A brilliantly simple video about the strength of advocacy

This video is excellent.

It simplifies the process of the creation and value of brand advocates.

Show it to your colleagues, show it to your clients, show it to everyone.

What happens to your Myspace page when you die?

According to Yahoo Answers, the microchip in our heads turns it off!

Content is king

Marketing and the social web can be viewed as polar opposites.

On one end of the spectrum you have monologue based mass market messaging focused on no one in particular.

At the other end you have dialogue based small groups of people deep in conversation they find relevant and interesting.
It's a quandary.

How do we combine these two polar opposites to make both happy advertisers and happy customers when both environments are so very different?

There is a pattern which has been seen in all of the successful social web forays we have seen by brands, it's just that it hasn't been readily identified and singled out just yet.

That pattern is content.

Content as a strategy must remain central to any activity executed within the social web. But 'content' is an ambiguous word, it could mean anything, so let me give you some examples.....

Queensland Tourism 'Best Job In The World': Content was video applications for the job, a Twitter feed, a blog etc. All relevant amusing content which created interest and repeat visits. Also the promise of $150k and living on Hamilton Island for 6 months was a bonus which created the viral element and instant popularity....it was still content which drove the momentum.

Kit Kat Chunky Cookies & Cream: Their content was an online/mobile game called Chungastruck where players could play against their friends, they also had video episodes featuring a character called 'Hans Fagerlund' played by comedian Jordan Raskopoulos who was an expert Chungastruck player. The video content was funny and entertaining while the game kept people engaged and spreading the word.

Bigpond on Twitter: CRM based rather than campaign based and very successful. Their content is regular open communication. So simple but effective.

UBank: Again this is not campaign based - they created a Youtube channel with mini webisodes explaining and simplying financial situations such as the economic crisis. It's not neccessarily the most exciting or entertaining subject, but it's value adding...

What the above examples point out is that a brand's social web strategy isn't really a strategy if a content plan isn't at the center of it.

To give a further example, i don't follow people on Twitter who don't interest me or who don't add value to my Twitter experience. I won't follow glamour models, get rich quick schemes or those who follow for the sake of following....

Would you? There aren't many people who would follow or befriend someone on Twitter or Facebook if they didn't have something interesting to say or to add.

As a brand, if you want followers, friends or (nirvana) advocates then you must be creating entertaining, informative, useful and engaging content.

If your content is all of the above then a social web strategy should follow suit pretty easily....

Vintage Wilkinson Coffee Ads - I'm drawing comparisons...

I just love these early 50's muppet adverts for Wilkinson Coffe.

Apparently these were made and directed by none other than Jim Henson!

The ads had to be 10 seconds and no more which was a bit of challenge but i think the content is hilarious (if a little violent).

The ads starred the cheerful Wilkins, who liked Wilkins Coffee, and the grumpy Wontkins, who hated it. Wilkins would often do serious harm to Wontkins in the ads -- blowing him up, stabbing him with a knife, and smashing him with a club, among many other violent, but funny, acts.

Ad number two:

Wilkins: ''Care for a cup of Wilkins Coffee?"

Wontkins: "No, i don't drink coffee"

*BANG - Wontkins is shot in the head*

Wilkins: "This has been a public service announcement"

Ad number three:

Wilkins: "We're here to persuade people to drink more Wilkins coffee?"

Wontkins: "What's the club for?"

*SMACK - Wontkins is clubbed over the head by Wilkins*

Wilkins: "To get their attention"

Ad number four:

Wilkins: "You getting on the Wilkins coffee bandwagon?"

Wontkins: "No"

*Wontkins is run over by the Bandwagon*

Wilkins: "You either go with Wilkins or you just don't go"

I can't help but draw comparisons with these hilarious ads and the attitudes of marketers.

Whether traditional or digital, it doesn't matter, we're constantly clubbing each other over the head and it's our way or the highway.

