Keep on Trucking the Digital Blues Away

The digital revolution we’re a part of is trippy, for sure.  There’s so much we should do, and it’s evolving at the speed of light. We can’t live with it or without it.  Yet, we must! Jeff Bullas recently wrote another compelling post discussing some of the marketing media we ignore at our peril. I’m not sure what scares me more. The technology or the vocabulary?  Dis-intermediationmy Aunt Sally Sue!

Not that it matters.  Being scared and sticking my head in the sand is not going to stand me in good stead.  It’s only going to stand me on my head. With the blood rushing to my feet, I won’t be able to think.  Oh, dear.  Gotta think smart.  Gotta think fast!

What’s a baby boomer to do?  Well, the Grateful Dead told me exactly what to do:  Keep on truckin’. Incidentally, they may have borrowed this phrase from the jazz musician of the ‘30s, Blind Boy Fuller, who wrote “Truckin’ My Blues Away.”  Certainly we don’t want to turn a blind eye to a  r e v o l u t i o n. 

Would that we could sit around eating cake, feeling satisfied with what we’ve always done.  Advertising in newspapers and yellow pages.  Sending letters. Printing brochures. Order me a cup of tea, and… ah, yes… all my memories are flooding back to me.  But what’s that I see ahead?  A guillotine?  Off with our heads!

To keep our cool requires embracing the new flavor in town. It’s nothing like our old sweet spot with print communications.  Or the sour, crusty reporters we used to seek out to telegraph our news to a broader audience.  Or the salty society folks who could be counted on for word-of-mouth.  Or even the bittercomments from disgruntled donors we reached on the phone that could be dispatched with discretely. No. There’s a savory quality to our new media stew.  (Coincidentally, even the foodies have a newish name for this way of sensing things. It’s called umami and… we’re right back to scary vocabulary!)

Our constituents are savoring their freedom and ability to avoid marketing intermediaries.  They can connect to us directly, through Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, blogs, email, Youtube and you-name-it.  Diggit?!

If we want to spend our marketing dollars and staff resources wisely, we’ll go where the action is.  It’s not in the mailbox or the newspaper anymore.  It’s online. Companies are increasingly getting leads and sales from social media. More than 40% report getting customers from blogs, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. We feel blue and yearn for the good old days, or we embrace the present and keep on truckin’.