Featured «

August 28, 2010

Why social media gurus should be trampled by elephants

Several weeks ago I wrote that social media is not new. I only partially called out the pony, rainbow and unicorn practitioners though. I’ve been ‘doing the Twitter’ for years now and social media gurus there is what teenage girls once were to Myspace. Worse, these gurus claim to be offering professional services.

If I had my say they would all be trampled by elephants. So, without further ado, here are my top 5 reasons your social media guy needs to be trampled by an elephant. Note: I’m not saying all social guys are bad, stretching it you can call me one. I’ve stated before that social works. What I’m railing against are the people who fit my description below.

Ponies, Rainbows and Unicorns

Ask them what they do. The answer: I engage people, I create relationships, I add a layer of transparency. They may as well talk about ponies, rainbows and unicorns.

Now, my friends, is when we run screaming. I can put glass dividers in an office and add transparency. Engaging people is useless without anchoring it to a brand and a business goal. Ask them specifically what they do and who they target (i.e. I create digital campaigns to demographic x to inform them of product y). Gold star if they can hit 1/2. Sometimes the sun, stars, moon and seas are perfectly aligned and somebody can answer this.

Perhaps one of my favourite past-times at conferences is to talk to these guys, telling them ‘engaging people’ does not count and ask for something more specific. Watch their heads explode, just like here. I see it as public service.

What’s a bottom line?

When talking to the next social media ‘guru’ you meet, ask them what bottom line impact their campaigns had. Note: bottom line is not engaged people, viral buzz or new followers; bottom line is the amount of sales their campaign generated, customer support queries it solved etc.

Don’t let them talk about ponies, rainbows and unicorns here. Maybe they just never did “math” in school so be really basic: You were paid this much by the big nice executive. In turn, you generated him this many dollars so he had this many left over.

Social Media is ‘it’

As I’ve pointed out before, social media is not the everything. It is a component of something bigger. Perhaps it is aligned with your recruitment strategy (run screaming if they had never thought of this). Maybe it is timed with other marketing activities. But when you meet one who honestly believes everything can be solved socially take pity, it is not their fault. Some people are not born as smart as others. You know, the ones who don’t move for the elephant.

I can’t afford a graphics guy

Yep, I thought the Myspacer’s were terrible but I think the gurus have taken the crown. We all put photos on our site but seriously guys, get a professional photo and photoshop it properly. There is no excuse to have white edges on your photos from a poor cut out nor should I feel like you just scanned last night’s DUI photos.

Don’t worry though, social media gurus, I get that these professional services are expensive and you can’t afford them. That’s because you don’t understand business and can’t charge for what you do. I’ve taken the liberty of doing some research, most Universities offer great marketing programs.

Wait, my Apple runs on Unix? or What’s a Unix?

Betting on a social guru with no technology training is like betting on the Mayans. No, they don’t have to be coders, engineers or designers but you need to fundamentally understand your field. Would you hire a plumber who didn’t know water went downhill?

If your guru lacks any technical knowledge it’s time to call the elephants over.

August 8, 2010

Social Media is NOT new

Engage. Form Relationships. Share content. Social is the new currency. Social Media is the answer. There has been a fundamental shift in how we communicate.

I’m sick of hearing it. This is not new information. How we communicate now is how great communicators have always worked their trade. Word of Mouth has always been powerful. Social Media may be a new term but the theories and fundamentals are not.

My argument is that excluding the new term, social media is nothing new.

What is Social Media?

There are many definitions of social media. I’m a simple guy who lives by simple definitions. To me, Social Media is people communicating and collaborating online.

We can talk about the change in pace, the openness and transparency but our core reason for joining is communication. I concede that the speed and technologies that underwrite this process are different today. I concede that more people are involved in this channel than there were previously. However, people have always communicated and collaborated online.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away

The Internet did not exist. People sent letters to each other. Telephones and telegrams came to prominence. People spoke in small gatherings. They communicated. They made friends. They formed relationships. They engaged. Sound familiar?

