Oct/110
We’ve Lost A Titan of Our Age
”Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” -Steve Jobs
We love you Steve.
Sep/110
The Commoditization of Social Media
Remember when this counted for something?
It was bound to happen. Although social media isn’t getting the lion’s share of anyone’s media budget, it doesn’t stop the fact that most are scrambling to get something, anything, off the ground in social. This presents great opportunities (especially for my employer) to redefine the way brands engage people. But it also sows the seeds of massive issues down the line.
When television debuted, it was a game-changer for the advertising business. Soon, everyone was clamoring to produce their own television spots. If you weren’t on TV, you weren’t anybody. And thus, 60 and 30-second spots flooded the airwaves. By the new millennium, television commercials were a commodity, spilling over onto the Internet, disguised as “web videos.”
It happened again in the “digital age” with the microsite. Not to say there’s anything intrinsically wrong with microsites, as Calle Sjonell at BBH argues. But they did become a commodity.
It seems that social is headed for the same fate. And it’s no surprise. As humans, we have a long and terrible history of settling fruitful lands, only to sap the life from them. We milked the television spot to death. We milked the microsite to death. And now we’ve set our sights on social media.
Any brand can get on Facebook and create a page; which they have. And that is problem No. 1. The issue isn’t with providing accessibility. That’s something I celebrate, as it flattens the world and at least gives smaller brands a chance to shine. It’s an issue of standards.
Conglomerates create pages for every brand they own, but fail to adequately invest in most of them. It costs nothing to get in on the game. Which in turn attracts a whole lot of people to the table who don’t have the chips to play, or aren’t willing to bet big. That is the commoditization of social media; and it’s only going to get worse as time marches on.
But it’s a dangerous game we’re playing. Because now, more than ever, the work we do has to touch people. It has to inspire them and incite their imagination.
The television spot was about absorption. The microsite was about interaction. But social media is about sharing. And in order to complete that conversion, you have to ignite your audience’s spirit. That’s what makes social media marketing the most difficult form of advertising to master.
It’s a culmination of everything that has preceded it. Good social marketing combines the storytelling of television, the interaction and involvement of a microsite, and the inspiration necessary to encourage someone to share what they experienced with all of their friends.
That’s not at all an easy task. In an era where social sharing makes or breaks a campaign, what you do has to truly capture people’s imagination and arouse their curiosity. And the brands who believe the answer is doing a massive media buy on Facebook, will be in for a rude awakening. That will get you the audience numbers (which, don’t get me wrong, is a necessity), but that’s in no way an indication of your ability to inspire them. Ultimately, that spark is needed to drive meaningful behavior.
This post is for naught. Our history has shown that it’s in our nature to ruin good things that come to us. Social media will be exploited and twisted until it’s as perverse as the microsite and television spot before it. But like its predecessors, a few will get it right. There will be a few gems. There already are. And I hope to help craft some of the ones we have yet to see, before the death knell rings.
Jul/105
The Ubiquity of the Social Web, and the Questionable Sustainability of its Agencies
Let me preface this by saying I don’t write these posts simply to be contrarian. I just think that some perspective is in order.
I’ve said this before. My larger interest is in technology and how brands can connect with people through things that whirl and buzz. Taking a step beyond that is my interest in integrated advertising. So, count me as a member of the school of thought that no one medium can do the job of every other. That goes for social as well.
Too many social marketers believe that social will eventually take over the world. And for all intents and purposes, I agree. I agree that applications and experiences that are socially enabled and contextually aware is the future. The Internet of Things and the true semantic web are years away. But I do believe they’re on the horizon. Experiences that change and mold to fit who we are as individuals is the Holy Grail of advertising. Think of the scene in Minority Report where Tom Cruise’s character enters Gap. We’re already seeing it with Facebook’s Open Graph and the rise of hyperlocal information.
The use of technology and the internet has become so commonplace that anyone can do it.
Social and contextual advertising will, in my belief, reach a level of ubiquity that pervades every facet of advertising. And with that ubiquity, comes widespread learning and understanding. In an age where the internet has become inescapable, you’d be hard pressed to find someone who, at this point, has never at least Googled, or checked email. Using the internet is no longer a luxury of the technologically savvy. It’s a place anyone can access, and the cost of entry is as little as a standard cell phone.
That said, social marketing is not rocket science.
Too many self-proclaimed social experts feel the need to justify their jobs, pointing down at digital and traditional advertisers/marketers, claiming they don’t get social and that they’re doing it all wrong. But it begs the question: Why do you think social is so far outside of their scope of understanding? Social is human. And last time I checked, humans ran all the other agencies in this industry.
Advertising—good advertising—is based on understanding human behavior. It’s about either tapping into, or in some cases, creating culture. So, while I admit that most advertisers are accustomed to talking at consumers, it’s a time tested truth that they are no stranger to indoctrinating thoughts, ideas, and beliefs into the minds of the masses. They simply have to learn how to do it in new ways. And as was the case with the widespread adoption of the internet, it’s only a matter of time.
“The Last Advertising Agency on Earth” video suggests that remaining relevant requires agencies to understand that times are a-changing and we need to change with them. Most agencies know this now, and are taking the necessary steps to stay connected.
