Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

The Ten Plagues of Social Media Slideshow

I'm a big fan of exploring new forms of storytelling, and in its most elemental form, slide shows are just another way to tell a story (even if they're often used to poorly tell boring stories). In a first for me, I thought a recent column would lend itself well to an experiment where it's retold as a slideshow, essentially becoming a short e-book.

The column, The Ten Plagues of Social Media, came out yesterday, comparing the plagues of ancient Egypt with those affecting social media today. I first created it in PowerPoint, then made a PDF of it and uploaded it to Slideshare. You can see that version first below, and you can freely download it there if it's at all of interest. I'm not quite sure it's a story you'll want to print out and read to your kids though.

In a bit of serendipity, I happened to get in touch with the team at Sliderocket, which offers a new subscription-based slideshow creation tool with some snazzy features and advanced analytics. They offered to adapt my PowerPoint into a SlideRocket version, and I took them up on it. The creative work is fully theirs, and you can also download and embed that one.

If you do wind up checking out both I'm curious to hear which one you prefer, and I'll share more thoughts on that soon.

SlideShare version:

The Ten Plagues of Social Media

View more presentations from David Berkowitz.

SlideRocket version:

The Ten Plagues of Social Media

Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

  

In honor of the season, where some celebrate the ancient story of slaves' exodus from Egypt, it's time for a new telling of the ten plagues: the Ten Plagues of Social Media. All are paired with a counterpart from the ancient rendition.

Note that some debates remain as to the ancient plagues' literal meanings. When in doubt, I deferred to biblical scholar Robert Alter's translation of "The Five Books of Moses."

1) Blood: Lack of transparency

Whenever marketers aren't fully transparent as to who they are and what they're promoting when reaching out to consumers and online influencers, they cloud consumers' trust just like blood clouded the Nile. The demands of transparency also fall on the content producers whenever their contributions can be considered influenced by other parties.

2) Frogs: Oversharing

Imagine trying to get a good night's sleep with millions of frogs croaking up a storm. Now try staying on top of what's happening with your social graph when so many of their updates are dedicated to what errands they're running or how much they had to drink last night. Oversharing can wind up hurting relationships, and rightfully makes some question how much value social media adds to their lives.

3) Lice: Campaign-based thinking

It's hard to get lice out of your head, and there's no easy cure for shaking off campaign-based thinking, either. Campaign-to-campaign and quarter-to-quarter thinking prevents marketers from reaping the long-term benefits of social marketing.

4) Flies: Autoposting

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Foursquare, and other sites are not all the same, but the way some marketers unleash hoards of content, you might think the sites were interchangeable. Posting the same content in the same way across every social site is efficient for the producer, but diminishes the experience for the recipients. Marketers need to think twice about nearly any kind of automated messaging. There's a place for it; headline and deal feeds are some that can work as syndicated feeds while managing consumer expectations. The first instinct should be to avoid this, though.

5) Pestilence / livestock disease: Lack of internal communication

I don't want to refer to your colleagues (or mine) as livestock, but you depend on your colleagues for your livelihood and putting food on the table, just as our ancient forbears relied on livestock. When marketers and their agency partners aren't in close communication, and when there isn't communication internally with any of those parties, it amounts to a plague on their livelihood.

6) Boils: Lack of Integration

In this case, the plague fits the crime. Social marketing campaigns should be planned just as tightly in conjunction with other marketing programs as boils are connected to victims' skin. Perhaps it's not the most pleasant analogy, but these are the ten plagues, not the ten happiest things to ever happen.

7) Hail: Talking at consumers

Sometimes, reading marketers' updates in social channels feels like walking through a hailstorm. You get pelted by a self-aggrandizing update here and a limited-time offer there, and you can't wait to run for cover. Conversing and asking questions can soften the blows and make it more like a day at the beach.

8) Locusts: Bright shiny object syndrome

If you've ever seen a swarm of locusts on National Geographic Channel or Discovery, you'll appreciate why this was the first plague association to come to mind. Look at all the locusts move from field to field -- blogs to MySpace to Second Life to widgets to Twitter to Facebook to augmented reality to Foursquare -- sucking the life out of them and then looking for their next meal. Marketers can shed their locust exoskeletons by figuring out what works and sticking with it, even while exploring new opportunities.

9) Darkness: Lack of vision

When you see marketers fumble royally in social media, you're usually witnessing a marketer that didn't plan ahead. These fumbles can often arise when a marketer is dealing with a crisis, but they can also come up when marketers are more successful than they anticipated, such as when too many consumers take them up on a deal. Plan for the best and the worst, and be prepared to act when either arises to prevent darkness from descending on your social programs.

