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@karengeier
Now Posting for Marketwire
In addition to blogging for the Huffington Post about my start-up, Shyndyg, I will also be writing for Marketwire's Small Business vertical on the topic of Marketing.
My interview with Jeff Ullrich of Earwolf
News: Blogging for Huffington Post
As an extension of my work at Shyndyg (site here), I have been writing for the Huffington Post on the subject of Start-Ups. I will cross-post the articles here as they go live.
The Pivot: Or Why #nbcfail is a REALLY BIG DEAL
Since 1988, NBC has been where Americans go to get their Olympics coverage. It's no secret that this incredibly lucrative contract, obtained during the network's glory days, has led the broadcaster to think they are "unkillable," (despite being 4th in the network wars.)
This theory was seriously tested this past weekend.
You see, NBC has always had a tape delay to bring a compact, clean package of coverage for the sports it televises. This has served them well in the past, but in a social media world, they can't afford to keep this bad idea around.
It seems the broadcaster, who boasts how "plugged in" they are (NBC, after all is an investor and content provider for Hulu, the streaming service which is extremely popular un the US.) hasn't quite jumped the chasm of knowing social media exists, and understanding how unbelievable crucial a proper social media strategy needs to inform their broadcast.
Right from the first Hobbitesque frame of the opening ceremonies Friday (on a delay 4 hours after it had been broadcast EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD) the twitterverse was not best pleased. You see, Americans had been reading tweets all afternoon describing the ceremonies. There were pictures being posted as-it-happened, and there was even a complete video on Youtube of the 7/7 tribute which NBC did not air.
And, yet, they still didn't get it. Their response to the negative sentiment?
Vivian Schiller, Chief Digital Officer for NBCNews and MSNBC thought this was the proper "witty retort" for all those people who called NBC out:
GOSH. Get a LIFE people! What could have possibly changed in the last 8 years that would make people want a different approach?
But, she raises a good point. NBC has always done it this way, and it has netted them rewards. The predictability of their offering has allowed them to negotiate sky-high ad revenues during this period. In every conceivable old media way, they have a vested interest in the status quo.
Even if that status quo shits the bed.
It's time for NBC to pivot.
You hear the term "pivot" a lot to describe start ups changing their focus, or a material part of their business. This is EXACTLY what's needed here.
Much fun is made of the term "join the conversation," but that is the crux of the major failure here.
No one bothered to ask HOW NBC was going to join the conversation, or what the hell they were going to do when they got there.
The rules of the road for social media are: 1. LISTEN. 2. Respond, not 1. Broadcast crap no one cares about 2. When they don't like what you're shoving down their throats, call them babies.
NBC could have avoided this situation by having a digital chief with REAL POWER in the planning stages who UNDERSTANDS SOCIAL MEDIA and could head this problem off at the pass. (Barring that, said person could have had actual Social Media experts (guest influencers would have been a good way to go) to follow a RESPONSE PLAN to not add gasoline to the fire.
How big is the fire?
MILLIONS of tweets in 72 hours on the hashtag #nbcfail.
Jeff Jarvis posts a scathing report on this failure saying, "We in the U.S. are being robbed of the opportunity to share a common experience with the world in a way that was never before possible."
Parody accounts cropped up, including @NBCDelayed.
NBC hasn't even been bothering to listen or contribute at this late stage of the game, even when the harshest critics are linking to streaming online from foreign sources so that they can watch the matches in the way they were intended.
NBC: you are losing revenue because of these stupid fucking decisions.
But, they've decided to go the worst route possible: artificially silencing their critics.
The most vocal critic of NBC, British Journalist Guy Adams had his twitter account suspended today (Twitter is in a Co-Production with NBC, though they should have known better.) You can read Guy's own account here. This story is going viral quickly, and the mentions of NBC are profoundly negative. I guess they want their legacy to be that they're
Not
Bloody
Competent
REAL TALK:
NBC, you need to fire whomever is in charge here. This is the WRONG WAY to approach a problem which every other G20 nation broadcasting the games has managed to solve. You need to hire people who are in a position to make real change, and understand how social media works. You can't (and shouldn't) prevent people from watching something with the rest of the world, and commenting on what they see.
Your decisions are made based on profits which will evaporate with the dissemination of pirated feeds anyway, making your revenue approach VERY hard to justify. (Plus: there are amazing ways you can market and track behaviour online to increase your profits. Call me if you need a lesson!)
The negative press and mentions online sully what you're trying to achieve. You can hardly afford this as the #4 network in primetime already. (You're the Brandon Tartikoff network, for Pete's sake. ACT LIKE IT)
You cannot afford to fuck this up anymore. It's a Goddamned embarrassment.
