Below the Fold

Kill the Click: Digital is All About the Clock

IT'S TIME TO KILL the click.

This isn’t something the traditional digital advertising industry wants to hear (and yes, there is such a thing as “traditional” digital advertising.) Clicks equal cash goes the maxim, though those selling clicks are the ones who make the real cash – not necessarily the companies trying to get customers to click on their ads.

The evidence is everywhere. A recent study published in AdAge found virtually no relationship between a click and an actual conversion; time spent viewing or hovering over the ads actually scored better.

Insisting that clicks on ads equals campaign success is flawed logic at best. Said the CEO of the company that commissioned the aforementioned study: “My key takeaway is that optimizing to viewable impressions or hover time is a better proxy for a brand advertiser than a click-through rate.”

True, however there is a larger trend here than all direct marketers turning into brand advertisers (itself a scary thought.) The real impact, and the key trend to watch, is all about time.

Capturing Your “Share of Time”
In a way, marketing has always been about time. For decades there wasn’t much of a need to measure time, since there were so few media options. The focus was on audience numbers, whether than audience spent a few minutes or a few hours with your programming.

No longer. We now have infinite choices and channels; media is unbundled and fragmented. With so much choice the “impression” is now meaningless – it’s not a true indicator of brand recall or connection.

All that matters is time. And time is what we need to measure. Forget the click – today, it’s all about the clock.

The path to earning greater “share of time” online is through storytelling and engagement that taps into people’s emotions. This is a large reason why video – especially short-form and serialized stories – continues to expand. As a recent Fast Company article noted, people are spending at least 22 hours a month watching online video, a number from April that’s certainly even higher now and will continue to rise.

Good marketing is good storytelling, and stories capture people’s attention – and their time – far better than a static direct-response banner ad. Stories that go beyond one-way interaction and tap into more immersive and participatory transmedia, such as USA Networks’ “Sights Unseen” adventure, not only capture time but bring people into a brand experience that traditional online marketing tactics simply could never hope to achieve.

Fish where the fish are, the saying goes – this too is about time. Print, radio and TV use is declining while Internet and mobile steadily rise. More people today go online via mobile devices than their PCs.

Time is about place as well as engagement. It’s about earning attention and trust, not expecting it. And most of all, it’s about accepting that the audience has moved on even if your marketing is still stuck in the past.

Watch the clock, not the click. Spend your time measuring what matters.

Journalists to Brands: Don’t Give Us “Content,” Tell Us Stories

ALTHOUGH I CAN'T TRACE THE ORIGIN with any certainty, I’m nevertheless pretty sure that the word “content” was first used by a marketer, not a by a journalist.

Journalists are in the business of stories. Always have been – and despite the 24/7 streams of info-snacks and feeds forced through ever-congested virtual pipes, they always will be.

So it should come as no surprise that a recent global study of journalists found that journalists don’t want “pre-packaged” news such as press releases, and instead are “looking for variety in the kinds of stories brands talk about and the way they are told. And they expect brands to be properly engaged with the relevant social networks – not a box-ticking exercise driven by the PR department, but a genuine engagement at all levels of the business.”

In other words, stop with the “content.” Even the word “content” is cold, distant. Content is artificial intelligence. Content fills the feed but leaves you hungry.

Stories, however, are emotional. Stories are history personified. Technology may be the heart of social media, the muscle that keeps it moving, but stories are its soul.

Journalists tell stories and want to be told stories. According to the study, they also want brands to “deploy a full range of storytelling assets – brand stories must be supported by videos, images, infographics.”

It’s also critical that the story be told consistently across platforms and social channels – media fragmentation demands clear narrative so the story doesn’t get lost or misinterpreted like a bad game of “telephone.” These narratives can and should vary based on the channels and makeup of the audience, but ultimately they need to be connected to a larger central theme.

With so much noise disguised as news, journalists want to hear from trusted sources and be engaged in real dialogue with real people. Social media gives brands a perfect opportunity to earn that trust – and if brands are ready, journalists are listening.

Communities of Intent: The New Bing Tries to Resuscitate the Web

THE WEB IS BACK. Or at least Bing, with its new social-focused interface, is trying to make the Web relevant again – while making Google less relevant in the process.

Over the coming weeks, Bing users will not only get search results, but social recommendations from multiple sources including Facebook and Twitter (and yes, Google Plus.) Search will transform into conversation, tapping your friends and other “influencers” to guide your actions. So for example, if I’m looking for a good sushi restaurant in Los Angeles, Bing will find Facebook friends who posted about sushi in LA and may have a recommendation for me.

