The Social Media Head Fake

Guest post from Kevin Shockey over at Guagua Pública and Mis Tribus on his lecture Como Generar Nuevo Ingresos Usando Twitter:

Last night I gave a class on what I would call version 0.4 of my theories from Guagua Pública. It was a real honor to work once again with Francisco Santana, Founder of ASOPYMES. In my opinion, he is a great friend to all small and medium sized businesses in Puerto Rico. If you need someone to help you save money in your business, he's the man to talk to.

The session was entitled "Como Generar Nuevo Ingresos Usando Twitter" (How to generate new revenues using Twitter). Per request of the audience, my class was in Spanish. I hope to give a newer version of this speech soon, but in English. But hey, give the people what they want! Right?

Speaking of giving an audience what they want, if you haven't watched the "Last Lecture" you should stop everything and do it. You can thank me later.



For me, one of the things about his lecture that has always stuck with me, was the head fake. Anyone familiar with sports knows what the head fake is. It's where you you get an opponent to guess what you are going to due by looking at your eyes and head. Of course once they've done that, it's too late. A talented athlete will show you what they are going to do next with their eyes and head, but make their body do something else.

Randy makes reference to the head fake near the end of the lecture, I quote:

"But did you figure out the head fake? It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you."

If you'll remember from the beginning of the lecture he explicitly tells the audience that this is NOT about his family. That's the real head fake. For who has the courage to give such an inspiring speech thinking about the family he would soon leave behind. He adds

"Have you figured out the second head fake? The talk’s not for you, it’s for my kids."

Social Media Head Fake

For those of you who attended my class last night, have you figured out what my head fake was? Sure while I think I connected with people by focusing on generating revenue, I also introduced them to the complexity of computing, social media being just one of it's multidimensional components. While everything I said was right on target, I was really pleading to everyone to recognize that focusing your business strategy around informatica (computers and automation) is the only way to truly generate revenues today. The business environment has become too complex to approach any other way. The standard solution of throwing people at a problem isn't an option, when you don't even understand the problem!

Update: I found a copy of the transcript of the "Last Lecture", just in case you need it. Did you catch that the video on YouTube has closed captioning? How freaking awesome is that?

Lack of Control Scares Marketers

A while back, in one of our thousands of discussion about DóndeEs.com, the Internet, and marketing in Puerto Rico, Jose came up with a great observation. I guess I had forgotten it, because when I read a recent post by Seth Godin, I immediately remembered his comment.


Jose's comment was that local marketers mistrust (read fear, because we all fear what we don't understand) the Internet because they can not control it. That's exactly Seth's point, which he makes in a slightly different way. Often it's only when we are presented with two (many) sides of the same problem that it takes hold. With the new perspective, we grok the problem. Seth says that the web doesn't care. He says (and he's spot on):

This [the Internet] is the first mass marketing medium ever that isn't supported by ads.

If a newspaper, a radio station or a TV station doesn't please advertisers, it disappears. It exists to make you (the marketer) happy.

That's the reason the medium (and its rules) exist. To please the advertisers.

But the Net is different.

It wasn't invented by business people, and it doesn't exist to help your company make money.

And then here's the real rub. Most marketers are only concerned in "helping" their client and collecting a commission. And in my opinion, nearly all companies are only interested in one thing, the survival of their company. Seth asks this question:

"How are people (the people I need to reach, interact with and tell stories to) going to use this new power and how can I help them achieve their goals?"

Or as one of my very favorite speakers and writers, Kathy Sierra, puts it in her blog "Creating Passionate Users", how are you going to make your users (your customers) kick ass? Because if you don't care whether they can or are kicking ass, I can assure you that they really don't care about all the kajillions of dollars you're spending to promote your brand, and therefore, don't really care about your products. Think about it!

Bonus: Need further proof? This other post by Seth shows how that marketers are so out of touch with how to really reach and influence consumers that they have stooped to advertising their advertisements. And for a double bonus, don't you wish we lived in a world that his fiduciary rule for big brand marketers were true?

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: llawliet

5 New Rules for Internet Marketing in Puerto Rico

Sometimes it seems like the only thing more prevalent than pornography on the Internet, is web sites that want to help you make money with your web site. While these sites can be very annoying and pushy about their products and services, some times thar's gold in them thar web sites.

