Without looking at the previous blog post, tell me what my new company does?

*insert sound of chirping crickets here*

Chances are you blew right through this soliloquy about my company:

We save companies money by assisting them in making decisions that are weather dependent. This is done in a variety of ways including our short and long range weather forecasts specific to their needs. Another side of the business is researching our weather theory called the LRC (Lezak’s Recurring Cycle).

Ok, so maybe a few of you got to the end of it. But, if you are like many people, half of this statement simply got skimmed over, if not the entire paragraph. Why? In this world of interruptive marketing, we have grown accustomed to seeing and hearing brand messages when we don’t want to see them. It doesn’t matter if they are commercial breaks on television, spam messages in your inbox, or even brand placement INSIDE of content you are engaged in, they get ignored. The overwhelming volume of these impersonal and useless mumbo-jumbo has conditioned us to simply ignore them.

Exclusive!
Save money!
Synergy
New and Improved!

Are you serious? These phrases have been so overused, that they become mute. What would be better words/phrases?

Exclusive – You will only see this here
Save money – This is good for your pocketbook
Synergy – This helps you work together
New and Improved – We want to bring you great products

Those are just some examples off the top of my head. But if your communications, mission statement, or elevator pitch sounds like something you got off the old “Dilbert Mission Statement Generator”, nothing but words and phrases designed to make you sound intelligent, you’ve MISSED the point of communication in this day and age. Be human. Communicate as if someone was your friend, not a potential customer.

This is not easy to do if you have spent years in the world of one way communications. When you communicate, expect the response to your communications to be someone talking to you face-to-face. Don’t communicate with the mindset that their sole response is reaching into their pocketbook.

The rapid explosion of social media channels in the last 6 months or so has businesses, organizations, and other brands scrambling to get involved in the conversations. Social tools such as Facebook and Twitter have seen the most dramatic growth in 2008 (Facebook alone grew 30 million users in the last 3 months), and rightly so, these tools have gotten the most buzz

These new, flashy tools have the biggest numbers are helping pushing the social web closer to that point where it’s simply the web. The web’s drving force in the future IS social interactions of all types. As Celeste Lindell mentioned in response to recent Kansas City Social Media Club event:

“Once everyone gets what social media really means, having a social media club will seem as silly as having a telephone club.”

Does this mean that Facebook and Twitter, MySpace, etc will be the only things you can do on the web? Of course not. Social interactions and communities are wide and varied across the web, as they are in the offline world. If you limit your understanding of social media to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. you are missing a HUGE chunk of the social pie. They are great starting point, but you may be missing the most active communities and conversations around your brand or topic.

Case in point. I recently launched a weather consulting company with a few other Kansas City folks called LRC Weather. We save companies money by assisting them  in making decisions that are weather dependent. This is done in a variety of ways including our short and long range weather forecasts specific to their needs. Another side of the business is researching our weather theory called the LRC (Lezak’s Recurring Cycle). In searching out online communities to help with our theory, we found there were few real “meteorological communities” in channels such as Facebook and Twitter. They exist, but are not as strong as other online channels. The biggest communities exist in online forums, email listservs (yes, I said email), and blogs. If we had limited our search for conversations to the “mainstream” tools, we would have been rather disappointed.

The truth is, social interactions on the web are not new. BBSs, forums, mailing lists, IRC, etc. have been around for years and have thriving, engaged communities. While they may not carry the “Twitter mistique” or “Facebook credo” they are valid and are often extremely targeted groups of people. Converstations have been and continue to happen outside of the buzz of the main social media tools.

This is why utilizing things tools like Google Alerts should be at the top of any brand’s monitoring strategy. Find ALL of the channels the conversations are happening from. Utilize web statstics to monitor inbound links to find conversations. Seek out, listen to, and engage in web forums, listservs, etc. that you can become a part of. Find local events relevant to your brand and engage with them offline (I know, a shocking concept).

