The Kibble Strings

To dogs, life is simple. They love you and are loyal because you feed them. That’s not to say they don’t enjoy the petting, playing, and being part of the family pack, but just try to distract them with a belly-rub or a game of fetch at dinner time and see what happens!

When thinking about your content marketing strategy, it’s important to realize that people aren’t really that different from dogs. They need sustenance, and chances are the more “meat” you provide in your content the more loyal they will be. If they know they can rely on you to provide content that offers value to them—information they need for their careers, or to improve their lives, or pointers to that information, then chances are they will come back for more.

When evaluating your marketing efforts, you should also take a dog mindset. Look for what is going to feed your business, conversions or sales leads, or contacts that build your brand (this means having measurement tools in place). Don’t pursue efforts just because there is a lot of buzz around them or everyone else is doing them.

There are lots of new tricks out there, but most old dogs know how to stay focused on what counts.

For more thoughts you may want to check out:
Check out: “Top Ten Reasons Why Your Content Marketing Strategy Fails” (http://twitthis.com/widy7g)

The Collaboration Generation

It’s 8pm on an average weeknight and my sixteen-year-old son is doing his homework. If this conjures a picture of a lone young scholar hunched over his books at the kitchen table; think again. He is on his cell phone and laptop, conversing with classmates, comparing notes, and discussing answers.

As a parent, conscious of the competitive college admissions process, and as an adult of a certain age raised in a culture focused on competition and individual excellence (whether I liked it or not), this method of doing homework raises some questions: “Why is he asking his friends about the assignment, doesn’t he take notes?” “Why is he giving her the answer; she won’t learn it if she doesn’t work it out for herself…”, etc. However, as someone interested in web 2.0, who recently finished reading Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything I can also appreciate it for what it is: the Net-Generation doing what they do; efficiently attacking problems using peer-to-peer collaboration,and perhaps, preparing themselves to lead in the new economy of mass collaboration. I still have uncertainties, but I can also see the possibilities.

I also know that institutions don’t always evolve at same pace as the cultures that inhabit them, so I wonder how school administrators and college admissions counselors are dealing with with this generation? Do they view collaboration as a form of cheating or plagiarism, or as a natural outgrowth of social networking and preparation for the business of networked problem solving in the real world? Perhaps this is a super efficient way for everyone to study and share their strengths while gaining from the strengths of their peers, or perhaps it’s only a way for some to get by without every really getting the material—and depending on your feeling about tests and assessments, maybe that doesn’t matter.

Of course regardless of what I think, it is happening and this is what my son and other sixteen-year-olds do now. And while in theory I can relate it to the open source software movement, or mapping of the human genome, I wonder if all of the gatekeepers that stand between these kids and the Wikinomic future will be as open minded, and should they be? What do you think?

The Name Tag Test: Getting Personalization Right

Having a personal, one-to-one relationship with your customer is one of direct marketing’s holy grails. While there are increasingly sophisticated tools to help us know more and more about customers and prospects, one definitely has to think through how to use this information most effectively.

When you are thinking about your next targeted promotion, try this test: Think about the last situation in which you were wearing a name tag and other people were not. Maybe at a business conference, or in a retail job situation. How do you think you would feel, or if it has happened to you how did it feel, when a stranger would come up to you and say “Hi Bruce…” and start talking without introducing themselves. Chances are you would feel somewhat taken advantage of. That’s how I feel when I receive one of those cleverly personalized mail pieces that screams “Hey Doug” on the front.

On the other hand, in a situation like that when someone has either struck up a conversation naturally by asking a question or pointed out something to share in an observation, or if they introduce themselves, and then in parting perhaps say “see ya Bruce, it was nice chatting with you.” Then,chances are you are more likely to feel a sense of kinship and even be somewhat flattered that they noticed your name and wanted to use it.

In essence it’s all about control. People feel better in situations where they share in some of the control. Typically businesses haven’t been great about giving up control of the message, but from Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing to the lessons being learned in the world of Social Media marketing, the importance of getting that relationship right is brought home again and again. And now that getting it wrong can mean a public skewering on Facebook, YouTube or numerous other channels, the stakes are that much higher.