As I mentioned previously, I was searching for rules for Internet Marketing and let me tell you, I found a lot of pyrite, but I finally struck gold when I found Nach Maravilla's rules. He is the CEO and Publisher of PowerHomebiz.com. His five rules for Internet Marketing I believe would work wonders for a lot of brands in Puerto Rico. I'll leave it up to you to read his explanations, but his rules are:

1. Understand that everything starts with content.
2. Be persistent.
3. Use different techniques.
4. Track and measure your results.
5. Learn, learn, and learn.

Sound advice, any way you look at them.

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: gluemoon

20 Business Blogs for Puerto Rico

I just came across an interesting web site, it's focused on using word of mouth advertising to push specific products. In their latest campaign, they are pushing a new book by the founder of the web site. The book is called 'A Word of Mouth Manual, Vol. II' and it is written by by Dave Balter.

1. 37 Signals - Signal vs Noise, Jason Fried
2. 800-CEO-READ Blog, Todd Sattersten
3. Brand Autopsy, John Moore
4. ChrisBrogan.com, Chris Brogan
5. Church of the Customer, Jackie Huba
6. Culture Buzz, Emmanuel Vivier
7. Digital Influence Mapping Project, John Bell
8. Duct Tape Marketing, John Jantsch
9. Flybridge Ventures, Jeff Bussgang
10. Greg Verdino's Marketing Blog, Greg Verdino
11. How to Change the World, Guy Kawasaki
12. Influential Marketing Blog, Rohit Bhargava
13. HBSP : Game Changer, Bill Taylor
14. SHIFT PR, Todd Defren
15. Seth's Blog, Seth Godin
16. The Social Customer Manifesto, Christopher Carfi
17. tompeters!, Tom Peters
18. Trend Hunter, Jeremy Gutsche
19. Six Pixels of Separation, Mitch Joel
20. What's Next in Marketing, Mitch Caplan
21. Creating Passionate Users, Kathy Sierra (I just had to through this one in, it has such great information I'd be ashamed to leave it out.)
    

What's the web site? Oh yeah, it's called BzzAgent.com. If you want to learn about word of mouth marketing, then you can start by downloading the PDF of the book for free, starting at this page. You'll have to visit one of the 20 blogs to get access to the PDF, but if you're already convinced, you can pop over to Amazon and buy a limited edition print copy.

Between the 20 blogs listed and the 'A Word of Mouth Manual, Vol. 2', you've got a lot of reading to catch up on. I'll wait here until you're finished.

Internet Marketing in Puerto Rico

In preparation for my next few posts, I wanted to see what was out on the Internet in terms of what "experts" think are the basic rules for Internet marketing. I think this is a worthy research, because from our experience, we may have to redefine what Internet marketing is all about in Puerto Rico. Before we get into that, let's first examine the State of the Internet Marketing in Puerto Rico. While I touched on this before I focused more on Internet advertising.

Unfortunately Puerto Rico has fallen victim to group think when it comes to Internet Marketing. While I've not met a lot of the Internet Marketers from the advertising side of the equation, I probably know everyone who is anyone on the technical side of the equation. No one I've met has a clue about what Internet Marketing is really about.

In a way it's been sort of a perfect storm for coming to the wrong conclusion. Internet Marketing sits at the cross-section of technology and marketing. Unfortunately that cross-section has become a no-mans land. Think about it, marketing on the Internet is the first medium that involves any real dependence on computers. How much would an advertising company need to know about creating a print ad, radio ad, or television ad? They merely needed to conceive of a creative approach and then implement.

The Internet is a unique medium

Then comes the Internet, which is fundamentally an online print medium (HTML = hyper text markup language, markup means applying styles to text) on steroids. However when you throw in the whole hyper text element, mix in audio, video, and animation, you end up with an entirely unique medium. However, the real difference is that last word in HTML, language. When you refer to a language on computers it only means one thing, programming. And now that's a horse of different color all together. Bottom line, in order for a marketer to use this new medium most effectively, they HAVE to understand a few things about the Internet and programming.

Hello marketers, a word to the wise. Just because you're not interested in computers, software development, or the Internet you HAVE to learn how this medium works if you are going to use it effectively. Oh yeah and don't think of this trio of technologies as if they are from the next Harry Potter movie. They are not magic.

