Chatterbox Marketing

Twitter following...quid pro quo, or quid no go?

After several false starts, I have finally gotten on the Twitter bandwagon with regularity.  I love the ability to riff thoughts and share websites and content without having to spend a full blog post to do so.  The one issue that I'm really struggling with is who do I choose to follow?  Obviously, I follow people that I want to follow, but what about people that choose to follow me?  Should I feel compelled to follow back??

Many of the people that follow me right now are internet marketers and promoters of something.  I love finding out about products and services, but I don't want to follow someone for that exclusive purpose.  I guess the first thing I look for is what relevant content are they providing beyond their own product?  If you want me to follow you, show me have something or are someone worth following. 

Wesley Fryer has some interesting words about Twitter following that I agree with:

    "This person (whose identity I have hidden in the screensnap, because I don’t intend to criticize this         person individually, rather I want to highlight and discuss their behavior) is following over 3000 people.     Their Twitter updates seem to have nothing to do with education or other issues about which I’m             interested, but rather seem to be entirely self-promotional. That behavior is not “wrong” or illegal, of         course, but certainly defines this person as someone I am likely not interested in “following” on Twitter."

These are wise words and worth considering as you begin to build your own Twitter philosophy.  If you have any good tips on following, please contribute in the comments.  I will look forward to some good information.

Getting to NO!

As part of my continuing education (I'm finishing my MBA as I work full-time), I am currently enrolled in a negotiation class.  One of the recent exercises that we completed is on that I would recommend for anyone...especially those of you that negotiate with any regularity.  Note: If you are married, you are in negotiations every day.  

This exercise required the participant to acquire nos by making requests that would likely generate a no.  At the very least, you are asking for things repeatedly until you received a no.  This is more challanging than you might imagine, because you are putting yourself in a vulnerable position...nobody like rejection.  Here are the three components of the exercise.

Part A - Make requests until you have collected 10 nos.  Keep a written record of each request you make with the response you receive and any meaning or interpretation you perceive.

Part B - Pick on of your requests that received a no, and make that same request of the same person a second time.  If the second request receives a no, wait a little and make a third request.  Keep a written record of the responses.

Part C - Pick at least one of the requests for which you got a no, and ask the person who said no, "What would have to happen for you say yes to my request?" 

You will be amazed at what happens.  People just don't like saying no.

I found this to be an excellent exercise in asking for things that you want but might not normally ask for for fear of rejection.  Once I got in the rhythm of asking for things as part of the assignment, I became significantly more comfortable with asking, and less uncomfortable with getting a negative response.  I know several people that have a great deal of confidence asking for what they want and more often than not, they get what they asked for, or at the very least, something that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

In my case, I asked Directv for some freebies and got a credit instead.  They weren't going to offer it to me, but when I asked the gave me something.  I also was able to meet with a key decision maker when I just went to an appointment with an assistant.  (Actually, numbers 1, 2, and 3 in the chain of command in one meeting)  We'll see what develops from that meeting, but it's looking good.

Now I'm trying to find strategies for 'getting to no' in a way that might postition me for what I really want.

I suggest that you be bold in your requests...you never know what you might get.

Playing the iPhone market

I have to admit that I was feeling a bit smug when I sold my iPhone on Friday knowing that Steve Jobs was going to likely introduce a new model with lots of upgrades on Monday.  I figured that somebody would not realize that this was on its way and I could maximize my 'profit' with a little timeliness.  So when Steve announces that the new phone is going to be released at a price significantly lower than what I made selling it on Ebay I went into a little happy dance.  But after some time and knowing what Apple's sales strategy for the new model, I'm wondering if I couldn't have made a whole lot more. 

The word on the street right now is that Apple/AT&T are going to require iPhone 3G buyers to activate their new phones on the AT&T network at the time of purchase.  For all of the propellerheads that want an iPhone that has been jailbroken to be used on T-Mobile (here in the States), that will require the 2G model.  With the supply of available 2G models dwindling, the price on Ebay should be going up like oil. 

Yikes, nothing like the combination of sellers remorse and greed to take me from happy dancing to headbanging (on the wall).

New Addition to the Family

Terribly sorry for the time off...we were blessed to add a new member to the family.   Prior to the joyous occasion we had a couple of false labors...so I'm not around very much to post.

