Category Archives: digital media

December 10, 2013 · 11:11 am

Rage Against The Machine

It’s a snowy TunesDay here at the world headquarters.  What better to play to go with the peaceful, falling snow than Rage Against The Machine?  I’m not a fan of winter and even less so of snow, so the name of the band sounds appropriately disturbed.  If you want to join me in venting a little early winter energy, be my guest:

That’s called Know Your Enemy and it’s very typical of the band’s music and lyrics. As they do in this song, they frequently call for people to wake up and take action:

I’ve got no patience now
So sick of complacence now

and later on:

Yes I know my enemies
They’re the teachers who taught me to fight me
Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission
Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite
All of which are American dreams

So what possible place does this have in a business blog?  I mention it in the context of the latest report from JWTIntelligence which contains something I find both hopeful and disturbing at the same time:

In our ninth annual forecast of trends for the near future, we see how consumers are both welcoming and resisting technology’s growing omnipresence in our lives. For many, technology serves as a gateway to opportunity and an enabler of hyper-efficient lifestyles, but those who are most immersed are starting to question its effect on their lives and their privacy. One result is that more people are trying to find a balance and lead more mindful, in-the-moment lives.

Hopeful in that it’s good that people are beginning to understand that while technology can and does improve our lives it can come with some significant drawbacks.  The disturbing part is that this understanding will make using that technology in a business context ever more challenging.  Consumers are realizing that Big Data’s essentially putting an end to anonymity.  They might be feeling  technology’s effect on their attention spans.  You’ve felt it, I’m sure. That means your customers have as well.

What does it mean as users “know their enemy” and confront it as RATM suggests?  Is there an opportunity for companies to practice what I’ll call ethical tech – the use of technology that’s respectful of the user and helps them maintain balance?  Technology is what it is – those of us who deploy it are the ones that make that determination.  Will we set users up to rage against the machines?  Your call.

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December 9, 2013 · 10:59 am

Is DWV Dangerous To Your Business?

It’s an epidemic!  I’m talking about DWV – Distracted While Viewing.  While not as physically perilous as texting while driving, if you are in the business of using television to get marketing messages to you audience, or if you’re a content creator who puts content on a TV screen (and remember that almost ANYTHING can be streamed to a TV), you need to understand what’s going on out there in media land.

English: American family watching TV (cropped)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You might have heard some folks in the ad business complaining about web sites whose ads aren’t viewable above the fold.  Let’s put that (specious) argument in the context of a research study released last week from the Multimedia Research Group.  Try this summary on for size:

In general, multitasking while watching TV is a growing trend and that an increasing number of US adults are becoming TV multitaskers. The data show that most TV multitaskers are younger adults between the ages of 18-35.  The 35-44 age group is rapidly adopting mobile device multitasking, but still lags the younger adults in performing TV-related multitasking activities.

In fact, only 40% of folk report they DON’T do anything else with a second screen while watching.  An equal number frequently multitask, but not related to the TV program they are watching.  The final group is TV multitaskers; those who frequently multitask related to the TV program they are watching.  The numbers among younger people in particular (18-24) are representative of how things have changed.  80% are multitasking, split roughly evenly among those doing something related to what they are watching and activities that are not related.  The numbers aren’t much different in the 25-34 group although they seem to do more unrelated to what they’re watching.

So the most attractive demo – 18-34  – has learned to use their tablets and smartphones to view TV differently.  They’re distracted from the main screen although some may be quite engaged with the content on their second screen.  The real question is how are you going to rethink what you’re doing to capture this behavior as part of your engagement with this audience.  Anyone have a good answer?

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December 5, 2013 · 9:41 am

A Place We Can Call Home

Many of the questions I get asked these days revolve around social media.  You know the usual suspects: Facebook and Twitter.  Sometimes clients want to know about Tumblr or Google+ or Pinterest.  From there the discussions move on to “outliers” such as Vine, Instagram, and others.  We spend a lot of time going over the plusses and minuses as well as how to advance the client’s goals using these platforms.  It’s a valuable exercise but it points out something that I think is given short shrift and which is today’s topic.

The Homestead of Captain Alfred

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Every one of the aforementioned proprieties creates next to no content on its own.  Users generate nearly everything.  Unfortunately, everything users – and businesses fall into that category – put out there isn’t presented to the massive user bases these platforms have built.  So, as Facebook said in a New York Times interview:

On any given visit to Facebook, the average user could potentially see about 1,500 items, the company said, from wedding photos posted by a close friend to a mundane notice that an acquaintance is now friends with someone else.  Since no one has time to scroll through that many Facebook posts, items in the feed are ranked to put the most recent and relevant posts near the top.

In fact something like 85% of the people who “like” a page don’t see posts from that page in their news feed on a regular basis.  As a brand, you’re at the mercy of the news feed algorithm which is constantly changing.  So often in the effort to expand our reach to the broadest possible base, we give up control of the distribution in a platform that we don’t control.  We do, however, have something that we can do – and probably are doing – that should, in my opinion, be our tp priority: our own websites.

We own our websites.  They are our home base on the web.  We can control everything on it although as I’ve written before, if you’re permitting comments be judicious in your moderation and be sure you’re behaving in a way that prompts mostly positive user response.  We can be sure that the new visitor’s first encounter works just as well as the long-time fan who checks in every week.  The time and resources to support social are far greater than those required to support home base, and because the number of outlets is expanding, so too are the resources to support them properly.  But even if they were equal to those required for home base and it became an “either/or” choice, I’d advocate quality of encounter along with assured exposure over quantity and less control.

Don’t misunderstand.  I believe strongly that brands (and my clients) need to be in social channels.  Not, however, by letting their web homes get run down while they’re off in cyberspace doing so.  That’s my take – what’s yours?

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