Talk with them…

Posted on November 26, 2008 by marc meyer

I’m learning as much as you right now. If you are a marketer or an advertiser then you need to be talking with your customers and not at them. We have been talking about that for a while now. IDC just came out with a report that says that advertisers are failing miserably at communicating with social net users. Why? Because they are used to pushing shoving? their info and their product down people’s throats. According to IDC:

There are four major reasons why consumers use SNS: to connect and communicate; in response to peer-pressure; for entertainment; and for work-related purposes. Advertising does not factor into consumer motivations.

Ouch. So essentially advertisers still don’t get it. Keep reading, it gets better. IDC continues,

One of the potential benefits of SNS that the advertising industry has discussed is whether peoples’ connections (i.e., whom a user knows or is linked to) could be used for advertising. For instance, publishers could show a car manufacturer’s ads to a user’s contacts because that user’s online behavior has indicated that she is interested in a particular brand of cars. Anecdotally, there has been some indication that this “social advertising” might be more effective than behavioral targeting. However, that idea is stillborn. Of all U.S. Internet users, only 3% would allow publishers to use contact information for advertising. For instance, publishers could show a car manufacturer’s ads to a user’s contacts because that user’s online behavior has indicated that she is interested in a particular brand of cars.

If you have been reading some of the thought leaders in the social media marketing space like a Jason Falls, like a Beth Harte or Amber Naslund or Valeria Maltoni or Paul Chaney– they have stressed the importance of brand champions and community influencers who can shape the decisions and actions of the group or community or social net-naturally.

IDC’s report says that “One of the potential benefits of Social networks is that the advertising industry has discussed is whether peoples’ connections (i.e., whom a user knows or is linked to) could be used for advertising.”

I’m not sure what to think. Should I admonish IDC for putting out a report in which this comes as to no surprise to a lot of us? Or should advertisers be ashamed for not listening to some of the people I mentioned above who so obviously “Get it”? and have been saying what was put out in the report for a long time? A LONG TIME. IDC and advertisers could have saved a lot of grief, time and money just by listening to what is being written and talked about every day online in blogs and on Twitter.

Advertisers need to start listening to the thought leaders in the social media space to start with.

We need social media mentors not evangelists

Posted on November 24, 2008 by marc meyer

Be a mentor. this thought occurred to me while watching a vid on Todd Adrilik’s blog titled, The dumbest generation, don’t trust anyone under 30. While it was a compelling piece about how anyone under 30 might be more inclined to be lazy and check on their social networks and do nothing else- I would like to think that there is a tremendous opportunity not only for them to lead us even further into the digital age but also for us, as digital marketers, to do the same. Lead them, and show them now, how to do it right.

You see, at some point all of that digital knowledge you have, those social media experiences in your head, needs to be transferred to others. Just telling people about how great it is, is one thing, but showing them, and taking people under your wing to guide and mentor, and to teach and explain, is something completely different and much more valuable.

Ok, so for those of us in the social media bubble, we get it. Now go out and instead of telling people how great social media is, show them how great it can be.

Put your social media mentor hat on and make an even bigger difference.

Social Media and Sundry Quotes

Posted on November 20, 2008 by marc meyer

This first quote actually was found due to a tweet from Chris Brogan and can be attributed to Rachel Rubin who was guest posting on Kyle James’s blog, did you follow that?

One of my biggest professional challenges is to find a credible, valuable way to assess the effectiveness of our electronic media. Using Web Analytics and calculated ROI for certain projects are great starts, but I think there’s more to it.

Joseph Jaffe goes off on the Big 3

Bottom line, they did not join the conversation. I can’t put it any differently. They never listened to their customers; they never listened to the market; they never listened to the industry.

Kyle Flaherty tells you what we’ve been saying for a while on Twitter and elsewhere, in this guest post on Jennifer Leggio’s ZDNet Blog:

Do NOT ask “How will the economy affect social media?”
DO ask “How can I prove and then improve how social media affects my business?”

