Kill Them With Kindness

It’s election season and in the U.S. we’re getting ready for a good solid year of negative advertising. It’s sad that it works so well. The negativity so easily spreads to the social channels. There we end up with a cacophony of anger and insults rather than any interesting interaction. As a result, one ends up disliking all of the candidates (which may be a good description of what’s happening with the GOP voters this year).

But what about brand and product advertising? Does negative advertising work there as well? Most of the negative advertising we see today is clearly aimed at young males. We usually see competing products or behavior painted as weak and mostly feminine (think car and beer commercials). 

One notable exception was the oft-discussed “I’m a Mac” campaign where Apple instead killed Microsoft with kindness. This unexpected, slightly patronizing but always empathetic spin probably did more to damage Microsoft’s reputation that all of it’s software bloat combined.

If you look at many of the smart brands that have integrated social media into their operations, you see the same thing. Rage, frustration and displeasure are met with patience, understanding and kindness. Most of the time, it works. There’s something about the social channel that brings out the complainer in all of us. Why that is would be great topic for a doctoral thesis.

So try this for a strategy: whether you’re arguing with someone about politics, sports or brands, or attempting to convince customers to use your products over your competitors, try killing them with kindness rather than with clubs and arrows. My guess is you’ll be both more successful and less frustrated.

Ideas are not enough

We’ve all had this happen: we have (what we think) is a great idea. It’s based on a combination of customer insight, business, actual behavior and a bolt from the blue. It makes so much sense you’re amazed no one has done it quite like you’re thinking. You can see both the path and the success.

Most of the time, though, it doesn’t end that way. Here are some of the reasons why that idea never quite made it to reality. 

1. It’s not just your story. An idea needs a story around it. Most of the time, you’ve constructed one that you tell to your team or your boss; that’s how you’ve sold it. If it’s a good story, it moves ahead.
   
   The problem is that too often the idea and story initiator is the only person who can tell it correctly. If you want your story to live and succeed, you need to make sure that others can tell the same story, with the same enthusiasm and belief.
   
   One of the ways I can tell when I have a good idea is when I see my teammates tell the story as if it were their own. When you can hear it with someone else’s voice and words, your chances of success have increased dramatically.
   
   When you see that your team still has problems articulating your story even when everyone is deep into the project, you’re in trouble. Make sure you take the time, early on, to ask people to tell you the story back or even to embellish it. It’s amazing to see how people can reinterpret the idea into different stories over time, even ones that are diametrically opposed to what you initially thought.
   
   
2. Face it, when we have good ideas, we fall in love with them. Usually, though, most other people don’t. In fact, some people don’t really care that much about them at all.
   
   Projects and ideas move ahead for a variety of reasons. But not all projects and ideas are created equal. While your idea may be brilliant, a game changer even, you might only have limited support and resources to move it along. An even stranger combination is when you have resources but not the attention of key stakeholders to succeed.
   
   One way to get around this is to understand where your idea fits into the overall scheme of things. You can do that through a simple step: Ask! Take time with your key decision maker(s) and see how they prioritize your idea and where it fits in the grand scheme of things.
   
   It may turn out that people you expect contributions and support from are just too busy to do so. This can result in a slow, painful death to your idea at worst, or just lousy execution at best.
   
   If you can find the sweet spot for your idea and story, you have a better chance of bringing it to life.
   
   
3. What or who are the potential roadblocks? It’s better to spend some time finding this out at the very beginning rather than the very end. There are lots of horror stories of great ideas and projects dying at the finish line because a final roadblock (legal, brand, accounting) decides that something is not quite right.
   
   It’s better to figure out who will say No early on, so you can start telling them your story. If you can understand their resistance, you might be able to figure out a way around it with their help. Again, the story is the key here.
   
   You may end up discovering that the people who you expected to say No actually provide you with some even better ideas and insights than you originally had. They can make your story better and you can give them ownership.

There are a number of books, like Buy In, that help you sell your idea into a group of skeptical people. But once you’ve gone past that, there’s no guarantee that your idea will happen. 

If you can make others love it even half as much as you do, you’ve got a pretty good chance of succeeding.

