Today, we get our content from a fire hose. Google or Bing any question and expect thousands of pages in the search results. People can create their own content through blogging services like Tumblr or Posterous with a few clicks. If ‘Content is King’, we have a lot of Kings.

Read the rest of this article at the Archer Blog->

For marketers, the effort to get a quality app out the door is hard enough. Then we have to encourage the user to install the app. Pop the champagne, right? Mission accomplished? Sadly, no. With 60 apps on the phone, marketers have to continue the effort to entice the user to “use it”. If the app is too complicated, requires too much time investment or, gulp, crashes, the app may not get a second chance. Once the app is on the phone, the app needs to become part of the consumers regular routine if you hope to have an impact.

Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, once said “Our goal was to design a game that you could learn in a quarter but take hundreds of quarters to master.” The same is true with an app. It has to be stone simple to start using, but continue to offer increasing value with each use. “Mastery” or getting bored with the app is a certain recipe for failure. The app should learn from each use, collect data from the user or other users that adds value to the consumer down the line.

For many marketers, the ideal path is to participate in other apps, such as Facebook places or Foursquare. This participation eliminates the one obstacle, getting the app in the user’s hand. But the marketer still has a responsibility to drive interest in the app and associate it with the brand. The consumers needs to check in before the purchase, not after if you hope to influence the person’s transaction.

Marketers need to market their investment in apps if they hope to see a pay off. We all envision our consumers becoming totally consumed by the magic in our app. We just need to also envision the plan to put the app in the consumer’s mind and keep it there.

The piece even highlighted the more interesting approach of linking the commercial to social and how the show/commercial will drive you to connect with your friends online giving the advertisers not just a place to promote (online), but arguably more importantly the “…data, second by second, what viewers are doing in these commercial breaks, so we have a better sense of what works and what doesn’t work”. This breakthrough is potentially more significant as it draws a true understanding of the specific audience the advertiser is after. It is not a “Nielsen” test batch – but as close to a behavior analysis as possible without actually being in the room to see their emotions (which isn’t that far off by the way).

Even more interesting, or comical, were the comments after the posted NPR article. Viewers posting “I felt snickered” or “This is why I don’t own a TV” didn’t even realize that the same concepts employed on TV are even more prevalent online (even the place where they were posting!) and seem perfectly fine with it. A recent search on “Linked In” for a friend involved in the advertising business brought up three very specific books about interests of mine – as well as the business of my friend.

Many argue that Pod-Busting advertisements are interruptive or “sneaky”. I see it differently: Advertisers have finally reached the level of Value-to-Promotion parity: they have begun to travel the road of matching my interest with an educational or value added promotion. Those advertisers that are not watching the analytics or providing value will simply be “Podbusted” and “Snookered”.

In the early 2000’s until approximately 2008 – we had to worry only about a few browser standards and, in complex cases, integrated technological backend solutions. The cost of the most expensive portion of the site was the functionality that was incorporated (or simply the tech portion of the site), and the flash part of the site. On the creative side, the complexities came with understanding the differences between just a few browsers as well as the versions of those browsers. Quality Assurance (Q/A) efforts and budgets were placed on the steps visitors would take to perform a specific task.

Today, our customers are not looking at visitors to their site, but rather as visitors to their brand as represented through digital. Those that brands interact with online (we can’t even say visitors to your site anymore!) look at material via their smart phone, iPad, gaming system, and various other mediums that must be considered when designing a site (err… an experience).

The browser is disappearing – and your customers must still be able to access your digital assets. “Which version of i.e., Safari, or Chrome?”, “CS5 or Flash or Both?”, “How does our site perform on the iPad, Android, iPhone, etc.?”, just scratch the surface of the questions to be asked. Now Q/A and Technology is moving to the forefront of design, user experience, and strategy.

As if the myriad of technical and design issues are not enough, organizations are faced with another question: “Should we go full service agency or leverage specialized firms in certain areas?”. If an organization is only concerned about one specific component of of their digital marketing – than a focused group is probably your best bet. However, this is rarely the case as each effort impacts the other. It is rare that a social marketing campaign will not require a landing page on a site that is optimized for the considerations of how users interact with social marketing engagement. The DNA of a full service digital agency usually includes experts in social marketing, mobile, digital design, user experience, analytics, Q/A, and technology at a minimum. These are not silo’d teams – but rather integrated departments held together by client service representatives that are experts in the process.

There have been many iterations of online development that your marketing and technology department have had to adjust to, from standard websites, to interactive sites (Web 2.0), to social and mobile. This iteration seems to be one of the most impactful as there is no longer a standard browser. So how does your site look on a Toaster?

From the chatter, I was not alone in my electronic device christmas. Families are quickly becoming multi-device households, and marketers should be taking note. While these devices are meant for individual users, they are increasingly being used socially with other devices.

