As many savvy marketers have already noted, all media is social. Especially when it works the way it’s supposed to. So what’s all the buzz about this term, social media, as if it’s a completely new form of communication?

Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Stumble Upon, etc. are just new communication tools. Tools that will most likely change and morph into new formats as technology advances and they improve their ability to create, manage and grow powerful online communities. Remember forums, chat rooms, even My Space? They’re all just tools that have enabled multiple-way communication, the core of what has changed.

We believe the term, social media, will go into the history books sooner vs. later. At least we hope so. It’s dumb.

Then again, how much would we have known abut the election in Iran? Or the Southern California wildfires last year? Or updates on the earthquake in Haiti?

Is there a place for a tool like Twitter? Absolutely. If, for nothing else, the amazing data it is gathering. People think Twitter is just a tool for Narcissists to express themselves. But meanwhile, it’s building one of the most amazing LIVE, SEARCHABLE data bases in history. That’s what its all about.

]]> http://www.brandtailers.com/what-is-the-future-of-twitter/feed 0 http://www.brandtailers.com/social-media-noise-trend-quality-over-quantity http://www.brandtailers.com/social-media-noise-trend-quality-over-quantity#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:51:48 +0000 Cheril http://www.brandtailers.com/?p=843 It’s getting very noisy out here in the online world. One billion uploads daily to YouTube, 2.5 billion active blogs, heck even the average person’s inbox gets over 100 non-spam emails daily.

So guess what’s happening? People are starting to turn off and tune out. Especially those who’ve been trying to figure out how to listen over the past two years, when the amount of online noise has increased ten-fold. Oh sure, Facebook is growing. But users are becoming much more selective about who they friend. Meanwhile other tools, like Twitter and Friend Feed, are seeing 20% of their subscribers making 80% of the noise.

In short, quality over quantity is the new trend.

This is good news for smart marketers. With the proper tools you can find your perfect customers and they’ll be able to hear you. You won’t be fighting the equivalent of 1,300 daily traditional media messages the average American didn’t ask to see but the advertisers still paid for. Marketers will get to enjoy quality over quantity too.

Let’s see what happens when the noise quiets down and people start using all these wonderful (yet currently loud) online tools more effectively. It should be the best time good marketers have ever had.

You have those who don’t like Google, fearing it will take over the world. They’re already ragging on Buzz. Then you have the rest of us. The other 98% who say, aha, here’s where Twitter, Facebook and their long tail cousins might actually come together as one. Here’s where the noise that has become way too loud for most of us can get filtered. Best of all by the one company that knows how to do it best.

But let’s back up for a second and quit talking like everyone on the planet uses Facebook and Twitter. Let’s talk about the most used tool on the Internet that even non-techies use every day. It’s called e-mail. That’s where Buzz is brilliant. It’s right there with your email, on your desktop, laptop AND mobile device. It’s in an environment where the vast majority of online users still spend most of their time. It’s using Google search algorithms to help filter out content that you’re not interested in, and it’s quickly addressing the privacy issues that caused such a ruckus with Facebook users a while back.

So, do we need one more social publishing service? No. We need a few less. Maybe, just maybe, this will be it.

Android. Google Earth. Google Maps. Adwords. Adsense. YouTube. Ad Planner. Google News. Google TV. Chrome. Google Docs. Orkut. Picasa. Knol. G-Mail. Google phone (aka non-virtual hardware). Wave. Google 411. Google Images, etc., etc. etc. You get the idea.

Google. First of all, is Google a “them” or an “it”? For conversation sake here, let’s just call them/it Googzilla.

I just finished reading “Googled – The End of the World as We Know It”. Absolutely fascinating. The author, Ken Auletta, gave an interesting inside view of Google that I would say is mostly unbiased, and certainly daunting when you realize how many things Google has its virtual hand in.

The pervading message throughout the book was Google’s ability to abuse their power and knowledge if they ever choose to do the opposite of their corporate mantra, “Don’t be evil”. Yet this message is countered with the consistent theme from founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, also often chimed by Eric Schmidt (Google’s CEO), that they just want to help make interactive technology a great, user friendly, reliable, relevant, safe resource.

But here’s the twist – every step Google takes to be more useful is often because they’ve learned more about us. For example, search relevance improves via behavioral targeting because they’re watching us closer. Our continued diminishing privacy makes the web more convenient for us. Not to mention that opting out is a lot more complicated than opting in. The trillion dollar question is – do we really care?

