Anti Social Brands...

Lolcat goodness, via msmail. Usual rules apply.

I'll be honest, I didn't go to IPASocial, despite the ferocious twittering around it. So i'm going to caveat these remarks with that.

I didn't go despite the fact a lot of my friends were speaking. While I like socialising with them, I can be sociable just as easily in the pub, as well as debating the finer points of online and offline behaviour (I'd also forgotten when it was on).

Plus, as Sam rightly pointed out, for an event about social behaviour, it was unusual with its differing charges for members and non members (which I usually don't mind, but it seemed to be against the principles of the evening; especially rule 2 - a social agenda, not a business agenda).

I'll be interested to see whether it goes, and what happens when a brand adopts some of those principles directly from the event; that'd make a case study i'd love to find out more about.

With all of that said, I think there's a point it might all be missing; that being 'social' isn't for every company or brand.

I don't give a stuff what most brands think about things - do I care that my bank thinks about the world differently, or cares that all of its customers are bright, shiny snowflakes? No. I don't. I care that it's able to manage my money, not rip me off, and not go bust any time soon. And, to be honest, i'm more interested in giving to a bank which cares about what I think it should be good at.

In fact, I somewhat admire this close minded stance for brands who offer an emotional or physical experience which is like no other brand's. Making a virtue of sticking to what you know, and what you're good at still creates loyalists.

And it can even live on 'social' networks. Look at Tower Bridge, or Henry Winter (the Telegraph's tip top football writer). People know about them, and them not being social or responding isn't really an issue.

I think getting too wedded to social brand behaviour is bloody dangerous, especially as 10% of twitter users generate most of the content. Yes, we're inherently social creatures, but to our friends and family. Not necessarily to brands.

Brands - I don't want to be your friend, I just want you to do your job, and do it better than your competition. In fact, I rather like it when that's all you focus on. Be useful to me and i'll like you. Don't get hung up on being social for the sake of it.

I hate to use the 'brands like people' thing here, but it's true to some extent; some brands are the life and soul of the party. Some are the socially awkward introverts who have other interests than being loquacious. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Expecting Entrepreneurs?

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout. Via Edmittance. Usual rules apply.

I've got another confession to make. I got into advertising because I had it in my mind that, while it wasn't going to be like Mad Men, it may well have been a bit more like the 80s. Not in the sense that I expected Ferraris and very long lunches, but more just in the potential out there.

The sort of work places I imagined were those people with big intellects, slightly addictive personalities and with ambition off the scales.

The sort of people who'd want to sell; to sell ideas, to sell new ways of thinking, to want to reach for the skies. Slight hyperbole, but that's what I was after.

And, in truth, I find a lot of people who aren't like this. A lot of people who like to do the job, however long it takes, and leave. Ideas are important, sure, but to be entrepreneurial? Nope.

It got me thinking - why are these people like this? Surely, the whole point about advertising is that really, it's based on confidence. No amount of data will *wholly* prove a point, and it only tells you what's gone before.

If we then have an environment where ideas and confidence are championed, why don't we have more entrepreneurs? And more start ups?

Well, I can't help but wonder if it's got something to do with upbringing and education. I come from Generation Y, for my sins. We're the most highly tested generation ever, a generation that is used to being able to publish whatever we like (as Russell and Lynette have said) and say what we want to say.

In short, we've never been this scrutinised. If we fuck up, we fuck up in public. We're a generation acutely aware of our self image (who doesn't have a friend or two who is militant about which photos of him/her go on Facebook, say?) that's used to being tested and hitting targets.

I'd hypothesise that we've had a great deal of our creative thinking and ballsiness crushed out of us.

Advertising/comms used to be a place where you could rise through the post room. And to a great extent, it is still a meritocracy, assuming you can get in.

So we're stifled, despite these tools in front of us. And it seems that a lot of places talk a lot, especially certain agencies which over rely on 'social media' tools; they're are chock full of a lot of people who, in the words of James Brown, are 'talkin' loud and sayin' nothing'.

Frankly, i'm sodding bored of that. Self referential (yes, i'm as guilty as anyone at this) bullshit which is obsessed with its own navel. Proclamations about 'how we're going to change the world' - you know who you are - are found in those people who don't do anything, just preach.

