Articles Tagged ‘marketing’
Mar. 22nd, 2009
A smart use of Twitter: I’m at the Information Architecture Summit, being held this year in the beautiful Peabody Hotel in Memphis. As usual at such geek gatherings, there’s a healthy backchannel running on twitter under the hash tag #ias09. The hotel is following the stream, and answering our questions, such as: Who serves good bbq? Where can we get a real espresso? They’re even using twitter to greet guests, and deal with complaints about rooms at the hotel. And, of course, they throw in a little marketing for their famous ducks. Event venues take note!
What do you think? Leave a comment…
Feb. 18th, 2009
This was originally published last July on Stowe Boyd’s blog /message, reproduced here with Stowe’s permission due to my odd feeling of wanting to have all my stuff in one place.
A new week, a new wave of invites. Hello New Social App, I’m an edgling, so I’ve got a pre-punched hole in my cheek for your hook. If you’ve got a new app that’s even mildly interesting, odds are I’ll jump on an invite and check your shit out. Why? It’s a mix of an admittedly petty urge not to be left behind, the excitement of an unexplored landscape, and the joy of turning friends who’re further from the edge on to new and exciting things. So I’m your perfect target-groupie, right?
Well, I was. My attitude’s changing. I certainly have my waves of social media fatigue (who doesn’t?), but that’s not it. I’m getting sick of having to work to understand you, New Social App. After this week’s identi.ca rush, I noticed how tired I am of expending energy to understand the value of a new app every week.
My identi.ca experience went like this: me and 172 of my best friends are standing around eating chocolate ice cream (Twitter) together. Then somebody shouts, "hey guys, the guy next door’s got ice cream too!" And about a quarter of us drop our ice cream and rush next door to see what’s up. The guy next door (identi.ca) does indeed have ice cream. It’s chocolate too. Tastes the same but he’s forgotten the spoons, and most of the people I was sharing ice cream with a few minutes ago didn’t come with. So we all rush back again, resume our ice cream party, and forget about the guy next door almost immediately.
There may be some amazing technical advance behind identi.ca, some subtle stirring in The Force that makes it special. Maybe I’m just not Jedi enough to feel it. Social apps have got it pretty easy so far. Most of their target-groupies are Jedis: pre-alpha-early-adopters who build things themselves and enjoy teasing out the hair-splitting advantages of any new service and blogging about them so that Padawans like myself might also give a damn.
But where’s the social web going? The future of the social mob are those in the center who’re taking hesitant steps towards the edge, and they haven’t even heard of The Force. That’s your plumber, your dentist, and yes, your mother. The more "normal" it becomes to use these apps, the less interesting the technology behind it becomes. My New Social App, you’re soon going to have to start preaching to someone other than the choir.
I’m an edgling in spirit, but I’m no coder, so I guess I’m a good canary for your coal mine. You should know that I and your mother don’t care about your software architecture, we don’t care about how many days it took you to get built and we don’t care if Scoble or Arrington like you. All we want to know is: "What can you, and you alone, do for me?" If we can’t understand this in 15 minutes (at the very most), you’ve lost us.
The pre-registration page helps to lure me in, if it’s done right. A few sites have this covered:
Twitter: a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
FriendFeed: Discover what your friends are sharing.
Feedly: a more social and magazine-like start page.
But they all drop the ball as soon as they’ve got their hooks in. I’m interested, I sign up… what now? How do I find friends? What can I do here? Um, there’s nothing going on here, is there? Why should I keep using this thing? Silence. Buh-bye.
One of the few services I’ve seen that does this right is LinkedIn. They’ve got a didactic interface which immediately gives me things to do, explained in simple terms. By doing these things I learn what they are and what their value is for me. They take me by the hand and show me around. They make me feel welcome.
Another exciting development in this direction is commoncraft and their videos which explain web technology in plain English. They’re so simple and make everything seem so interesting and easy that Twitter added "Twitter in Plain English" to their home page. Twitter didn’t develop the video themselves, but at least they took notice. Commoncraft may not understand technology (I can’t say I know) but they definitely understand communication, and that’s what society’s all about, right?
So, my New Social App, open the door, invite me in, and tell me up front what you can do for me. But don’t forget to serve drinks and give me a friendly tour. If all you want is registered guests at your party, I’ll be there like every other edgling that gets an invite. But if you want more than zombies standing in the corner dribbling ice cream, make sure I know why your ice cream’s the best, show me the ropes, and make sure I’ve got a personal reason to stay and love you.
What do you think? Leave a comment…
Jul. 7th, 2008
Dear Cannes Cyber Lions,
I’m writing just to say hi. I’ve looked at, and occasionally up to you for the seven years I’ve been working in an agency, but I’m leaving the agency microcosm soon and wanted to give you some advice before I go. It’s, um, kind of difficult to say, but, well, we’ve known each other for a while, and good friends tell each other the truth, right? So. Here goes.
I believe you’ve misunderstood the internet.
