find the career opportunities that you’re missing. Simply sign-up through Facebook and ConnectHive does the rest, providing you with actionable insight into the professional side of your social network.

The High-Five Benefits of ConnectHive

1. Easy Professional Profile Optimization: After syncing through Facebook Connect, your ConnectHive profile is automatically SEO’d. Start importing your blog posts and content updates and BAM! Instant professional profile that begins ranking in search engines.
2. Utilize Your Untapped Extended Network: Sure, you have Facebook friends working at their respective jobs, but wouldn’t it be great if you could have more visibility into this? Wouldn’t it also be great if you knew a good friend who could introduce you to someone working at a company you’re applying to? ConnectHive does this.
3. Find Your Next Business Partner: ConnectHive’s interface allows you to find, interact with and network with like-minded, passionate people who share similar aspirations. So the next time you’re working on a business idea, enlighten your ConnectHive network–you never know who might want to lend a hand.
4. You have an “in” and you didn’t even know it: In its job search feature, ConnectHive has the capability for users to apply for relevant, prospective jobs based on connections that they feel comfortable reaching out to. When you’re browsing openings, ConnectHive shows you the people you’re networked with (1st degree and 2nd degree connections) who are associated with the company you’re applying for a job at.
5. It’s Free. Always a benefit.

I’m excited to be a part of this project because it’s very relevant to where I once was–it’s a clever concept that would’ve given a clear direction to my post-graduation job hunt. I encourage you to try to it out–sign up and provide feedback. We’re excited to hear what people think. So, what do you think of ConnectHive?

I grew up with bugs and video games. In fact, when I was five, I wanted to be either an entomologist (one who studies bugs) or a video game maker. While both seem radically different, their appeals were similar to me. Each offered a sense of wonder, mystery and discovery. Today, even though I’m past the stage of bug collecting and frequent gaming, I’m still fascinated by the mysteries of nature and the innovation of the gaming industry (if only from a mostly observational perspective). I haven’t given up on them by any means, I just had to draw the line somewhere. I mean, c’mon– insects and video games aren’t exactly the best conversation topics when trying to meet girls.

So while I’ve had my love for these activities take a back seat to my professional and personal life, I still pursue them as hobbies. With the limited amount of time I have to invest outside of my busy schedule, I’ve become extremely selective in my pursuits. So, when a really great game recaptures the mystery of my childhood, I really can’t ignore it.

I downloaded Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery the other day for my iPad (it’s also available on iPhones and iTouches now). I occasionally read videogame blogs and the game was getting quite a bit of critical acclaim. After playing it for some time, I can tell you that my number one praise is that it feels refreshing. There’s not much of a plot and to control the character, you just point and click on the screen. Sure, there’s an occasional action-oriented scene, but for the most part, your brain is getting the workout.

So why do I like it?

It’s old-school graphics but beautiful. It’s puzzling and intriguing. It’s simple but deep. The music is seriously awesome.

Plus, you can live Tweet during the game about various things you’re doing or solving. A little cheesy, but very “meta” and super-creative from a marketing standpoint. So check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

Here’s the trailer. A little weird, but so is the game:

With the current popularity of location-based social networks and customer-feedback based apps, it seems as though the whole world is getting smaller and a lot more critical (similar to my father as he ages). As pessimistic as this might sound, think about it: with the appropriate smart-phone and application, people can instantaneously broadcast where they are at any time to their whole social network. If they’re at a particular location where they’ve experienced something worth noting, chances are they’ll post about it. And from my experience, things worth noting are either really positive or really negative.

As a brand that owns multiple locations, this can become somewhat of a daunting scenario. Imagine customers visiting your location every day and expressing their strongest feelings to their entire network of followers. Also consider the fact that these followers are people who follow the commenter because they value his or her opinion.

Good or bad, a savvy business-minded individual will want to address the negative postings, commend the positive ones and find additional opportunities to use both. So how can you do this? The short answer is manually. You can dig down into all channels where your brand is being mentioned and address the issues one-by-one. This is relatively easy if you’re already actively managing these channels and if you know what you’re doing. The downside? It’s time consuming to set this up–especially if you’re reporting statistics on an ongoing basis.

