Another conversation from a marketer who thinks they can control the message. Sigh. I wonder what his company’s customers would say if they heard him saying, “I have more control then my customers do.”
Many marketers and businesses think they have control, and they don’t. It’s a marketer’s classic error to think they have control. I find it funny that this is an illusion that many large companies have and all of the smaller companies follow suit. Small to medium enterprises are the organizations that can least afford this pompous attitude.
Whenever I hear this opinion, I can tell someone hasn’t spent significant time in sales. And that’s a problem because marketing supports sales. It’s also a very good reason why in a downturn, marketing is the first to go. They don’t understand relationships.
Just because your company is talking doesn’t mean anyone is listening. Buyers rarely pay attention or voice anything when things are going right. They only care when their needs aren’t met. Yes, their exceptions to the general rule (Apple and Harley Davidson comes to mind, though my Harley Road king was not a great bike. Yet don’t these companies serve and fulfill needs, not message vacuums?).
We must always remember that buyers have the wallets… Money is the ultimate control. Companies have to serve consumers in order to get them to purchases. In essence, companies are trusted to resolve a need. I’ve sold more than $35 million of marketing services to companies, and I can tell you it wasn’t because of message control. It was because people trusted my companies could do the job. In that sense, I totally agree with Doc Searls: There is no market for messages.
When companies don’t serve customers and start shoving product (and messages) in controlled atmospheres, they ultimately fail. They forget that no company starts or continues without a sale. What was assumed to be control was granted by a buyer in trust. It can be taken away when trust is violated. And customer bases erode.
What social media has done is accelerated the process, but buyers were voting with their feet (and wallets) a long time before blogs started. Think Sears, Detroit auto, IBM consumer products, AT&T phones, on and on.
I’ll be out and about quite a bit over the next few months, and hope to meet up with some of you. The following is my speaking and conference schedule this winter/spring:
Per last week’s post a more refined written version of my Blogger Relations video was published today on Media Bullseye. Here’s a snippet:
The big issue with most blogger relations articles revolves around a tendency to treat bloggers like traditional media, and also a focus on tactical pitches or initiatives. This approach, in general, follows a bad media relations trend where hits matter more than relationships. Yield outweighs long-term reputation, and as a result mass blog outreach with mild customization occurs. Good PR pros build relationships.
This article seeks to shed light on some best practices for building relationships with bloggers. It assumes the following:
a. You’ve researched the blogs that matter to your company, including critical magic middle blogs
b. The company (or organization) can contribute valuable information or insights to the marketplace’s conversation
c. That the company is committed to a campaign rather
With social media tied to technology and lots of geek speak, monitoring trends can be confusing. In some ways, for marketers it’s easier to keep you mind on exactly where your community resides. But inevitably, the eye wanders to the horizon. So far, the biggest trend in 2008 seems to be the drive to open data (Image Credit: Autowitch).
A few years ago, Tim O’Reilly dubbed this “democratizing data” for use across the World Wide Web.” Years later,democratization continues to develop as one of the hottest trends in 2008.
We’ve become social, but we have lots of unmined data across the web, and siloed applications, forcing users to create a new account every where they go online. Without open data, the web’s next generation of applications (dubbed Web 3.0 by some) will have a hard time advancing.
Consider these three major initiatives revolve around opening data for the next generation of data driven web applications :
Semantic Web applicationscontinue to command mindshare as they deliver better content results and make better data connections. These semantic data driven apps need open information for:
Search engines like Hakia and Powerset
Wikipedia-like efforts like Twine and Freebase
Applications that use semantic technologies under the hood (such as AdaptiveBlue and Snap).
Open ID as represented by efforts like Open Social and the Data Portability initiative presents a new opportunity for the next generation of software - particularly in the fields of social software, user rights and interoperability. More importantly, the ability to transfer user profiles across social networks, in turn creating a dynamic and fluid environment for online personalities. Ensuring open protocols for data transfer will be essential to facilitating success.
GeoWeb applications (covered in the Future Cometh in Now Is Gone) continue to tantalize the search and Enterprise 2.0 analysis marketplaces. With more than 85% of data tied to geographic location, all of the major web map players are seeking ways to make this data more useful to enterprises, institutions and consumers alike. Creating “intelligent maps” relies on the ability to harness and convert widespread data across the Internet, government bodies, NGOs and enterprises, a continuing issue in the web map marketplace.
In the long-run, open data allows for great marketing, creating more intelligent, productive initiatives for both the customer and the company. So keep your eyes out for opening data stories.
TechCocktail Founder Frank Gruber, (also product manager of social media platforms at AOL) interviewed me recently on Now Is Gone. This video interview discusses some of the genesis of Now Is Gone.
Frank’s blog Somewhat Frank is one of the better social media blogs out there with more than 33K subs. His TechCocktail series has brought online to real life, forging great relationships.
A very good friend of Now Is Gone compatriot in crime Brian Solis, Frank is one the DC region’s brightest social media minds, and one of our keynotes for BlogPotomac. I sat on a panel discussing social media with Frank at the New New Internet conference this past November, and have stayed in touch since.
It was a thrill to be interview by him. Thanks, Frank!