Then a friendly, cheerful man invented the Internet. People were using BBS’s to communicate. When I was operating my first companies and even up to 5 years ago I was a member of 40+ forums. At the same time others were making profile pages on Geocities and communicating through guest books, web rings and other old school techniques. I’d always be involved in multiple conversations and threads, building a rapport to promote my services. I engaged users. I shared interesting content with the board. I created original content. I commented on other users content. I built relationships and rapport. Sound familiar?

It should. Old media, gurus and just too many people in between either have short term memories or poor research skills. What is happening today is not new. Back then I knew several firms trying to integrate my forum identities and create a singular stream. It has been a long journey to get where we are today, nothing happened overnight.

Experts: Please give it a rest

I get the need to hype your own field, I do plenty of Digital marketing. But it seems the ‘experts’ and ‘gurus’ are a huge part of this misconception.

Even if Social Media was new, why are we still talking about engage / form relationships at most conferences. This is not high level stuff.
Many older users are scared by the change in medium and assume it is new. They fail to realize how normal this is for younger and more seasoned users.

If I was born decades ago I’d be still be forming relationships. If I was at a cocktail party there would be people I knew and was incubating relationships with. There would be people I need introductions to. I would talk, listen and engage. People from every background would likely be in attendance. Just as diverse as social media today.

I think half the problem is their fundamental misunderstanding of what has actually changed. Even scarier are the ones who think you can pop out a tweets and have a business. This is why we are still having such low level conversations.

Ask an expert if they have a basic model. Most don’t. Ask them what their suggested listen, respond and produce ratio’s are; they will probably look at you blankly. There is researched little data on Social Media because the smart consultants realize how this slots into a bigger marketing picture and are busy applying it as one tool. Worse, I don’t think the experts understand this.

You are not an expert in communication

And to claim to be a Social Media expert you are almost claiming to be an expert in communications. You probably are not and are specially not a social media expert with no technical background.

All of my clients who have a social marketing module (notice how I dropped the ‘media’?) are told that they need to put their own voices forward. If you want to be social be social, not manufactured social.

Social is hard to quantify. People have tried. SPIN Selling is old but still works. There are very few experts in talking to people. There is a reason. Social is no different. The best social marketers get relationships offline as quick as they can.

We are just transitioning

Much of what used to happen offline is now happening online. This transitioning has been happening far longer than most know. As the pace of technology innovation quickens we exacerbate this transition.

Just because something has become popular it does not mean it is new. The Internet used to be boutique corner stores and Internet cafes. Now the chain stores are in (Facebook, Twitter). When Wal-Mart opened shopping was not new.

Social Media Works

Social Media does work, but when it is part of something bigger. I’ve authored quite a few articles on the topic and you will see that it is generally about integrating it into something bigger or providing solid insights for those who are at the medium level. That is my target market and who I write for.

My challenge to the other ‘gurus’ out there is to:

Stop talking about obvious things
1. If your knowledge does not go further, quit while you are ahead
Recognize social media works as part of something bigger
If you want to be social media specific, get to a higher level. Anybody can Google what most of us are blogging.

July 17, 2010

Pivoting (for those who don't know what/why)

Yes, no blogs or Follow Friday’s this week. It was my birthday week so and between seeing everybody I’ve had limited time to be online. I promise to make it up with some spectacular people and posts in the next week! Apologies.

I had a fantastic conversation on pivoting with Paul Sullivan yesterday. Later on in the evening I was at my local watering hole speaking to small business owners who provided the blankest of looks when I discussed the concept. To my startup junkie followers pivoting is nothing new but, as always, startup / tech people often have some incredibly cool concepts that are not always translated to or understood by small business. So without further ad here is my attempt to explain pivoting to small business owners.

What is Pivoting?

Pivoting is a fundamental change in your business model or strategy.

Perhaps you change your price or the way people pay you (from per use to annually)
Perhaps you were running a coffee store but realized everybody was buying your breakfast meals instead (change in market)
Perhaps you are a successful accountant who is now adding or focusing on payroll (change in features)

This is hardly a comprehensive list but shows a pivot can be a big or small change in your business. All that matters is that the pivot results in a new direction for your business.

