Ad Sales Blog

Facebook is for old fogies, white people, pigs, beginners, and 70 others

Here's the thing about social media, people feel they have a personal relationship with the tools. Take Facebook. Look at the many ways users describe it:

Facebook Is...for Old Fogies, for white people, for killing Myspace, for losers, not for business, for professional networking, beginners, pigs, young and the young at heart, amputees, idiots

Facebook is a... big employee distraction, popularity contest, productivity killer

Facebook is like... Ikea, the borg, a gossipy friend with no interesting information, Hotel California, VHS tape,  grade school lunch room, haircut, breeder reactor of solipsistic fatuity,  perpetual wedding reception, bookshop where everyone browses and no one buys anything, Sci Fi fetus that grows into an adult in just under a week, new girlfriend fun at first but then she starts to irritate you and becomes boring and bitchy, like a big drunken game of strip poker that seems like fun at the time, but which immediately leads to regrets about revealing too much too quickly to people you hardly know, woman today, worldwide online phonebook with pictures, except way more intrusive, really good piece of chocolate or a bag of those great salt and vinegar potato chips, candy cake, beautiful and attractive, phone tap, bigger and messier party, with a cacophony of noise and social activity, but nothing that you will remember the next day, drug, giant reality show, mold growing in a petri dish, stodgy great-uncle showing you his collection of card tricks in the trophy room, good pub - noisy, chaotic, and full of conversations from all over the spectrum, seaside condo...that you sometimes have to invite your in-laws to, good mullet,  baby spewing four-letter words – adorably hilarious, even if others object, modern day goldfield: hundreds of thousands of new prospectors stampede onto the site daily riddled with gold fever, creepy and pointless videogame where people collect every person they've ever met, then waste their time spying on all the dumb bullshit they do all day, BBQ in the backyard with your friends, completely personalized National Inquirer about your friends – and the amazing aspect is that everything there is self-published, really expensive all-in-one phone that has a camera, a web browser, and email, but because they’re all squashed into a phone the camera is crappy, the browser’s crappy, and the email’s crappy, giant shopping list with enough personal details to customize the recruitment, deep well that you throw all of your available free time into, delicious beverage that somehow makes you thirstier, even as it tastes so good, person who diggs fastfoods, it's getting bigger by the day, security blanket for your annoying bullshit, it creates a bubble where it's perfectly acceptable to let 300 people know you just when to the bathroom and your pee smells like Corn Pops, girl who wears more and more make-up every time you see her. And you never were that into her, really

Please add your own...

Media buyers: blogs thumbs up, Twitter thumbs down

Question: Why should we care what media buyers think about social media tools? Because unlike most of us whose vote on these services is little more than a popularity contest, media buyers vote with ad dollars.

Twitter may be the hot topic in the press but the people buying ads that support a lot of online media aren't buying it. Media buyers spend their clients money with an eye toward communication goals, not buzz. Where they vote with their ad dollars will help some media grow and others fail. 

Media Life, one of the top websites for media buyers, recently surveyed their visitors.

More than three quarter's see little use for Twitter:

Finish the statement: "Twitter is,"
52% For twits. I predict we'll look back on this silly craze as the Friendster of 2009. It holds little promise for advertisers (or anyone else)."

25% "A great way to market and do market research. You receive feedback on events and ideas in real time; it's really the future of word-of-mouth advertising."

24% "Still a mystery to me. It's gaining popularity like crazy, but I'm still having trouble figure out how it could help my clients."

Looking ahead, they see search and video as the most promising new media option, social networks networks follow. Again, they show little use for Twitter.
 
Which new media options hold the most promise for advertisers?
65% Search
60% Video
44% Social networks
38% Email marketing at
34% Mobile
22% Banner ads
21% Blogs
12%  Twitter

Will social media ever make a profit? Mixed opinion.    

Will social networks succeed in monetizing their considerable audiences?
31% Not sure
29% Yes, five years or more
24% Yes, in a year or two
16% never

Most see improving attitude toward blogs:

Have attitudes regarding advertising on blogs changed in recent years?
68% Some. There's a big difference between a blog backed by a large media company and one where the client's ad could end up next to a crazy rant about some political issue.
17% Yes.  Blogs have broken more mainstream stories and attracted 'name' journalists, advertisers have come to see them in a different light."
15% No. “ Blogs' audiences are too limited for it to matter much, though."

View the survey report on Media Life

"Presentations That Change Minds" goes to China

One thing that the march of digital progress has not changed: The excitement I feel over seeing a new book I wrote in print.

