If Marketers could take one hour to re-think who they are and what they mean to consumers, this is the type of conversation they should have...
In the past little while, it's becoming abundantly clear that the sphere of Marketing as a professional discipline continues to evolve. One of the most important (and dramatic) aspects of the evolution comes from everything we're doing in these online channels. Breaking it down to a much more simplistic thought, Marketers must now be publishers as well. Not just publishers of advertising (as we have known advertising since the late 19th century), but publishers of legitimate, authentic and valuable content (for more on this, please read: No More Websites. Only Publishers.).
The problem arises when you start thinking about the differences between publishing and marketing...
Marketing is about:
Figuring out what to produce, how to price it, distribute it, and how to tell people about it.
Selling something.
Getting people to believe in what you're selling.
Building a brand.
Building loyalty.
Creating word of mouth.
Positioning your brand in people's mind.
Publishing is about:
The production and dissemination of information.
Creating a unique perspective and sharing it with a broader audience.
Distributing ideas.
Offering a new/different perspective.
Making something available for the public to view.
They are both dramatically different. They both require very different skill sets and very different philosophies.
The actual organization and structure of the Marketing department is going to have to morph (once again). This is also going to affect both Human Resources and the folks in the Communication department (yes, we're talking about PR too) and beyond.We're going to have to do a much better job of understanding the ramifications of the paid vs. earned media models, and we're going to have to think differently about how we connect with consumers (and treat them). A lot of that original thinking came through in the early days of Blogging. We realized that this new, free, decentralized and democratized publishing platform was going to equalize the "playing field." But now that publishing in text, images, audio and video is so much more pervasive with such a lower barrier to entry, the time is ripe to re-evaluate how much Marketing your company should be doing versus how much publishing your company should be doing.
What do you think about a Marketing versus Publishing conversation?
The minute we (as a community) allow and accept traditional mass media tactics to pollute Social Media, is the minute that all is lost.
In one of the most depressing articles titled, The Ghost Speaks, published in Entrepreneur Magazine (February issue) they looked at ghostblogging (the act of paying a writer to Blog on behalf of a company, brand or individual). These ghostbloggers do more than Blog posts, they also post on the person's behalf to Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, etc...
How depressing is that in the era of real human voices and real human interactions?
"As a young industry, ghostblogging has no best practices or trade organization. Some practitioners write blogs of a paragraph or two, others 250 to 300 words, but rarely longer. This is the Internet, don't forget. Attn spans r short. Writers charge by the blog or tweet and juggle half-a-dozen clients or more. Some ghostbloggers prefer the loftier title 'social media consultant.' The best are careful to plant key search-engine words into their posts, which will raise a company's web-search ranking."
Boring advertising from boring people (and now we know who all of those "Social Media Consultants" really are).
"'Ghostblogging is a horrible thing - I'm vehemently opposed,' says Shel Holtz of Concord, Calif., a former corporate communications specialist who now blogs about the intersection of communication and technology at blog.holtz.com. 'I'm a huge fan of transparency. My advice to executives is: If you don't take the time to write yourself, find another channel of communication.'"
Can we stop the madness?
I'm being naive (I know), people will say, "someone writes the speech for the President" or "if people like it and connect to the content, who cares who writes it?" I dunno, I do. People have lost faith in marketing (just like they have lost faith in those who serve the public office and celebrities). We allow things that shouldn't be... to be. Saying that ghostwriters have been around for years doesn't make it right or authentic. Times have changed, and these platforms are (or should be) celebrated for the human and real side. Can you imagine that some Blogs, Twitter and Facebook feeds that you follow are not the real person, but the musings of someone else who simply interviewed the person you thought that you were following? Sure, there's a place for ghostwriters, but maybe Social Media isn't one of them?
If we keep heading down this road, doesn't Social Media become nothing more than a boring, traditional mass media channel?
Everywhere you turn, there is tons of talk from people telling others what they should be doing in Social Media. Then, there are those that are just doing it.
Cutting through the hyperbole is not easy. Just the other week, I was communicating with a peer who owns a Digital Marketing agency, and they were recounting an incident where they were meeting with a client along with one of the client's traditional agencies (not the general brand/advertising agency, but a niche within the marketing sphere). During the course of the conversation, they uncovered that one of the attendees from the traditional agency side was their newly anointed Vice President of Social Media. The meeting then turned into a game of Social Media bingo as the new VP started saying all of the things that make us cringe from: "you should have a YouTube page!" to "this is how we are going to get a lot of people to follow us on Twitter!"
