What they want, when they want: the benefits of subscription-based media

POSTED: August 28th, 2009
RSS iTunes

It seems like one of the biggest opportunities online marketers have is how to address the growing level of control consumers have online. They not only have more potential destinations than ever before, but they’re also beginning to adopt technologies that bring the information they want right to their desktop, instead of going out to get it. It’s as if, after years of eating in restaurants, people have suddenly discovered delivery. ahahahaha!

Of course, every change in how people consume media is a new opportunity to meet their needs, and this is no different. I thought that taking a look at two popular technologies would be worth a a deeper discussion, and I’ve chosen RSS and iTunes as two we’ve had success with at Juniper Networks. As always, help me complete the picture by sending ideas my way!

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Online communities and the “tyranny of or” – Pt.2

POSTED: August 24th, 2009
Invex Communities

It was great to get at least one comment last week. Thank you, Richard! I hope to hear from more of you soon. But for now I will continue with “Online communities and the “tyranny of or” – Pt.2″

…But branded communities aren’t just about support. At Juniper’s J-Net Community, for instance, we’re making the transition from a traditional support community to one of support, partner, and business engagement. By targeting specific business issues and pain points of like-minded, passionate audiences, we can use J-Net Community to build awareness, interest, demand, and loyalty, to drive Web site traffic, and to gather feedback. Another community that’s taking great strides in a similar direction is Salesforce.com’s Apex Developer Network.

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Online communities and the “tyranny of or” – Pt.1

POSTED: August 15th, 2009
Invex Communities

I’ve been traveling a lot recently, explaining the advantages of social media and online communities. One of the questions I’m being asked consistently is “What should our company focus on: a community on a public social network like Facebook, or a private, brand-safe community?’ … Delivered via platform vendors like Awareness Networks, Jive Software, or Lithium, for example.

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Fast, friendly and fun: What rich media brings to B2B marketing

POSTED: August 5th, 2009
Juniper Rich Media

There isn’t a person in marketing who doesn’t like working in rich media. Flash micro-sites, video, interactive demos, “viral” clips (don’t

Juniper Rich Mediaget me started: perhaps this subject deserves its own post in the future as I truly think that term is grossly misused). It’s just plain exciting, and there’s no question that increased bandwidth (subtle Juniper plug) and processor speeds are making rich media options a reality for the business that wants to really stand out.
This is all well and good if you’re a consumer brand, but I think a lot of B2B execs out there find themselves asking — especially in this rough economic climate — “What’s the business value?”

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Seven steps for building a thriving corporate Facebook community

POSTED: July 29th, 2009
Facebook

It seems like everyone I talk to is a Facebook user these days. And it makes sense: more than 200 million active users (see Facebook stats page) reading and posting and linking to ideas, people, and information. It also seems like a lot of people have a “if you build it they will come” attitude [...]

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