Archives for February 2012

My pal Mark Schaefer wrote that this week is a good time to “hug a blogger.” Being a Star Wars fan, I figured an appropriate sequel would be, “The Blogger Hugs Back.”

Now, just to be clear, I’ve never really been a fan of Valentine’s Day, so that’s not *technically* why I’m doing this. It’s not just that I never got a flower on the big day in high school (sniff sniff) but it just seems so …pressure-filled for couples that really should be confident in each others’ adoration not to need a day to make it clear (well that’s my opinion, anyway). On the other hand, I am a completely sappy person. Studies have shown that I am 70% sap instead of water. So, if there is a love fest going on, for any reason, I am apt to take part.

Besides, I have a lot of reasons to spread joy.

So, here is a by no means complete list of people who make my days brighter (or at least more interesting) on an awfully regular basis. I would encourage you, just because Valentine’s Day offers up a good enough excuse, to think about the people who make a difference to you. Sometimes just telling people they are important is a lot more meaningful than a giant diamond ring (although the top ten people on this list can of course expect a package from Kay Jewelers any day now).

That’s a blatant lie.

Ehem, anyway, here we go 🙂

Gaga, Brandie, Sam, and Jeff,

Nick and Josepf plus Mitch Neff,

Cate and Gini, Lisa P,

Sean and John and Lisa D.

Lisa A and Danny Buntu,

Jack Steiner is fun to talk to,

Julien and Rufus, Geoff with Soleil,

Chris and Nancy and Olivier,

Dan Perez and Danny Brown,

Billy Delaney in my home town.

Mark and Chris and Chris and Jay,

Amber N, Amber C and Amber O,

Sumner the awesome daddy-o,

Carl and Cristian and Tom and Patrick,

Paul and Dave and Peggy Fitzpatrick,

Nic and Ian, Nickles, too,

Dawn Westerberg friended me when I was new.

Ellen and Alan and Alan and Fred,

Ann and Liz and Raul and Ted,

Stan S and Stan F and Chris Eh Young,

I could go on forever, it’d be so much fun.

And so my list goes on and on, as you can plainly see,

Lots and lots of people who make me über happy.

I’m one lucky lady to know these great folks,

Even if sometimes they pop my dreams’ yolks.

Alternating between funny and smart,

Sometimes we even talk about…tarts.

Happy Valentines to all you awesome people. I hope you have a great day, but then I’d hope that regardless. And I do.

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sivinjski/4353431281/ via Creative Commons

 

 

 

 

 

One of the first things I learned in the marketing world was the importance of evaluating publications that I was thinking of proposing for our clients’ advertising campaigns. Once unknown, the world of BPA circulation statements became the norm for me. I evaluated media kits to look at how each publication broke down its audience. Were they the people our clients wanted to reach? Did they ask to receive the publication or was it available on a doctor’s office table?

Not thinking it would be anything apart from logical, I carried that mode of evaluation and thinking into all other facets of marketing that I learned (and I continue to do so as there is always more to learn). You can probably imagine my surprise, then, when I started seeing stories in the blogosphere and on Twitter about how companies that didn’t try everything online were either scared or just way behind the times.

For example:

As recently as August 2011, Erik Deckers wrote a post called, “Why Companies Are Afraid of Social Media”

Back in 2009 Mack Collier wrote a post called “Why is your Business Afraid of Negative Blog Posts?”

Also in 2009, BL Ochman wrote an article called “The Top Six Reasons Companies Are Still Scared of Social Media”

More recently, Mitch Joel wrote a post called, “You Are Free To Try Everything,” noting that it is much easier to do so in the online world than it was/is with more “traditional” marketing channels.

Now I will admit that maybe there are some companies out there who get frozen with fear. After all, it’s almost impossible to consider any one sector of the marketing world a 100% known entity, right? Things are changing daily, sometimes by the minute. And the unknown, well, it can be scary. Especially if something like your livelihood depends upon it.

But I would wager there are a few companies out there who are refraining from social media marketing or email marketing or whatever else because they actually know that it will not benefit them as much in the long run. It’s not a fear that xyz won’t work. It’s actually a full-fledged, fruit of research conclusion.

Let me give you an example. A lot of people were saying a couple of years ago that if you weren’t hopping onto the Foursquare wagon, you were really going to regret it. There was not a nuanced segment to this argument. You either were going to try Foursquare or you were a scaredy cat, essentially. But let’s say you’re a B2B medical products manufacturer. Apart from letting your friends know that you have checked in to work, how is Foursquare going to help your company? Are people going to jump into your factory and buy something? Probably not. You probably don’t need it.