Be looking for some great new content early next week.

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.

Ken

P.S.  I'd like to introduce you to Joshua Stewart
8 lbs. and 21.5 inches.

Guitar Hero = Physiological Trigger

Am I right or am I right or am I right?  If you have and/or play Guitar Hero are you noticing that the classic rock songs that you play in the game are being used in big television commercials...like, A LOT?!?  It seems like now when I forget to fast-forward my DVR through the commercials I'm absently moving my left fingers and thinking "green, yellow, red, green...". 

What a brilliant move by commercial marketers.  Use a song that is a) popular (historically) and b) so ingrained in our conscience because of video games that we have an instant connection. 

Next time I create a commercial, I'm going to use Heart's Barracuda.  That will be awesome!

(un)Ethical Marketing? -- Part 1 -- Spam Postings

***Note - This is as bad as it got for us.  This was not a black and white issue as far as I'm concerned.  Tomorrow we start "graying" it up a little.  This is just to get the transparency and conversation flowing.

We are taking a couple of days to share examples of marketing campaigns that have strayed into gray areas where ethics are concerned.  The examples that I'll use are campaigns that I was directly involved in but when we started, back in 1999, the world of buzz building was the wild west.  We made it up as we went along and made a lot of mistakes. 

In 1999 Chatterbox Marketing was formed to create buzz marketing campaigns for a number of brands.  These campaigns consisted of posting messages in forums and other community sites.  At that time, it was really a matter of posting as many messages as possible...across as wide a swath of our target market as possible.  All of the projects that we worked on were entertainment related...niche films, CD releases, DVD's etc., so our targets were pretty focused.  I would hire a team of people to post messages and each week we would put a report together for our clients of our online activities.  Pretty basic stuff...the problem is we were spamming...ugh, double ugh.

This was not intentional on my part...everyone was instructed that this was a highly conversational medium, but we couldn't find a way to balance the number of posts/conversations we needed to seed and quality of the discussions we were engaged in. 

To make it worse, we generated some success.  Our first film opened in the Top 10 and our online campaign was written up in the major media (USA Today, NY Times, etc.)  Talk about a mixed message.

If I had to do it all over again I would have engaged in a much tighter audience.  The best of the best.  Get them talking...make some buzz, turn them into sneezers...everything that we know now as totally obvious.  I'm pretty certain that we could have had similar success, but we tried to work so hard...we forgot to work smart.

Have you made similar errors in campaigns that you've worked in?  How do you balance hard work and smart work?

(now lets pray against lawsuits and flame-throwers...I think this is important enough to share and discuss)

Examples of Stealth Marketing

Last month Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba from Church of the Customer were kind enough to allow me to repost what I think are very important blog posts regarding ethical behavior in word-of-mouth marketing...and marketing in general, for that matter. 

These reposts have generated a great deal of traffic from organic search from Google and researches on this site, so I can only assume that it is of interest to people as they put marketing plans together.  I want to spend a couple of days going over my thoughts on ethical behavior in word-of-mouth campaigns and stealth marketing campaigns.  In fact, I hope to share some personal struggles that I went through in a few campaigns that we did. 

So in the next couple of days here is a list of what we'll be discussing (in no particular order), but more importantly, I'd love to hear examples that you've worked on or know about.

Possible topics:

1. Radio Disney  (one of our campaigns)
2. Pheromone enhance towelettes (a campaign that we chose not to participate in)
3. Marketing to moms...when you're a guy.  (The converse would be an interesting discussion as well)
4. Honesty in relationship, opinion and identity (props to Ben McConnell)
5. Transparency, starting conversation and defensive shields (props to Jackie Huba)

3 Reasons an Artist Should Oversee Their Brand

Note:  My Powerbook is D.E.A.D. so I'm having to write and maintain my online life from other computer sources...not too easy.  Thank goodness for social networking and bookmark sites and an iPhone.
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I have been working in the music industry for many years, primarily in sales and marketing.  I've also had many friends that were artists (singers, songwriters, filmmakers, etc.) that worked so hard to "get signed." However, once they were signed these artists often laid off the pedal and abdicated their brand to some marketing managers and third-party publicists hired by the labels.  In most cases, my friends didn't understand why their projects crashed and burned...with the labels failing them and hurting the brand they worked to hard to build...enough to get signed in the first place. 

