I love my job. I love it because I get to think about what incidents like last night’s might mean. Maybe this one is meaningless, but my hunch is that my friend Grant McCracken would see something interesting in it. Here’s what happened:

My 14-year old son was excitedly showing off a new t-shirt he just acquired:

That’s the shirt, but that’s not my son. My 14-year old doesn’t have tats.

So, kind of an odd shirt, right? Some dude with a full beard and glasses, and the semi-cryptic, pseudo-aspirational ‘achieve.’  The image is a representation of Jack Pattillo, Editor of Achievement Hunter at Rooster Teeth Productions. Yes, I recognize that ‘Editor of Achievement Hunter at Rooster Teeth Productions’ means absolutely nothing to you. Rooster Teeth are one of those companies that didn’t, couldn’t, exist in the previous century.  Their YouTube channel boasts over 3 million subscribers and over 1 billion views!

Rooster Teeth are one of those 21st century companies that is shaping our culture in stealth mode – at least as far as the mainstream understanding of culture goes. But here’s the thing that I really found amazing in talking with my son. As I did a Google search for Jack Patillo his LinkedIn page came up so I clicked on it. As I was looking at it my son noticed the “People Also Viewed” group on the right hand side of Jack’s page. My son pointed to every single person on the list, all Rooster Teeth employee’s, and said, “I know who that is.”

Producers, web designers, VPs, show creators, you name it, my son could have told me all about them. What sort of advantages does this give Rooster Teeth? In building a relationship with their fans, in recruiting talent, in building a larger audience? I’m not sure but when I was my son’s age the only employee at a company that I would have known was Tinker Hatfield, the shoe designer from Nike. Yeah, I was that much of a Nike nut then.

From a marketing perspective I see the vast, yawning cultural chasm between the current C-Suiters and the kids that are my son’s age. Next time you are talking to a brand manager ask them about companies/people like Rooster Teeth, Valve, Tobuscus, Minecraft or Freddie W. My guess is you’ll get blank stares. In the next couple of years you’re going to see an explosion of brands and media companies (there’s a difference?) that will catch those in charge by complete surprise. It’s going to be fun to watch if you’re on the right side of things, but very messy if you’re not.

I came across two interesting stories today. First, Ad Age reported that Coca-Cola had issued an RFP for an agency to handle social media listening. The piece notes that, “Kerry Tressler, a Coca-Cola spokeswoman, said some 20 agencies have been involved in the selection process. She noted the company is looking to select a single agency and expects the decision will be made “fairly quickly.” She also said that roster shop 360i is among the agencies participating in the process.”

As an agency guy, and a social media guy, this is concerning. In general, I think less agencies is better than more agencies. Yes, you want best in class but at some point the task of managing a dozen agencies across your marketing department can outweigh their individual skills. I’ve been involved with a lot of big brands, for a number of different agencies, and getting them to communicate and work in harmony can be an effort, even when there roles are clearly distinct. But today, clearly distinct roles is a thing of the past. What agency doesn’t think it can handle the social media duties? Now Coca-Cola is going to add a social media monitoring agency?

Econsultancy.com seems to support the notion, stating in an article on the Coca-Cola RFP: “Just as, for instance, an analytics guru who identifies a problematic page correlated with shopping cart abandonment is likely not going to be the person who fixes the usability or copy problem responsible for the abandonment, an agency that is capable of helping a client engage effectively with consumers through social media isn’t necessarily going to be the most capable of analyzing social chatter and applying the results to social and other marketing channels.”

No, they aren’t necessarily going to be able to, but they could. I don’t believe getting another agency is the answer, rather getting the right agency is the answer. Surely there are agencies that can use the wide variety of tools now available to monitor social media conversations, and then execute against the strategies to engage or convert or whatever is the appropriate action.  I would be concerned about the potential lag time between Agency A identifying an opportunity to engage (or more seriously, identify a potential crisis) and Agency B taking the appropriate action. I’m sure the “listening” agency is going to have ideas about how to respond that may be different from Coke’s other social media agency. In all, I see more potential problems than benefits.

