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On the APM radio program On Being (@Beingtweets), host  Krista Tippett (@kristatippett) interviewed author, speaker, and marketing leader Seth Godin (@ThisIsSethsBlog). Tippet says Godin is “an original and helpful voice on this landscape of digital connection for which there are no maps. He is a singular thought leader and innovator in what he describes as our post-industrial, post-geography ‘connection economy.’ Rather than merely tolerate change, he says, we are all called now to rise to it. We are invited and stretched in whatever we do to be artists — to create in ways that matter to other people.”

In the interview, Godin says, “Marketing is the life we live. The question is, will we choose ethical marketing: weaving a story, weaving a tribe, and weaving a network that mean something?” ...

Read this in full.

Listen to the interview.

Read Godin’s blogpost about his On Being interview, “Slow media.”

Also see our blogpost, "Seth Godin Ends Domino Project with Lessons Learned."

Download our white paper, “Tech, Trends, & Retail Success: See the Future and Act Now,” in which we detail the elements of creating extreme retail in-store experiences.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically publish and market pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

Learn about SomersaultSocial (@SomersaultHelp), our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. 

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And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Book Discovery Sites tab.

In the above video, Athena Dean of BookJolt (@BookJolt) explains the concept behind the website BookJolt, a new channel of book discovery and distribution. She says ebooks are offered for free http://bookjolt.com/hey-authors/ while the author shares in revenue made through banner advertising in BookJolt’s “free-embeddable-viral-book-reader-widget.”

See the website.

Download our white paper, “Tech, Trends, & Retail Success: See the Future and Act Now,” in which we detail the elements of creating extreme retail in-store experiences.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically publish and market pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

Learn about SomersaultSocial (@SomersaultHelp) our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Book Discovery Sites tab.

(Enlarge the above Infographic)

From televisions and smartphones to tablets and game consoles, Americans are consuming content on every device under the sun.

According to Nielsen’s (@NielsenWire) new US Consumer Usage Report 2012, nearly 120 million people within television homes own 4 or more TV sets, and 16% of television homes own a tablet. Smartphone owners officially make up the majority of mobile subscribers, as 56% owned a smartphone as of Q3 2012. The number of social media users continues to increase across all platforms as consumers use social networking as a vehicle to navigate the ever-expanding media universe.

Learn about SomersaultSocial, our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. 

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And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Reading books has always included a social element (“What books have you read lately”). But it’s now been given a bump as new technology allows readers, without regard to geographical boundaries, to converse with each other — and the author — in real time while still reading.

Among the just announced winners of Digital Book World’s (@DigiBookWorld) Publishing Innovation Awards is the ebook 11 Days in May: The Conversation That Will Change Your Life by JD Messinger (@JDMessinger); voted Best Non-Fiction Ebook.

The PIAs honor “the most innovative ebooks, enhanced ebooks, and book apps....It is the mission of the PIAs to highlight excellent publishers/authors, encourage new thinking, and improve the reading experience in the digital age.”

11 Days in May utilizes Democrasoft’s (@Democrasoft) WeJIT (@myWeJIT) technology, in collaboration with Vook (@vooktv), to allow readers to communicate directly with the author and other readers. These topic-based discussions are made possible with embedded WeJIT links in the ebook that direct readers to an online discussion forum. Conversations can be shared beyond the confines of the ebook via email, Facebook, Twitter, and other sharing methods built into WeJITs.

Read this in full.

WeJIT discussions and polling links from the ebook 11 Days in May.

News release: “WeJIT Connects Readers and Authors Inside the eBook.”

The following video explains how WeJITs work:

Learn about SomersaultSocial, our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

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Media pundit Bob Garfield (@Bobosphere) sunccinctly explains the unique aspect of social media marketing. He says, “In the Relationship Era, sales tactics drive consumers away.”

