The Great Debate: How to Treat Social Media

There are big questions about how brands should use social media, that's not new. But there are newer debates that seem to be focusing on whether or not social media should be treated as a broadcast channel like other, more traditional mediums (i.e. TV, print, web). A lot of marketers seem to be up in arms about trying to measure, monetize and analyze what's happening in the social space. The controversy is not only centered around how that analysis can be done, but if it should be done at all.

Three recent Ad Age articles rounded out the debate. The first two articles are based around followers' engagements and what their interactions (or lack there of) really mean to your brand. Matthew Creamer provides facts about the actual number of people interacting with brands they follow, while Simon Dumenco explains his opinion on why low consumer engagement "doesn't matter".

Lastly, an article by Zach Rosenberg details a process of How to Turn Tweets Into Rating Points. While the article is interesting, some readers' comments are even more interesting:

"This is not only unnecessary, it's wrong. Twitter is a dynamic conversation driven by consumers, TRPs are a static estimation of passive commercial delivery."

Since this is my blog, I'm going to give my opinion. Yes, Twitter is a conversation tool, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be measured. All forms of advertising are a means for brands to communicate with their consumers, that's the whole point of advertising. It's true that social media provides the biggest opportunity for consumers to talk back, but that doesn't mean it's the only conversation.

Markers aren't martyrs. If your brand is engaging audiences on social media, you have an ulterior motive that isn't simply "let's have a conversation". Sure, that is the goal of social media, but that's not your reason for participating. You participate in that conversation to express brand views, try to pinpoint brand advocates, forge more positive opinions, etc. If your brand is using social media, you're using it as broadcast channel that needs to be measured.

A Subliminal Relationship is Not a Relationship

The first instance of subliminal advertising occurred in 1957 when James Vicary supposedly flashed the words "eat popcorn" and "drink Coca-Cola" across the screen at a movie theater. The words were only there long enough for viewers' subconscious' to recognize, and snack and drink sales shot up. Of course, this was all a hoax and Mr. Vicary had made the whole thing up. Since then, subliminal messaging has been a constant and controversial topic not only within the advertising industry, but around the world.

If this subject is so commonly discussed, why beat it to death with another blog? Because a combination of two writings have given me a new perspective on the topic. First is the recently published Advertising Age article, "Ignore the Human Element of Marketing at Your Own Peril". The authors, Bob Garfield and Doug Levy, proclaim 2012 to be the beginning of The Relationship Era; where "the new currency of commerce" is trust.

Second is a book called Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, written by Martin Lindstrom, in which a series of experiments utilizing brain scanning technology sheds new light onto how your brain, whether consciously or not, effects the purchasing decisions you make. In the book, Lindstrom claims that people aren't really sure why they buy the products that they buy. He believes that "our unconscious minds are a lot better at interpreting our behavior (including why we buy) than our conscious minds are."

Lindstrom makes a very good case as to why this is true, but here's my problem with that finding: there's no relationship. If you buy a Coca-Cola because the store you're in is red and your subconscious links that color with the brand, it doesn't matter. Sure, it's a sale, but you don't know why. If your brand doesn't have a relationship with that consumer, the next thing you know they'll be in a blue store buying a Pepsi.

So, Corporations, I challenge you with this resolution as you enter into The Relationship Era: make sure every consumer knows why they chose your product.

If you give them a good reason to buy, odds are they'll do it again.

Spartans Helping Spartans

Since September, I have been working as a Marketing Writer Intern for a great company called TechSmith. I get the opportunity to write a bunch of different things for them; everything from tutorial video scripts, to landing page copy. Recently I had a change to interview another employee and write a blog post for a Michigan State University blog, Spartans Helping Spartans.

So, if you're just itching to read some more of my writing, check out Spartans Helping Spartans!

What's Black and White, but NOT Read All Over? Logos.

As usual, this blog post was inspired by a recent conversation with a friend. We were talking about a logo and briefly considered using it as part of a tag-line for a class project. We quickly realized that it wouldn't work because no one would actually read the logo; they would look at it, observe which brand is associated with it, and then read the copy.

With all of the logo-changing craziness that has been going on recently, this got me thinking. Obviously the use of a logo is critical to a brand. It establishes that omnipresent "look and feel", constantly connecting the brand and its executions, no matter what. That's why changing a logo is so risky; it is printed everywhere, on everything that is an extension of the brand. And if the logo doesn't truly represent what the brand stands for, it could be disastrous.

However, despite the importance of the logo, no one actually reads it.

The Walt Disney logo, for example, has been accepted by generation after generation. Everyone knows what the logo looks like and what it is associated with, but a lot of people have a difficult time realizing how the "D" in "Disney" is actually formed. Doesn't it seem like being able to read the name of the brand would be vital to its success? Apparently not. Even after people recognize how the "D" is shaped, they still have to work to see it. I believe that, for the most part, they will just look past it, take in the whole logo and know what it means.

