Lost in Translation: My Love of Social Media and Advertising and Why They Don't Go Home and Shag Like Rabbits.

They don't go home and screw uncontrollably like rabbits is because they want different things. Advertising wants control - social media want openness. Advertising wants logic - social media wants serendipity. Advertising wants planning - social media wants immediacy. Advertising is a top down hierarchy - and social media, aside from Zuckerberg's Facebook, is an inverted pyramid. Advertising is Mars - social media is Venus. And never the twain shall meet. Period, - or maybe we're getting to at least a comma 10 or 15 years on.

Oh the dinosaurs. Hope we can save them before they die.

And god knows, I love advertising - because I've worked in it for my entire adult life. I've done my shit detail - layouts for truly wretched writing, photocopies all night, whatever. I saw my first ad in the New York Art Directors Show Book, on page 3, right next to a Volkswagen ad - probably our greatest textbook study in the art. I've had work on the Super Bowl and then later, founded the first 100% foreign invested advertising agency in Korea. I've been awarded by plenty of shows. I get it.

And now I get social media. This blog (WWED) is the highest rated personal blog in Vietnam by Technorati. Peter Hirshberg, founder of Technorati, and I even tossed a few Red Bulls and Vodkas last year at DLD in Munich. The Wall Street Journal links WWED and so does the New York Times, The Huffington Post and New York Magazine. I guess that's good. Stop wait, reverse that. It is good.

And that brings us to my latest job - a consulting arrangement with one of the top advertising agencies in the world. Yes. And in what could only be described as a 'lost in translation' exchange from the start, with the agency, earnestly wanting to learn social media, but having a background in traditional media and me, trying to teach pigs to fly. Lesson #1: You're not a pig (remove all mirrors from room). Lesson #2: Give up. This ain't gonna happen. They say you can't teach old dogs new tricks and being a bit of an older dog myself, I'm not sure I believe in that so much, but sometimes to learn new tricks you have to unlearn some old ones.

Jason Falls illuminates another part of the challenge here:

"Part of the challenge for Agencies is the ability to "execute" in real time digital space. The social landscape requires a "person" to act and respond quickly to conversations. This requires that the person executing on digital communication be closely tied to the "persona" of the brand. There isn't time to make decisions by committee, or banter back and forth between client and agency personnel. The person/persona must understand the audience, the brand, and be trusted to act instantly.

I wish I had a fix-all answer to this - but all I have is a journey, and I suspect, that's a lesson all in itself.

No Respect

"Today, you can be a genius, write the great American novel, tell the truth, fight the good fight, do excellent work, be fiercely nice to people and love unconditionally  - but if you don't make a lot of money, nobody is ever going to respect you."- Travis

For more in the Travis Diaries, check here:

Sex: The Travis Diaries I
I'm a man, DAMMIT: The Travis Diaries II
Love: The Travis Diaries III
Tiger: The Travis Diaries IV
Ambivelence: The Travis Diaries V
Advertising People & Blogs: The Travis Diaries VI
What's Left?: The Travis Diaries VII
Year of the Tiger: The Travis Diaries VIII
She said: The Travis Diaries IX
Dreams: The Travis Diaries X
A Bad Day: The Travis Diaries XI
Svengali? The Travis Diaries XII
My Way: The Travis Diaries XIII

The Solution to the Problem is Not a Solution at all, it's a Process,

In working with a client recently on a social media project, I found myself spending an inordinate amount of time trying to explain how things worked on the Internet. From the company website, to their blog, to Facebook, to Twitter, LinkedIn and the myriad of aggregation sites that crawl the web daily looking for what they, and they are all different, consider 'news'. Personally, I thought my charts and graphs were amazing - but probably it was all a lot more complicated than the client and I needed to get our heads around the problem - uh, solution.

So I recalled a conversation with architect Daniel Libeskind on Discovery Channel recently where he described his firm's inability to win a certain project because the solution to the client's problem they proposed, was not a solution in the traditional sense at all, but an actual process in which human nature would change in relation to the architecture, as the architecture changed. This seemed to perplex his client. The solution was a process, a change in behavior, not a rock solid thing in a box.

