We’re out to prove a point with today’s post: Content, Community, Engagement and Influence are overused terms.

Photo by vox_efx - Used with CC License

If you think about it, saying that your company or your department needs a “Content Strategy” makes lots of sense. Since everyone is talking about Content, you should be talking about Content, too. (Content with a capital “C,” of course.)

“XYZ Company will use Content to Build Community, Drive Engagement and reach out to Key Influencers.”

Congratulations, that will be $5000. (Actually - we charge $5000 a day for sessions with companies to help them better market their products and services. If this was the result of the day-long session, you’d get your money back.)

If it were that gosh-darn easy to put together a Fill In The Blank Strategy for your company, everyone would be doing it, and you’d see literally thousands of companies out there making things happen with Content, Community, Engagement and Influence. But it’s not, and here’s why:

Developing a Strategy for ANYTHING without an Eye Toward Business Objectives is a Recipe for Disaster.

Your Content Strategy? Guess what, if you’re putting out white paper after white paper, writing countless press releases (or, preferably, using PitchEngine), and doing corporate videos interviewing key executives, there’s your Content. But it’s not your Content Strategy, it’s your Content Tactics.

Building Community is Great! We’re seriously all for it here at Area 224 – yes, we’re building a community around 12 Minute Marketing, and yes there will be more information on that in the days to come. But that community needs a common thread – not just an idea to “build a community.”

The Brand Builder, Olivier Blanchard, has a great piece on Social Media and Social Business Myths. Read them all, but #1 is the one we’ll point you to.

If you’re building a Community around your Awesome Product…Make Sure Your Product is Awesome FIRST.

Engagement is even more puzzling these days. Scott Stratten wrote a book last year called UnMarketing and the subtitle was “Stop Marketing. Start Engaging.” So, magically, everyone did! They stopped Marketing! And they started Engaging! (If you can’t sense the sarcasm there, take a look at my Twitter background. My eldest child asked me the other night “why is there a unicorn on your Twitter background?” For reasons like this, my dear.)

Actually, the story in the UnMarketing book about the guy at the Wynn who stopped his carpet cleaning duties to give a genuinely friendly greeting to Scott and get him to return? Uh, that’s engaging. In that they guy likes what he does, likes people, and genuinely wanted them to enjoy their stay.

Segueing to Influence in 3…2…1…

Does it matter that Scott is an Influencer? Not one iota – and that’s probably the biggest pain in the a** about this whole Content, Community, Engagement, Influence discussion:

Your Own Potential to Influence in Your Business Trumps That of Any External Influencer.

You’re passionate about something. That something gets shown somewhere in your business – now the potential to Influence comes through. Right? Does It?

We’re not going to claim to have all the answers here – we think we’ve built a dynamite Business Marketing and Coaching Course called 12 Minute Marketing, but there’s no way that our course, or any other course out there, is going to do you a bit of good unless you, frankly, give a crap about your business.

So…what’s the point behind the Milk Duds?

There’s a restaurant in Chicago called Lou Mitchell’s. They give out Milk Duds when you leave, after you pay the check. It’s a nice touch.

The Milk Duds are not their Content Strategy. The Milk Duds might help them build Community. The Milk Duds could make them ace a test on Engagement. And hey, Influencers LOVE Milk Duds, right?

It’s the food, the atmosphere, the ambience, the kitsch, all that stuff rolled into a bucket. That’s their Business Strategy.

Avoid the Buzzword Bingo and Focus on Making a Real Difference, on Real Passion.

Go!

Happy August 3. Did you know it’s Martha Stewart’s 70th Birthday? What Does that have to do with Marketing?

Thanks to freakgirl for the photo, used under cc license

To celebrate Martha’s Birthday, how bout borrowing from her playbook? Here are three quick ways you can make things happen with your business – using a few “Good Things” as inspiration.

Martha Loves Editorial Calendars

Open up any one of Martha Stewart’s magazines and you’re bound to find a calendar of some sort. And her calendars are not just covering the minutiae of her life – “water plants” on Friday the 5th – but giving you hints as to what is going on in the outside world.

So you know, for instance, that Labor Day is coming up in early September. This helps you plan ahead with things that might need your attention now.

When was the last time you looked three weeks, or three months out to see what was happening with your business, your industry?

