Archive for April, 2011

Book Review: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

11.04.28

I read a lot of business books – you know, the kind focused on how to market, or plan, or manage better. So, when I started to read Robin Sharma’s “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari,” I wasn’t sure what to expect.

The Monk Who Sold His FerrariA couple of things to know about “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari”: firstly, it’s essentially a self-help book; secondly, it’s written as a narrative, from the perspective of someone receiving advice from the aforementioned monk.

The whole book is written as the tale of a successful but burnt-out lawyer who packs it all in and adopts a new lifestyle, resulting in increased health and happiness. If you’re the kind of person looking to read this kind of book, chances are you’re going to relate to at least some aspects of the lawyer’s life, or to the narrator – a similarly over-dressed lawyer. This makes Sharma’s book immediately resonate, and — I found — manages to hook you in more than most other books of this type.

When you get down to it, Sharma’s book comes down to a fairly formulaic format – a list of seven principles to apply to life, which he explains in turn:

  • Master Your Mind: Learn to focus, and consciously eliminate negative thoughts from your mind
  • Follow Your Purpose: Focus on your priorities – and stay on track by focusing on the desired end goal
  • Practice Kaizen: Focusing on continuous self improvement
  • Live With Discipline: Recognize the importance of willpower while forming new habits
  • Respect Your Time: Adopting a “death-bed mentality” – living each day like it’s your last
  • Selflessly Serve Others: Daily acts of kindness and cultivating richer relationships
  • Embrace The Present: Live for today – stop looking ahead and waiting for things to be better down the road; enjoy things as they happen

These points aren’t massively original, but the book is written in an interesting, easy-to-absorb way that makes it easy to blast through the book quickly and easy to overlook the sometimes cheesy dialogue.

In the same way that I recommended Workarounds That Work, I think different people will find different elements of this book interesting depending on their own situations. So, for example, while I found the kaizen section resonated with me but didn’t add much to what I already do, I found the first section on mental tools and tricks to be helpful from both a mindset and a practical tips perspective.

Is The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari worth a read? I certainly enjoyed it. If you’re looking for a way to shake-up your work/life situation but aren’t a fan of the usual self-help book formula, I suggest you give it a try.

Posted in: books

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Yeah, Well Your Agency Is Killing Unicorns

11.04.26

Daniel Stein recently wrote an attention-grabbing post over at Digiday entitled “HypeBusters: PR Agencies Are Ruining Facebook.” His basic argument: PR agencies are boring and uncreative, and their attempts at engagement are doomed to fail. The right people to manage Facebook pages are, apparently ad agencies. Guess which he works for.

I’m not going to lie — I’m dismayed at the juvenile back-and-forth that’s going on between different marketing disciplines over social media, with posts like this one or like this from Search Engine Journal previously. Didn’t people ever learn how to play nicely with others?

A tale of false arguments

Let’s start with the particular post in question. The primary issue here is the false dichotomies that are put forward. Why does everything have to be black and white?

Why does content have to be purely either “news, offers and the occasional contest” or “developing a brand’s purpose”? Can’t it be a blend, with some variety?

Where is the evidence that PR agencies can’t “do” creative? Isn’t it possible that agencies of all stripes could be creative?

The reality is that multiple partners are often involved in a successful Facebook effort. We frequently work closely with agencies of multiple stripes, and often help clients to develop governance frameworks so that each can bring their respective strengths to the table across multiple activities within a single channel.

Rather than throw up false assumptions about other agencies, look around. These over-generalizations just don’t hold true.

Shades of grey

I could point to Facebook pages we manage with hundreds of thousands or even millions of fans; or to multiple highly-engaged Twitter accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers, and use that as evidence you that only PR agencies can do this well.

I could point to examples of advertising agency-driven properties that completely fail because there’s nothing but superficial style over substance, and use that as evidence that ad agencies are ruining social media.

This would fit with the approach of the posts I mentioned above.

I won’t, because neither of these claims are true. This isn’t black and white.

