Marketing Talk

A few weeks ago, during and directly following the 2010 F8 conference, Facebook announced some pretty astounding changes that created a rush of excitement across the internet. Some of that excitement was happy and positive and some of it, like that coming from this particular Blog URL, was a bit on the angry side of excited. Maybe even apoplectic, to reference Hawthorne. I, among others, was not pleased as punch about my friends being able to share my cute little button nose with anyone who might wander upon the wonder of Pandora (.com, not the world of Avatar). More than that, I was disappointed that people on Facebook, like random family members and people I’ve been friends with since I was in nursery school, were not alerted about all of the privacy changes going on.

There were a lot of open letters, diagrams on how Facebook privacy has shifted, blogs telling people like me to kind of suck it up, and more. From Mark Zuckerberg and the rules of Facebook, there was mostly silence.

Then last weekend, the news hit that only pages with 10,000 or more fans (likers?) would be able to have customized pages. The outrage that poured out from the realms of business and developers was too much to bear. Facebook flip-flopped. “Oops…that was a bad idea. We might do it again, but not right now, k?”

I thought to myself at the time that if Facebook was so willing to “reconsider” or pull the plug on this action, why do it in the first place?

Now, today, Zuckerberg is finally making the rounds, announcing that Facebook is working on ways to make sure people have granular control in a bit more of a simple, less rocket science kind of way.

It might be that I’m just cranky because I stayed up too late watching Lost, but this kind of frustrates me. I’ll be honest.

Stick to your guns

It’s true that I’ve done a lot of complaining about Facebook lately, but I have to say that I kind of gave those folks a grudging respect. Showing people who visit CNN.com my thumbs up on a story is not a high priority for me, nor is sharing my friends’ information. But Facebook thought that this was the battlefield of the next revolution, and they seemed to be standing their ground even in the face of a fair amount of pressure.

But now, weeks later, the sand castle is being taken out to sea. The wall is being knocked down. And other metaphors. What happened to changing the way the world uses the internet? What happened to just plain changing the world?

That Facebook launches ideas without careful consideration and then reneges on anything that seems particularly itchy is not the best business practice to follow. Now, I realize that Mark Zuckerberg does not really need any of my advice right now. I can appreciate that I am just one of 400,000,000 people suckling at the nutritious well of friendship and content that is Facebook. All of that aside, I would respect Facebook more if instead of simply flip-flopping they took the time to ease concerns but say, “No, this is our course. We really believe this is the right way to go. How can we make this work for you?” Barring that, responding more swiftly might make the flip-flopping seem more reactive rather than a begrudging, late reaction to a lot of angry customers.

Image credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/netrix1

I was thinking about the advice that a lot of marketing experts give regarding one of the big questions in Social Media world. “How do I generate content?”

I have always been inclined to write about things, for as long as I can remember. I write about things and then wonder if anyone will read it or what those readers might think about it.

For other people who are not inclined to write, however, generating content for all of this Social Media “stuff” can be extremely intimidating. The questions start coming, creating something akin to a mental Great Wall of China. “How can I do this? “Do I need to hire someone to do this?” “Who can come up with all of that content and also make it useful?”

As Shakespeare might say, “Yep, that’s the question.”

I have a tidbit of advice that helps me. It’s not about integrated marketing. I call it integrated thinking. In general, integrated thinking follows the same pathways as integrated marketing, but before fingers touch keyboard, the pathways must be built and lined in your brain, in how you think.

I see and I respond

One effective way to integrate your thinking is to look at once source and use that as an inspiration to create content elsewhere. Blog expert Denise Wakeman notes, as do other experts, that sometimes a blog post can come from a question you receive from a customer. You are put on the spot having to generate content for that one person, although you might not think of that as content while in the process. The next time you receive a question from a customer, ask him or her for permission to talk about that topic in depth. If you think it’s a really important issue and if it is possible without too much hassle, videotape an interview with that customer and your response. Moreover, as you are answering your customer’s question, ask him or her to keep you posted on how your answer affected or changed their results. Not only will this give your content legs, but it will also pave the way for a future testimonial or case study. But all of this needs to occur in your head first. The actions will follow.

Another way to integrate your thinking in order to generate content is to simply review what the hot topics are in places you might be visiting anyway. Do you visit a blog that often makes you think afterwards? Instead of just absorbing those thoughts into the ether surrounding your desk, write those thoughts down. If you can link or mention that person’s blog, you are also potentially building a relationship that will create more back-and-forth exchanges in the future.

