As 2011 opened, Etsy found itself as part of a BP- and Toyota-level national controversy as Etsians and customers alike became aware that Etsy was allowing a vendor to sell controversial greeting cards through the site. As news spread of the controversial products that “clearly denigrate women and some people with disabilities,” debate grew over what types of products should and shouldn’t be sold through the online retailer.

Etsy customers immediately took to social media circles and product review pages demanding that these products be removed from the site. Those who took charge soon realized that their comments and unflattering reviews were being censored and removed by Etsy. Already accused in 2009 of censoring comments, controversy quickly grew as Etsy customers became increasingly concerned and dissatisfied.

Recently, Etsy did relay that they have changed their policies to ensure that products sold through their site do not “promote, support or glorify hatred toward or otherwise demean people based upon race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, disability, or sexual orientation; including items or content that promote organizations with such views.” Unfortunately, the site has yet to explain or comment on why they censor postings.

Rather than using this conflict as an opportunity to engage in direct dialogue to address concerns, Etsy chose to be complacent. Why would they so foolishly have refused to use social media to protect their company and brand? It’s a shame, since they no doubt lost loyal and potential customers—and artisans—in the process.

According to the report, “a significant proportion of U.S. small and medium businesses are revving up plans to implement mobile web sites,” especially non-governmental organizations, education and retail industries. But for any business with an online presence, it’s important that customers can access your website from their mobile device.

To make sure your website is optimized for the web, try testing it out on your own smart phone. Surprisingly, only 45 percent of small businesses have checked out their website on a mobile device!

If it’s not rendering well, you may want to think about optimizing your site for mobile browsing. As browsing the web becomes easier and easier on mobile devices, customers are expecting your company’s website to work on their phones.

Can you honestly say that your website is optimized for mobile browsing?

It made me think: how often does a typical employee practice their company’s pitch? Further, can they even articulate it at all?

The CEO at a company I previously worked for used an interesting tactic to promote the importance of the elevator pitch to staff. During company-wide meetings, he would ask who could recite the pitch, and the employee who did the best job pocketed $50 on the spot. While this might seem trivial, it indeed put a spotlight on the importance of really knowing your company’s angle.

Can you clearly and succinctly explain what your company does, what the benefit is for a customer and how you’re different than the competition? If not, that may be a good goal for 2011.

Dropbox has two important features: file syncing and file sharing. Dropbox automatically syncs new files or changes that are detected so you don’t need to constantly upload files after you’ve made changes. It also syncs files of any size or type. Plus, Dropbox makes file sharing exceedingly easy. You can create shared folders that allow others to collaborate on the same files and be able to download them. Everyone can see the changes instantly, so there’s no need to email documents back and forth.

While there are dozens of file syncing and file sharing tools out there, the unique thing about Dropbox is how easy it is to use. The interface is simple, it works across platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux), and there are iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry and Android apps for your mobile devices.

You can take a tour of Dropbox here.

Dropbox is an easy to use and efficient way to sync and share files that’s free for the first 2GB. If you need more storage, Dropbox offers more space for a very reasonable monthly fee.

What other ways do you backup your files and/or share them with colleagues? Do you think you’d pay a monthly fee for this type of technology?

Millennials are careful shoppers who expect products, services and information to be available on their schedule and on demand. What’s more, they know how to do their research and use it to their advantage.

Offering free services, customization and positive incentives are now a must for companies hoping to connect with Generation Y—which is forcing marketers to get creative. Brand loyalty is especially valuable (albeit hard to come by) with this group, as they are not afraid to go elsewhere to get what they want.

Reaching Millennials requires more than great giveaways and customized messaging. They attach themselves to companies that are environmentally and socially responsible. Millennials expect “their” companies to make substantial donations to the same causes that the Millennials themselves volunteer for and support. That’s why companies like Subaru are enticing younger buyers with the promise to donate $250 of every purchase to a charity of the buyer’s choice, deemed the “Share the Love” event.

The lesson? It’s time to think outside the box and reach out to these customers in a new way. Smart snack companies like Wheat Thins have been showing up on doorsteps armed with pallets of free food to Twitter followers whose status’ claim they’re hungry. Sounds silly, right? Maybe not, because doing something unconventional is one of the best ways to get the attention of this hard-to-impress generation.

A commanding man of more than 70 years, Robert McKee has scorching, unapologetic ideas about everything – especially storytelling. When McKee speaks, writers listen; he is, without question, the Godfather of stories.

For decades now, McKee has delivered and perfected a four-day Story Seminar in which he rips the heart out of more than 100 well-known films and novels. McKee reveals the essence of these stories, the part that blasts through the page or screen and lodges right into the audience members’ hearts and minds.

Naturally, screenwriters and novelists (self included) can’t get enough. But we’re not the only ones. Business owners and marketing professionals are drinking the McKee Kool-Aid, too. These professionals scribbled down notes just as furiously as I did at McKee’s Story Seminar last month in Los Angeles.

So why do strategic thinkers and business minds care what a crotchety, old Detroit native thinks about story structure and act development? Why will they sit in a stuffy hotel conference room for ten hours a day, four days in a row, learning about storytelling? Because they know that good marketing, like literature or cinema, has to tell a good story.

The power of storytelling in marketing is not a new idea (see this abstract from a 2005 Marketing Review article entitled, “No Tale, No Sale”). But that doesn’t mean injecting story into business communications is a breeze. As McKee tells seminar attendees, “Stories don’t tell themselves. You didn’t really think it was going to be easy, did you?”