When do I Pivot?

Pivoting is a risk. You should never change things for the sake of change. However, if your business is failing and the traditional marketing won’t bring people in the door and you continue to fail with retention it is likely time.

The easiest way to tell is that your customers will make it clear when you need to Pivot. If you intended on serving only coffee but everybody orders food, you pivot to a restaurant. Starbucks was once a wholesaler but pivoted to retail. Tynt, a technology attribution startup, will likely pivot into search prediction. When users use your product / service / establishment in ways you did not intend or you see customers for an ulterior use embrace them and consider a pivot.

Is Pivoting Bad?

NO!! If your business is successful, growing and profitable there is no need to Pivot. Yet if things are not the best and success seems unattainable pivoting makes natural sense. It does not make you inconsistent or a failure. It shows that your original business model may not have been as successful as predicted but that you are resilient enough to deploy existing resources for a new use.

Conclusion

Pivoting is a change in your business model. While the term applies to technology startups any business can and should consider the implications of pivoting.

July 3, 2010

It's all in the build-up

Wednesday night I got to meet Richard Branson, not just for a brief handshake. We originally met downstairs where the quick photo shtick happened and later I found myself in the heavily restricted VIP area. I’ve also received free return tickets on Virgin America which I will blog about soon. The event was part of a larger #VXToronto campaign which aimed to create online buzz by offering ‘digital influencer’s’ free flights and potentially tickets to the launch party based on their Klout score. The problem is most of the bloggers were pissed off and none of this was the fault of Virgin. April Dunford of Rocket Watcher beat me to summing this up so instead I wanted to look at why this happened (and how you can prevent it).

Know who you are targeting

Influencers are networkers. I have been in Toronto about 6 weeks and already know the core group at every technology event. Issues are far more likely to go viral, this group has an audience, regularly see eachother and are not afraid to speak their mind.

Bloggers have egos. We may not admit it but it is inevitable. When you get invited to an exclusive launch party because of your influence it is certainly a humbling experience. Sadly, when you consistently put your life online you do require a slight ego to survive (and I don’t see that as a bad thing).

So, we have a group with ego’, perhaps too easily bruised, that have a busy platform and talk amongst themselves. Best be careful to not make mistakes, eh? (that makes me sound too Canadian).

Be specific on what can be expected

There were few cues on where the event was, what was to be expected or the group that was to be expected. The general consensus was that it was going to be a medium-sized event where everybody was able to mingle, interview, find things to promote and enjoy the evening. Imagine our surprise when we arrived to a venue of at least 100 people, half of us invited were nowhere to be seen on the guest-list and were not allowed to access a VIP area where the promoted guests were. On it’s own, this is no problem but sparse details led to false expectations and inevitable disappointment.

Beware of the Build-up

The Virgin event was good. Had any blogger waltzed straight into the Virgin event they would have been happy, I had a fantastic evening. A great atmosphere, great crowd, free alcohol and Branson was talking to everybody. Sadly, most of the influencer’s I met were annoyed at the Klout pre-party from the previous evening. Admittedly, I left the same party 30 minutes later but the general consensus was that the community was insular, the goal of Klouter’s was to hand their business card and leave and engagement was severely lacking. Several examples were provided of Klout staff leaving attendees mid conversation.

The overall Klout campaign was convoluted, directions were not entirely clear and as April points out, people were never entirely sure why they did / did not get flights or invites. Each e-mail about the event had to be re-sent due to errors (sometimes the date) and the day prior we were all instructed to come friendless. I get it, exclusive event, tight guest list, but there are ways to tell me I can’t bring a significant other.

Remember what I said earlier? Influencers are pack rats. A small issue becomes a huge issue once everybody is done complaining. Know your audience, know this happens and try to prevent it (or if you don’t want to deal with it target somebody else). Each issue on it’s own would have likely been nothing. When things begin to accumulate, you have a problem. The buildup left everybody in a bad mood.

