"There's always a resistance to change," Sci-Fi Network president Dave Howe told the NY Daily News. "But in a few years, no one will notice the difference."

And that is as good a reason as any for spending gazillions of dollars to change the station's name.

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?" (Alice in Wonderland)

By B.L. Ochman

Companies large and small are scrambling to pick a social media guru to guide them through the wilds of new media marketing. Fortunately, there is no shortage of self-declared social media marketing gurus, experts, consultants, agencies and stars. Provided as a public service, an updated search of Twitter bios on Tweepsearch provides the following count:

Self-proclaimed gurus on Twitter = 5,855, including:

155 social marketing gurus
16 social marketing stars
5088 social media marketers
1,132 social media consultants
379 social media
16 social media stars
264 social media strategists
271 social marketing experts
179 social marketing companies
1,279 marketing gurus
35 e-marketing gurus
15 new media marketing gurus
144 online marketing gurus
215 internet marketing gurus
9 viral marketing gurus
82 new marketing gurus
153 blog gurus
69 Facebook gurus

And then there are the social media stars, et al, including:

5088 social media marketers
16 social marketing stars
16 social media stars
1,132 social media consultants
264 social media strategists
271 social marketing experts
179 social marketing companies
17 viral marketing agencies

Should you like guidance on how to select your social media marketing guru - besides requiring them to have an actual track record for actual clients - please see my earlier post on How To Pick Your Social Media Guru.

And please let me know if I've missed a category in my search. It is, of course, important for you to have thorough choices.

Follow me on Twitter. And Don't worry, I'm not a guru.

By B.L. Ochman

This post first ran in 2007. It is running again for obvious reasons.

Dear PR people: please take this quiz before you send out another press release or email pitch. (The correct answers are below: )

1. Has the print, online or broadcast reporter you are pitching ever covered this topic?
2. Why Would this pitch or release elicit a response from people who read it?
3. Is this pitch or release bullshit?
4. Would anyone pass along a story on this topic to a friend or colleague?
5. Have you Googled the reporters and bloggers on your list so you know if they've covered your competitor?
6. Have you read your competitors' press releases?
7. Have you checked to see if any blogs specifically cover this topic?
8. Can you make the copy shorter?

Answers: 1. Yes; 2. Yes; 3. No; 4. Yes; 5. Yes; 6. Yes; 7. Yes 8. Yes.

From the more things change, the more they stay the same department:

At Ad Age's NY City 2004 Advertising Week panel, "Money Talks: The view from the CMO's office" Ad Age editor/moderator Scott Donaton noted that the average tenure of a chief marketing officer is 22.9 months - half that of the average CEO.

Why is marketing so expendable? Said Paul Guyardo, Kmart CMO,

"We're an easy target. Everybody likes to think they're a marketer and can do our job. It's easier to get rid of us than to adjust the real problems affecting sales."

Amen.

Today the pressure is on CMOs to get the company involved in social media. There's a lot of social media GMOT - "get me one of those" in boardrooms across the globe.

I'd be willing to bet that more than a few CMOs have been, or will be, casualties of picking the wrong social media consultant from among the thousands upon thousands of self-proclaimed social media gurus.

By B.L. Ochman

While there is a huge shortage of social media strategy, there certainly is no lack of corporate online experimentation. Most of the money spending results in nothing happening. So I'd like to do my part to help a few companies avoid spending a huge amount of money for nothing in return. So, let's KISS.

That stands for "Keep it Strategic Silly" and if you can just step out of the social media echo chamber long enough to read this post, you'll thank me later. I'll keep it short.

It's raining tactics in social media marketing. Agencies and social media gurus are falling over themselves to implement the latest tactics, use the shiny new tools, and send big bills for their on-the-job-learning. The missing link, however, is strategy.

What's the difference between strategy and tactics?
Let's look at Google as an example:

Google's strategy is to provide free services that are so valuable users become dependent on them, driving drive enough traffic to the services to generate ROI for advertisers and revenue for Google.

Google's tactics:
• feature-rich Gmail with enormous storage capacity;
• Google Docs & other programs that are better, or at least as good as Microsoft's paid software;
• Google Earth; Google maps
• free Blogger.com software, Google Chrome (which looks like it will be a great browser)
• Google Wave - which looks like it'll revolutionize our online workspace
• the best search on the planet, & much more - all free.

Let's look at KFC:
KFC Strategy:
• Introduce grilled chicken to the menu
• Call the campaign Unthink

KFC Tactics:
• Hook up with Oprah to offer coupons for free grilled chicken to everyone on the planet.
• Wring hands and say OMG OMG when everyone in America showed up and there wasn't enough chicken
• Run YouTube video contest for people to say how much they love KFC, get 4 entries in a month
• Expand contest to MySpace page
• Keep asking people to tell them what is so great about KFC
• Run print ads about the contests
• Be on Twitter. And Facebook.
• Give away a life-time supply of chicken

I'm sure i've missed a few of the KFC tactics, but so what. Just remember, they called the campaign Unthink.