It’s about efficiency

It might seem like doing all of this thinking on the front end would or could get really darned time consuming. For busy business people, this is a real negative. However, integrated thinking can actually save time in several different ways. Take the following scenario as an example.

Your company has decided to make a real concerted effort to build the most comprehensive and updated website the company has ever had. This requires taking careful looks at your product lines, your past marketing efforts, consideration of keywords. A lot of effort!

Once the website is done, you want to of course generate buzz about it. You want to drive traffic to it. So, what you might find yourself doing is creating a campaign where each channel is being built from the ground up, just like your site was. What are my keywords for LinkedIn or Facebook again? What main points do I want to incorporate into my lit pieces? What points do I want to get across to my customers as I encourage them to visit my site?

Why start from the ground up? 

With integrated thinking, working on the website will by definition create content that could last your company for 18 months beyond the launch of the new site. How is that possible?

Record your objectives as you plan out your site. Record the site map and the conversations that occur. What facets of the site are you building because you think it will make your customers’ lives easier? Keep these bullet points saved. When it comes time to write a press release or any other marketing effort aimed at driving traffic, just pull out those bullet points and tell your customers, “This is what we did for you.”

As you determine your company’s keywords, do a quick search on Social Media sites you think you might want to use in the future. Are those words coming up? Do your competitors show up when you search for those words? Begin the research while your site is still under construction so that when the site launches, so too can your Social Media campaign.

As you generate content for your products, keep those key copy points. Make sure that those same keywords and major selling points turn up in future catalogs, brochures, sell sheets, and more.

When you approach everything you do with a mind to integrating those actions into other parts of your marketing efforts, the actual implementation becomes far less challenging and far less time-consuming. A blog with 50 posts ready to go should practically write itself when launching a site or returning from a big sales meeting. You just need to train your mind to think ahead and broadly. You need to think integrated and you will be integrated. It starts with the brain and flows out from there.

Image by Artem Chernyshevych. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/artM

I saw an article this week raising the question about what kind of crisis could bring Social Media in general or a Social Networking site in particular to its knees. It’s an interesting question, but my “blink” answer was that I’m not sure Social Media can really have a crisis at this point.

What makes Social Media so indestructible? I think it’s the people who use it. Consider recent events that
have occurred.
     • The big Facebook Open Graph thing
     • The Facebook announcement that only pages with 10,000 or more fans would be able to create a
     customized landing page (they later reneged on this)
     • Credit and debit card numbers from Blippy published to Google

And the list goes on.

It would seem like any one of these events would be enough to give people pause, and for some people, it has been. But the sheer numbers involved when talking about Social Media, and the nature of a lot of the folks using Social Media, make me feel like Social Media may well nigh be indestructible.

To illustrate this point, a short time ago one of my contacts on Facebook made a post indicating that by signing up for an external site account, you could get a Facebook credit for one of the games. To me, this indicates that you would have to enter a credit card number somewhere in there. Given that exposing my profile picture makes me weak in the knees, doing something like this fills me with a dread that I can’t verbalize. But clearly, when considering the entire Social Media universe, I am in the minority.

If people are not turned off by losing the ability to control what information gets published, if people are not frightened off by spammy posts and worms and the publication of credit card numbers and ID theft and telling the universe the names of their children along with where those children may or may not be at any given point, I can’t really image what could happen that would make people pause.

It kind of reminds me of one of the early scenes from the movie Dumb and Dumber. The bad guys want to trash the apartment that Lloyd and Harry live in. The apartment is already disgusting, so the bad guys reflect on whether further trashing the apartment would really send a message. I kind of feel like that when it comes to Social Media. There are already plenty of risks. What would send a negative message at this point? Interested in your thoughts!

Image by Mac Pale. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/pale

I’m not going to begin this post by saying, “Maybe I’m old fashioned” because I KNOW that I am. I enjoy knitting and crocheting, I enjoy talking to people in person (with full sentences even), and I hate texting. So, I get that.

However, I do believe that one part of my old fashioned perspective would be really good for folks during these trying technological times. It’s called etiquette. Common courtesy. Manners. Stuff like that. I’m about to put good manners on the endangered species list along with the grey wolf and the California Condor. But there is still hope. First, here’s a little quiz for you.

If you see that someone has mentioned you in a Tweet, do you acknowledge said tweet or tweeter with your own tweet?