How's that throw-up tasting in your mouth right now?
Thankfully, the Digital Marketing folks shot back with some highly relevant questions:
How did you define and scope the strategy and the program?
Who have you done this for already?
What were the results?
Did the results meet the business objectives?
Was this tied into the overall ROI of the brand?
How many people did it take to manage the program?
What kind of analytics and monitoring tools were used?
What did you learn from those tools, and how did you adapt the program to respond to those learnings?
What were the plans after the program ended to maintain the new connections that were made?
Blank stares, stammering and lot of shuffling in the seat followed.
In the end, the agency was blurting out tactics and random digital musings in a sad attempt to steal the business away (and, possibly, to validate the new VP's role). Look, we all know that the Digital Marketing industry is new (and Social Media marketing is even newer), and that it's not possible to always find highly qualified professionals who have a real track record of success in some of these spheres, but it's also not so nascent that those types of credible individuals don't exist (they do) and are willing to - at the very least - have a serious conversation about how to make this work within a brand and organization.
At some point the regurgitation of what we've read on a Blog or listened to in a Podcast has to end and the real work has to begin.
When word got out that the Montreal Gazette was being put up for sale along with the entire Canwest newspaper family, I immediately asked one of my business partners over at Twist Image if our company might be interested in purchasing it.
He laughed at me.
Not because we could not afford it (the truth is, we can't afford it, but we could probably find the right people and raise the money to do it), but because there was no logical connection in his brain between what we're doing here as a digital marketing agency and how that fits with owning a local newspaper (my background as a magazine publisher didn't seem to sway him either). He was right, even though The Gazette is profitable. In fact, for a medium-sized business like us, we would love to have the kind of profitability this newspaper has.
But, the other truth is that Canwest is a whole different type of business.
The economic recession, that reduced traditional mass media advertising, along with a newspaper's many legacy systems which pre-date the Internet and mobile device era - unions, printing plants, trucks and people for distribution, leases, office space, etc. - makes things seem more dire and urgent. The new business models that come into play also confuse the newspaper (and publishing) industry even further. There is no one single thing that is going to save the newspaper industry (like the Internet or the iPad). The Internet and free news on the Web is not the reason that people are subscribing, reading or caring less for their local newspaper (in fact, the plight of the publishing industry has been a hot topic of debate long before we had Google, iPhones and Twitter). We tend to forget how hard the publishing industry lobbied for more attention and care when they began to discover the masses were reading a whole lot less when compared to watching television.
Free news on the Internet is a business model.
Just last week, Le Devoir held a conference in Montreal on the future of independent media as that daily French newspaper celebrates its centenary year. Writing out of the conference, The Gazette's Jason Magder cited Torstar chairman John Honderich as saying that giving away content online has turned out to be "a bad idea." With all due respect to all of the traditional news outlets out there in the word, that's simply not true. Free news online is a very viable business model, and there are many big media publishers making lots of money online offering free news (check out The Huffington Post, Mashable, TMZ, Media Bistro, The Daily Beast and many more).
When looking at how these free, digital-only publishing houses work compared to the traditional news media, the differences are staggering.
From how the journalists are found, managed and paid to the marketing and advertising models, to the actual management infrastructure, one would not be hard-pressed to say that they look nothing like the industry that they inherited and digitized. Maybe the newspaper industry has to look well beyond the current model of simply copying-and-pasting their print content and publishing it online to re-imagining what publishing means in a world where 20 people and a WordPress publishing platform can do the job using text, images, audio and video that it used to take 200 people to do in a fraction of the time and cost.
A Canadian Press article out of the Devoir conference noted, "Part of the rush to offer free content online was spurred by the advent of so-called citizen journalism, touted as a democratic expansion of the media industry to non-professionals. But some argue citizen journalism won't be able to fill the gap left by mainstream outlets who are reducing their operations or closing down altogether. Persephone Miel, who wrote a major Harvard study on online journalism, said most citizen journalism deals with electoral politics, popular culture, technology, and little else. Ignored are more nuanced and weighty topics such as public policy. 'The question is not the survival of the newspaper,' she told an audience at the conference. 'The problem is who is going to produce... the kinds of journalism that isn't getting produced by online publications.'"
The answer might be that news which serves the public good needs to be funded much in the same way education, healthcare, libraries, the police, etc., is handled, and that news doesn't, necessarily, have to be a media format that has both revenue and advertising dollars tied to it. It can simply be something that is supported by the public for the public good. Many pundits (do a quick search for people like Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis and Clay Shirky) have uniformly stated that:
Journalism will survive the institution it was created for.
