Michael Jackson – Rest in Peace June 25th, 2009

It’s been awhile since I’ve written a post. Twittering and work has kept this blog at bay. But recent incidents have really compelled me to put down my thoughts on the keyboard.

I was on Twitter at 5:40 when rampant news about Michael Jackson’s supposed death started circulating. It was a bit of a frenzy on twitter as the community continued to post news articles, which were conflicting. No one jnew what to believe. TMZ first came out with the story but most of us waited for CNN to come out with an official word. It took a while to get through all the postings to figure out what was true. I called my sister to check the news to verify the reports..it took some time ..anyway, when it was all said and done and all news sources confirmed the inevitable it came with an overwhelming shock to me. I didn’t know what to think. I spent the next few hours just glued to the TV and my laptop just watching all my favourite videos and pouring over the accolades and reminiscence. I finally broke down Friday night…don’t exactly know why but I guess the realization that MJ was gone really hit home.

Let me step back…..I have always been a huge MJ fan. My reclusive childhood meant that going out with friends was a luxury, so I spent lots of time in front of the tube watching videos….specifically MJ, replaying the dance moves and mimicking the choreography, particularly the backslide aka moonwalk. My sister was a much better dancer than I so she was the standard I could only aspire to.

I still remember the Victory Tour 1984, Detroit. My sister and I won tickets through the local radio station. When the day finally came we showed up — one glitter glove on each of our hands, black jeans, white T-shirts and the signature single glove earing —- with keen anticipation when Michael would descend from his helicopter. When he did come on stage, utter frenzy erupted.  Our dance moves did not really play out since most of the fans, including my sister, were constantly screaming at his very presence. His style, his presence, his music was sheer genius. It was one of the most spectacular shows I’ve ever seen. Since then my love for this artist has not waned.

The controversy that raged some years back did not change who he was to me. I agree he was a still a child at heart that, however naive, wanted to make people happy either through his music or his philanthropy. His influence touched millions: artists, generations, young, old. Even the famed viral Cebu Inmate videos, which drew millions of views for the Thriller rendition drew attention 2 days after Michael’s passing with another tribute video for Michael of “We are the World”.

Ultimately, the man who lived, in my mind, equalled, if not surpassed, the influence of Elvis Presley. He died young and the pressures he must’ve lived with as a celebrity, as a man trying to shed the cloud of scandal and constant negativity, must have been overwhelming.  Very few people could influence culture as he did; could corral millions into doing good and making a difference with his deeds. This video is what he has encompassed as a human being. “Heal the World” by Michael Jackson.

Cluetrainplus 10: Thesis #89 We have real power and we know it. If you don’t quite see the light, some other outfit will come along that’s more attentive, more interesting, more fun to play with.

I have been privileged to take part in the 10th Anniversary of the Cluetrain Manifesto. I was made aware of and signed up for a blogging event in which 95 bloggers each write a post on the same agreed date, April 28th, about one of the “95 theses” from the Manifesto. Details about this event and Cluetrain’s history are found here. I will provide viewpoint on thesis number #89.

For years marketers like me have believed that advertising had the strength to influence consumer attitudes and behaviour. Advertising had more power when ad vehicles were few. As consumers, we were easy to get a hold of – we read the same papers, listened to the same radio programs, and watched the same television shows as everyone we knew.  Marketers had it easy…but it was rare for consumers to see an ad that was relevant to them. That was ok for marketers because 2% response rate or a break-even ROI was all they required to deem a campaign successful.

These days, technology has made it increasingly difficult to reach consumers. Media has become fragmented. Access profileration has allowed the consumer to be in multiple devices simultaneously including:  access from radio, TV, mobile, MP3s, search, print, billboards, videogames, IM, email, video consoles etc. Overlay the incredible explosion of the number of radio and TV channels, magazines, newspapers. This pace of change is making it increasingly difficult to pin target consumers down with a relevant message at the right place and right time.

It’s become increasingly apparent that the difficulty in reaching the consumer has been compounded over time. Access proliferation has put the consumer in control of how, when and what media they consume. At the same time these same channels are giving the tools to communicate to many people at a much faster pace. Universal McCann’s Worldwide Comparative Study on Social Media Trends, April 2008 indicates the growth of social media since 2006. Some highlights include:

• 73% of active online users have read a blog
• 45% have started their own blog
• there are over 184 million bloggers worldwide, with approx. 1/4 from China
• 57% have joined a social network
• 34% post opinions about products/brands on their site/blog

People are talking about brands to each other and surprisingly many brands are oblivious to this; or if they are aware,  they don’t realize the enormous impact it has to their reputation as a company.  The power shift from the corporation to the consumer is apparent. Advertising messages do not influence as effectively as marketers have always believed.