Chris Brogan

it’s water…

Read this wonderful article by John Kotter in The Harvard Business Review

Real urgency is a belief that, yes, there are big hazards and big opportunities out there (not just the former). More importantly, true urgency is a set of emotions, a gut-level feeling that we need to get up every single day with total determination to do something to deal with those hazards and opportunities and make some progress, no matter how modest, and do so today.

Toby Bloomberg asks a very simple question:

In this overwhelming world what One – 1 – I thing would you just do?

We focus a lot on personal brands and Frank Martin writes a lively piece titled Personal Brands(again) in which he says:

You HAVE to focus on adding value first, not your shine

Fred Wilson “rocks it” on this blog post which asks, “Do you do any real work”?. Check out this blurb then go read it!

And that’s one of the main reasons I keep writing, commenting, discussing, and participating in blogs, tumblr, twitter, disqus, and the social media world at large. Its about the “realest” work I do

OK folks, read them,share them and retweet them…

Social Media Pitch-Raise your hand if you understood anything I just said.

Posted on November 20, 2008 by marc meyer

This is starting to become a recurring theme of late. I pitch a social media project and spend the majority of the time explaining my vision and my passion for what the possibilities might be, and I get the blank stare:

Except this time, they nodded their head as I was speaking. So the whole time I’m thinking.. “I’m building momentum”, but something tells me I better ask the following question just to make sure.

You guys know what social media is right?

Before they could answer, I though to say, “Better yet I said, Raise your hand if you understood anything I just said.” Now this is a group of fairly young, hip execs. 1 CEO, 1 CMO, 2 VP’s and 3 sales and marketing people. I got nothing. So I had to scramble. I said the 50,000 foot view of social media is that of a MySpace or Facebook. They all nodded. I tried going deeper but it was futile. I might have used the term SEO but now that i think back, there is no way they knew what that meant. I did get this question though:

Can you get us ranked #1 for __________ in the whole country?

Uhhhh.. no I cannot, unless I worked for Google, I think I mumbled that. At the end of the day I walked away with a project but it’s not going to involve any social media components. I guess that’s the upside. Here’s the moral.

I need to to do a couple of things going forward. Here’s what they are:

I’m going to determine if social media even makes sense for the company I’m talking to.
If it does, I’m going to work backwards with any company or individual I deal with or talk to, and show them examples of companies that do what they do and how they use social media successfully.
I’m going to simplify my examples of social media and explain some tools that might make sense
I’m going to show the sizzle of social media
I’m going to show even more value and demonstrate the power of social media in regards to extending the conversation with their customers.

Now before you say I should have done this homework beforehand, perhaps I could have, but the homework I did do, was on what their business model was. And the potential it posessed for social media adoption. My assumption was, “Every company has the potential” Maybe, maybe not. But as I head down this road even more, I’ll be able to determine if that is indeed possible.

You see, you have to understand, I’ve rolled out quite a few social media projects for my former company and it’s clients and their products, but now that I’m pitching the projects as well for my new company, all of a sudden it’s a whole different ballgame. One in which i was not completely prepared for.

ROI vs. ROE -I did not do a good enough job selling social media.

Posted on November 16, 2008 by marc meyer

I had my biggest challenge of trying to sell ROI for a social media project this past week and I lost. Passion lost. Clarity of message lost, and the power of the conversation lost out to the following unspoken sentiment, “I can’t pay for something where I can not see a clear 1:1 ratio of money spent and money earned.

I’ll be honest, my my own private little thought cloud right then and there was,”Oh yea? What did I spend? Hours of work, sweat equity if you will, on learning everything I could on why social media would make sense for you, mister client, and the irrefutable argument that went with it, and you can’t see it?”

On a side note: There is not a social media practitioner, marketer or evangelist out there, who would not agree that this person and their current business model would not have benefited from a solid injection of web 2.0 sensibilities.

Not only did I do my homework but I also spent hours on the phone with the conduit/project manager, who not only had bought my vision, but had also in the same process, drank the social media Kool-ade. I educated him to the extent that he totally got what I was saying. He GOT IT. Which to a lesser degree is a huge win. Why? Because we met through a 140 character conversation on Twitter. That’s right, this whole process and opportunity came about because of Twitter. The conduit in Austin, me in Naples, and the client in Phoenix.

