FRANKthoughts

Melbourne’s freak storm on Saturday ended up as the most talked about topic on twitter and hundreds of videos were submitted to youtube:

This is mass media. This is main stream. This is where brands need to go next.

Here are three things to do BEFORE launching a facebook page:

1. Invest in social business strategy – don’t just start a twitter. Make sure you’ve got a plan first. This will be the best $20,000 you invest.

2. Find a community manager – earned media is not another task for your marketing manager. This will be the best $40,000 you invest.

3. Align social media with internal/external objectives – If you have the strategy and the management resource this should grow organically.

Anyone else with some more pointers?

In the last few weeks we’ve noticed many brands having interns manage, investigate and pursue their social media presence. This might be because interns are usually young people who “get” the space or the organisation state of mind where “this new thing” is something that sits outside of the normal/traditional media/marketing dept. Although it’s good to start somewhere I don’t believe leaving social media to the interns is the best use of resources for the following reasons:

1. Yes, Interns know how to use facebook but do they know how brands should act on facebook? do they have the experience needed to comply with legal requirements, customer service or negative buzz? Knowing how to do something doesn’t mean you’re good at it and brands should realise it’s not a tech thing, it’s a marketing thing.

2. Interns usually leave quickly. They’ve done their part and left you with an excel spreadsheet with some sketchy strategy. There is no implementation, no buy-in from management and in most cases no one to pick up the project where the intern left it.

3. Interns cant see the big picture. They will usually be working on the “social media stuff” focusing on one platform (probably facebook) without considering other aspects of the business. Social media should be part of your communication strategy and if your intern isn’t part of that team in your business your social media strategy will be lacking.

What are your thoughts? Is an intern better than nothing? thanks to Drew for getting me to write this post.

There’s nothing better than to start the new year with some fresh ideas. The Customer Learning Curve is showing that your target audience is made of different people in different stages of their relationship with your brand. Check it out and let me know what you think:

We had some FAIL, we had some NAIL but the most important thing is that brands are starting to understand more about earned media. I believe next year will see a growth in this area especially in social business strategy and brand community managers. You can check out some other opinions: Mumbrella’s FAIL list for 2009, Ben Shepherd and Julian Cole’s 2010 predictions (On Ben Shepherd’s blog with a great comment from Mo from NOVA) and this video by Laurel Papworth:

What are your thoughts about earned media towards 2010?

Here’s another (very funny) video via Mo and Henry Feagins:

Internet Archaeologists Find Ruins Of ‘Friendster’ Civilization

I’m not overly optimistic about the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. In fact I don’t believe the answer will come from politicians. I think it needs to come from economists, entrepreneurs and the market. We need to change the debate from “saving the world” (which unfortunately doesn’t carry enough punch) to “making money”. What does this has to do with branding?

At the moment, all countries (brands) are more or less the same. Everyone is looking for someone else to lead or to come up with the best excuse for not cutting emissions. This is the chance to leapfrog. If I was pitching for the brand called Australia I would pitch a strategy taking the lead on environmental AND economic growth for it to become Australia’s next export in terms of knowledge, products and services. Investing in new sustainable energy solutions, social entrepreneurship and green collar jobs is not a “pie in the sky” anymore – New York is already committed to a greener buildings and better energy use: “New York City Council voted overwhelmingly to pass the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan – a package of bills aiming to reduce New York City’s carbon emissions by almost 5%, create more than 17,000 jobs, and save New Yorkers $700 million dollars a year in energy costs.”

In five years the Australia brand can be recognised as a global leader in sustainable housing solutions, environmental living, bio-fuels, and more. This move will have a positive effect on wild life (therefore tourism dollars),  Education (therefore more money from overseas students) and improved health care with huge benefits to the economy (less money spent on health = more money spent on other things like education). What do you think? Can we do it?

Is it the PR agency? the advertising agency? the marketing department? Whoever it is they need to practice what they preach. They need to be familiar with the tools, to know the language and have guidelines to follow. They need to have something to measure with both short and long term goals. They need to provide value for your customers and business. Can anyone do it?

