SO, WHAT’S HAPPENED TO “ADVERTISING”? Last April, Chris Brogan remarked in one of his posts that, “…most advertising has fallen off its original premise: to inform.”

So, why do many companies (and the agencies that produce commercials like BlackBerry’s) become so far removed from informing, and telling people compelling stories that spread?  I think one of the answers is that as people stop believing advertising, some unimaginative advertisers believe the solution is to simply make ads “cooler” and/or more interruptive. I can just hear them in their creative meetings… “Yeah—that’s the ticket. Cooler will sell.”

I get clever, fresh, and cool. I love clever, fresh, and cool. But David Ogilvy once said, “Advertising is a business of words, but advertising agencies are infested with men and women who cannot write. They cannot write advertisements, and they cannot write plans. They are helpless as deaf mutes on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.”

Again, quoting Chris Brogan, “I think there’s the potential for a renaissance of quality advertising. I think the tools are here. I think the opportunities are powerful. All that’s required next are the minds and the passions to deliver the new (and by new, I might mean very old) advertising to people who seek to be informed instead of entertained.”

What will your business do with this opportunity? The passion in advertising creativity—coupled with today’s new media tools that engage audiences along every point of the online continuum—will change marketing and advertising forever. It’s the change that fuels social media marketing vision.

I’m curious. Which phone would you buy, based on these two ads? And I’m not asking that as a loaded question just because I am an iPhone fan.

Please. Please. To BlackBerry and every other me-too. No more ads like your BlackBerry campaign. Give us something we can hold on to. And, do it in clever, compelling, engaging and entertaining ways. You can do it. Where will tomorrow’s brilliant marketing and advertising minds (like the ones in my BYU advertising class this semester) go with this?

What do you think? Please share:

This is the first in a five-part series of posts about the importance of message clarity in your company’s social media marketing efforts. We’ll include specific “how-to” recommendations you can use to make your messaging more consistent and effective.

CONTROLLING YOUR COMPANY’S MESSAGE TO THE WORLD USED TO BE EASIER. Prior to the new marketing revolution, publishing and maintaining your message was pretty easy. All you needed to do was engage a good agency to help you come up with a sound value proposition—then, create well-written copy that flowed through your corporate capabilities brochure and legacy website. Ta-dah! There your declaration to the world sat—etched in stone forever (or at least for a few years), and nobody messed with it. Mission accomplished.

Things have changed (as cleverly shown in Tom Fishburne’s illustration above).

The dynamic, accessible nature of today’s new marketing methods allows you to leverage lots of people and many existing communities to move your message ahead. Employees, c-level types, boards of directors, customers, vendors, affiliate partners, shareholders, bloggers, minimum-wage interns, and other influencers directly (or indirectly) help tell your story—or detract from it.

And therein lies the rub. One of the drawbacks of such leverage is that there’s more liklihood that your message will be added to and/or subtracted from.

Now, let me be clear… I’m not talking about feedback, criticism, challenges, and two-way dialog. Those are welcome in new media marketing—and they absolutely come with the territory. I’m talking about additions and subtractions to your value proposition and point of innovation—the foundational blocks upon which your brand is built.

I recently had an opportunity to speak about this topic, in a five-minute, 20-slide “Crunch Lunch” format, at an entrepreneurial forum held at Novell:

Over the next couple of weeks, four additional blog posts here on our site will better develop the points covered in the video above. Please be sure you’ve subscribed to our blog (see subscription box at right).

WE’RE ALL MARKETERS. Whether you’re a blogger, advertiser, PR manager, programmer, SEO specialist, branding expert, or business owner—you’re a marketer. And if you’re reading this post, you’re likely a social media marketer as well.

Tough economic times, bailouts, loan difficulties and foreclosures have taken a devastating toll on the banking industry. Although the severity of conditions has varied from region to region, consumer trust levels have declined.