Multiple users – one account
My wife and I installed the magnificent Food Network’s recipe app and found plenty of recipes to try. To share the recipes we had to ‘hack the system’ and log in under one shared email address. It would be great if we could log in individually but link the two accounts. Marketers will be missing out on opportunities to further personalize conversations with consumers if consumers must increasingly group up to share.

Encourage sharing without email
The ‘tell a friend’ option has long been a standard for sites to encourage sharing via email. Sharing via FB, Twitter and other social networks is also quickly becoming standard. But why should you force a consumer to leave your brand to get it. Marketers should look for ways to increase the value of their installed base by allowing apps to talk to one another.

Put the conversation in the app
Allowing two people to share is one thing, but capturing their conversations as well, that’s marketing gold! Apps need to encourage conversations that aren’t public to the world, such as twitter to happen in the app. Share a radio station on pandora and comment to a close network of friends on songs, or even jointly tuning the channel. There is an opportunity for brands to listen and learn from conversations between a close network of friends or family sharing an app.

The future will certainly see more people with more powerful devices in their hands. Brands should recognize that these closed networks exist and then develop apps find wants to drop the brands in the middle of these conversations.

One by one, people took the stage and shared his or her story. The theme of the night was anniversaries, so people talked about their last drink, last heroin overdose, incredibly revealing trips to Paris bathrooms and life threatening car accidents. The storytellers bared their souls to a crowd of friends and unknowns, preparing to be judged. The pressure in front of the Microphone, looking out on the crowd, must have been intense. Yet, one by one, the storyteller took the stage, told his or her story and willingly was judged by the audience.

But it was the audience that made the storytelling possible. The audience was cheering and celebrating each storyteller. Regardless of the quality of the story, the audience showed support for the person on stage. Each storyteller was presented with a quirky award (likely from a dollar store) that was somehow celebrating the storyteller’s efforts. The audience made it a safe and inviting place for the storytellers. The irony of the situation was that it was the public that made this public speaking so possible.

Brands need look at the environment they are creating when asking a consumer to share a story. Are you asking them to share in a room filled with supporters or the cold hard world of the web? If people aren’t comfortable in the room, they simply wont share.

Creating a room conducive to sharing doesn’t mean turning off comments. Interactions between consumers is critical to engaging a large audience. Brands can’t expect to carry on all conversations. The interactions also add to the legitimacy of the stories, with other consumers weighing in with their own version of the story, often supporting the brand and adding additional context.

Interaction with other consumers is necessary, but brands have to take steps that the interactions support the conversation, not squelch it. Brands need to establish clear rules for mutual respect in the comments and enforce those rules. While a commenter may disagree with a brand story, the disagreement should be handled respectfully. Commenters should be required to reveal their identities at some level to ensure that there is accountability.

Getting up on stage and sharing a story takes a lot of confidence. Brands need to create a room that makes it as inviting as possible to grab the mike and share a story.

Here are the 3 questions I asked to get me started. I’d be curious what else others are asking.

1. Quantitatively: Are my analytics getting better? Remember the old phrase – “That which gets measured gets done”? Well this is a great place to start and end, and restart again. I looked at basic things – such as ‘How Many Friends do I have” or “Do people follow me on Twitter?”. Then I move on to some richer tools – Klout.com has definitely opened my eyes as well as PostRank.com. These are tools that can give you some eye opening numbers. Plug yourself in – but don’t get depressed (or too excited) by what comes out.

1. Qualitatively: Are my interactions rich and meaningful? Here I took a look at the people I follow – or who follow me. Are they people I respect? Am I engaging in meaningful discussion that is not about just adding digits to an already overcrowded world of content or looking for notoriety?  I have concluded that I would rather have meaningful conversations with 20 followers rather than share information that is not meaningful with 20,000 followers.  Not that one is better than the other (the latter works well for Ashton Kutcher) – it’s just not to me meaningful.
2. Is what I deem “Meaningful” still, well, “Meaningful”? I have two life/business goals in mind: The first is that I’d like to learn – I want to challenge and be challenged. If I’m not learning everyday – I am in the wrong business. Repetition is not meaningful to me. Being uncomfortable and learning is.  The only way I learn is through others – and that is why social is so important to me. I’m not going to learn from Ashton.

The second is to expand my circles and grow our business – not necessarily in size and revenue (a hopeful bi-product for sure), but in quality. I’d much rather leave this world with our business being compared to the IDEO’s of the world rather than the Walmarts. IDEO grew it’s reputation by challenging the status quo and engaging in conversation internally – then applying it to the real world.  We have the opportunity to accomplish the same in our industry by both leveraging internal discussions at Archer – and by engaging with the outside world. So – is our business becoming smarter through my efforts?

This is not a daylong effort – but one I suggest every individual and organization go through. Start out by looking at the analytics (it’s the easiest thing to do) – but don’t let the analytics define your measure of success – they all make some wild assumptions. More posts to come as I start wrap up this exercise.