Do you respond to an email as soon as you get it? Within an hour? Within a day? Do you check your email and understand that people are asking you to respond?

Do you respond to voicemails? Ever?

In like a firehose, out like a drizzle

I think that our problem is that we have too much incoming information with no real way to prioritize it. We are getting mentioned, replied to, and retweeted on Twitter. We are getting tagged, commented on, and mentioned on Facebook. We are getting emails, text messages, voicemails, LinkedIn messages, blog comments, and who knows what else. Oh, and then that pesky work gets in the way.

The problem is that every tidbit of that stuff is someone trying to reach out to you. Maybe it’s a friend, maybe it’s a prospect, maybe it’s an existing client. Maybe it’s a telemarketer. You don’t really know until you actually go through all of that stuff. You don’t get an automatic “this is a high priority tweet” message, after all. Though that would kind of be nice.

The danger in all of this is that nobody really cares if you’re overloaded. That’s your problem. They want information from you, whether it’s a quote for your consultation services or whether it’s a confirmation that you made reservations for dinner. If you don’t respond, the chances are very good that that tweeter or Facebooker or emailer or caller is going to feel, well, ignored.


You are Trackable

The other weapon defeating good manners is that people can now see what you are doing instead of responding to them. I think business people need to be especially cognizant of this. Let’s say, for example, that you go to a website to get technical support of a customized kind. You see a form. Great. People love forms. They love forms because forms mean they are getting connected right to the top, right?

Now, let’s say that you fill out such a form and you are refreshing your email every few minutes to get the helpful note you need. You wait, wait wait. Nothing. So you do a little research and find that the person you are waiting on is on Twitter. Let’s say that person has Foursquare and they’ve just announced that they have checked in at “John Doe’s Get Drunkfast Bar.” Not only are you going to realize that you are not a priority, but you may also wonder why the person is checking into the  bar at 9 AM. This may or may not build your confidence in that person.

If the roles are reversed, consider where your customers might find you? There are times when I send an email, don’t get a response, and then see that someone has reached gold ribbon status in Farmville. I understand that growing and harvesting cherries is a furtherance to most professions, but good manners might dictate that you should get your replies out before your farm work. Unless you’re a REAL farmer.

Realistic Expectations Are Important

Now I’m not a total dictator when it comes to replying and responding. We’re all busy, and we do have all of this communication stuff coming at us like never before. Because of that, however, I think it is reasonable to express some realistic guidelines with people to whom you want to maintain a positive relationship. If you tend to go get drunkfast in the mornings, note on your form that you are most likely to respond in the afternoon or evening hours. Don’t say that you will respond in 24 hours if you can’t. If you need to work in a harvest of virtual grapes every four hours, leave yourself six hours to respond to emails and voicemails. And if you’re up to your eyeballs, take five seconds to text or email someone and say, “Got your message. Can’t reply now but will soon.”

Am I crazy AND old fashioned? What do you think?

Image credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/crazyhorse

Many long years ago, I had a friend who was really struggling in life. I had tried to stand by this friend ever since I learned that they were dealing with the continuing weight of a major family tragedy. I balanced all of my reactions to this friend knowing that everything was tinged with that sadness and melancholy. I was supportive, I tried to stand up for this friend during arguments and what-not. But as this friend traveled further and further down the path of drug-induced paranoia and increased depression, they began to take words that I was offering as a friend as me lording over them somehow. They accused me of being too judgmental, a common cry among those suffering with substance abuse and other mental problems.

I was shocked, of course. I was just trying to be helpful. I was just trying to be a friend. But once my friend got the idea that I had different motives, my battle was lost.I say this because I fear that companies and those in the marketing business could head for a similar face-off, and it worries me. I say this because while marketing has become increasingly more complex, so too have industries like manufacturing, exporting, really anything you can think of. I’m worried that at some point, marketers are going to forget that we are talking to people who are not immersed in our reality every day. Even more frightening – we could lose sight of what companies who need marketing advice are dealing with on a day-to-day basis.

This idea first occurred to me several months ago when I attended a Social Media conference. A person was talking about the value of LinkedIn and how it can work for any kind of business, no matter what. A lot of our clients, like many other companies, have vast and complicated sales networks, and it occurred to me that a site like LinkedIn could potentially be really complicated for a company that uses several different reps, firms, or distributors. I raised my hand and asked whether a company might get into trouble if they connect with one firm but not another, or if they give a positive recommendation for one rep but not all reps. The person I was talking to had no idea how to answer my question and didn’t really understand the core of what I was asking. And I admit, I was taken aback a bit.