An interesting question was raised during a discussion of Twitter at the last Kansas City Social Media Club event. “What will your brand do if Twitter starts charging, and people leave?” Then answer is, “You simply continue conversations you have in other channels, and seek out where new conversations are happening.”  If you advertise on television for a national product, do you simply run ads on one television station? No! You seek out multiple markets that work for your brand. Why do you expect online conversations to be any different?

Conversations are spread out across the web and can and WILL move in and out of different online channels. Just like when FriendFeed dropped from the social radar, forums, blogs, and other conversation tools rise and fall in popularity and in engagement. If you aren’t actively seeking converstaions outside of the big name tools, you’ll wake up one day to find that the conversations have disappeared and moved somewhere else.

In this information age, it’s sad that few people actually take the time to look at ALL the candidates (including 3rd, 4th, Xth party candidates). Many still vote only Democrat or only Republican .  Some will cross, but still vote for only one of the two major parties because "they are the only ones with a chance of winning." How democratic is that?

If the Republican candidate fits you, vote for them. Democrat? vote them. Independent, Libertarian , Reform , Constitution, Green , etc. Vote who you believe is the best candidate, not the one that has the best chance of winning. Do your homework and vote like we actually live in the information age!

Stuck in the old model

Raise you hand… do you like advertisements?  (If you are in marketing or advertising, put your hand down and really think about it). Why don’t you like them?

1. They have little relevance to me.
2. I’m tired of always being sold something.
3. The are an interruption.

Let’s focus on that last one: Advertising is an interruption. Some marketers will tell you that when it comes down to it, the ONLY way you can advertise is through interruption. Ads are placed in the middle of a magazine, or in the middle of a television show, etc. because by utilizing the engagement you have with the media source, they can get some eyeballs. The problem is, that we as a culture have been so saturated by advertisements that we immediately ignore them. Like Gary Vaynerchuk said in a recent video , buying an ad in a prominent magazine "for 50, 60, 80 thousand dollars is clown city in 2008." No one pays attention to them. There’s certain value to maintaining brand awareness, trust me… but is it worth obscene amounts of money to get very little return on your investment?

Unfortunately, outside of the ability to be more targeted,

MOST ONLINE ADVERTISING ISN’T ANY MORE EFFECTIVE THAN ADVERTISEMENTS IN TRADITIONAL MEDIA

Read that again…. most online advertising isn’t any more effective than advertisements in traditional media. How easy is it to ignore a banner ad ? How about that annoying preroll ad before your YouTube video ? These advertisements simply get IGNORED just like their traditional media counterparts. So why is online advertising inexpensive? They often deliver the same ROI with less people seeing them.

The Super Bowl

Every year, advertising in during the Super Bowl breaks records. Companies spend millions of dollars for a

30 second spot during the game, and millions more producing the ad. Why do ad prices continue to increase for this event? Viewership has been down in recent years. Shouldn’t that mean that ad prices should have dropped as well? NO! The value that advertisers get during the Super Bowl goes WAY past eyeballs. Ads during the Super Bowl are the one time when ads are not considered to be interruptive. In fact, many people now watch the Super Bowl simply because of the ads. The value is in the engagement. It’s in the fact that people don’t simply ignore the ads during the Super Bowl.

Social Media HAS value

Just like the Super Bowl gains it’s ad value from engagement, social media gains it’s ad value from engagement with a community of people with similar interests. Seth Goldin describes these groups as "Tribes." (btw, check out his book "Tribes ". It resonates in a big way with me). These tribes share, trust, and engage with either one another or with a set leader. With the tribe, you have engagement. Companies can engage with these communities and see incredible value from them without being interruptive.

Want and example?

Leo Laporte : People are engaged with Audible.com because the leader of their group, someone who’s opinion they respect and value says, "I have used Audible for years. I would promote them even if I wasn’t getting paid to." The result, Audible has been an unswerving sponsor for over a year on Leo’s media entities. That’s a LONG time in new media. Why? Because people are engaged with Leo, and because he recommends Audible, they can get behind that brand as well. The value in that is incredible. In fact, Leo has and his "TwIT Army" have often brought down websites simply because his listeners are so engaged, they’ll immediately check out a recommendation. THAT IS ENGAGEMENT.

