While these are all great questions to ask of your company concerning new media they are missing some more important considerations like: "Can we play in that space and be transparent and honest about our agenda?", "Do we have the knowledge and expertise to do it right?", "Do we have dedicated staff to keep up with it?" and "What is our real value to be in this space?"
Lets start with transparency shall we? Most companies still think of how they can apply an old school marketing methodology to social networks. They think "how can I bombard my message to this crowd?" They tend to think of it as a way to access a list or segmented group of people, when in fact this is entirely the wrong approach. Most companies simply aren't prepared to enter social networking and also accept the open and honest interaction directly with their customers or fans. They still think they can control the messaging and brand once it is released into the wild. You will hear brand managers saying absurd things like "We need to monitor the forums, blog comments and how our output is shared and spread." Really? Seriously? The fact is that companies need to realize that the internet and specifically social networks just can't be controlled this way and your company makes it painfully apparent to everyone in this space how much you don't get it by acting this way.
The bottom line is if you plan on branding on social networks you need to embrace ALL of the communication that will get created, good, bad, pretty or ugly.
So why would a company want to market on a social network? Do we as Facebook and Myspace users want them there? Are they just in our way and ruining our little club? The answer is yes but on the terms of the members and not the brand. As a frequent on Facebook, blogs and Twitter, I think of brands, consumer products and other corporate placements the same way I would passing someone walking a dog. Sometimes I might think the dog is cute and take a second to acknowledge that to the owner, sometimes I will just walk on by, I may stop and pet the dog if it is really cute or the owner is attractive, I might not even notice the dog at all depending how distracted or focused on other things I am, the dog may be different or rare and prompt me to find out more, it may be dressed in a ridiculous outfit and draw my attention or I might just not care that day no matter what. The point is that it is entirely my choice to interact or not and if you force the issue I will just get annoyed and ignore you. I may even comment and share my opinion with all of my friends about how obnoxious your brand is.
I guess what I am saying is you need to make sure you have a cute or unique dog with an attractive person walking it! :-)
Stay tuned for Part II
Everyday I religiously visit a handful of sites - Digg, Delicious, Facebook, Twitter and I feed a handful of blogs into mail. What would be amazing is if I could not only view all of this via Facebook but be able to customize FB to my needs. I would love to be able to build my own compartmentalized homepage on Facebook that allows me to filter my content/feeds onto different portions of the page. The new filtering mechanism on FB is pretty cool but is still a pretty blunt tool. I would love to, in a glance scan everything that interests me in one place and be able to fan out from there.
It would be ideal if you could configure widgets on your homepage for various feeds from within FB and external sources. I imagine my own FB homepage that has my Digg widget in one corner, FB friends and wall updates in another, my favorite blogs in another and of course Twitter. Maybe doing this on FB isn't the answer, maybe someone can build an app that does all this or better yet, a browser. Someone? Anyone?
So what is my point here? Simple, the thought of a broadcaster telling the consumer when they can watch their content, on which network they can watch it, on what device it can or can't be viewed and with what advertising on is very 1955. I wish the convergence would happen much faster to give the consumer an easy, turn key and reasonable way to have their content on demand at anytime, anywhere and on any device.
There have been baby steps but none have made it as easy as it needs to be. For example, Apple TV is great but you still need to have a wireless network, have iTunes, and understand digital content management. The other problem is that is doesn't provide a solution for live sports.
I am so close to being able to drop cable and have nothing but an Apple TV or other set top device yet I still love sports. Ugh, soon!! I hope! More soon.
As I scan iTunes and the web I am finding more and more that very specific content is being produced all of the place that caters to people's specific interests. I will admit that while people are putting out alternative content, it is still a battle to find the few that are doing a good quality job of it. But there are a bunch of great podcasts and many of them are very well done. Listening to these for the last few years has inspired me to use podcasting to anchor some of my web based projects. It just makes the content you are trying to share more interesting. I have been a guest host on this week in media a few times now and am beginning to understand how powerful identifiable dialog is as a communication tool.
I will be rolling out two to three new podcasts over the upcoming months with the first one being the troubled consumer podcast in September. Currently I just have an overview of the purpose posted and am asking for feedback. Check it out
On the martial arts front I am working to develop an entire video series.
Stay tuned....
You can hear it in the announcer's commentary. Saying things like "that is strong a Ju Jitsu move" is like saying a tomato is Italian because you are currently eating it in a pasta sauce. The popular labels of things presented in the media are over simplified, misguided and leading people to what they think is the answer to their deeper questions when in fact it is simply not.
So you might ask where the answers exist? How do you follow the pursuit of true martial sciences? First of all, stop watching TV and believing anything the media tells you. Second, start doing some research and finding the handful of people who know the truth and have the actual depth of knowledge you seek.
Visit www.senshinkan.com or www.seishinkan.com to get started.
Next Post: Building a Martial Sciences community in San Francisco soon.
But just for fun, lets look at what I mean here. So what is the problem with MMA? One would think intuitively that training in various disciplines such as Karate, Ju Jitsu, Boxing, etc. would create a well rounded fighter right? Well, yes, it does help but it is still just surface level. What is missing is the true depth and understanding of the connections, history and relationships among all arts for each application. The Japanese concept of "sogo" meaning well rounded or complete is a better and more scientific approach. For example, an MMA practitioner may learn a grappling technique in Ju Jitsu, a blocking or punching technique in karate and a cutting technique with a sword in Iaido but never understand how they are all actually the same technique put to a different application.
Even if they do see the similarities, they can never truly connect the dots universally unless they seek out the instruction of a select few individuals that exist in the world today.
More in next post.
The truth is they are a product of hype, popularity and the media frenzy that surrounds them. The best analogy I can use is to describe these popular arts or methods as "martial elements". Similar to the relationship between the full version of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements. On the surface they look the same but the true professionals understand the differences in depth and differences between them. Take Brazilian Ju Jitsu for example, when was the last time you remember reading stories or history books about the Samurai fighting arts of feudal Brazil? Never, because it didn't exist! Yet the popularity of it has the public believing this real Jiu Jitsu. The truth is they ripped off some of a handful of effective techniques from an ancient Japanese art, called it Brazilian style and made it popular by winning some fights on TV. Of course the sheeple followed them and fueled their popularity and success that they enjoy today. It makes me cringe when people tell me "Ya man, I am taking Brazilian Ju Jitsu, it is bad ass!"
Please.
More on Mixed Martial Arts next entry!
