Recently my colleague Peter Kim and I found ourselves in close contact with a "social media expert." The problem was this expert was sucking in the feed of my blog without permission and attribution and had more holes in his resume than a slice of Swiss cheese. So how do you separate the social-media snake oil from the vinegar? It's not easy, but here's a few pointers:
Earlier this year I gave a talk on something I believe is an emerging trend whether we like it or not: the idea of everyday people spending countless hours building and managing their reputations online. I made the comparison of this equity-generating behavior to that of brand building. Ordinary people having micro influence in this macro medium we call the internet.
I know what you're thinking. "Not another recession article -- ugh." Well it's not, really.
Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go for a ride in the world-famous Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. Actually, I went on several rides -- and it started with getting picked up at the Las Vegas airport, no less. Right off the bat, there were several things I noticed as I approached the giant wiener on wheels. It was surrounded by a crowd. Everyone was taking pictures, talking to each other about it and, of course, smiling. Just take a look at my own behavior as I sat inside of it. I was instantly transformed into a child. Which isn't really hard for me because I'm a kid at heart, but as we drove around I noticed that the Wienermobile had this effect on virtually everyone.
Have you ever given serious thought as to why marketers are so infatuated with the idea of "viral"? Think about it. Viral is actually pretty easy to wrap your head around. For starters, it's not difficult to measure. Views in YouTube, the number of times a video was embedded, the number of comments, the number of times a Facebook application has been downloaded or shared and the last time it was used. They are all measurable. And like traditional marketing, they're pretty easy to walk away from.
Pampers Village blends content, tools and social functionality based on the insight that parents want to connect and naturally form communities both online and off.
If you are fortunate enough to hit the "viral video" jackpot, for example, you can sit back and watch as the infectious behavior kicks in. No wonder marketers can't get away from the idea of viral. The problem with it, however, is that the odds are not in your favor. My writing may be influenced by the fact that I'm doing it on a plane on my way to Las Vegas for the WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) summit. But, I'm also pretty sure that the stats back up my claim, as there are relatively few of the "Subservient Chicken" and Dove "Real Beauty" examples compared to the thousands of initiatives launched that hope to be the next one.
Take a good look at the "curve" visual that goes along with this post. Look familiar? It should.
Increasingly, as I talk to folks from a variety of large brands and companies, I'm seeing an interesting shift. Not only is there a desire from individuals within large corporations, brands and businesses to leverage social media in some capacity, but increasingly there's an interest in going beyond "viral." After my talk at the the Web 2.0 Conference in New York, an individual who worked in the health-care sector approached me. He said something along these lines: "I believe in everything you just said and I think there is tremendous opportunity for my company to participate in social networks, but each time we try to initiate something, our legal department shoots it down."
As an individual, my blog is one of the most effective manifestations of "marketing" I could have produced for myself. I have a respectable audience that comes back as opposed to visiting it once, never to return again. People participate through comments and the content is distributable. But imagine if I started it the same way many large organizations launch conventional marketing initiatives. What would that have looked like?
If I were a corporate campaign
First I would have had to do several hundred pages of strategy documentation, including target audiences, marketing segments, competitive analysis -- you name it. Then I would put some concepts together and test them in focus groups to see if representatives in a lab like A, B or C better. Next, I would take that feedback, make a few adjustments and plan a multichannel campaign, launching the blog with all sorts of advertising pointing to it. And since I painstakingly outlined the ROI in the in-depth strategy, I'd go about measuring the effectiveness against the ROI that was outlined prior to launch.
Here's a recent illustration of how the web works. Chris Anderson, author of "The Long Tail," is working on his new book in which he explores the notion of "free." Rather than hole himself up in a cabin somewhere while writing, he uses his blog to test out content, source external perspectives and even ask for a little help.
If there's one type of headline that gets attention, it's about claiming the death of something. Well, I'd like to proclaim the "un-dead" nature of a format that I think has the potential to become something more powerful than we are currently seeing.
Once upon a time, newspapers, TV and radio entered our lives. These wonderful inventions spawned yet another one -- multichannel advertising. Then along came things like DVRs and everything digital, which spawned yet another invention, the backlash of traditional advertising. For the record, traditional advertising isn't going away anytime soon, and despite the pronouncement of its death, it will live on -- albeit in an evolved format. And it actually still works. I look at billboards on highways. How can you not?
But "tradigital" could be another story. Tradigital, in my opinion, means using traditional marketing methods in the digital space. For example, creating an advertising campaign and "extending it digitally" usually ends up as a checklist. Micro-site? Check. Online banners? Check. Social media? Check. Mobile? Check. But these days, I'm thinking digital people have even tougher challenges than our traditional cousins. And "tradigitalists" may have it toughest of all. Why? Because some of us on the digital side have become just as set in our ways as our traditional counterparts.
Old habits die hard. While consumers are out there spending countless hours on social networks, file-sharing applications, chat, community sites, buying stuff, selling stuff and using multiple devices, some of us tradigital old fogies are still reaching for our beloved toolbox of the past in the hopes of getting their attention. While online user behavior tells us that people respond well to simplicity, we labor to create complexity in the form of experimental navigation and sites that take forever to load. When YouTube arrived on the scene, we responded by putting our TV spots on it or -- better yet -- creating spots that looked like they were made by amateurs. Little did we know that the real action happens in the comments. Have we thought about talking back to people, or are we really just interested in telling our stories?
David Armano also writes the popular Logic Emotion blog.
These days, I find myself in a unique position. I talk and people listen. Don't get me wrong, I get challenged fairly regularly (thankfully), but for whatever reason, people are willing to hear me out. Sometimes I wonder why. But then I think about one of the stories I once told during a few of my earlier speaking engagements. In the movie "The Doctor," William Hurt plays a smart and capable hospital physician with terrible bedside manners. Then his world gets turned upside down when he gets terribly sick. His story unfolds as he undertakes a journey as a patient, seeing and experiencing things from the other side of the bed. His whole perspective changes once he knows what it feels like to be sick; as his body heals, he contemplates his past actions. Needless to say, when Hurt's character returns to full health and begins practicing again, he comes at it with the empathy that one can only have when you've experienced something for yourself.
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David Armano also writes the popular Logic + Emotion blog.
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