Social Episodes

Here is a segment of my session at Web 2.0 – The Elephant in the Room: Social Media ROI.  While the session was on Social Media ROI this segment focused on the 7 Misconceptions of Social Media (Truth be told, this could have been be a session in itself).  I had a blast delivering it and heckling some of local Yankees fans.  All I can tell you is when a group of Yankees fans can appreciate a Sox fan has to say about social media you know all is right with the world.  I hope you enjoy it as well.

The top 7 list mentioned in my presentation are:

1. Build it and they will come
2. Use social media to BROADCAST, not listen
3. What if it all goes wrong?
4. It’s FREE!!!!!
5. We only use the FREE social web
6. We are tracking the wrong stuff
7. We have no plan or objective

What do you think… Are there any misconceptions I missed?

Are you part of the Revolution?

I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you have already seen this video.  At over 1M views on YouTube in the last 3 months, it’s one of YouTube’s more popular videos.  In case you haven’t seen it yet, check out the video below:

I have seen the video a bunch of times and the stats continue to impress, particularly:

1. 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
2. 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
3. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
4. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.

These stats tell the story – for brands social media isn’t a fad, it’s the way consumers communicate.  To keep up, organizatons need to join the conversation and participate.  Do you agree?

Who knew that talking to a crowd of Yankees fans could be so much fun?  Last week I led a discussion at Web 2.0 in New York titled “The Elephant in the Room: Social Media ROI”.  After catching some flak from the locals on being a die hard Red Sox fan we got down to business and discussed ROI.  During the talk I walked through a case for ROI and presented some case studies from companies I have worked with in the past.  The conversation sparked some interesting questions, some debates and a lot of interesting dialog.  I’m hoping to have a recording up in a few days (stay tuned)… The slides from the presentation are below, hope you enjoy!

Mitch Joel, Six Pixels of Separation

Is it important to be connected? Mitch Joel, Author of Six Pixels of Separation and President of TwistImage believes we no longer live in a world of six degrees of separation. In fact, we’re now down to only six pixels of separation, which changes everything we know about doing business.

Last week we had the chance to sit down for a session with Mitch who discussed how the world of new media and how to market with a brand-new perspective that is driven by compelling results. The smarter entrepreneurs and top executives are leveraging digital channels to get their voice “out there”-connecting with others, becoming better community citizens, and, ultimately, making strategic business moves that are increasing revenue, awareness, and overall success in the marketplace-without the support of traditional mass media.

It’s was great chatting with Mitch and I, personally, learned a ton during this session.  He has great insight and case studies and has a unique way of simplifying social media marketing in a way the makes it easy to understand the benefits as well as how to get started.  We talked a little bit about the future of social media, how to build vibrant online communities and how marketers can be successful using social media.  The recording is below, I hope you enjoy it.

The conversation on Twitter was also terrific.  Here are my top 10 observations from some of the people joining the conversation on Twitter:

1. @JayFleischman: 48% of leisure time is spent online
2. @elysa every single day 20% of ALL searches on Google are searches that have NEVER been done before #awarenessinc
3. @MVMNT_Mike: If you want to enter social media, do something now! Don’t worry about mistakes, learn along the way #awarenessinc
4. @REMdreamtime: strategy component is sorely missing from digital agencies via @mitchjoel #awarenessinc
5. @NunesThompson: Always ask WHY! Say why you’re on #SM, not the fact that you’re on it. #awarenessinc
6. @AprilMPhillips: “It’s more about your attitude and not about your age.” // @mitchjoel on social media // So true! #awarenessinc
7. @elysa: 6 things you can do RIGHT now: 1)acceptance 2)digital augments not instead of traditional marketing #awarenessinc (cont) 3)every opt is chance to build/share/grow 4)open up and share more 5)it’s about your attitude not your age #awarenessinc
8. @garyasanchez: brands need to create online strategy: why are they on twitter rather than just being on twitter – build community! #awarenessinc
9. @RonArden: #awarenessinc The shiny new objects are just a bunch of tools. You need to decide what to do with these tools to make them useful.
10. @tamadear: Why are peer reviews trusted more? Because we think our peers’ motivation is closer to our own. #awarenessinc

Last Thursday I hosted a panel live from the Inbound Marketing Summit titled: “End the Social Media Hype“.  It was particularly exciting for me for a couple of reasons.  First, it featured an all-star panel of individuals that I have a lot of respect for in the social media space: Jason Falls, Paul Gillin, C.C. Chapman, Chris Brogan, and Brian Solis.  Second, it was the only panel to be streamed live from IMS – thanks to our friends at Visible Gains (formerly PermissionTV).  We had a great conversation, shared some interesting case studies and had a deep discussion on metrics and social media ROI.

I want to thank all the panelists for their time, honesty and insights during the session, Visible Gains for providing the streaming technology and Justin levy from New Marketing Labs for helping to pull everything together.

Below is the link to the session and I hope you enjoy it.

