Category: Marketing Top 5 Stupid Trends of Marketing 2.0
1- Our product is Viral. That is the saying. Is there really a viral aspect of the product? No, it is just a saying that people say to make themselves feel good.
2- Paying $10,000 to advertise on TechCrunch for a month. Don’t get me wrong if I could charge it for this site I would. I like Mike and its nothing on him, he is a smart business person. I just really question the ROI on this strategy for driving traffic/awareness of your website.
3- You need a blog. Why? Do you really? Do people really care what your company has to say?
4- Digg will save us. You get 10,000 visitors one day of horny nerdy computer kids and the next day nothing. I always say relevance is key. Talked with Adam of Renkoo today and he agrees about quality always over quantity.
5- Oh don’t worry, we have a MySpace Badge. It appears the new and ultimate trend in marketing is a badge / widget that people can put everywhere. This is okay but not as effective as people think.
No related posts.
Want More? Get new articles via email:
people read Okdork everyday!
Additional comments powered by BackType
-
Noah wrote Top 5 Stupid Trends of Marketing 2.0 on August 17th, 2006 and there are 36 comments. There will be one more after you add yours, though. Read more posts by Noah.
-
Want to subscribe?
Get new posts via email
-
-
Are you new? Get started here
This is Noah Kagan's premier site on online communities, marketing and fun business things.
It's for entrepreneurs, marketers, cubicle workers and people looking to kill 5 minutes.
First time here?
-
Popular Posts for May
Most Popular Posts...EVER!
-
will brb.
Noah.licio.us
May's Top Commenters
Think this site kicks ass? Find some more posts - browse the categories
Who is Noah Kagan?
Noah Kagan is a diarist. He likes to write about himself in third person and he enjoys writing about business. His ideas are the products of divine inspiration from Steve Jobs.
What is OkDork?
OkDork is Noah Kagan's blog. It is run on the sexiest blog platform around, WordPress. The blog design was done by Ben Bleikamp using XHTML, CSS, and Photoshop CS3.
36 Responses to “Top 5 Stupid Trends of Marketing 2.0”
August 17th, 2006
8:43 am
Nice. I especially like #3. I’ve written about “clogging” on a few of my posts.
http://www.douglaskarr.com/index.php?s=clog
If you’re not going to be transparent, allow comments, allow flames, answer your clients’ concerns, act on feedback or simply tell the truth – then your “clog” will do your company more damage than good.
August 17th, 2006
8:54 am
Noah, good post. I think there is this general thinking in Web 2.0 that marketing your product and gaining users will be easy especially if your site has social features. This is easily not the case and gaining quality users is still even a tougher task then building the product itself.
August 17th, 2006
9:38 am
Au contraire re: #3. The silly opining that people do on their corporate blogs is a fad that can’t die soon enough, however corporate blogs are absolutely necessary.
A. Customers want to know their vendors official positions on issues that affect them and need a place to link to that information. Some of the issues (e.g. security alerts whether online or meatspace) are too dynamic to be reflected in other forms.
B. A corporate blog is a cheap, highly effective investment in Crisis PR that pays off in spades when things inevitably hit the fan.When a company has a crisis, people immediately google their brand names. The company’s blog better be on that first page of results if the company wants to respond in a timely manner and have any real hope of driving the conversation in a bad time. You can’t open up a typepad account after the crisis starts and accomplish that — you need a well-trod blog that has been in place for months.
August 17th, 2006
10:07 am
This is a freakin’ great list, Noah. Very pinko of you.
August 17th, 2006
10:30 am
Marketing 2.0 – incestuous circle jerk.
Is it just me or does it feel like 99 percent of new widgets, gadgets, web2.0sites, and yes blogs are marketed to the broader internet community but patronized by the same users and early adopters and have no chance of tipping.
August 17th, 2006
10:52 am
Hey, viral does exist for a lot of products! Plenty of people do it or else you wouldnt have told us to read an ebook on it, refer to Seth as the innovator of viral, nor list a post about viral as one of the top marketing posts of the year.
I agree, it may sometimes be over-used but it’s definitely the best ‘word of mouth’ marketing strategy: create something so cool people want to tell others about it.
Let me know when I’m annoying.