Martha Thinks “Omnimedia”

Remember how crazy an idea it was to name her firm “Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia?” Even back before Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, Martha was everywhere. Magazines, books, web sites, a store where you can buy stuff with her imprimatur.

Seemed novel back then – taking pictures of a video shoot so you can use that information in your own magazine?

Seems rather brilliant now.

Martha was probably one of the first pioneers of the Content Revolution. Leverage. And leverage some more.

Martha Doesn’t Quit

Comeback after comeback, Martha Stewart does not let up. Sure, there may be less of a focus on her personal brand than there used to be – but the empire is still going strong.

Of course, she is very good at what she does – living the good life, home economics, celebrating the Good Things, some combination of that.

She no doubt had a vision of success and keeps moving toward that vision. She made course corrections along the way, pulled the plug on things that weren’t working well, and kept moving forward on things that were working well.

And she shows no signs of slowing down.

What can you learn from Martha Stewart? Keep these three ideas in mind – and, with a little talent and a little luck, you’ve got a chance at going pretty far.

Thanks, ChrisL_AK on Flickr

An annual rite of January, the Baseball Hall of Fame Election, got us thinking – when there’s a Social Media Hall Of Fame, who will get in? Where will the Hall be built? What will the induction ceremony look like?

Some Thoughts:

1. The Social Media Hall Of Fame will be reserved for those retired from Social Media. Like the Baseball Hall of Fame, where you have to be retired from the game for five years, it doesn’t make sense to put people in who are still active.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame does this a little differently, electing people and bands after they’ve been in the business for 20 years. It’s also in Cleveland, which, we’re told, rocks. Bringing us to point two…where?

2. The Social Media Hall Of Fame will be located in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Why? Social Media Hall Of Fame induction should really center around the authentic. Those who are truly authentic focus on the Truth or face the Consequences.

Plus: Truth or Consequences was a game show, and Bob Barker was the host.

3. The Social Media Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony. Unlike the People’s Choice Awards or the MTV Music Awards, the Social Media Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony must include things like Bacon, Slime (from Nickelodeon), and maybe a really schmaltzy host. Not Steve Harvey, but possibly Wink Martindale.

Is this beginning to sound like a really bad idea?

Ah, there’s the point of this post: we all want recognition for our efforts. We all want to get there honestly. We all want, maybe, an occasional star-studded event.

But yesterday’s election of two Hall of Famers – Roberto Alomar and Bert Blyleven – may have taught us a little something about the craft. The love of the game. Living in the moment.

Are we waiting days, months, years for the recognition we truly deserve?

We may keep waiting – especially in this modern world of craziness.

Danny Brown talked on his site about longevity at the workplace, and how the Japanese have companies that have been around for decades.

There won’t be a Social Media Hall Of Fame.

There will be little victories – in business, in life. You may throw 120 pitches one game, you may get shelled in the first inning of the next.

Don’t keep waiting for your induction. And don’t focus too too much on “Social Media” or getting into a “Hall Of Fame.”

Just go do stuff that’s cool. Enjoy the climb.

We’re off our soapbox.

Thanks, watradehub.com

The Daily Dose of Advice comes from Scott Stratten, UnMarketing himself.

“Reminder to take 5 minutes to reply to others today. Engage. Interact. Build.”

But how, really, truly, do you DO that? And can you invest only 5 minutes and make connections?

Well, yes. And no. We went with 10 minutes, you may want 15 or 20 or 30. But 2011 is all about small steps toward big things. So here goes.

1. Set the e.ggtimer. We said that you can learn from the big boys here, and there’s no bigger boy in the world of lifestyle redesign than Tim Ferriss. He’s the guy who first tipped us onto the timer. It is awesome for two reasons: (1) simplicity and (2) keeping you on task. We recommend you set it for 10 Minutes.

2. Begin surfing. We recommend you do this BEFORE looking at emails but AFTER getting your daily fix of Facebook and Twitter. Why? You want to get some mental cues from what you’ve seen on those sites – but you don’t want to make this reliant on what work is clogging your inbox.

Huh? Well, there are folks we are friends with on Facebook and connected with on Twitter who aren’t world famous. That’s part of the mission here. Learn from the Big Boys, but connect with the others, too.

3. Comment if you have something to add. We hit up a couple sites upon the recommendations of friends and contacts. On Quora, which is getting a tremendous amount of buzz, we had, well, nothing to add. Yet. But the standout site from Danny Brown got us thinking. And commenting.