It’s search with a pulse. It’s not even a search anymore – it’s discovery.

But most of all, the new Bing is a call to arms against the modern, siloed, fragmented Web.

Planet of the Apps
The World Wide Web is now the Planet of the Apps. Bing wants to be the unifier, to break down the silicon walls and be the one-stop shop for people, places and ideas. There are still some blind spots, but Bing is at least trying to be the Master Curator of All Things Social online.

And let’s also be honest – Bing, meaning Microsoft, wants to kick Google’s ass in the process.

Google’s “Search Plus Your World” approach delivers results from its own Google Plus social network pages more prominently than other Web properties like Wikipedia. This is supposed to make search more personal and relevant – who you know and what your friends like, or share, or do, will have a greater influence on what you see in your search results.

The problem, at least for now, is Google focuses primarily on Google Plus, and even then still delivers results as part of a list entwined with static pages. Google provides links but doesn’t necessarily spur conversations. And it’s still a walled garden at least in term of the broader social web – Google in fact is becoming less like the web and more like an app.

Communities of Intent
Bing isn’t perfect either and still has a long way to go to catch Google in terms of market share and ad dollars. Bing merely won a battle in what will be a long war.

But this battle also represents a significant shift. What true social or conversational search does is move us from interest to intent.

Facebook is great at revealing interest – whether I like cars, for example. Seeing this, an advertiser may target me with car ads. But just because I “liked” the Mercedes page doesn’t mean I want to buy one. I may already own a Mercedes, or maybe I just liked a video they posted. I have an interest in the brand, but uncovering my intent is a far more difficult proposition.

But what if advertisers knew I was looking to buy a Mercedes very soon, and could target me at the very moment I expressed that interest? I’d be a more valuable lead, and therefore media or search properties like Bing could charge a lot more for the pleasure of reaching me.

Communities of Interest are broad and largely static, but “Communities of Intent” are specific, focused, and fleeting. The more that search moves away from providing static results and toward providing fluid conversations that lead to identifiable actions, the more that Communities of Intent will give advertisers quality prospects – and give people ads that they may actually want to receive.

(Disclaimer: Microsoft, which owns Bing, is a client, however I don’t work or communicate with the Bing team.)

Why Most Brands Will Suck at Storytelling

"STORY" IS THE NEW "CONTENT."

As buzzwords go, story isn’t entirely bad -- for years I’ve pushed clients to be storytellers. I’ve berated the descent of story into a furtive sea of “content,” stripping all emotion from human pursuits.

So I’m good with story. But let’s be honest, success lies not in the idea but in the execution. And the truth is most brands will suck at storytelling.

Why? Because most brands won't do what good storytelling requires.

Stories – real, honest, emotional, transformative and inspirational stories – have conflict. They have villains. They have winners and losers. They have personality and flaws, great highs and severe lows.

In other words, stories have many of the things that brands don’t want anyone to know about. So the content – err, sorry, the “stories” they create – get sanitized. Every story ends with “and they lived happily ever after.” That’s great for fairytales but not for real life.

The non-fiction story about a company is inherently more interesting than any fiction created for the purpose of earning friends, followers and customers. It’s what has always worked for marketers and still does:

• Tell a great story
• Create emotional impact
• Embrace your friends and respect your enemies
• Acknowledge mistakes, then fix them
• Don’t ask for trust or loyalty, earn it

Notice I didn’t use the word “strategy.” That’s essential, of course, but too often companies create a strategy first, and then the story. A better approach is first to have a story – not a mission statement or a press release, but a real story. The strategy is the easy part.

Brands aren’t buildings and companies are not logos. There are human beings behind them all, not a great and powerful Oz.

Just tell us a good story, we'll listen. And if you still just want to produce “content” that's fine, as long as you keep calling it “content.” Leave story alone.

Why the New Facebook Matters for Marketers – and Why it Shouldn’t

(The following post originally appeared on the Velocidi.com blog.)

Remember the days when Facebook would launch new features and then announce them? What a difference an impending IPO makes.

Now Facebook not only tells us what’s going happen, it has day-long events to educate and court marketers, as evidenced by last week’s Facebook Marketing Conference in New York City. And make no mistake: Facebook is all about marketing now. This isn’t a bad thing or a good thing; it’s just the natural order of things. Welcome to adulthood, Facebook.