On the contrary, they are the exact opposite, they are pure science, computer science that is. Ones and zeros people, nothing more, nothing less. Throw in a large heaping of mathematics and there you have it. And believe me, it may seem complex, but there are rules that computers MUST follow; once you start to get a handle on those rules, you'll be on your way. One more thing, please pay attention while we're making an attempt to explain these rules to you. We can see when your eyes gloss over; we know it means you're thinking about your Gucci handbag or the new BMW you want to buy, instead of listening to our techno-babble.

11 years of disgrace

On the other side of this cross section, we have 11 years of almost total disgrace. When the web designers and developers in Puerto Rico should have been leading the charge of teaching everyone about this new medium, we had a bunch of unqualified jerks hell bent on a quick buck. Collectively this group of charlatans have screwed more companies than you can imagine and forever polluted their customer's perception of the Internet.

In addition to that, techies (web developers and programmers) are typically geeks. Their view of everything is from the technology perspective. They might learn one technology and then that's it. They become a hammer. And when you're a hammer all problems look like nails. So very few take the time to learn a little about marketing so that they help their clients to understand more about the Internet and can then begin to communicate more effectively with them.

The majority of these geeks ramble on about HTML, CSS, ASP, or an endless stream of other technobabble. Earth to geeks! No one understands what the hell you're talking about! Ever heard that advice, explain it to me as if I were in 4th grade? Use it! If you can't effectively explain to your clients WHY a technology is beneficial in simple terms, then you need to do more homework.

No man's land

In the end, Internet Marketing in Puerto Rico has become a business specialty where neither of the sides is willing to meet in the middle. Therefore a huge canyon has emerged between them. This canyon makes it incredibly difficult to communicate; neither speaks the others language; each sees the challenge from a completely different perspective; one side is only interested in the money; and one side has no trust in the other. Therefore, all attempts crash against the walls of the canyon and are blown away with the wind.

So listen up everyone, Internet Marketing is not:

1. Merely reconceiving your print ads so that they look pretty on the Internet. Of course this is mandatory, but it is the starting point not the end result.
2. About just one campaign, it's about building your brand. As long as your company is in business, that should be your number one priority.
   
3. Just a website that you finish and then NEVER update until the next marketing or IT director decides it's time to change the site. Internet marketing involves not only consistenly publishing new content, but it also requires monitoring the effectiveness of that content or advertising and adjusting your priorities accordingly. The days of a "Field of Dreams" , build it and they will come, are over.
   
4. A oneway communication medium. You see the Internet, like no other medium before it, actually allows the consumer to respond IMMEDIATELY to your content and advertisements. Oh, and by the way, just becuase you use Adobe Flash on your site does not make it a two way communication. Making it interactive is just the start; you need to get feedback, you need to measure responses, track your traffic, and respond with content that delivers what consumers are seeking.
   
5. Achieved by focusing merely on your website and no other site on the Internet. No website is an island, all must bow down before the mightly search engines, the blogosphere, and now social networking sites.
   
6. A static target. What works today, might not tomorrow. Google constantly changes their search algorithm, you fall off the first page of results and now you're toast. You've got to be constantly learning what is working and adapt as quickly as possible to leverage new technologies, new sites, or new techniques.
7. Not about implementing features it's about impacting behavior. If consumers are not visiting your site, clicking on your ads, or consuming your content, your'e not conducting marketing, your publishing. Best leave that to the professionals and stick to building your brand.
8. About cost effectiveness. You really do get what you pay for. If you accept or offer the lowest price, then you're going to be missing the necessary business practices to ensure a high quality result. Part of which are tools that make it easy to keep your site alive once it's launched.
9. Does not involve advertising a web site offline. Ok, follow me here, if Internet Marketing assumes consumers taking immeidate action, how does someone driving 65 m.p.h take immediate action on a URL posted on a billboard? Oh sure you're going to impact a few consumers who get stuck in a tapon in front of the billboard, but I submit that those same dollars used online would have greater impact, where people are ALREADY on the Internet.

Next, five basic rules for Internet Marketing in Puerto Rico.

Word of Mouth Marketing Roadmap

For many in the marketing community, the new road that is being blazed by the likes of YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, and most importantly the social networks (MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, etc) ventures into foreign territory. This new road doesn't follow the familiar routes that traditional marketing has taken for the last 50 years. No sir-ree, this new road has most "traditional" marketers feeling very uncomfortable and out of place; which is not a place that no anyone that is supposed to understand how to reach consumers should be.