(Image from the brilliant Tom Fishburne's Marketoonist Blog)

Do you really want a strategy?

Most of the articles you read about strategy really talk about tactics. People who promote themselves as strategists end up talking mostly about tactics and platforms rather than strategy. It’s not surprising then that many business have a hard time working with or even desiring strategy.

• A strategy describes what you’re going to focus on and how you’re going to act. 
• A strategy plans a route for you to attain certain goals. It doesn’t always plan the meals and hotels along the way.
• A strategy means choice. It means choosing to do certain things and choosing not to do others.
• Because strategy is a direction, there’s lots of room for learning and iterating along the way.

Many of those descriptions make people nervous. Describing how to act involves change. Making choices means commitment and standing for something. Learning along the way might mean you uncover amazing opportunities and it might mean you accept that not everything you do, all the time, is correct.

When your social media strategy comes down to agreeing to create your social media channels and an editorial calendar, you haven’t created a strategy. You’ve created an executional plan, which is good. You have something concrete to show your boss, which could be good for your career. Who knows, it might even help your business, but don’t count on it.

For those contemplating hiring someone to help them with a strategy, consider these questions:

• Are there areas in your market that you believe are untapped reservoirs of business? Either with new prospects or existing customers.
• If you found out something new about peoples’ needs or how they used your product, could you actually use that information in new ways for your marketing or business?
• Is there anyone focused on insights within your company?
• Is it possible to change your standard operating procedures?
• Are you willing to allow consumer behavior to drive your initiatives?

It’s easy to answer a quick yes to all of these but it’s harder to really mean it. I’ve seen companies in desperate need for strategy, including those faced with sinking revenues and even lawsuits. Even when they had actionable strategies, what they ended up focusing on was a new Web site design. It was much easier to understand.

Strategy, though, is a great tool to transform your business and to use as a lens with which to measure actions and success.

I think strategy is work. If you want to change or adapt who you are, you need to look deep and commit to an ongoing process. That’s when you can use a strategy.

If you’re more comfortable buying a new dress, rather than working on your personality traits, then forget the strategy and hire designers or an ad agency. It will make your life easier, but probably not more successful.

(BTW, I love Tom Fishburne's cartoons)

Propagation Planning or PR Influencing?

Over the last year or so Griffin Farley, strategy director at BBH New York, has been working on what he calls “Propagation Planning.” To oversimplify his main thesis, he’s trying to get marketers to focus their attention on people who influence others, rather than end users or end consumers. By shifting the focus you open up the potential of influencing purchasing decisions through personal recommendations, rather than trying to drive home brand or rational benefits through your media.

Here’s a great presentation he gave at the Bolder Digital Works New York conference.

Griffin Farley_Propagation Planning

View more presentations from Boulder Digital Work at CU.

I’m starting to use Griffin’s propagation planning brief for my client strategies and it’s been a successful too to shift mindsets. It’s funny what happens when you get someone to focus their attentions in new areas; it opens the floodgates for great ideas.

One of the easiest examples to understand comes from the Great Shlep idea for the Obama campaign. When faced with the challenge of elderly Jewish, democratic voters who were skeptical of voting for Obama (and who had been on the receiving end of some anti-Obama propaganda emails), the Obama campaign decided to not solely rely on rational messaging.

Instead, they enlisted comedian Sarah Silverman to enlist young Jewish Obama enthusiast to convince their Floridian grandparents to vote for Obama. What an insight! If there’s a force no Jewish grandparent can resist, it’s their grandchildren (with their own children, not so much). 

One challenge I see in a number of examples of propagation planning is where does the new propagation planning start and the old, public relations influencer campaign end? The recycling campaign of the 70’s and 80’s in the U.S. that targeted school children to influence their parents (and completely shifted the recycling landscape here) was a beautifully executed PR influencer campaign. Or was it? Maybe it was propagation planning and we didn’t even know it!

An example that made the rounds recently is a campaign by L’Oreal to target hairdressers to influence their customers to get HIV tested. The campaign includes kits to hairdressers and in person events, along with some Web and social channels. It takes an ad copy line: “Only your hairdresser knows for sure” and puts a modern, helpful twist on it. You can read more about it here.

