Have Media Will Travel

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social media

Advertising People: Read This Mashable Article

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I read so many articles, it’s a miracle I retain anything. There is just so much change going on when it comes to marketing, mostly due to social media, and I am trying my best to stay informed, which means I’m reading a ton.

My first go-to source for all things social media is Mashable. Four days ago, it brought us this article, How Social Media Has Radically Altered Advertising, by Hank Wasiak.

It is just so spot on, I have to write a post directing you to it.

There’s immediate credibility to the article given it’s written by Wasiak, a 67-year-old advertising veteran (whose career in advertising started right in the middle of the actual Mad Men era), is a partner at The Concept Farm, the author of the best-selling Asset-Based Thinking book series, a 3-time Emmy award-winning TV host, a keynote speaker and professor at USC’s Graduate School of Business.

The article is timely and relevant given the changing landscape we’re trying our best to navigate as marketing professionals and business managers. In addition to many valuable insights, he shares quotes and concepts from industry thought leaders that include most of my favorites: Jeff Pulver, Brian Solis, John Jantsch, Jim Farley,Seth Godin and Chris Brogan.

One of the most noticeable gems in the article is a quote he shares from Jeff Pulver: “The social media revolution is less about “we the people” and more about “me the people.”

Another good one: Bob MacDonald, CEO of Procter & Gamble, sums up just how far a “me the people” movement can go: “What I would like to have is a one-on-one relationship with seven billion people in the world and be able to customize offerings for those seven billion people. Digital allows that relationship.”

It also includes the interesting graphic referred to as the “conversation prism“, provided by Brian Solis.

(Thanks, Hank, and Mashable, for this insightful article.)

Why I Love Facebook

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I just finished reading The Facebook Effect, by David Kirkpatrick. It is a phenomenal book. In fact, it was a page turner for me.

Kirkpatrick provides readers an up-close and personal look into the mind and life of Facebook CEO/Founder Mark Zuckerberg, and provides a history of the most popular social network in the world and the second-most visited site on the internet.

Facebook enables a person like me, who lives out on the lonely frontier of Wyoming, to still have a pretty social life.

I’m working on a pretty in-depth review of the book, which I will post here before week’s end. Please check back here for it or subscribe to my blog feed so you get it in an email. This book was great, and I will share many excerpts and highlights from it in my upcoming review.

But for now, the many reasons I love Facebook:

  • It is a platform that enables me to communicate and keep abreast of my friends’ and family’s lives.
  • It is an easy-to-use “life streaming” tool that enables me to document and “journal” with words, photos and videos important and special moments in my life, and to share these moments.
  • It allows me to manage and correspond with more people than I could ever maintain relationships with offline. (In short, it makes it more manageable and practical to have, and enjoy, many different friendships.)
  • Its technology (the “like button”, link-adding features, etc.) makes it super easy for me to share information, both that which is generated by me, but also, and more importantly, the many articles or photos or other types of content I stumble upon, on Facebook, or off Facebook (via the “Like” or Facebook share buttons) and wish to share with my Facebook friends.
  • It makes it easy to discover common interests among my friends, family and acquaintances that would be otherwise difficult, impossible, or impractical for me to discover.
  • It tells me when a friend or family member has a birthday. I love this feature. I can share Happy Birthday wishes with my friends and family, including relatives and colleagues. Without Facebook’s Birthday reminders, many of these birthdays would be oblivious to me.
  • By the same token, Facebook provides a platform that enables me to become aware when a friend or relative or colleague is going through a hard time, be it a death in the family, a lost job, an illness. And, I get to learn when exciting things happen, such as the birth of a child, or a successful adoption, or a job promotion or new home.
  • And, I have really enjoyed reconnecting with old classmates, colleagues and friends.
  • I live in Wyoming. Much of my beloved state is still considered “frontier” and not even rural. It’s lonely. There are only a half a million people here — fewer people than animals. And, the country is big and expansive. Facebook allows me to lead a pretty social life despite the fact I live in a pretty remote place.