But perhaps the clearest sign of Facebook’s power is that the decisions Facebook makes as a business have far-reaching implications for other businesses. What Facebook did last week was nothing short of making every other company that wants to advertise on the platform rethink its own business model, not to mention forcing them to dedicate more resources (i.e., money) to “content development” and engagement.

There are three key reasons why Facebook now matters more than ever to brand marketers:

1) A Tougher Sell: Facebook is rolling out more paid products, but the format will make it harder for brands that don’t have compelling stories or “content” to share – harder still for those who just want to sell you something. I’m fine with the latter, as I’d rather have a brand be honest about the fact that it just wants me to buy something vs. a brand that tries to tell me a “story.” Regardless, some brands will need to change how they connect with customers, which leads me to reason number two...

2) No More “Random Acts of Content”: The Timeline format places storytelling and a new narrative structure, the “layered narrative,” front and center – brands can no longer get away with pushing random and reckless pieces of content through the channel.

Layered narratives allow space for interaction, sharing, collaboration and contribution. Every unique layer makes the source material stronger and the story more engaging. Many brands, however, haven't done this very well. The “early days” of social media marketing -- you know, 2005 or so -- saw brands simply putting their commercials on YouTube or posting press releases on their blogs. The "stories" were meant to be consumed, not shared. Narrative became lecture and story became content.

The digital world expanded but brands did not expand with it. Facebook is now forcing the issue by treating all content – whether a traditional display ad unit or a comment in a new feed – as related chapters in an overall and evolving brand story.

3) End of the “Ownership” Debate: It’s the number one issue inside most companies and agencies – who “owns” social? Is it PR or Marketing? Is it corporate or the business units? The product teams or the customer service folks?

I’ve said for years and to deaf ears that no one function can “own” social media any more than someone can own the air you breathe. And now Facebook has made it official.

With premium advertising now originating from the brand page, it’s essential that earned, owned, paid and shared media are closely coordinated. Think about it: Facebook page community managers create content but are not the same people who create or buy ads – but ads are now, well, “content.” At the very least these two groups need to talk to each other.

PR, marketing, customer service, creative, product, analytics, corporate – everyone needs to work together or the results will suffer. New models and processes will be needed – for example, creating an “audience engagement team” with people from all these areas represented and led by a “quarterback” who calls the plays and ensures that the team plays as one cohesive unit. There will be many new approaches I’m sure, but what’s clear is that the days of the marketing and PR “silos” are over.

One Reason Why the New Facebook Shouldn’t Matter to Marketers at All

There’s a classic Chris Rock routine in which he ridicules people for being proud of things they are supposed to do anyway. “I take care of my kids,” he says, imitating his subject. “You’re supposed to take of your kids!” Rock screams in mock response.
Rock was right – you don’t deserve credit or kudos for things you are supposed to do. So why should we praise brands who, thanks to Facebook, are now dedicating themselves to having deeper relationships with their customers?

I have a question for every brand marketer on the planet: Are you so out of touch with the digital consumer that you needed a technology company to teach you how to talk to your own customers? Really?

You needed another company’s advertising products to convince you to tell real stories and connect with your customers? And now you want credit as an early adopter and trailblazer? You’re kidding, right?

Brands should have been doing this anyway, Facebook or no Facebook. The unfortunate reality, however, is that Facebook’s decision to change its own business model will result in a lot of crap being produced, as everyone will try to become a content marketer, err, I mean “storyteller” now.

Do yourselves and your customers a favor: Don't make the new Facebook a clarion call for creating content, make it a wake-up call for getting back to the basics of listening, learning, and communicating with people as people, not as data.

Do this not just for Facebook or because of Facebook – do this because it’s the right thing to do.

Social Media Won't Kill Listening, But It’s Getting Harder to Hear

Not all that long ago – albeit longer than we may care to admit – families gathered around large living room radios and listened to news, dramas, comedies and live music. People read newspapers and heard the words spring to life in their heads.

We watched and listened to television. Along came the Internet and we listened, the words and pictures and videos grafting onto our collective consciousness with immutable force.

We consumed, we thought, we learned and kept listening, listening, listening.

Then, one day, we found a voice. We always had one, of course, but now with social media, our voice could be heard.

So we talked. A comment here, a blog post there – a video, a photo, a review, a status update, a tweet, a pin, a question, a commentary, a discussion; an argument.

Everybody talking, everybody “engaging in conversation” and “creating content.” It sounds wonderful, and by and large it is – in fact it’s one of the greatest advances in human culture since moveable type.

