Tag: word of mouth

Conversational Cannibalism

On April 16, 2010

I don’t often run a full repost from other people on this blog, but this post by Seth Godin was just too rich to leave alone.

I have been posting a lot lately on the irony of social media devolving to spammers spamming spammers, especially the recent Twitter plan to charge advertisers for jumping to the front of the line by exploiting data provided voluntarily by the users (Twitter Me Elmo).

All of this tells us that Social Media is up against the ropes on the monetization plan. As a result it is starting to consume itself. This may be the first indication that the Dollar is NOT the currency of trade in the social media space, it’s a yet unnamed Social Currency. This definitely tells us that something new must happen soon.

Of course, The Ingenesist Project specifies an alternate financial system that can accommodate a social currency, but the lure of the almighty dollar remains strong enough to blind the choir itself and out-pitch the humble whisper new economic paradigm evangelists.

Anyway, here is Seth’s post in it’s entirety. Buy his books and read his blog, get his feed for daily email enlightenment. Seth, I apologize in advance for posting without your explicit permission…etc…just trying to “keep the convo rolling….”

*****

Cannibalism and spam

By Seth Godin:

So, these two cannibals are eating a clown, and one says to the other, “does this taste funny to you?”

We don’t often have conversations about cannibalism. We don’t trade recipes or talk about health issues. That’s because it’s off the table, not permitted, inconceivable.

Marketers should feel the same way about spamming people. Spamming them by email, by text or yes, by calling their cell phones with a robot, repeatedly, just because it’s cheap and because they can.

If anyone should know better, it’s the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. And yet, not only did they spam thousands of people by phone, they want us to “keep the convo rolling”. And when I spoke to their Executive Director, she had a hard time understanding that what they were doing was spam.

Spam is unanticipated, impersonal, irrelevant junk I don’t want to get. Not only that, it costs them less to send it than it takes me to figure out what it is and deal with it. That doesn’t scale. In fact, it destroys the medium.

Why would anyone join, pay their dues, go to their meetings or want to engage with an organization that’s willing to cross a line like this? Even once? (and then brag about it!) Maybe I’m getting cranky, but the relentless march of marketers into our lives is really getting to me.

In case you missed the first part of our show, the future of marketing is based on permission. It’s based on sending messages to people who want to get them, who choose to get them, who would miss you if you didn’t send them. It’s not easy and it’s not cheap to earn permission, but so what? This is my attention, not yours, and if you want to use it for a while, please earn the privilege.

PS If I ran Twitter, I’d build my new ad service about a socially acceptable way for corporate users to build large lists of followers, people who would give permission to get news and discounts and insights from advertisers. Twitter knows who likes what and they have permission from users to be a bridge between the user and those that might want to talk to them. That’s a powerful place to be.

Using cheap technology to spam people is not.

Fallout: FTC and Blogger Payola

By Admin

On December 11, 2009

In General Information

The FTC recently issued guidelines for payola to bloggers. The impact and opinions are now emerging over what this means for social media. As with any game played on a new field, rules need to apply. The questions emerge regarding who the rules hurt, who they help, and how the game will develop in the future due to those rules.

Straight from the horse’s mouth:

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers.

Extrapolate into the future:

Read More

What is Viral Marketing Immunity?

By Admin

On August 24, 2009

In General Information

The great promise of social media marketing is the free viral sales force. Magically, if one person can be made to love your product, they will tell all their friends who go off and tell all their friends. Some PR companies even go so far as to promise to deliver the “viral sales” force. What actually happens is quite a bit more complex.

Social Media Immunity to viruses

I recently met a very tech savvy person at a social media convention who had recently returned from overseas with her Acer notebook computer. She proceeded to give me a detailed analysis of important features such as size, weight, battery life, connectivity, durability, replacement parts, customer support etc. I was about to buy an HP until I heard about this hot new Acer. As I listened intently, I realized which features were important to me and which ones were not. With all this new information, I bought a Dell.

So how did someone touting an Acer actually convert me from HP to Dell? Frankly, that’s not relevant, what is relevant is that Toshiba was not part of the above conversations – they were attacked by the virus.

Developing a vaccine:

Dell, Acer, and HP could have each dropped 1,000 dollars into a pool of money. Those 3,000 dollars could have been used to sponsor a community of bloggers to write about the systems, methods, techniques, and products used by their community, just like they would do anyway.

The Next Marketing Paradigm:

Brands will commit funds to people who share active conversations in the areas that truly interest them. Bloggers will be rewarded for bringing together the communities around natural affinities such as boating, gardening, woodworking, sports, or music, etc. The names of the sponsors and the funding amounts will be public information, of course, but the funding will be disassociated from an actual purchase.

Just a new twist on an old marketing principle:

McDonalds spends a great deal of money figuring out the best street corner to put a franchise. At first the franchise turns out 500 meals a day. Then comes Burger King and together the street corner now produces 1500 meals per day. Next, DQ moves in and the intersection now produces 3000 meals per day. Without competition a franchise may serve 500 meals. With competition, each “competitor” serves 1000 meals per day. The street corner has become a “destination” of choice; literally and figuratively.

Knowledge Malls:

The difference is that the Mall concept is “arithmetic” scaling with upper limits, while the social media mall is multi-exponential.

1. When diverse groups of people get together, they share information, exchange knowledge and innovate, innovate, innovate. Innovation creates wealth exponentially. Wealth creates customers exponentially. Every conversation is an event and every event presents multiple opportunities to carry a message far and wide, exponentially.

2. Tangential innovation are the opportunities that are enabled by the primary innovation – often called “Apps”

•    Bloggers help define the community allowing for superior targeting App.
•    Even if a brand does not “win” the sale, they will gain valuable business intelligence App.
•    The brand wins a first mover advantage on the next product development cycle App.
•    Brands win trust because they are supporting a community App.
•    Brands win loyalty – like insurance – if something goes wrong, they are readily forgiven App.

3. The cost of absence App. The worst brand message is to find one’s brand locked out of the game, maybe Toshiba will find this post on Twitter.

The Next Economic Paradigm

Tag: word of mouth

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