Category Archives: digital media

September 4, 2013 · 9:45 am

Behind The Big Ears

One of the challenges in any business is to systematize operations and processes.  It’s nice to be able to do something well once, but what distinguishes great from merely good is the ability to repeat that activity over and over at the same high level.   I raise this because I’m not sure many businesses think of social media as that sort of process yet.  Maybe they consider it to be jazz – mostly improvisational – without understanding that even improvisation in music has a lot of built-in systems.  In any event, one company – Cisco – seem to “get it.”  Here’s why and how it can affect your business.

Fingers in ears

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Chris Brogan coined the expression “grow big ears” when it comes to social media.  I like that notion since it distills what’s critical in social down to three words.  It means companies need to listen – to put together ways to monitor activity on the various social media sites and to draw actionable conclusions from the data they gather.  It’s a process, one that needs to be put together and run by executives with enough business experience and company awareness to make it productive.  Yes, that’s a shot at the businesses who turn the social media keys over to interns with little or not instruction other than to stay active.

What Cisco has done goes well beyond that.  As Media Post reported, Cisco, using Radian6, has developed:

…a rapid routing and tagging system as part of its social monitoring strategy that automatically opens a service ticket after detecting a negative tweet or post on the Web… Aside from complaints, social reports also guide the company’s marketing strategies for campaigns by allowing search and social marketing teams to share information. The search engine marketing team feeds keywords to the social team related to products and topics. In turn, the social team feeds search marketing new lists related to social networks they wouldn’t typically find for themselves. This allows the company to identify features and technology internal teams should emphasize to customers.

In other words, big ears that feed a replicable process.  The process yields benefits (search keywords, features, customer service) that go well beyond being able to tweet out a clever quote or informative article.  Even the most engaging social media activity pales when measured against this sort of intelligent back end.  Something to consider.

How big are your ears?  What’s on the other end of them?

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August 22, 2013 · 10:51 am

Fading To Black?

Over the last couple of years I’ve written about cord-cutting and today I have another update of sorts.  As you know, this refers to people disconnecting from a “traditional” video provider such as a cable or satellite service and using only content delivered to the via “over-the-top” services – things that sit on top of a broadband connection.  These are services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and others.

Here is what caught my eye:

Thirteen of largest multichannel video providers in the U.S. — about 94% of the market (94.6 million subscribers) — lost about 345,000 net additional video subscribers in 2Q 2013 — down 0.4%, according to the Durham, N.H.-based Leichtman Research Group…The top nine cable companies lost about 555,000 video subscribers in second-quarter 2013, compared to a loss of about 540,000 subscribers in the second quarter of 2012…Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, stated: “The multichannel video industry has leveled off, with major providers losing about 0.1% of all subscribers over the past year.”

OK, so not exactly a massive disconnect.  On the other hand, the trend is accelerating by most accounts, especially among younger people.  Now let’s think about the ongoing battle between Time Warner Cable and CBS.  No matter which side you’re on, it gives people the opportunity to seek alternatives, at least with respect to CBS and Showtime programming.  Once they figure out that much of the content is available elsewhere, cutting the cord becomes more viable.

Another anecdote.  This past weekend, I wanted to watch the Solheim Cup golf matches.  The place in which we were staying didn’t get the network carrying the matches and the live streaming via YouTube was not available in the US.  Solution?  I watched on a proxy server in Europe.  Not some sort of illegal torrent – simply a proxy server so they thought I was in France.  For those of us who are a bit more technically minded (and I think anyone under 30 fits the bill), this is a form of cord cutting behavior and negates the need for anything more that a high-speed connection to watch what I want on my own schedule.

Finally, some more research from STRATA shows that none of this is going unnoticed by the marketing community:

Focus on television advertising has hit a three-year low as the gap between TV and digital narrowed to its closest point ever, according to the most recent quarterly survey compiled by STRATA…TV advertising still remains the top advertising medium with 44% of survey respondents saying they are more interested in advertising on TV (spot TV/cable) than any other medium. While TV is still number one, this represents the lowest level of broadcast advertising interest seen in the STRATA quarterly survey in nearly three years. Gaining steadily on TV, digital is the second most popular medium at 35%…28% feel they will have a greater spend in Digital than Traditional in 1-3 years. 27% say they don’t ever anticipate a greater spend in Digital (down 45% and the lowest percentage ever).

Ad spending is a big part of the fuel that drives these businesses (and the Time Warner/CBS dispute points out the relatively new other piece – transmission fees).  If that piece shrinks, along with viewers and subscribers, the industry is in big trouble.  As the Chinese say, “interesting times”.

Your take?

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August 20, 2013 · 9:06 am

Being Faster

One question I get asked from time to time by clients is about how they can be better at social media. Given social’s influence particularly among younger people, it is an excellent question. The answer is usually give is to “be faster.” For most companies, that’s much easier said than done and let me explain why.

English: Aircraft carrier in Portsmouth Harbour

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I spent most of my professional life in the corporate world.  On a good day, they make decisions slowly in that world.  Not only is it like turning an aircraft carrier in that it takes a long time but you often have a hard time finding anyone who will admit to having a hand on the wheel or to get them to turn it.  For many decisions, that’s fine.  For those wanting to be good at social, it’s fatal.

Part of the problem is no one is quite sure who controls the social sphere and it varies from org chart to org chart.  PR, marketing, customer service, and other functional areas often have their fingers in (it’s not hard to find companies with multiple Twitter accounts).  Sometimes they have different agendas.  More importantly, they’re often staffed lightly and/or by interns performing the social monitoring and updating.  Memes last hours in the social sphere.  If you respond in a week, you’ve missed the peak.  Look at all the (lame) Harlem Shake videos that are still popping up.

Being faster means having a clear set of guidelines, finding professionals to implement them, and trusting them to do so without running every tweet up the corporate flagpole.  Most of the really embarrassing social faux pas have been made by clueless staff.  Sure, there is the occasional well-intentioned failure when a campaign gets hijacked but most are the result of just being lame and not paying attention.

We can count the number of corporately-created things that have “gone viral” on one hand.  Social media seem to have a pretty good nose for a company that’s trying too hard to create that social media hit and the backlash is often brutal (and funny).  Being faster has to recognize that hasty and fast aren’t the same.  But for any company to succeed the usual decision-tree needs to be pruned or uprooted completely.

Do you agree?

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