But now that we all have printing presses, we all believe we can be writers. Now that we all have a radio and a TV network, we feel the need to develop and distribute “programming” (or re-distribute others’ programming as is more often the case.)

We are talking so much that we have stopped listening – or at very least it’s getting harder to hear, so we compensate by talking louder and more often, hoping some of us will get the message between rushed breaths.

The more scarce and precious something is, the more valuable and important it becomes. But there is so much talking, so much “content,” so many aggregated and curated echoes that there’s no longer any value or meaning. Ideas get lost in the binary fog, swallowed whole by the cacophony of endless creation.

The truth is, the less you contribute the more value you add.

So contribute less. Create less. Talk less.

Listen, once more.

From Search Engine to Super App: Getting Stuck in Google’s Web

Google’s mission is simple, bold, and in the annals of silicon culture, tantamount to sacred gospel: “Organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Today, however, there is a New Testament being written: “Organize Google’s information about the world and make it selectively accessible and mostly useful.”

Okay, not as sexy. But in light of Google’s new focus on social results born from its own Google Plus product, this New Testament is arguably more accurate.

No longer Google Search, but Google’s Search. Not Google results, but Google’s Results. No longer the Web, but Google’s Web.

Google used to be a Web search site. Now it’s becoming an App. And not just any App, but a Super App that pulls you into Google’s Web with an insistent gravity.

Google calls its New Testament “Search Plus Your World,” delivering results from Google Plus pages and profiles more prominently than other Web properties like Wikipedia. This is supposed to make search more personal and relevant – who you know and what your friends like, or share, or do, will have a greater influence on what you see in your search results.

Personalization is hardly new (neither are the inevitable privacy concerns, which go hand in hand.) A personal Web is generally good, faster and easier to use. The “Semantic Web” envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee is today ever more possible, that dream of search delivered according to each person’s interests and desires, by computers that “learn” from us, understand us and make choices on our behalf.

But Google the App -- far more so that Google the Web site -- also runs the risk of making Search more exclusive and incomplete. One person’s customization is another’s exclusivity. Choices made for us, however well intentioned, are not always the best choices for us.

Google’s search gambit is much broader than Google of course – “aggregation” or “curation” or whatever the ridiculous made-up-name it’s called these days is all over the place, most notably on social platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

The difference is, when I’m using Twitter, I’m making the choice to curate content. I know that searching on Twitter gives me results from and favored by Twitter.

But for now at least, I can’t get results from Facebook or Twitter via Google (although the latter has been true for months.) And as mentioned earlier, results from the rest of the open Web are favored less than results from Google properties.

This is Google’s right. It’s a for-profit company and can do whatever the hell it wants, and what it wants is to secure more ad revenue and expand its own social network and services.

The rub is that Google changed the game first and then told everyone the new rules. Google went from giving us information about the world to giving us information about “our” world, provided our world includes a Google Plus account.

It’s too early to say whether this is bad, but it’s certainly different and should not be automatically assumed to be better. Search is done best with your eyes wide open, and the commercial aspects of Google’s New Web Order should be taken into account when deciding what to click.

For companies like Google, data is a conceit; but humans are far more complex than the data they create. This is why a Semantic Web is the Internet’s Holy Grail – we want and believe it to exist, despite the fact that we may never find it.

Whether Google’s Web is another step toward that discovery remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: The Web of Apps is here.

Social Media, Super Bowl Edition: Be a Community Quarterback

Now is the time of year when thoughts turn to matters of the heart – and no, I’m not talking about Valentine’s Day.

I’m talking about the Super Bowl, where we see the heart of a champion. And Super Bowl parties, where we see lots of heartburn from eating foods even Paula Dean would consider out of bounds.

So in the spirit of good sport – and to distract me from the fact that I’ll never win the office betting pool – I’d like to rethink the phrase “social media community manager.”

Although intent and execution are up to the individual and can transcend a word’s definition, words still matter. And the word “manager” in a social context is flawed.

“Manager” refers to someone who “controls” or “manipulates.” It conjures feelings of authority and distance. You can “manage” something without being truly involved or invested in what you are managing.

We don’t need Community Managers. We need Quarterbacks.

A Quarterback’s job is to get the ball to his teammates and let them get into the end zone. You can call your own number sometimes too -- just don’t be a ball hog. Get everyone involved, and as you understand your players better, the whole team will succeed.

A Quarterback’s relationship with the team is rooted in and built on trust. The team trusts that the Quarterback will call the right plays, and in return for that trust, the team will protect the Quarterback from getting sacked.

