Follow-up to the Documentary of My Life… October 13, 2009

Guess I won’t have to will the password of my Facebook account to my grandchildren. I’ll just make sure that they purchase access to my Swiss DNA Bank Account.

For a mere $300 I can store my life in a Swiss Bank account and allow my future family members, and any other parties interested in knowing about my eccentricities and lifestyle for a one-time access charge of $70. That’s about the price of a Dave Matthews Band concert ticket and probably WAY more entertaining (my life has been fairly crazy and comical, worth the admission fee, I promise).

But… still, I can’t help but wonder if social nets, although not protected in an underground bomb shelter (wait, is the internet atomic bomb proof?), would be just as reliable and a much much cheaper way to store my virtual DNA. Hmmm. Think I’ll stick with Facebook for now.

Facebook – The Documentary of My Life October 5, 2009

I wonder if one day, instead of sitting on the front porch, telling stories to my grandchildren, I’ll just give them access to my Facebook account and call it a day. It’s got more pictures in it than any photo album I could imagine keeping, all my friends from the past and present are part of it, my favorite videos, stories, songs, etc. are all there for the world to see. Something that started as just a fun networking site has now become the virtual storage unit for my life. As this site continues to grow and become an integral part of all of our lives,  I’m wondering what else will we use Facebook for in the future? Just how deep will this social networking site penetrate our lives over the upcoming years?

(I just really loved this stock photo from Veer)

I started to wonder this because I just read an article (via Mashable) regarding Facebook beta testing voice chat. There goes using Skype, now I can use Facebook in replace of or close to in replace of Twitter- I publish to both anyways and so do many that I follow; Flickr- everyone puts their pics on Facebook; YouTube- Video sharing and searching; Google Alerts- Those I’m friends with generally post great articles regarding the topics I subscribe to Google for; YahooReader- same as Google Alerts; AIM/iChat- You can use Facebook for that… and now voice chat!

Will we one day be able to simply “log in” to our lives by logging into Facebook. Medical records, financial accounts, email, social networking, etc. all accessible through one location, easily available and all personalized? Imagine the targeting, or Amazon.com-like recommendations on products, music, photos, videos, upcoming events, medical procedures, special promotions, real estate, jobs, etc. that could be customized just for us, based on what’s part of our profile. Seems logical and almost convenient, but also eerily George Orewell-ish.

I can’t help but wonder if it will mean convenience for a world with less time and more interest in aggregated information. Will my “entitled” generation feel they deserve for some site to just “get them” and make recommendations on what they will like. Although we love finding things out on our own, we also love it when our interests and personalities are taken into account. Personalized choices are already starting to appear in Facebook with recommendations of pages we may like to fan or individuals we may want to friend, based on our profile information. And really, who doesn’t love it when someone says to them,  “Oh you would just love this! I saw it and immediately thought of you!”

So, as I grow older and am starting to post more and more things to Facebook, I’m starting to see it as a little footprint I’ll get to leave on this Earth. It’s my documentary for everything… from that one crazy weekend to the path my career has taken to failed relationships and my favorite movies. Facebook has become more than just a way to share my day-to-day menutia. It’s a virtual archive of my life… Fascinating.

rambling thoughts at 3:33 AM May 28, 2009

It’s 3:33 in the morning… time is all but relevant to this post. Not the fact that it’s un-godly early (or late, depending on how you look at it) to be writing a blog, but because the time in our society, the time in communications and technology is completely of the essence. The time for many things in our industry is NOW… even if it is after 3 am. 

 

At my agency, communications strategies are all the buzz, mainly because they are changing on a daily basis. How does one keep up? In an effort to communicate about communications, we have a daily lunch discussion revolving around digital. 

 

D5 – there’s five D’s… I can’t remember them all at this point, probably because it’s 3:36 in the morning, but I know one of them is definitely Digital. 

 

Anyhow, tomorrow (today, really) we are discussing how to leverage social media portals, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. to engage people promotionally. One company I think that has done a great job with this is Priceline. Their Priceline Negotiator follower promotion encouraged participation by giving  all new followers get entered to win a $50 hotel credit.

 

Yes. I got one… No. I haven’t used it… 

 

 

Even though it may not have motivated me to purchase, this is an example of a great promotional communications strategy that helped “The Negotiator” get hundreds of followers in a short amount of time. They offered something valuable and have held up in that promise, even after the promotion has ended (if it even has, I’m not so sure). 

 

Another honorable mention is SmartyPig, a social savings account of sorts. They host contests via Twitter where they ask followers a question about their company. Correct @ responses get put into a drawing and 20 winners or so win a certain amount of money  that is placed in their Smarty Pig savings account. 

 

I love this promotion because it forces you to learn about the company in order to participate in the contest, as well as sign up to be a member. Such a simple idea, but genius! I’ve seen Smarty Pig’s following in post increase exponentially over the past few months and want to congratulate them on engaging consumers in such a smart way. And it’s not just via Twitter, they are on multiple Social Media platforms, promoting themselves and building connections with REAL people. They are selling themselves and gaining the interest of people in a non-selling way… and offering a value simultaneously. B R A V O !!!

 

So what’s the future of Promotions via SoMe? Currently we leverage paid media buys to get free promotional mentions through traditional media outlets. Radio promotions, partnerships with publications, giveaways, etc. Will we soon be leveraging Twitter accounts and Facebook pages for space and engagement with a following? Has this already happened. 

 

I’m excited to see where the future of promotions in a socially driven world may take us. Maybe we’ll be negotiating tweets or video uploads someday, but is it really all that different from what we’re doing now? Is a :30 radio clip different from a 140 character mention?

