The Marketing Plaza

Content is king, but too much content can be like too much e-mail- spam.  The key is to provide content of value and in enough quantity that it can be digested.

Recently I was at a newspaper conference where we evaluated how well various papers were engaging in the social media world. The irony is that no one has better or more content than newspapers – so much so that many tweets, Facebook posts and blogs take you to various newspaper stories around the country.   So what are newspapers doing wrong?

I think it comes down to two key things:

1. They provide too much content. A news stream is almost like a wire service firing off story after story until hundreds of stories are posted almost within the hour that the news has gone to press.  As a reader, I’d much prefer perhaps one story an hour, or the story of the day, or the story that’s the funkiest, or even a story from the food section, rather than every story being printed in the main section that day.

2. They are too automated.  Precisely because they have so much content, and because they won’t invest in staff or resources to enter the online arena, the newspapers I’ve seen have automated the process.  Too much of any good thing is too much, and the same is true of automation.

I follow social media sites to get the best ideas a business or marketing guru has to offer. I don’t want every line from every book, or every chapter capsulized.  I want a tidbit for the day that I can remember, think about and take with me on my own business travels.  I also follow a person because of the personal touch.

When the tweets put out by a paper are so highly automated that they have no humor, no irony, no personal touch—well, then I might as well be following CNN.  Even if the news is local, I want some sense that a person has decided to put this particular news item out on the internet because it’s special and not just one item out of a thousand for the day.

Social media is best done consistently and regularly, but is not better served by being over served.  Ironically as newspapers moan that their copy is being stolen for free by the Googles of the world, they have entered the social media arena without editing themselves.  And, editing is their strength!

Yes, give some content for free, but learn the art of the tease.  Stop flooding the market with all the news all the time.  Go back to the art of the headline and tell me what’s most important, most humorous, most worthwhile for today rather than flooding me with everything. It’s just too much information.

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Question: Our CEO was recently featured on a broadcast TV talk show to discuss his topic of expertise.  The show ended up on YouTube, so we can post a copy on our company web site, right?

Answer: Nothing is that simple.  Even if you are in the video as a featured guest, you don’t have rights to the segment.  The copyright is owned by the TV station.

On more than one occasion, after successfully getting a client placed as a guest expert on a broadcast or cable statione, we’ve asked on behalf of the client for rights to post interviews on a company web site. Almost 100% of the time, the answer has been “no.”  The TV stations will allow you to link to their site, but rarely will give rights to repost the interview even if abridged.

The reason is simple. The TV station is in the business of driving traffic to its own site and sells advertisers to the broadcast station as well as to the online page based on eyeballs – the documented number of people who view the segment.

Posting a video on YouTube muddies the waters a bit. Some fine print has suggested that you are giving up your rights to your own material when you upload to YouTube. It’s the reason some purists use other channels, even though YouTube is clearly the leader.  If you’re posting a video in hopes of being found, YouTube may be your clear choice. But, if you’re merely using the service as a way to get a video posted for use on your own web site, other services may be preferable.

As more and more small businesses go online with Facebook or work to make their web site more dynamic in the web 2.0 world, the issue of video posts is being questioned more often. It’s considered the competing rights of publicity versus the rights of privacy.  For a great, commonsense review of the topic, check out this short primer and accompanying video by intellectual property attorney Mark Rosenberg of Sills Cummis & Gross P.C.

Tip: If you still want a video interview of your CEO on your web site, there’s one easy way to make it happen without worrying about copyright.  Hire your own videographer, have him or her sign a work for hire agreement, use your marketing consultant or staff person as the interviewer and create your own online video show. You’ll own the rights, keep the questions to one the CEO can answer, and have some great multi-media additions to your online sites.

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Business and marketing always love acronyms. It’s the reason we have 3Ms, IBMs as brand names not to mention ROIs and KPIs in strategy discussions.*  Sometimes the names are used to mask an original identity, allowing a brand to move into a new era with a new persona. Other times acronyms are used as field jargon to make the presenter appear brilliant and in-the-know.  Other times, and less surreptitiously, the acronyms are just a quick shorthand for fast communications particularly in an increasing digital world limited by character counts. OMG, LOL!

