I get this all the time: (skeptically) “What is Twitter?”
This is how I answer: “It’s a collective stream of consciousness that you can listen to and contribute to.”
Most of the time, Mr. (or Ms.) Skeptical non-Twitter users goes on to say this: “I don’t want to hear about some guy who’s in line at a coffee shop. And I definitely don’t want to hear about the color and consistency his kid’s poop! I don’t see the VALUE!!”
To them I say something like this: “How totally ignorant can you be? I mean, a simple effort of educating oneself (where are you life-long learners?) reveals all kinds of value. What you so shortsightedly believe is that twitter is nothing more than full-tilt lifecasting, which I agree is stupid, a huge waste of time and an un-followable offense unless you’re a celebrity of some standing. What I’m talking about is mindcasting which is incredibly valuable, virtually priceless in fact.”
Let’s break it down
Collective Stream:
I dove into this in a previous blog post, but basically the internet has become a giant think tank. Why anyone would pay a think tank for work these days is beyond me. The stream of consciousness is collective thinking and sharing at its best. The opportunity to garner tons of personal and professional value from simply listening to the right folks and the right time is electronic gold.
Listening:
My 3rd grade teacher always said, “You have two ears and one mouth, use them in proportion.” I’m going to adapt that and say, you have two eyeballs and one mouse, use them in proportion. (Yes, I know you type with your (2) hands, but not everybody has just one hand. Cut me some slack) I’m the first one to admit that there are a TON of people smarter than me on the internet adding, contributing and sharing everyday. I’m smart enough to know that if I listen to them, learn from them and adapt what they share to my own bag of tricks, then one day I will be one of those people. Maybe not in this lifetime, but definitely the next one.
Contributing:
Now I am the first to admit that I have done my share of lifecasting:
- Redsyn: Finished with the MTB ride. Missing: one lung. If seen, please DM @redsyn.
- Couldn’t help myself on this one – Redsyn: Just reported: Phil Michelson has contacted Tiger’s wife for tips on how to beat him. (insert rim shot here.)
But it’s really seasoning in the stew:
- Redsyn: For all you visual chart junkies This is pretty badass: http://bit.ly/ZwT7z via 6 tweets new @rloren.
- Redsyn: Why Design Thinking Is the Next Competitive Advantage http://bit.ly/7ieZPD
- Redsyn: Hey Business Leaders: ACT LIKE AN ARTIST! http://bit.ly/5waXED Yes, this means you.
What I’m really doing is contributing to the consciousness. What I’m really doing is being authentic. For the sake of my business (I’m a real person at Uboon2) and for my personal brand (I’m a real person behind the curtain). Like you, I am and we are tired of the BS, the close to the vest corporate way of doing things. We submit that rats and cockroaches like the dark. Therefore they are afraid of flipping the lightswitch of Social Media on. It shows just how hideous hiding really is. We’re also tired of the screaming lies companies and marketers continue to pump out. We’ve all stopped listening. Authenticity is the new differentiator. It’s the new value proposition.
Twitter is a great opportunity to be authentic, to build a brand (your own and your company’s) and to interact in a way that is becoming increasingly attractive (from a revenue standpoint) to potential marketers and consumers alike.
So Mr. Skeptical non-Twitter user, do you understand what Twitter is now?
Where to start… How about here: In a world and a generation where microfragmentation is a word my spellchecker is still unfamiliar with and a challenge facing businesses and marketers alike, “the richest source of insight comes from observing behavior,” So says BBDO President and Chief Executive Andrew Robertson.
The reason he says that is at the root of a study that BBDO did a few years back. At the core of the study published in BusinessWeek, are 5 daily rituals that it appears are universal. I may be taking a little license here by using the word “universal” since the researchers surveyed 5000 people in 21 countries and didn’t ask any of the “V.” Long live the 5th Column.
But I digress. Or maybe not. Rituals are funny things. They are religious, ceremonial, habitual and sometimes even pathological. They’re meaningful and frivolous. Sometimes even at the same time.
And apparently vegging out in front of the TV before bed qualifies.
The five that BBDO came up with that occur every day in every part of the world: preparing for battle, feasting, sexing up, returning to camp, and protecting yourself for the future” (the ritual before bed). According to the study, each label is meant to suggest a defined emotional state that permeates each set of behaviors. It suggests then, that even though we’re so different, we’re practically the same.
If the rituals are universal and globally we share similarities, then it stands to reason that gone is the national, regional local and microfragmented audiences we have been led to believe actually exist.
Sure, a man and a woman are different sexes (duh) and have different perspectives and even different ways our grey matter functions, but that which seemingly divides us, probably viscerally unites us more than we’d like to admit.
