The next big thing…


Confessions of a social media skeptic…

OK. April Fool’s Day was 15 days ago, but what can I say? I’ve been busy.

But there is a serious message here.

I know that some social media tools have attracted millions of users. I also know that social media can be used to “juice” SEO rankings and monitor and influence your marketplace.

Nothing wrong with any of this, but I’m seeing what I consider an alarming trend.

New marketers (and many old ones) are starting to make these tools their primary focus.

Big mistake

One thing that’s true for all marketers whether you make $1,000,000 a year or $1 is year is you have a finite amount of time.

Even if you can leverage your time with the smart use of vendors or employees, there’s no such thing as infinite time. Misusing time is a very expensive mistake.

Therefore, if you want to make the best use of your time (make the most money with the least effort), it pays to think through and focus on the things that matter the most.

“Social media” is not new

Social media goes back to the earliest days of the Internet.

Usenet and discussion boards were social media. User-generated content, community, real time feedback…all these things were happening 15 years ago.

Most people are aware of the name Arthur Frommer. If not, go to the travel section of the bookstore and you’ll see his name EVERYWHERE…Frommer’s travel guide to France, 2009. Frommer’s travel guide to Tahiti, 2009. Frommers travel guide to Las Vegas, 2009.

If people go there on vacation, the Frommer brand not only has a book about it, it also has this year’s edition and they hog the shelves of most US travel book sections.

Here’s what this master of info marketing has to say about social media:

“The whole emphasis on user-generated content is foolish. I was the first person to use it years ago with Europe on $5 a day…Then we realized it was being massively manipulated. Hotel operators were getting friends to send in recommendations. We dropped it twenty-five years ago.”

Frommer does have a blog so he’s not an Internet-agnostic, but he thinks the long term value of services like Twitter and Facebook as reliable information sources for people who have to make real decisions about the real world is dubious at best. I agree.

Serious info, for serious decisions

When it really matters, like dealing with an important medical situation, or business decision, or figuring out where to go on vacation and where to stay etc. don’t you really want to consult with a pro, either directly or through a book or serious web site?

By all means, be aware of social media and take the time to figure out the one or two tools that matter to your particular business, but if you’re looking for a time investment ratio, classic direct marketing (traffic + conversion) should take up at least 90% of your marketing time.

Remember, there are many, many people who’ve made and continue to make hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars applying the traffic + conversion formula that either didn’t have or don’t use social media.

In contrast, you’ll look a long time to find anyone who has built a serious money making business with social media as its driver. I’m not saying no one has done it, but the odds are against you.

Furthermore, I’ve never seen a single Internet marketing who took the time to understand and execute classic direct marketing principles on the Internet fail to make it.

The one things that pays every time

If you’re new to Internet marketing, or even if you’ve been around it for 15 years like I have, it always pays to focus on these fundamentals.

That’s why every year I bring the best and brightest Internet marketers in the world together to look at significant new trends like mobile marketing and improvements in tracking and testing tools through the lends of direct marketing.

It pays and pays and pays.

Details about what we covered at this year’s conference which took place last month in Chicago:

http://www.thesystemseminar.com/2009/event

April 16th 2009 Posted to Marketing insight

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Marc Andreessen on Charlie Rose

Fifteen years ago, I had the great good fortune to meet and spend a little time with Marc Andreessen.

He was kind enough to get up early one Saturday morning and drive in the pouring rain in his junk filled Mustang to speak at a conference I organized in San Francisco. (By all appearances, this may well have been the very first serious gathering focused on discussing the practicalities of web-based business.)

A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then.

Marc has created and sold TWO billion dollar plus companies and is working on his third - and opening a venture capital fund.

If you don’t know who Marc is, it’s simple.

Without him, there’d be no web as we know it.

Years back, a lot of people thought (and said out loud) that Marc had gotten “lucky” with Netscape.

These people obviously never spent time with him.

This is one whip smart dude and he’s proven it over and over since his so-called “dumb luck” breakthrough in the early 90s.

I’m guessing Marc is about 38 a now.

If you want to know what’s going on in the Internet business and in tech in general, give this hour long interview your full attention.

