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By Vegasbab, February 6, 2010 7:44 am

It always irks me a bit when posts talk about social media not delivering on “promises”, that it “disappointingly” hasn’t grown up yet and it’s not an “enterprise” function of a business because it resides in marketing. All three statements point the blame to social media and some non-existent enterprise department. All three statements are baloney. Social media hasn’t delivered nor grown up because as marketers it’s YOUR fault. Social media hasn’t been seen as more than a marketing function because marketers don’t see it as more than that.

Let’s tackle the easy one first – social media not delivering on promises. Bullshit. Total and complete bullshit. It hasn’t delivered because (a) YOU (aka the marketer) didn’t set campaign objectives and (b) YOU didn’t come up with a measurement. If you launch a campaign with no goal and then tell your executives, “Well… it did great! We got lots of positive mentions.” Ummmm… I’d think social media failed too. But, in reality, YOU failed. You failed to set expectations and you failed to sell how successful the campaign was.

Now, onto the one that requires a little more thinking. Why does social media often sit with marketing? Well, not only do marketing departments market, but they also hold the keys to the brand and ultimately what an entire company embraces, or doesn’t. As the head of marketing, not only are you responsible for external marketing, but you’re also responsible for INTERNAL marketing. Think about it. What’s your company culture? Who came up with the tagline? Who designed the materials to internally promote that tagline? (Side note: Yes, I’m well aware that simply having a tagline does not equal company culture.) Aside from the President, which Executive is in charge of crafting that message? Oh yes, no company-wide initiative would work without the support of ALL Executives, but, who’s in charge of selling them on say, social media as a company-wide business plan? YOU. The Marketer. If ALL your employees aren’t on board – and I’m not saying they have to “get it” like “we” do – then YOU have failed, not social media.

It’s tough. Back in the day, marketers only had to market. Or, as agencies like to believe, marketers sat back and drank while the agency did the heavy lifting. But, not today. Today, the role of a marketing department has evolved into so much more. Today, it’s time for marketers to grow up. Today, it’s time for more marketers to start leading and stop “just” marketing. If marketers can’t do that, then social media is never going to “grow up”.

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By Vegasbab, December 13, 2009 9:56 pm

Foursquare and how people are using it intrigues me to no end. From a personal standpoint, it’s creepy as hell.

Here’s some of the things that make me scratch my head:

• People will “friend” anyone, including brands. Why? It’s amazing that people are okay with friending random people, but don’t want targeted ads. The idea of privacy has certainly come a long way.
• Taking privacy a step further, most accounts are tied to a cell phone, email address or both. Really? You’re going to open up your personal cell to random people?
• With twitter, you often hear, “Why should I join? I don’t care what you’re eating for lunch or the rest of your mindless dribble.” Yet, Foursquare is EXACTLY that. People (including myself) update when they’re at the grocery store, gym, Starbucks, work, etc. Maybe I don’t follow enough people, but rarely does someone give a “shout-out”, let alone a shout-out that includes a link to an interesting article or something funny. What do the shout-outs usually include? The mindless dribble people give as the reason for not liking twitter
• Sure, many argue that with a tighter circle of friends (assuming you only friend people you know), your message is more impactful. But, when will the messages matter enough to be important?

From a business standpoint, I LOVE Foursquare. There are certainly some great opportunities, especially as more people join and the Foursquare team continues to make updates and open up their API. However, I don’t think we’ll see people abandon Twitter to solely use Foursquare any time soon. But, I do see both of them playing very nicely together.

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By Vegasbab, December 6, 2009 1:24 pm

Every once in awhile, I enjoy reminding myself it’s okay to not keep up. Yes, it’s important to stay up to date with some of the latest and greatest, but, you also have a valuable and existing toolkit just waiting to be tweaked. As Bill Marriott says, “Success is never final. We can always do better with what we already have.”

In his post, Stop Looking for the Next Twitter, David Armano, puts it succinctly – “‘yesterday’s Twitter’ needs some care and feeding before you start looking for the next Twitter.”

