Listen to The Marketing Show podcast.

The past decade saw a seismic shift in marketing communications as blogs, podcasts,  online video, and other forms of Social Media led the media evolution. It’s an exciting time. And yet, with this evolution, the focus on “message” has, too often, been lost. In many cases, the over-reliance on new media and technology, has sacrificed the focus on development of a compelling, creatively engaging, message.

The most successful companies and organizations (Apple, Google, Team Obama, etc) work with marketing experts to help them develop and maintain a strong brand message realizing that the media and technology is only a tool — a tool to help them get their important message out.

More

from eMarketer.com / May ‘09:

Call it the Oprah Effect. Or maybe it was all the publicity generated by the Ashton Kutcher/Ted Turner race to reach a million followers. Whatever the cause, there is a growing fear that the mammoth microblogging site may be overexposed, overhyped and underused.

It is true that Twitter’s growth is skyrocketing. No one argues that. eMarketer estimates there will be over 12 million Twitter users in the US in 2009, slightly more than twice last year’s number.

But figures released by Nielsen Online suggest that Twitter’s retention rate is only 40%. In other words, as David Martin wrote on the Nielsen blog, “Currently, more than 60% of US Twitter users fail to return the following month.” Not so good.

(more…)

Well, at least according to Josh at SuperNews!

Millions of YouTube hits, worldwide press, and now book and movie deals. Do you think it’s mainly the old media (TV) or new media (YouTube, etc) that’s been the driving force behind this media frenzy?

See more clips on “How Blogs and Podcasts can Build Your Business.”

See MORE VIDEO CLIPS

Part 3 with a Q&A covering:

• Importance of having a great product.
• Case Study: Sorrell Ridge Jam
• Viral Marketing.
• Case Studies: Jib Jab and Blendtec
• Marketing the “Emotional” benefit.
• Measuring Effectiveness.

Hear Final Part