Why is Oprah so valuable? Because she has more engagement than nearly any single personality in the world. Her value is also not in the numbers, but in the mass engagement her and her brand have with her viewers.

Yet, despite this incredible value we have available to companies, we still price advertisements too low . We price advertisements in social media similar to the easily ignored auto ad during the local news instead of the personalized Tom Brady endorsed ad in the Super Bowl that people actually pay attention to.

You may not have great NUMBERS, but you have great INFLUENCE. It’s time for social media influencers to price themselves more comparable to traditional media.

As the stock market continues to plummet and phrases like "the worst economic situation since the Great Depression " continues to make news, myself and others not knowledgeable about the economy get only more confused.  Confused and scared. What on earth is going on? What does it mean for me? Is this "bailout" a good thing?

One of my twitter followers forwarded a spectacular program from Ira Glass ‘ "This American Life " that explains just this. Have you heard of the "commercial paper market" or "credit default swaps ?" Do you know what "breaking the buck" means? Me either, but these things have helped to create the current global economic crisis.

Take an hour or so to listen through the program to at least familiarize yourself with what exactly has happened and what it means for the future.

This American Life – 365: Another Frightening Show About the Economy

Let me know your thoughts. Are you actively taking measures to ensure your finances in the midst of the panic seizing up the economy?

Enter several blog posts from the folks in new media that echo what I said back in March. One in particular is Gary Vanynerchuk . He recorded this a few days ago .

Companies need to be in the business of optimizing their marketing, not in the business of keeping traditional media funded. Gary is absolutely right that traditional media is going to suffer in a big way. The spread of online media in conjunction with the economic downturn equates to bad news for traditional media. I certainly don’t see TV and radio going away, but this monstrous economic correction is going to REQUIRE these media channels to drastically change their paradigms. This includes many personnel cuts. With many friends in traditional media, this certainly scares me, and why it’s even more important to increase your value by leading the way in their outlet’s online and social media engagement if you are in that space.

The Christmas selling season is already upon us, and companies likely committed their dollars to tradtional media outlets before the market crash. It’ll be interesting to see how 2009 progresses as the shift gets into full swing.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. The sun shown down on us and our newly painted house, giving us the feeling of what this house would look like in the future. As we gazed on the house, a butterfly greeted us, fluttering around the two of us for quite a while. It seemed to like the bright yellow polo shirt I had worn that day, as it took several pauses, thinking of using my shoulder as a perch.

Eventually the butterfly that had greeted us landed on the small pine tree standing next to us. As it spread its wings, we realized that we had never seen this type of butterfly before. Apart from the usual orange Monarch butterflies that grace the area, this one was blue. A beautiful, welcoming blue. After some research, we found that this butterfly is not often seen around Kansas City. Most of them are found in Florida. This little guy was certainly unique to the area. We began to tear up.

Butterflies have always been a sign of peace, tranquility, and healing. Their gorgeous colors and playful flight seem to bring a smile to anyone’s face. Butterfly gardens are often planted around memorials to help bring that sense of peace and healing. Butterflies have also been rather significant in the lives of my wife’s family. Becca’s mom had designed and made a stained-glass blue butterfly for a hospice in her town. The thought being that the butterfly (which became a theme inside the hospice) brought that sense of peace in the most trying of times. But the meaning goes deeper. Numerous times during funerals for family members, a  lone butterfly seems to pay a visit. A friend of Becca’s died of breast cancer some years ago, she loved butterflies. Everyone still remembers the butterfly that flew around, touching nearly everyone during the service. Becca’s grandmother passed on last year. At her funeral, a single blue butterfly paid the family a visit. With nearly every death in the family, we’ve had a butterfly pay us a visit.

As the tears welled up in our eyes, we both knew the significance of this beautiful butterfly. Autum was upon us, the leaves were falling, and life was changing. Despite the fact that we were both deeply saddened by the loss of the child in Becca’s womb, God had sent this beautiful blue butterfly to remind us that he’s still there. He still loves us, and we know that he loves the little one we never got to see. As we watched this beautiful creature circle us once more and go on it’s way, we knew that he was in control. No matter the changing seasons in our lives, he’s shown us that his love continues…. all thanks to a little extra color brought to us by one blue butterfly.

