DOUG SCHUMACHER

experience designer + writer

Fascinating

Creativing :: Social Media. Let the inquisition continue.

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I’ve been kicking around a couple of different approaches for posting here. One is to do a recap of what I think are the week’s most interesting developments in online marketing. I’ll pull a lot of this info from Creativing, the social bookmarking site I’ve set up where anyone’s free to post relevant marketing information (read: not spam). Thus I’m titling these posts ‘Creativing’.

This would be in contrast to longer deep dives on a more focused subject. Any input on this would be greatly appreciated.

So what happened this week? Nothing. So goodbye and have a great Memorial Day weekend.

jk

Actually, a couple things happened that are perhaps more continuation of previous trends than anything else.

Social Media Gets Shelled

Social media came under attack. Again. And not unjustifiably so. Fast growth demands questions, as everyone should have learned from the late 90s.

Regarding the Knowledge Networks study, true, most people don’t ‘go’ to social media sites for product information. I don’t go to TV for product information, either. Nor magazines, radio or billboards. But that doesn’t mean that there’s no opportunity for brands there, or that it’s not a valid environment for them to be in.

The fact that they state those sites are used for staying in touch with family and friends is an open door to even more opportunity for brands to get into the conversation. As long as they’re authentic about it.

Survey’s in which people answer direct questions about why they behave the way they do are, in my opinion, sketchy at best, and misleading at worst. Product decisions are laced with emotional overtones that are seldom captured in surveys. The minute we ask someone to rationalize an emotional process, it’s over.

Moving on to Facebook

Facebook announced the Publisher is being extended to Pages. What’s the big, you ask?

Facebook is all about sharing, yeah? Getting into that conversation thing. And this is simply extending the capacity for people to share things right off the Pages of the company’s they’ve Fanned.

Thus if someone’s on a company’s Page, and they see something they want to share (probably one of the most likely places to find such content, it should be noted), then they can post back to the company’s newsfeed, and to their own newsfeed (and friend network), right from that page. This could also be driven from an app.

Ever since the move last year away from widgets and towards the Newsfeed, Facebook has been pushing the thread of conversation. This is bringing brands into the picture more prominently than ever.

Of course, brands will still need to give people a reason to share it with their friends.

And more Facebook news.

Crushing data for MySpace this week. While the user base is still coming around, the engagement is dropping precipitously. Users are spending less and less time on the site. And when your site is all about social engagement, that’s pretty much the sign of the apocalypse.

To date, there hasn’t been a community or social networking-based site that’s been able to turn an ebb tide around. MySpace does have a lot more tools in their belt than the Geocities and Friendsters of past. But still, and I’m just saying.

Death of the Upfront, or just Jimmy Kimmel’s TV Career

While probably not the same cringe factor as Colbert’s National Press Dinner speech, I’m guessing there were some anxious ABC, no make that every broadcast and cable network in the country, execs on the edge of their seats. And further differentiation, there’s a big diff between slamming someone you slam on a regular basis on your show, and slamming someone you work for. I haven’t heard anything about this since, either. Does he still have a gig?

Best Buy Goes With the Crowd

There’s a lot of chatter in the business world about listening to the customer. So when Best Buy put a site up asking for constructive ideas for how to make BB a better experience, I was a bit skeptical. But putting up a site like this takes time and resources, and in this economy, doing so says something.

Sure, you could say ‘Why bring up what the brand is currently lacking?’ But there’s an authenticity to tactics like this that companies are highly in need of. No, there doesn’t seem to be that many people visiting. But sometimes brands need to do things that are worth more than the sum of the traffic or participation they drive.

If I had had a problem with BB in the past (which I have), this shows me that someone in the company with some pull is making strides to improve the brand experience.

Hope you have a good Memorial Day weekend.

Why creative is more important than ever in advertising.

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This week I gave a speech at the Facebook Global Sales Conference, up in Palo Alto, on the role of creativity in social media. I enjoyed meeting and hanging out with the Facebook team. A lot of energy and excitement going on there.

The theme for my presentation, on Google Docs here, is that social media is going to usher in a big demand for creativity in advertising.

The Power of Social Media

Recently there’s been some highly-illuminating information on the impact of social media. Firstly, we’re seeing social media driving a lot of traffic to sites. The average for this is 20% of a site’s visitors. That means for some sites, it’s significantly higher.

This is one of Google’s challenges. As a search tool, it’s far from perfect. And people are finding that their network is a more effective resource than Google, in many ways. Twitter’s ability to provide relevant search info quickly paints a similar story.

