Socialmedialand

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Warning: The following post is a shameless plug for the panels I’m proposing for SXSW 2010. However, I do think these topics would be both entertaining AND highly useful so check them out and vote them up if you agree. Thanks!

Social Media Schizophrenia: Managing Your (Multiple) Online Personas: How much information is too much? What’s too personal to share? As social media reaches the apex of “even grandma has Facebook” saturation these questions become vital. Whether a corporate account or personal profile, your comments are increasingly public. What are the implications and where do YOU draw the line?

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/3753

Mapping Your Social Flow: Each action you take online can affect several of your networks at once. Say you create a video, you probably also tweet about it, embed it into your blog or Facebook and more. We’ll show you how to create a content map to organize your social input and output.

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/3726

Ok, fair warning up front: I’m a much bigger fan of Facebook than Myspace. I believe that at work I’m fairly unbiased about social networks and chose the platforms that fit the needs of the client, and more importantly, the client’s customers. As far as social marketing goes, I agree with Jason Falls that strategy does come first before minor details like which network to focus on.

But right now I’m talking about my personal life. And in my personal life I prefer Facebook. I won’t get into why right now (although, now that I think about it that might be a fun post for the future) but I still maintain a Myspace profile mainly because Myspace Music is a great way to follow local bands and I have a few friends who are exclusively or mainly on Myspace.

But recently Myspace has REALLY upset me. The big difference in Facebook v. Myspace to me right now, in this moment, is the way they do their ads.

When you go to www.Facebook.com you see a clean login page with no ads. When you go to www.Myspace.com you see this:

If you ask me - this ad is what is uninvited. I didn't ask for this...

<– This ad is completely unacceptable to me. I scare very easily, I do not watch scary movies – ever! In fact the last time I ever saw a scary movie all the way through was over 5 years ago. That’s right, no Saw 1-4 for me.  The worst part is, if you mouse over the ad the image flashes to this:

 

This made me scream outloud the first time it flashed on my screen. But only a little scream...and only the first time...I swear...

The previews that come up on TV are bad enough for me. In fact I do everything I can to avoid those commercials as well, mute and close my eyes, fast forward, change the channel for 1 minute – whatever it takes. Because that kind of imaging scares me. And I don’t care what that makes people think of me (ok a little bit – but not enough to suck it up and watch it.)

The point is that this is my social network, I should be in charge of what advertising is shown to me. When I go to Facebook, as I already mentioned, no advertising is shown to me until I login. At that point I’m targeted geographically, demographically and psychographically (based on keywords in my profile.) But that’s only the half that decides what options are shown to me. After that I’m able to vote up and down the ads I’m shown and basically choose my advertising options. So if I’m shown something like this I can vote it down and eventually not see it anymore.

If you think about it that makes sense for the advertiser as well. I dont know how much DreamWorks is paying for this but I’m sure it’s a lot because it’s the whole top half of the Myspace homepage and it’s there (trust me) every single time you visit it. But every time I see it, and drive up their impressions, it’s not doing anything for me. There is no way I will see this movie. Not. In. A. Million. Years. So why doesn’t Myspace let me opt out of seeing this horrific image? (I searched but couldn’t find the parental guidance rating – I doubt it’s PG13 though which is a whole other issue.) Then after I opt out of this ad, they can use the space to show me ads that might actually have some effect on me. Of course this assumes that they wise up and move advertising into the site and off the login page. Or at least keep the login advertising more general. Please.

It all goes back to permission based marketing. I’ve accepted that I have to deal with imaging and messaging in ads on TV, radio, print, and outdoor that I don’t necessarily like. But when it comes to the internet, especially my social networks, I’m getting used to being in control. We’re all getting used to being in control. Ask my permission before you show me an ad like this, at least give me an opt out. The result will be that you get a better targeted audience for your ads which could actually lead to a sale or conversion, and I’m much happier about visiting Myspace.

What do you think? Am I way off base?

Picture courtesy of Media Bistro

It may have been a prediction a month ago but I’d say that fad is well under way only 2 full weeks into the new year. I hear my coworkers complaining about over tweeters (people who twitter more than X times per day and fill up their feed) and discuss the etiquette of unfollowing them. People have started cutting their facebook friends down to only those people whose names are easily recognizable.

For brands with Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, or any other social network presence, this can get tricky. This is like trial under fire – either you stay relevant and make the cut or you find yourself the victim of a massic social layoff.

