Filed under: Authenticity, Black Hat Marketing, Black Hat PR, Blog Messaging, Blog Policies, Blog Strategy, Blog of Personality, Blogger Effect, Blogger Engagement, Blogger Ethics, Blogger Gifts, Blogger Influence, Blogging, Transparency

I’ve been having a running conversation with Chris Kieff about the ideas of authenticity, transparency, and flogging. We agree on most things, disagree on some others.

I have a problem with something he says. Not because I disagree, but because I think he may, in the end, be correct. And there’s not much we can do about it.

Until last week, he was one of the purists. Someone who would be upset at flogging and want to point it out. Then he had a conversation with his favorite focus group. It was a focus group of one. His wife.

“It’s just advertising” she said, meaning of flogs and false persona blogs. (For the record, I say it’s not advertising. It’s marketing, there’s a difference.)

That got Chris to thinking. Hmmm…maybe it is. It may not be what should be, but what should be and what is are two different animals. And in the real world, “what is” carries the day 95% of the time.

Essentially Chris is saying “Let’s face it. It’s going to happen. Fake blogs are coming. In fact, they’re already going on now. I may not like it, but whether or not I like it, isn’t important. It’s happening and it’s going to continue to happen. The problem is that we haven’t developed the cues to recognize flogs”.

In other words, we know what a commerical looks like on TV. Most of us now know what an infomercial is. A print ad in a magazine or newspaper often has a frame around it saying “Advertisement”. Those are the cues that tell us “Advertisement”. And the problem is that we haven’t been able to develop the cues to directly identify a flog.

That’s an excellent point because it’s true. And some marketers will take advantage of this and create flogs. They’ll often get away with it as best practices develop. We can’t prevent this because it isn’t against the law.

Where I disagree with Chris is that I see blogs as a form of personal expression and direct relationship building platforms. It goes beyond a comment here and there, it’s about trust and sharing. People, on some level, rely on that trust. So to me, personal blogs - unless patently obvious or explicitly stated are wrong.

But back to Chris’ wife. “It’s just advertising”. Think about that.

That mindset is the result of years of being advertised too. Of years of being somewhat misled, fibbed to. Outright lied to. We are all that way to an extent. I know I am. The advertising industry has created an atmosphere that has caused tremendous cynicism in people who are under the age of, say, 105.

Her opinion is important as any of ours. Because it’s opinions like hers that will both allow flogs to exist…yet make them struggle. Why? Because the expectations are lowered. And people aren’t going to engage with a blogger if they feel as if they’re being lied to. And it’s also important because she’s not an ‘industry insider’ and it could reflect the attitude of the masses out there that think authenticity and transparency (or at least translucency) is important. It would be nice, but it’s not expected.

She, as a consumer, is a thought leader. She didn’t know it. Neither did Chris. Neither did I.

In the end, I still have to disagree somewhat. I think that a false personal blog, one that is cleverly wrapped up enough that one can’t tell has the potential to cause great harm And not just to brands, but to readers.

But I also know that many on the marketing side don’t care about these principles of which we speak. So they’ll forge ahead, creating flogs and spoiling what some of us hold up in an idealistic manner…proving Chris Kieff’s wife right the entire time.

It’s just advertising.

3 Comments » Posted on August 19th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Abraham Harrison LLC, Authenticity, Blog Policies, Blog Strategy, Blog Training, Blog of Personality, Blogger Code of Conduct, Blogger Effect, Blogger Engagement, Blogger Ethics, Blogger Gifts, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Blogger Relations, Blogger Response, Blogger Support, Blogging, Blogging Policies, Blogosphere, Blowback, Controversial Marketing, Social Meda, Transparency

Yesterday I hopped over to Chris Kieff’s blog, 1 Good Reason, and came upon an excellent post that sparked a discussion both online and off. I ended up talking to Chris and five others about what likely is to be a major problem in the upcoming years regarding online marketing and PR, especially through the social media lens. The five were Jen Zingsheim, Bryan Person, Dave Evans, Jake McKee, and Mark Davidson.

I’ll start by saying that I think often that those of use who practice social media are, if not naive, very idealistic in our thinking on the principles we espouse. And I’d say that a confluence of emerging trends, mindsets, events, and business practices could come back and knock a lot of us on our asses.

What caught my attention from Chris’ blog was his interaction with a young woman who had been hired as a blogger by a clothing company:

Yesterday at Social Media Camp NYC hosted by Mashable, and Yoono, there was a very lively discussion started by a young woman who presented herself as a “Persona Blogger.” She was joined in this discussion by a company (who I have decided to not name, yet) who is employing her to blog for them.

