Leverage Multi-Social Media Platforms to Tell Stories

Posted on July 28, 2011 by marc meyer

The emergence of transmedia storytelling over the past decade has lead to or created some unique opportunities in social media. First, let me back up and quickly explain what transmedia is to the uninitiated and in full disclosure mode I hadn’t really heard of the term up untila few weeks ago, but I dig the term.

Transmedia, according to Henry Jenkins a professor at USC is “the art of conveying messages themes or storylines to mass audiences through the artful and well planned use of multiple media platforms”

Multiple media platforms. Boom.

So let’s think through that quickly about the multiple platforms that you, me, and your organization can now use to convey your key message themes: Blogs, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Forums, Websites, QR Codes, Group Buying sites, and LBS( location based sites)-to name but a few.

Transmedia is a cool word, and though I’ve not used it that much, the important line or word for me from the above ethereal definition is this. It’s all about story telling. A good friend once told me that we shouldn’t sell as much as we should tell stories, and you know what?

He’s right. We should tell more stories.

What’s cool is that digital media’s variety of platforms allow people and companies, equally, the ability, though some do not take advantage of it, to do just that-tell stories. Rich stories. The advent of open source blogging platforms like a Drupal or a WordPress, and the creativity that Youtube has allowed, have given users the ability to tell these rich verdant stories of their lives, our lives, and the myriad ways in which they touch us and we connect with them.

That’s cool.

So where is the opportunity? There are good marketers and Ad people that make a difference digitally. Not all of them are in it to use CGI to create a talking dog to sell a can of beans. The story tellers are the one’s leveraging the power of digital. These are people toeing the line of brilliant social and visual creativity who are going out and telling stories that open our senses, our eyes, our ears and cause us to respond in a mutual dialogue.

That’s part social media and part real life. It’s real people telling real stories of their lives, their experiences and their challenges to each other and sometimes its not pretty. It’s social cinema verite’. It’s story telling.

Quit selling and go tell stories.

The Google+ Conundrum

Posted on July 20, 2011 by marc meyer

It’s not a conundrum. It’s a logjam. If you’ve been in the social space for any amount of time now, you have seen Google’s “other” attempts at going/being social. Google Sidewiki, Google Wave, Google Buzz and in each case, the premise was clear but the execution not so. So now we have Google + and it may have a chance but…

What you need to understand in this social space is that the longer they(Google, Facebook, MSN, Apple, Yahoo, et al) can keep you in network, the better. That means providing you with the business services, tools, entertainment outlets and peripherals that can casually prevent you from thinking you need to use another service or site to achieve said service or tool.

Which leads us back to Google + and the logjam. Google + is cool, it may even fill a need, but is it a Facebook killer? No. It will fill a need, and it’s ability to link your email connections into “social” Circles is a no brainer, but here is the bigger problem. The majority of people on a social network right now are on Facebook. Google is hoping, asking, assuming that maybe you want to leave Facebook for a “better” experience. Google is betting on you willing to reset your “socialness”.

Let’s say you currently use Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Ping, and half a dozen lesser social enabled sites; that really doesn’t leave much time to have a physical, in-body, face to face experience, Does it? So, someone has to suffer, someone has to lose. It’s been said that Google has 10 million new users in Plus in the first 2 weeks. Is that the new shiny thing effect? You betcha! Should Facebook be worried? No.

The only thing Facebook will do is evaluate the features that Google+ has created, see if any of them make sense for Facebook users-and then they’ll recreate them for Facebook users. In Goggle +’s defense, They will create a decent fan base of loyal and ardent users, but a social networking behemoth? No. Google just needs to identify waters that are cluttered with…other logs and stay out of them.

Who’s making the rules in social media?

Posted on July 15, 2011 by marc meyer

I know it sounds like I’m bucking the system right? Or I’m challenging authority. Or I’m that guy who says, why are we doing it this way on his first day on the job… But here is where my head is at. Back in the Oh so heady dot com bubble days I became part of a very large team working on a startup. I remember thinking I had died and gone to heaven-I mean it was a dot com, I was going to be able to retire by the time I was 35. I came into the project mid-stream and yet the product had essentially been built. And I remember that very first day that I got a look at the site that it wasn’t right.

The reason? Simply put, a bunch of software engineers and developers built a system in which they assumed they knew what the user wanted without really asking. There was zero intuitiveness to it and I remember asking anyone willing to listen-How do they know the users will want this? Blink…Blink…

Let’s fast forward 11 years. I’m in a meeting in which I was talking to a bunch of department heads about the major social platforms, I alluded to Twitter in particular and how it has changed. The interface has not really changed and the “way” you’re supposed to use it functionally speaking has not changed-but the way in which we actually use it has-Dramatically. You see, when Twitter was first created it was meant to be a way to update people on what you were doing quickly right? Remember this comment from the naysayers? “Why do I care what someone had for lunch?” For the most part, the way it was built and the way it was intended to be used held fast. But…

What has changed is that we the users have redefined how we use Twitter. We have decided that Twitter is a great way to share links, to share content and to consume content. Sure you can have those short staccato like conversations, but we have chosen to use it in another way that suits are needs and desires. It is now purely a content consumption and content push platform. That’s not to say that Twitter is not good for conversations any longer, but obviously what Twitter has done for us, for them and for the Google+’s and the Facebook’s of the world, is that it has defined a new action that has been woven into the fabric of our social lives. The action of sharing a piece of digital content in the form of a link. Pure and simple.

