tagged: me

I’m sitting at LBi an hour or so after being on this panel with Stuart Eccles and Maciek Gorzkowski. It was enjoyable but in twenty minutes we barely scratched the surface.

Things we talked about that interest me:

It’s not helpful lumping infinite new opportunities into two words: ‘social media’. This simply perpetuates the faux-mystery of it all. In my mind, the saturation of ‘social’ technologies simply renders the technology invisible. What is left is the thing; the idea; the conversation; the motivation. Of course, being too much of a purist in this way can also be unhelpful sometimes ;)

The language we now associate with social media – things like Awesome, :) , Yay! etc – is also starting to grate on me. I think this type of language and punctuation is a lazy attempt to masquerade as ‘getting social media’. What really matters is what value you’re offering. Although there’s a time and a place for friendly gentle language, it should never be used as a veneer. And it often is.

What we didn’t get to talk about:

It is now really, really, really easy to share stuff and connect with people. But this ease has implications. The less effort required to do something, the less significant it is. The trick is to make your ideas slippy so they are easily understood and passed on, but ensure they are still meaningful and motivating.

One good example of actions becoming less meaningful is the evolution of the Facebook ‘fan’ function. You can no longer be a ‘fan’ of a brand page. You can simply ‘like’ it. That simple, semantic change is very important. It turns a lifestyle statement (I’m into this kind of thing) into a momentary vote (I thought this was fun).

One of the most powerful things about the technology we have access to is that we can bring the best of all worlds together. Things can be epic as well as be intimate; broadcast as well as social. Personal messages from the Old Spice Guy is the perfect example. Also worth adding that ‘Big on the outside, small on the inside’ was one of the guiding principals in the development of Balloonacy.

I think it’s also interesting that social media is helping to reinvigorate television. People love the idea of there being one answer. What one thing is ‘all about’? Is it going left or right? Is it Twitter or Facebook? Technology means the answer can be several things at once. Or something that didn’t previously exist. That kind of openness brings with it fear. We like certainty and singularity.

There is of course no formula to make something ‘go viral’. The returns on campaigns designed to be socially propagated have elastic returns. Media agencies can say, I’ll give you X-thousand eyeballs for X-thousand pounds. That’s nice and safe. It’s a harder conversation to say: you might get a mediocre response or this *could* become a phenomenon. Again, the smart thing is to balance both: to use media money to light a few fires and use creativity and brainpower to make the thing ‘flammable’.

Lastly, for me, all good marketing ensures that the reward (economic, emotional or social) is greater than the effort required to get it. And that’s the bottom line: value. Not value just in the sense of a 2-4-1 in Tesco (although that, too) but something human beings will benefit from.

OK I’m a little burned out now. Hope I didn’t ramble too much there. I find this topic interesting, important and completely boring at the same time. Thought I’d get these thoughts down while it’s still fresh in my head. Blah.