So, I am very excited to announce the second Chinese translation of my book, "Presentations That Change Minds." I just received copies of this new release published by the Hong Kong division of McGraw-Hill. 

FYI, An earlier Chinese translation from the Taiwan division of McGraw-Hill in 2007 is doing very well, well enough to expand this books distribution onto the mainland with this new release.

Comparing my Taiwanese translation with this one is fascinating. (Sorry to obsess, but that's what authors must do) I didn't realize there were so many differences.     

Digital magazines...the cavalry is coming

One of my favorite film scenes is from the final Lord of the Rings movie when a valiant cavalry chargeturns the tide of battle. As you know I am leading a project to help “designed for digital” magazines become an accepted ad supported medium. It’s a tough fight but I just learned that the cavalry is coming.

Today on a webcast co-hosted by Jim Taylor of the Harrison Group and Jeanniey Mullen from Zinio, Taylor shared data anticipating the adoption of digital readers. When digital readers become widely used, digital magazines will become widely read. Four years ago thre were 100,000 readers in use, today 5 million. Taylor predicts: by 2011, 9 million, by 2020 60 million. For all my friends fighting to sell ads in “designed for digital" magazines, take heart, the cavalry is coming…

How publishers profit when advertisers are publishers

A publisher client of mine lost a large media sale when a CMO said, "I have a huge social media presence and post as much content as you do. Why  advertise with you?" How do you respond when social media tools enable all your advertisers to become online publishers themselves?  

What publishers do (and always have done) that business cannot do for themselves (even in the age of social media) is to offer content as a third party. Chances are, your client’s content, no matter how great the volume, comes from their point of view. It will about their products, their customers, and told from their perspective. Their competition likely offers content from a different point of view. Where can all of their customers go for an objective perspective? Hopefully to your community/website.

Social Media Today CoFounder and CEO Robin Carey refers to this objective function as "being an honest broker of third party content.” Your social media centric clients will understand the value in this.

But it is not enough just to be an "honest broker" you need to leverage your content so you can deliver a benefit advertisers will pay for.     

There are two essential steps:
1. You must become your markets content aggregator
As a third party content supplier you can credibly aggregate content in your market from all suppliers. No one of your advertisers can do this as they will hit resistance and credibility problems posting content from competitors. Some traditional publishers have problems  posting a lot of content they did not create or influence. I say, get over it. If the law of the jungle is kill or be killed, then the law of the Internet is aggregate or be aggregated. Here is the really bad news; if you don't do the aggregation, another publisher in your market will. 

2. Shape your content so you get 3rd party credit in "search." When people search for objective content as they enter a buying cycle will they recognize yours? “Search” never evaluates the quality or objectivity of an article. So you need to “sell” potential readers on this benefit who find you though search. For a moment, take the point of view of a Google searcher who has never heard of your brand but sees an article of yours in a search list. If your article is worded to indicate an objective perspective it will be opened over others. An article titled "The five leading buying trends in electric fans" can become "Our editors pick the top five buying trends in electric fans." Etc.

On the call
Earlier this year I did a study for the social media website "The Energy Collective." In this post based on the survey we see that the community spits over the  question, “Should the gas tax be substantially raised?” As an “honest broker” of content "The Energy Collective" supports all points of view.

For advertisers this is invaluable. Do you think the same divide would occur on a website/community built by the Sierra Club or Exxon/Mobile? Nope.

But If I were the marketing manager of either the Sierra Club or Exxon/Mobile where will I find new people to convert to my perspective? Not on my own website, I would need my message carried by an “honest broker.”

Fire any consultant who says Social Media cannot be monetized

The idea that social media cannot be profitable is ridiculous. Don't believe me? Look at what has been done with forums, a kind of social media that existed long before the hype and frenzy over Twitter.

Mountain Bike Review Forum:  198,183 members http://forums.mtbr.com/

Christian Forums: 224,279 members http://www.christianforums.com/

Skateboard city: 30,287 members http://www.skateboard-city.com/messageboard/

Click on the links and you will see lots of ads. 

While I agree there is a danger in over commercializing the sections of a social media site where sharing occurs, that does not mean we have to build them for charity. If this is the advice your social media consultant is giving you, fire them.

Have we lost all our publishing savvy because a few 20 year old social media consultants tell us our models are broken? Don’t buy it!

There are many ways to profit from social media. For starters, try this basic one: No ads on the social sharing sections of the site but use the site as a hub to attract an audience. Once you have an audience, go make money in all the usual ways; webinars, newsletters, e-blasts etc.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (shown above) is betting that he can sell targeted ads on Facebook. Many pundits believe he can do it. So can you.