In the evolution of social, we might say that first it was blogs in which the written word was used in long form, then Twitter in short form, followed quickly by Facebook who then realized that Twitter was onto something so they borrowed the Twitter stream idea… The underlying theme in all of this is that we, the users have determined what we want from our social networks and how we will use them-and not the engineers. Although I still have a problem with the narrowness of defining what the social actions must look like or be called, i.e. “likes”, “friending”, and “follows”-We still have the power to really define them in the ways that we want to treat them.

The biggest mystery however lies with marketers trying to get inside the heads of the users to determine how they can turn them into loyal brand advocates. Stay tuned.

The Rub of Social Ubiquity

Posted on July 12, 2011 by marc meyer

Sometimes we just want to “lay low”. Sometimes we just want to pull back and do nothing. Sometimes we just don’t want to post, share, update, comment, tweet, or chat. We just want to be. However, as each day goes by, we’re starting to see that social doesn’t sleep. The digital footprint isn’t necessarily in sand.

Social ubiquity, unfortunately doesn’t know what laying low means. With the advent of Google+ and Facebook’s landgrab of all things social, we’re edging towards an age where we all can be found at any time. Our digital footprint is becoming one which isn’t etched in sand but more like one cast in clay and concrete. What we all need to understand though, is that Google, Facebook and Microsoft want to keep us in network, 24 seven 365. This starts with a social network and then extends to email, to docs, to phone calls, to commerce, to video and beyond. Every one of these “actions” has or will have a social component attached to it. If it hasn’t already.

So where do we go once we’re reached that saturation? We “retreat” and we “treat” social as a utility. It becomes part of the fabric of our lives that we use in moderation knowing that we CAN use it 24 seven 365, but we don’t. We will eventually become more identified by the social networks that we use all the time but right now we’re still deciding what camp we want to be in, while the big 3 try to figure out what we want.

Engagement is not a Like or a Follow

Posted on June 28, 2011 by marc meyer

You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.

A handshake is nothing but a handshake. It can be about meeting for the first time, it can about seeing someone again, and it can mean that we are in agreement. At the end of the day, it’s what’s “behind” the action that defines the action. The same holds true for the word engagement.

At some point over the past few years social media has caused us to redefine the term “engagement” to mean something more than what it really means. Or is it less? We actually have “dumbed” down the term engagement. For some, and it may be brands that are more guilty of this than others, engagement is viewed as garnering a “Like” or a “Follow”. It’s not conversations, it’s not discussions, nor is it customer centric inquiries. Some brands are collecting Likes and Followers at rapid rates and then are telling everyone who will listen, that they are engaged with X amount of customers on social networks.

Uhhhh. No. You’re treating and collecting people like they are baseball cards. When was the last time you had a meaningful conversation with a baseball card?

Just as social media has redefined what a “friend” is, so is it that “fan”, “like”, and “follower” mean something completely different than it did 10 years ago. We can now add “engagement” to that list. Quit treating the accumulation of fans, likes and followers like it’s an arms race and assuming that you are engaged with these people. From now on you must apply a new rule. You’re not engaged with that person on a social network until you have had 3 conversations or interactions with them that are longer than one word sound bites.

What Does Corporate America Fear the Most with Social Media?

Posted on June 23, 2011 by marc meyer

Every one likes to be in control. Including corporate America, and yet that is their greatest fear with social media. Loss of control. They fear the digitally enabled employee-The digital native. They fear the new found empowerment of an existing employee and the new hires that have expectations around the company being truly social and digital. What we are slowly starting to see, is an underlying assumption that access to social networks is a right and not a privilege; and as we hurl into a new decade-this expectation will only continue to grow.

Remember how email initially was viewed within an organization and how we treat it now? First it was feared that email would sap productivity and now it’s a utility we can’t do without…

For a growing few, there is an understanding and realization of the power and necessity of social within an organization. Some of the likely examples that you may be aware of, are of course Zappos, Cisco, Dells, Best Buy, Home Depot, P&G, for example. All great poster children for corporate social success and the list continues to expand. Those companies are the ones that get it; but interestingly enough what you are never told about these companies, is that they too probably struggled early on, both internally and externally. They too probably had their fair share of resistant or skeptical employees who did not want to be social. It’s natural. This too shall pass.

The fear is always there with anything new. Social is no exception. We are asking people to communicate. We are wanting the B personalities to share. We are asking you to collaborate. Of course some would say well social isn’t new anymore. Well I hate to break it to you but though Facebook is nearing the holy grail of 1 billion registrants- There are still a lot of people and a lot of companies out there that are:

Scared to death of Facebook
Scared to death of social
Of becoming social
Of empowering employees with social tools
Worried about how they are supposed to deal with social enabled expectant, demanding consumers.

