Code Eats Content for Breakfast

Lamenting developers' complicity in content piracy, marketing guru Mark Schaefer recently wrote, "Coding is cheap and fast and plentiful and we seem to be in a media world dominated by cleaning up unintended consequences."

Developers know they're killing creatives, the geese that lay the golden eggs. But, wantonly, they continue to pump out code that rewards content pirates.

There's no real news here, alas. Just old-fashioned avarice.

While encouraged by investors to "disrupt" moribund industries, developers continue to fleece creatives, as they have since the days of Napster.

The injustices they perpetuate make literal the economist's term creative destruction.

Market-oriented, Schaefer recommends a return to patronage, the "Renaissance monetization model," to support content creators.

Raised by parents who worshipped FDR, I recommend revival of the WPA (funded by taxing companies like Facebook.)

What's your idea?

Government Communicators: Turn Citizens into Fans

Award-winning video producer Ann Ramsey contributed today's post. She is a senior producer at the US Department of Health & Human Services in Washington, DC.  

Government communicators spend their time educating citizens about what their departments do.

Video, distributed through broadcast media and public-facing government Web sites, has long played a starring role in those efforts.

But citizens today, as they consume video at unprecedented rates, expect it to be served on social media platforms such as YouTube, FaceBook and Twitter.

With forethought and creativity, government communicators can use video to join the social media conversation—without breaking the bank or running roughshod over internal guidelines. Here's how:

Learn from peers. Organizations such as Federal Communicators Network, the National Association of Government Communicators, and the National Press Club will help you plan video strategies. Scanning the YouTube channels of agencies with goals similar to yours will also help. Government channels are listed in the GSA Social Media Registry.

Look around you. Government communicators can develop video content by cultivating in-house officials who come across well on camera (often, presence is better than pedigree). If an agency hosts an important forum, it’s a good idea to videotape it and amplify the link. At almost any event, an area can be set up for interviewing participants. If videotaping isn’t possible, audio-taping and photography are good alternatives.

Use inside help. Government communicators are smart to consider in-house video production, before hiring a PR firm. Many government departments already have TV studios with plenty of capacity. If your agency doesn't have one, take a look at sister agencies. In-house producers can save taxpayers' money.

Channel your videos. YouTube goes out of its way to help government agencies. For example, if asked, YouTube won't run ads on their channels. Government communicators should get in touch with Google to learn more.

Tailor the length. Video content on FaceBook and Twitter needs to be "snackable"—10-20 seconds long. Longer content belongs on dedicated video platforms, such as YouTube or iTunes.

Stay current. Keeping abreast of production trends helps government communicators create successful videos. Hot video trends are motion graphics, film-like shooting styles, and true-to-life testimonials. Audio and video podcasting are also surging in popularity.

Do it right. It behooves government communicators to preserve standards of quality and integrity on social media. When inviting public response, introduce only substantive topics, rather than “name this dog” sorts of trivia.

Mind the store. Comments, shares, and average length-per-view will give you an idea of audience engagement and are useful to track. Curating incoming comments allows urgent questions to be re-directed, and inappropriate comments to be deleted. Dated video material is best removed and archived.

Get found. The public turns to government for many urgent matters. Bizarre hashtags or “click-bait” naming strategies only stand in its way. Many highly viewed government YouTube videos sport transparent titles, such as “What are the Symptoms of the Flu?” Clear tags and titles take full advantage of how the public actually uses search engines.

Reach your viewers. YouTube’s built-in analytics reveal viewer demographics you can use to guide future outreach. Viewers should always be encouraged to subscribe to an agency’s channel, so new content will reach them. Stakeholders and partners can help you amplify a message to specific audiences.

Let it grow. Steady addition of new video episodes builds viewership. It often takes variations on a theme before results emerge. Experimenting with different versions, styles and platforms is well worthwhile.

What Do Facebook Users Want?

With a grant from the National Institutes of Health, a Boston psychiatrist and psychologist have teamed to answer the question, "Why Do People Use Facebook?"

They reviewed 42 scientific studies of Facebook users and have discovered the following:

• Healthy people enjoy using Facebook because it improves self-esteem (our shield against feeling like outcasts). Women and members of ethnic minorities use it more than men and Caucasians.