All of this might sound weird, and you might be wondering what this has to do with your business, but it is all connected. How we communicate, share, and connect is tied to the media channels that keep us informed. As they begin to deal with both the digitization and fragmentation of their industry, you can't help but wonder what will happen when it hits your industry as well (if it hasn't already).
What's your take?
The above posting is my twice-monthly column for the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun newspapers called, New Business - Six Pixels of Separation. I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original versions online here:
Can you imagine a world where Facebook surpasses Google?
"Facebook ruled the Web last week just squeaking past Google to become the most popular online destination among United States users. For the week ending March 13, Facebook claimed 7.07 percent of U.S. Internet visits, while Google was right behind the social network with 7.03 percent, according to metrics firm Experian Hitwise. Compared to the same week in 2009, Facebook visits grew by 185 percent, while Google was comparatively stagnant with a mere 9 percent increase in visits."
That was the news from PC World in the article, It's Official: Facebook Rules the Web, published today. Interesting? Absolutely, but this isn't the first time that Facebook has surpassed Google. It has happened in other instances (like on Christmas Eve and New Year's Day), but this is the first time that the online social network held on to the top spot for an entire week. While online social networking is becoming an ever bigger part of the online diet for consumers, it's unlikely that it can keep a hold on this position. As Ian Paul states in the article, it's doubtful that "we've reached a point where it's more practical to turn to Facebook instead of Google as an important source of information." (all I can do is nod in agreement).
Facebook continues to evolve and change what it means to people and its impact on the media.
We all have the same opportunities. We all have the same channels. We all have access to the same people. It's what we do with them that matters most.
Like an artist, all of our collective canvases start off as a white, blank space. It can be the blank screen of your Blog writing platform, it can be a empty Twitter box waiting for you to answer the question, "What's happening?", it can be a hot microphone just waiting for you to rant and publish a Podcast with, or it can be the moment before you flip on your Flip video cam. How you fill your space is going to determine your level of success (and whatever "success" means to you).
It's not easy.
Yes, anyone can publish their thoughts in text, images, audio and/or video almost instantly (and for free) to the world, but it doesn't mean that everybody is going to be great (or memorable) at it. Some take their time and labour over every single thought, while others seem to be able to constantly (and consistently) publish something of quality with very little preparation as it rolls off their tongues. The talented ones really do have something special going on. The talented ones have the ability to be interesting.
Be interesting.
A lot of the online conversation is about how much one should talk about themselves versus providing valuable content to the community they are trying to build. Some people think there is some kind of mathematical formula to how many times you can talk about yourself versus simply publishing something that adds value to someone else's life. None of that matters. All you have to do is be interesting.
It's not easy to do.
Saying, "it's not easy to be interesting" is actually a very complex thought. Afterall, if the real power of Social Media - and all of these publishing platforms - is to share who you really are and then no one connects with what you're doing, does that mean you're not interesting? Alternatively, if you have to really think about it and be calculated in what you're publishing to try to be interesting, what's the point?
People who are interesting often don't think too much about it. They just are.
That's the real secret: not everyone is interesting (sorry). Some people are more interesting than others (it's true). Some people are super-successful, while other people will struggle their whole lives (sadly). It's what makes us individuals, and it's what makes us the society we are (for better or for worse), but in the end, we all do have this amazing new, white, blank canvas to explore and discover. It's something we've never had before, and it's something we should celebrate.
Don't worry about monetization. Don't worry about community. Don't worry about your traffic. Focus on being interesting. Focus on bringing that white canvas to life.
That was one of the thoughts I perpetrated (just a little bit) in my first business book, Six Pixels of Separation. The intent of that statement meant to say that if someone does steal your ideas, the search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc...) will be the best defence possible (that is if you had already Blogged, Tweeted or published your thoughts for all to see). Someone can try to cop the "Six Pixels of Separation" thing, but a quick search online will easily demonstrate where (and when) that idea originated. Sure, it's not a court of law and no, there is probably little (to no) legal footing with this argument, but the other side is that if your story (or idea) does spreads, people will talk about it, research it and find it (the truth along with it). So, even if someone does rip off your Blog post, anyone worth their salt should be able to quickly see who the creator of that thought, story and/or idea is.
...But stuff happens.
