24/7 Drama Machine

There is no doubt that the advent of all news cable channels has changed the way television news is reported.  There is no doubt that the advent of social media has changed the way we interact with world events.  Notice I said changed.  Not improved.

We have had far too many examples recently on how the 24/7 news machine deals with major tragedies.  Make that fails to deal with major tragedies.

Just like many others, when there is a significant event happening, I want to be kept up to speed on developments.  I like to know what facts have been confirmed and even some historical and social context of the event.

CNN Anchor/Reporter Wolf Blitzer (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don't need to see Wolf Blitzer guess what the news is going to be.  I don't need to hear the talking heads speculate what may or may not be the story.  I certainly don't need to hear news announcers pronounce that it is impossible to know anything with certainty in the early hours of a situation, then turn around and blather on with hours of speculation.

Personnally, I would find the all news channels immensely more watchable during a crisis if they would report on the FACTS, and then go back to the rest of the news.  I think it would be healthy and helpful if these stations reminded us that the world goes on despite a bombing in a mall or a storm that destroys a town.

I think part of the problem is that the all news channels have a lot of hours of broadcast to fill.  And running reruns doesn't work as well on CNN as it does on TVLand.

But I think the greater probelm is that they are still in the old newspaper mindset of being the first to report breaking news.  They rush to announce that this may have happened or that may have happened because they see a value in having their newsboys on the corner first.

I've got news for the news channels.  You are never going to be first out of the gate.  Twitter will always beat you.  Facebook will usually be having a conversation about the issue well underway before you get the cameras pointed at a befuddled anchor.

One of the reasons The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, a comedy news show, is cited by young adults as their primary source of news, is that Jon and his staff provide some intelligent analysis and evaluation of the news.  They are also only trying to fill half an hour each night.

If all of the "real" news networks could accept that they will not be first, and could embrace the role of providing value-added commentary or analysis, I think they will find audiences still turning into them.  The difference is they would enjoy it.

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Privacy

Privacy is an issue getting lots of media attention right now.  Privacy is in the headlines virtually every day lately.  While privacy and the protection of it HAS become a political issue, it also is an issue of great social significance.  It is also shaping up to be an issue of generational divide.  Young people today seem to have a different view about privacy than their parents.

According to a recent Pew Internet study, about teen social media use and privacy:

• Students are sharing much more personal information about themselves of social media

• 91% of teens posted a photo of themselves in 2012, up from 79% in 2006
• 71% posted their school name, up from 49%
• 71% posted the city or town where they live, up from 61%
• 53% posted their email address, up from 29% in 2006
• 20% posted their cell phone number, where virtually no one (2%) did just 6 years earlier
• At the same time, 60% of teen Facebook users report high levels of confidence in their ability to manager their settings.
• Just 9% of teens indicated that they were "very" concerned about third party access to their data on social media sites.

On the other hand, there are a lot of adults over the age of 40 that won't even dip their toe into the Facebook pool because of concerns of privacy.

I cannot tell if these differences are generational or experiential in nature.  Are teenagers less worried about someone mining their personal data from Facebook because they are young and naive or because they are used to the quirks and tendencies of a Facebook-driven life?

This is not to say that young people are not concerned about privacy issues.  They undoubtedly are. According to the Pew study, more than half of them limit access to their information using privacy settings.

Despite all of this, there is a growing school of thought among all generations of users that the greatest danger to internet privacy over social media is advertisers, not individuals with malcontent.  People are genuinely afraid of the time in the near future when advertisers have gleaned all there is to know about an individual and use that hyper personal information to make highly personalized offers.

The challenge for marketers is to be culturally and demographically sensitive to the issue of privacy.  Most people sincerely enjoy the recommendations on Amazon or Netflix that are based on past purchases.  Fewer people enjoy those same recommendations when they are based on non-purchase past behavior on the site.  There are even fewer (dare I say almost no one) who would enjoy recommendations based on their internet activity on other sites other than the recommendor's site.

The opportunity for marketers is to recognize that privacy is an important issue in the marketplace, albeit one that is viewed differently by different generations.  A smart marketer can use respect for customers' privacy as a marketing advantage.  A smart marketer can identify the generational similarities in views about different types of privacy and/or can take advantage of the differences.

