I just stumbled across MTV Asia's "Being Young" presentation on slideshare. It is an informed and insightful presentation on the social and media shifts afoot with asian youth.
TV is no longer relevant. Spending time online, listening to music and communicating are. I wish I could just repeat that over and over as a mantra.
Every week I have a client wanting to launch a micro-site to "engage" people with some new aspect of their brand or offering. To what purpose?
MTV shows that youth spend more time online but on "Fewer sites". If a person only visits 7-11 sites in a day, what are the odds that some new micro-site is going to push its way into the mix? And what kind of investment is required to bump something like Facebook off their radar?
"we have to learn how to earn prime time now that we can't buy it."
- James Chadwick, Head of Strategy at Mindshare Asia
The full MTV Asia "Being Young" presentation is embedded for your viewing below.
This is it, everyone. The real deal. If we want to be "360", we
have to think "360" which means we have to develop cohesive views of
our audiences that incorporate media, social behaviors, digital
channels, devices and what matters to them.
Our view and use of media has to change. David Armano (or was it Dennis?) just posted a call for engagement and used real world examples on how Southwest Airlines and Zappos are effectively using twitter to earn time with customers.
"Social Networks are all about facilitating human connections, and instead of talking about how we can do this—I hear marketers asking "how do we monetize" and "how do we advertise" on them."
- David Armano
David gets it. MTV gets it. Even Mindshare, one of the largest media buyers on the planet, is getting it.
So why are brands still trying to advertise on social networks?
[embedded Aquafina affirmations campaign below]
EDIT: Sadly, the plugin doesn't FIT on my blog. lol. Christ. Maybe a temporary early gotcha? Not sure how long this has been running. I doubt this thing would fit on anyone's blog. You may want to view it here.
What I love most about this campaign is that, for the first time, someone is actually going out of their way to promote sharing.
As the image above shows, they actively support you posting this to the following sites/tools: Typepad, myspace, facebook, myyearbook, dashboard, google, live, netvibes, hi5, freewebs, xanga, friendster, tagged, blackplanet, blogger, livejournal, wordpress, multiply, eons, pageflakes, webwag, orkut, vox, and piczo. And they also support email and a general embed in the crazy case your platform online is not supported.
What is amazing is the depth of support for these platforms. They actually do the work for you. I clicked on Typepad and it asked me for my username and password. Then it asked me to select the blog account, create a subject and even fill out the body text. And then it built the post for me. Wow.
I went looking for the commercial, seeing if they allowed the pieces to be broken apart. Yup. Found it on YouTube.
But does the campaign work? Love to know what you think.
As you may know, I am going to cover Ad:Tech San Francisco.
They are asking all the bloggers attending to answer some questions and I think many of my readers will find both the questions and even my answers of interest. I'm going to summarize some of the questions as they were a bit long.
1. New Tech Tools: New tech tools like Twitter and Seesmic are making major changes in how people communicate on a personal level and are expected to do so like so many other next gen technologies that make it easy to shoot short text messages or videos in easily digestible forms. Have you joined the Twitter brigade? If so what's been the main benefit? If not, what do you need to know to make a decision whether to join the club
2. Business Faces Facebook: Are platforms like Facebook good as internal applications to help run a company? Once you strip the platform of silly apps, some top execs are coming around to the idea that it's better than sales force or outlook-based tools given the friendlier interface for as it relates to events, identifying groups, business content and ways to chat with their customers. Do you agree?
3. SEO & Blogging: A majority of purchasers use the internet for research before a purchase is made. Blogging gives a company a lot of content containing a lot of keywords, and, with a lot of incoming and outbound links, that's SEO gold. Will this trend continue in an evolutionary process or do you think it will be leapfrogged by another format which will increase a shopper's research patterns?
Image Source: See-ming Lee 李思明 SML
The ultimate answer to most of the above is nothing I need ponder or write. Paul Isakson and David Armano have done that for us this very morning.
I stayed home today because I was still under the weather from being sick this weekend. At around 11, I managed to make my way to my computer with a cup of some steaming foul "flu" tea. I was working through a never ending backlog of email when a tweet appeared, hovering in the air for 30 seconds before disappearing. A tweet is a message from someone I have chosen to follow on the twitter service.
I've highlighted the tweet from David in the screenshot below. Click to enlarge.
David is telling all of the people that follow him on twitter of something amazing he had just seen on Slideshare from Paul Isakson. Slideshare is a tool for sharing presentations digitally. You can upload powerpoints and then embed them on blogs or other social media spaces. Paul had done just that. He had uploaded his latest presentation on "What's Next in Marketing and Advertising."
So I clicked through and watched his presentation. I've embedded the presentation below. For those of you who enjoyed "The Brand Gap", you are in for a treat.
Let's review those questions, just to pound the message home.
1. Twitter is overrated, sure. I'm on record calling it "instant messaging for 40 year olds" as it lacks granularity of control over segmenting your "followers". But like any service in this space, it's value is in three thigns: the scale of the network using the service (how many people in the world), who is in your personal network, and how these "friends" in your personal network use the tool. To not participate is to ensure you are even further out of touch in 2-3 years when there is a more complex series of tools that allow you to control and manage your social connections to a finer degree.
