Social media marketing: faking it
When I see this Ford skyscraper ad, I’m assuming that mousing over the ad will show me something about the people.
After all, it says “rollover to see their stories.” So that’s the expectation I have - that I can find something out about two real people who really bought a Ford who really had some experiences with it and really are telling them to me.
It looks like an instance of social media marketing: marketing that uses connecting web technologies and real stories from real people to demonstrate how a product or service might be something that I might want to buy.
So far so good …
But when I rollover the ad and see this, everything changes:
Suddenly I feel misled, even lied to. Instead of a story, I’m looking at an ad. A very standard, old-school ad.
Score -1 for Ford.
The moral: don’t mislead customers, and most importantly, don’t raise expectations of A but provide B.
(Unless, of course, B is obviously better and more wonderful in every way than A. And even then, be careful.)
The brand of YOU
How do you brand yourself for career success? The answer in 24 slides:
(I saw this first on ReadWriteWeb.)
Amazon Marketplace: not for you or me
I just spent 20 minutes prepping a no-longer-needed-textbook for sale. One of the places I thought I might sell it was Amazon Marketplace, only to be presented with this:
Obviously, Amazon Marketplace is not looking for your average Craigslister, and probably not your media eBayer as well. Rather, they’re looking for bookstore owners, high-volume eBay retailers, and so on.
It’s an interesting strategy - definitely designed to capture the fat front end of the long tail and not the thin whippy extremity. It probably results in a lot less hassle for Amazon.
But it also does leave a significant portion of the resale market for eBay and, increasingly, Craigslist. And it leave a bit of a sour taste in the mouth of loyal Amazon clients, such as me, who have bought thousands of dollars of books and other products from Amazon, but can’t use the same service to recycle redundant items.
Brands are results, not causes
Here’s a response I posted this morning on a Seeking Alpha story on Apple’s brand that seemed to imply it was all about marketing:
“All Day Breakfast” hit the nail on the head.
What people who don’t really understand branding don’t understand is that the best branding, the longest-lived branding, and the most financially remunerative branding is branding that is a result, not a cause.
The brand is authentic because it first arises from actual value and actual experience.
Brands that are invented via marketing alone are typically short-lived, expensive, and doomed to crash and burn. The product and the client experience need to be what the branding says in order to generate long-term value.
(The comment’s not showing up yet on Seeking Alpha … I had to sign up … they have an email authorization … I haven’t got the email yet … )
Link exchanges are so 1997
UPDATE Feb 21: pls note Trisha’s gracious reply below …
I can’t believe believe people are still sending out link exchange requests:
Hello,
Recently I contacted you regarding a link exchange request. I was hoping that you’ve had the time to review this request and consider my proposal. We are developing a reciprocal link area on our website and would be happy to trade text links with your website. You links will be on the PsPrint.com website, although we are not entirely sure where at this point in the project.
Please let me know if you are interested in discussing this further. You can contact me at trisha@psprint.com or 510.224.2106. If you are not interested in a link exchange, please let me know and I will discontinue contacting you regarding this matter. Thank you for your time.
Trisha Fawver
Marketing Manager
PsPrint.com
510.224.2106
Create. Print. Mail. Faster.
This is now the third email I’ve gotten from Trisha, which is starting to approach spammishness. Note the veiled threat in this statement:
If you are not interested in a link exchange, please let me know and I will discontinue contacting you regarding this matter.
In other words, I’ll continue to receive unsolicited emails until I say yes or until I waste my time composing an email saying no.
Small biz blogging: why, how, when, where
Yesterday I met Joe Laudenbach, a Bellingham, WA realtor who is wondering how blogging might be something he could use in his business. As I prepped for the meeting, I jotted down some thoughts on how blogging will fit into his business.
Note: my goal was not to get him blogging, but to give him information that will help him make an informed decision whether or not he wants to start.