Trust me, spinning your wheels looking for what’s next isn’t going to generate as much ROI as tweaking your current path to conversion or being more strategic about your customer relationship management (CRM). Make fixing your current strategy a top priority, and put trying to figure out the next “big” thing on a back burner. Unless of course, your current strategy is already 110% perfect

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By Vegasbab, December 5, 2009 6:16 am

I loved this post so much, that it was totally worth re-posting here. I never quite know how to explain what I do, but this is a good start

This post is for my Dad.
I don’t think he understands my job.
I work in advertising.
On the account side.
A lot of times people ask me what I do.
Here’s what I tell them:

When Churchill retired from politics he tried painting.
He set up his easel in his garden.
He got just the right size canvas.
He organized all his paints and brushes.
He’d chosen a perfectly comfortable stool.
He made sure everything was absolutely right.
Then he tried to decide where to start on the painting.
He stared at the pristine, white canvas.

Should he start in one area and work his way across?
Or should he sketch in the rough outline first?
Should he try to include the whole landscape?
Or should he pick one particular part to concentrate on?
How to begin exactly?

Two hours later his wife came out with a cup of tea.
He hadn’t painted a thing.
He was still sitting there thinking.
The canvas was still perfectly white.

His wife asked him why he hadn’t painted anything.
He said he couldn’t decide where to start.
So she picked up a brush and painted a huge squiggle in the middle of the canvas.
Churchill went ballistic.

“What are you doing, you’ve ruined a perfectly good canvas.”
She said, “Well now you’ll just have to fix it won’t you.”
And he started to fix the mess.
Scraping off the paint, and painting over it.
And pretty soon he’d painted his first landscape.

See what was stopping Churchill was knowing how to start.
What his wife did was take the start-point away.
She gave him a problem to fix instead.
The man who could lead Britain in a world war didn’t know what to do with a blank canvas.
Give him a problem to fix, a massive mess that no one else could sort out.
Fine.

But how do you start when there is no problem?
Creative people are good at fixing problems.
Good at responding.
Not so good at creating from nothing.
With no brief, no direction, no ideas, nothing to get hold of.

So that’s what I do. I draw squiggles on a blank canvas.

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By Vegasbab, October 26, 2009 6:30 pm

Over the last week, I’ve been inundated with the statistic that only 14% of advertising is trusted. But, Word of Mouth (WOM) is trusted WAY more.

Here’s my question… when do we stop trusting Blogs, or Word of Mouth for that matter? With the ridiculous amount of kick backs and marketers being encouraged to utilize sponsored posts, get in bed with bloggers vs. doing “traditional” online banners, etc. when do we stop trusting even our friends? Even with full disclosure, when do the posts we write and things we tweet just become Blogvertising? And yes, I made up that word. Well, maybe it’s already out there, but I’ve never heard it. I wouldn’t want to plagiarize anyone

Okay, back to my point… even if we fully disclose one post, are we writing the next post to get a brand’s attention? Are we hoping that Brand XYZ is reading this and decides to offer us something, you know like a free vacuum? Are we writing a post with the expectation of better customer service?

Like I’ve said in the past, this whole new era of Blogvertising concerns me. It especially concerns me after seeing the rampant sense of entitlement from Bloggers attending BlogWorld. Yes, yes, businesses should move to a social business design, blah, blah, blah. But, as a marketer, I’m in the business of making money. Giving my product away to everyone who feels entitled to a freebie does not equal a profit.

So, where will all this Blogvertising take us?

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By Vegasbab, October 20, 2009 9:27 am

I love Augmented Reality. Seriously, the thought of doing something with AR makes me salivate, even if penetration is next to nil.

But, will it end up like Second Life? When Second Life debuted, it was touted as “huge” and “game changing.” The same words and feelings are starting to surround AR. Layar cofounder Maarten Lens-FitzGerald is quoted in Fast Company as saying, “Augmented reality is going to be huge. It might even be as big as the Web.”

No one said that about Twitter or Facebook. In fact, many still poo poo those sites. But, both have far out lived and outgrown Second Life.

Will AR end up as just the flavor of the day? A novelty? Or, will marketers and consumers get smart and use it to its fullest potential?

