Pigs Don't Fly by Zac Martin

17 October 2008 Happy First Birthday

Today my blog celebrates its first birthday. Over the past 366 days I have…

+ Posted 140 times.
+ Had 6,493 visits.
+ Had 10,383 pageviews.
+ Received 307 comments.
+ Peaked at 119 RSS Subscriptions.
+ Been mentioned in three editions of Marketing Magazine.
+ And once in B&T.
+ Appeared as a guest on Marketing Today and Gen Y Marketing Podcast.
+ Hit a rank of 29th for the Top Australian Marketing Bloggers.
+ Had an interview at Naked Communications.
+ Completed my first year at university.
+ Celebrated my nineteenth birthday.

Starting a blog was one of the best things I’ve done, and not only career wise. There are two people I need to thank…

+ Julian Cole, whom without, this blog would not exist.
+ Peter Wagstaff, who made marketing more interesting than it should have been.
+ And everyone else who subscribed to, linked to, commented on or just read my blog over the past year.

Thank you.

Posted by Zac Martin 7 Comments

15 October 2008 Social Media Strategy: Broadcast

After identifying two approaches when it comes to social media marketing, yesterday’s post discussed the first strategy of Response. The second strategy, discussed below is Broadcast.

Above the line is from marketer’s point of view. Below it, is from the consumer’s.

Produce
Before anything, the marketer must firstly produce content. Ideally this should be of something remarkable and with a high social currency value. This could be a video, Facebook application, podcast, blog or any even a press release.

Publish
In order for the content to be seen it is published on sites such as YouTube, Blogger or Facebook. In some case a microsite can be as effective. Ensure the barriers of viewing are low and that the content is easily spreadable. This can be done through a number of means such as allowing embed links for videos or giving consent for consumers to mashup your content.

Seed
Seeding your published material should not be done in an interruptive manner. Spamming is definitely not an option here and one step wrong here could ruin a whole campaign. It is vital that this is done in a way that adds value to a conversation, do not seed where you are not welcome or even encouraged to do so. And most importantly, be transparent, open and honest.

Pull
New media is not about pushing content onto consumers who don’t want it. Ideally you want them pulling it from you. The Internet has allowed this to become a easy and automated process with technology such as RSS, email newsletters and even YouTube subscriptions. After seeding the content, consumers should have the option to subscribe to a feed or service. This should be consented and with the ability to unsubscribe. You know those consumers who sign up to your feed will be among the most loyal and passionate.

Spread
Once the consumers are pulling your content, it will begin to spread. Buzz will be generated and depending on the medium you might even some get some consumers producing user generated content.

Blendtec used this approach in October 2006 and it continues to remain a success with over 114,000 subscribed users on YouTube. If I ever decided to get a blender, I know which brand I’d purchase.

If you’re interested, also take a look at Julian Cole’s Social Media Marketing Framework and Laurel Papworth’s definition of Social Media. Be sure to check out my other approach Response. Please feel free to offer any thoughts or critique.

Posted by Zac Martin 7 Comments

14 October 2008 Social Media Strategy: Response

The way I see it, new media is the umbrella that encompasses everything from social media marketing to viral marketing to mobile marketing. Essentially, anything that does not interrupt a consumer with a great focus on consented, engaging and value providing content.

So what is social media? A few days of research, thinking and graphics work have lead me to two key strategies that can be undertaken when it comes to social media marketing. The first, which I’ll be covering here is Response and the second, which I’ll be posting tomorrow, is Broadcast.

Above the line is from marketer’s point of view. Below it, is from the consumer’s.

Monitor
Before jumping into the pool it is important to test the water. Observe your consumer and community in focus from afar. Before posting a comment on someone’s blog, you must first understand what they’re talking about. You should be scoping the scene out to see if you can firstly join the conversation and secondly add to the conversation.

Identify
There are too many blogs, social network profiles, YouTube videos and tweets for you to respond to them all. After monitoring your consumer and community it is important to identify the most influential people within this niche. Using these opinion leaders and those with loyal audiences (not necessarily large), you will be able to more effectively and efficiently target your key customers.

Engage
After monitoring and identify the influential consumers within a community, you can now engage with them. This relationship might be a short or long but either way it should be a case of providing meaningful and relevant value to consumers and their community.

UGC
You have now engaged with the consumer and started a relationship which has been built on the mutual exchange of value. Here the marketer gives up control of the message and the community takes over with the creation of user generated content. It could be something small like establishing and spreading buzz online (or offline) through social networks or something much more involved like writing a blog post or publishing a video on YouTube.

The Body Shop do this extremely well. Not only do they have a blog (see Broadcast), but actively respond to influential bloggers. As a result, I’m creating content about them right now.

This is one of two strategies I have identified that could be used when approaching social media marketing. The other is Broadcast. Please feel free to offer any thoughts or critique.

Edit: I have since updated this model here.

