Retiring A Deck: Social For Strategic Communication

Since my first presentation on social media in 2005 (not counting blogs), I've always considered it a moving target. The average deck lasts six months (or a year with ongoing updates).

The deck I am retiring today served as the framework for two classes at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and five presentations (each customized for a specific industry). The intent of the deck was to get students with diverse and varied backgrounds (some with social experience and some without) to rethink social media.

Rather than simply focus on tips, tricks, and tactics, the 3-hour class is meant to inspire students and working professionals to ask better questions before developing their programs. Personally, I don't think the future of social media lies in social software as much as it lies in understanding people, which ought to be the goal of any social media program attached to strategic communication. In other words, understand what people want you to communicate and then find the right tool to help you do it.

Integrating Social Into Strategic Communication

View more presentations from Rich Becker, Copywrite, Ink.

Anyone who has seen other social media presentations that I've made in the past will recognize a few items that never seem to change such as defining social media as an environment where people use social technologies to communicate. For me, that is what it has always been about.

Some people can make great cases that social media is about sales, impressions, influence, or whatever. But sooner or later the ones that have the greatest successes change their thinking. It doesn't make any sense to teach people how to adapt a social network without considering the organization's purpose or needs.

Instead, communicators and related professionals need to ask what do the people they serve really need as it relates to their product and then deliver it. While a restaurant might share some cooking tips or their latest culinary creation, a motorcycle dealer might feature customization tips, rider profiles, and area club events.

Or, as you will see at the end of the deck, a youth sports program might offer real-time score updates via text messaging and Twitter, team stories, coach tips, game photos, and any number content ideas across any number of social networks. All the while, everything needs to be developed with the organization's purpose in mind. And with that in mind, I hope you can find something useful in the deck too.

Advertising: Do You Really Know The Audience?

Huggies understands dads more than it used to. That was one of the lessons learned when one of the brand's advertisements depicted hapless dads in March.

Huggies wasn’t alone. There are plenty of brands that blow it with dads. Ragu blew it by thinking dads don’t know how to cook. Several years ago, it was Verizon that was forced to pull a dumb dad ad. And AskMen has a a top ten list that chronicles some of the worst unintentional attack ads aimed at men.

Are men getting thin skins or did marketers get stupid?

There’s always two ways to look at advertising, especially those that use disparaging humor to be memorable. Either men are thin skinned or the marketers ought to know better. I lean toward the latter while still appreciating that individuals can be less than bright, but not an entire gender.

Sure, one or two generations ago, household roles made men’s ignorance about family issues tragically funny because it was closer to the truth. They weren’t stupid but they did have other responsibilities, which made their cluelessness tragic in a comedic way. But that’s not true anymore. Nowadays, the stereotype has become tragic and that’s not funny.

The only reason some advertisers hadn’t caught on is because they take their cues from Hollywood and network television more often than real research. But what they fail to appreciate is that Hollywood and network television can get away with propping up the stereotype because they make it about an individual character and not a gender.

If advertisers were more in tune, they’d learn something else. 

More than eight in ten (86 percent) fathers today are spending more time with their kids than their own fathers did in the previous generation, according to a new national survey conducted by the Ad Council. So, in cooperation with several organizations, the Ad Council is running a campaign aimed at pushing that message forward, using the men who do as role models for those that don’t for one reason or another after conducting considerable research.

"The survey validates the trend that family dynamics are changing for the best. Amidst their challenges, in general fathers are stepping up and becoming more active than ever in the lives of their children and families," said Kenneth Braswell, director of the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse.

In fact, the national survey not only revealed that dads are spending more time with their families, but they also want to be even more involved. Seven in ten dads feel they could use tips or ideas on being a better parent and eight in ten report feeling financial pressure in their role as a father. Simply put, what most men want for Father’s Day is some time away from the pressures of parenting and economics and the chance to spend time with their children — just being a dad.