It’s a great idea. But it seems more like the recycling idea than the great shlep idea. It seems more like a classic PR influencer campaign than ad agency propagation campaign: Target your influencer, send them something, do something in real life, get press, create buzz and word of mouth and you get results.

Maybe I’m splitting hairs here. But I see a difference, however subtle.

When a group is clearly defined (hairdressers, teachers, students) that feels more like a PR influencer campaign. When the group is much looser (Jewish grandchildren, women who want their men to smell better) that’s Propagation Planning (the latter is the propagation focus of Old Spice). While the intent may be the same, the way you get to both of those influencers or propagators requires different approaches and tactics.

Perhaps the difference is simply that creative groups and PR groups don’t collaborate as much as they should. So they end up calling the same things they do by different names. 

I think Propagation Planning is awesome. I love PR influencer campaigns. Great work includes both. But I don’t think they’re exactly the same thing.

Propagation Planning or PR Influencing?

Over the last year or so Griffin Farley, strategy director at BBH New York, has been working on what he calls “Propagation Planning.” To oversimplify his main thesis, he’s trying to get marketers to focus their attention on people who influence others, rather than end users or end consumers. By shifting the focus you open up the potential of influencing purchasing decisions through personal recommendations, rather than trying to drive home brand or rational benefits through your media.

Here’s a great presentation he gave at the Bolder Digital Works New York conference.

Griffin Farley_Propagation Planning

View more presentations from Boulder Digital Work at CU.

I’m starting to use Griffin’s propagation planning brief for my client strategies and it’s been a successful too to shift mindsets. It’s funny what happens when you get someone to focus their attentions in new areas; it opens the floodgates for great ideas.

One of the easiest examples to understand comes from the Great Shlep idea for the Obama campaign. When faced with the challenge of elderly Jewish, democratic voters who were skeptical of voting for Obama (and who had been on the receiving end of some anti-Obama propaganda emails), the Obama campaign decided to not solely rely on rational messaging.

Instead, they enlisted comedian Sarah Silverman to enlist young Jewish Obama enthusiast to convince their Floridian grandparents to vote for Obama. What an insight! If there’s a force no Jewish grandparent can resist, it’s their grandchildren (with their own children, not so much). 

One challenge I see in a number of examples of propagation planning is where does the new propagation planning start and the old, public relations influencer campaign end? The recycling campaign of the 70’s and 80’s in the U.S. that targeted school children to influence their parents (and completely shifted the recycling landscape here) was a beautifully executed PR influencer campaign. Or was it? Maybe it was propagation planning and we didn’t even know it!

An example that made the rounds recently is a campaign by L’Oreal to target hairdressers to influence their customers to get HIV tested. The campaign includes kits to hairdressers and in person events, along with some Web and social channels. It takes an ad copy line: “Only your hairdresser knows for sure” and puts a modern, helpful twist on it. You can read more about it here.

It’s a great idea. But it seems more like the recycling idea than the great shlep idea. It seems more like a classic PR influencer campaign than ad agency propagation campaign: Target your influencer, send them something, do something in real life, get press, create buzz and word of mouth and you get results.

Maybe I’m splitting hairs here. But I see a difference, however subtle.

When a group is clearly defined (hairdressers, teachers, students) that feels more like a PR influencer campaign. When the group is much looser (Jewish grandchildren, women who want their men to smell better) that’s Propagation Planning (the latter is the propagation focus of Old Spice). While the intent may be the same, the way you get to both of those influencers or propagators requires different approaches and tactics.

Perhaps the difference is simply that creative groups and PR groups don’t collaborate as much as they should. So they end up calling the same things they do by different names. 

I think Propagation Planning is awesome. I love PR influencer campaigns. Great work includes both. But I don’t think they’re exactly the same thing.

What Are You Selling?

Agencies and marketers, big and small, are in the business selling services. We sell our services to clients and hope that we help them grow. Many agencies say they’re selling process or strategy or even engagement. But at the end of the day, most of them are selling the services and people they already have: creative, production and media. 

