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Please Stop Doing This.

Posted by Ryan on Apr 30, 2013 in Ryan's Thoughts | 0 comments

Hootsuite and a bunch of other programs let you share a single post between multiple social networks. Have something to say? Type it once, and have it posted to Facebook and Twitter at the same time.

Please stop doing this.

What’s the point? It’s not being social, it’s being lazy. It’s like if one of your friends phoned to talk just to you, but then added his mom to the call so that he wouldn’t have to explain all the stuff that he’s been doing in the last week a second time.

There are hundreds of social networks out there – for businesses there are MANY of them that have a better social reach than Facebook – so don’t think that you’re covering two birds with one stone. Take the 30 seconds to retype something, or better yet, share something different.

Your friends and customers will notice.

Carrier Signals

Posted by Ryan on Apr 22, 2013 in Ryan's Thoughts | 2 comments

Have you ever heard of a carrier signal? Unless you’re involved in science or electronics, you probably don’t really know what a carrier signal is, although it impacts your life in  hundreds of ways every day. Radio, television, the internet, and your cell phone all use carrier signals to get information to you and carry your responses away from you. However, alone the carrier wave is nothing. Tune into an empty radio station and there is nothing to listen to. A carrier wave is just a sine wave of a specific frequency – it might be 60Hz, like the electricity in the walls of your house, or it might be 92.7MHz like a radio station. What makes it really useful is its ability to be modified to spread a message.

The marketing world is full of carrier waves. Digital marketers call them channels, print marketers call them publications, social media marketers call them networks – but they all do the same thing. That’s why the core of any marketing must be the message – and that’s what you need to be focusing on when you are marketing your business.

It often surprises people who meet me in real life when they discover that I really like print marketing (such as advertorials), or that I believe in direct mail. I’m seen as the social media guy that they met on Twitter. That’s fine, I do love working in the social media space – it provides almost instant feedback on my efforts and it keeps me from being lonely. In truth, I like all forms of marketing – because I love working on getting down to the message of products and services.

Work on your core message, discover what makes you unique, learn about who your customers are, and then craft a message that reaches out to them. And then choose the carrier signal that is most likely to spread your message to your customers. That’s how you succeed in marketing, and that’s how your business is going to grow. So next time you hear someone say something like “Twitter is the next big thing in marketing”, don’t you believe them. The next big thing in marketing is the same as the last big thing – content. There might be new ways to share that information, but it doesn’t change anything about marketing in any meaningful way.

Don’t get me wrong – there is nothing wrong with new tools. I love new tools, and I love teaching other people how to use them effectively. But don’t expect a tool to fix your problems by itself. You still need someone who understands the problem to use the tools correctly. And you might be surprised at just which tools a professional will select.

KMart Wins The Internet

Posted by Ryan on Apr 12, 2013 in Ryan's Thoughts | 2 comments

It’s a fine line on the internet between being funny and crossing the line. Kmart has just released a new commercial (which I assume is for YouTube only) that dances that line perfectly. It’s both perfectly on point (KMart will ship your purchases right to your door) and hilarious.

The best part of this commercial is that the punch line is ALSO the Unique Selling Proposition. It’s perfect. Well done Kmart.