Here’s something from Seth Godin in his post “Watch the money“: If you’re in the music business but you never buy tickets or downloads, can you really empathize with the people you’re selling to?… if you work for a non-profit and you don’t give money to charity, what exactly are you doing in this job?… Money is more than a transfer of value. It’s a statement of belief. An ad agency that won’t buy ads, a consultant who won’t buy consulting, and a waiter who doesn’t tip big—it’s a sign, and not a good one”.

If there is one rule when it comes to building your brand and business social assets it is to buy it from the people who invest in it themselves. They have probably faced the same problem you’re facing and have the hands on experience to build a sustainable social business solution. Do you think brands should have a community/social officer?

When the world is changing so quickly some organisations will survive and some not. The difference will be in how well you prepare and how good is your solution. Here are three examples of three different industries going through changes. These are my observations and I will love to hear your thoughts:

1.MUSIC: Artists are doing it for themselves – Superstar artists are now using social media to launch their new video/show/single using Ustream.tv and facebook: That’s right both Shakira and Chamillionaire did this in the last week against their record label’s advice and I expect to see many more artists doing this “social media” thing in the near future. So if you’re a record label or a music related business this act represent both threat and opportunity. When your artists know better than you how to reach their audience, there is a problem.  It’s up to you to keep up.

2.NEWSPAPERS: What will be the new model? Rupert Murdoch continues his war against google and wants to charge for online content. That’s great. Now he’s saying that without eTablets, “Newspapers Will Go Out Of Business.” Do you actually know anyone who owns an e-tablet? Any way you look at it, the newspaper model is broken (now they might charge you for a day pass?) . People are getting their news from other sources for free. Will people pay to get the same content on an e-paper? I don’t believe quality journalism is broken but I feel the delivery mechanism is. In a world where everything is shared by niches what’s the role social media and crowds can play within a publication? I’m sure Murdoch is working on it but if I was working for a newspaper or a magazine I’ll be thinking about it too.

3.ADVERTISING: The rise of the consumer-ambassador – When Coca-cola is doing it you know it’s real but they are not the only ones. More and more brands are using reality type “social” campaigns featuring real people to earn brand recognition, more fans/followers and the holy grail: organic google juice. Think about how many mentions your brand can get when people are constantly adding content, twittering and blogging about it, sharing the content with their friends and their friends friends. When the consumer journey starts with a google search, your first page is the most valued property you have. In this kind of world you need to be sure of what happens when someone is googling you.

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.

Andrew Mudgway (no “e”) joins us today, 17 years after he began his career in advertising with George Patterson Bates. Mudge (with an “e”), as the industry knows him, has worked his way through Patts, DDB, OMD, Zenith Optimedia and latterly Austereo. Now at the sagacious age of 37 he has seen the wisdom of joining FRANkVizeum.

Clearly a smart guy Mudge’s forte is marketing communications and brand strategy. In addition to being responsible for the Carsales Network portfolio of sites including homesales.com.au Mudge will also have a senior role in helping to run the FRANkVizeum business.

We’re very happy to have Mudge onboard and we’d ask you to join us in wishing him every success.

A big shout out to everyone who attended our fourth FRANkademy on Friday, for what was another very successful social media session.  Thanks to MCN, Hardie Grant Publishing, Yaffa Publishing (AdNews), Carat, iProspect, Keep Left PR, Propeller PR and Austereo for their input and participation.

A special thankyou also goes out to our friends at Nuffnang, for making the big trip from overseas!

The session covered off a broad range of topics, including:

An introduction to the size of the opportunity social media presents
The importance of having an integrated social media strategy and not ‘grabbing at the tools’
What is Twitter?  Who is using it well?
Blogging, Blog Networks and Nuffnang Australia case studies
FRANkVizeum’s approach to bought/owned/earned media – a working case study

For anyone who missed Friday’s session and would like to attend our September event, please RSVP here and we’ll look forward to seeing you!