by nick on December 3, 2010
There are so many experts (perceived and real) out there, that some might feel the need to distinguish themselves from the crowd. Suddenly they’re no longer the consultants or practitioners they once were; they’ve invented self-aggrandising titles like guru, ninja and samurai instead.
If someone thinks you’re pretty damn hot at something and they afford you the mystique and compliment of calling you a guru, then great. Kudos to you. But when would you ever feel it’s safe to call yourself one?
Beguile and seduction are all well and good when canvassing outsiders. But this level of narcissism is another ballgame.
Imagine you need a dental check up. As you sit in the dentist’s chair would you be happy if the qualified doctor in the white coat introduced herself as a dentistry ninja? Nope, me neither.
How about a gynecological guru? You’d run a mile, right?
Social media bottom line, folks:
What’s so often misunderstood by so many is that social media isn’t new, despite all the new media bumf. It’s marketing communication – period. It’s what marketing was ten or twenty years ago: talking to your [potential] consumers about you and your offering and how it can solve problems. Social media may be different but it’s not really new.
Watch a football or rugby match from twenty years ago. Sure, the game’s moved on, and yes it’s different as professionalism and money has moved, pushed and blurred previous boundaries, but they’re not NEW sports. They’ve simply evolved. Ditto marketing.
Doubt a social media guru or ninja will tell you that though.
‘Follow us’ and ‘Stay Connected’ buttons are now as commonplace on websites as the word ‘like’ is ever-present in a teenager’s vocabulary.
I’m seeing it in the most unlikely of businesses this year. This photo was taken at a country park. Do you really want to follow and interact with the tweets of a park (it certainly isn’t Disney)? How about the Trainline? Or Firefox?
Yes, Facebook is hooked into 8% of the world’s population (26 million in the UK) but when such buttons become ubiquitous clichés, what will you do to stand out?
by nick on February 3, 2010
You’re having a conversation with a company Big Wig, perhaps an interview, and she asks, “What do you think of this social media phenomenon?”
Well, imagine it’s the 1960s. Horses pull milk floats, colour TV is just around the corner for most households, shillings are in your pocket and the Bay of Pigs has petrified the world. In between watching Steptoe and Son and listening to Elvis or the Beatles, someone asks you, “What do you think about this telephone phenomenon?”
With 20/20 hindsight you could’ve said, “It’s going to be amazing in ways we can’t yet imagine. The infrastructure we and other countries are laying now will be used for revolutions in communications and commerce that sound like science fiction if we talk about them now (think fax and Internet). User take-up will be so overwhelming that the lines will be stretched to breaking point and the ‘phones themselves will become like your watch or wedding ring – always with you. In short, phones will become an integral part of our personal and business lives.
The ‘60s Big Wig would nod sagely, probably with a slight smirk, and take the conversation elsewhere. But the answer to the question if you’re asked tonight at dinner is that, “History will repeat itself here…”
by nick on September 25, 2009
I recently heard comedian Frank Skinner being interviewed by Dermot O’Leary on his Radio Two show. Skinner, former host of his own guest TV show which ran for six years, said that TV is rather unreal. With his makeup applied, his shirt choice amended to avoid a camera clash, specific timing, outtakes, warm ups, breaks, editing and so on, Skinner called it ‘manufactured.’
He went on to say that radio is much more authentic – like two blokes sat at the end of the bar in the pub. Just raw conversations really, making radio much more true to itself (I’m paraphrasing here).
Social media is described as many things, both good and bad. How about thinking of social media’s offer of authenticity as an opportunity for companies to host their own radio show?