The other story came from Andy Sernovitz, who looks at what Intel is up to with their social listening and engagement program. Interestingly, Intel’s Becky Brown talks about the need to “[c]entralize, consolidate and focus.” Here’s her full presentation from BlogWell:

Intel’s approach is inline with what I heard from Ethan McCarty, Sr. Manager, Digital and Social Strategy at IBM, in my interview with him (Part 1, Part 2).  Intel, like IBM, is evolving into a Social Business.  Getting all departments and all employees on the same page. Harnessing internal experts and leveraging them to engage with consumers/customers will be essential for businesses. Those, like Intel and IBM who are moving in that direction now will have an advantage over their competitors.

What exactly is “social media?” By one definition, it is “the use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue.” True, but what if I share a graphic novel with a friend, and over lunch we have a discussion about it? Perhaps we haven’t fulfilled the first part, but we’ve certainly generated interactive dialogue.

So the question is, are you more worried about the former or the latter? If you’re focused on web-based and mobile technologies, here’s what you’re going to end up doing:

• Measuring how many Facebook “likes” your status update received
• Checking your Twitter followers
• Seeing how many people circled you in Google+
• Counting how many Foursquare badges you have

Now here’s my question: What do those have to do with your brand? Unless you’re in the selling Google+ circles or Facebook Likes business, probably nothing.

But what about the other half of that definition? The interactive dialogue part. That has plenty to do with your brand. If you’re interested in developing that, then you are interested in fostering:

• Product reviews
• Roundtable discussions
• Heated debate
• Recommendations

These are softer metrics. Qualitative metrics rather than the merely quantitative. These support opinion, passion and preference – things that are shareable. So what are you doing to generate those? When you run promotions to get people to “like” you on Facebook, you’re not generating shareable ideas.  When you offer a 10% discount just for checking in on Foursquare, you’re not generating shareable ideas.  Instead, try something like this:

• Post something provocative on your Facebook page, and give a prize to the comment that receives the most “likes”
• Create a hashtag on Twitter and reward everyone who uses it with a coupon
• Got a product on Amazon? Challenge your customers to write a review in haiku format
• Own a restaurant? Offer to ut the best Yelp review on your menu
• Reward people on quora.com with the highest rated responses to a question in your industry with an opportunity to write a guest post on your blog

You could probably think of a dozen more. The point is, these all create shareable content that is relevant to your business. But more importantly, don’t become fixated on the platform. Create a print publication or a physical badge instead of a digital one. Reward people with content that can be shared in more intimate, personal ways, not just via a Twitter blast.

As noted in my previous post, Five Tips for a Better Beta-Tester Strategy, I try to check out as many new platforms, tools and services as I can. The vast majority of the time the technology is good enough and the idea is good enough, but the enterprise ends up falling flat for me. I’ll play with it a little bit, explore the different elements, but ultimately I find myself pulling away and going back to other places on the web. In thinking about it further, I’ve come up with a check-list of six questions that go into determining if this is a place I should be spending my time:

1. Who’s there?

Just about every site let’s you connect with or invite your friends from Facebook, Twitter, etc. Great idea, makes sense. Or at least did make sense. But now I start to ask the question, “If s/he is my friend on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, Quora and Facebook, why am I connecting with them here as well?”  There doesn’t seem to be any context, it’s just random friend tapping.  Sure, sites can benefit from the network effect, but the failure to add a layer of relevancy makes this a hollow exercise. Rather than trying to ramp up with volume, I’d rather see sites incorporate Klout or PeerIndex to say, “these are your friends from other social networks who are experts/influencers/interested in the topic that this site is all about.  Real world example: Why doesn’t GetGlue tell me “These are your Twitter friends who are really passionate about TV/Film/Books/Music.” That would end up making the GetGlue experience better because I’d either be following or inviting my existing friends who will actually use GetGlue.