And when you think about it, of course your friends are going to be better at predicting what you’d like than a Google algorithm. That’s why they’re your friends. Friendships are based on shared interests.

But perhaps the ultimate proof of social media’s power is the almighty conversion. And here we’re seeing conversion numbers 2-4 times higher. That’s a remarkable leap in performance — a stat even a direct marketer can love.

Paid Media Isn’t Going Away

While social media is undeniably powerful, keep in mind that no matter how popular it gets this year, the overwhelming portion of ad spending will be paid media. And frankly, paid media will  be a big factor for a long time.

Paid media actually makes for a great partnership with social media. There are only a handful of sites that have risen to prominence without any paid media. And a lot of the so-called viral or social media success stories were heavily fueled by a paid media launch. That’s all fine. In fact, it’s the way it should be. Companies rarely have time for 100% organic viral growth. Sometimes you have to spike the punch.

The question then is, What’s the tactical relationship between paid and social media?

Turning Paid Impressions into Social Endorsements

So paid media can feed the social media monster. The question is, How?

Any social media campaign has one major requirement. That it be something people want to share. Without that, it’s not social. Just more stuff posted to the Web.

Having something share-worthy isn’t easy, as few products are what Seth Godin would call “purple cows” — products that generate their own word of mouth. Outside of entertainment properties, it’s hard to think of a category in which people watch the ads as a way of gaining product information.

So the ‘news factor’ has to come from somewhere.

A base level tactic is to include sharing features at every touchpoint of your campaign. Make it easier for people to take it social. This could be Facebook Connect and other types of universal logins on all your campaign assets — from websites to banners. But those are really more foundational tactics. And it also assumes that the ad or website we’re featuring has inherent news-worthiness. Not a likely situation.

Creatively-speaking, social media is a much more challenging environment. In my presentation to Facebook, I mentioned that there are a lot of paid media ads that most people would consider pretty bad from a messaging standpoint (think the Clapper, or the Snuggie), yet they’re still able to produce positive numbers. They’ll drive a certain level of traffic, some of which will convert to sales.

With paid media, the biggest requirement from the reader is to simply NOT skip or ignore the ad. Think about that. To ‘not’ receive a paid media placement, you have to do something. That’s ironic. With social media, there has to be some sort of action on some person’s behalf, to generate the endorsement.

That makes understanding the consumer more important than ever. Because you have to gauge what will interest them at a much deeper level. When you hit it, it’s extremely powerful, as the conversion rates are showing. But it’s not a level of creative thinking that you can simply phone in.

So the ‘creative’, whatever that may be, has to be something that will separate from the rest of the media noise. And that’s probably not an ad, unless it’s insanely funny.

Content-based creative, like video and Facebook apps, offer a lot of potential impact. But they’re going to have to respond to what will inevitably be a surge in similar campaigns. All vying for people’s endorsement.

So getting any sizeable reaction from viewers is going to require a big leap in creative over what everyone else is putting out there. After all, consumers aren’t going to increase their rates of endorsing. In fact, it’s going to decrease on a percentage basis as more and more companies swing for a social media hit.

In that environment, the creative will definitely be king. Outside of product development itself, it will be the only thing that can get a company into the conversation. But it’s going to take a lot of understanding, thinking, learning, and refining.

In short, it’s going to take a lot of creativity.

7 ways to get more out of your creative

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My latest iMedia article:

What do you do if a campaign’s creative budget gets cut by 20 percent? Do you say the creative will be 20 percent less impactful and call it a day?

Hardly.

Sadly, falling budgets, especially in the area of production, are a challenge a lot of companies in this business are facing.

Complicating that challenge is the push for more integrated campaigns. That means more assets spread across a broader range of media environments — not exactly the route to lower creative costs.

But the best way to maintain quality with a smaller budget may not be by producing assets in less quantity, but rather by doing things differently. As campaign planning becomes more integrated, the increased awareness of how all media are interconnected can open up new opportunities for improved efficiencies.

Here are seven ways that an integrated approach to campaign development can help you accomplish better results with the creative assets you develop.

The rest of the story …

The next five years

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There could be a reason that the legendary centers of the markets (Wall St) and marketing (Madison Ave) are, amid this entire planet, located only a few miles apart. And they may be even closer, emotionally.

What I’ve noticed recently is that the various economists, financial writers, and stock analysts I read are all starting to have a similar view of what the next few years are going to be. And it doesn’t look pretty from here to about 2015.

