I do exist

Just thought I'd drop a post to apologize for the lack of writing anything here for over a month.

Let's just say, it's been busy, surreal, and exciting lately.

I'm composing some thoughts, and plan to be back at it very soon. Until then, consider this:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 - Robert Frost 

Next time you hit the road, try a different path than your usual. Think about consumer behavior, and the response from major corporations. What do you see on every major highway? McDonalds, Subway, Starbucks. Occasionally there's something different, but you see a lot of the same. What hidden treasure lies just beneath your nose? It could make all the difference. 

Twitter: value or wasteful?

You've heard the research, 40% of all tweets are useless babble, and social networks are being blamed for school-age kids' poor use of grammar. It is the constant joke in the media that all tweets must include "LOL" & "OMG." But is Twitter really useless?

Do you measure your television viewing because of the crap on TV, or never listen to the radio because there is a station you don't like? Writing off Twitter because of some people's updates makes as much sense as not using television advertising because of a program you don't like. I'm currently looking through the DirecTV guide, and out of the hundreds of channels to choose from, there may be 4-5 that I will ever select to watch. Meanwhile, I have run across hundreds of people on Twitter that are worth following. So which one is really the useless medium?

Just like any form of media, there are many different users, messages, and audiences. The key is to measure every media by the value it provides, not the irrelevant noise.

Keep your fans & subscribers

Every day we see or hear ads from companies that want us to sign up to receive emails, SMS alerts, facebook updates, tweets, and more. But what does the consumer get in return? Sales pitches, irrelevant updates, and repeated messages from their many methods of advertising.

The value exchange is out of balance. The advertisers get what they want, but too often the consumers don't often get anything of significant value in exchange for the opt-in. Companies assume that when people opt-in, that they want to hear everything from that brand. This may not always be the case, which results in unsubscribes and consumers who just ignore and delete.

When a customer opts-in, this is not traditional advertising where you broadcast the same message everywhere and hope for a small percentage to act on it. This is your time to show these customers you truly value them. Offer your text-message subscribers something more than the general public will receive. Give your "fans" a reason to follow your facebook updates. Most importantly, encourage these opt-in customers to talk about you and share with their friends.

It's about building business, right? So make these fans of your business fanatics. Don't just buy your time with them until they give up on you.

Clarification of "viral"

Since the Utah Flash fiasco continues to get as much media attention as a Tiger Woods family crisis, I thought I'd take a little more time on the concept of viral and the natural spread of word of mouth.

In a blog post apology, Brandt Anderson states,

"off the court we are going to embrace the fact we are a minor league team, and therefore do crazy fun promotion in the hope to get people talking about the team... If you were offended by the stunt I sincerely apologize. Good or bad I hope it got you talking."

In a statement to ESPN, he further stated:

"We wanted to test the strength and effectiveness of viral media by putting him (the impersonator) out in Provo with bodyguards, and some hype," he said. "I always assumed it would be uncovered very quickly that it was a hoax. I'm tremendously sorry for the way it came off. It was never intended to play out the way that it did"

The assumption in this entire situation was that viral=good. They believed that getting people talking about the team would be good, even if it was talking about a hoax.

How about we ask Motrin how awesome having an ad go "viral" can be? The "Motrin Moms" debacle caused a lot of pain for the company, and certainly did not leave a good taste in anyone's mouth.

How about Mel Gibson's famous rant? The video of his drunken rant went viral, and how has that worked for his career?

There is bad publicity. You don't want it for your business. If the general consensus of your target market is that you have done something wrong, then you have done something wrong. This is not a shock-factor marketing tactic like heavy-metal artists use to excite their target audience. When Marilyn Manson pisses off the Christian Coalition he is not trying to sell albums to them, he is selling albums to those who want to rebel against the moral majority.

A good viral campaign is when people are sharing their positive experience with others. A funny ad shown on TV or online that appeals enough to make people want to share it. A new product launched which finds evangelists telling everyone how much they love it. Viral is not planning a hoax or asking people to talk about something. That is fraud.

Motrin did not mean to upset thousands of mommy-bloggers. They stumbled accidentally into a bad situation. The Flash created this bad situation for themselves. Perhaps they hadn't considered the backlash, but it could have been easily avoided, and should have.

So what now? Continue to reach out the olive-branch to the public, apologize profusely, and mean it. Do not tangle at all with anything that could fuel the fire. Brandt Anderson has been openly accepting comments on his blog, and has addressed some of the concerns. Some of the comments may need to be moderated, and it's not the ones you may be thinking. It sometimes is better to delete those "defender" posts, the people who are supporting Anderson and calling the negative commenters idiots. Whether they are or not (and I am certainly not making the accusation) the public will believe these are shill comments from those involved with the organization.

