Tag Archives: Digital marketing

March 24, 2020 · 11:21 am

Vividly Dumb

Last week I wrote about my feeling that companies should quit selling as we all deal with the fallout from the Corona Virus. This morning I received an email from Vivid Seats, a ticket reseller. They apparently purchased another reseller from which I’d bought tickets. Here is part of the text:

As a welcome to Vivid Seats, we are giving you $30 off your next purchase!* Grab tickets to your next heart-racing concert or edge-of-your-seat game. Either way, here’s $30 to get you started — let’s get you cheering again!

Notice the asterisk. The offer expires next Tuesday. So where to begin?

First, can any of you say with any certainty when, or if, concerts, shows, or sporting events will resume? Why in the world would you go out and buy tickets to anything at this point? Vivid has a full refund policy if the show or event is canceled, but with this much uncertainty, are you seriously going to lock up your money until that happens? And what if the date changes and you can’t go? Of course, they’ll help you sell your seats, but is that without the 10% fee normally charged to sell? That’s not stated anywhere.

Second, it’s highly unlikely the situation will have changed a heck of a lot by next Tuesday. If you really want my business, why not make it open-ended?

Third, how freaking tone-deaf. We’re all being urged to stay home. Tours are being canceled. I’ve already had two shows for which I have tickets postponed and I’ve got more shows coming up in May that I’m thinking won’t happen. This is a reminder that our lives are different now. Hopefully, not for long, but there are no sports or shows or concerts happening. Why rub it in?

Ok, I believe in giving people hope and this WILL end. That said, it has just as much a chance to crush spirits if the events don’t happen and you bought tickets. This is why these different times call for different approaches, don’t you think?

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November 6, 2019 · 10:27 am

Who’s Calling?

If you carry a smartphone, and nearly everyone does, you’ve probably had the experience of your caller ID showing a fake number that’s calling, often with a fake name or organization displaying. You might think it would require a great deal of technical knowledge to be able to spoof a number or generate a fake caller ID, but you’d be wrong. There are several apps available in the Android or Apple stores that will do just that for you. They’ll even change your voice and add fake, location-specific background noise. I’m not clear what the legitimate purpose of these apps is but for $8, you can set yourself up to run any number of scams if you’re so inclined.

It dawns on me, though, that many folks do exactly the same thing with their social media posts. Their food is picture-perfect. They’re always smiling and having fun, often in some unusual locale. Their party never stops. They never mention that they’re short on cash, their job is unfulfilling, and they’re slowing sinking into depression. I mean, what’s the point of being happy if you can’t post it? As with the phone apps, everything is not as it seems.

I think businesses can learn from this. I’m not suggesting that they use social media to bum us all out, but I am saying that being authentic and transparent will win the day. People appreciate being made spoof-proof, and that happens when they know the businesses they follow aren’t posting visual checks that their real-world business can’t cash. Are they using “influencers” to say nice things about their business when that person has never been in the place or used the product? Have they generated some FOMO by purchasing fake followers?

Don’t believe every number that pops up on your phone. The IRS isn’t calling you. Neither is the Social Security Administration. I’ve had my bank call me but I’ve never had them ask me for account information over the phone. Don’t believe that everything you see on social media is the whole story. It might have been the only good day in a month. And if you run a business, there are very few people who will patronize you based solely on some pretty Instagram photos. Dozens of review sites will keep you honest. People like to know who is calling for real. So be real.

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September 18, 2019 · 10:06 am

Living For The Likes

I’ve been meaning to mention the thing that Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are all either testing or have deployed outside of the USA: killing the like count. They’re not eliminating the positive feedback (or any other kind) that people reading your content provide. What they’re doing is deemphasizing it by not showing total like counts. I, for one, am a fan and I’ll tell you why.

Actually, I won’t tell you. I’ll instead quote a Wired piece on the subject of living for the like and tailoring your message and tactic accordingly:

These tactics are attracting increased scrutiny, about their impact on the health of the internet and on society at large. Publicly measurable indicators—including views, retweets, or likes—are “one of the driving forces in radicalization,” says Whitney Phillips, a media manipulation researcher and associate professor at Syracuse University. It works both ways, she says. A user can be radicalized by consuming content and a creator can be radicalized by users’ reactions to their content, as they tailor their behavior around what garners the most interest from their audience.

Unfortunately for marketers, it also eliminates a metric that many marketers use to guide both their spending and their own content. While a minor disturbance in the marketing Force, they’ll get over it and move on to something else. My hope is that it destroys the “influencer” world. I’ve never been a fan and if this hastens its demise, I’m all for it. These are vanity metrics and not real measures of engagement which can be tracked in other ways. It’s also the final solution to those scam artists that sell fake “likes”.

The real issue for me is that many people – especially young ones – seem to develop feelings of inadequacy if they can’t generate sufficient “likes.” Maybe it even deters them from sharing anything in the first place and withdrawing.  For those of us that were there when all of this social stuff began, it’s been hard to watch it go from a great way to stay in touch with your friends and family to a weaponized space where trolls proliferate and it’s often hard to tell what’s real and what’s not.

I’m sure there are some selfish business reasons behind these moves while remaining hopeful that it’s really the start of the social media company’s coming to grips with all of the downsides of their worlds. When you like these screeds, do I see the counts? Sure. Do I change what I have written? In broad strokes, yes, but not based on the likes as much as on the overall readership and responses. In the 11 years I’ve been writing the screed, things such as a regular post on music (TunesDay!) and blogs about research (only rarely now) have gone because you don’t read them. Would I still write on those topics if I thought I could produce something that would interest you? Of course, likes be damned.

Live for today, not for the like.  You with me?

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