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By Vegasbab, October 6, 2009 10:53 pm

To say that this week’s been craptastic, would be an understatement. Then, the fabulous Vegas Exposed campaign debuted.

Originally, I thought it was a “special” campaign courtesy of R&R Partners and LVCVA. I can’t begin to tell you how thrilled I was that my hotel room tax dollars were helping pay for this campaign.

But, then it hit me. It was not an LVCVA debacle. Vegas.com was simply following in their beloved footsteps. And, my love for the campaign grew. Ahh, where to begin?

1. WTF. Could Mirage’s logo be any bigger?
2. Where’s the call to action? Oh, wait, it’s below the fold. Why would you ever put it in the main video? What about a CTA to book a room or show ticket? Hell, I’ll even take “Learn More” for $200.
3. Their YouTube Channel indicates that people didn’t bother watching more than one to two of the nine videos already posted. Approximately 15 more are being posted over the next three weeks. Anyone want to take a gamble at how many of those will be watched?

Must be nice to be a Brand Marketer who isn’t held accountable for anything that resembles a real ROI. And yes, I’m jealous

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By Vegasbab, September 20, 2009 9:57 pm

I know, I’m using a Sprint tag line as my title to showcase an AT&T commercial. Ironic, huh Regardless, I love the ease in which this commercial exemplifies how today’s technologies help people connect faster and easier than ever before. In this example the social net is used for good. But, what happens when it’s used for other things? What impact is it having on business models and marketing? Will we see the “big” shift that everyone is starting to buzz about?

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By Vegasbab, August 18, 2009 6:47 am

Last week, the article Where are the Women in Tech and Social Media created quite the buzz. The author argued that while women made up 50% of social media / internet users, on average, only 25% were speakers at these conferences. The author argued for more diverse speakers, aka she wanted more women speakers. Since she was petitioning due to a specific conference, I have a feeling the post was  a little biased Really though, who still goes to a conference with “Web 2.0″ in the name?

Of course, in the other camp you had the people vehemently arguing for no quotas; that any choice should be based on the quality of work submitted. Get real.

Here’s the thing. I don’t wholeheartedly agree with either of them. Here’s a few whys:

• - If people / conference leaders truly wanted to judge solely on the body of work, then the presentations should be submitted stripped of any identifying information. If not, then you have biases galore. Think about it. If Chris Brogan submitted the ugliest, worst presentation but it had his name all over it, would you still vote for him to speak? I’m guessing yes. Now, take that same hideous presentation and strip his name away. Would the presentation get a “yes” vote? I’m thinking not.
• - In a similar vein as the above point, what’s the difference between gender biases and biases towards friends or people you want a favor from? How many friends and/or idols of conference organizers are speaking at that next conference for this reason?

How I see it? Who cares HOW you got in? Race, color, gender, friend, celebrity, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is if you can cut it once you’re there. If you can’t, both you and everyone in the audience will know it. A great example… thanks to Title IX, a lot of female athletes got scholarships, myself included. At the time, were all of them fully qualified? Would they have gotten the scholarship if they had to be evenly split between males and females? No. But, the ones who worked their asses off? The ones that made it to Olympic Trials or placed at Nationals? Yes, in the end, they deserved it. They proved their worth. Would they have gotten a chance to prove themselves if not for a bias? I doubt it.

The lesson? Stop trying to control the biases. Stop worrying about HOW people got in the door because of who they knew or their gender. Start worrying about what they do AFTER they’re in. The strong ones? They’ll rise to the top. The weak ones? They’ll weed themselves out all by themselves.

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By Vegasbab, August 7, 2009 7:32 am

This post, Don’t Keep Up with Social Media, had a great messsage and one worth following:

Don’t Keep Up

While valid, fun and worth watching from the corner of your eye, it’s silly to chase and try every new beta invite. For most brands, that’s not where the massive reach is. If new technologies ever reach the mass, well, it’ll be YEARS from now.

Stop chasing. Start focusing on the business problems and solutions for today. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll get ahead of some real issues.