It’s Not Who You Know

I’ve been noticing a spate of applications (or proposed applications) that want to take advantage of a users “social graph”—the people that they keep up with on various social networks.

Now this is a great idea for the type of people who have large and widespread groups of friends who happily do things like write restaurant and bar reviews on a fairly constant basis. And the people who propose these sorts of apps all seem to have just these sorts of networks.

But the average person doesn’t. Their social graph consists of their friends from childhood who’ve recently tracked them down on Facebook (or, if they're under 25, their entire high school senior class) a couple of neighbors and maybe some people they work with. If they’re on Twitter, it’s likely because they wanted to follow Oprah or Ashton: they’re not on there to “add value” or meet new and interesting strangers they can learn from.

Even those of us with full and vibrant social graphs may not want to tap our collective intelligence for things of a subjective nature. This was brought home to me the other day, when I was looking for a Manhattan restaurant recommendation and realized that I was far more inclined to reach out to the anonymous snarky women of YouBeMom or the foodies of Chowhound than I was to any of the non-anonymous people I connect with on Twitter. It’s not that I don’t like the people I talk to on Twitter, it’s just that I have no clue as to what their taste in restaurants might be like. Now if the question was “what's the best iPhone app for restaurant reviews?” I’d trust them wholeheartedly. Why? Because that’s their expertise. And because iPhone app preference is generally a lot less subjective.

This is not to say that relying on social graphs is, de facto, a bad idea. But before we anoint this the “new new thing” we need to think more thoroughly about the types of information people feel confident relying primarily on their social graphs for versus a relying on group of strangers who have a real passion for a particular topic.

We also need to think of whom the audience is: there will be people for whom the tastes and opinions of their social graph are very much in line with their own and who are uncomfortable with the opinions of any sort of “experts.” And then there are those for whom the exact reverse is true: people who are far more prone to trust the advice of experts, self-appointed or otherwise.

Bottom line is that even in the real world, there’s only a limited amount of trust you put into your social graph. (You may like your brother-in-law just fine, but could care less what he thinks the best new country band is.) Online too, the opinion of our socials graphs will be just one filter out of many we look to when making a decision.

SXSW Extended Content Video Is Up

Last February, I was on a video panel for the SXSW Extended Content section (sort of a runner-up prize to getting an actual panel.)

It's called (quel surprise) Your Brand Is Not My Friend.

Brian Morrissey Adweek's Digital Editor is the moderator and the other panelists are:
Noah Brier, Head of Strategy at the Barbarian Group
Michael Lebowitz, CEO of Big Spaceship
Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus
Cam Beck from Click Here! in Dallas provides the intro.

You can watch it here

The Toad Stool On Facebook

I finally got my Facebook Fan Page's act together.

You can become a fan here.

(You can also check out two nifty Facebook widgets in the right hand column here, about two-thirds of the way down the page.)

Don't Suck

United Airlines is the latest victim of the consumer empowered video. They’re a particularly easy target given most people’s disgust with the entire flying experience these days, and the video may be getting more exposure in the blogosphere than in the real world as a result of there being no particular surprise in an airline doing something evil.

The video does, however, play up one of the biggest fears most clients have about social media: what if someone says something bad about us? How can I make sure that doesn’t happen?

And the answer I always give them is: Don’t Suck.

Don’t Suck is a catchall, of course, for being a brand that people actually like.

Don't Suck means that people are legitimately surprised when and if something bad happens to your brand.

Don’t Suck means that if you do screw up, people are going to forgive you because they know it’s the exception and not the rule and because they’re rooting for you.

Don’t Suck means that when someone does say something nasty about you online, you’ve got plenty of fans who are going to respond for you and put the naysayers in their place. That’s key: having enough fans so that the voices praising you quickly outweigh the ones damning you.

Don’t Suck is surprisingly easy to achieve, though few brands manage to do it. Don’t suck means making a quality product, listening to your customers, admitting when you’ve messed up and not putting out advertising and other marketing that sounds a lot like lying.

Social media is only scary if you’ve got something to feel guilty about. And not participating is not going to save you from the backlash. But companies who have good reputations and who realize that they have to give to get (e.g. understand that Your Brand Is Not My Friend) have everything to gain from putting themselves out there.

I Don't Do Windows

“I don’t do windows” is the punch line of many a bad “maid” joke but it’s also an accurate description of how many brands (and their agency enablers) view social media.

They’re used to marketing being a very predictable practice: you run a certain number of spots, get a certain number of impressions, sales go up a certain percent. If they don’t, it’s clearly the fault of the creative product. Getting people to remember your ad and watch it is something you accomplish with dollars: the more you spend, the more people see it.

