Go ahead, laugh. It’s not as ridiculous as it sounds. It’s certainly no more ridiculous than people calling themselves social media gurus.
No one can claim that title yet. Social is still too new of a proving ground to have any discernable best practices. What’s more, it almost evolves too rapidly to establish any.
So what does this have to do with a 900-year-old, two-foot-something Jedi master with a debatable grasp of English? Everything. Yoda’s mantras share the same common truths as the success brands are looking for from social media.
“Size matters not”
Every time I hear a client set Facebook “Like” goals, I die a little inside. Simply put, if you want a million friends, give away a million dollars. You’ll hit that number in a week. And your engagement needle won’t move.
We’re programmed to think bigger is better. But you have to ask yourself, what’s more powerful, an army of people who could care less about your brand or a crack squad of brand evangelists who will preach your good word to the masses?
“You must unlearn everything that you’ve learned”
As marketers, we’re taught to “craft and control” the brand image. We’re also taught that media is something purchased, like a hunting license on a private preserve stocked with our preferred prey. With social media, you can toss all that out the window.
First off, the second you enter the social realm, you are not in control of your brand. Swallow your pride and move on. In fact — in true democratic fashion — the more you turn control of your brand over to the people, the more successful you will be.
Secondly, you must remember your guest status in the conversation. You have to earn your right to be there. And uninvited guests are only welcomed when they are incredibly charming.
“Impossible to see the future is”
For years, marketers have talked about the “conversation” we’re having with consumers. Before social media, that was largely a lie.
With social media, you’re having a real-time, two-way conversation with consumers. And just like a regular conversation you’d have with a friend, it’s impossible to plan out what you’re going to be saying five minutes from now because it’s impossible to know where the conversation will go.
So as much as you want to plan out every post six months in advance so you can be positioned for a dynamic Q4, don’t bother. If you still want to be talking to people in Q4, follow the conversation closely and always have something interesting to say.
“A Jedi uses the force for knowledge and events, not for attack”
All marketers salivate over the engagement numbers in social media. Converting even a fraction it to sales translates into big-time money with an insane ROI. But here’s the bad news: social media is a listening device, not a direct sales tool.
In fact, social may be the best listening device ever created. If you’re willing to listen, you’ll never again wonder what your customer is thinking. Even better, your brand has the chance to respond to those thoughts with a human voice. That’s how brands become timeless.
“Do or do not, there is no try”
Obvious as it may seem, Yoda’s most memorable line seems to be the one brands most often forget. They seem to think that throwing up a profile is social media’s silver bullet. I blame that on the fact that social media appears free and sometimes effortless. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The most successful brands in social media either invest lots of time or pay lots of money for their success. Either way, they go all in.
More importantly, they realize that what drives any conversation is an idea. From Old Spice to Small Business Saturday, a big idea beautifully executed across many platforms was what got people talking, sharing and bonding with the brand. Find yourself an idea true to your brand and bigger than even the grandest post or profile, and “Master social you will.”
I have password fatigue. I’m not alone.
I’m tired of creating passwords, then having to go through mental gymnastics to remember what password I created 6 months ago when I signed up for a new photo-sharing site I haven’t used since.
Writing them down doesn’t make sense. In fact, keeping them anywhere but in my head seems like a pretty bonehead move. I’ve yet to find a foolproof system. If you have one, lunch is on me.
New technologies, new ideas
New technologies and ideas have surfaced to help alleviate the password control problem. Facebook and Twitter have certainly made it easier for people to sign into multiple sites using their social credentials, albeit not without some risk. Microsoft Live, LastPass, 1Password, Open ID and others have all tried to deal with the passwords issue, with varying degrees of success.
Computer scientists in Brooklyn are training iPads to recognize owners by the touch of their fingers, and banks are using software that recognizes your voice, according to this New York Times story. The man leading the iPad project, Nasir Memon, a computer science professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University in Brooklyn, says passwords are indeed a digital scourge. “If you ask me what is the biggest nuisance today, I would say it’s the 40 different passwords I have to create and change.”
The government’s plan
The password security and privacy challenge has prompted the U.S. government to get in the mix. They’ve introduced a plan, the National Strategy on Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, that calls for a private sector-led Internet national ID of sorts that would get the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s seal of approval. No telling how much support this will get, but pilot programs are planned for 2012.
I appreciate the efforts at standardizing and simplifying credentials, but short of having a unique username/password combination I can use until the end of time — kind of a digital version of a social security number — I don’t really see the problem getting better until we turn to biometric measures like eye scanners, fingerprint/handprint readers or multi-level methods of access, which seem to be gaining favor. Count me in.
Strategies and pain points
I asked people at work about their password strategies and pain points. Their thoughts:
• I make unique passwords for every site using a formula based loosely on the purpose of the site.
