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Marketing and branding were about pushing your message to consumers. You sold them what they never knew they wanted.

Marketing used to be all about the product or service.

What made your product unique from anything else on the market? What was the value-add in your version versus a competitor? Did you have the best price or experience for the money?

We’ve got a new toy — the INCULINK // New Media Web Trend Map.

Sometimes you just don’t realize what you’ve been missing until you see it live in action.

Twitter, Facebook and other new media sites only allow you to view information streams one profile at a time. But with the help of our customized Web Trend Map, you can now visualize all social media, social network, multimedia, and web technology related news in one stop.

We are huge fans of Google Reader at INCULINK! Emphasis on HUGE. This is a great source for consuming information. You can organize your blogs / news feeds into categories, and by visiting just one site, digest the information you want, when you want.

Last week, Google Reader became social. Within the Google Reader settings, you can now add send to links, and you can send this information to your various new media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Digg, etc..).

FINALLY this feature exists. They’ve had share and email buttons, but the share feature required you to have friends using Google Reader, and surprisingly, our percentage of friends using it was quite low.

At INCULINK, our main focus is to help organizations strategically design their business or operation around new media trends. So let’s define what new media is in contrast to old media

Old media still has a role in marketing and communications strategies and are not to be discounted. Some of what we consider old media include newspaper, magazines, television, radio, books, billboards, and snail mail.

INCULINK blog is now available on your Kindle!  Check out screen shots at the end of this blog to see how it reads.

Amazon today opened the Kindle Publishing for Blogs Beta program to the public.  Blog owners can offer their content for download from the storefront and take home a cut.  Whether you’re an individual, brand or company, if you want to make your blog accessible to the 500,000 Kindle owners, here is a good opportunity, and now is a good time.

Communications in Social Media most often takes the form of a blog.

Traditional newspapers and magazines only interacted with their readers through letters-to-the-editor, and even then, you had to have skill – and some luck – to have your comment published in the next edition.

Today, virtually all communications mechanisms allow for instant two-way communications.  And if you don’t, then you’re either hiding something or afraid of public candor.  Either way, it’s not good for your reputation or business.

So whether it’s through blogs, tumblelogs, or microblogs most every company should have some sort interactive communications tool. Below, we take a look at the differences between the four major types of blogs, and how organizations are using them.

So here’s what I find in blogs that I enjoy, and strive for in putting together in my own blog posts:

1. Brevity – With so many blogs, and so many interesting things in this digital age, I’m looking for the most interesting stories, in as concise a format as possible.  ‘Nuff said.
2. Imagery – A picture paints a thousand words.  Use them for brevity and to keep your posts visually appealing. Bad imagery can also turn off readers.
3. Originality – I don’t want to read something that someone else has already said.  That’s what RTs (re-tweets) are for in Twitter. (See “Tweets” in sidebar for my RTs).  And if you build on another’s idea…. give due credit.
4. Passion – Show your readers that you care or have passion for what you’re writing.  I am more interested in reading about topics that you are a novice or hobbyist about, rather than a cocky expert.
5. Frequency – Now this is a fine balance.  I don’t want to dilute my words, so I try to keep blogging to once or twice a day at most.  On the other hand, if I don’t blog for a week or two, even a month at a time, I’ve lost the attention of readers.  Five to seven posts a week is a good amount.

Blogging here is my hobby, not my job.   So I only put into it as much as it is fun for me.

Endnote: Proper grammar and spelling goes without saying on blogs because you’re not limited to 140 characters!!