4. Keep track. Chris Brogan recommends a spreadsheet or a Google Doc or a CRM program. Awesome.

Is that it?

Well, this should be part of a daily ritual. ESPECIALLY if you want to make real connections with real people.

“Everybody is an armchair marketer.” This was one of the quotes floating around back in my HR Consulting days. (I was part of the Marketing team for an HR Consultancy. It was fun, I learned a ton. More on that later.)

Saul Colt — feel free to follow him on Twitter — first got me thinking about “advice” and “the right way” and “social media” (all three; I’ve thought about each separately before) when he said something to this effect:

There is no right way. Do what works for you.

And there we are.

So, I’m guilty — a little — with this “Be Holistic” and all that. Not my intention — it seems that everybody’s an armchair social media marketer, too.

But the goal is not to point out that You’re Doing It Wrong…but, instead, to point at some folks who are doing it right.

Then, you make the decisions based on what works for You. Your business. Your social time.

Cool?

We are not sure this is the best use of brand dollars by Knob Creek.

With all due respect…this is just not focused. It’s the opposite of Nichification. Don’t despair, whiskey drinker…We’ll give some advice below.

First, the background:

Visiting LinkedIn, and someone in our network, who is in the SEO space and appears to be a rather smart cookie, had the ad you see over there right below all of the “Send a Message,” “See Profile” options.

And this jumped out at us.

What’s wrong with it?

Well, first of all, truth be told, we’re not against the marketing of alcoholic beverages. And we’ll assume that LinkedIn has a filter of some sort that only shows this particular ad to people who are above 21 years of age.

Once you get past that…Is LinkedIn really the place to ask questions about whiskey?

You’re on LinkedIn for professional connections. Professional networking. So, when I’m seeing what one of the smarter SEO people in the planet is up to lately – am I even in the mood to talk whiskey?

Beyond that…this is a poorly worded Poll.

They’re asking two questions. The first one asks if I’m a fan. What if I’m not? What if I’ve never tried the stuff? What if I don’t know the difference between Knob Creek and Boon’s Farm?

What if I don’t know the difference between “complex flavor” and “full-flavored?”

Since Area 224 is looking out for you, brand marketers, we’re not just going to raise a problem – we’re going to propose a SOLUTION.

In three steps.

Step 1 – Scrap the poll.

I’m not inclined to vote for or against alcohol when I’m on LinkedIn. I’m treating LinkedIn like a combination of Twitter and Google – I want to see what my network is up to professionally, but I’m also searching for something or someone.

Step 2 – Buy a bunch of laser-focused keyword ads.

You can spend just as much if you know what you are doing. If you don’t know what you are doing, find someone who does and get them to buy the ads for you.

Step 3 – Reach out to a bunch of bloggers and see if they want to try your stuff.

Turn them loose – let them comment on the full-flavor, or the fine craftsmanship, or the fact that they can really taste the aging. Or not.

You can invest probably a couple grand, watch what gets said, and get so many more insights than you’d get from the LinkedIn poll.

You’re welcome.

Do what this thing does:

We watched the infomercial for this bad boy, and we couldn’t help but think about Social Media Ninjas – and how they are often self-appointed and can rarely back up their claims of Ninjahood.

Let’s go to the Tale of the Tape.

The Base Unit – Ninja 1100.

The Ninja 1100′s base unit is the kind of blender your puny blender wants to be when it grows up. Armed with blades that aren’t just at the bottom, this keeps the flow of all the creamy goodness of your smoothie moving up and down while blending.

Imagine an army of little ninja warriors chopping blueberries into bits of antioxidants while barely breaking a sweat.

Pitcher, blades, etc. are all dishwasher-safe.

“More than just a food processor. More than just a blender.”

We could go on and on. We officially want one.

The Base Unit – Social Media Ninja.

Will use a bot-focused approach to get your Twitter account to 2000 followers, and will also use a bot-focused approach to get you a few hundred “Likes” on Facebook. Both of which you can choose to ignore when you realize there’s no real reason for doing this.

The Extra Pitcher – Ninja 1100.

You have GOT to be joking. There’s another pitcher? It’s bigger – like 70, no 72 ounces!

What isn’t even mentioned on the website – but is mentioned on the infomercial to a point where you won’t forget it – is that this machine turns “ice” into “snow.”

This is the key for restaurant-quality frozen drinks.