As Marc jokes, he’s often wrong, but rarely in doubt. The thing is he gets the big things right often enough that he’s very worth listening to.

Enjoy - this is a good one. (And if you have a lot of time and stamina you can follow that by watching the original 1994 seminar.)

November, 1994. San Francisco

March 25th 2009 Posted to Internet history, Internet insight

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How you can help New Orleans: Watch this short video

Three years and a few days ago, Gary Halbert and I were speakers at an Agora event in Baltimore.

The last day of the seminar, we were all following the news of a hurricane heading towards New Orleans, but it seemed Gary and I were the only ones there who were aware of what it would mean if the levees were topped.

Gary made a point of mentioning the situation as part of his talk and encouraged people to be prepared to pitch in and help.

This year, I spent several months in New Orleans advising various groups there and learned a lot about what the city needs to recover.

There is a tremendous amount of misinformation about New Orleans and you can actually help the city a lot by educating yourself and others. It’s a great town with great people and it deserves a lot better than its gotten.

How you can help

One of the things New Orleans needs is for people to understand what really happened there and how it could have been prevented.

Two of the groups I work with there just launched this short video on YouTube. When we were working on it, we had no idea another hurricane would be heading towards the city just days after we released it.

I encourage you to watch it and share it with others who you think might be interested. Thanks.

You can click through to the video on YouTube here and comment and rate it too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wln_iq5bc8k

August 29th 2008 Posted to Human rights and justice

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Indy’s greatest moment

See if you can pick it out of this montage.

I’ve heard several savvy marketers, including Jay Abraham, mention it as the greatest scene in the Indiana Jones series.

Don’t peek at the answer. See if you can guess for yourself.

Hint: You can stop watching at the two minute mark. It takes place before that.

The answer (don’t peek!) (more…)

July 30th 2008 Posted to Marketing insight, Marketing Tools

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Google website optimizer in cartoons

We’ve talked a lot about Google over the years, so it’s great to see them talk about us on one of their official blogs.

Tom Leung who is product manager for Google’s Website Optimizer tool was kind enough to come to Chicago to System 2008 and walk us through this extremely powerful and relatively new testing tool.

It’s the same one Google uses in-house for its own testing - and it’s free.

One of our faculty members Sean D’Souza, who is a wizard of info marketing, happens to have been a professional cartoonist in an earlier career and drew some cartoons illustrating big points in Tom’s talk.

I’m thinking of making Tom’s entire talk at System 2008 available for free to everyone in the Internet marketing world. Since it’ll take an investment of time and money on my part, if you’re interested in this, definitely let me know by posting below.

Meanwhile, here are Sean’s System 2008 cartoons on Google’s blog: click here for the cartoons

July 03rd 2008 Posted to Internet history, On the road, Business Tools

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New Orleans rebuilding

Howie Jacobson and I did a one day master session for marketers to raise money for a New Orleans rebuilding project.

Every attendee got their money’s worth (it was $1,000 a head for the day.) At least one guy got advice that I know when he executes on it - and he will - will be at worth 1,000 times his investment.

Life’s not always a straight line. Not everyone gets dealt the same hand.

The purpose of entrepreneurship is to strengthen your own position and lend a hand where a hand is needed.

This small church which has lost 80% of its members still manages to provide material help to church members and neighbors alike; runs an after school homework center; and a home for teenage mothers and their children, so the mothers can get job training while their kids are cared for during the day.

I think that individuals like Bruce Davenport who is keeping this community going are the most impressive entrepreneurs there are.

Some home movies of what we saw:

April 25th 2008 Posted to Human rights and justice, On the road, Marketing insight

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What we’re all about

When I gave the first web marketing seminar in 1994, it was…well, the only one too.

For the next six years, there were less than a dozen people who were serious about teaching Internet marketers to what I call “bootstrap entrepreneurs.”

Now there are hundreds. Some good, some not so good.

An amazing number of these folks are System graduates. Some acknowledge their roots. Many don’t.

My biggest challenge today is to convey to “newbies” - and that includes many people who’ve been involved in the industry for years - that they’re really missing out if they’ve never experienced a System Seminar.

