frankly speaking
Diff'rent Strokes for Differ'nt Folks
Facebook, Twitter. Twitter, Facebook. That’s all people seem to be talking about these days. When it comes to telling people where you are, who(m) you’re with, what you’re doing or what you’re reading, it seems like the best way to publicize it is to break out your phone and thumb away a quick message to let the world know.
Most people go to the extreme and post the exact same content on both sites and do so in the name of efficiency. Hell, even I’m guilty of doing so, occassionally. While I agree it’s efficient, I think it’s lame, especially if I follow you on both Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc (which is common in today’s social media world). I couldn’t care less to read the exact same message from the same folks across all three mediums.
Why do it? Think about it. You’re Rupert Murdoch - you own the Wall Street Journal, The New York Post and Fox News - does it make sense to publish the EXACT SAME content in all three mediums? Of course it doesn’t. Your audience is different for all three mediums. For me, Facebook = Friends/Family, so my messages there range from political, to sports, to family. Twitter = business/friends, my messages there are focused on business, personal, and few political/sports ramblings. LinkedIn = all business all the time. I’ve never posted anything personal on there except where I’m traveling on my next business trip.
I get that people have the need to constantly let people know what they’re doing and who they’re with, but make sure you’re targetting the right audience.
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You know, successful people have a bigger fear of failure than people who’ve never done anything because if you haven’t been successful, then you don’t know how it feels to lose it all.”
Jay-Z interview with Interview Magazine
Daring the Devil
In regards to Pat Robertson’s asinine rant this week about the earthquake in Haiti being somehow linked to a mythological pact Haitians made with the devil centuries ago, a very clever editorial showed up in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Dear Pat Robertson, I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll. You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract. Best, Satan
Consider me amused.
Social Media Excellence - A Case Study
A couple weeks ago I wrote about a situation of social media failure. Today, I’m happy to write about a situation of social media excellence! A few days ago, I checked into Specialty’s via foursquare:
Three days later (coincidentally, I happened to be standing in line to order food at Specialtys) I received an @ reply via twitter from Specialtys entitling me to a free cookie:
Let’s be honest, I could care less about the cookie. What I find interesting is the fact that Specialty’s has the common sense enough to recognize that social media is a powerful marketing tool and in this case, is using it appropriately to try their products.
Not only do they have a customer, but now they will have someone who goes patronizes their business at least twice a week.
D&G showing no shame. More via BrandFreak
Social Media Failure - A Case Study
In early December, when I found out I would be heading to Salt Lake City for the Holidays, I decided to try a little social media experiment. I wanted to see how engaged the people running the twitter accounts of major airlines, luxury hotels and luxury automobiles were. The deal was simple: sponsor all or part of my trip and I’ll tweet about your company every day for the next 30 days. The result: these companies are not very engaged. In fact, no one from Delta Airlines, United Airlines, JetBlue Airlines, The Waldorf Astoria or LandRover cared to respond to ANY of my tweets or Facebook messages to them.
Granted, there are a couple reasons why they didn’t respond a) because these companies have outsourced their social media management to an agency (ok, not really a good excuse but just go with me on this) or b) these companies are so inundated with requests that they just didn’t have time to get back to me (I have a hard time believing this was the cause because it’s not like the 25 year old who manages these accounts is obsessively updating the executive staff of his/her company on the current happenings of their grand social media strategies) or c) they simply didn’t think I mattered enough to respond.
I tend to think why I received zero response from anyone running social media from Delta, United, JetBlue, Waldorf and LandRover was the fact that they perceived I wasn’t influential enough (on the web) to matter. How they made this assumption is unclear. I tweet fairly regularly - 3 to 4 times a day. I have a decent sized follower base. My tweets tend to be pretty content rich (i.e. I don’t tweet stuff like ‘Standing in line at Whole Foods’). On Facebook, I try to update my status once a day. I have a few friends.
The point to me was crystal clear - these companies still do NOT understand the value of social media in relation to mainting good reltationships with customers or potential customers. For all of the above companies that I mentioned, LandRover had the most to lose - the lease on my car is up on 12 months and I was hoping that by allowing me to test drive one of their vehicles over my vacation I might have been convinced to purchase/lease from them in the future. I suppose they just lost a customer.
What Time is It? Chanel J12 by Audemars Piguet
Indeed. Accenture ad featuring Tiger Woods. Via BrandFreak
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It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who never knew neither victory nor defeat…”
Theodore Roosevelt delivered at the Sorbonne in April 1910, also included in Andrew Ross Sorkins’ Too Big To Fail
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August Turak, recently told me, there are three forms of transformation: The first is a transformation of condition. The second is a transformation of circumstance. And the third is a transformation of being. So when a thirsty man drinks a glass of water, he transforms his condition. When a poor man hits the lottery he transforms his circumstances. And when Mr. Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning an utterly new man, he has experienced a transformation in being…”
Dean Crutchfield on AOL’s Rebranding Strategy
About
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Welcome to my blog. My name is Ben Wilkinson. I work in online marketing and advertising. I'm also a rabid Red Sox fan. This blog is dedicated to everything from sports and politics to business and pop-culture. Sit back, relax and enjoy!
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