Posted by Zac Martin 9 Comments

13 October 2008 My Mo’tivation

Last year I questioned the intergration between Movember and research into men’s health issues. This year, being a part of it, I see things a little differently.

While I don’t really have the ability to actually grow a moustache, please donate. Or sign up, join team MO’NASH and raise money for a good cause. Thanks.

Posted by Zac Martin 1 Comment

11 October 2008 All The Small Things

Sometimes it’s the small things that make a real difference. And I’m not even talking about the remarkable stuff. That small something could be enough to motivate you, or de motivate you if it doesn’t exist (see Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory).

Can you imagine Google if you had to click on the text box every time you went to the homepage? Or the frustration someone has when they’re shopping online, the page times out and they have to start again? Or even getting my morning coffee and not seeing a smile from the girl behind the counter?

If you’re not going to be remarkable, at least get the small stuff right.

What small thing makes a difference to you? Good or bad, online or offline.

Posted by Zac Martin 0 Comments

09 October 2008 Privacy Statement

Gen Y just doesn’t care about their privacy.

Speaking as one of them, I am not worried about the information that goes up on my social networking profiles. I share personal information every day and tagged in photos every Monday morning after a big weekend. And there are some shocking ones.

The reason I bring this up is because Gen X’s are constantly telling me that this is going to affect my career with employers frowning upon such behaviour. But I disagree. Sooner or later employers are going to release that the high majority of Gen Y have at least one Facebook photo that shows them partying, drinking or worse. Interestingly, I don’t have a problem with complete transparency or the need to hide what I do in my own time.

What’s going to be really interesting is when Gen Y takes a majority in the workplace and they (we) become the employers of the next generation, what ever they’re called. Can you even imagine what the social norms will be then?

I actually have a link to my Facebook page in my email signature. And I send emails to potential future employers every day. I’m not worried about the photos they will see. Although sooner or later someone might realise I only have one suit and two shirts that I have to keep alternating.

Posted by Zac Martin 10 Comments

05 October 2008 Freedom Of Content

Chris Anderson is pretty much a genius. His work on The Long Tail is pretty much amazing and his latest ideas about Free have really taken my interest.

A couple of weeks ago I posted some of my concepts for new media business models. A couple of days later David Armano posted this diagram which lead me to Chris’s work.

In a moment of the light bulb going off in my head I realised my models almost perfectly fit the first three of his Models of Free.

Read both my post and his for a deeper understand but basically…

Punchbowl Model = Free 1 (direct cross subsidy, get one thing and pay for another)
Ninja Model = Free 2 (Ad supported, third party subsides second party)
Gervais Model and Radiohead Model = Free 3 (“Freemium”, a few people subsidise everyone else)

I just thought it was really cool to see some of my ideas backed up by theory. Chris even blogged about it here.

Posted by Zac Martin 0 Comments

01 October 2008 How Replying To This Could Be Illegal

We have a problem.

Its realisation comes after Telstra Bigpond raised a legal issue over their Twitter account.

They had worries about breaching the 2003 Spam Act. Currently, their legal department is trying to determine if their communications could be considered a commerical electronic message, in which case would be against the law.

The Australian Government Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy has this to say about the issue…

The Spam Act 2003 prohibits the sending of spam, which is identified as a commercial electronic message sent without the consent of the addressee via email, short message service (SMS), multimedia message service (MMS) or instant messaging. The requirements under the Spam Act apply to all commercial electronic messages, including both bulk and individual messages.

Meanwhile the Australian Communications and Media Authority defines spam as…

Any message that doesn’t meet the following three conditions is defined as spam…

+ Consent – The message must be sent with consent of the consumer.
+ Identify – The message must contain accurate information about the person or organisation that authorised the sending of the message.
+ Unsubscribe – The message must contain a functional ‘unsubscribe’ facility to allow you to opt out of receiving messages from that source.

As social media marketers, we should be worried. And not just about Twitter. Any social media response unit could be breaching the Spam Act 2003. A comment on a blog post doesn’t have consent. Nor does a post on a YouTube video.

I don’t know much about this area of law, but this is definitely something we should be looking into.

Anyone with some more information is always welcome to comment.

Posted by Zac Martin 6 Comments

30 September 2008 Tweet Tweet Not Ring Ring

In a great initiative by Telstra, Bigpond have set themselves up on Twitter. What a great way to connect to their customers.

But, like in so many cases, old practises don’t work with new media. They’ve almost applied the same rules you would to writing your customer a letter.

You’ll notice that nearly every one of their responses is the same spammed message on where to send an email. Instead of directly dealing with the issue at hand, they lead the customer to another place. And the tweets aren’t even unique, just copy paste jobs.

You’ll also notice the ® after every use of the term BigPond. Lame. And not very personal.

I think it’s great to see them jump on board. So so so much potential. But at the moment they’re not really Twittering, just using Twitter.

Hopefully their social media response team isn’t just on Twitter and will respond to this blog post too.

So what is a good example of a company using Twitter? Check out NASA, and even then they’re only using it as a broadcast.