Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

The great words of Joel Bauer... "it isn't about being liked, it's about being effective."

Now I would argue that the greatest advantage today is in being both. In a time where our online social world is filled with endless noise, there is a lot competing for human attention. And as wrong as this may sound for some people, the truth is that in order to reach your audience (be them friends or colleagues)... it's not enough to just be liked anymore, you have to be liked and effective.

We are all brands. We are all community managers.

But, that doesn't mean that we have the budget or large staff employed at agencies or within brands to manage our online presence. No, we need to rely on useful tools to tell us the information we want to know, we need to know, and when we know it. Unfortunately, those tools don't currently exist.

Why Social Networks Need To Embrace This
In the great big battle of social networks competing for our engagement time... it will be the networks that give us relevant feedback (who likes our posts, how many forwarded my link onto their friends) that will win our attention.

This isn't so far off from what Obama discovered in his campaign for president, or what game designers have known for quite sometime: if you show people the progress of their actions, they will become more invested and engage more frequently. People like statistics, people like feedback, and people like to know that they are getting somewhere.

How Facebook and Twitter Can Offer More Value

What they can do immediately...
1. Give users access to the data they already collect. I shouldn't have to have a fan page to know how interactions on my profile trend over time. What month did I have the most photo comments, wall posts, etc. You are already collecting that data, let me have it!

2. Integrate consistent metrics into the interface. Twitter's big problem is that metrics are inconsistent and housed outside of their site. It would be nice to have an analysis panel that easily connects together my retweet ratio with the actual content that got retweeted.

What they can do in the future...
3. Base new functionality on what consumers want to know. There is already enough competing for our engagement. Facebook and Twitter don't need to add more applications or functions. Instead they should help us gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of what we are already doing.

Social sites need to realize that consumers don't want more widgets and feeds and doodads that add to our everyday noise. It's time for networks to help increase the relevance of social content, by helping us become more informed party hosts.

Marta Strickland

In the first post of the series, Sarah Jo made a bold point: if you are socializing online, "you're a community manager -- managing yourself as a brand." It's easy to forget but often the what comes up on our Google results page or conversations on Twitter are the way many people are introduced to who we are and what we do.

Remember... you are a brand. So why not start acting like one, and invest in managing your digital life. Luckily there are some great tools out there to get you started.

The Facebook Toolbox
1. Facebook Insights: Right now, you can use this tool to monitor the amount of comments, fans, etc. you have on your "fan page". The upcoming makeover will provide a lot more value including interactions per post and post quality.

2. Facebook Lexicon: While you'd have to be a pretty big celebrity to make a spike in Facebook's version of Google Trends, this tool can help you understand what's being talked about the most. Content strategy needs not only be for big brands anymore.

Are you on Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? Any other social network? Then, you're a community manager -- managing yourself as a brand.

This is the reality of our digital life. We constantly create artifacts that others come to know us by, whether consciously or subconsciously. This is the first in our three-part series on social media monitoring ourselves. Let's start with defining yourself and your community.

What Have You Got to Lose?
Your reputation. Make one wrong move and you've blown your credibility, likability and/or your community's trust. For example, piss off one follower, and his reaction might cause you to lose many more in the process.

How you portray yourself online is tougher to do than in person. You must always put your best foot forward, because you never know when you're making a first impression or the hundredth impression. Understandably you can't always be "on." But it's worth taking the time to think twice about what you're "saying."

Who Is Your Audience?
Or more importantly, who do you want it to be? Determining who you're talking to is the first step in building your community. Get inside the minds of your followers.

1. What do they care about?
2. Why should they care? Give them something more interesting, informative, indispensable etc. than their friends can give them. Anyone can talk toothpaste. What can you say about it that either no one else has or no one else would? Be relevant enough to break through their inundated world.
3. How do you reach them? The old adage "fish where the fish are" couldn't be more fitting here. But it also means making sure your bait is visible and enticing. And by your bait, I mean your name/identity.

How To Captivate Them
Think of your community as a party where you're the host. In order to be a better host, here are the questions you should be asking yourself often:

1. Who are my biggest supporters? Recognize them both publicly and privately. Find a way to reward them. (That could simply mean giving them exclusive content.)
2. Am I being a good host/hostess? A good host/hostess will be a catalyst for dialogue.
3. Have a given people a reason to come back?

Say you do all this. How do you know if it's all working? There are tools for that. Check out Part Two of this three part series as we talk about the pros and cons of what's available to help you analyze your party hosting -- or community management -- skills.

Sarah Jo Sautter

While I don't travel nearly as much as some of my coworkers, who are on the road for what seem to be weeks at a time, I do my fair share of traversing the landscape by means of air travel. And as the multitude of banks and financial institutions has collaborated on travel award cards, I subsequently signed up for an American Airlines Advantage MasterCard to get my own dividend of reward miles. But while the rewards program is well positioned, American's online experience leaves something else to be desired entirely.