End the Social Media Hype

Finally, a special thanks to Matthew Mamet and the team at Visible Gains for helping to bring this session together on such short notice! As you view the highlights notice that the video has been edited to focus on the areas that are most interesting to the viewer. This is both cool and beneficial as is makes for an awesome viewer experience. If you are looking for software to support streaming video, I highly recommend taking a few minutes to check them out.

I have to admit, at first I was hesitant about participating in this.  I have never been into fashion.  In fact, I’ve never really gone clothes shopping before.  I mean, I have obviously purchased clothing in the past but for the most part those purchase were impulsive.  If I see something I like I buy it.  If it looks comfortable and relaxed chances are I’ll wear it.  The one criticism I typically receive is I buy clothes multiple sizes too big.  I hate wearing things that are tight… I hate being uncomfortable.

This is important because a few weeks ago I was asked by my good friend Christine Major if I’d be interested in getting a “make over”.  She told me I’d be perfect for an event called “Making over the Men of Social Media“.  I’m still not sure if being told that “I would be perfect for a make over” is a good thing or a bad thing, but I digress…  Frankly, I didn’t think I needed a makeover.  I’d classify my look as “casual” – jeans, sweatshirt, birkenstocks – the kind of style that would make Bill Belichick jealous.  However, after consulting with my wife, I decided it may not be a bad idea to take @AskEmmi up on her offer and go through with the makeover.

My initial vision of the make-over was that I would be taken to some high-end store and attacked by the guys from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and would involve getting my nails done, body waxing, eye brow trimming and all of those “stereo-typical” things associated with make-over’s.  To my surprise, this was all about shopping.  With credit card in hand I met up with Emmi on a beautiful Saturday afternoon on Newbury Street in Boston where we went shopping at stores like Frank Stella and Lord & Taylor.  Here is the video of my personal shopping experience which was shown at the show that took place earlier this week.

I ended up getting some great stuff that complimented my style at Frank Stella’s in Boston.  The event was great and I should have video of that soon as well!  It was especially great to hang out with the other models (Jeff Glasson, C.C. Chapman, Stuart Foster, Adam Zand, and Mike Schneider) in the “green room”.  Thanks @AskEmmi!

Had a great webinar yesterday with Adam Broitman, founder and ringleader at Circ.us.  I met Adam for the first time at last year’s New Marketing Summit (now the Inbound Marketing Summit) when we sat down for an interview on the state of new marketing (click here to view it).  Adam has great insight into the agency world (spending some time at Digitas, Morpheus and Crayon) and has a very unique (some may say “innovative”) way of thinking about marketing and social media.  He’s also a lot of fun to chat with and, as you we see in the recording below, he’s both an entertaining and thought provoking speaker.

Before you view the recording and slides of the session (both are available below), here are the top eleven tweets form yesterday’s webinar highlighting some of Adam’s insights (they are in no particular order):

1. @abelniak: scary stat: 40% of the major corporations that existed in America in 1975 no longer exist today.
2. @awarenessinc: 2 core principals central to marketing: participation and innovation
3. @blmoon: Technology is no substitute for creative ideas, per @adambroitman
4. @Yelitze: easier to remember a story you’re involved in than a story told to you
5. @shartlen: Marketing may not be saving lives, but it has the capacity to change lives
6. @socialmediawave: Improvisation and comedy are the basics in formulating a fun and engaging campaign -it’s also FUN
7. @cmee: It’s not a risk when you propose creativity
8. @FTPlanet: It takes more than a platform to make a community successful. Communities are made of ppl, not tech.
9. @cmee: when you’re faced with adversity there’s also opportunity
10. @anthonycerreta: 9 Successful Brands Launched During Downturns; http://bit.ly/8hGyl
11. @abelniak: The Dunkin Run used technology (though not the core component) to MAKE ‘being social’ innovative

Slides:

Last week I hosted a webinar featuring Brian Solis called “Socializing your Corporate Brand”.  I had not had the chance to meet Brian prior to last week but had read his book “Putting the Public back in Public Relations” and have seen him speak on a couple of occasions.  What I like most about Brian’s talk was his use of actual, real-life, tactical examples that marketers can use today to start communicating in the social web. The session didn’t focus on theory and spent time addressing the tactical questions of the audience which made for an excellent session.  Here are some of the highlights I took away from our conversation:

1. “Social media is about sociology, NOT technology”
2. Transparency alone isn’t sufficient on the social web.  You need to be authentic, believable, and passionate.
3. Have you seen the conversation prism yet?
4. It’s the quality of the people that you align with, not the numbers & quantity.
5. Rules that govern social media are same as rule social interaction but one: more gets said online than face to face.
6. Any conversation that takes place on the social web will map directly to a department in your company (and it’s not only marketing)
7. Marketers need to evolve and “Uncampaign”. Contribute more than you consume.
8. Invest in the exchange, it’s about conversation.  Listen then engage.
9. Most effective use of social media is when you can tie it to a business goal.
10. Haven’t you heard? Everyone is a social media expert! Its digital Darwinism, not everyone is going to make it.