August 17th, 2006
11:51 am
yay. i am finally pink;) thanks tara.
scott, i am not saying blogs aren’t useful but I am saying they are not critical in helping your company grow or that you will die without one. Just saying that people need to consider the objective of their blog.
devin, name some products recently (2-5 months) that have done a great job on viral marketing. not word of mouth but viral. creating something cool is a separate argument over viral/word of mouth marketing. i guess it just annoys me to hear people say oh this product will kick ass cause it is totally viral. they are clueless. yes you are always annoying and that is why we are friends;)
August 17th, 2006
11:58 am
Top 5 Stupid Trends of Marketing 2.0 at Okdork.com…
The 5 biggest mistakes of marketing web 2.0.
Include:
1- Our product is Viral.
2- Paying $10,000 to advertise on TechCrunch for a month.
and more……
August 17th, 2006
12:04 pm
Great post… although I noticed #4 conflicts with #4 in your Top 5 tricks list, and #5 with #4 in your 5 Super Cool Marketing Tricks list
Do you have an updated list of “Top 5 Smart Trends of Marketing 2.0″?
August 17th, 2006
12:08 pm
Ryo, I wrote that when I was naive and young. Okay a few months ago. There are just things I realize after I see what works and what doesn’t. I can’t say what things work, you have to hire me for that;)
August 17th, 2006
12:30 pm
Hey Noah! Have you seen this yet? My friend got a call the other day and was freaked out because he thought his phone number was floating around somewhere but apparently, someone had called him through this….
http://snakesonaplane.varitalk.com/
Although it was/is a succesful viral marketing campaign…..because of this, now my friend’s phone # really is floating around somewhere…scary.
Anyways, just thought of it after reading the first trend you mentioned….
August 17th, 2006
12:38 pm
Okay, I get what you’re saying. I admit I haven’t really noticed anything lately. I think it’s because we’re getting somewhat disconnected. Sure there’s digg and delicious and all that, but we’re now deeper in our own groups and we’re stuck in an echo chamber. But ya, people are clueless for the most part anyway.
August 17th, 2006
12:53 pm
OMG. Veronica that is the coolest thing ever. I just sent out 10 of them. Everyone watch out=)
August 17th, 2006
4:25 pm
I guess you don’t read my blog anymore. Two weeks ago. :’(
August 17th, 2006
5:08 pm
Organizations: You don’t have to keep a blog…
Noah Kagan has posted a list of Top 5 Stupid Trends of Marketing 2.0. This stupid trend jumped out at me:You need a blog. Why? Do you really? Do people really care what your company has to say? I agree….
August 18th, 2006
12:17 am
I enjoy the blog written by godaddy owner. It makes me happy and I end up buying more than I need, see it helps to sell their products!
August 18th, 2006
12:55 am
per #2 –
It’s like real estate anywhere.
6 months ago, I begged my management team at golfnow.com to advertise and own that site for $1,200 month and lock it up.
I smelled a trend.
Now it is too expensive but it depends what you are fisshing for.
Good post.
August 18th, 2006
5:10 am
Dear Noah,
the best thing abt ur DIGG post is you make them short but really Sweet
You talk practical things like ROI which I believe half of the world has forgotten abt esepcially the FAT Media buyers, mySPACE is running towards disatsters, if you join mySpace as a new member within 7 working days you are bombarded with Amy, Kyra, Kylie who have addedd you, then when you chk profilte they are 9read 10 out of 10) porn or spywaye or some sick MLM!
pls continue ur good work its a pleasure to know you and read stuff from that makes sense
August 18th, 2006
7:23 am
Viral is pretty much impossible to plan for.
Sure, you can make the message as viral friendly as possible but the process still relies on people to pick it up and pass it on.
It is like trying to create a fad (now fads are called viral, go figure). Difficult to manufacture.
If a marketing message turns out to be viral, then its a plus.
But I wouldn’t bank the success of the product launch on it.
August 19th, 2006
4:44 am
Widgets work!…
Cameron Olthius, in replying to a fairly negative post by Noah Kagan, states a universal truth of the Widgetsphere:5. Widgets work! I’m not saying that you can build a widget for anything and expect it to work but a lot…
August 20th, 2006
3:16 pm
[...] What drew my attention to marketing 2.0s “stupidity” is a provocative, albeit interesting post by Noah Kagan (via Cameron Olthius ). The post outlined the Top 5 Stupid Trends of Marketing 2.0 with sufficient rebuttal from Cameron. Here’s my take: [...]
