Tag Archives: Marketing and Advertising

July 26, 2012 · 11:37 am

How NOT To Do Social Media

 

Sometimes you see something that reminds you to start a folder called “stupid corporate tricks.”

Chick-Fil-A

(Photo credit: Link576)

What I’m writing about today would be top of that heap.  In fact, it sets a new kind of standard for stupid behavior but let’s see what you think.

Gizmodo published a piece yesterday about Chick-Fil-A and their social efforts.  As you might know, that company is engaged in a controversy with the gay community over same-sex marriage.  Now since we don’t do politics here, let’s put aside the cause of the controversy and just acknowledge that there is one.  This issue caused another company – The Jim Henson Company – to announce that it would no longer allow Chick-Fil-A to distribute miniature muppets in its children’s meals.  Again, let’s not argue right,wrong, good, or bad – those are the facts.  As a preemptive move, Chick-Fil-A announced it was ceasing to distribute the toys because of a safety issue – kids were getting their fingers stuck in the puppets.  With me so far?

Now comes the business part.  On Chick-Fil-A’s Facebook page, there were quite a few comments.  One commenter accused the company of making up a lie about the cause and asked them to admit they were dumped because they were “bigots.”  I suppose we could have a long chat here about how to handle negative comments in social media and that would be a valuable discussion.  However, I bet we would all agree that one way we would never endorse is to have a PR staffer create a fake Facebook account in the personality of a teenaged girl and respond with corporate talking points through that mechanism.  Want to guess what Chick-Fil-A did?

The company denied having done it.  However, the account was created hours before it began posting and the profile picture is from a stock photo house – a fair amount of circumstantial evidence that this is not a real person.  Regardless, it’s a lesson on how NOT to handle a problem is social media.  Yes, we need to respond quickly but not by hiding or lying about who is talking.  Transparency is one imperative; knowing that if you’re using social you no longer control the conversation is another.

I don’t suppose we’ll know for sure if this was a corporate flack or not.  We do know for sure that in addition to the original controversy there now is another.  Thoughts?

 

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July 23, 2012 · 11:27 am

The DC-6 Of Digital

I had a long conversation with someone oer the weekend about the Internet and how an entire economy has grown up around it.

English: A Douglas DC-6B of Balair at Basle Ai...

English: A Douglas DC-6B of Balair at Basle Airport (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Think about all of the jobs and businesses that didn’t exist in 1995.  SEO manager (or firm)?  Social Media Expert (or software)?  Web designers – it’s a long list.  Many of the companies with the highest valuations owe much of that value either directly or indirectly to the Internet.  If this was a blog about politics I could go off here on a tangent about government investment (the digital economy owes a lot to the government both in terms of the space program and DARPA) but I’ll leave that for another time.  Instead, I want to take the rest of today’s screed to remind about the Wright Brothers.

In the early days of flight there were lots of crashes and air travel was not for everyone. It took roughly 25 years before the DC-3 made it a broad business and until after World War II and the introduction of several airplanes based on bombers that flying was for the masses.  That brought about changes in tourism and other businesses.  The world became a much smaller place. The early crashes were not forgotten but they were seen as key learning opportunities, not just failures.

The DC-6 was disruptive. It affected steamship and rail travel and both businesses took a hit from which they really haven’t recovered (do you know anyone who’s used a cruise ship to take a business trip?).  I’ve been asking myself what is the DC-6 of digital? We’ve gone from an environment of text to graphics to rich media to video to social. It’s become more mainstream for consumers and it’s getting there for businesses.  Devices are becoming smaller, more personal (even wearable).  I still think we’ve yet to see the thing that changes it all.

Businesses – and marketing of those businesses in particular – don’t like to take massive chances.  In hindsight, it seems hedging your bet when it comes to new technology is not really “playing it safe.”   When the digital DC-6 takes off, we all want to be on it.

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July 18, 2012 · 9:49 am

This Is My 1,000th Post!

I posted my first bit of drivel on May 22, 2008.  It was all of 218 words and by way of introduction I said:

My name is Keith, and I’m a guy who works with companies on using media to grow their businesses. It could be that nasty old traditional stuff like radio and TV or it could be that newfangled stuff like social media. Either way, bubba. Since it’s not about the channel.

Hopefully the writing has improved a little but what I like is that the basic mission hasn’t:

You would be surprised how many folks I’ve met over the years do something because it’s cool…rather than because it ties in nicely to their business goals, strategies, and tactics.  So that’s what we’ll look at in this blog, with a particular emphasis on the emerging media business as well as sports. I’ll probably throw in a few food tips as well since we can’t be all work and no play.

Which is pretty much where we still are although I guess there’s the odd tip I’ve learned over the last 35 years about managing thrown in as well.  The technology has changed a lot in four years but business hasn’t.  We’ve committed to Friday as our food day and I probably don’t write as much about sports now as I used to.  We still generally avoid politics other than to use them to illustrate a broader point (although I’m thinking about using one day a week to focus on facts without advocacy as we hit election time – thoughts?).

Here’s the most important thing I can say to you after 999 other attempts:  thank you.  Thank you for reading, for sharing posts with others, and for taking the time to comment, both here on the screed and back to me via email (I realize some of you don’t want your thoughts quite so public – fine with me!).  Hopefully you’ll do more of each of them in the future.  I’m always surprised and grateful when someone I’m just meeting or with whom I’m reconnecting says “I like your blog.”  I can see readership numbers but it’s always better for me to meet just one actual reader.

If you had asked me a few years back if I’d still be posting every work day four years down the road, I’d have said that I don’t have that many words or cogent thoughts in me.  Turns out I was wrong.  Thank you all very much!

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