The Marketing Companion

Influence Marketing has gone mainstream with 85% of marketing agencies offering some sort of influence outreach service. But as you'll hear, all s not well in the world of influence. In fact there are some pretty strange things going on! Dive into this fun and interesting episode!

Is Real-time marketing actually working? Listen to this episode of The Marketing Companion to understand why most efforts have failed, where the true opportunity lies, and the key factor that determines whether your marketing is truly real-time or a gimmick that could imperil your brand.

Are you ready? There is an enormous amount of innovation occurring in the content space and more is on the horizon. This episode featuring new media publisher Jay Baer explores how content strategy is going to be shifting in the next few years.

New research suggests marketers have completely mis-read and misled consumers on the issues of privacy. In this episode, hosts Tom Webster and Mark Schaefer discuss why marketers need to wake up now and how a new age of digital segregation is upon us.

In a scathing blog post, the co-founder of Ello blasts Facebook as monstrous entity dedicated to hurting people in the margins of society. In this episode, hosts Mark Schaefer and Tom Webster blast Ello back and explain why Facebook's "real name" policies provide a healthier and authentic social media platform.

The Marketing Companion is now two years old - 50 episodes! and that is the golden anniversary. So, while co-hosts Mark Schaefer and Tom Webster await gold bars from their audience, they discuss a crucial topic for marketers: how we learn, and how we get better. Mark and Tom share their experiences, and interview special guests Marge Simpson and the robot from Lost In Space.

Creating customer personas has been a standard marketing practice for decades but are we becoming too reliant on these customer profiles when markets and needs are changing so rapidly? Mark Schaefer and Tom Webster explore personas as well the Verizon-AOL deal, the promise of chaos at Zappos and more.

This week’s episode of The Marketing Companion is a veritable grab bag of interesting topics, as hosts Mark Schaefer and Tom Webster discuss new content forms such as Yahoo's upcoming video product, new research on Teens and Facebook, and what Uber and Podcasting have in common. Plus: an update on CompanionStorm!

Podcasting is growing -- but in unexpected ways. For the channel to really mature and meet its economic potential, new research points to surprising conclusions about what has to happen next

Streaming video, infographics and podcasts are rising in popularity but where is the engagement? Top bloggers have eliminated their comment sections and it's hard to start a conversation on Twitter. Is the era of social media engagement over?

Get a first look into The Content Code, and learn the steps needed to overcome Content Shock. It's not enough to simply create content, content has to be ignited to be successful. Mark and Tom go into some of the best ways to do that, along with a discussion of gray social and, of course, more products from the Marketing Companion Labs

What will determine the success of your new marketing program? Budget? Strategy? Resources? Surprisingly, it might be none of these. Company culture is going to play a big role in your organization's ability to adjust to the demands for speed, engagement and innovation in the marketplace. Hosts Mark Schaefer and Tom Webster explore this critical topic and introduce a new line of sub-premium Marketing Companion products including their first escort service.

In this week’s edition of The Marketing Podcast, Mark and Tom take on the controversial topic of ad blocking: who will triumph in this battle between advertisers, ad-blockers, and the consumer? They also discuss the resurgence of SEO, some new data on Podcasting, and a troubling recall.

Hosts Mark Schaefer and Tom Webster look at a number of topics including a controversial law banning the use of social media in one workplace. They also examine lessons from the recent Super Bowl ads and have some thought-provoking observations on the marketing implications of these trends.

Hosts Mark Schaefer and Tom Webster look at some of the marketing industry's hottest topics including the cancellation of Google Glass, personal marketing priorities, exciting digital trends, under-used social media platforms and the Seven Dwarves.