For all intents and purposes, the Internet has changed the architecture of communications forever by changing the balance of power between what used to be the broadcaster and who used to be the viewer, listener or reader. Now the broadcasters and the broadcastees are on a more even footing, allowing conversation and interplay between the two. And so that has shaken the business planning of the companies who used to just make it all and ship it out the door. No waiting for 'likes' or 'comments' or 'friends'. Just wait for the sales numbers - and if that didn't work - try something else.

I used the chart above from David Armano of AdAge a few years ago to take the Vietnam Advertising Association to task for not having a website. They do now. But this simply chart illustrates the change in working process from old commercial communications to what is going on now. Now all us Internet gurus and clients need to figure out is how to get paid and how much one should pay for this new process of thinking.

I don't care how many hits this blog gets: How to write the best damn blog in the world X

I quote Seth Godin every once in a while because he has great things to say, every once in a while. Here's one about blogging and business.

"A blogger starts measuring pageviews and ends up racing to the bottom with nothing but scintillating gossip and pandering. Or, perhaps, he/she decides to use the blog as a platform to take herself and her readers somewhere they will be glad to go ... There's no rigid line between a job and art. Instead, there's an opportunity."

Becoming a highly rated blog is not only a matter of having the most readers. I value more having the most interesting and dedicated readers. In the last few weeks I've had some wonderful comments about what we publish here. Thank you all. Without readers, the writing wouldn't matter one little bit.



For more on blogs, blogging and bloggers, check here:

It's Good to be Loved - How to Write the Best Damn Blog in the World VI
Tell Me Your Secrets - How to Write the Best Damn Blog in the World V
Is Your Blog Working Hard Enough For Your Business? - How To Write the Best Damn Blog in the World IV
How (NOT) to Write the Best Damn Blog in the World III
Advertising People & Blogs - The Travis Diaries VI
How to Write the Best Damn Blog in the World II
Throw That Blog a Bone!
If Blogs Are Free Are They Worthless?
What If Gutenberg Had a Blog?
If You Like the Blog, Read the Book
2008 Annual Report - The Wild Wild East Dailies
Blog Redesign WWED
BarCamp Saigon 2008
Attraction vs. Conversion - How To Write the Best Damn Blog in the World
Are the Bloggerati Missing the Market?

Hacktivism against brands: Detri-viral Marketing III

"Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations, not nations."

Merriam Associates reports: "It was just a matter of time before the kinds of people who vandalized brand symbols at world economic summits resorted to brand cyber-vandalism. The Wikileaks hacktivists have targeted and threatened global brands like Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, Amazon, Twitter and Shell. Because of their symbolic power, brands are regularly co-opted to attract attention and dramatize political issues. That is how The Gap has become a symbol for sweatshops, McDonald's for the obesity epidemic, Walmart for labor violations and on and on. Many brands are more powerful than sovereign nations. Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are corporations, not nations."

My first attended discussion at the Vietnam Digital Marketing and Technology Conference was a really fast talking guy from Singapore who gave a very convincing presentation on how, over the last year, Nike won and Accenture lost by their corporate behaviour regarding Tiger Woods*. In terms of public sentiment only, Nike won favour by standing by Tiger Woods and Accenture (those lovely folks who used to be Arthur Anderson) lost. People all over the world vote with their wallet (or credit card) every day. Last year the gay website Fabulis, had their account frozen by CitiBank when a mid-level manager thought the website contained "objectionable content". It did not, unless of course, you are homophobic. "When telephone calls, emails and meetings failed to resolve the situation, Fabulis site owner Jason Goldberg started an online attack, blogging snippets of bank conversations and virally sharing their stonewalling decisions. Just twenty-four hours after Goldberg’s blog campaign began, Citibank recanted, issuing an email apology to Goldberg. Having created an online PR disaster for the bank, Jason then took his business and $625,000 account elsewhere.", reports Business Spectator.

