What a week, huh? If you haven’t been paying attention, you missed a ton. Here’s a recap. Oh, and spin on over to New Frugality to take a look at a cool side project that Dave’s part of.
1. Pinterest is officially huge – and possibly overrated.
Heard about Pinterest yet? Well, we don’t wanna explain it – we’ll leave that up to the experts. Like Francisco over at Social Mouths. His post tells you just about everything you need to know about Pinterest.
What’s the PR takeaway?
80 percent of users, according to Francisco, are female. Thus, know your audience.
Now, I’m officially hooked. And almost caught up. Why? It’s a quality program(me).
What’s the PR takeaway?
Storytelling is NOT going anywhere. Thus, learn to write – and learn how to tell a story.
The richness of prose is not JUST because people spoke more formally back in the day (the 1910s). The complex characters, the story arcs that are going for years. When’s the last time you actually sat down and planned your business for the long term?
3. Susan G Komen for The Cure didn’t read the tea leaves.
Yeah, it’s a firestorm. But, as Dave shared on Facebook earlier today, the real issue here isn’t pro-life vs. pro-choice, or access to women’s health care. The real issue is “pinkwashing.”
What’s the PR takeaway?
Think things through, and don’t be a bully. Thus, just because someone wants to give you money in exchange for association with their brand – make sure that’s a good idea.
Komen underestimated how polarizing this issue would be; as a result of their off-again, on-again support of Planned Parenthook, they alienated first the Left, then the Right. AND, as a result, they are now subject to more questions – from the Left, Right AND Middle – as to how they spend their money, what they spend it on, and whether it’s all supporting their cause – or just pinkwashing.
In the midst of launches, re-launches, business development and general “blinders on” focus on work, the following article from this past Sunday’s Chicago Tribune caught our eye at Area 224.
Ah, rankings. Especially squishy rankings that tell squishier stories – such as who is more “influential.” Who has more clout? Who has more reach?
We’ll let others discuss the proprietary algorithm and rankings, but we want to ask these questions:
Can you measure clout?
Should you care?
Real clout depends, frankly, on your objectives. Trying to change opinions, or trying to sell something? Looking for someone to recommend a pair of shoes, or a provider of professional services?
Since we’re fans of objective-oriented marketing here at Area 224, this should be a ginormous “well, duh…”
The Chicago Tribune list of the most influential Chicagoans means absolutely nothing to you if none of the people can help you solve whatever your problem is right now. However, since we’re in the Social Media Marketing era, no doubt you’re gonna see a whole bunch of service providers popping up giving you the answer to the question that you don’t have.
Objective. Oriented. Marketing.
Mark Ragan – great guy, by the way – does not do my company one iota of good if I am a financial services firm looking to find new clients – his “clout” is limited to PR and corporate communications.
Paige Worthy – a friend, an actual Facebook friend who I have met in real life – can she use her “clout” to get me a table at the hottest new restaurant in Chicago? Do I even want a table there?
Influential Chicagoans? Sure. But so are scores of other people on Twitter, using Facebook – and scores more who wouldn’t touch either with a barge pole.
I’m going to use my clout to help do what now? Depends. I’m going to outrank you one place, and pale in comparison to your reach on another.
Arguing about who has more of what is pointless. Measuring that which cannot be measured makes no sense at all.
Get back to work. Stop obsessing with meaningless numbers.
How Influencer Sausage is MadeThe problem with influence? I don’t have any of it.
Well, I have SOME influence. Why, recently, as I was tweeting with my good friend Danny Brown, it dawned on me that I should check my Klout score.
60! My Klout Score is a 60!
Crap. Not only is it a 60, I am a “curator.” Unless it’s a museum of Tim Ferriss books or Joel Stein artifacts, I’m not interested in curating anything but my own IRA.
(Sidebar, @Ira would be a cool as hell Twitter handle.)
Bummed out by my newly discovered lack of influence, I decided to spin on over to Social Fresh, because Jason Keath is a cool dude and wears T-shirts. White T-Shirts.
Seeing all the stuff on his site got me thinking that my site, Area 224, should be much more “optimized” to maximize on its influence and get us out of the “barely passable” grade of 60.
I decided to ask another close personal friend of mine, Gini Dietrich.
My question: “Does a Website Grader score of 98 make you influential?” Her answer:
“I don’t think it necessarily does. It’s just another number, like Klout, that people look at it when they’re trying to shortcut ways to find influencers.”
Wait, am I trying to “be” influential, or am I trying to “find” those who are influential?
Now I’m insanely confused.
Time to redefine influence. For your business. For your niche. For your industry.
Ah-ha! The point of the article: do you have an objective for your marketing? Your social media time? Your business?
If you need to be influential, start figuring out why.
If you need to find influencers, start figuring out what you want to find them for.
It’s a nutty game, this Influence stuff. Before you play, realize that there really aren’t any rules.
(c) SXSWThis is a guest post from Area 224 CEO Dave Van de Walle, who failed to get hotel reservations or passes or anything related to SXSW. In response, he is guest-posting on his own site.
I have been through Austin once. The crisp air, the live music, the smell of Spam.