Like it did this past week to my good friend, Bryan Eisenberg (co-author of many great business titles, including Waiting For Your Cat To Bark, Call To Action and Always Be Testing). He recounts the story in his latest ClickZ column, 6 Marketing Secrets Not Worth Sharing: "I have shared presentations in the past, but since I am now focused on being a professional marketing speaker, these slides are a good part of my livelihood, and my paying clients don't want them shared all over the Internet. So when I reviewed this person's newest Webinar presentation, it was a shock to find that 'his' slide titles and content, including many of the images, were essentially the same as mine."
The article tells the story of someone who "adapted" one of Bryan's latest presentations without asking or assigning attribution. In the ClickZ column, Bryan focuses on issues of copyright, the power of online content, how easily "influence" happens online, Internet (and real world) etiquette with our peers, and more. In this instance, I feel Bryan's pain but I'm also reminded of one of Mike Lipkin's lines in his motivational presentations: "my version of copyright is that you have the right to copy." Something tells me Mike would still take issue if someone started promoting themselves as a motivational speaker and used all of his content, but the point is well taken that in this day and age, it is increasingly difficult to protect ideas.
This is changing Marketing and Communications in a very profound way.
Not long ago, the head of strategy, creative, etc... in the Marketing agency was locked in a corner. They were the "secret sauce" of the agency. The black box. The idea generator. The person who brought out their best work for the client only as other agencies and brands watched on and wondered where all of these big ideas were coming from. Now, these artists formerly known as "secret weapons" are openly Blogging, presenting, being interviewed publicly and even tweeting their every creative thought.
Ideas are a dime a dozen these days...
And anyone can grab them, adapt them and tweak them. This must make the value of all of this creativity circle down to zero? Absolutely not. In fact, in this day and age, because of the sheer blunt trauma of content publishing, it's the really great ideas (and the people who present them) that rise to the top. So, in the end, someone tried to copy Bryan's slides and make themselves seem uber-smart. The truth is, that all of the slides and visuals won't save them - just like playing Jeff Beck's guitar and his songs won't make you Jeff Beck. Original ideas come from original people. Original people can't be duplicated. They can be ripped off, but it always comes off as nothing more than a poor, misguided tribute (at best).
What do you think about this? Is locking down your content and ideas a better strategy?
If you're looking for the new rules of Marketing and PR, look no further than the guy who wrote the book on it - literally! David Meerman Scott is not only one of the nicest guys out there, but he had the vision, back in 2006, to write a book titled, The New Rules of Marketing and PR. The book took off like a wildfire and still sits at the top of most business and marketing books best-seller list. The success of this book led to a re-release (with lots of rewrites and updated content) as a second edition - which hit the stores a few months back. In between updating that business book best-seller, Scott also wrote another book about Social Media titled, World Wide Rave, and he's currently publishing many other authors under the publishing banner, The New Rules of Social Media Series, along with his publisher, Wiley. We had the chance to have a conversation about the new landscape of Marketing, Public Relations, Viral Marketing, Social Media and much more. Enjoy the conversation...
You are going to be reading a lot of Blogs in the next little while where the Blogger is either being paid or given free product to shill some wares in their own personal space.
"First, I'm telling you, 'Hey, look! Nikon wants you to see me making their camera take fuzzy shots because I'm not a good photographer, but darn it - they like me!' Second, I'm saying, 'as marketers, take a look at this kind of outreach and ask yourself what's the yield. Believe me, if I somehow magically convince you that even I can use this camera, which is possible maybe, then how many will I be selling?"
Remember, it's not about "how many" people you put your message in front of, it's about "who" you put your message in front of.
Brands need to spend more time understanding the community they serve. Blogs are not a mass media channel. Even the most popular Blogs are really just big niches. Trying to pump a camera (or any product/service) into the hands of a Blogger simply because they have a significant audience is not going to have even close to the same effect as it would if you were to choose a handful of Bloggers with significantly smaller audiences, but who would actually have an appreciation and interest in what your brand is all about. This is also not a case of calling out Nikon for a lack of understanding when it comes to Social Media marketing (full disclosure: Fujifilm is an active client of Twist Image and I don't think anyone in their right mind would question the quality of Nikon cameras or their marketing).
It's about the smaller (not bigger) picture.
Marketing needs to think small (and, while I'm on this kick of pimping Seth Godin books - see yesterday's post: Boring Brands - check out Small Is The New Big). Social Media marketing (and Blogger outreach, in particular) is only going to yield results when a brand can figure out who the real key voices are in Blogs, Podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc... and manages to connect with them, add value to their community and help the overall community be more engaged.