Why to blog
- Better SEO
Because blogs are more frequently updated, they’re a major benefit to your site’s search engine optimization … the factors that help you rank higher in search engine results pages. - More interesting site
A blog is usually much more interesting than a website … it’s not corporate, it delivers content in quick hits, it’s more accessible … - More human face to potential clients
Building on the “not corporate” theme, a blog is where your personality comes through - which is attractive (unless you’re Attila the Hun) - Learn and develop more as a person and as a realtor
I learn more from blogging than just about anything else. Simply the process of thinking and writing and writing and listening and linking makes me much more consciously aware of trends and opportunities. The same is true for realtors or virtually any occupation, I believe. - Creative outlet
People who blog regularly come to love blogging as a creative outlet. And I don’t believe there’s a single person alive who isn’t creative to some degree, in some way. Feeding this impulse has personal and professional benefits. - Contacts, conversations, communication
Through blogging I’ve had email contact with Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin, and many other major, well-known technology, business, and marketing leaders. They’ve made me smarter. Plus, I’ve had many more contacts with many more people who aren’t so well known … and that’s had even greater benefits. The same can be true for real estate agents or any professional/business people. Jobs, work contacts, and just plain interesting people: blogging can bring all that. It has for me.
Why not to blog
- If you can’t write
Don’t get me wrong. You don’t have to be Hemmingway. But if you absolutely cannot string 2 words together intelligibly, forget it. Find some other way to engage your clients. - If you won’t keep it up
Don’t start if you won’t keep it up. Few things are more pathetic than an orphaned blog. However, don’t get too worried, either. One post a week is not ideal, but it’s perfectly fine for many, many professionals. - If you’re just marketing yourself
If your blog is only going to be about how your company and you are incredibly, stunningly great (not to mention handsome and wealthy) forget it. No-one’s going to read it - one Paris Hilton is enough, thank you very much. - If you’re looking for a quick fix marketing hit
Blogging isn’t a quick fix solution. It’s about telling stories and developing relationships, and those don’t form overnight. Even the blogosphere success stories such as Thomas Mahon blogged for months and months without seeing major results. The good news: all your work is always paying dividends. Old blog posts never die, they just keep attracting hits. - If you’re not comfortable being authentic, real, and non-corporate
Don’t be a stuffed shirt - let your hair down and be real. If you can’t tolerate the slightest mistake, if you can’t speak with anything other than the traditional marcom voice: forget it. It’s boring. It’s just advertising … and people are more adblind now than they’ve ever been.
What to blog about
Note: these are tailored for Joe, who’s a real estate agent. But they’re adaptable to different situations.
- Why people move to Bellingham/Whatcom county
There’s probably 10 or 15 blog posts right here … as many as there are reasons. - What areas are great for kids|seniors|adults
Another 5-7 posts … - Things to do in Bellingham
- Seasonal events
If you do to a harvest festival, blog it. Christmas candlelight parade? Blog it. - House-hunting tips
Keep it to one tip per blog posts … there’s probably an indefinite number of tips here. Organize them in a category so that visitors can see them all. - Top ten house-hunting gotchas
I know I’d love to know what to watch out for when moving … and I’m probably searching for this type of information when I’m about to move, too. - Things you realize AFTER you move in
Wouldn’t we all like to have known this - about a month before moving in. - Stressless moving
How to blog
- Intentional keywords
Be intentional about the keywords you use. Know what people will be searching for when they’re looking to find a home in Whatcom County, WA. Niche it out to the max if you want to rank in search engines, and make sure you use those keywords in titles and posts. - Regularly (at least once a week)
As mentioned above, don’t make an orphan out of your blog. - Naturally
When you’re blogging, you’re a person. Not a company. Talk to people who are also persons as you would talk to someone on the street. Anything else is disrespectful, stuffy, and annoying. - Interview people
Interview key people in your community. This is a great way to expand your circle of contacts, blog about interesting valuable topics, and grow your readership. - Talk to clients
Clients will give you all the blog fodder you need, if you just ask.
Other things to consider
- Other social media
Over time, as you become established in your blog and comfortable with the technology, why not explore other forms of social media? Upload a house video or a neighborhood drive-through to YouTube. Then post it to your blog. Or … - Podcasts
Create a couple of podcasts so that people can hear your voice. This can really give people a sense of who you are and that they know you.
These are a few of the suggestions I had for Joe. I hope that they’re applicable to whatever situations you’re in, whether you’re a small business blogger, a corporate blogger, or a social media consultant. I’d love any feedback you might have, positive or negative.
