Magic Satchel, Inc. » bad marketing

Social Media: You have to jump in even if you don’t understand it

Kim — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 05:10:17 +0000

I know everyone is tired of the “what is social media” question, but I found this article to be a great quick-and-dirty argument for embracing social media as it happens. It really nails down how the internet became an essential part of business (apparently sometime in late 1997) and concrete examples of how companies jumped in or got left behind.

It’s not just about having a site, or even having a good site- what you say and how you interact with clients, customers and other businesses always, consistently- that is what now defines your brand. Before we had cameras, image wasn’t as important. Now that the Internet is what it is, it’s crucial to manage the perception of you, your brand and your company, or someone else will end up doing it for you.

It may seem like a lot more work (though it really doesn’t have to be) but it’s really amazing how many levels you can reach people on with the widespread usage of social media.

In a test run by BazaarVoice, Rubbermaid discovered that adding customer reviews to their website increased sales and decreased returns of their products. Skeptics said sales of low-rated products would crater. What actually happened is that sales of low-rated products increased. When shoppers were questioned, they explained that when they read why someone else maligned the product, often they disagreed or didn’t care about that particular problem. If the price was right, it was worth buying anyway.

Why you have to engage in social media, even if you don’t want to.

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My Edict on Twitter Sins

Kim — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 20:28:46 +0000

So, I’ve been active on Twitter for an entire 50 days now. What’s that in Twitter years? And being the old Twitter salt I now am, I am entitled to list my top Twitter pet peeves. So here they are, not in any order of importance.

Excessively Retweeting Yourself: “In case you missed it.” I didn’t miss it, I ignored it the last seven times because it was boring.
Want To Know…?: Yes, I do before I open the link- you have a whopping 140 characters. Use them! I’m tired of being sent to real estate investment sites masked as something newsworthy.
Leetspeek grammar: Maybe it’s because I’m rapidly approaching 30, but my professional opinion of you drops significantly if you spell “you” as “u.”
Auto-anything: The usefulness and core premise of Twitter is greatly diminished by bots. If you don’t have the time to say it, I don’t have the time to read it. Automated anything is Twitter cheating!
Disembodied Chest Avatars: Your userpic is about 25% the size of a matchbook. Even if I wanted to check out your pecs (which I don’t) this is hardly the best medium. This is Twitter, not Hot or Not.
Secrets and Lies: I’ve seen many a tweet promising to unlock the secret of social media, Twitter, blogging, finding graphics and getting the perfect latte. Guess how many of these Tweets contained actual useful information? Zero. And besides, once you say it on Twitter it’s not a secret anymore, so quit it.
You’re Not Who You Quote: One or two inspirational quotes are fine. Culling all your content from Wikiquote? Not so much.
Dry Tweeting: In order for you not to put me to sleep in 140 characters or less, I want some dynamic content. Just as irritating as the constant updaters with little thought behind their tweets are the Twitter cold fish- it’s just as boring to only talk business on Twitter as it is in real life. Personality is important in this format- don’t be afraid to tweet something besides links to your blog or your site. Contribute!

This post would not be complete without including the “fail whale.”

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Via Twitter, why being a WAHM is bad

Kim — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 04:19:29 +0000

I see this a lot, in real life and online. There’s a local hair salon with a ridiculous name. I won’t mention it for obvious reasons, but every time I pass it, I think about how silly the name is. That, and their “Grand Opening” sign was misspelled and displayed for months.

While I was skimming the local paper last week, I came across the salon’s half page ad. Half of the half page ad was devoted to explaining the business name- I’m guessing they get that question a lot. Valuable ad space-paid for ad space- that could be talking up the business was instead devoted to something completely unrelated to what the business will do for you. Customers don’t care about your business name, your kids, or much outside the value and service you being to them. Which brings me to this video.

Virtual Assistants are, in my unscientific observations, largely female. Many proudly boast of being work-at-home moms, or WAHMs. Being able to juggle a life and a successful business is noteworthy, but not to your clients. If anything, it communicates to them that your priority may not be their business. And that is bad, bad, bad.

So before you go tagging and boxing yourself, take a look at this clip and really think about your message. Is it relevant to the service or product you offer? I’m really, really into the guacamole from Chipotle. I could eat it daily, on almost everything savory I eat. However, nowhere in my marketing materials do I mention guacamole.

Scott Stratten on Why Being a WAHM is Bad for Business from Jessica Knows on Vimeo.

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Er… Don’t You Guys Have More Pressing Worries?

Kim — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 05:16:09 +0000

From the files of “Really? …Really?” comes this distasteful, dated and pointless initiative. So many things wrong- I’ll just post an excerpt and you can post your own conclusions. May I also add… >facepalm

Earlier this week, the Bank of England held “Dress for Success” day. On that day, they sent out a memo to female employees detailing just how they should dress for success, important now more than ever in These Economic Times, the worst financial crisis Britain’s dealt with since the Depression. WWD obtained a copy of the memo:

“Look professional, not fashionable; be careful with perfume; always wear a heel of some sort — maximum 2 inches; always wear some sort of makeup — even if it’s just lipstick.” Shoes and skirt must be the same color. No-no’s include ankle chains — “professional, but not the one you want to be associated with;” white high heels; overstuffed handbags; an overload of rings, and double-pierced ears.