Social media is a team sport. You can’t bark orders or call plays from the booth, you need to be on the field with your teammates – listening to them, working with them, going to battle and supporting each other in a common purpose.

Don’t be a manager, be a leader. Be a Quarterback.

2012 Prediction: Paper Will Be the Next Disruptive Technology

There’s a little-known scene in the movie “Star Trek: First Contact,” where Lt. Commander Data, an android, observes Captain Jean-Luc Picard touching the hull of an historic spacecraft. The captain smiles and taps the ship with his bare fingers, to which Data asks, “Sir, does tactile contact alter your perception of (the ship)?”

“Oh yes,” Picard says. “For humans, touch can connect you to an object in a very personal way. It makes it seem more real.”

Data then touches the ship himself, and says,” I am detecting imperfections in the titanium casing. Temperature variations in the fuel manifold. It’s no more real to me now than it was a moment ago.”

Data’s reaction is similar to how many of us interact with both objects and information today. More and more, our “things” are trapped under a layer of glass. We can “touch” but we can’t always feel. We live our lives from screen to shining screen.

It's a digital world – and overall, it’s a far better world. But digital should enhance physical experiences, not replace them or separate us completely from what makes us human.

This is why I believe it’s time to make a place for real objects and real connections. It’s time for a truly disruptive technology to bring us back to our senses.

It’s time for paper.

No, I’m not joking. And no, I’m not just an old journalist pining for the days of picas and ink-stained fingertips (okay, it’s true I’m old, just not insane.) There is a place for paper in a digital world, because although all information will soon be converted into bits, human beings are still made of atoms.

Our sense of touch and its emotional resonance is unique from other animals. Paper transmits feeling in ways screens can’t begin to deliver. Paper is far from perfect, but it’s more than ready for a renaissance.

Despite the meteoric rise of e-books, the largest growth is in the print-on-demand sector, increasing 169 percent in 2010 and even greater in 2011. Lulu.com, a leading print-on-demand press, expects $40 million in revenue this year, up from $34 million in 2010.

And investor Warren Buffet’s latest purchase? The Omaha World-Herald, a newspaper. Said Buffet, “I wouldn’t do this if I thought this was doomed to some sort of extinction.”

I’m being a bit overly persuasive – of course paper will never be what it once was. This shift to digital didn’t start with the iPad or Kindle either, remember LexisNexis in the 1970s?

But we have reached the point where paper is again disruptive, and when incorporating paper or print into communication can set you apart as an innovator rather than make you appear old fashioned.

Access to information should not be confused with connection to that information. Commander Data from Star Trek was able to access information about the spacecraft, but he couldn’t connect with it in the same way as Captain Picard.

The key question we must ask ourselves is should traditional mediums transition to digital, or should digital technology serve to enhance and improve traditional experiences and interactions? Can we live a life under glass, or do we need to get out once in a while?

2012 Prediction: Stop the Bullshit and Do Marketing That Matters

It’s just about time for all of the 2012 marketing and social media trend predictions, that annual rite of passage for seasoned and budding gurus, ninjas or whatever the hell the latest term is for people who tend to say more than they know.

But next year is different. Next year, after all, may be our last year on Earth.

I’m not saying the Mayans were right, I’m just saying that if the world does end in December 2012, what do we want to do for our final act? What will “marketing” mean in the final days? How would you approach your campaigns and community if you knew that the next quarter was your last?

And here’s the rub – you have to keep working. You can’t just curl up with your family and watch the last sunsets. You won’t know it’s the end until it’s upon you, so in the meantime, life (and commerce) must go on.

I know what I would do. I would focus my efforts on creating real connections, evoking real emotion, making a real difference for people who don’t want to leave this life feeling empty. I would use marketing to give people access to products and ideas that will make their lives easier, better and richer for whatever time is left.

So here’s a thought for 2012: Let’s do this anyway.

What you would do at the End of the World should be no different than what you should do every day.

If the past decade of social media has taught us anything, it’s that marketing doesn’t matter. It never did. It’s all bullshit – sometimes elegant, sometimes funny, sometimes evocative, but nevertheless bullshit.

Let’s accept this and move on. Marketing is a path, but it’s not the goal. It’s not success.

Next year may be the last. Maybe not. Either way, maybe it’s time to start using all of this great social technology for something greater than getting more people to click a button that somehow signifies their undying devotion to your brand.

Mean something instead.