I wish I could take credit for today’s blog post, but I’m only regurgitating what David Kirkpatric (former technology writer for Fortune Magazine and author of The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World) posted today in The Daily Beast.
10 Reasons Mark Zuckerberg
is Time Magazine’s Person of the Year
- Facebook is the fastest growing company in history, surpassing Google as the web’s top destination.
- Facebook was created by Zuckerberg.
- Facebook is transforming lives daily in about 100 languages
- This is a fundamentally new form of communication. In every medium that preceded it, we “sent” a message to another person—telegram, phone call, email, text. But on Facebook you merely do something. The software figures out who sees it. It is the first time real automation has come to mass human communication.
- Zuckerberg, as CEO, has total control over the evolution of Facebook. He controls three of five board seats, and cannot be dislodged or overruled. Facebook really is a reflection of his will and his vision.
- His commitment to the service over his own short-term self-interest was proven in late 2007 when he turned down an offer from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to buy Facebook for $15 billion.
- With a personal net worth of around $10 billion, based on the price of recent sales of Facebook stock in private markets (the company is not yet public), his personal business achievement surpasses anyone his age, ever.
- Facebook has enormous impact in diverse realms—including politics, media, marketing, privacy, our sense of identity, and our definition of friendship.
- Facebook’s impact on the Internet has continued to broaden even outside its own servers. Over 2 million Web sites now use various aspects of Facebook’s software platform, aiming to capture some of the viral communications power that Facebook uniquely makes possible. These platform tools include the “like” button now increasingly ubiquitous across the Web.
- Zuckerberg pushes Facebook to continually change and improve its product, and that has kept it growing and relevant.
And I think he’s fun to watch on Television!
And here’s a link to another great post about Mark Zuckerberg and Time Magazine from David Meerman Scott’s blog.
Are you surfing the internet while you watch TV? If your answer is yes you are not alone. A new study by Forrester shows that US consumers now spend equal time with television and the Internet.
So here’s the big question. When people surf the internet and watch TV simultaneously does the content overlap? Not really.
According to Forrester’s research the top four online activities have nothing to do with what they are watching on TV. According to Forrester VP-Research Director, Reineke Reitsma,
“Because consumers are using their PC for activities that require more attention than watching TV – which is mostly a passive activity — it’s questionable how much of the TV content they are even registering. Almost one-third of consumers are playing games on their computers while watching television, and one-quarter are doing schoolwork. Has the TV just become background noise?”
PS. I’m writing this blog post while kind of watching ADD & Loving It?! on PBS.
As part of a project dubbed The Social Experiment, more than 600 Shoreline high school students and teachers are giving up texting, Facebook, Twitter and email for a week. You can read all about the experiment in this Seattle Times article.
It’s an interesting experiment, but I think a flawed one. I think the experiment should target controlling the use of social media, not eliminating it.
While students say they are replacing texting, posting and tweeting with doing chores and homework I wonder if that’s really the case? While in high-school I and my friends were skilled at avoiding chores around the house and not doing homework. In fact, we often claimed we couldn’t do our chores because of our study load and vice-versa.
Communication, of which social media is a subset, is vital in society. The fact that we’ve moved from sending smoke signals and carving messages into rocks to the instant dissemination of information doesn’t make the medium wrong, or using it wrong. It just means that, like everything else, we need to be the master of these tools so we run them and they don’t run us. Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, text messaging and email are not going away.
I’ll share those skills with you as soon as I learn to curb my appetite for chocolate.
PS – I wish those students documenting this experiment in video would offer us daily updates. After all, we haven’t sworn off of Social Media.
See what the students think:
And what the teachers think:
PS. These are the same schools that last year created this You Tube video sensation! You gotta like these teachers!!!
Hey Ya: A music video
I’m playing “blog catch-up.” I started working on a new Friendly Voice website back in July (while on vacation) and have been too busy with client work to tend to my own knitting. A good thing!
A Note Arrives in the Mail!
Just before Halloween, this note arrived via the US Postal Service (remember them) from my friend and noted art director/illustrator/creative director Rayne Beaudoin.
He was letting me know that he had completed work on his book Home Ownership; Welcome to your Delightmare and that it was available for purchase at Amazon.
When I opened the envelope that Rayne had hand addressed, and got my first glimpse at the nice hand written note it contained, all I could do was smile.
