FOLLOW ME

diciembre 27, 2013

SELFIES PARA EMPRESAS


Si algo representa los medios sociales en su esencia más pura, es el Selfie. Un autoretrato es más que una imagen. La visión de nosotros capturada por nuestro propios ojos, por los de nadie más... Hecha para ser compartida. ¿No es eso lo que son los medios sociales? ¿Presentarnos a nosotros mismos la forma en que nos vemos? ¿La forma en qué queremos que nos vean?

Los famosos, los políticos y el ciudadano medio los utilizan a diario. Ofrecen sensación de cercanía, de humanidad ... personas reales en un mundo digitalizado. Cuentan la historia de lo que se muestra, y de lo que escondemos. Son la metáfora perfecta de un mundo móvil. Tomamos la mayoría de ellos con la cámara de nuestros móviles. Muchas veces, el dispositivo está presente en la imagen. Y el gadget, también dice mucho de nosotros. El modelo, la cubierta, la forma en que lo sostenemos, la manera en que se ha convertido en una extensión de nuestra personalidad.

Las empresas tienen mucho que aprender sobre el "movimiento selfie".
  • En primer lugar, como herramienta de marketing. La base sobre la que podemos construir un perfil de nuestros clientes potenciales. Un medio para entender quiénes son, qué les gusta, cómo se ven a sí mismos, cómo quieren ser vistos, cuáles son sus intereses . Un pilar para cernir grandes volúmenes de datos y moldearlos en un ser real. El sueño húmedo de cualquier investigador de mercado. Si queremos triunfar en Redes Sociales, debemos entender el valor del selfie.
  • En segundo lugar, porque también es una forma en que las compañías pueden presentarse al mundo. El selfie de una empresa es un gesto de transparencia. Un vehículo para mostrar su día a día, las caras detrás de la marca. Somos más que nuestros productos, somos sociales ... nosotros, cómo empresas, somos humanos. Las empresas son orgánicas, están vivas... entidades vivientes, organismos que interactúan y son parte activa de la Sociedad.
  • En tercer lugar, porque los selfies son contenido, cuentan historias. En el mundo del Social Media, las historias mandan.. Nuestro mensaje tiene que tomar forma de historia para captar la atención de los grupos que nos interesan. Si queremos construir relaciones significativas con ellos, tenemos que apuntar a los corazones de nuestros clientes más que a sus mentes. Proyectar Emociones, más que datos. Un selfie de nuestra empresa lo hace mucho mejor que cualquier otro contenido. Consigue que esas relaciones se hagan personales.

Piénsalo...

Link a un artículo en inglés sobre los selfies más interesantes del 2013





WHAT COMPANIES CAN LEARN FROM SELFIES


Selfies are some of the most shared content nowadays. In fact, if something represents Social Media in its most pure essence, it is the Selfie. A portrait of one self made by ourselves is more than a picture. It is the vision captured by our own eye, not by somebody elses, made to be shared. Isn't that what Social Media is all about? Present ourselves the way we see us? The way we want to be seen?

Celebrities, politicians and the average Joe use them. They give a sense of closeness, of humanity... real people in a digitalized world. They tell a story of what we show as well as of what we hide. They are also the perfect metaphore of a mobile world. Most of them are taken by our camera equipped mobile devices. Even the device is sometimes present in the picture. And the gadget tells about us too. The model, the cover, the way we handle it, the way it has become an extension of our persona.

Companies have much to learn about the "selfie movement".
  • First, because it can be used as a tool. A foundation to construct a profile of our potential customers. A means to understand who they are, what they like, how they see themselves, how they want to be seen, what their interests are. The pilar to filter big data and morph it into a real self. A market researcher's wet dream. If we want to triumph in Social, we must understand the value of the selfie.
  • Second, because it is a way in which Companies too can present themselves to the world. A Company's selfie is a gesture of transparency. A vehicle to show its day to day life, the faces behind the brand. We are not longer our products, we are Social... we, as companies, are Human. Companies are organic selfs, they are alive, living entities, living organisms interacting with society.
  • Third, because selfies are content, story tellers. In the world of Social, stories rule. Our message has to be shaped into a story to capture the eye of the stakeholders. If we want to build meaningful relationships with them, we have to target the hearts of our customers more than their minds. Project emotions, more than data. A selfie of our company does that better than anything else. It makes those relationships personal.

Think about it...

Link to an interesting article about some of the most celebrated selfies of 2013

diciembre 26, 2013

DEL LIKE AL BUY

like-buy  

¿Cómo se hace para que los clientes pasen del "Like" a una Acción de Compra? Una investigación reciente de Vision Critical, titulada "De Social a Venta: 8 Preguntas para hacer a sus clientes", utiliza los resultados de 6.000 respuestas a una encuesta sobre compras influenciadas por redes sociales para ofrecer una idea sobre los resultados de las tres principales redes sociales : Facebook, Twitter y Pinterest.