Ridiculous but true :-)

Twitter Love Story: Tweets bring two homeless bloggers together

Twitter is amazing and unusual in that it has opened our eyes to new things we would potentially never have experienced before.

Such as breaking news stories before even the media has gotten hold of the information, coverage of a Moldovian revolution, inside details about the life and loves of Stephen Fry and, more recently, a topless shot of Lindsay Lohan....?!

It's truly a special place....

Now following all of the above, a little Twitter romance doesn't seems especially out of place, there are even Twitter dating sites popping up such as MyTweetheart.com and Twitterbirds.com, but there is one recent romance on Twitter that has captured the hearts of Twitterers worldwide....the transatlantic love story of two homeless people named Bri and Matt.

Now, you might be thinking, how the hell does a homeless person have access to Twitter or the internet or even a computer?! Well, as it turns out, using internet cafes they can access just as regularly as we do.

Mark was made homeless during March of 2008 following a sequence of events which were largely beyond his control. He had worked all of his life, he was a homeowner and did not have alcohol or substance abuse issues. He was computer literate and was a writer and a blogger who used Twitter.

Mark began to write about being homeless on his blog 'Homeless Tales' and also started to monitor Twitter using Summize to alert him (via RSS)to any tweets containing 'homeless' or homelessness'. And this is how one homeless guy got to meet a homeless girl on the other side of the Atlantic and fall in love.

In March 2009, Mark was alerted via Summize to his usual tweets containing 'homeless' or 'homelessness' and became aware of a Twitterer called @tGGtH with tweets such as "“If a turtle has no shell is it naked or homeless?” and, “Just saw a homeless guy with a cell phone. WTF?”

The connecting URL to @tGGtH was http://girlsguidetohomelessness.com/ - tips for surviving homelessness. You may be homeless, but you do not need to be a bum!

Mark started to read the blog and discovered what he described as "a young, intelligent woman, newly homeless and whose writing I found highly engaging and witty. She was following exactly nine people on Twitter and had just received her very first follow - me".

@tGGtH was also known as 'Bri'.

Bri was alone and homeless in a trailer with no heating, running water or cooking facilities living in California. Mark was living 5,000 miles away in Scotland but, as Mark had often done with other homeless people, he felt the urge to reach out to her.

Within a few hours of their first tweets they were exchanging direct messages which would soon progress to email and then instant messenger. Before they knew it, they were conducting an online affair, though niether had ever met in person, and found themselves falling in love.

After a few months of online conversing, Mark made the leap and travelled to California where he remains currently, but only for another 2 weeks before he must make his way home to Scotland.

They both work but financially it has been difficult for them and they have spent most of their time staying in a small, cheap motel.

Soon Mark will be back in Scotland and Bri will return to her trailer situated in a wal-mart parking lot.

However, they have such a positive outlook that they say "Those few niggles aside though, we are both blissfully happy and madly in love. Most importantly, thanks to Twitter, we are together".

Such a lovely heartwarming story.

You can find both of their blogs here which is where you can read about the rest of their story:

http://homelesstales.com/
http://girlsguidetohomelessness.com/



UPDATE:

@tGGtH found me on Twitter! How nice...

FACT: You can't truly understand the social web unless you're in it

A study released today called 'An In-Depth Look Inside the Twitter World' stated that of people who identify themselves as social media marketers, 65.5% have never posted an update on Twitter....

Like some others, I find this is slightly odd.

An excerpt from B&T's top 50 marketing bloggers shows that some key figures in digital marketing believe that it's essential to be part of the landscape that you are promoting to your clients...

Iain McDonald, managing partner at Amnesia (whose blog ranks 17th), had taken the unusual step of asking all staff to get on to Twitter in September 2008.

"We've immersed ourselves in social media," McDonald says.

"We believe that the only way to really learn is to get your own hands dirty. We follow the debate and having the debate is healthy as far as I can see."

