Friday, June 12, 2009

The Microphone Is Always On

Andy Warhol once noted "In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." Now that we're constantly publishing, sharing, microsharing, updating, vlogging... (I could go on), it seems to me that in the future, everyone will have 15 minutes of privacy.

I've noted before that it's extremely important to live your life in a way that reflects positively of you, because you never know who's capturing what image, sound file or video. Put more bluntly - if you'll allow me to turn another phrase - whatever happens in Vegas stays on Google. Every action counts.

Want proof?

One need look no further than Michael Richards, who was caught via cellphone video making a racist rant at a comedy club. It's still the #1 search result on YouTube for "Michael Richards." And President Ronald Reagan made a famous gaffe during a microphone check, unaware that he was being broadcast live:

How does that apply online or in social media? Every tweet you make, every blog post you write, every video you record - it all adds up to showing the world who you are. And since content is easily discoverable by Google, the content you (or your company) produce needs to reflect what you want it to. For example, just the other day, I was told that I was the subject of someone's presentation, and they showed my Twitter feed up on a big screen. If I were careless about what I wrote, my stream might have been embarrassing. Luckily, that's not the case.

Since you never get a second chance to make a first impression, every single piece of copy, every minute of video, every utterance you make can become a decision point for someone. It may be a potential customer, a prospective employer, maybe even a family member. Make your actions count.

Have you run into a situation where you you either gave someone an impression you didn't intend to, or you discovered something about someone that made you think twice about them? I'd be interested in hearing from you.

Photo credit: iNafih

Labels: brand, personal branding, PSA, Risk

Posted by Scott Monty at 9:10 AM

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Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Please, Sir, May I Have Some More (Budget)?

Are you begging for a social media budget? Do you show up to the powers-that-be, hat in hand, and present a humbled version of yourself or your idea, nearly apologizing for asking for funding?

Don't!

While any number of marketers may think of social media as "free," the clear fact is that it does require funding - mostly around labor rather than production. There is a cost associated with social media activities, but it's far less than the money being spent on traditional media buys.

Does that mean you should think of the quality of your idea and the relevance of your budget request in a lower tier? Not at all! In fact, because of the effectiveness of some social media programs, there may be measurable results that are more significant than a newspaper ad, billboard or 30-second spot.

The forward-thinking marketers and budget directors should be open-minded enough to apply enough funding to innovative thinking - at least to test the waters. By taking a fraction of a large media buy and applying it to a social media initiative, marketers can create a disproportionate impact.

Done repeatedly, this can result in real traction for a brand. All it takes is a little bit of risk and a bit of creative thinking when it comes to budgets.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Labels: Marketing, Risk, social media

Posted by Scott Monty at 11:29 PM

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Monday, October 15, 2007

A Pharma-Sponsored Social Network?

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a minute. This is potentially groundbreaking news.

The time may have come for pharma to break into the social media world. News is that Pfizer is teaming up with Sermo to create a social networking site.

Those of you who know me know that I've got a good deal of health science background - pharma, biotech, medical device and healthcare experience - and that I talk quite a deal about how pharma is missing out by not embracing social media. I recognize the inherent pitfalls; in fact, I've written about the challenges in using social media in a highly regulated environment and suggested an approach for a niche medical device maker,

So the question with the Pfizer announcement is: how did they figure out a way around the lawyers and regulators and create a social network?

The answer lies in their audience. Recognizing that the direct-to-consumer model is laden with legal statements that require a two-page buy in print and a 60-second spot on television, pharma is now figuring out a way to improve on the model is seemingly invented: the sales call on the physician. They're moving back to their b-to-b roots.

Trying to secure a 2-minute appointment with an already time-crunched physician, only to bark out some data points and leave behind a handful of free pens and samples - that never appealed to me, either as a potential job or as the proper way to interact with a customer. This model doesn't allow for the salesperson to use one of the most valuable tools they have: their ears. And Sermo themselves listened to their community. According to Sermo's CEO, physicians on the site started asking for the industry to communicate with them in a medium more convenient than sending sales people to their offices.

