THOUGHT (aka Centric's Blog)

It’s really kinda neat. Centric is working with more and more technology companies these days. Call it the economy, or call it a return to our roots (I’m an electronics engineer, Sue’s a chemist), but there’s one thing we really like about it: people in technology tend to be smart. Really smart.

Sometimes, maybe, a little too smart for their own good.

Let me illustrate with a quick case study. A couple of years ago, we had a client that was introducing a new technology. And by "technology," we don’t mean "a better iPod," but "something that serious scientists would use on the next generation of microprocessors." And, after we sat down with them and talked it through, it became apparent how much of a breakthrough this technology was. It was, simply, the ONLY way of doing what they were doing. As in, "Want to do this? We have the only solution. And we have enough patents to ensure that nobody else will have this solution, like, until we’re all running Windows 11 on our biomimetic brain-processors."

So, you’d think the advertising and outreach would be simple, right?

In an ideal world, yes. A message of "This is the only way to do X," when you know people have to do X in order to make the next generation of microprocessors work is dead simple. You don’t need to get into tricky metaphors or long lists of features.

But then brand marketing stepped in. "Can we reference this in terms of our core brand promise?" they asked. "Does this tie into the overall theme we’ve been developing?" "It seems too simple, can’t we add something more creative?" They were pushing us off a simple one-line statement that anyone could understand, and burying the key communication (if you want to do this, you HAVE to come to us) down in the body copy.

Uh. Well.

In the end, everything worked out. But what should have been a dead-simple process ended up eating incredible amounts of time.

So here’s that advice I bragged about: Keep it simple. Don’t over-complicate your message. If you have a one-and-only product, don’t be afraid to simply say it.

"Yeah, duh," you say. "But I don’t have a one-and-only product. I have a product with a list of 83 key features put together by the engineers and scientists, and I have no idea which ones are the most compelling. And the engineers only care that we’re using an entirely new foundation chipset."

And yeah, that’s more common. But you can still keep it simple. Here’s how. Take that list of 83 key features and sit down key people from engineering and sales. Bring a red pen. And do this:

1. Ask the engineer, "Which of these key features are ones that only we have?" If they tick off one or ten, move them to the top of the list. If they hem and haw about relative performance, and shades of gray, then ask the second question.

2. Ask both the engineer and salesperson, "Which of these key features do we have a more than 50% advantage in?" That should get you some items. Move them to the top, if you don’t already have some one-and-only features.

3. Ask the salesperson, "Now, for these top features, what is the benefit to the end customer?" And have them write it next to the features. Now you have a whole lot of fodder for marketing messages.

4. Ask the salesperson, "Now, if you were standing next to your biggest prospect on a show floor, what are the THREE top benefits you’d talk about?" This gets you the ad copy.

5. Ask the salesperson, "Now, if you were standing in front of your biggest prospect in an elevator and he punches the button for the next floor–so you only have a few seconds to talk to him–what is the ONE top benefit you’d tell him about?" Now, you have your headline.

And there you have it.

"So, why are you getting into social marketing?" we ask a new client.

"Well, you know, the economy. It’s rough out there. My budgets have been cut. I need to make the most of my marketing dollars. And I hear that social media is really, well, cheap."

"Uh," we say. "That can be true when social media is integrated into your overall marketing efforts, and measured against the effectiveness of something like television commercials. What are you doing on the conventional side, and how can we tie into that?"

"Oh, you can’t," the new client says happily. "Our conventional agency does that, and they don’t want their campaigns compromised."

"Uh-huh," we say, with a sinking feeling.

"In fact, they’ve given us a proposal for social marketing, but we think that it’s kinda expensive. And, you know, social marketing is supposed to be cheap."

Screech. Take the needle off the record.

Here’s the reality. Social ain’t cheap. Or, if it’s cheap in terms of dollars, it’s costly in terms of time and staffing. Or if it’s cheap in terms of time, it’s costly in terms of dollars. With social, you’re not buying space and putting your message out there–you’re starting conversations. And the thing about conversations is that, well, they’re *interactive.* if you don’t respond to what your customers are saying, they’re going to get irritated in a big hurry. And if you keep looking at your watch, like you have something more important to do, they’re gonna go find some more interesting friends.

Social marketing is a long-term play that takes time. Either agency billable time or in-house staff time. It’s your choice where you put your investment, but you’re heading for failure if you think it’s cheap.

So, you’re gonna start doing some social campaigns. Set up a presence on Facebook, get a Twitter account, maybe even produce a widget or iPhone application from some relevant software product or service you offer. And when we ask you, "So, are we going to manage the program, or are you going to hire a marketing specialist dedicated to social media?", you answer:

"Well, actually Bob has some time. He’ll do it."

"Who’s Bob?" we ask.

"Oh, he’s the guy who does our VP’s presentations, but he has a Facebook and MySpace and Twitter, and uses them all the time."

"Aha. How many hours per day will Bob spend on your social media presence?" we ask, feeling that sinking feeling that, you know, maybe this ain’t gonna work out at all."

"Well, that depends on how much time he has. I mean, it can’t take that much time to do a couple of posts, right?"

"And what methodology have you put together for measuring and documenting what Bob is doing?" we ask.

"Oh. Ah. You mean we have to think about that?"

And we shake our head. And put down another social campaign that’s bound to fail from what we call "Staffing Starvation." Social media isn’t like the rest of your marketing. It’s a step up in engagement from even online marketing. Are you still adjusting to media where you’re live 24/7, there’s no flighting, and you are measured on everything you do? Then hold on to your socks. Because social media is all that–with the added bonus of having real customers having an open mic to make comments about your products, your company, and the people who run your social media presence. If it’s a half-hearted effort, you’ll hear about it. And so will everyone else who comes to your social media presences.