She discussed how she assumes the persona of several people; 52 year old woman, 25 year old man, 20-ish woman, and then blogs, twitters, and creates pages on social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and others as these people. She spoke about how this is a 24/7 job that requires her to maintain this work constantly to keep up the facade.

I’ll not mince words, this is simply lying, and as I’ve stated in this blog before, lying is a terrible way to build a relationship.

The audience at SM Camp NYC seemed to divide somewhat along generational lines, with some of the younger people taking the side that it’s understood that people can’t be trusted on the internet. Their arguments followed the logic that everyone on the internet makes things up. They’ve grown up understanding there are different levels of honesty.

I chose to highlight that last sentence because it’s very problematic. It’s both true and bullshit. Honesty, by definition would seem to be an absolute. But people, out of convenience have altered it to fit their needs and circumstances. We all do it. I’ve done it. We rationalize. We justify. That’s life. We’re human. But there’s consequences.

What stuck me is Chris’ point on the outlook of the attendees regarding the concept of the “persona blogger”. It “seemed to divide somewhat along generational lines” My concern here is more through the aspect of looking through the eyes of practitioners as opposed to potential audience members.

How Did This Come About?

Consider the following:

1) We’ve had a President of the United States, someone who often sits atop the “Ten Most Admired Men in the World” surveys, who by his very position is a role model for our nation’s youth, recklessly having an extramarital affair with a woman young enough to be his daughter. He then lies to cover it up and attempts to position the woman as delusional and, if not a stalker, somewhat obsessed. Oops, a blue dress appears with a certain stain on it, and, well, it turns out he did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky. We’re then told that this really doesn’t matter, it’s only an affair, and of course he lied under oath, but so what?

Say what you want about it, but I’ll say it tarnished the Office of the Presidency and it demeaned the institution of marriage. Meaning, it lowered the standards of what we expect out of our leaders and it created different levels of honesty.

2) So let’s fast forward a couple of years. Wall Street. Greed is Good. Irrational exuberance. Brokerage houses telling their brokers to push certain stocks. Outright lies. A couple of companies went under, a couple of people went to jail, but more importantly thousands lost their life savings because a few who were already rich got even more greedy.

In a lot of cases, the amounts measured up to a couple of days profits. Those brokerage houses still exist, still treat themselves as noble entities, still are looked upon by the business media as having thought leaders.

From this, we subtly learn not to trust institutions…but often those same institutions are the only ones out there.

3) If you’re Catholic, like me, you soon found out that the very people who represent God before your very eyes are not only failing to protect the most innocent, they are covering up the grievous sins of their subordinates. On a national scale. For some (no, not me) it was as much as part of the Church as a sacrament. Nothing is sacred.

4) Speaking of presidents, we’re now at war in Iraq because they have weapons of mass destruction they likely have ties to al Queda to spread democracy in the Middle East. We’ll be greeted as liberators and then we’ll be out of there in a few months, where we can say “Mission Accomplished”. The war will pay for itself with Iraqi oil money.

Oops. We don’t need more troops. We don’t torture. We’re in the last throes of the insurgency.

What we’ve seen with all of this - and it’s coming out in memoirs of administration aides - is that there was a huge propaganda campaign coming out of said administration, pushing falsehoods on practically everything. Dissent within the administration was squelched and that attitude seemed to spread around the country. Ask the Dixie Chicks. The media often went along for reasons only they know.

In my conversation with Jake McKee, he pointed out how many of today’s young people don’t question authority. They may not follow it blindly, they may just accept that they are going to be lied to.

So it’s been reinforced that it’s OK to fudge the truth and dissent is often bad.

5) Like sports? Like steroids? This generations’ greatest hitter and greatest pitcher are heavily believed to have been juiced up. As were Olympic hopefuls, past Gold medal winners, and Tour de France winners. Toss in souped up cars in NASCAR and Formula 1 and you’ve got cheaters everywhere. Whatever it takes to win. The end justifies the means. If he’s on our team, that’s cool, as long as he produces. People may fall from grace, but that’s after winning millions of dollars.

What we learn here is that it’s not how you play the game, it’s whether you win or lose.

I’m not writing all this to shove down your throats moral standards or to condemn society or to shame us as role models for our nation’s youth or to point out how young people are going to be less ethical than we are.

I’m writing this instead to shove down your throats that, at the very least, we’re likely going to have to deal with some serious issues in the near future. Those same standards fo authenticity and transparency may not be worth snot. I’ll further explain in How Social Media Will Get Screwed, Part Two.