PS: Matt Inman, "The Oatmeal" summing it up:
They should add "streaming the Olympics from other countries because our channels suck."America would take home all the golds.
— Matthew Inman (@Oatmeal) July 30, 2012
Nestle and Pedobear: Let Me Google That For You
Recently, in an effort to get "down with the kids," perpetually misguided multinational Nestle (Whose profits last year were 10.35 BILLION dollars) launched their Instagram channel.
Because so many food brands succeed with nonsensical imagery, Nestle opted to dress someone in a bear suit, have them play the drums, and tag the photo "Drumroll please... Nestle is now on Instagram!"
So far so good, yes? The fans of Nestle's Facebook page didn't think so. Within minutes, commentary began to flood in regarding the striking resemblance between the Nestle bear and a certain OTHER well known, memetastic animal, PEDOBEAR.
The link tells you all you need to know, but the short strokes are: Pedobear is a powerful symbol of paedophilia online, and one that SOMEONE inside Nestle, at their Agency of Record, or even tangentially connected to this campaign should have picked up on, and raised the flag.
And yet, no one did.
Why is this so important? Well, if you set aside that the beleaguered brand might not want to be freely associated with paedophilia, it brings to light 4 things which will change the landscapes for behemoth companies lumbering along with old media ideas:
1. It's no longer acceptable to NOT be digital. The world is plugged in. Your customers are plugged in. YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO BE IGNORANT ANY LONGER.
2. If you don't understand memes, you don't understand how to distribute your product quickly and efficiently in the new digital world. Memes are currency. You don't have to love or approve of "1960s Batman." You DO have to understand how that message is spread quickly in a digital environment. Brands who understand memes do and will continue to have the world at their feet.
3. This could have been avoided by LISTENING. Listening doesn't just mean setting up Radian6 to hear how much people love your products, it means setting up Google Alerts, reading blogs, and generally being abreast of what is happening online, so you can cull out really shitty ideas before anyone has a chance to book the bear costume.
4. Don't discount the younger, plugged-in staff because they don't have enough "experience." Their experience online could save your asses. Even if a 23-year-old account executive were to have discovered the similarity early on, they most likely didn't have an environment where they felt they could raise this issue. This is a major fault in most large corporations, and if allowed to continue, will lead to further problems down the road.
It takes a few minutes of your time, and very little effort to stay current, and it could save your brand's ass (unless you think an association with paedophilia is a positive thing, but I feel like Penn State has trod that ground enough lately, and it's pretty passé.)
COMPANIES: LISTEN!! INVEST IN DIGITAL. INVEST IN UNDERSTANDING. ASK A YOUNG PERSON. Your reputation could depend on it.
Marketing Automation: Don't Set it and Forget It
Toronto based yoga fans woke up this morning to find a tantalizing promotion in their Facebook feeds:
Lululemon Eaton's Centre has a special Facebook offer. At the time I saw it, hundreds of people had claimed it, and yet...
There was no description of what the deal *was.*
I clicked on the link to claim the offer and was promised the details of said (not explicity described) offer was on its way to my inbox.
Here's what arrived:
This did not help. I reached out to Facebook in the hope that someone knew more about it than I did (or could glean from the awesome instructions.)
As you can see, when I visited Lululemon's Eaton Centre page, another piece of the puzle was revealed: other people had asked. "What in the hell?"
Here was Lululemon's "official" response (hidden in a comment reply to Dan Johnson:
Let's take a moment to parse and discuss:
If you are entering into a partnership with any 3rd party provider, you, as the client need to make sure this shit doesn't happen.
As a 3rd party provider, you have a duty to make sure you're not pissing in your own eye by letting something like this happen, and losing revenue.
HOWEVER...
As the client who does Social Media in house, it is your DUTY to make sure you have a communications and escalation plan for just these types of cases. (And your plan can't be a piss poor response like the one above.)
SO, WHAT NOW?
Lululemon should have had a plan in place, and when this started to occur, they should have pushed a PINNED POST to Facebook detailing what had happened, and apologising, and not throwing Facebook under the bus (regardless of whether it was Facebook's fault, it's their lawn, don't shit on it.)
Lululemon should also, in the coming days, offer something nominal to turn this failure from frustration and disappointment to surprise and delight.
Social isn't ramshackle. It isn't slapdash. It IS forgiving, but you've got to be fast, and act in the customer's best interest (and if that means apologising and making right, you DO IT.)
I will update this post once we see what happens with this situation. Had something like this happen to you in social? Talk to me
UPDATE: Late yesterday, Lululemon posted this to their wall:
Not really an explanation, but (thankfully) not throwing Facebook under the bus. Seriously, though. They should have offered SOMETHING to their loyal fans (however small) to show that they actually do care. They asked people to come into the store anyway, why not have free fancy iced tea?