It’s grossly naive to believe digital and traditional agencies don’t get it and never will. Sure they’ll stumble. But haven’t the social agencies stumbled as well in proving sales-driven ROI? An agency is only as good as the “agents” it hires. And if the BDA’s hire people who “get” social, what makes them any less capable of kicking our collective asses? Not only do they have the client roster, but they have the funds, execution/production resources, and greater leverage for true campaign integration.
Digital agencies doubted traditional agencies the same way. But then what do you say about agencies like SapientNitro? And even then, I think the argument isn’t the same as the one social agencies make. Digital and Traditional advertising are two very different disciplines, and require vastly divergent skill sets. We, on the other hand, sit in a place that is primarily based on common sense rhetoric. As a colleague of mine says, we do a lot of talking.
Few social agencies can execute, let alone on the scale and with the refinement of a digital agency. Honestly, any programmer/designer team worth their salt can create custom tabs in Facebook. And even the strategy that leads a good social program can be developed by a digital agency that has at least one person who understands the best practices.
Understanding social, and properly executing against it, is not something reserved to the “great thinkers” of a space that is barely 10 years old. It simply necessitates that you behave more like an individual, and less like a brand hocking your wares. The foundations of good account planning and strategy were carried over from the other disciplines. But polished execution, I’m sorry to say, is something most social agencies just can’t do because they don’t have the production resources and expertise.
That said, thinking “socially” isn’t necessarily hard, it just requires you to think differently; but it doesn’t require an entirely new skill set. So, who’s more likely to emerge when the dust has settled? Social agencies who do a lot of talking about Facebook and Twitter, but lack the skills to execute against programs larger than a custom tab; or digital agencies who have the expertise to develop deeply engrossing experiences, but need to brush up on the (very elementary) do’s and don’ts of social marketing?
Here’s a hint: Social agencies; hire some digital creatives.
Mar/102
The Ubiquity of Facebook and Twitter
This post is more so a raw and unrefined observation/opinion of mine, rather than a picking apart of the two services. For some time I’ve wanted to write a blog post about how Facebook has become the new mass media, or how Twitter has seemingly morphed to a medium, but I think it’s probably even smarter to discuss the ubiquity of these two services as it encompasses both topics.
I think it goes without saying that Facebook and Twitter are huge. Taking a quick glance at their usage statistics, you’ll see they’ve grown into behemoths in the social space.
As a disclaimer, I’m well aware that Twitter’s advertised user base of 75 million is grossly inflated, being as only 21% of its users are actually active, according to a brand new study by Barracuda Networks. But that’s neither here nor there, and doesn’t change the point of my argument.
When you get a new client and they want to go social, what’s the first thing you think of? Odds are, most of you raised your hand for Facebook. I’ll give it to you that Twitter isn’t for everyone, but let’s focus on Facebook for right now, a name that has basically become everyday diction for us. Do you realize that we all seem to immediately snap to Facebook? As if you’re retarded if you’re not on it.
I’m not saying that it’s not without good reason. It’s a stellar social network. It’s got everything from profiles, to photos and videos, to status updates, to corporate fan pages and groups. And it’s only getting better. The mobile site is brilliantly designed, and has grown to become the most visited mobile social network . So, I’m not here to say shame on you for looking to Facebook, but I do want to challenge you with the question: Why? Is it because all your other clients ended up with a Facebook Fan Page? Do you have a genuine argument as to why it’s the first thing that comes to mind, or is it because that’s just “what we do” nowadays?
Twitter, on the other hand, has reached a status that to me is quite different from Facebook. Because of the nature of the two services, I feel that Twitter took a different path, one towards channelization. Facebook is a social networking site. Twitter is a medium. I could be getting ahead of myself here, but the fashion in which Twitter has grown and is used, has led me to believe that we could be thinking about it all wrong. I don’t think Twitter is a social networking platform anymore; it’s transformed (not transcended) into something instrumental.
I think on some level it’s become as ordinary and unremarkable as the telephone, or email. We talk about not focusing on the tools, and I wholeheartedly agree. But isn’t that argument used to make the point of putting strategy ahead of tactics. What if Twitter really is just a tool. A tool like my iPhone, or my Samsung/TiVo combo. What is Twitter used for? Communication. It’s only a communication, and sometimes entertainment, tool; no different from the telephone or television. And the way we’ve instructed clients to use it, reflects that.
We measure our clients’ customer relationships in Facebook fans. We measure their “address book” in Twitter followers.
Sure it’s because of their mammoth size, but does anyone else realize that we’ve turned these two sites into the “Break Glass In Case of Emergency” social media services. They’ve become ubiquitous with the term Social Media. When you explain your job to your relatives, what do you say? I’d be surprised if neither Facebook nor Twitter came out of your mouth. When did “social media” become synonymous with these two sites/services/tools?
It’s a hackneyed term, and the vast majority of us don’t deserve the title, but why aren’t we called Digital Anthropologist or Ethnographers? Regardless of how many people may hate the usage of that title (and rightfully so), those same people (I’d hope) also understand that at the end of the day our job is about human beings connecting with human beings. Aren’t we all just digital social workers, hopefully making some kind of difference in peoples’ lives through smiles, laughter, or tears?
When did Facebook and Twitter become the masters of the universe, which have come to define our professional existences? And when did we become tools ourselves?