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Nov 29 2010

Objectives: Your Social Time Needs Them

What Business Problem Are You Trying to Solve?

Clarity around objectives can make your “social” time much more palatable. Seriously: if the boss knows why you need to do this – or if YOU are the boss and you know why you need to do this – you can better justify the hours spent blogging, tweeting or updating the world on Facebook.

So how DO you set objectives? And can those objectives be purely social?

Some thoughts from here…

1. Awareness – good place to start. But knowing where you want to increase awareness is an even better place to start. Local? Hyper-local? Industry-focused?

We’ve met folks who said, simply, where they are right now is “eyeball acquisition.” Some tweets on a regular schedule, a hundred Facebook “likes” so they have an audience to speak to. Actually, not a bad objective.

2. Measuring can be a soft science. The obsession to measure everything – the obsession with the word “metrics” – has taken a lot of the “social” out of social media.

We made a concerted effort beginning October 1 at Area 224 HQ to blog regularly. By regularly, we said “once a day during the week, give or take.” We missed a few days, we double-posted a couple other days. But the result was a traffic spike – but also an awareness spike. In that we got calls, we got emails, and the inbound marketing machine was, well, working.

3. You work for the boss. If you’re inside Corporate America somewhere, you need to find out who that boss is. You might be in corporate communications, but if it’s the CEO who gets to be the social face of the enterprise, then your objectives are gonna be different.

And you may have to have a heart-to-heart talk with your actual boss: executive positioning and industry thought leadership have just become your objectives as a team.

4. Being social can be an objective. Reconnecting with friends, old classmates, old colleagues – strengthening your actual social network – this is a great use of time. And you can be up front about it to the boss: “having a better LinkedIn network helps us showcase our organization’s expertise, and opens us all up to more business opportunities.”

Setting social objectives need not be totally stressful. Start small and ask the right questions.

Nov 24 2010

R-to-the-O-to-the-I

I don’t have very many friends.

I mean, by comparison, I’m sortof a lightweight. The tally, actually, should make you wonder.

Facebook friends: 500.

The guy who founded LinkedIn says that anyone worth his or her salt should have 2000 people in their network.

Again, LinkedIn, I’m probably at 500.

So, why the Thanksgiving Eve post on ROI?

Because I actually don’t care about numbers today.

ROI = Return on Investment. Great if you’re sorting out whether Brand X spent $Y to achieve Z result. I’m all for that.

But I want to advise you, gentle reader, not to get over-scared by numbers. Over-jealous of the neighbor with the greener numerical grass.

Seems like everywhere I turn of late, that one dude has just become friends with 8 more people. And I’m sitting here, typing away, scheming about the next thing. I didn’t meet those 8 people, and I’m also wondering why I haven’t chatted with the five people who show up at the top of my News Feed.

I’ve got a stack of business cards sitting here that I’m sorting through. Wonder what this guy is up to? Whatever happened to that one startup where that one woman worked? Do I owe so-and-so a phone call, or does he owe me one?

Where is this going?

I don’t know about you, but I get the feeling that my own numbers will always suck in comparison to someone else’s. Connection numbers, bank account numbers, whatever numbers.

But I’ve got about 30 seconds before I wrap this post up, go grab a beverage, and try to get an ROI figure for the time I’m spending with the munchkins or my wife.

Priceless.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Nov 22 2010

You May Be A Ninja If…

Social Media Cliches include “Ninja,” which Area 224 finds exceedingly annoying. Want to really be able to call yourself a “Ninja?”

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.

Nov 11 2010

Amplification

Great thing about social media: you can amplify your business.

Amplifier, thanks techfuels.com

Bad thing about social media: you can amplify bad business.

If you watched any of the Amazon imbroglio on November 10, 2010, you’ll know what we’re talking about.

One bad decision – or one lack of a good decision – can be put under a magnifying glass and go viral in a heartbeat.

The problem for business people is that often the good doesn’t get amplified as quickly as the bad.

Search, for instance, for happy stories about United Airlines. Where do you start? What are the terms you look for?

On the other hand, search for United Breaks Guitars and you’ll find the now-famous video. And its 9 million views. And the two follow-ups from the guy. And on, and on.

Goodwill, brand reputation, loyalty – gone in 60 seconds.

Amp – li – fi – ca – tion.

How do you prepare for this reality? The reality that, at some point, your business will screw up and you will face amplification to the nth degree? SOME steps to follow:

Delegation.

If you’re a one-person shop, this could seem impossible – but you have to have a delegate, an aide de camp, someone you can bounce stuff off of. Work on building this network now.

Simplification.

Not only do you need to do scenario planning – what could possibly go wrong? – but you need to break problems – real and perceived – down into their simplest chunks. Be prepared to do that as quickly as you possibly can.

Amazon’s issue, which will be discussed ad nauseum, was not broken down into simple chunks quickly enough. “(1)We’re a free enterprise that can (2) decide not to sell something that (3) puts innocent lives at grave risk.” Three chunks. 30-second decision. Done.

Gut.

Should we really be doing this? Is this the type of thing that will come back to haunt us? Are we associating ourselves with unsavory characters?

Lots of people sell lots of books. Lots of people claim to be influential and want special treatment. Etc., etc.

In the go-go “the customer is always right” universe we’re in, big brands are often afraid of who to kowtow to, or of not being PC enough, or of rustling the wrong feathers.

Amazon’s decision to publish and sell a book they should not have sold, if shared with a focus group or beta-tested with a user group, would have been resoundly panned.