A smart marketer will recognize that privacy is not just a political issue or a generational issue but also an image issue.  Companies that are seen as respecting our individual views on marketing will, I predict, have an advantage over those who are seen as indifferent to those issues.

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Volunteers as Starting Points

Abraham Lincoln said that if he could get someone to lend him a book, they would be a friend for life.  The act of lending something as valuable as a book was an act of engagement and trust.  After that, it was impossible to be indifferent and indifference is a bigger threat to friendship than animosity.

The same thing is true about volunteerism.  If you can get someone to voluntarily do something in support of your organization or brand, even something small, you have the start of engagement.  Once you have engagement, you have awareness and involvement and all sorts of good things can happen.

I suspect that this is the thinking behinds the marketing campaigns that are abundant right now that encourage readers or viewers to "like" or "retweet" or "pin" the latest page, site, or post of the company.

The trouble is that often the marketing plans don't go beyond the request for the original interaction.  Lincoln didn't change enemies into friends simply by borrowing books.  He used that initial act as an excuse to engage in conversation, debate an issue or lend back a related book.

Similarly, just getting someone to like your Facebook page does little to no true marketing good.  Getting someone who had liked your Facebook page to them sign up for an e-newsletter or to request a coupon for a free sample of what you are selling is a step in the right direction.  The point is it is easier to get people who have taken a tiny bit of time to like you on Facebook to take a tiny bit more time to sign up for something or watch a video. The general public who haven't volunteered their tiny bit of time, haven't made that tiny commitment to you.

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6 Ways Social Media is Scary to Marketers

To most marketers, social media is still new.  We are still trying to make sense of this new way of communicating with stakeholders.  Today I would explore a few ways in which social media is different than traditional mass media.  Today I explore ways that social media is scary to marketers.

1. Two-way communications
Social media is a conversation.  Mass media is a monologue.

The simple fact that the audience can talk back in many social media venues is both thrilling and frightening to many marketers.  We all hope that the result will be a productive conversation but fear it will be the media equivalent of a heckler at a comedy club.

2. Volume
The really attractive thing about traditional media is that you can reach a lot of people with a single ad.  When you can get your message to millions of people with a single media purchase, that makes things much simpler and much easier.  This works really well if you are Proctor & Gamble or Ford Motor Company.  It works less well if you are Billy's Bait and Tackle Shop.

For Billy's Bait and Tackle Shop to take advantage of the more democratic virtues of social media, they need to have someone who has some tech savvy and the time to keep their message in the social media.  For P&G and Ford, they have the people, but they have to develop the ability to talk to people at an appropriate volume.  Marketers who grew up talking at mass media volume sometimes have trouble switching to their inside voices.

3. Social Media is Free...sorta
Facebook and Twitter don't charge companies to set up accounts.  Companies can set up all the Pinterest boards they want without forking over a fee.  However, to participate in these "free" social media opportunities effectively requires ongoing input and updating.  For most organizations, this inputting and updating is not done for free.

Furthermore, more and more organizations are recognizing the value of having professional input into the set-up and execution of these marketing tools (not that the son of the guy in payroll wasn't doing a good job...when he wasn't in school.). As someone pointed out to me recently, if we understood social media and what we have to do, we could figure out what it costs.  Since we don't understand it, it has the potential to be a big money pit.

4. Measurement is easier with social media
One of the "truisms" that I grew up believing about advertising is the John Wanamaker quote about knowing that half of your advertising dollars are wasted.  The trouble was there was no way of knowing which half.  Social media provides a lot more data about who is seeing your message, where they are coming from and what they do after they receive your message.

The thing about data is that it is only numbers until you do something with it.  To marketers who have spent their careers channeling Wanamaker, suddenly having detailed data available about our marketing decisions feels a little like being called to the Principal's office.  It could be that you are going to be praised for doing the right things, but the odds are against it.

5. Social Media Allows You to Target Your Audience
The common analogy used is that mass media is a shotgun shot and social media is a rifle shot.  Social media allows you to target your audience more precisely.  That means that marketers need to know who they are trying to reach and what message each audience segment should get.  That is hard.  That requires a marketer to know details about his target audience and detailed message that he didn't really need to know before.