Hacktivism, while mainly associated with the WikiLeaks story currently, can now be practiced by anyone with a computer, an opinion and a few others who agree with them - and all brands should very much be aware of that. I've coined it Detri-Viral marketing. Of course, the best defense is a pro-active offense. More on that here.

* BTW: As a man in China is perceived to be more powerful depending on the number of mistresses he maintains, Tiger's rep in China (Nike's biggest future market) went up, not down.

For more on digital marketing and social networking see:

Xing vs. LinkedIn: Round II
Trial and Error: The New Normal
What's Wrong With My Social Networking? Xing vs. LinkedIn I
Low Tech Germany. Who Knew?
Advertising People and Blogs
How to Write the Best Blog in the World
What If Gutenberg Had a Blog?
If Blogs Are Free Does That Make Them Worthless?
Detri-Viral Marketing II: The Top 10 Social Media Blunders
Bright Lights, Big Internet and the WWED
Saigon Digital Marketing Conference Successfully Avoids Plumbers Convention
A Tale of Many Marketing Conferences
Detri-Viral Marketing I: How Web 2.0 Can Go Against A Brand
Marketing Predictions for 2009
Barcamp Saigon 2008
"Ignore Everybody" is Born: A Plug for Hugh MacLeod
Are the Bloggerati Missing the Market? Asia has Risen,
Into the Gapinvoid - Web 2.0 Social Networking Born 20 Years Ago

Is your blog working hard enough for your business? - How to write the Best Damn Blog in the World V

Recently, I recommended to a business associate that they install a blog on their website. They responded as such:

"Actually we have a blog, and it was last updated last September ;). "

Following is a note I sent that associate. They had now become a potential client.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Bob;

And that's what most people say. But the problem is that the most popular blogs in the world, post at least once a day. On my own blog, I publish three times a week. And then I syndicate. Syndicate like crazy, which means broadcasting to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and a number of other news aggregation sites. In the last year, the Wild Wild East Dailies has been picked up by The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and The Huffington Post as a trusted news source, with links going directly back to my little ole blog, right here in Vietnam. Read this from Technorati's State of The Blogosphere 2010:

"no longer an upstart community, now with influence on mainstream narratives firmly entrenched, with bloggers still searching for the next steps forward. Bloggers’ use of and engagement with various social media tools is expanding, and the lines between blogs, micro-blogs, and social networks are disappearing. As the blogosphere converges with social media, sharing of blog posts is increasingly done through social networks"

This illustrates my key point: If you're not using your blog as a broadcasting and lead generation device, you're missing a huge opportunity. Huge. 65% of my hits come from other sites, and only 17% from search. LinkedIn is my top feeder.

I notice you have a Facebook page for your company and it's good. But do you know what that doesn't give you? It doesn't give you data. Mark Zuckerberg gets all your content anf data for free but you don't get anything. And you can't insert code on Facebook pages. (code that feeds data back to you) You can maybe tracks links to your site, but that's about it. If you took every post you made to your Facebook page and did it on your blog instead, things would work better, but in reverse. A post to the blog automatically goes to your Facebook page and then, correspondingly, out to the world - if, you configure the blog properly. And you get a central base, from which to collect data that YOU control, not Facebook.

I read your Facebook page and if that's you writing, you're pretty up on how social media is working, but it's not working to your benefit as much as it could be. Your blog could be a page on your website and be feeding people directly back to your site - instead of to Facebook where they get all your good data.

My blog, The Wild Wild East Dailies is rated #26,105 in the world. Ha, a joke you say? We'll, not considering that there are over 100 million blogs in the world. I'm in the top fraction of 1%. And blogs are tracked differently than websites. They can be identified by Google and other Bots that don't pick up your website.

Here are some of the stats I like:

Time on site:

	154	Less than 5 secs
	7	From 5 secs to 30 secs
	27	From 30 secs to 5 mins
	5	From 5 mins to 20 mins
	6	From 20 mins to an hour
	35	Longer than an hour

If I hear another web genius tell me how many 'uniques' they get to their site, I'm going to spit. Who cares? On my best day I accumulated over 1000 hits but what were they worth? Not much. Almost none of them converted into regular readers. I put something controversial and funny on the site and got attention. Then it went away. So what? What you and I want to do is build a dedicated, intelligent audience. A well structured blog can help you do that, build a subscriber list and induce loyalty among readers. You become an authority on the business - one other media sources can rely on. Not just a Facebook page.

