Thanks, life123.comIt has arrived. That wisdom that comes with a birthday that is divisible by 10.
What’s crazy is that I find myself ruminating on the past 10 years – thinking back to how turning 30 made me “legitimate,” and started a decade of, well, lots of stuff.
Is ruminating the right word?
Well, the very last thing I want anyone to do is be subjected to a load of crap on this site. So, instead, here are a few things I’ve picked up in the past decade:
Your significant other is likely definitely smarter than you.
Trust your gut.
If you have to choose between two or more opportunities: take the job (or gig or client engagement) that pays more money.
Some people will never get what they deserve. Get over it.
Often, the job that no one else wants is the job that provides the best opportunity for you.
Don’t be afraid of failure. (I ran a startup called U Sphere; it went under. People still ask me about it, want to know what I learned.)
Ideas are like water: the only way you’ll know if your idea is worth anything is to try to do something with it.
Remove toxic people from your life.
Working by yourself has its pluses and minuses. Consider both.
Don’t get hung up on what you name the product or service or business. Give it thought, sure, but there are more important things to worry about.
Avoid companies that are traded on the pink sheets.
Pick up the phone.
Don’t leave a voice mail message unless you absolutely have to.
Don’t read your own press clippings, if you have any.
When launching a business, think about sales cycle. If you call a prospect and they ask you to call back “next year at this time,” you are in the wrong business.
Put the Blackberry down when you’re eating dinner. (Kid #1 told me this in 2005. Stuck with me.)
The direct route is the best.
Being a Cubs fan is torture. Think long and hard before subscribing.
Being a Bengals fan means you don’t have to worry about watching the NFL playoffs.
A plus for someone in your circle does not necessarily mean a minus for someone else. Happiness is not a zero sum game.
If your business card is not a conversation piece, then you probably don’t need to hand it out.
Guys: on a two-button sportcoat, button the top button. On a three-button sportcoat, button the middle button.
If the boss asks you to lie, don’t do it. You may well lose your job, but you’ll be able to live with yourself.
If the other side in a negotiation won’t tell you who they are, who they are working for, or what they want with you, move on. It’s not a negotiation, anyway.
Adoption is just another way to build a family. Doesn’t make adoptive parents or kids any more or less special than anyone else. Just different.
Corporate America loves to say they’re “entrepreneurial.” However, at the end of the day, Corporate America hates hiring “entrepreneurs.”
Empathy is a nice trait.
So is politeness.
Belt and shoes should match.
You can wear an inexpensive suit – but if you add a pocket square, you’ll make it look much more expensive than it is.
Socks are an extension of the pant. Same color is best.
Your children may think someone else has a cooler job than you. That’s okay.
The best emails are sometimes the ones never sent. Ditto for tweets and Facebook posts.
Some people don’t want to have kids. Asking them why they don’t have kids is not cool.
Ditto people who are single.
The best way to build a business is to actually build a business.
Never turn down a chance to sit with a VC person, even if only for 10 minutes. And don’t waste their time: be succinct.
Life’s about way more than business. Maybe your passion is business, maybe it’s something else altogether.
Faith, Hope and Love are very important things.
The greatest of these, without a doubt, is love. (Yes, that’s Biblical.)
I’ve made connections, made friends, learned a ton, and am so very grateful for your time, your thoughts, your comments, and you just being you. All of you. You know who you are.
Trying to figure out why Dave from Area 224 is obsessed with Canadian Indie Rock? So was Dave…until…
At some point, you’ll start to figure out what exactly defines you. Then you become the target customer, and you want to discover more stuff like what defines you. Like this, from Constantines.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30yEWwQEYIk
So this video got us thinking: why them? How did we “discover” them?
Well, it actually goes back to these guys: Arkells.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFrTZe-wQPI
Who we discovered when we saw them, in Chicago, opening for these guys: Tokyo Police Club.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1yS7Jnq7qw
Which leads us back to our Holistic Social Media concept.
Here’s that photo again – my, this is a rather visual post, no?
(c) 2010, Area 224
See how “your business” is in the middle? Well, in the case of these three bands, replace the word “music” in the middle circle.
Then make it bigger, and tilt the other circles around…
Inbound Marketing FTW.
These guys have a presence on the social networks, there are blogs from their record labels, and there is a tiny bit of concert-oriented geo-sharing going on.
And, since we link above to the Twitter accounts of all three, you can see that there’s SOME Twitter activity.
But the winner, here, is video. AND the keywords associated with the videos – specifically on YouTube.
And the recommendations attached TO the videos – of other songs to check out.
AND THE COMMENTS.
In-between the obligatory “Justin Bieber” comments (positive and negative), you can find other recommendations. “I heard these guys live, but you should also check out Constantines.”
So, is there a “Right Way” to do Holistic Social Media?
