This quote kills me… “I tire of your analogue attitude…”
Beware that this is somewhat of a NSFW video, but there are some pretty factual things in this.
Category Archives: Social Media marketing
Can you go left?
In basketball, there is a term that really separates the wheat from the chaffe so to speak, and it’s all based on a person’s ability to dribble the ball and to a certain degree, shoot the ball.
Fundamentally, those are 2 very important aspects of basketball. Shooting and dribbling right? So what enhances those 2 skills? Well if you’re right handed, chances are you will dribble with your right hand and you will shoot with your right hand and you will favor the right side of the court.
From a marketing, and social media marketing standpoint. You will play to your strengths. You will go or you always go with your right hand. With what you already know.
Now back to the hoop court. The most dangerous players are those with enhances skills and abilities. These are players who have a “handle” and…can go left. In other words, as they are going down the court, they can dribble with their left hand or right with ease, and shoot with either hand as well.
They can change hands on the fly and not skip a beat. They can adapt to any situation because they have the skills to do so. Were they born with those skills? Chances are they were not. They trained and they practiced. But you don’t see that part. You just see the finished product.
One of the first things a coach looks for in an up and coming player is whether the player has a “handle” with his left hand. Can that player go left? It takes about a minute to assess and if you have 100 kids for example, trying out for 12 spots, it quickly becomes one of the main determinants.
Why is this important? Without the ability to dribble with your left hand, you essentially cut the court in half. It becomes useless, You can never go over to that half of the court because you cannot dribble with your left hand. So you favor the right side-all the time. I repeat all the time.
The same applies to social media and marketing, you will lose unless you can bring more to the table than the next person. Oh, and you better be able to back it up.
Just as it is on the court, shit talkin’ can only take you so far and at some point, you have to start walkin’ it.
So how bad do you want it? What skill sets are you bringing to the table? Can you enhance what you already know? Do you always go to your right?
The Social Media Maze
Did you ever read the book, “Who moved my cheese?”
It is the story of four characters living in a “Maze” who face unexpected change when they discover their “Cheese” has disappeared. Now think about your journey of discovery with social media. Doesn’t it somewhat work in the same way? You keep looking and searching for the right fit for your needs regardless of whether you are a business or individual?
At some point, the social network, tool, or service ends up either not delivering what you want, or what you need, so you embark on the journey of finding the next best thing out there. Lots of dead ends, but you keep going.
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Social media is free…but I’m not
It’s been one of those days… so I’m going to allow myself just a wee bit of time before I snap out of it. I’m going to vent. It started this morning when I heard back from a prospective client who liked the 5 page social media strategy overview document but…
The “but” was they wanted more specific details on what I was going to do. I told them that I would give them the specifics in time. but that I thought that it was important that they understand the how and the why before we got into the how to and the what for. I did this because we’re talking about a client that knows virtually nothing about social media.
If I would have given them the latter, 2 things would have happened. 1) It would have been so over their head that they would have not understood and probably bailed and or 2) Believe it or not, they could take the document and either try and implement it themselves, or use it as a blueprint with another company and leverage their new found knowledge. You might not think that happens, but it does, as well as some other things Why?
The ease of entry into social media is less than zero. I can sign up for a majority of social networks in less than a minute. I can create social profiles in less time. So the assumption with a lot of companies and people is, “What is so hard about being social”? or creating a Facebook page, or a Twitter profile?and you know what? They are right. It’s easy.
Boom.
The thinking is really as simple as the majority of social interfaces that you see. Just create a profile and now you’re part of the social media revolution. You don’t need a consultant or a company to tell you how to do this. It’s easy. Plus there’s all of these killer blogs and sites with free information on social media, all these free tools, you can just figure all of it out on your own.
Sure. You can figure it out until it falls flat and you have one comment on your blog post. You have 19 registered members in your community, or you have 5,000 followers and you’re following 5,000 but you have 111 tweets and zero conversations. Or maybe that Facebook page of yours has 56 fans but is doing nothing else. Or the YouTube video you made, has driven approximately 24 views. When stuff is free, you get what you paid for.