Yes, we are all of us in business with transactions in mind. Yes, more transactions are almost always better than fewer transactions. Yes, we hope our social media efforts -- like everything else we do -- will be followed by more people purchasing our goods and services. Indeed, if you succeed in forging relationships with your various constituencies, and you are open and honest and share (i.e., in both directions) compelling and relevant stuff, loyalty and trust will grow and from that will flow more business at lowers acquisition costs.

But if you are cultivating community and conversation for the purpose of corralling cattle into the slaughterhouse, you are not engaging in a social strategy. You are engaging in a sales strategy, which is pretty close to the antithesis of social marketing. We are in the Relationship Era. This is no time for manipulation.

Read this is full.

See also our previous blogpost, “Forget Product Positioning, This is the Dawn of the Relationship Era” and others with our Social Media marketing tag.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically publish and market pbooks, ebooks, and audiobooks.

Learn about SomersaultSocial, our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.

Michele Linn (@michelelinn), content development director of the Content Marketing Institute (@CMIContent), offers suggestions in the above presentation and ebook on how to use the most popular social media channels for effective sharing of your marketing communication messages. For example,

·         On Facebook, spend time posting well-edited photos and well-written copy. Volume isn’t everything; consistent quality is much more significant.

·         Use Facebook’s Page Post Targeting service.

·         Make use of hashtags on Twitter.

·         Enable the embedding function on your YouTube videos.

Read the ebook (pdf) in full.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically communicate your brand message through content marketing.

Learn about SomersaultSocial, our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, especially the Social Media / Word of Mouth Marketing tab.

·         93% of Fortune 500 companies place their logo in the top left corner.

·         27% of logos include a tagline or slogan.

·         63% of companies have content above the fold. Users scroll on the remaining 37% websites to find content.

·         87% of websites have a search field.

·         50% of websites features a scrolling content window of some kind.

·         47% of websites have clear call-to-action buttons on their homepages that take users 3 seconds or less to find.

·         Only 11% of Fortune 500 websites have social media links above the fold; 89% below the fold.

·         60% of companies feature latest news and blogposts on their homepages.

·         Contact information is hard to find on 63%.

·         More than 80% of companies do not have a newsletter signup feature on their homepages.

·         More than 70% of Fortune 500 companies use favicon icons.

·         Average loading time of a homepage is 6.5 seconds; average size of homepage is 766 Kb.

·         Average width of website is 877 pixels.

·         Only 3% of websites use Flash to display content throughout the entire homepage.

·         80% of websites primarily use a light background and color scheme.

·         93% of websites have centered-approach navigation.

·         63% of websites use high quality images on their homepages to connect with users.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you strategically design your online brand presence.

Learn about SomersaultSocial, our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, especially the Publishers tab that includes links to self-publisher services.

At the recently held LitFlow-Thinktank (@LitFlow) in Berlin, publishing pundit Jane Friedman (@JaneFriedman) said publishers must demonstrate their continued relevance in light of current technology that minimizes the barrier to entry for authors to publish their own books apart from depending on established publishers. She said:

Publishers, for the first time, have to earn their keep by providing a value that extends beyond production and distribution — and possibly even editorial direction. The biggest problem that authors must solve for themselves, year after year, is (1) staying competitive, current, and discoverable in a shifting digital landscape (2) having the right tools to be effective and in touch with their readers, and (3) having a strong network of connections that helps them better market and promote. All of these things are well within a publisher’s ability to assist with, only they haven’t been putting any resource into providing such assistance. They have been focused on their own corporate problems of shifting to a digitally enabled business, and squeezing as many sales as possible out of their mastery of print book sales and distribution. Most of the thinking is centered on self-preservation. But I’d like to suggest that the best self-preservation measure of all is becoming a house that’s known and respected for — in the eyes of its authors — being an active, long-term partner and resource. By empowering each author to do better, the publisher is ensuring more sales over the long run.

Friedman suggests 3 ways publishers should add value to continue attracting authors:

1. Create an author collective, where authors assist each other in branding, marketing, and promotion.
2. Make available an author education program of 101/evergreen education in the form of white papers, webinars, tutorials, screencasts, Q&As, and events.
3. Devote at least one person full time to nurturing author development and community.