Where do they come from?

The first two countries are not surprising, but the ever fluctuating list of those below always entertains me. One week Azerbajan was #3. H(how)TF did that happen? I have no idea, but it's cool to know.

	232	46.40%	Vietnam
	125	25.00%	United States
	14	2.80%	United Kingdom
	13	2.60%	Singapore
	12	2.40%	France
	12	2.40%	Canada
	10	2.00%	Australia
	9	1.80%	Germany
	9	1.80%	Korea, Republic Of
	8	1.60%	Taiwan
	7	1.40%	India
	5	1.00%	Austria
	4	0.80%	Netherlands
	4	0.80%	Hong Kong

More specifically, I like the cities. Historically I have a very strong base in Silicon Valley and tech areas on the west coast of the US. New York is always a leader (as I am from there), but I'm always surprised by some. This week it's Nice, France. Why? Dunno.

	214	42.80%	Ho Chi Minh City	Ho Chi Minh	Vietnam
	20	4.00%	New York	New York	United States
	14	2.80%			Vietnam
	11	2.20%	Singapore		Singapore
	11	2.20%	Washington	District Of Columbia	United States
	9	1.80%	Nice	Provence-alpes-cote D'azur	France
	7	1.40%	Coimbatore	Tamil Nadu	India
	7	1.40%	Karhyondong	Kyonggi-do	Korea, Republic Of
	7	1.40%	Taipei	T'ai-pei	Taiwan
	6	1.20%	London	London	United Kingdom
	5	1.00%	Vienna	Wien	Austria
	5	1.00%	Brisbane	Queensland	Australia
	4	0.80%	Englewood	Ohio	United States
	4	0.80%	Central District		Hong Kong
	4	0.80%	Los Angeles	California	United States

I say all of this, because I think I can add something to your mix, and help you guys gain control of and grow your audience.











Here's a couple of weeks on my site. It's not my best. Over time, I average 100 hits a day with 75% unique visitors but the read time is over 5 minutes each, so I'm gaining traction with people who really care. And Facebook doesn't tell you that when people click on stuff you post. A blog - your blog, will.

So that's what I'd like to talk to you about. Configuring your blog and giving you a traffic boost and data you can use to grow business by growing your audience.

To configure the blog and get it connected properly will take me a month - and I'll give you all the instructions, connecting sites and features that I install. You and I will share common password and you can change it after I'm off the project. And my fee for this is extremely reasonable. Less than $.

After that, I would recommend that I maintain and grow the site for six months. If I don't grow the base and data, you don't pay. And that would be a monthly service fee for six months. Not much can be accomplished in any less time. We would need to talk about a posting schedule before I have a fee on that, but again, very manageable and a small fraction of any employee's time.

You've already stated that your staff is dedicated to client work and things like home maintenance get put on the back burner, sometimes for over a year. Outsource this one, and it gets done. And it gets done efficiently and produces results.

Let's discuss more.

David

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For more on blogs, blogging and bloggers, check here:

Tell Me Your Secrets - How to Write the Best Damn Blog in the World V
Is Your Blog Working Hard Enough For Your Business? - How To Write the Best Damn Blog in the World IV
How (NOT) to Write the Best Damn Blog in the World III
Advertising People & Blogs - The Travis Diaries VI
How to Write the Best Damn Blog in the World II
Throw That Blog a Bone!
If Blogs Are Free Are They Worthless?
What If Gutenberg Had a Blog?
If You Like the Blog, Read the Book
2008 Annual Report - The Wild Wild East Dailies
Blog Redesign WWED
BarCamp Saigon 2008
Attraction vs. Conversion - How To Write the Best Damn Blog in the World
Are the Bloggerati Missing the Market?