Monthly Archives: November 2009

Let reporters and bloggers “Choose Their Own Adventure”

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I read a lot of “Choose Your Own Adventure” books growing up. I loved getting to the end of a section and deciding which path I would take — should I sneak into the castle by climbing over the wall or try and swim across the moat? Having options allowed me to read the story that most interested me. In the end, each book featured the same setting, the same characters, and mostly the same plot. But the details varied and made the reading experience richer and more personal for me.

When pitching reporters and bloggers, think like a Choose Your Own Adventure author. Not every reporter wants to take the same path through a story. They all have different preferences and interests. A reporter with a technology focus may want to know the exact ins and outs of how a product works, while a blogger who writes about big-picture trends is likely to be more interested in how people are going to use the product.

Sure, you can use the same pitch to reach out to all reporters and bloggers. But that requires the story to be broad and general enough to appeal to all of them. Sometimes the story is so compelling that it works; often it ends up just not hooking anyone. But if you can figure out which adventure each reporter would be likely to choose in working their way through your story, you can serve that up right off the bat. The high-level story architecture (setting, characters) will be the same, but it’s the details that will make the difference.

With Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and Google, it’s really easy these days to do your research and figure out what interests a reporter or blogger. That information can help you put together the details of your pitch and create different “endings” for your story for each outlet.

And here’s the kicker – once I chose my way through a Choose Your Own Adventure story as a kid, I would always go back and reread it to come up with the different endings. I would catch a part later on in the book that interested me and work my way back to try and figure out how to get to that section via a different path. Maybe it was just my inner dorkiness, but I was always interested in determining how the different parts of a story were connected.

If you can hook a reporter or blogger with a pitch that speaks to them and their personal sense of “adventure”, chances are they may dig a little deeper, too, and end up with several story ideas from your pitch.

If you decide to give reporters a personalized adventure, turn to page 36.

If you’re scared and want to turn for home, turn to page 55.

Get your social media horse out from behind that cart

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“Let’s send out direct mail postcards with discount codes to potential customers.”

“Let’s sponsor a conference and have our CEO speak at it.”

“Let’s create a referral program for our current customers to help us generate new business.”

Most savvy marketers could read the three statements above and instantly recognize them all as tactics, not strategies. All of those actions might be a good idea, but it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Most organizations know they at least need to start with a strategy, a goal, before embarking on a marketing or PR campaign. You don’t just jump to tactics.

Now replace postcards, conference, and referral program in the above statements with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Still tactics, right? So why are so many erstwhile savvy marketers thinking that these three platforms constitute a social media strategy?

Cart before the horse

A strategy starts with business goals. Are you trying to sell more product? Reduce costs? Attract more members? Repair a damaged brand reputation? Your marketing and social media activities should match up with these business goals. What does success look like and how do you measure it?

After goals are defined, determine who you’re trying to reach, where they are online and what you’re trying to get them to do. If your target audience is not using Twitter, don’t make Twitter the crux of your marketing campaign. You wouldn’t send a direct mail piece about mortgage refinancing to a bunch of apartment renters. So don’t try to reach teens and college students on LinkedIn.

I’ve been talking with too many organizations lately that want to skip right to implementing social media tactics. Maybe it’s because they’re caught up in the hype and buzz surrounding social media or feel that they’re behind the game and need to get moving. Perhaps their competitor has implemented and seen success with social media and they don’t want to be left behind. It still doesn’t mean that skipping the strategy part is okay, though. Even if you see “results”, without a strategy you won’t know what those results are achieving.

Stop. Take a step back. Start with strategy.

Photo via Flickr user Emilio Labrador

How NYS could have made its license plate less ugly

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It’s not exactly the best of times for The Great State of New York right now. The financial crisis has hit the state hard and one of the “solutions” for coming up with some extra cash is to make all New Yorkers get rid of their perfectly acceptable license plates and re-register for a higher plate fee and get new plates.

New York State Gold License Plate

Today the DMV released the new plate design. Some people have noted that it’s “retro” and seem to like it. I’m among the many voices, however, who think they’re hideous.

I also view this as a missed opportunity. How cool would it have been for New York State (the stodgy DMV, no less) to crowdsource the design of its new plate and have people vote on a new design? They could have accepted submissions for a few weeks, eliminated designs that were too complicated, whittled it down to five or 10 choices and had residents vote for the new plate, or used a voting/ranking system for all the submissions (like myStarbucks idea). They could have had a handful of out-of-work graphic artists each submit a design and profiled each person.

The result would probably be the same (some people would like the new design and some would hate it), but it would have been a way to get people engaged in the process and make the whole idea of having to buck up for new plates a little more palatable (only a little).

Organizations often have to make changes that are difficult or unpopular. Making sure stakeholders feel invested and involved in the process is one way to make the rebellion ever-so-slightly less hostile when those changes come about.

Update Nov. 16:
The Buffalo News is reporting that the state has thrown in the towel on this new license plate plan. Though likely, not because of this post. ;-)

Recap: Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley #4

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In just over four months, Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley has grown to be among the largest in the country. Last Friday about 150 people turned out to hear Aaron Newman of Techrigy talk about social media monitoring and measurement at SMBTV #3.

It was a much broader crowd this time, with a lot of fresh faces and several people who were relatively “new” to social media. While I’ve worked hard as the SMB organizer to keep the event from being at too much of a 101-level (because there are plenty of those events), there were a lot of general social media questions that Aaron did a good job answering.

Aaron asked that the presentation be interactive and he wasn’t disappointed. There were so many questions that at one point I had to ask people to hold them until the end just to make sure we could get through Aaron’s slides in time! A lot of attendees had great social media stories to share and it was good to see everyone networking and enjoying each other’s company.

Here are some of the key ideas I took away from Aaron’s presentation:

  • Monitoring, measurement, and analysis are often used interchangeably when talking about social media but they’re really three very distinct phases.
  • There are lots of things you can measure in social media, but what you should measure depends on your strategy. Start with strategy. Always.
  • Computers don’t understand sarcasm, so measuring sentiment is still a challenge. Not all monitoring can be automated.

Lots of great content was generated about/around the breakfast itself, too:

I’m quite amazed at how quickly Social Media Breakfast has grown in this area and what a great networking and community event it’s become.

The next event is in December and will feature a panel of fantastic blogging minds: Greg Dahlmann, Lara Kulpa, Christina Gleason and Amanda Magee. The College of Saint Rose Communications Department will be sponsoring.The American Red Cross has offered to host us and I’m working with them to try and combine Social Media Breakfast with a blood drive.  More details to come!

Image via Flickr user amymengel (wait, that’s me!)