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    A Social Media Tip

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    No one has done more for the medium that is Twitter than “The Donald.”  Listening to a snippet of the president elect yesterday, it made me feel as do many of his sound bites. I get the sense someone feeds him a disruptive and memorable sound bite (or he comes up with it himself) which he repeats 3 times. Sans evidence or support. Then he moves on. These sound bite are what hit the news. The approach is perfect for this Fast Twitch Media world.

    In social media, sound bites can become memes. Memes get passed around as fast as jokes and news. And they can certainly last longer.  I built a consulting business around brand and marketing memes.

    Have you ever gone to concert and sung along with the artist, but only able to sing a few of the hook lines? On the web, the memorable lines are the memes, everything else is flah-flah-flah content.

    So, the social media tip is: “Know how to build memes.”  Memes that point back to you or your company.  Memes that others will replicate and share. Google reads the web every minute. And you can’t buy off Google.  You can sometimes trick it, but it can’t be bought. Memes create traffic.

    If you are good at creating memes, endemic to your brand, if you use them and own them, you will win in social media. Just ask “The.”

    Peace                                                                                            

    PS. For more social media tips, Google “Social Media Guard Rails” (a meme).  

     

     

    Social Media Talent Scouts

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    crowd

    In Jaron Lanier’s new book “You Are Not a Gadget,” he discusses how the Web has spawned an almost mob-like behavior favoring Pasters (those who copy, paste and mash other people’s content) over Posters (original content creators).  The “wisdom of crowds” (James Surowiecki) mentality, he writes, supersedes individual wisdom…and that’s a shame.  

    Readers of “What’s The Idea?” know I write about the proper care and feeding of Posters and Pasters in social media marketing.  Understanding the theory is easy, making it happen, not so much. The key to successful, extensible social media marketing initiatives is in finding the right Posters to pollinate the Web.  That’s the heavy lifting.  One needs to be a good talent scout. Finding Posters (in your product category) before they become too big is also key. Find them on the way up, in other words.

    How will you know a good Poster when you find him/her? Here are a few hints.  They are doers — they get out of the house or building. They’re creative — experimenting and solving problems in new ways. They are not shy, though their posts and content are not “me, me, me ,me” focused. They blog and have a following. They inspire respectful comments on their blogs or conent channel.

    Find a good Poster in your category and learn from her/him. Don’t seek out wisdom in the crowd or hive.   Peace!

    Hashtag. A Universal Symbol of Change.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Those who love social media surely are getting tired of ignorant commentators who publish that social is only used for sharing what one is doing.  Comedians, editorialists, and barflies love to hate on social media, especially Twitter, declaring it a means for sharing self-centered, self-aggrandizing bits of information — “I’m buying shoes on Spring Street.”

    Perhaps Twitter was this way the first month and no doubt people still drivel on a bit about their whereabouts and transactions, but Twitter and the hashtag are a very different animal than the one naysayers see. There was a gentleman in Pakistan, Sohaib Athar (@reallyvirtual), who was tweeting about Osama’s death well before the rumors hit the U.S.  This I learned from a Fashion Institute of Technology student, who wasn’t buying shoes at the time. Mr. Athar, though not thinking about it at the time was a citizen journalist. A global citizen journalist.

    When Syrian president Bashar al-Assad decides to hack the Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page and change its content, it was intended to chance the course of history. When videos on YouTube show global atrocities in near real-time, that’s important.

    Marketers and investors are spending a lot to time trying to monetize social media, and that is taking our eyes off the ball.   Commentators are trying to gain contrarian props by telling us how frivolous social media is. But know this, the hashtag will change history. For good and in some cases bad.  It is a cross media, cross language symbol. Perhaps, the first such symbol or character of its time. Peace.

    Listening Starts at Home

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    listening

    So (today everyone starts their pontifications with the word “so”) the talk on the marketing street these days is all about “starting the conversation” and “being a good listener.” These are axiomatic teachings of the social media movement.  I appreciate this view and love listening to consumers, but I’d like to throw a trump card on the pile: Listening to employees. What is often forgotten in the social media world today is the role and input of employees.  Employees touch customers.  Lots of them. Employees know the product inside and out (if the company is well led). Employees have a stake in the performance of the product. Companies need to mine their own people for product and selling insights, because employees are the aggregators of smart marketing intelligence.