Pick your partners carefully

A Klout score is a natural fit to pick social media influencer’s for the Virgin party. The issue was not the tool but in the execution. When people are annoyed at Company A it will inevitably transfer to public partners when there is a symbiotic relationship. Picking a partner for their offering is one thing but be sure to look at their track record in successful execution too. In this case, most of the bloggers I spoke to were frustrated at the points above and began transferring this to Virgin.

Summary

There is no doubt that I was happy with the Virgin launch party. I had a great night, met some new people and ticked everything off on my check-list. The event and Virgin campaign hit every mark and every blogger I know was praising the agency. Sadly, the Virgin event as a stand-alone event had to win us all over. We entered in very negative mindsets and, had the event not been so incredibly, probably would have left unhappy. Props to whoever organized the event as a whole, it was fantastic.

I feel obliged here to also point out that this is not a case of blogger or influencers being crybabies (as has been insinuated on Twitter). As you can see it was an unfortunate chain of events that left many in an (understandably) negative mindset. If you spend 20 minutes with customer service and get incorrect information, you complain. If you feel you were neglected, mis-informed or bounced around, you complain. ‘Influencer’s’ (I use the term loosely) are no different. Social Media is built upon open communication and if you don’t like that it may be time to leave online entrepreneurship.

June 27, 2010

A quick and dirty study on Social Media

I’ve noticed lately that my buying behavior has been switching to brands who are on social media and, more importantly, brands who would engage with me (more on that soon). I wanted to see if I was an oddity or a norm here.

So, like anybody else would on a Sunday I created a 30 second survey on Google Docs and Tweeted. This is by no means a comprehensive survey but a quick and dirty fact finding mission. As many of the respondents (around 65%) located the survey on Twitter you can say that the pool is somewhat biased when comparing channels. For those wanting real specifics, n=40 (with two disqualified for incomplete information, not bad for an hour on Sunday afternoon). Read into the results as you wish, my followers helped me collect the data so it is only fair I share it.

70% of respondents indicated that a companies social media account influences their purchase decisions. All users who responded to this survey are clearly social media savvy (and thus the results are only applicable to a similar crowd) but it does demonstrate that people on these channels expect representation from businesses.

60% of all respondents indicated social media as part of their purchase criteria (the difference here being that a company must be on social media to make a purchase) and that they have purchased from a company because they were active on social media where competitors were not. Again, this applies only to a social media crowd but shows that non-savvy small businesses are likely losing sales for not being present.

Respondents were then asked to specify the most important social media channel when investigating purchase options / companies. Twitter was considered the most important channel, perhaps due to ease of access and simplicity. Company blogs came in last; my best guess on this one is that company blogs are rarely conversations whereas Facebook Pages and Twitter profiles are often very conversation heavy.

Respondents were then asked to rank important factors when evaluating a channel; specifically, when two products / companies maintain social media channels and the user is making decisions. The rate of activity and level of interaction came in at number 1 which, as mentioned earlier, may be why Twitter and Facebook were considered more important than blogs.

Finally, and perhaps most surprisingly, 30% of respondents indicated they regularly pay a higher price for products active on social media over competitors who are not. We already knew social media was an important evaluation tool but this number was somewhat surprising to me.

Read into the facts as you will. As always I love the e-mail, Twitter and comment feedback.

June 8, 2010

In which I delete 4,000 LinkedIN Contacts

I’m expecting a flaming for this one but here goes. Last Thursday, the 3rd of June I deleted over 4,000 of my 1st level LinkedIn contacts bringing me down to a healthy 68 (see the profile here.)

Removing that many contacts is sure to frustrate some people though I feel I vetted out my contracts correctly. More importantly, why did I do this?