If you are marketing in Chicago, you could buy ads in the Chicago Tribune and on WGN and pretty much figure you are reaching your target market.  Sure, you are also reaching 80 to 90% of the audience who AREN'T your target audience, but when mass marketing was your primary option, what could you do?  When you can slice and dice the audience a million different ways, your opportunities are endless, but so are your opportunities to miss your audience.

6. Social Media Keeps Changing
If you were buying advertising nationally 25 years ago, you were most likely buying advertising in the same media as the guy (and it probably was a guy) who was buying advertising 50 or 60 years ago.  That is not true for social media.  10 years ago, most social media marketing options didn't even exist.  Facebook isn't 10 years old yet.  My Space, a marketing "has-been" by most accounts, will celebrate it's 10th birthday in August.

New social media channels and options are opening up all of the time.  Reading the business and marketing literature can be intimidating, as they are frequently citing the next big thing in social media.  Add to that the challenge of identifying which options best meet the needs of your organization and your target audiences and determining which options best support your marketing strategy.

Keeping up with the Zuckerbergs can be exhausting!



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Smoke-Filled Rooms

This weekend there were a couple of more stories about politicians who were forced to step down because of inappropriate comments, rants or crazy statements made in emails.  We have all read similar stories about business leaders who seemingly forget that email and Twitter messages can, and most likely will, be shared.

Let's assume, for arguments sake, that these pols and business leaders are of at least average intelligence.  Let's further assume that they have an average level of engagement with the world.  We already know they have email and Twitter accounts after all.  So we will assume that they aren't Luddites who are just discovering electronic things for the first time.  Finally, let's assume that these political and business leaders are not purposely engaging in self destructive behavior; that they want to keep their jobs and reputations.

So what gives?

Why are so many of these presumably smart and capable people saying really, really stupid things in emails and on Twitter?

A friend of mine claims that they have always said these really, really stupid things.  We just now get to read and hear about them.  I suspect there is truth to that, but I suspect there is something more to it.

I think that today's leaders are missing the smoke-filled rooms of days gone by.  You know, those back rooms of lore where they could hang with their cronies and say whatever they wanted without fear of ridicule or retribution.  Where everyone laughed at their jokes and acted on their suggestions.  Where a little off-color joke or comment was one of the trappings of privilege.

The smoke-filled boardrooms, filled with syncopatic yes-men and women, who raised the CEO up like some sort of demi-god, was where major corporate decisions were made.  The smoke-filled rooms populated with politicians and their allies is more than just a Hollywood construction.  They exist(ed) and that is where political parties decided who would be the next mayor, senator or governor.

With a greater emphasis on transparency, not to mention smoke-free buildings, smoke-filled back rooms and board rooms have all but disappeared.  While this is positive for accountability, and lung health, and makes for stronger business and political decisions, it does create a void for business and political leaders who need some place to blow off steam.  They need a safe place to let down their hair, tell a ribald joke or social zinger without anyone calling them racist or sexist or any other kind of -ist.

With recording devices on virtually every cell phone and plenty of places to upload whatever is recorded, how is a politician expected to feel comfortable that she is with sympathizers who agree with some of her more extreme views?  How is a CEO expected to relax when she knows that every clerk and janitor who has their nose out of joint because of work conditions or pay disparity could record a random comment, taken out of context, that makes them seem greedy, or devious, or stupid?

It seems, like so many others, they have turned to Facebook and Twitter.


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The Challenges of DeFriending

I have too many friends.  I am too linked in.  I need to simplify.

At least that was my intention when I wrote a post on quality vs. quantity when it comes to social media contacts several years ago.  Read that blog here.

All was fine and good until I started realizing that I was missing messages from contacts that I really cared about.  A colleague told me about an opportunity, but I missed it among the sea of posts I get daily.  I have to search to find pictures of my 1 year-old niece on Facebook because I get lots of other messages that aren't nearly as important, nor as cute.

