The GBA Blog provides insight for Marketing Decision Makers and other fun people

by Nick Barron

Recently I spoke with a marketing executive who quizzed me on what my social media strategy for his organization would look like, were he to enlist my services.

His eyes popped open when I said I would create a strategy that focused on an eventual hand-off to his team.

“So you see a time in which we no longer need you,” he said.

“Absolutely,” I replied.

I’m sure there are social media consultants crafting strategies requiring long-term financial commitments from their clients. I’m sure these consultants have their reasons ($$$$), but I think it’s bad form and bad for social media.

I got into the application of social technology for business because I love the technology first, and because I need to make a living, second.

I’m a Millennial. I’m an idealist with a touch of pragmatism.

What this means is that I believe social media can make organizations and everyday citizens better, simultaneously improving business functions and our lives.

What kind of social media purist would I be if I sold clients on overloaded strategies that don’t align with their current staff and knowledge capability?

With the previously mentioned executive’s organization, he has a staff. They’re just too small and too inundated with work right now to draft a social media strategy, plus they don’t have anyone with as much immediate experience in the space as someone like myself.

He’s a bright guy and I’m sure he hires bright people.

It’s in their best interest that I construct a strategy that not only aligns with their marketing/communications goals, but that also fits with their ability to execute, over time, on the strategy.

Starting out, I told him, I would launch the strategy and ensure objectives are being met, while making any adjustments or tweaks that are needed. Almost immediately, though, his staff will be involved, with the eventual goal that they take over and drive.

It just makes sense.

An organization’s long-term social media strategy most likely cannot function off the efforts of an outside consultant. At some point, pieces of, if not all of, the strategy need to be executed in-house.

Social media is a way for organizations to converse with the public. It’s not just marketing, it’s not just PR or customer service or any other business function.

In order for social media to deliver for brands like I believe it can, the social media efforts of organizations eventually need to be executed from within the organization. Who better to speak with people about your brand than those who know the brand best?

A consultant can live on as an adviser to the client, helping make adjustments and introducing ways to leverage new technology, but a solid social media strategy should be focused on helping the client take over.

Social media is about empowerment, for both consumers and businesses.

A good social media consultant shouldn’t be out to snag you into a long-term financial commitment. They should be focused on finding ways for you to use social tech to make your job and your business better.

A social media consultant worth the money you’re paying them should treat your strategy like an A & B conversation, and they should see their way out of it.

- Nick Barron, Green Buzz Agency Social Media Consultant

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It seems that today the wired world is finally forming some opinions on Google’s new Labs creation Fast Flip, released on Monday.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out at the Labs site or read Google’s explanation of their new product.

ChannelWeb looks at Fast Flip as a new business model for a struggling publishing industry: “Fast Flip and its advertising revenue sharing could be the start of a blueprint for publishers.”

Examiner.com’s Michael McConnel mentions the similarity to Google Reader: “As I use Google Reader for most of my browsing, it would be a great upgrade to Reader’s interface.”

Perhaps Technologizer’s Henry McCracken puts it best with his “it’s cool but weird” analysis. His main complaints are the “kinda cumbersome” previews, some aspects that “break some conventions of the web”, “un-Google-esque” banner ads and, well, the fact that it just “doesn’t always work”.

Whether Fast Flip misses or meets the online world’s expectations, publishers and readers can be confident in Google to continue its ambitious re-modeling of online content. Adding Fast Flip to Reader and Google News provides a full range of news-consuming avenues for online readers. Expect the Reader faithful to reject Fast Flip in favor of their meticulously controlled newsfeeds while also pining for the snazzy UI offered by Fast Flip. Google News users will shirk at the limited sources and unconventional page design while falling for the improved looks. The final resting place that Fast Flip will take if it ever gets out of its Labs incubator could be skewed toward either one of those Google services… or be an even greater departure.

See what Twitterers like @GreenBuzzAgency are saying about Google Fast Flip!

We’ve all seen the new Pepsi logo, and been struck by it’s resemblance to the Obama campaign logo, but what would you reasonably imagine it took Peter Arnell, the designer, to create it?

A recently released PDF (yes, a boring old PDF) revealed the possible background for the Pepsi logo. In 27 pages, a multitude of justifications are put forth. To some, this is the sophisticated cutting edge of design, to others it’s a load of mumbo jumbo designed to get people talking about Pepsi (like us!).
Here is the full release which is worth a read, but let’s take a look at some of the contents right here.

First is a diagram showing the golden ratio as it applies to the Pepsi logo. It seems to make some sense, but let’s move on.

How about the “Pepsi Energy Field”?:

Or how the new Pepsi logo is impacted by magnetic fields, sun radiation, and wind motion between 2008 and 2010:
And did you know that every can of Pepsi now has it’s own gravity field as well.?
The Pepsi Universe? You bet.

So, you’ve seen the document, or parts of it, but how do you think it was received in the blogosphere and in the design world? Check out a few opinions we found:

1. It’s a hoax and an effective way to create buzz

• Erik Hinton, The Pitt News: “Fake or not, “Breathtaking” is the Sokal Hoax of our times. If the document is vetted as legitimate, a punishing blow is struck to advertising and aesthetics as a rampant waste of money on puffed-up nonsense.”
• Lee of “A Hundred Avatars”: “I still wonder if that design brief was a viral leak…”
• Jessica Hartstein of Culture-Buzz.com: “Is it part of a viral campaign? It looks like we’ll have to wait for the real answer. In the meantime, Pepsi can enjoy its ride on the buzz wave.”