SNOW.

You can make 72 ounces of snow.

They even demonstrated a mocha drink that was nothing more than chocolate syrup and ice, maybe milk or coffee or something. 50 calories per serving.

The Extra Pitcher – Social Media Ninja.

What, you want more? We’ll give you more.

Except, as a “Ninja” of the Social Media type, we can’t totally tell you what exactly that “more” is.

We didn’t know you needed something like “snow” to differentiate your product from other products.

We were too busy focusing on the fact that we’re Ninjas.

The Dough Hook – Ninja 1100.

You need bread dough. Cookie dough. Dough for that Ninja Pizza you’re gonna make.

Enter the 1100′s Dough Hook.

So you don’t just have a blender, or a “snow maker,” but you also have a food processor that makes dough.

Awesome. Totally awesome. This might be the only kitchen gadget you will ever need – and you didn’t know you needed all of this.

The Dough Hook – Social Media Ninja.

What now? We have to make bread dough, too?

Our bots can’t handle that.

We give up. This is not fair.

Final Tally: Ninja 1100 – 3, Social Media Ninja – 0.

And what does this mean for your marketing – no matter what your industry?

Well, while the Ninja 1100 might seem to be positioning itself based on “Features” vs. “Benefits,” a closer look tells us that, in this case, a masterfully designed product can have “Features AS Benefits.”

Feature: great base unit with different blades and stuff.

Benefit: the only kitchen product you’ll need. (You benefit by clearing out your cupboard.)

Feature: additional pitcher is huge and makes snow.

Benefit: snow makes better drinks, you can please a crowd.

Feature: dough hooks.

Benefit: see the part about needing less contraptions in your cupboard.

The Social Media Ninja is likely to focus on “numbers” as your feature. And “leads” as your benefit. And maybe that can all be quantified. But still…give me a Kitchen Ninja over a Social Media Ninja any day.

Disclosure: Area 224 has no relationship with this product. If you buy one, you are free to invite us over for a smoothie.

Thanks, themomsguide.com

A positive experience at a big box retailer? And one that isn’t on Twitter or Facebook or (gasp) Foursquare – but IN THE STORE?

Maybe the move toward “The Social Brand” needs to start with brands actually being social – something we learned first-hand in a trip to Dick’s Sporting Goods this weekend.

We (myself, my lovely wife and the 3 #224lings) were in Glenview, IL – and, I took my eldest and middle to Dick’s while the others went shoe or clothes shopping or some such.

Big Box Retailers get a good virtual paddling now and again. Some of it is justified – as you don’t know what the service is going to be like, or you feel like you can have a better experience shopping online.

Our time, however, was positively notable for the following:

1. We could touch the merchandise. There were soccer balls and golf clubs. Flip-flops, more varieties of Crocs than I knew ever existed. Basketballs, which had a tendency to bounce on the floor.

No crook-eye, stink-eye or evil eye from anyone who worked there. In fact…

2. Anything we can help you find? If you’ve worked retail, this sort of question is better than the “are you finding everything okay?” we were told not to ask back in the day.

It’s also the kind of question that gets you to let your guard down for a half-second – “why, if I say ‘no’ I’d be lying because he could certainly help me find something, right?”

3. The staff made us feel like they wanted to be there. And they wanted us to be there, too.

The manager came up, when all five of our gaggle was in the lacrosse aisle, and asked us if we needed help with anything. Then proceeded to offer to high-five my kids. (All three accepted.)

What, young Jedi-master, is the point?

We’re all for Gowalla, Foursquare, Facebook Places. We love mobile apps, couponing, daily deals.

But there’s something to be said for “touch the merchandise,” “friendly, knowledgeable, genuine staff” customer service.

Got a restaurant, or a pizza place? What’s more important – feet in the door, or giving those who are inside the best experience you can?

Coffee shop around the corner – you can’t compete with Starbucks through volume – so why bother?

Tweets may be fleeting; check-ins and Mayorships and badges come and go.

But what’s the lifetime customer value of high-fiving your kid?

The Day After. This party did this, that party did that, we’ve moved this direction or that direction. We’ll get more done, we’ll get less done, we’ll be gridlocked. Good stuff, right?