With the Sermo partnership, Pfizer gets access to Sermo's 31,000 licensed physicians and can interact with them directly. While the users in the network remain anonymous, Pfizer doctors who ask and answer questions are identified as being from Pfizer. The upside? The Wisdom of Crowds comes into play and the community calls out a biased post or comes to the defense of a peer. And a large population of physicians gets the same message at the same time.

The one thing I'd be interested in tracking is how this plays out with the lawyers and regulators. Will the FDA demand (and be granted) access to the network? I don't think it's such an unreasonable request. They should probably be added as members who can observe, but not participate in these online discussions.

I applaud Pfizer and Sermo for creating a way to open the door to social media for the pharmaceutical industry. Let's see how this arrangement goes and see who's up next.

Labels: b2b, news, pharma, Risk, social media

Posted by Scott Monty at 11:59 PM

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Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Ad Placement: Unfortunate, Lucky, or Savvy?

For those of you who appreciate humor in marketing, here's something that's bound to cheer you up, no matter how your day is going:

15 Unfortunately Placed Ads

When marketing humor is unintentional, it's even funnier. But humor is one of the most difficult types of writing and speaking styles to pull off. It takes a sense of humor, an understanding of what your audience finds humorous, the ability to set up the concept and a good sense of timing - or in the case of print ads and banners, proper placement.

And that's not easy. When it fails, it's a huge flop. But when it's successful, you've captured the entertainment value that seems to be at the core of so many great campaigns. I've previously extolled entertainment value as a key component in viral campaigns, and we've seen a few notables that have been comment-worthy, including Shave Everywhere, Subservient Chicken and Tea Partay.

What have you seen that's got entertainment value and causes you to "send to a friend"?

Coda: the output from the iPhone/Will It Blend experiment is for sale on eBay. Bidding closes on July 20 at 16:06:59 PDT. Current bid: $1,126.00. I guess their video series does sell blenders.

Labels: Advertising, fun, Risk, Viral

Posted by Scott Monty at 8:11 AM

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Thursday, May 03, 2007

Perchance to Dream

This week, the screen and stage lost a humble and down-to-earth friend in Tom Poston. As I was thinking about a Friday Fun Video, I came across this clip called "George's Dream" from Newhart in which Poston, playing George the handyman, imagines himself having pancakes.

Newhart asked why he was dreaming about pancakes, when you can do anything you like in a dream. George responded, "I like this."

Thinking about how this applies to marketing for a moment, it's extremely easy to remain loyal to a particular tactic, channel, or approach. Have you ever tried to sell a client on a fresh new approach, only do be greeted with their version of "I like this" - WADITWA (we always did it this way).

It's tempting to read the same blogs, trade publications and opinion pieces all them time. But I find my mind instantly broadened when I try a fresh approach to a problem, read a blog or visit a Web site that I haven't read before. Pancakes are great, but sometimes it's nice to try something new - and surprise your constituency in the process, as George does at the end of the video.

Labels: Friday Fun, Risk, Video

Posted by Scott Monty at 11:13 PM

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Monday, April 09, 2007

Quick Thought on Being Different

Most people who know me appreciate that I'm a little different. My iTunes playlist probably has more Weird Al than anyone is entitled to; I am a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, the literary society devoted to the study of Sherlock Holmes; I was trained classically on the accordion.

More than you ever wanted to know, I'm sure. But people remember these things about me and they remember me because I'm different. And different is remarkable.

Christopher Morley, the founder of the Baker Street Irregulars and founder/editor of the Saturday Review of Literature, was a remarkable man and ahead of his time. Aside from founding the Three Hours For Lunch Club (the concept of which I love), he also understood the need to be different. We can all relate to his words:

Read, every day, something no one else is reading.
Think, every day, something no one else is thinking.
Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do.
It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.

Go out there and be different!

This post was inspired by John Moore's observation of Chili's woes.

Labels: fun, innovation, Risk

Posted by Scott Monty at 6:09 AM

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Wednesday, March 14, 2007

In Order to Manage Risk, We Must First Understand Risk

[With apologies to George Costanza]

Over at Communications Overtones, Kami Huyse has a great post about the top 10 risks of corporate blogs. Very insightful.

