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    Is Resonance the Grail?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    My first encounter with metrics was when a friend at Ogilvy Direct (now OgilvyOne) explained how Vanguard Funds tracked ads to resulting investments.  Each ad had a unique code that found its way through the process and when money was deposited it generated an advertising-to-sales ratio. Ad creative, size, media could all be calculated.  This approach is why direct marketing, nee direct response, nee direct mail agencies were the digital agencies of the day in the 70s and 80s.

    In the 90s banner ads were the haps.  They were new and measurable and web advertising was ready to kill traditional. But as click-through rates diminished sales people told you banner were awareness builders. Display ads started to get bigger and richer and CTRs increased again. Then search became the new “new” and SEM/SEO shops multiplied like rabbits.  Search though, is a half nasty business — with a good deal of practitioners hacking their way to the top. (Are these the people who always talk about authenticity?)

    Resonance.

    Today social media is the haps. And social companies are finally taking monetization seriously.  Twitter’s resonance concept is a great start. Twitter’s Promoted Tweets measure nine factors to determine resonance, which is used to determine whether an ad stays or goes and what to charge. According to the New York Times, three of those factors are “number of people who saw the post, the number of people who replied to it or passed it on to their followers, and the number of people who clicked on links.” Some say social media is not about selling, it’s about engagement. That’s like saying you go to a singles bar to make friends. It’s only a 5% true. Resonance tied to sales is coming. Who ever cracks that code will be the David Ogilvy of the decade.  Peace it up!

    Twitter is not for coupons.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    coupons sheet

    In a meeting this past summer a young account manager working at a brand design firm asked me about Twitter. “What do you use it for?” He was of an age, late 20s I’m guessing, not known for heavy Twitter usage.  Lots of business people are asking the same question today – especially as it relates to brands.

    Here’s how I use Twitter: My Twitter persona is me. It’s my personality. I blog daily about marketing in the hope of getting smarter, sharing thoughts, instigating discussion and, hopefully, create relationships that will generate da monies. Not being a great or polished writer, I use the blog more for idea sharing and insights which, unfortunately, sometimes come across as pedantic with a little “know it all” mixed in. Sorry about that. It’s about 40% me.

    Twitter is 100% me. I have more fun on Twitter. I’m a more complete person. It shows my politics. Musical tastes. It may not capture the cur dog I am in real life, but it’s a pretty accurate view. And that’s what Twitter should be to brands. Not a coupon house. Not a freakin’ smiley face, obsequious customer care person. The real brand.

    McDonald’s social strategy is “Deepen and enrich the brand’s relationship with consumers through knowledge, sharing and entertainment.” If that strategy is carried out and governed by the brand plan in a compelling, timely manner (timely is key) it can be an amazing tool. It’s early, but Twitter will change marketing as we know it. Peace!

    Publicis, Slinging the Hashtag.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I love Twitter and have long said it is a very important media. Global, real-time news with attachments. In a presentation first given to the Long Island Social Media Club, I shared a slide entitled “rock the hashtag.” (Sorry, it was a while ago.)  I encouraged people to be inventive with the hashtag and suggested that in the future marketers would find unique and exciting ways to be promotional with it.   

    publicis logo

    Publicis, an advertising and holding company has just announced a R&D labs with Twitter to help consumers use Twitter thusly.  Right now, they’re focused on marrying Twitter with TV programming which is just a sign of the times; the times being there is a lot of poor television around…and more channels on which to watch them. (Psst, TV Program Creators — the idea is to not bore your audience into using second screens.) Anyway, the labs will no doubt come up with some interesting ideas and twists, which will give birth to new ideas, twists and forms of technology.  Publicis may have just hit a home run here.

    Twitter is about much more than just the hashtag – but the hash is a transformative tool. Hopefully, mid-level marketing managers won’t be at the controls and brand managers will keep an eye on what is going on. Poorly executed programs will have the potential to do more harm than good…rocking that hashtag.  Peace. #merleFest

    I Smell a Twitter Revolution.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Twitter’s soon-to-be-launched service @earlybird will transform marketing. @earlybird is a promotional service that posts participating companies’ specials and deals on a wide variety of products and services — a cut of each sale going to Twitter. It will generate billions in incremental sales for sponsoring companies and serious revenue basis points for Twitter. Such a deal!   