Here’s another one. Let’s say you’re any type of company anywhere doing anything. You’ve done some social media research and you’ve discovered that while there are a lot of videos on YouTube relevant to your industry, there’s hardly any action on Twitter or Facebook. Your competitors aren’t there,  your customers aren’t there, there is no buzz, there’s just a whole lot of nothing. Are you just being afraid if you fail to jump onto social media at that point? I don’t really see it that way.

There are two other stories that feed into this myth. The first is the celebration of failure that exists in today’s world, and the second is a failure to understand actual costs of marketing tactics that on the surface appear to be free. Let’s talk about that a bit more.

I failed! Woot!

A lot of the people who argue that you should try everything in your marketing efforts are the same people who believe that failure is something to be sought in the business world. If you throw yourself into something and it doesn’t work, well, at least you learned something, right?

Take a look at this recent post by Danny Brown, where he indicates that the Toyota Twitter fiasco is actually the fault of the agency and not the brand. If that is the case and you’re the agency that got Toyota such bad PR, is failure looking like something to celebrate? I’m thinking probably not.

The fact is, there is a ton of pressure on marketers to make sure their efforts reap benefits, not yuck. The idea that you should try everything because failure is just a learning experience has never struck me as being spot on.

But social media is free!

Again, this is a common misconception. Signing up for Twitter is freer than the freest bird. But those people you hired to run your Twitter initiative? Probably not free. Most aspects of blogging are free. Finding someone who can create content for you? Probably not free. For everything that you try, you need people (or your own time) to make it work. Your time is not free either. Or it shouldn’t be anyway. Before you try something, you need to consider what will happen if it actually works really well.  You also need to consider how much time (aka money in the business world) you want to invest before you quit.

Don’t feel like you need to try everything. You’re not a scaredy cat or backwards if you don’t jump onto every new platform out there. Just make sure you do everything you need to do to succeed, and you’ll be doing just fine.

Right?

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikefischer/2517778046/ via Creative Commons

Much of American history, if you look at it, was molded by one single mineral -gold. It was gold that caused President Andrew Jackson to force the Cherokee out of Georgia. It was gold that pushed people to California, and it was the presence of the valued mineral that encouraged the US to go to war with Mexico so that California could become a state. In every gold rush in American history, or nearly every one, there were two things that could be counted on. First, people were hoping to find gold so that all of their life’s ills could be cured. Second, the desire for gold made the value of other human lives, particularly Native American lives, far less a priority than it may have been in other circumstances.

Each time there was a gold rush, hope for America sprang large. Each time there was a gold rush, Americans continued to act in ways that were abhorrent, and in this way forever tainted the history of their optimistic country.

This same irrational behavior – this same reckless pursuit of the silver bullet, has overtaken the world of social media, and it could be ultimately the bullet that mortally wounds businesses around the world.

If your foundation is shaky, your house will fall down

Last year, the big news was Quora. Businesses needed to jump on to Quora. It would enable you to become an expert in your business and your customers and potential customers would LOVE that. Later last year Google Plus came along, and oh goodness – the power of the Google search engine, the ability to combine social media with your YouTube channel, Google Documents, and everything else Google – this is what would make your business succeed.

This year, so far, maps are being circulated that show all of the hot points in Pinterest. It’s all you are hearing about, practically, and in fact, the online world is so saturated with talk of how Pinterest is the next big thing for businesses that I have refrained from even mentioning it here.

The problem is that people aren’t learning how arduous the process of digging for gold really is. They think, perhaps, that you can jump in, bend down, cup your hands, and your hands will be filled with gold. People don’t understand that you have to stand in that water day after day. You have to get your hands dirty. You have to try different spots and different techniques, and meanwhile, the person who is running the story where you purchase your food is already ten times wealthier than you.

It doesn’t matter that Pinterest can drive tons of traffic to your site if your site is crap. It doesn’t matter that Pinterest may be great for SEO if you don’t know what that is or why it’s important. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you are getting to your site if that traffic isn’t buying from you. It’s all of the same problems that we encounter on Twitter, and in blogs, and on Facebook, and everywhere else.

If you don’t know how to run your company or if you do not know how to market your company, Pinterest, Google Plus, Quora, Twitter, Facebook, or the man on the moon won’t be able to do a gosh. darned. thing. for you.