August 20th, 2006
6:54 pm
Digg traffic is very parasitic… I don’t think anyone really “wants” them, and after getting wrapped up in that “reading past the headline” story, that only cements my opinion. There are plenty of other locations where those users go where their mode of thought isn’t about rapid consumption of what’s new or what’s cool, where you might actually get them to spend some time with you or maybe even read (and not skim).
August 20th, 2006
7:01 pm
May i install a script on your webserver to autodirect all your digg traffic to my site? I want them! I expect very few of them to form a lasting relationship with what I show them, but I’m happy to do my best to provide value to whoever shows up on my site.
Deep intellectual discussions are more fun for me personally, but I don’t get uppity about about it. When all I can attract is the quick-hit, eye-candy, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately crowd, I put down the NYT and do my best to make them happy.
August 20th, 2006
7:04 pm
okay i was going to save this for another post but i really need to share this analogy.
digg is like a whore with stds.
sex is great and you forget about everything else
afterwards you have less money, bumps on your penis and regret.
that may not be perfect but it is how i feel about quick readers.
i want a long term relationship with all of my readers. end of story.
August 20th, 2006
7:20 pm
Dude, I think we’ll forgive you if you want to make that a fuller post.
August 20th, 2006
7:30 pm
@Scott: Digg = coolhunting. Ultimately it courts only to people who are always constantly looking for something newer. Get these people onto your site for a while and that’s great, but they’ll be gone soon enough, and you’ll have spent lots of time and energy on people who, when something about you turns up later, will dismiss it as “old news.” Just saying. Really, what everyone wants are the 10% that continue to seed Digg aggressively — hell, Calacanis definitely does — but I have no idea what that’d actually get you, unless you run a coolhunting site.
August 20th, 2006
8:02 pm
NoahK, as redundancy pays in marketing:
May i install a script on your webserver to autodirect all your digg traffic to my site?
This post is about “Marketing 2.0″ not “Civil Dialog 2.0″ so don’t get all Old Testament judgemental on us. If you don’t want the cool hunters around, then fine, install a web service on your site that serves them well and gets you paid/laid/isolated. And, since it’s about marketing, prositution is a fine reference — except let’s not be derogatory towards sex workers.
As a former Amsterdam resident (though not patron of this particular industry), let’s refer to the legal sort of prostituion that sounds a lot like web use at its best — you pay up front, it’s basically anonymous, and virus testing is continuous.
August 20th, 2006
8:06 pm
god bless you scott rafer.
August 20th, 2006
8:18 pm
again?
August 20th, 2006
8:20 pm
again and again. we should just start another web diary about the love affair of noah and scott;)
August 21st, 2006
5:32 pm
What’s your marketing plan?…
You could put up a pretty strong argument that marketing is one of the most important factors of a company’s success. It is definitely up there, but these days the actual product or service is probably most important. Okay, so why are there so many …
August 22nd, 2006
3:35 am
15 erreurs du marketing 2.0 (ou pas 2.0)…
Trouvé (dans l’ordre) sur Okdork (par Noah Kagan), sur Pronet Advertising (par Cameron Olthuis) et sur WorkHappy (article de Seth Godin qui se base sur son nouveau livre “Small Is the New Big”). Je n’ai repris pour chaque que les idées essentiell…
August 25th, 2006
12:57 am
[...] “Top 5 Stupid Trends of Marketing 2.0” by Noah Kagan. [...]
March 23rd, 2007
11:41 pm
Good post. In fact, quality traffic is the key – and every CPC advertiser understand this. It’s only the time when they start thinking about natural traffic, that they forget that quality and relevance of visitors are equally important there as well – except the site is MFA or serves CPM ads.
March 24th, 2007
3:51 am
Ok after reading a few posts I realize its the same as going to Gym, a same fitness regime and same exercise won’t help all of us, customization is the key…
People who are in marketing or who claim to be must do some research for each client, suggest few options, track what’s working an then re suggest of improvise….
the central buzz creation, sticking up ads, blah blah will not help for sure…..
one of the best thing is ask friend’s blogger abt your specific problem, or what u wish to achieve….
July 20th, 2007
9:13 am
well, not every business needs to do all these things, especially if the business is not for relevent to culture and human needs, ig. selling concrete, you don’t need all these tactics…. the trends are not in stupid in the general sense… only the companies misuseing of them are stupid.
But your post make you sounds very ignorant.
Leave a Reply