A number of fears in her "unlikely" category have been expressed to me by a number of clients who have shunned my recommendations to start a blog. These include legal liabilities, violation of corporate privacy, regulatory issues and lawsuits. My usual response to this is: "that's all possible in the realm of email and was hotly debated when email was introduced to corporations."

This "fear" is usually a red herring for some other underlying reason(s). It could be that the CEO doesn't feel comfortable writing, or that no one on staff has time to write one, or that they simply don't understand the blogosphere.

Whatever the reason, it's our job as social media professionals to help them get over this fear and embrace the reality. It's coming along faster than they think.

Thanks to Brian Person for the link.

Labels: blogs, CEO, Risk, social media

Posted by Scott Monty at 12:07 AM

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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Your Brand Will Get Tarnished if You Don't Watch Out

I recently mentioned a case of brand hijacking via social media. While that episode marked the use of bloggers defaming a company's image, here's one that makes use of Wikipedia. This is not an uncommon occurrence.

Today's case in question is the Wikipedia entry on PhRMA, which so blatantly anti-pharma that its neutrality need not even be disputed. Just take a look at the "Company Operations" section - it focuses almost entirely on PhRMA's lobbying efforts.

Even though the pharmaceutical industry is under attack as much as Big Oil and Big Tobacco - and don't even get me started on the unfairness inherent in that co-categorization - they should be aware of the social media implications. Someone from PhRMA - even a communications intern, for God's sake - should be monitoring major sites like Wikipedia for this type of one-sided information.

Labels: brand, Risk, social media, wiki

Posted by Scott Monty at 1:26 AM

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Thursday, February 01, 2007

Truth and Consequences in Social Media

As social media becomes ever more prevalent, it's clear that some thought should be applied in advance of actions. Wal-Mart and Sony flogs, client pitches and viral marketing gone horribly wrong are all examples of what happens when you don't think about unintended consequences of your well-planned strategy. And when it's so easy to bring a marketer's foibles to the attention of the world, it's more important than ever to question the tactics with some good old common sense.

We've gotten to a point in our World 2.0 where we do things because we can rather than because we should. We have oversized cars & houses, we're cloning embryos, we SuperSize everything - pick your issue and your political persuasion and there's something you can point to that we do or have, simply because it's available.

That's not exactly the way to run your marketing campaign. "We can strap battery-powered electronic devices to bridges to build buzz!" Uh, yes you can, but you probably shouldn't.

And all of this naturally affects brand and reputation, which is more fragile than ever for smaller businesses, with consumers taking control of the conversation in our MyTubeTechnol.icio.us world. It takes so long to build a trusted brand, and it can all be undone with a careless action, heated conversation, or a plan that sounded good one time in a meeting.

Case in point: Maggie Fox over at the Social Media Group notes Why you need to pay attention to the blogosphere - now that the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell is getting smacked around in the blogosphere. According the Globe and Mail, the firm is trying to maintain its reputation amidst

[M]ostly unverified accounts from anonymous posters, suggest[ing] workplace morale is awful. One anonymous blogger who claimed to be a former Sullivan & Cromwell employee said on The Wall Street Journal’s law blog that he had “never worked with a bigger bunch of sycophants and cowards.”

And on yesterday's Small Agency Diary, Marc Brownstein penned an entry called Retaining Talent: What Works? in which he created a check-list of how an employer can ensure that employees are interested in sticking around. In his comments section (glad to see he has one!) Brownstein was greeted with a scolding from a former employee who advised him to walk the talk.

This is part of the risk in taking a strong point of view in a blog. You're bound to find detractors. But the point is, you've provoked a conversation. In this case, Brownstein can not only monitor the conversation, but can engage in it as well. He'll need to make a decision about how to respond: refute the assertions, let them die out, or keep building his reputation by cross-posting on other blogs and encouraging peers and clients to speak what's on their mind. With any luck, it'll be positive.

Blogging is not for the faint of heart. It takes dedication and courage - courage to know that you will be judged on what you write, how well you communicate, and whether your ideas are equivalent to your reputation.

