Tag Archives: authors

Can Marketing Cure What Ails You?

Eye Protection
A recent article in the New York Times got me thinking about the psychology of marketing again, and how some basic principles are used or under-used in social media marketing.

Warning: Habits May Be Good for You” explores how an anthropologist turned to marketing experts from CPG companies like Procter & Gamble to help increase the incidence of hand-washing with soap after using the toilet in the nation of Ghana to improve the health of children.  Obviously, this was an important effort and I was encouraged to see marketing practitioners as instrumental in helping achieve success in this endeavor.

As I was reading the article, it struck me that many of the techniques used are found in Robert B. Cialdini‘s classic Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. I’d lent out my copy a few years ago and, thankfully, had to buy a new version which includes an epilogue written by Dr. Cialdini in 2007.  My re-read then triggered a few thoughts on social media.

If the social media crowd can stop navel-gazing long enough to do some quick research and scientific work, boy will money be made. [More after the jump.]

Continue reading

Seth Godin and common sense marketing

Purple CowSeth Godin and I have, unsurprisingly, a similar attitude toward marketing.  Compare, for example, his post What Do You Know? with my People Don’t… post of a few months ago.

Both basically remind the marketer that your “targets” (and this probably isn’t a great term) really don’t care about you and that the rules have changed in the Web 2.0 world.
Creative Commons License photo credit: psd