• Healthy people don't idealize themselves on Facebook, with one big exception: they present themselves as more emotionally stable than, in fact, they are.

• Narcissists especially enjoy using Facebook, and spend an hour every day in front of the screen. And they love to upload photos, often enhanced with Photoshop.

• Highly neurotic people share more on Facebook than healthy people. They prefer written posts over photos.

• Extraverts have more Facebook friends and are more likely to become Facebook addicts.

• Introverts substitute Facebook use for real-world social interaction. And shy people spend more time on Facebook than people who aren't shy.

• Good-looking Facebook users are more attractive to other users than plain-looking ones; so are users with good-looking friends.

• Facebook users with only 100 friends are unattractive to other users; so are users with 300 friends.

Do the findings make you want to delete your Facebook account and find a shrink's sofa? 

They shouldn't. As Freud said, “A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes, but to get into accord with them: they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.”

Brands Faring Best on Facebook

Americans trust marketing content on Facebook more than marketing content delivered by other media channels, according to new research.

E-commerce consultancy The Acquity Group asked 2,000 Americans to score channels for trusted marketing content (1=most trusted; 10=least trusted).

Leading the pack, Facebook earned an average score of 4. 

Magazines and newspapers earned a 4.4.

Email and TV earned a 5.3.

In addition, young Americans (18-30) are twice as likely than old Americans (52-68) to rank Facebook as the most trusted channel for marketing content, the study reveals.

They're also more likely than old Americans to buy a product after encountering that content on Facebook.

NOTE TO READERS: Copy Points turns five years old this month!

Shoddy Content Can Only Fail

Introduced in 1813, shoddy is a cheap woolen cloth made from recycled rags. Victorian-era manufacturers used it to make low-end clothing.

Civil War soldiers—whose shoddy uniforms would disintegrate after only days—are responsible for our use of the word to mean cheap workmanship.

By flocking to shoddy content, today's marketers are trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

But it won't work, says Jeff Rosenblum, a columnist for Ad Age.

A marketing movement is underway to deluge customers with shoddy content—a movement that gives Rosenblum deja vu.

"I'm getting nasty flashbacks to the early days of banner ads," he writes. 

"When banner ads first came out, the marketing industry treated them like rebranded laundry detergent—'new and improved!' So, we shifted a bunch of dollars online and used half-baked data to prove it worked. Until, of course, we realized it didn't."

Banner ads bombed because marketers didn't grasp their value.

"The same will be true of content if we don't apply the lessons we learned. If we simply develop content because we think it's new, improved, quicker and easier than previous tactics, we're doomed to get the same disappointing results that we got from banner ads."

Content works, Rosenblum says, when it's understood:

• Content improves brand perceptions. "Great content shows customers why a brand is different and better than the competition. It creates evangelists that carry the brand message more effectively than paid media ever could," Rosenblum says.

• Content empowers customers. The premise is straightforward: customers give you their time; you give them useful information. "It's easy to create a social post with a cute kitten and generate a bunch of social shares, but that doesn't do anything for the brand in the long run."

• Content is more than clicks. Marketers need to measure more than likes and shares. "You need to understand how well the audience understands what makes the brand different and better. You need to understand what, specifically, shifts them down the sales funnel and generates revenue."

• Content isn't cheap. "Too often, brands spend countless hours talking about the power of social media, but spend an infinitesimal amount of their overall budget creating content."

"Unlike banner ads, content marketing can fundamentally alter the future of a brand. But it won't be quick and it won't be easy," Rosenblum concludes.

As F. Scott Fitzgerald once told a would-be writer, "Nothing any good isn't hard."

Clickbait Headlines Do More Harm than Good

Meager response rates are tempting an ever-increasing number of marketers—even B2B ones—to resort to using "clickbait" headlines, those sensational promises that dupe you into reading thinly related content.

You know the kind:

What this customer said was so insane it will make your jaw drop...   

But the more sensational the headline, the greater the risk of disappointing prospects once you lure them to read nothing more than your usual sales pitch.

Disappointment never does your brand credit. 

Repeated disappointments will ultimately damage it.

Civility. There's an App for That.

Worried friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter might think you're ill bred?

Your social media reputation is safe with a subscription to ThinkUp, according to Farhad Manjoo, columnist for The New York Times.