I am a firm advocate of immersing yourself in your craft - do you agree?

Please stop asking me to convert my digital plan into TARPs!

Time and time again i am asked by those 'upstairs' to translate my digital planning into TARPs.....

So for the last few years i have estimated, calculated and basically fudged together some numbers which have been taken as gospel and reported to the respective clients.

Each time i've been asked to do this i have initially declined stating the obvious "you can't benchmark digital using TARPs", but inevitably i give in simply because i can't be arsed to argue the point.

Today is different......it's time someone stood up and said that the concept of benchmarking digital & traditional with a common planning metric is a total load of shite....whether TARPs, impressions or reach, it's still pointless.

Digital and traditional media are like chalk and cheese and nowhere is this better represented than through the chalk and cheese relations of digital and traditional planners....

Why are we chalk and cheese? For the simple reason that we think, act, plan and communicate differently. Neither are right or wrong....just dissimilar.

Migrating traditional creative and media thinking into the digital era can and does create friction.

But this is not because traditional media planners are old, close minded, patronising dickheads nor is it because digital planners are jumped up, narcissistic, too-cool-for-school wankers....it's because our approach, thinking and practices are so wildly
contrasting...

Traditional media planners apply traditional practices to digital and expect traditional outcomes such as TARPs, reach, frequency etc

Digital media planners don't truly appreciate the job traditional media does and can go off on a tangent planning and evangelising digital-only campaigns but going digital all at once is unrealistic for most clients.

However what does correlate is our identical incomprehension of each others norms.

Hence we get trapped on a merry-go-round of painful, ego bashing conversations, resulting in neither party moving forwards (how many of you have experienced that? I know i have....)

But all it takes is a little bit of education and mutual respect.

Digital is unlike any other medium that's come before it, and benchmarking it against traditional media will never suffice.

As an example, a key bone of contention between 'trads' & 'digis' - my own denomination, feel free to use it ;-) - in agencies can revolve around the revenue models.

Some clients are still billed on a percentage of media spend rather than a retainer or project basis, therefore it's in the agencies interest to spend, spend, spend the client's money when they get the chance....and rightly so!

However, digital as a medium doesn't always require big bucks.

In fact, digital can often be cheaper than traditional media due to the measurement capabilities which subsequently help to increase targeting, optimisation and effectiveness.

Pin-pointing effectiveness leads to refining activity and spending less money to achieve your objectives.

Great!

Not great.....with declining ad spend comes declining revenue if you're still basing your income on percentage media spend.

The other bone of contention is labour...

Digital is incredibly labour intensive with various assets, technologies, maintenance, measurement, reporting and engagement.
It is by far the most labour intensive medium in advertising history.

We, as digital planners, now have multiple roles moving from media planner to creative to production to analytics and even customer relationship management.

Traditional media planners do a tough job but it is far less hands-on than digital.

To fudge some more numbers....take what traditional planners do and double it, that's what we do (nb. this is a totally fabricated estimate based on no logic other than personal experience).

So from a traditional planners point of view, digital could negatively impact on revenue generation, it's a fad - not everyone in the world has a facebook account and it and it's only a piece of the pie...

True....

From a digital planners point of view, traditional is unneccessary and boring, we work our butts off for minimal reward in comparison to ' trads' and digital will one day rule the world so what is everyone waiting for?

True.....

We are all correct in our own way.

But ultimately we need to go back to education and mutual respect rather than fighting a war of words over whose job is more important, which channel is more valuable and whether or not digital will kill traditional media outlets.

We're so very different but also completely the same.

Our combined goal is to produce better consumer experiences with our clients brands and products....that goal should be channel agnostic.

Digital should not neccessarily replace traditional media but it should form part of a well balanced strategic plan, but a strategic plan need not have one form of measurement.

So please....lets all get along, understand each others differences and respect each others work...

But for gods sake, don't ask me to convert my digital plan into TARPs ever again.