What's in a Number?
Recently, I have been seeing a lot of this type of stuff in my feed, and it's time to cut this shit out.
At some point in the past, some "internet marketing guru" claimed that a great way to boost fans and followers on social media was by offering them a small prize for specific milestones. At the time this began to be fashionable, it was done a little more subtly than the example above.
And it worked.
But, what did it prove, exactly? That people could be bought for small amounts, and you could artificially inflate your numbers.
And yet, companies as large as Pepsi do this kind of crappy routine on a semi-regular basis. In the example above, they decided 3000 was a nice number to get to. But WHY?
This type of promotion is based on an old-school one (the 1 000 000th customer at the grocery store/bank/etc.) but those types of promotions remembered the fundamental thing these Facebook numbers race promos forgot: PEOPLE power these promotions.
In the case of the 1 000 000th bank customer, the other people turning up to the bank would start talking to one another, and most likely the bank arranged for some type of entertainment, or free donuts, or something to bolster the excitement they were trying to incite.
Now let's go back to the "become our 3000th fan" example. What, other than a gift card is being offered to bolster the excitement? Is there even a conversation being entered into?
BL Ochman posted a brilliant takedown of GM's unilateral "getting out of Faceboook ads" proclamation, where she listed some great examples of conversation NON-starters which the brand had posted recently. What was "in it" for the end users there? Some of the updates didn't even enable you to post a comment, as they were dead end comments.
It seems trite, but it bears repeating: IF YOU WOULDN'T DO IT OR SAY IT TO SOMEONE IN FRONT OF YOU, DON'T DO IT ONLINE.
In Salad King's case, why was 3000 so important to them? Even knowing this might have been interesting to their fanbase (although, "let's beat Liberty Noodle" is still a flimsy premise, and I don't recommend it.)
The point is whether it's 3000, 30 000, or 3 million, it doesn't matter if there is no conversation or meaningful engagement happening.
Let's make a pact to cut this shit out.
Why Everyone Needs To Hyper Down Over Pinterest (& Why It Might Never Work For Your Brand)
I was in the elevator on my way to a client when my friend Moe asked me "What IS Pinterest?"
This would be the first of several hundred times I would have to explain what is was.
"That sounds stupid." was the response. (Later, "Is this PINTEREST?" would become his slam-du-jour.)
Pinterest is a collection/curation tool which has taken the social web by storm recently (the invite-only site has recently become the #3 social network, after Facebook and Twitter.
So what? Sew buttons! (and making crafts, and doing other things urbanites like to pretend they're into before they go to their corner bar and get shitfaced.)
Pinterest allows you to upload and "pin" things you like and find while you're looking up videos of Seahorses giving birth. It has captured the imagination of many users because it's a visual onslaught of the cute, the handmade, and the aspirational. (It's the Bloody Caesar of the internet: you see one, you want one.)
Pinterest recently hit critical mass after 3 years in the market. It does one thing extremely well: It taps into humans' natural urge to show others who they are by publicly declaring the things they like, and showing off their collections.
I like to think of it like how some of us obsess over which photos are tagged with our name on Facebook: you want to show the outside world only the carefully-curated version of you you think you are on your best day.
Once the traffic began to tick up, some brands began to leverage it. (Notably, Martha Stewart, Bergdorf Goodman, and the Travel Channel These brands became heavily followed, repinned, and had great referral traffic back to their sites.
This begat an endless stream of brands jumping into the Pinterest pool feet first. This began the "Pinterest backlash," and the inevitable "does Pinterest REALLY WORK?" questions.
Well, what's the verdict? It's the same verdict as with all social networks. To butcher a phrase from James Carville, "It's the content, stupid."
Pinterest works because of its content-rich brand stories which inspire, and which end users like to aspire to and incorporate into their lives.
No one would pin a 30 dollar chair from WalMart, yet a modernist chair on West Elm's Pinterest board received 48 likes and 120 plus repins.
Similarly, if your brand's promise and story don't fit into the basic themes of Pinterest, your "Pinterest strategy" (not a strategy, a tactic) will die on the table.
To be likeable and repinnable on Pinterest, you have to offer users something at a glance which they want to experience, build, or live in. (The clue is in the "best of Pinterest" lists, where the boards most re-pinned share the terms "I want this" "I love" "Yummy" "Want to visit")
The best thing your brand can do when approaching social media is to do an audit of what the most active areas therein share. Who are the most influential people there? What are THEY into? Does that dovetail in any way to your brand?
If the answers to any of these are "no," you need to speak up, and not press forward on Pinterest.
Don’t Stop Your Vigilance: A Bill By Any Other Name Is Still Trying To Fuck Up The Internet
In the wake of the SOPA/PIPA defeats, everyone seemed to take a typical slackivist approach: "OK, that's it. We fixed the internet. HIGH FIVES!" (I mean we fixed Uganda, and boob cancer, right?)
If you know anything about the current political climate, you should have been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Yes, the esteemed men who you have elected (let's be real: there are so few females in Congress, it's ridiculous.) have decided that the internet is a problem that needs to be solved. (I wonder if that was before or after most of their credit cards cleared on "Co-ed Horny House" $19.95 per month.)
Yes, instead of paying attention for the last TWENTY years as business models got disrupted, the powers that be decided that taking $$ to protect crumbling monopolies is the "way forward" instead of, you know ALLOWING THE FREE MARKET THEY LOVE SO MUCH to propagate online.
Let's review the latest threat, CISPA:
Under CISPA, the following totally shitty things will be made possible:
Companies could be commanded to share any of your information with the government without your foreknowledge (Amazon could have to turn over your purchase history. The Wall Street Journal might have to turn over a list of articles you read which relate to "terrorism.")
ISPs could, without any provocation or reason, block sites from you which they don't like (think the Pirate Bay, but also Planned Parenthood, or WIkipedia articles on "controversial" ideas.
The government could essentially "wiretap" your search history and use that against you.
Full details on the bill are available here, and to lend your voice to the opposition, go here.
This is some seriously scary shit, and no one should take it lying down. This is NOT a case where "if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to be worried about."
Who determines what's "wrong?" Is it looking up abortion information? Looking up an article on growing marijuana? Is it looking up a movie on IMDB which the Aryan Brotherhood like to watch?
The point of the internet today is that in all of these cases, I decide what's right and what's wrong FOR ME. You know, because I am an adult who pays taxes and goes to work every day. (Can't a girl just google "scalp pain" in private?)
Anything sold under the guise of "security" should always be viewed with suspicion. Politicians and Police always want more power and control. It's the public's duty to make sure they don't get it, because our society since 2001 is one who gives away that power much to easily, and never gets it back.
So, dear readers, if you love being able to google weird things, or read more about lifestyles you deem weird, or even just want to know if smoking banana peels was really a thing in the 60s, then you need to do whatever is within your power to stop CISPA. BoingBoing has covered a few solutions here, but the most important one is to GET POLITICALLY ACTIVE.
The phone still works, and so do letters. Get in your elected officials' faces. Let them know what personal liberties THEY would be giving up (remember, PEOPLE work at the types of organizations which the government would be relying upon to snitch, meaning your Senator could have THEIR search history sent to a local newspaper!)
Don't stop fighting the good fight. There's still a GOP Majority, and they are going to keep throwing variations of this at the wall until one of them sticks. KEEP SAYING NO!
MEANWHILE, IN CANADA
Why Ringtones are Over
I am someone who hates the phone. Yes, I work in technology, and YES I carry the phone with me EVERYWHERE, but that does not mean I enjoy being accessible to fix people's computers while I'm sitting on a streetcar, or discussing familial matters while I am in line at the deli.
A natural extension of this is that while I do have 10 or 12 custom ringtones on my phone (mostly television theme songs,) I rarely have the ringer turned on. To me, just having the phone on vibrate is plenty.
This is an emerging behaviour. It's becoming more rare to actually hear a ringtone in public, and when you do, it falls in to 2 camps: older people (nokia default ringtone, anyone?) or youths who are getting the most out of their 2 dollar investment.
What's more is that ringtones do nothing to address accessibility. Many people with hearing difficulties still use mobile phones, and might not be able to differentiate the sound of their phone easily in a crowd.
Buried in the iOS5 updates is a neat little solution: custom vibration tones.
Using a very clever interface (you tap the screen to the beat you would like to create), you can create custom ringtones which you can then apply to various alerts. This allows to to know without EVERYONE knowing that one of your friends liked your status on Facebook, or that your mom just texted you to remind you to pick up the pie before you head over there.
I have a custom vibration tone set up, and it has changed my life (not just because the dog recognises the theme to Portlandia!) I can turn all of my notifications to vibrate, or silence, so I am only triaging truly important things in my day (work e-mails, and the old family question.) The vibration does not set off that Pavlovian response that a constantl ringing, beeping, and whizzing mobile phone makes.
I would encourage you to give it a try. You could have the same productivity boost, and then no one has to know your shame that you like Flo Rida or Maroon 5.
Instructions for implementing this yourself can be found here.
WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER WHEN YOU ARE IN A BAD MOOD?
Macallan 15
You can't Un-See it!