Everything else is just traditional mass media advertising using new channels and platforms (you know, the same kind of stuff that the average consumer attempts to avoid at all costs).
There is no trick or luck in being successful. In fact, success can be created and summed up in two words: be remarkable.
Easier said than done, right? Whether it's being a musician, selling helicopters or developing the next online sensation, the ones that rise to the top are the ones that are remarkable. They are the great ones, the ones that people talk about, and the ones we all wind up cheering for. Seth Godin wrote the perfect business book about this, Purple Cow, and it's an idea that is not lost on best-selling business book author, Tom Peters, either. Peters has a new book out next week titled, The Little Big Things, and in promoting the launch of his latest business book, he has also been publishing some interesting video clips about what it takes to be an amazing brand in our decade.
It's not enough to just be working with Social Media for most brands, they're also looking to build community... but then what?
It's a fair question. The net result for many of the bigger brands is a thought that somehow links a vibrant community to loyalty and spending (hopefully beyond reason). If that is, indeed, the reason that many brands are interested in Social Media Marketing and in building an online community, then what happens after all of this works out? What if you have as many people as possible either following you on Twitter or friending you on Facebook?
What happens next?
For many, the fear is that they will cannibalize the relationship by eventually giving in to their past addictions as they begin spamming the network with promotional offers, discounts and other very traditional mass media marketing tactics. They just wont be able to help themselves. The keepers of the community and the conversation (be it the Marketing, Communications, Public Relations or Business Development departments) need to have some kind of serious game plan. They have to be thinking not only about how they're going to find their next followers and engaged community members, but the direction and conversation that is evolving and how it might, ultimately, end.
All good things must come to an end.
Something else will come along. The tools, channels and platforms will both evolve and dissolve. Nobody likes to talk about it (and it might sound a little sombre and sobering), but it's true. There will come a point where everyone (companies, brands, individuals) is publishing content, rating content, and pushing information out there in text, images, audio and video to the point that it won't be noise, but rather something much busier and messier than noise. Even the best of the aggregators and editors (both humans and technology-powered options) won't help. At the best filtered moment in time, it will still be like trying to drink from a fire hose.
It's not that big of a deal.
Human beings are amazingly resilient and adaptable. As hard as change is, we manage to grapple through it, innovate and deliver some pretty spectacular things. So now, the time has come to start thinking about innovation in Social Media, to start thinking about what happens after we build a loyal (and valuable) community. What does it look like? What's the point of it? How does it meet our business objectives? And - more importantly - how do we keep this community engaged, enthused and excited about being a community?
Sorry, no answers.
This concept is still fresh. It's something we should all grapple with (I am). If we don't start asking these questions, experimenting with the platforms and channels and pushing out our thoughts about where this is all going, then all we'll ever do is rest on our laurels.
Even the most ultimate road warrior and digital nomad needs a break every now and then.
Sure, the latest tech can help you get down to work wherever you are. But time on the road (and in the air) is also the perfect opportunity to let loose and play. Sudoku was never my thing, and lugging around a hardcover of Dan Brown's latest just isn't in the cards. So, in the spirit of March Break, here are two of my favourite ways to kill time when not strapped to e-mail or grappling with a smartphone:
Foursquare. Have you ever dreamt of becoming the mayor of Yorkville or Yaletown? Now is your chance. One of the hottest games, applications and online social networks - yes, it's all three and more - is Foursquare. This app for the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android phones (though it can also be accessed by any mobile device with a browser) allows you to "check in" and tell your friends where you are, so they can recommend where to shop and eat and what to do nearby. As more and more people connect, you learn more about the best spots to frequent, and the more you go to a specific place (and tell your social network), the more status you earn for that locale. And yes, you can be named "mayor" of your favourite bar, restaurant or hotel. You can also receive hyper-local offers (like free appetizers at certain restaurants) and, as with the best of video games, you can unlock badges that give you real-life street cred (and some additional goodies).
Cinemin Swivel. For those of you who'd rather stay in your hotel room, the Cinemin Swivel lets you project a crisp 60-inch image from over eight feet away. This amazing multimedia pico projector is about the size of two packs of cards but still lets you get that movie theatre experience for around $300. It pulls your video files right from your iPod or iPhone (or you can use a VGA-to-AV adapter to connect a laptop). The coolest part about this mini-projector is the 90-degree swivel hinge that makes it simple to project on any surface - even the hotel-room ceiling (full disclosure: WowWee, the manufacturer of Cinemin Swivel, was a client of Twist Image).
