IanSchafer.com

10 New Social Media/Advertising Buzzwords.

David Armano, of Critical Mass, recently posted a list of made-up words that inspired me to post a list of my own. I do this all day in meetings, and figured I'd share a few with you, loyal readers.

Crapplications: Annoying facebook applications. Usage: "No, I don't want to take your Dr. Phil test. What a crapplication."

Groupsydaisy: Accepting an invitation to join a Facebook group, only to realize it was for something completely different, then leaving immediately. Usage: "I just joined the 'I love animals group' on Facebook. Turns out it was for people that really 'love' animals. In that way. That was a heck of a groupsydaisy."

Feedbrag: Purposefully doing something on Facebook that you know will be posted to your newsfeed, thus letting everyone know about it. Usage: "John rented Fellini's '8 1/2' from Blockbuster just to make people think he's smart. That was such a feedbrag."

Viraelian: One who believes that every online video they post to YouTube will be seen by millions. Usage: "Just because he made a video that looks low-budget but has special effects doesn't mean people are all-of-a-sudden going to find them and email them to everyone they know. He's such a viraelian, and he's converted his entire department."

Flackipedias: Articles on wikipedia created by or contributed to by PR firms.

Twitzer: Using Twitter to attract women. Usage: "Man, he's totally sending out tweets that are designed to make him seem rich and single. What a Twitzer."

Memicide: To kill a meme through overusage. Usage: "It's becoming pretty apparent to me that coverage by mainstream media has killed RickRolling. A clear case of memicide." Or, my blatant copying of David Armano's blog post, is an official act of memicide.

Statustician: One who updates their Facebook and/or Twitter statuses habitually.

Twends: When something starts becoming oft-tweeted about in a short period of time. Usage: "I keep getting tweets pointing me to Brian Morrissey's twitter feed. This is a definite twend."

Invinsible: The feeling of setting your instant messaging application to "invisible". Usage: "Ain't no one going to bug me on IM today. I'm in control of who I chat with. I'm invinsible."

Bonus Words!!!

SMainstorm: The process an agency goes through when instructed by a client to deliver ideas for a Facebook/MySpace/Blog campaign. Usage: "Smainstorm! Conference Room A! 10 minutes!"

Listen to My Panel @ SXSW Here.

It's been a while, but SXSW finally got my 2008 panel titled Blogs, Buzz, and Buddy Lists posted online.

Here's the description:

Blogs, Buzz, and Buddy Lists

SXSW Interactive PodcastsUse the Internet before the Internet uses you. Thanks to blogs, web-video, and social networking sites, the online universe is a valuable (but no less intimidating) landscape for artists. How do you get the best out of blogs and other sites, to maximize your potential for an audience. Or, how do you get yourself introduced to the booming industry of online journalism and video sharing? These experts dig deep into these ever-changing trends.

Paul Harrill Lovell Films

Karina Longworth Film Blogger, Spout.com

Alison Willmore IFC

Ian Schafer CEO, Deep Focus

Victor Pineiro Writer/Producer, Second Skin

Listen to the panel here! It was most definitely a good one.

Recognizing Memeoganda.

The onset of digital media has enabled communication, information, and news to flow quicker than ever before. The sheer velocity of information has had devastating effects on the newspaper industry (at least the printed elements) and consumers have changed their behavior to adapt.

No longer do we have to wait until the 11pm local newscast to find out what happened in our city. We don't even have to respect the anchorperson's request to stay tuned until after the commercial break to hear about a news story. We can just go to any number of websites to get that news before that brief break is over.

When an online news source breaks some piece of information (with our without fact-checking), blogs swoop in to comment, and news aggregator (i.e. Digg) users vote stories up, and they become 'the news'. And the more news becomes endorsed by the people reading it, the more 'true' it feels. Fact-checked or not.

I recently saw a panel at SXSW on the online behavior of teens and tweens, and when a few of the teenaged panelists mentioned that they got their news from Digg, it made me shudder. As great of a tool as Digg is for finding interesting pieces of online content, it's not a news source. Just an 'interesting content' recommendation engine.