Publishing->Participation

“Publishing->Participation,” This was just one entry in a chart comparing Old Media and New Media in the book, Now is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs by Geoff Livingston and Brian Solis. But coming on the heels of the AEP Summit: “Publishing in the World of Free,” it seemed to suggest some concepts worth exploring. What could this mean in the context of educational academic publishing? And what keeps me, and I’m sure many others in the industry up at night, is what does this look like as a business model?

I don’t have a specific answer of course, but I think that an overall goal is to preserve the value of the publishers’ role— identifying and providing access to high quality information while filtering out inaccurate or poorly presented information—while at the same time creating a model that is not tied to selling fixed units of information.
This is suggestive of some changes the industry has been discussing and pursuing with varied enthusiasm, such as unbundling and micropayments, but it also suggests a social aspect that needs to be explored.

Increasingly, those who are seen as experts in their subject areas are not authors of “the definitive book on the subject”, they are the bloggers and twitterers who answer questions or share their insights on a daily or hourly basis, in short, who demonstrate their expertise in real time.

Daily immersion in the living intellectual life of their customers and peers on the part of a publisher’s authors and editors is going to be a necessary aspect of the move to a participation model. It doesn’t mean that all information has to be free; conversation needs to be free, hints and advice need to be free, but people will still pay for detailed, well-structured information from a source they trust (many bloggers are selling books). That trust, however, has to be built not on reputation but on demonstrating one’s knowledge. And the context those conversations provide is important; unbundling content and making it available online is essentially just a version of the web we have now.

So what are we talking about—does a publisher become a big, global, digital reference desk? Yes, I think, to some degree. But the librarians need to come out from behind their desks and ask questions as well as answer them, and the library needs to have unlimited interlibrary loans. Another key to our new “Wikinomic” world is openness and collaboration. If I am an expert in a particular field I probably know not only of some great content I have authored with my publisher, but also of information by my peers that is published elsewhere. We need a model that would allow and encourage an expert to point someone to both pieces of information and for the creator and publishers of this information to be compensated. Maybe we need an agreed-upon micropayment standard for the industry as well as something like a commission structure for the source of the referral – think affiliate networks.

The book, Wikinomics, by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams provides many examples of struggling companies in moribund industries such as mining that reinvented themselves into profitable juggernauts by rethinking their businesses in the context of participation and collaboration.

And in that spirit, I’ll end my piece here. No closure. No conclusion. An open question for discussion and collaboration.

Tweet Globally. Reap Locally

Twitter can be a great tool for brick and mortar businesses looking to drive traffic into the store. Many small local businesses have been slow to embrace the online world, figuring it’s a waste of effort to reach millions of people who aren’t in their neighborhood. We’ll address the local/global issue in a minute.

But if you own a local hair salon, wine shop, pizza parlor, etc. and are interested in social media, Twitter might be your best first step. The short “microblog” messages are perfect for the type of announcements you might put on a poster in your window or on a sandwich board out on the sidewalk. “Thursday Special: Cavitt Pinot Grigio $5.99!” Twitter conversations move pretty quickly so they are well suited to getting immediate response to short-term “one-day” promotions. If you are a restaurant owner, for example, it’s ideal for your daily specials. If you don’t have specials everyday, but have an event planned for the weekend, you can promote it daily in advance, and post pictures afterword.

Now, what about the global aspect? Twitter is about more than just one-way status updates. It is also social. Conversations around your business and products, no matter where they come from geographically, make them more interesting and helps to gain and keep customers. For example, if you are a wine merchant advertising a new Malbec you have on sale, you may attract the attention of other wine merchants or wine fanciers online who don’t live in your area but would share tweets that reinforce your message with comments like “Wow, that’s a great price for a great wine” or links to a reviews around the Web.

I know many small businesses also struggle with finding the time to participate online, another reason Twitter’s short message format is an attractive option to start with. But there are also many tools to help streamline content management for social media, as well as companies (like mine) that can help set those tools up, or take managing all of the mechanics so you can focus on the message.
Please feel free to contact me via my website http://www.bmindweb.com with any questions.

A Big, Old, Wrinkly, and Real Thumbs Up for Customer Service

For many of us “thumbs up” has become just another icon on our Facebook profile.   That’s not the case for folks of a different generation, and the other day I got a very non-virtual thumbs up that was worth 100 “likes.”

