Last time I did Ignite Raleigh I have to admit I was more nervous than I was this time around. There is no doubt that practice makes perfect and it helps your confidence when you have 20 slides and 5 minutes in front of 500+ to speak your peace!
I want to thank Ignite Raleigh crew (@therab, @timarthur, @damondnollan, @lisasullivan) for selecting me to speak on this topic that I had a lot of fun with. I really had a great time on stage and enjoyed doing Ignite Raleigh again. I highly recommend this to anyone that is passionate or just plain excited about their interests and culture. I met so many people for the first time that night as well as connected with some of the best people Raleigh has to offer and good friends!
If only State had held on to beat Duke that night!
Last month I had the opportunity to meet and hear Randi Zuckerberg speak at Meredith College. Randi was visiting the campus to receive the President’s Award and deliver the 2012 Woman of Achievement Lecture. Prior to the event I was able to attend the VIP reception thanks to my wife (@mcdezigns) who won the Meredith Facebook contest.
Randi Zuckerberg is the former head of marketing at Facebook and brother to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and the next american billionaire. She left her advertising agency job to work with Mark when he was at Harvard to help him launch Facebook and was with the company until last fall. During her tenure she was able to see the development of Facebook and help with the launch of several of the platforms features.
Randi stated that she changes her presentation based on current trends and that it can change on a monthly basis. The top trends she discussed were:
The sharing economy: social media has created a more caring community that shares resources instead of hoarding them.
People as platforms: the ability for individuals to generate a fan followiong rapidly.
Gamification of health and fitness: apps like Gym-Pact reward healthy behavior.
Crowdsourcing: Kickstart is funding more projects than the NEA. Logos and corporate identity are being generated by sites like 99 Designs.
Cover photos are making statements: people and brands are having fun with photos and creating a billboard type impression on Facebook. Examples include Girl Scout Cookies and Obama’s campaign pages.
Mobile first: new technology is being designed only for use as a mobile app without a formal website. These new apps are building one use case really well versus a whole site.
Curation is creating experts from individuals that never write, paint or create unique content. Sites like Pinterest allow users to create a strong following based off their taste not their own content.
Creating social moments: what if you could recreate the Home Shopping Network within Facebook with real time stats on friends purchases?
The opportunity to create more social moments via live blogging (which I wish I had known that there was WiFi at the event, I would have live blogged this post!).
Philanthropy is offering brands the opportunity to dip their toes into social media by matching contributions or having contests. Target asked its fans to pick which charity they would give their annual donation to by voting on Facebook.
Overall I was very impressed with Randi both on a personal and professional level. She was very approachable when I had the opportunity to meet her before the event and I enjoyed discussing strategy with her. After seeing her speak to the crowd you could tell that she was a savvy marketing professional that understood that technology is cool but you need to provide value. Technology for wow factor fades fast.
I would like to thank Meredith College for bringing Randi to the Triangle as the event was free to the public.
This past Sunday evening I was able to sit in on with The TechMonks Podcast and recap the Triangle AMA Digital Marketing Camp. The show hosts Damond Nollan @damondnollan and Tim Arthur @timarthurattended the event as well as interviewed several of the speakers.
At the February Triangle Social Media Club event I had my eyes opened to the world of “social TV.” The speakers were Gregory Ng (@gregoryng), Tim Arthur (@timarthur), Damond Nollan (@damondnollan) and the MC was Ryan Boyles (@therab). The panel showed what their entertainment centers consisted of, their top 5 shows and one guilty pleasure as well as shared insights, wants and desires of social TV.
The rise of digital enabled devices has allowed for greater integration of social networks and websites with our TVs. All four on the panel had a gaming device such as Wii or Xbox to stream video but the setups were different in other areas. For instance Damond’s strategy was to reduce his monthly entertainment expense while allowing everyone in his household to have their own streaming device. While Greg preferred to subscribe to Direct TV for sports as well as the ability to watch live events as they happen.
The presentation embedded at the end of this post gives a great view into the different setups. The panel also listed their favorite shows and guilty pleasures. All four panelists picked “The Walking Dead” as one of their top 5 shows. While I’m not a fan of Zombie genre, I was interested to learn why they were enthusiastic. The show had a big following and even the largest cable debut of the season. Combined with fan chats, celebrity after show appearances; The Walking Dead created a community of fans and a forum.