Let me apologize for using video (four minutes) instead of writing this out. A bad case of Carpal Tunnel tonight prevented full blog post writing. I will write up a full piece on blogger relations for Media Bullseye in the next couple of days.
As this a blog that primarily caters to businesses and individuals adopting social media, half of our readership will be out today in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King. And of course, social media sites around the country and the globe feature the late peace warrior, from idle reflection to full posts dedicated to King. Here are some examples:
From Freedom Eden: Text of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, August 28, 1963, Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.
It’s important to reflect on King’s legacy. Perhaps no greater example can be seen then when race became an issue in the Democratic primary early last week. Both Obama and Clinton came together very quickly to stamp it out, and successfully made race a non-issue for the Nevada primary. Though the tension still exists, it’s not tolerated publicly.
Even more importantly, both Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s substantive runs for the presidency demonstrate to me that this country has come a long way. We have changed and ready to elect either a woman or an African American as president. Yet, we cannot rest on our laurels against racism and prejudice. And perhaps that is what today’s holiday is about: Recognizing progress, yet understanding there’s more to do.
Nevertheless, the post did have some excellent elements, and Rohit did a nice job boiling them down to these four principles, of which three of them where above the board (Rohit chastised Greenberg for using “inflation” tactics to hijack numbers, what we call astroturfing on this blog). Here are the three “above the water” principles:
Content - Is the subject matter and story compelling enough to get people to pass it along?
Optimization - This has to do with how long the clip is, how you optimize it, what tags you use, and when you submit it.
Outreach - Obvious, but often forgotten … a key element to getting a video viewed is finding the right influential people to tell about it and increase the chances that they may pass it along.
Check out Greenberg’s post as there are many great ideas, but be wary of anything involving fake identity or spamming folks. For the record, here are Greenberg’s recommended tactics that I like:
Make it short: 30 seconds
Design for remixing: Create a video that is simple enough to be remixed over and over again by others.
Don’t make an outright ad: If a video feels like an ad, viewers won’t share it unless it’s really amazing.
Make it Shocking/Appeal to Sex: In short, make it entertaining. No one wants to watch a square… Or do they?
Optimize Tags, Title and Thumbnail: Use marketing skills to attract people to the video. Copy writing and intelligent visuals are critical. Know what’s going to sell the video to your client.
Use Your 48 Hour Window Intelligently: Once posted on YouTube, you have 48 hours to make it popular. Pitch to relevant bloggers, and through your social networks. But don’t cross the spamming line!
At the behest of several followers on Twitter (follow me here), here’s a primer on Wikipedia astroturf and reputation management. Wikipedia entries are generated by readers who post entries on topics they care about or edit entries with or in need of more information. The power of Wikipedia cannot be underestimated. The site is currently the number 9 most visited site in the world according to Alexa, and is always a perennial Google search favorite.
Articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and, as much as possible, without bias all significant views (that have been published by r eliable sources).
That means companies, campaigners, PR firms and other hired guns cannot edit themselves (or clients) or add their own entries. To do so is considered Astroturfing. Most notably, Microsoft got busted astroturfing on an open-source entry, prompting a public outcry against the ethics violation.
Astroturfing is a slang term for false PR or fake social media in the blogosphere. No PR or marketing person wants to be dubbed an astroturfer. Wikipedia (not normally a great source) dubs astroturfing as, “formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising that seek to create the impression of being spontaneous, grassroots behavior.”
Compared to this definition, astroturfing in the blogosphere can be considered three shades slimier. Much of the ethical bantering in the marketing and PR blogosphere tends to revolve around astroturfing or corporate social media-related incidents. And these incidents tend to have a mushroom cloud hovering above them.
A lot of companies engage in astroturfing, most claiming ignorance when they are caught. But believe me, no one should engage in this practice because if caught, it forever taints your brand reputation. So don’t be quick to muddy the waters. And if you think you can edit Wikipedia addresses anonymously, think again. Wikiscanner demonstrates how editors trace IP address owners.
Wikipedia Reputation Management
Is there such a thing? Difficulties in protesting WIkipedia postings openly and honestly have gotten to the point that most of the major PR firms allow their current wikipedia entries to be half-false.
Because of the encyclopedia’s adamant policy against corporate-based information (representing a conflict of interest), companies have to suck it up more often than not. WIkipedia will only create unbiased entries.
In order to be successful with a contested entry, lots of third party information has to be provided. So companies have to cite legal documents, public records, journalist accounts, and other points of view published on the Internet if they want to contest an entry. In many cases, companies will not be able to provide this kind of factual accounting to write their ship. In fact that’s what caused Microsoft to engage in its astroturfing incident.
Wales said the proper course would have been for Microsoft to write or commission a “white paper” on the subject with its interpretation of the facts, post it to an outside Web site and then link to it in the Wikipedia articles’ discussion forums.
This is an OK way to handle it, and you should make sure any counter points are posted on the corporate blog in case someone searches your site for more information. You also have to combat the Wikipedia results that Google will serve. For an excellent read on Search Engine reputation management I recommend this post from Andy Beal, “Ten Ways to Fix a Google Reputation Nightmare.”