Are you up for the challenge?

Labels: 2.0, blogs, ethics, Marketing, New Media, Risk, social media, Viral

Posted by Scott Monty at 5:23 PM

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Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Lesson Learned

The Edelman/Wal-Mart fiasco has been playing itself out in the PR and marketing blogosphere over the last 5 days or so. It finally reached its nadir when Richard Edelman stepped in to officially address the issue.

The irony here is striking: a company that established the guidlines for WOMMA went ahead and completely ignored those guidelines, using professionals and being completely covert on the Working Families for Wal-Mart site.

This lesson serves to reiterate a valuable lesson in social media: transparency. If you're trying to gain a unique audience share, it's important to be upfront with them about who you are, what point of view you'd like to take, and what you have to say. While there are one or two notable exceptions (LonelyGirl15, for example), if you're in a BtoB role, your readers moreso than others need to be able to trust you.

If Edelman's reputation suffers in the short run from this situation, it's unfortunate. But they've served a valuable purpose - letting us all learn from their mistake.

Labels: Risk, rules, social media

Posted by Scott Monty at 6:13 AM

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Friday, October 06, 2006

Beware of Falling Social Networks

After only 10 weeks, Wal-Mart is closing their attempt at a social networking site, The Hub. Evidently, they went a little overboard with product promotion, and users quickly lost interest in such an obvious self-serving site.

The firms that get it right are the ones who stand aside. My definition of social media helps to clarify the role of companies in the process:

Social Media is all about making tools available to enable and track conversations about your brand or product.

These conversations are already going on. If you want to be the fly on the wall, you provide some vehicle, some nifty little tool or some cool new site that allows users to have these conversations more easily, and you follow the discussion.

You don't market your product, you don't smack down or erase negative comments. You let it happen naturally. That's when customers will be themselves and will be more likely to trust your brand.

Labels: 2.0, Risk, rules, social media

Posted by Scott Monty at 10:52 AM

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Wednesday, August 23, 2006

The Me2 Revolution

Richard Edelman comments on some excerpts from his an excellent piece for the annual Edelman Trust Barometer brochure.

In it he notes the movement away from the pyramid approach of the highly scripted message starting with the CEO and moving to investors, then on to other mass audiences. The future is in adding peer spokespeople to that model:

Smart companies must reinvent their communications thinking, moving away from a sole reliance on top-down messages delivered through mass advertising. This is the Me2 Revolution.

Edelman tracks the sphere of influence in the recent past:

In the US, for example, the "person like yourself or your peer" was only trusted by 22% of respondents as recently as 2003, while in this year's study, 68% of respondents said they trusted a peer.

How to take advantage of this?

How can companies embrace this future of empowered stakeholders? Speak from the inside out, telling your employees and customers what is happening so they can spread the word for you. Be transparent, revealing what you know when you know it while committing to updating as you learn more. Be willing to yield control of the message in favor of a rich dialogue, in which you learn by listening. Recognize the importance of repetition of the story in multiple venues, because nobody believes something he or she hears or sees for the first time. Embrace new technologies, from employee blogs to podcasts, because audiences are becoming ever more segmented.

Labels: Advertising, New Media, PR, Risk, strategy

Posted by Scott Monty at 12:13 PM

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Monday, August 21, 2006

Are You Ready for Failure?

As the old marketing models move aside, marketers need to increasingly put themselves at risk, on behalf of clients and on behalf of their agencies.

In Online Spin, Max Kalehoff makes a great point about the importance of embracing failure as well as success:

From a marketing standpoint, winning increasingly requires experimentation, risk-taking, and frequent failure. Rigid organizations that don’t build higher levels of unpredictability and periodic loss into their models will lose in the long run. They simply will fail to adapt and build new competencies necessary to stay competitive.

Being strategic sometimes means not being safe. A strategy can be desgined to embrace risk and the associated failures that may come. But through such risky ventures and ideas, better concepts and fresher approaches may be found. And when advermarketing is moving at the speed of light, last week's failure will lead to tomorrow's breakthrough idea.

Labels: Risk, strategy

Posted by Scott Monty at 12:59 AM

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