On July 18 in Regina, we hosted the How to be Awesome Online workshop. A morning of not only learning from the best, but meeting, tweeting, talking and asking questions to a panel of four expert minds on marketing and social media. It was like the world series of Regina’s Twitteratti.
The quotes that were playing throughout the morning:
Your customers are changing. Your customers want more, they want different, they want new, the want fully-loaded, and the want minimalism. How will you adapt?
It’s easy to stay with the status quo. A wise person doesn’t rock the boat, the old adage goes. But that’s assuming the sea is calm of course. What if the sea has transformed into a turbulent hurricane and the only way to stay afloat is to rock the boat and embrace the waves?
Business isn’t getting less turbulent, you may think your organization is immune but when it comes time for layoffs, a horrible “I told you so” is going to be the last thing you remember from your obsolete job.
It’s survival of the fittest on a whole new level.
The only constant is change. You must adapt. You must cannibalize your own products. Steve Jobs said this. His rationale was that if you don’t cannibalize your own products your competitors will.
Your core ‘why’ may never change but you’re probably going to change everything else about your product/service offering. Why wait till the market forces you to change? Why not lead change?
Plan to innovate. Plan to get feedback on your innovation. Plan to measure what works and be willing to change the plan based on the feedback you receive.
The organizations that thrive in 2013 and beyond will have a determination to adapt. A willingness to change for the better. They will take calculated risks and understand that the riskiest place to be is standing still avoiding change.
I disagree with anyone who says Pat Fiacco wasn’t anything short of an outstanding mayor of Regina. On Twitter I heard a lot of grumbling about him not being around and traveling all over the place. As with any opinion from illogical people (people I don’t agree with), I’m sure a lot of that is fabricated. Read more
Today on walks with Jeph we talk about Westjet and the social object they’ve developed; being the “fun” airline. They tell jokes on flights, are extremely friendly, and just seem to care more than the other airlines.
Do you remember the first time you flew Westjet? I sure do. It completely blew my mind that this airline actually wanted to make my flight more enjoyable. I went home immediately and told my parents about it and have been a loyal Westjet supporter ever since. You see, just the fact that I had to tell someone about my first experience with Westjet makes what they offer a social object. They’ve baked the marketing right into the product and I don’t think anyone can argue the success they’ve had.
So here’s your excuse to have a crazy, wild, loud, awesome idea for your company. The next marketing meeting you host tell everyone to think about the Westjet story and how it all started. Someone had the idea of telling jokes on flights. Even more importantly, someone high up in that company liked the idea and gave them permission to try it.
A smart culture breeds smart ideas.
What happens when communication goes from being expensive (press releases, billboards, 30 second spot) to relatively free (website, blog, Twitter account)? We get a fire-hose of information, which makes it much more difficult to standout amongst the crowd. (more noise than signal)
Enter Social Objects, they are the videos we share with friends, the pictures that get retweeted, the reason we tell stories about companies, the reason we remain extremely loyal to some brands. It’s all because of social objects. If something is worth sharing then it is a social object. Billboards can be social objects, commercials can be social objects, products can definitely be social objects. Anything that’s worth telling somebody about, is by definition, a social object.
As a marketer it is now your job to create social objects.
Here’s a video on Social Objects:
Sidenote:
Social objects aren’t created over night. What usually seems like a major breakthrough, is the result of a long process of improving upon the first iteration. The iPod for example may appear to have been a remarkable social object that happened overnight for Apple, when actually it was the product of many different versions improving upon the prior version.
Because creating a social object is difficult, many companies purposely try not to, if it was easy everyone would do it.
Did you know that when you search your own product or company with the hopes of seeing where you appear in Google’s search results, you’re not getting objective information? Google hangs on to your past searches, takes your location into account, and gives results accordingly. You end up seeing an inaccurate representation of where your site appears in the search results.
A few months back, Jeph blogged a nice little trick to depersonalize your search and see where you actually stack up for important search terms.
If you’re using Google Chrome, that trick isn’t required. You can get a true representation simply by opening a new incognito window as depicted below:
If you haven’t climbed aboard the Google Chrome train yet, check out Jeff’s page for his trick.
Happy search engine optimization!
Every time you come in contact with any brand, company, or organization you either like it a little bit more or like it a little bit less, the feeling is never completely neutral. The majority of these impressions (feelings) come from your sub-conscious mind, which makes it difficult to understand why you feel the way you do about some brands. Just assume everything is marketing.
They way the flight attendant smiles at you gives you an impression of the airline.
The way a hostess open the door at a restaurant changes your impression of the establishment.
The way the cashier talks to you while making a purchase changes your impression of the store.
The font you use on doors in your office changes our impression of your company. Read more
Today, every man, women, child, company, not-for-profit organization or any public entity, all have the freedom to create whatever they want and publish it online. Think about it for a minute.
Everyone is a media outlet.
Ten years ago, there were too many hurdles to jump through before you could get your own website. Today, a site can be developed as fast as your hosting company can get you on to their server. We’re talking hours, not months, weeks, or days. On Twitter and Facebook you can have an audience within minutes of signing up.
When something that’s traditionally been expensive, like communication to an audience, becomes incredibly inexpensive (almost free) inevitably more people will utilize it. That means there will be a lot of unintentional communication (more noise than signal). Companies begin communicating without understanding the repercussions and soon will alienate their past and potentially future customers. It happens on Facebook daily, updates that don’t solve a problem or entertain, just useless noise.
Here’s my warning.
Have you seen the Unsubscribe button on Facebook?
With one click, any one of your “friends/people” who like your page can silence everything you publish. That’s just Facebook.
Filters on e-mail allow anyone to block your address if you’re sending them e-mails they don’t want.
Twitter’s the easiest, they can just simply unfollow you.
Remember, everyone’s a publisher now, if you or your company are trying to communicate something to an audience, it better be anticipated, engaging, relevant, timely, helpful, or entertaining. If it’s not, no one is going to listen and you’re wasting your time.
Maybe it’s time to revisit your communication strategy.
1. Don’t be risky, pick something safe to do.
2. Whatever you do, do not offend anyone.
3. Make sure everyone around the boardroom table agrees unanimously with the tag-line and marketing tactics.
4. When you get a complaint stop what you’re doing and conform to whatever the complainant says.
5. Make sure your campaign is targeted at the largest audience possible.
6. Don’t worry about selling your product, create the most amount of awareness as possible.
7. Don’t worry about increasing the bottom line, try to win advertising awards.
8. Find where your competitors are advertising and advertise there.
9. Put a QR code on your advertisement even if it’s on a billboard or a TV commercial, everyone uses QR codes.
10. Use words like competitive advantage, synergies, going viral, strategic alliances, impressions, and
11. Focus on the 4 P’s of marketing (Price, product, promotion, place).
12. Ensure you’re in full control of the message 100% of the time.
13. Don’t measure unless you have to and if you do, measure by ad impressions and campaign reach.