Now that WikiLeaks has unleashed its billions of documents on the behind the scenes discussions of our State Department, and as we prepare for the onslaught of  internal documents from some “Large Bank”, what questions can we ask thus far on how to handle the situation when your organization gets “Wiki-Leaked”?

Here are a few:

(1) How prepared for it are we? (because it will happen). Again you have no control – the only thing you could do is get ready for it. Hopefully, because this isn’t the first time this has happened, Secretary Clinton should of had a playbook for this. At this point – the head of every government organization should be preparing for the internals of their organization to be exposed.

(2) How much credibility did the government have before the release? Come to the party first – and earn the trust of the social world before you have to defend yourself. If the Pentagon or State Department had any premonition of this – was there anything they could have done in the social world prior that would have lessened the impact?

(3) Did the government create a hostage situation? To this date – practically every politician is calling for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s head on a platter through some form. This has caused Assange to go deep underground and setup triggers that would release even more information should anything happen to him. Has the government created a hostage situation which they have no control of? What’s this mean for organizations that may find themselves at gun point and threaten retaliation?

(4) Who’s watching the dashboard? Monitor every moment – you may be the one stoking the fire. Today, (12/6/10), Twitter mentioned “We Are Not Keeping WikiLeaks Out of Trending Topics” after several people speculated that because #WikiLeaks has been left out of the trending topics (though #cablegate was). Perhaps people are just not as into it as many fear.  At times the fear that is self-perceived is not the at the same level (especially if Ashton Kutcher is having a bad day).

(5) Is the hype in the social world greater than the hype in the “actionable” world? Take a look at what happened when the social world exploded with support for “Opting Out” of the TSA Pat Down.  Figure out a way to see if the discussions in the social world are truly matching what is going on in real life. Dave Barry once concluded that the wisdom of a crowd reached the IQ of a Golden retriever the more people participated. This is certainly not always the case – but it may happen that people completely lose interest. The more you draw attention to it – the more you may actually be stoking the fires.

Brands wanting to reach consumers have to look elsewhere to get their message across. Brands need to tap into their current consumers to reach other consumers. Research giant Nielsen said that 78% of us trust peer recommendations over advertisements. This is nothing new. I’m more likely to try a restaurant recommended by a friend over an ad in the paper. What’s new is that social networking has made it incredibly easy for consumers to spread the word.

We have always had opinions and many of us shared them. But two important trends have made this ‘first-person branding’ something that brands have to embrace. First- It has become incredibly easy to share those options, either through a tweet, a flipvideo or a Facebook post. One doesn’t even need a website to get a message out to the world

Second, we consumers are ready to hear the social stories. Nielsen’s annual breakdown of how we spend our time online put social networks at the top, taking almost a quarter of our time spent online, up 43 percent over last year. A recent report by Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research founded that one-third of women on Facebook between 18 to 34 check Facebook first thing, even before going to the bathroom! Historically we went the web for a purpose, to answer a question, find an item or learn about a topic. Now we start our day simply wondering what others stories people have to share.

Brands who can get consumers to tell their story about the brand are able to get their message to a receptive and trusting audience. First person branding allows brands to reach new consumers in a much more impactful manner than traditional advertising.

Some brands are already embracing first person branding. Toyota’s ads no longer drive you to toyota.com, instead, ads promote Toyota’s Facebook page. On this page you are encouraged to tell your own Toyota story along with reading others. The Toyota Auto-biography project (pun intended) offers great text, video and animated stories from real consumers.

Just as you can’t ‘make something go viral’, brands can’t make consumers tell stories. Brands that attempt to tightly control or influence stories will be met with low consumer enthusiasm and public ridicule. Brands need to provide a clear and open framework for first person branding, enabling and encouraging without stifling the consumer.

Are you ready to let the consumer tell your story? Tell me yours!

Register Now at Baltimore AMA

Date: December 8, 2010

Time: 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.

Join the Baltimore Chapter of the AMA and our guests, Lee Mikles and Patrick Callahan of the Archer Group, an interactive agency that manages the interactive strategy for great brands such as JP Morgan Chase, Wawa, United Airlines, Appleton Rum and others. Social marketing isn’t merely a new channel, it’s a new approach to marketing. Social marketing requires a fresh look at a company’s voice, who does the talking and how to deal with problems before they turn into front-page crises. Are you prepared for this new frontier?

Key Take-Aways include:
- How to engage in successful conversations with consumers instead of one-way ‘pitches’
- Understanding the key criteria of user defined value
- Examples of companies, large and small, who are delivering value through social marketing
- How a company should build a team to manage these conversations
- How to correctly (and incorrectly) put out social media fires before they get out of control.

Costs:

Student AMA Members $25

Professional AMA Members $30

Student Non-Members $30

Professional Non-Members $45

Location:

Pratt Street Alehouse

206 W. Pratt St.

Baltimore, MD 21201

http://www.prattstreetalehouse.com/

Phone: 410-244-8900

Parking Info:  Street parking and parking lots nearby