So when I wrote, two years ago, about my intention to go for quality over quantity on my social media contacts, my intentions were good.  But liking someone is a lot easier than "unliking" them.  I have not made much progress on winnowing down my contacts list.  One of my many issues with Facebook is that they have all sorts of groups and games and features that encourage you to connect with lots of people, but they make it difficult (at least to this Luddite) to sort and organize your contacts.  I have "friends" that I connected with several years ago over a common interest in an issue or an event.  The problem is I don't remember what that issue or event is any longer.

Also, you friend someone by pushing one little button.  Once they accept the invitation, you are Facebook friends.  To defriend someone, once you know that want to, involves several steps.

Ultimately though, the problem for me is in the difference between the two actions.  Friending is a generally positive and inclusive action.  It opens up possibilities of connections made and opportunities revealed.  Removing friends, or links, or contacts is the opposite.  It shrinks your online world.

Or does it.  As I wrote two years ago, sometimes it is about numbers, but sometimes its about making sure you see those cute toddler pictures!

Emotional Decision-Making

If you question whether our relationship to our things is emotional, consider for a moment how we talk about the things we own and use.

When was the last time you heard someone say, "I appreciate the utility of this cellular phone" or "The features of this automobile are not the ones I need."

We say "I love my phone!" or "I hate this car!"  And we mean it when we say it.

There is a reason Facebook has you "Like" something versus "Approve" or "Appreciate" something.

There is a reason that so many ads skip facts and details about the product or service.  Instead, they focus on the feeling you will get, or the status you will achieve, if you purchase Product A or use Service B.

We humans are emotionally driven animals.

Even in the costliest decision most of us will make, we base our decisions, when we are honest with ourselves, on our emotional responses.  When my parents made the decision to buy the last house of my childhood, they could tell us about the trees in the backyard and the color of the curtains in the family room - things that excited them emotionally - but they couldn't agree on how many bathrooms there were.

Although we like to pretend differently, emotions also drive decisions in business.  Most often, the reams of analysis and brainstorming ultimately end up supporting an emotionally driven decision.  Despite the window dressing of Gant Charts and regression analysis, decisions are made because "she had a good handshake" or "something in my gut tells me this is going to work" or "this is going to be good for my career" or "if I did that my boss will be angry."

I am not sure that this is a bad thing.  I don't think I want business decisions to be made in a dispassionate, totally data-driven environment.  Too many aspects of important decisions are difficult or impossible to quantify.  Too often, the implications of a decision are complex, multi-level, and involve countless variables.  I believe that our minds use our emotions as a way to summarize the complex morass of decision implications.

After all, think about the array of implications involved with something as simple as buying a pair of shoes.  Will I wear them?  Are they in fashion?  Will they stay in fashion?  Should I be spending this money on something else?  On someone else?  Will these shoes be comfortable?  Will they go with any of my clothes?  Will they last long?  Will they still look good in 6 months?  Do I need to get rid of a pair of shoes if I get these?  Is this store the best place to get these shoes?  Etc.

Imagine the variables and decision impacts around something like opening a new store, or adding a new feature to your widget!  The implications are astounding.

The challenge is to find a balance.  If the emotions that are controlling your business decisions and are mostly driven by self-preservation, it might call to question whether your decisions are as good as they could be for the company.  If your decisions are devoid of emotion (as if that were possible), one would wonder if consideration was given to impacts of the decision on "squishy" things such as employee morale, organizational image and customers' loyalty.

Using data to make decisions, especially big business decisions, is essential and logical.  I guess I would just encourage decision-makers to acknowledge, and incorporate their emotions, or gut, into their analysis.  You are doing it anyway.  You might as well acknowledge it!

**********
In the United States, today is Memorial Day.  I want to thank all the men and women who have served this country in the military for their service!

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A $136 Billion Dip in the Road

On April 23rd, a fake AP tweet caused $136 billion in stock value to disappear.

For those of you who aren't familiar with this story, I will summarize.  A fake AP tweet indicated that President Obama had been injured in a White House explosion.  Despite the fact that AP quickly flagged the tweet as fake, the S&P 500 dropped 0.9 percent, briefly erasing $136 billion in stock market wealth.

