12 Marketing Minds, One Free eBook

If you're trying to kick off your 2009 marketing plans with some new ideas, you may want to check out a new (free) ebook put together by Valeria Maltoni over at Conversation Agent. The book is a compilation of the thoughts of twelve online marketers from a variety of backgrounds and skips the usual start of the year prediction model in favor of sharing thoughts on tactics and strategy.

All of the marketers involved are on Twitter and have their own blogs, so take a gander at their thoughts and then follow them online to gather more. I've listed some of the authors below along with my favorite quote of theirs from the ebook to give you a quick sampling.

• "Get your ideas done. Choose fewer of them and really go at it. Set standards and find a pace for yourself - then hold yourself to them." - Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent, @Conversationage


• "Every marketing program should begin with measurement in mind. If you think something cannot be measured, you're not trying hard enough." - Matt Dickman, Techno||Marketer, @MattDickman


• "The companies that "get it" are creating communities around their products. Nurturing and responding to conversation around their products and building awareness in the process." - Mike Fruchter, My Thoughts on Social Media, @Fruchter
  


• "This freedom to associate, speak and share is what is fundamentally transforming the game of business - not just the rules; but also the players, the scope of the game, the tactics and the added values. " - Francois Gossieaux, Emergence Marketing, @fgossieaux


• "Social media does not replace marketing - it enhances marketing efforts as an additional indirect communication channel" - Beth Harte, The Harte of Marketing, @BethHarte


• "If a company does nothing else in 2009, it should put a social media monitoring system in place to tune into what's being talked about online about their company, products, people, competitors and category. " - Lois Kelly, Beeline Labs, @LoisKelly


• "Change is more friend than foe. If it weren't for change we woudln't be afforded new opportunities and trends to capitalize upon."- Christina Kerley, CK Epiphany, @ckepiphany


• "Social media makes every interaction more real and more valuable. It gives us the chance to become someone [people] trust their business to rather than someone they simply make a purchase from. " - Jennifer Laycock, Search Engine Guide, @JenniferLaycock


• "Every company starting social media ought to ask themselves right out of the gate "What are we afraid of?"" - Amber Naslund, Altitude Branding, @AmberCadabra


• "A proper social media education is more than just learning new tools. The most important lesson we can impart is the necessity to think 'humans'"- Connie Reece, Every Dot Connects, @ConnieReece


• "Get a worthy conversation going inside your organization to match your social media aspirations for your organiation." - Mike Wagner, Own Your Brand!, @bigwags


• "The mantle of thought leadership in social media will pass from those with technology backgrounds to those with marketing and/or planning backgrounds as programs become less theoretical and more concrete. " - Alan Wolk, The Toad Stool, @awolk