16 Comments » Posted on August 13th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison LLC, Abraham Harrison Staff, Blogger Engagement, Blogger Ethics, Blogger Outreach, Building Community, Chris Abraham, Cluetrain Manifesto, Community Building, Social Meda, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Outreach, Social Network Services, Social Networking, Social Networks, Taylor Donlan

I have been going through Google Docs and discovered an internal document I would like to share with you from back in the beginning of 2007. Taylor Donlan wrote it to explain to our new staff how best to reach out to and engage online on behalf of our clients and in general. I was inspired to share it based on this comment by Jonathan Crawford from the article What motivated you to learn about social media? Check it out and tell me what you think:

When we approach someone online, we need to approach in the same way we would in the real world. If our goal is to develop relationships, we cannot “go for the kill” instantly. Instead, we must engage in some small talk first. We must engage the blogger and his or her post first, well before any discussion of our client or their related services.

To use Chris’s metaphor, in a professional context, we want them to ask us for our business card. We want to get them so interested in whatever service or client we are touting that they are asking us for more information. This does not mean we air drop business cards everywhere or give one to every person on the street – those cards are thrown away. In the real world, it is much more effective to develop some kind of individual connection before exchanging business cards – they are much more likely to keep the cards, and remember you. In the future, they are more likely to be open to doing something for you.

For a more basic metaphor, imagine meeting someone in a bar. You don’t go right up to someone and jump into a conversation or ask them for favors. Instead you ease into conversation by engaging something that you notice about them or that stands out about your general surroundings. You need to build some rapport in terms that are common to both parties before you can get to any deeper level.

In the blog world, we are trying to do the same. When you make a comment on a post show that you have paid some attention to their post and add something meaningful - feel free to Google the subject matter and share some additional information or just share your general feelings on the subject matter. Then and only then is it acceptable to broach the subject of our client or their services.

Whenever possible, we pose our engagement campaigns in terms of offering “a gift” – usually a service or piece of information that will likely prove useful to the blogger and/or their readers at no cost. While this “free gift” approach reduces the appearance of any spam quality to our engagements, it is still necessary to ease into the gift offering. We are not in the business of spamming, and it will not be tolerated.

Another important point is that we believe in transparency. We are not interested in being deceitful. Admit proudly that you work for Abraham Harrison and whomever the client might be. Our engagement campaigns aim to offer a gift to bloggers, and there is no shame in our business.

1 Comment » Posted on August 13th, 2008 by Chris Abraham

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Blog Counter-Messaging, Blog Messaging, Blog Policies, Blog Search, Blog Training, Blog of Personality, Blogger Activation, Blogger Code of Conduct, Blogger Effect, Blogger Engagement, Blogger Ethics, Blogger Gifts, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Blogger Relations, Blogger Response, Blogger Support, Blogging, Blogging Policies, Blogging Primer, Blogosphere, Blogvertising, Blowback, Brand Advocacy, Brand Promotion, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, CEO Blogs, Chris Abraham, Citizen Generated Media, Citizen Media, Client Service, Controversial Marketing, Conversation, Conversation Marketing, Customer Reviews, Customer Service, Disruption, Edelman, Facebook, Flogging, Flogs, Honesty, How to Blog, Influence, Influencer Identification, Influencers, Influencial Bloggers, Influentials, Inside PR, Integrity, Mainstream Media, Managing Conversation, Marketing, Marketing Blogs, Marketing Conversation, Marketing Ethics, Marketing Hubris, Marketing Industry, Marketing Language, Marketing Psychology, Marketing Strategy, Markets are Conversations, Media Consultancy, Media Virus, Messaging Online, Microblog, Microblogging, Naked Conversations, New Marketing, New Media, New Media Marketing, New Media PR, New Media Strategy, New PR, New Public Relations, New Technology, News Aggregation Strategy, Old Media, Old PR, Online Brand Promotion, Online Branding, Online Collaboration, Online Communications, Online Communities, Online Community Managers, Online Community Outreach, Online Conversation, Online Engagement, Online Evangelism, Online Facilitation, Online Field Marketing, Online Influence, Online Intelligence, Online Marketing, Online Media, Online Messaging, Online Monitoring, Online Outreach, Online PR, Online Participation, Online Pitch, Online Public Relations, Online Strategy, PR Hubris, PR Industry, PR Tactics, Public Relations, Public Relations Industry, Relationship Marketing, Social Graphs, Social Meda, Social Media Index, Social Media Marketing, Social Media PR, Social Network Services, Social Networking, Social Networks, Social Utilities, Tagging, Tags, Traditional Marketing, Traditional Media, Traditional PR, Transparency, Twitter, Twittergram, Viral Marketing, Viral Media, Viral PR, Viral Propagation, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web Applications, YouTube, YouTube Marketing, Youth Market, del.icio.us, marketing tactics

With all the discussion on what social media is, what it’s future will be like, who will control it, I often feel we fail to see the forest for the trees.