Read her presentation in full.

Listen to her presentation.

Also see eReport’s (@nztaylor) coverage, “How publishers can stay in the game.”

See our previous blogposts, “Guy Kawasaki's New Self-Publishing Instruction Book” and "Publishing Must Reinvent Itself."

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you publish and market your ebooks and pbooks.

Learn about SomersaultSocial, our Web-based author online marketing education modules.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard, especially the Publishers tab that includes links to self-publisher services.

Edelman (@EdelmanPR) Millennial consultancy (@Edelman8095) (#Edel8095) is the driver of 8095, a global benchmark study on how Millennials connect with brands, make purchasing decisions and share their opinions on products and companies with family, friends, and extended networks. The study, first conducted in 2010 and updated this year, focuses on people born between 1980 and 1995.

(Above graph is from MarketingCharts, @marketingcharts)

·         Over 3/4 of millennial consumers worldwide want to be "entertained" by brands, and a similar proportion are willing to provide feedback on goods and services.

·         About 80% want brands to "entertain" them, with co-creating products the most popular option, mentioned by 40%, ahead of receiving real-time answers to social media enquiries (33%).

·         32% want sponsoring events

·         31% desure companies to deliver engaging online content

·         21% would like to connect with other fans. Forming tie-ups with admired celebrities or public figures score 19%.

·         More broadly, a 74% majority of respondents say they influence the purchase choices of peers and older buyers

·         63% regularly go shopping with their friends, partner, or family.

·         For 73%, sharing feedback with companies after a good or bad experience is a "responsibility," peaking at 90% in China and India, but falling to 59% in Germany and 57% in Canada.

·         When making purchase decisions, 94% of participants use at least 1 external information source and 40% use 4 or more, with search engines and word-of-mouth from friends and family the most common.

·         When asked what wider assistance brands could be in their lives, 77% want financial assistance, such as grants and scholarships for studying.

·         75% desire opportunities for more "life experiences" like trips and lessons in interesting subjects, and 65% want a mentor to help guide them.

·         60% want to tap a brand's "audience," like its Facebook page or ads, to connect with similarly-minded people, and 56% say the same for sharing their views with a wide group.

In 2013, the oldest of the Millennials will turn 33 – many of them are now parents, have careers, and wield spending power and influence in today's world.

Read the news release.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you understand and reach the Millennial market.

Learn about online marketing with SomersaultSocial.

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And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard; especially the Research tab.

11-year-old James Groccia, who has Asperger syndrome, saved his money for 2 years to buy his dream toy: the LEGO Emerald Night Train set. But when he was able to finally buy it, he discovered it was discontinued.

He wrote of his disappointment to LEGO (@LEGO_Group) and the company replied with a cordial, corporate-sounding apology letter. Then, a few days before his birthday, a package arrived containing the discontinued set with a sweet letter commending his will power and even suggesting someday he might work at LEGO. His parents hid a camera to catch James' reaction when he opened the package.

The resulting video above, with the title, "Why LEGO is the BEST Company in the World!," has become a viral sensation with over 1 million views and mentions on major newscasts.

It demonstrates the power of consumer generated media on a brand’s reputation (for the cost of a single Emerald Night Train set). Contrast this with the stilted, long-winded, slow-moving corporate video LEGO produced earlier this year.

In many ways, successful branding depends on delighting the consumer with stellar customer service.

Contact Somersault (@smrsault) to help you protect and strategically manage your brand's reputation.

Learn about online marketing with SomersaultSocial.

Add our Facebook page (http://facebook.com/SomersaultGroup) & Twitter stream (http://twitter.com/smrsault) to your Flipboard account on your iPad, iPhone, or Android. 

Get our blogposts delivered into your email inbox.

And be sure to bookmark and use daily the SomersaultNOW online dashboard.