LinkedIn is a platform that works best when you have fewer, close contacts. When I joined LinkedIn many moons ago things were a little different, this was years before there were even profile pictures (there was so much hype behind that change by the way.) There were no Twitter’s, Facebook Fan Pages were not yet attracting enough professionals, LinkedIn was the place to be to make connections. Now I have tools such as Twitter, my blog and Facebook Pages to mass interact with my audience.
Most of this audience did not truly want to be connected anyway (flame away.) I’m not saying all Open Networkers are bad but a majority are address book collecters. Anybody who needs to promote that they have 8,000+ connections is 1) too ego-driven to work with me and 2) has way too many people in their core group to do any meaningful networking.
- Because of this you can’t do business with most Open Networkers. They simply are not interested, play it as a collectors game, wonder you reach out to them or don’t see your message among everybody elses.
The spam was horrible. LinkedIN has few mass administration tools and people I barely knew were able to hit me with self-promotion questions and messages. Honestly, I wasn’t interested, if you want to promote be open about it. By the time I cleared my spam it was time to move on and I barely got time to interact.

Since deleting everybody my LinkedIn experience has been better and far more successful. I no longer accept invitations from everybody I know. We need to have a solid business relationship or have had profound talks at a conference to be connected there. Otherwise you will just have to deail with my Twitter, blog, phone and e-mail. Like my Facebook LinkedIn is now exclusive.

June 3, 2010

3 ways to find Royalty Free Images for your Blog

My faithful blog readers have noticed a huge change; I’m now putting a picture with every post! Pretty eh? (I’m sounding more and more Canadian every day). I’ve had a few comments and tweets asking where I found them so decided to publish my not entirely obscure sources. I hope these resources areat least a little helpful! I know there are plenty more out there but I like to keep things simple.

Flickr

Flickr.com is where I find most of the images I have been using. Most people don’t realize that not only is it a huge community of photographs but it is a huge community of royalty free / free to use images. To find the images you can use simply go to Advanced Search, type in your query and ensure that ‘Creative Commons licensed Content’ is selected. If you have any commerical implications for your work make sure ‘is also selected.

Stock Xchng

Sxc.hu is another great resource I have been using for years. Most of the images you will find are free, royalty free and / or Creative Commons content. To make sure the photos you find are licensed just check to the right of each photo. You will be told under what terms you can distribute the work. Sxc also makes it easy to contact photographers and ask their permission in unclear circumstances.

iStockphoto

iStockphoto.com is the final website I have been using for several years. You will find a tonne of high quality images here but unlike Flickr and SXC you will have to pay (for a website it is no more than $1-2 an image, so it won’t break the bank.) Most images, because of their paid nature, are on a royalty free nature.

May 23, 2010

SEO: Don't leave your .com behind

When I’m consulting with clients, specifically on SEO, we spend hours trawling through pain points and terms to optomize. Being a techie it is sometimes hard and easy to neglect those potential customers who are less technology oriented.

Sometimes, however, a reminder hits you like a tonne of bricks. One of my newest clients has written a book on converting narcissism and as always I was trawling though Google Analytics to see where she was already at.

Take a look at the top 5 keywords people use to find her book. The top, by a huge margin, is the title of her book! While this is certainly an indicator of bad optimization (I’ve only just started working with her, so we will certainly fix that!) there is certainly an older crowd who type in the name of your product / .com into a search engine instead of the URL bar. Especially if you are going via word of mouth, as Lisa’s fantastic book has, don’t forget to make sure you are right at the top of results for your own product name! It’s not as cool but definitely converts.

And what kind of Marketer would I be without dropping a plug? The book, You Might Be a Narcissist If, is a fantastic read on the inner workings of our brain and, put simply, how ego effects relationships. Not only has Paul Meier, a co-author, been featured on Oprah but Lisa, the lead author, is a Psycotherapist and self-confessed recovering narcissist. The insights are amazing. Click here to buy a copy on Amazon.

June 21, 2009

Overboard: Why ads stopped working

Ad rates are declining! The sky is falling. Print media ad rates have plummeted to an all time low. I need ads that engage me! Media will only survive selling value added services!

How many times have we heard a ‘guru’ say this about newspapers, magazines or even websites? To a large degree it is true and there certainly are better ways to connect with consumers. Personally I feel there still are applications for mass media marketing. While it will never provide the returns it once did I don’t think it’s customer engagement that attributed to the demise but instead going overboard!

overboard

I’m not proud to admit it but I logged into Myspace yesterday and could not believe how many ads I was bombarded with! 7 adverts, with 1 advert containing 4 more. Reading todays weekend newspaper I found over 16 ads in the first 8 pages. There comes a point where people say enough is enough and stop listening. Seth Godin describes a similar situation where he asks people who have just read a newspaper to describe any ad they saw. The response? Usually none are recalled.