These days I am on the front lines of customer service:  I’ve taken a seasonal job at LL Bean’s flagship store in Freeport, ME.  Yes, things are slow in the marketing and consulting world and I can use the income, but it also seemed that getting a look inside a company with a great brand and world-class customer service could be very educational.    So nearly every day I am at the cash register greeting customers, helping them find what they need, and checking them out as efficiently as possible.

One day an older gentleman came to the register with his middle-aged daughter.  They had a classic plaid shirt in one hand and a catalog in the other.   They were a bit frustrated. Clearly the guy had fairly simple tastes; just a few key items in his wardrobe, and he was used to simply walking into LL Bean every couple of years and stocking up. The plaid shirt was one but the other were some long-sleeved T-shirts with a breast pocket.  In another time these probably held a pack of Lucky Strikes, but these days the pocket was for his glasses and cell phone.

The rep in the Men’s department had told them that they weren’t in the store and they would have to order them online or by phone, and sent them over to me to check out.    I could tell that neither of them relished the idea of having to take the time to make another call when they got home or use the daughter’s computer to shop online.  They were here and they wanted to get it over with!  I seemed to remember something from my training about placing catalog orders in the store, so asking a more experienced rep next to me I found out where the nearest phone was and how to get connected.

I walked the gentleman and his daughter over to the phone and got on with the sales rep, giving them the item numbers from the catalog they were holding. Then turning the phone over to the customers for their shipping and billing info, I went back to my place at the register bank.

A few minutes later, I saw the gentleman and his daughter heading for the exit, he looked over at me and held up one gnarled paw with his thumb extended and smiled.    It only took me about 3 minutes of extra effort to interpret and meet this customer’s need, but it turned a frustrating experience into a positive one that they will remember. And so will I.

We keep talking about how the community aspect of social networking brings us back to the character of the mom and pop store and allows us to provide  personalized service to customers on a broad scale.  Well that’s what it looks like in the real world and I’m afraid the icons are still no match for a real “thumbs up;” age spots and all.

Facebook’s Name Game

When you enter Kennebunk, ME on Route 1 driving North, you are greeted by a sign that says “Welcome to Kennebunk. The only village in the world so named.”

While Kennebunk may not need to worry about its identity, many companies are very concerned about making sure they have control over use of their name, and related brands. Up until now that hasn’t been so easy on the social networking site Facebook.

At the end of May, that changed somewhat as Facebook announced that they would allow users to set up “vanity URLs” for their profiles and pages. There were some restrictions though. The profiles needed to have been established before the announcement, and they needed to have acquired at least 1,000 fans/friends by May 31. The signup would be available to qualified profiles at midnight on Friday June 12th. Subsequently Facebook announced that there would be a second round of registrations available later in June for everyone else. As it turns out there was still a 100 fan/friend limit on these and the signup again became available in the middle of the night.

Compared to sites like MySpace and Twitter, Facebook seems to be creating a lot of obstacles for companies seeking to stake their claim. I think it’s worth examining why—and looking at what they trying to protect? I think for one thing they are trying to avoid a lot of the domain squatting issues that plagued the early internet. But more importantly, I think they are trying to retain authenticity. While it seems that Facebook is sort of making up their strategy as they go along, they are making an effort to give marketers some of what they want and at the same time, trying to enforce a degree of good citizenship. Which is not a bad thing.

What social media has taught us (at least those of us who are listening) is that a company’s brand or a person’s reputation can’t stand in place of real interaction. And this is a radical change of thinking for a culture that has been driven since the 50s on the idea of brand loyalty. Increasingly these days you need to walk the walk every day, be listening, be involved and be authentic with your customers or the value of your brand or reputation is going to go down.  And again, that’s not a bad thing. As Shakespeare wrote:

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

Directions (humor)

I’m the sort of person that people ask for directions… I am completely perplexed as to what it is about me that would inspire such confidence. However, it does happen frequently and, more often that not, in a town or city where I am also a stranger.

Such a situation of course raises a moral dilemma: I should simply shrug, or admit that I am as lost as they are, but… I have to admit I’m flattered that they have chosen me; I’m beguiled by the expectant looks on their faces; and I feel a certain responsibility to reward their misplaced faith in me. So I squint at their map, point quickly and vaguely down the road mumbling a street name I’ve randomly noticed, and send them on their merry way. No more (or less) lost, I figure, than they were before.

Hmmm perhaps I’ll go into politics!