He’s right. It’s not easy. Not in marketing or screenwriting or anything else. Finding a story – a true story compelling enough to affect a buyer’s actions – requires strong thinking and an extreme commitment to quality. To fully appreciate the work involved in storytelling, spend four days with McKee. In the meantime, here are some hallmarks for business owners trying to tell good stories:

-Say something that matters. What’s on the line? What’s at risk? If there’s nothing on the line, there’s no story. No one cares if your product is say, engineered with quality. But if that quality saves children’s lives, then you have the start of a story.

-Your audience is smarter than you. The audience knows when you’re not telling the story right, even when you don’t. Give them the information they need when they need it. If there is something your potential client needs to know right away, tell them right away. Get it out in the first act, so to speak. If you don’t, you’ll lose their trust.

-Say something true. More than anything else, a good story adds up. There is no air of falsity or element that seems disingenuous. If something sounds fishy, it is. In your marketing efforts, you’re not doing yourself or your audience any favors by “just leaving in” anything insincere or cliché.

Of course, no analogy is perfect. But the link between storytelling and marketing communications is incredibly strong. An understanding of this interconnectedness is, in my opinion, The Cypress Group’s most valuable deliverable. Like McKee, the principles at The Cypress Group can find the heart of a business, the part powerful enough to resonate with audiences. And that’s the way it should be. Like all cursed scribes, marketing professionals – the good ones anyway – need to tell good stories.

Loyal fans fought for the Gap logo

Not unlike its PR predecessor, social media strategy provides a cost-effective way to reach audiences—with the added benefit of being able to hear back from them.  But be careful what you wish for.  As the Gap recently discovered, your biggest fans will be the most vocal when you disappoint them.  Sure, they’ll tell you about it, and that’s good.  But they’ll potentially tell millions more, too, and those folks may not be loyal enough to stand by you beyond the bad press.

As marketers, we need to remember how quickly information disseminates these days.  Snafus are magnified. Bad news travels faster. And WOM marketing has taken on a whole meaning.  Consequently, we need to heed the carpentry mantra of “measure twice, cut once.”  Test strategies before implementation where possible, triple check your communications and assume that most everyone will be listening.

Was Gap’s new logo pitch a ploy for publicity? That question may forever go unanswered, but their plight highlights the double-edged sword that is social media.

Sprouter is quickly becoming much more than just Twitter for entrepreneurs, though.  In August, it launched a new Q&A section that’s been getting a lot of buzz because it offers the ability to get real-time answers from experts. Sprouter also sends out weekly newsletters that feature up-and-coming entrepreneurs and companies.

As Aliza Sherman from gigaom.com put it, “It’s now positioning itself as much more than a Twitter-like tool and wants to be seen as an educational resource for anyone starting–or growing–a business. . .There’s an expanding resource on Sprouter to help you get fast answers from credible people about the business of running your business or starting a new venture. Plus, you get a Twitter-like tool to meet and converse with other entrepreneur-minded folks, which makes for a more focused, less cluttered message stream.”

This video will help you get a better feel for Sprouter’s offerings. The topics addressed range from sales and marketing strategies to finance.

Things are changing so quickly in the world of social media, who knows what will survive (or thrive). Do you think Sprouter has lasting appeal?

A QR code, or a Quick Response code, is a two-dimensional bar code that users scan to learn more about a product or place. The code—often located in an ad, in store windows or on a billboard—is interpreted by apps installed on the likes of smart phones. Once users uncover the information contained in the code, they are directed anywhere from web sites to coupons to a listing of store locations.

Once someone is aware of what a QR code does, it can be hard to resist the temptation to scan that little group of black squares. To encourage this, tempting messages can accompany the QR code that encourage onlookers to pull out their smart phones and discover the mystery behind the code.

QR codes are the next big thing in marketing and come with nearly endless uses and possibilities. As the holiday shopping season launches, don’t be surprised if you start seeing QR codes. Retailers are looking to use these codes to allow customers to check gift card balances, find a store, search product reviews, link to web pages and even purchase products from their mobile phone.

Companies large and small are using this technology to generate interest, create brand recognition and encourage impromptu buying. Don’t be fooled, though: QR codes aren’t just for big business or retailers; they can be used to generate interest in any business and are a great way to add interest and interaction. Best of all, QR codes can even be generated for free.

To see an example of a QR code in use, watch this short Japanese ad.

Inbound marketing is simply focusing your marketing efforts on pulling prospects towards your business. In other words, you help customers find you instead of you finding the customers. More traditional marketing methods (called outbound marketing) are meant to interrupt people through tactics such as advertising, direct mail and tradeshows. By contrast, today’s inbound marketing attracts prospects using efforts such as blogging, search engine optimization and webinars. The reason it’s so effective is that it takes advantage of the way buyers now want to learn about products: going online and learning how and when they want to.

Inbound marketing is delivering results. According to HubSpot’s 2010 State of Inbound Marketing report, businesses rated every inbound lead generation channel as being more important than any outbound channel. The survey also revealed that:

• Businesses spending 50% or more of their marketing budget on inbound marketing activities spent 60% less per lead than businesses spending 50% or more of their marketing budget on outbound channels.
• Social media and blogs are the fastest growing category in lead generation budgets and they continue to be ranked as the lowest cost lead-generation channel.
• Businesses are generating real customers with social media and blogs. For Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and company blogs, over 40% of the respondents who use those services for marketing have acquired a customer through each of those channels.

Of those surveyed, 88% are either maintaining or increasing their inbound marketing budgets. Clearly, if you’re not taking advantage of inbound marketing, you’re being left in the dust.

P. S. For free tips from Hubspot on how to get started, you can download their free inbound marketing kit here.