Pretty Good Practices in Social Media Part 1

Tired of everybody claiming to have the hot hand on Social Media "Best" Practices? Me too. Too many talkers and too few doers with bankable, measurable success on behalf of a real company or client.

At the risk of sounding unprofessional, I'm going to start a thread on Pretty Good Practices in Social Media because in all honesty, that's pretty much where we are in today's nascent and wacky world of Social Media. I'm jazzed about the implications of Social Media/New Media, but it's my opinion that most people claiming to be experts are just blowing smoke.

For example, it's utter folly to assume that you should abandon the classic components of your traditional marketing mix and throw all your resources into Social Media. With Social Media, you need to be asking very rigorous questions as to your purpose and goals. There are so many new web-based marketing methods that I've seen companies get unnecessarily sidetracked by the new toys, losing sight of what they should always be about: increasing customer reach, revenue, and ROI.

It’s also the case that with some segments of your customer base, you shouldn’t even bother with Social Media. Many people consider Social Media an inordinate waste of their time, a frivolous time sink with little payoff. They’ll laugh your cute little Youtube video right off the screen.

As in writing and public speaking, the first rule of Social Media is “Consider Your Audience.”

Winamp Remote Rocks!

I can't stop telling my friends about Winamp Remote, which enables you to stream your personal audio and video to any Web browser. Winamp Remote, though still just in Beta test, works flawlessly. Since I've been using Winamp almost exclusively to manage and play my MP3 and Video files saved to disk, I had a ready-made 1300-song catalog to run my tests. There is some setup required, but this mostly just involves setting up remote login and password credentials.

The first thing I did after configuring Winamp Remote was to log into the Winamp server from my smartphone. When I logged on to Winamp Remote with the credentials I established during setup, I was stunned to see a perfect mirror of the Music and Video directories on my desktop hard drive. Since this week I've been listening to the John Mayer Trio, I opened the John Mayer folder, clicked on the trio's screaming version of Jimi Hendrix's Wait Until Tomorrow, and proceeded to bask in sonic bliss.

Note: If you're going to stream audio and video over your mobile device, you must have an unlimited data plan or you'll get a nasty surprise on your next cell phone bill.

Later that day, I visited my good friend Tim, President of Broadcast Supply Warehouse. BSW is a fantastic source of gear for the home audio enthusiast--digital recording hardware/software, mics, mixers, monitors, and the like.

We were sitting at BSW's state-of-the-art ProTools console, a Mac-driven system. I asked Tim to launch Safari, and then proceeded to play my music remotely through a pair of $6000 studio monitors. This was just too much fun for a couple of music geeks.

Now before you think this is just another Napster, that concept is completely wrong. You can only share your music selectively with friends whom you've selected. Also, this is audio and video streaming only; you can't save the files down to your computer. So it's really just a cool way to host a listening session with friends.

Check it out on www.winamp.com. When you arrive at the Winamp Home Page, type Winamp Remote In the Search box. Have fun!

Auto Keyless Remote Scams

Recently, I lost my Volvo S80 keyless remote. Actually it was several months ago. I've put off replacing it because I didn't feel like forking over any more dough to Volvo. But it's pretty annoying to be without your keyless remote, so this week, I started researching what it would cost to replace it.

Given that my car is a 2001 model, the remote doesn't do anything fancy. In pricier cars, keyless remotes will start your engine for you. Mine just opens the doors and enables/disables the alarm.

I knew that no matter what, replacing the remote would be somewhat expensive, but I truly had no idea how badly Volvo would gouge me. I had a mental figure before going into the shop of perhaps $100, so I was shocked to discover that Barrier Motors in Bellevue wanted to charge me $260 for the remote. The breakdown is as follows:

Keyless remote device: $160
Software download $ 45
Labor and Tax $ 55
Grand Total $260

I was stunned, and actually asked the sales guy to repeat, slowly, the cost breakdown to make sure I hadn't misheard him. My response was to look at the guy and say, "No way." How does Volvo sleep at night?

I've come to discover that, in pricier cars, you can spend $400 to replace your remote. But at $260, I can't say I felt better that mine was at the lower end of the price scale. If I can't find a substantially lower cost way to solve my problem, I will just continue using my standard key.

Up to Speed Part 1

Like physicians who find themselves incapable of being independent, sole masters of their chosen practice, New Media Communicators must also acknowledge that, on some level, there remains a signficant learning curve. Physicans can overcome knowledge gaps by joining a robust, multi-specialist clinic, where they can exchange knowledge and help one another. Similarly, those of us attempting to pioneer our way through the New Media world must humbly acknowledge the need for rich dialog with others who have mastered pieces of the puzzle we're still ignorant about.
In short, it's OK to say, "I don't know," "I don't get it," and "I need help."

