There is an inherent flaw in living in the online fishbowl. You begin to think that your opinion is informed.
There is a gaping chasm between those who do, those who have done and those who talk.
Take this morning's news about Rupert Murdock not allowing Google to index his content. The web laughs. Bloggers and tweeters scorn this decision. And while many of those sharing their opinions are smart, Rupert Murdoch has a track record. The guy has built a media empire. I didn't. You didn't. He did.
We can have an informed discussion around the technical feasibility of "turning off Google." We can debate the business strategy, and whether or not this will help in the long run. But before we talk, remember - he has built a media empire. He has amassed massive personal wealth. He has done what many have said all along was impossible. I can't say the same.
Twitter, YouTube and Facebook may not be the platforms of tomorrow. We may move on, just as we moved past Second Life, Friendster, AOL Chatrooms, GeoCities and MySpace.
Marketers and agencies that focus on the platform will need to reinvent as our online behavior matures and shifts. Smart marketers, agencies and brands are not focusing on platforms or current opportunities, they are looking at the behavior driving users and consumers to, within and around these platforms. Today's tactic has to become tomorrow's strategy. And tomorrow's strategy cannot be about a shifting platform, it has to be about the one constant - human needs.
The technology will shift. Human behavior will evolve. Human needs won't.
For all the marketing lessons we have learned over the past 100 years of industrial marketing, we have learned far more about the invented industries we have created (for example, media) than the users we have been engaging.
The marketer of tomorrow will not be a technologist, but they will understand the implications of technology. The marketer of tomorrow will act more like a savvy religious leader than a snake oil salesperson, or economist. They will learn that human needs and behaviors do not exist in a vacuum, and that the wisdom of the crowds and recommendations of peers is a stronger driver than marketing messaging.
We have only begun to understand human behavior, let alone communal behavior. We aren't even close to mapping individual or communal behavior models to economic models, be they sales or media. The evangelicals of social have brought us some a number of wonderful theories, but I do not believe we have are close to market maturation.
Social is in it's infancy.Our forward progress will not come from technology progress alone. We are on the cusp of gaining unparalleled insights into what makes people and communities tick. We likely will not know what to do with some of these insights at first. But I can tell you that the answer won't come from an algorithm alone. It's time to start studying our numbers as the people they are.
Inspired by the video below (Kudos to Sruly B for sharing)
The industry is abuzz with the FTC's first steps into social.
While social pundits have long been advocating the need for full transparency and self-imposed ethics, disclosure statements often feel disruptive within the context of the conversation. As a result, an alarming number of social participants fail to properly disclose their relationship with brands. This includes not only celebrities and mommy bloggers, but agency social leads, social consultants and brand marketers.
We need a better, comprehensive way to disclose both our relationships and the nature of these relationships without disrupting the conversation. In the near-term, I would like to suggest that this can best be accomplished by establishing a set of short-form disclosure statements that can easily be included in a tweet, Facebook message, blog title or blog post, without distracting from the conversation.
About a month ago I emailed a handful of friends in the space, asking for their feedback on an initial short-form guidelines document. After taking in their feedback, I would like to share the following set of guidelines. Please share, comment and critique. Let's get the conversation going!
This whole free meme is pretty hackneyed and sooooo "three weeks ago" but given some recent experiences, I thought I would share some perspective.
When there is scarcity, Free is a blessing.
It's 1999, you're in college and you want music. You're tight on cash and you want an mp3, so you hop onto Napster. Sure, the first three files you downloaded sounded horrible, but the fourth was the perfect rip. You waded through the junk to get to gold. Because there was a scarcity.
When there is perceived freedom, Free is an expectation.
We expect pretty much all of our online content to be Free, especially text content. A couple of years ago, we laughed at the Wall Street Journal for maintaining their subscription model, even (shudder) online. We lived in the age of freedom, and equated free expression and virtually free distribution with free content. I'm still not convinced a production model to create great content exists in the truly Free model, but time will tell.
When there is something on the line, Free is a burden.
When your client wants to launch on Twitter and there is a hiccup in the system, there is no number to call. When you are using GMail for your small business and the mail goes down, there is nothing you can do. When you are counting on a buddy to fix your car and the fix doesn't quite work as promised, there is nothing you can do.
Free is great. Free is relatively democratized. Free is nice to have. But if you are doing anything of importance, don't count on free.
Just because it's there, doesn't mean it's right for every occasion. If the right choice is Free, proceed strategically and with caution. You rarely own or control Free. More often than not, Free is a borrowed platform. Plan accordingly.
If you live, work and breath social, you probably believe that it is core to the future of marketing. Justifying that belief by say, demonstrating Social ROI however, is a bit harder. Justifying a commitment and ongoing investment before proving that ROI is even harder.
The writing is on the wall. Interruptive advertising is in decline. Content can earn People trust and listen to their peers. Brands can now be like peers. So we should learn to market like people, right?
Here's the issue: the C-Suite doesn't read the writing on the wall, they read the ink on the balance sheets. And without investing seriously in social measurement, the balance sheets aren't going to tell the full story. But the case to make this investment is slow getting to the balance sheets. And so, the case to make social core to business is slow to advance.
Forward looking execs look up from the table and read the wall, they invest in growth opportunities. They don't just experiment in tactics, they invest in strategies for tomorrow. But until measurement gets sexier and more serious, social will continue to be an experiment for a majority of marketers.
The writing may be on the wall, but it's going to take a new crop of marketers to get it onto the balance sheet.
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