Questions/opportunties? Looking for help in your social media adventure? Let me know.
Edelman & Wal-Mart: is the apology enough?
So: Steve Rubel and Richard Edelman have both issued a mea culpa in the Wal-Mart flog saga. Is it enough? For a number of reasons, no. Not even close.
Dave Taylor certainly doesn’t think so. He blogs on Business Blog Consulting and The Intuitive Life Business Blog that Edelman’s getting an easy ride - they’re getting off the hook (almost) scot-free:
I’m just amazed at what an easy ride Edelman is getting with this significant and notable error of judgment on their part. It’s not about apologizing for a screwup, it’s being accountable to a code of ethics, having consequences for violating it, and having a sufficiently transparent internal management structure that lets experts like Steve Rubel at least know about all the blogging initiatives happening at the firm
Others agree. Check out the comments on Matthew Ingram’s Edelmam/Wal-Mart post. One poster in particular, Dominic Jones, feels that the apology is at best tainted, and certainly not adequate. (Dominic has blogged about transparency and PR.) As he says on Matthew Ingram’s blog:
So how do you explain three days before there was a response from Edelman? Either they are very slow thinkers and have great difficulty telling right from wrong, or they were doing something else.
My view, based on my experience both as an investigative journalist and a PR consultant, is they were waiting to see what would happen, hoping it would blow over.
Robert Scoble, on the other hand, is among a group of others that are more inclined to be forgiving. Lance Knobel, Li at Search Marketing, Pleon, and even Shel Holz (to a degree) seem to take that tack. As Scoble says in the comments to his post:
Personally if I ever screw up I hope people forgive me, especially after I recognize that a mistake has been made and I’ve apologized for it and made strides to make sure it never happens again.
Great point. I fully realize that people make mistakes. I do too - every day. If we can’t forgive each other, we’re in for very unhappy lives. If I can’t forgive people, I have a problem … and if others can’t forgive me when I screw up, we both have a problem.
The challenging thing for me on this forgiveness thing with Edelman is the following:
- It’s happened before
As Jaffe Juice pointed out … this is the second time Edelman has done this: just with Wal-Mart, that is. PR Squared says it’s actually the third time. And those are just the ones we know about! And just with one client! - The apology is short on details
A few more details would be very welcome. Richard Edelman’s post was a couple of paragraphs, Steve Rubel’s just one. When there’s a public screw-up affecting your credibility, you need to say what happened, why, how, and, most importantly, how you’re going to ensure it will never happen again. - It’s part of a pattern of shady PR tactics
Maybe it’s just me, but I consider other sites and campaigns like PaidCritics to be shady PR as well. PaidCritics is not a grass-roots operation (do they think we don’t know that the people behind that site are paid too?!?), and neither is the Working Families for Wal-Mart site, which is supposedly “giving voice to millions of Americans.”Come on. Both of these are astroturf. Astroturf is shady.
IR Web shows us how corporate community-building can be done correctly, transparently, with sites like Ford’s Bold Moves website, Chevron’s Will You Join Us site and Allianz’s dropping knowledge.
So - forgiveness is necessary and good. But so is proper openess and discussion of what when wrong and how your going to fix it.
And I haven’t seen that yet from Edelman.
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Update:
Tara Hunt has an excellent post on fake blogs that mentions the Edelman issue … and delves into why it happens: because PR agencies put their clients ahead of their clients’ clients. And you have to see Hugh McLeod’s Edelman/Wa-Mart cartoon.
Update: October 26:
Strumpette has a follow-up on the WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) and their non-discipline of Edelman. Worth a read.
Edelman, Wal-Mart, Steve Rubel: head, meet sand
Update Oct. 16. Edelman has finally broke the silence: Steve Rubel’s post; Richard Edelman’s post. No word on what exactly went wrong, or why the “process” that Steve talks about took over a week. More later …
It’s been almost a week. The blogosphere is talking about Edelman, Wal-Mart, and the fake blog. I added my three cents a few days ago.
In short, we’ve been waiting, listening, and watching for the explanation. Or the mea culpa. But none has been forthcoming.
Steve, you need to speak up
I hate to put this all on Steve, but sorry, you’re the best-known highly-placed Edelman blogger. And it’s not like you haven’t posted recently.
