The Quisenblog

Google’s recent launch (to a beta crowd, of sorts) of Google+ has been greeted by Social Media bloggers and critics variously as Social Media’s Next Big Thing, as the quintessential way to integrate search and social, and in typical SocMed bluster, “A Facebook Killer.” (Social Media types are nothing if not hyperbolic.) One writer even described Google+ as a “Purpose-Built Annex,” whatever the heck that is.

As for me, I’m not sure exactly where Google+ fits in. But I sure feel like I could do without it.

That must sound like heresy coming from someone who spends quite a bit of his day working with and advising clients regarding Social Media. Especially since it comes from such a proven heavyweight as Google. But truth be told, I’m involved up to here in Social Media. My personal Social Media ‘Inbox’ is currently full. I’m active on Twitter. I participate in a variety of LinkedIn groups. I blog. I get notifications up the yin-yang from Google Alerts. I’m active in online discussions, and regularly contribute to industry sites or comment on articles.

I have a SlideShare page, a YouTube channel and an RSS reader. And yes, I spend at least as much time on Facebook as the average 16-year-old. So excuse me for not doing cartwheels about nurturing and keeping up with one more platform.

Sorry, Google+.

I can’t help but wonder if the world at large is sort of in the same boat. Do we all suffer from a form of Social Media overload? Recent statistics show that aside from time spent on Facebook, the average American actually spends less time online than she did last year. A lot less (9%, to be exact). Part of this I surmise to be because we’ve narrowed down our online world. But another could be we’ve reached the saturation point.

So while the social media pundits seem intent on comparing Google+ with Facebook, my stance is that its true competition is the status quo. Remember how your mother used to wisely say “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” Unless most folks find that something is “broke” in their Social Media worlds, I suspect they won’t be in a hurry to fix it.

Who knows, I could be all wet. Maybe the world is salivating at the chance to join Google+ and create “circles.” Maybe this is the “Social Media Magic Bullet” marketers have been waiting for.

Or, maybe it will collapse under the weight of its own hype.

This entertaining video was intended to show how Google+ will enhance your Social Media experience.

My takeaway was one of dread. There’s even something a little Big Brotherly towards the end, the idea that “You don’t have to choose Google+; Google+ has already chosen you.”

Ick. But judge for yourself. And let me know if this is something you’re planning on joining.

Posted by Mickey

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Mickey New Media, On Customers, Ramblings, Social Media, customer experience Facebook, Google, social media hangover, socialmedia overload

Now that 2009 is almost in our rear view mirrors, it’s time to look ahead to what’s coming in 2010. What better time to prognosticate about the days ahead.

Oh sure. We could go for the low-hanging fruit here and “predict” that mass media spending will go down, online and Social Media spending will go up, Facebook will pass 400 million users, yada yada yada. That might score us some cheap points, but really, that stuff is sort of a given. So, for better or worse, here are some of our fearless predictions about some less frequently discussed marketing and social Media issues:

1. Destination sites continue to lose their relevance. One of the most under reported stories regarding online use this year is that despite overall traffic online growing by leaps and bounds, visits to high-traffic sites like Dell, Nike and many others have been trending downward. Meanwhile, social sites like Facebook have skyrocketed. Take a step back and it makes total sense—most information-rich websites are not set up to foster an ongoing relationship with visitors. They’re pretty much “one-and-done”—you can get everything you need from them in a single visit and have no reason to return. Things like blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and some microsites are designed for people to visit them often, and to engage customers on a much deeper level. It is here where more and more of the online traffic will continue to flow.
2. The Video Revolution comes to Social Media. Video will become a more important part of every social media platform. Not long ago, if I mentioned “video” and “Social Media” in the same sentence, you’d immediately think YouTube, Vimeo or some other video aggregator. Today, with increased bandwidth abounding and the mobile platform (especially smart phones) expanding, video has become a much more important part of all Social Media platforms. Embedded “how-to” videos on web sites. Live-action video conferences and powerpoints. Video emails. Videos posted on Facebook. Even video in blogs (now called “vlogging”).
3. Behavioral Targeting continues to help marketers get personal. Improved analytics now give us a more complete picture of our customers, and puts their purchases into more relevant context. This will help us better target our efforts to ensure hitting prospects when they are at a “moment of decision” in the purchase cycle. Whereas we used to target professional women 35-54 as the likely target of our salad dressing, we can now narrow it down to shoppers who have just picked up two heads of romaine lettuce and who haven’t purchased salad dressing for a few weeks.
4. The emergence of the “Super Portal.” Right now there are many Social Media platforms to deal with. Keeping up with all of them can eat up a sizable portion of your day. But now, platforms are beginning to offer tools that make it seamless to share content and jump between platforms automatically and effortlessly. In the world of Twitter, for example, Tweetdeck and Hoot Suite make it possible to manage much of your Social Media profile from a single dashboard. This convergence of platforms is in turn going to free us up so we can have even more involvement in Social Media.
5. Great content remains the ultimate “game changer.” While a lot of factors play in to the virility of content, none is more important than having a great idea. Great content not only generates interest in the medium for which it was created, it also spreads quickly to other platforms and lends itself to being spread by the community and re-purposed and “mashed up” by the audience as well. All of which means more exposure for the producer. Susan Boyle, The Wedding Dance, and The Evian Rollerskating Babies are just the beginning.
6. Content on demand, when you want it, where you want it. This continues a trend of breaking the tether to a television or a laptop. The emergence of mobile is moving us even more into a totally “on demand” society. Comcast’s recent announcement that it will provide subscribers with anytime access to 27 channels of real-time programming through its “TV Everywhere” program (going online by year’s end) could provide a platform tipping point.
7. More information to marketers makes decisions harder, not easier. Tools like Google Analytics provide a wealth of data for marketers, but at the end of the day, data is just data. To make sense of it you need to understand the story that data is telling and what the opportunities are around it. Otherwise you will find yourself in the 2010 version of “paralysis by analysis.”