Los datos son muy prometedores. En los 17 meses que duró la encuesta, el estudio encontró que casi cuatro de cada 10 usuarios de Facebook dicen que han pasado de dar "Like" o comentar un artículo, a comprarlo. El 43 por ciento de los usuarios de medios sociales han adquirido un producto después de compartir o favear en Facebook , Pinterest o Twitter. ¿Qué compraron? Éstos son los aspectos más destacados :
  • Los usuarios de Twitter han comprado un producto de alta tecnología
  • Usuarios de Pinterest han comprado un alimento o bebida
  • Los usuarios de Facebook realizan "otros" tipos de compras , seguido por productos de alta tecnología y el cabello/belleza y ropa
  • Facebook encabeza la lista con las compras en línea en más del 29 por ciento , seguido de Pinterest en 22 por ciento y Twitter y el 18 por ciento
Conclusiones:
Hay Redes que funcionan mejor con un tipo de producto que con otro.
Los participantes en la encuesta respondieron que estaban "vagamente pensando en" comprar productos y finalmente realizaron la compra tras haber interactuado en Redes Sociales.

¿Qué indica esto? Oportunidades.  Debemos de asumir un mayor compromiso con nuestros fans y seguidores y comprender que el interés en su interacción con nuestras plataformas en redes es un paso importantísimo, vital en el proceso de influencia de compra.

¿Qué significa esto? En pocas palabras: LA INTERACCIÓN FUNCIONA.

 Pero no se trata de interactuar en base a nuestro interés cómo empresa, se trata de encontrar los intereses comunes de los potenciales clientes y facilitarles ganar influencia social.
Ej. Imaginemos que tiene Ud una pequeña pizzería con envío a domicilio. En lugar de postear ofertas de sus pizzas, podría interesarle el grupo de jóvenes gamers de 16-25 años. Son consumidores que ocupan mucho tiempo en casa frente a sus consolas. ¿Por qué no aprovechar el lanzamiento de nuevos juegos para compartir tips y trucos que les sirvan para avanzar en los mismos? Ese es un contenido que ellos aceptarán en sus redes y terminarán agradeciendo porque les ayuda a ganar influencia social sobre algo que les apasiona.  Una vez establecida la interacción, será mucho más sencillo colocar nuestra oferta especial para gamers. La respuesta será mucho más positiva. Los resultados están ahí.
Cuando usted ofrece a sus fans y seguidores valor real en las redes sociales a través de contenido que les guste, y si facilitamos su acceso, se engrasa el proceso de influencia, multiplicándose al compartirlo. Primero dar, luego dar, después dar, y finalmente, pedir una acción a nuestros clientes. Trabajar el proceso de influencia mediante entrega de valor y aprecio a nuestra comunidad. No es community management, es Community Enpowerment.

¿Mi consejo? Pase tiempo estableciendo relaciones en redes sociales. Averigüe qué quieren los componentes de su mercado objetivo, qué intereses tienen más allá de nuestros productos, y trate de ponerlo a su disposición, en la medida de nuestras posibilidades, cuando lo quieran.  Los resultados han dejado de ser promesas, comienzan a ser visibles... se están dando.

diciembre 19, 2013

SEO IS DEAD...LONG LIFE TO OSEO


A theatre collapses...Google too...

It may sound drastic, but the truth is that we´re witnessing the collapse of SEO's relevance. The battle is served and OSEO (Organic Search Engine Optimization) is beating Google's algorythm badly.

A very recent development, just today, a tragedy in London, illustrates the 5th of my SOCIALMOBILE 2014 PREDICTIONS perfectly.

5.- FROM SEO TO OSEO


Apollo Theatre in London collapsed just a few hours ago.  It is estimated that 80 people are wounded. Social Networks are filled with comments. I try to do a search on Google. I write "London Theatre". What do I get ? A map of the London theaters, offers to buy tickets ... Nothing about the tragedy up to page 5 of the search!!!

I then go to Twitter, write the same two words: "London Theatre". My Timeline gets full of news with links to videos, photos, testimonials, websites, blogs...

What's going on ? The undisputed king of search, Google's SEO algorithm has miserably lost relevance because it is not organic, it's not ALIVE.

Information is dynamic, vital, fast-changing, it's ORGANIC.

On 2014 we'll witness how OSEO (Organic Search Engine Optimization) will replace the traditional SEO. Those who better understand this change, will have irrefutable advantages for their message to resonate in the minds of citizens/consumers.