There are some seriously smart people in this space. I value what they do and say and we value what we do and say, and we value what we create. But we also are working for a living. As much as we would like to give it away, we can’t. As it stands, the majority of people in this space, give away a lot. In fact, the amount of time that a lot of the social media marketing people that I know, give away, is extreme. In terms of amounts of their time and resources-there is not a more giving bunch. That’s the essence of social media.
But… at the end of the day, bills have to be paid and you’re going to have to take that leap of faith.
I’m done venting.
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Social Media Conundrum #13…The tools
Practical, useful, functional, sensible…
Those are all synonyms of a word that best fits social media. I’ll let you in on that word at the end of this.
I think sometimes we like to have things that look pretty, but don’t really perform that well, and yet we have tendency to accept it. We shrug our shoulders and we incorporate the time suck and the inconvenience into our daily routine. I’m sure we can all think of products or services in social media that we bought or downloaded that had a lot of slick features, but at the end of the day, just didn’t work. But we stayed with it. Why? Because we were told it was the thing to do or have.
At the end of the day, we just needed it to do X instead of A through X. Even though K throught X doesn’t even work anyway without an upgrade.
Initially, we suffer for beauty, until we learn that practicality can go a long way in online marketing and social media success.
Social media tools and sites are, at their core, about creating and enhancing the way we communicate with friends and strangers. The essence isn’t so much about how I say it and where I say it, as it is about what I say and to whom. It’s usefulness is only useful if you’re using it. We use the tools of social media to enhance and simplify and extend our communication and marketing efforts to customers, clients and friends and relatives. It’s a utility, and we use it as such. Whether we know it or not.
What’s my point?
Practical, useful, functional, and sensible can go a long way in social media. They also can a long way in enhancing the relationships with your customers and your clients. They don’t and you don’t for that matter, need the snake oil, the spam and the bullshit pitch. They need a social media solution or tool that is practical, useful, functional and makes sense for their employees, their company and their customers. So give it to them. and give it to yourself. Use what works.
The word?
Its Utilitarian.
Social media is utilitarian.
Do you agree?
Social Media Conundrum #62 False assumptions.
I was in a meeting yesterday with a highly respected group of people running a very notable local organization. It was a follow up meeting to a social media marketing pitch made by a business associate from another company. I was enlisted as the wingman. In a sense, I was the muscle, or the validator, or better yet, the street cred. The initial meeting with this group could not have gone any better. The plan(s) and the views offered in that first meeting were warmly embraced. There was a caveat though. They wanted more. They wanted specific details on how to roll it out. Fair enough. All positive signs.
Then I relaxed and let me friend down.
I assumed she had it under control; when I should have helped her to dig deep and develop a detailed more specific and actionable social media marketing plan. I didn’t.
Our meeting was pushed back, which pushed it further out of my collective conscience. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
I should have had her back. I was her wingman right? No excuse on my part. I should have really looked at the follow up document that she had crafted, and picked holes in it, but I didn’t. I should have thought about and anticipated the “push back” from the group, but I didn’t.
And they pushed back. As nicely as they could. But they pushed. They essentially came back with saying, “There’s not enough here”. And then they talked about ROI…and how they wanted to see it. And we, me? her? Didn’t map back precisely enough on what we were going to measure and how it was going to be measured. I assumed we’d get there, after they had said yes…
Could I have jumped all over their ROI concern? You betcha. And clearly here was my chance to pounce. and I didn’t. Because in a sense it was right there for the taking. I just assumed…
The bottom line is I barely uttered a word. Part of me wanted to and I sort of said something, but it was barely audible. I needed to be her calming voice in the storm of measurable ROI. I wasn’t. Subconsciously, I didn’t want to dominate her show, but I also didn’t want to engage in a lengthy discussion in the conference room at that time over the merits of social media measurement. Or maybe that is the place and time to have that discussion?