ThinkUp keeps tabs on your graceless behavior on those networks and points out, among other things, how often you refer to yourself, use profanities and ignore others.

The tracking service is designed "to make you act like less of a jerk online," says ThinkUp co-founder Gina Trapani.

Social Spam Surging

Spammers are frantically spreading their muck across the social media networks, according to a study by Nextgate.

Spam increased by more than 350% on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn during the first six months of 2013.

Facebook and YouTube host considerably more spam than the other social networks, according to the study.

We're immune to the spam that floods our email in-boxes, but social spam is insidious, because it's much more difficult to detect.

And there's another reason spammers love it.

Where spam delivered as an email reaches one victim at the time, spam delivered as a post on a social media network can reach thousands.

Clicks Don't Tell the Whole Story

Facebook's advertising director says digital ads can't be proven to drive sales, according to Business Insider.

Although counting digital ad "clicks" today remains most advertisers' yardstick, Facebook's Gokul Rajaram told an audience at TechCrunch Disrupt, "there's really no correlation between clicks and whether people actually convert."

Rajaram suggested that digital ads should not be judged by today's measurement model, but by how they build brand awareness slowly over time.

"We need to move towards a more sophisticated, multi-touch model and figure out how to accrue value at each touch point," he said.

Plus ça change.

5 Scary Social Media Trends

Pity the corporation. In an obdurately unfriendly world, it has to maximize shareholder value.

A little thing like a broken guitar can bust millions in market cap. And batter a reputation as well.

Blame it on social media.

"Social media and the technology behind it—Web 2.0—has forever changed how corporations 'manage' reputation," writes Ogilvy PR's John H. Bell in Corporate Reputation in the "Social Age."

The danger, Bell says, lies in "the explosion of consumer-generated media found in more than 150 million blogs, social networks, consumer opinion sites, video and picture sharing networks, and worldwide message boards."

Five big trends affect how corporations manage their reputations today, Bell believes.

Hypertransparency. With 150 million active social media users, there are "thousands of forensic accountants, social watchdogs and activists watching your company," Bell writes.

Viral crises. When a crisis hits, the word spreads quickly, "often with the accompaniment of YouTube videos."

Demand for dialogue. One-way messaging—news releases, robotic spokesmen, TV ads and customer-service scripts—are out. Conversation is in.

Louder brand detractors and employees. Social media well arms the corporate critic. "It doesn’t take a Goliath to become a formidable adversary for a corporate brand," Bell says.

Uncontrollable brand fans. Even happy customers can blacken your name with their online antics. With friends like this, who needs enemies?

Marketers must be authentic and transparent, Bell says, because "conversation is competing and often winning as a communication channel online."

Don't Make These 4 Deadly Video Mistakes

Writing for Intuit’s Small Business Blog, videomaker C.J. Bruce warns marketers of four deadly Web video mistakes.

 

Not producing a video. "Using video for your business is no longer optional," Bruce writes. The availability of prosumer gear removes the age-old excuse "video is too expensive."

 

Producing a video. One video "isn't a content strategy," Bruce says. "After all, you wouldn’t send just one email, put up just one blog post, or have a TV commercial air just once." Bruce suggests producing a series of videos and releasing them weekly through the span of a quarter.

 

Believing you'll go viral. The chances your video will go viral are slim. "You need to have a plan for your videos that includes marketing them with social media and SEO tactics," Bruce says. Be sure to put your videos on your Website and send the link to your email list. Also consider placing ads on Google.

 

Counting views. Engagement is more important than viewership. Put in place systems to track YouTube likes, shares, comments and viewing times after your video goes live.

How to Win Fans and Influence Equals

In his 2,300-year old book Rhetoric, Aristotle argued, "It is not enough to know what we ought to say; we must also know how to say it."

Aristotle was convinced that rhetoric (the art of persuasion) comprised three elements: facts, language and style.

Although most of us would insist that the only thing that matters in a serious discussion are the facts, Aristotle knew that style "affects the success of a speech greatly."

Or, as in the words of British novelist Joseph Conrad, "He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word."

To succeed in persuading others of your views, according to Aristotle, you should:

• Rely on plain, everyday language
• Include a few rhetorical flourishes, to give your message impact
• Avoid "strange words, compound words and invented words;" and
• Use metaphors

I wish more marketers would take a look at Aristotle's Rhetoric before attempting to persuade us of their views.