The very medium that divides the brand from the consumer also has the ability to bring them together. Consider this stat from the Universal McCann Study:  36% of active online consumers think more positively about companies that have a blog.  Start-ups have easily figured this out and from day one are leveraging the conversation with the consumers to help shape and evolve their businesses. They have figured out that unless they listen and respond to the market needs, there will be no market for their product or service offering. Coming from a start-up, the lack of big marketing budgets forced me as a marketer to really understand social media if I was to effectively drive reach:

• Use the networks to bring awareness of your offering.
• Engage with relevant target groups to help you fix the current bugs and improve your product over time.
• Take it on the chin and be willing to accept the good with the bad.
• Continually engage your consumers for feedback. Develop relationships and nurture them over time. Do NOT bail on your community.

Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point” provides the best illustration of the power of conversation. He points out, ” I’m convinced that ideas …. move through a population very much like a disease does….Ideas can be contagious in exactly the same way that a virus is.”  It doesn’t take much effort to pass along a cool idea but the very nature of one idea being passed along from person to person can result in an epidemic. “The virtue of an epidemic, after all, is that just a little input is enough to get it started, and it can spread very, very quickly.”  In this way, the effectiveness of word of mouth begins to produce a clear picture of the power of the individual:

Dell found out the hard way how consumer opinion could negatively impact their business. Now, the emergence of Ideastorm, and Twitter engagement has catapulted the company into social media success and has effectively put their Dell Hell days behind them.

Customers talking about brands are making it clear what they want, how they want to be serviced, and what they consider good value for their dollar. The great thing for marketers is that engaging in these discussions limits the guessing game. Companies can now provide a product or service that the customer wants….what a concept!

Other top brands are getting on the band wagon and they are capitalizing as early adopters:

• Starbucks Coffee created a site that allows users to submit suggestions to be voted on by Starbucks consumers, and the most popular suggestions are highlighted and reviewed. Their heavy presence on Twitter has also helped the company to disseminate information and gauge consumer opinion in real time.

• Zappos and CEO Tony Hsieh have become known for embracing Twitter as an essential tool for exceptional customer service. Tony, himself, through his Twitter account has become accessible and has helped personify Zappos as a company who is friendly, trustworthy and helpful. Twitter is ingrained in the company culture..so much so in fact that the Zappos site aggregates the Twitter streams.

• Ford Motor Company and its head of social media, Scott Monty have used the channel as a way to inform the public in real time of company happenings especially during periods of volatility. It was this kind of transparency in communication that helped quell much negative public opinion and, in my view, has helped elevate Ford’s brand presence above GM and Chrysler during the government bailout period.

So, for those brands that are afraid to dip their toe in this new conversation, who are afraid to engage with consumers, it will only be to their detriment.  Consumers will continue to speak about your company and your brand(s) with or without you. Social media is not a fad. It will continue to grow and evolve and as new devices are invented, conversation will multiply at alarming rates. The opportunity for big brands and businesses is enormous. Begin to engage in discussions at a peer level…listen and understand…develop important relationships…and build strong brand advocacy and a sustainable model in the meantime.

Credits for this thesis go to P Furey and A Wong for some really cool slides I used from their presentations.

How Social Media Challenges Traditional Thinking

I often wonder what was the tipping point for social media? Why is it receiving more attention now than ever? It has always been there and those in the know — whether they are the tech savvy or the digital youth — saw its benefits much sooner than the rest of us.  But now it’s really gone mainstream:

• Every radio station, newscaster, broadcast media has a Twitter account. My late night TV news station uses it as a crowd-sourcing mechanism to gauge immediate opinion on key news issues;
• Charities/causes are popping up and its organizers are wising up to the fact that they can raise awareness and donations within hours of launching their campaign;
• The newspaper industry is dying as consumers increasingly look online to find their news and information for free. As a result, a large scale shift in ad spend is expected in 2009 away from traditional print and broadcast to online. eMarketer verifies this transformation:

• Marketers have been told that this channel not only offers true measurability but it results in strong customer engagement and sustainability;

For someone like me, whose marketing roots have evolved from traditional mass to direct and database; then to online display, search and now social media –> my profound learning comes in understanding that it is a medium that continues to evolve and has yet to establish standards for marketers. I continue to hear that no one should have the right to call themselves “social media experts” and while I believe that is absolutely true, I will place my bets with those marketers and organizations who are using this medium everyday to establish their brand, and create a true understanding of their customers.  These guys practice what they preach. Other industry notables have gotten their names because they’ve seemingly held the answers to a space that was virtually untravelled by the mainstream. But I have yet to see any validation of their preachings.

Could it be that the new US President Barack Obama will be known as a key instigator in bringing this whole notion to the masses by his very acknowledgement of the pervasiveness and influence of technology and its ability to shape consumer perception and build incredible momentum?  The strength of Obama’s campaign and his revolutionary move into office are based on the ideals set by the Founding Fathers: Election for The People and By the People…. and NOT by the lobbyists or constituents who have traditionally influenced policy and government spend. He has seemingly abolished this practice and has brought on a new idealism of transparency (as per the video: White House 2.0: Social Media and Government Transparency)

As I evolve Ammo Marketing in Canada, the social media space is exciting and yet daunting. I have been able to convince some clients that traditional research does not compare to the unfiltered, unmoderated insights they will get from social media. The very research has opened clients’ eyes who become keenly aware of the honest commentary on their brands: the good..the bad…and the ugly.  This immediately creates a sense of urgency to jump into the conversation and clarify misperceptions and diffuse detractor comments.  Little by little, participation in this new media is slowly revealing its true worth: as a true engagement device that leads to a sustained dialogue and eventual impact on revenue.