I want to create places where if someone has an idea which works well with a brand, they aren't afraid to go and pitch it. We're salesmen at the end of the day. We may be salesmen with more of a social conscience than the 1980's, but we're still in the business of making things happen, of bringing ideas to life.

So let's start creating and stop fucking talking about it. Working in media, 'social' or otherwise, is in danger of powering hot air balloons and nothing more. I want more entrepreneurs in our business.

Semantics, Recession and Merging..

Really is as simple as that. Picture via Torkveen, usual rules apply.

Hello.

That meme thing has prompted me to write something proper. That's right, with real grammar and punctuation. Maybe even with some proper spelling. WARNING: There'll definitely be some ranting.

Like almost every person in an agency environment (whether it be PR, Digital, Advertising or Meeja), I've been asked a lot of questions about recession and the nature of it - and for any useful case studies (all of which is vaguely useless, as every recession will be markedly different from the last one - it's like asking someone to compare each grain of sand on a beach).

Ogilvy have had a stab at it, and I applaud them for their efforts. It saves me a job, at any rate, which is always welcome. However, when your clients may well go bust tomorrow, they don't really worry about that - more about whether the EU will follow America's lead. It puts status meetings and fucking stupid brand onions into context.

Of course, a lot of people view this recession as the door being opened for those who are entrepreneurial and future facing. And in both PR and Advertising, a strange beast has arisen. One that claims to be digital, ad focused and interested in 'talkability' and 'advocacy', those two buzzwords which have been comfortably powering the internet and comms in general since before Altavista stopped being the dominant browser.

I'm talking, of course, about the Social Media Agency. It's a bit of a hydra in the world of communications. While I'm a fully paid up believer in the power of social media, and of an overall communications agency, I have a bit of an issue with the term and the agencies I've seen.

First of all - surely every successful piece of communications should aim at advocacy, and achieve it, either subliminally (low involvement processing, anyone?) or actively through talking and recommending it to people.

Communication is inherently social. Duh. Otherwise it wouldn't be communication. As Mark has repeatedly emphasised, we're social animals.

So with this in mind, let's pick apart what a social media offers other than this. From what I can see (and I've been contacted by one or two through this blog), it amounts to emailing bloggers to ask them whether they'd consider writing about the next big ad/product/event that's going on.

Again - isn't that the job of the shoddy PR agency that hasn't done its homework? What some try to sell as 'Digital PR'? Or some gimp in an Ad agency who doesn't know what he's doing?

Ok, so that doesn't wash. Let's have another think. Oh yes, mastery of the latest social media techniques and software. Err, right. I work for what some outside observers would call a 'traditional' ad agency, yet I know what's going on in new launches....the failure of Pownce, the usefulness of Remember The Milk or how Last.FM's new menu doesn't seem as user friendly as the last one. And as for the software point - WTF? The whole POINT of social media is that it's easy to use, and EVERYONE can use it....

Right. Maybe some love can be found in measurement. Last time I checked, no-one (even you, NPS, much as you're not too bad) had found a golden metric which goes all the way through, nor judges which part of the mix was the most useful. Social media metrics are notoriously ropey as well - so a lot of people signed up online. And? Did sales increase? That last question buggers most.

So really, on the face of it - most of this is either already done by the PR, Advertising, Media or Digital agency...who each have specialisms of their own.

Come on then Social Media Agencies; either call yourself communications agencies or do something which can't be done. I don't see evidence of the latter at the moment. I wonder, with the recession, whether they'll prosper - as clients need to compartmentalise spend, will it make more sense to give them little bits of budget to ring fence as their own, or will they all get truly fucked by the other agencies? Something's got to give.

My true rage is at the term, in all honesty. There are good agencies who call themselves 'Social Media', and do get digital comms and advertising. But to claim yourself as masters of the conversation is the height of arrogance. That's like me blindly assuming my consumer on a well known American car brand is a Texan cowboy and nothing else, who'll buy out of habit. Misguided and foolish, really.

I think JC makes a good point on this topic. The Digital and Analogue argument must definitely die. As he puts it: "the big winners will be those who can mix the proven strengths of the old with the innovation of the new. The ability to deliver that double-whammy will be the only thing worth measuring." Damn straight. And the 'new' Social Media agencies haven't done this. Yet.