It's just a matter of time...

diciembre 17, 2013

2014 SOCIAL MOBILE PREDICTIONS



Well, it´s about that time of the year: Predictions' Season is back. Our Social Media Feeds invaded by links to blogposts and opinions about next year´s big stories and developments to watch. They come in all shapes and sizes and about almost any topic you can imagine. I'm gonna limit mine, or maybe it´s broadening, to the world of Social Mobile. Here go my 6 cents on the subject:

1.- FLEXIBLE DISPLAYS

Ok, I admit it: it is not a new topic, but I believe advances on it are gaining momentum. I was particularly impressed with Samsung's Flexible OLED presentationa at CES2013. If they're that advanced already, the near future looks bright and shiny.



I foresee not only cell phones taking advantage of this tech, but all sort of wearable devices as well. And that takes me to my second topic to pay attention to for the year to come...

2.- WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY

Watches, rings, glasses... you name it; all incorporating connectivity not only to the web, but to other devices as well. We´ll see more and more reaching the market in 2014.



3.- MICROVIDEO INVASION

Social Media will be overtaken by content in microvideo format. 10 secons or less will be the rule of thumb regarding video consumption. Marketers, beware! Pay attention to platforms like Vine and Instagram. See what users will create and consume, and adapt your content to this format.



4.- NEWSJACKING

With the FIFA World Cup in the middle of the year, 2014 will be fed up with news about this magnificent event. This will represent a myriad of challenges for our content to resonate. But, where there is challenge, there is an opportunity. More and more we´ll see people, institutions and companies molding their content to the Trending Topic of the moment. Prepare for announced events (Movie/TV Awards Season, the Soccer World Cup, Superbowl, Playoffs...) as well as Breaking News. The eyes of the consumer will be looking for them, you should try to capture and captivate their attention.  And remember: Forget TV! Second, and even Third, screen is where the avid marketer should place his content.

5.- FROM SEO TO OSEO

SEO is not dead yet, but it's facing decadence. Bots and marketers ruined its relevance. Big data is an animal yet to wild to tame. Even Facebook recognizes it is going to be difficult for our stories to reach people just through unpaid organic searches. But, like Game of Thrones' winter... it's coming. Search Engine Optimization will leave its place to the more important and rich Organic Search Engine Optimization.  2014 has to be the year in which we'll see the balance flipping from SEO to OSEO.



and last but not least... 

6.- CROWDFUNDING

My last development to watch for 2014 is Crowdfunding. We´ll see more and more initiatives to be financed this way. Fans and advocates of projects and causes will take advantage of the only funding tool trully social.  Crowdfunding   is Social Native. There are already places like Kickstarter or even Paypal to help develop this tool. I see this field ready to blossom. 



marzo 01, 2013

HOW TO GET $800,000 TO FUND YOUR WEBSERIES: SOCIAL MEDIA LESSONS FROM VGHS


Do you know what VGHS stands for?

You should.

Video Game High School is the most successful webseries of all times (as of March 2013): 36+ Million First Season views. 2nd season, with its +$800,000 fully funded budget, on the making.

 VGHS’ astonishing success got its producers a sweet deal contract with NETFLIX to make the webisodes available for their 33 Million paying subscribers. I don’t know about the figures of the deal, but considering the more than 36 million views of VGHS first season, it is safe to say both parties profit from it.

VGHS is the brainchild of C-List internet Celeb (as he describes himself) Freddie Wong, a 27 years old Asian American from Seattle, whom greatest achievement 5 years ago was being Guitar Hero Champion at the 2007's World Series of Video Games. I know what you’re thinking: another story of the geek who got lucky going viral online… There is a component of truth in that thought, but just a very tiny one.
   

