How Pandora Changed My Life
July 31, 2007 | Leave a Comment
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When I come across something that I really believe in - I become a brand advocate really fast. I haven’t really noticed this about myself until I realized I told probably the tenth person about a new social media site I discovered and practically got an adrenaline rush off of telling them about it. I’m literally a walking infomercial.
And since I’ve run out of people to tell - I thought I’d share.
To put it simply, this week my life has been transformed by a free internet radio service, Pandora. It is a simple concept: you go to the website, type in a particular song or artist you like and the station matches a playlist according to the style and rhythm.
But that’s not all.
As you listen, you can tell the site what you think about it. If it matches you with a song you never want to hear again - you tell it. It adjusts. It slowly fades out the song and matches you with another, more fitting song. As a result, you slowly build a radio station that fits you. Not only can you rock out to every song, but you can discover new artists that match your musical taste.
But wait- there’s more.
You can save a station you’ve created with any name you would like, share it with friends, blog about it, listen to podcasts, connect with other listener’s, the list goes on.
I encourage you to check it out. It is a great example of how effective social media provides highly applicable and relevant content to its users.
Redefining “Communications” is a Branding Opportunity
July 31, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I’m struck today by just how hard it still is to find the right information, particularly when you’re dealing with corporations. They act like we’re still in the “surf” era.
I had a small problem with my Blackberry today. I’ve had the problem before, and the phone rep gave me a web page where I could quickly fix it. So when I had the problem again today, why was it impossible for me to find it again (until I remembered belatedly that I’d bookmarked it– someone write this down for me, will ya: http://www.mycingular.blackberry.com).
Corporations are spending jillions on advertising and zillions on call centers to handle all the calls (yes, that’s right: jillions and zillions…). But they’ve yet to figure out a meaningful way to take all this information they’re gathering from all the calls (I know there are lots of calls, why else would I wait on hold for 30 minutes?).
It seems to me that this is a classic opportunity for social media to solve a vexing business problem. A relatively small investment in low budget flash video, plus a decent effort taking their Q&A database and converting it into a well categorized blog would pay dividends. A blog, after all, is little more than a robust content management system.
(As an aside, Google has a great set of low budget videos I was looking at this weekend. They’re to learn their SketchUp product. Google has all the money in the world, but they realize that web video doesn’t have to be fancy.)
Maybe this is a soap-box rant, but it seems to me that there’s a tremendous opportunity to rethink what “communications” really means for a corporation. There’s a tremendous branding opportunity out there…
Anyone have examples of companies doing it really well?
Surf –> Search –> Subscribe
July 30, 2007 | 1 Comment
Are you familiar with the theory about the frog in the boiling water? The theory goes that
if you drop a frog in boiling water, it will immediately jump out. However, if you put the same frog in room temperature water and turn it up gradually, the frog will cook–never attempting to jump out.
These types of gradual changes seem to be inflicting some companies, whose CMOs must be run by frogs. On one level, the Internet hasn’t changed much since the introduction of the Mosaic browser in 1993. Sure, everything’s gotten faster, video is now online, etc., but you still open a browser and bang around.
But what’s really changed is seismic. Remember when we used to surf the web? The theory was that you would be able to bounce around until you found what you wanted, and a Yahoo home page looked like a link factory exploded. Then Google and search changed it all again.
Now, in a Web 2.0 world, we’re moving to a world where you subscribe to the information you want to get. You build profiles and custom pages, you sign up for RSS-feeds, you get email updates from blogs you like.
People who don’t see the changes are being left behind…
Social Networking: One Size Does Not Fit All
July 30, 2007 | 1 Comment
To this day I can fit into my middle school gym shorts. How? Because the shorts that swallowed me up when I was an awkward, scrawny adolescent didn’t fit me to start with. Instead they are marked “one size fits all”.
This morning I can’t help but to realize two things. One - that my public school clearly needed more funding, and secondly - that this “one size fits all” mentality is how companies are approaching marketing with social media - in particular social networking sites.
While Facebook and MySpace are the top sites for social networking, they certainly aren’t for every organization. So if you are considering entering the waters of social networking I’ve listed 3 considerations you should ask to help guide your strategy. Feel free to add to these.