Shh....it's a secret...

An arty shh, courtesy of Novembre85.

A recent report on the BBC has been jumped upon by many bloggers as evidence that there is in fact a 'class divide' between different social networking sites.

Well, considering there was another piece of research telling us that your average social networking person is a member of about four social networking sites, you could easily doubt the validity of the former. As I've stated before, I think the former is wrong-headed; it's not class based, it's design/intention based. And as for the other piece of research, it doesn't surprise me.

Simply put, people don't appear to have a great deal of loyalty.

But I would like to take issue with the conclusion of the latter. I'm a member of...oooh, quite a few social networking sites. But Facebook is the one I turn to most often (read: 90% of the time). And, given the recent widget explosion, it seems I'll be there for a while longer.

Though lots of people are very concerned that the widget explosion could lead to a mass commercialisation of the site, turning the clean and pleasant design into an ad riddled MySpace. Which, frankly, I don't think anyone wants to see (unless it's for something I actually want).

And these things lead me to think about another potential problem, highlighted by Mike Butcher, one of the speakers at the PSFK Conference I went to (yes, I will write the rest up, prompted by my reclaimed Moleskine).

Namely, what happens when some of these social networks become more closed circles, as he predicts they will?

I mean, will we have a Skull and Bones social network? Doubt it, to be honest (the fear it'd be hacked would put paid to that).

People will begin to get fed up with having so many friends, with their worlds converging (personally, I have 249 friends on Facebook at the moment, and I'm purposefully not putting my blog's URL up there - I'm trying to keep my home friends and my ad friends separate for at least a little while longer), and will begin to break away. I'm not sure whether I will...probably not, but who knows?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating lots of mini networks, where each one serves a purpose. No, I think that's equally as short sighted. But I am interested to note just where Facebook goes from here. I mean, it has countless widgets, unlimited groups and so forth. Yes, there are privacy settings, but the amount of people not using them is unbelievable. Most people, in my limited experience, don't self-regulate to that extent - and most of the time, it's unbelievably refreshing to see.

The title of the post references secrets - and with good reason; I do worry a bit, personally, about things I've said online (don't we all?), especially considering that they can be stored for all eternity - and I do wish there was a more secretive way of social networking (not blogging per se, but Facebook - do I really want potential employers to see me after a few beverages/in dubious fancy dress?). Of course, this matters less in a career like advertising, where a bit of character is encouraged. But imagine what it must be like for someone's political career/law career say.

The one saving grace is that the whole world is learning this, and growing up at the same time. People are beginning to realise that being an online presence, as it is, isn't all its cracked up to be, and you have to self-moderate. That said, if the worst it's doing is teaching a bit of common sense, it can't be that bad.

Again, I return to the darker element (and I wish I could have gone to this) of the internet. If this rise in social media leads to more private social sets online, what's to stop people destroying, say, other people's lives/careers with a well-placed lie? After all, if we believe James G Watt, "A lie can run around the world before the truth can get its boots on".

Say, in this hypothetical situation, that a lie is told. The person who the allegation is about is say, on holiday. Days pass. People begin to wonder/believe what's been told, and the time away helps them decide. Simply put, people have to become their own PR entities, which shouldn't be the way it is.

So perhaps it is a good thing that we live in such social networked, open times. I'd rather have a single forum where I 'am' online, in addition to my blog. It'd probably save a helluva lot of problems in the long run, regardless of my worlds overlapping.

NB: Before you ask, yes, I have been looking at Orwell and Huxley's pages on Wikipedia, hence the Orwellian thinking in this post.

The Web 2.0 Goldfish Bowl?

Picture belongs to Michelle_Bower. Usual rules apply.

In the past week, I've signed up to CoComment (manages my conversations online if I want it to), MediaStarz (pure networking, but hey - I was invited, and it looks like good fun) and finally Wink (to track what I've signed up to and where I am on t'internet).

And it may yet get worse - what about WeFi? OrMyCyberTwin?

Tempted to sign up to both of them, to be honest (especially the latter - closer to realising my dream of auto-blogging).

And I'm just not sure where I stand on the ever increasing types of web 2.0 social networking. I do know that I can't stop signing up to the blighters - if they look vaguely useful. I do worry about the overlap, to some extent.