2. Facebook as an internal tool for companies. No, I don't agree. It's not about using any technology. It's about creating value for our customers. It's about content and services that provide utility in their lives. "The conversation age" is more than just communicating with people - it is a metaphor for two parties each taking value from a situation, each providing input and currency back to the other in different forms. If using facebook by your company brings value to both parties, then go for it.
3. Search Engine Optimization and blogging. There are a number of convoluted questions embedded in this one and I'm unsure how familiar everyone is with all the issues involved. Search Engine Optimization is generally a hoax. There are a few firms that do a reputable job, but most just charge outrageous sums of money and build fake pages with lots of links back to your site. This answer also comes back to utility and value. If we create something of value to our audiences, there will be links aplenty. Not from jus blogs, but from everything our audience has access to: journals, chat rooms, bulletin boards, blogs, twitters, SMS messages, etc.
I am continually asked to present on "What is Social Media", "Web 2.0" or even "Crowd sourcing." Quite often I am met with some level of incredulous skepticism. Surely, this doesn't apply to insurance, manufacturing, publishing or any other industry you can name.
I can't help but recall the early days of the web. My firm was called in to many a boardroom and it was always the same question, "So, this web thing, is it just a fad?" And sure enough, every example we showed was questioned. I was a geek caught up in my techno-futuristic dreams and this web thing would surely not apply nor impact the company in question or their industry.
And here we are full circle. Sure, blogs might become something else. Wiki's will evolve into new toolsets and even YouTube will transform and be usurped by something else.
But personal expression will not disappear. The desire of people to have a voice and to participate will only increase in the days to come. This is what technology is enabling on a scale never before seen on this planet.
The organizations that embrace this shift will accomplish things never before thought possible. They will learn things that will amaze both them and their competitors. If this isn't worth the risk of "letting go of control" then I don't know what is.
Barack Obama is just one such example. I want to be very clear here. Even if Obama fails to achieve his goal of becoming President of the United States, I predict he will have a deeper and more powerful understanding of the American people than anyone in the history of politics. He will have engaged at a level yet to be fully grasped or understood.
A Historical Campaign
The Washington Post reported on 02-29-2008 that Ms. Hillary Clinton had raised $35 million in February of this year. Obama is expected to announce a number that is "considerably more" than that number. What makes this exceptional is that, unlike Hillary, Obama's donations have come entirely from a source untapped by other politicians: the average citizen.
According to the Los Angeles Times on 02-07-2008, "Clinton has relied heavily on large donors, at least half of whom have already given the maximum allowed by law. By contrast, Obama has built an extensive network of small givers who are free to keep donating until they hit the $2,300 federal contribution ceiling."
I remember the first time I donated $50 to the Obama campaign. Within minutes, I received a message from a previous donor who had agreed to match a donation from a first time donor. The email was written by a gentleman from down south who wanted to share with me his reasons for supporting the campaign, in his words.
Social Media
Obama has been leading on the use of digital technologies since early in his campaign. Information Week reported on 07-23-2007 that no Republicans are reaching out with mobile technology" and spoke of Barack's use of a special short SMS code as well as downloadable ringtones and more.
At the beginning of his campaign, as members of the movement, we were invited to log in to my.barackobama.com and help to organize block parties in our neighborhoods, start a blog or participate in conversations. The site has grown to provide opportunities to match first time donors, watch videos and actively participate in the campaign by a variety of means.
Obama has continued to use every channel to spread his message. If you haven't watched or read the "Yes we can" speech, then I recommend you do so.
And the YouTube videos of his speech put to music are emotional beyond words. The fact that Obama has engaged and allowed for others to carry and manipulate his voice and message points to this being more than a "channel" approach. Unlike his rivals, his campaign is about enabling voices to unite together under a cause of hope. Something not seen in quite some time (at this scale) in the American political system.
Enabling Our Participation
Yesterday I was surprised. The weekly Obama emails pleading with me to donate or match the donation of a first time donor had suddenly been replaced by a call to action much like at the beginning of Obama's campaign. I was being asked to participate in an online drive to reach out to Texans for the upcoming primary. Over a million calls had already been placed by people just like me.
This morning I could only sit in amazement as they had already achieved over a million and a half calls.
I clicked on the link in the email and was brought to my personal area of the Obama network. What greeted me? A personal message and a list of the top callers in a battle for the top slot. I may not know Ms. Gold, but I admire her. I admire any citizen that motivated to making a change. And my body tingles in the knowledge she is anything but alone.
Mr. Obama and his crew didn't start with this knowledge of how to embrace technology. Nor did they begin with such a clear understanding on how to motivate members of their growing "community" of engaged citizens. But they certainly understand it now. And the passion of artists, mothers, activists and citizens is palpable.
There is an embracing of "voice". The campaign as much enables the voice of its supporters as it does the voice of Barack Obama. It is co-creation in one of its finest forms.