One of my staff came to me today and was so excited to be in a ground-breaking and evolutionary space.  As someone who supports client initiatives by participating in relevant discussions, she is delightfully surprised by the willingness of people to embrace corporate presence and engage with them peer to peer with no strings attached. It’s amazing how much people are willing to tell you if you give them the platform to speak.  The results we’ve seen have been immediate. But be warned, it will take some time to fulfill that ROI. Effort must be consistent and committed. Consumers will become your advocates if you continue to maintain that connection and you openly respond to their concerns.

Christopher Barger, Director of Social Media, General Motors (http://twitter.com/cbarger) said it best: Look for the return on conversation…not immediately…but when it comes it will sustain itself long-term.

Social Media Case Study: Even those with integrity can be banned

I’ve been holding off writing this post for some time partly because I because I didn’t want my emotion coming through in the post.  I was truly hurt when I realized I was banned from a Mom site (which will remain nameless to protect the truly innocent), which, by the way, is an amazing site that caters to moms — working from home, professionals, stay-at-home moms –> a truly engaged community that readily contributes and share experiences with each other. It’s only now that I feel comfortable writing this because I want to portray a very pragmatic view of the incident that happened and provide a viewpoint that we all could learn from. It taught me a valuable lesson about the internet and some of the dangers of the social web.

It’s not worth rehashing the incident in detail. Suffice it to say, I feel I conducted myself with the utmost integrity but the situations were misinterpreted, and misconstrued. And although I rationalized and effectively (or so I thought) defended my position, it was apparent that this site  was unwilling to listen to explanation. I even had a friend and manager –> someone of  authority and status, vouch for me and help clarify the situation. But to no avail.

It’s quite defeating when I make repeated attempts to access the site and the following text is  on my screen: “Hessie Jones, you have been banned from (xxx site)”.  To this day I don’t know what went wrong. Anyone that knows me knows that I am someone of integrity and would never do anything purposely to manipulate a situation. My husband says I suffer from “everyone-needs-to-like-me syndrome” and  I will try incessantly to justify why I should be liked.

But now that I have some clarity, and less bitterness towards the situation I have come to realize that if I were in their shoes, I probably have done the same thing.  I’ve also come to realize that a “keyboard” that unites individuals across the social space cannot and will not ever really be substituted for face-to-face contact. Relationships can begin over the net but ultimately every one is a faceless, nameless entity. Who you are is ultimately determined by what do and and what you type onto your keyboard. We do not have the benefit of looking someone in the eye, or conversing with them face-to-face. We are unwilling to totally submit and trust individuals whom we haven’t formally met. In my case, the site was unwilling to give me the benefit of the doubt.

That’s why what you do and what you say can ultimately be held against you if you’re not careful. I would love to be asked back to the fold and start connecting again. Maybe this time I’ll buy lunch:)

Twitter Aggregated: Commands, Best Practices, Strategies and Executions..it’s all here…hopefully

I am in the midst of providing indepth training for a client on Twitter. This is a “Get Started Version”. I’ve spent the last 4 hours researching blogs and document sites to provide me with this information. Here’s what I’ve come up with. If you have more info that’s relevant to newbies, please let me know and I’ll add it to this blog post.

Getting Started:

1)    Remember to create your profile in Settings:
•    Make sure your profile is complete. People decide to follow you based on the richness of your profile.
•    Make sure you upload a picture. It’s always nice to know who you’re connecting with.
•    Add a website URL  or better yet a blog or destination where you can invite conversation.

2)    Who to follow:
•    Use http://Twellow.com to target the users. This will depend on the account you created and the objective for the account. If it is to sell your product, then target people talking about your company, or products that your company offers.
•    Follow your friends first. Then look at their string of followers to determine whom you should follow.
•    Use http://grader.twitter.com to determine the top tweeps to follow — these are the influential voices in the twittersphere.

3)    What do I tweet?
•    Listen First: figure out what people are saying. Is there anything of value you can add? If so chime in.
•    Always provide value: is there information that you have first hand that you think would benefit others? Provide the link and let others know.
•    Emphasize another person’s tweet: if you think it’s important, then RT (retweet). This not only makes the other person appreciate that you’ve recognized their contribution, it also opens you up to further followers.
•    Promote your programs ONLY once you’ve created credibility: This is OK to do once in a while. If others see you have contributed valuable content, then the more likely they will come to your site.

4)    Tweeting long URLS: Since you’re constrained to only 140 characters, many times you need to use tinyURLS or similar functions to truncate your destination URL.  You can use your client Tweetdeck to shorten URLs before you post. It gives you more room to add some commentary to your post.

