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

Sometimes You Fail.

This morning I awoke to find out a friend's 14 year old daugter had lost a her 26 day fight against an extremely aggressive form of cancer. It was especially difficult to stomache because there had been a community uprising to aid her battle.

You see, she was A- which I've come to learn is extremely rare and thus I and a bunch of others tried to leverage our social graphs to strir up a call for blood. A local TV station did a few stories, the local paper ran a story just this weekend. It was incredibly moving to watch a community (and folks that lived as far away as Ohio and California) come together to donate much needed blood.

If she had been a client and this had been a pr/social media campaign -- we surely would have had an Effie Winning Case Study as the blood bank was literally overwhelmed. The phone lines were jammed and it was standing room only in the waiting area.

Which would have been great..except for one big thing - she died.

Which drove home two really important points for me this morning:

First, sometimes you're going to fail regardless of everything you do. Your strategy may be inspired. Your tactics brilliant and your execution flawless. But in the end, a force beyond your control will sink your efforts and the business goal at hand will not be reached. But if that happens, step back and understand that. If you're an agency side person, study the situation and see if by chance you could have done anything differently to keep the failure from happening again in the future. Not in a "whose fault is it?" way but more in a post battle "let's learn from this experience" way like they do in the armed forces.

Second, it's just marketing. It's just money. It's just fame or Internet fame folks. Your real success is the love and friendship of the important people in your life: your wife/husband, kids, parents, friends, etc. Everything else -- clients, money and fame can be replaced... rather easily if you think about it. But the same can't be said for those all important relationships can it?

 

Think about it.

 

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 photo credit: By Hassan C

It's Not About You - Thirsty Thursday of Knowledge

Is there a right way to network in social media?

I don't know if there is only one right way, but I'm pretty sure there is at least one wrong way. Let me explain.

Over the last week or so I've been following a little dust up over in a LinkedIn group I joined. It taught/reminded me a lot about networking, especially social networking.

Long story short: this LI group is an offshoot of a Twitter hashtag. It was a small group on Twitter but over the last month or so the hashtag has gained in popularity and more and more folks seem to have created a column in their TweetDeck to follow/engage with this little tribe.

So one of the folks creates an LI group that you can ask to join and once inside, there are posts, a discussion where everyone posts their twitter handles (sort of a phone book of the group if you will) and such. All good.

So one of the folks in the group is an active networker... lots of friends on Twitter and tons of contacts on LI. He reaches out to many of the other folks in the LI group and invites them to connect on LI. Most accept but over the last few weeks a few have declined. So he pens a little rant post about how folks shouldn't offer to connect if they aren't going to take the connection when it's asked for.... on and on.

Lots of folks jump on and are either pro/con his rant.

Then the target of his rant comes on and basically says, hey, this isn't fair. The first time you tried to connect with me was via an LI invite. You never have spoken to me on Twitter and when I checked you out you had a ton of contacts on LI and I figured you were just a LinkedIn shark (code for spammer). So I said no. If you want to connect with me on LI then talk to me on Twitter first. In other words, she wanted a certain type of social media networking protocal to be followed before she was going to agree to that first real connection step -- accepting a LinkedIn connection.

Now this post isn't about who was right in this situation... it's about the right way to network in social media.

In the offline world we all make fun of the business card ninjas... you know the ones... Their idea of conference or trade show networking strategy is they can have a card out and in your hand before you have time to ask them for one. We make fun of them because the act of just offering me your card before you or I have even discussed what you do, what I do or how in the heck we might be able to help one another violates a cultural norm. Of course that doesn't stop it from happening, but it does render the approach pretty ineffective.

The same goes for online social networking. If the first time you talk to someone is asking for a permanent connection on LI or FB, then it's like you just walked up and offered them your business card. To many folks that feels icky... even if you think it's perfectly fine and would gladly welcome a reversal of the situation.

And that's the point of this post -- to remind you that it's not about you here. It's about the person you're trying to get to know. Make it all about them. Make a real, genuine effort to get to know them, to help them, to offer them social proof that you're a great person to know and have in their network.

Do that and you won't have to worry about people declining your invitations to connect on LI or become friends on FB.... because you won't be making any invitations... you'll be receiving them.

Or so I think... what about you? What do you think about social networking protocols?

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Should you rent star power or build it?

 

For as long as I can remember, advertisers have rented start power. Usually Hollywood actors, professional athletes or musicians that would, in exchange for large checks, appear in advertising, attend key events and use the brands in every day life.

And for the most part we feel like it works... or does it? A recent Ad Age article on the subject shared data that indicates celebrity endorser ads repeatedly under-perform vs non-celebrity ads. Add to this kind of data the obvious risk of the celeb doing something stupid or becoming yesterday's fad (with the public) and you have a high risk, high reward kind of thing.

Which got me to thinking... especially in this digitally focused viral world we live in... is it better for a brand to rent celebrity or help create it?

Take the group above in the YouTube video. They're closing in on a million views. And they should because the video is great. It's funny, engaging and heck, they're quite good I think. So if I was a brand that stood for joy or happiness or engaging fun... would, could I benefit from helping these guys tip? What if I put some money, effort and distribution power behind their video in exchange for some branding? What if I paid them to create a series of these Gleeesque videos?

Would that have power today? Would it generate a greater long term ROI than the traditional celeb endorsement type approach? Interesting question don't you think?

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