Your blog’s about page identifies that you are Edelman’s thought leader on social media:
Rubel is charged with helping Edelman identify, test, incubate and champion new forms of communications that get people talking across new platforms and channels.
Well guess what - no one needs leadership when everything is fine. Leadership is required when the smelly stuff hits the fan. And yes, right now it is hitting the fan - hard.
Yeah, it is conversational media
Steve, your blog also claims that you are “widely viewed as an expert on conversational marketing.” I think most people in the blogosphere would agree wth that assessment.
But what happens to the conversation when one participant doesn’t speak?
When that happens, there is no conversation. There’s no communication. And you have no chance to even influence or affect the thoughts and actions of your potential clients, your potential allies, your potential listeners.
We’re making it up as we go along
Just because you’re not talking doesn’t mean we won’t talk. And if you won’t tell us your side of the story, it won’t be told. This is strikingly similar to the Marshall Manson incident, which raised questions about Edelman, Wal-Mart, and proper disclosure of interest.
In response to that incident, Richard Edelman said the following:
Let me get the disclosure out of the way. Edelman is the PR firm working with bloggers as part of a Wal-Mart corporate image campaign. Edelman is transparent about its relationship with Wal-Mart in our communications to bloggers. It’s clear who we represent.
So get the disclosure out of the way
As I noted in my first post on Edelman and Wal-Mart, Jaffe Juice has said that “this is the SECOND time they’ve been outed for lack of transparency with the SAME client.”
How transparent is Edelman? How much disclosure is there? How clear is it who you represent? Your silence is deafening. The answers to those questions is unclear.
My suggestion: make it clear. Now.
Consequences: blowback
This will hit TechMeme, and the consequences could be severe.
For example, how effective do you think any further social media campaigns sponsored by Edelman will be if bloggers don’t trust you? And how successful will Edelman be if it cannot deliver social media PR results to its clients?
The answer to both questions is, obviously: not very.
. . .
. . .
Other blogs discussing this issue:
- Marketing Profs Daily Fix
- Publishing 2.0
- Postcards from the blogosphere
- Ketcheson.net
- Smalltalk Tidbits
- AgencyNext
- Buy it or Die
- A Shel of My Former Self
Blogs, splogs, & flogs: Edelman & the Wal-Mart fiasco
Update Oct. 16. Edelman has finally broke the silence: Steve Rubel’s post; Richard Edelman’s post. No word on what exactly went wrong, or why the “process” that Steve talks about took over a week. More later …
If Edelman is the PR agency that “gets it” about blogs and social media, why did they set up a fake blog for Wal-Mart?
Blogs are weblogs. Splogs are spam blogs. Flogs are stealth PR blogs. And as far as we can see today, Edelman set up a flog for Wal-Mart that has now been outted: Wal-Marting Across America.
It’s a sweet story about Jim and Laura RV-ing across America from Wal-Mart to Wal-Mart - staying in store parking lots overnight. The only problem is that Jim and Laura don’t exist … at least not in the way presented in the now-closed blog.
“Laura” is Laura St. Claire, a freelance writer. Jim is James Thresher, a professional photographer and Washington Post employee. Freelancing, apparently, is against his contract with the Post, which has ordered him to return Wal-Mart’s money and remove his photos from the flog. According to that AP story:
Wal-Mart outfitted the RV and turned it over to Thresher and his partner, Laura St. Claire, who drove it cross-country,
What’s shocking is that Wal-Mart is a client of Edeleman, which is the PR agency is supposed to be the one that “gets it” with regard to social media. But this isn’t “getting it,” and in fact is causing the worst kind of nightmare for a PR agency: blowback on its media-bending efforts.
Not only is the Examiner writing about the issue, so is MediaPost and Editor & Publisher. And the bloggers are not being silent.
What are bloggers saying?
In a word: lots. Here’s a sampling …
This post is not about Wal-Mart. They’ll figure out social media sooner or later.
This post is about Edelman. I’m kind of surprised and a bit amazed quite frankly…as this is the SECOND time they’ve been outed for lack of transparency with the SAME client.