Never, never, never, never post fake comments or reviews to attack criticism and bad publicity! Commenters who are taking your side are often more damaging than saying nothing at all. Once people suspect a shill there is very little that any official word from the organization can fix.

Stay classy, listen to your customers, and learn from your mistakes. Bad publicity is a virus, not a happy viral campaign.

Are consumers gaining power?

A report from the Chief Marketing Officer Council states that out of the 91% of consumers who opt-out or unsubscribe from email marketing, 46% are driven to brand defection because the messages simply are not relevant. Don't worry about those who unsubscribe? Perhaps you should be a bit concerned about those people who hit the unsubscribe button. They may be opting-in to your competition permanently.

A blog post from Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, provides additional interesting insight into the future if you read between the lines. Facebook originally created networks by region and school. While the community was small, this worked to achieve what people wanted. It connected those students who wanted a way to connect and communicate to others around them. Now that seemingly everyone is on Facebook, people do not necessarily want to share their information with their bosses, family, and advertisers. The connection of living in the same region is not necessarily relevant to all consumers.

What do these things have in common? Consumers exercising their voice to make real changes in new media. This is not a new concept, it is likely that consumers have been defecting due to irrelevant messages since the first time a cobbler hammered an advertisement on a lamp post. This puts some information in our hands that we need to use in communicating.

Traditional wisdom was to create a message and broadcast it to the largest number of people possible. It was known that not every person would react positively (make a purchase) to the communication, and only in the event of accidentally insulting people would that communication result in negative reactions. What this information shows is that a very large number of consumers may actually gain a preference for the competing brand if they feel your communications are irrelevant.

Putting it all together now. Facebook is an example that shows people want to communicate and belong to a community. They are willing to become "fans" of their favorite brands, join in discussion groups about products and services, but that does not mean they want to connect to everything. Consumers who actually opt-in to communications from a brand they use, then defect to a competitor because of irrelevant communications shows that what we say and do can have positive and negative effects. Even if the communication was simply an offer that was not relevant to that consumer.

What you say matters. A lot. It is not safe to assume that you can bombard people's inboxes, television sets, Facebook pages, Twitter streams, etc. with any message, as often as you want. People watching may not just unsubscribe or change the channel. You may be sending them right into the arms of your competition.

Every time you communicate with your customers, think carefully about what you want to say. Make an offer that people will appreciate. Be relevant.

It's all about making money

Car rides can be quite interesting with the children. Sing-a-longs, fighting about who is sitting too close, begging for Slurpees, and talking marketing. Today's revelation from my 6 year old daughter showed more insight than many professionals in the workplace.

"There is more commercial time on the radio because it is getting close to Christmas, and they need to sell more things to make money."

Yes, at 6 years old she was able to identify that commercial time is ramped up for the holiday season. Not an earth-shattering thought, but unique for someone that age to identify. But then it got really deep and interesting.

"I think the Shane Company sells fake diamonds, and that is how they are cheaper than other jewelry stores. Except for Walmart, but those are fake too."

You have been successful at getting attention, but has your advertising been too good to be true? I have bought from the Shane Company a couple of times, and was quite pleased with the overall experience. Low prices, friendly service, and honesty. I never felt pressured or looked down on for wanting to buy something less expensive. I wondered, if it is so pleasant to shop here, how do other jewelry stores exist in the face of this tremendous competition?

Quality jewelry at low prices is something we are trained to believe does not exist. The other jewelers I have experienced are masters of reinforcing that belief. High-pressure, poor service, and a feeling that you do not belong if you are trying to be frugal. The message sent by the industry is that you must spend several months of your income to make a decent gift.

I won't get involved in any debate over actual merits of jewelry, but my point is that a 6 year old can identify the purpose and effectivity of advertising. Your target customer is likely much more experienced than a child at making consumer decisions. Perhaps your advertising may be saying the wrong thing to potential customers, be it too pushy of frequency, or unbelievable claims that cause people to doubt your product.

Need help to communicate effectively? Drop a message for me, I'll even throw in a 6 year-olds advice for free.

We don't want to hear from you

Companies have been communicating via e-mail for over a decade, so why do customers get so excited when they are contacted via twitter? Why do we crave companies with a social media presence? Because we are not used to getting a response, and we have been trained to believe email is a one-way street from companies.

