"Professionals"

This is why I avoid "Mixers" and "Networking Events".

Bad Habits

"I’m starting to wonder if pop culture is in its dying days, because everyone is able to customize their own lives with the images they want to see and the words they want to read and the music they listen to. You don’t have the broader trends like you used to...Now, everyone basically is their own microculture, their own nanoculture, their own generation."- from a recent Douglas Coupland interview


Yesterday morning, Google released the "buzz". Its latest attempt at digging into the social media phenom, and forcing its way into your life even more-so than knowing everything you do.

Google wants to know who you do with it too, and with all signs pointing to social searches and curating as the next big step in online social media evolution, it would make sense that our favorite search engine would, in their attempts to keep it all so very real and do no harm, want to dip into the nourishing, feel-good pond of social media.

So, WTF?

Why is it, in less than 24hrs, being considered the "Meh" heard around the world when earlier posts were referring to it as "Facebook Killer" and "the next step"? Suddenly the web is largely in agreement that "Buzz" is a stillborn endeavor. Bloggers who were screaming and shouting in excitement at the launch are now ashamedly admitting that there's not that much to Buzz about. The excitement from the announcement is now turned to red faced embarrassment.

Again.

Social media is young. Very young. The power is not fully tapped,and many if not most people are not fully connected. In fact, the major players in SM are still learning the basics. Is anything more painful than watching Facebook's growing pains?

Those of us who have found a niche in the world of SM can be swept away by the amazing connections we can make with each other, the elegant beauty of finding our brothers and sisters can be mesmerizing. Yet, to our horror, we can find horribly tacky or worse, easily manipulated trending topics on Twitter. I'm still repulsed by every "For every person that posts this on their profile, so and so will donate whatnot to blah blah." that i see posted on a FB status. The much loathed "Post this to receive a free Mac (It really works, really!)" still makes an appearance, and I can only assume that Nigerians are still at the scheming because it still works from time to time, and so we must look at ourselves as the first generation of Social and Online Media Pros and accept our limits.

Yes, this is no longer the community that ruined MySpace by friending every bot and spammer out there, yes we are a wiser more careful audience with potential. However, the biggest obstacle to Social Media is not so much unlocking its potential which continues to astound and evolve almost daily, but rather the breaking of bad habits.

One one end, we see the astounding shortsightedness of Music Labels and their continuing and losing fight against file sharing / their illogical sense of ownership to their music, and on the other end of the spectrum we see the bizarre and dare I say, delusional, example of "Ronna and Beverly". I've never seen Ronna and Beverly, so I'll reserve judgment on the quality of the show itself, but rather heap thunderous, Olympian, judgment on the blogosphere and SM pros who got caught up in the excitement once more.

The story is a pretty common one in Hollywood. A pilot gets made, everyone involved loves it. For reasons unknown (Most likely it tested poorly with audiences), the network doesn't allow it to see the light of day or fills in some empty air time and that's the end of it. In certain situations, producers will shop the product elsewhere, and in more extreme situations there will be a public whine about the show. Long ago, an ad on Variety would do the trick. Now, social media is the stage. The writer of Weeds / Ronna and Beverly, along with some of the producers, decide to harness the power of Teh Webz. So, with the help of high profile Twitter users like The Office's Rainn Wilson they generated a mild buzz. Buzz enough to get the attention of blogs like the WSJ article linked above, and enough buzz to get a modest number of sycophants and hangers on to do their bidding, show unseen. The result? Well, what result? Showtime has been quiet on the subject, and the sudden flurry of attention about a grass roots online movement being able to change programming seems to have been like excitement over the iPad, and Google Buzz, premature. Showing the true Achilles heel of social media is its susceptibility to influence by MSM and corporations.

The majority of us, bloggers, SM pros, and users alike, are still very tapped in to the corporate mindset. For every Mac Air, there has been 2 amazing innovations, so its easy for us to hope and want to believe that Mac has some magical trinket that will transform our lives up its sleeve. Who isn't a fan of the Office? When Rainn Wilson tells me to support something, maybe he'll give me props. So goes the mindset of every generation, till now.

