Miscellaneous Uses for a Blog

I did and experiment earlier this week. If you read this blog, you were a part of it. No, the experiment won’t cause irratablity or incontience. It won’t make you wake up in the morning wondering where the last 30 years have gone. In fact… it doesn’t effect you at all. It effects me.

Without looking at the previous blog post, tell me what my new company does?

*insert sound of chirping crickets here*

Chances are you blew right through this soliloquy about my company:

We save companies money by assisting them in making decisions that are weather dependent. This is done in a variety of ways including our short and long range weather forecasts specific to their needs. Another side of the business is researching our weather theory called the LRC (Lezak’s Recurring Cycle).

Ok, so maybe a few of you got to the end of it. But, if you are like many people, half of this statement simply got skimmed over, if not the entire paragraph. Why? In this world of interruptive marketing, we have grown accustomed to seeing and hearing brand messages when we don’t want to see them. It doesn’t matter if they are commercial breaks on television, spam messages in your inbox, or even brand placement INSIDE of content you are engaged in, they get ignored. The overwhelming volume of these impersonal and useless mumbo-jumbo has conditioned us to simply ignore them.

Exclusive!
Save money!
Synergy
New and Improved!

Are you serious? These phrases have been so overused, that they become mute. What would be better words/phrases?

Exclusive - You will only see this here
Save money - This is good for your pocketbook
Synergy - This helps you work together
New and Improved - We want to bring you great products

Those are just some examples off the top of my head. But if your communications, mission statement, or elevator pitch sounds like something you got off the old “Dilbert Mission Statement Generator”, nothing but words and phrases designed to make you sound intelligent, you’ve MISSED the point of communication in this day and age. Be human. Communicate as if someone was your friend, not a potential customer.

This is not easy to do if you have spent years in the world of one way communications. When you communicate, expect the response to your communications to be someone talking to you face-to-face. Don’t communicate with the mindset that their sole response is reaching into their pocketbook.

The rapid explosion of social media channels in the last 6 months or so has businesses, organizations, and other brands scrambling to get involved in the conversations. Social tools such as Facebook and Twitter have seen the most dramatic growth in 2008 (Facebook alone grew 30 million users in the last 3 months), and rightly so, these tools have gotten the most buzz

These new, flashy tools have the biggest numbers are helping pushing the social web closer to that point where it’s simply the web. The web’s drving force in the future IS social interactions of all types. As Celeste Lindell mentioned in response to recent Kansas City Social Media Club event:

“Once everyone gets what social media really means, having a social media club will seem as silly as having a telephone club.”

Does this mean that Facebook and Twitter, MySpace, etc will be the only things you can do on the web? Of course not. Social interactions and communities are wide and varied across the web, as they are in the offline world. If you limit your understanding of social media to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. you are missing a HUGE chunk of the social pie. They are great starting point, but you may be missing the most active communities and conversations around your brand or topic.

Case in point. I recently launched a weather consulting company with a few other Kansas City folks called LRC Weather. We save companies money by assisting them  in making decisions that are weather dependent. This is done in a variety of ways including our short and long range weather forecasts specific to their needs. Another side of the business is researching our weather theory called the LRC (Lezak’s Recurring Cycle). In searching out online communities to help with our theory, we found there were few real “meteorological communities” in channels such as Facebook and Twitter. They exist, but are not as strong as other online channels. The biggest communities exist in online forums, email listservs (yes, I said email), and blogs. If we had limited our search for conversations to the “mainstream” tools, we would have been rather disappointed.

The truth is, social interactions on the web are not new. BBSs, forums, mailing lists, IRC, etc. have been around for years and have thriving, engaged communities. While they may not carry the “Twitter mistique” or “Facebook credo” they are valid and are often extremely targeted groups of people. Converstations have been and continue to happen outside of the buzz of the main social media tools.

This is why utilizing things tools like Google Alerts should be at the top of any brand’s monitoring strategy. Find ALL of the channels the conversations are happening from. Utilize web statstics to monitor inbound links to find conversations. Seek out, listen to, and engage in web forums, listservs, etc. that you can become a part of. Find local events relevant to your brand and engage with them offline (I know, a shocking concept).

An interesting question was raised during a discussion of Twitter at the last Kansas City Social Media Club event. “What will your brand do if Twitter starts charging, and people leave?” Then answer is, “You simply continue conversations you have in other channels, and seek out where new conversations are happening.”  If you advertise on television for a national product, do you simply run ads on one television station? No! You seek out multiple markets that work for your brand. Why do you expect online conversations to be any different?

Conversations are spread out across the web and can and WILL move in and out of different online channels. Just like when FriendFeed dropped from the social radar, forums, blogs, and other conversation tools rise and fall in popularity and in engagement. If you aren’t actively seeking converstaions outside of the big name tools, you’ll wake up one day to find that the conversations have disappeared and moved somewhere else.

I took a look at my ballot ahead of time and took the time to research ALL the candidates on my ballot. It made for a quick vote and a vote I felt confident in. Did you research ALL the candidates on YOUR ballot? (Hint: There are more than 2 presidential candidates… more than two in many races).