LESSONS

Freddie Wong’s success has many lessons to learn from, and not just if we are interested in starting our own webseries.
  • SHARE FIRST: Freddie’s success comes from putting hundreds of hours of his time available for everyone online. He is very passionate about VFX, Video Games and Video Production, and he found a way to combine the three in a very didactically entertaining way. He did not knock on big studios' doors asking for help.  To use the outrageously european artists way of demanding public funds to prove his talent, never crossed his mind. He just exposed his skills to the world.
  • ADD VALUE: Freddie is probably not the best VFX artist in the business, he is a regular guy with a passion and he shares it. He not only does cool stuff, he shows you how he did it! The foundation of the success of his content lies on two pillars of value: Cool Entertainment, even cooler Education!
  • BUILD A COMMUNITY: His YouTube channel is the 5th most subscribed channel in YouTube today because he cares. He listened, commented, and answered (many times in video mode) his audience questions and suggestions. He uploaded content regularly. He kept the audience expecting more, and he delivered.
  • INVOLVE YOUR COMMUNITY INTO YOUR PROJECT: VGHS has been fully funded by “backers”: people “donating" money in exchange for cool exclusive goodies that go from mentions of their names in the official credits of the series; to merchandise like signed Headsets, coffee mugs, gaming chairs; ego boosters such as be a character that screams "Brian! Look out!" for a single shot in the official VGHS trailer; or just invitations to the production set. He called for involvement, his loyal,thankful, community answered.
  • USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO FUND AND PROMOTE YOUR PROJECT: Wong did NOT spend a dime on Traditional Media Advertising. He posted a video explaining the project, used kickstarter.com, a funding platform for creative projects; posted on free content curator pages like reddit.com; used his twitter account to raise awareness and his fanbase did the rest. And they really showed up: Freddie was aiming for $75,000, they raised
$273,725 in one month!
    No budget was assigned for promotion. They used only free Social Media Channels. All the money raised went into content production. He did not spend a single dime on traditional promotion channels.
I particularly like one way Freddie monetize his Social Media Capital:  the $9,001 pledge available for backers in exchange for one tweet.  An option available for just one pledger: Freddie will tweet whatever you want him to tweet on the @fwong Twitter account (more than 300,000 followers) at a time of your choosing. Sweet!
  • MAKE YOUR CONTENT WIDELY AVAILABLE: Freddie did not cage the VGHS into his company's webpage. The content was open to everyone in YoutTube.  Each episode was open for everyone to embed it into their own blogs, share it easily through Social Media Channels, forums, Facebook pages, you name it. It certainly brought collateral traffic towards RocketJump.com . Wong's Production Company shows first on Google Search for VGHS. The content generated interest, the Community wanted additional goodies. Conversations lead to RocketJump's web, where the Company posted other content like podcasts, behind the scenes material, blogposts that kept the traffic flowing.
  • ENCOURAGE PRODUCT PLACEMENT: VGHS was an excellent medium for gaming community sponsors to place their products. Headsets, PC peripherals, airsoft guns, energy drinks... fit like a glove within the content.

EXTRA BONUS RESULTS

I've already mention some of the accomplishments of VGHS webseries. 36 million viewers, Fully Funded Production, the Netflix Deal are amazing results, but I like to point out one more: Social Media Capital's Growth: Freddie's twitter account increased 50% (from 200,000 to +300,000) YouTube Subscribers more than double from 2 million to almost 5 million.

CONCLUSION

Before VGHS's success, Freddie Wong declared:
We strongly believe the foundations for the future of digitally distributed content will be laid by webseries. We don't see a webseries as a stepping stone to get a feature film project, or a TV deal - a good webseries is an end unto itself. The webseries format is uncharted territory, and we want to explore it.
Everything about Social Media Marketing these days seems to float around content. Audiences are not just people looking for entertainment, they are communities avid for content to share, interact with, and comment about. Marketing is not about selling stuff, is about building relationships (that would evolve into selling stuff...eventually). Could webseries be a content format to enable and encourage those relationships? You bet it can.

Webseries is a wonderful content format to generate conversations, wake up interest and build community. It has all the traditional media series advantages: periodicity, cliffhanger possibilities, plus the flexibility to generate interaction through enriched media features that are native online. VGHS is somehow atypical because a large base of its community was built before the project was even conceived, but the lessons it teach us are there to learn from.  Webseries are here to stay. What do you think?

febrero 24, 2013

WEEK IN TWEETS: SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS TIPS

Compressed Knowledge To Get You Thinking...





febrero 22, 2013

SCREEN WARS: THE G-GLASS MENACE


A long time ago, in a living room far, far, away... 

It is a period of screen wars. 
Rebel devices, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Desktop Empire. 

The eyes of the earthlings, eager for content, are fixed on mobile. 
The Big Flat screens of the Republic, yearning attention from their once revered living room thrones, plan their triumphal comeback on board lusty 4K vessels. 

Myriad Content Alliances proliferate through the galaxy. 
Social Platforms fence in their population while loading their weaponry. 

During the battle, Search Engine Knights revealed their ultimate weapon: The Mighty Glass, a nano screened armored device with the power to rule them all… 

What a great year we are enjoying so far!!! In less than two months, 2013 has proven to be very action packed regarding what many of us call the battle of the screens. Big and Fixed vs Small and Mobile vs Smaller and... Wearable!!! Who will win the Screen Wars?

BIG SCREEN SCHEME 

After the 3D fiasco, TV manufacturers put their comeback hopes on SmartTVs and the recent irruption of 4K ultra high def super large screens at the past CES.