    No doubt they will find a way to organize these deals by category, e.g., restaurants, technology, consumer packaged goods and, more importantly, geography.  Think of it as  Woot.com but offering thousands of deals a day.  Someone commented about the service in The New York Times, thinking that it would gum up their twitter feed — deals flying across the screen every minute, but the beauty of Twitter is that you don’t have to follow @earlybird (I hope) you just have to visit the tweet stream. 

    Twitter will transform commerce well beyond coupons and customer service. And this 140 character promotional vehicle is just the beginning. The idea to have an idea.  I can smell marketers lining up. And small local businesses?  They’ll have an absolute  field day with this thing.  Oh the possibilities. Can’t wait. Peace!

    Twitter’s New Ad Plan.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    It sounds as if Twitter’s new advertising program has been well thought out.  Sponsored 140 character Tweets, called Promoted Posts, will appear atop the results of key word searches.  If you search for Tacos, you might see a Chipotle tweet above all others.  Small type will let you know it’s a sponsored ad. And should you cursor over it the ad turns yellow. Twitter is stealing a page from Google by keeping only ads deemed relevant, i.e., that are clicked on, retweeted or direct messaged in reasonable numbers.  

    Twitter will charge advertisers on a CPM (cost per thousand basis), the way TV and print media are priced. (Read more about social media monetization here.) I suspect that in a while CPMs will be one price and clicks another, but we’ll see.  

     Next Phase of Twitter Ad Plan.

    Down the road ads are expected to appear in the midst of tweet streams surrounding conversations. The ads won’t result from searches but from the content within posts.  So if there are discussions about tacos Chipotle might buy its way into the conversation.  Whether these purchased posts appear in the stream or along side a la Google is still to be determined.

    This is just the tip of the iceberg.  There are so many other ways to monetize Twitter which we’ll all be reading about in the coming months and years.  I’m happy with the current approach – it is America after all – and I am happy that Twitter has tabled the in-stream advertising effort for a while. One bite at the apple at a time.  Peace!   

    Staples on Twitter.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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     staples logo

    A “social” friend of mine, Julie, turned me on to a Twitter site today that kinda follows one of my best practices for commercial tweeting. It’s Staples.  I preach to clients and friends that corporate users shouldn’t just broadcast promotional info and/or respond to help questions on Twitter. Rather, they should create a persona for their Twitter presence that embodies the brand and inspires positive thought and action. Think of it as a role in a movie with a motivation. The motivation should track to the brand plan and push the brand planks.

    In the case of Staples, the “tweet team” consists of five people, each with their own tag. Michelle is MO, Kevin AB, etc. This allows them to be identified and personalized, plus it shares the workload. At this point, I’m not yet sure if these people are SMEs (subject matter experts) or generalists.  It would be a smart if they had discrete areas of expertise and personalities to fit. 

    Buy and Multiply.

    More and more companies are hiring people to handle social media.  Some are outsourcing (stopgap), others using interns (big gap), the smart ones employ senior management who get the brand strategy.  The big promise of Twitter is not to make customers happy – one at a time – but to inspire customers to buy, share and multiply.  The key word here is inspire. Tweeters have to be engaging individuals…with personalities.  And just like in a retail setting they can’t be shills. They must be sensitive, funny and friend-like.  If you are on the receiving end of a commercial tweet you need to “feel” the company tweeter – and like her/him. The persona is key.

    Staples has made a good start here, let’s see hat they do with it. Peace on Haiti.

    Intelligent Clothes Tagging.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Within a couple of years many newly manufactured clothes will contain inexpensive invisible data tags.  Much like a scanner tag you find on packaged goods these tags will contain brand name, style, store and price.  What will make them unique, however, is that they’ll be scannable via phone applications.  See a cool pair of shoes on the street?  Just point-and-click and immediately know what the item is. Think of it as a paparazzi for clothing thing.  Sure it will be annoying…but we’ll live with it.

    As this service gets more sophisticated and cheaper and the geo-location and privacy implications resolved, manufactures and marketers will be able to aggregate data and read that in Brooklyn, 200,000 people are walking around in Chuck Tailors on Friday but only 75,000 people on Wednesday.  We’ll know black tee-shirts outnumber red 2:1 on Monday and sundresses are really worn on sunny days.