Another use of acronyms is to help people remember things, particularly students studying for tests.  For middle schoolers trying to name the Great Lakes for a social studies test, the acronym HOMES helps them recall Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. Not all acronyms work for everyone, but one acronym does suffice for all marketing endeavors.  It takes you back to basics on the ABCs of Marketing – for Always Be Communicating.

There are great debates in the marketing world about what media to use when, and the value return of a broadcast spot on The Daily Show versus a Tweet on Twitter. With aplogies to Marshall McLuhan, the ABCs of marketing remind us that the medium is not the message. The message is the message  and whatever medium allows you to communicate consistently to the right audience is the right medium for you.

If the cost-effectiveness of a blog allows you to communicate more than a broadcast commercial, then a blog is your better bet.  In contrast, if you don’t have the wherewithal to blog and do have the funds to produce a broadcast spot and air it consistently, then the spot hits the spot for your needs.

Marketing plans by definition admit that there is no one solution for everyone, which is why plans need to be carefully crafted based on time, budget, resources, needs, mission and skill sets. But any plan that doesn’t account for the ABCs and gives you great one-time hits, is not a marketing plan at all.  If you are not communicating, you are not marketing.  It’s as basic as it gets; as basic as the ABCs.

*For those who don’t remember or are intimidated by jargon:
3M originally stood for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company
IBM was International Business Machines
ROI is Return on Investment
KPI is Key Performance Indicator

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A common tab on a web site is “contact us,” but is it really an invitation to contact?  More times than not, the button is used to collect information about you and doesn’t help you, as the consumer, one iota in contacting the company or service. It’s a perfect example of how most companies still hide before an Internet shield and are not personal, or consumer friendly. Instead, their thinly masked veils of friendliness smack of their real intention of building a e-mail database.

If I am frustrated enough to hit the “constact us” button, the truth is I want to contact you, not be contacted by you.  I want to know when I can call to reach a real person and get a real answer.

Recently, I was on the Continental Airlines web site.  Their contact us service is truly frustrating.  During recent snow storms, their listed phone numbers didn’t work. Their comic book customer service person just kept giving me the same wrong answer to my typed question, no matter how many times I changed how I phrased my query.

But, Continental should not be singled out.  Almost every company on the web has poor contact us protocol, making it hard for the customer to do just that – contact them.  Here’s a tip:  Don’t label the web site tab “contact us” if you aren’t posting the information about how to contact you.  Just giving me a form to give you info about me is not helpful.  I don’t want to give you info about me.  I need your phone number, hours of operation and customer service e-mail.  It’s that simple.

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In the social media world people like to talk about interactive two-way information, but I believe the analogy is limited.  Information is like water.  It flows downstream. Through a strong eco-system that includes evaporation and precipitation, water returns to rivers and streams to reflow.  Information is the same.

Instead of the proverbial two-way arrow presented in so many social media seminars, I see info flow as more circular. I see it flowing downstream from a blogger to the world, then sprinkled out through Tweets and e-mail, blown through the Internet  clouds through link-backs and retweets, filtered through feedback and comments, and only then refined back to the writer for reconsideration.

In the marketing world, we call it  “getting the message out.”  In today’s society, getting out a message is considered a somewhat ‘interruptive” outdated concept, but is it?  The bottom line is that communication starts with sending out a message.

Study after study in the newspaper world showed readers valued the ads as much if not more than the news.  Considered classic interruptive advertising, these newspaper ads had defined, measurable value to the very people they were designed to reach.

In this new social media world, not as much has changed as people would have you believe. People like communities. People like communication. People like to be listened to and valued.  In return, they may prefer you as vendor, product, relationship or brand. Or, they may not.  Yet, it still all begins with communication.

Hence, those companies who have stopped marketing due to the recession, are truly in for a longer drought than those who continue to outpour thoughts, ideas and ongoing communications with prospective partners, stakeholders and customers. The thought economy is like any other. It requires transactions that begin with someone wanting to impart or part with something and someone else willing to access it.

In today’s social media economy, make sure to water your thoughts.  Send them downstream, have patience and continue watering.  Flowers will bloom as well as business, relationships, and expanded thinking.

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