It comes down to this simple dividing line. There are those who trust Google and those who don’t. And, as long as there are more that do, Google will continue to grow and own the online world. Could that change? Sure. If they mess up. If I had to bet, I’d say they probably won’t. But then again, in spite of all their algorithms, PhD’s, and rocket scientists, they’re only human.

What do you think?

I saw my Mac desktop computer with Facebook pulled up. I was in the process of sending a client a virtual piece of birthday cake. It was his birthday the next day, of which I’d been reminded by Facebook, Plaxo and Linked-In via email. Facebook was waiting for me to complete the virtual birthday cake purchase transaction, because a piece of virtual birthday cake now costs money. The $1.99 charge was being billed to me through my AT&T iPhone account, and I was waiting for a text message with a PIN that I had to input into the Facebook page in order to send the virtual piece of birthday cake.

My iPhone was situated on my desk in between my Mac desktop computer and my Mac Book Pro laptop computer. As I was keeping an eye out for the text with the PIN to come through on my iPhone, I was listening to a live podcast (from Germany) via my Mac desktop computer. The podcast was giving me instructions for using the new Google Social Media Search technology that I had just joined as a beta tester by signing up via Twitter that morning. As I was listening to the podcast, I was simultaneously downloading a recent Brandtailers video from my Flip camcorder onto my Mac Book Pro laptop, which I was going to quickly edit and upload to You Tube.

All of the above occurred within a five minute period.

For some of you reading this you’re saying, “No way. I’ll never be like that.” For others reading this you’re saying, “Yeah, so what. I call that Tuesday.” Well, guess what? The “I call that Tuesday” readers win. Because it’s where we will all be very soon. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, recently gave his predictions for what the Internet will look like in the next five years. This one particular prediction says it all… “Five years is a factor of ten in Moore’s Law, meaning that computers will be capable of far more by that time than they are today.”

You can embrace this technology or ignore it, but you can’t stop it. 2010 marks the year of No Going Back. I choose to embrace, participate, and use it for doing good. How about you?

So we “Skipped” our gifts to our clients this year. We “Skipped” our holiday party, too. Instead we donated the money, along with some manual labor (see video link below), to help feed some very hungry children in the Philippines suffering from the destruction caused by three recent Typhoons. We knew, no matter how tough things may have been this year for all of us, there are millions of children out there with much greater needs.

In the spirit of technology it seems fitting that we post this year’s Christmas/Holiday message from Brandtailers on our blog. Don’t worry, it’s only a minute long. And for those of you non-techies, make sure you click the funky little four-arrow icon to the left of the word VIMEO to see it in full screen.

( To our clients, please watch the video and then see the donation we made in your name here )

Brandtailers Holiday 2009 from Brandtailers on Vimeo.

So, I thought to myself, how can a business like Kragen take this concept and make it a home run marketing success?

What if they had some local customers following them on Twitter and, when it started raining, they sent out a message offering FREE wiper blade inserts to the first 100 visitors. Do you think they’d have a huge line at the door? Marketing history says they would.

But wait, how can a store give out 100 sets of wiper blade inserts and justify the expense? At $10 a set that could add up to $1,000 in product! Yup. It sure could. But how much did it cost in media expenditures to get 100 people in the door? How much would it cost if they tried doing this on TV, or some other form of traditional media? And how could the message be distributed in such a timely manner, and thanks to Twitter, shared so quickly with friends, coworkers, family and other miscellaneous Twitter followers who get the offer re-tweeted to them? How much good will could be created by helping customers out, free of charge, at a time when they needed something pertinent to their immediate safety?

What’s the biggest challenge with this type of new marketing concept? Changing marketers ways of thinking. Getting out of the old mindset that you spend money on the media, and the creative, not on good will. That’s old thinking. And it’s really, really expensive thinking. Why not take just a tiny piece of all that money to be saved from expensive traditional media buys and instead use it to be helpful. Yes, even use it to give something away. With today’s consumer, being helpful can pay off ten-fold. Seeing those Kragen guys standing out in the pouring rain smiling and helping customers was enough to earn my loyalty.

By the way, did I happen to mention that almost every customer in that parking lot at Kragen was holding a bag with other things they had purchased? Hmmmm…

I’ve never understood this strategy. According to sales reports, neither have most consumers. I think this is just one great example of incomplete thinking in the marketing process. Could a funny industry-degrading ad get attention? You bet. Could it win creative awards? Of course (that’s just a question of money). But does it really change the opinion of the consumer when the “alternative” solution is presented? RARELY.

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