10) Death of the firstborn: Death of marketing as we know it

The death of the firstborn plague is the most permanent. There has been a similar plague on marketing and media: rising consumer expectations of some form of two-way communication. For consumers like myself who grew up writing letters to brands that pleasantly or unpleasantly surprised me, this is deliciously empowering. This plague will kill off some marketers who can't adapt.

Egypt wasn't undone by the exodus, or any version of it that has been passed down to us. It remained a capital of the ancient world for over a thousand years more and has been a pivotal part of many great civilizations and cultures since. Plagues may afflict us and they may kill off the weak, but the springtime exodus saga tells the greater story of rebirth and renaissance. If there's not a promised land for marketers per se, may we at least heal from these plagues to uphold brands' promises to consumers.

New TypePad Search - look to your right

New from TypePad - its own search functionality:

So what’s being added to the search index? Pretty much everything that deals with the content on your blog. For this initial release, we provided the ability for readers to search for posts, pages and comments within your blog by keyword. 

via beta.typepad.com

This is long overdue from TypePad. You'll see I just added this to th right-hand side of my blog toward the top, and I removed some features I didn't think were adding value. Try out the search box and let me know if you have any feedback.

Note: I was using Rollyo before, so if you ever used that here and now tried this, I'm also curious how it compares.

Ahead of Baseball's Opening Day, a Better View of the Ballpark from Home

I've been meaning to write this post for awhile - actually before the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

At the time, I was getting a lot of pitches relating to the event, and one stood out - relating to a new line of TV mounts, namely the CLO Systems TM1 motorized tilt mount. You can change the viewing angle based on where you're sitting, or even standing, such as if you're using a Wii Fit (or, likely later this year, Project Natal from Microsoft).

The idea for the post was originally going to be about setting up a home theater ahead of CES. I had a 50" plasma TV sitting on my living room console from Crate and Barrel, and I was curious how mounting it would work. They sent the mount on the house, and I paid out of pocket for installation.

Here's what I learned from the whole experience:

• The motorized mount does work well. I don't use the "auto" mode on the remote control - I basically just leave the TV tilted down a bit toward the couch. But it's nice to have the flexibility.
• The TV looks so much bigger mounted. I don't quite get it, how the optical illusion works, but the same TV two feet up on the wall makes me feel like I got a bigger TV.
• I'm not the best product blogger. I actually would have had the post up in time, but my installation guy got sick and couldn't come the week leading up to CES. While I mounted the TV soon after, I've been in about a dozen cities  since then for work and leisure.
  
• I'd completely recommend the installation services from Zip Installation.
  
• My unboxing video is below, followed by before and after stills. The unboxing starts off with an implication that there was a previous video, and there was, but it didn't come out well.

My apologies to CLO Systems and their communications team for the delay. It is a good option to consider if you're mounting a flat screen TV for baseball season or any rationalization of choice.

The Future of Convergence in 2015, via SXSW and now SlideShare

It's funny, I spoke at South by Southwest (SXSW), put up my presentation on SlideShare, and forgot to blog it. So I'll admit, you're not always the first to know just because you read this blog, but I still am immensely appreciative you're here.

I guess one reason I wasn't in a huge rush is that it's a talk that doesn't lend itself well to static content such as a blog post. I was the sixth speaker in a track of some brilliant 15-minute presentations on convergence, courtesy of Dan Shut of Resource Interactive, whose amazing presentation is available here.

My talk was designed to be more thought provoking and somewhat theatrical. I don't know anything about the future, and really, who does? So instead of just making a prediction, I decided to show what three futures look like. Since I wrote out the speech longhand (admittedly while sitting at another event... I'm not naming which one), I have the text and slides handy, and I even made sure to cite the image sources in the appendix.

Posting the notes isn't the same as seeing it live, but perhaps there are some benefits from reading it. If you do get through it, what future resonates most with you?

Note: If you're ever inclined to share the direct link to the speech, I shortened the URL to http://bit.ly/sxsw2015. That links directly to SlideShare, not here.

The Future of Convergence in 2015, presented at SXSW 2010

View more documents from David Berkowitz.

Deconstructing Foodspotting

Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

 

Deconstructing Foodspotting

If you were going to create a new application or tool to take advantage of the current trends in social media, what elements would you include? Add your thoughts in the comments, but I'll share my wish list.

First, there should be some mobile component, or it should be entirely mobile. Much of the social media innovation currently is on the mobile front, and it dovetails with consumer media usage patterns.

Next, it should be tied to consumers' locations. GPS is one of those so-called killer apps for mobile devices, and it's almost a waste of the mobile device not to incorporate location in some way.

It should probably look like an application, rather than a mobile Web site.

You'll probably want to include check-ins as some component of it, but maybe not have that as the entire purpose. We still don't know how far the check-in craze will go or if it will scale.