The Canadian Indie Rock acts we’ve mentioned today are there on all the platforms – but the product seals the deal. There’s no right way – but having something that people like as the core of your business – That. Is. Vital.
Friday, we told you about a video that was “meme-worthy” – that told the Nativity story as if it happened today, what with all the social media story-telling potential.
That video was in Portuguese – and, since that’s what Brazilians speak, and Brazilians love their Twitter. Well, as of Monday, there’s an English version. (250,000 views since then. Probably one Today Show or Mashable mention away from explosion.)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHNNPM7pJA
While, IMHO, Portuguese looks so amazingly cool on the web, the group behind it scores serious points for whipping one up in English, too. They’re called Excentric and they’re in Lisbon.
Fitting that this is Post #100 – gives us a chance to premiere some stuff that, while not groundbreaking, may be groundbreakingly simple.
5 Categories. Holistic Social Media.
Not too too difficult if you think about it. There are new sites, new tools, new ways of looking at the same old stuff launching seemingly every day. But, as we shared – and learned – during BOOM Camp 2010, big charts and graphs are great if you’re knee-deep in analytics all day. Most people aren’t.
So, to borrow from Lloyd Bridges’ Admiral Benson character in Hot Shots:
“Give it to me straight, Ted. Dot every comma.”
(c) 2010, Area 224
So, behold. The 5 Categories of Holistic Social Media.
You can argue with the categories if you’d like – for instance, we expect to have a few darts thrown our way when we talk about “Microblogging,” as that category also includes “Sharing” and “Bookmarking.”
Oh, and we think that Geo-Sharing – the Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Facebook Places landgrab that’s going on – well, it deserves a category of its own.
A couple other things to let y’all know about before we begin our javelin-catching exercise:
1. YOUR BUSINESS is at the center. Duh.
That does mean, though, that the whole thing may not make sense for you – maybe you’re B2B and Geo-Sharing seems like a wasted exercise. Fine. You don’t need to do it. Because…
2. It sorta kinda resembles a body for a reason.
Blogging is the head, the nerve center. Your business is the heart.
If the Video leg or Micro-blogging hand don’t add up to that much for you – well, these are not the most critical components.
Happy to take any darts or comments from the peanut gallery.
Love to think back to that time two years ago when Area 224 was just getting rolling as a marketing consultancy. Back when we were having tons of meetings with tons of businesses and trying to find out what was on everyone’s minds.
The everyone we met with on this particular day was the Chief of Sales for a B2B Concern. (Again, protecting the innocent here.)
This particular person (may have been a man, may have been a woman; protecting the innocent) wanted to buy a “solution.” “Viral marketing,” said s/he, “will solve our problems.”
And…what are those particular problems?
The long silence was deafening.
Seems the CEO had seen a video on YouTube and thought “we should do that.”
Seriously.
The knee-jerk response, two years later, from the C-suite, seems to be “Social Media will solve our problems.”
This possibly brings about the opportunity for us to help you – or for another top-notch marketing consultancy to help you. BUT not before you figure out what the problems are.
What business problem are you attempting to solve?
Dave from Area 224 used to work for a very smart guy who abhorred busy work. And, in the “pre-social media epoch” (right before the YouTube era), he’d ask the above question all the time. Saved us a lot of busy work, but also saved the organization a lot of wasted effort on things that just didn’t make strategic sense.
Your job – as a marketing executive, as a C-suite aspirant, as the guy or gal who needs to translate all this stuff for the bosses (or for yourselves if you’re one of the bosses) – is to ask these questions first. And here’s a little how-to guide.
Why are we doing this? Doesn’t quite matter what the “this” is – could be a video campaign, could be getting the boss on Twitter, could be blogging. The objectives for each could be radically different. You want a video so the CEO can show how passionate s/he is about the business so that your startup can raise its next round of capital. You need to Tweet because it’s the most laser-focused way to reach the 15 influencers you have targeted for relationship building. Your blog has to be launched because you have a network of people who can write insanely well and you want to be the centerpiece of a budding community.
What will happen if we don’t do this? Seriously – you need to think about the alternatives. You may even have to negotiate with your bosses.
Roger Fisher and William Ury wrote a best-seller called “Getting to Yes,” and they coined the term “Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement,” or “BATNA.” Consider the BATNA in your social media planning.
If we don’t get social with our marketing – will our competitors do that? If our competitors do that, will they be able to effectively tell the story that we can tell better? Will they win market share if they beat us to the market?
It might be likely that your competitors are NOT in the position to win lots of eyeballs and market share. It might even be likely that, while they focus on “social,” your focus on product excellence, or distribution channels, or fine-tuning your message could be the best thing for your business.
Upshot: Insert Social Media Here at your own peril – and not without some serious thinking and planning first.