Western Community Bank (full disclaimer, Lava7 client), a three-branch community bank in Utah County, has always approached marketing with an innovative attitude. During difficult economic times, their commitment to starting a social media engagement strategy by launching a simple blog demonstrated a proactive community mindset and a willingness to assume some thought leadership.

Lesson 1:  Think Ahead Of The Curve

Enter, Adam Weight, VP of Marketing and Technology. During the bank’s blogsite development, a number of prominent social-media-specific articles began appearing in banking publications.

Adam was one step ahead. Are you? Ask yourself, “Am I being timid in my industry? Is there an opportunity—however small—to assume a leadership position? What’s holding me back?”

Lesson 2:  Be Human, Listen, And Participate

Western Community Bank (WCB) started with a simple premise…  Engage with customers and community members in ways that are honest and transparent, and provide clear insights and useful tools that are relevant to local audiences.

As one of the founders of the Social Media Club Utah Valley, I’ve noticed that the majority of our initial members are people inside our industry (meaning advertising, marketing, pr, branding, seo, etc.). There are few engaged members who either own or work in businesses from other verticals. Adam is one of them—and he makes a point of attending our club’s meetings and functions.

If you’re one of those people who falls outside “this industry” ask yourself, “Am I taking advantage of every opportunity to learn the mindset and tools that surround social media marketing? Am I attending SMCSLC (or Utah Valley, Cache Valley) meetings and thinking about how to leverage this wealth of passion and expertise to build my business? Am I using a blog, and/or other basic tools to listen and participate?”

Get involved! It makes a difference! And it doesn’t need to be difficult. Take off your marketing hat and put on your audience hat to better understand their needs and perspective. Here’s a recent, actual WCB Twitter exchange:

Lesson 3:  Don’t Quit. Your Tenacity Will Pay Off

Afraid you’re not a great writer? Maybe that’s true. But in Seth Godin’s words, “Stick with it and you’ll get better at it.” Are you afraid nobody’s interested in what you have to say? Perhaps…  At least today. But whether anybody reads your blog or not, the metacognition that takes place in formulating how you talk about what you do is priceless. Don’t stop. This is as much for you, and the way in which you view your business, as it is for your prospective audience.

Lesson 4:  Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously

Let’s face it… Banks are, pretty much, boring. Agreed? They’re the epitome of traditional and conservative. The nature of what they do is all about regulatory requirements, privacy and safety. Not exactly a party. While remaining thoughtful and sensitive to their position and reputation, WCB isn’t afraid of having a little fun. It keeps them human—and here’s a good example.

So, dive in! Zig passionately while everyone else is zagging. Ignore the economic doom and gloom. There’s never been a better opportunity in history to take the four lessons above and turn them into a powerful blogging and social media marketing foundation for your business.

Onward!

Jack Hadley is CEO at Lava7, a Digital Engagement Marketing Agency

THE PAST FEW DAYS I’VE BEEN CONTEMPLATING the way I communicate with other people. It used to be simple. I picked up my rotary telephone, dailed 7 to 10 digits and used my vast vocabulary to communicate. Now it is more and more difficult, and confusing. It isn’t just those of us who work in social media marketing or technology fields. In February of this year a movie came out where Drew Barrymore hits spot on what must be a universal frustration:

There is very little etiquette yet surrounding some of the new communication tools—things like DM’ing vital information on Twitter. I own a Blackberry and have yet to find a Twitter client that works for me. The result is that my Twitter participation is largely tied to my computer.

I tweet frequently from my BB, but often don’t see DM’s or responses to my tweets until I’m back at my computer. Truthfully, I haven’t spent much time looking. Between e-mail and text messages, I’m not that excited about adding my Twitter feed to my mobile. But that begs the question, if you are sending me a DM on Twitter about something really important, and I miss it, have I let you down and breached protocol or etiquette?