It makes sense then, for us as marketers to align our work to those five in some form or fashion. Here’s a great example from Nike of “Preparing For Battle” that breaks the code.
The familiar parts of that spot become resonance which sparks an emotion which leads to product recognition/try which becomes loyalty and leads to advocacy. KaBLAM.
What it is simply, is a brand that breaks the “rules” and establishes cultural significance.
The Study and Business Week article were written before the massive adoption of social media so I took the concept to the next level. Social media can be classed into those five rituals which is why people flock to it, sometimes not even knowing why.
If “returning to camp” involves meeting your peeps for drinks after work, then foursquare is a ritual inducing medium.
Twitter is a ritual inducing medium where “sexing up” means that teenage girls are talking about what they’re going to wear to a dance or singles lining up a date or the desperate are trying to find a hookup.
Blogging especially about food becomes a way that feasting is part of the social medial landscape.
Hell, if feasting is about reconnecting with your tribe, then you could argue that Facebook should change its name to Feastbook.
Brands NEED TO find a way to insert themselves into the conversation in a relevant and purposeful way, the same way Nike/WK did with their spot Awake. The Lombardi Trophy then for any brand is to break through and become part of one of these 5 rituals.
This is old!!! BUT… I couldn’t have said it better than this. And I’m not even a woman. Sarah Haskins is though…. And funny… which is way sexy.
Guess the yogurt makers missed the memo about the New Consumer seizing power. Chalk this video up to awesome.
You know the quote “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans?” Well that’s my excuse for the multi-month hiatus I’ve taken on this blog.
To come clean, my ‘other plans’ have been in the form of two under 3, twitter and a change in work.
Twitter has been the single largest digital time-suck in my life. I say digital cuz there are two little girls (both under 3) that are an even bigger albeit analog time-suck… ahhhh, the joys of being a dad.
But I digress. Twitter. It’s what got me in trouble, and what has got me back writing.
I had a chat on twitter today with @rotkapchen
She’s a guru. She’s a Texan. And she regularly posts stuff on Twitter that makes me smarter. And she’s the reason I’m back at this writing thing. You see, she went and posted a blog entry I wrote in relation to something she was commenting on. While I am flattered and honored, the first thing I thought was “Oh shit! I haven’t posted to that blog in months!” Which of course, makes me look like a tool. Which I am. Sometimes.
Here’s me not being a tool:
Paula is in fact a lot of fun to follow on Twitter. She is inspirational. The stuff she tweets on are mostly smart as hell… I say mostly cuz she sometimes mentions me. So I feel safe is saying she is my ambassador of Kwan.
I figure if I point out when brands blow it, then maybe my 6 readers (I’ve got more now!) might actually be learning what NOT to do. Similarly, If I point out GOOD and GREAT brands, then they might actually have something to aspire to.
In the GRAND SCHEME, these guys don’t suck as bad as these guys per se, but my own little personal experience forces me to put them in my new brand cartegory: SUCKBRAND
It’s taken me a while to post this… Too long in fact. But it’s relevant none the less. Christmas has come and gone, but it’s not over. Best Buy really screwed the pooch this year. As I tell this story, keep in mind they had a built in safety valve (They still suck though): Lucky for them, my daughter’s birthday was in late January.
So the first week in January, my wife and I are sitting on the sofa catching up on our precious “quiet time without kids” and she mentions that since my daughter’s Christmas gift didn’t show up on time, that I ought to check in with BB and see what happened…
Rewind to December 12th when I ordered the gift. SImple enough. We were headed to the in-laws for Xmas so rather than buy the item and schlep in on a plane, we sent it to the in-laws house. Now, by my estimation, the pony express could have gotten the product from their HQ in Minnesota or wherever one of their many logistical hubs are, to my in-laws house in the allotted time. Which if your keeping score at home, is 13 days. 12 if you don’t count Xmas day.
Well that didn’t happen. And they don’t even use horses and carts anymore, they have trucks and stuff now.
Well, you can see the problem. Right before the holidays (around Halloween) They put stuff on their site that claims they’ll deliver before Christmas if you order by such and such a date… Even right up to December 23rd for those slackers among us.
Now there could be a million reasons why it didn’t get there until after Christmas. Like an extra water stop for the horses. It doesn’t really matter. And it doesn’t personally matter to me, because ultimately, my kid is 2 and she doesn’t understand grand scale disappointment… YET.
And her Xmas gift became her birthday gift.