One simple mistake: Do-not-reply@CompanyWhoWillNotAnswer.com

First things first, if you email customers you need to dump the "Do not reply" addresses. Also, you must make it easy for customers to contact you, and you need to reply to them.

When a company has an active Twitter account or Facebook fan page, it makes them approachable and customers like to feel like they are on even ground with the company they do business with. When they see Do Not Reply in every email, the message they receive is "we want to talk at you, but will not listen if you have anything to say."

With that said, if your social media plan is just to "build a Facebook fan page" or get on twitter, please don't. Your plan should be how you plan to communicate with your customers. Not just set a page, and forget it. Customers will either learn that you don't listen there either, or they will just forget you are there.

Just like with all advertising and marketing, why spend money telling people about your company if your potential customers will just feel disappointed once they find you.

Small business doesn't get social media

Small business does not find value in social media. Does this mean there's no value, or simply that many small business owners (or large businesses for that matter) just don't understand how to use it?

According to a recent poll by Citibank / GfK Roper survey of 500 small business executives across the United States, 76% have not found social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to be helpful in generating business leads or for expanding their business during the last year, while 86% say they have not used social networking sites to get business advice or information. Maria Veltre, Executive Vice President of Citi's Small Business Segment, concludes "... small business owners are still feeling their way into social media... many... may not have the manpower or the time required take advantage of them." This is the bottom line, it is about the time and manpower rather than a reflection of the media.

If a business bought television advertisements at 3 am, and did not see a return, does that mean TV advertising is worthless?

What if an advertisement was run in print newspapers and magazines, but the company forgot to put contact information in the ad? Does that make print ineffective?

These examples may seem obvious to many, but that is because this media has been around for a long time and we have gotten used to what works and what does not.

Social media is something that takes time to understand, and most small businesses do not have a lot of time to devote to learning and connecting in this user-generated media. There is value, it will just take some education on the media, and time to connect with your community. Furthermore, if small businesses turn to social media for advice they are connecting with the people who matter most: the customer. This is why so many businesses fail, they are trying to interpret business advice from Forbes magazine rather than connecting with the people who will keep them in business. You will never find the secret to success published in a book, magazine, or newspaper. The secret to success is listening to your consumers.

Nothing just happens for free, that's why it is called work.

The bigger the company, the bigger the blunder

Toyota stumbled into a mess with a launch of their new 4-Runner website. (I imagine this site link will soon be broken, since they're going to need to rectify the situation). To set the mood of wildlife for their SUV brand, they looked to photographers on Flickr to provide photography for the microsite. They found several great photographs which were used, unfortunately they never asked the photographers for permission.

Michael Calanan (a talented photographer & friend) posted his concern on Twitter the evening of Tuesday, November 3. The conversation towards @Toyota must have got their attention, as they promptly tweeted Wednesday morning to the photographers involved.

This is why your company needs an experienced marketer on staff. Real marketing directors have an understanding of intellectual property laws. Photographs, fonts, illustrations, and other design elements found online are not free for you to use, especially for commercial purposes. Further, marketing personnel are meant to understand consumers. First and foremost, the responsibility of marketing is to know what motivates people, and how they will react. Not knowing that professional photographers would certainly notice the increased traffic on their Flickr pages, and be upset about someone using their work without contacting them is a fatal mistake. If they fail to understand this, do they understand what Toyota customers actually want from their vehicle? There may not be a correlation, but it begs to be asked.

If I was to guess, I would say it was not malicious intent of Toyota to steal these photographer's work, but was a lack of intellectual property understanding. That does not excuse what they have done. Ignorance of the law is not a valid defense. Whether you are a multi-billion dollar company, or a small boutique, you need to respect the property rights of others. If you are unsure of what you can or cannot do, ask for help from a real expert.

Will you pay for an online newspaper subscription?

I am actually not going to enter the debate over whether newspapers should or should not charge for access to their online material. In the end, some will, while others will not.

Online subscriptions will provide revenue for some newspaper companies. The restriction of access will cause some newspapers financial grief.

What I will say is this, if the management of a newspaper company is too preoccupied with this decision of whether to charge or not, they will fail.

Why will people pay for information from one source versus another? Content and reputation. Otherwise known as their brand. If we know the brand of the news source represents the very best information, and what they provide enhances our lives, we will pay. But if your paper is just kicking out basic information that was covered by a dozen other sources, you lose.

Rather than debating "do we charge, or don't we," it is time to evaluate how your media source is different and what value can you provide the readers that they cannot get elsewhere. When you have a valuable, trusted brand, you can more easily find your income.