The Austin, though, was Austin, Minnesota. The air was crisp, there was a guy strumming a guitar at a local eatery, I’m sure, since it was the early 1990s. Spam is made there, by Hormel.
Austin, Texas, and I have yet to officially get acquainted.
It’s about this time every year, when South By Southwest hosts its Interactive festival, meetup, gathering and, we gather, Social Media Love-in.
I, however, am not going to be there. I’m not sulking, I’m not pouting. I am, however, busy, otherwise occupied, launching stuff, and won’t invest the time.
If you are in my boat – willingly or not – here’s a quick How-to Guide.
How to Blow Off SXSW and Still Be Cool
1. You are NOT “blowing it off.”
This is very important. You are not absent because you are too cool. You are not absent because you are not cool enough. Work on this line:
“We were going to be in Beta mode by now, but the developers and I needed to retool the product offering. It’s still in Alpha.”
NOTHING you say will be more important than the above line.
I have missed several events in the past NOT because I was blowing them off. I was “in launch mode” or “retooling the product offering” or “triple-booked.”
2. You will NOT use the phrase “Mission Critical.”
This phrase is not only passe, but it is an affront to those who attend SXSW because they consider SXSW attendance to be Mission Critical.
For some startups and marketing teams, SXSW IS Mission Critical. Therefore, your tiny team or your huge team or your offshore developers are NOT, I repeat NOT doing anything MORE or LESS important.
This does NOT contradict what is above. Retooling your product IS Mission Critical. The point here is that you can’t let Marketing get out in front of Operations.
3. Share the good stuff but DON’T pretend you’re there.
“Forwarded without comment” is your best friend. “H/T” is also nice, a “Hat Tip” to those who found the thing first.
(This means, for instance, if your last name rhymes with “Floss” (in theory), you can’t register for every event as if you are attending.)
Using words like “jealous” or “winning” to describe others’ SXSW Exploits is not cool. Also, using the word “winning” to describe anything but what is happening during “March Madness” is also verboten.
Whatever you see that catches your eye, that’s cool, that will add value to your audience: by all means, share it.
4. Plan Other Events.
Plan your own event, find others who are planning events, plan out the rest of your 2011.
It’s hard to miss the SXSW run-up, as it seems everyone and their brother has something going on there. But, alas and alack, you missed out on accident. (As opposed to our team, which is, in reality, retooling our product launch.)
Austin, I’ll miss ya. Maybe next year. Maybe not. I need to keep you guessing.
We’ve all been there, right? Head down, focusing on our work. Then…
Thanks, Free Lakota Bank
Something pretty, shiny, and really distracting.
Doesn’t have to be a precious metal. In fact, it often ISN’T a precious metal. A new tool, a piece of software. A tablet that, while not from the Mount of Olives, might as well be.
The next new thing – distracting you from the task at hand, which is probably the last next new thing.
Pretty crazy, right?
And often, in our haste to make noise, make a name for ourselves within an organization – or make some easy money – we’ll chase that new shiny object and completely abandon the old shiny object.
If I had a dime (preferably a one ounce silver coin) for every time I was pulled into a meeting and sat down with someone who wanted the shiny object just because it was the shiny object…
So, how do you avoid Shiny Object Syndrome? We don’t have all the answers…but, especially if you’re either (a) running a startup or (b) sitting inside corporate walls…here are three tips.
1. Zero in on one objective. There’s a guy who is semi-legendary in Internet Marketing circles named Paul Myers. He runs a service called TalkBizNews. His is one of those emails that, in all honesty, stops me in my tracks because it always has something good.
Friday, I got an email from Paul and it had this advice for zeroing in on one objective. Quick summary:
First, pick one thing that has a definite success metric to it. “I will sell 100 widgets.” “Finalize corporate policy guidebook.” Something with a yes/no answer at the end…Didja sell 100? Didja finalize the guidebook?
Next, set aside 30 minutes and brainstorm. Write down everything you could possibly do to make the answer to the question YES.
We did this. 30 Minutes while kid 3 was watching some programming on Friday night. (Bad parenting?) Great exercise. (Note: some of you can expect a phone call from Area 224 HQ.)
2. Ask: can we really afford this? It’s easy to deflect to a budgetary excuse: fiscal year starts in July, procurement needs to be involved, that sort of stuff.
The real question though is all that other stuff that comes with. The extra expense piled upon a “free” tool. (Or “FR*EE” or whatever the internet marketer people spell it as these days.)
Back in our U Sphere days – Dave’s version of getting an MBA – we once called on a college admission director and got him on the phone and said, basically, “We’re gonna give you free access to our service for one month so you can try it out.”
And the response, basically, was NO. Why? In retrospect, all the stuff that was on this guy’s desk made our Shiny Object just another thing he’d have to worry about. He had total control in this case – no budget issues, no procurement department.
But no time to invest, either.
3. Wait. At least a day. (In the case of anything produced by Apple, you can probably wait longer than that.) The shiny object, though, might tarnish after a few hours.
The newness will wear off: be it your Twitter Explosion Strategy or your Facebook 100,000 Fan Creamy Goodness Strategy.
(Neither of these are actual strategies, mind you. Tactics. Tools. Not Strategies.)
Shininess is often distracting, more expensive than you think, and temporary.