A company that’s trying to facilitate this problem of scattered location-based customer sentiment is Valuevine. They’re selling a location-based analytics product that provides multi-locations with deep insight into customer experience, sentiment, trends, and the overall health of their locations.

• What does Valuevine do?
  • Valuevine provides actionable insight that’s timely and location driven from Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare, Twitter, Citysearch, Merchant Circle, Gowalla and Urban Spoon.
• How does Valuevine do it?
  • Tracking and aggregating activity of all locations:
    • Checkins, fans, followers, reviews, sentiment, activity
  • Measures the Local Voice of Customer
    • Biggest critics, biggest fans, loudest voices
  • Displays Location-specific Trending:
    • Sentiment trends and activity statistics
  • Easily Invite or Share information:
    • Quickly share via email with managers and owners

WHAT I LIKED: If you’re looking to efficiently manage location-based sentiment, this is your tool. The reporting dashboard seemed impressive from what I saw (I sat through a webinar and didn’t get a chance to try it out). Valuevine’s sentiment algorithm is always evolving too, so it’s better able to discern between positive, negative and neutral comments over time.

[UPDATE - 3/29/11: After publishing this blog post, Valuevine reached out to me via Twitter with an offer for a free trial. I'll test it out and update the section(s) below accordingly]

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE: The biggie here for me was that I didn’t get to try it out. The webinar is a great way to see the features, but I would’ve liked the opportunity to start a free trial. My LIKED and DIDN’T LIKE lists would be a bit more in depth if I had actual hands on time with the tool. Currently, there is no option to sign up for a free limited trial to test drive it. I’ve contacted them, but have heard nothing back thus far.

FINAL THOUGHTS: If you need to efficiently manage multiple locations and can afford the monthly fee, ($500) I would definitely give it a go. The $299 monthly fee seems more ideal, but it only refreshes on a weekly basis, which is not ideal, considering the amount of customer traffic that occurs daily. You’re going to want to be responding to this real-time, and a week’s wait just doesn’t cut it. Also, if you have less than 25 locations, you may want to consider tracking, responding to and reporting on sentiment through traditional means.

And now, I shall end this blog post with my (Weird) Al parody tribute to Valuevine:

Ooh, I bet you’re wondering how I knew,
About your plans to make my brand so blue,
With some bad experience you had at the store,
Between the competition you know I love you more.
It took me by surprise I must say,
When I found out yesterday.
Don’t you know that…

I heard it through the Valuevine!

At my workplace, I’m always hard at work being the “social” voice of our clients. I frequently scan conversations to see how we can influence the dialogue. Whether it’s an opportunity or an issue that needs addressing, we pride ourselves in being proactive and becoming involved socially. It’s a bit of effort, but it really makes a positive difference with the customers, your brand and the client.

Being said, I’m a huge advocate of brands that do the same thing. I’m going to share two instances that occurred recently:

1.) Charles & Charles: A few months ago, I had a bottle of Charles & Charles Rose wine at my favorite little Brookline neighborhood restaurant The Regal Beagle. My girlfriend loved it (and I was a fan too) so I made it a Valentine’s Day mission to hunt down a bottle for us. I called every liquor store in the near vicinity, but nobody was carrying any–they couldn’t keep it on the shelves. In a move of inspiration (or desperation?), I tweeted the owner about my predicament. Within an hour I got a response where he guided me to a store in South Boston that carried it. How cool is that? Bravo, Charles Bieler. Here’s the conversation (reversed ala Cotweet’s conversation formatting)
2.) Turner Fisheries: I was at a marketing event last week where panelists outlined social media success stories. One involved Turner Fisheries, who began a foursquare promotion that gives you 20% of your purchase just for checking in. While some may argue this move cheapens the brand, I say whatever–honestly, I would go back several times based on this promotion. Anyway, when this promo was brought up at the event, I tweeted: “Wow, 20% off your entire order at @TurnerFisheries if you checkin via foursquare. Anyone game for some post-#pubclubofne chowda?” Nobody really took me up on my offer, but Turner responded the next business day, asking:

Nice, Turner Fisheries. Although I didn’t make it over, I sure will be stopping by soon!

It’s really great to see brands reaching out and responding to individual users. Of course it sounds cheesy, but really, it makes me (the consumer) feel special. So keep it up, Charles Bieler and Turner. You’re the pioneers of the social revolution.