Here are three reasons why any artist should maintain their own presence online utilizing social networks and other tools.  You may get too busy to maintain all of these sites daily and it may require some help from a third-party...but you need to oversee these closely and directly, often getting your face out there yourself regularly.

1.  Keeps you in touch.   You are working very hard to build a groundswell of fans and momentum toward your projects.  These fans, friends and family want to see you succeed as much as you want to succeed.  (Don't we all want to be associated with success?  It makes us feel like we know what is poplular...gives us a little 'cool equity')  Anyway, when my friends have given up control of their fan base, very few labels and marketers have known what to do with it...often they just copy other campaigns.  In many cases, you won't have a say with what a label decides to do with lots of aspects of a marketing campaign...but if you control your fan base, they can't take that away...unless you let them.

2.  Keeps your ear to the ground.  By maintaining your own fan base you are getting what big companies pay a lot of money for...market research.  Granted, in marketing-speak, this would be a self-selected group (they are choosing to be a part of your base because they like you) so everything that is said needs to be taken with a grain of salt.  But, you will still be able to hear some wonderful recon (military term) information from all of your fans out there on the front lines.  It's why studios do so many preview of upcoming movies...they need to make sure that audiences care about what their seeing.  You want your audience to care about you, and if that requires some minor tweaks, you'll be in a position to do that.

3.  Gives you the ability to respond quickly.  Much like #2, in a more traditional artist/marketer relationship, changes are made too late to do any good.  You want your ears to the ground so you can make the necessary changes well in advance of possible negative outcomes.  In this digital distribution era, speed is EVERYTHING.  You don't need to rush your product to market, but you need to be able to adjust everything after that much faster than in the past.

A good place to start is by finding artists that you trust and respect...find out what they are doing that is successful with their online brand and marketing message.  Is there an area that you can mimic?   Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, just don't plagiarize.  Call it an homage...   

Welcome Alltop Users!!

If you're not familiar with Alltop, you must go check it out.  Looks like marketing.alltop.com might be open soon...or maybe you can visit there right now.  ;)

Here is Alltop's purpose...

We help you explore your passions by collecting stories from “all the top” sites on the web. We’ve grouped these collections — ”aggregations” — into individual Alltop sites based on topics such as environment, photography, science, celebrity gossip, fashion, gaming, sports, politics, automobiles, and Macintosh. At each Alltop site, we display the latest five stories from thirty or more sites on a single page — we call this “single-page aggregation.”

You can think of an Alltop site as a “dashboard,” “table of contents,” or even a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet. To be clear, Alltop sites are starting points — they are not destinations per se. The bottom line is that we are trying to enhance your online reading by both displaying stories from the sites that you’re already visiting and helping you discover sites that you didn’t know existed. In this way, our goal is the “cessation of Internet stagnation.”

The Importance of Self-Referrals -- Priming the Pump

Showbiz types (filmmakers, singers, bands, etc.) that are engaging in an internet marketing strategy  on there own in this Web 2.0 economy often struggle with a big marketing question..."Is it ok for me to submit my own material (blog postings, viral videos, pictures) to the social networking sites or does someone else need to submit it for me"?  Or, "Can a grassroots marketing strategy begin with me, the artist"?

My hunch is that the question is being asked out of good faith...nobody wants to be associated with spamming or some sort of unethical marketing if they intend on having a reasonable career.  Secondly, I think that there is a thought that the submission might be taken more seriously if it came from a third party. 

To the first point, if I'm not submitting my material when I start out, nobody will.  I would offer that it is like booking gigs in coffee houses when you start a singer/songwriter career.  Just because you strap on a guitar doesn't mean that CAA booking agents are going to start killing themselves to get you booked...you had to beat the street to make it happen...YOURSELF.  So start submitting your material and let snowball start rolling.  It will take a long time, in most cases, so be patient.

Secondly, it may or may not be taken more seriously if your material is posted by someone else, but that is why we begin to network socially in the first place.  Build your network, submit your own material and soon others will be doing it with you.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about three reasons you should be responsible for your own brand in the social network and other grassroots campaigns...until then...

** Image from Darren Barefoot