FRANKthoughts

Well we are finally pleased to reveal how much fun we’ve had going through our online strategy process and community manager’s course with carsales.com.au. After immersing ourselves in the business we developed an internal and external social media plan. A big part of that plan was to introduce “community managers” within the organisation. Running for 4 weeks we covered topics such as earned media, social tools like twitter, facebook, youtube and flickr (with hands on exercises on the brand social profiles), community management roles, responsibilities and challenges (by our own GPO community manager Sarah) and advanced blogging techniques and social SEO by our Web ace Arnold. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive with most attendees wanting the course to continue for longer. Understanding that earned media is a process not an event we’re still working closely with carsales.com.au on an ongoing basis. Hey, why not check out carsales.com.au’s twitter and facebook and say hi?

pepsi, originally uploaded by FRANkVizeum.

Pepsi is trying to save the world and get some advertising at the same time. How? Well, they would like YOU to come up with an idea, promote it and win between 5k-250k to make it come true. It’s a great idea that finally has been picked up by a mega brand (although the name: “Refresheverything” is a bit try hard). Think about all the money that goes every year towards re-branding/ad production/Superbowl broadcasting – Pepsi is going to spend the same amount (around $1,300,000 per month) to sponsor people’s dreams. True, they’re not doing it because they’re really concerned, it’s more of a way to get piggybacked into people facebook profiles but hey, beggars cant be choosers. Maybe this can be a new way we do advertising? How about a company helping out in a tsunami? How about a tyre company sponsoring a road? How about an energy company sponsoring people who make energy?

During the last six months we had the pleasure of having around 300 people join us for a two hour social strategy session followed by drinks at FOG. As the year comes to a close we would love all the people who attended to have the presentation handy and the people who missed out to have a taste of the action.

FRANkademy has three parts:
1. twitter for brands.
2. Blog networks eg. Nuffnang.
3. Social business strategy case study – Melbourne’s GPO.

So here it is. Please feel free to comment, suggest improvements, share and tweet if you find it useful.

The improved FRANkademy will be back next year. If you’d like to be notified please put your name + email here.

Thank you everyone. We had a blast.

This post is not about “social media”. It’s about media that is social. What’s the difference?

“Social Media” (Or earned media) is the collective term used for everything involving twitter/facebook/blog/youtube/flickr etc. It’s usually about listening, engaging and growing a community.

Media that is social is the sort of media that supports an idea by providing a community participatory solution. Here’s an example: Pavegen is the first commercial pavement that creates energy from people’s footsteps. The electricity produced is used to power signs, lights and information kiosks. The pavegens can be branded and will actually work nicely with a promotion leading people (literally) to a specific store.

It seems everyone is a winner: The brand gains publicity for the unique approach and saves on electricity bills. The consumer gets a better “experience” and the environment gets some help.

Here’s another example showing how The city of Denver is using parking meters to help raise money for homeless people in Denver.

It’s simple, Every time you put money in the meter you support food, shelter and care for the homeless people in your area. How many people will avoid paying for the meters now? How many people will feel better paying for their parking space? How good will the council look? Here’s from the Mayor: “This grassroots campaign is projected to raise roughly $100,000 per year giving the general public a constructive way to help Denver’s homeless. “The donation meter demonstrates yet another innovative way in which this community is responding to Denver’s Road Home and our commitment to ending homelessness” – Mayor Hickenlooper.

The real social media isn’t about twitter or youtube. It’s about people doing something together, a bigger idea and making things better.

Would love to hear about more examples of real social media. Got some?

As part of FRANkVizeum’s social strategy for Melbourne’s GPO we’ve just launched our second promotion with the help of our friends from nuffnang and off course GPO’s lovely community manager Sarah Willcocks. As part of the spring racing carnival, Melbourne’s GPO is giving away 3×2 hour personal styling sessions with three of Melbourne’s top fashion bloggers: Fashion Hayley, Lady Melbourne and Sea of Ghosts. The lucky winners will also get their professional shots taken at the GPO and $500 towards their spring racing apparel. For more info visit Melbournesgpo.com, twitter and facebook. Good Luck!

And will it replace email?

from Epipheo Studios.

We are into day 2 of Darren ‘problogger‘ Rowse’s guide to 31 Days to Build a Better Blog (31DBBB).

Day 1 suggests you develop your blog’s BBQ-moment to crystallise what your blog is about. We settled on ”The FRANkVizeum blog helps marketers understand and exploit the ever-changing marketing communications landscape, with particular focus on brand strategy, media innovation and social business strategy with a twist of frivolous topicality.”

