Tag Archives: Reality checks

May 27, 2015 · 10:37 am

Working For Free

Given my topic this morning, this could be the shortest post ever. With respect to doing work for prospective clients or others without being compensated, it’s a one word proposition:

Don’t.

Let me explain, after my 7 years in consulting, why I feel this way. Yes, I do some pro bono work but that’s different. Helping out a charity or other worthy cause is different from helping a for-profit. Similarly, I try to be a resource for my friends, and have looked at many friends’ business plans, websites, social media plans, and analytics over the years with zero expectation of reciprocity (I know they will be there in a heartbeat if I need something).

What I’m talking about today is spec work. Obviously I realize you need to discuss the prospective client’s business issues with them ahead of time in order to figure out the scope of work. You might even want to begin to do a bit of a deep dive so you can pinpoint how best to move their business forward. That’s an exercise for ME, so I can establish a mutually beneficial working relationship and we (the client and I) make best use of the time they’re buying. Over time the focus of the work always changes as the business changes and grows, but you need to have a starting point.

That said, there is a difference between identifying the issues and opportunities and providing a roadmap to a solution. When clients demand lots and lots of spec work, I politely but firmly say “no.”  Much of why people hire me is for the expertise that comes from experience.  The strategic and tactical documents I give clients are roadmaps.  They probably believe they can find people with less experience and knowledge to follow that map.  They forget that the business road usually takes unanticipated turns after which it’s easy to become lost.  Who gets the blame?  The map maker (me!) so I’d like to be in the car with them to get them pointed back in the right direction.

A client paying for your advice is their skin in the game.  It also makes them pay attention.  I don’t like to spend my time providing guidance and observations that, ultimately, get ignored.  Inevitably the recipient makes the mistake(s) that I warned were going to be the outcome of their direction or decision. It is a waste of both of our time.

Your job is to remind them of the value (NOT the cost) of what you bring them and then to deliver.  The old saw about free advice usually being worth what you pay for it rings true to most clients.  To me as well.  You?

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May 21, 2015 · 11:17 am

Faust And Facebook

You might be aware that Facebook has started yet another new program with a few publishers.  Called “Instant Articles”, the program lets a select number of news organizations publish stories directly to Facebook and the publishers keep the ad revenue. There are nine launch partners, including BuzzFeed, The New York Times and NBC News.  If you use the Facebook app on an iPhone you might already have seen it.

Facebook logo

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A number of news reports have used the term “faustian” to describe the program and I agree.  You’ll recall the legend of Faust and his deal with the devil – he got something he wanted in return for the devil owning his soul (and eternal damnation!).  While it’s a bit of a stretch to equate Facebook with the devil, it’s an apt metaphor.  All publishers – especially those whose business models are dependent upon lots of content views – want greater visibility.  Facebook is the largest platform and in this case the publisher can monetize those views.  Makes sense, right?

Not really in my view.  Sure, if you’re happy with “one and done” traffic it’s fine but this is no way to build a loyal audience.  Many of the publishers I know count repeat visits as a KPI.  This doesn’t build that.  It’s especially bad if any of your model counts on subscription revenue.  The breadth and depth of your content offering – the quality that drives the justification for the subscription – is negated.

Facebook controls the terms of this news-publishing deal.  Ask any brand if they’ve experienced Facebook changing the game in the middle of play and they’ll say yes.  After all, this is the platform that encouraged brands to build pages and followings and then took away news feed access while encouraging ad spend.  Who is to say that this program won’t change again in a few months?  It’s especially troubling that news outlets will be able to publish so-called “branded content” directly to Facebook.  I’ve made my views on native ads that are indistinguishable from your own news content well-known.  Embedding them on Facebook makes them even more difficult to identify as sponsor messages (and who is to say when Facebook will demand their cut).

Don’t misunderstand.  I see high value in using Facebook both for publishing and for advertising.  I just think that abandoning the efforts to drive users to your own platform is ultimately self-defeating.  When you think about it, Facebook doesn’t produce content. They produce a platform but users and brands populate that platform with the real value – content. Companies that don’t produce value in the long run disappear and if you’ve put your eggs in the Facebook basket rather than continuing your own efforts, it really may be a deal with the devil.

Make sense?

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May 13, 2015 · 9:52 am

Your Own Deflategate

I’ll say right at the top I’m not a New England Patriots fan.  Being a loyal fan of the Michigan Wolverines, however, puts me into a state of cognitive dissonance over the Tom Brady “deflategate” issue.  I’m writing his bad behavior off to being immersed in a bad environment – he didn’t learn this stuff in Ann Arbor.  By the way – I’m amazed how some folks think he was suspended for conspiring to deflate the footballs.  As I understand it the issue is his lack of cooperation with the investigation and not his guilt or innocence with respect to the rules violations.

New England Patriots at Washington Redskins 08...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You might wonder why I’m bringing this up on a business blog.  I suspect there are many folks in the digital marketing business who are shaking their heads at what went on with the footballs.  Maybe there is a sense that cheating your way to a win diminishes both the win and the game itself.  Most of these folks would say they’d never do something like that and yet I’m willing to bet many do on a regular basis.

All of us in the digital media business are aware of fraud.  There are publishers who buy traffic which they know is not human traffic and which they turn around and sell on the ad exchanges in a form of arbitrage.  They might make a couple of hundredths of a cent on an impression but do it a million times a day and suddenly real money is involved.  It’s easy to spot anywhere in the media chain – the publisher sees it, the exchanges see it, I suspect the ad agencies see it and perhaps even the clients see it.  How?  Analytics.  When lots of your users are running a 10-year-old version of flash and a 5-year-old version of a browser (doesn’t happen in the real world, kids), someone is cheating.  If you’re buying really cheap traffic from someplace, you can assume it’s not human.  Yet no one is putting their hand in the air saying “I’m not going to take the money because I know it’s wrong.”  Like the Patriots, they just want to win.

The rage now is “viewability.” The problem is that the folks who are making money off of ad fraud – and the marketers who knowingly support it – will come up with a way to defeat the tactics to measure real ad views.  You don’t think any real marketer would do that?  Who is putting their ads on the ad injectors – the thieves who steal traffic from websites and layer their own ads on top?

There is an old expression in sports: “If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying hard enough.”  When the most penalized team in the NFL wins the Super Bowl (the Seahawks a year ago), what does that say about pushing the limits, which is what the Patriots were doing?  More importantly to your business, you need to think about how far you’re willing to go and to what degree you are willing to push the limits to win.  Personally I like to be able to look at myself in the mirror without shame.  You?

 

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