Image by Michael Wesely - http://www.wesely.org

Audio version of this post:
This picture took 34 months to make.  It’s not a serious of pictures though.  It’s one picture.  You’re actually seeing the destruction and construction of a building as taken by Michael Wesely in 2001.  A snapshot is forgettable.  An image taken over three years is memorable and remarkable.  So here’s the question, “Is your marketing plan forgettable or remarkable?”

Old Spice had a marketing campaign a few weeks ago and the critics are already saying that it wasn’t a success because Old Spice hasn’t seen an immediate jump in sales.  Were they really expecting people to run to the drug store and buy Old Spice?  I think they’re trying to build something remarkable and they’re off to a great start (see the videos here).  Instead of looking at your social media plan or your web traffic as a 3 month or one year campaign why not look at it from a different perspective.  Will is be perceived as remarkable?

Remarkable is hard work and most people actually think social media marketing is less work than traditional marketing.  In fact social media marketing is more difficult because it requires transparency in a way that traditional ads do not.  No one ever expected the Ronald McDonald to create personal videos for kids and post them on the internet.  It’s easier to just create a packaged message and let it run.  Old Spice created something remarkable b/c they took part in conversations with real people.

What do you have to do to be remarkable?  Here are five ways to be remarkable.

1. Be human – Don’t hide behind your product.  Attach your product to a human experience.  Let the people behind your product or service be seen.  Let your audience know that people who care are ready to serve them.

2. Be consistent – The key to getting jobs in the plumbing, painting and roofing business isn’t being the best in your craft, it’s returning phone calls.  So many contractors just don’t call people back.  So be consistent in your communications with potential clients and provide consistent service when you do your work.

3. When in doubt, take the blame – People may take advantage of you but most people just want to hear you say “I messed up” when they have a complaint.  I don’t remember a time that my loyalty to a company was strengthened by one of their representatives trying to convince me that I was wrong

4. Say “no” - If you say yes to everyone who wants to be your customer then you’re going to work with people that might not be able to help.  Say yes to the customers you can help the most.  Don’t offer mediocrity unless that’s what you want to be known for.  If “everyone” is your potential client then you sell toilet paper or you’re setting yourself up to fail.

5. Ship – You can’t be remarkable if no one knows about your product or service.  They only way they can find out about you is if you ship something.  Seriously, go ship something.  Here’s what I’m shipping next – It launches August 2010.  It’s not ready yet…but that’s OK.  We’re gonna ship.  Are you?

This week I sat down to talk about my journey with my good friend Kevin Miller, founder of the Free Agent Academy. It’s not every day that someone asks me to talk about how I’ve found success advising companies on how to use social media to grow their customer base and deliver better service.  It was perhaps my favorite interview of all time and at the same time a very humbling experience.  In the first 60 seconds of the interview I tell Kevin what percentage of my success I am responsible for.  Hint: it’s a small percentage.



If you’d like to hear some strong opinions then hit play. If you have disagreements or questions about stuff I’ve said then this is the place to voice them (in the comments below). I welcome the opportunity. Thanks for listening.

Right click to download Andy’s Story with Kevin Miller

He was going to pay me thousands of dollars and I was going to take it. He wanted to pay me to help him promote a legitimate product to a demographic that really did need it. There was a problem though. He bought a list of email addresses but didn’t really know who they were.

I asked him if it was a list of people that had asked to get information from him specifically. He said that they had all opted in at some point. “Opted in to what?” I thought but didn’t ask.

If there’s on thing I’ve learned from reading 4,648 Seth Godin blog posts it’s that permission based marketing is the most powerful way to gain allegiance and build a business. For more than a few thousand dollars I thought I could let it slide. It would be about 10 hours of work for me and the people on the list would never know that I had any part in their SPAM inbox gaining one more message.

Two weeks after we spoke for the first time I told him I was going to pass on the project. He was spared the details of my moral quandry but I made it clear that I didn’t reject the project because he wasn’t paying me enough. I slept very well that night. I sleep well most nights. I wish my newsletter list was bigger and that I had more Twitter followers but at the end of the day what I really want is authentic relationships with people who see me as a person who can help them find success and joy in life. Permission is important to me and it’s important to most consumers. Ask permission and then sleep well. I do.

They don’t ask for permission.

Last week Old Spice showed the world how to use social media. They took one character who had been featured in less than five television commercials and produced over 100 commercials/videos in one day. It worked because they used tools and sites that require permission and options.  Here are their YouTube results as of 7/19/2010

Old Spice used Twitter (which requires you get someone’s permission before you can talk to them) to start their campaign. The videos they created were in response to Twitter messages and were posted on YouTube. That means that people had the choice to watch non-Old Spice videos when they arrived at their destination.  Old Spice resisted the temptation to change the surfing habits of users.  People like sites they’re familiar with. Businesses spend thousands of dollars to build a web site that very few of their customers go to. Old Spice understands that I’m already going to YouTube today so they showed up there.

Social media begins with permission. I see television, print and radio advertising happening like this..

1. Creative people come up with a message for your product/service.
2. Technical people produce that message (commercial, print ad etc).
3. Messages interrupt and business owners expect a customer response.

Here’s how I see social media engagement happening:

1. Ask permission.
2. Start a conversation.
3. Add value and expect loyalty

Your message comes after the customer chooses to listen. Businesses can succeed by using social media but it doesn’t start with the product message. It starts with permission.  The great news is that permission leads to more engaged customers. Businesses fail with social media because they try to talk before asking for permission.  It happens when you advertise for people to go to your web site or stop by your store.  Old Spice is obviously advertising but they’re doing it on based on my permission, not their URL.  Are you looking at your web site differently after reading this?  You should.