Instead of plastering every available inch with an advert, showing restraint and allowing less ads on a platform will increase their effectiveness and value. I’m certainly not advocating removing ads but instead saying that with fewer ads we are more likely to notice the ads on offer, not block them out mentally. Any publisher, be it online, television, radios or blogs is in the business of selling a channel. The higher return from the channel for the marketer the higher price the publisher receives and the more likely repeat business. Marketers win with higher conversion, Publishers win with higher prices.

Disclosure: I still don’t see this as being an easy out for incompetent marketers. Ad effectiveness will increase but there is still no excuse to not communicate directly with a niche. But for those who need to reach a large amount of people the premium will surely be worth it.

Addition (17/04/2010): There has been an interesting discussion of this article over on Hacker News. To clarify a few points:

I am not against ads in any way. My background is studying marketing.
My case saying that ads are not working is not in terms of publisher revenues but marketers conversion. If marketers don’t convert they will try other mediums (how often do we see mediums crash because advertisers leave?).
The point I am making is that if we are bombarded with fewer ads there is a higher chance we will pay attention to them. The marketer converts. The publisher charges a premium.

June 4, 2009

Why I @ so much

Yesterday I got into a slightly heated discussion with one of my Twitter followers. I was asked to not @ people so much as they were finding that nearly half of my tweets, sometimes mere, were @’s.

Obviously I ignored this piece of advice but it made me think, Why do I @ so much in the first place? First I needed to consider, What is Social Media to me and why do I bother using it?

To me, any social media site is based on transparency and open discussion. Sharing information and dealing with people as individuals is of the greatest importance. Its why I think many business’s and individuals fail. To give you an example, my local newspaper are on Twitter and all they put in their twitterfeed is automated links to published articles. What good is that? I’ve also found countless retailers who only tweet their specials. Now what good is that?

Social media is about having an identity and as I said, treating people as individuals. There is no value for me to follow the newspaper or these individuals if the same information is sent to me by their newsletters and is promoted on the front page of their website. Social media is about providing unique content, and as far as I am concerned, is a great and cost effective way to open a dialogue with current and future customers. I’d be much more likely to follow the newspaper if they asked for a discussion of the article and opened up a ‘Twitter forum’. Then I am engaged with their brand; any marketer can tell you how important that is.

Some brands get this and try to open up a discussion. Those brands get the first step correct but mess up the second; responding. Surely you can’t begin to engage customers in a discussion and then leave it. This is why I personally respond to as many people as possible with @’s (though I often get 15-20 a day, so there is a backlog and sadly I miss some). It continues the discussion, further engages people with my personal brand, brings the relationship to a deeper, more personal level, encourages the user to engage themselves next time and gives a personal level of gratitude. To me this is just as important, if not more important, than opening the dialogue in the first place. When brands respond to me personally online I’m far more happy.

Brands that don’t even try to engage me in the first place fail. Social media is built to foster this engagement and most of the users join seeking it, so any brand who tackles social media with a standardized message is going nowhere fast. Engaging users on social media can direct some serious traffic; when I am happy I link it and looking at my bit.ly tracker each of my links generate an average of 300 clicks – this is also increasing fast as my follower count increases. Each @ is also another chance to re-promote the same link.

The big dilemma is that I need to remain conscious that my @’s may not be interesting to others so I am (loosely, I often forget) trying to stick to the following @ rules:

Try to paraphrase the @, so users not involved in the first leg of the dialogue can understand what is going on.
For generic @’s (ie thanks for the RT), I try and cram as many users in the tweet as possible and re post the bit.ly link.
Keep the discussion going. Tweeting ‘thanks’ is no good but ‘Thanks for telling me about x, what does everybody else think’ is good.

And there you have it, my justification for so many @’s and what I (try) to do to make it less of a burden on my followers.