2. How does it connect with my life online?

Every site allows me to push content to my Facebook or Twitter streams. But a good majority of the time I don’t want to do that. To paraphrase Jesse Eisenberg (as Mark Zuckerberg) “If I wanted to post on Facebook, I’d be on Facebook.”  Surely there must be other ways to connect your site to my online life. Many sites off widgets and badges (see examples on the right hand column of this blog), but that’s rather low end. I don’t have an answer here, but I’d love to see someone come up with something beyond the basics we see now.

Online and offline connect via the Speedo Pace Club

3. How does it connect with my life offline?

Here’s where Nike+ (and the new Speedo Pace Club) have done a great job. It’s not just about checking-in via a Location-Based Service, it’s about integrating what I do offline with an online experience. Also, it’s niche, but a passionate niche. I’m not going to see everyone of my Twitter friends in these, only the ones that are really into running or swimming or whatever. I think these type of sites have a real chance to grow and survive.

4. What’s in it for me?

So many of these young sites gin up the interaction with gamification, but have an incredibly small payoff.  How many digital badges and stickers am I going to collect? Why exactly do I want to be at the top of your leader board?  Foursquare works well here because I’ve received plenty of real world rewards for my efforts – free appetizers, 20% off merchandise, etc.  More sites need to figure out how they can reward their users in more tangible ways. I’m not going to run around telling all my friends they have to check out a site because they can earn a badge.

5. How are you connecting with me?

I get plenty of emails with news about the latest updates or metrics milestones from sites, but very few emails asking me about my user experience. I rarely get offers to speak with the engineers or developers or executive team (most of my CEO interviews come from my pro-active efforts). I wish more sites would show an interest in me. Surely there must be a way to search my online content and then communicate with me in a way that connects who I am with what your site is in a more meaningful way.

6. How are you surprising me?

Instead of another badge, how about something like, “For our first birthday, we teamed up with our friends at Ben & Jerry’s. Free ice cream for all our members, go print the coupon here!” That would be unexpected and quite welcome. I’m sure I could come up with a dozen ‘surprise and delights’ in about 30 minutes.  Give me a reason to keep coming back, make me want to know what might happen next because of my connection with you.

Bootstrapping an online venture is tough, I get that, but don’t forget to think about your potential user as much as you think about the offering itself.

Google is everywhere, or soon will be

This is going to be the first of a two-part piece on Google beyond Google+.  The last few weeks have seen Google dominate the social media news landscape with the launch of their social network, Google+. Google’s recent revamp of Google News got a lot less attention, but I think was also very interesting. Now, some more recent news from the company helps to shed light on where they are headed. In this post I’ll examine these recent announcements. In my next post I’ll put forth my opinion on where else I think Google will set their sights.

First up, Google credit cards. According to BusinessWeek:

Google is offering a select number of smaller advertisers a new way to pay for online search ads: a credit card that can only be used to pay for AdWords, the Internet search giant’s keyword advertising program.

 

While this certainly seems smart in the short run, the long-term implications are interesting here. Does Google use this as a test program for a move to a PayPal like online payment system, or something bigger? Does Google make this card widely available to consumers and bundle it somehow with One Pass and Checkout?  Online payment, and mobile payment, will continue to be growth areas moving forward, expect Google to have an answer here.

The second piece of “news” is about Google’s print publication for advertisers, Think Quarterly. I put news in quotes because although the New York Times piece on it ran this weekend, I’ve been following the Think Quarterly Twitter account for a couple of weeks now. The Times piece also alludes to Google using the book to promote itself as a nod to a “slow data” movement, something I’ve mentioned in the past, using the term slow social. But more important than the medium, is the message. Think Quarterly is aimed at the same people as the Google credit cards, ad buyers.

Where else is Google going? I’ll take a look at five other categories I think Google may (should?) venture into.