Now, one could argue that a person can’t be a master of all trades. If you want to be an expert in something, that means other things are going to have to be a lower priority. I get that. But here’s my concern. Us marketers are going around tweeting and posting about everything from converting leads to sales to Facebook to Twitter to Foursquare. We are talking about campaign integration, we are talking about how print is not dead, and we are talking about how mobile marketing will not be the death of Social Media. Who are we talking to?

To a person who is in middle management at a company, who may wear the hat of marketing director, sales director, and general office manager, the underlying sensation is that all of this marketing stuff sounds really great and important. It may also sound really expensive, not just monetarily but also in terms of time. And if we’re not careful, as marketers, if we are not careful about keeping in touch with who actually needs this advice, if we are not careful about who actually is going to have to implement all of these great ideas that we have, the companies that need us are going to hesitate before calling on us. We are going to seem like we are just putting our hands in their pockets for reasons that we have not made clear. “Just trust me” is not going to cut it.

I’m not saying that those of us in the world of marketing should stop what we’re doing and catch up on the basics of every single industry out there. But when we’re talking about how Facebook is great for business, we should perhaps take pause and say, “Except if you’re in this kind of business. In that case this might be better.” Our profession is to help companies sell what they make or offer, and with the world economy fluctuating more than the ocean’s tide, just that primary goal is endlessly complicated. Let’s reach out and say, “Let’s talk about you. Let’s talk about how you can make sure that your sales force knows that you value everyone equally while you are expanding your use of Social Media. Let’s talk about why print might still be the best option for you. Let’s talk about why all of this talk about Foursquare is really not going to affect you right now.”

Marketers talk a lot about honesty. I think we still have it. I think we still have integrity. But the companies who need all of this reading we’re doing don’t have time to look at webinar after webinar, article after article. They need to know why they should pay money for this or why they should invest time in that. And we should be able to answer those questions as experts in our business and as caring consultants to theirs.

Image by Charlotte Na. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Ravenwood

Around where I work, there is a crew that mows the grass throughout the Summer. When I say “throughout the Summer,” I mean that they have specifically scheduled days on which they perform their duties. They perform those duties whether it is hailing, sunny, warm, cold, rainy, or droughty. There could be nothing but dirt left and they would still probably come to mow the grass just because it is what they have always done, it’s what they’ve been told to do, and it seems to work.

I mention this because I think sometimes companies get into ruts with their marketing. Maybe marketers get in ruts with their recommendations, too.

Every Year is a Winding Road

Beginning in about July or so, and really throughout the year, we start formulating ideas that will evolve into the backbones of our proposed marketing plans for our clients. It would be easy to say, “Well, you did six print ads in this publication last year and it didn’t seem to hurt anything. Let’s do that again!” But that is not really the best approach. Maybe it never was, but it certainly is not now. We’ve noticed that due to time constraints and a multitude of other responsibilities, companies who handle their own marketing often fall into these kinds of thought patterns. It’s easy to manage, it does some good. What more could you ask for?
In fact, though, a lot can happen in a year. Publications can launch and fail. Websites can launch and fail. Heck, really anything can launch or fail. Sometimes the same thing does both in the span of a year. It’s a lot to keep track of. There are so many details to monitor, and now that the BPA has started to audit websites in addition to print publications, there’s going to be even more to get our arms around.

If you don’t approach a marketing plan from a fresh perspective, you can end up mowing grass that is already dead. You can end up trying to seed a parking lot while there are plant beds all ready and waiting just a few yards away. Increasingly, tightly scheduled, “perfect” repeatable plans can be deadly. A company cannot possibly pursue everything there is to pursue now over a year-long period. A company that has always relied on print can start dabbling with online advertising. A company that has done nothing but collateral could look at updating their website. A company that has sworn off print could look at a really innovative direct mail campaign. That’s right — using paper. Just repeating what has been done “since I started” or “for as long as this company has been in business” is not just a boring approach to the new world, but it also is dangerous. It will make you look lazy. It will make you look like you are behind the times. And that’s not a good place to be.

So before you decide that you are going to mow the grass every Wednesday and Friday no matter what the elements tell you to do, take a step back and actually look at the yard you have. Does it really need to be mowed today? Maybe it’s time to try something new. You could always go back to mowing next week.

Image by octavian napoleon. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/octavianuk