If Facebook was a taco, it would probably be something like this:

Okay, it might be an exaggeration (up until the blueberry pancake at least), but with yesterday’s latest implementation of Facebook page features, it can be a bit overwhelming. Especially for those trying to get a solid grip on utilizing the platform for businesses.

So what are these features and how will they affect you? Whether you run a fan page for a business or just manage your own personal profile, this update will undoubtedly shake things up a bit for you.

The good news is that Facebook doesn’t completely leave you in the dark about this update–it gives you a basic walk-through of the new features the next time you visit a fanpage as admin (see the screenshot below), but I’d recommend trying it out for yourself to get a feel for how it works.

The bad news is that there are a ton of little modifications that have been flip-flopped, modified, eliminated, or in the case of Taco Town, deep fried. Plus, Facebook will be permanently switching to this layout on March 1st, 2011– so it’s best to start learnin’ quick. Feeling similar to Bill Hader on the video’s thumbnail above (about 0:37 into the commercial)? Fear not, this mini-guide will give you some helpful pointers for navigating the new interface and provide some insight into the potential that this new system brings.

THE BIG CHANGES:

1. More Social: Before, fan pages were limited to their own domain, and thus, their own news feed. This consisted of posts by the page itself and fan posts, likes and comments. Now, they’re given the freedom to “like” other pages and comment on them as their own entity. How is this achieved? If you’re an admin to a page, you now have the option of logging in as the page when you visit it (see below). After doing so, you’re essentially “the fan page” on Facebook. Cool, right? It’s Facebook’s way of making pages more social. No longer is a page constrained to its own fan base–now, there’s the ability to be a bit more social. What does this mean? You can give your brand a voice. It’s going to be great for the talkers and listeners but terrible for the anti-social crowd. It’s high school all over again!
2. The News Feed: Since the new interface allows a page to be more engaging through likes and comments, a news feed has been instated to develop this social component. When you’re logged in as a page (as done through the screenshot example above) you can now click “home” to go to the page’s news feed. Similar to your own personal profile, a fan page’s news feed aggregates postings that are relevant to the fan page’s new found likes and fans. We’re pretty psyched about it. It’s the foundation for a fan page’s social interactions and will be a huge asset in developing its voice.

THE SUBTLE CHANGES:

1. Where did my tabs go? Uh-oh! All those tabs up at the top of a fan page have been shifted over to the left, underneath the fan page’s picture. While landing pages will still work, it may take some time for fans to adjust to the new layout.
2. Admin Email Notifications: Now that a page has its own social profile, it can also get notifications when a fan posts on its wall. This means that admins will be notified via email when this instance occurs. For especially large pages (or if you’re the admin of multiple pages), this can get quite daunting! Since I’m the admin on several client pages, my inbox was exploding with emails after the switch. To turn this off, simply go to your personal account settings, then click on notifications. Scroll down to this section (pictured below) and click on “Change email settings for individual Pages.” Voila! Of course, there will most likely be a whole new slew of tiny nuances that change in the near future. But for the most part, these are the major and subtle changes that might not readily be apparent after going through Facebook’s basic walkthrough. Our recommendation is to try it out for yourself and discover what has changed.

Honestly, we’re really psyched about this whole new development–and it really comes with no surprise. The online world is becoming increasingly social, and it’s really a giant leap towards embracing and exploring this aspect. It’s become apparent that brands need to be social to thrive in this environment, to listen and engage with their audience–brands now have voices. If yours doesn’t it’s best to speak up now. Oh, wait…

I really haven’t been able to sit down and right a good, solid personal blog post in awhile. Whereas the end of the summer was a work “drought,” the last several weeks have been a work “deluge” or “monsoon.” And when it rains, it pours. So, a quick recap on where I’ve been and where I’m at:

1. The Blue Moon Bakery Campaign:

I created this after visiting Blue Moon Bakery about a month ago and realizing the untapped potential of a Blue Moon Twitter account. I’ve been a huge fan of the bakery ever since its conception in Medfield over a decade ago, and I felt like it would be a fun project to test out my social media marketing skills with. So, I sent a brief email over to Blue Moon regarding my ideas and how I’d like to help them out. They were all for it, and several weeks (and bags of free bagels) later, we had a music video ready to go.