Even though the market recovered quickly upon the realization that the tweet was a hoax, a lot of money changed hands over a very short time frame.  There were undoubtedly winners and losers.

The response to this incident was as fast as it was varied.  On either end of the spectrum, there were calls to end the computerized trading that caused thousands and maybe millions of shares to be sold in milliseconds. On the other hand, some are looking to the equally swift correction the system enacted and feel that it is an example of things working like they should.

I think that this is another example of how our technological abilities are advancing ahead of our social abilities to deal with the consequences.  I put significantly underutilized smartphones, the Cloud, and Facebook into this category.  All with differing degrees of consequences.

I do not mean to paint some sort of Terminator scenario where the technology is going to take over our lives and rule the world.  Technology can change must faster than society can change.  That just means that for a while after a period of rapid technology change, society has to struggle to catch up.  I think we are in that type of period now.

It manifests itself in things like some social and emotional upheaval.  When automobiles first were commercially available, automobile drivers were seen as rude, impudent upstarts by those who chose to still travel by horse and buggy.  Today, we have people making blanket indictments about technology.  It is, according to them, a travesty to invest so much into technology.

This disconnect between our technological abilities and our social ability to assimilate to it can also be clearly seen in business.  For example, businesses sense that social media is important and will continue to be important.  Yet most companies have struggled to figure out how to make social media work for them.  The few companies that seem to be having success tend to be newer companies that don't have to assimilate traditional media thinking into a new media world.

I think that the lesson of the fake tweet is neither that the world is coming to an end nor that there is nothing wrong here so don't bother looking into it.  I think we need to try to understand how technology changes the traditional paradigms we are working in.  In the case of this incident, it isn't only that the stock market can react incredibly fast to changing market situations, but also that we must learn when we can trust our media sources and how easily things like fake tweets can be generated.

I agree with some of the commentators I have read that this incident was not a crash of the system but rather a minor dip.  But like a dip in the road, if you aren't prepared and don't know how to drive through it, that little dip can knock your trailer off it's hitch and cause a lot of problems.

It's best that we mind the dips in the road, at least until we can catch up to our technology.

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The Coronation of Content

"They" say that now, in the brave new world of social media, content is king queen royalty all that matters.

My initial response to that saying is when hasn't content been all that matters?

If content is now everything, that must mean there was a time when content meant less...when what was in your messages wasn't as important as it is now.

With some notable exceptions, I must have missed the Vapid Age of Communications.
  

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The Many P's of Marketing: Privacy

Marketing has gotten more and more nuanced, as new technologies and strategies have opened up many options for marketers.  It is my contention that today, the marketing mix contains much more than the traditional four or five P's that are taught in school.  In this series I am exploring the Many P's of Marketing.

Privacy:  I like to think that I can use the Internet to fuel my obsession with the old TV shows "My Mother the Car" and "Cop Rock" (for the uninitiated, two creative, very short-lived TV shows) without having that obsession broadcast across my Facebook page, my Google+ site, or anywhere else I go.  I like to think that but I would be wrong.

It seems lately that not a day goes by in which we read about one tech giant or another who mines data from our emails or our app purchases or our searches to sell that data to advertisers who then use it to place ads that show up later in our email box or next to our apps or when we use search engines. On its face, this seems innocent enough.  These sites are searching what you spend time with so they can connect you with marketers who have something that matches your interest.  Facebook, Pinterest, and email, are all electronic formats which makes it relatively easy to mine content. That is how the boy and girl geniuses at Facebook and Google see it.

Many people, however, see it as an invasion of privacy.  Thinking of email like mail from the Post Office, many people expect the same privacy when an email or IM is addressed to them as they get when a letter is addressed to them.  It is common to see stories of a politician, teacher or other public figure who forgot that nothing is really private on the Internet and posted or tweeted or otherwise made public pictures or personal peculiarities that they meant to keep private.