It’s an important idea, especially in the wake of another survey by Whaleshark Media that found despite the changes people have made in their households to be equal parents — seventy-seven percent of men and women said that mothers receive a disproportionate amount of attention on Mother’s Day compared to fathers on Father’s Day. Only 35 percent of men, the survey revealed, expected or hoped for a gift. Most just want time with their family.

The lesson for advertisers is simple enough. The fathers some advertisers might have had or the characters portraying dads on the small and big screens aren’t the same ones who are share responsibilities today. Ergo, any particular audience is never what you might expect them to be until you actually take the time to get to know them.

Let’s hope this helps at least one marketer avoid a dumb dad commercial in the future. As one of the 86 percent by a wide margin, I imagine that might make the best Father's Day gift yet, outside of exactly what you might expect. A little no pressure time to play is always welcome. Happy Father’s Day.

Measuring Facebook: Social Network Ads

The Wall Street Journal reports that 70 percent of Facebook campaigns return three to five times the spending; five times the cost for nearly half. The internal reporting, which was released by Facebook, comes after the "quiet period" after an initial public offering ended.

The study was completed by comScore and included tracking 60 campaigns. What is less understood is how those campaigns were chosen and whether they represent the larger share of ad purchases on the social network. Another interesting hiccup in the study is what is considered a return — mostly, the measurement was based on amplification, showing Facebook extends media exposure between 50 percent and 200 percent.

Why do many marketers still distrust Facebook and social media ad purchases?

The biggest challenge with social media marketing remains the same. Many critics attempt to apply rules to social media advertisements that aren't fair when compared to other reporting measures.

Specifically, they attempt to measure return on investment in a vacuum, as if impressions can be isolated and quantified without considering the "social" portion of the equation. Others fail to measure the right outcomes, thinking about "likes" as the outcome even though it's better to assign an outcome to anything but likes. (They just make you feel good and give you a readership base.)

If you want an analogy to better understand Facebook advertising, think of it in terms as an introduction to publication with "likes" being subscribers. But much like magazine subscribers, it's silly to expect that every subscriber is going to read every stitch of content from cover to cover and see every direct response ad. Results vary and the variance isn't decided by the publication alone. It could be anything, ranging from the content of your advertisement to what people see when they land on the page.

Besides, different advertising works differently on Facebook. While most marketers invest considerable time on prospect advertisements (filtering out people who already like a page), other advertisements could target people who already like the page — you know, people who already gave you a wink and a nod or perhaps a share.

That's part of the problem with social network advertising now. Marketers have become so accustomed to gaining numbers that they forget about the people who are already there, waiting around for something to happen even if it isn't ever going to happen. In many cases, underperforming Facebook ads/pages are often the result of not producing anything valuable (whether content or coupon) for the people there, leaving people with an empty feeling: "Okay, I 'liked' your page, now what?"

Facebook advertising works well enough for hyper-targeting efforts. 

After running Facebook ad campaigns for a number of companies, the only common ground is that there is no common ground. Each presence deserves its own objectives. For example, running a campaign to shore up locals to visit a restaurant is very different than attempting to target tourists.

It doesn't even matter what type of cuisine you are talking about (although there is a way to focus in on those folks too). To drive more locals, the ad needs to target proximities. To drive more out-of-town guests, you might need to target people who love visiting the town.

Conversely, most restaurants only target people who have an expressed interest in a specific kind of food. But the reality, in most cases, is people who have an expressed interest in a specific kind of cuisine are already entrenched with one, two, or three restaurants of that kind. If you want to penetrate that market and cause conversations, then you have to be prepared to offer them something more than their favorite restaurant.

At the same time, looking at outcomes, one also has to appreciate that if your goal is to drive more visitors to your restaurant then it stands to reason that the local targeting is a short-term investment and tourist marketing is a long-term investment, e.g., once-a-month visitors as opposed to once-a-year visitors.

Along with deep thinking, marketers need to appreciate that Facebook advertising works best as part of an add-on campaign element anyway. While there have been a few Facebook-only campaign successes, the majority of companies seeing returns are those that use social networks as an add on. Ergo, if you produce a television advertisement, post it on Facebook and ask for feedback. A percentage of people who have subscribed to the page will likely share it and some of their friends might share it too.