No it isn’t. It would take too long. And, in a sense, they were right. It will be the case of every single encounter that one has when trying to pitch and trying to win social media marketing contracts.
What are you going to do? How are you going to measure it? and what will be the results?
Assume nothing.
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Your Ah-Ha Moment
The definition of resonance: A quality of richness or variety: A quality of evoking response. In social media, we enter into a social network and we initially don’t know what to do and how to do it. But what eventually happens is that the noise starts to diminish as we slowly are able to find our way. We find out niche, we find out people, the ones we connect with. And what happens at the end or the beginning depending on how you choose to look at it, is what I like to call social media resonance.
Has it happened to you yet? Is social media resonating with you yet? Have you had your Ah-Ha moment yet?
Social Media conundrum #714. Are relationships campaigns?
Maybe some of you are missing the point.
I think some of you are thinking that social media is this:
If you build it…blah, blah, blah…
But if we look at the offline equivalent of online relationships, you wouldn’t do this.
Waiting for the phone to ring?
The same holds true online and in social media. Whether you are connecting or you are creating, or you are immersing yourself in culture. It takes work. It takes a leap of faith and it takes a belief that it’s all worth it. And once it starts, it doesn’t stop.
But decide right now. Whether you are a company or a small business owner or an individual. What is your commitment going to be? And, what do you want to get out of it? We all have a notion of what we want to get out of any engagement. Social media is no exception. Beth Harte has put together a wonderful Slideshare of this thought which she presented to a packed room at Social South this past week. Essentially saying, social media requires planning and measurement.
But couldn’t you say that about relationships? You don’t enter into a relationship blindly, and you certainly have expected or anticipated outcomes of your involvement and committment to that relationship. Right? Look at Slide #13 of Jason Falls presentation on The Marketing of Unmarketing and see if you can figure out what these people are referring to.
Once people get past the…
“You had me at hello”…
It’s time to roll up your sleeves and understand that social media and the realtionships YOU will create are not a campaign. But you knew that right?
17 things that a social media consultant, agency or customer can’t do for you.
This started as a post that was born out of frustration. After about 4 rewrites, I have softened it enough that it now speaks as a document that the client, the consultant and the agency can speak to when they begin talking to each other. I have not even covered strategy, objectives, scope or expectations, but at least we have a starting point.
This is not meant to be snarky, ok maybe a little, but it is meant to be somewhat of a cautionary post as well. Part of it being that I have made most of the mistakes myself. I’ve learned from them and yet, I still make them, because what I am still learning is that no two clients are alike. The dynamics are not called the dynamics for nothing! Feel free to add to them as well.
- A social media consultant or agency can’t teach you to “do a blog”.-Just because they want you to do it, doesn’t mean you can. It’s not right for every business but let’s say it is. You just might not have been built for it. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just that the assumption can’t be made that everyone is capable of writing a compelling blog with compelling content.
- A social media consultant or agency can’t teach you to do “social media”. You don’t do social media. If you’re an SMB or department head and you hear that, look at your phone and say you have to take this call..
- A social media consultant or agency can’t teach you how to write for SEO, the User, AND for Social. It’s not easy, it’s time intensive, and not for the faint of heart and probably not in their DNA. Though it is a great quality to possess. If they are asking or expecting you to, be afraid, be very afraid.
- A social media consultant or agency can’t teach you to understand the relationship between search and social. Why? It’s an art as much as it is science and to be honest, why should they? It’s not what they do! Should you take the time to at least understand the dynamics? Yes.
- A social media consultant or agency can’t, won’t, or might not teach you to understand when it’s appropriate to not to do something with social media. Why? It’s not in their best interests. What you might not hear is that some aspects of social media are just not right for every business. Let’s not jam round pegs into square holes just for the sake of getting the business. As a decision maker always ask why. It’s you’re right. Which leads to #6.