Those of us who grew up with the influence of corporate America in our after school and Saturday morning cartoons, in our toys and lunches, must be more vigilant than those kids who are now growing up with the added influence of the web, with the far more powerful influence of peers, family, and personalities.

The most powerful connections, the lifelong connections, for SM professionals and corporate accounts, are those made at a personal level with the consumer.

NBC may have made the decision to keep Jay Leno over Conan O Brien based on hard numbers, but they fail to consider the generation that will remember "I'm with Coco" over who was the successor to Carson. NBC is not investing in its future, rather it is allowing the conversation to be had without its active participation. It will take NBC years to recover from its decision to be so unfeeling towards the sincere expressions of love towards "Coco", as will it take Google some time to recover from the stupid "Buzz" release and even less time for Apple to recover from the iPad.

We must be weary of manufactured hype and emotions. They are the fossilized remains of insincere and manipulative marketing tactics that are slowly fading away to a true connection to the consumer. Tomorrow's consumer will be able to spot those a mile away, and they'll reward your help and sincerity tenfold. We best be getting used to it. In the meantime remember:

Cogito ergo DM

Or should it be "DM ergo sum"? Regardless of the Latin, there's a point to made. As a marketing professional, i often have forbidden fruits dangled before me.

"I've produced an algorithm."

Is usually the first sign of trouble in Social Media. Followed quickly by the words "Viral" and "Blast". All of those connote a detachment from the wondrous teeming, bubbling, and ever evolving mass that is Teh Webz and how, despite the technology and ways of "tricking" people into receiving your message, there is nothing as powerful as a loyal customer spreading your message of his/her own accord. As my dear friend mAcslost said, "What is the ROI on a friend that helps you move? What's the price on that long term relationship?"

So true. Like any friend, a SM professional needs to know what favors to ask and what is too much of an infringement on their relationship with their followers. We often walk a fine line, understanding the necessity of mass e-mails but not wanting to go into the SPAM folder. Needing to reach out, but not be so callous and so to the point that your customers learn to disregard your message.

Two things reared their heads this previous week that I'd like to address. Both were tempting in their effectiveness and both I ultimately passed on, simply because I am personally uncomfortable with how intrusive they are.

Firstly, i had myself an apoplexy when i received a DM to my company's Twitter account from one of our competitors. "You have been invited to (EVENT DETAILS)"

I was livid. I received that message on my phone, in my E-mail, and on my Twitter. 3 messages at once from my competitors made me angry at the invasion, and jealous that their message had infiltrated so entirely. I looked to my SM peeps to validate my outrage. By a huge majority we all agreed that a mass DM was considered "Twitter Spam" and would ultimately damage them more than help. Officialy, you give people who you follow the right to DM you, and they are within their rights to do so. However it is in bad form, and a breach of "Twettiquette". Though I sit here in my SM tower and cast judgment on their SM fumbles , though our SM community dwarfs theirs in numbers and community involvement , I also know that their one Spammy, BS, DM was seen by every one of their followers. The temptation to follow suit is enormous.

The second was similar in nature. Text message marketing. I know people must opt in, I understand that its highly effective, I just don't like it. I think our brand needs as much goodwill as possible and douchey marketing like Texting, overzealous E-mail "Blasts", and "Twitter Spam" are harmful to our image.

Ultimately, it's a personal decision for SM professionals. For my money and many of the people that i work with, goodwill, respect, and a knowing nod to our community acknowledging that we "Aren't like THAT" is worth more than the potential returns from such direct and aggressive advertising. There are people who market by wrapping a building in their message, there are people who buy electronic billboards, there are those who blast and spam and plan to "go viral". I am not one of them, and my brand will not suffer those indignities. We aim to build a community out of respect and goodwill. We will talk to our customers when we e-mail them, and direct message them, we will not be talking at them.

That's just how we roll.