At the end of the day though, after the nearly 2 hour Saturday conference call with the prospect, it became painfully obvious that he was not willing to spend what it would take to transform his personal brand and what he does for a living, into something more viable, accessible, and transparent- he wanted solid ROI. Not the hope of notion or perceived ROI. His thing was, “lets sell something that makes money, and I’ll pay you if I make money”.

All was not lost. First, I made a friend in Austin, who has passion, vision, and Get’s it. And whenever you meet someone who gets it- the potential for more opportunities like the one mentioned above will always exist.

Second, I learned some more lessons. I say more because I’ve been learning a lot of them lately. Failing forward if you will. I’ve been given some great indirect lessons from my peers through blog comments and tweets, individuals like Jim Storer, Paul Chaney, Valeria Maltoni and Jason Breed. Some lessons that are human and tangible. Lessons learned on the client side and lessons learned from the community. A win win..

So here’s the thing- Ultimately, I have to ask myself, did I do a good enough job of presenting tangible proof on why social media makes sense? I don’t know. I may be too close to the subject to answer that objectively. But The question does arise and will arise again; and this was a concern Friday night when I had completed the proposal and had attached a dollar value to it. Did I show enough proof? A proof of concept to justify the cost that would eventually increase ROI through engagement?

The bottom line is I guess not. Because the bottom line right now is very prominent, very front and center. Managers want to see ROI. They need ROI. I think what they don’t understand, is that if I’m going to embark on a social media campaign for a client, it involves a time suck and a commitment from the client and the person rolling out the project- the cost is labor and time, both of which I think are measurable and ultimately can be charged for. I’m sorry but I value my knowledge and my time and I’m going to charge for it. Ok… I’m starting to get a little fired up again so I’m going to stop here. But here are my parting words-

When you pitch the social media project of any scope and scale, Be thorough, and understand that all managers are going to really, really focus on the investment and the return, no matter how well YOU get the big picture. But you know what? One loss does not define a season. They’ll be more and I’ll do better.

Apologies to the social media community

Posted on November 14, 2008 by marc meyer

Here’s the thing, yesterday I posted a snarky, bitter, pessimistic post about how I didn’t want to talk about marketing in a bad economy using social media. And that was wrong. really wrong. In fact you know sometimes when you think you nailed a post and you feel all happy and proud. Well I actually did feel that way yesterday, and man that was wrong too. I used the wrong language, the wrong approach and the wrong forum. I even engaged some of my peers in the social media community on Twitter to read my greatest latest post. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. I’m so very sorry.

You see the deal is we need to fail forward right now. we need to try anything and everything right now and we need to share it, we need to keep trying and tweaking how we utilize social media marketing in a bad economy. Its funny, all it took was a simple question for me to see the light and to that I want to thank Jim Storer of Mzinga for asking me-“Do you want us to wait till it’s figured out before using social media”? Touche Jim, and thanks for helping me see the light. I also want to apologize to Adam Cohen. I value Adams opinion and went to him like a proud puppy happy because of the crap I just produced. I’m sorry Adam, that was not something I should have shown you. It was poorly written, and It ignored the spirirt of social media and social media marketing. The spirit to try and communicate and take chances and be willing to share those experiences with the community. If we preach about the conversation, and about being transparent and authentic- in a bad economy you do ALL of that and more, and you keep trying and you listen. In my previous post, I basically said, stop listening. and that couldn’t be more wrong. We need to be listening now, more than ever before. And that my friends is how we use social media marketing in a bad economy.

Social media marketing in a bad economy-this ought to be good.

Posted on November 13, 2008 by marc meyer

A) Don’t trust a single article about marketing in a bad economy, unless the writer has concrete proof. and B) If someone writes an article about marketing in a bad economy using social media- read it and then run the other way.

Puff pieces notwithstanding. Unless the person is making up the rules as they muddle through these ridiculously bad economic times, there is no template on how to use social media marketing correctly to market a business, product or otherwise, right now.