What would you recommend to the road warriors and digital nomads for this March Break?
"In January 2010, 25.1 million mobile users accessed Facebook via their mobile browser, up 112% from 11.8 million mobile users in January 2009. While only 4.7 million mobile users accessed Twitter from their mobile browser in January 2010, this represented 347% growth from 1.05 million mobile users in January 2009."
It's easy to say the shift is subtle (especially when you look at the amount of people who own a BlackBerry, iPhone or Nexus One compared to those who are simply "online"), but it's happening fast, and it's not just about having a mobile version of your website (more on that here: The End Of Big Website Builds). What's happening is that consumers aren't thinking about your online website and your mobile website, they're simply looking to access content and platforms wherever they are and however they want to.
It's not about the kids (at all).
"Despite the stereotype of teens spending every waking moment on a mobile device, Nielsen data suggests their parents actually spend more time performing mobile web surfing. Only 7% of mobile social networking activity was represented by 13-to-17-year-olds and only 16% by 18-to-24-year-olds in December 2009. The leaders in mobile social networking activity are 35-to-54-year-olds, who accounted for 36% of mobile social network usage in December 2009. Close behind them were 25-to-34-year-olds, who performed 34% of the month's mobile social networking activity. Users ages 55 and up combined for the remaining 7%."
What do you think these numbers are going to look like in 12 months time? What about 24 months?
The Ninja (aka Christopher S. Penn) talks about his new gig at Blue Sky Factory, but the main thrust of the conversation is about what happens to a company when someone with a major personal brand (like Ninja had for the financial aid industry) leaves and starts in another industry? What happens to the brand? How trusted is the personal brand of the individual? Along with that we graze through a bunch of topics from mobile and iPhone apps to the pending launch of the iPad. We even take a sneak peek at where C.C. Chapman won't be during SXSW (hint: it's in line waiting to get into parties) and have a chat about the power of email for Marketers (and where it's going), plus lots more. Enjoy the conversation...
If you thought fragmentation was changing the way a brand buys media, just wait until you see what it's going to do to the Digital Marketing space.
Are the days of big websites and long website builds numbered? It could well be. If you think about how people find and connect to most brands, it's not just through a search engine anymore. In fact, more and more people are having their first brand interaction on their mobile device. There are many people who are also connecting to brands for the first time in spaces like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
Does this mean that the website is going the way of the dodo bird?
Not exactly, but it does mean that the overall Digital Marketing strategy is going to change dramatically in the next little while. Instead of one, big and centralized website with many digital marketing outposts in the appropriate platforms, it is more than likely that we're going to see more and more brands create multiple spaces and platforms to ensure that they're connecting with the right people in the right communities.
Imagine a world...
Where a Digital Marketing strategy focuses less on one big website and more on creating engaging "things" like iPhone apps, a mobile website, a Facebook page along with a Blog (or whatever), and it's all supported with a simple website that acts more like a hub for all of the other spokes. Yes, there are some (only a few) brands already playing with creating Facebook pages in lieu of micro-sites for promotions and experiential marketing initiatives, but it has not become a commonplace activity where you find a brand doing multiple things in multiple channels and focusing less on driving consumers to their marketing-riddled jargony websites.
It becomes a more complex Digital Marketing play.
The "game" used to be about always driving people back to your own, controlled, website, and the truth is that the more vibrant community for a brand may be happening more through a mobile app or online social network platform... or something else or something in addition to it. Does this mean we need to trim websites back to WordPress Blog-shaped platforms or micro-site sizes? Not really, but it does mean that if a brand's vibrant community is happening in a place like Facebook, they won't have much control or ownership over the content, but they might be able to do things (in terms of connecting and growing that community) that they could not scale to with a big, towering website of their own.
This is just further proof that the conversations are everywhere (and maybe not where we always want them to be).
There are moments in time that should make you stand back in awe and marvel at technology. This is one of those moments.
Engadget posted this today: Microsoft's Courier 'digital journal': exclusive pictures and details (update: video!). No, it's not an iPad, but it is one amazing looking device. So, what is this new device from Microsoft? "Courier will function as a 'digital journal,' and it's designed to be seriously portable: it's under an inch thick, weighs a little over a pound, and isn't much bigger than a 5x7 photo when closed. That's a lot smaller than we expected," reads the Engadget Blog post.