After all, I’m a Social Media zealot who counsels clients on engaging internal and external customers through the use of various social media channels day in and day out. I live my life online like so many others, inundated with messages from friends, colleagues, advertisers, spammers etc.
Now, this note I got from Rayne will not in and of itself help him at all with search engine optimization. But it will engage certain influencers to talk about his book and his novel (retro in 2010) approach to marketing it.
I did something similar when I had decided to sell Bad Animals/Seattle to focus more on creative and less on running a business. In 1998 45 rpm records were dead. So I sent my voice over demo out to about 300 television stations and networks on vinyl. Attached to the 45 rpm demo was stamped postcard offering several options to the recipient.
The choices were:
A) I don’t have a record player, can you please send me a CD?
B) Contact me – we’re looking for a new voice.
C) We’re happy with the voice we have but stay in touch
D) You suck! Take me off your mailing list.
Out of the 300 records sent, I received 15 postcards back (one had the “You Suck” box checked) and three contracts; two for domestic TV stations and one with HBO and Cinemax in Asia.
The moral of the story? Do something that gets attention. Online, offline, wherever. Not in-place of your social media efforts, but in addition to them. In fact, the dust cover of the 45 I sent out prominently displayed my website address – in rubber stamp.
It was hard and expensive to track clicks back then, but I’m sure the site saw some action.
Who knows, do something out of the ordinary and maybe a blogger will pick up on your novel idea and spread it to the masses.
Why Consumers Don’t Trust Car Dealers
I got the official looking envelope (below) in the mail the other day. Since I own an Acura, and the words “Please do not Discard” were printed prominently on the envelope, I quickly opened it – figuring it was either an update to our owner’s manual (something I had just gotten from Volkswagen for our other car), or it was an important recall notice.
Nope, it was a really bad direct mail piece directly from the desk of Cline Davis, General Manager of Acura of Seattle to me, “our loyal customer.” According to the letter, his dealership is “just inches away” from meeting their goal of being one of the top performing Acura dealerships in the region. Wow! Click here to see the actual letter.
In these days of transparancy, Social Media, Blogs, Twitter etc, no advertiser can afford to send out crap like this to anyone – prospective or “loyal” customers.
I was turned off the second I opened the email and saw that it was nothing important. It felt to me like when the TV weatherman says it’s going to rain all day Saturday when he knows darned well it’s going to be sunny and warm, just so HE can easily get a tee-time at his favorite golf course.
Hey, if you want to create misleading advertising assume that your audience is intelligent – and make it so misleading that we smile with glee when we see your piece.
Like this great ad from Ocean City Maryland which implores us to Visit the Ocean, before it’s too late!
I’m not going to comment on the politics of this ad. But I am excited to see a political advertisement with substance in this year of unprecedented political mudslinging.
This ad ran in today’s Seattle Times (October 24, 2010; Section A Page 15.
Click to Enlarge
What do I like about it? It says something. It answers questions directly. And it offers a pledge to rectify any of its opponents’ concerns should they prove to be true.
AND it clearly states who paid for the ad to run. Thank you Mr. Pope for standing up publicly to voice your opinion.
Effective TV ads this political season?
I haven’t found many messages that I could approve.
This is one of the lone exceptions. What do I like about it?
It’s delivered by our State Insurance Commissioner, the person in charge of making sure insurance companies are doing what they are supposed to do. It’s not emotional, it’s not over the top. As Sgt. Friday often said on Dragnet, “Just the facts, mam.”
Star Wars for Fashionistas. You probably know it as Sex and the City. I’ve been a fan of this smart, witty franchise since stumbling on it on HBO in its second season.
But last Friday night was the first time I’ve watched Sex and the City with a crowd. A stylin’, overtly perfumed, very vocal full house at Bellevue’s Lincoln Square Cinemas.
While I enjoyed the movie, I enjoyed the audience even more. They were a lively bunch, who commented and laughed and whooped it all up.
The biggest cheer of the night came early.
Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw character was getting into a cab – and the screen froze on a tight tight shot of a blue pair of shoes. Manolos maybe?? Did I spell it right?
If I had closed my eyes at that moment, I could have been in the Kingdome when Griffey scored that come-from-behind touchdown to win Seattle’s first ever Super Bowl. You get the picture. This was BIG.