Burger King is taking a creative approach, made popular by 13 year old girls. They are encouraging people to layoff their other friends in exchange for a coupon good for one free burger. The old “if we’re both busy excluding that person, I won’t end up being the one excluded” tactic. Anyone with a Facebook account can download the Burger King widget where your list of friends will appear. You choose the 10 you’d like to sacrifice and the story will show up in your newsfeed saying “Caroline sacrificed Josh Lowensohn for a free Whopper.”

It’s definitely cute, and it shows a remarkable grasp of current trends. Burger King realizes people are predisposed to clean out those few “friends” who aren’t really friends and is making sure that they have a reason to keep Burger King while doing that. It’s kind of a cheap trick though, whose to say that once the coupon is done the person won’t simply turn around and delete Burger King? It’s definitely what a 13 year old girl would do.

I think a better strategy for brands during this time is to focus on staying relevant to their customer base. This is the most important time to make your customer/”friend” your primary concern.

1. Provide information, advice and content that matters to them, your message isn’t what matters now.
   1. This means listening to them in the first place
2. Don’t overwhelm them. This isn’t the time to start blasting messages that could be annoying or spammy feeling. Keep it light.
3. Don’t dissapear entirely, if they haven’t heard from you in a while (or haven’t heard anything worthwhile in a while) it’ll be easier to just delete you while they’re running down the list rather than seriously consider it.
4. Stay real. This is the worst time to seem like just an impresonal brand. That means no autopilot!
5. Set up tools like Qwitter (for Twitter) to manage your friend lists and keep tabs on when/who you’re losing. In some instances it may be worth reaching out to a friend who “quit” you to see if you can repair the relationship. This will at least show you care about them and value them as a customer.

What else am I missing? Leave me a comment!

A lot of my time at work is spent creating social monitoring reports for my clients. By listening to what, when, where and how people are talking about a brand and their competitors we can put together some insights that lead to the strategy we develop for our clients.

Blah blah blah right?

The point is that I read A LOT of blogs and twitters and watch A LOT of videos. Sometimes I twitter or send messages to my friends if what I found was really funny and that inspired the start of this new segment of my blog. This is where I’ll put regular updates of funny things I’ve seen. Search for the ”Overheard” tag or look at the “Overheard” category.

For Dec I have these two priceless Twitters:

….yea. That just happened.

HubSpot twittered about this video this morning…thought it was cute. Cheesy, definitely, but still cute. They put out a challenge to the blogosphere to use their sound files and make another one but seeing as I haven’t even had time to update here I doubt I’ll ever get around to making a video. Will you? If you do send me a link to it in my comments!

“Oughta Know Inbound Marketing”
By HubSpot’s Rebecca Corliss

If I make one more call
I might go punch a wall.
No one understands
That this doesn’t work.

They hang up cause I’m a creep.
The mail I send they don’t read.
They always find a way to
Ignore me.
I’m interrupting their lives
So they threaten me with knives.
I didn’t think that marketing was like torture.

Cause the calls, direct mail
TV ads, they all fail.
And they aren’t getting me anywhere. They don’t work.
No!
And every time I try to sell
‘Didja know that I’m told I should go to hell?
Then I cry. Then I cry.
And you wonder why.

I want leads
To come to me.
Fix our SEO
Get some inbound links.
RSS
Let’s get blogging.
Why don’t we just use inbound marketing?
You. You. You. Oughta know.

Get my page rank up.
Tag my content.
Fix my landing page.
Let them come to me.

Now I can blog I can tweet
Publish things you will read.
Won’t have to bug you in the middle of dinner.
Google me organically
Search results one two and three.
You need my products? Uh huh. Yeah you’ll find me.

Cause the calls, direct mail
TV ads, they all failed.
And they weren’t getting me anywhere. They don’t work.
No!
And every time I tried to sell
‘Didja know I was told I should go to hell.
Then I cried. Then I cried.
And you wondered why.

Now my leads
They come to me
Fixed our SEO
Got some inbound links
RSS
Now we’re blogging
Thank god now we use inbound marketing.
You. You. You. Oughta know.

Credits:

Rebecca Corliss (@repcor): Lyrics and Vocals
David Fisher (@tibbon): Accompaniment and Music Recording
Mike Volpe (@mvolpe): Mean Boss Dude in video
Ellie Mirman (@ellieeille): Marketer in video
Pamela Seiple (@pamelump): Marketer in video
Rick Burnes(@rickburnes): Marketer in video
Aaron White (@aaronwhite): Marketer in video
James Vaughan (@J_Vaughan): Marketer in video