The lowbrow measurement is that if 1,000 of the 10,000 people who like a page see the ad and 100 of them share it, then that return is better for the few seconds it takes to upload the video than the return of not sharing it. If you can increase that outcome by running an advertisement to that video post, all the better.

Likewise, someone finding your Facebook page on a search is probably better than someone not finding your Facebook page on a search (unless your page sucks). And keeping people who do like your restaurant up to date on special events, menus, introductions, etc. is better than not doing it.

Certainly, Facebook is not the end all to a successful marketing campaign. But marketers need to step back a little bit more and consider the bigger picture. When comparing something to nothing, something is always better. The rest is dependent on what you want to do and how you prioritize it.

In other words, the jury might still be out on Facebook in terms of an investment, but it terms of whether their advertising can be a benefit is already decided. What isn't decided is whether or not companies have good enough teams to maximize a return on the effort.

Evolving Social Media: Social Business

With the advances in how social media is applied daily, the description of Social Media For Communication Strategy held at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), has a hard time keeping up even if the class does not. For example, nowhere does it mention social networks specifically, let alone the advent of social business.

But then again, this was always by design. When the three-hour session was first offered at UNLV, it was apparent  that social media had a limited shelf life as it evolved. Everything changes. And only the definition seems to remain a constant.

Social media describes the technologies people use to share content, opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives by interacting with each other in an environment. 

It's not all that much different from how people are trying to define social business today. A social business, if you are unfamiliar with the term, is much like the one above with an emphasis placed on creating and optimizing a collaborative ecosystem. It isn't different, but there's a reason to go with it.

Social media was always collaborative, but social business helps people think. 

Despite the cosmetic shift with semantics, calling some of the new technologies collaborative helps people move away from the thought that social media was meant to be a broadcast platform. It's not. Broadcast is simply one thing you can do online, and it's not even the most effective thing to be done.

The only downside is that defining social business in such away detracts from the real meaning of a social business. That definition was crafted by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus as one which also serves humanity's most pressing needs, e.g., hunger, poverty, etc. The person who stole it probably wasn't aware of the definition. They just wanted to move away from the term "media."

Regardless, where the concept of a collaborative (social) business wins is in the intent. Rather than merely promoting something a business might have, it brings everyone (anyone) together to improve the experience. Sure, it sounds remotely convoluted until it's applied so let's apply it to something.

A Sports League Broadcast Model. 

When I presented a social media session for the Nevada Recreation & Park Society, I researched several parks and recreation social media programs across the country and found exactly what you might suspect. Just like most businesses, the bulk of their social media is broadcast based with the same basic steps.

1. Write up the program you want to promote.
2. Post it on the designated blog with an enrollment link.
3. Share the blog post across various social networks.
4. Email/mail people who participated in similar programs before.

There is nothing wrong with the approach, except the interactivity and collaboration that might result is limited to comments, likes, and shares. The experience isn't really immersive. It's mostly promotion.

A Sports League Social Business Model. 

But what would happen if the social media program became more immersive? What if the content wasn't designed around promotion but on skills improvement for players instead? What if the coaches and players could share their various points of view about a game or interesting training tips? What if game highlights were shared on a video channel or all participants could rate their favorite parks?

What if mobile technology provided real-time score broadcasts or weather conditions? What if area businesses could pay to promote their game day specials via the network? What if spectators could text or message someone if they saw any problems, ranging from park damage to unruly teens or suspicious visitors?

What if players could check the scores of all games being played concurrently and track the standings of various teams? What if players were highlighted or featured for making the play of the day? What if outside contractors could be partnered with to provide solutions (such as seat cushions for hard benches)? The steps would be considerably different. Simplified to four steps, it might look like something else.