That’s what raving fans do. They connect with the brands they love. And Sex and the City is a well loved brand, something I never would have known had I not seen it with my very own eyes.
And while the audience certainly identifies with Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha and Miranda, they seem to revel even more in their fashion.
Your company has raving fans as well. Are you giving them an opportunity to cheer for you at the top of their lungs with others who share their passion ?
While I’m not proposing that you show a close up of your shoes in a theatre, or even in your store or on your website, I am suggesting that you enable our raving fans go shout about you online. On your Facebook page, through FourSquare or by allowing comments on your blog.
I can’t wait for Sex and the City 3 . . .
If you’re under 25 there’s a 5% better chance that you wouldn’t mind being interrupted by an electronic message while you’re having sex than those over 25.
This and more great tidbits about social media use were uncovered in an independent study commissioned by Retrevo, which surveyed 1,000 social media users about when, where, and how much time they spend on sites and services like FaceBook and Twitter.
The study also found that 56% of social media users check Facebook once a day, 32% don’t mind being interrupted by an electronic message while eating and 24% of respondents under the age of the 25 have no problem with digital communication while sitting on the toilet.
Here are a few other nuggets:
- 12% of respondents check/use Facebook every couple of hours
- 23% of iPhone owners primarily get their morning news from Twitter and Facebook
On the Retrevo blog post dated 3/16/2010 Andrew Eisner, Retrevo’s Director of Community & Content concluded:
“We’re not qualified to declare a societal, social media crisis but when almost half of social media users say they check FaceBook or Twitter sometime during the night or when they first wake up, you have to wonder if these people aren’t suffering from some sort of addiction to social media. From this study, it also appears that social media may have begun to replace more conventional sources for news with many social media users saying tweets trump TVs for that morning cup of news.”
97% is a big number! So big a number that if you are a local merchant and you don’t have a Social Media presence, it’s gonna hurt.
According to BIA/Kelsey‘s (www.bia.com and www.kelseygroup.com) User View Wave VII, an ongoing consumer tracking study conducted with research partner ConStat, nearly every consumer (97%) uses online media when researching local products and services.
Let me repeat. NEARLY EVERY CUSTOMER!
And their search isn’t limited to just one site. While consumers aren’t as apt as they were in the past to let their fingers do the walking, consumers are using 7.9 different media sources when shopping for products or services in their local area. 90 percent use search engines, 48 percent use Internet Yellow Pages, 24 percent use vertical sites, and 42 percent use comparison shopping sites.
Here are a few more statistics to ponder:
According to the study, 58 percent of respondents report using an online coupon when shopping for products or services in their local area in the past year, and 19 percent of respondents report making an appointment online in the past six months for a service other than a restaurant reservation (e.g., business appointment, health-care appointment, auto service or personal service such as a beauty shop).
What does this mean for local businesses and local media?
According to Peter Krasilovsky, VP and former program director of Marketplaces, BIA/Kelsey,
The increase in audience fragmentation presents challenges for advertisers looking to connect with local consumers. These challenges may be outweighed by the targeting opportunities available with tools like coupon promotions and appointment scheduling, the latter being among the best lead sources possible, since you know where people are actually going.
But let’s not neglect other important sites like Facebook and Twitter where consumers are talking about you and your product whether you participate in those discussions or not. And peer review sites like Yelp, Foursquare, Angie’s List, and a very long list of other websites make it easy for consumers to share information. Real information about service, company ethics, product quality etc. In fact, you can even find reviews of the review sites, like this gem “Why Angie’s List Sucks!”
Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t advertise on traditional media. Local radio, TV and Newspapers may be hurting, but they are far from dead. And they can help your business move forward. What I am saying is that if your Social Media plan continues to be not having a Social Media plan, then prepare to have your lunch eaten by your competitors, some of whom aren’t even currently on your radar.
Monitor the Social Media space. Listen to the conversations. Engage with those who sing your praises online and those who are very publicly talking dirt about you and your products & services.
Re-tool your website to make it more than a static brochure. Your website isn’t about you, it’s about your customers needs and how you can help them achieve their desired results. Focus your efforts on creating great content that will answer consumers’ questions when they search online. Engage with customers where they already congregate.
97% is a huge number. But on the other hand, if after reading this post you still aren’t interested in Social Media, no worries. You’ll have ample access to the remaining 3%.
