Monthly Archives: August 2011
My wife posed a question last week that admittedly caught me off guard: “At what age do you think it’s appropriate to get our daughter a smartphone?”
Now the question is legit, and the local media has been furiously raising issues of texting and social media in the classroom, so it wasn’t completely from left field. But two elements beyond the question itself had me pause for thought.
First, my daughter is three.
Second, it wasn’t a cell phone anymore, but a smartphone.
To be clear, my wife was not suggesting we run out and buy an iPhone for a daughter barely out of diapers, but was curious as to my thoughts on when it was appropriate to buy any child a smartphone. A great question for further thought, but one we agreed was not in our personal future – at least not until our kids at least hit school age.
But the context behind the question was revealing. The question of a mobile device is no longer a question of if, but when. And, the smartphone was moving from the category of high-tech device, one that would normally fall into – as the self-confessed techno-gadget geek and purchaser in our household – my domain to initially consider.
And I shouldn’t be surprised. In fact, I should know better.
Though some might picture the stereotypical mom as slightly Luddite in her leanings, a series of reports this year reveal just how wrong that stereotype is. Modern moms are not just using smartphone, but leading their adoption. Moreover, it’s not just young, tech confident new moms purchasing the technology, but mothers in their 30’s and 40’s partaking in this rapidly expanding group of smartphone purchasers (Pew Internet).
Finding A Student Who Wasn’t Lost: Social Media To The Rescue?
When it comes to social media, an issue that many of us struggle with is, how much is too much? Is it ok to be connected 100% of the time? Tweeting our every move and keeping tabs on everyone who was once even a minimal influence in our lives? While many struggle to conjure an answer to this question, the issue became a headline recently.
A little background: Jacob Boehm, a 22-year-old student was traveling around Malaysia on his own after finishing up a group tour. He constantly updated his social networks to communicate with his family and friends and to keep them updated on his adventure. Then suddenly, one day, he stopped. There was no reason as to why, but he stopped using his social networks. His parents panicked, and rightfully so. They contacted Jacobs friends who all reached out to their social networks to help #findjacob. Turns out, Jacob was never lost. He went wandering in a national park and did not have cell service.
News reports have been reporting this story as a social media miracle, in which Facebook and Twitter band together to find this lost boy. Even though he was never lost. Read More
Privacy and fear. The two are intertwined. Yes, there are real fears related to online privacy–identity theft, credit card theft, stalking, even murder; but marketing? Come on. Marketing is not life or death, folks. It shouldn’t even drive anxiety. It’s simply a means to get you to buy a car, cleaning product, shoes, faucet, bank account, etc.
The US and much of Europe are capitalist societies that have been built and grown based on business success. Companies are going to keep trying as hard as they can to sell their product, but they would much rather try to sell it to a qualified over unqualified consumer. We all get frustrated being so bombarded by advertising in our capitalist markets, but there is no reason to fear being sold window cleaner or basketball shoes. Let’s face it, you are going to buy this stuff anyway. That’s what humans who have jobs and money do. We all try to live our lives more easily and more pleasurably, and companies that develop and sell products help us do that.
Yet “privacy” is being used as a blanket issue and marketing is the scapegoat because it’s far easier to attack than the big unsolvable issues like identity theft or stalking. Read More
How do we as marketers make events more social? How do we tap into the large audiences and retain them and make them brand advocates?
For as long as I have been working in social, two things come to mind, awareness and retention. As a marketer, I try to build and increase awareness of brand and products, while retaining the online consumer using social media. However, with the increased use of mobile devices and the connectivity with social media platforms, locations are becoming a new way of targeting and communicating with an audience.
Location based services, such as Foursquare, Facebook Places, Gowalla, etc., are being utilized more by the consumer, especially those who use smartphones. 17% of smartphone owners have used a check-in service, according to eMarketer. Users are broadcasting their locations to their friends, discussing what is happening and being incentivized by brands to continue to “check-in.” Where the amount of adults using location based services is relatively low, around 4%, the sheer volume of check-ins on these services should not be ignored. According to Dennis Crowley, Foursquare’s CEO, there now are over three million check-ins a day and Facebook Places reports they are experiencing above 750,000 check-ins a day.
With this volume of check-ins, how do marketers tap into this action by the consumer? How do we move beyond the simple, one-off check-in and apply some sort of value to the consumer, some level of conversation and incentive, and ultimately retain these users who are interacting with a brand, in real time, on-site at an event? That is is what my SxSW panel is exploring; that is the conversation we need to have.
Read More
Selling in social media was unethical in recent history. While brands shouldn’t be using social media to push product down people’s throats, they do have the opportunity to transact business on Facebook and other social media hubs. But how do we make it relevant beyond one-time flash mob deals?
The opportunity lies between social sales and social rewards. Existing brand loyalty program members that demonstrate faithfulness are the best target. Provide them with word of mouth activities that offer program points that can be redeemed for tangible goods and virtual experiences to foster a deeper level of brand loyalty. The intersection of these activities must benefit the brand and the community. Loyalty only occurs if users organically or voluntarily participate in the program, and they will only do so if the rewards are deemed valuable to them in return. It doesn’t always need to be some “Groupon-like” deep discount. It does, however, need to show the consumer that they are appreciated and incent them to return for more and more benefits… not just any benefit, but better brand experiences. How do we do it?
Remember that time you narrowly avoided total community combustion when the brand page was hacked? Or a team of cruel trolls who de-railed the prosperous conversations claiming your brand had done something horrible? Or how about the time you yourself made that critical (and mortifying) typo in real-time and it was fueled virally?
Community Moderators can commiserate with these examples and many more. I’m willing to bet we’d all benefit from a little therapy session to unload our deepest community confessions. Thankfully, there seems to be a connected community of CMs out there who keep each other sane sharing stories and tips. We decided to make something of this by creating a SxSW session proposal entitled, “Confessions of a Community Moderator” where we’d like to bring CMs from around the globe to participate in an interactive Confessional Booth and workshop discussion of common challenges and solutions.
Together, we could create the next Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook… for Social Media Managers. The funny thing is, despite the responsibility over channels that many view as “fun,” or even “easy,” Community Managers need to bring in best practices from a multitude of different roles, such as Copywriting, Account Management, PR (Crisis Management), Content Strategy, Publishing and Promotions. What we all really need is a list of most common challenges and solutions (as crowdsourced from a smart group of CMs at SxSW) that pull in best practices from all of those disciplines and many years of combined experience with branded communities. To give you a taste of the potential here, we’ve started the list. Behold:
The 7 Monsters under Every Community Moderator’s Bed
(and a Survival Guide for Claiming Victory Over Them All) Read More