One reason why client satisfaction with agencies is often so low is that clients want agencies to recommend solutions that fit the clients’ needs. The challenge for agencies is that they make money from filling the plates of the people they already have on staff. And if you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Digital agencies are no different. It’s why we still see so many microsites out there. Social agencies are falling into the same trap.

Optimally agencies would come in and evaluate the marketing situation and opportunities from a neutral standpoint. That’s one of the things I try to do with Digalicious. Since we’re a networked agency, we have no vested interest in suggesting one solution over another, since we have no “inventory” to move. I know from experience how hard that is working with a bigger agency, since selling what you have gives you bigger profit margins.

Big agencies have tried to solve this by either having a huge array of services, or by becoming a holding company for separate specialized entities. But what we’ve seen, instead, are problems coordinating these internal groups and even political infighting between holding company “brothers.”

The problem is that clients don’t care about agency problems. They care about their own problems.

That’s one of the reasons why agencies like Co. might succeed: they have a core group of people but don’t have to worry about what recommendations they suggest, as long as they’re the right suggestions and that they have quality people and partners who can step in.The opportunity is that the collaboration will work better when everyone sits at the table as equals and shares in the decision-making. 

Looking ahead, the biggest challenge is having enough high-quality, independent collaborators to tap into. Maybe more and more people will leave the bigger agencies to start their own. Yet the agencies are making this harder every day since most of them have a lot of money to spend on talent. If that talent stays in the system, the collaborators pool will stay shallow.

Ultimately the clients will tip the scales one way or another by deciding on whether they want help from a neutral arbiter or from someone with a dog in the fight.

Digital Sustainability

At yesterday's BBA Mobile discussion, a number of companies impressed me by how they were building their mobile presence with pretty limited resources. What jumped out at me was how they re-used existing content or data by putting a mobile layer on top of it. Not only is that smart, it speeds up launching mobile marketing initiatives.

Russ Scully who owns the restaurant The Spot as well as a Web development firm (a handy combination) showed how he adapted his restaurants online ordering to a mobile Web site. While customers can now pre-order their breakfasts or lunch from their iPhone or Droid (and it even saves your previous orders), Russ and the staff can review orders and inventories mobily as well. He's simply taken the existing data structure from the Web and connected it to a mobile Web site.

Mike Hayes from Magic Hat Brewing (my favorite) showed how they were using mobile Web addresses and QR codes to connect packaging and labels (which they produce all the time) to existing Web or social media content (videos, Twitter, etc.). For Magic Hat it's a way to provide immediacy of connection to people consuming the product in the moment of consumption, through their mobile phone.

What struck me in these discussions was how both businesses weren't trying to build an array of new mobile "stuff." Instead, mobile was the device to connect to existing content. They re-used what they had already built. This seemed like a very sustainable strategy and one that we can learn from.

Old garbage now fills a lot of our digital atmosphere: zombied microsites, old blogs, vacant social media accounts. I wouldn't call it a dump (yet) but it reminds me of our Earth's orbit, now littered with remains of satellites and space ships. As this debris keeps rotating the earth, it poses a threat to new spacecraft.

While everyone pays attention to the idea of mobile apps, start thinking instead about your own digital sustainability. What material could you reuse to grow your mobile presence? How could you adapt some current materials (even shwag) to make it mobile? Right now, everything has the chance to become an interactive object, now that we have a networked mobile device in our hands. Signs, hats, shirts, labels, hangtags, and billboards, to name a few. Could you connect that to content, conversations or contests?

Although this discussion is about mobile, it applies to social media as well. Try to re-use, re-connect, and re-new what you already have, rather than building everything with new material. 

Perhaps you'll build a sustainable Web of engagement through digital technologies.

One Infinite Facebook Loop

I've started to notice a trend on brands' Facebook pages. Rather than landing on the Wall as the start page, you land on a special page with a branded image that includes links back to the brands' Web site.s This image map usually provides links back to the home page and a few other special pages. It's doesn't provide much more but is certainly more graphical than the normal Facebook stream.