1. Focus the communication on what people value. 

2. Match this value across most logical technologies. 

3. Develop tools that make the experience participatory and collaborative.

4. Continually build upon the program, focusing on emerging needs and ideas. 

Promotion (and hoping people share the content) would no longer be the emphasis of the online communication. Instead, promotion would be the outcome of a well-defined collaboration. Likewise, the same holds true for applying similar techniques to business.

Almost any time we shift the thinking away from company objectives to customer objectives, participation increases exponentially and opportunities emerge where they never existed before, internally and externally. At least, that is the way I will present it during Social Media For Communication Strategy on June 16. Someone else can help people catch up on Pinterest.

Making Milkshakes: Personal And Public Relations

There was plenty of enthusiasm at my daughter's kindergarten class on Wednesday. They graduated.

What makes a kindergarten graduation special is that it's considered their first major step toward education. When they return after the summer, all of them will be in grade school. Their next major transition, of course, will be the fifth grade when they leave grade school and head off to middle or junior high school.

As my daughter was one of the beaming students in this graduating class, there were many memorable moments for me as a proud parent. But those personal moments aren't the ones I want to share today. Something else stuck, and it applies to communication, social media, and relationships.

How making a milkshake can be an effective communication and relationship technique. 

When the principal of the school trotted out with a blender, milk, ice cream and other ingredients, most parents weren't too sure what to think of it. The kids knew what to think. They wanted some.

Except, the lesson she had to share with them wasn't how wonderful milkshakes can be (or maybe it was). The milkshake making is how she captured their attention. She described to them how she never considered herself a good cook, but she was always good at making ice cream.

The ice cream she had was indeed homemade. It was vanilla, made with nothing more than cream, sugar, ice, and a dash of vanilla extract for good measure. She spooned out two generous scoops as she talked, adding them to the milk in her blender.

As she did, you could see every student — from kindergarten to fifth grade — begin to lick their lips in anticipation. They knew it was going to be good. And the room erupted in applause when she asked for volunteers to taste it. Except, before any of the students were picked from the crowd, she stopped.

The milkshake, she said, was pure. But what would happen, she asked, if she added one ingredient that wasn't so pure? Not a lot, she said, holding up a silver bowl with the mystery addition. Just one piece.

The sheer horror on their faces will never be forgotten as the principal dangled a single piece of raw liver over the unspoiled milkshake. Several students even cried out in anguish as she let it fall in with a plunk. Amidst the growing angst and protest, she gave the blender another spin, giving the creamy white ice cream a grayish-pink tint.

Half of the would-be volunteers who wanted to sample the milkshake weren't so interested any more. And just to be sure there were no brave takers, she then dumped half of the contents from the bowl into the blender. With a final whirl, the once white milkshake turned maroon-gray and lumpy with little unground bits of the contaminant floating freely to every corner of the drink.

All relationships start off on a note of natural purity until we alter them. 

Think for a moment about every relationship you might have ever had or will have in your life — acquaintance or friend, classmate or coworker, colleague or partner, reporter or public relations practitioner, employee or employer, contractor or customer, lover or spouse, online connection or offline passerby. It's doesn't matter which ones you think of first. In this story, all of them start out equal. All of them are just like that milkshake.

They start out pure, natural, and delicious. They can remain that way for a long time — filled with nothing but enthusiasm for the next job, next date, next gathering, next opportunity to share, serve, sell, and celebrate. But how long that lasts is up to each pairing.

Relationships are fragile things, like snowmen in spring, I once wrote as part of the prose in a company Christmas card. But even so, I don't think I realized how fragile they were until watching the principal destroy a milkshake at my daughter's school.

It only takes one piece of liver — one white lie, one unreasonable expectation or demand, one broken promise, one unfollow or meaningless connection, one malicious manipulation, one infidelity, one single dose of spam, or one time you need need to be right at all costs — to give it that uncharacteristically grayish-pink tint. And even while most of relationships are anything but pure white over time (because of one party or the other; one mistake or another), one might wonder just how murky someone can make a milkshake before it becomes undrinkable. Most of the time, it seems, people color them up pretty good because we're all human.