They've thrown a whole bunch of tactics in the chicken bucket, but the strategy is still "Tell us why you think we're wonderful" and that's not what social media is about. Social media is about actually being wonderful. That would have started by having a strategy for the Oprah give-a-way.

Continue reading...

I'm in here somewhere. along with thousands of other people all over the world who learned the Shim Sham from the late King of Swing, Lindy Legend Frankie Manning. I guarantee you'll be sitting there with a big grin on your face before this video is over.

"Dancing is falling in love"
Frankie Manning

By B.L. Ochman

Retention - Social media will help you retain customers. Concentrate on your existing customers - and they'll spread the word for you.

Engage - give your customers a reason to come back even when they're not buying.

Satisfaction - these days, customers CAN get satisfaction: if not from you, than from your competitors.

Policy - set guidelines for your community

Evolution - customer behavior has evolved. Have you?

Community - we don't care about you anymore. We care what people like us think. Let us connect with other customers.

Transparency - the days of corporate speak and the royal "we" are gone. Talk to us like we're all humans. That's respect.

Caution! Social media is not a marketing strategy!

Un-muzzle - the key is to keep employees directed, not muzzled

Socialize - that's what social media is really all about - people talking to people.

Training - educate and train your employees so they understand the policies. Trust them to do the right thing.

Openness - don't lie, you'll be found out.

Moderate - create a policy for what you will tolerate in comments on your website and in your social media outlets.

Enterprise-wide - social media is a way of thinking about relationships, not just a marketing campaign

Remember - this is not an experiment. It's for all the marbles..

Strategy - social media requires strategy before tactics. You can't be everything to everyone, and you don't need to be.

Cartoon: Hugh Macleod
Follow me on Twitter

By B.L. Ochman

(Back by popular demand) :>)
Mainstream media is in an orgiastic frenzy of coverage about Twitter. Everyone's Tweeting, from celebrities to CEOs according to CNN, The View, Today, the NY Times, the Wall St Journal and just about everyone else. Each of them covers Twitter like it's an overnight phenomenon that came out of nowhere, although Twitter has been gaining traction for three years and now has 9 14 million members.

Should your company be on Twitter? Not necessarily.

Top 10 reasons not to join Twitter:

1. every Tweet has to be approved by legal. Twitter is a social network where conversation is fast and interconnected. If you have to wait a day, or even a few hours for your 140 character Tweet to gain legal approval, Twitter will be the wrong platform for you.


2. you plan to use Twitter like a giant RSS feed, broadcasting nothing but headlines, deals. People follow people they find interesting. If all your Tweets are a one-way street: Block!


3. you think using Twitter is a social media strategy. It's a tactic, a tool, not a strategy. It works if you already have an online following who'll view your Tweets as a way to interact with your company on a human level


4. you think it's a good idea to have someone tweet as if they are the president of the company. Authentic and transparent are the keys. It's fine if someone besides the CEO tweets for your company, as long as they say that's what they're doing


5. you are not going to respond when people direct tweets at you. Twitter is like the new watercooler. If you walked out to the water fountain and talked non-stop to people gathered there, they'd certainly be happy when you left. Ditto for Twitter.


6. you think paying for followers might be a good idea. Followers are earned on Twitter. Be interesting, make only every 10th Tweet about you and you'll gain and keep a following.


7. you think all that matters on Twitter is getting a lot of people to follow you. Quality trumps quantity.


8. you want to protect your updates. If people have to ask permission to see what you're posting on Twitter, you're defeating the purpose - which is conversation.


9. you plan to track Twitter with Google Analytics. Google Analytics won't give you true tracking. You need to track the urls you post with a service like budurl or bit.ly and use one or more social media tracking tools so you can get real-time stats on Twitter


10. You think you can market to people with whom you have no relationship Listen first. Monitor what's being said about your brand, your industry, your products. Then join the conversation and become part of the community. Then your occasional marketing messages will be accepted, or at least tolerated because you also add value to the community.

T-shirt via Twitter T-Shirt Blog
Follow me on Twitter

By B.L. Ochman
What does it take to damage a brand with a hate campaign? That depends on whether the brand is listening, reacting in real-time, and has a community of its own in social media.

While fear of "the haters" damaging the brand is probably the Number One factor keeping many companies out of social media, it's the companies that are involved in social media that are most likely to survive a brand attack.

As Starbucks has demonstrated in the past week, the reasonable majority of the online community recognizes brand hijackers and calms, or simply ignores, a brewing storm.

Pro-union counterpunch
In an effort to stave off competition and re-gain ground lost in the downturn, Starbucks recently touted its coffee and its corporate values in a multi-million dollar, multi-media campaign. The launch, including a Twitter contest, was quickly met with a Stop Starbucks campaign claiming that the coffee giant is anti-union, among other things. While several blogs reported that rebels hijacked Starbucks campaign, that doesn't seem to be the end effect.

Stop Starbucks video accusing the company of harassing workers who want to unionize has 59,000 views on YouTube as of today and a Stop Starbucks' petition to Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz had amassed 14,589 signatures.

