Well, droves is relative but 19%, 1 in five, could be considered a drove...
What’s causing this minor exodus is something I’ve written about more than a year ago. I call it the Social Marketing Paradox.
The Gazette finally breached the subject, and a research firm finally got the stats that validate my theory. If it’s too popular and too mainstream, its death is assured.
Facebook back then:
A place where students, peers of the same age group, could call their own, a home away from parents, bosses, and other authority figures. Oh, and let’s not forget the ‘no marketers’ aspect. I miss those days…
Facebook now:
A place where you can’t write anything personal anymore because even your grandma has an account, a place where employers (present or future) watch you like a hawk, and a place where everything revolves around marketing and people trying to push something on you all the time.
Facebook is becoming another MySpace. And we all know what happened to MySpace…
Let’s look at some stats (all this is recent: 68% of teens say in the last 6 months):
19% of teens have either abandoned facebook or visit less that a year ago.
When asked why, 45% of teens said that it was boring… Now, that’s a really bad answer, but a good question that pops up because of that answer is: “Why do teens find facebook boring all of the sudden?” Sadly, that opened ended question was not probed properly during the cited research so we didn’t get the answer… But I think we can formulate a hypothesis with the stats we did get.
Of the teens that could formulate an answer, one third (30%) said either because parents are on facebook or too many other adults. 28% said they’re more interested in other sites. 21% said because their friends are no longer on facebook.
All this can be summed up by simple concept. The Cool Factor. Why are 21% of their ‘friends’ no longer on facebook, why are 28% of teens saying that other sites interest them more? Simple: because facebook is loosing the cool factor.
What’s the cool factor? Also simple: if you have to ask, it’s what you are not.
But to understand it better (without the cynicism): It’s where teens can be free, where they aren’t watched, measured, and optimised, where they can express themselves and vent their frustrations without being afraid of jeopardizing their future careers, getting expelled, or losing their current jobs, and, most importantly, where marketers aren’t bombarding them with constant demands to click ‘Like’ buttons.
Wait a minute… That’s Twitter!
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Strategic B2B Marketing: Two Classic Paradigms
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Wow, twitter is a tweeting with millions of self proclaimed social marketing experts all tweeting the latest and greatest new social marketing gadget, app, or technique. That's all well and good for those that are already swimming in the twitter data stream, but what about those who are simply looking to get started? How do you learn to swim? What about those who are asking themselves ‘What is this twitter thing?' well this blog post is for you, my intrepid friends!
What is the big deal with Twitter?
I'll spare you the social networking rhetoric about connecting with people and jump right into twitter for business basics.
Twitter basics are comprised of 4 things. Your website, a blog, the ever so practical bit.ly website, and of course twitter.
Now, I'm assuming you're a business person and not someone who wants to share with the world the incredible fact that you had bacon and eggs for breakfast. I'm assuming you want to get some business results out of this endeavour.
You've heard the expression ‘Content drives traffic' right? If not, simply speaking, it means that content is what attracts people to your site, your blog, etc. Twitter, in this context, is the thing that will point people to your site, your blog, or whatever else you want.
Now, I'm a B2B Marketer, so I'll use a B2B example. Jack is the president of a company that cleans office furniture and apparel, but demand for his services has stagnated and he wants to generate more business.
Jack has a corporate website, nothing fancy, a simple little thing that tells people who he is and what his company does. Jack decides he wants to dive into this Social Marketing thing so he goes on twitter and gets an account using his business name as a handle. Then he stares at the screen and thinks, ‘Ok, so what now?'
Well, the first step is filling out your profile and getting a picture. Jack decides to use his corporate logo as his picture. The bio allows for 160 characters. This is a place to describe your business or services. Jack thinks about it for a second and writes: "We're expert cleaners of office furniture and apparel." For now that'll do, Jack knows he can always change it later (and he will!). Then, in the settings menu, he plugs in his website's URL, where in the world his business is located, and hits save. After a while exploring the options in the settings menu, changing some colours, trying some backgrounds, Jack is finally satisfied with the result.
He hits ‘Home' a few times to see if he has any followers. He doesn't. But that's ok, Jack knows that Social Marketing works best on the long term.
Jack is an expert in his field. He knows everything about cleaning office furniture and apparel. And therein lies the key to Social Marketing.
Jack finds a blog platform, Blogger, Wordpress, there are tons to choose from, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Not wanting to waste too much time on this, he chooses Wordpress and opens an account. Jack is feeling a little intimidated by all the blank screens, but carries on with his efforts.