The DOs and DON’Ts:

Potential Executions:

1. Customer Service: Anyone who has customers – B2C, B2B can use Twitter to quickly listen and respond to customer feedback before problems escalate or to activate brand ambassadors…
2. Crisis Management: Using Twitter for Crisis Communications is much about preventing an isolated issue from becoming a full-blown crisis as it is about communicating to the public once a crisis has hit. Twitter is a fast way to respond and maintain an open channel.
3. Corporate Reputation Management: Twitter offers an outlet for your brand’s personality and humanity. A Twitter handle is created to share the brand personality from real-live people behind the messages being Tweeted. It’s easy to see what others are saying about your brand and the topics of interest and create a strong presence within those conversations.
4. Event Activation: The real-time ability to connect with others and share experiences makes Twitter a great platform for individuals, or companies to use during a major event. Live-Tweeting an event can be used to create a completely new channel of conversation and a way to enhance the physical experience of the event. Combining Twitter with blogs, video and other social media efforts provides more ways to interact with the content and experience you’re creating
5. Product Promotion and Sales – A successful sales and promotion plan is based on identifying your audience, providing useful content, and being prepared to engage in the conversation. When done right, your followers will become loyal, and also advocates for your brand and your promotions.
6. Issue Advocacy – Twitter’s ability to connect people with similar interests can be harnessed for the greater social good with non-profits and issue advocacy organizations creating a community and providing useful information to those they serve, volunteers, donors and other supporters.

Commands:

From the web:

•    D username: sends a private message to a specific individual
•    @username: sends a public message to a specific individual; this message will archive in their replies tab, and be visible on your profile page
•    RT username: retweets content from another username. Use this function to amplify a specific message from someone you’re following.

From your Phone:

•    ON: turns phone notifications on
•    OFF: turns phone notifications off
•    STOP, QUIT: stops all messages to your device immediately
•    FOLLOW username: turns on notifications for a specific individual
•    LEAVE username: turns off notifications for a specific individual
•    D username: sends a private message to a specific individual
•    @username: sends a public message to a specific individual; this message will archive in their replies tab, and be visible on your profile page
•    WHOIS username: returns bio info for a Twitter member
•    GET username: returns the last update from a specific individual
•    FAVE username: marks the last update of a user as a favorite
•    TRACK word: returns updates from the Twitter community containing the tracked word
•    TRACKING: returns a list of words you’re tracking
•    UNTRACK word: stops tracking a word
•    UNTRACK all: stops tracking all words
•    INVITE 4155225678: invites a friend via SMS/text message to join Twitter
•    STATS: returns statistics

Essential Twitter Tools:

1)    Tweetdeck.com is the most popular client, using adobe air technology. Leave this on your desktop, instead of going to browser. Also these clients may be more accurate in seeing who’s replying to you. Through Twitdeck, you will be able to see four columns (or less) based on your preference:
-    posts from ALL friends
-    @ replies
-    favourites
-    Twitscoop ie Buzz trends on Twitter
-    Direct messages

2)    Search: Use http://Tweetscan.com to see who’s talking about you, your brand, or a topic you’re interested in. Sign into tweetscan so you can can create searches by keyword and have the ALERTS sent to your email box, similar to Google Alerts. You can dictate frequency as well

Also, http://search.twitter.com/ – searches Twitter by keyword. Initially, this was summize.

**For people who talk about your brand, it’s important to 1) follow them  2) respond to them on a timely basis

3)    Tagging Content: You can start to use the hashag “#” to add metadata around any tweet. This becomes more important as we rate and tag content. You can see the aggregated data on http://tweetscan.com . Here’s an example of #myfirstjob

4)    Alerts: Often, people will blog about the conversations that happen in twitter, the conversation shifts back to blogs. As a result, I setup Google Alerts for the phrase @hessiej or any specific keywords.

5)    Paste the Twitter Badge on your Site: http://twitter.com/badges – use a flash or html version of your twitter handle and post it to your website. Use it to aggregate traffic to your twitter page for e.g. dealing customer service issues real-time. Be careful — be ready to handle an inordinate amount of traffic.

6)    To specifically target users and categories, use http://www.twellow.com// . Twellow is a site which takes the geographical information and bio information from your Twitter account and uses it to categorize your profile. One of the great things about Twellow is it allows you to find people with similar interests who you can follow and interact with.

Enhanced Services:

1)    To take Twitter UP a NOTCH: Power Twitter :
Download the Firefox version. Here are the features:

-search – not on original twitter
-search scoped to a specific user
-status history peeking on mouseover
-Facebook status updates – as long as you’re logged in, it provides friends’ updates shown as status’ on Twitter
-inline YouTube, Flickr, and TwitPic – instead of URL, shows full pics, video which you can play inline.
-url expansion – allows you to see actual topic as opposed to greeked URL.
-url translation to page titles
-open web update (news feed) mapping

2)    View the latest tweets of upcoming trends on Twitter through http://twitterfall.com Updates fall from the top of the page in near real time. Unlike other Sites, this only tracks trends. The trends are listed on the left hand side of the page. Click on one to view the relevant tweets.