1. What are you selling? Get to the core of your motivation for social networking. If you treat this as a direct attempt to increase your sales - you are off to a bad start. Social networking sites provide you an opportunity for consumers to become your brand advocate, to get them talking, sharing and even interacting with your brand. Save your sales pitch for the sales floor.
2. Who are you talking to? Before choosing a social networking site think of your audience. In social media it is important to fully understand not just their demographics, but their psychographics. What are their interests, hobbies, and ways they communicate? You may find there is a niche networking site that will better reach them. Or you may even realize that a social networking site isn’t the right fit.
3. Who are you really talking to? Be wary of the information social networking sites claim of their users. Keep in mind there is still some uncertainty and mystery in these numbers and the truthfulness of user profiles. Before you take the leap, take a minute to involve yourself in a site. See how users are interacting or what brands they are discussing to really see if the site is appropriate for your objectives.
Fun with Viral Marketing
July 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment
In light of it being Friday I thought I’d share that I actually think a printed shirt is funny. Since I’m a fan of solids, this is monumental.
I stumbled upon the shirt on the site Experience Curve who had posted this under”Viral Marketing Doesn’t Work”. Needless to say the post title caught my eye, sent me into laughter, and quickly got passed around the office.
Hope you enjoy.
Second Life: Where Marketing Strategy Goes to Die?
July 26, 2007 | 3 Comments
Like a lot of folks, I’ve been intrigued by the marketing possibilities present in Second Life. I’ve been fascinated by all the people making over $5,000 a month in real money (132 at last count) and by the companies holding press conferences within it. Like 4,000,000 other people, I downloaded the software, created my avatar and spent hours figuring out how to walk around, talk to others, teleport, etc. And it is kinda, sorta fun.
On the flip side, there was the time I went to a heavily advertised in-world club. And danced. Alone. It was creepy, bizarre and virtually lonely.
That hasn’t stopped Coke, the NBA, Wired, CNET, Adidas, Coldwell Banker, Sears and others to open up shop, often investing as much as $500,000 per year to do so. Wired now has an excellent article outlining how much of that money may be wasted.
Some amazing facts from that article that explain why I was so lonely in that dance club:
- While SecondLife talks about 8 million users, the actual number of Americans actually using the site on a given week is only about 100,000.
- 85 percent of the avatars created have been abandoned.
- On a random day in June, “Sexy Beach” had 133,000 visitors. IBM’s huge innovation island, on the other hand, got 281 visitors. Coke’s highly praised Thirst Pavilion got 27 visitors.
It turns out that Linden Labs servers can only handle about 70 visitors to a given place at a time. 70. Which explains why the don’t do some obvious things they could otherwise do to encourage density.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against experimenting in social media. It’s what this company is all about, and too few companies are doing that right now, not too many. And $500,000 out of Coke’s ad budget isn’t going to cripple anyone.
But other social media advocates, including Joseph Jaffe (who I don’t know but who I respect), are pushing Second Life in the article with quotes like, “So when people ask, ‘Why Second Life?’ I ask, ‘Why not?’”
Why not? Because social media for business and brand building is not about setting up shop on some poorly traveled virtual world with a ridiculously high CPM. It’s about conversations. It’s about having conversations with your target audience. It’s about participating in your target’s conversations. It’s about listening in a way that helps you understand your audiences better.
The big ad agencies still don’t get it. Banner ads on Facebook are still just banner ads. They’re not social media, any more than a 30-second spot during a break on Survivor is reality TV.
Why not spend $500,000 on a Second Life presence, to answer Jaffe’s question? Because no company can do it all, and for most companies, 1/10th of that investment in a sound social media marketing plan, followed with the development of a sound multi-pronged social media strategy will pay far bigger dividends and have far better ROI. That planning may lead you to a Second Life experiment, but it may also lead you to some more interesting, more productive places.
Because when we get too excited about technology and start investing millions without considering the return, well, it makes me think of 2001. I’m sure smart people work on all of those brands I mentioned, just like smart people invested millions in the dot com bubble.
Smart marketers experiment, sure. But smart marketers set a strategy first, and put their toes in the water (or dive in) in ways most likely to generate returns. They also analyze returns. Reading those SecondLife stats this month makes me wonder, “Has Second Life Peaked?” Cost per acre is down from the prior month. The number of people making over $5,000 a month is down for the last two months… Smart marketers are watching those numbers, too.