Integrate for success

People who argue that only their discipline can “do” social media and that XYZ discipline is ruining it either have no idea what they’re talking about or are lying to you to get attention.

I’ve argued for a long time that effective social media, conducted over the long term and with actual business value, is derived from the integration and cooperation of agency partners. It doesn’t come from petty bickering and competition — from “my agency type is better than yours” behaviour — between so-called partners who don’t play nicely in the sandbox.

Enough with the attention-grabbing BS headlines and false arguments of superiority, already. Acknowledge that different disciplines can learn from each other, that there’s no “one ring to rule them all” and work nicely with your agency partners to do the best job you can for the client.

You know, cooperate. Like adults do.

Posted in: marketing, pr, public relations, social media

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Monday Morning Reads: Social Pre-Teens; Ebert’s New Voice; YouTubian Politics

11.04.25

Three pieces for you this Monday morning: an interesting look at how educators are grappling with pre-teen adoption of social media and how to safeguard them as they do so; a moving presentation from Roger Ebert about the impact that technology has had on his life, and a Democratic Representative delivering a presentation in the House, seemingly aimed at the YouTube audience.

Fast Company: Social Media Abstinence Education Is Not Working For Pre-Teens

43% of 9 to 12 year-olds in Europe admit to having a Facebook account. As a result, the U.K. department of education is recommending that schools teach children how to use social networks, rather than banning them.

Fast Company looks at how Facebook’s ban on pre-teen users is failing, and the implications for educators.

To ban or to teach?

TED Talks: Roger Ebert – Remaking my voice

Simultaneously funny and touching, Roger Ebert’s tale of how technology has allowed him to retain his voice after losing the ability to speak is inspirational, and should make all of us grateful to live with the tools we do.

Speaking without speaking

Rep. Crowley (D-NY) – Speechless

Cameras were introduced into legislative forums to broaden access to the political process. Instead, they have turned debates into grandstanding for TV, and now – with the growth of social media – into grandstanding for the Internet.

We’re now witnessing politics for YouTube. When Rep. Joe Crowley delivered his “speechless” speech earlier this month it wasn’t aimed at other representatives; nor was it aimed at TV viewers (there’s no three-second soundbites there for the news shows). This was made for YouTube, and on YouTube it took off.

Is this the first presentation of its type in American politics? I very much doubt it, and it’s certainly not going to be the last, but it’s a great example of the way that politics is changing as the technology around it does the same.

Speechless: Politics for YouTube

Posted in: Weekly Reads

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Why And How To Scale Social Business Programs

11.04.14

As time goes on we’re seeing a rising trend toward social customer support, largely driven by three forces:

  1. Companies are observing high-profile brands successfully executing social support programs and want to realize those benefits
  2. As more and more companies engage in marketing programs through social media, customers are using those two-way channels to demand support from companies
  3. We’re seeing more and more examples of crises driven by online activity; social support offers a way to prevent issues from becoming crises

The challenge companies are facing is how to scale that support in the face of massive demand from a customer base that comes to expect quick, direct engagement.

Jeremiah Owyang recently posted the slides from his presentation on scalable social business programs. Some of his key points:

  1. Get into Hub and Spoke and develop a Center of Excellence
    • Get away from organic and centralized structures, and develop a hub that can support activities throughout the organization
  2. Leverage community for first tier marketing and support
    • Don’t try to just scale 1:1 support – provide the means for customers to support each other then provide second-tier support for those who need it
  3. Integrate both in the customer lifecycle as well as your corporate website
    • Think of how you will engage with people at all stages, from awareness through to advocacy, and think about how you can build social functionality into your corporate website (one of the key trends we’ve identified for 2011)
  4. Launch a formalized advocacy program
    • Cultivate a group of independent advocates who can transparently engage where they see fit
  5. Invest in Social Media Management Systems before you lose control
    • The recent Kenneth Cole and Chrysler mishaps shone a spotlight on the need for controls and education around social media activities. Appropriate systems are a key part of that.