Hardware-wise, I appreciate big screen manufacturers' efforts to be appealing, however, I have some concerns about their software and content strategies.

The way I see it, a SmatTV should basically be a large screen with online navigation capabilities, either through Apps or using built in/downloadable browsers; an OS compatible with current navigation protocols, RAM memory and some short of storage drive. Nothing out of the ordinary…

Kidnapping Ecosystems

However, TV Manufacturers seem to suffer an insane fever of  kidnapping fixation. They'd like to trap us into their elaborated ecosystems using crisp seductive devices. In an effort to emulate Apple’s itunes and appstore successful model, TV manufacturers vitaminize their screens with pre-installed applications channeling our access to content through fenced paths.

I do not support their policy, but I understand that, for example, a company like SONY, owner of a vast variety of content and a tradition of exclusivity (BETAMAX, Memory Sticks ) deeply rooted in their corporate culture, would try to capture audiences this way, but it is, in my opinion, a mistake for two main reasons:

  1. None of the manufacturers have the almost religious loyalty base of worshipers that idolize Apple policies and devices. None have a messiah to adore or a prominent Steve Jobs like visionary figure to lead by inspiration. 
  2. Audiences are more intelligent and connected than ever. They want freedom to choose and expand. I find it somehow hard to foresee a future in which better prepared consumers would prefer their choices for content consumption to be limited and decided by someone else other than themselves. 

TV manufacturers know their battlefield is limited to homes and try to rule over their turf, but I’d advise them to be extra careful with how they deal with audiences in our Social Media Driven world.

MOBILE SCREENS GAME PLANS 

Smartphones and tablets dominate the mobile scenery. Laptops are moving away to exile as tablets unmask the content creation proficiency they had hidden behind their content “consumption only” disguise.

Smartphones are no longer the second screen

Most of us expend more time looking to our smartphone's than to any other screen. Besides, it does not longer compete with the big screen, it adds up to the experience of watching live TV. It enhances TV enjoyment with search and social.

Mobile screens rule over the game

Developers, content creators, marketing agencies, consumer companies, profit and nonprofit institutions, public and private, struggle to figure out how to stand above others to catch the eyes mesmerized in mobile screens. 

The plan is to keep muscling up the devices with speed, power and, most important of them all: connectivity.

Connectivity is the name of the game for mobile: with other devices you own; with other people's gadgets; with commercial aparatus in shopping malls, supermarkets, stadiums; with appliances, with urban furniture and street displays; through proximity, through the cloud... you name it. Connectivity to make that screen the remote control of our everything.

GOOGLE GLASS 

And just when we though there was no space for more screens, Google surprises us with the introduction of yet another one: Google Glass.

Game of Thrones


This short of Sci-Fi device, a wearable computer as Sergey Brin likes to call it, revolutionizes the market providing a screen in front of our very eyes... all the time! No more need to distract our head from what we do, or even from other screens, to enhance your experience.

Built in camera to capture, connectivity to share, in an elegantly light device: it’s a win!

It is a serious contender to dethrone the smartphone. Apparently, the way to win the screen wars passed through going smaller.

There are 3 clear benefits for this device over any other: 

  1. Better Portability 
  2. Hands Free Multitasking 
  3. Body Integration: it is not an extension, like regular glasses, it becomes part of yourself. 

I also see evident downsides: 

  1. Voice Command: it is ticklish to speak out commands when you are walking down the street, or watching your kids weekly soccer game, or even watching TV at home. 
  2. Distractive: could you wear one while driving without becoming a risk to others? Or, as Mark Zuckerberg pointed out to Mr Brin : How do you look out from this without looking awkward? 
  3. Being a Stand Alone Device: It could be a point in favor but also against Google Glass. Being a wearable computer implies putting a processor, wifi and mobile networks antennas, making it bulky even with the slim design accomplished so far. 

With smartphones as powerful, connected and ubiquitous as they are today, I foresee Google’s competitors making lighter glasses that would connect with different phones through apps using Bluetooth, letting the phone do all the hard work itself. It would even give hard disk memory to store pics and vids we do not want in the cloud.

Anyways, these are certainly exciting times to live as consumers, tech enthusiasts and Social Media Addicts like myself.

Let the Force be with us!

febrero 15, 2013

IN SEARCH FOR THE SOCIAL MEDIA METEORITE

Twitter Meteorite About to shatter Google's Earth

Last night I was about to go to sleep… heck! I was already in bed… with my iPhone..  Social Media Addict that I am…, checking for twitter activity, when a shower of meteorite related twits rained all over my timeline.

