Can you go left?

Posted on September 30, 2009 by marc meyer

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 New Black

Posted on September 18, 2009 by marc meyer

The reviews are in…

1. “Easy enough to use so that a four-year-old could operate one”

2. The development included adapting it to distribute entertainment and news…

3. A review of it highlighted its potential for widely distributing entertainment,

4. Individual homes had access to music 24-hours a day…

5. The potential existed for “half a million subscribers spread all over Europe”…

6. “I have often marveled why a country like the United States with its amazing enterprise and development has not produced one of its own…

Nope, these are not reviews for the internet. It’s not a new social network and it not a general review of social media.

They’re for the phone!

One has to wonder whether our ideas have really changed that much since the advent of the telephone. The ideas haven’t changed, just the means to communicate have.

Today, our online communications goals revolve around the following:

We want to talk-we want to be heard
We want to have conversations.
We want to distribute content to the masses
Entertainment, news and music
Keeping it simple.
We want to make money
Subscriptions models still make the most sense
The United States is still getting bashed for something.

What does this tell you? A lot has changed? Not much has changed? At the end of the day, we strive to communicate in the easiest most profound ways possible.

Our most basic human desire is still to talk and to listen. We are motivated to make it as simple as possible to have a conversation. We are constantly pushing the envelope of ways to connect, to share and to listen to each other and others. Look at all the apps and programs that revolve around this notion. Simplifying our lives, consolidating our contacts, streamlining our relationships. All for the sake of communicating.

Isn’t it amazing that those 5 statements could have been made this past Monday? and yet it was over a 100 years ago! So what is your take-away from this post?

Talking and listening will always matter. We will always be captivated and motivated and willing to pay for entertainment and music. Keeping it simple is still a priority in our lives, and the only business model that appears to still make sense, is a subscription model. Ironic isn’t it?

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Social media is free…but I’m not

Posted on September 16, 2009 by marc meyer

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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How are you driving people to your social media presence?

Posted on September 14, 2009 by marc meyer

What are you planning to do to drive people to your social media presence? And do you have the money to do it? I read this question this morning and thought, boom, dude you nailed it. It was a post in Clickz by Sean Carton. Though he didn’t really answer it.

So lets talk about that. What are your plans? You have gotten the gig, but now you are tasked with driving traffic to all of the social media properties that you have set up for the client.

Quick question though. Is that really a function of social media managers? To drive traffic? Or is that a pure marketing function? A search function? Something you pay for? Something you outsource?

I digress. So what are you going to do get these communities/social media personas jammin?

I think first and foremost, as Jason Falls has so aptly put it,

To be effective in social media, whether as a marketer or just an ordinary participant, you must, first and foremost, communicate well.

Ok so you have that down, you can communicate with the best of them, now what?

Well if we’re to look at social media as a messaging and communications type of activity, wouldn’t that responsibility ultimately sit on the shoulders of PR? Should PR pros be responsible for driving traffic to social media networks?

Or is it something a marketing department should do? Does a community manager do that?

Wait, I’m blurring the message here. Let’s go back.

What are you going to do to drive traffic? I don’t care if you’re in marketing, PR, or IT, you have been tasked with making this social media thing work, so wutcha got? And don’t go telling me we need to define our objectives and align them with our strategies. We get that. Yea I know numbers don’t truly define success but they certainly are going to determine a lot of things going forward. So pick your poison.

We have blogs-what’s your plan to drive readers?
You’ve created a Facebook fan page or group page, how many friends are you going to get and then what will you do with them?
You’ve create a social network on Ning now what?
What is your plan to grow your Ning group or your community?
You’ve got that Twitter profile rolling, what’s your goal? Do numbers even mean anything anymore? How many conversations are you looking for?
Now that you have that podcast where are you going to find that audience? What is going to compel them to tune in every week?
Wikis are a cool collaborative tool if people know about them and feel compelled to contribute. So why should they do anything with yours? Out of some benevolent stroke of contributing for contribution’s sake?
Is a big budget going to make it easier for you to create these communities? You know once your PPC campaign ends, your traffic might leave to..
What if you do suck at communicating? Then what?
Who should be responsible for the success or failure?

What I keep coming back to, is that with each bullet point, it still helps to define the purpose of why you are doing it in the first place. Here’s the problem though. There are a lot of hours involved in any of these activities, and if any company or person is going to work on these, then we or you need to see something on the back end that is justifiable. Is that ROI? Could be. Is it return on engagement? Well…

Try selling the story that because of social media, you had one killer conversation or engagement per blog post. Or you have 30 really awesome friends on that Facebook fan page. Or you helped 1 customer out who found you through Twitter…

I’m not sure those type of numbers can justify the time suck and investment of resources.

So I ask you again, what is your plan of action for driving traffic to your social sites and communities.

Social Media Conundrum #13…The tools

Posted on September 9, 2009 by marc meyer

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.

Posted on September 1, 2009 by marc meyer

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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