Point #2 is a key one – help your customers and advocates (point #4) to handle a lot of the low-level support for you. That doesn’t mean leaving them unattended; it means providing them with the means to do so – a place to do it and the resources to do so.

Keynote: Invest in Scalable Social Business Programs

These points on scale nicely complement Steve Rubel’s recent thoughts – that, operating in a world limited by time and space, when you can’t expand time you need to focus on expanding your organization’s surface area to scale your activities.

What do you think of all of this?

Posted in: customer service, social media, strategy

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Three Forces Driving Social Customer Support

11.04.13

We’ve discussed, many times, the importance of the ongoing trend towards the integration of various communications forms in social media – the fact that you can’t just put “social” in a bubble and expect it to perform without support from other media. Awareness of this is slowly growing as social media activities mature within organizations

In the same vein, this maturity will soon manifest in increased integration between business functions. Chief among them will be a growing realization that customer support is a key communications function online.

Marketing and public relations departments have taken the spotlight for many people (setting aside the Dells, Comcasts and Zapposes (fine, whatever, you try pluralizing Zappos) of the world).

Over the next couple of years, as we continue to see companies invest more and more into social media activities, we’re going to see three forces driving the adoption of social customer support – case studies; customer demand and crises.

Force #1: Watching other companies succeed at social support

The Dells and Comcasts have set the bar high, but we’re seeing a proliferation of companies supporting customers effectively through social media.

Rogers (a client of mine in my last job) engaged over 20,000 times with customers through a variety of social channels last year, and is able to measure the results of this engagement.  Freshbooks has built an army of advocates through its personable and responsive support team.

There are many other examples, and companies will increasingly look to replicate that success.

Force #2: Consumers demanding social support

While public relations drove an initial wave of social media adoption, and while ad agencies are getting into the game too, their activities will continue to inadvertently shine a spotlight on the need for online support.

Why?

Because they’re using two-way channels. And when you’re using two-way channels, people talk back… not just about what you want to talk about, but about what they want to talk about.

Nestle found this out the hard way, as did Etsy late last year (BTW, Etsy, removing posts “for negativity” is not a good issues management strategy).

So, the more companies engage in two-way channels (even if they want them to be one-way), the more people will demand responsiveness and interaction from those companies.

Force #3: Increased frequency of online issues

The Etsy case is just one example of an issue that blew up online and escalated into traditional media. I continue to see more and more, which leads to the third force driving social support – the desire to avoid becoming a crisis communications case study.

By listening and responding to issues online, companies can nip those issues in the bud. It’s important to remember, though, that if you want your online support to help you avoid issues then (a) you can’t pick and choose which issues you respond to (although there are a variety of ways to avoid having to respond to each and every person 1:1 – more on this tomorrow) and (b) if you don’t fix issues that people identify then listening isn’t enough.

So, there you have it – three forces that are driving the adoption of social customer support. Do you agree? Do you see other forces also at play? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Posted in: customer service, social media, trends

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Why You Should Tweet During a Crisis

11.04.12

Ever have one of those frustrating conversations with your colleagues during an emerging issue, where you’re trying to figure out whether acknowledging an issue online will defuse it or spread it?

You know, the one that goes something like:

A: “Have you seen all the chatter about this issue online? We should get out there and let people know what’s going on.”
B: “No – it’s only a few people – if we post about it more people will know there’s a problem.”

People have a natural reluctance to admit something is wrong. That’s all the more so online, where people can talk back and potentially ask uncomfortable questions. So, unless there’s someone with enough authority to stick-handle a response through the objections, this is often where a stalemate is reached.

Even if you do manage to convince people of the need to communicate, the time it takes to do the convincing often means that you miss the boat on getting your response out there in time for people to see it.

That’s why I was really interested to see a note from Shashi Bellamkonda of Network Solutions on the Social CRM Pioneers group, pointing to some interesting research by Microsoft and Psychster on the effect of companies acknowledging issues via Twitter on the actions and perceptions of customers.