2. Arnell is insane/fleecing Pepsi

• Mediabistro’s AgencySpy: “Pepsi paid more than $10 mil. for the logo design.”
• Peter Arnell himself?: “It’s all bulls––t,” he said. “A logo on a can of soda? Please. My life is bulls––t.”

3. The Design World is corrupt and this is proof

• Reddit commenters: “It really hammers in the stereotype of Advertising in general, and the complete idiocy that goes in to marketing.”
• Stephanie Smirnov on PR MAMA: “It’s fine to be smart and provocative (and yes, sometimes strategic explication requires sophisticated diagramming and fancy-pants words), but a person can go too far.”

What do YOU think? Comment below!

Thanks to Dan Dawley for his expert help with this post!

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The GBA Blog provides insight for Marketing Decision Makers and other fun people

by Nick Barron

The one question I get asked, when someone learns I use social media for a living, is, “So what’s the next BIG thing?”

I tell them I don’t think it’s another Facebook or Twitter or some other new twist of technology we haven’t yet seen.

Instead, I tell them I believe people are going to start pulling back. They’re going to realize how much social media has consumed their life and how much privacy they’ve sacrificed, and they’re going to start the Social Media Pullback.

As a social media professional, I’m not suppose to say this. I’m suppose to champion the technology that puts food on my table, and it’s sacrilege to publicly suggest the hordes of people flocking to social media (which is what gives social media value to companies and brands) are about to realize they went too far.

But this is what I’m hearing, seeing (hello Facebook Exodus) and feeling. (Besides, isn’t what makes Don Draper such an excellent ad man is that he is the consumer his clients are trying to reach?)

If people increase their privacy settings, begin weeding out Twitter followers and Facebook friends, start limiting how applications interact with them in online communities and even delete accounts, it doesn’t render this social-media-as-a-tool-for-brands thing useless.

It will, however, cause at least two things to happen:

1) The pretend social media professionals will disappear.

2) Brands will have to get smarter about how they interact with social media users.

On the first point, and I don’t mean to call out anyone in particular, but I’ve noticed over the past year that the number of “social media experts” has exploded. I’m all for more people evangelizing the technology I love and believe in, but it’s getting loud and crowded and something is going to have to give.

I can’t imagine being a brand trying to hire a social media professional right now. There is no certification process, no defined way to prove you are what you say you are, except what you put on your Web site and Twitter page.

(And I’m not just talking about individuals. I’ve noted agencies who’ve rushed into the social space without proving they know what they’re doing.)

This will change, though, as people begin pulling back their use of social media because those who really understand the social space, who truly get the space’s foundation, will know how to adjust with this shift in users’ attitudes. These true social media professionals will be right there with the shift, not fearing it and even taking part in it.

On the second thing that will happen, brands that are jumping into social media as a function of one department or another are going to have to change.

As I’ve said before, social media is not a marketing or PR or advertising or customer service tool. It’s all of the above. It’s none of the above.

Brands that continue to insist social media lives within one area will find it harder and harder to derive value from their investment in social media because, as people pull back, they will start by eliminating their interactions with those brands that annoy them in their communities and then those brands that provide the least value.

The only reason users of social media ever embraced brands in their communities is because they thought they would get something out of it. Whether it was to save money, an easy way to resolve an issue or to learn about the inside of their favorite brands, users didn’t opt to interact with brands as a way to show support for the brand, at least not primarily.

As users begin the social media pull back, they’re going to limit and eliminate interactions with brands that don’t interact with users in the true spirit of social media.

Brands expecting users to show support for them in social media and expecting users to care what the brand has to say, without wanting to hear from the users, will find their followers/friends dropping. They will notice that when they speak, fewer and fewer are listening.

The Social Media Pullback is nothing to fear or deny. It’s simply a shift by consumers (users) and the good social media professionals and the strong social brands will benefit from it.

- Nick Barron, Green Buzz Agency Social Media Consultant

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On the menu for the Green Buzz Blog this week: two exciting guest bloggers, a post from our Social Media Maven Nick Barron, and finally: Photography Friday. Add us to your RSS so you don’t miss out!

It’s Labor Day and the nation’s workers are busy in their backyards working on their pig roasts, racks of ribs and barbecued chickens. Some, though, might be slaving over something called a Toynbee Tile.

Toynbee Tiles, essentially slabs of plastic carved with messages and embedded in paved roads, began popping up in the 1980s. They all espoused a paranoid conspiracy theory in a sort of code that no one has since unraveled despite many theories. The tiles are most likely produced by copycats of the original artist, and take a certain amount of ingenuity and devotion to produce–considering that the end product may never be discovered.

So my question of the week is: Are Toynbee Tiles viral messaging and how would they stack up to a modern online viral campaign? Answering this is difficult, but potentially valuable for marketing campaigns. After all, the tiles can’t cost more than $20 per tile in materials, while the buzz created is priceless. As real-world guerilla marketing is supplanted by online campaigns, Toynbee Tiles, or something similar, could garner massive exposure.

- David Cass, Green Buzz Agency