Below is the recording of the session with Brian.

I had an interesting conversation with Dave Carter yesterday that got me thinking (scary, I know).  Dave was telling me how he’s getting kind of frustrated with the volume of tweets from some of the “Twitterati” who share the seemingly “mundane” details of their lives, like waiting in line at Starbucks, getting their car cleaned, etc.  I have been hearing this complaint a lot lately and frankly, I’m not sure why.

No question, it can’t be denied that there is a ton of noise on Twitter and it can be difficult to navigate.   I like some of the noise and some of it I don’t.  While agree with the point about the amount of noise, I personally don’t find it annoying because I am in control of what I pay attention to.  I can choose who and what I listen to and selectively tune out things I don’t care about.

In some ways I look at it like the radio.  For example, I am a huge fan of Howard Stern.  I listen to him every morning on the commute to the office and every night on my way home.  In fact, I don’t think I have changed the station from Howard 100 in the last 6 months.  That said, I don’t agree with or like everything Howard has to say.  Some of the segments about his personal life (walking his dog, going to his parents house on the weekends, etc) I find really boring.  Some guests are just terrible and some topics are just beat to death by his crew.  That said, by and large I love what he talks about.  In the case of Howard, I am willing to live with the things I don’t like because the majority of his content is great.  When things get boring, I have the option of changing the station.  If the majority of his content ever became unbearable for me, I also have the option of never tuning in again.  Point is, like on Twitter, I always have the option of selectively ignoring what I’m not interested in.

On Twitter you don’t have to like everything, or listen to everything, the people you are following have to say.  You can follow individuals and use tools like TweetDeck to select what you read and what you want to pay attention to.  If you find yourself uninterested in a majority of some one’s content you always have the ability to “change the channel” or “unfollow” them.  The control you have over what you listen to is one of the reasons I am a fan of Twitter, and social media in general.

The long and short of it is, it’s easy to listen to the content or individuals you find interesting and selectively ignore the rest.

photo credit: niznoz

BMA Boston Board at Fenway Park; Winter 2007

There must be a better model for running a marketing association.  I’ve been a member of multiple “M.A.’s” (BMA, DMA, AMA, etc) and I think my expectations are pretty simple.  Mostly I am looking for two things: (1) education and (2) networking.  While I do have a straightforward mission, i do have additional expectations.  I want the group(s) (or associations or communities) to understand my needs and wants as a marketer without letting the officer’s personal interests get in the way.  I don’t want to go to an event where I learn about a dated topic (like “the value of printing”) or, even worse, a session where I am forced to sit through a product pitch. I want to network with peers who I can learn from, not a group of vendors trying to sell me stuff every time I meet them. I expect a balance of “meet-ups” and educational events. I want the dialogs that start at physical events to continue long after the hand shake  and I expect social media to play a role in helping to facilitate that ongoing conversation. I want the leadership of the association to listen to my needs and wants and use them as the basis for developing programming. In general, I expect a positive customer experience. Is that too much to ask?

I say this because I have been actively involved in marketing associations for roughly the last 12 years.  In fact, I ran the Boston Chapter of the Business Marketing Association for about 3 years. During that time, the chapter saw its largest growth both in terms of revenue and membership, won three awards, hosted the most successful and profitable physical events in the group’s history and launched a webinar series that was syndicated nationally throughout regional chapters and attracted attendees from as far away as Japan, Europe and Australia.  We succeeded in repositioning the group’s perception in the market from a traditional stodgy association run by vendors to a group on the cutting edge of marketing.

I left the organization in January of this year because I was watching the association fall victim to the same mistakes it had made previous to my tenure.   The topics were tired, the events seemed stale and the speakers didn’t sound engaging.  I’d really like to see the group expand on it’s momentum and embrace new speakers/topics to help stay on the cutting edge.  Without getting into details, the final straw for me was an email stating rather bluntly “I don’t care about us executing on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or any other social network” and inferring that new types of marketing would not have a place in the chapter moving forward. In a time where many marketers are looking for more education on social media and are turning to their marketing associations to help figure it out, the group opted not to focus any effort or energy in educating their members on the benefits of this approach.  Given my passion for the space and my belief in social media, I decided it was best to part ways.

I am sharing my background with you, not to toot my own horn or throw anyone under the bus, but to help make a point.   Since I left the BMA I have looked long and hard at many of the other marketing associations out there and have come to the conclusion that none fulfill my needs. My view is tainted but it seems like most groups are operated by a select group of individuals that appear to have their own interests in mind – whether it is finding a job, selling a product or service or something else.  Sorry if my view offends anyone.  I do understand that my observations are a generalization – I’m sure there are individuals and chapters that have other interests at heart but I haven’t run across them in the recent past.

Granted, my experience in the last six months has likely made me cynical towards associations but I am looking for your opinion.  Are marketing associations, in general, going the way of the dinosaur? Do you belong to any and if so, which are the best? If you were running the show, what would you do differently?   What do you expect from the groups you are a member of?