Imagine this scenario: you are walking along one of your favourite streets and you suddenly receive a text message on your mobile phone. It notifies you that your favourite fast-food burger chain has a joint just up the block, and if you come on in, they are willing to throw in a medium-size fries and bottomless jolts of free cola with the purchase of a hamburger.
People seem to get all excited about the GPS capabilities of the mobile device. We were told that the ability for your mobile phone to know exactly where you are would become a bastion for marketers to deliver relevant and targeted information to you based on your specific location. Like the fast food example above, to some this is the exact type of marketing they're looking for: something relevant and targeted. For others, this is their worst nightmare: more inane messaging through yet another channel.
Years ago, there were hints and promises of technologies that would know where you were and if/when you had opted in, they would send you messages, offers or opportunities, based on your location, the time of day and a few other targeted variables. It was pushed even further with something called LBS (short for Location Based Services). Imagine signing up for text messages from your favourite music artist so you can be notified when they are coming to your town and how you can buy tickets. On top of that, on the day of the event, the actual artist is sending out highly personal messages about their day in your city - where they are eating, what they're up to after the show, and even which songs they practised during sound check. This type of content not only brings you closer to the artist, but it feels highly personal.
In each instance, these types of technologies and marketing platforms did come to fruition, but they're happening in platforms that are both mobile and Web-based - they are platform agnostic and the revenue model is not as clear as paying for every text message.
Think about Twitter (where individuals follow other individual's 140-character text-based thoughts/messages): while you don't have to specifically sign up via text messaging, you can get your tweets in a common Web browser, through a mobile browser, iPhone/BlackBerry/Android apps or even by subscribing to them via SMS. What's curious about the success of Twitter is the propensity of its users to choose the mobile platform over the Web platform.
For years, tech enthusiasts and marketing pundits have wondered when the mobile and Web platforms would converge, and the truth of the matter is it may have already happened.
With all of that comes some pretty scary stuff, too. We're putting a ton of private information in online social networks, and it's not hard to connect the dots between what we're posting on Facebook, what we're tweeting about on Twitter and where we're presently located via Foursquare. With the Silicon Valley and Twitteratti crowd, Foursquare seems to be the new New Media darling. Foursquare users use their mobile device to "check in" when they're at any location and to leave notes, tips or suggestions. Upon checking in and doing repetitions of multiple activities, users are awarded points, badges and can even be named virtual "mayor" of specific locations. It's highly addictive and picking up tremendous steam in the online world.
Marketers and businesses are also reaping the rewards of Foursquare's amazing growth by offering very special and limited promotions to people who are checking into their specific location or somewhere nearby.
And now for the scariest part: Please Rob Me was launched a short while ago (it was also discussed on this episode of Media Hacks: SPOS #191 - Media Hacks #25). Through a simple and free online search, this website was able to identify individuals who had "checked in" to a location (meaning that they were no longer at home) while cross-referencing that information with related "friends" who have "checked in" to that individual's home in the past: essentially being able to list the name and address of someone who is not home. The site received so much attention in the past month that it recently said it is looking to turn over the website to a "professional foundation, agency or company that focuses on raising awareness, helping people understand and provide answers to online privacy related issues."
So, while you may be concerned about getting an unwanted text message about free french fries, you may want to first consider how much personal content you're actually publishing online as we move toward more location-aware environments and online social networks, and as more of these platforms publish their content for all to see.
We tend to lump all industries who rely on print in the same (soon-to-be-extinct) boat as the newspaper industry.
Those who have been playing along at home know that we're not quite ready to order the tombstone on newspapers (or the print industry), but the world is shifting, moving and changing at a rapid pace. Don't believe me? Check out the upcoming digital edition of Wired Magazine (Is This The Future Of Publishing?). Along with that, Samir Husni (also known as Mr. Magazine), posted this interesting initiative from the magazine industry: YouTube - Magazines - The Power To Print.
Be hopeful. Be cynical.
Everything is "with" not "instead of". It's stupid to think that Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, etc... is the reason that the magazine industry feels that it has to defend what it is (along with some interesting stats). I love magazines. I love the content, design, look and feel (and yes, even the advertising), but there is no doubt that the magazine industry is going through tremendous change and flux (even with the great numbers they're pimping in this video). The opportunity is there for the magazine industry (much like it is/was for the music industry, newspaper industry, film industry, book publishing industry, etc...). The question (as is always the case) is:
Will the magazine industry be able to see these New Media channels as an opportunity to evolve and grow?