    New Product Ideas

    If you look back through time, I’d bet that 75% of all new product improvements, line extensions and new product ideas have come from within the company. Add to that all the new ideas and suggestions made off-the-cuff by employees that never saw the light of day and you begin to see a bigger opportunity.

    Smart social media software companies, building enterprise 2.0 applications through which employees share, commune and contribute business building ideas, are what’s up in 2010. Listening to employees through social media will be a marketing breakthrough to Tweet about. Peace!

    Grey’s Anatomy’s Droopy iPad App.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    There is an iPad app for fans of Grey’s Anatomy, says CIO Magazine, developed by TV rating company Nielsen, that offers interactive social activities to viewers tied to events in the program. These events are “watermarked” to the show dialogue.  I’m interested.  Coolness.  I am always on the lookout for “1 plus 1 equals 3” mashups of media that go beyond the expected. That tread new ground.

    And then I read that the Grey’s Anatomy app pops up questions like “What do you think will happen next in the plot?” “Or tweet this to a friend.”  Droop.  The app also offers character info, games and quizzes. Droopier. 

    It sounds as if the media socialists on the show are making the app an extension of a fan club when there were so many other ways to go. The show is about medicine and doctors and hospitals, why not go that route?  Why not inform, educate, surprise?  Or how about offering up some type of production notes about the cast and the scene?  I’ll bet if the app developers actually listened to the audience in real time, without a social media engagement agenda, they might hear insights they hadn’t expected. Go deep. Think deeply. Think about strategy not tactics. Don’t extend, invent. Peace!

    Twisted Juice.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    2

    Mitch Joel and Jaffe Juice’s Joseph Jaffe squared off yesterday in a podcast that was a good deal of fun.  Each agreed they were good friends but that was about all they agreed upon — save for the obligatory strokefest at the end.  Mr. Jaffe is a principal at Crayon now owned by Powered and Mr. Joel is president of Twist Image a leading digital shop based in Toronto.  Both are published (books, blogs and pods) and practiced “duelists.”

    The discussion with which they played pong was “Is social media a discrete marketing practice?” Mr Jaffe says “yes,” Mr. Joel “no.” 

    The crux of the debate is this:  Social media needs to be well integrated into the marketing and digital practices of corporations. Today, it’s not.  Mr. Joel says there are smart companies doing so and he’s right.  Mr. Jaffe says those companies are the “exception not the rule” and he’s right. Powered is betting that specialized shops – best of breed social shops – will be better positioned to make waves and earn low hanging engagements.  Mr. Joel believes that cleanest most likely social successes will come from integrated digital shops, and in the long run that is probably more correct.  But his approach is less promotable and less newsworthy.   Social media is the haps today.  There is demand for it and a social marketing swell surrounding it. 

    Da Monies.

    So where is the money in social media?  Tweeting buy the pound? Friending by the hundred? In strategy?  Yep.  Where is the money in the integrated approach? The answer is tweeting by the pound and building websites – a more lucrative approach.  

    Win by Knockout?

    No. Both arguments are very compelling. Mr. Jaffe and Powered CMO Aaron Strout are loudly breaking new ground. (There are supposedly scores of quiet social media agencies in NYC alone.) Mr. Joel gets it for sure, and though his sound bite is not as powerful he will probably have higher margins this year. Were I a marketing director and these two pitching my business, I’m sure the last one to present would win the business.

    4 Uses for Social Media

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Social media programs typically fall into four categories: brand building, customer care, promotion  and smiley noise.

    Brand Building requires that a one actually has a brand plan (brand idea and three proof planks). So long as you’re creating and sharing content that is on-idea and embodies one of the planks, you are making brand deposits — caring about what your customers’ care about and at what you are great.

    Customer Care is all about listening.  But this listening has created a cottage industry of kvetchers who have been rewarded for using social to air grievances, as I did this week when tweeting that my Nokia 928 has had to be returned 7 times due to a faulty ear piece.  The fact is, customer care is an important part of social when properly handled.  It also provides metric for the c-suite. And if a company uses it as part of a CRM program all the better.