According to federal law, commercial broadcasters are required to charge the lowest unit rate to any political advertisement by a candidate running for election 60 days prior to a general election and 45 days before a primary. This includes both national, state, and municipal elections. The only real requirement is that the ad has to be clearly sponsored or approved by the candidate (this is why so many political ads finish in "I approve this message". This means that airtime that can be sold full price by a broadcaster now needs to be sold at a discount.

Spending on political advertisements is always big news around election time, with more and more money being spent by candidates each year. One conclusion that always is brought up is how good this is for broadcasters. While the influx of political ads may make up for a few unsold advertising slots, the lower ad rates are usually bad for broadcasters, despite the concept of "reasonable access" which doesn’t REQUIRE broadcasters to replace commercial advertisements with political advertisements.

None the less, get ready for a dramatic upswing in annoying political mudslinging in your broadcasting outlets. They can afford a lot more of them for the next 2 months. I for one can’t wait for these next 60 days to be over.

In pops Chris Brogan with what has to be the best post I’ve seen regarding how a company can utilize social media on a daily basis. "What does a day in the life of a social media marketer look like? "  While Chris leaves out some aspects of monitoring social media (there’s no way you could fit all of it into one example), Chris’ post is an EXCELLENT starting point to get you thinking.

What does a day in the life of a social media marketer look like? I’m not a marketer, so if I get some of your terms wrong, forgive me. I thought maybe we could do a walkthrough of a fictitious social media marketer, Yolanda, for a small hotel group (four hotels) in Boston. I picked hotels just because otherwise I’d have picked a software company. Let’s walk through a workflow, and then reconstruct it in bullets at the end.

ChrisBrogan.com – Workflow- Social Media for Marketers

Do YOU monitor and engage in the conversations online for you brand (company or personal brand)? Have you had a company or brand reach out to you that made an impact? Leave a comment with some examples about how you engage!

As the replay of the awesome opening ceremonies rolled on broadcast television here in the states, I decided to see what events were kicking off online. With China 13 hours ahead of use in Kansas City, we knew the first events were just getting started. One of the first questions you are asked is your zip code and what TV provider you use. This makes perfect sense, because the website can use this information to find your TV schedule.

We still use an antenna for TV. We don’t watch enough TV to justify paying money for cable or satellite TV. Over-the-air television is great, and having access to the digital enhancement channels is more than enough for us. As a result, I added “Antenna” to my credentials on NBC’s Olympics website. Ok! I’m ready to go!
At the time, the only event broadcasting live was Equestrian. While I had no interest in watching horses trot around, I figured that I’d test the video none the less. Unfortunately, when I opened the video, I was greeted with this graphic:

Apparently, because I’m “not a subscriber to an approved TV service provider” NBC feels I shouldn’t be able to view live coverage online. While I understand contracts and other such things, the fact that NBC tells me that I am unable to view online coverage because I don’t pay for TV is ridiculous. If people are unable to view extended coverage on MSNBC , USA Network , etc. but have high-speed internet, they are probably MORE likely to look online for their coverage. As a result, NBC is loosing out TWICE on ad revenue from these people: through their cable broadcast entities, AND online.

Of course, all I needed to do was to change my “localization preferences” to a cable TV provider to get all the coverage I wanted (which NBC makes blatantly obvious). Unfortunately, many people will get turned away after the first “you’re not authorized” message. If NBC wants to get a true gauge of online viewership, they need to remove as many walls as possible to people watching online. While I understand that the percentage of people with high-speed internet with no cable or satellite TV is small, it’s significant enough that NBC needed to create this barrier to entry.

Sad.

… All that said, NBC’s online coverage is pretty good. The quality of their live stream is amazing. It also appears that the online coverage hasn’t hampered their broadcast viewership . I look forward to seeing how NBC evaluates their online coverage and the value it has in their future product offerings.