Why, you might ask? Because social media has not been around long enough. Sure there are case studies and examples of how companies and corporations are using social media right now to extend their product and brand, but that was then-this is now. We are in the motherfuckin moment. Excuse my language but… THESE ARE NOT NORMAL TIMES!. So anything that you knew or know about how to use social media and marketing to drive traffic and eyeballs and users and adopters to your site/product, all of it, is not as it seems.

The Rules are changing before your eyes. So I don’t want to see anymore of the “How to use social media marketing in a bad economy” blog posts or articles or stories yet. YOU DON’T KNOW HOW YET. You cannot sit here and tell me that the mindset of the online user and consumer is the same now as it was last year at this time. I dare someone to say that it is. And if you’re pitching to companies and business’s in that vein, that’s bullshit, shame on you.

I do know that they are starved for answers and solutions and business- And SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING MIGHT BE A VIABLE SOLUTION, I’m just not sure that social media and social media marketing don’t need to be tweaked and morphed and melded into something that is creatively different right now. Just don’t promise social media as the cure-all for what is ailing businesses right now. But you can still pitch it.

We all need to figure it out (and we are) as we go. Please let’s document what we do, how we did it, what worked, and what didn’t. Then we can write all the posts we want on how to market and use social media in bad economy. Hopefully though, we won’t need to refer to them anytime soon in the not too distant future.

The Long Tail of Twitter

Posted on November 11, 2008 by marc meyer

Ok Much has been written or much was written yesterday about Twitter. I’m not sure why yesterday, but for whatever reason, yesterday was that day, my post included. So I found myself embroiled both via blog responses and via Twitter, defending in some cases what I see as the best way for me to use Twitter.

Here’s a quick recap of what was written.

Guy Kawasaki’s post just flew totally in the face of my post, but he did mention some things that you should do regardless of your ultimate goal on how you’re going to use Twitter. But his post is more about being the Uber-Twitter user, and I just can’t do #4 Which is follow everyone who follows me- I’m sorry but I would like to get to know “some” of the people I’m following. I think Guy and I have a different perception of definition of what Twitter is or should be used for., Though I do admit, that I follow some of the social media whores-not sure why, but I do.

Alan Wolk has totally nailed his post which speaks to why he thinks Twitter is going to be cluttered with N00bs, more experts, and gaggles of clueless wannabe’s and everything in between. Which means my Twitter post makes even more sense!

Business week has written about how ubiquitous micro-blogging and Twitter have become, which means a vertical version only makes sense right? And then we have Information weeks article on Twitter tools to turbocharge your microblogging Wow, didn’t know I needed to turbo charge it! Here’s Computer World’s 5 ways to tap the power of the tweet which actually are pretty close to what you should do and not as self serving and indulgent as Guy Kawasaki’s directives. And then we have the Top 10 ways to attract followers on Twitter which is a total link bait link juice article.

If you really want to know all things Twitter, and don’t feel like waiting for the next piece of hyperbole then go to Laura Fitton’s site, she blogs about all things micro-blogging and she actually brings some sanity to it all- Though I can’t stop thinking about what a tweet is worth, knowing full well that that is where this is all heading. Transactional conversations are coming, trust me.

Ok so I’m going to sum up one of the best ways to get the most out of Twitter, do you know how search marketing experts and Chris Anderson talk about the Long Tail? Well why would you want to follow 5000 people who all tweet at once about 5000 different subjects and 5000 different links? When you could follow 1000, or 750 or 500 people, get to know who they are and what they’re all about, and develop a vertical relationship?

I’m going to quote Chris here and splice/blend his words and my thoughts to make my point about Twitter:

The long tail aspect of Twitter does exist, but the data tells us that there may really be no head or body when it comes to following thousands upon thousands of people without any focus or reason. When it comes to Twitter, everyone is hell bent on following as many people as possible, but the fact of the matter is, Twitter traffic has the potential to be long tail and the word “long” doesn’t do the length of the tail justice. The long tail of Twitter is vertical.

Thanks Chris.