But even journalists and professional bloggers use recommendation engines. They're out there; techmeme is an example. And sometimes those recommendation engines are other journalists and bloggers. In this new era of online journalism, these recommendations have become known as 'memes'. Wikipedia defines a 'meme' as consisting of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Memes propagate themselves and can move through a "culture" in a manner similar to the behavior of a virus.

While memes often reflect important topics, they also have the potential to create stagnant monologues that doesn't necessarily get us anywhere -- eventually just turning what should be solution-deriving conversations, into noise. That's when memes make the leap from becoming units of cultural information and legitimate conversation to being momentum-generated waves of propaganda. Or, as I will business cliche-ify, memeoganda.

What used to be called 'trend pieces' are now being ripped from the headlines of blogs and even other publications. The biggest culprits tend to be traditional (especially print) media, and overzealous bloggers (in fact, I randomly stumbled upon this post by Mark Evans on the topic of blog topics via Techmeme) looking to capitalize on popular conversations/memes.

When journalists in traditional publications stop having original things to say, or just have the same ruminations on existing problems without offering up solutions, we get classic memeoganda. Lately, I've seen examples of memoganda regarding the ad industry ranging from the 'death of ad networks' to 'facebook's demise' to 'google click volume' to 'the death of the music industry' to even the state of the economy/recession.

These trend pieces get written so quickly and so close to each other, that while they may raise awareness of important topics, they water down the depth of the coverage, and result in a stream of 'also-ran' stories.

I started writing this blog post last night, and right on cue, this morning Techcrunch tells us about a new startup called Publish2 that will make memoganda even easier by providing journalists and newsrooms with their own Digg-like resource for finding out what's hot.

You know, maybe it's just me, but I yearn for the days when journalists broke hot stories rather than write about stories that are already hot. Memeoganda is sucking the life out of investigative journalism and seems to be more about finding new and exciting ways to conjure up ad inventory than to publish content with depth and meaning. And while stories that yield more ad inventory (read: linkbaiting) can be good bottom-line revenue band-aid, they are not the solution to mainstream journalism's woes.

The long-term answer is to strive to be the best at what you do. Break the news that matters. Investigate the broken news deeper. Don't fall prey to the easiness of spreading memeoganda.

Missed it? Here ’ s the Full Mark Zuckerberg Interview From 60 Minutes.

Or click here to go right to CBS News. Or here, for Kara Swisher's (WSJ's AllThingsD) full interview.

Can Digital Shops Take Over Overall Brand Strategy?

Damn straight they can. But only if digital agencies can become truly interactive agencies.

Confused? Read on.

This article in Advertising Age states that in order to it, however, there need to be four core capabilities: measurement and analytics, audience research, cross-channel integration and social media.

As part of a study to determine whether or not digital shops can hold their own, the article featured seven leading interactive shops: Avenue A/Razorfish, Critical Mass, Digitas, Imc2, OgilvyInteractive, Sapient and VML. All agencies have a minimum of $50 million in interactive revenue and at least a 20% revenue growth from 2005 to 2006.

And here's where I find fault not with the story's conclusion, but some of the study's findings and methodology -- more specifically, the agencies involved in it.

Most of these agencies have core competencies that are built upon only one or two of the above listed capabilities. From the article:

Avenue A/Razorfish was praised for its quantitative and qualitative audience research capabilities and measurement and analytics and broad experience with social media, but according to the report the agency's "overwhelming focus on the digital space means that it's not yet equipped to lead overall brand strategy."

That last line is a broad statement. For audiences, especially younger ones (12-34) that use digital media more than any other medium, why not let a qualitfied digital agency manage the brand strategy? Why is this different from a TV-focused agency leading it when target audiences are watching less television?

A point I agree with is:

VML, Imc2 and Critical Mass were all praised for strong web design skills, but critiqued for relying on strengths in interactive-marketing basics.

"When it comes to web design, they do a good job, but broad interactive capabilities are still anchored in the website," Mr. Haven said.