My good friend Kendall Kunz posted the following on his blog: Why Should Entrepreneurs Twitter? http://meetkendall.com/2009/03/28/why-should-entrepreneurs-twitter/
Before I read this, I had posted all of three Tweets in seven months. Like many, my first response was, "Why do I need this? I really don't care what my friends had for lunch, and I am really concerned that this will just be a giant time waster."
A careful reading of Kendall's post may help jump start your own inquiry.

I started with the baby steps Kendall recommended, and after a few days, I really started to see how I could employ Twitter in my own business. I tend to pay attention when a successful serial entrepreneur like Kendall gets excited about a tool that has generated demonstrable benefits.

Improving the Customer Conversation

Social media concepts are pretty mainstream now for anyone paying even remote attention to the Internet. For a small business, Social Media pretty much boils down to improving two-way communication with your market. You want to improve and deepen the relationship with your existing customers, and you want to make it easy for prospective customers to enter into the initial conversation.

I partner with a small but high-powered market research and analytics company based in the Bay Area. The CEO's 25 years of experience, built largely on a Fortune 500 client base, gave him insights into improving the customer conversation years before the Web became mainstream. So it is with great interest that we look to formalize these customer conversations using the techniques available to us on the Web, both for our clients and for ourselves.

At the heart of many of our projects is innovative and exhaustive survey design. For example, we recently helped a global software provider do a survey of several hundred existing power users belonging to the North American user group. These are the folks who have used the product to its fullest extent, and are already formulating great ideas about what should go into the next version. Our client wisely sought our assistance to gather those user ideas through a survey we designed and distributed via email. The email contained a link to our corporate Web server, and over the agreed upon time frame we gathered, quantified, and presented the survey results.

The customer was absolutely delighted, and has already begun thinking of ways to use the same ideas in other areas of the company.

Some Questions

Given that so much in the way of content is being given away for free on the Web, how's a creative person supposed to make money?

All disciplines are exploding with new knowledge that far exceeds the grasp of any one person. The only way to stay "current" is to maintain open and vigorous communication with other bright people. I must confess that I don't do this as well as I ought to, choosing the tougher road of trying to figure it all out by myself, which is generally a recipe for frustration.

Which 50% of your advertising strategy is working?

One of advertising's truisms is that 50% of all advertising works. We just don't know which 50%.
As a marketing consultant who, in a previous stage of my career, sat in the marketing manager's hot seat, I quickly became aware of this core challenge regarding advertising. I had many days when it was painfully unclear whether I was really getting sufficient bang for my advertising buck.

Jeffrey F. Rayport's thought-provoking article in the May 2008 issue of Harvard Business Review, Where is Advertising Going? Into 'Stitials, gives some great insights into the evolving world of advertising. As consumers become increasingly sophisticated and guarded when it comes to being touched by advertising, businesses are having to find innovative ways to gently assert themselves into the worlds their prospective consumers inhabit.


Mr. Rayport provides us with a nice taxonomy of advertising methods that are coming into increasing use, each tuned to specific consumer "landscapes." He first looks at landscapes characterized by information scarcity, for example, elevators, which are environments that can "induce otherwise self-assured individuals to look at their feet and fidget with their keys." Captivate Network, a decade-old company, made a strategic bet that they could make some money advertising in elevators. Today, we see how that bet has paid off: Mr. Rayport informs us that Captivate "quietly delivers more advertising impressions to an affluent urban professional demographic than USA Today and CNBC combined."

While Mr. Rayport's taxonomy is interesting, there is a question that goes unanswered: Why is it that consumers are so guarded about advertising in the first place? It's true that advertising by its very nature is interruptive and frequently annoying. But if you think about it, there are some ads you're happy to see.

Maybe you've gone to a concert featuring an artist you really enjoy. As you were walking through the lobby to get seated, you notice a merchandise table. On the table, there are CDs you'd expect to see from the artist you're about to hear perform. But also on the table is a CD by someone you've never heard of. You pick it up, and notice that some of the same musicians play on both your favorite artist's disc and the new one you've never heard of. You would likely think there's a better than even chance that you'll like this new artist, by virtue of his association with the artist you already know. If you buy the disc by this new artist, and end up enjoying it, aren't you glad that you saw the merchandise booth?

There is a direct parallel when you choose to follow, say, a record label that Tweets about new releases. If you've already enjoyed the music that came from that label, there's every reason to believe that a new artist on the label may provide you with a satisfying listen.

The consumer is in the driver's seat in the Opt-In world. There's no irritation when buyers and sellers are connected in a convenient, satisfying manner. When advertising harmonizes with environments that people find themselves in naturally, it's no longer irritating or disruptive. The net effect is another satisfied customer in the online bazaar.