Just in case you have been living somewhere in isolation and missed it, global marketing strategies have been going through some crazy evolution for small businesses and Entrepreneurs throughout the world, as times are changing, marketing has evolved, and you can rest assured that what was true yesterday no longer applies today, and tomorrow, this is why I can make the following true statement with complete confidence and certainty, since it’s already started, “Within the next 5 to 10 years, Blogs will be the foundation of any successful business and individual brand.”

That’s right, what was originally looked on by many in the market, as just a bunch of online noise and market clutter that would never find its voice, has revolutionized commerce, economies, and information sharing as we know it.

The world as we have known it has changed forever, for proof, think back and remember that just twenty years ago, what generally defined ‘having a business’ was the ownership of some type of ‘brick and mortar’ storefront or professional office, compare that to today, in 2010 and beyond, what defines the image of that very same business is its website, and the increased value added to the business by its comprehensive Web presence.

Also, not to long ago, it was common that company websites were few and far between, and seen as part of the world that belonged to Programming and Technology Geeks, but now, in an incredibly short span of less than ten years, businesses are expected to have websites as part of their Strategic Social Media and Web Marketing Plan, and even the mere mention of such an idea would have been viewed as completely preposterous by most of us less than a decade ago, during that same period of time, the Social Media (R)evolution has come in with such a furry that a website has become the expected core representation of any business and its brand.

So the obvious questions that always come to mind is “What’s the next phase of the Social Media (R)evolution,” and “What’s next that consumers in the global market will expect and demand?”

Over the next few years, as consumers continue to embrace Web technology even further, and as they become more and more adept at judging a business by its website, they will soon look for a company’s, or an individual’s, blog, yes, that’s right, just as a website is expected and searched for by today’s Web savvy consumer, a business’ blog will be expected by the consumer of tomorrow, and I don’t mean months or years from now, I do mean literally, tomorrow.

Although I know that many of you are in agreement with me right now, there are sadly still some that feel like blogging, and even websites hold little importance and consequence when it comes down to the successes and failures of a business.

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Many times it’s good to find cases and stories of real Entrepreneurs that were able to create a little marketing magic in their quest to build modest business success, but the quest turns wildly successful, something they could never have envisioned before starting the entrepreneurial adventure, and we want to learn from how they were able to achieve their great success.

Having said that, there are two technology executives named Justin and Dave that had absolutely no experience in the food industry between them, and no budget for marketing, but they decide to launch a product they called “Bacon Salt.”

To understand the market they begin their search for people who profess a great love for bacon on social networking sites, and then friend them of course, and begin to inject information about “Bacon Salt” into the vast social networking echo chamber, and awareness  starts to build with a small percentage of the bacon lovers, and their enthusiasm begins to spread about “Bacon Salt,” and what began as a small group or tribe of bacon enthusiasts quickly begins to multiply as the word spreads throughout the many small silos of networks that make up the fabric of larger social networking sites, and turns into approximately 37,000 fans between Facebook and MySpace.

Time passes, and months later, the buzz that has been building starts to spill over into other media in newspaper articles, television interviews, until finally they reach the pinnacle of public relations, with an appearance on Oprah. Okay, so Justin and Dave with no knowledge of the food business and with no marketing budget, that find themselves in the unique position of having what some would call a cult hit, and feeling the inspiration, they create several other bacon-flavored products, which finally gives birth to the “Bacon Salt” brand.

Their wild ride to success began with a very small group of self-indentified fans of a category of food and spice, and even when social networks have millions of members, the odds are great against the group being able to transform into a larger group of millions of active buzz-spreading fans. Now Justin and Dave’s Bacon Salt success story serves to illustrate how what is typically a very small percentage of the tribe of fans who find it important enough to spread the word, and this small inner tribe of actively vocal fans normally makes up one percent or less of the larger tribe of fans, and reaching them should your targeted objective.

This extremely small percentage of the market is difficult to define, since they are not your typical name-brand bloggers, mommy and daddy bloggers, or even business bloggers, and they are scattered throughout all market segments  and niches, yet you have to understand in no uncertain terms their importance to your immediate and long-term business success, because they are where word-of-mouth begins, the roots of word-of-mouth, and should be at the very top of every Entrepreneur’s list to not only find them, but attract and connect with them as well.