Starbucks walks the social media walk
Starbucks has 195,509 followers on Twitter. Stop Starbucks has 344. Since the Stop Starbucks campaign started they've gained barely 300 followers on Twitter. In the same time period Starbucks added more than nearly 10,000.

Today Starbucks even has a social media director, and a vast community who love Starbuck's famous burnt bean coffee. In the past week, the majority of Starbucks social media followers defended the company or simply ignored the critics. "There will always be disgruntled ex-employees who criticize any company," was an oft-expressed opinion.

Matthew Guiste, who manages social media for Starbucks, told me in email that Stop Starbucks didn't elicit much interest from the My Starbucks community, where members are invited to contribute and vote on suggestions for Starbucks.

"Allow your workers to unionize" was the title of a post in My Starbucks community, where each vote for an idea nets 10 points. As of today, the post has only gotten 40 points and 8 comments.

By contrast, an idea about Dark Chocolate beverages got 5040 points and 38 comments. And one about the size of lids on cups got 40 points.

Coffee drinkers luke-warm to critics
Guiste said the company hadn't spent much time responding to Stop Starbucks because their campaign didn't gain much traction from Starbucks Twitter, Facebook, or MyStarbucks community. The response the company did give is replete with what sounds like a lot of old-fashioned corporate-speak.

Starbucks' new ad campaign included a Twitter contest, challenging followers to seek out Starbucks posters in six major cities and be the first to post a camera phone photo of one via Twitpic, using the hashtags #top3percent and #starbucks.

Within hours, there were dozens of Twitpics in front of stores across the country. And followers of Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films used the same tags to post photos of themselves holding anti-Starbucks messages. According to Guiste, despite reports of a Twitter 'hijacking" there were only nine entries about Stop Starbucks and those had about 75 views each. Starbucks is mentioned on Twitter about 10 times per minute on an average weekday, so those nine entries were about one minute's worth of notice, Guiste claimed.

"The bottom line for us: We're the first to admit that we don't control the conversation about Starbucks. The bad news for this campaign is neither do they. Ultimately the community decides and we believe that's a beautiful thing," he wrote.

The companies most often damaged by criticism are the ones - like Domino's and Amazon - who don't monitor their brand in social media and respond to issues in a timely manner. The bottom line remains the same though: criticism often means change is needed, and smart companies listen. Ask Dell. Or Kryptonite.

Starbucks online presence has come a long way
Starbucks has come a long way since 2004, when it missed an obvious online opportunity for customer interaction, to 2005 when it was firing employees for blogging, to its 2007 toe-in-the-water Expedition for Change to the March, 2008 launch of the crowdsourcing My Starbucks Idea community, where more than 70,000 ideas have been submitted since its launch.

Starbucks has been facing a variety of problems, and Stop Starbucks is far from the biggest one: McDonald's coffee recently won a Consumer Reports taste test, which recommended "Try McDonald's, which was cheapest and best, or make your own coffee--just call it something special."

Starbucks has closed more than 600 stores and laid off many employees. Not only that: McDonald's is poised to open 1,000 coffee bars in Europe, and the US would presumably be next. A Big Research study shows Starbucks coffee is still Number One with consumers, with McDonald's an ever-closer second.

Having an established online community allows instant assessment and engagement. And those two things saved Starbucks neck in the past week.

By B.L. Ochman
The trend in online fast food advertising is toward the slightly salacious, and semi-disgusting.

Social media component? Other than a really lame try by KFC: none. Long-term strategy? None. Gimmicks: galore.

Since I'm sure someone other than teenage boys eats in fast food restaurants, I have to wonder - yet again - what are these ad agencies (and their clients) thinking? Or not thinking, as the case may be.

Carl's Jr Milkshake
Carl's Jr ad for a new orange milkshake did not make me want to drink one.

As a bovomaniac vegetarian, it actually made me feel really bad for the cows, being mauled by these two young men, who are enjoying rubbing themselves on the cows just a little too much.

White Castle
Oddly, since I thought hamburgers were made of dead cows, a person in a pig suit is doing a suggestive dance (well, as suggestive as a person in a pig suit can be) and then squirts bar-b-que sauce all over itself and some customers.

"What do you crave?" asks the female voice.
"Vegetables!" say I!

KFC - successfully unthinking
KFC wants us to Unthink and dance while eating chicken. Sorry, but chewing chicken parts while dancing is kinda gross, even if they are grilled instead of fried.

They're also having a KFC Unthink Grilled Dance Off - which has received all of four video entries in a month. And only the one with the baby is even cute.

Yet, there are 688 videos in search results for "KFC c"hicken day" and 659 under KFC free chicken. Apparently, KFC's failed free chicken promotion with Oprah left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. As one headline puts it, "REthink KFC!

None of these ads were cheap to produce. None of them have a strategy that's likely to outlive their gimmicks. And none of them make me hungry. How about you?

UPDATE June 27: The trend continues
- Hardee's Ups Ante in Fast-Food Smutfest
- Dear Fast Feeders, Please Keep Your Meat Away From the Ladies, Sexualized Sandwich Bits Are Getting Tired, Disgusting