Well, if you’re not in the political arena, you can still borrow some tricks from winners and losers after this Election Day. 4 nuggets of advice:

1. Get all your mistakes out of the way early. Tea Party darling Rand Paul said some “interesting” things about the Civil Rights movement. Taken out of context, they sound racist. Taken in context and, it can be argued, he’s reading the Constitution verbatim.

Oh and all this happened way back when, in the summer, when the Tea Party movement was just gaining momentum.

Contrast this with Sharron Angle, whose “you don’t look Hispanic, you look more Asian” comments were idiotic at the very least. Her mistakes were late in the game – so late that, in a “lesser of two evils” race, she was never able to get momentum back.

Test your silly notions early, not late. Get your slipups out of the way early.

2. Stay on message. Duh, this is campaign 101 stuff. Don’t stray, don’t waver.

Also helps to have a defined message. Where does your campaign stand on Immigration or Health Care Reform?

Remember “Hope and Change?” Pretty clear. Well-defined. However…

3. The alternative can be good. Here in Illinois, the Senator-Elect, Mark Kirk, didn’t really have to run a campaign that centered around anything but three words: “I’m not him.”

It was an ugly campaign – even by Illinois standards. But the “him” he wasn’t like was Alexi Giannoulias. AND Giannoulias ran on a campaign that, to this reporter, played up only one trait: his connection with Barack Obama.

It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to realize that, in a year where people are looking for alternatives to Hope and Change (see above), being something else is good.

Does your marketing play up how you’re the alternative? If not, can it? Should it?

4. Make Mom Proud. In a really, really, REALLY ugly year for campaigns, maybe we should all take a look at some of the old maxims. Or the old-new maxims. Like “never Tweet anything you wouldn’t want Mom to see on a billboard.” Or “Would you talk to your Mother on Facebook with that mouth?”

Not that easy in marketing – or is it? We have things like the FTC, the Truth-in-Labeling Act, even Federal CAN-SPAM guidelines.

Marketers know better than to ever bad mouth their competitors. So maybe politicians should learn from us?

Happy Post-Election Day. Now, go hit the campaign trail!

UPDATE: November 10, 2010 – we have removed the Amazon affiliate link in this post. All other text remains unchanged.

More than a best-selling book: a way of life for the buzzword-addicted. Here’s what’s wrong with Game Change(r)s.

Book from Heilemann and Halperin

If you think about the book “Game Change” you can learn quite a bit about when it makes sense and when it doesn’t make sense to use the term “Game Change” or its variation, “Game Changer.”

First, a layman’s definition, in plain English. Obama won not because he defeated John McCain, or even Hillary Clinton. He won because he campaigned against George W. Bush and Washington as usual. He was an outsider, outsider equals good, good equals electable. If you run a political campaign that accomplishes one of these things, congratulations: you have successfully created a Game Change. (BTW, if you want to get a copy of the book, our affiliate link to it is below. Rock on.)

In business, if you create a product or service that is a category unto itself (what they used to call a “category killer”), you are a Game Changer.

In fact, let’s use the 2010 elections and the holiday shopping season to give you a very short list of people, places and things that are right now “Game Changers.” For instance:

The Tea Party: Game Change. What’s most interesting about the Tea Party movement, to this reporter, is not its ubiquity but its lack of a concrete message. The seminal moment of this Tea Party is widely considered to be a rant by CNBC reporter Rick Santelli. Yet, hardly present in this current movement is any mention of derivatives, securities laws, mortgage-backed bond trading and stuff like that. (“Stuff like that” is a technical term.) The Tea Party appears to be about change – back to the Constitution in pre-bailout mode, where “Don’t Tread on Me” is a way of life.

iPad: Game Changer. It’s not a phone, it’s not a TV. It’s somewhere in-between. Gartner predicts that 19.5 million units of “tablet computers” will be sold this year. 54 million units are projected to be sold in 2011. The rules of the game changed: don’t sell people a phone, don’t sell them a computer, sell them something in-between.

Think about it in the context of what you’re doing in business: unless you are coming up with a new way of computing, or a new way of positioning candidates as you enter an election, you’re not a Game Changer.

Guess what: that’s okay.

We’ve bumped into literally hundreds of folks whose businesses are not in the middle of a Game Change. But they are watching the rules change and shifting their own strategy to follow along.

This can mean restaurants that tweet deals, or lawyers who blog, or fundraisers who abandon the old way of doing things and try something new.

You don’t have to be a Game Changer. But you should watch the rules of the game, and play along.