But what this shows, is that fairly often companies are missing the point. they miss the point that their big behemoth logistical coolness takes the human connection out of the equation. Customer Service matters. Let me say that again. CUSTOMER SERVICE MATTERS. NO WHERE ELSE IS YOUR BRAND MORE VIVIDLY APPARENT TO YOUR CONSTITUENTS THAN IN THE CLOUD CALLED CUSTOMER SERVICE. That can mean a lot of things. From me walking in to a store and talking to a sales person to calling to cancel my credit card.
In the grand scheme of things 3M is a great company. Great product. Fairly good brand. Not flashy, but solid. So when they awkwardly
tried to get into to get into the viral business, the wheels of their “Jag” came off.
Melanie Phung’s article pretty much nails it. But I’ll add this: AUTHENTICITY.
I harp on authenticity with my clients all the time. Especially in today’s Web2.0 world. You can’t pull off all the subterfuge of old. 3M, if you’re going to do it, do it right. In 3M’s case, they could have taken advantage of the fact that this idea was somebody else’s and built upon it, embraced it, admitted it wasn’t theirs and celebrated it.
From Melanie Phung’s post: “If you’re a corporate marketer interested in getting into social media marketing, viral video promotion, link bait, etc., I suggest consulting with people who know the communities you’re targeting. Any of us could have told you that stealing photo ideas from the community and using them to pimp your office supplies is not a good move.”
Instead, you stomped on the little guy. Authentically acting like the insensitive billion dollar company that you are. What makes you think that anybody in cyberspace wants a piece of that?
Stomping on the little guy feels yucky. It’s the kind of thing people criticize you for in cyberspace where you have no control over what they say. Your behavior is in fact your brand. So if you really want to come across the way you did, then more power to you. Good luck in winning hearts and minds. If on the other hand your intentions were what I guess them to be (generate buz, seem hip and fun in an otherwise no nonsense category) then I estimate you missed the mark by a couple of light years.
Being authentic and headed in the right direction with your brand isn’t easy. It takes massive effort and vigilance. It’s a long haul to change someone’s mind, to build trust and loyalty. And with the transparency company’s face and the fickle audience and the saturated market space, the question really becomes: How many stupid 3M-type moves can you afford before it’s too late?
Marketers Beware. This web2.0 thing is messy. It’s a bee hive meets a wild west frontier town. Stick your hand in, you’re gonna get stung and run outta town by a posse you never saw coming. The flip side of course is that if you’re not a bee already, you better bust-ass to think like a bee… and make sure and strap a six-shooter on.
When posting new stuff. I figure this is a good way to start back after vacation. After all, coming back from vacation reminds me of a joke:
A not so nice guy dies and goes to hell. The devil meets him at the gate and says, “Alright, you have died and come to hell. You will spend eternity here, but you get to choose how to spend it. You may choose one of these three doorways. Once you choose a door, you may not change it. So let’s get started.”
The devil opens Door One. The guy looks in and sees a couple of people standing in cow manure up to their waist. The guy says, “No way, let’s move on.”
The devil opens Door Two. The guy sees a few more people standing neck-deep in cow manure. The guy says, “No way, let’s move on.”
The devil opens Door Three. The guy sees a bunch of people standing knee-deep in cow manure drinking coffee. The guy says, “Great, this is the one I will chose.” The devil says, “OK, wait right here, I will get you some coffee.”
The guy settles in with his coffee thinking that this isn’t so bad. What’s the big deal?
After a few minutes the Devil’s voice booms over the loud speaker: “Coffee break’s over. Back on your heads!”
At what point did anyone in that story ever stop consider the larger picture? Brand damage ring a bell? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Where are you when we need you Ferris?
First of all, if you’re Yelp and you let this kind of a suit take place without trying VERY HARD to nip it in the bud, ultimately, your ability to be trusted by your users is crushed. It may not happen overnight, but it will. As an example, I WAS a user (admittedly infrequent) and now I’m NOT. Sorry, but I can’t trust that you won’t let the restaurant I pan sue me. Or you, after I post this. Just remember: FIRST AMENDMENT….
Second, if you’re the backcracker or any business who can be reviewed online (and that’s FREEKIN’ EVERYBODY), how bad do you look for suing some guy over what amounts to $375.00? Write it off and move on. One guy’s opinion does less to hurt your reputation than your abuse (in my opinion) of the court system to “make a point” and the ensuing press. Mr. Chiropractor, who’s gonna trust you now? And if you want help trying to figure out how to fix these kinds of issues in the future, call me. I’ll be happy to recommend an anger management therapist to you and turn your business away, even in this economy… Okay, can’t stand it, I wouldn’t take your money but I would give you some advice.
