Our Thoughts

Digital Marketer Interviews: Guy Gonzalez of Media Source

November 14, 2011 by Marian Schembari

Welcome to Digital Interviews – where we talk to people we admire about what’s hot in the world of digital marketing.

Today we have quite the treat for you. Guy Gonzalez, Director of Content and Digital Product Development at Media Source virtually sat down with us to talk all things digital. And by “talk” we actually mean “mouth-off.” And we listen. As the man behind development, content strategy and digital products for Library Journal, School Library Journal, and The Horn Book, he knows he’s stuff. He was also the brains behind Digital Book World, the hugely successful conference and online community for those in the rapidly changing publishing world.

He also runs the site, Loudpoet.com, what he calls the “Command Central” for everything and anything that catches his fancy. Tune in for Old and New Media with a publishing and marketing slant with the occasional dash of poetry and pop culture thrown in.

Gonzalez gave us the down low on social media hype, why he hates gamification and told us to stop calling it digital marketing…

What digital changes this year have you really loved?

As a pragmatic skeptic from Day One, I’ve been heartened to see the hype around social media giving way to more practical discussions about where it fits into the overall mix, and the acknowledgement that it’s neither a magic bullet nor one-size-fits-all.

I love that Google seems like it finally understands social – as a complement to search rather than a competitor, and I’m anxious to see how Google+ evolves over the next 6-12 months. “Sparks” has potential to take the hashtag concept to the next level and make them a more reliable signal than they currently are on Twitter.

What new tools do you think won’t catch on?

I’m still not sold on the “gamification” trend as most implementations misunderstand the underlying psychological appeal of achievements, and it’s held location-based services back as most of them haven’t lived up to the hype. Virtual badges for checking into real-world locations (or products, or articles) don’t have any practical value or lasting appeal in and of themselves. Without a tangible benefit to the user, engagement lags and eventually businesses will lose interest in the platform.

I find Foursquare mostly pointless (although their new list feature would be intriguing if I was still paying attention), but Yelp’s Android app was invaluable on my two visits to New Orleans this past summer. Checking into places is its least interesting feature, something Google’s acquisition of Zagat arguably demonstrates: location’s killer app is useful, relevant content, not stupid leaderboards and badges.

What’s the biggest challenge for people (both consumers and agencies) to embrace digital marketing?

I don’t think consumers have any challenges here, it’s the marketers who are challenged by the semantics.

First step, stop calling it digital marketing; it’s not a different theory of marketing, just a different channel with different tools. Second step, the fundamentals still apply: know thy audience; know thy mutual goals; have a great product and a clear message to communicate. Third step: um… profit?

Seriously, though, it goes back to there being no magic bullet. Digital channels offer far more options to marketers than so-called traditional channels, the primary one being the opportunity to engage people (actual people; not consumers or “the audience”) directly and not have to guess what their responses are. The flip side of that is what American Express’ Lou Paskalis referred to as a crisitunity: “Real-time data; it’s what we asked for.” How we use that data, what we learn from it and what we choose to ignore, will decide if we sink or swim.

Who in the digital space do you admire? What have they done to warrant said admiration? How can we emulate it?

I’ve been a fan of John Battelle and Federated Media’s approach to conversational marketing for a couple of years now; in theory, at least, if not always in practice. I love their focus on expertly curated content — what we used to call magazines in the old days! — and engagement over interruption advertising. American Express’ OPEN Forum is arguably one of the best examples of their approach.

I also remain a huge fan of The Cluetrain Manifesto, a 12-year-old must-read that’s more relevant today than 99.9% of the nonsense published about the Internet and social media since! If you’re in marketing and haven’t read it yet, you’re doing it wrong.

You can mouth-off right back by connection with Guy on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and, of course, his blog.

Related Posts:

• Digital Marketer Interviews: Sarah Robb O’Hagan of Gatorade
• Digital Marketer Interviews: Esther Goh of Idealog
• Digital Marketer Interviews: Erika Napoletano of Readhead Writing
• This Week In Digital Marketing 26-30 Mar: 25% of Paid Search Share To Be From Mobile Devices, 25 Ways To Grow An Email Database, McDonalds Second Attempt At A Trending Hashtag
• This Week In Digital Marketing 19-23 Mar: Google To Target Overly SEO’d Sites, Twitter Turns 6, Sitelinks May

Tags: Acknowledgement, Badges, Content Strategy, Digital Content, Digital Interviews, Digital Marketer, digital marketing, google, Horn Book, Library Journal, location-based services, Magic Bullet, Marketing Mix, Media Hype, Media Source, New Tools, Next Level, Pop Culture, School Library Journal, Skeptic, Slant, Successful Conference, twitter

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