Word of Mouth Marketing Roadmap

Well I ran across an article that I think lays out a new road map. A road map to understand how to successfully pierce the fog of confusion surrounding this new road, but without getting lost. As most people, traditional marketers, are hesitant to stop and ask for directions (help) from explorers (entrepreneurs) who are unafraid of driving around on this new road until they find their way, no, old-school marketers would rather just wish that the new road didn't exist in the first place. Unfortunately for them, this road continues under construction as daily tens of millions convert it from a two lane country road into a 8 lane super highway.

Entitled the "The Microfame Game," this article from Rex Sorgatz of the New York Magazine describes an eight step road map to micro-fame. And while micro-fame is certanaly not the goal of most marketers, the same essential steps are involved in getting your brand, product, service noticed. And while I'm just a starving high-tech entrepreneur and not really understand or believe in traditional marketing, in these days of mass-marketing over-saturation, I do know that getting noticed is the goal of marketing in this new territory.

The article is extremely well researched and gives you plenty of examples to study and imitate. As I've said earlier in this blog, YouTube plays a signficant role in this new road-map and any marketerer who chooses to ignore this new channel will do so at their own peril.

Well I'll leave you to start your analysis of these new steps, and a little word to the wise, don't be like the proverbial alpha-male who refuses to ask for direction when lost in the country, find an intrepid explorer (entrepreneur) of this new road as a guide. You'll get where you want to be a lot faster and you'll please your clients in the process.

8 STEPS TO MICROFAME

1. Self-publish
2. Stylize
3. Overshare
4. Respond
5. Ally
6. Diversify
7. Create Controversy
8. Persist

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: twenty_questions

Liberty Cablevision Misses Their Mark

Crema, Cremita, Avena, or if you prefer Oatmeal, was never a big item for breakfast in the childhood home of Señor Don Dees. Nope, for me it was cold cereal. Which now that you think of it makes no sense at all. In the midwest of the United States were I grew up, it's cold over half of the year, but we eat cold cereal. In Puerto Rico, where it's bake your brains hot, well, pretty much all year long, mothers give children hot cereal. Go figure!

Anyway, some of my favorites were the obligatory Captain Crunch (with Crunchberries), Frosted Flakes (Zucaritas), and Fruit Loops. But probably my all time favorite was Lucky Charms. A delightful concoction of toasted oats and marshmallows. I mean come on, when you're a kid getting your Mom to let you eat marshmallows (read candy) for breakfast was pretty clever.

But in this classic post by Seth Godin, he uses a story about how a teenager he was talking to about Lucky Charms wasn't even aware that they were "Magically Delicious." Which is, of course, the slogan General Mills uses in all of their advertisements for the cereal. See here for an example: Don't you just love YouTube? The point here is that General Mills has spent millions drilling that slogan into everyone's head and yet, a typical teenager doesn't even associate "Magically Delicious." with Lucky Charms. Here's Seth's take (which is as sweet as marshmallows in the morning):

"Some marketers are still relying on the idea that they can drill a catch phrase or benefit or USP or differentiation into our heads through ceaseless ads. It sure worked on me.

Is this the core strategy behind the growth of your business?

Not sure it's going to work any more."

Liberty Cablevision's 100% Campaign

Recently I started seeing some intriguing advertisements (teasers actually) announcing something BIG and NEW. I was hmm, I like big news, I wonder what it is? In terms of marketing, I was right where the advertiser wanted me. However, when I finally got to see the big news, the only thing big about it was the amount of money they were spending. The ads were from Liberty announcing that "Con Liberty puedes disfrutar el mundo al 100%." I was like uh huh, and so what? Where's the marshmallows? Where is anything in this new ad that zaps me in the ass like a cattle prod to call Liberty immediately?

So let me get this right, I think? I only subscribe to Liberty's BitTorrent choking Internet service. They have 3 products VoIP, cable, and Internet. So I'm only enjoying 33% of my world? But you want to know the real killer? We were actually talking seriously about upgrading to there triple offer of all three products. If they had announced some inspiring offer, I'd have called immediately to upgrade. Instead they have started drilling into my head that with Liberty I enjoy 100% of my world. Here's news for you Iberty, I enjoy my world just fine without you.

Conclusion

At times marketers can really hit the mark, as an example the old ladies advertising SunCom or Mr. I-lim-i-tado. Both of these ads had people copying them when they come on the television, repeating them voluntarily, and even copying them. Unfortunately for Liberty, I'm afraid that your new campaign misses the mark by 100%.

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: kaibara87