Social Media Offensive or Offensive Social Media?

Over the last week I have gotten 56 Facebook updates from one company who has not shared with me one tip or trick to either:

                1- Help my company run better

                2- Help me save money

                3- Help me gain 20 yards with my driver

                4- Update me on my friend’s activity or a children’s update

                5- Lose weight

Seriously, they have given me nothing. Every post has been “It’s Monday- visit XYZ.com”, “Challenge yourself- visit XYZ.com”, “Don’t be afraid to show your personality- visit XYZ.com” or one of 20 other pointless, useless messages that keep recycling like the latest controversy on Fox News. Even worse, they tweet the exact same messages so they also show up in my timeline a second time and a third time. Every hour, on the hour. 14 posts today already. It must be nice to have so much time on your hands.

OK, I know your question: Why not delete them from my timeline? Easy answer- same as the one about looking away from the train wreck- you just can’t. Somewhere deep down there is something about it you enjoy.

In all seriousness, the reason MySpace, inside911 and countless other sites became irrelevant because the exact same thing started to happen with more and more companies. Personally I think business and personal stuff should have stayed separate, but that cat is out of the bag. All we can do now is to try and deliver more purposeful content and let the others burn themselves out. It WILL happen. Eventually they go away because no one will be watching. It happens. Just ask ALF.

Businesses, Social Media and the Problem with Silly Posts and Shameless Self Promotion

Social media for businesses shouldn’t be about pointless posts, shameless self-promotion, or posting silly messages just for the sake of creating content- social media should be a two way street, a way for businesses and their constituencies to engage in meaningful dialog. Social media should be a conversation.

We all know those people- the ones who fill our Facebook and Twitter pages with ridiculous post after ridiculous post. “It’s a great day to eat tomatoes”.  “Who loves tomatoes more than us?” “Company X- Enhance your world with tomatoes!” The problem is, companies like that never actually teach us anything about tomatoes. They post and they post just for the sake of creating content. Eventually, consumers realize this and those companies become irrelevant. We all know who they are.

My point is- I already get 3000-4000 brand messages a day competing for my attention. If you are going to post, don’t try and be funny (unless it is a really good joke or a great link), just give me something that I can use. Don’t make me wish I had back the 2.1 seconds I actually spent reading your pointless post.

Just my two cents…

Times They are a Changing.....

Think about it; just ten years ago LinkedIn, Facebook and countless other platforms didn’t exist. People emailed. Or called. Or even more rarely, wrote letters. Today people tweet, post, text and blog, and the wonderful details that made life go great have been reduced, boiled and strained to 147 characters or less. Just think about that. I wonder what tools we will be using ten years from now? Sure wish I could patent one of those ahead of time.

A Little Bit of Art and a Little Bit of Science

Is it a good thing to be constantly reinventing yourself to either keep up with the Jones’s, or try and get back into the race once the Jones’s have passed you buy? I hear business leaders say all of the time that they need a new marketing plan because the one they have has either stopped working, or was really bad and didn’t really work to begin with. The same is often true about sales plans, as well. Usually, once they get to that point, it is too late to do anything to save the business anyway, but why at that moment of truth and clarity do they think they are going to be able to do anything better the second time around if they made such mistakes to begin with? Makes me wonder, is it enough to simply do something for the sake of doing something if you know going in your ideas probably won’t work anyway?

What I like about marketing is that it is a little bit of art and a little bit of science. There are tried and true marketing techniques (direct mail, cross-media, television and print advertising) that make up the art, but the science lies in understanding exactly what works when trying to identify and connect with audiences in ways that move them to take action. You don’t do that by sending a postcard or placing an ad. You do that by sending a postcard or placing and ad with a MESSAGE that connects with audiences at an emotional level. By connecting emotionally with audiences, you motivate them to make a buying decision, or build brand loyalty that sticks in their heads until they are ready to make a buying decision at a later time. Just sending something in the mail without the proper message doesn’t work. Do that, you end up spending more time reinventing yourself, than you do being yourself.

Facebook and Zuckerberg: Gorilla Marketing, or Gorilla Tactics?

My kids are out of town, so this weekend my wife and I watched a bunch of movies on Netflix. The chick flicks didn’t do as much for me, but one of them, The Social Network, really got me thinking. Everyone knows about Facebook, and how we use it to keep up with cousins, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends, and even the occasional ex boyfriend or girlfriend, but should we really be using it to try and convince people to buy our products and services? I’m not sure, but there sure seems to be a lot of buzz about social media as a marketing tactic in circles of those who talk about marketing.