What’s more daunting beyond that fear and the whole “who owns social” argument, is that within some of these large siloed companies that are willing to take on the challenge, social walks, talks, acts and looks different in each and every department and will not resemble what it looks like with your competitors or peers. Daunting indeed.

Beyond daunting will be the challenge to not only integrate it successfully into the unique culture of their companies, but also to manage it, nurture it and turn it into less a fear of loss of control but more of an asset in managing the success of your employees and the happiness of your customers.

Social media is no longer an if statement, it is most definitely a when statement. Start now.

Three Plateaus in Social Media

Posted on June 21, 2011 by marc meyer

For those of you who are new to the social space, this post does not entirely apply to you, though it perhaps eventually will. So you can keep reading to see what will might happen to you.

Plateau #1

You’ve created half assed personas in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Linkedin
You’ve added and perhaps bought followers, fans, likes, subscribers and contacts
You’ve created a blog and have added a few posts
You have pushed out some weak, self serving content on all of them
You had no strategy
You quit because, you see nothing gained and you claim that social media does not work

Plateau #2

You have done everything in Plateau #1 and…
You have added/bought thousands of people to your networks
You push out content on all of your networks but it’s over the top and self serving
You monitor all of your networks…sort of
You have engaged with people somewhat
Your activities have tailed off because it takes too much work and you’re not seeing the results and you’re not convinced that social media works. Pretty soon, it dies a slow death.

Plateau #3

You have identified and created personas in the right networks that fit your needs
You understand that it’s a marathon and not a sprint
You manage and grow all of your networks thoughtfully and effectively
You measure all of your efforts effectively
You create and meet all of your existing KPI’s
You adapt and you create new KPI’s
You create, adjust, and redefine your strategy accordingly
You thrive

As you can see, the 3 plateaus are fairly well defined and quite different. Most of you have done all or parts of each. Those that can get to the third plateau can certainly speak to the other two. Those that have quit after one or two, certainly know why they did. What’s your smell test?

On hardwork, Shorts Cuts and Aggregating in Digital

Posted on June 14, 2011 by marc meyer

Do you ever hear anyone after a huge win, a major client victory or a momentous occasion within an organization say the following? “Without the short cuts and the corners we cut, we would have never made it…”

In the world of digital, there exists the potential to aggregate your activities and consolidate your digital streams so as not to duplicate work. That’s not really a short cut. THAT is much different than buying followers on Twitter. Additionally, creating an editorial calendar for when you are going to blog and what your topics will be and what the content might be is a lot different than paying someone to load you up with bland, link baited light on content,articles to fill your blog with.

Furthermore, taking the time to develop a database of customers that you curate and nurture along and turn into brand advocates that you can send targeted emails and Facebook offers and coupons to, does not resemble buying a used, stepped on, non-qualified list of names that you can email blast to without permission.

“Just” throwing up a website pales in comparison to taking the time to find out from your audience what they want and making sure that what you sell or offer online is meeting the needs and expectations of your buyers, customers and prospects. We don’t live in a brochure-ware web world any longer.

Last point. Don’t discount new technologies because you don’t understand them and because you don’t want to take the time to understand them. That’s not hard work. That’s saying, “It’s too hard for me to understand and it probably won’t benefit me…”

You need to know that there are basic steps here in every digital channel that you need to do and do right if you want to be here next year. At every digital juncture you have the potential to make a choice. A short cut or hard work? Believe it or not, your audience knows the difference.

The Relationship Between the Brand and the Customer

Posted on June 10, 2011 by marc meyer

I like Under Armor. I like Nike. I like Titleist. Do I love them? No, it’s a platonic relationship.. Now where does that put me in the grand scheme of things when it comes to our “social relationship“? What do I want that relationship to look like? I know what they want it to be. They want me to friend, follow, like and fan all of their social sites. They want me to be available to them on all digital channels for all of their push style messaging.

But then what? What are we both supposed to do at this point. At best, the end game from the brand perspective should be transactional. Right? In the interim, it should be me engaged with them building towards a transaction, and possibly sharing that engagement or brand experience with my friends.

At the least they, the brands, should be mining all of my demographic, social and personal data so that they can target market to me out the wahzoo. Again though, what do I get out of that besides the product that I may buy. If they were smart, they may have asked me what I want but the bottom line is that if I am friending, following, or liking a brand for a reason. I have a modus operandi. I have to. Right?

What is my strategy? Why do I or should I follow, friend, fan or like a brand? What do I want out of the relationship? What do I want from you Oh mighty brand that I adore?

Free Stuff, deals and coupons. That’s it. Let’s call a spade a spade and quit hiding behind fluffy connotations of the brand/consumer relationship. Give them deals, don’t screw them and if you do, make sure you make it right quickly. That’s the reality of the social consumer and the social brand.