- A social media consultant or agency won’t teach you to understand the why. Why? Because they don’t really care about theory, they might not get it, nor do they want to spend time educating you. You need to take the time yourself to understand the why. Preferably before they come calling. Make them squirm. Dazzle them with your knowledge.
- A social media consultant or agency can’t teach you to know when not to pimp your stuff. Why? Because if you think it’s the right thing to do and you’re a traditional marketer, chances are, you’re going to do it anyway. Like the analogy of the actor who thinks he always has to be “on” when he’s in public. You don’t always have to pimp your stuff.
- A social media consultant or agency can’t teach you to be yourself. They can tell you, they just can’t teach you. You will figure out that being authentic goes a lot further than #7.
- A social media consultant or agency can’t teach you how to have real conversations. You know the difference, really…you do! You have them at the dinner table every night. That’s real.
- A social media consultant or agency can’t teach you how to have real online conversations that result in business. Slightly different from #7 but no less impactful or important. The gist being that you can’t force the action.
- A social media consultant or agency can’t teach you how to not be disingenuous. You’ll find out real quick how this one works. It’s generally when you learn what the word flame means in the online world and the only voice you hear is youw own.
- A social media consultant or agency can’t teach you how to not be overt and blatant with your marketing message. Why? You’ll think that it’s the right thing to do to, until you see otherwise. See #10
- A social media consultant or agency can’t teach you to have your “ah-ha” moment, you’ll know when it happens. You will have it. Though they may have the skills to set up a moment for you, they’re more fun when you have them on your own time.
- Agencies can’t teach patience and perseverance- they don’t care. That’s not their business model. Though that is a cornerstone element of social media.
- A social media consultant or agency can’t teach you to want it- if you don’t want it, then you won’t want it…this speaks to #17
- A social media consultant or agency can’t teach you to write FBML why? Because chances are they don’t know what it is. They will just outsource it
- A social media consultant or agency can’t teach you how to “be social”…You just have to try.
Hopefully you can’t take these nuggets for what they are-lessons learned.
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Don’t be a Social Media Dick…
Wanna know something great about social media? If you’re a dick (in the slang sense), eventually people will know it. Why? Because of the transparent nature of the platforms and its associated tools. You see, if you hang yourself out there far enough, your personality starts to show. Take Twitter for example. If you Tweet long enough, patterns start to form. Just like in grade school, high school and college and at your work. You start to see the personalities of the people that you “hang with” every day.
I used to say and still do, that you can determine the true personality of someone by how they carry themselves in sports. Be it on the basketball court, the golf course, a pick up game, anything. If you act like a jerk, then it will show. If you bust your ass, people notice. if you’re a team first type of person, people notice. If you’re a dick, people notice. Well guess what? The same holds true in social media.
Here’s the thing though. In this uber networked world we now live in. You really don’t want the tag of being “the dick”, or even “that bitch”, for that matter. No one wants to work with those types of people, no one wants to hang with those types of people and no one certainly wants to hire or refer that kind of person.
For those that might be the aformentioned, It’s not about trying not to please everyone either; and it’s not about being hard or cool or contrarian. Or trying to have this badass persona. You don’t have to. it’s boring and childish. It’s about being real. and being a realist. Look, we’re all scratching and clawing for the same things here, but if I felt the need to write this, well then you can pretty much figure out that something must be awry.
There’s a term that we should all strive for and one that I think is the ultimate compliment that can be given to someone. If someone says that you are “good people”, consider it the equivalent of being knighted. For someone to say that you are “good people” means that you treat people fairly, you’re generally nice to everyone, and everyone is on equal footing with you and vice versa. It doesn’t get any better than that. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have your moments, we all have them. But for the most part, you’re a solid citizen. In this case, the offline world can and should mirror the online world.
In social media, you can tell pretty quickly and pretty easily who the good people are. Even more so, you can eventually tell who the dicks are. Don’t be one.
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Direct Marketing Observations 