He reads a few ‘help' files and figures out how Wordpress works (there are many blogs about how blogs work). He still has no idea what Tags are, but at least he knows how to write and publish a post. He calls his Marketing friend Chris and asks him about Tags. Chris tells him that simply speaking, tags are what people type into Google to find your blog. Chris suggests ‘Professional office cleaning services', ‘furniture cleaning', ‘Montreal office furniture cleaning', and whatever the blog post is about.
Jack smiles and starts writing his first post, "The dangers of dirty office furniture". Jack finds a royalty free picture on an image website like stock.xchng and adds it to his blog post. Chris told him that pictures are important.
Now what? No matter what blogging platform you use, you should configure your profile first. Make sure that there is a link to your corporate website. A description of what you do. Fill out your Bio. Who are you and why should people read what you write? And start slow! Take your time! You'll get the hang of it really fast, but it does take practice and dedication!
Let's recap before letting the magic begin.
- Jack's business has a website.
- Jack has a twitter account. The twitter account links to his website.
- Jack has a blog. The profile on his blog is complete, bio filled out, avatar (picture of you or your business logo) is up, and there's a link to his website.
- Jack has generated content on his blog.
Now what?
Having spoken with Chris, Jack knows that he should tweet the fact that he has a new blog post. But when he copy/pastes the URL of his blog http://jacksofficecleaningservices.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/the-dangers-of-dirty-office-furniture/ into twitter, he realises that there is no space left to write anything else! That's when he remembers bit.ly.
He goes to the bit.ly website, fills out another profile, sets up his account and copy/pastes his long blog URL into the URL shortner. It gives him something more manageable (ie: http://bit.ly/69RnGN), and allows him to track how many people click on that link. Jack opens twitter and writes:
"New blog post. The dangers of dirty office furniture. http://bit.ly/69RnGN"
And, holding his breath in anticipation, he hits enter.
Nothing much happens. Jack returns to bit.ly to track the progress of his post. Nothing. No clicks. No torrents of people calling him. Jack takes some time to learn more about twitter and those mysterious number signs (#) people seem to be using all the time.
Returning to twitter, he sees that he has a follower! Chris told him that it's proper etiquette to thank people for following so Jack writes his new follower a Direct Message: "Hi! Thanks for following me!" While doing so, Jack sees that his new follower claims to be a ‘Social Marketing and SEO expert', he has thousands of followers and follows hundreds of people. His new friend's tweets are mostly comprised of links to twitter tips and tricks. Jack decides to follow him. By doing so, Jack has access to many articles about how to use twitter and spends some time reading them.
Jack decides to register with wefollow.com and to repost his tweet using his newfound twitter knowledge.
"New blog post. The dangers of dirty office furniture. http://bit.ly/69RnGN #business #marketing #danger #safety #CEO #CNN #office"
Hashmarks (#) are little tags that group a tweet with other tweets with the same hashmark. Many people follow hashmarks, or click on them to see what's new in a specific field of interest. Jack refreshes his screen and sees that he suddenly has 8 new followers. He thanks them all and returns to bit.ly. His eyebrows shoot upwards as he sees that his link has been clicked 14 times!
And that's how you begin on twitter.
For a week or so, Jack writes a new blog article everyday. "What viruses live on your desk?" "Cleaning office furniture reduces risk for H1N1." "A clean office is a productive office." "Increase office morale, clean your carpets." "Dirty office furniture responsible for 20% of all sick days."
In no time, traffic on his website has increased dramatically. Once Jack got familiar and comfortable with the blog+twitter concept, it only took him a few minutes per day to get things done. Now Jack has over 100 followers, and more flock to his words everyday, retweeting his wisdom all across the planet. Business is good.
Of course, you don't have to do all this yourself, you could always simply outsource this Marketing activity to professionals. Not everyone is a writer, not everyone is comfortable using social networking sites, and you don't have to be! Remember that. Your job, your skills, your knowledge makes you an expert in your field. If you're a plumber, a lawyer, a doctor, a CEO, whatever, no one is going to think less of you because you're not a social marketing expert. I certainly can't fix my plumbing myself, defend someone in court, or perform surgery, that's why I hire experts to do those things for me. And it's normal to do that.
- Last words:Social networks are like martial-arts dojos. As a novice, you don't walk into one proclaiming you're the best thing since Bruce Lee. Someone might want to test that claim.
- Make a plan and stick with it. A good way to start is to commit to 1 blog post per week.
- Read-up on the subject. Learn the basics.
- Be polite. Everyone might be a potential customer.
- Never buy twitter followers. If you do, I'll find you and make fun of you.
- And most importantly, have a little fun and be patient!
Now, a little note for the experts out there: I know, I know, there is so much more! This humble post barely scratches the surface of what can be accomplished using Social Marketing. I just wanted to write something for all the people out there who don't spend 18 hours per day on-line.