That’s where social TV has real potential. It’s one thing to check in to a show and share that on Twitter and Facebook. This can lead to shared interests among your social circle. But where it takes off is creating a true fan community that works similar to bulletin board forums of the early 90s. Ryan explained how super fans create private blogs on Tumblr with their own language and rely heavily on aliases. Most best practices posts will tell you to be authentic, but in the world of social TV DISQUS did research that showed that alias communities had greater interaction and participation.
What does all of this mean to marketing and advertising folk like me? It represents a new opportunity to build relationships with fans in a new way. While Ryan recanted GaryVee’s mantra of “marketing ruins everything” it does not have to. The panel discussed how media companies can build respect and report with users versus just selling to them. For instance, what if a social TV app could provide live channel notifications and share that among friends? The idea that sharing old school living room experience allows for more intimate content and engagement with a global audience is truly unique.
Tonight the Oscars is being broadcast and I’ve already seen hype around the fact that this will be the most social and interactive award show to date. That’s an easy claim if the majority of last year’s activity was Twitter and Facebook chatter. But as social TV develops there is opportunity to engage fans and talent in real time.
I want to thank Ryan for hosting the panel and sharing the presentation on his SlideShare space as well as the other panelists for sharing their frank and honest views on the tools, technology and changing landscape of social TV! Plus Greg’s guilty pleasure of “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant” was classic! Also I was finally able to meet Tim Arthur in person after several months of chatting on Twitter and blogs and found out that we have many similar interests including Breaking Bad and Californication, two of my favorite shows! Also thanks to WNCN NBC 17 for hosting the event and studio tour from Kim Green @producingk.
Apple’s announcement yesterday disappointed some that wanted to see a new iPhone design, the iPhone 5. Had the iPhone 5 been announced there would have been throngs of innovators, early adopters and first droppers lined up to buy the device on the first day, shattering sales records and making news. But that did not happen and as a result Apple’s stock dropped 5% even though they are delivering another quality product. The new iPhone 4S was announced with some major improvements:
Speed: 2X faster downloading files (14.4 Mbps).
Performance: new A5 dual processor is faster loading web pages, rendering graphics, loading apps, etc.
Camera: 8 megapixel sensor, a new fifth lens, an enlarged aperture, face detection, reduced motion blur, shoot 1080p HD video.
Kick ass factor: Siri, the new voice activated personal assistant.
Compatibility: GSM/CDMA compatibility creates a phone for international travelers as well as brings Sprint into the iPhone party.
But it won’t come in a shiny new design. So Apple will have to say goodbye to the 16% of customers that must have iPhone 5 to buy. Innovators and early adopters make up 2.5% and 13.5% respectively. Sure they give great buzz and short term gain that Wall St. loves but they don’t sustain the product sales over the long haul. And those first droppers? Heck forget about them. They are going to be the first to drop your product and move on the the next greatest thing that nobody knows about or has proven effective, they just want to show how uber cool they are all the time.
So who was Apple going after with the 4S? They are going after the 70% of customers that make up the meaty part of the bell curve called the early and late majorities. Each of these groups have 35% of the customer base and they are what keep companies profitable over the long haul. iPhone customers that want to upgrade their 2 year old 3GS or older 3G will upgrade to the 4S and enjoy the shorter lines and wait times. Consumers that have not bought smartphones will upgrade now that it’s a proven design with improvements on antenna and more carrier compatibility. Wall Street will even forgive Apple as they buy shares lower today and sell at increase in 6-9 months when iPhone 5 has launched and Apple sold millions of 4S phones as well as the iPhone 5.
What’s your take on Apple’s announcement? Was it disappointing or another great release from the largest technology company in the world?
This week I had the opportunity to sit in with JT Moore @j_t_moore of ASPE ROI @ASPE_ROI for an hour long webinar on Google Analytics. We discussed how to get started with Google Analytics and explained some of its basic features including:
I saw the program for a social media conference recently that had 16 unique hashtags peppered throughout the agenda program. My first reaction was why? Some of the hashtags were the city and state name of the event location while others were plain generic like #Day1 and #blogging. The event had a unique name that should have been the main hashtag used to create awareness of the event. However by placing up to five hashtags for each agenda item the event hashtag got lost.