This is precisely why I started Deep Focus with the aim of being exponentially more than a web-design agency. There is no way that a web development shop, without real research and media capabilities (and not just a figurehead) can oversee a brand strategy. More than being a digital agency, an agency that can really take over brand strategy must be focused on interactive media. And that means shepherding a brand through every channel of interaction with (not just communication to) the consumer. As I've said many times before, "interactive" should not just refer to digital media. "Interactive" media is a philosophy to be applied to all forms of media and communication.

As a matter of fact, the concept of being a communications firm is outdated -- you need to be a conversation firm in order to survive. And if you can be a creative firm, a media firm, and a publicity firm, then you're ready to take on overall brand strategy.

I really do believe that today's interactive agencies will be the overall ad agencies of the future, as long as they remain nimble, resilient, and continue to be thought leaders. Increasingly (and yes, I'm biased) I'm finding that the current crop of independent medium-sized agencies (and yes, like Deep Focus) seem to be best suited for this kind of role. They may not all be digital, but shops like Deep Focus, Anomaly, Naked, and others have the right personality. But I will also add that the best of the best will be able to execute strategy as well as develop it. And it's something I can say that we are proud to be able to do. Execution, or at least a thorough understanding and seamless integration of it, will set interactive agencies that think and do apart from those that can just think, or just do.

So if you're a digital agency with brand-strategy aspirations, but not a truly interactive agency, start looking at the man (or woman) in the mirror and make that change - hoo!

Unscrupulust: Notes from the Social Media Underbelly.

The Wall Street Journal recently profiled an effort in France by Nescafe's Dolce Gusto brand to incentivize bloggers to cover a new initiative, an interactive game. The way bloggers were incentivized was via a website called BlogBang.com.

Members of the BlogBang.com community (bloggers) were notified of the campaign via the site, and if they chose to write about the campaign, they would receive a link to their blog from Dolce Gusto's homepage (this campaign may have come and gone, because these links are nowhere to be found on dolce-gusto.fr).

BlogBang, owned by ad agency holding company Publicis, has also tried other ways to get bloggers involved. Per the WSJ article:

BlogBang also has tried to draw bloggers into the creative process. Companies looking for new ways to pitch their products can post requests for bloggers to develop their own campaigns. BlogBang's members can then put their homemade ads on the site. The one that gets the most clicks is spread around the bloggers' Web sites, and the author of the winning ad earns a fee. Garnier, a division of cosmetics group L'Oréal, advertised its Fructis hair gel this way. Garnier couldn't be reached for comment.

While this kind of effort may have the scent of good intentions, a long whiff of BlogBang doesn't smell much different than PayPerPost (now called IZEA). Anytime the editorial content of blogs is tainted with cash, it de-legitimizes the medium. Even the promise of links is promising traffic which translates into potential ad revenue for the blog. Getting bloggers to create their own ads seems to take them away from what they are (probably) doing best: writing content for their readers. Collectively, readers are smart. They can smell a rat a mile away. Once they realize the content of the blog they are reading is influenced by money, they will move on.

Of course, bloggers receive free products for review all the time. But as long as those products come with the understanding that a) they may not be written about at all, or b) a review may, in fact, be negative, then it is on the up and up.

Publicis may thing they've got this blog thing figured out (BlogBang is losing $1 million/year), but the irony of the situation is that if they just employed the use of highly trained, skilled publicists, they might have better, more efficient (albeit not as easy) results.

Coincidentally, the day before the Blog Bang story in the WSJ, TechCrunch published a guest column by a gentleman named Dan Ackerman Greenberg, co-founder of a "viral video marketing company" called The Comotion Group. This column basically explains, in detail, how companies like Dan's "game" video-sharing websites like YouTube. There are several unscrupulous ways of getting videos more views including fake headlines, paid links on blogs, infiltrating and seeding forums using fake accounts, spam, and numerous other cringe-inducing methods.