The Big Deal About Small Talk

We all know someone who knows how to “work the room” at a party or business reception; they seem to have a database in their head and know everyone’s name as well as the name of their spouse, kids, and some tidbit of personal information—a favorite sport, or TV show or a big client they have.  Chances are this seemingly-effortless social ability has been gained through a fair amount of hard work, but it has probably been worth it; helping this person to achieve some level of personal and/or business success.

We often refer to these sorts of shallow interactions as “small talk” and discount their potential value—especially people like me who don’t have the gift—but maybe we shouldn’t. Those of you with academic leanings may have noticed the similarity of the title of this post to that of an influential paper on social theory, written in the early 70s by Mark Granovetter called The Strength of Weak Ties. In a nutshell what Granovetter says is that it’s important—at least for purposes of networking or having a social life enriched with the opportunity to meet new people—to have a number of acquaintances in addition to your close friends and family, because these acquaintances or “weak ties” are the links that connect other circles of “strong ties” and keeps them from being self limiting. A number of these concepts were more recently popularized by Malcom Gladwell in The Tipping Point.

These days the growth of online social networks have made “weak ties” worth revisiting. A great deal of the work that the gadfly in my original example probably had to do: collecting business cards, writing notes on napkins, etc. to cultivate these weak ties, has been in large part replaced and enhanced by platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Digg and others. Online social networks are incredibly efficient engines built around insubstantial connections. It’s actually the lack of substance that greases the wheels of social networking. It doesn’t involve a lot of social risk to see if someone shares your favorite TV shows or likes a band that you like, but that connection can bring you into their circle and connect you with another network of friends.

As marketers think about how to approach social networks it’s good to keep these ideas in mind. If you want to create a message, application, or piece of content to be shared widely, keep it on the light side. It doesn’t have to be silly but it shouldn’t be too complicated. An example from the world of Facebook would be the creation of “Engagement Apps.” these are just simple things like badges, petitions, or polls that can help give you exposure and open the channels for communication, without asking too much of the user.

75 Ways to Use Social Networking in Educational Publishing

Last week I moderated a session at the Association of Educational Publishers Summit “Publishing in the World of Free.” The panelists were Andrew Pass of Pass-Ed a developer of curriculum materials employing web 2.0 technologies, and Lisa Schmucki of EdWeb.net a social networking site for educators. The title of the session was “75 Ways to Use Social Networking in Educational Publishing” don’t worry the panelists did not try to fit all 75 into the session—the full list was handed out at the end. If you missed the handout, download it here.

My purpose was just to set the stage for the discussion and to provide input from the publisher’s perspective.   Here’s my introduction:

Good Afternoon:

Thank you for joining us for 75 Ways to Use Social Networking  in Educational Publishing.  Our panelists today are Andrew Pass of Pass-Ed and Lisa Schmucki of EdWeb.net

Over the past couple of years the world has seen a virtual “big bang” in Social Networking, that has spawned, among other things, a “blogosphere,” a “twitterverse,” and a friendly but strange world called Facebook, in which one is constantly offered drinks yet remains thirsty!

Even for those publishers who have yet to “Digg,” “Tweet,” or “blog,” the concepts of social networking are not completely new.  Many of the old school have used tools such as listservs and online discussion groups to share expertise, promote products, and to monitor the reputations of their authors and brands.

However, the latest proliferation of social networking tools and sites, and their embrace by the public is unprecedented—earlier this year Facebook crossed the 200 million user mark, making it the 4th most trafficked site on the Internet (new numbers in last week suggest it may now be #3), and Twitter was the cover story in last week’s Time Magazine.  For businesses and organizations, the opportunities and challenges this new environment presents can seem daunting. For publishers, the silver lining is  that this new environment doesn’t favor those with large marketing budgets so much as  those with compelling content.  In the panel today we will help you make sense of some of the tools available and their uses in both product development and marketing contexts. The panelists will touch on a number of examples of how to use social networking, however the “75 ways” referred to in the program title are all listed in your handout…

I hope it was a valuable session for everyone. The room was packed so there are a lot of publishers trying to figure out the social networking thing. As might be gleaned from the title of the summit, there was a lot of discussion about the “problem” of free content, but one thing we hoped to point out was the other side of the coin—how many free resources and tools are available that make the barriers to getting into social media very low.