I’m gong to be fine whether people come to System 2008. We’ll sell out again this year, just as we have every year, but it bums me out a bit to think of all the good people who could be succeeding who are wasting their time on copycat crap peddled by rip off artists.

Anyway, here’s a short video I’m going to be using to give people who are new to the System who we are and how the System fits into the grand scheme of Internet marketing.

I’d appreciate it if you’d watch it - it takes two minutes - and comment and let me know if I’ve left anything important out.

February 05th 2008 Posted to Internet history, Internet insight, Marketing insight

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I promise…

No matter how cool Gabe and Max are…

No matter how many Rolex watches or trips to the Playboy Mansion they offer me…

I promise that they will NOT be speaking at the System Seminar this year.

But maybe I’m being too hard on them. You tell me.

To see who IS speaking at System Seminar 2008, click here.

For the full list of this year’s System 2008 faculty, you can click on this link.

January 28th 2008 Posted to Business ethics, Consumer protection, Marketing insight

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A modest proposal for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is, hands down, my favorite holiday.

It doesn’t compel frantic gift giving (like the commercialized version of Christmas).

It doesn’t promote excessive alcohol consumption and forced gaiety (like New Year’s Day).

In fact Thanksgiving is so laid back, it doesn’t even require that folks exchange cards.

Instead, Thanksgiving celebrates the basics: food, family, and friends and the deep fun that accompanies taking the time to enjoy life’s simple pleasures.

As icing on the cake, Thanksgiving encourages us - in its characteristically quiet and understated way - to take note of the things in our lives that are positive.

— Gratitude is power

It’s easy for entrepreneurs to fall into the trap of feeling that life is a never-ending struggle, where letting your guard down for a moment can mean ruin and every day is another day that the ever-growing “Must Do” list fails to get done.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you are a very fortunate person indeed, but I have a feeling you may know a little about the outlook I’m describing.

How do we get ourselves out of this particular no-win’ trap?

— Thanksgiving is the answer.

Robert Emmons, a professor at the University of California, Davis, demonstrated through an elegant set of experiments not long ago that if you want to sleep better, feel better, and motivate yourself to take better care of your health, regular Thanksgiving’ sessions work magic.

Once a month, once a week, once a day

Right now we celebrate Thanksgiving once a year and, truth be told; it can be somewhat of a production’ and actually be a bit stressful for some people.

But what if we had a Thanksgiving Day once a month?

And what if we defined “Thanksgiving Day” to mean spending a whole day with the people you really want to be with just living: eating, talking, playing, resting, and being militantly free from worries (and ambition) of any kind.

One day per month.

Is there anyone so busy that they can’t arrange at least one day per month for Thanksgiving?

Notice, by the way, that I said “arrange” not “find the time for” In my experience, trying to “find the time” rarely works. In contrast, arranging life to make the time for things has a nearly 100% success rate.

If it’s a good idea to have Thanksgiving once a month, why not have it once a week?

I’m talking about consistently carving out one day each week where you avoid the “busyness” of life and sit back to enjoy a good meal and revel in the pleasure of spending time with people you love the most.

That’s what weekends used to be for. Remember?

Finally, if Thanksgiving makes sense once a week, why not once a day? A good meal, good company, peace and quiet, and attention not on the things that aren’t working, that need to be improved, that are still undone, but dedicated to enjoying and appreciating the many things good in our lives.

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

Ken McCarthy

Excerpt from the book “The System Club Letters” to be published in 2008

November 21st 2007 Posted to Human rights and justice

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Get some sleep and grow rich

Here’s a little known story about Warren Buffett, the world’s second richest man and most successful investor about the importance of…sleep.

In the early 1990s, Buffett personally stepped in to straighten out a huge mess at Salomon Brothers, a major investment bank that had seriously lost its way and was about to get shut down.

Buffett stepped off the plane from Omaha and headed straight to the company’s New York City offices for his first face-to-face meeting with its board members.

When he arrived took one look around the room and said… (more…)

October 24th 2007 Posted to Human rights and justice, Marketing insight

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