     And don’t even get me started about clothing tags tied to coupons, promotions, search terms or Twitter codes.  I can’t even process that.  For that add two more years. Peace!  

     PS.  This is but one chapter in my worldwide inventory theory.

    Twitter’s Billion Users.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    My first tweet (www.myfirstweet.com), a fun application conceived by Noah Brier, contained a typo. That’s just about right. 

    Though not a 10 tweets a day kind of guy, I do love the app. Readers know I have great expectations for Twitter in the business world.  Twitter doesn’t have the users of Facebook and many still think it a silly web exuberance, but it really has only just scratched the surface of its potential.  My daughter who’s a Millennial just signed up and she didn’t get Twitter for the longest time.

    Yesterday I was in the locker room of a professional sports team.  Can’t say the name.  Outside the looker room in the hall next to the showers is where all pertinent team information is posted.  An 8 x10 memo on insurance, a notice that the barber will be on prem Friday, small laminated color piss charts encouraging proper hydration. Don’t forget to shower before you get in the whirlpool.  Next to all these little officious documents is a huge horizontal poster “Twitter Dos and Don’ts.” 

    Dos: Okay to say “great game” and “thank the fans.” Don’ts: no RT (retweeting) other peoples’ unsubstantiated stuff, talk about injuries or the game plan.   The list is quite long and modular so it can be expanded. It starts at eye level and is currently down to the waist. Athletes love Twitter.

    I once wrote a brief stating that a musician is never more in touch with his/her art than when staring into the eyes of the audience.  Twitter is not exactly the same thing but its close.  When marketers learn how to use Twitter to really listen it will become, as Dick Costello predicts, a billion-user application. Peace!

    Apple PR. Think Different.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Wanting to tune into the Apple iPad press conference yesterday I spent time toggling between live.twit.tv and one of Robert Scoble’s video feeds. It was certainly better than nothing, but considering this day and age it was pretty prehistoric. Video reboots, freezing, hippopotamus grunts, feedback, poor screen grabs aplenty.

    After about 20 minutes I blew it off and brought the car to “Tony, Park Avenue.”

    The event was reported to have slowed down Twitter, gobbled up lots of bandwidth and, stirring though it was, was not nearly the event for outliers it could have been.  So, as a PR event it was a fail. 

    A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Scoble was allowed into the Google Phone launch event and though there were some hiccups, it went much better. He streamed from his laptop. The audio was good, the video okay and the overall experience rewarding.  But had both these events been on television, the experience would have been perfect.  Were they both streamed over the net with the right software and load balancing, they would have been close to perfect. 

    Apple wants to treat the press to first dibs. Also, it wants partners and employees to have a better seat.  But the press gets this stuff for free – they don’t pay for it. I know the press is supposed to influence millions of potential buyers but this is Apple.  The demand for Steve Job’s presentation and the iPad, comes from real buyers.  This event should have been open to the global public. This event should have been for the people. This event should have been handled better. Think different. Peace!

    Ghost Tweeters

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    The whole purpose of having a personal Twitter is to express yourself in a timely fashion.  I use Twitter to share my personality. My un-sequestered personality.   For me, Facebook is about friends and acquaintances (near and far), LinkedIn is business, the blog is business, and Foursquare is about food, drink and places.  Twitter is all those things.  It is the most well-rounded social platform as it relates to the real me. Brands that use Twitter similarly, to share their personality, are using it most properly (governed by a brand plan, of course).

    Cory Booker is a big media socialist. He is also a great man, politician and power broker. He Tweets for himself as far as I can tell.  He has people to scan social media and they don’t miss much, though the Tweets are from his thumbs. Some high profile people with Twitter accounts are so busy they have ghost tweeters. That’s bullshizz.  It’s disingenuous. And it should be against the Twitter law. If you don’t have time to share your personality with people interested in you, then you don’t get the platform.

    Twitter is so, so amazing…but it is getting watered down by ghosts, sycophants and marketers. When I read some of Cory Bookers article and papers, say on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, I know they are not written by him. (Or I suspect so.) And that’s okay, but at least he knows how to use Twitter.  And he had better keep his thumbs on those keys. Peace.

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