American Airlines still hasn't figured out the missing ingredient:
The Brand is the Answer

What American has going for itself is obviously its breadth of the destinations that it services. It's a brand that's recognizable all over the world and clearly this adds pressure the likes of which the smaller guys probably don't have to deal with yet. It's harder to be agile for a corporation of this size and age. (American is the world's largest airline and over seventy years old) It seems that with every increase of proportion the flexibility of action stiffens.

But with the economy where it is today, the big guys can't hide behind large revenues and slow approval boards anymore. My airline of choice has to offer me something more than miles rewards, it has to offer an exceptional user experience. And in order to improve their user experience, the brand needs to focus its efforts on three things:

1. Modernizing the Design
2. Maintaining Excitement for Travelers
3. Creating a Unique Brand Experience

Christophe Huet is a french artist that specializes in photo retouching. He's created ads for Playstation, Nike, Motorola & Rossignol to name a few. His website showcases a sampling of his work. Other than a slideshow of all creative work as you visit the homepage, by far my favorite part of the site is the "Making of" section. Within it, you can step through each the creative process to see how the final result was achieved.

http://www.christophehuet.com/

On the same topic but not advertizing specific, Erik Johansson, a student from Sweden showcases his personal work. All photographs & retouching work are originals to him.
http://www.alltelleringet.com/

In short, this is amazing & inspiring work.

Patrick Dunphy

Editor's Note: This following piece is a follow-up to Sandy's review of the book "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions"

I. Love. Dogs. In fact, I love all animals. This should be no surprise to any of you who know me even just a little or anyone in the vicinity when I receive an email with a link to a panda sneezing, when someone mentions a Super Bowl ad featuring chimpanzees, or when I'm forwarding a picture of a baby opossum sitting atop our garbage. I love all animals - just not cats.

My hatred of cats mostly stems from their seemingly intentional relentless assault on my allergies. My affinity for dogs may only be explained by the fact that I'm legally allowed to own one and they don't seem to have it out for me as much as cats do.

My current preference for my dearly departed old dog, Zeb seems to be the direct result of my most recent experience with my current dog, Roxy - who has just attacked the new vacuum cleaner and eaten the upholstery extension.

Do I love Roxy less than I loved Zeb? Of course not. That would be absurd - like proposing you love your son, who is standing in the room with you, more than you love your daughter, who has been in the garage for the past week. I'm just trying to convey what I've learned by reading Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert - that our minds play tricks, and not just any tricks, but the same tricks. Meaning, collectively, we are a one-trick pony.

Is it inevitable that all good things must come to an end? That one day you are at the top of your graph, and the next you are on an irreversible downward slope, that it is almost predestined that you will be usurped by the rising up and comer? Maybe that is the cynics way of looking at things, but I still like to believe there is a method to the traffic graph madness. There must be a pretty good reason or two why Mapquest failed at the same time Google Maps succeeded.

In a fabulous article, John McKinley of Silicon Valley Insider asked if Maquest is A Symbol of Everything That's Gone Wrong in user experience design. (Thanks to David Feldt for the link) He clearly lays out a few good reasons for the traffic flip-flop, but the big insight was this:

"At some point along the journey, it has lost its way, in terms of the primary mission it is meant to serve. It is all about simple, informative directions."

Sandy Marsh, one of our resident evangelists of XA done right, suggests following this mantra when designing applications:

"Make each application do it's ONE THING very well - everything else is secondary."

In an age of social noise and application excess, I can think of a few other internet properties that should heed that advice...

Marta Strickland

Stop-Motion App-uh-lu-cat-ion from Judson on Vimeo

With unemployment rates at an all-time high, the competition for jobs is fierce. One way to stand out is submitting a video resume. At Organic, we accept any and all forms of resume submissions, including video resumes. The idea of sharing personal content is not new, as many of our creative applicants provide links to non work related art and activities. However, submitting video resumes hasn't taken hold at all levels just yet, although it is increasing in popularity as a new generation of media savvy talent enters the workforce.

We solicit video resumes for interns. We find that it shows us which entry level people are willing to go above and beyond to join us in our ongoing quest to create holistic brand experiences for our clients. We expect our interns and all hires to be media savvy, so this is a proactive tool we use to help us identify the best candidates and cull the hundreds of resumes down to a manageable few.

Some employers are hesitant to encourage or accept video resumes as then potential discrimination liability. This is an example of typical HR paranoia, as anyone you interview you will eventually see in person before you hire them anyway. I say, keep the video's coming, as they are a developing, meaningful method of expressing career interest! However, please keep the following tips in mind...