Lutze - Thumbonomics : the essential business roadmap to social media & mobile marketing

Thumbonomics

2012 Heather Lutze. All rights reserved.

With certain well-defined exceptions no part of this book, Thumbonomics , may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying form without written permission of the publisher.

The exceptions would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles, or reviews and pages, where written permission is specifically granted by the publisher and credit given.

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Findability Press

5750 DTC Parkway, #170

Greenwood Village, CO 80111

303-841-3111

Screenshots have been used with permission of Facebook, Inc., Google, Inc., LinkedIn Corp., Twitter, Inc. and WordPress, Inc.

Cover Design and Cartoons: Josh Alves, JoshAlves.com

Book Shepherd: Judith Briles

Editing: Leslie Miller and John Maling (EditingByJohn)

Book Design and Layout: WESType Publishing Services, Inc.

Dedication

Thumbonomics is dedicated, first and foremost, to my wonderful and so patient husband Mark. He has been my rock and my counselor for the past 17 years! You were there for my first book all the way. Once again, I would not have been able to get this one done without him. Thank you, my love. Evan and KyleI also could have never finished this book without your love and understanding.

Next, I want to thank my staff at Findability Group who helped me edit, add content and find the tools that were most relevant and helpful for each chapter. They tolerated my endless work on the book and the interviews. Finally, their complete dedication has always ensured that we deliver a service product with integrity and purposeI will always be so grateful for their hard work.

I also want to say thank you to Steve Lishansky. Without his undying belief in my abilities and encouragement me to ask for what I am worth, he gave me the strength to write this book. Thank you for believing in me and helping me to grow my business to a whole new level. You are amazing!

Introduction

Inspiration often shows up in the most unlikely of places, just like the idea for Thumbonomics did at Denver International Airport.

I realized in that moment, that as a business owner, your company may be obsolete if you dont move to the community of thumb users fast. This is how people communicate and how they stay connected. They buy here, talk here, search here and live here. This is where your market is growing and thrivingyou MUST engage in Thumbonomics now!

Thumbonomics is not standing in judgment of how prospects and buyers want to engage with your product or service, its about being everywhere they NEED to find you quickly and easily by whatever device they choose, i.e. tablet, smartphone or computer. Its your job as executives and marketers to just be there when they search for you. Adapt or Die! is our new motto! Lets get to work.

Turning a Blind Eye

I understand why you are ignoring social media.

You think Facebook and Twitter and You Tube and LinkedIn are for younger generations. You think social media is a passing fad. You think its dumb. You dont want it in the workplace. The word tweet to describe Twitter messages sets your teeth on edge ... and who the heck cares what anyone had for lunch? The very name of social media is proof positive that it doesnt have a place in the business worldits for social purposes.

And most of all, its not your demographic.

I get it. I hear you.

The thing is, I heard these exact same comments 10 years ago when I was talking to clients about having a website or setting up email. The exact same comments ! My clients insisted that their customers werent on the web, their customers didnt use email. What was wrong with calling instead of emailing? Why not mail out a brochure instead of having a web site?

You get the picture.

And so do I. About your resistance, I mean. For example, I dont care about snowboarding. Im over 40 and Im sticking with skiing. Im willing to innovate a little; Ive switched to shape-skis and crooked poles, but Im not learning snowboarding. Its for the younger generation.

Plus, at the time it came out and maybe I could have learned it, I was sure it was just a trend, and skiing would prevail. How wrong was I about this? Snowboarding is here to stay. Created in 1963, it got the publics attention the sport grew exponentially when fiberglass boards were introduced in 1979. Now a mega-million dollar business, it continues to grow by leaps and bounds every year. Lucky for me, there are no negative consequences from my resistance to snowboarding. No penalty to me for being wrong about it or missing the opportunity to learn it a few years ago. It wasnt a fad, it was a trend.

That is not the case with you continuing to turn a blind eye to social media.

The Time Is NOW

This is the most fascinating and innovative time in marketing in the the history of marketing. Get excited about this inexpensive and dynamic medium that can change your company and how it markets to its ideal customer.

You have got to get on this bandwagon ... and the sooner the better. Im going to make it painless for you (thats the whole point of Thumbonomics ) but youve got to do it. And youve got to do it NOW.

How well did waiting to have a website serve you? Did you miss out on all the best URLs because you waited? Does someone else actually own the URL with your name on it? Did your competition beat you because they were there first?

Ask yourself this question seriously: How well did your resistance to the web, to email or to voice mail serve you?

I hear you groaning. You probably feel like you just got the whole web thing downsearch engines and SEO and Pay Per Click (PPC) and your new blogor maybe youre not even there yet. And now youre seriously being asked to take on social media?

This may, at first read, seem very negative and not you at all. I promise, hang in there, and I will take you to the next level. If you have been putting social media marketing off, then we will give you the business foundation and ROI to understand why you should do this full throttle. Still wondering if you should include social media in your marketing plan this year?

In a word: yes.

Why? The numbers speak for themselves.

Social Media Stats Are Staggering

Social media is not your demographic? Are you sure? Pew Internet and the American Life Project along with ComScore in March of 2010 revealed:

YouTube is searched on more than Yahoo! On a daily basis, there are 3.7 billion searches on YouTube. Yahoo! has 2.8 billion.

One in three adult American Internet users has set up a social media site.

The average age on Twitter is 31. On LinkedIn its 41. For Facebook, its 33. Not your demographic????????

In 2011, there were 647 million searches on Facebook each month. That means Facebooks presence as a major search engine is solid ... and Google is watching it like a hawk.

Can you hear me now?

A lot of the pushback I get about social media comes from key executive leadership teams who dont feel like their audience is there. Look at these numbers. Chew on them. The audience IS there.