Back to the ring of power

I fear that blog traffic, retweets, and shares have sullied the minds of some people who write in the world of social media. They sense they have power. When they tell you to use a site or go here, they can drive enough traffic that their one action can cause the site to go down. News about new platforms like Pinterest are easy pickings. You put the word in your title, people click it, they link to it in their own Pinterest posts, and you soon have a snowballing, mad orgy of blog love. “Only the lame companies are refraining from getting a Pinterest account now,” these voices seem to say.

And yet, where is the talk about how this new site will ACTUALLY work for companies? Do you think a picture of a tiny piece of tubing manufactured in the medical manufacturing sector will get repinned? What about the company that makes the machine that makes one part of one car? Will a blog post from that company spread through Pinterest, or Google Plus, or Facebook like wildfire? What if you are a commodity brand, even if you are in the consumer market?

We are being stupid. We are being irresponsible. We are acting like gold diggers.

For the record

I like Pinterest. I think it’s fun. I think it’s interesting. I think it’s a neat way to pass on information that maybe wouldn’t quite fit on Facebook or that would be hard to pass around on Twitter. But all of the chatter that Pinterest is the newest silver bullet for companies struggling through the recession? No. I don’t get that. Even though there are at least 200 posts out there that would aim to prove me wrong.

What do you think? Will this pattern of gold digging behavior result in negative ramifications, or will we simply carry on, moving to the next savior of the business world, whatever that may be?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27117418@N07/2559014732/ via Creative Commons

As he is wont to do, Michael Schechter said something very interesting, this time on a recent post of mine (this one over here). Here is what Michael said:

It’s become more about the people than the work or even the subject at hand. If we just shifted our focus from our feelings to the subject at hand, we’d be stronger for it… as would the space as a whole. Because the real problem is that the fear of hurting someones feelings (and to an equal extent, people’s inability to make a point without doing so) just takes us away from what’s really important, examining and learning about whatever subject is at hand.

This has been rolling around in my head for awhile now when it comes especially to how we can help businesses online. It seems like there is always a thread in the online world that goes one of two ways.

1. All agencies are evil. They over-promise, under-deliver, and rip companies off.

2. Social Media experts are evil. They over-promise, under-deliver, and rip companies off.

While it may be companies that begin these conversations, aforementioned agency types and social media types tend to add fuel to the fire. An agency person (or someone who was in marketing long before social media was born) may say something like, “Oh yeah, those social media types have NO idea what they are talking about.” Meanwhile the social media folks may write about how agencies have no idea how to work in the new world of marketing.

The problem is that both sides are making some interesting points, but what is being forgotten, per Michael’s comment, is that all of these points should be noted and explored in an effort to help the companies we are working with and for. Attacking other people on Twitter or in the blogosphere really doesn’t do anything except propagate the worst rumors about everybody.

With all of that said, let’s talk about some of the accusations that are floating around out there. How can we analyze these issues in a way that will actually help companies out? Let’s see what we can do.

Agencies say…Social Media folks don’t understand a lot of basic marketing concepts.

If you are steeped in the world of social media, you’ve probably heard that your brand is basically your logo. Maybe you heard that ROI doesn’t exist in the online world or that it stands for “Return on Influence.” Maybe you’ve heard that B2B has been replaced by Person-to-Person business. Maybe you’ve heard that cold-calling is stupid and print is dead.

What companies need to know: Branding encapsulates so much more than just your logo or what color choices you use on your company website. Branding means molding the experience your customers will have with you and molding the experience your employees will have with you. It means having a vision and a mission. It means communicating consistently across any platform you might touch. If you do not fully grasp your company brand, it will be very difficult to create any type of marketing campaign that will be truly effective.

If you do not understand ROI, your company could go broke and you will have no idea why.

As for various marketing tactics that have been declared dead, for some companies it may be true, for others it could not be further from the truth. Companies will benefit from researching from their own unique vantage point and seeing what will work best for them.

Social Media experts say…full-service agencies are not going to give you the best service possible

I just had this conversation this morning with author Jeremy Waite, who said, “Not a fan of “full service” as it often tends to be a compromise.” I have a feeling a lot of people may feel that way, unfortunately.

What companies need to know: If an agency, especially a one-person agency, says that they can do absolutely everything for you on their own, you should probably be suspicious. The strength of the agency in today’s modern world is that they can become a hub for your company. For example, our agency works with videographers, voice-over talent, SEO companies, printers, and other vendors. These partners add to our capabilities, and our ability to network with these companies takes the strain off of the clients we work with. We do the back-and-forth, we interface on behalf of our clients, and we inform our partners when it comes to our clients’ expectations.

