Digital Marketing and Web Strategy by Bob Hazlett | One Half Amazing!

Originally posted Dec 23, 2008

Festivus was made famous by Frank Costanza as an alternative holiday in response to the commercialization of Christmas. Along with other activities such as wrestling, Festivus also embraces the “Airing of Grievances”, in which each person tells everyone else all the ways they have disappointed him or her over the past year. In celebration of Festivus this December 23rd, I’ve compiled a few social media marketers and the ways they’ve disappointed me over the past year.

Motrin Moms patronizes consumers. It all began with a simple online ad posted on the company’s website. The ad eluded that “baby wearing” (carrying your child in a wrap instead of pushing them in a stroller) was simply a fashion statement and a pain in the back.  As the company mocked and disrespected practitioners of babywearing, it kicked up some relatively strong feelings among the community and resulted in a lot of loud racket on Twitter, YouTube and many blogs. Why they disappointed me – failure to listen to their community, disrespect of the consumer.

ExxonMobile twitter account hijacked. In August, a supposed representative of Exxon named “Janet” had the twittersphere abuzz as she answered questions about the oversight of the company, where resources are being spent, made comments about the Exxon Valdez and even the lack of sugar babies at one Exxon retail outlet. The company wasn’t aware of the hijacked twitter account until the Houston Chronicle called to ask about it. Spokesman Alan Jeffers said  “That’s not us” and “..isn’t using mediums such as blogs and social networking sites to communicate with consumers.” Why they disappointed me this year – Lack of brand monitoring.

3M Carjacks Post-it Campaign. After Scott Ableman and a few co-workers placed thousands of 3M Post-It Notes onto a friend’s Jaguar they gained a groundswell of attention. Trying to capitalize on the attention, the folks from 3M Post-Its contacted Scott asking if they could use these photos on their back-to-school campaign this summer. Scott, looking for some compensation asked the Post-it foks what their budget was. Not wanting to pay to use the photos, 3M balked and instead copied what Scott had done, took their own photos, and used them to create a national marketing campaign. Why they disappointed me this year – lack of transparency and being cheap.

Pizza Hut’s lame facebook application. Pizza Hut decided to jump on the bandwagon and create a facebook application this year. Pizza Hut took their regular online ordering site, watered it down and cooked it to be a facebook app. There are no additional social features included to enhance the experience of the app. The issue I take with the application is not the fact that it brings nothing new to the table in terms of functionality, it’s that it spams all of your friends with advertisements and notifications.  Why they disappointed me this year – lack of creativity and spamming my friends.

What social media marketers have disappointed you this year? What blunders stick out most in your mind? For every reader that comments, a contribution will be made to The Human Fund.
Looking for the best social media marketing of 2008?  Check out the Groundswell Awards.

Originally posted December 4, 2008

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress recently shot himself in the leg in a New York nightclub.  Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend Social Media Breakfast here in Memphis (which turned out to be a HUGE success) and got the chance to ask attendees how to avoid shooting yourself in the leg using social media.  To hear what they had to say check out the video below.

Originally posted September 15, 2008.

Over the past 5 years or so, Facebook, MySpace and every other social network have been getting a lot of press about how their site(s) brings millions of people and information together.  We’ve come a long way and many of these sites have opened up the internet in ways we could have never imagined. Friends you never thought you’d see again are suddenly a click away, the latest band from across the ocean playing in your living room. If you’re impressed at what’s available now, baby you ain’t seen nothing yet.

I strongly believe that behind the scenes, Google is putting together the pieces on not just another social network, but an amazing social platform built on a legion of social tools backed by a solid foundation of search. Think about the mass of instruments that Google has built or acquired in their short existence.  I’ll help you out; start with GMail, Youtube, Open Social, Blogger, Android, Lively, Friend Connect, Google Reader, Google Documents, GTalk, Jaiku, JotSpot (Now Google Sites), Feedburner, Picasa, Chrome, Panoramio, Google Maps/Earth, Phatbits (Google Desktop Gadgets) and DoubleClick.  Essentially what Google has here is a platform that gives them the front door to the web.  They will be able to control (and index) multiple forms of content being created, give users multiple ways to connect with friends and then advertise to those users in the most appropriate way.

Google understands that it’s not the particular site that drives users, but rather the connections, the relationships, the content and the tools that work in harmony with each other that makes a network more plentiful. They understand that you must build tools that work in succinct with the internet (and internet ready devices) as a whole.  They understand the mistakes made before them.

I will admit that their biggest challenge will be working with these different standards – getting each service to ’speak’ a common language, but with the collective talent they have at their disposal, its only a matter of time.  Their strategy is slow and deliberate, but one day, when you’re not looking or paying attention, they will drop the guillotine on your idea of what a social platform should look and feel like.  They will change the game as they’ve done so many times before.  Mark my word on it.

Last week, I read an article from Inside Facebook describing the most popular facebook applications in terms of active users and user engagement.  This got me thinking; what are those elements that makeup a successful facebook or social media application? What should someone consider and incorporate into their application to really engage and encourage repeat visitors? Here are my thoughts.

A successful Facebook application should:

• Complement and build on features already based in the site – SuperPoke, FunWall and the like do a great job of filling in the gaps and adding features to facebook’s existing functionality.
• Solve a problem – It doesn’t have to be elaborate, but successful applications do a good job of solving small problems.  Good examples of this are BigPhoto, Birthday Calendar and Social Profiles (TagK).
  
• Simple/Low learning curve – Users should have a sense of what the application does without much thought.
• Allow users to create, build and shape the content to fit their desired environment – Animoto Videos does an excellent job of this.  They simply give the user the tools to create and build off of the content the user already has.
• Requires a second person to be successful – Facebook already does a good job of this in general, but applications like Scrabulous that almost require a 2nd person to play can really help to exponentially grow an application.
• Competitive element - Bragging rights are what its all about.  Users want their achievements blasted across their network.  They want to be the best and be recognized for it. See Bowling Buddies.
  
• Provides value to user – Work to answer what’s in it for them?

What do you think a successful facebook application should have?  What are the applications that you think do a good job of it?  Leave a comment with your thoughts.

Big thanks out to Dave Barger of LunaWeb and Justin McGregor for putting together and presenting at Social Media Breakfast Memphis today. There was lots of great dialogue and idea sharing amongst the group pertaining to using RSS, LinkedIn, Twitter and FriendFeed. Today’s meeting was held at Mantia’s, here in Memphis.

Social Media Memphis Facebook Group
Meetup – Social Media Breakfast

Here is an excerpt from an actual conversation that took place today at work.

Meeting Leader – “Mr. Executive wants our official corporate MySpace page to have all our friends turned off (this isn’t even an option) so people can’t add us as a friend or even comment on our page.”
Web Guy Who Gets It - “That’s like removing search from Google.”

I know Social Networking and Social Media is scary to some. There are huge risks to many organizations, but there are also a wealth of opportunities. What do you do when the person in charge doesn’t get it? How do you show value in creating a conversation amongst your fans?

Additional Resources:
Five Starter Moves for Introducing Social Media Into Your Organization
How To: Effectively Talk to Execs and Clients about Social Media