3)    Get the latest stats on the Top “Tweeps”,  Twitter Apps, Top Twitter Topics and Trends from http://tweetstats.com.

4)    FAVRD: most favourited tweets on Twitter. Search by keyword and see who else has favoured a particular tweet to identify like-minded contacts.

5)    See what’s hot right now on Twitter: http://www.twitscoop.com is a trendcasting service that aggregates the top topics on Twitter and presents them in a visually rich tag cloud. You can hover over each cloud to see a pop-up overview of the discussions around the topic or click through to dive deeper into the analytics of the conversation volume and duration and also participate directly. TwitScoop provides the ability to search keywords and usernames to analyze the dialogue and frequency behind them.. See it also on your client: Tweetdeck.

6)    http://twittercounter.com/ FIND TWITTER Influencers and level of activity: Provides an interactive chart that chronicles the quantity of Twitter followers for any given username. The results are viewable by week, month, and quarter and the service will also predict the future volume of followers based on the average growth/loss over time. The chart is embeddable as a widget on any profile, blog, or Web site.

7)    Share your photos on Twitter through http://twitpic.com/

8)    Twitterific http://twitterific.com A compact client that publishes tweets, shows unread tweets, has easy access to profile pages, shows either public or friend timeline, and more. This is a downloadable widget.

9)    Aggregation: http://Friendfeed.com puts all of our RSS content onto one page, making it easy to see from one glance (rather than going to different properties) and you can even reply from friendfeed to different tools. It’s smarter to organize around people, rather than tools. Add your bookmarks, facebook, myspace, and twitterupdates all in one interface.

10)    Measure the power of a user’s profile through http://twitter.grader.com/ . Just type in your username and get graded. The score is calculated as a percentlile of @users that have been graded. This is based on the number of followers you have, the power of the followers, the power of your updates, the completeness of your profile. Also use Grader to find the Twitter Elites — the top in your location and the Top Tweeps overall. Note, having an Elite follow you helps increase your ranking.

Please reference this link for other Twitter tools. It’s from Sociableblog.com.

Managing the Gray Lines of Reputation

I was intrigued by the following post from Peter Kim’s Reputation Matters. At its core the post makes sense indicating that your online conduct, who you associate yourself with and how you engage in those relationships have a strong bearing on your credibility. I agree that your number of followers is not a correct measure of your credibility but the quality of the relationships you’ve built with your network.

The quote that caught my attention from Peter Kim’s post was: “Thus we require personal interactions to help bridge the trust gap. These consist of content and quality within direct conversation. Recency and frequency matter here which should temper the “monetary”/intangible risk of any action. Behavior bundles in here as well.” In a space where relationships have been traditionally built through honest and authentic interactions, this should ideally be the norm. But we have to realize that this space is changing everyday. Marketers are starting to see the true value of social media and the wealth of brand conversations and opportunities to engage with customers will set the ground for another wave of change.

This leads me to Peter’s response to sponsored posts in which he said, “I believe that monetization leads to loss of objectivity sooner or later.” He referenced David Charbuck’s post entitled “Shooting Fish: Blog Sluts”. I read David’s post and I think he has polarized the view of bloggers. It’s nice to idealize a world where writers/bloggers have integrity and do not, in any way, prostitute themselves for the almighty dollar. The reality is that it happens with the emergence of the blogs. Everyone has forever been trying to figure out the monetization of new media and inevitably 100 ideas will unfold and a handful will be tried. Writing used to be a profession, a craft that required strong skills that were honed overtime. Today’s reality is that everybody and his brother can easily create a blog and can, with the plethora of social tools, spread their own messages to the world. That being said, Social Media 101 has provided some rules about acceptable behaviour.

This space is continuously evolving and the new media is now the sexy new channel that’s enticing to marketers because they’ve been told it’s a great way to engage directly with your customers, get immediate feedback, and build long-lasting relationships. Social media proliferated in an effort to flee spaces where advertising dominated. Now, it’s not so easy to hide from the throws of the large corporate dollar.

As a marketer I counsel clients on the value of social media to their brand but I also make them aware of the DOs and DON’Ts and the rules of engagement. The spiralling economic conditions are drawing more companies to this space to begin figuring out how to manage their reputation and start engaging with their customers. The reality is that ROI and defined timelines do not create the luxury of time to engage and develop these relationships from scratch. In most cases, companies need the help of influencers to help them make those introductions and accelerate those messages.  But those relationships have to be real from the beginning. I agree that “money” cannot play role in the relationship.  The friendship has to evolve naturally. But introducing marketers to influencers can evolve into trusting relationships, even if the initial introduction was to to help drive business. The influencers I have reached out to must, on their own, believe in and buy into the vision and activities of the advertiser. It is incumbent upon the influencer to walk away from the initiative if he cannot authentically and sincerely advocate the advertiser’s brand.  It’s not clear black and white. What I’m seeing today as a result of the initiatives we’ve created, are true relationships beginning to form between influencers and advertisers. That is also helping fuel the positive conversations about the brand and change perceptions in the meantime.

