Jul/091
Want To Understand Social Media? Don’t Stop Using It At 5 P.M.
This is something I’ve noticed with a number of marketers who have had difficulty in understanding social media, whether that means getting a grip on its value, or simply how to use it beyond what they read on random marketing blogs like this one. The key to truly understanding and getting a handle on social media is very simple: Don’t stop using it when you punch out for the day.
Don’t treat your work in social media like you treat your work on a TV spot. They’re not the same. In many ways, social media is a living, breathing creature. If you really want to “get it,” incorporate it into your everyday life. Don’t just keep a “business account” on Facebook. Really dive in. Put yourself out there. Make a personal account and share videos of your family, or photos from poker night with your real friends. Stare awkwardly into your mirror with your camera phone in an attempt to capture your next profile photo. Get on Twitter and find your friends and co-workers. Trust me, you’ll look cooler for doing so.
The reason why my generation has taken to social media like a fish to water while you flounder on the shore, isn’t because we’re cleverer than you. Not by any means whatsoever. It’s because it’s not a side-dish in our lives. We don’t see it as a obligation because Seth Godin says we should be doing it, or because it’s what our clients want. It has become the centerpiece of our social experience, for better or worse. We keep in touch with our family, friends, and acquaintances through these mediums. We’re on them all the time because they’ve become instrumental in facilitating our relationships with one another.
If you want to understand social media, beyond what you read online and in books, adopt it the way we have. If you want to understand social media, you have to EXPERIENCE it. Don’t just read about it and fumble trying to apply what you’ve read to practice.
It’s a lot easier than it sounds. You can start by friending me:
Jul/090
CNN’s Black In America 2: Bourgie Blacks. But Are They Really?
I’m going to take a quick break from writing about marketing to discuss something somewhat dear to me. I was watching CNN’s Black In America 2 last night and a particular segment of the 2-hour special struck me: the segment on what some twitterers are calling bourgie blacks. A quick look at the conversations swirling around #BIA2, and you’ll see a mixture of opinions. Some people complain that CNN has gone from one extreme to another, without touching on middle-class blacks (a notion I agree with). Others are proud of the “well-to-do” blacks who were being highlighted, believing that they stand as a testament that there are well-educated black people. And finally, there are those who believe that the “elite” blacks are just as alienating as anyone else.
One twitterer went so far as to respond to another who was asking if there were any darker skinned black people, with: “Yes they were serving folks at the Tuxedo Ball!”
And another made the extreme statement: “…and Tyler Perry will tell us how cooning is the quickest avenue to Black wealth, tomorrow on Black in America 2.”
Conversations like these make some people uncomfortable, and I personally have found myself in the crossfire. Being a mixed minority myself (Black & Hispanic), but not fitting the typical stereotype of what a black person in America is thought to be, I’ve felt the same ire as the kid the segment was about. I didn’t grow up nearly as privileged as he did, but the identity crisis is much of the same. When blacks say you don’t “act” black enough, or that you’re not the “typical” black person, it begs asking the question: “How am I supposed to act? How does one ‘act’ more black?” Is a suburban white kid who wears baggy jeans and fitted caps “more” black than I?
Racial divides haven’t dissolved. It’s ridiculous to say they have. But I will say that a new form of segregation has formed, and going into an industry that’s all about segmentation, it’s clear to see that socioeconomics have overtaken skin color as the most important demographic. Who has the money? The haves and the have-nots has largely become the ruling principle; and it has divided those within my own race.
I’m going from “not being black enough” into an industry where minorities make up a small fraction of the population. Does that make me bourgie as well? I don’t consider myself elite. I’ve never lived in a house, I went to a school district where undercover cops monitored the cafeteria for gang activity, and I’ve never had the luxury of jetsetting around the world (the furthest I’ve been out of the country is Canada).
The point I’m trying to make is that within the community there is a divide between blacks and “real blacks,” and that’s a serious problem. Unfortunately, like in any culture, there are simply different “classes” (for lack of a better term). I think the problem is that CNN failed to shed any light on the middle class blacks in America; they’re just as important as everyone else. As one twitterer aptly put it: “Maybe they aren’t showing the Black Middle Class becuz we aren’t part of the ‘problem’.”
All I can hope for is that the underprivileged get a chance to shine, and the privileged remain humble while remembering to reach back and help others who were not born with the same opportunities. I plan to do the same for any minorities hoping to break into this industry after me. And that’s why I applaud the AdColor coalition, and hope to one day do some work with them.
And with that, I’ll close with a tweet that I found particularly entertaining: “At the end of this they should have the Huxtable family come on and say “See, we ain’t that bad”.
Jul/096
The Only 3 Things You Need to Succeed In Social Media and Become an Engaged Brand
Wetpaint and Altimeter Group just released a thought-provoking report about the most engaged brands in social media, with a listing of 100 companies starting with Starbucks at No. 1 and ending with AIG at No. 100. An interesting thing worth highlighting is that the most engaged brands saw the highest revenue growth versus those who chose to sit on the sidelines and experienced negative growth; the “wallflowers” as the study categorizes them.
Before I get to my point, however, I want to note how surprised I am that the report lacks some smaller companies who most certainly should be listed, and high, like Zappos.