And Bob, in his half-hour per day before lunch, isn’t going to be able to be an effective moderator, much less a content creator, or someone who can direct people with real questions to the right people in your company.

Like it or not, a social media campaign is a concerted effort. If you aren’t prepared to hire an agency to manage it, or staff internally for it, you might as well stay out of the mediapool.

Admit it.

You don’t need yet another online medium. You don’t need something else to do a campaign for. To measure. To pay attention to. To justify. You don’t even use Facebook or Twitter, you don’t have a YouTube account, and you don’t share your photos on Flickr. All you want to do is go home at a reasonable hour, put your feet up, and watch some TV. Or go out and see a game. Or spend some time, like, face to face with real friends.

But someone "up there" has decided you absolutely, positively have to be in social media, and there’s no way around it. And there are no shortage of self-proclaimed social media gurus and agencies ready to tell you how big social media is, how important it is, how it will change everything we are.

How do you feel? Angry.

We understand. It’s just another thing for you and your overworked department to deal with. You just wish the whole social scene would go away. Life would be so much easier if you only had to worry about television and newspapers.

And when it comes to creating that shiny new social campaign, you’re really not thrilled. You’re primed to look for every little flaw in the program, to make every possible objection to derail it (and hopefully make it go away), and to make sure the results are as poor as possible. Needless to say, this isn’t a recipe for success.

Now, we’re not saying you have to put on a big fake smile and pretend to love social media marketing. But with social networks being bigger than email, according to Neilsen, you probably won’t be able to avoid it for long. Even on the B2B side.

So what do you do? Well, you start by keeping the complexity down. Don’t be swayed by big shiny gaming-widget-based campaigns with virtual currency and karma-based user leveling, no matter how uber-cool the agency says it is. Don’t go for a multifaceted, year-long campaign that requires an army of bloggers and direct links into your ERP system to make it work, even if the agency says it’s right in line with your business model.

No. Start simply. Did you know that Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn all offer inexpensive advertising that frequently outperforms AdWords due to their ability to micro-target? Did you know you could simply create a presence and start listening to what people have to say? There are many ways to dip your toe in, learn a bit, and then do more of what works.

Social marketing may be new, and it may seem scary, but it doesn’t have to be complex. There’s no need for hate. Just a healthy dose of pragmatism.

When I first heard about Ford’s Fiesta Movement, I heard it like this. "Ford is giving away 100 Fiestas to prominent social media people, with no other requirements about what they do with them."

And, as soon as I heard this, I had two thoughts:

1. Holy moly, this is the end of conventional media! If they’re picking really prominent people–ones with tens of thousands of followers, or networks that number in the hundreds of thousands or even millions–the game is over. By the time the mainstream press gets ahold of these cars, the opinion will already be set by the buzz in social media. And, assuming the Fiesta is a $15,000 car loaded, this whole stunt cost them only $1.5 million, or about 1/2 of a superbowl ad, or 1/100 of the new Camry launch budget.

2. Holy moly, is this the beginning of monetized attention and social currency, as I predicted in my Interzone 220 story, "Monetized?" And, if so, does this mean prominent social media folks will begin to receive boatloads of free stuff in the hope they’ll review it, from cars to detergent? And if that’s the case, is this really a sustainable model?

Of course, that’s when I dug a little deeper and found out that Ford didn’t really give away the cars. They’re loaning them for 6 months. And they’re not giving them only to hand-picked, mega-socially-connected attention-behemoths, they’re giving them to normal people who applied to be part of the program. And those people will even be expected to do "assignments" with the cars, one per month, for 6 months.

All in all, a much better thought-out program than simply giving the cars away. It avoids the cries of "bribery!" It forestalls the avalanche of free products on every prominent social media person in the world. It preserves some semblance of taste and order. And it may still have a significant impact on the car’s perception in the mainstream.

But I can’t help thinking, "Wouldn’t it have been even more fun if they’d simply given the cars away?"

While the Big 3 car companies all play brinkmanship with insolvency, a new ad model may have been invented out of the chaos. Let’s call it "Reality Advertising." It’s a name just coined by Centric’s Jason Stoddard but implemented by, none other than, stodgy old Ford Co. Yes, that Ford.

Here’s the deal and I stand back in awe. As reported in today’s Washington Post, Ford is handing over the marketing campaign of its Fiesta brand to 100 social media participants with no advertising experience to drive the Fiesta, post YouTube videos about the experience, friend and share their thoughts with their thousands of followers on Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and their personnal blogs. They will be no interference whatsoever, we’re told.

These 100 were reportedly chosen by their "social vibrancy," among other criteria. They are taking all this very seriously and understand the power handed  to them. Dangerous, you bet. But, as a spokesperson for Ford pointed out, "We’re starting from zero."

Indeed they are.

Can your brand take this challenge?

In five years, you’ll look back at your iPhone and laugh. It’ll be like that first Motorola flip-phone you owned. You know, the one that cost $1000, was made out of recyled Bic pen plastic, and had seven-segment LEDs for the phone number display.

Here’s a glimpse at our augmented future.

Watch it all the way through. Yes, I know, it’s long. Yes, I know, the hardware ain’t Apple-sexy. But this was also something put together on a college-shoestring budget with a very small team.

Buckle up. The future is coming.