 

What I do know for sure is advertising, digital, media, promotional and any other type of marketing/communications agencies better figure it all out. This is the age of darwinism in communication… survival of the fittest. Who can not only gain an understanding on how to adapt in this new realm, but lead innovation and conquer all. I hope we’re on the forefront at my agency. 

 

Because, after all, I’m a full believer of evolution.

The “get me one of those…” Syndrome May 11, 2009

So I let the Friday “This is what I learned this week” slip by. Due to the overwhelming amount of comments and reactions (totaling  Z E R O) I figured people really didn’t mind. So, what did I learn last week?

 

Since I’ve returned to Ypartnership, there’s been a lot of buzz focused on Social Media: What is it? How do we do it? Does it work? Who’s going to do it? and so on… Why all the fuss? Social Media has been around for years and we’re just now trying to fit it into the cookie cutter world of marketing and advertising. The difficulties lie in the fact that Social Media isn’t cookie cutter. It’s organic, living, breathing… heck… it’s social! 

 

So, now in 2009 everyone’s talking about social media and how their brand can live in this space, much like it lives in traditional media. Everyone keeps saying “yeah, that social media thing… get me one of those”. There’s almost an anxiety around not being involved in this realm because of the sense that everyone else is doing it. It’s like if you’re not “doing” social media, you’ve missed the train. 

 

But let’s take one step back. Do we fully understand social media? Before we try and “get one of those” maybe we should try and understand what it’s all about. Why should we be there… should we? It’s the brands and the marketers that dive head first into the kiddie pool who will drown. Let’s know how deep the water is before we risk breaking out necks (this is what I learned, or at least came to a conclusion of sorts about).

 

So that’s what I’m trying to do now. I’ve been working on a social media “handbook” of sorts to get us all on the same page. I like to think of it as a cure for the “get me one of those social media things” syndrome. 

 

*I’d like to credit Barry Lott for putting the anxiety and need revolving around social media into words. “Get me one of those…” was said by him. 

Advertising always finds a way… April 20, 2009

So I’m a little tired of hearing “how can we make money from social media?” I realize that up until recently, the focus for our marketing and advertising campaigns has been on ROI, measurable results. However, I don’t necessarily feel that any advertisers are able to justifiably place a dollar value on engagement with people via the socialsphere.

 

We keep trying, but I’m just not sure that it’s entirely possible or that it should be one of the deciding factors when evaluating social engagement (I’m trying hard not to use the buzzword of the month – social media. I’m just over it). The point of talking WITH people is that it should build a trusting relationship over time, not increase sales by ___% over the next 3 months from your 25,000 Twitter followers or 4,000 Facebook fans. 

 

However, advertising will always find a way to infiltrate spaces where consumers live and try to make at least a buck doing so. The newest marketing technique? Twittad. Basically it’s a service that partners brands with individuals on Twitter that have a large following. These individuals get paid to Tweet about the brand that’s signing their paycheck (which have been as small as a few bucks to as large as a few hundred). 

 

Brands can be matched up with Tweeters that have a likeminded following and a strong influence over that following. Tweeters receive a certain amount per follower as well as “serving” an ad up on their background of their Twitter home page. 

 

So wait, brands are paying people I trust to promote their product or service and in turn I’m supposed to continue to trust the person I follow on Twitter as well as said paying brand? Ha! Don’t think so buddy. I’m not going to trust what someone says if they are getting paid to say it. Obviously they are going to be biased and how can I trust someone who’s point of view is easily influenced by the all mighty dollar? Sorry, but count me out.  

 

The latest brand to utilize Twittad?  Land Rover. The joint effort between Twittad and Land Rover are discussed in a recent AdAge article, Land Rover Taps Twitter as Campaign Cornerstone.

 

“All told, the Land Rover effort was Twittered to more than 300,000 followers, Mr. Eliason said. Twittad used 15 different Tweeters with at least 5,000 followers, although the majority had between 2,000 and 4,000 followers…

The appeal to marketers is obvious: It’s a cheap way to reach people through their trusted contacts. And Twittad’s technology is able to sort its users by geography, demographics and interests, which can both lead to more targeted appeals and, perhaps, prevent Twitter users from feeling under siege by advertisers, a major concern.”

 

I was so completely disappointed by this. I had originally seen Land Rover’s ad campaign earlier last week, which includes a hashtag, encouraging people to join in and enables them to follow a conversation going on about Land Rover. Originally, I applauded Land Rover’s efforts to engage people and develop a relationship with them. I was eager to find out if they would be successful in doing so, how many followers and retweets they would get. But now… I could really care less. The numbers are fudged. They cheated.

 

 

The fact that any company is paying people to promote the brand makes me feel under siege by advertisers. If brands continue to try and rush the process of gaining trust and loyalty from people, they are ultimately hurting the process for everyone. The more us marketing folk invade innocent spaces and try to fool consumers, the more we are going to be fought against and pushed out of people’s lives. There’s something valuable in an honest, transparent relationship. My gut feeling is that most brands don’t take the time to build it because they are afraid of transparency. Why? Probably because in reality, they offer a crap product and the faster they can hook you, the less likely you are to realize that you’re an evangelist for crap. 

 

It scares me that we keep trying to unjustly monetize people, rather than just getting to know them. People spend money on brands and products that make them more… well, them. They choose to be associated with us, we do not force them. I fear things like Twittad are taking us the wrong way down a one way street. Eventually we’re bound to have a head on collision and it’s not going to be pretty.