That being said, we can also offer a lot in-house. We can create literature, press releases, advertisements, booth graphics, websites, and more. We call ourselves a full-service marketing firm but only offer the strongest solutions to our clients. If that means we need to network with a vendor, hey, we do that. I’m sure many other agencies and marketers do as well. The ones that do not are the ones that give all of us a bad name.

And remember – something as simple and banal as proofreading takes two people. If a person is claiming to be a one-person marketing master, your alerts should buzz at level red.

Agencies and Social Media people say…the other guys do nothing but offer silver bullets

Whether the words used are along the lines of “Snake-oil salesmen” or “complete rip-offs,” you will often hear one group calling the other a bunch of charlatans.

What companies need to know: There are NO silver bullets. If someone offers to create a viral video for you, back away. If someone suggests you purchase online followers, back away. If someone says that x tactic that has worked for you for years “is dead,” back away. If someone says that social media is a fad, back away.

In fact, whether you are dealing with a social media expert or an agency person, there are a few key indicators that you can look for that will tell you to put your guard up.

• They sell their services to you based on how many Twitter followers they have

• They offer you a marketing proposal *before* talking to you

• They call themselves a guru – of anything

• They pronounce any marketing tactic as “dead” before talking to you

• They talk only about themselves

The list goes on and on.

The bottom line is that these are hard times. I don’t know if you noticed, but the world economy is still going through a pretty tough time (although there may be some faint light filtering through that end of the tunnel). What marketers, social media people, anyone who works with companies really need to focus on is how to help their clients. Yes, there is a fire hose of information to absorb. Yes, a lot of things are new, and a lot of the old things have changed. Just keeping up with all of that should be enough to occupy our time – so we can assist our clients.

If you help enough companies succeed, you won’t need to have a smarts contest on Twitter or on your blog. Your work will speak for itself. Whether you are rooted in the agency world, the social media world, or *gasp* both.

What do you think? Can we alter our focus away from the mad-dog-attack-everyone style and work towards helping companies succeed?

1st Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hodac/2268933474/ via Creative Commons

2nd Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/petesimon/3365916854/ via Creative Commons

I was taking a quick look at Twitter and this tweet from Guy Kawasaki popped up. It was an infographic about social media jobs.

“Well, what the heck,” I thought. I went ahead and clicked. This is what I found:

© 2012 Onward Search

I really just have one question, but I’m quite desperate to know the answer.

When did job titles like “SEO Analayst” and “PR” become “Social Media Jobs?”

Your feedback is much appreciated.

Something very interesting happened over the weekend, and I thought I would tell you about it. Actually, the really weird thing is that the same incident happened two different times with two different parties involved. As it happened, two different people, who I’m pretty sure do not know each other at all, sort of called me out in the public Twitter stream. One said I never talked to them and the other asked me why I wasn’t tweeting their blog posts.

Now, there are plenty of people in the world of social media who would say something like, “Ah, you must be doing something right. The haters are coming out to get ya.”

I’m not really keen on that sort of argument. If these folks felt like I was not treating them fairly, I have to listen to that. But it makes me wonder, as we continue to travel into the realm of 2012, if this side of my social media life will just continue to grow. Will more people start “calling me out” on Twitter and on their blog sites? Will more people feel free to randomly troll my posts? Is that what I have to look forward to?

The payoff

Now, the other interesting thing about this scenario is that I am not really sure how far my own particular path of online success can go. There are so many people above me in the social media lasagna that I’m not sure I could ever break through to that level of success. In fact, a lot of those folks still don’t even reply to me when I try to talk to them on Twitter or when I comment on their blog posts. The ceiling that I need to grasp onto is most definitely a Cathedral ceiling. Maybe the sky itself. Am I going to offer some new insight into the online world that has not yet been covered by a much more experienced, much more knowledgable, much more well-known person? I highly doubt it.

It seems to me that at this particular time, I’m headed towards a casino where I’m going to need to decide whether or not to make a huge bet. The bet is as follows: Is any level of success I will find online going to be worth the increasing amount of dissidence I will encounter as I strive for that success?

How many more readers can I get here on my site before I start getting overrun by people who disagree just cuz they can? How many more Twitter followers (who are not porn bots) can I gather before I start meeting unpleasantness on a daily basis?

My livelihood is not really based on doing this stuff. This is all volunteer, extra-curricular. Where is my ceiling for dealing with gratuitous unpleasantness, and how does that relate to my ceiling of potential success? Where does one outweigh the other?

I seem to be at a fork in the road, or getting to one.

Which path would you take?

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/s3a/5352487145/ via Creative Commons