Female Bank of England Employees Must Wear Makeup and Heels — The Cut: New York Magazine’s Fashion Blog.

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Epic PR Fail: How Not To Use Twitter To Insult Your Big Clients

Kim — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:56:19 +0000

I feel really bad for this guy, and I think we’ve all fired off some off the cuff words into the intertubes only to have them come boomeranging back at us.

However, it’s worth noting that this sad tale starts with a disparaging tweet sent from the airport on the way to a client. To educate them about social media.

It’s a story about a PR account executive/vice president named James Andrews from Ketchum in Atlanta who flew to Memphis to visit FedEx, one of the agency’s biggest clients. Andrews’ mission was to — now, this is important — talk with the corporate communications people at FedEx about social media.

Upon landing in Memphis, Andrews posted this message on the popular social media, mini-blogging service, Twitter, that’s widely followed by business people worldwide:

“True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I had to live here.’”

Andrews (right) openly used his Twitter monicker – @keyinfluencer. Someone inside FedEx was following Andrews, and that person shared the post among the top executives at the FedEx front office, and the company’s corporate communications staff. At that point, a person in the FedEx corporate communications staff apparently took umbrage to the post by Andrews and responded…

Ouch. There are lots of lessons to be learned here. If you can’t say anything nice online, think twice about saying anything at all. Don’t say anything you don’t want your biggest, most important client to read. And if you’re caught out in a moment of bad judgment, fix it as quickly as you broke it!

How Not to be a Key Online Influencer | David Henderson – author, journalist.

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Twitterers 1, Motrin 0

Kim — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 02:10:14 +0000

Via JK Virtual Office Resources, a cautionary tale for the internet age about the power of good and bad internet attention and your brand. Background: Motrin created some ads that unintentionally portrayed mothers in a less than flattering light. From the article, some key points:

…outraged mums, furious at the suggestion that their babies were a hassle, posted rebuttal videos on YouTube. Through Twitter, the microblogging service, thousands of people attacked the company.Eventually a marketing executive at McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson that markets Motrin, e-mailed individual bloggers to apologise for the campaign. But the damage was done.

Motrin was caught off-guard. For days, no company representative replied. Critics accused the company of being not only insensitive but also unresponsive. (Bolding mine.)

(I know it’s a British-ism, but the visual of “outraged mums” is quite funny.)

Mistake #1: Ignoring the blogosphere- in the fast moving internet era, it’s pertinent to respond to good or bad internet feedback as soon as possible. No other medium snowballs like this one. Just ask any of these people.

The “Motrin moms” episode … demonstrates the perils for enterprises that are unprepared to interact with social media.

Exactly. The article, linked below, goes on to explain how many big firms have since appointed social media ambassadors to monitor and interact with influential virtual communities. Be aware:

“It’s no longer just companies talking to the press, and customer service talking to customers. All these other people showed up in the -middle. They may not be press and they may not be customers, but suddenly their collective voice is bigger than the traditional channels.”

Technology leader Dell is a great example of proper social media marketing and community interaction:

Dell is taking its customer feedback seriously. When the company launched the Latitude laptop last summer, six of the features, including backlit keyboard and fingerprint reader, were ideas that came from IdeaStorm…

..Dell, for one, has made a business of it. By broadcasting discount alerts on Twitter, it says, it has generated more than $1m in sales. And in the US, 59 of the 100 leading retailers, including Best Buy and Wal-Mart, now have a fan page on Facebook, according to Rosetta, an interactive marketing agency.

Other savings can be realised through the Web’s ability to reach many people at once. “If you solve someone’s problem on the phone, nobody knows,” says Mr Sernovitz. “If you solve that same problem in writing on a blog, it costs you no more, but thousands of people are satisfied. And then, if 100 people never call because they found the answer, you very, very quickly get to multimillion-dollar savings.” (Bolding mine.)

Proactive, pre-emptive and smart. Easy to find and follow information on the web raises your brand’s public image immeasurably.

This article is a really great jumping off point in understanding the different ways the internet can enhance or detract public opinion of your brand, and a compelling call to action for any business, small or large, with no strategy in place to handle internet word of mouth to their advantage.

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Bad Viral Marketing: Sydney Cinderella’s ‘jacket man’ exposed as viral ad

Kim — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 06:04:55 +0000

Having been already disheartened in our belief in love by the “subway sweethearts” story last year, no one was too impressed by this transparent viral marketing ploy in Sydney, Australia.

She told the world via YouTube that she was a Cinderella trying to find her Prince Charming, a mystery man in a jacket, but Heidi Clarke is a fake.

The woman behind an apparently romantic quest to find a man she met at Jet Cafe Bar in the city was an actress hired for a viral marketing campaign to promote a jacket.

My first impression? People like to be *in* on a campaign, not played by one. You lose any insider status with a “joke’s on you” viral marketing campaign. People like to be included- not part of the punchline. That consideration should factor into any viral marketing plan.

Besides, what was the point, here? No one’s answering phone calls- what kind of press is that?

You’ve been had: Sydney Cinderella’s ‘jacket man’ exposed as viral ad.

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