Of course, I need to back up this campaign with some worthwhile Twittering or else it would be all for naught. So I’m still running the @bluemoon_cafe Twitter account and its going really well. Every day, I have a contest where I give away a free bagel. The first guy to win actually got a picture of himself with his bagel at the checkout, posted it to TwitPic and subsequently Tweeted about it. I think I’ll make it a requirement for people with camera-phones to follow suit. We got about 50 additional followers after he did that. Plus, every day we have several people attempting to win a free bagel. So follow for a chance to win free, delicious food. I gotta give it away to someone!

I still want to create other promotions for it, such as a “Free Sandwich Friday” contest where it’s a buy-one-get-one free deal. Bring a friend and they eat free (as long as you buy a sandwich too). I just need to work out the logistics of this and pass it by Dan and Linda, the owners. I’d also like to mentor someone to take the Twitter account off my hands, since it sucks up a lot of time. But it is fun, I’ll tell you that. I’ve also been measuring the effectiveness of my campaign (how many followers, RTs, mentions, etc.). I need a measurable result from this campaign to prove its worth, so the coupons definitely help. But it’s just so difficult to measure its impact based solely on this fact. Any suggestions?

2. I’ve also been doing social media work for F. Rock Men’s Apparel. I do about two blog posts a week, along with the occasional Twitter update. F. Rock sells sustainable messenger bags which are pretty hip. I hope to get one soon since my MacBook doesn’t fit well in my backpack.

Check out the F. Rock Blog here: http://frockbags.wordpress.com/

and the Twitter account: http://twitter.com/FRock_men

Follow both! And even become a fan on Facebook– I really think these bags are going to take off.

One thing I’ve really enjoyed about marketing is just the process of it all. Countless times I’ve had to market products that I either:
a.) have no interest in (i.e. office supplies) or
b.) have no real experience with.

But in the end, I find that I enjoy learning about the types of products and finding clever ways to market them. It poses a challenge and provides significant potential for untapped creativity.

Thus, I’ve come to believe that you don’t need an extensive knowledge of a product or brand in order to market it.

In fact, I think that too much knowledge can hinder one’s marketing efforts on a particular product or brand. So, I’ve created a makeshift graph for my theory:

Of course this is from my own (amateur) personal experience with marketing. But, if you were to Google some successful and/or horrendous marketing campaigns, I’m sure that there would be quite a few that pertain to this theory.

You see, I think a fresh perspective on a product or brand is the backbone for every successful innovational marketing strategy. So, having no investment in a certain brand or industry might keep you from thinking along the same lines as the experts on the matter. No?

But at the same time, you can’t really market something if you’re completely out of the loop. I’m not sure I could just start rattling off ideas for marketing women’s lingerie.

Do you need to be an expert on a product to market it? Or can you simply get by on just knowing the basics?

First, my new domain name http://www.innovation-al.com. It has a new homepage!

My newest project is fun and currently 25% complete. It’s more cohesive and polished (so far) than “Hire Me” which was constructed in about two days. This is a multi-week project filled with different talents, more ideas and as a result, more work.

I like it a lot though. Keeping busy and creating stuff is what I really love to do. Showcasing my ideas and getting everyone excited about delivering something really cool is what I’m all about. Note that: in my next interview, that’s what I’ll respond with when the question “What are you looking for in a job?” comes up.

My only concern is that because I’m making 99% of this entire project it may seem as though it’s all about me (which of course it isn’t). I’m just trying to avoid coming off as the one stealing the spotlight.

I mean, I did produce the whole thing thus far, so it basically is my project. But that doesn’t mean I’m overshadowing the client’s message at all. The entire piece of work is dedicated to their marketing cause– I’m just the one (along with some great female vocalists) conveying the information for them. Hmmm… I believe I’ve said too much.

Essentially, I need to be careful that I don’t overstep my bounds as the client. My problem lies in the fact that being a one-man-team makes it seem like I’m trying to be the one in front. When the project is done this won’t be the case. I’m Humble Al.

If all goes according to plan, this thing will drop on November 1st. Possibly earlier, depending on my schedule.