The true social media advocates have to also evolve as this space evolves. Understanding where to draw the line has to be taken on a case by case basis. Your actions will be scrutinized and your reputation will be judged by others but ultimately if you conduct yourself with integrity even your loudest detractors can’t fault you.

I love my Moo

What do you get relatives for Christmas who have spent many years accumulating everything under the sun? Who want for nothing in particular? And who don’t fancy any of the new electronic gadgets or games that technology offers?

I stopped guessing and realized that what most grandparents (I am assuming ages 65+) want is time in a bottle: the luxury of capturing precious moments and recording them and keeping them forever. We have the luxury of having a close family so we spend a lot of time together. But there are so many recorded moments, but not enough picture frames, and little time to print and stuff them all in photo albums.

So this year I decided on something different: I have always loved Moo and their unique concept in business cards. They’ve always been a conversation piece when I’ve distributed mine, and consequently, I’ve been able to create Moo-converts in the process. So, when the Mosaic frame came out, I went to town and started going through all my digital photos and picking out the perfect pictures to fill up the frame.  The grandparents just loved it because it captures all the important events that happened this year — all in one frame.

I saw a bunch of other ways people have used these Moo cards.  Here’s another one I love: It’s from LUZIEyear. Just fab. Thanks Moo!

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

Redefining the US Political Campaign: Obama’s successful rise to the US Presidency

I had the distinct opportunity to attend the Rotman Lecture series to watch an insightful presentation by Rahaf Harfoush, a key member of Barack Obama’s Campaign that helped reshape the way political campaigns are run.  Ideally, the voice of the people should be represented and to garner that support means listening to their concerns, and persuading them that you will answer those concerns. The Obama Campaign took it one step further: It harnessed this support by arming people with tools to help spread the message and making them feel integral to the campaign.  This provided incredible individual empowerment that caused an explosion of smaller campaigns that fueled the Obama fire. The Campaign unleashed its brand to the masses and the public embraced it and made it stronger.   A great example of this is the Yes We Can Video by Little Will.i.am, an initiative developed by supporters who took Obama’s message, made it their own, and spread the word. It became synonomous with the Campaign and eventually amassed over 14.5 MM views.

For the first time, as far as I know, the financial support for this Campaign truly was bourne out the masses. Traditional political support from constituents  ie the rich, corporate and organized interest groups have strongly influenced and directed the decisions and policies of past presidents.  Could this be the one time that Abraham Lincoln’s view of true government has come to fruition?  “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”  I urge you to view this presentation and share it. I think it’s a great model, not only for modern politics, but for modern business.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…

Adapt or Die: The current economic crisis creates a much harsher picture of what lies ahead in 2009.

I read a pretty compelling, albeit morbid, email the other week from Jason Calcanis, founder of Mahalo.  He spoke about “The Start-up Depression” in the wake of current economic conditions in the US. He followed up with an equally forceful article titled, “Good News for People who Hate Bad News“. It sounded more like Armageddon was imminent. His words were harsh and foreboding:

“The severity of what has happened can’t be underestimated. There will be no white knight. Even the massive coordinated government action–including the first global rate cuts and bail outs–has done nothing to stop the panic or create a bottom (at least from where I sit). Bottom line: there is zero chance of a short or medium term-rebound.  Zero.”

It’s clear that he’s not overexaggerating.  Market conditions are impacting investing. Here are some harsh realities:

• Just yesterday, Tim Hortons has decided to close many of its stores in New England citing lackluster performance.
• The big car giants are rationalizing big time and talks of merger between GM and Chrysler come out of a necessity to survive. It’s being felt close to home as families in Oshawa – mine included – are shaking their heads wondering where it all went wrong. In past economies these institutions have taken care of their employees, where you were seemingly guaranteed employment until you retired. The union would fight for the best benefit packages for their workers and the carmakers acquiesced – all at the expense of the company’s eventual survival.  The funny thing is that GM, Chrysler and Ford’s  market share was  being taken away from the foreign competition AND their business did not adapt, let alone, anticipate what this could mean in times of serious downturn. And now they’re scrambling.

• Banks are going to feel a softening in credit sales, and mortgage services. Credit card companies,  which would traditionally promote low introductory APR for 6 months don’t have the luxury of making these offers today. Mortgage rates will be at prime plus for the time being. Banks have no choice but to secure existing investments and mitigate risk.  This “Death Spiral” as Jason Calcanis’ labels it, will impact consumer spending, so consumers will become much more aware of reducing their debt → the very necessity that have kept financial institutions going……until now.

• I went to the mall the other day and took a chance to observe. There were sale signs in many of the stores but the prices were not indicative of perceived discounts. Traffic to individual stores was pretty light. I noticed my favourite place, “Linens and Things had closed up shop – it had recently gone bankrupt — and a few more smaller shops had popped up in its place … a glimmer of optimism or maybe foolish hope?