In my next posts we'll explore links and why they are so very important, techniques for catching the ever elusive longtail, and the habits of various other little critters that live on the Internet.
Please, comments are more than welcome! What's your take on the subject?
Oh, yes indeed, there is a paradox. There are two parts of my brain at work when I'm on-line: the marketer and the user. Who remembers MySpace? Not me, not anymore, for me, MySpace is a dying animal that begs to be put to death. Why? Because it's chuck full of ads and used mostly as a marketing platform.
Social Networks work only as long as the ‘social' part dominates. The instant that sly little marketers get their hands on a social network, its demise is almost assured. The paradox lies within that statement. Marketers only really get on board when a social network becomes large and ‘popular', but the instant they do, that social network begins its death throws.
Facebook seems to be doing really well handling the influx of marketers. They listen to user feedback and they seem to understand that without ‘people' they become nothing more than another sad MySpace story. MySpace is still alive, people still use it, however stats seem to indicate a major decline in ‘real' users. What the stats tell us is how many people have pages, not how many people still use those pages, or what use they make of those pages.
And now, with the buzz of Microsoft taking over Facebook and Twitter, well, methinks that change is in the air.
There is a psychosocial component that few marketers understand, especially those that only recently ‘got' the whole ‘Twitter thing'. Social networks are popular as long as they remain relatively underground. The more ‘public' they become, the least attractive they become to the people that made them popular.
I remember fours years ago, before Facebook became so common that everyone's grandma now has an account, when we suggested to a client that they should create a profile for their business. We also suggested that employees could become friends of the business and this would be an easy and efficient way to share information and stay in touch. Plus, there would be additional benefits: easy exposure, traffic generation, interactive content, basically what the world now calls ‘Social Marketing'.
Our client looked at me bewildered and said: "Why in the world would I waste my time on Facebook?"
I answered him, "Because everyone will soon be on Facebook, in fact, Facebook will become the main reason people will go on-line." Nothing happened. Our client simply couldn't understand this esoteric concept.
Skip four years ahead... 2009... End of October... Late adopters of Social Marketing are finally getting it... They know what Facebook is, they know what Twitter is, they hold conferences and pat themselves on the back for ‘discovering' this wonderful marketing tool. Little do they know... Exactly because they ‘discovered' it, there's a whole generation of people switching to the next best thing... What is that next best thing?
Well, that's for me to know, and for mainstream marketers to ‘discover' in two or three years time.
I would like add a bit of personal philosophy: We can't ever forget the ‘cool' factor. People flock to the cool factor, but, what is cool stays cool only until it gets ruined by becoming mainstream (or gets bought by Microsoft). Let me give you an example that really turned me off Twitter recently. I was flipping through channels at home, hoping for something good on TV when I fell on CNN. Some ancient relic from days gone by just said enthusiastically, "You can now follow me on Twitter." He then turned to his colleague and said, "Do you know how this Twitter thing works? I can barely open my e-mails."
"Typical," I thought to myself as the urge to delete my Twitter account filled my soul...
It came to me recently while spending some quality time on Facebook. My entire News Feed, all of my friends' statuses, were comprised of links to youtube, and comments about those videos.
This made me think: what's going on here?
Then it hit me... It's no longer ‘I think therefore I am', that age old saying has changed to ‘I post therefore I am". Thinking has been removed from the equation.
Let me explain my point of view.
Thinking is hard. Creating original content (even as tiny as a Facebook status) is difficult. It requires one to think, to organize words into a semblance of structure that conveys an idea or an opinion. Having an opinion means thinking about a position relative to a premise or concept. Having an idea means reasoning, using logic, and adding something, contributing, however slightly, to the greater good of society.
The majority of people no longer ‘create' original content in their Facebook statuses, they ‘comment' on what someone else created, and that is a dangerous thing indeed. Without creativity, without original thinking, what is the worth of Man? A monkey can comment by going ooh-ooh-ah-ah... But a monkey can't create. Words are thoughts, thinking is intelligence, intelligence is creativity, creativity is progress... Posting and commenting... means nothing in the grand scheme of things, it makes people lazy. Why think of something original when someone can 'search' for something original on-line and then comment about it?
So that's my take on the matter. As a marketer, I don't mind, it makes my job easier. Give someone something to post on Facebook and watch the message spread like wildfire. However, as a writer it annoys me. I believe that even little opportunities to be creative, to be original, to write out loud, make us better people, give our brains a workout. I worry that if this continues, on-line brains will become nothing more than pointers, a tool to be used for SEO... Wait... That has already happened... Never mind.