• I use the same username/password with subtle variations and it drives me crazy because I can never remember them and can’t find where I wrote them down so I constantly have to reset them.
• If I forget a password, I simply use the “Forgot password?” link and set up a new one.
• I use made up words and pass phrases in my combinations. I also never write down my passwords digitally.
• I use the same root combo of letters and numbers over time, but sometimes switch the letters and numbers around across different accounts.
• Been using the same username/password since middle school. Not really worried about security. If someone wants it, karma will take care of them.
• I use the same root for all passwords and change up the last character. That way I can always figure out my password within 3–4 attempts.
• Sites that I only use once or twice a year that require me to create an account become more trouble than they’re worth. I wind up just creating a new account every time I go back.
• I don’t like sites and apps that ask me to sign up before I get a chance to interact with their platform. It’s a big deal to give someone my e-mail address. That’s why I have one designated for promotional material.
• I often will back out of registering for a site if it won’t let me use the username/password combination I want to use, like if it won’t allow a special character.
• I use a password collection app to store username/password combinations in case I forget them.
Why it matters
Why is the password issue important to marketers? Because forgotten passwords mean abandoned accounts and unrealized customers. Because lax login approaches can lead to security issues and fraud. Because consumers often avoid the commitment of a login/password relationship with your brand. Because the more digital we become in everything we do, the more privacy matters.
Can agencies collaborate successfully? The answer is, sometimes. I’ve seen agency partnerships fail miserably, but I’ve also seen them do magical things.
In most cases, collaboration refers to an even more fractured model than the unfortunate separation of media and creative assignments. Today, a single brand can be serviced by a traditional agency, a media agency, a digital agency, a mobile agency, a social agency, a production agency and a CRM agency.
Like any human relationship, it can be shortsighted and perhaps naïve to throw two or more parties into a room, expect them to play well and deliver groundbreaking results. I think Razorfish got much of this right in their latest Outlook Report, “A Wake Up Call for Collaboration.” On both sides of the house, ideas need to stop being conceived and contained in disciplinary and organizational silos; above versus below the line, traditional versus digital, media versus creative.
Human factors
Beyond drawing up these rules of engagement, let’s consider the human motivating and de-motivating factors at play. Sometimes, people just don’t click, no matter how well intentioned their efforts. As a last resort, staffing changes can be necessary.
Most agencies “succeed” by growing year-over-year margins and winning awards. But major points are scored just by being able to staff their businesses well, which, because of typical compensation structures, was difficult even outside lean times. So behind agency doors, the pressure is on to score even more incremental funding, all while vying for the next industry trophy.
On the client side, particularly in large enterprises, responsibility for a single brand can fall to leaders across divisions — isn’t that a telling word — with each line of business director held to a unique set of performance measures. There’s a reason that the opposite of integration is disintegration.
With these competing agendas, it’s easy to see how priorities become muddled. It is said that good ideas can come from anywhere, but when “anywhere” is inaccessible because of operating lines or protectionism, we inadvertently hinder the pace and quality of creating ideas.
Reality gets in the way
The tough reality is that operational issues make agency collaborations very difficult. In some cases where agencies have managed to fully collaborate and produce great work, it’s because all stakeholders were compensated on shared KPIs and made success hinge upon the collective and business results — logos and divisions on business cards be damned.
If there’s flexibility in the system, a single client reporting line for agencies helps; all agencies are beholden to the same client organization and corporate imperatives. Agencies have the opportunity to function in a more inclusive, team-like approach, almost creating a new virtual agency in their alignment, drawing minds, experience and resources into a single think tank. Not only can this model spark ideas, but there can also be backend advantages. Overspill work from one shop can be covered by another. Agencies can leverage the output, proprietary tools and relationships that would have otherwise been inaccessible.
Collaboration can work
In one very bold, yet powerfully successful example, a global client of mine took this one step further and mixed up reporting lines across the agencies. I was the global lead at Grey, with regional leads from Bates, Ogilvy, Grey and Digit in different countries, all reporting to me. My creative partner was at Ogilvy Singapore, planning partner at Ogilvy Auckland and media partner at Grey/Mediacom in San Francisco. Their disciplinary teams were, in turn, at different agencies in different countries reporting into them.
And guess what? It made us reach out to each other constantly and turned us into good listeners. It forced us to help each other, share ideas and build on each other’s strengths. We learned from each other, supported each other and celebrated each other’s successes. Our clients marveled at how well we got along and the quality of the work.
Agencies want to be entrusted with the lion’s share of a client’s business. And clients want to entrust their business to an agency that they know and trust. But in cases where a one-agency solution isn’t feasible, a matrixed agency solution can reap big and unexpected benefits.
Agency and client teams should be rewarded for collaborating, but the incentive should not be the reason for collaboration. Done correctly, the collaboration in itself can be a reward. You can call me idealistic, and I’d call myself that too, had I not lived to tell the tale.