This is the wrong strategy for several reasons. First it dilutes the main brand that you are trying to promote and position. Secondly tracking the tags to measure chatter volume will be inaccurate when you have tags like #RaleighNC or #SeattleWA that may be used by tourists or economic development tweeters. Third and most important, you are confusing the very people attending the event that need to understand how to use social media effectively to communicate.
Most of the seasoned professionals in any discipline go to events for two reasons: to speak and to network. They don’t go for professional development and education. Sure they may pick up a few tips but they are not there to ramp up knowledge quickly. The attendees that shell out their hard earned money are there for that. They want to build up expertise quickly, find starting points for new projects and save time determining what thought leadership blogs they should be reading.
A novice may see multiple hashtags and wonder what they are, what purpose do they serve and how are they used? By bombarding them with multiple keywords in hashtags the event staf is confusing them and not teaching best practices. Part of me thinks that the reasoning behind putting multiple hashtags on a conference agenda or signage is to look sophisticated, smart and savvy. This is when I love to yell at these people through my screen, “You’re doing it wrong!”
Tom Webster (@webby2001) puts out a tweet when he speaks at or attends events stating, “For those of you following at home, the hashtag is…” Tom gets it and knows that there are interested people not at the event that want to share in the information and knowledge being presented. Multiple hashtags makes it frustrating and irritating for those following the event and not realizing that the hashtag they are tracking is only one of several.
What do you think? Is having multiple event hashtags smart or confusing?
Watching the news and tracking the storm that tore through North Carolina yesterday reminded me about the tornado that hit Raleigh in 1988. I was in college at NC State and living off Hillsborogh St. I still recall the strange weather that day. The temperature shifted 20+ degrees and by midnight you could see storms to the north. I recall sitting on the front porch ad talking with my roommate about how weird the weather had been and how it was, “perfect tornado weather.”
That storm spawned several tornados and hit several neighborhoods in North Raleigh starting at midnight. It flattened the K-Mart on Glenwood Ave and scarred the land around Lynn and Leesville Roads. The people in those neighborhoods had very little warning and surprisingly there were few fatalities (4 total and 2 in Raleigh). I was not aware of the storms until the next morning. One of my roommates had driven back from his home in Northern Virginia for Fall Break and asked me what happened in North Raleigh. “It looked like a bomb went off out there!” he said. My only news sources at that time were television and the copy of The News and Observer that was sitting on the coffee table.
Yesterday we saw the worst tornado activity in the history of the state. After returning from my kid’s soccer games around 3:20 pm I turned on WRAL to see how the storm was tracking. Within the next five minutes they had identified a tornado in Holly Springs that was heading directly towards our location. Luckily my house has a basement and we all went there to be safe. Over the next 10 minutes, heavy wind, rain and hail hit our home and area. We were spared as the tornado that was heading toward us went more due south and directly towards Raleigh.
About 10 minutes later I saw the first image of the damage. I was checking Twitter to see what news was coming out and saw the image of the Lowe’s in Sanford flattened like the K-Mart on Glenwood 23 years ago. A few hours later I saw images of a friend’s home that was badly damage by the storm and called to make sure he was OK both physically and emotionally. He informed me that although he was a bit shaken, everyone was OK and nobody was injured.
What resonated with me was even more relevant than it was 23 years ago, tornados and other acts of nature can destroy our homes, cars and other possessions but they are all replaceable. What really matters is our safety and mortality. When that tornado hit years ago I felt bad for those that had damage and lost their lives but did not fully understand the impact. Yesterday I felt very sad and bad for those suffering from this storm. Being homeless for any period of time sucks. I have been forced to leave my home for several weeks due to a house fire and can tell you I hated every minute of it. The safety of my family was more important to me than anything else at that moment.
I am thankful for the more immediate access to information we now have with increased communication channels and real time technology. This information helps saves lives and move people out of danger when seconds count. We spend an inordinate amount of time on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks yapping about our coffee, lunch, or whatever. Yesterday was an opportunity for people to inform, warn, reflect and share their emotions, grief and impressions of what happened to our community.