One reason this is top of mind is something that happened last week. I was responsible for getting speakers for an industry event. One of the speakers was running terribly late, in fact we weren’t sure she was going to show up at all. I tweeted her “we are looking for you”. Then I couldn’t get a good internet connection at the event. She DM’d  me back, but I didn’t have access to it because of the way I have chosen to establish that method of communication. Since I’m very engaged on Twitter, does that replace the formality of an e-mail I would have gotten on my phone to tell me you are late?

Things move so fast. It would be nice if someone slowed down and set some rules for everyone!

However, I suppose the same thing will happen that did years ago with e-mail. Remember when cc’ing a whole slew of people on an e-mail became very bad form? At first no one knew it was an issue, then over time people stood up and said, “wouldn’t it be nice for privacy issues to blind copy people instead?” That became some of the first waves of e-mail etiquette learning that happened as an evolution. Everyone knows someone who used TO TYPE THEIR E-MAIL MESSAGES IN ALL CAPS. Most likely they don’t do that anymore. Just like eventually, people will politely point out that if you are having a conversation with someone on Twitter that is between two people, after a couple of tweets you might want to consider moving it to DMing. Just a tip. Just a consideration.

Although I co-founded a social media marketing agency, I feel that I’m connected enough and don’t have to maximize every tool. In fact, I’m taking the advice we often give our customers- that not only do they need to find the tools that work for them and a strategy for using those tools, but that they also must determine what works best for them, what they can and will do to avoid burning out. Slow and steady wins the race. So I’ve chosen not to be connected to Twitter every second of the day. Gasp! I’m sure I’m disappointing someone, but in reality, it works and at the end of the day that is the most important thing.

But it does beg a lot of questions about the best way to reach me and how quickly I will respond. Does e-mail still feel like the most official form of communicating important information to you? What are everyone’s responsibilities for checking each and every portal? Are the tides changing, and it is just as official to communicate details, albeit short ones, via Twitter?  What about sending vital information via SMS text?

I’m interested to hear your thoughts about this fascinating evolution.

YOU PROBABLY ALREADY KNOW WE’RE BIG SETH GODIN FANS AROUND HERE.

Download his new ebook, “What Matters Most” by clicking >HERE.

Digital engagement is fundamentally changing the way in which we communicate and interact. In this space (which ALL of us are in… whether you participate or not), the more you give, the more you get.

From Seth Godin, “Now, more than ever, we need to shake things up. Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. I hope a new ebook I’ve organized will get you started on that path. It took months, but I think you’ll find it worth it the effort.”

“Here are more than seventy big thinkers, each sharing an idea for you to think about as we head into the new year. From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O’Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here.”

EACH MONTH, FACEBOOK RECOGNIZES BRANDS THAT are doing the best job of engaging their fans on fan pages. A Mashable post this summer, entitled Facebook Gives Props to Top Brand Marketers reported that FB has recently started handing out “Blue Ribbon Awards” for the most creative, innovative campaigns.

The way in which FB determines the winners is by “looking at the most popular pages by fan count and then looking at interactions of the fans with the page ratio (defined as comments, likes).”

Facebook needs to add one more dimension to their criteria, diving one step deeper as they evaluate and recognize creativity and innovation. While lots of FB campaigns are clever, many of them are off brand. “Good” campaigns may do a good job of engaging, but they may not move the brand ahead. “Great” campaigns, on the other hand, do both—engage AND remain true to the brand.

Today, Crispin Porter + Bogusky rolled out the Old Navy “Fab-u-lister”—a clever holiday shopping list creator that uses content from people’s FB profiles to help shoppers pick out exactly the right gifts for everyone on their list. Engaging? Absolutely. And, in our opinion, a campaign that’s remarkably on brand.

WE OFTEN HAVE OPPORTUNITIES TO TALK WITH PEOPLE ABOUT CROWDSOURCING. Many of our clients have heard of the term before, but they’re not really familiar with its application and value.

If you’re new to the concept, here’s a simple video overview from Jeff Howe (the man who coined the term in a June 2006 Wired magazine article).