There, I said it. I know this has got to be embarrassing for you, being an internet awards thingie and all. I guess you didn’t get the memo. Although the truth hurts, I’m sure you’ll come out the other side a happier, shinier Cyber Lion.
Why do you force me to register to see the winners? It can’t be purely so that “the IAF, our official awards partners and relevant Emap Communications brands” can throw a few more nuggets on top of my already overflowing spam folder, can it? That’s not what that extremely creatively worded bit on the rego form meant, is it? And, um, describe my job role? Give you my address? My phone number? Twenty-one mandatory fields? You’ve built a walled garden with high, thick walls, and want a DNA sample before you let me inside? For what exactly? You’re throwing press releases over the wall anyway, so what’s in it for me?
I’m afraid your site’s also doing your clients a disservice, and if they aren’t pissed yet, they sure as hell should be. What? You don’t have clients? Well, who are the agencies who send you submissions (and money) every year? And what if they realised that you’re using the medium for which they win awards (that’s the internet) in such a way that it reduces the chance of people hearing about their good work? If I was them, I’d be pretty pissed.
But, considering the way so many of your clients still use the internet—beautifully designed and animated, closed, unmashable ads that equal little more than click-a-minute-television—I’m honestly not surprised that you’re doing little better. My recommendation, and hope, is that you’ll one day see your role as a leading internet marketing awards thingie as a possibility to espouse and spread the spirit of the web and the methods that actually work. Openness. Transparency. Sharing. Participation.
You see, and it embarrasses me to have to explain this to you, but the internet is all about linking. Copy & paste is today’s marketing. Letting your fans mash your stuff up leads to success. Connecting little bits all over the place is what we do here outside the wall, and how people hear about new stuff. If your stuff’s good, some guy will carry it over the wall anyway, even if he does have to fill your form with bullshit to do it (yes, I’m sorry, but we do lie to marketers). And there’s a nasty chance that guy will own your Google juice, too. Making it easier by not building a wall in the first place just improves your chances of being loved. Have you heard that there’s a 14 year old on YouTube with 45 million views? He certainly didn’t do that with a registration form. How many registered users have you got? And how many registered as “Dr. Mickey Mouse” like I did?
That’s it for now. I hope you take some time to think about this, and it makes you a bigger, better lion.
Yours sincerely,
Matt Balara
P.S.: I didn’t want to say it, but what the hell’s up with your logo? Dude, are you sure you want to wear that in public?
So congratulations to all the well-hidden winners of the Cannes Cyber Lions 2008! For those you you outside the wall who couldn’t be bothered registering, Dr. Mickey Mouse has sacrificed his 100% fake DNA for you. Here are all the winners in a PDF (unfortunately completely devoid of URLs), and here are the links:
Grand Prix
Gold
Silver
There are a hell of a lot of bronze winners, and my copy & paste finger’s getting tired, so if you’re interested in the Cannes Cyber Lions bronze winners, check out the PDF and you know what to do.
What do you think? Leave a comment…
Jan. 25th, 2008
“I don’t believe you. Not only that, I believe you less than I did last year. To put it more clearly, I trust you less and less every year.” That’s what 2,565 consumers told the entire corporate world in October 2007.
A survey by Harris Interactive asked the question:
“Which of these industries do you think are generally honest and trustworthy – so that you normally believe a statement by a company in that industry?”
and the answers show that across the board — banks, supermarkets, hospitals, online retailers — consumer trust in every single sector of the corporate world has sunk in the last five years. Some of the details should make a few CEOs extremely nervous, e.g. 11% said they trust airlines, online retailers are trusted by 10%, and oil & tobacco came in with an unsurprising 3%. I’m no statistician, but thinking about 90% of people not believing what my clients (by and large, online retailers) are telling them makes me a little worried for my clients, and it should worry my clients far more than a little.
Surveys like this of course never answer the really interesting questions, like “why don’t you trust these companies?” The simple answer is surely, as Seth Godin said quite a while ago, all marketers are liars. And the people they’re lying to aren’t as stupid as the marketers like to believe.
This illustrates the bizarre symbiotic, but at the same time, adversarial relationship we all have with the companies who sell us our stuff. Symbiotic because they have stuff we want, and they only exist because we buy it. Adversarial because we’re so often disappointed by the stuff we buy and we’re so often left alone with this disappointment, as if we didn’t have a relationship at all. And from the corporate side, consumers are too often seen as a threat, dangerous creatures with complaints who could bring the whole house of cards tumbling down if the fools had a little more power (and thank God that most of them don’t).
What can companies do to get trust back? Be people, not marketers. People try to deliver what they promise. People admit failure when they can’t deliver. People make up for it when they fail. It sounds stupidly simple, but it’s the way relationships work. [An aside: Jeff Bezos seems to understand this. Amazon is wildly successful. Coincidence?] If you’re the only company in your sector who acts like a person and treats your consumers like people, you’ll be their friend, and step away from their enemies. What could be better than being your customer’s buddy?