This realization made me think about Starbuck's recent logo change, in which they removed all text. At first, I thought this was kind of dumb. I understand that they want to expand their product line to include more than just coffee, but I always thought, "Ok, so just take the word 'coffee' off the logo, but leave the word 'Starbucks'." Now, I think it was a brilliant idea. The only people that would actually take the time to read the logo would be those who are unfamiliar with the brand and/or their logo. Also, because the logo image is essentially the same, it isn't unrecognizable to the brand's loyal followers. Without the words, Starbucks will be able to stamp that previously mentioned, omnipresent brand voice on every product they choose to create, simply branding it as "Starbucks," not as "coffee".

This could also be one of the many reasons why the Gap logo redesign was a complete failure. Even though the text of the logo was exactly the same, it didn't matter. Because no one bothers to actually read it, the only thing that mattered was how the logo looked. Gap (momentarily) decided to completely abandon its iconic design and go with something that did not seem to be a good representation of the brand, and the brand's followers were not happy.

Anyways, I'm sure you've all read enough about these two logo makeovers to want to read anymore, but I thought I'd open up a (hopefully) new school of thought....Logos are important, but what they say is not a huge contributing factor to their success.

Not all Target Markets are Created Equal

As marketers, we like to categorize people into groups: Gen X, Baby-boomers, married, single, multi-cultural, etc. For the most part, putting people into these categories makes our job easier. You are able to find out who is interested in your product, put a name to that group of people and put some ads in front of them.

Recently, however, I was in a situation that made me realize that there are large groups of people that don't fit into the typical categories that marketers use to target their products. That sentence might make me sound naive, but let me explain my story before you judge.

Over the holiday, I was playing Catchphrase with my sisters and cousins and I had to get them to say the word "Twitter." I described it as being "a popular social networking site...not Facebook." My younger sister was able to guess the word, but once I announced that Twitter was, in fact, the popular social networking site that I was referring to, my teenage cousin from kind of huffed...he thought it was ridiculous that I would refer to Twitter as a popular site. Sure, he's heard of it, and he uses social media (he's very active on Facebook and MySpace)...but Twitter? Not something that he would consider using.

That's fine, I know a lot of people who don't enjoy using Twitter, it's not as easy nor as interactive as Facebook...but all of those people would, undoubtedly, still consider the site to be immensely popular...or would they? If you are a high school boy that doesn't use Twitter, and none of your friends use Twitter, and the only people you know of who do use the site are famous-for-no-reason-celebrities and unreliable news channels, you probably wouldn't consider it to be popular.

Now, I'm not saying that marketers are incapable of finding and filling the holes within a target market...After all, I'm an advertiser and I discovered this little lapse of "Twitter acceptance." I'm just saying that it often becomes easy to group people into a category that seems to fit your product, but a good advertiser, a good planner, looks deeper than that.

Do you see what I see?

I'm sure that almost everyone has seen these images before. They're classic illusions: do you seen an old woman or a young woman? Do you see a rabbit or a duck?

If you stare at these illusions long enough, trying to decide how you want to categorize them in your mind (young or old? rabbit or duck?), you will eventually get a headache and stop looking at the pictures. Similarly, if a company is trying to force themselves into multiple categories in the consumer's mind, the customer will become confused and, possibly, form a negative opinion about the company or its products.

To avoid this confusion, a company must choose one category, one position, to hold in the consumer's mind. They can't be both a rabbit and a duck, they have to choose the one category that best suits them and truly own that positioning.

That's where advertising comes in. Even though the client can be seen as both a rabbit and a duck, research has found that the target market likes rabbits better because they're cuter. It is then the agency's job to figure out how to make consumers focus only on the rabbit. How can you get someone to look at that picture and only see the rabbit, not the duck?

That's the perpetual problem, and I love solving it.

Self-fulfilled

There is a very well known psychological theory called the "self-fulfilling prophecy". An over-simplified example of this theory is that if you think you are going to do poorly on an exam or in a sporting event, you will. The basic concept is that if you have an attitude or believe something about yourself, it will come true because you will either subconsciously or consciously take actions to make it come true.

For the most part, this theory refers to personal/inner thoughts and feelings fulfilling themselves in an outward manner...but I've recently noticed that this phenomenon can be more powerful if your self-related thoughts are made public. If you write something down, post something to the internet or tell a friend, I think your chances of self-fulfilling are much higher. Once you've consciously recognized that thought, or even shared it with others, your subconscious desire to fulfill it skyrockets.


I've noticed this even in myself. There is a section on Facebook located right underneath your profile picture that asks you to, very simply, "write something about yourself". This box is big enough only to host a sentence or two, so I felt that if I was going to write only one sentence about myself, it better be something good. I noticed that some of my friends had written things about their families, jobs, hobbies or quotes from famous people. So I did some thinking and web browsing to find something clever to "write about myself". Finally I decided on a quote I found that says, "I say luck is when an opportunity comes along, and you're prepared for it."


I've never said that quote aloud and I don't know if anyone has ever even read it in on my Facebook page...but ever since I put that "personal thought" about myself in a public place, I've noticed that more of my actions lead me towards fulfilling it. Because I chose to publicly associate that quote with my personal characteristics, I think that the self-fulfilling prophecy kicked into turbo-mode because if I didn't self-fulfill, I wouldn't be the only person to realize my "failure".

There you have it; my belief about the self-fulfilling prophecy: If you publicly announce something about yourself, your rate of self-fulfilling that sentiment is higher than if you were to keep it to yourself. Take it or leave it.