You'd want to incorporate the camera. After talking and texting, photography is generally the next most popular mobile activity across age demographics.

If you're really smart, you'll incorporate the one thing social media users can't shut up about: Justin Bieber. Or food. And in aggregate, food is probably slightly more popular than Bieber and has a little more staying power. So yes, the safe bet's on food.

There should be points, providing a layer of social currency.

Finally, you'll create a lexicon around what you're doing. Facebook owns the word "fan," Twitter owns "follow," and Foursquare may well own "check in," and definitely owns "mayor." Creating or defining a language around the experience can further enmesh consumers' consciousness.

If you throw all of these together, you wind up with Foodspotting, which I effectively just deconstructed ("Top Chef" fans will appreciate the gastronomic reference). Unlike some of the location-based check-in applications like Foursquare and Gowalla that are really only valuable for users who participate, Foodspotting caters to both content producers and more passive consumers, which instantly expands its potential reach.

Obsessive foodies are the primary target. They can upload photos of what they eat, enter the item name and where it was photographed, and then optionally add commentary before uploading it. They earn points when posting photos, and also when others say they want to "nom" dishes pictured.

There's also a much broader audience of anyone who wants to find a good place to eat -- the same people who would check Citysearch, Yelp, or Menupages. Instead of looking up starred reviews, they can flip through photos of food near them. It can help consumers decide where to eat, or even what to eat when they're there. Last week, I was dining at Urban Farmer, a steakhouse in Portland, Ore., with two others, and loaded up the Foodspotting iPhone app, which immediately displayed a photo of a butterscotch sundae from that restaurant. I checked with the waitress to see if the dessert was any good, and she loved it. Not only did we each order one, but one of my compatriots changed his dining plans to save room (this may shock you, but I had no such discipline).

Appealing to these two audience will make the difference between a lot of these emerging sites, apps, and platforms. If they're just focused on the content creators, that's great -- there are enough of them that they can sustain a profitable business. Forrester's technographics tool shows 24% of U.S. Internet users are "creators," and the number's been growing. But there's a broader audience that needs to be served.

Even content creators are usually behaving like Forrester's "spectators"; I spend far more time reading blogs than blogging, and I read at least a hundred Menupages reviews for every one that I write. Foodspotting provides value for those engaging in search and discovery rather than constant content creation. That's true for Twitter and Facebook too, in a way that's not as true for Foursquare, Gowalla, Plancast, and other services that are attracting a lot of buzz right now. Most of us are spectators, we're often influenced by content creators, and we want to reap the value from that content.

If we can't, we'll just have to find the next bandwagon to hop on, which undoubtedly will be Bieberspotting.

100 Ways to Measure Social Media: Now in Convenient Presentation Form

I just came back from the Promotion Marketing Association's Blur event in Chicago where I gave a talk in their digital track about metrics. They invited me after I wrote the column on 100 Ways to Measure Social Mediahttp://bit.ly/100ways (also at http://bit.ly/100ways if you ever need to refer back to it). While I only had 30 minutes for it, including Q&A, I was intrigued to see if I could turn this into a presentation. Presentations are, after all, just another way to tell a story - even if this story is a little more dry than others.

Below is the presentation version I gave, which you can even download from Slideshare if you're so inclined. Beyond the 100 ways themselves, there are a number of examples. You won't find all the talking points, but if I get video from the PMA, I'll post that too to add color.

For the record, I even had time for the audience to get a few questions in. Not bad, eh? Oh, and if you want to refer back to it (or even tweet the link directly), I shortened it to http://bit.ly/pmadb.

Meanwhile, if you want to read more coverage of the PMA, check the blogs of Brandon Murphy and Donna DeClemente.

100 Ways to Measure Social Media - Promotion Marketing Association 2010

View more presentations from David Berkowitz.

The Social Technologies Powering SXSW 2010

Originally published in MediaPost's Social Media Insider

 

If you want to experience a petri dish of thousands of educated, media savvy professionals and content producers actively using social technologies as part of their daily life, come to Austin, Texas for South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi). This is the festival that essentially launched Twitter in 2007 and Foursquare in 2009, and the expectations are always high for what will break out here.

If some technology or tool breaks out in Austin, it has a chance at mainstream adoption. If it doesn't, that's a bad sign if it's designed for early adopters. Then again, if the tech is targeted toward a more mainstream audience or different demographics than who's here, it still could be a major hit (i.e., this isn't the place to launch the next Farmville). So what did the festivalgoers use, and how did they use it?