You may have already done this, but since I didn’t follow this story like an afternoon soap opera, here’s what I’d tell you: For (insert your deity here)’s sake be proactive. If you genuinely arewere a good guy and made a mistake, let the guy you sued and the world know what you did or tried to do to make it right. Use the internet and maybe even Yelp as a forum. It’s that simple. Net net, don’t look like an asshole. Oh, and don’t use that whole bait and switch gimmick anymore, nobody likes that. Even if you make good in the long run, it always leaves a bad taste.
Okay so what did we learn class? Only this: First you gotta be REAL. Nobody likes a phony. Second, provide POSITIVE EXPERIENCES. Otherwise, people give you bad reviews on the internet and a law suit ensues. Third you gotta be CONSISTENT. Don’t charge me one thing one day and something different the next. Don’t even tell me you’ll charge me one thing and charge me something else. If you KEEP ON providing real, positive experiences day after day, then you build TRUST. The trust leads to LOYALTY and presto…. ASPIREBRAND!!!!
Or you could be a chiropractor who sues a patient over a bad review and ends up with a SUCKBRAND.
Sorry dude, if you don’t have one now, it’s where you’re headed. Don’t blame me, you did it to yourself. I’m just pointing out what everybody that has an ounce of common sense already knows.
So? For the rest of you, which one do you WANT to be? And which one are you GOING TO be?
Today is a good day to get started.
By the time you read this, there will be a DISPUTED Champion of College Football. I’m writing this mere hours before the big kick-off to the supposed National Championship game. Riiiiight….
To illustrate what a sham this is, I offer a quote from our sad local paper about the Utah Utes: “We’re 13-0, what do you got?”… And I’m a Texas fan?!?! Go figure.
Any HOOOO, without getting too much into HOW “it” actually works right now, I’d like to point out that part of “it’s” problem is branding.
May we approach the bench your honor?
You COULD argue that the BCS is not a brand. BUT I’d win the argument handily, here’s how: Just about everybody has an emotional reaction to it, they make money (hand over fist) and they have a product (football). DING!
Oh I’m sorry…Thanks for playing; your consolation prize is the board game, Branding 101-Home edition.
Back to it – Nobody is really “bought” in except ALL the people and institutions that make said gobs of money. All the fans (ahem, isn’t that who the game is really for anyway?) Haven’t liked it for years. So to this I offer my branding eye to what’s wrong with college football:
Let’s first start by dissecting the name and move on from there. BCS…. bowl championship series; deliberately in lower case letters too BTW.
BOWL: I can buy this. It’s a bowl game. Everybody loves a bowl game period. Good tradition here too. Heck the Rose Bowl (and parade) is 111 years old.
CHAMPIONSHIP: (SFX: Squealing tires, cars crashing into each other) Seriously? I thought a championship was earned, not calculated. If it wants to use the word championship, then it needs to look and act like a championship. Otherwise, the savvy NEW CONSUMER will call BULLSHIT. Oh wait, they already have for years now.
SERIES: Really? Who’s this word for anyway? The fans? Riiiiiight. A series is like poker. Or baseball. Or hockey or… you get the point. There are a number of games at the end of which THERE IS ONE WINNER. Oh, and generally there isn’t a computer or fat fuck cat coaches and people who get paid to have an opinion sports writers deciding who wins the World Series…. It’s PLAYERS. ON THE FIELD. PLAYING the game. Geeze, I’m wound up about this.
So if we look further at how this brand sucks… I mean needs lots and lots of help, there’s the whole computational aspect of the “bcs.” To this I simply say WTF?
Try pulling that shit on Gonzaga, Appalachian State or the 1980 US Hockey Team. “Sorry boys, you’re really not even supposed to be here. The Russians played a much harder schedule and are a much better team so we the sportswriters and members of the world hockey coaches award the gold to the Russians even though…”
Net net, what’s missing from the “bcs” is the reason, the ethos, the core spirit of the game. Nobody watches college football or any sports for that matter to be told that some incomprehensibly complex amalgamation of opinions and performance-based computation decides it. We watch to see them play. To see if the Cinderella comes to the dance strapped with a pair of Air Jordans and bringin her A-Game. We watch it to see an amazing catch, an inconceivable impossibility on the field, To Celebrate human achievement, physical prowess and the limits of endurance. I could go on and on.
Basically it comes down to this: Money. I get that. But that has grossly deformed what could be and should be a beautiful thing. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for making money. Heck, I’ll even say that somebody SHOULD make money at it. The champion should stack some serious jing. But make it, stack it, count it and spend it for the right reason.
If you do, I submit, your skeptical audience will return and love you, and admire you. And every dime you thought you weren’t gonna make, because you were keeping it real, will actually (to your surprise) be there. Because, you will have given them what they want, just like Ray Kinsella.