I’m giving Edelman the Goofus and the Gallant on furthering the use of social media in the public relations industry. This tactic could have worked using full disclosure, just interview the customers and get their stories. It might not have resulted in effusive praise for the giant smiley face, but it would have been interesting nonetheless.
On Message from Wagner Communications:
Pro-Wal-Mart Travel Blog Screeches To A Halt.
International social media champion Edelman Public Relations finds itself the target of accusations it created “a phony blog” as a front for client and retail giant WalMart … Arrived home a few minutes ago (8:45 EDT) and have been unable to find a response on the Edelman website, or any of Edelman’s numerous bloggers.
This is wrong on so many levels. And it is Strike 3 for Edelman (not Strike 2, as Joseph Jaffe suggests). Edelman, the self-described leader in me2, in transparency, in Social Media PR strategies. (Or, maybe not.)
Thunderous silence from Edelman
Richard Edelman says that “the business community … must recognize a new axis of communications, the horizontal peer to peer conversation.” How peer-to-peer was the Wal-Mart blog? And why is he not responding to the issue?
Steve Rubel is probably the best-known Edelman blogger. He posted twice today … but not a word about the Wal-Mart account.
The Edelman Landing Blog appears to be a conglomeration of all Edelman blogs. Once again, not a word.
Summing it up
Learn the lesson of Scoble, who humanized Microsoft while being honest about the fact that Microsoft paid his mortgage. Learn the lesson of all the other successful corporate bloggers.
- You want to start a corporate blog? Great. Be upfront about it.
- You want to start a marketing blog and get paid for it? Great. Be honest about who you are.
- You want to start a PR blog for your client? Great. Tell us who you are and who your client is.
You want to do that fake stuff? Keep it where it belongs, in mainstream media.
PeopleAggregator has trouth-mubble
Every since Tara Hunt wrote about PeopleAggregator a few days ago, I’ve been wondering what PeopleAggregator is, precisely.
Marc Canter gave some more details today on his blog, a note that they are launching, and also provided a link to Richard MacManus’ explanation of the service.
According to MacManus, PeopleAggregator is the following (and I’m really, really editing here to try to just come up with the bones of the system, while taking out all of the speculation as to what this could become):
- a social network system
- that is the first ever open network (meaning you can get your data out)
- an identity management system (perhaps not first and foremost, but certainly a necessary part of the service)
- a place to create and access all the data you create all over the web (photos at Flickr, blog posts at Wordpress.com, song preferences at last.fm, profiles at MySpace, and so on …
While not an elegant and simple message, taken by itself this appears to make some sense, be fairly differentiated from what a lot of other people are doing, and provide some value to individuals. (What value it provides to Flickr or MySpace, I haven’t a clue.)
But PeopleAggregator’s message on their home page is entirely different again. Right on the first page, PA is three things to three distinctly different types of people. The type of people I’m most interested in are people like myself, so here’s what the message to the hoi polloi is:
The PeopleAggregator is a feature rich, personal publishing oriented system.
Hrmm … sounds different. A lot simpler, but not very much like an open hub for all your digital detritus.
So in an attempt to learn more and get the definitive answer, you delve into the multi-slide presentation - a very PowerPoint(less) type of presentation.
Here there’s a ton of jargon (”social network web service,” “identity hub,” “open APIs, “normalized namespace,” before you actually get into the features. Several pages of features, which appear fairly standard for a social network, and then back into the jargon with “Identity Hub Architecture.”
I’m a fairly technical person - I’ve led a web development team, built a simple content management system from scratch, know all the TLAs (three-letter-acronyms), and can be pretty sure I know what they’re doing, but I’m not totally certain. Everywhere I look, the message is a little different.
For instance, the Broadband Mechanics home page (Marc Canter’s company, the creator of People Aggregator) has an entirely new piece of jargon, Digital Lifestyle Aggregators, and a significantly different message.
At that, I give up. What precisely does PeopleAggregator do? I suspect they don’t precisely know themselves. That may be because the company and the concept are in the very early stages, and I think that’s exactly what Tara Hunt said in her first post.
OK. I can understand that. I’ve been there.
My only advice: figure it out fast. Right now, there are too many words, too many messages.
PeopleAggregator: stop talking, I’m trying to understand you!
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Sparkplug 9 is John Koetsier's blog on life, the universe, and everything,
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