[thanks to J. C. Hutchins for the heads up]
What do you think? Leave a comment…
Jan. 15th, 2008
I’ve been designing websites professionally since 1995, and never has any site I’ve worked on been discussed as much as the new Sinnerschrader site, and, to be exact, it’s not even a site at all.
Let’s get the full disclosure out of the way first: I’m an Art Director at Sinnerschrader, and other than the occasional over the shoulder comment and discussion over a smoke, I had nothing to do with the idea, concept, or design of the new site. Go check out sinnerschrader.de, click around a little, and come back for my thoughts on it.
As you hopefully noticed, it’s just a link list. That’s it. All of our content is “out there” in the web. Of course most of it always has been, and now our site is the place where all of the disparate elements — job offers, client sites, employee profiles, how to find us, etc. — meet. Instead of a perfectly polished and organised glossy brochure, which is what most agency websites are, ours is a knot which loosely joins our small pieces.
What’s Good?
I’ve loved the idea ever since one of my favourite coleagues, Ron (whose blog is still “coming soon”) told me about it. And, in so far as our site is just a list of links, I find it a logical and consequent execution of the idea. The web is not a book or a wall or a television, so a cover or a poster or a video is certainly in the medium, but not really of the medium.
As I explained in my Naked Relaunch article, I’m also a strong believer in the “it’s never finished” mentality, when it comes to web design and content. The most exciting aspect of the web is that it’s continually changing, growing and becoming more and other than it is at this moment. Our new site doesn’t take this aspect far enough (more on that below) but the idea of a living collection of links that are easy and fast to add, change and remove is where I hope the site’s going.
Those are just two short and small “what’s goods,” but for me they’re much more important than the more numerous “what’s not yet good” comments listed below. I’m a fan of ideas, and, when compared with ideas, niggling details don’t weigh very heavily on my scales.
What’s Bad Not Yet Good?
Well, the first thing that makes my idea-focussed brain itch is: the thing’s static. Nothing’s happened since it went online on the 5th of December (be careful, there’s German behind that link). If the most exciting thing about the web is the continual change, then an agency website which says, “our stuff isn’t packed away in a shiny wrapper, it’s living out there in the chaos” must have a site where something’s happening. For now it’s just a link list. There’s nothing new, nothing changes, it’s not alive.
The site is an idea, and it’s pretty brave, and I haven’t seen anything like it before, but we couldn’t stop ourselves from squeezing in at least a little wobbly, animated, flickering Flash. Maybe we were afraid it wouldn’t be “pretty” enough for an agency site; I wasn’t involved in the decisions, so I don’t really know. Personally I think the Flash is decoration which doesn’t serve the goal or message of the page itself. Although I actually quite like wobbly pink, gold and grey aesthetically, I don’t think the page would suffer much if it wasn’t there. In fact, Flash is a shot in our own foot as far as search engines, the back button, auto-discovery of the rss feed, and copying text and links are concerned. These are as much the nature of the web as are links and distributed content, so why did we ignore these? I don’t know.
Other than all of that, there are a few little details which picky usability freaks have been pinning on us — e.g. the newsletter field should make it clear that it requires an email address — but I think the basic function (open external pages in a frame and close the frame again) works and is understandable. A few tweaks, and we’ll shake the bugs out. No big deal.
How Could it be Better?
Number one on my wishlist: let it live. Collect feeds from employee blogs, spit in whatever turns up under the tag “sinnerschrader” on Flickr, collect the Tweets of employees, friends and the company itself, mash it up and call it “The Secret Life of S2” or “S2nd Life”, whatever. We’re a web company, we make web stuff, and more than a few of us live in the web, so why not show it?
We could get our hands a little dirtier with the clients. Just linking to their sites isn’t really enough, or sometimes it could be too much — a link suggests we did all of it. Sure, we design and program complete sites for many of our clients, but we also produce banners, single pages, micro-sites, etc. Why not — in addition to the links — simply throw up some screenshots at Flickr, a case study in the blog, whatever it is that best describes our work for that client?
Kick the Flash out. As far as I’m concerned kick the graphic typography out as well — with the exception of the logo and the claim, of course. The flashier it is, the harder it is to change, as well as the problems mentioned above. If the idea is links, make it 95% about links. Right now we’re around 70%.
Oh yeah, and let’s put in a search, as Martin “Nielsen” Seibert suggested (Achtung! More German!), thereby proving that he didn’t even begin to understand the idea. But if you do, please link our search to Google.
How do you like our new site? If you were the boss, what would you add, remove or change? Let me know.
What do you think? Leave a comment…
May. 21st, 2007
Since when does Microsoft get it? Sure, the ways in which the internet changes the relationship between advertisers and consumers isn’t exactly breaking news, but Microsoft’s new ad is the best and most humourous summary of the changes that I’ve seen so far.
Of course the authenticity of the blog to the movie is so questionable it’s not even worth thinking about, but the clip is spot on and funny either way.
[via Fischmarkt]
What do you think? Leave a comment…