Of course, if you visit those brands' home page, you'll see a link asking you to "like" them on Facebook as the brands try to build their social media following. When you click on that link, you land on that graphical Facebook page with a link back to the page you just came from.

I can imagine some unsuspecting (or merely bored) person clicking back and forth in this infinite loop, only to emerge when their broadband connection goes down.

What we're witnessing here are brands jumping into social media, and especially Facebook, without a clear strategy. The graphical landing pages are nothing more than another bad, static banner ad at best, or a circa 1996 Web site at worst. While I can understand the desire to drive Web traffic from Facebook and to grow the number of social media followers online, these brands have fallen into some common traps

No social marketing strategy - Brands who lead with graphical links back to a Web site don't understand Facebook. In social media you fish where the fish are. If you're on Facebook, do something on Facebook.

The biggest mistake these brands make is that they still want to make their Web site the one and only destination, rather than de-centralizing their marketing. Facebook becomes instead another road leading back to Rome.

There are a number of brands that use Facebook for interaction, conversation and business. Those who do understand that they need to provide value on Facebook itself, rather than trying to bring people somewhere else. Just look how Pizza Hut allows you to order pizza right from Facebook, or how 1-800-Flowers allows you do ecommerce without leaving the site. Brands like Adidas, Coke and Victoria's Secrets have moved their site marketing to Facebook itself.

For smart brands, it doesn't matter where you interact with them or do business, as long as you do it in a place that benefits you and the brand. Brands leading with graphical links back to their site show that they don't have a strategy for social media marketing.

Focusing on the wrong numbers - Infinite loops also show a misguided focus on certain numbers, and often the wrong numbers. By focusing on traffic from Facebook and number of followers, brands award quantity over quality. It doesn't matter how many fans you have if they're not helping your brand grow. The same is true of Web traffic.

The problem is that valuable numbers around interaction, conversation and value are harder to measure. It can sometimes take much longer to show how these increase growth. Lately, firms have developed a media value to fans and interactions on Facebook, showing a dollar value based on the number of "likes." This will only encourage a quantitative focus rather than a qualitative.

While it's a good thing that brands recognize the value of social networks like Facebook, they need to go beyond a picture with links. Here are a couple of things to think about:

1. It's not about pretty - Even if you can't make things graphically beautiful, people will still like you in social media. Don't worry so much about how you look, worry instead about how you act and how interesting others find you.
2. What's the Do? - You have a chance to let people do things. What do you want them to do? What can you offer them on your social networks that will entertain and delight them so they'll want to do it again and tell others about it?
3. Move your marketing - Start thinking about how you can move your marketing to social, rather than keeping it all on your site. Things like microsites have started migrating to Facebook. What could you move?

You might never end up with a following like Victoria's Secrets but that doesn't mean you should give up either. Start developing your social strategy and take time to move slowly and deliberately so you get it right.

Remember, infinity is a very long time.

Social Media Strategy: Put on Your Dating Shoes

When I talk with companies looking to dive into social media, I find it odd that so many them still want a short-term, wow-em campaign. Every time I hear this, I always think of my old college friend Bill.

Bill wasn't the best looking guy in our group, nor was he the smartest one. When it came to Saturday night parties at the frat house or hanging at the local bar, though, Bill had a completely different strategy than the rest of us guys. Bill always had a pile of current events magazines in his room, some of them women's magazines. He would prepare for his social outings by scouring these publications for interesting topics. When we used to give him a ton of grief about this, he'd always answer, "What are you going to talk about? The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue?" Undaunted, he prepped for weekends like a final exam.

When Saturday night came around, Bill was always talking to several women, wherever he was. While the rest of us hung out at the bar, preening manly and eyeing the best looking women in the house (who rarely looked back), Bill usually found his way to nice women without obsessing over their looks. He knew with whom he had the best chances. While the rest of us usually went home empty handed, Bill always had a telephone number or two (at least) as the result of his efforts. Guess who had the last laugh?

When you get to work in social media, start acting like Bill. Figure out who you should talk with and why. Do your homework and gather or create content that would interest those people. Make sure you have some type of conversion mechanism somewhere in your outreach, so you can tie it back to your business goals.