Day 2 suggests you post a comment which includes a list…lists are scannable, succinct, neat, persuasive and viral with many more attributes. I have no intention of replicating Darren’s 90 page work book and suggest the $20 to download it is money well spent.

So here’s my, albeit short, list. My list is one of ‘could try harder.’

1. Prahran Aquatic Centre : for the last 6 years i’ve been a regular swimmer at this excellent 50M pool and really miss the around-the-corner convenience when its not open during the day which is generally mid May to early October. They have my email, mob and address by virtue of me being a season card holder. So i’m checking the opening date for this year and find to my utter suprise its been open since 10th August. Stonnington council please….would it have hurt to tell your biggest fans?

2. Greville Records : awesome music destination in Greville Street. I’m a big fan of supporting local, independent retailers but there come a point when it can become too hard. Ordering music through them is my want rather than heading down to Virgin or itunes. But their inability to provide a reliable service is frustrating especially when you want them to still be around in 5 years. Get organised guys we love you.

3. Across the road is Greville St Bookstore, similar situation. An institution, a destination and a part of the Greville St thing but there is a fine balance between hippy/green/bibliophiles and efficient follow up/customer service. Buy some software lovely ladies.

Ok my list of three is on the gripey side BUT you can never underestimate the value of a loyal, passionate and regular customer. Never take anyone’s custom for granted.

1234 Telstra assist ridiculous ad is made even more ridiculous after you try the service. This Saturday I called the 1234 number in distress. I wanted to get phone numbers of clinics near my area as I was searching for a doctor (I was offline for a few hours so couldn’t do this properly). The pleasant operator told me of several clinics in my area. When I asked for the numbers she said she could only give me one number per call. One number out of 5-6 options. I felt like I was just put in prison with one phone call to make. After picking one clinic randomly and calling the number I realised I got to the Massage clinic. A Massage clinic when I was looking for a doctor. 1234 couldn’t even tell me this number wasn’t what I was looking for. It’s such a shame this important service makes you feel you’re talking to a sock and I wish Telstra will learn from some smart people at the end of this post and a bit from Zappos.

Zappos was sold to amazon a few weeks ago for around $900 million. Why did Amazon paid so much for it? it wasn’t for the distribution channels, for the stock or for the technology. It was for a secret sauce – their culture. Zappos has an amazing customer service department which provides word of mouth in abundance. People hear about Zappos from other people. People also hear and talk to Zappos on their Twitter account – this is a feed from all their employees who tweet (more than 400). Oh and Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO has more than one million followers on twitter – Maybe there is a relation between number of followers on twitter/employees twittering and business worth?

Who do you think is the most advanced and friendliest customer service company/brand in Australia? Who do you think deserve an “Australian customer service” award?

Yesterday i made it to Marketing Now @ the Sofitel in Melbourne. The flavour of the event was “How to use Social Media and Online Marketing to reach customers directly, and keep them.” Here’s Dave and myself courtesy of David Armano, as are all these shots gratefully borrowed from his twitpic

Some spectacularly credible speakers sharing their wisdom yesterday were Gavin servant of chaos Heaton, Laurel silkcharm Papworth and Darren problogger Rowse.

As someone who is hungry for social business learnings i found Laurel and Darren (unfortunately i missed Gavin) both generous and inspiring. I came away enriched and wondered why every seat wasn’t filled. The entry price was a $100 donation, $50 of which went towards thankyou water so it was all very affordable and worthy. One of the concepts Laurel touched on was COI, the Cost of Inaction…worth bearing in mind.

I would say that the majority of marketing directors out there are tussling with the concept of infusing social media into their businesses and brands. With a few exceptions the results so far are indifferent and yet if they’d broken away from the slavery of emails and meetings their understanding could have been mightily accelerated. I wonder if in 12 months the same speakers are assembled there will be a queque to attend?

Moving on…i took the opportunity to promote Nuffnang by stickering the venue at strategic points as in the photo…nicely spotted by Mr A.

For those who missed the event here’s Darren talking about how to promote a blog. This is from his blog not yesterday’s session, but similar content. Laurel’s presentation is available here. Many of her slides are minimalist and need Laurel to do them justice but my favourite slides are 18-24 inc. Judging by the comments flying in on twitter David Armano’s session is along these lines.

The social business challenge as we see it here at FRANkVizeum is to take social to market pitched at a level that integrates a brand’s current investment in paid for media activity and does not leave marketers thinking “What are you talking about?” and “How is this possibly relevant to my brand(s)?”  We have our social media infusion process, some case histories and we run our free FRANkademy session each month to introduce social thinking within a traditional media context. It’s working for us and our clients and i would encourage any brand with just their toes in the water to dive in and splash about.

Anybody who went to MarketingNow (or didn’t) want to add their thoughts?