 
So, simply put, crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving and production model. It’s the process of taking an “open call” and “undefined” approach, and leveraging it using the power of the Internet.

With that basic understanding, the idea is still in its infancy—although it is working very well in some instances. There are some marketing people and creatives that believe crowdsourcing is a fad or gimmick. Perhaps some of them are worried about losing business to this model.

I believe crowdsourcing is powerful, and here to stay.
 

A New, Insightful Take On Crowdsourcing

Jason Falls recently interviewed Edward Boches about the integration of social media with traditional ad agencies and advertising. A snippet of that interview revealed an important additional benefit to crowdsourcing that we believe any company could benefit from.

 
Is your business taking advantage of the concepts behind crowdsourcing? What simple things could you do that require very little expenditure, but could stimulate participation—and perhaps yield huge benefits in learning what your clients or customers think about your products or services? What if your clients or customers became your virtual in-house marketing department for a day? How would they market your company? How can you gain insights into what’s important to them by using this model?

Please share your ideas with us!

ONCE AGAIN, ERIC QUALMAN DOES A GREAT JOB putting a relevant social media marketing topic into perspective using interesting stats and engaging video/audio production.

While these types of videos are useful in laying a groundwork for discussion, they’re not very useful as a basis for nitty-gritty evaluation of social media marketing measurement and ROI. There’s much more detail behind each of these case studies that must be considered in order to understand the complete social media measurement picture.

Last year I read a great article, entitled “Don’t Say ROI Unless You Mean It”, about the differences between ROI and VRM (Value Measuring Methodology). Wise marketers and savvy clients understand the value of both—and each is an important component in effective social media marketing.

WE TRY TO ASK OURSELVES the same rigorous questions we ask clients about their marketing efforts. We teach that tools must fit into the strategy—not vice versa. And, not every company needs every tool.

After founding Lava7 and setting up shop, we turned to our own marketing plan. One topic we struggled with was “How does Twitter fit into our strategy?” Each of the four Lava7 partners is active on Twitter, having spent time building their communities, finding relevant followers and actively posting. So, we weren’t sure how a corporate Twitter account would contribute to our goals. Should we take turns tweeting from the corporate account? Do corporate accounts feel impersonal? Would we confuse our faithful followers about how to reach us? Rich Brooks recently talked a little bit about this topic. Olivia Hayes has also talked about this before.

As we continued to look closely, we realized that we were already doing a pretty good job accomplishing our Twitter goals through individual accounts. We try to drive visibility, post thoughtful content in each of our areas of expertise, and reach out to thought leaders.

So we decided to put the @Lava7 account on ice (for now).

We’ll likely hear from naysayers who question why we don’t tweet from a corporate account. @Lava7 currently has a link that directs people to this post. We’d love to have you to follow our founding partners:  @jack_hadley, @mlkeone, @blakehadley and @lavarob (formerly @robjensendesign).

Another thing we encourage clients to do regularly is review their strategy. If one day our strategy changes, we’ll still have the tool in place. Reserving the right to change one’s mind is always a good idea.

How did you, or your company, decide what your Twitter strategy should be? We’d love to hear from you and get your feedback.

(photo courtesy: Paul Hadley)

Dick Tracy Watch Phone, originally uploaded by nmcglynn.

Forty years later it’s a reality.

HOW DOES THIS KIND OF READILY ACCESSIBLE, easy-to-use-and-upload cellular technology affect your business? Have you thought about it from a social media marketing perspective?

Let’s say you’re a small restaurant owner. If the plate you set down in front of a dining guest is gorgeous, that image may be online 30 seconds later. If the waitress serving your customer is rude, that tweet may be on Twitter 30 seconds later. See the implications?

There have never been so many opportunities to engage your target audience at so many touch points along The Digital Engagement Continuum™.

It’s a fascinating time to be marketing a business. How are you taking advantage of these opportunities?