    • Facebook: Personal Lives Unveiled

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    Compared to all other things technology, which I usually embrace early, I was a late adopter of Facebook. The reason is I don’t prefer to be very social. I’m busy and tend to be selfish with what free time I have.

    But then one day I surmised that because of this very realization, Facebook could be ideal. I could be social without physically being social. With Facebook, I could be social without leaving home or even picking up the telephone.

    That was a few months ago. Now I love it. It’s my favorite social network. And although I belong to Twitter, LinkedIn and Friendfeed, and utilize YouTube and have this blog, Facebook is, hands down, my platform of choice for “life-streaming.” It’s where I go to post all of my most meaningful updates, including simple thoughts or videos and photos related to my family, friends and travel.

    This doesn’t make me special. Facebook is the most popular social network right now. For crying out loud, my parents are now on Facebook, as is one of my Grandmas, and she’s 85 years old! You know the saying, “Everybody’s doing it.”

    My Grandma Sniffin is on Facebook. She's 85.
    My Grandma Sniffin is on Facebook. She's 85.

    But, I digress. This post is about how our relationships can benefit from Facebook’s biggest strength: the personal profile. Sure, with Facebook we can learn about the personal side of our friends and family. But that’s not all. Now, we can also connect more personally to our business partners and colleagues.

    I am Facebook friends with some of the tourism clients we work with.

    For example, I know that John, the marketing director of my favorite ski resort, Grand Targhee, in Alta, WY, is a die-hard Red Sox fan and that he loves ice hockey. I know he has two kids who are about the same ages as two of our sons. I know he moved to the Idaho side of the Tetons to take the marketing helm at Grand Targhee following a similar position for Colorado ski resorts a little over a year ago. (BTW, I can’t help myself. I might mention here that Grand Targhee is my favorite place in the world to ski and snowboard. I learned to ski there, our kids learned to ski there and it has the best powder anywhere. But that’s another post.)

    I am Facebook friends with Eric, the marketing director of the Salt Lake City Convention & Visitors Bureau. As a result of this connection, I know that he’s not only an avid cyclist, but a pretty darned high level one. I know he likes yoga, and I know a little bit about his familyincluding that his son has the same name as our youngest son. I have learned he’s into endurance biking and bike racing and has a good line on interesting events my husband, Jerry, and I will want to consider in the future.

    Another long-time client I am Facebook friends with was diagnosed with cancer this past summer. Thankfully, he’s doing remarkably well following treatment, and his prognosis is good. But I’m grateful to my Facebook connection with him because it enabled me to keep updated on his health in a more personal way and enabled me to reach out in a more personal way to let him know he was in our thoughts, and to ask him if there was anything we could do to help. I also came to learn he recently got married. This is all stuff I felt lucky to know given this is a business customer I care about.

    All of these insights help me shape a conversation that is no longer limited to “do you want to do business with us?” Thank goodness we may have more to talk about and form a relationship around than only the business at hand. We are people, after all, with meaningful lives. Certainly, we can serve our partners and customers better if we know them better personally, right? Plus, thanks to Facebook, I know when to wish a client Happy Birthday. That’s pretty cool.

    Of course, this means we need to be on our best behavior. In the current social media landscape that we’re operating in, we don’t have the luxury of having two personas, one for our personal life and another for work. Our personal and work lives are increasingly blurred. As Erik Qualman so aptly reminds us in his great book, Socialnomics, when it comes to social media, one needs to “live your life as if your mother is watching.”

    In the old days, if we were lucky, we’d get a face-to-face appointment with our prospective client. It was during this meeting, while seated in our client’s office, that we could take note of family photos, trophies, certificates, posters, artwork, or other items on display, in an effort to try and get a glimpse of the “person” we were dealing with. It wasn’t much, but it was valuable.

    Today, Facebook provides that, and more.