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.

I don’t wanna be..Yes, yet another social media mantra

Posted on November 23, 2008 by marc meyer

Gavin Degrew has a song that I’m sure you have heard before, if you haven’t, then I suggest you go to Youtube and check it out and listen to it. It’s called, “I don’t wanna be”. Not only is it a good song, but it has a stanza that you should adopt as your social media mantra. Here it is.

I don’t want to be anything other than what I’ve been trying to be lately
All I have to do is think of me and have peace of mind
I’m tired of looking ’round rooms wondering what I gotta do
Or who I’m supposed to be
I don’t want to be anything other than me

Man that’s powerful. Pretty clear too, isn’t it? The reason I’ve been thinking about this lately, is I’ve been noticing Twitter becoming this personal marketing platform of late. The bio’s are becoming more “sales-ey” and the tweets more self serving. It’s not like I’m saying quit sending me the killer blog post you’ve just written, I’m merely saying that social media and twitter is as much about others as it is about you.

So even though I might be generalizing on the one hand when referring to a “social media” mantra, specifically, I’m referring, to a certain degree about Twitter. So let’s keep the personal branding to a minimum or at least on the back channel of Twitter and Gavins Lyrics in mind as you maneuver through your social networks.

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.

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.

Twitter, Stay vertical-Stay relevant

Posted on November 10, 2008 by marc meyer

OK before I go any further you can find the video of what I’m about to write here, on Seesmic and also know that this vlog supported blog post was inspired by Beth Harte, who got the ball rolling with her vlog. Beth has about as fresh a perspective of all things marketing and social media marketing related, as anyone could have right now and I strongly suggest you add her blog to your reader.

With that being said, I want you to tell me your process for how you utilize Twitter and how you decide who you follow, and who follows you.

Before I jump in, answer me this: Why did you sign up for Twitter? I’ll tweet this. but I’m curious. Ok I digress.

Here’s my Twitter process: I go through the email alerts and click on the persons name.1) I then look at their number of followers, 2) the number of people they are following, and 3) the number of tweets. 4) I then look at their Bio. and the link on the Bio. 5) I need to determine why this person is choosing to follow me. What is the reason? 6) Are they wanting me to look at their website. 7) Are they promoting something 8) Are they just following as many people as possible 9) Do they even care what I have to say? and 10) Do they bring value? 11) Do they offer value? 12) what kind of tweet quality do they have? 13) How often do they tweet? 14) Are they even in my space? 15) Are they vertical enough?

Once I ask myself these questions then it’s fairly easy to decide whether this is a relationship I want to take to the next level. You see, at the end of the day, I want us to be able to share, and learn from each other. I want you to share something with me that I previously did not know. And I want to do the same for you. I want it to be mutually satisfying for both of us. I know this sounds like we’re dating but I want it to make us both better at what we do. As with all other social media tools, it’s a 2 way street of communication. It’s a dialogue not a monologue, and I value as much from what I learn from the people that I follow, as to what I give them in return. Value begets Value.

So… are you using Twitter the right way?

Does social media consume you?

Posted on November 3, 2008 by marc meyer

I was listening last week to a football coach being interviewed on the radio. I can’t remember the college team he coached, but he had a law degree and he was talking about something other than football-so it was turning into a good interview-because it was free of cliches. He was telling a story about his mentor in law and he asked his mentor if he liked law. His mentor responded that he “thought about law at all hours”. He said that it consumed him, but in a good way. He said that in life you should “do” what consumes you.

I thought about that as I drove. Beyond your family, What get’s your motor running? What can you talk about with relative ease? It can be your passion. But even more, it’s easy for you to think about it. It’s a no brainer. The more I thought about it, the more I’m starting to realize that I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking of the ways that social media can be used in all walks of life, in social settings, and in work environments.

To me, I see social media as a way to connect, to solve problems, to communicate and to converse on a scale that we have never seen before. That consumes me. That possibility. That challenge.

So…. What Consumes You?

You think you are so transparent

Posted on October 29, 2008 by marc meyer

But you’re not. If you were, your offline world would be very similar to your online. And it’s not. How do I know? I don’t. But I do know how my offline world works and there are but a few similarities between the two. I bet for some of you, If you sat down and did a side by side comparison of what you do online versus what you do offline-you would no doubt see that they are very very different. They are apples and oranges. Your offline world ain’t so transparent.

So what’s my point? Marketers, Social media marketers, and PR people who preach about asking or telling someone to be transparent online in social networks, might want to re-think that. Why? Because it’s more difficult than you think.

Yes, some do come out of their shells online. And the numbers bear that out. Possibly because they are now hiding behind the screen, they can now be this completely “other” person. Can they finally become the person they really are underneath it all? It’s possible. The “real you”? Maybe. The flip side though is, they can be the asshole too. There’s transparency that shows the good in a person, but there’s also the transparency that shows the bigot, the evil and the cruel in some people as well. Online personas allow that.

You see being transparent has different connotations depending on where you are and who you are. Asking someone to all of a sudden “be”, is a lot more difficult than you think. You never thought about that did you? We throw around the words authentic and transparent in social networks, because they are”buzzy” and the words du jour, but what we have failed to realize is that asking someone to all of a sudden change gears and be something that they can barely “do” offline can be a lot more difficult than it appears not to be. Sometimes I wonder if we want the “real” you online.

10 social media ideas you can blog about

Posted on October 28, 2008 by marc meyer

In my efforts to provide readers and writers with the tools they need to write better content, here is a topical list of subjects that you could probably write a pretty decent blog post on. If you do, give me some props and some link love. Or better yet, we could discuss them as we go, we can just start with #1 and we can collaborate and work our way down the list together. Your choice.

What is Your Personal Social Media Strategy? Whether you are an agency, corporation, or an individual you need to have a plan.
SEO depends on social media. As much as some purists might not want to admit it, seo and social media are joined at the hip.
Should bloggers be held to journalistic standards? Bloggers can say and write some pretty outlandish things and get away with it, should they? Should they be held to the same standards as traditional journalists?
Communications Decency Act and Social Networks-Are we doing enough to police what is written and produced and generated on social networks?
Transactional conversations-is there now a value that can be placed on every conversation that takes place via social media?
Social Media is a time suck-how much time do you devote to social media per day and per week?
Whats more important? User experience or Technology? What drives the user? Is it the platform or the the experience?
The criteria for judging social media platforms? What is yours? what do you base your usage on? What should they all be judged on?
Social networking failures, you can’t force the action.-Not all social media/social networks succeed.
How to choose the right social network? Should they be more vertical, will they eventually be?