My first though was to remain skeptical. I vaguely remembered glimpsing, earlier in the day, over a few twits about an asteroid that was going to pass nearby our beautiful earth. It was a great opportunity for twitter rumor yonkies to newsjack the event, make up a few fake videos, post them online, leak a few links to news addicts and virally spread the fake.

However, tons of video footage mushroomed everywhere in my TL. Way too many to be part of the joke of a few webpranksters buffooning around. The meteorite was real.

My Social Media self took immediate charge of my insomnia.What an amazing opportunity to measure the power of Social Media!

I typed the word “meteorite” into twitter search. Hundreds of twits filled up with links to video and pictures emerged on the fly.

I typed the same word in google. Wikipedia, adwords selling meteorite samples… nothing about the Russian events at that time.

Social Sharing was overpowering google’s algorythm!

Twitter is an amazing tool to promote content, virally spread ideas, share thoughts on the fly, speak out, engage, chat… but, without any doubt, twitter is one of the most powerful search engines around.  In a sense, it is a competitor for Google, and, as well as for the search giant, searches should be its most important  line of revenue. They just need to figure out the least intrusive, most efficient way to monetize it… and they will. When they do find out... Could Twitter be Google's Dinosaur Meteorite Event?


febrero 13, 2013

DUDE, WHERE IS MY PRIVACY?



Imagine an epic battle between Batman and Ironman… It won’t happen because one is a superhero from DC Comics and the second one belongs to the Marvel Universe. In the world of comic rights, to be one or the other is worse than becoming villainous archenemies. Fortunately, we are not looking for creating the ultimate crossover blockbuster, only to use their personalities as analogies to illustrate the evolution of privacy. 

Batman vs Ironman 

There are many similarities between both superheros: both are hugely successful business men; both fight evil doers; both wear impressive suits financed by their, no less impressive, fortunes… 

However, there is a crucial difference between them: one wears a mask to keep his identity secret, the other not only does not care about his identity being known, he is a showoff actively seeking for fame and recognition. 

In the world of Social Media, Batman’s privacy would not have a chance. Keeping his identity secret would consume all his financial resources to the point of forcing Wayne’s Industries to Chapter 11. And even then, in our smartphone plagued world, all his efforts would have been futile. 

Tony Stark is much better prepared than Bruce Wayne to live in the Social Media Driven society we live. He understands the perils of revealing his identity, but prefers the ego bust of showing off. 

We live in a transparent world. Open societies where citizens overexpose themselves. The concept of privacy is blurring away dissolved into the so called cloud and certainly won’t mean the same to the current generation of kids, born and raised in the middle of a Social Media revolution. 

I’m old enough to remember the time when we had a certain illusion of control over our privacy. Governments, Security Agencies, Hackers, Paparazzi, Marketing experts and all the usual suspects craving for our private data had to ask, and do it politely, for any personal info you may decide to give them. Today, with everyone sharing the tiniest of their life’s details, we seem to be living inside those suspects’ wettest dreams. Not only are we willing to give valuable info, we‘re releasing it for free! Hey! We live in a world where our personal information is public by default. Privacy is the very hidden, and difficult to choose, opt-in alternative

Prerogative of Kings 

In 1995, pictures of King Juan Carlos of Spain sunbathing naked on the deck of a yacht were published by an Italian magazine. They were taken by paparazzi, using very potent zoom lenses, from a nearby shore. King Juan Carlos was furious and asked for the foreign affair’s minister to give him an explanation on why those pictures were made public. The Minister’s very respectful answer to the king was: “with all due respect, your majesty, the only way to avoid pictures like those being published, is not to sunbathe naked…” 

Is there value in privacy? For a public figure like the King, there certainly is. For the IRS, the Government and other public agencies? More than you probably want them to. For marketing specialists? You bet your socks there is. 

Dude what happened to our privacy? 

So, the following question comes to mind: If privacy is a valuable asset, how come our society seems to treat it like a disposable commodity? 

The answer is simple: because we trade it off for other valuable things. 

We trade our private info in exchange for “free” facebook and twitter accounts, “free” Youtube entertainment, “free” google searches, even “free” product recommendations. 

For some of us, this trade is ill-balanced because we value our privacy more than what we value the exchanged goods and services. It has even reached a point where it takes time and effort on our part to fight giving up our privacy. Our world is so transparent that keeping our privacy clean of meddling  requires the skills of a SEO expert. There even are companies offering courses and seminars to teach you how to acquire those skills. 

Whether we like it or not, we leave a digital track whenever we surf online. We even leave ways to track our physical whereabouts with our cell phones on and by our side 24/7. People tag us on pictures; write and gossip about us and not always with the best of intentions in mind. Can we cope with this? The answer is no. To keep things private require such effort nowadays that, as in the case of Bruce Wayne, I dare to say we are better off being widely transparent. 