Chances are you don't have the flashiest brand around. Leave that to Apple and Zappos. Don't worry about fancy clothes or perfumes. Show customers and prospects you're in it for the long haul. Do your homework and follow through.

While most marketing campaigns take the opposite approach, your social media strategy, like a dating strategy, needs to focus on relationships and not one-night stands. You need to imbue your social media team with this type of dating mentality for you to succeed.

It might not sound very sexy, but neither does being alone on a Saturday night

Removing the Social Media Roadblocks

If you've thought about moving your organization into social media but haven't done so yet, you're probably facing a number of real and perceived roadblocks. Usually, places that have solid hierarchies, are publicly traded companies or are risk averse tend to hold back from social media. Loss of control feels scary, threatening and downright dangerous.

As a social media champion, your role isn't to tell people who feel this way that they're wrong or crazy. Your role is to convince them that it's worth the risk. Remember, know your audience and adjust your strategies accordingly.

Roadblock 1: The CEO
The CEO might like to see him or herself as an entrepreneurial risk taker but chances are that was a long time ago. Or he or she may be so busy and pre-occupied that this social media thing seems like much ado about nothing (and only time will tell).

Your social media strategy should be to feed the C small tidbits of:

1. How the competition is already moving into this space and you risk falling behind.
2. How customer satisfaction goes up or costs go down.
3. Companies who've reduced marketing costs or increased sales.
4. How social media increases employee connections and satisfaction.

The stories are out there. Start with Zappo's, Ford and Dell. Everyone has heard of them. You just need to be consistently sharing them and then following up with a concrete plan for your organization. Proof and plan usually opens that roadblock.

Roadblock 2: Legal, Financial or HR
If your organization has a history of unhappy labor negotiations or if you find yourself the center of a lot of financial speculation online, the powers that be will not want you to say ANYTHING online. Remember, anything you say or do can and will be used against you. So it's better to keep your social media yap shut.

Here's what you need to provide them:

1. Create a social media policy and guidelines to show them that employees need to follow certain rules.
2. Put together a training program for employees who participate in social media. Make sure everyone who goes through this gets a "grade."
3. Show them the dangers and risks of NOT participating in social media or having guidelines. There are a lot of horror stories to choose from.
4. Put together a social media crisis communications plan. They'll love this.
5. Allow them to help you craft all of this.
6. If you need to, put some teeth in somewhere. It goes against the grain of social media but it may be a small price to pay to remove the roadblock.

Remember, they're not wrong, they're right. You need to show them that social media is not terribly dangerous.

Roadblock 3: Other Marketers

"Who Owns Social Media?" will be the slogan that kills social media. We marketers are territorial by nature; it's what we're trained to be. You may find yourself in a tug-of-war over who gets to call the shots. This is a tough one, but you might try:

1. Find allies in the other marketing teams and build your own skunk works group.
2. Share stories in all of the groups of great "hybrid" marketing examples. These are starting to pop-up more and more.
3. Focus on certain marketing gurus to make your case for you. They carry lots of weight.
4. Invite the groups to Webinars or, better yet, go on a group trip to a conference.
5. Let the other groups help you in putting together policies, strategies and plans.
6. Remember, this is about team building more than anything else.

If they still won't play, make sure they know you're moving ahead and will get there first with out them.

Roadblock 4: Yourself
You are probably your own biggest roadblock. Face it, you're probably busier than ever; do you really need one more headache? You do if you're a forwarding thinking person, which you probably are if you've read this far. So, some quick tips:

1. Set realistic goals for yourself.
2. Get some of your excuses and time-sucks out of the way. You may have to give up Twitter for Lent to make it happen.
3. Read books like Linchpin or Groundswell to psyche you up.
4. Contact some big swinging Tweets for encouragement and advice.
5. Remember, it's a job, not your entire life. If you don't succeed at it here, and it means a lot to you, that may be telling you more than anything else.

There are lots of reasons not to do things and lots of people who don't want anything to change. If you do want change, you can make it happen, even if you find people standing in your way.