After receiving LOTS of negative feedback from the TechCrunch readership (understandably so), Dan was given the opportunity to do a follow-up post . In that post, he basically he doesn't endorse all the methods he explained in his first post. Regardless, these ways exist, and even if you claim you are just serving them up to facilitate a "discussion", what you're doing is poisoning the user experience.

What is becoming increasingly apparent to me is that as long as there are trends in online media, there are going to be people and companies looking to game the system, and trying to get rich quick -- or at least make easy money. The problem is that with a practically infinite canvas, there are always going to be clicks to be bought.

There are numerous governmental agencies and consumer groups that serve to catch unscrupulousness in the act, but there has been an alarming lack of presence online. While groups like the Word of Mouth Marketing Association exist that set standards, who will enforce them? As much as I don't want to see the government get involved with the web, how can we prevent spammers, scammers, and blammers from ruining the user experience?

Penny for your thoughts...

Please Don ’ t Kill Word of Mouth.

On the same day that Interpublic signed a non-exclusive deal with word-of-mouth marketing firm BzzAgent, another story ran about how consumers are becoming increasingly wary of fake reviews and testimonials (30% of online users today vs. 20% in 2001).

If there's anyone that believes in the power of word-of-mouth marketing it's me. The power of getting the right information into the hands of the right people (influencers) and arming them with everything they need to make a decision to consume a brand or product can not be underestimated. But if the trust between brands and the consumer is in any way compromised, then the communication channels break down and you create antagonistic, skeptical consumers that will shun you -- and tell everyone else to as well.

The travel industry is feeling the effects of this right now.

BzzAgent, I know you won't let this happen, and you will fight potential primal urges of the big agencies -- protecting the integrity of what we do.

Nielsen: Ad Spending and Online Buzz Go Hand-in-Hand

According to a recent report by Nielsen BuzzMetrics and BASES, "there is a strong correlation between ad spending and buzz generated in the blogosphere, one that shouldn't be ignored when it comes to making media planning decisions."

Among 80 consumer packaged goods brands launched in 2005 and 2006 that Nielsen studied, the top 10 percent of products with the most buzz spend nearly $20 million in advertising. In contrast, the products that accounted for the bottom 50 percent of buzz generated spent roughly $5 million, or a quarter of what the most buzz-generating brands spent.

That means that the more money is spent on online media, the more likely there is to be "buzz" around that new brand or product.

The study does caveat this statement by saying that some brands are just prone to more buzz.

While some of this is common sense (heavy online spend = more online awareness), the conclusion can be drawn that if paid media and word-of-mouth management are both managed by the same entity, the resultant buzz can be much greater than if these tactics were executed individually, by different entities.

Do viral videos get the job done?

Joe Jaffe raises an interesting point, regarding analysis of a recent Ray Ban viral video "campaign":

Could it be that vomitous viral has peaked and/or entered the black hole of cluttered forgetfulness? I disagree with Fabio's contention - as evidenced by the Technorati chart - Ray-Ban did not become part of the conversation, but rather just a freaky viral video, remembered for the wrong reasons.

This is the reality of the two extremes of video today:

The 30-second TV spot sells too hard and the viral video doesn't sell hard enough.

Can we all agree on one thing? That "viral" is an effect, not an ad (or a campaign). When clients say that they want something "viral", what I say is that they want something really good. Good content goes viral. Sure, there are hooks to raise the likelihood of that happening, but "viral" is a side-effect. The trick is, how do you make good content a good ad?

There's the rub. And that rub will separate agencies that create ads from agencies that create content that deliver a message in a way that makes consumers actually want to watch, listen, and participate. I get the feeling that we're already living in those days of reckoning.

Bring 'em on.

Post of the Day: NewTeeVee & The ‘ News Peg ’

There was another panel at Search Engine Strategies today that brought up the concept of the 'News Peg' and how timely video creation can be used to take advantage of the search zeitgeist.

Steve Bryant at NewTeeVee nails it with this post.

From the post:

Online video will make all of us– from bloggers to executives to musicians — better journalists. The reason is simple. Everyone is learning what a news peg is and how to exploit it.