The white paper, entitled “Using Twitter to Reassure Users During a Site Outage,” looks into the effects of a company informing people – or not – of an outage via Twitter, and the varying effectiveness of different approaches to doing so.

The conclusions provide some useful ammunition for those who advocate for a more proactive approach to managing issues via Twitter:

  1. Any kind of acknowledgement online will result in lowered negativity and improved perceptions, and may lead to fewer people calling your call centre
  2. Companies need to think about who posts the information, not just what is posted – a trusted community manager may be better than an executive or an anonymous company account
  3. Companies can improve the effectiveness of their acknowledgements by explaining the nature and cause of the issue

It’s particularly interesting that the study identified that the acknowledgements do more than just change perceptions; they also decrease the likelihood of people calling your call centre.

Change in likelihood to contact support

During a panel on online support at SxSW this year, Frank Eliason explained that he was able to calculate the tangible benefit from his team at Comcast by looking at the cost of their team, the number of people they helped and comparing that to the cost of those people calling their call centre.

Even the most math-averse person can tell that if you reduce the number of people calling you for information, and do it in a cost-effective way, it should be an easy sell.

What’s more, this is a two-pronged benefit – communicating via Twitter can lower your support costs while simultaneously improving peoples’ perception of your company. So, you’re not only lowering costs, you’re also potentially generating revenue in the long-term.

Win-win.

Posted in: crisis communications, customer service, social media, Twitter

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The Greatest TED Talk Riposte Ever Posted

11.04.11

This post was meant to be a regular “Monday Morning Reads” post, but then I found myself writing something a little more in-depth on one piece so I scrapped the rest. Enjoy…

A colleague of mine recently drew my attention to a TED Talk by Morgan Spurlock (you know, the guy behind Super Size Me and a host of other films). The talk is entitled, “The Greatest TED Talk Ever Sold.” If you have a spare 20 minutes, check it out:

So, here’s why I got a little… animated… then scrapped the rest of the Monday Morning Reads post and focused on this video:

  1. On one hand: Spurlock’s talk is entertaining, interesting and, well, funny. There’s a reason we know his name – he’s good at what he does.
  2. On the other hand: The talk is replete with broad, unsubstantiated false assumptions about the subject matter at the heart of the talk, i.e. marketing

Here’s my take…

The “Opportunity”

Spurlock lays out a host of reasons why companies wouldn’t want to get involved in his project, and then attacks them for not wanting to get involved. He even describes his TED Talk, which he invited companies to sponsor, as:

“My TED Talk that you have no idea what the subject is and depending on the content could ultimately blow up in your face especially if I make you or your company look stupid for doing it – that being said, it’s a very good media opportunity.”

He then suggests that the reason companies didn’t want to get involved was “transparency.” Umm… how about because it actually WASN’T a good “opportunity” for the companies? You giving them a bad offer doesn’t make them bad guys for not taking it.

“Reach” doesn’t cut it

The idea that this was a “very good media opportunity” depends on you only considering the reach of the movie, not the tone or content towards the people involved.

To say that this is a “good opportunity” would be like saying that the NRA should sponsor a Michael Moore movie. Sure, they’d be all over the footage, but you can be damn sure no-one would see them in a good light at the end of it.

Spurlock again displays that mis-perception towards the end of his talk, where he talks about the reach of coverage about his movie apparently 900 million impressions at the time. He suggests that that reach shows that agencies were wrong to avoid jumping on-board.

Here’s the thing: how many of those impressions would have benefited the (transparent) sponsors? How many of them would have delivered a benefit to those companies – how many talked about them or showed their products in any kind of way that would encourage purchase?

The “reach” of un-qualified coverage is useless. It’s like saying “guys, every newspaper in the world mentioned us. They all hated everything we do and recommended no-one ever buy our product, but who cares? They talked about us, so let’s pat ourselves on the back.”