Social Media ROI (God. Just writing that makes me sweat)

At an astoundingly douchey mixer held by the club promoters of the digital world (Digital LA), I was approached by a very pushy young man who was hocking applications. After figuring out my position in our Company and my affinity for Social Media, he posed the question "What is your ROI?".


I thought about it for a moment, and I responded. "We don't speak ROI, we speak relationships and community."

He laughed nervously, and i ran away.

ROI? Good grief, doesn't he know that social media is all about Teh Gudwillz and teh Relashunshipz? I have since obsessed. The positive impact of our SM campaigns is evident to me, but our bottom line would still seem unaffected. How do I convince the boss folk that this is a good investment?

Below is a starting point. Obviously for a small business like ours, it's not necessarily all applicable, but its a start on what I'm sure will be a lengthy discussion as SM begins to settle into its place as in the world of brand management, public relations, and marketing.

Olivier Blanchard Basics Of Social Media Roi

View more presentations from Olivier Blanchard.

In case you were in doubt.

A little perspective on where we are heading.

Don Draper's Carousel: Lessons for Social Media Marketing

I had "One of those moments" yesterday, where something I've always felt true was verified by a moment or an authority. I met a young lady yesterday who had graduated from a University with the twin majors of Marketing and Social Anthropology, and she expressed delight in my excitement for her choices. To which I explained that i see the two as being permanently intertwined.

I have always maintained in the inherency of the human experience. A unifying feeling that we have all been through this before, and we all share basically the same journey with minor variations. In marketing, this can be applied in different ways. Our need to breed can be preyed on, the manipulation of imagery is well known, and wordplay, copy, font decisions, music and etymological wizardry can come in handy when attempting to create a reaction to a product on a superficial level. Social Media however, has the honor of having the customer come to you. The customer has found you and they will deliver the message on your behalf, but you must equip them with the ability and desire to spread your message. You must build on their loyalty and do so at a level which connects beyond the obvious and at a very deep level.

Mad Men, is a fantastic show that I adore simply for the Cro-Magnon brazenness of 1960's advertising and how different it is from what we try to achieve through the intimate world of Social Media. When print and television were the only game in town, it was absolutely necessary to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, but when the customer is coming to you as is the case with social media, what sort of message are you sending out in order to be the most effective representative of your brand?

The clip below has received a large amount of attention for the way in which the lead character, Don Draper, during a pitch to KODAK, appeals to emotions that are not sexy or exciting but deeply moving and speak to us on a much more intimate level. So much so, in fact, that one of his colleagues who is having marital issues leaves the room in a rush.



A masterfully written expression of what all social media professionals must inevitably learn. As my mentor Stephen Fry put it so eloquently during his address to the Apple iTunes festival "Deep inside we are very soft people who yearn to love and yearn to be loved, and everything else is incidental, irrelevant, cynical, and not interesting to us fundamentally."

The feelings of belonging, and community that are recreated by our online families within our social media outlets are very real and must speak to that level of connectedness. It is a powerful tool, and when yielded wisely and with sincerity it can have wonderful results. Understanding that connectedness and what make societies and individuals tick at a rudimentary level,like an Anthropologist would, will make you more likely to achieve that goal.

Social Media as the Eye of Sauron

"The Eye: that horrible growing sense of a hostile will that strove with great power to pierce all shadows of cloud, and earth, and flesh, and to see you: to pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable."- JRR Tolkien

I had an interesting real-time social media moment today that bears repeating as a warning for those who underestimate the immediate power of SM and the PR as well as promotional benefits of being able to listen to your consumer.

I have several Tweetdeck alerts for ongoing projects, brands, etc. One of these is The Comedy Store, my place of employment, which is an incredible, but badly damaged brand. It is a hard sell most of the time, and our product is still not in great shape after 20 something years of complete neglect and a pretty gnarly reputation for being unfriendly to outsiders.

My mantra since arriving here has been built around this Brand Heaven and Hell illustration that I found when I first started dawdling in marketing.

(If anyone can tell me who is responsible for it, I'd love to give him/her credit.)