Don’t misinterpret me, by being transparent I don’t mean reckless, careless or stupid. We have to secure critical info: password protect access to our social and financial accounts, make those passwords long and difficult to guess, change them frequently and practice all the hygienic advises recommended by security experts. I assume you are intelligent enough to know that is not the private info I recommend to be transparent about. 

What I mean is go ahead and share whatever you want to share assuming everything is being watched, and potentially judged. If you don’t want pictures of your naked self sunbathing to be public, don’t sunbathe naked. 

These are the times of personal branding. Our reputation is our most valuable asset. Misunderstanding happens. There will be trolls and character assassins ready to kill our reputation with lies and prejudice. My bet is that we’ll be better prepared to deal with the situations they’ll certainly bring if we've been transparent about our lives. 

Privacy is an endangered species and is being hunted high and low. The “good” old days where the occasional stalker, the freaky perv next door, was the only threat disturbing our privacy, are long gone. We live in a jungle plenty of hunters ambushed to predate on your privacy. I have a word for them: become scavengers, because when Social CSI investigators examine the corpse of our privacy, evidence will show it was death by suicide.

So, what are your thoughts about this? Are we killing our privacy? Do we surrender it as collateral in exchange for freebies or is it being stolen from us without our consent?

Picture from http://readwrite.com

febrero 01, 2013

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING: LONG OR SHORT GAME?


Which One is Social Media?   BOTH 

A recent post by @jimdougherty titled "Why Social Media Marketing Isn't a Long Game" caught my attention briefly. It discussed a FORBES piece titled “The TruthAbout Social Media”, and ended asking: “Is Social Media Marketing a “long game” or are social goals more accessible than this?” Let me share my 5 cents on the matter.

In my opinion, the real question should read: Is Marketing (stripped off additional tags) a “long game”? If your answer to this question is yes, then you should treat SMM likewise.

Marketing has always been about a search to communicate ideas, a struggle for differentiation, a contest  to influence and resonate on people’s minds. Even when you use marketing to promote a short term objective, there is always a residual message embedded.

Social Media is a different channel to spread your message, a powerful one. One that tears apart the very fabrics of old fashion marketing practices for 2 main reasons:

1.-  It levels the plainfield empowering the consumer’s influence on his or her community.  The voice of an individual is not yet balanced with that of a company, but it is now at heights that enable it to speak up louder, and ears are listening.  Push and Pull strategies are losing ground to Participate and Embrace. The long run opportunities of this situation bewilder anyone’s imagination.

2.- It goes beyond the realms of other media because it is mainly about sharing. To Share to entertain, to gain recognition, to build a reputation or just for the heck of it. While with other media users engaged to mainly receive, anyone who engages in Social Media, joined either to share, receive what someone else is sharing... or both.   The power of Social media is the power of Sharing.

In conclusion, Social Media Marketing  requires a special understanding, different than traditional Media marketing, but, if you decide to include Social media as part of your Marketing efforts, then you should visualize it the same way you feel about Marketing as a whole. Whether it is a long run or a short one would depend on your perception about marketing itself.

enero 31, 2013

NEW MYSPACE, OLD DISAPPOINTMENT

NOT READY FOR BUSINESS...
Earlier today, I’ve tried to become a NewMyspace user. I wanted to join using my oldmyspace account. It was a pain in my tired behind.  I tried to join from my flaming new IpadMini…  the only thing I got was the omnipresent face of Justin TImberlake and a message mentioning an upcoming App, inviting me to use Old Myspace, until such app becomes available...

From my laptop, MSExplorer9.0 could not handle NewMyspace settings. I had to download the, trial still, version 10 of Microsoft’s browser and cope with unpleasant bugs... Not a success either... I guess I won’t write about newMyspace’s user experience as I intended to...

Explorer 10 BUGS
Instead, I’ve got a confession to make: I was one of myspace’s early adopters. Joining such an infant social experiment was an exciting and very practical idea for me back those days. Since I was living far away from my Spanish family, it introduced a clean, and surprisingly easy to use, choice for keeping in touch with my homeland relatives, to my life. Nicely managed privacy settings... ample pics and video storage… gush! it was roomy enough to keep a personal blog! 

Recipe for Successful Failure
Myspace, “A space for friends”, was set to be hugely successful. It had one year’s first movers advantage over Facebook, enthusiastic users empowered to easily customize website’s appearance, and, after only two years of life, the deep pockets of Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp to back all up. Ironically, those “advantages” turned to be the very causes of its colossal failure.

First Mover’s Curse
Many misinformed social media specialists, attribute Myspace’s epic fail to Facebook’s irruption into the online arena. That theory is simply not true.