Jim Jubak, of MSN Money, calls it the Great Recession.

Economic conditions, of course, have a profound effect on consumer spending power, the products they purchase, and the reasons they buy them. And what do the experts think consumers will be wanting during this period of economic doldrums?

In Jubak’s latest artile, Five Rules for Post-Recovery Investing, he lays it out with his 5 new rules.

  1. It’s not “business as usual.” Shy away from companies where the business plan going forward is simply a hope that things will go back to “normal” once the economy recovers. At a minimum, the company should recognize the world has changed. It’s a good sign that Starbucks, the classic pre-crisis consumer business, is groping for a new formula.
  2. The new value definition will be easier for some. Recognize that some companies have less distance to travel in meeting a new value proposition. McDonald’s needs to tweak its menus; Starbucks may need a top-to-bottom reinvention. Coach needs to balance its full-price and outlet sales; Tiffany needs to experiment to find its niche in the new economy.
  3. Value doesn’t simply equal low price. I don’t know yet — and neither does the company — whether a new emphasis on organic and healthful food at reasonable prices will succeed in revitalizing sales at Whole Foods Market, but the position makes sense in a post-recovery economy.
  4. Cost-cutting will be essential. A company such as Intel that has built its long-term strategy on constantly cutting costs by constantly improving production technology is well-positioned for the new world. Low-cost producers like Nokia also have an edge in this environment — if they can combine low cost with perceived consumer value.
  5. Look for clear, flexible business strategies. The best bets are companies that have clearly articulated, flexible strategies for coping with this value shift. Procter & Gamble, for example, has directed its advertising in developed economies to trying to convince consumers that its brands deliver more value — they work better, contain less water, etc. — even at higher prices. In developing economies, the company is cutting prices to win market share and to create brand recognition.

To me that all boils down to three words: adaptability, efficiency, and value. Not the most glittering adjectives to find on a creative brief. But then, marketing’s biggest challenge has always been to find the desire among the mundane and indistinguishable. And as attitudes shift, what was once bland or working class can make an about-face. Think Gap T-shirts and Doc Martens in the 80s post-disco era. In these times, value is no longer boring, but rather a search for substance and meaning. Efficiency begins to feel intelligent or cognizant.

Consumer attitudes are even more important as the lines between marketing and product development continue to blur. Because what was once simply a one-way communication message is now a more personal connection, and even a considerable investment of time.

And that places a lot more emphasis on getting the underlying strategy right.

Creativing links for this Friday

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Every Friday our agency gets together to share links we post to Creativing.com, a social bookmarking site I started. Like Creativing itself, the session has become a great way for us to share what inspires us and what’s catching our eyes in the ever-evolving online world.

Beyond the content, the ensuing dialog across our collective disciplines is at the core of what I think the new media creative process needs to be about.

Here are the links for today’s session.

How social media can resurrect your brand’s reputation

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My latest article just came out on iMedia Connection.

Recently on NPR’s Morning Edition, host Renee Montagne interviewed 20-plus year auto-exec-turned-industry-analyst Jim Harbour (to Jim’s credit, “industry analysis” must be the only growth sector in the U.S. auto industry for the past couple years). Montagne was quizzing Harbour on the problems the auto industry is facing.

Here’s an excerpt from their exchange:

NPR: What about the perception that U.S. automakers aren’t making cars as well built as foreign cars? How can U.S. automakers change the perception?

Jim Harbour: I am not a marketing expert at all. I don’t know how you change the perception of the American people who think we’re still building junk. And I know, I’m from the time that I was doing that. I was building the junk. We used to build cars with eight defects, and we’d ship them out and ship them to the dealer.

THE REST OF THE STORY …

Reqall – A way to increase campaign conversion rates?

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das_reqall_logo

I’m a fan of clipping tools and other quick, time savers and reminders. I have computers and phones littered with these to prove it 😐

This is an interesting mobile solution for setting up reminders. It reminds me of adding calendar events in Google’s iPhone mobile, where you just type in a string like ‘tomorrow 10am dr appointment’ and it takes that info and places it in the correct spot. Reqall sounds similar, except it’s voice activated. But it will take that appointment and set up either a text, phone, or calendar reminder. Pretty smart.

This tech would seem to have a lot of campaign applications. At least the idea of quick reminders, whether or not Reqall is actually set up to work that way right now. People are busy. Anything that lets them grab, note, bookmark, or file something away for later retrieval could certainly help conversion rates. And if they’re posting to a social tool, then there’s a community benefit on top of that.