If you have any marketing/Social Media predictions for 2010 you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you.

Posted by Mickey

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Mickey Social Media 2009, blogs, Comcast TV Everywhere, customer engagement, Dell, Facebook, Google, microsites, mobile platform, Nike, Super Portal, Twitter feeds, Vimeo, vlogging, YouTube

I recently came across this P.O.V. by Brian Halligan about how the quality of your content is much more important now than it has ever been. I couldn’t agree more. Plus, any post that includes a vintage Irish Spring spot has to be worth the read. –Mickey

Are creative marketing types a dying breed?

By Brian Halligan (from Creativity Unbound)

I have been thinking about my mom and dad sitting on their couch in 1979 watching “Dynasty” and being interrupted five minutes into it by an Irish Spring soap ad. Something remarkable happened after that ad played: My dad actually spoke with my mom about soap, and they decided to switch from Dove to Irish Spring! I think of my parents today sitting on their couch watching “The Office” and being interrupted 5 minutes in by an Irish Spring ad. Something very different happens this time: Dad grabs the clicker and either fast-forwards or turns to ESPN.

In those pre-historic times before the age of cable, DVR’s, and clickers (remotes to us Yanks), I might argue that the key factors in order of marketing importance were time slot, segmentation match with the product to the audience, and then creativity/quality of the advertisement itself. In other words, it was important for the advertisement to be creative/good, but mom and dad were going to hear the message by hook or by crook.

I have heard many people argue that creative marketing types are becoming obsolete. I don’t buy it. In fact, I think the creative marketing type is 10 times more important today than it was 30 years ago when you had mom and dad captive on the couch.

To get mom and dad’s attention today, you need to create remarkable content. I use that word “remarkable” because the content has to be so good that it compels other users, content creators and web site owners to remark about it in the form of links back to it. These links inform Google of how remarkable the content is which drives you up the rankings. If the content is really remarkable, it will spread virally through sites like Twitter. Rather than creating a 30-second “spot” for a captive mom and dad, the great creative types today are creating remarkable content that is essentially voted on by the web community through links which will ultimately get it in front of mom and dad if it is deemed worthy. This is really hard and the content needs to be fantastic to spread through a skeptical, non-captive audience.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Mickey On Customers, Ramblings Brian Halligan, captive audience, Dynasty, Google, Irish Spring soap ad, marketing factors, mom and dad, remarkable content, The Office, Twitter, web community

This week’s social media blog posts:
Monday: The two kinds of online consumers.
Tuesday: Creating a Community, Part 1.
Wednesday: Creating a Community, Part 2.
Thursday: Social Media you can own.
Friday: Giving up control.

(This is the eighth in our series of Social Media posts for the month of October. We look forward to your feedback on this series.)

In some cases, people use the Internet to look for specific information. They have specific problems for which they are looking for a specific solution. In such cases, they are using the Internet much like a directory. They know the company or product or category they are looking for, they just need an interface to connect them. In these cases, customers are searching specifically for you (or someone like you). Obviously, with more than 9 billion (yes, billion with a “b”) web pages indexed by Google alone, you want to make yourself easy to find when people are looking for you. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is key in helping those who are looking for you find you online.

Think of SEO as advertising your site to search engines. For example, if someone is looking for a BMW dealer in Seattle to service his 540, he can enter “bmw repair seattle” into his search engine box and get a list of dealers in his service area. In the case of these dealers, the key consideration is to make sure their sites are optimized and indexed against a few key words.

SEO is an important element of your Social Media strategy, just as having your phone number listed in the Yellow Pages is key to helping would-be customers locate you. But for too many marketers SEO represents the entirety of their Social Media strategy. “If we’re easy to find when our customers are looking for us,” the thinking goes, “that represents success in Social Media.”

In truth, many of the most important elements of Social Media that can amplify success exist beyond SEO.

That’s because while some Internet users know exactly what they’re looking for, many others do not. Or rather, they have a general idea of what they are looking for, but are willing to consider a broader array of options. An example would be a hostess who has a dinner party coming up, and is looking for a creative menu to prepare. Or, a college student looking for the best deal on used course text books. They know generally what their solution “looks like,” but they’re open to do some exploring in order to find the most relevant solution. To attract this category of Internet users, using Social Media offers an abundance of opportunities well beyond SEO.

As we’ve noted throughout this series, we define Social Media as anything you do in the online space that allows others to converse, contribute, add to, give feedback to or distribute.

At its most elementary, Social Media gives you a lot more places to redirect the content you already have. You can post commercials and how-to videos on YouTube. Send P.R. releases to industry news sites. List bios of key personnel on LinkedIn or other professional sites. Index White Papers or industry research on your web site. Have executives start a blog, or contribute to highly-read industry blogs. And often when you contribute something to an existing social network, you’ll have the opportunity to include “meta tags,” which are cues used by search engines for indexing purposes to help find relevant content for online searches.

In other words, simply by participating in various Social Media platforms, you’ve vastly improved the likelihood that visitors will find you.

So while your web site is an important element to your Social Marketing program, and optimizing that site gives you a distinct advantage, utilizing other Social Marketing platforms gives you more portals through which to attract visitors and expose them to your brand.

Posted by Mickey

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Mickey Social Media Google, meta tags, redirect existing content, SEO, social media success