Facebook’s competition was not the cause of Myspace’s failure, in fact it was the other way around. The bubbles rising up from Myspace’s dive helped Facebook gain momentum with two unexpected benefits for Zuckerberg’s site:  it allowed Facebook to reach critical mass and it scared potential competitors away from the promising, but yet not proven profitable, social media business model. Like many other virtual world’s startups (Altavista’s search engine comes to mind) being first in line was not an advantage online.

The Unexpected Damn of Users Decoration
Letting the user to utterly alter the site’s appearance seemed to be a wonderful advantage, an opportunity for self-expression that would undoubtedly turn into a magnet for creativity and users. Nothing could have been further away from reality. Without a sense-full structure, Myspace’s pages turned into baroque clusters of infinite bad taste. Some of them really hurt at sight, and the ugliness was viral…in the contagious disease meaning of the word. Backgrounds infected with tiles of graceless graphics, weird font medleys... it all resembled the purse of a messy multipolar teenager.  Without even trying, Facebook’s minimalism approach of rigid settings, turned to be a surprisingly fengshuistic advantage after the fact.

Deep Pockets... from Hell
NewsCorp buying Myspace for under $600 million seemed to be a safe bet. Surely, Murdock’s deep pockets would allow the social network to move forward at warp speed. It was so for a while… but those pockets were also a magnet for litigation. 

Content owners, specially the music and enterteniment industries, went after Myspace for their users' infringement of intellectual property rights. Murdoch pleaded to their demands and started placing filters to eliminate use of unauthorized content.

I suffered the consequences myself! 
I posted a family video on witch I used no more than 10 seconds of a song (from a CD I owned) at the end of the 2 minutes the video lasted. I used it to spice things up a little, adding a joyous touch, so my parents could see their grandson swimming on a river. I was not profiting from its use. It was a song I legally acquired and my site's privacy settings only allowed for a handful of persons to watch the video. MySpace's content police erased the video and sent me a copyright infringement warning.The magic of the website’s freedom was gone… as was about to happen with us, its users.   

The lurching evolution of the site after that until its acquisition by Justin Timberlake’s company and friends maybe the subject of a boring post that, frankly, I do not find any urge to write.

I’ve got mild expectations about NewMySpace capabilities to aggregate other social media platform’s content in a visually pleasant fashion. I am very curious to see the way it presents its search engine results, as well.  Such is my lust for learning, that I am willing to give it another try as soon as they fix the inconveniences I mentioned earlier... but my patience is running out at the same pace my disappointment is filling up.

enero 29, 2013

BLACKBERRY 10: AND ON THE 3rd OS.... IT RESURRECTED

(This Post was originally written in spanish for http://adictoalmovil.com)


No more waiting! Time has come and it’s here with a sizeable jump of three, no less, operating system numbers in a leap.  Adapting still to OS7 and its very juicy innovations, (voice over wifi among BlackBerry users included), BlackBerry enthusiasts were jumping head over heels when, last November, RIM announced BlackBerry 10 to be presented on Jan 30th, 2013.

Downhill curve in market share, distressed at the continued loss of their once legendarily loyal customer base, many were the rumors about the future of RIM. A few months ago I had a conversation with two "BlackBerry Evangelists" about to give up on RIM.  Both speculated of being taken over by some giant internet mogul (Jeff Bezos’ comments about evaluating the possibility of Amazon stepping upon the mobile hardware business, emerged strong in the conversation).  They even told me that the only way for RIM to survive would be to surrender to the siren song of Android and become one of a long list of manufacturers that leverages the Google mobile operating system.

In my opinion, this movement would have been a mistake, a poison pill under the tongue, treacherous knife stuck in the heart of RIM’s corporate culture. An irreversible leap into oblivion in shameful disgrace. Not adaptation, but rendition. The killing of RIMs most valuable asset: its independence.

BlackBerry’s new platform 10 hits high score on its basics:

1.       Security and Privacy: its encryption system is nonnegotiable. The Blackberry ecosystem seems bulletproof in regard to privacy, one of the most valued properties by members of the lucrative and very attractive segment of business executives.
2.       Unique User Experience The very rapid learning curve BlackBerry system remains intact. Now they’ve combined it with a pleasantly cool, and impressively zappy online browsing.
3.       Strong relations with Mobile Operators WorldWide: the use of its own servers relieves operators from tons of traffic management they can profit upon in addition to its chunk of BB plans.  

The outcome from this move seems very encouraging. I strongly believe there is a very profitable market waiting for what RIM is offering, only time will tell us if this resurrection attempt came on time to save one of mobile’s most iconic enterprises.