There are those that equate today’s crisis to the Depression of the early 30’s. I don’t know if the coming year is going to be as doom and gloom as everyone predicts. I agree that people and companies will tighten their belts and look to create efficiencies, and produce more with less resources.  While it’s upsetting to even think about how the jobless will make ends meet in a survival-of-the-fittest economy, I have to wonder about those who are fortunate to have secured their jobs. What kinds of pressures will they have to endure as they are forced to do the job of 3 people and continue to meet their performance goals, which probably will remain unchanged?

Businesses will have to start developing strategies that speak to these challenges. To sustain in these trying times, companies will need to create stronger efficiencies while not risking the health of their employees or business.  Here are a few areas that I foresee businesses adapting:

1.  Spending on accountable and measurable channels needs to be a primary focus. Metrics will validate performance and channels that can provide true attribution on a CPA and CPC will see an influx of traffic.  This means increased online spending.  But media companies be warned: you’ll need to prove out channel performance and provide increased optimization strategies to win your clients and keep their business.
2.  Search Engine Marketing will see an increase in business mainly because budgets will have shifted from traditional branding channels and because search conveniently relies on consumers who are already engaged within the purchase cycle. It’s also a channel that’s highly measurable and much more efficient dollar for dollar compared to offline or even online media.
3.  Search Engine Optimization is an absolute must for businesses with an online presence. You need to ensure that your site ranks high on search engines and can draw tons of relevant organic traffic. This will be especially important for companies who have low marketing dollars to spend.
4.  Social media marketing will begin to see more traction in the coming year simply because it’s very much a nascent space and there are no standardized ad practices or industry rates that have been established.  The state of the economy will push more consumers online → the social sphere will see incredible growth as consumers become involved in information exchange and conversation. The organic nature of this space provides a large spectrum for brand building and influencer programs. It’s still relatively inexpensive but also highly measurable, providing strong qualitative and quantitative data to prove its value.
5.  Retention will be tantamount to acquisition. The low-hanging fruit for most companies will be retaining their existing customers. This can be done through email and existing customer touch points: telephone, retail (where applicable). Stronger customer service will be just as important to mitigate churn.
6.  Vendors will play a more significant role in client businesses. Companies who have downsized will increase their reliance on vendors to make initiatives happen. It will be more important for vendors to step up, provide the additional attention to their clients and work harder to own the results as much as their clients. I see somewhat of a shift developing in these relationships as a higher degree of trust creates more of a partner mentality.
7.  Bartering will become more prevalent. This is how original deals were created. Creating true value exchange between companies and a resulting win-win scenario can help companies through the rough cycles, and potentially develop enduring and profitable relationships.

Perhaps riding out this storm smartly will give companies some clear guidance in managing a future of uncertainty. Perhaps, it’s a lesson for all of us: Count your blessings now ’cause nothing is forever.

Here is a video I found with Bugs Bunny. It is a true metaphor for “The Death Spiral” we’re currently facing:

Social Media Success Stories: Final with Alejandro Reyes of Successfool.com

I apologize for my lateness.  I’ve learned so much from two very cool people who have given me amazing insight into this space where there are no established rules. Joselin Mane and Alejandro Reyes, you guys are a few of a handful of people in this space who just “get” it; are willing to try new things, stumble along the way and carve out new paths for the rest of us. Thanks again for allowing me into your world. I strongly encourage everyone to follow Joselin and Alejandro on Twitter. Here are their accounts: Joselin Mane ; Alejandro Reyes

Here is Part IIc of Social Media Success Stories – my interview with Alejandro.

HJ: It looks like you believe that there is a future in display advertising. I was having a conversation with a friend, who says “People’s purchase behaviour will always be based on emotion”. Regardless of what medium you end up using, people will purchase based on what their mindset is at the moment, whether or not it’s planned or impulse. That has not changed regardless of new formats that are introduced into the ad world. Whether you use an SEM, social media or display format, the consumer will get to where they’re intended to go.

AR: Very interesting… Carlos and Lupe talked about behavioural and targetted type of advertising. When they do their ad buys they’ll go off of demographics and they’ll do a split test on a certain product, and see what converts. So , know your demographics and incorporate tests. These guys do split tests 5 to 7 times a day. So banner advertising is all about split testing. Also, Gmail, Yahoo! and Facebook are using profile information to target relevant ads ie if I’m interested in cars, I’ll get served a Mustang ad. It’s more intuitive type of advertising. Before advertising used to get me so upset because they were so irrelevant. But now if I go someone’s Facebook whose interested in knitting, for example, they are probably going to see a knitting ad. So it’s interesting to see ads tied to people’s profiles and interests. I think that’s where advertising is going.

HJ: Having worked at Yahoo!, they understand that exposure from an ad needed to move away from impressions and more towards performance ie click-through (CTR). Taking it one step further, the addition of behavioural targeting provides a better way for the advertiser to increase CTR performance, but it’s also more expensive to do that. And for advertisers, are they willing to pay the cost for the targeted group they are trying to reach? As well, there are not a lot of places that are doing it well except for Yahoo!. Now, social media sites are under pressure to monetize their sites and they’re starting to incorporate more advertising opportunities. Facebook has received backlash because their users were made aware that their profile and behavioural information was being used to target them for advertising purposes. In this sense, it defeats the purpose of why Facebook was launched in the first place. Everybody talks about the inability to monetize a social media site. You’re talking about it from the perspective of creating authenticity, building credibility and selling it on your terms to your friends and followers as opposed to using the tools on the site.