This study should stir some things up, and get folks talking about how they can improve their social media efforts. I’ve had this conversation before: How do you succeed in social media? It’s seriously a lot simpler than many “experts” are making it out to be. Things have become overcomplicated when the key to succeeding in the social space honestly comes down to 3 things:
1. Be Human
This is the number one rule of social media and it’s mind-boggling that marketers are still getting this wrong. You don’t have to be a genius to understand social media. You do have to be human though; albeit a social one, but humans are social creatures to begin with and you wouldn’t be working in communications if you weren’t a little social. That said, the mistake that marketers are making is that they’re over-thinking and over-complicating social media. The question I can’t stand is how you should talk when using social media channels. Talk the way you would talk to a friend. If you’re wondering if you’re crossing the line or being too intrusive, think about whether or not a friend would feel you’re crossing the line or being too intrusive. Ultimately that’s what this is about: befriending PEOPLE (I say “people” instead of “consumers” because I don’t want you treating them like faceless cattle; that’s part of being human).
Think of it this way, before you walk in the office and your workday begins, you’re all just regular people living life. You hang out with friends, go to the park, have barbecues, and play games. Instead of leaving your personal life at the door, invite it inside the office. Celebrate it. Because it’s that aspect of your life that will allow you to succeed in social media. Conduct yourself, and your business, the way you would outside of the office, where you’re — well, more human.
2. Educate Yourself (Be A Little Geeky)
This really should be a no-brainer, but many marketers aren’t taking the time to keep themselves on top of the hottest things going on in the social/digital space. That doesn’t mean just reading AdAge’s ‘Digital‘ articles. It means really staying abreast of what’s going on with tech startups and the like. Get your geek on by reading blogs like TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, and Mashable. And that doesn’t mean handing that responsibility off to someone else. If you’re ultimately the decision maker, you need to be the one with your ear to the ground, understanding what’s going on and what tools you can leverage to help your brand. As I suggested in my last post, the services come and go, so you need to know what’s wired, what’s tired, and what’s next. You have to train yourself in a bit of trend spotting.
3. Don’t Do Everything. Just Do It Right.
One of the biggest key takeaways from the study is that of the four engagement profiles (maven, butterfly, selective, wallflower), selectives saw higher gross and net margins than butterflies, who were involved in more social media channels, but not as deeply. This goes back to being human. You wouldn’t try to grill a steak, bake a cake, make a salad, and scramble eggs all at the same time. If you did, something is bound to go wrong; especially if you’re not much of a cook to begin with. Even if you have the money to invest in every social channel known to man, you shouldn’t. Pick a handful of platforms that you think you can excel in, and dominate them. The same rules from the real-world apply to social media: don’t spread yourself too thin. That’s why I don’t have an account on every social site I’ve ever heard of. I know I would neglect the majority of them. I stick to the few that I know I’ll be responsibly active on.
It speaks to a crayon strategy called Commitment to Conversation. If you’re going to engage people in conversation, don’t half-ass it. You have to be active, you have to be sincere, and you have to invest the time to continue it past introductions.
Do these 3 simple things, and I guarantee you success in social media. Anyone who makes it out to be more complicated than this is lying. That may sound divisive, belligerent, and accusatory, but it’s true. Social media is not rocket science, don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
Jul/091
Twitter Is Not The Messiah. It’s Just a Tool.
I love Twitter. Don’t get it twisted. I find it to be a very useful resource when it comes to discovering interesting gems around the internet. So, I’ll be first in line to say that it has provided me with real-world value, and have fervently defended it against friends of mine who don’t see a use for it.
However, I will say that I think there’s just too many people (read marketers) who have clung to it like it is the second coming. Last week, Morgan Stanley’s 15-year old intern, Matthew Robson, wrote a report that shook up the marketing world. Why? Because in it he said that teens just aren’t into Twitter. First off, it wasn’t a real, full-fledged research report in the traditional sense, so, why people acted as though the apocalypse was upon us is beyond me. Even with that aside, however, why is this news? This kid wasn’t the first to look into the massively overhyped impact of Twitter.
You have Robson saying this, but if you go back not so long ago, The Harvard Business Review did a study that showed that more than half of all Twitter users visit the site less than once a month. And even though nearly half of all Twitter activity comes from the various desktop/mobile applications available, I think it’s safe to say we all send at least one tweet out a month using the site. Furthermore, the study found that the median number of lifetime tweets per user was only one.
Taking another step, Participatory Marketing Network conducted a survey on 200 18-24 year olds and found that only 22% of them use Twitter. And iMedia Connection’s Jason Clark published a piece that did a great job of calling Twitter out. He pointed out the 30% retention rate, which translates to 7 out of 10 users who use it once and stop.
Above and beyond all that, what really upsets me is how some people will defend Twitter to the death, as if it is their child. Why is it so outrageous that not everyone is into Twitter? Is it because it proves that the tremendous amount of hype surrounding it is just that: hype?
Social media platforms will come and go. Yes, Twitter is one of the big ones right now, but who’s to say that it’ll still be around in 5 years. We need to remember that it isn’t the tools that are important, it’s the philosophy behind them. And the underlying theme for all of these sites is social interaction. At the end of the day that’s what it’s all about. Biz Stone and Mark Zuckerberg didn’t start Twitter and Facebook, respectively, for the sake of starting them. They did it to facilitate what we naturally do as human beings: communicate. And just as human communication evolved from carrier pigeons, to morse code, to telephones, to email, and now to Twitter, it will continue to evolve. They’re all just tools ultimately serving the same purpose: connecting people.