According to a New York Times article it seems that Neilsen figured out that we spend 22% of our internet time on social networking activities.  I think that number is going to grow substantially.

In just one year the amount of social time has almost doubled from 3.5 hours to almost six hours a month.  

The momentum of social sites is unparalleled.  How can businesses take advantage of this growth?
How can your business position itself to be part of the future of the web (which has everything to do with “social” sites)?  Here are four fundamentals to move your business forward so they can be a part of the future of the web.

1. Stake your name or someone else will

BP learned this when they didn’t take the name of BPGlobalPR on Twitter.  This is what you find now when you search for “BP Twitter” in Google. The top four links are about the fake BP Twitter account.

Stake your claim to domains too. Get the .com, .net, .org and any other identity that could help or hurt your brand.  Get the YouTube channel name, the Facebook fan page name…you get the idea.  To see if they’re available use this tool

2. Put your logo on your profile

Even if your page has no updates, be sure to place your logo somewhere on your profiles.  Don’t look cheap and lazy by having the default Twitter bird when I go to your profile.

3. Set up listening stations

What is the social web saying about you?  You’ll never know unless you listen.  Google Alerts is a great way to monitor your brand’s use on the web by entering terms of interest and letting Google send you activity they find on the web.  You can also set up Twitter searches using whatever Twitter tool you use.  I use Hootsuite personally.  If you want to keep it simple just type in your search term at http://search.twitter.com/.

4. Be dynamic

There’s a reason that the number one unpaid result of BP Twitter is not their official Twitter account.

There is truly dynamic content coming from the man who runs the fake BP Twitter account.  When I say the word dynamic I mean that the content is constantly being updated.  After you claim your place on the web you have to start creating dynamic content or anyone else who talks about your brand with more regularity than you do could come up higher in search terms.  Google (and other search engines) respect new content and links to that content more than the actual name of the web site it originates from.

Don’t assume that just because I type in your brand’s name that I’m going to go to your brand’s web site.  Be relevant.  Say something important about your products and your clients regularly or what OTHER people say will win over what you have to say.

I was in Indianapolis in a very nice hotel and my kids had just gone to bed when I sent the above Tweet.  I was shopping for a hotel room in Des Moine, Iowa on Orbitz, Travelocity, Kayak and Priceline.  I got frustrated because for as many “deals” as I found I still felt like I was relying on computer algorithms and paid for placements than real people who had slept in the places I was sorting through.  I sent out the message and other than a link to a similar travel search site’s results the only other reply I got was…

(Click here or the Tweet to see their link)

Twitter isn’t for everyone and in fact a lot of research shows that Twitter (for all the hype it gets) is mostly made up of nerdy, techy, younger crowds of people.  That being said, I still love Twitter and I think it’s going to be a medium of communication for a long, long time.  If you’re a brand and you’re not on Twitter then you might suck. Your target market might not be on Twitter and that’s valid. Sitting on the sidelines because you don’t like the game isn’t going to make Twitter go away though.  When I got the above Tweet from Country Inns and Suites in Clive, Iowa I thanked them for their response and visited their web site.  Then I screwed up.

I didn’t stay the Country Inns and Suites. I had already made a reservation by the time they had replied to my Tweet so I stuck with that decision.  That decision was mostly based on price (rarely do good decisions take place when price is the major factor).  Funny thing happened. The hotel we stayed in was bad.  It wasn’t dirty necessarily, it was just tired.  I saw more guests with dogs than guests without them.  Most of the clientele was the highway crew working on the nearby road.  Nice guys, but they were dirty dudes.

If you’re a business on Twitter your customers can;
1. Talk to you
2. Talk about you

If you’re a business on Twitter you can;
1. Follow customers
2. Listen
3. Talk

Is your business on Twitter and if so are you talking or are you listening?  Country Inns and Suites of Ives, Iowa found me and now I’m really curious to see what their hotel is like.  If they’re willing to put themselves out there on Twitter then they’re not afraid to ask for my business and they’re not afraid of me talking about them.  So go to their Twitter account if you’re curious how a hotel can use Twitter.

If you’re afraid of Twitter it’s because you’re afraid of not controlling the conversation.  The good news is if you perform well then you don’t have to worry about controlling the conversations.  They’ll be good because you don’t suck.

I fielded a question recently about whether or not Wordpress plug-ins could damage your Wordpress configuration in any way. The answer is yes and I have a few examples how.


Plugin damage

Gmail is my go to tool for email and it should be yours too. If it is then you may not know the true power of its features so here’s a good one. Have you ever wanted to search for a message from a friend that you know had an attachment included but found yourself sorting through dozens of messages looking for the small attachment icon? This video explains how you can search for messages with attachments using an advanced search term in your gmail “has:attachment”

So try it out and let me know if it works for you OK? If you’ve got more Gmail questions then you can email me at Andy@AndyTraub.com and I’d be happy to help you out. I’m a few days away from releasing “Mastering Your Gmail”, which is an hour and ten minute tutorial. Stay tuned for that as well.

For those who use 37signals’ Basecamp service to manage projects this tip might save you some time. If you have repetitive processes for clients/teams you can create templates of to do lists and import them to projects with just a few steps. Here’s how. Let me know if it works for you and specifically what lists you’re automating.