In this information age, it’s sad that few people actually take the time to look at ALL the candidates (including 3rd, 4th, Xth party candidates). Many still vote only Democrat or only Republican .  Some will cross, but still vote for only one of the two major parties because "they are the only ones with a chance of winning." How democratic is that?

If the Republican candidate fits you, vote for them. Democrat? vote them. Independent, Libertarian , Reform , Constitution, Green , etc. Vote who you believe is the best candidate, not the one that has the best chance of winning. Do your homework and vote like we actually live in the information age!

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about brands, the economy, and about the true value of social media. As I’ve said here on a few occasions, I believe that marketing through online channels are going to benefit during this economic downturn . One of the reasons is that online advertising is so much less expensive than traditional media. But… WHY?

Stuck in the old model

Raise you hand… do you like advertisements?  (If you are in marketing or advertising, put your hand down and really think about it). Why don’t you like them?

1. They have little relevance to me.
2. I’m tired of always being sold something.
3. The are an interruption.

Let’s focus on that last one: Advertising is an interruption. Some marketers will tell you that when it comes down to it, the ONLY way you can advertise is through interruption. Ads are placed in the middle of a magazine, or in the middle of a television show, etc. because by utilizing the engagement you have with the media source, they can get some eyeballs. The problem is, that we as a culture have been so saturated by advertisements that we immediately ignore them. Like Gary Vaynerchuk said in a recent video , buying an ad in a prominent magazine "for 50, 60, 80 thousand dollars is clown city in 2008." No one pays attention to them. There’s certain value to maintaining brand awareness, trust me… but is it worth obscene amounts of money to get very little return on your investment?

Unfortunately, outside of the ability to be more targeted,

MOST ONLINE ADVERTISING ISN’T ANY MORE EFFECTIVE THAN ADVERTISEMENTS IN TRADITIONAL MEDIA

Read that again…. most online advertising isn’t any more effective than advertisements in traditional media. How easy is it to ignore a banner ad ? How about that annoying preroll ad before your YouTube video ? These advertisements simply get IGNORED just like their traditional media counterparts. So why is online advertising inexpensive? They often deliver the same ROI with less people seeing them.

The Super Bowl

Every year, advertising in during the Super Bowl breaks records. Companies spend millions of dollars for a

30 second spot during the game, and millions more producing the ad. Why do ad prices continue to increase for this event? Viewership has been down in recent years. Shouldn’t that mean that ad prices should have dropped as well? NO! The value that advertisers get during the Super Bowl goes WAY past eyeballs. Ads during the Super Bowl are the one time when ads are not considered to be interruptive. In fact, many people now watch the Super Bowl simply because of the ads. The value is in the engagement. It’s in the fact that people don’t simply ignore the ads during the Super Bowl.

Social Media HAS value

Just like the Super Bowl gains it’s ad value from engagement, social media gains it’s ad value from engagement with a community of people with similar interests. Seth Goldin describes these groups as "Tribes." (btw, check out his book "Tribes ". It resonates in a big way with me). These tribes share, trust, and engage with either one another or with a set leader. With the tribe, you have engagement. Companies can engage with these communities and see incredible value from them without being interruptive.

Want and example?

Leo Laporte : People are engaged with Audible.com because the leader of their group, someone who’s opinion they respect and value says, "I have used Audible for years. I would promote them even if I wasn’t getting paid to." The result, Audible has been an unswerving sponsor for over a year on Leo’s media entities. That’s a LONG time in new media. Why? Because people are engaged with Leo, and because he recommends Audible, they can get behind that brand as well. The value in that is incredible. In fact, Leo has and his "TwIT Army" have often brought down websites simply because his listeners are so engaged, they’ll immediately check out a recommendation. THAT IS ENGAGEMENT.

Why is Oprah so valuable? Because she has more engagement than nearly any single personality in the world. Her value is also not in the numbers, but in the mass engagement her and her brand have with her viewers.

Yet, despite this incredible value we have available to companies, we still price advertisements too low . We price advertisements in social media similar to the easily ignored auto ad during the local news instead of the personalized Tom Brady endorsed ad in the Super Bowl that people actually pay attention to.

You may not have great NUMBERS, but you have great INFLUENCE. It’s time for social media influencers to price themselves more comparable to traditional media.

As the stock market continues to plummet and phrases like "the worst economic situation since the Great Depression " continues to make news, myself and others not knowledgeable about the economy get only more confused.  Confused and scared. What on earth is going on? What does it mean for me? Is this "bailout" a good thing?

One of my twitter followers forwarded a spectacular program from Ira Glass ‘ "This American Life " that explains just this. Have you heard of the "commercial paper market" or "credit default swaps ?" Do you know what "breaking the buck" means? Me either, but these things have helped to create the current global economic crisis.

Take an hour or so to listen through the program to at least familiarize yourself with what exactly has happened and what it means for the future.

This American Life - 365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy

Let me know your thoughts. Are you actively taking measures to ensure your finances in the midst of the panic seizing up the economy?