What's hot:

Twitter: Not surprisingly, this was the favorite communication channel here. Since 2007, it has remained a powerful way for people to share their thoughts on sessions, say where they're going, and see where their friends are. What it's not great for is discovering relevant trending topics; who or what can top Justin Bieber? Twitter's local breakouts are still too nascent to be useful, though that should change by SXSW 2011.

Foursquare: If you want to know where friends are, this is a good place to start. Trending places nearby tended to really show where people were. With the swarm mentality here, it changed consumer behavior, driving people from one venue to the next based on where everyone's friends were. And it only took one person in a group checking Foursquare to herd their social circle.

Gowalla: A SXSW award winner and an alternative to Foursquare, Gowalla only lets you check in somewhere in your vicinity. If you're at a bar across town you can't go back and say where you were an hour ago. This also makes it inherently more useful at an event like this; you want to know where your friends are, not where they were. With its headquarters in Austin, it's a favorite of locals. It has some great new features too, like sharing photos from your location, though Whrrl has had that feature for a while.

Plancast: Plancast is built around where you're going and what you're doing later, rather than what you're doing now. This has the best shot at being the SXSW breakthrough, as early adopters first checked it out in the weeks leading up to the event. I'm not sold on Plancast yet, but it might take some time to appreciate its utility and value. Between Facebook events and Twitter and Facebook status updates, I'm not sure what void it's filling, but keep an eye on it, and I'll keep an open mind.

iPhone battery packs: Spare battery backs and instant chargers have been critical. At every party there have been a few people hovering around electrical outlets, and people here often have multiple devices to use a spare when one dies. Some also make use of the iPod Touch given the accessible WiFi. You'll also often hear the mantra, "ABC: Always Be Charging" (a phrase I can hardly take credit for; geeks say it a lot here). Power cords are the new cigarette lighters, though you can still make friends with the latter.

What's not:

QR codes: These 2D barcodes are on every badge, but I've seen hundreds more instances of business card exchanges than mobile barcode scans. That doesn't bode well for the near future of the codes in the U.S., though you can't judge too much from this one failure. The deciding factor may have been the application; business cards in particular remain efficient communication vehicles.

Bump: This is a popular business-card- sharing application for the iPhone where you bump phones together and share information. But it's another I never saw anyone use. A friend said it's too buggy. Business cards are also perfectly interoperable, compatible with every phone, operating system, and contact organizer.

MyTown: While it's one of the biggest, most pioneering applications combining social media, location, and gaming, it may be a little too cute for this crowd. The SXSW audience is also more focused on using tools rather than playing games, especially since the gaming element of MyTown isn't quite as social.

What else:

That's just a start. I love what Whrrl (noted earlier) is doing, and you should try them out if you haven't yet. Hot Potato helps people organize around live events, which Plancast can do too, but it's not fully baked yet. Stickybits earned some raves (including from Kate Miltner, who reminded me of it) for attaching content to barcode stickers, but it has many more hurdles than I can list here.  Lastly, I have to give a personal hat tip to video platform Kyte, which powered the video interviews I ran on 360i's blog, all recorded and broadcast from my iPhone.

There may not have been some technological revolution this year, but many of these tools did help people get from place to place, connect with each other, and express themselves. That's exactly how they'll stay relevant.

Near-Live from Austin: 360i Takes You Behind the Scenes at SXSW, Powered by Kyte

I'm at SXSW this week, as I'm sure you've heard enough by now if you've been following my blog, twitter, foursquare, gowalla, whrrl, plancast, hotpotato, etc etc etc... Anyway, while I'm here, I'm shooting some video interviews thanks to the very intuitive iPhone app from Kyte tied into their video player. It's all running on 360i's blog in their branded player, and I'm sharing it here as well.

The first guest is Lee Odden, an old blogger friend and a fantastic speaker and content producer. I can't wait to see who else I run into, and it'll be fun bringing their thoughts to you here.

via blog.360i.com

Austin Bound – See You at SXSW?

I’m wrapping up a couple jam-packed days with my colleagues in Atlanta, heading west shortly to Austin for South by Southwest (SXSW).

While I’m there, I’ll be broadcasting brief video interviews thanks to my agency 360i’s partnership with Kyte. You’ll see this right away on 360i’s blog and of course I’ll post a lot of that here too (though realistically, they’ll probably have the segments live there first).

I’m also speaking Monday at 5:40 on the Future of Convergence in 2015. I’m sharing thoughts on three futures of convergence, all in 15 minutes, so you can still get out quickly to head to the front of your VIP lines. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it if you make it over. With any luck I’ll post video of it, along with a text/image recap, but it’s not one where slides will help too much.

You can also follow me on Twitter, and if we’re friends I’m happy to connect on Foursquare, Gowalla, Plancast, HotPotato, and elsewhere. Hope to see you out there if you’re around.