I believe that privacy will be a currency of distinction between marketers in the next decade or so, just as specialization and personalization of messages were the currency of distinction in the 90's and early 21st century.  The marketer that figures out a way to keep customer information truly safe (or at least get us to believe that it is) will gain a significant advantage.  The marketer that figures out how to make her customers feel "data secure" will be able to collect more data and more unique data than her competitors.  The marketer who can make his customers and prospective customers feel safe sharing their personal information, will see fewer customers leave to try competitors, will enjoy greater customer loyalty and will have less need to sell customer information.

Some companies seem to have already identified privacy as important issue to customers, although I haven't seen any that are using privacy as a competitive advantage.  Rather they are using lack of privacy as a competitive weapon, charging lack of privacy against their competitors.  For example, Microsoft now tells us we will get "Scroogled" if we use Google for our email, citing Google's practices of mining emails for content.

One question that remains is how will consumers react.  To date, we have reacted to privacy issues much like we have responded to gas prices.  Everyone talks about how out of control the price of gas is as they fill the gas tank of their giant SUV.  Privacy issues have caused some tempests in Facebook's teapot, but hasn't really impacted the number of people who log onto the site in an almost religious fervor.  Perhaps more ads like Microsoft's will have some impact.  Perhaps not.

Regardless of whether they use it as a competitive advantage or a competitive weapon, regardless of whether consumers revolt or stay put, I believe we will hear more and more about privacy from companies in the coming years.  I think privacy will be one of the ways small and mid-sized tech companies will be able to squeeze out a competitive advantage against the giants in the industry.  I believe creating true data privacy and security is and will remain a truly sustainable competitive advantage.

Just don't tell anyone that I'm going to go watch Cop Rock!

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Bringing Up The Past

I was reading some older entries in one of my favorite blogs on marketing Seth Godin"s Blog and came across an interesting quote:  "A significant byproduct of the connection revolution is that things that were private because they were difficult to measure will no longer be private. When devices can talk to each other, the information rarely remains private." 


We have certainly seen this to be true in recent years as politicians and business leaders have to contend with statements and video clips, often taken out of context, of their earlier deeds and misdeeds.


Facebook now lets people see messages you sent and received from years ago.  With online newspaper logs and a wealth of resources online, not only does information rarely remain private, but the past no longer stays in its place.


I wonder, however, if we are getting close to a point where someone's incongruous past will cease to be sensational or to have a significant impact.  Kind of like tattoos; if everyone has them, they no longer have the power to shock.

The Marketing Value of Social Media?

I have to admit that while I see social media as a valuable communications tool, I have had a hard time figuring out how to make some social media make sense from a marketing perspective.  The Ad Contrarian blog has an interesting take on this in the blog Farcebook.  Your thoughts?

Some of my thoughts on social media: Social Media: Quality vs. quantity

Social Media: Quality vs. quantity

The other day I read an email from a friend and colleague who had written to me on LinkedIn asking for a favor.   The problem is that she had written me several weeks before I had read the email, and now the favor was a moot point.  The problem wasn't that I had just ignored her request, the problem was I didn't see it until it was weeks old.  I didn't see it because of the volume of message I get from LinkedIn has caused me to turn the volume way down on those messages.

Don't get me wrong.  I am not suggesting that I am so popular or so important on LI that massive amounts of people send me messages to get my perspective or advice.  Rather, I have adopted the strategy of being what is called an Open Networker.  The philosophy of an Open Networker, as I understand it, is that no contact is a bad contact.  That the advantages of social media multiply if you accrue a larger network of contacts.  While I never got caught up in the arms race that some LI open networkers get in, trying to have the most connections, I also have not hesitated to accept link requests from people with little or no obvious connection to me.

I have had the belief that a larger network would serve me best by giving me a larger pool of references and a greater resource of opinions when I have posted a query.  While this proved true and useful when I was first using LI, as more of my "real" contacts have started using LI as a means of connection and communication, it appears to have become counterproductive.

So the question I pose to the blogosphere is this:  which is better, quantity or quality when it comes to connections in social media.  I realize that there are some differences between LI, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media.  I am interested in whether people have strong opinions, relevant experience, or a pithy comment or two regarding contacts in social media.  What are the advantages to open networking?  What are the disadvantages?  I will be posting a link to this blog on all my social media sites (LI, Twitter & Facebook)  I am hoping to be educated and enlightened by my open network!