When we saw how most ad agencies, PR firms and SEO firms were thinking about and reacting to social media… Well, that led us to form Ignite in the first place. Social media, new media, virtual worlds. If you’re in the marketing business, it’s still about business–at least, it is in this life…
~Jim Tobin
Ignite Social Media
(Notice how there are fewer than 70 people listening to this artist play live? How much did Coke pay to reach those people? Too much, I’m sure, even if you count the 1,200 others who have watched this video…)
Why Participation is Vital in Social Media Optimization
July 26, 2007 | Leave a Comment
One of the most compelling features I wrote about yesterday for Sezwho was the site’s ability to provide a user reputation - with a critical part of this score being a user’s interaction.
This brings up an important point - that interaction and participation in social media is a vital part of Social Media Optimization. Yes, to give is (almost) better than to receive in your quest gain readership and interaction.
Why?
1. Participation builds readership. How? The more that you participate the more visible you are in the community. Every comment you make on a blog that relates to your area of expertise or topic can become another chance to reach new and interested audiences. Avoid spamming, but don’t be afraid to use this as an opportunity to link back to your own blog if it relates.
2. Participation connects you with experts. Participation allows you the opportunity to interact with experts. Find blogs or writers that relate to your subject area. Reaching out to these experts can grow your knowledge base, and potentially allow you to add meaningful content and credibility to your blog.
3. Participation guides your efforts. There is no other way to learn social media and know your audience better than being emerged in it. By becoming a consumer of it, you can understand what others are doing, what works and what doesn’t work, and use this information to redirect your social media efforts.
Finally, I’d like to add that interaction is synonymous with what social media is. Because of this, it should naturally be an element of every social media effort.
A Different Social Networking Site: Sezwho
July 25, 2007 | 1 Comment
I came across an article from CMS Wire that has shed light on a newly emerging social network community (still in beta) that I thought I’d share.
In case you are thinking, “Not another social networking site”, I urge you to bear with me. In my humble opinion, the site “Sezwho” has a unique
characteristic that I’ve yet to see from other sites: social network integration.
To put it shortly, the site allows users to build a comprehensive online reputation from the multiple social networks users are involved in. According to the article, Sezwho will calculate a user’s reputation score by analyzing a user’s contributor statistics, frequency of participation, time of interaction, existing reputation scores for bothrater and commenter, participation consistency, and even discussion topic.
The site uses this form of “reputation rating” in order to promote ethical and active participation of users across the multiple social networks they are involved in. This rating system then allows users of Sezwho to find and interact with members with equally high reputations.
Great news for genuine social media users, bad news for spammers. I’m curious to see if it will attract a following. Seems it is more targeted to the social media savvy than the first time user.
You Tube’s Success is Un-Debatable
July 24, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Last night’s presidential debate on CNN, featuring questions from You Tube users is all the talk this morning. Everybody is forming their opinion - determining if this milestone in social media and politics was successful, or discussing their favorite questions (see mine below)
What’s equally powerful is that this has established You Tube as household name. As new users join, they will become brand advocates by sharing with friends and family, further establishing and maintaining You Tube as the top video-sharing website.
Ingenious move by You Tube. If you don’t agree - go broadcast yourself. Or just share a comment.
Building Brands with PageCasts
July 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Yet again another social media term has been created by a company titled, Pageflakes.The term? PageCasts. The definition? A personalized page anyone can create at “Pageflakes” by using widgets for news, RSS feeds, blogs, photos, video, podcasts and more”
While customizing pages with widgets is not a new concept - Pageflakes has both termed PageCasts and created a user community to share customized templates with content based around a topic or genre. While anyone can create a customized PageCast, the company is now marketing to major media brands as another way to reach their consumers.
By partnering with Pageflakes, these companies can combine video, music, photos, and news in a branded PageCast, that is then shared and adopted by specific audiences. Currently, CBS is using Pageflakes to create personalized pages to promote television programs such as Entertainment Tonight and The Insider. Entertainment Tonight fans can download a PageCast equipped with RSS feeds for You Tube, related photos, and the latest hollywood news.
This is a prime example of how social media can work to build a brand. Want users to interact with your brand? Provide relevant and highly customized content. Users will take it and run with it.