I liked in the movie how Zuckerberg was hesitant to allow advertising on Facebook. He wanted it to be cool. I think it is cool too, but not when people friend me with the specific intent of trying to sell me something. I got a call from a guy I didn’t know who wanted to pitch to me because he saw that I was a friend of a friend on Facebook. I said no. Maybe I should have said yes, and pretended to be in a cult when he came to visit, and try to recruit him to one of my meetings at the North Raleigh Hilton. That would have made for a great laugh. My point is, as a nice guy, I will take his call, but if I feel duped into taking the call I’m not going to be a happy camper.

OK, here it is. From a marketing perspective, we should not expect anyone to buy anything because of our Facebook pages, but we can use social media as an effective way to develop consumers (and brand loyalty) to the point that when they are ready to execute a transaction, they are predisposed to buy from us. Use Facebook as a way to share information and gather opinions from thought leaders, and focus less on the volume of information you provide, and more on the quality of information you are providing, and people will listen to what you have to say. Send out junk, they won’t. Heck, I hid my own companies Facebook page one time because we were using it for the wrong reason. We were telling people how great we were (which we are), instead of allowing our friends and customers to speak for us. There is a big difference there.

Don’t get me wrong, I love to see pictures of my friend’s babies, and puppies, and hear about broken hearts and new jobs, but don’t try and pitch me on Facebook into buy a new washing machine. Maybe Zuckerberg was right. Maybe it is enough to be cool, without worrying about making a buck.

Change Isn’t Coming, Change Is HERE

The last handwritten letter I got in the mail was from my Grandmother. It was 1993, and I was spending the summer in Texas, and she wrote to tell me all about her Myrtle Beach vacation. I remember how excited I was to open the letter, and read in her own handwriting about how much fun she had. It meant a lot to me. I’m not sure I would place the same value in a Facebook post or a Tweet. Regardless, the way we communicate has changed, and like it or not, change is here to stay.

As consumers of content, we exchange ideas and information in a number of ways. We email, we post, we tweet, we text. We do all of this in compartmentalized chunks of data broken down into (sometimes) 128 characters of type, but no matter far the digital divide continues to expand, we still print things. We print books, we print posters. We like to hold things in our hands. That will never change. What will change is the way we combine traditional methods of delivery (postcards, catalogs, annual reports) with more rapidly developing new media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and even personalized (one-to-one) marketing and print with QR codes and PURLs. What this represents for you is the opportunity to more effectively communicate with your constituencies, your clients, and your coworkers, whether you are educating an audience, or selling a smoothie. As digital printers, we can help you understand, and embrace, the opportunities that are out there.

A lot has changed since 1993. I miss getting hand written letters. I miss picking up the phone and talking to someone instead of sending a twit or a text, but if you think about it, social and digital media have not only changed the way we communicate with each other, they have really changed the way we live our lives. Ready or not, change is here to stay. Deal with it, or be left behind.

OK, I am a printer

OK, I admit it: I am a printer. There, I said it. At my company, we like to call ourselves marketers and communications specialists, but at the end of the day, what we do is put ink on paper. We are printers. Printers used to be like used car salesmen, using slide of hand to trick buyers into upgrading their paper and spending more money, and like used car salesmen, there are some pretty bad printers out there. Me, I like being a printer. I am pretty good at it. I don’t sell lemons.

What does this have to do with the sales and marketing nirvana? Well, actually, a lot. Many people today define themselves by how they want people to perceive them, not by who they actually are, and in a society where consumers are constantly bombarded with marketing messages (over 4000 a day) people are tired of being tricked into buying things they had no intention of buying in the first place. The miracle weight loss pill, the magic squeegee, the “limited time offer”. What message do we send when we market ourselves this way? The message is simple. You can’t afford NOT to buy us. I call BS on that.

Be true to your message. Tell people what you do, and why they should buy from you, and they will either respond, or they won’t. Use too much spin, trick them into buying, and they won’t come back. That is a guarantee. The same is true in real life as it is in business. We all know people who talk one way but act another. We tend to faze them out over time. The same thing is true in printing. Be true to who you are, but also be honest with yourself about who you want to be.