The business world would become a lot more gobbledygook-free.

Consider the following statement, for example, courtesy of Facebook. (The company plans to abolish users' right to vote for or against changes to its privacy policies.)

In the past, your substantive feedback has led to changes to the proposals we made. However, we found that the voting mechanism, which is triggered by a specific number of comments, actually resulted in a system that incentivized the quantity of comments over their quality. Therefore, we’re proposing to end the voting component of the process in favor of a system that leads to more meaningful feedback and engagement.

Just imagine, for example, if Facebook's vice president wrote this instead:

Before we change any privacy policy, we always consider your advice. But a handful of users, by repeatedly posting comments, have been gaming the system. We want to prevent that.
Want to learn more about the art of persuasion? Check out my white paper.

2013: The Year the Social Networks Make or Break Your Brand

Branding Strategy Insider offers 13 tasty predictions for 2013.

Among them is this morsel: brands wll become increasingly susceptible to the chatter on social networks next year.

"Watch for greater influences of engagement and purchase habits via friends and social networks," Insider says.

"Brands will have to factor in the reality that peer-to-peer communications come in three varieties: good, bad and bland. This makes companies more susceptible to consumer indifference, their conversations and social interactions."

Marketers who want to compete need to understand how social networks actually work, or risk  being marginalized.

"The brands that make it here will know the 'how' of this consumer-controlled space," Insider concludes.

Time to Quit Facebook?

Copyblogger's Sonia Simone thinks content marketers should quit Facebook.

Because you can't control what social platforms like Facebook do, she says, it's risky to build your business on another company's "virtual land."

"The minute you actually depend on Facebook for your business, they will change their terms of service in a way that causes you pain," Simone writes.

Publishing on social platforms like Facebook benefits the platforms' owners, nothing more.

They goad you to post content so you'll win a bunch of "Likes."

But that's only a ruse.

In reality, according to Simone, your publishing efforts "are helping them build an audience they can show their spammy display ads to."

Worse yet, Facebook isn't about selling.

"People go to Facebook to share duckface selfies, pictures of grandkids, and memes from George Takei," Simone says.

And while it's still possible to engage people with your Facebook posts, "'engagement' does not equal 'customers.'"

You Facebook posts will get Likes that never lead to sales.

"That’s not marketing," Simone says. "It’s an annoying hobby."

Perfect B2B Posts

Inc. offers these tips for publishing perfect B2B posts:

On LinkedIn, you should:

• Use 16-25 words
• End posts with exclamation marks
• Avoid ending posts with question marks
• Post between 9 am and 1 pm
• Post at the top and bottom of the hour 
• Post on Sundays

On Twitter, you should:

• Use 11-15 words
• Use numbers and numerals
• Use hashtags
• Avoid ending posts with exclamation marks (unlike LinkedIn!)
• Avoid ending posts with question marks
• Tweet between 10 am and noon
• Tweet at the top and bottom of the hour
• Tweet on Wednesdays

Facedown with Facebook

Chunka Mui, writing for Harvard Business Review, applauds Facebook's decision to stop using facial recognition software to identify people in the photos you upload.

Facebook's decision comes after Ireland's data protection commissioner scolded the company for violating users' privacy.

The self-imposed ban applies only in Europe.

Facebook claims facial recognition eases sharing.

But critics like Mui think it will "accelerate the creation of a de facto photo identification database long before anyone understands the ramifications."

With such a database, retailers could identify you the moment you enter their stores and begin badgering you with offers.

"Facebook's conciliatory moves in Europe will not stop the erosion of privacy but will, I hope, slow it," Mui writes.

Facebook Ups Ad Targeting

On September 1, Facebook began inviting advertisers to reach its users by targeting them through phone number or email address.

Facebook skirts privacy worries by emphasizing that advertisers already have that information (in fact, an advertiser has to send the info to Facebook, which looks for match-ups within its database).

Advertisers can blend phone number- or email address-targeting with other demographic markers (like age, gender, education and interests) to reach specific Facebook users.

 

So an advertiser with no more than a phone number could, for example, target ads to affluent women in their 40s with graduate degrees in physics and an interest in golf.