As ever, in times of need, I decided to visualise it. Trust me, when you click below, you'll realise why it's often a last resort. Needless to say, it explains in my mind how things are constantly changing, overlapping, and why.

It also provides most of the similarities in my mind:

NB: I would suggest clicking on it and viewing it full size.

But yes, this does link to Faris's post a little earlier on continous partial presence (read the comments as well - they are excellent). The rate I'm going, there will be no more Will to spread around. At the moment, my Facebook is largely populated with my old mates, as opposed to my newer advertising/work friends (though the ad community is trying to usurp that - I think half the plannersphere who weren't members of Facebook joined in the last month - and God knows, this article sheds a bit of light).

And with the comparable measures some of these social networking sites are trying to implement (Technorati's WTF being a prime example - it's a wee bit like Digg), it may not be long before they are all linked together, as I've expressed in my Powerpoint slides.

However, is this a bad thing?

Certainly, more of my communities are mixing together than ever before - some ad folk now know some of my other mates, some are doing social stuff with me away from work, and some even go to the pub with me (poor them - even more rubbish talked).

As Amelia outlines on Faris's blog, the mystery is in danger of being lost, and like her, I worry about this. But then, take the this week, and some of the discussions I had:

I met Helen for a very pleasant smoothie at Angel's Breakfast Club, where we had a chat about (amongst other things) how people are different offline, to how they are online. Online, you feel you can get a sense of someone's personality, only to meet them, and to be astounded about how introverted or extroverted they are. OR.. they can be precisely as you think. I like to think I do the latter, but eh, could be wrong.

We concluded that the mystery is still there, a point I (sort of) alluded to in my post about thin-slicing people. You can meet someone on an off day, or in a new situation - and you never truly know how people will react unless you're right there with them; and even then it's not always completely clear.

So that was one discussion - and one airing of views Helen and myself would never have been able to have without the medium of bloggery and our overlapping Web 2.0 ways - I tweeted whether she'd be keen to meet for a coffee, and voila. Helps that I only live 15 minutes from the Breakfast Club and she works in Islington, of course. So there's a point for the t'internet - and of course, we each know different bloggers - and we both got more of an insight into our respective disciplines, which was great. As a result of our conversation, I'm not sure whether I'm introverted or extroverted though. Got to do a test...

Anyway, today I met Lauren (Sheseesred) at the Tate Modern. We took this discussion on in a slightly different way (note - I only have 3 actual lucid conversation topics - the rest are about taxidermy, badgers and maypole dancing - not fit for human consumption), by wondering what some of the bloggers we'd not met were like (are you reading this Rob? ). Neither of us could be really sure, but could make educated guesses, as you'd expect - any blog friends of ours who were willing to do a bit of Ipod singing (see below) had to be a bit different and interesting in the flesh:

Above: Proceed with extreme caution...

And yes, no amount of transferable identity could stop us reminiscing about that particular moment of blog history.

But it got better (and this is material for a separate - long discussed - second part post about the Tate). Due to Lauren's background, my uncultured arse got to learn a bit about art.

Yes, more than 'I know what I like'. Actual background on the artists/movements themselves. Hot damn. She also learnt a bit of bollocks about history and the writers of the English Renaissance (I know what you are thinking - good trade on my part). She did parallel me with 'Where's Wally' (on account of my tremendous sartorial choices) though, so I didn't get off that lightly...

And without my 'Goldfish Bowl', if that's what it is, I would never, ever have been able to learn about some these things (short of paying people to tell me - which would never happen).

If it does exist, it's constantly shifting, and, inevitably, there will be crossovers. But to claim that my Facebook profile will always contain the same in jokes, in my limited experience either doesn't matter, or won't happen - social networks are for making friends, and whilst it does promote a bit of 'us and them' (those who participate, those who don't), it allows interesting overlaps (just this week I met someone via Mediastarz who knew a mate of mine from University) and most importantly, new and interesting conversations.

And if the mystery is lost, for the most part.. well.. I don't agree completely. I like to think I'm always changing. You can't ever know someone so well both online and offline that you can predict their every move. People continue to surprise you, and that's great.

What do you think readers - is there a goldfish bowl in web 2.0? And is it a bad thing? And DO I look like Where's Wally?