I see it as too diverse of a phenomenon to pin down with one easy definition. Its applications go far beyond the neat capsules that can be used to pick a particular department or function that should “own” it. Social media is creating, empowering, and accompanying a paradigm shift in the way we use all media.

Are we fully there yet? Of course not. These are only the early stages, part of an evolutionary process that often comes step by step. But those steps are happening and happening and soon we’ll look back and be amazed how far we’ve traveled. Then before we know it again, we’ll be stepping again and look back again and we’ll be amazed how much we’ve come from that first time we looked back.

Yes, organizations are going to have to harness social media in ways that they can benefit from, to reach ROI. This means trying to create some sort of structure for it without “siloizing” it. Very difficult indeed.

I’ve tried to lay out what I see social media as. Not from a specific definitional standpoint, but from a several miles up point of view.

Interested in your feedback… Read more…

No Comments » Posted on July 30th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: A-List Bloggers, Abraham Harrison LLC, Activating Bloggers, Blog Messaging, Blog Policies, Blog of Personality, Blogger Effect, Blogger Engagement, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Blogger Relations, Blogger Response, Brand Promotion, Branding, Conversation, Conversation Marketing, Influence, Influencers, Influencial Bloggers, Influential Brand Advocates, Influentials, New Marketing, New Media, Online Marketing, Online Messaging, Online PR, Online Reputation, Seesmic, Viral PR, Viral Videos, Web 2.0, YouTube Marketing

Let’s take a look at the debate between Brian and Loic, point by point.

Point #1

Brian Solis: Understand You’re Not the Only Story in Town
Loic: Who cares about stories, you can get traction and users if you have a good product

Where do I start? First of all, Brian’s spot on in that many top executives in startups overvalue what the product or the service or whatever it is that they’re introducing. They don’t understand that the battleground for attention from key influencers and potential customers is filled with other players battling for attention as well. Sometimes it’s necessary to get someone to help craft a pathway through that battlefield, from someone one that understands which weapons and shields are needed. How to break through that clutter. Because on that very same battlefield are others looking for sweet victory as well. And that’s just the battle to get noticed.

Sometimes that’s having someone who can help craft and deliver a great story.

And, yes, sometimes, one of the best weapons is having established a blog and with that, a burgeoning community. Loic has done that and kudos to him for that. He is a great example of what he’s writing about.

Some of those competitors on the battlefield may not be direct competitors in business. No matter. They are still competing for mindshare of the audience a startup wants to reach.

CEOs need to understand this. They’ve worked their tails off for a significant period of time to produce something. That’s quite an accomplishment in itself. But many automatically think that whatever they’ve produce “sells itself” that it’s a “no-brainer” causing people to automatically understand why they should buy it. This is called hubris.

Hubris kills. For example, a trivia question. Guess who said this last fall:

“I’m in it for the long run. It’s not a very long run. It will be over by February 5.”*

History is filled with failed startups let by overconfident individuals that failed to realize they need some sort of marketing plan to get the word out, to position the product, to clarify key features and benefits. They decided to start companies and then implemented marketing as an afterthought. In other words, their companies have no stories.

While the atmosphere is much better today, I’ve seen decision makers that refuse to get this. It’s as if they seemingly believe that press rooms of major business publications had fax rooms where eager young interns hang out excitedly to retrieve their press releases and run to the editors with all of your important info. If you lack a story - and a decent product - it’s much more difficult to gain traction.

No, Loic, good stories are often needed. Stories can explain complex products. Stories can differentiate between competitors. Stories can offer insight that go beyond a series of sentences on a press release. Just as blog posts can. Blogging and trying to develop a community can work - but not really in time to help that start up. Unless they’re already a know quality like you. It also helps when you have a Web 2.0 type service that connects people such as Seesmic.

A second major point regarding Loic’s comments is that not all good products can get traction. Just as not every great guitarist gets that major record deal, just as not every great aspiring actress gets the big break, not every great product gets noticed. There are a bunch of factors that influence success. As Jim Kurkral commented on Loic’s post, “Even people with great products can still fail getting coverage.” Coverage in industry press, coverage in mainstream press, coverage in blogs. Nor will all creators of great bloggers be able to form online communities.

For that matter, not every product that meet with success is of top quality. Sometimes it’s luck. Previous reputation. Timing. Or a great story.

*Trivia answer: Hillary Clinton, (self)presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party in the U.S. Presidential race, describing how quickly she’ll win the nomination.

No Comments » Posted on June 17th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn