positive disruption by: Tom Martin | New Orleans based Social Media Consultant

Facebook Phantoms

Last week, while home sick, I caught one of my favorite authors, John Grisham, on The Today Show. During the course of the interview, Matt Lauer asked the noted author about his Facebook page. John went on to say how he didn’t even know he had one. The folks at Doubleday must have created it, he didn’t even really know what “the Facebook was” and so on. Which made me curious, so I popped over to his page and found I wasn’t the only one surprised and disappointed that John was just another Phantom Facebooker.

Not that I’m surprised. From my sick bed I watched as Ellen, Hoda and Kathie Lee, the entire cast of The Today Show, and a few others talked about their Facebook pages. It seems having a Facebook page and talking about it on your daytime talk show is all the rage today. But none of them actually manage their pages. In fact, Ellen and Hoda/Kathie Lee go so far as to give the intern or assistant that actually manages the page camera time. Reminds me of the secretary that reads and prints out the CEO’s emails.

I visited several of their pages to see what, if any, communication was going on and as I suspected, none to speak of. Oh sure, their fans were communicating, leaving message after message to the stars and to each other. But other than some lame Hoda/Kathie Lee posts like this one

We know our Facebook fans have expressed concern over the job market- listen to Kathie Lee and Hoda talk to author Mark Jeffries about 'Your Handshake' and how to stand out and above the rest.   
       Posted by Kathie Lee and Hoda

there is no real dialogue, which is uplifting to me. Uplifting because it shows that even huge companies like Doubleday and NBC haven’t figured out Social Media.

Just imagine if John Grisham a) knew he had a Facebook page and b) actually got on the darn thing once and awhile to chat.

I’d guess he probably had about 15-20 minutes of Green Room time before he went out on the show, there was probably a bit of time in the makeup chair, etc. With a laptop or a smart phone, John could have been posting to his Facebook page, Twittering his morning, sending pics, or streaming behind the scenes video using QIK. The point is, he could have communicated with the 25,632 fans he has on Facebook or the countless others he could have on Twitter. Imagine the viral effect that would have had. Imagine the coffee pot and water cooler conversations that morning. Imagine how many more books he might have sold.

As the say in Twitterland – “Doublday Grisham marketing: FAIL.”

What do you think? If you were the social media consultant to these companies/stars, what would you tell them to do?

Follow me baby.

(@ChrisBrogan's Avatar pic from Twitter)

Last night on Twitter, @ChristBrogan asked an interesting question,

"Why do you try to acquire followers? Meaning, versus just building relationships."

He got a lot of interesting answers, you can view them by clicking his name above and scrolling back through the older tweets. My two cents back to him was that I think a lot of folks do it for ego. Let's face it, we all want to be popular and even though we say we didn't care, secretly we wanted to be the homecoming king or queen. But for me, honestly, I see followers as an ends to a means.

I want to be famous. Not Brad and Angelina famous - I'd have to smack those annoying paparazzi, but famous in my industry - Advertising. Ego you say... maybe. But I actually have a more pragmatic reason. Advertising is a reputation industry. Got a rep, got a paycheck because someone will always hire you. More importantly, how big that check is depends on your reputation. And this holds true whether you're talking about me personally being hired or the company I work for, Zehnder being hired by a client. Rep matters in our business.

Take my man Chris Brogan. We both counsel clients on social media issues. If your company was thinking about dipping your toe into the social media waters and you were looking for a consultant, you'd find him a good bit faster than me. And even if you did find me, I'm guessing by comparison, he's going to look a hell of a lot better/smarter than me given his enormous tribe.

And for me at least, that is why followers matter. The bigger my tribe, the better I "look" but more importantly, if I'm feeding that tribe good info, the more likely I'll be thought of when they or a friend or a colleague needs advertising, social media or general "go to market" advice. Or maybe they need a great professional speaker for an upcoming event and want "someone new" that they've not seen a hundred times at other events. If they are in my idea stream (blog/twitter/Facebook/Ad Age Articles or LinkedIn) they can find me. If not, well then I'm just the best damn speaker they've never heard of, and with that and $3.25 I can get a Super Grande cafe au lait  at Community's Coffee House downstairs in my building.

So there is my early morning, pre-caffine confession. Now it is your turn. Tell me and my tribe, why do you care about followers?

Connect More. Advertise Less.

Here in New Orleans, the Christmas decorations have given way to the Mardi Gras decorations, which got me to thinking about an old blog post I wrote a few years ago about connections.

As I sat on the neutral ground one year during Mardi Gras helping my kids yell for and catch beads, toys, etc., I had an epiphany. Here we were, in the middle of what can only be characterized as organized chaos, and amidst the yelling, screaming, music, etc., an interesting thing happened - we made a connection.

As my 3 year old (at the time) - Hayes - sat slumped in his ladder, fast asleep (poor thing was sick), I was doing my best to both keep him from being hit by a flying bead but also catch him a few trinkets so when he awoke he wouldn’t feel left out of the fun. And then a float stopped in front of us and on the top deck, some 20 feet away - a young woman (I think - not sure as riders are masked) made eye contact, gave a quick little frown and then reached down and launched a huge stuffed animal, but only after assuring she had my attention and that I realized she was throwing to Hayes. I caught it and waved a thank you to her and then she was off. Mission accomplished. I was a good dad.

Now if you’ve never ridden on a Mardi Gras float, you can’t fully understand how unique this situation is. As a rider you can’t hear anything but a constant swell of screaming and yelling. Hundreds, thousands of people screaming for your attention in hopes you’ll “throw them something mister.” Add to this the fact that you’re on a moving platform, it’s dark and maybe you’ve had a cocktail or to, an it is hard enough to pick people out of the crowd that you are looking for much less make a random connection. But it happens.

In fact, this same thing happened a dozen or more times as the parade continued to roll on. I didn't know these people, they didn't know me but they felt something. A connection. For a fleeting moment, a personal connection was made and the nameless rider put down the 25 cent plastic beads and tossed an item that costs them (Mardi Gras float riders pay for the stuff they throw out of their own pockets) not an insignificant amount of money.

Why?

And that has gotten me thinking. About this idea - connection - the simple human need to connect to others. Powerful. Powerful because it causes people to do things, feel things and act on those feelings. Powerful because connection lives beyond the transaction and creates feelings and memories that last. Powerful because in a world of hyperconnectivity, consumers have never been less connected to brands.

At first I thought it might just be me but then one night I read a report of Anderson Coopers' coverage of Mardi Gras that year - he rode in Endymion - a Super Krewe - the big parades that you see on TV. He remarked "Rolling on the float late at night, I realized Mardi Gras is not about the beads or about Bourbon Street. It's about making a connection, one person to another..." and it hit me - Anderson was right. He had captured the essence of Mardi Gras but more importantly he had captured this powerful human insight... one that I'm sure can be used to create more powerful and effective work. People really do want to connect. But as advertisers, we need to give them something worthy of connecting too.

So the next time you sit down to write a brief or review concepts, ask yourself if what you’re doing is advertising or trying to connect. If it is the former, try again. Who knows, you might just get rewarded with a nice prize for your efforts.

Advertising Zen

If an ad runs and no one remembers it, did it really run?

You tell me.

What's in a Twitter name

When I first started looking at Twitter, I tried in vain to get @TomMartin as my username. But like most places I go on the Internet, Tom Martin or any variation of Tom and Martin is usually taken. Welcome to having a common name in a digital era.

So, I opted for the username I use on most sites, @Brandmarken -- the name of the insight consultancy I founded and ran before Katrina. As it is a German word, I find that in the English centric .com world, the username is usually available. And when I had my own company of the same name, it made sense to use it. But now that I'm President at Zehnder, promoting my old company isn't exactly in keeping with my business goals or those of my employer. However, as a not half bad public speaker, promoting my name online is -- if only I could get @TomMartin.

Making matters worse, whomever registered it wasn't even using it. Thank God for Twitter and Karma. One of the folks I follow @Shama had a similar issue and found a way to "reclaim" her preferred handle. She posted a link to a blog post and tweeted the news. I followed the directions provided and 24 hours later, @brandmarken had become @TomMartin.

And now, at the urging of @MackCollier and @LisaHoffmann, I share this Twitter news with you with my own twist. What I think is really cool about this story is it shows Twitter's committment to active profiles versus profiles. So often you hear social media sites boast of their total profiles, like magazines and television and radio producers talk of subscribers and viewers. But profiles is a bullshit number. What you really care about is the number of active profiles because that is who might actually see your message or ad or whatever. All the rest of drive bys... checking out the newest tool/site and kicking the tires. But they often never come back. Littering the Internet landscape with their dormant usernames.

Twitter gets that. They may not have a business model yet but they understand that the value in Twitter is its ACTIVE USERS. Both to the users AND to prospective advertisers or brands that want to leverage Twitter for profit. Read that last line again-- that is the money shot.

Which leaves us with the burning questions. Is @TomMartin really better and more valuable than @Brandmarken? Are my tweets any more valuable? Does anyone care but me? LMK.

The Twitter Two Step

In the travel industry, destination resorts and state/city CVBs, especially, it used to be that we used ads to drive consumers to call 1-800 numbers to request their FREE Travel Planner, or some other kind of fulfillment collateral. The consumer would receive the information, review it at home (where the purchase decision really happened) and either buy or not buy. Then we'd go back and direct mail those that didn't buy until some point in the future when they either bought, or our data analysis folks determined that the person was a lost cause and not worth remarketing to anymore. Over my career, I've seen this model work for a number of other products and services as well. Basically, anything that is a high-involvement purchase and/or big ticket purchase can and should use direct response marketing to help sell more product/service. Add in the trackability of direct response and you have a really effecient and effective marketing approach.

Now, fast forward 10 years. Computers are as common as cars and broadband penetration (either at home, work or a coffee shop) has reached critical mass. Consumers still do their homework on the living room couch, but chances are these days they aren't sifting through a handful of brochures. No, they're sifting through multiple open tabs on their their web browser comparing your offering to the competition's. And just as likely, they found those websites from a other source than a magazine ad. Likely they've clicked on a keyword, seen an online review, or talked to a friend. And if you're in the idea business (social media, advertising, law, CPA, etc.) chances are getting better every day that they found you through the best direct response lead generator out there - Twitter.

Twitter, like mass advertising, gives you an opportunity to reach millions (but more realistically thousands) of people - for free.  The only hitch is that those folks have to elect to follow you, and not the content you used to bolt your advertising into (magazines). Re-read that sentece because it is a major point that many advertisers playing in this space completely ignore or don't understand. So you have to give consumers a reason to follow you. Information, insight, or humor - pick your tool, but be interesting. And like ads, which gave you a limited amount of space to speak in, Twitter only gives you 140 characters. So you have to choose your words carefully.

Additionally, you have to understad that people aren't on Twitter to be sold to or just to find information. Twitter is a community and while free to join, the price for entry is sharing. You have to (and should for that matter) enter into conversations with your followers. This creates a tribe (to steal Seth's term) and expands your reach beyond your own direct followers because each of your followers can with a mouse click retweet (take your information and share it with their followers) your offer or links to your site/blog. This creates a powerful multiplyer effect. Personally I have about 500 or so followers I can directly influence. But if you look at the combined followers of those 500... well you get the idea. If each one of them retweeted an offer for me, the reach is huge.

When you do finally develop a firm enough presence to begin pushing links to offers, blog, etc., you can use services like BudURL to track click-thrus on your link. Just like the offline direct marketers want to know how an offer performs, you too need to learn what links, offers, copy work in this new Twitter to Blog/Website Two Step world. Then test. It's cheap to create and diseminatie information/offers via Twitter/Blog/Website platforms, so test, test, test. Additionaly, when someone retweets your link and one of their followers clicks that link, you'll be able to track that too. So, with this information you can begin to start tracking which of your followers is a brand advocate and enter into deeper conversations with them or maybe just send a nice thank you note sometime.

A parting word of caution -- Twitter is for conversations not selling. Don't just use it to ask for to "click my junk" which is Twitterspeak for people who only see Twitter as a tool to sell. Embrace it for what it is - a community of passionate folks that are looking to find like minded individuals. The secret to using Twitter to sell is to find those folks that should be interested in what you have to offer (product/service) and then follow them. Watch their conversations. Participate in their conversations. And when appropriate, drop in a tweet and a link to something they'd want to know about on your blog/website. 

You'll never sell with Twitter but it is a wonderful tool in the one-two step world of direct response marketing. Use it intelligently and watch the traffic to your blog/website rise on the days you tweet. Good luck. And stop back and let me know how it works out for you.

Social Media Makes Big Companies Small Again

When you're a small company, a mom & pop type outfit, you have a big advantage over corporate America. You actually meet your customer. You get to know them. You likely know their face or their name and maybe even the name of their kids or dog. You know this because small companies have small customer bases and with the owners usually also serving as the doers, small companies enjoy an automatic feedback loop and a relationship with their customers. Likely, if a customer has a beef, they feel really comfortable just taking it up with the owner in a friendly manner.

But then you get successful and you get big. And with size comes challenges. First and foremost, you lose that automatic feedback loop because you, the owner, are no longer the doer. You've hired folks to do that for you and as you grow and hire more folks, eventually you lose touch with the customer all together. Sure you "visit the stores" or "fly on your planes" or [insert your company's category/usage touchpoint here]. But that isn't a feedback loop - at least not a constant one. And it surely isn't a way to build a relationship with your consumer.

And therein lies the greatest use of social media -- to help big companies become small again. With social media, every CEO in the nation can be just a tweet away from any consumer. Any consumer can be their friend or connect with them. And in doing so, that consumer can feel like they "know" that CEO, business owner or Senior level manger at what up till then, is simply a faceless, corporate entity.

With social media, companies can move from what is largely a transactional relationship to a communicative one. Where the consumer feels like they "know" someone at the company. Just think what that does for your long-term customer value.

Is it hard? Is it time consuming? You bet. But then the best relationships usually are.

Don't Hate The Product. Hate The Product Promo.

Over the last week or so, I've been watching a lot of  football on Fox. And I have to say, product promotion on college sports, especially Fox sports, is out of hand. During the Fiesta Bowl for instance, I had to miss a play so Fox could finish a Nissan promo. There were at least a half a dozen gratuitous Gatorade sideline jug shots. And if I saw the another Chevy Silverado commercial during the NFL playoffs I might very well have needed to shoot myself. My favorite was Chevy actually pushing the fact their truck gets 2 mpg better gas mileage versus Ford 150. 2 MPG... can you say desperate?

As advertisers, we've lost our sense of consumer. I mean really, does anyone really want to see the same commercial 6-8 times in a three-hour span? I don't care how good it is, it ends up doing more to hurt the brand than help it. Sure the media buy results in a 95% Reach with a 5+ frequency and yes, consumers don't sit glued to their TV during a football game so they could likely miss your spot once or twice... but really. We need to step back and logic check our advertising programs. There is such a thing as too much promotion.

As advertisers, we need to figure out a better way to create conversations with our consumer. Conversations that the consumer wants to enter into and enjoys participating in with us. We need to find more natural ways to weave product and service messages into the dialog and the content without being so heavy handed.

Likely this will mean we need to find less expensive production methods or maybe completely rethink the 30 second spot to make it more realistic to expect a client to cut more spots. Or maybe we just have to create better work so that we and our clients are comfortable knowing that even if our spot only runs in the first and third quarter, the consumer WILL see it and recall it. Or maybe so darn good they go to the bathroom during the game instead of the commercial. Think it can't be done? Think Super Bowl party... well at least before last year's effort. What do you think? If you could counsel corporate America, what would you tell them to do?

10 Reasons I will Not Follow You On Twitter

I was going to write this post but yesterday, Atherton Bartelby guest posted on this topic at Mashable and it was great. So rather than just write a post that is basically the same, I'm pointing you to Atherton's post and I'd add a few additional comments of my own.

Avatars: If you don't have one or it looks like this I'm not going to bother with you. I'm on Twitter to meet smart people and share good information. This chick, I think she's looking for a good time and with this pic, she's likely to find it.

Tweet Stream: if the only post you have is

Just found a great looking way to make cash for the new year:
 http://tinyurl.com/8sm4e4 

I'm not really interested in clicking your junk. So just don't bother me.

And lastly, Auto DMs:  Hate'em. If you really want to follow me, at least do me the favor of checking out my Tweet Stream to see if you like what I have to say. Just following to say you have lots of followers kind of defeats the true purpose of community sites like Twitter, in my humble opinion. Though you will find Social Media Rockstars that feel differently.

That's it. Be sure to pop over to Atherton's guest post.

To Find Great Ideas - Get Lost.

Unlike marketing consultants, scientists love to be lost. They understand that being lost, not knowing the answer and not being completely sure of where to start looking is the first step to true innovation and discovery.

Like scientists, I belief that before we can really learn or explore the possible solutions, we need to get lost and confused. And not just us, but our clients too. We must all work ourselves into the incredibly messy lost and confused group of folks that must then rely on each other to help find the "way out" as it may be.This removes the experience bias and egos that often get in the way of true discovery.

If done correctly, the end product/idea is often a place that neither agency or client saw coming. And truth be told, neither is 100% comfortable they are there... but boy was it fun and I bet you that no one was moving quickly to leave the meeting or meetings that ultimately lead to such an innovative place.

Now I think that done right, creating confusion may be the beginning of an improved approach to developing better, more effective ideas. Let me know what you think.