Actually, my guess is that it was even less valuable than that. My guess (yes, just a guess) is that most company mentions in that coverage would be in passing, with no substance towards the companies other than to mention that they were involved within the broader context of the film (I’m sure there were exceptions, but suspect they were few).

It’s Paid Media, not Earned

I’ve written before about the transition that people need to understand when they ask for money from companies in return for coverage. When you do that, you move from “earned” media to “paid” media.

Brands don’t (and, in most cases, can’t) control earned media. That gives it greater credibility because the author can write whatever they want. Paid media (you know, when companies pay for inclusion)  is different. If you pay to be part of something, you’re going to want control over how you’re portrayed. Do you think Audi paid to be part of the movie Ronin (an old reference, but a goodie) without knowing the storyline or that their car would be portrayed in a good light?

This isn’t about transparency – I bet that if movies needed a disclaimer about who sponsored them, there wouldn’t be too many concerns – it’s about the value of the offer that’s given to them in return for the commitment. You want to take my money and then have the option of making me look ridiculous? Right. Let me get right on that.

</rant>

Ok, I’m done. The ironic part here is that I actually enjoyed the talk. However, the broad misperceptions in the presentation just begged to be corrected. I get that Spurlock’s films are out to provoke a reaction – he’s good at achieving that, and I think he’s good at what he does. Still, I thought it worth adding my two cents to this conversation, setting the record straight on a couple of things and doing it… y’know… transparently.

What do you think?

(Oh, BTW, Mr. Spurlock, you can count this post as about 50,000 “impressions” towards that reach number of yours. Just don’t consider the tone.)

Disclaimer: While my employer is mentioned in the talk (although it’s lumped into the “ad agency” descriptor… again, do your homework, please), I had no input into, or knowledge of, this discussion. This is my perception and not that of the people involved at the time.

Posted in: marketing

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Monday Morning Reads: Digital Reputation, Facebook Tutorials, Speed up Blogging

11.04.04

In this week’s Monday Morning Reads: digital reputation management; a plethora of Facebook tutorials; how to speed-up your blogging; turning Google’s April Fool’s joke into a reality and an interesting Quora discussion on Craigslist’s longevity. Enjoy.


New York Times: Erasing the Digital Past

Interesting post on digital “reputation managers” who help their clients stay out off the digital home page (Google) when bad news erupts. This is a small sub-set of PR, but I was a little dismayed to see the post points to black-hat tactics like splogs as a good solution. Sounds like a good way to get yourself smacked by Matt Cutts:

“To trick the search engines, these managers employ programmers who create dummy Web sites that link to a client’s approved list of search results. The more links, the higher the approved sites rank.”

Digital reputation management

Socialbrite: 13 tutorials to bring your Facebook presence to the next level

Does what it says in the title – 13 tutorials, from creating a custom iFrame tab, to displaying featured Pages on your Page, to targeting messages to a subgroup of fans, to measuring fan growth.

Hop on over for the full list.

Facebook tutorials “r” us

Social Signal: How to write a blog post in 10 minutes

Useful tips for those of us (me included) who turn every post into an epic saga, including seven ways to add value to a third-party post you’re sharing. Personally, I like to try to add something when I write a post about someone else’s thoughts – either a criticism, a contrary point of view, or something that I think adds to the resource they’ve provided.

Speed-up your blogging

Engadget: Gmail Motion April Fools’ gag inevitably turned into reality using Kinect (video)

Google usually comes up with pretty good April Fools jokes, and this year was no exception as it ‘announced’ Gmail Motion – a non-existent new tool that lets you control your Gmail using gestures. Creating a fake tool like this is like putting a button reading “don’t push this” in front of a kid, and it only took a day before someone actually made this happen:

Pretty dorky neat.

Turning April Fools into reality

Quora: Why hasn’t another product disrupted and replaced Craigslist?

Fascinating discussion around Craigslist’s place in the market, including an interesting take from Josh Hannah who suggests that Craigslist *has* been disrupted; it’s just not obvious yet.

Debating Craigslist

Posted in: Weekly Reads

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