Here is Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer David Turnley's documentation of a recent rally in Houston. Shared as an embeddable flickr stream.
Crowd Sourcing Versus Crowd Enabling
"Crowd sourcing" as a term drives me insane. I picture rows of people herded like cattle and prodded into providing input by a system that views them as fodder for its machinations.
"Crowd enabling", by comparison, is both the potential and the benefit of any engagement strategy. It speaks of value provided by the experience, brand, organization, or what have you. It embraces and leverages the concept of co-creation which I believe Alan Moore would stand behind (one of the founders of engagement marketing.)
Barack Obama is an amazing case study of how engagement can enable citizens on a scale and breadth never before dreamed possible. It's important that we see this campaign as a concerted effort across mediums, channels and communities. And it's critical we see the lifting up of the individual, their actions and their individual voices as a cornerstone of the campaign's efforts.
Organizations and brands that are paying attention will not ask "does this apply", but rather "how this applies."
It's been very quiet around here of late.
That's because I've been insanely busy as I'm taking next week off to... get ready for it... go to Australia. Now the crazy part is I will only be there for a week. I catch a flight back on March 2nd.
So. If you are IN Australia, PLEASE leave me a comment and I hope to get a chance to meet some of you over a pint.
My cab arrives in 5 minutes. Signing off.
flickr source: bitslice
So. You are riding a train and you see the "girl of your dreams." She exits. You tell yourself, "She's got a boyfriend," or "I'm not her type." But a few hours later, you are running a fever, and all thoughts are still on her. A day goes by and your friends refuse to hang out with you because you are beyond obsessing. What do you do?
Well, this young man (if this is real) plays for keeps. Ya gotta check this out.
http://www.nygirlofmydreams.com/
Raises an interesting question of whether "love at first site" exists or if this is just lust in an obsessive/scary form. There are so many things we lust after that once we get them we find we don't really want them anymore. Whereas, once in a while, true love forms between two entities and a relationship is born.
I think that Love and Lust are important concepts when it comes to new media. So many new tools are erupting onto the playing field every few minutes. New social marketing sites. New technology. Who doesn't want an iPhone? Or a Joost? Or a Seesmic?
How much of this is Lust? And how many of these companies are setting the stage for true love? Or at least a relationship that goes past a one night stand?
So, while I was in Florida I realized that I had mistakenly set a post up to publish while I was away without ever finishing said post. Pretty brilliant, eh?
So here is the re-post as I was meaning to make it.
"Social networking is not a platform, it’s not a destination, it’s a behaviour."
Katie is speaking out against this tendency of brands to worry about how they can get their brand into facebook or myspace rather than really leverage this emerging phenomenon.
I couldn't agree more. But let's break it down a bit.
Social Networking and this whole Age of Conversation has taken the continuing fragmentation of media and made it non-linear. If we thought the media world was fragmented before, we now have an unlimited number of forever forming and reforming communities within just one social networking site, let alone all of them combined.
Being on YouTube or Facebook doesn't guarantee viewership. It's the same with every social networking site. Understanding and engaging the communities within and outside of these social networking sites that matters.
So this raises a number of questions.
But as I sat and thought about this some more, I was taken back to an old associate, Stuart MacDonald, and a phrase he used to love to drop like a bomb in any meeting.
"Where's the value?"
Consuming media is wonderful. But it is a subset of activity that I participate in when I log into my personal spaces. I am also looking to create media, build relationships and have conversations. Ironically, these other activities generally result in my consuming media. Only the media I'm consuming is directed and positioned by how the community and those I'm interacting with perceive its value.
I'm going to go out on a limb. What if it is all about behavior? Could I not maximize my reach within twitter by looking to engage with all of the people on twitter that are speaking on a topic of interest to the engagement or campaign in question? And then follow this activity into other platforms?
Calling it a "Conversation Age" is great, but we can't personally engage in a conversation with every person, customer or prospect. And if this phenomenon is truly non-linear in nature, then that means we can't identify it in simple variables. We would have to apply the principles of chaos to marketing.
That means it can't be seen when looking at the number of visitors to a site, the number of conversation online, views of our media or even reach or brand equity measurements. These are the individual data points and alone they tell us a misleading story. We would have to be looking for patterns of engagement. Ways that these (or other variables) interact and present emerging patterns. Ultimate success would be when these patterns are stable yet non-linear in nature. Continuing to morph and adjust as they interact with emerging communities online.
Is system thinking coming to Marketing?
Time to come clean, I was bored on the weekend and turned to searching Google for links to the ol' craphammer. And I stumbled across something I'd never heard of before.
Have some time to wander around the web? The screen reader was a bit annoying but the trail of footsteps was actually emotionally satisfying.
My quick review.
What I loved about this was how it worked to make our inter-blog relationships more visible and how the developer was providing a new way to interact with these relationships. This type of experimentation is going to lead to some very powerful and interesting tools in our future.
But sadly, this is not yet at a point where I would find it addictive or useful enough to continue using.
Updates via Email
Updates via RSS
Recent Comments