What’s really important is surviving, helping our neighbors, sharing our love and passions with those in our community. My family and I were very lucky that this storm passed by us with no damage. While others are dealing with major challenges in their lives caused by the storm, I have faith in the fact that they too will survive and continue onward. Homes will be rebuilt, possessions replaced and injuries will heal.
If you are interested in helping those in the community contact the Triangle Area Chapter of the American Red Cross at http://www.triangleredcross.org/.
Last week The Gap announced that they were giving away 10,000 pairs of jeans to anyone who checked in to their stores on Facebook. All you had to do was show your check-in screen on your mobile device to redeem the coupon. I headed over to The Gap at 11 AM last Friday to see if I could be one of the lucky 10,000. I was unable to be there when the store opened as I was co-hosting the Movember-thon from 10-11 AM. By the time I got to the store they had already given out the free jeans. In fact, the store clerk informed me that there was a line at the door when the store opened at 10 AM and they only have 7 pairs of free jeans to give away.
Was I disappointed? No, because at the same time The Gap was offering 40% off any regular price item for anyone showing their check in screen. Since I was at the store and needed a pair of jeans I decided to try some on. Now I’m not a fashionista, so I usually buy Levis jeans and my last purchase was at BJ’s Wholesale Club. Therefore I would not normally spend $50 on jeans, but with the 40% off the jeans were more around $33 which is what I’m willing to pay. Big win for The Gap, they got me in the store and I made a purchasing decision that I would not have normally done. Also my wife went with me and bought an item at 40% off as well as showed me a second item that she liked that I plan to go back and purchase. To top it off the store clerk gave me coupons valid on Wednesdays and Thursdays, low traffic days.
So even though I and many others wrote about The Gap changing their logo and how the decision seemed ill advised, I am more convinced than ever that it was all a stunt. I cannot believe that The Gap was going to change their logo to something that looked like a 5th grader’s first forway into layout software. Either way it does not really matter as this week’s discussion is about how brilliant the free jeans campaign was. Not only did they redeem themselves among marketing pundits and regular customers, they also accomplished something that the Facebook executives are loving. They demonstrated how to use the Facebook Places mobile application work for location based marketing.
Facebook Places Shows Special Offers
When I checked into Facebook places I noticed that the screen looked different. Luckily I downloaded the latest update earlier in the week so I could see the coupons icon next to the store name. As I walked out of The Gap I started to look at the different offers each store had. Some offered 20% off coupons, others would donate to a specific charitable cause with a certain purchase. I was intrigued as I’m not a big shopper and if I can find a deal it makes me more likely to purchase. I used to be an impulse buyer but in recent years have overcome that habit.
So in a single campaign The Gap not only redeemed itself but they also were able to make more Facebook users aware of how location based services (LBS) can provide value beyond checking in. I have tried several of the LBS and only found a few that provided value. For instance I like Yelp because it has reviews to gauge the quality of the retailer as well as will search nearby locations for food or nightlife as well as link to directions. Some other LBS allow companies to offer specials but sometimes that requires additional promotions either on social networks, advertising or traditional store signage.
When Facebook initially launched Places I thought it was very lacking of value. All I could do was check in and there was not much value. Now with the addition of real time specials and offers, Places has become a game changer. Savvy retailers will flock to Facebook Places and an opportunity to put a special offer in front of a potential or returning customer in real time. True that many social snobs, including myself, may snub Facebook and deplore their privacy issue, but we’re a small percentage of consumers. The remaining 80-90% of users don’t care and will continue to use Facebook as their primary social network. And now checking in on Facebook provides value by offering immediate financial savings. LBS service providers no doubt took note of this past weekends activities and are trying to figure out how to compete against the world’s largest social network.
An interesting statistic will be what the uptick in Gap’s sales were from the campaign. I would also be interested in other retailers seeing sales surge from Facebook places.
There have been some great posts on this campaign from local bloggers that I enjoyed reading that you should review:
This past Sunday evening I was able to sit in on with The TechMonks Podcast and recap the 
I saw the program for a social media conference recently that had 16 unique hashtags peppered throughout the agenda program. My first reaction was why? Some of the hashtags were the city and state name of the event location while others were plain generic like #