(side note: on Samir's blog post, Start spreading the news: Print is NOT dead..., there was a comment from Jen: "If this story is best told in print, why are they telling it on a YouTube video?")
Have you ever wondered why there is such a struggle to build a sense community around the Digital Marketing initiatives you are developing?
It goes well beyond the famous movie line, "build it and they will come" from Field of Dreams. There is one, critical, piece of the puzzle that most Marketers and self-proclaimed "Community Managers" forget: it's not about what's happening on your space as much as it is about what you're doing on the communities that serve your industry and space.
You will have no semblance of community unless you are an active community member in the other spaces.
If I had to do this all over again and start from scratch right now, what would I do? Without question, I would start a Blog and fill it with relevant and valuable content for the community, but I would spend ten times as much time adding value to the five or ten existing communities where my potential members might be hanging out, reading and connecting. It's not a ploy and it's not a trick, I would do this because I am interested and want to engage with the other community members. I would also be hopeful that those community members would be appreciative of my contributions and take a chance on checking out what I'm up to on my own space.
Give more than you get.
Some people hear that and think it's about giving more on their own space (Blogging more or tweeting more). Big mistake. The "win" (if you can even call it that) is to give away more on the existing/other communities and spaces. To be valuable and relevant there. It does seem so counterintuitive at first blush. The idea is to populate and add value to someone's else's platform and community? Yes. Hugh McGuire (from Librivox, Bite-Sized Edits and a co-host on the Media Hacks) said it beautifully and succinctly: "don't Blog to be known... Blog to be knowable." It's subtle... and it's true.
The community decides when it's a community... you don't.
When you are an active member of an existing community, they will, if everything goes well, become proud participants and members of your community. They don't owe it to you, and just because you created a platform doesn't give you explicit rights to any community. As mentioned here, there and everywhere, community is something that is earned after time and value. Community is not something that happens when you need it, it's something that you build over time that is suddenly there for you, when you need it.
If you want to build a community - be an active community member everywhere else first... and mean it.
Marketers are just scumbags. Sound familiar? Do you think that's a fair assessment?
Let's be honest, the art of marketing started with a bunch of people in a room trying to figure out how to say something great about a product or service that was probably just mediocre (or even sub-par). As the industry evolved, grew and adapted to newer forms of media and advertising, that whole process seemed to have magnified.
Because of this, it should come as no surprise that everyday people simply don't trust Marketers.
And, if they don't trust Marketers, why would anyone want to become a professional Marketer? In fact, could you even give Marketers a professional designation if this is the way people feel about them? If you looked at some of the more popular professions, Marketing sits right at the bottom of the list, alongside used car salesperson, lawyers and other "undesirables." Things have changed over the years.
Things have to change for Marketing right now.
I love Marketing. I love being a Marketer. I am proud to be a Marketer. The truth of the matter is that Social Media has changed business, and in changing business it has changed marketing. Products and services have to be good in today's world. If they're not, they get called out. If they get called out (and enough people listen), these brands get buried. Marketing is no longer about just shilling wares. It's a true challenge to figure out what the story is? Why consumers care for a brand? Why they share their passion with everyone they know? It's become a serious business challenge. It's become a real (and important) function of business. Marketing touches almost every aspect of business and how it runs.
Be proud to be a Marketer.
We are finally in a day and age where it's not simply about creating a message and pushing it out to four channels ad nauseam until you submit the viewers into buying whatever it is that you are selling. Real Marketing (and yes, Marketing is real) is about how the product is created, why it matters, how to price it and how to service it. It's also about how to make these stories spread, how to get people to really care, and how to keep them loyal.
Marketing matters.
I spend a lot of professional and personal time talking about Marketing. I don't do this because I simply want brands to put more money into the Digital Marketing channels, I do this because I want Marketing to be taken seriously. I want young people in university to see Marketing as a viable and proud profession to pursue. I want more and more people to feel what I feel about this amazing industry.
What can we do together to make Marketing matter more?
Libcast.com est une plate-forme d'hébergement et diffusion de podcasts. Que vos enregistrements soient au format audio, vidéo ou autre, Libcast vous offre les meilleurs outils pour en assurer une popularité maximale : mesure d'audience de votre podcast, encodage audio et vidéo optimisé pour le web et pour les baladeurs, gestion d'un blog multimédia pour afficher votre podcast sur le web, module de référencement dans les meilleurs annuaires de podcasts... Inscrivez-vous gratuitement pour tester Libcast.com
