I've seen some posts lately questioning a marketer's purpose in using Chatroulette. People criticise the lack of long term strategic thinking when it comes to social media, particularly the relevance of a short term campaign.But if you're building a community or a following or a tribe or a cult, you need small campaignable ideas to keep them ignited. Or even reward them. Or keep your brand top of mind...
No, that's not just the name of David Thorne's new book that I just ordered. I think it's also something brands need to realise before they come out to play. Because no matter how many "social media etiquette" rules you follow, at the end of the day there's always going to be a bully or a troll or a mob ready to push you off the monkey bars. But I think it's important to note that this doesn’t just happen to brands in this space, but people too. It's almost inevitable, no matter who you are. So if it does happen, get back on your feet and give it another go. Although you can listen to advice from your parents (or the “social media experts”), at the end of the day sometimes it is going to happen anyway. Probably best you don't listen to my Dad's advice though, which was when I got in a fight to always punch the bully back. Consumers may not like that....
John Wanamaker, who ever he was, supposedly said, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don’t know which half."As much as I hate to play to the whole "social media is a revolution" idea, I think in 2010 and beyond we'll start to see this wasted half reduced dramatically. Although I don't know if you would class the spend under "advertising".The reason we haven't seen any kind of revolution yet is because no one is using it in any kind of revolutionary way. When we move beyond Facebook Fan Pages as the core of strategy, combined with increased accountability on agencies, we're going to start seeing some pretty amazing stuff.The Utopian in me can't wait for a time when I'm discussing a night out with my mates on Facebook and and my favourite beer brand joins the conversation with information on the nearest and cheapest location to buy a six pack. Or a theatre, knowing my favourite movie, checks my calendar to see if I'm free and then informs me they're showing a screening. And my favourite candy brand is in on it too. How about a retailer makes a recommendation on what to buy my Dad for Father's Day based on his Amazon browsing habits, or even his Twitter usage. The examples are endless.Obviously, we're not gonna be at this stage for a long time. And I'm not even sure how to get there. But at some point we'll start using this abundance of information, deal with the privacy issues and eventually develop the right technology to start reducing that wasted half of advertising.But in the mean time, the least I can hope for is that Coles will stop wasting their half on me....
Just an observation I thought I'd share with you all. Over the last 10 months, I've watched 6,148 videos on YouTube. On average, that's 20.5 videos a day. And if the average video is 2.7 minutes long (sorry academics, no peer reviewed source provided), that's 55.35 minutes a day. This means I'm spending more time consuming a single website than television, radio, newspapers and magazines combined. Thankfully, there's no way to track how much time I spend on Facebook. I know I'm not an accurate portrait of this generation, but I'm not even sure the above stat includes videos embedded on third party websites....
"Semi permanent" Julian Cole's blog is about to turn three. And to celebrate, he's just posted about how his blog has changed over time to become more relevant to real world. Unfortunately, not all of us have real world experience. In fact, this blog is based entirely off my own observations and insights. And with my own blog about to turn two on Saturday, I've been thinking a bit about my approach to blogging; that is to start fires and play the joker. I came to a conclusion that is perhaps better explained with a diagram...
Who's behind the social media strategy for the Government? Because they're doing a pretty fucking great job, on both the federal and state level. Probably far better than many brands. And when the Government is doing a better job than you, maybe it's time to lift your game just a little. Firstly, the bid for the World Cup is quite remarkable. The official website is, well, kinda cool as well as this totally rad video...
Joseph Jaffe just wrote a post saying every time your brand is mentioned on a blog you need to respond. But he's wrong. And I reckon Adam Ferrier might even be onto something when he said brands should just leave consumers alone. Just because someone mentions your brand name, it doesn't mean you have to go in and "engage". Just because someone says something about jeans on Twitter, it doesn't mean you have to follow them if you're Levi. And just because someone mentions something remotely related to your product, it doesn't mean you have to comment on my blog. This is called spam. And if you do it on this blog I have no problem tearing you to shreds. I'm all for monitoring the social media environment. But when it comes to responding, don't do it all the time. Only do it when you can provide value. If it's relevant, and you can answer a question, point someone in the right direction or even give them something free or discounted, then you may respond. And if you want to see somebody doing social media response well, the Body Shop is a good place to start. Joseph and Adam, I give you both permission to respond if you please....
Perhaps one of my favourite campaigns so far this year is Tooheys Extra Dry's Six Beers of Separation. You couldn't really call it a social media campaign, but they did the standard, "Let's put it up on YouTube and MySpace".I really really dug this campaign. I almost applied to myself because I thought it was such a great idea, however what really surprised me was the quality of the execution. There's almost a few hours of content up online, and I loved every second of it.But the problem is, with the exception of the trailer, the most viewed video on the YouTube channel has just over 1,000 views. It's not much, and I'm sure the client will not be happy with this result. I'm almost annoyed that such quality content hasn't gotten the attention it deserves, even with all the print and outdoor ads I've seen around Melbourne.Luckily, this once off broadcast will also be playing on pay television in Australia, which will hopefully satisfy the marketers are Tooheys. But is this is just another example of how social media is unable to stand on its feet by itself? I'd suggest that at least at the moment, social media needs to be integrated with the rest of your strategy if you want traditional type results....
Last October I posted about two social media strategy models I had been working on. The first was Response and the second was Broadcast. Taking on the advice of Gavin Heaton and Kate Richardson I have made some slight adjustments to the Response model. While I would recommend reading the original post, the key differences are the addition of measurement on behalf of the marketer and recognising the circular nature of this process. Thoughts?...
People hate when those three terms are thrown around, but I genuinely think there are people out there who could do a lot for your brand in the social media space. It's a few others who are fucking it up for everyone else. Not everyone working in social media marketing is a complete douche. ;]...