That’s why it’s so tough for many of them to transition to a world where consumers are calling the shots. Where getting people to watch something isn’t a matter of spending money or sending out a set number of press releases.

Particularly vexing is the notion of creating value or whuffie or whatever you want to call it. That’s where brands and agencies get their backs up, because the notion of providing people with something that doesn’t contain a sales pitch for their product just seems wrong to them. They don’t really buy the whole notion that providing value is a form of sales pitch for their brand—they just see it as an imposition and a waste of time designed by know-it-all web types who want them to give away things for free when their Facebook pages and viral videos don’t work.

It’s difficult to appreciate the degree of resistance until you have to convince an agency and client team that’s happily bought into the idea of an online game based on their TV commercial-- one that requires users to scrub the pan clean with the new and improved Acme soap pad-- that in the real world, no one will actually want to play their game. Because, damn it, they have research that shows that people did enjoy playing it. (In controlled, in-person, focus groups, anyway.)

Fortunately, marketing people like to play follow the leader. And as more mainstream brands get with the social media program, you can point to efforts from brands like Coke, Pepsi, Red Bull, Southwest, Kashi and many more, as examples of “what you should be doing.”

Sometimes that will sink in. Other times they’ll explain that while that's all well and good, they still need to run all the tweets through legal.

But hey, it’s a start.

Field of Dreams Redux

Many of you are familiar with my Prom King Brand theory, which states that a handful of brands have so much social currency (e.g. “cool”) going on, that all they have to do is show up and people will start interacting with them.

How that plays out in the real world sometimes seems to get lost in translation, so I wanted to give some concrete examples of what I’ve been seeing:

John Smith, CEO of Acme Widgets has heard that social media is the next big thing. He knows that Oprah Twitters and people have told him that not only is Social Media the next big thing, but it’s free. So Smith talks to his people and they decide to build an Acme Widgets fan page on Facebook and to launch a blog and a Twitter account. His marketing department has pointed out to him how brands like Apple, the New York Yankees and several HBO shows put up Facebook fan pages and, voila!, within days they had hundreds of thousands of fans signed up who were doing all the work for them. How easy is this social media stuff?

What they forgot though is that Apple, the Yankees and Entourage all have lots of social currency. People think it’s cool to be a fan. They don’t think it’s cool to be a fan of Acme. So Acme’s got to do something to bring the fans in.

The good news is there’s a whole lot of something Acme can do:

(a) Entertainment, e.g. something their audience would watch even if it didn’t have an association with the brand.

(b) Access or Information, e.g. everything from behind-the-scenes footage of a popular show Acme has a sponsorship agreement with to links to relevant and useful articles about widgets.

(c) Utility, e.g. something that the consumer can actually get some value out of when they use it.

(d) Value, e.g. a coupon, discount or other financial incentive.

(360i’s recent Social Media Playbook does a great job of explaining how all this works in context.)

So it’s not that non-Prom King brands can’t play in social media. It’s just that they can’t show up in social media and expect to be instantly popular.

Just like the real world, they’ve got to work at it.

Porn, Kittens & Your Remote

Mike Arauz had a cute post up last week, reminding people that their online work needed to pass the "I'd rather be watching porn" test. (Or, for the less pruriently-oriented, the "I'd rather be looking at pictures of kittens" test. (In other words, remember, there's a lot of stuff people would rather be doing online than looking at your brand-sponsored content-- ads included.) It's a basic message, but given how frequently it's ignored, it's well worth repeating.

To that end, I'd like to introduce the corrollary: if you've created a TV commercial, all it needs to do is pass the "I really need to find the remote" test: if it's not awful enough to make the viewer go scrambling for the remote so s/he can change the channel or fast-forward, well, then you've got yourself an impression.

Bottom line is that despite popular perception in certain quarters, it's much tougher to make a splash online. Your competiton's much stiffer.

Bean Cast II

The Bean Cast, hosted by Bob Knorpp, is, hands down, the best advertising-related podcast out there and yesterday I had my second opportunity to be appear on the show.

My fellow guests were Jonah Bloom, Editor-in-Chief of Ad Age and producer Hal Goodtree from Goodtree & Company.

Topics ranged from Cannes (and the growing movement against the glitzy award show) to MySpace (how to reinvent/save it) to contextual advertising.

A rollicking conversation, well worth an hour of your time (if I say so myself.)

And if you just can't get enough Alan Wolk, I'll be on a panel at OMMA Social in about 2 hours, 9:45 AM at the Crowne Plaza in Times Square.

You can download the BeanCast podcast here.