Archives for posts with tag: social media

Social Media as Gaming

January 18, 10 //
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When most blogs and articles talk about gaming in social media, it refers to clever PR ploys or the games built within platforms like Facebook and the iPhone. But the truly great social media innovators understand online gaming as an entirely different beast.

I once had a meeting with an internet start-up (who shall remain unnamed), and one of the co-founders mentioned how they wanted to make their networking site perform more like Vampires, the hugely popular and deeply annoying Facebook game. I asked why, since they were building a community-based site with reviews and social incentives. She told me, “Well, social interaction is a game. We just need to figure out how to make people want to win.”

At the time, I was somewhat offended by the notion that review sites and social platforms were merely places where visitors were treated like players in a game. However, the more we at French Press have been working with social media, the more that I can’t help but admit that she was totally right.

All social media is a game, albeit a very complex game. And what most social media marketers miss is that half the battle for brands is to figure out how to play the RIGHT game with their audience. It’s not about building a Twitter following, or having MySpace friends — it’s about engaging the brand’s audience with a game that deepens and builds their relationship with that brand. For example, Rachael Ray’s engages deep values of family and food online, while encouraging regular contributions and interaction on her site, while Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice was perfectly unserious and budget-minded for their target market.

Instead of looking to social media gurus who hand out checklists of “social media engagement” and “the seven rules for businesses on Twitter,” the idea of building a space to play with a business’ audience seems a more vital, appropriate, and exciting path for online marketing.

So, go get playing.

Twitter-based TV?

November 10, 09 //
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Looks like it’s going to happen!

Yes, it’s true. Network television is looking to build shows based on the Twitter feed “Shit My Dad Says.” Now, I feel like it’d be the well-tread path to talk about how weird this is (really weird), or how it shows the general lack of creativity happening in network TV (very little). Instead, let’s register how weird it is that the previous relationship of social media and TV has been reversed for this show.

Movies and TV have recently used social media to promote programming, be it character Twitter feeds, Facebook fan pages or the much-loved “webisode,” which is French for “cheaper than real episodes.” Shows like “Weeds,” which is paired by the excellent University of Andy site, are able to drop web content between seasons, where other shows, like LOST, just milk the YouTube-posting, pale, obsessed webfans to keep attention going between incomprehensible sets of episodes.

But with “Shit My Dad Says,” the tables are turned! Social media is now inspiring TV shows, which means the whole relationship has flipped! Now television and movies are looking to connect to audiences who are paying attention to “viral” content more than network programming by taking that viral content and making it shittier (is there a part for Jerry Stiller?), and also with commercial breaks. Or, perhaps, they’ll take the Twitter account as inspiration, and pull something genuinely affecting, funny and creative from their source material.

Either way, the question remains — will it still make you sound smarter if you say you liked it better when you read it?

this is a lead-generation tool

November 4, 09 //
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See this bad boy? You’re damn right it’s a conversion funnel. This is the marketing diagram that web marketing folks live and die by. Basically showing the percentage decrease from each stage of brand interaction, the conversion funnel is an often-cited reference when talking about social media marketing, inbound link creation and SEO work.

My big problem with the conversion funnel is that although it’s correct, and all the online marketing experts that tell clients to blog, Twitter and use AdWords are right, it inspires companies to make terribly uninspired content.

Let me explain.

I am a firm believer in inbound marketing. It’s less obtrusive than mass marketing, and often can target an audience that is not only more receptive to your brand message, but one that is more likely to refer others to your product, as they found your brand via “word of mouth” marketing. It’s important to be present on Twitter, Yelp and on a company blog, to keep up a conversation with this target market and engage new customers. But what irks me is that this strategy to get new customers often results in lazy, uninteresting content — or worse, branding “white noise” that has little to do with connecting to these new interested users. Mortar Agency posted a great metaphor for that type of mindless social media posting.

My point is, needing these inbound tools is one thing, but actually posting interesting content is another. Writing is important, everyone. If you’re not willing to spend at least three days a week coming up with content that someone actually cares about, or in our case, some new rant, then a blog might not be the marketing tool for you. The same goes for a Facebook — find a way to engage, not to just sign someone up and sit idly. To treat these social media tools as marketing machines is to misunderstand the very purpose of using social networking — it should look nothing like junk mail. And, unfortunately, it often does.

Yes, these web outlets are sales tools, but if I see another “Top 5 Marketing Ideas” post, or another idle Facebook page requesting I be a “fan,” I might shoot myself in the face. Really.

ps – if you really want to break the mold, do like Miracle Whip, and add a bizarre networking tool to your Facebook application. Zing!