    Promotion is the top reason customers unfollow brands in social media. Data suggests 70-80 percent cite “too much marketing” as why they ban brands on Twitter or Facebook.  Again, many companies are conditioning the market to look to social for deals, just as they sometime reward kvetchers. Promotion is an important part of marketing,. It builds trial, helps hit slowed sales goals and creates rewards. But using social to fire hose freebies and to-fers is not a good lone use of the medium.

    Smiley Noise is just what it sounds like.  People think it’s okay on social, because, well, it’s social. But smiley noise would never make it as an ad. It’s noise built pass along. Or to create likes. Or to fill the social air. Here’s some smile noise from Penn Medicine. 

     penn medicine tweet

    Social media isn’t a static thing. It needs to live and breathe. It needs to be current and friendly but also important. Social doesn’t get the strategic oversight it should or the respect it should. But it will, oh it will.  Companies with real brand plans are the companies doing it best.  Those are the companies doing all the other stuff best, as well. It pays to have a plan. Peace!

    Best Buy Oops.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I say Best Buy, you say what?  “Lot’s or products.” (Good) “Low prices” (A core value.) “Twelpforce and Twitter.” (Oooh, sorry.)  That’s right.  Best Buy and CMO Barry Judge have been in the spotlight and awards show klieg lights for months due to its so-called leadership in social media.   Best Buy used to was (Southernism) all about being the best buy.  Well they took their eye off the brand prize, found technology, and have now lost market share in laptops, TVs and videogame software in the quarter just reported.

    I looove social media, but it’s not a brand strategy. It’s a media strategy and a marketing tactics. Had Mr. Judge focused more of his efforts on ways to provide a more competitively priced product than Walmart, Target and Amazon, the klieg lights would still be shining.

    Alas.  Peace!

    Campbell’s Coulda Woulda.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I’ve been a fan of Douglas R. Conant, CEO of the Campbell’s Soup Company, for a few years and today my fanboy status took a hit.  Soup sales fell for Campbell’s in it most recent quarter, missing analyst targets by one cent — and the stock price fell.

    In a tight economy, inexpensive soup becomes a staple of the dollar-conscious.  According to reports, people are still buying the condensed soups and using them in meals prepared at home but sale of ready-to-eat and other condensed soups are flagging. Apparently there is just so much canned soup a body can take.

    Mr. Conant who is leaving Campbell’s in July, noted that the sales problem is tied to lack of product innovation and the fact that new customers are not stopping by his area of the food aisle.  For a middle-American family of 5 who has eaten soup once or twice a week for a couple of years, pinching dollars, I can see why there might be some push back from around the dinner table.  I suspect a little recipe innovation, rather than product innovation might have been a good idea.  

    This time last year, when business was cranking,  I reached out to the marketing department at Campbell’s and suggested a creative social media program around a “dinner for dollars” video property. (Can’t say more.)  I was told to take my idea to the suggestion box on the website. As Tony Montana might have said “Not look at chew.”  Peace!

    Posters of Yore.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I’ve bifurcated the social media landscape into Posters and Pasters. Posters are original content creators: musicians, artists, video creators, subject matter experts and bloggers. Pasters are the other 92% who curate other people’s stuff. Pasters share links.

    But there is another group of social media cohorts that have been growing in importance over the past 8-10 years. Part poster, part paster, they have become a cottage industry. The Influencer. Influencers come in many styles and flavors so you know it is a thing. There are micro influencers. Nano influencers. Not to mention mega and macro, all referring to the CPM they are paid to post on their feeds.

    But some influencers are tainting the waters. They’re all hat and no cattle as the Texas saying goes. They are more videogenic than thoughtful, truthful problem solvers. More entertainment than value. Ten years ago, the way for an influencer to make money was to monetize through a banner ads and newsletters. It was a craft. Today, they’re paid by ad agencies and product placement companies and have become a media channel all to themselves. (Oh, and they may also be buying their followers.)

    Don’t get me wrong, there are a thousand of great influencers out there who put in the time, dedicate themselves to helping educate others, and sharing about the topic they love. The difference is, they are about the love of subject and intimacy with followers, not the CPM. 

    They are Posters of yore.

    Peace.

     

     

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