Still, the truth is that we don't have to carry around muddied, chunky milkshakes. Since every relationship starts out with the same set of pure ingredients, someone has to be the first to toss in a little piece of liver (or maybe the whole bowl). And while there are plenty of people in the world who are really good at doing it first that doesn't mean we have to beat them to the bullshit finish.

If you want to really change the way you think, work, and live, take a moment to assess all the milkshakes that you have in your life. Are they all white? And if they are not white, how much of the liver did you intentionally or unintentionally dump into them?

Chances are that some of them need to be poured out (those destructive forces in your life), some of them need to be drunk up so you can start over (the ones you messed up all on your own), and a tiny few of them need to be preserved (those lucky few or any that have started new). And then, assuming you are lucky enough to minimize the sludge after the cleanup, maybe you can carry the wisdom in the lesson for the rest of your life — you don't have to ruin your milkshakes. And you don't have to keep the ones that someone else ruins either.

Managing Conversation: Tips For Business Owners

“Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.” — Gen. George S. Patton (War As I Knew It, 1947)

When most business owners first encounter the quote, many assume it's about innovation. But the quote from Gen. George S. Patton is only part of his overall ideology. Much of it is about communication — when to talk, how much to talk, and what to talk about.

Patton didn't have much of a choice in this assessment. Unlike many first-time business owners, he wasn't disillusioned in the belief that his business — war — was ever going to be easy. It's exactly the opposite. It's exceptionally hard work with sacrifices and consequences that are hard to live with, weighed against the greater victories that can be achieved.

Business isn't much different, except the consequences aren't usually the loss of lives as much as livelihoods — time, money, and sense of security. Generally, those are the three things you put on the line. But this distinction aside, his ideology has always been fitting for any business.

• When To Talk. The best executives don't invest too much time talking about things. They would rather be doing because doing helps action steamroll ahead toward the objective. Ergo, for as much as some people want to figure out the return on investment of tools like social media, they ought to pause long enough to factor in the return on investment for every meeting or conference call.

No one is suggesting that meetings are worthless when they have a purpose (even if that purpose is to boost morale), but put the cost of meetings into perspective — the hourly value of everyone in the room plus lost revenue by taking those people off the line. If there isn't a purpose, no matter how successful the meeting might feel, then it carries a negative return.

Patton didn't have much patience for purposeless meetings because he understood that many of them were little more than people jockeying for position. He had a quote for that too. "We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way," he said.

• How Much To Talk. The crux of the initial quote is about ingenuity, innovation, and ideas. Not always, but often, the best ideas come from some semblance of collaborative strength, maximizing the talents of many individuals with different perspectives. In other words, one person sets down the parameters and then other people get to work on it.

In the field of communication and product development for example, creative people are generally given a loose vision of what they are to create (and any mandatories). When they return with a solution, someone reconciles the vision agains their reality. Sometimes it won't reconcile. Other times, people produce something better.

For Patton, his approach was a necessity. He did not have time to map out where every individual might be at any given moment. He didn't expect perfection. "A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution applied ten minutes later," he said.

• What To Talk About. When conversations happen, make sure part of their measure of success is to make them progress driven with solutions in sight. Too many businesses invest too much effort in negative speak, focusing in on everything that might be wrong.

Sure, it's always useful to point out errors or realign expectations, but there is an old saying that I once picked up from a fellow political campaign strategist — you will never get anywhere with a negative message that ends on a negative. What the strategist meant by that is no candidate can win by talking about the bad unless they can end with a solution that gives people hope.

The same holds true inside companies. If you always tell the team that they can't do anything right, then there is a very good chance that you will always be right. You might think you win on that point, but there is nothing to gain in proving it. Consider what Patton thought about that too. “I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom,” he said.

And if they don't bounce? Let them go. 

I've never met a successful business owner who ever kept someone around just to berate them. If they do, then they aren't generally successful. They're something else. And all too often, unlike Gen. George Patton, they are the instrument of their own failures, with most of those thinking themselves victims.