If you'll note, one of the most basic steps, the FIRST step, in fact, is "Positive interactions".

A customer had a negative interaction today with one of the guys who works our phones. He tweeted about it approximately five minutes after his interaction. Seconds after he tweeted, I received a notice, and read this tweet: "Just called "The Comedy Store" to find out about open mic and the guy was a dick... so nothing unusual."

With that comment, not only was the customer able to let me know that we had dropped the ball, but he also let his 198 followers know as much too. Not only did he tell them that our customer service was terrible, but he also told them we had a history of such things. BAD brand karma. I tried to recover from it, offering the usual free admissions and apologies, but the damage has been done. In real time, with a nearly immediate effect, I saw our brand depleted by one idiot employee's insensitivity and i saw that message delivered into 200 people's feeds, and I pray he's not linked his twitter ans Facebook accounts. This is the world of Social Media, where the negative can be spread as quickly if not more so than the information you export. For someone like me who spends most of his waking hours attempting to paint the kindest, most sincere and positive picture of this place, it is infuriating when that is derailed by an insensitive employee who frankly, is not doing his job. Like Sauron's evil eye, a Negative interaction will find you through social media and "pin you under its deadly gaze, naked, immovable."

Ugh.

*** UPDATE!!
After my overtures the customer above decided to swing by on the day we were holding a special promotion for new comics. I was greeted by this tweet from his stream this morning which I promptly retweeted: "Had a great time at The Comedy Store... people were really nice and it was great fun watching new comics work."

What an amazing interaction.

Gordon Brown: Wiring a web for global good

In my continued study on the incredible interconnectedness that is afforded us by Social Media, I've been wanting to share this TED talk for a while. To listen to a world leader discuss compassion in such personal terms is one of the most encouraging things I've seen in a long time.



Say what you will about Gordon Brown and his policies, he is a deeply sensitive and intelligent man

Put Pocketing (The product finds you?)

The most difficult thing in Social Media Marketing is the true life application of your message and product. As we all know, a huge list and following needn't necessarily translate into bums in seats or cash in hand. Walking down the street with an iPhone glued to your hand is hardly a way to live (Ahem). Even then, there must be a merging point between guerrilla marketing and online marketing. A place where your online sense of community can be verified and validated by a very applicable moment in your life. Most marketing folk cede this responsibility to the product which they believe to be the ultimate personal interaction between consumer and brand. While technically true, non traditional brand interaction has been around for a while and a staple in urban settings. In a world like social media, where so much isn't tangible the options for extending your message outside of the realm of intangibles becomes more difficult.

MySpace continues to be the largest Social network that continually throws and promotes events independent of users. In other words MySpace has Myspace events while Twitter, Facebook etc. have only user generated events. Though I firmly believe that FB and Twitter would benefit from expanding into events and producing or at least sponsoring, they are in no danger of being overtaken by MySpace's events division which had enormous cuts inflicted on it despite being the only original and working apparatus in that horribly collapsing structure.

What about your company though? What sort of things can you do to bring that close knit online community together? Tweetups, Tweetcrawls, Facebook Invites are all in the arsenal of Social Media events but to really capture the imagination of potential consumers it takes some innovation at a basic and personal level. The UK based Phone and Broadband Company Talk Talk has taken the notion of goodwill towards consumers and bringing the message home, to a new level. A seamless application of guerilla marketing that does not involve hundreds of dancers and a train station. They have paid former pickpockets to "PUT POCKET" money wrapped with their logo and message into the consumer's pockets and bags. Risky and bold to be sure. But imagine if the evil and draconian AT&T put money into your bag with a nice note and best wishes. Not only would you tell your friends, but you'd certainly feel better about having your pocketbook raped at the end of the month.



The future of advertising will be in the bringing of goodwill and loyalty created by brands in the way that online communities and social networks create the same. By affecting people's lives, emotions,and brand interactions in a positive and relevant manner, rather than by forcing an unwarranted message on the unsuspecting. If you happen to film it, upload it, and distribute it online, then the rewards of that goodwill can be maximized.