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Believe it or not, there are many businesses that have ignored the trends about the importance of being connected with their markets, or might not even have an awareness of Twitter, Facebook, blogs and MySpace, and they are still making millions in profit. At first glance we all think how can that be, what’s wrong with them, and how much more successful would they be if they were “connected?” Or worse yet, have we spent all the hours getting connected through the social networks that we hear about everyday so we don’t miss out on the latest wave of technology, and just what is it that’s important to allow us to maintain success in our business during challenging times like we are currently in, even if we’re not using the latest social media technology to stay connected?

At closer examination, we discover a simple fact that in reality is the key component to being “connected,” and that is businesses and Entrepreneurs have built their success through developing and maintaining personal relationships, and consistently delivering “great customer service” as part of the relationships, which continues to work for them and keeps their business more successful than most that become mired in the maze of social media technology.

I continue to be amazed by the phenomenal growth of people that continue to swell the ranks of users on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and the many other social networking sites, and the ever increasing amounts of time so many of us are spending in the echo chamber that keeps getting both larger and louder.

As more of us become slaves, tied to our mobile devices and the information radiating from our computer screens, some of us have come to the realization that having more voices doesn’t always mean there is a better dialogue, and more information doesn’t mean simplicity as hoped for.

You have probably looked around like I have, and noticed more and more of us walk with our heads down while we stare at small 3 inch mobile screens, oblivious to the world around us doing the same, and somehow we have convinced ourselves both individually and collectively that we are more “connected” then ever before in history, and anyone who can multi-task is looked at with great admiration reserved for only a select few.

I admit to not having all the answers to the many questions that are swirling around the social media echo chamber that most of us have become part of, but the answers are evolving along with how we adapt to and develop new technologies, and the one true fact we must never lose sight of is that building personal relationships and weaving them into the fabric of our customer service tapestry is an absolute critical component to achieving and maintaining the maximum perceived value and associated success of our entrepreneurial and business endeavors.

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Team Altman :: History Before the World Wide Web

Internet Visionary: Lawrence G. Roberts

I have decided to pick Lawrence G. Roberts as my Internet Visionary. He was gifted with the drive to tinker and build as his interests in telephone technology and networking started at an early age. When Roberts was an undergrad at MIT, he helped “the Computation Center build some equipment to convert an automatic tape unit attached to an analog tape into the 704”[3] for a summer job. The TX 2 was the first transistor computer brought to MIT and this was the beginning of Roberts computer interaction. Since there was no plan on how people would use this system Roberts started figuring out how it worked and spent his time understanding how an operating system worked. He graduated from MIT in 1959 and went on to obtain his graduate and Ph.D in electrical engineering by 1963.

According to Roberts, in 1962 “the origin of the ARPANET thinking and work” originated at a conference at Homestead in Virginia held by the Air Force. He mentions that the group stayed up all night talking about the future of the internet. Many of the people at the conference were involved with Time-Sharing. Roberts later joined ARPA in 1966 and started working with communication problems and focused on the major issues with networking, for example, slow telephone lines. He was the chief scientist in the ARPA Information Processing Techniques Office. At ARPA he had developed the first computer-to-computer network, with his development team, which could communicate via data packets.

When Roberts became the ARPA IPTO Chief Scientist he started to design the APRANET. In December 1966 this was proposed to congress, by Roberts, to create a reliable network. Part of developing reliability in a network was breaking up the information into packets and using a system other than circuit switching. The new switching technique to be explored was packet switching. With this method 50% of the network could be inoperable and still the packets would be deliverable.

In Oct 1968 Roberts awarded the ARPANET Packet Switch Contract to BBN. By 1970 ARPANET spanned the USA with four Nodes at UCLA, SRI, UCSB, and fourth at University of Utah. Lastly, in 1970, ARPANET connects BBN into the network. Robert leaves ARPANET in 1973 to work for Telenet, the first packet switching carrier, and becomes the CEO.

Roberts is an amazing engineer and has always strove for the bigger picture and understanding of computers on all levels. He “received the Draper Prize in 2001 “for the development of the Internet” along with Leonard Kleinrock, Robert Kahn, and Vinton Cerf.” (Wikipedia) His drive for knowledge and interest in communication helped greatly in the advancement of the internet.

References for Internet Visionary: Lawrence G. Roberts:

[1]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Roberts_%28scientist%29

[2]  http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/pdf.phtml?id=233

[3]  http://www.ziplink.net/users/lroberts/InternetChronology.html

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