AR: You’re totally right because it worked for me and I think it can work for other people as well. I just think that people can go out there and for people that want to monetize their site, they have to follow a process to get to there. So why not take that timeframe and add value to people’s lives even though it takes you 3 months or 6 months. Go out there and start it. Don’t completely stop your business but do it as a side project simultaneously. Go to Twitter and connect with your audience – they are out there anyway. But test it and see if it’s working for you.

HJ: How much as your traffic grown: now vs. April when you launched?

AR: It’s so funny because people get on me because I don’t really track all that stuff. On Compete.com I grew 17.9% last month. When I started my site (I don’t know what people think of Alexa) I was at 1 million (est) and now I’m at 120,000. I did that really fast. I went from 600,000 to 300,000 to 120,000 in Alexa. And I’ve been so busy with projects lately that I’ve only blogged about once in the last few weeks. If I would’ve blogged the 3 days a week that I started out with, my site would just be crazy right now. And that’s why I’m revamping my blog to really take that traffic to the next level. But you know, earlier on (June) I started seeing 20,000 visitors then it dropped because I had the baby. Then it started to go back up last month and towards the end of this month I’ll boost it again with a big contest to find the best impersonation of me. Because I’m very loud and crazy and very passionate guy and that’s how my videos are. So, I’m going to give people an opportunity to make fun of me and impersonate me and hopefully that contest will go viral and promote the new blog post. And that’s what people have to do: they’ve got to mix it up and do interesting things that are unique and different to get people coming back to their site. Some people get to the point where they’re not posting enough. Eventually they don’t post at all and they abandon the blog. If people love you and you have a good audience, you will be forgiven and you can be right back to where you were if you do some creative, unique things. And that’s what I’ve done with my blog: I’ve mixed things up and made things different and with this impersonation contest I’ll be right back where I am and get that little boost of energy that I need. I’m getting a green screen, an HD camera and I’m going to do produced show-type videos. I just want to take it to the next level and give people what they deserve. I’m also going to do a lot more podcasting.

HJ: You’re actually using a lot of the social tools out there. And for those looking in, it seems like a daunting task. They’re saying, “Why put in the time? But it’s not really all that difficult, is it? Do you have to be tech savvy to do all this stuff”?

AR: No, it’s funny because I do internet marketing all of my offline friends and family think I’m a tech geek and they ask me, “Hey I have this issue with my computer, can you fix it for me?” and I say, “Dude, I’m a marketer, not a tech guru.” I have an i-phone, I have a Macbook Pro and when it comes to those things on the internet: search, Skype and recording an interview like this – I can do that stuff. But one thing about social media is that you have to like people because if you don’t like people it’s NOT going to work for you. If you are a jerk, it’s just gonna be magnified online especially in social media. First, you have to be interested in people. Secondly, you have to be interesting and to do this, you focus on your passion and you‘ll build your brand around your passion. And for me, I’m all about momentum. In the first 30 days from launch, between Monday and Friday and sometimes on Saturday, I was on Twitter for 2-3 hours a day and people may say that’s a lot of time. But what happened after that was that I created so much momentum that other people started talking about me. Now I’ll spend 30-40 minutes a day on Twitter and people are still talking about me; people will still connect with me, message me and will still follow me. So, when you create momentum, you can maintain that momentum. It’s going to cost you something now in terms of your time or it’s going to cost you later on in your business where you didn’t take the time. Your results long term are going to be impacted: your traffic, your conversion, your effectiveness and your influence online. I’m the type of guy who likes to pay for things up front even though it might stink to sacrifice some time. But long term, I believe that if you build it right the first time and your work really hard, opening the lines, you will create so much momentum that you’ll be all over the place on the internet. You can’t argue with 17,000 backlinks to your site. That’s insane and I have friends who are SEOs and they can’t believe it. A 4 month linkbuilding campaign – a “spammy” link building campaign will give you the same results. But this was authentic; it was about connecting and getting in the trenches, working side by side with people. I believe it’ll hurt you in the long run if you’re not willing to take the time out right now, work the extra hours ie get up earlier and go to bed later —- just do some of these things. People will say, “I can’t afford the time”. I’m a believer that you can’t afford NOT to do it right now because your business depends on it. Some people think it will magically happen because you have a Facebook account and a Twitter account that will make you this interesting social media person. It just doesn’t happen that way à you have to go out and be willing to put the work into it.

HJ: This has been really inspiring. And I connected with you because it’s evident you have a lot of value that you have given to so many. There are a lot of small businesses looking for that holy grail. I think part of it is within social media and if you have the right approach and the commitment then anything is possible.

Thanks again Alejandro.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… C: wait… SD: wait…