I often get teased about being an Eagle Scout. When you were off playing sports, taking violin lessons, or sleeping away weekends in high school, I was the dork who was at a Camporee, tying knots, teaching first-aid, and yes, even walking the occasional senior citizen across the street…
But one thing that Boy Scouts did teach me was, obviously, their motto- “Be Prepared”.
For marketing and social media types, being prepared is one of the key ingredients for success. Here’s why.
1. At some point, you are going to need (and want) your network of friends, fans, followers and supporters to be there for you. If someone rants on your product or service online somewhere, wouldn’t you want these people going to bat for you? If you’ve cultivated this network online, they will. What are you doing now to cultivate those relationships?
2. If you’ve just met someone at a trade show and they want to learn more about your product or service, why not send them to your blog instead of your website. At your blog, you’re wowing your viewers with oodles of interesting content, probably have some great testimonials, and real-life interactions of your customers engaging with and talking about your industry. That’s credibility, and a lot more interesting that an static website that gets updated once a quarter.
3. If you and your company are tapped into Social Media, you should be well aware of what people are saying about you. You’re constantly listening. You’re taking the pulse of what’s happening in your space. If your competitor has just launched a new service, you already know about it, because well, you’re prepared.
Remember all that hype around the iPhone 4? Biggest product launch ever, Apple and AT&T websites being crushed by demand, long lines at the store? Well, in the world of social media, a similar thing happened last week- the launch of FlipBoard, the “world’s first social magazine”.
The hype has died down a bit, and I’ve had a chance to download this application and play with it. Here is a review, followed by a quick video.
The Basics
Flipboard is a new, free app available exclusively on the iPad (for now). The Flipboard app essentially turns your time on facebook or twitter into a dynamic and visually stunning experience. The application turns all of those tweets, updates, photos and links from your social circle into an intuitive, easy-to-read format. Flipboard also has “channels” for lots of other content, like technology, tech influencers, food, sports, etc. These channels, like the Facebook and Twitter channels are vetted and shared by chosen “experts” and influencers in the space. If you’re confused, don’t worry, that’s what the video is for. Take a look.
(Before we evaluate Flipboard, it should be noted that Flipboard doesn’t seem like a one hit wonder. Take a quick look at their investors, and they are a legitimate offering. The co-founders of Facebook, Twitter, Ashton Kutcher and Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. Pretty impressive bunch.)
The Pros
- Intuitive and very easy to use. It is the perfect app for consuming media. It fits right into the Ipad’s goal of being the “couch technology”. Something to do in your leisure time (if you have any left). On the couch, waiting to board a plane, at doctor’s office, before you go to bed, etc. I think it’s ideal for those 15-30 minute stretches of time between activities.
- Personalized for you. As mentioned before, it’s an experience for YOU. Its’ your social sphere and all of it’s related content delivered directly to you- when and where you want it.
- Advertising opportunities for “visual” brands. If you are Hermes, the Gap, a luxury safari company, or a gourmet food company, it’s hard to tell your story in 140 characters, blog posts or status updates. You need a visually stunning way to present your brand, and here is a perfect opportunity to do that. With the format of Flipboard, it allows big space for imagery (advertisements!) to tell a company story.
The Cons
I’ll call this “opportunities for improvement” :-)
- Content needs to be fresher. It seems as if Flipboard only refreshes your Facebook/Twitter feed once or twice a day. According to their Twitter stream- they’re working on this
- Why isn’t Linkedin involved? They should be. Maybe because of the investors? ;-)
- Is this legal? For the other “sections” Flipboard essentially scrapes the web for good content. If you are reading a NYTimes article on Flipboard and click on an a Flipboard-sponsored ad, why should Flipboard get the money? Its not their content to begin with, right?. For more on this read Joel Johnson’s excellent article.
- Other Sections need some work. When you first set up Flipboard, you can add 7 other “sections” of content. Food, NYT, TED, sports. etc. For now, avoid the Flipboard-branded channels.
For example, the sports channel I chose kept feeding me stories about tennis. Not that I don’t like tennis, but 7 tennis stories in a row, and I was immediately turned off.
- Limited interaction possibilities. It must be pointed out again that this application is for consumption, not interaction. If you want to add a new tweet, make a status update on facebook, you can’t.
What’s Next?
I think this is a watershed moment for publishers, and they should take note. Flipboard makes consuming media personal and tailored to you, which is the holy grail of publishing. If you could wake up every morning and go to ONE place for all of your personal and professional content, wouldn’t you? This is like what iGoogle and MyYahoo was ten years ago, only much much better. It’s new content delivered to you that’s always fresh, delivered in a refreshing, “consumable” way, and now, it’s mobile.
What do you think? Is this Flipboard thing here to stay?
Twitter is cracking down on spam. (Check out the awesome graph in this ReadWriteWeb article!) Twitter reported a week ago that the percentage of spam tweets per day is currently 1% or less. That’s great news for anyone trying to search Twitter for information or marketing leads.
Facebook also announced stricter rules for its two-year-old advertising service. The company is now using a “part human, part automated” system of assessing its engagement ads. Viewers can now approve or disapprove of the ad and say why. The system will reject ads that use “arbitrary profile-based copy” or false incentives to attract clicks.
This has two effects:
For the business- Click through rates are going to drop. CPM’s for mid-sized companies trying to get some headway are going to obviously suffer- at least in the short term.
For the consumer- Good news. You’ll get less of those spammy “try viagra”, ”flatten those abs” ads targeted towards you because of age or gender.
Remember in the early days of SEO when companies gamed the Google search algorithims by stuff their site full of keywords, tags, and metatags? Google smartened up and changed their search algorithims. Facebook is now smartening up too after seeing their ad platform get abused by spammers. This time they’re letting technology and the users help redefine appropriate advertisements.
So, this makes me want to throw out three statements for general consumption:
- What will spammers target next- will it be FourSquare or Flickr?
- Since Facebook’s 400 million plus members have the ability to rate/assess advertisements, will Google try to do the same thing with Buzz or something similar?
- Will the newly empowered users of the social media universe be able to eradicate spam all together?!!
