There needs to be constant interaction and exploration in order for a company to stay “in the game” when it comes to these platforms. This is simply NOT happening in the majority of the case studies I have read. We all hear the success stories, but not the thousands of other businesses that are trying and failing. The person (not a “company logo”) that is doing the social media should have a keen understanding of how people are using the web. The billions of people that use the web determine how they want to use it. It’s up to technology companies to keep up. It’s important to recognize the reversal. Now we (users) can create something if we feel a need. From an organizations point of view, there needs to be constant exploration of the public solutions and ongoing feedback from the employees, after all, they are using the web just like everyone else. Companies are hiring someone to stay in a “set” role versus have that person evolve with the people that control the web, the billions of users. Inevitably they fall behind because it was “not” in their job description to explore. By the time most corporations realize what happened they are already behind. What is never going to change is human interaction and content. As long as you a person and you send out the right content, the evolution of the platforms can change as much as they want. But, you must have something to say that is beyond talking about you. I said “behavior” earlier right? Here is the behavior part that most people don’t recognize. Ever talk with someone and all they do is talk about them self? The conversation is great for them! How is it for you? Same principles apply on the web; it’s a behavior.

How does all of this fit in with internal and external communications within an organization? I’m looking at the same box as everyone else, just from a different perspective, like the rest of your potential audience. It will have everything to do with conversations and stories that can connect an audience to each other; so long there is a sense of belonging. In other words, how can your organization be the glue to connect people? If you look at things as they are, all we want is a sense of belonging and value. That’s what the web provides for all of us, to easily be connected, find belonging and value. At the end of the day if your company can’t provide that without the web, what makes you think it can on the web? It’s important to note, I personally believe having a face of an organization to make those connections holds more weight than a company. However, in the end it will be the brand as the reason “why”. To clarify, it’s easier for people start a conversation with other people than it is for a company to start the conversation. It’s also easier for people to interact with people on an ongoing basis and letting the brand be, again, the reason why you are interacting.       

Look at your company for what it is. Is there a clear social media or viral component to your company? If not, you have to create one that has a story or conversational tone that’s not about you. What I do as a brand strategist can be scaled for any organization no matter the size, because the principles never change. It never extends beyond natural human behavior. Will this take a good team that “gets it?” Yes. That is key in making this work. Most corporate cultures are resistant to change. Change is vitally important so the people in the organization understand this role of a social media “spokesperson” and how to do it the right way. It’s very much a bottom up approach. It’s not a campaign; it’s a commitment. It’s a commitment to having a keen understanding on human behavior and how communication is changing the world in which we do business.

Author: Richard Harmer, Brady Media Group

So what does this have to do with social media? Plain and simple the social media person needs to “fit” the role of the company, naturally. In other words, they need to have good chemistry with the rest of the “team”. They are on the front lines and interact directly with the audience. I’m not one to say HOW they should act, but the authenticity of that person should come across in HOW they interact with the audience. In my opinion, the larger the company the more important this may be. Look at Scott Monty – The Ford Social Media Guy. He “fits” the role to a “T” and has been amazingly successful. He’s not an uptight “suit”, but he’s not a college kid either. He dresses casual with a polo shirt or jacket without a tie etc…in fact this is on his blog if you read it.

“Hi, I’m Scott. I’m the head of social media for Ford Motor Company. This is my personal blog, where I share my perspectives on social media – the convergence of marketing, advertising and PR on the Web – for marketers, agencies, the enterprise and the individual. This blog contains my personal views.” 

He says “personal views” – In other words, he’s saying look, I’m going to be myself. But notice how he still FITS the role of a Ford personality and the image for the most part. He fits the current messaging and perception that Ford is trying to convey. Weather he knows it or not, he is a “spokesperson”. He’s a spokesperson that directly interacts with the audience. To me, the role of the social media person will become more of a “spokesperson” role, especially with larger companies. He basically get’s paid to hangout on the web and talk to people.

The message of the company MUST remain consistent throughout the organization no matter WHO is sending the message. But, it’s perfectly OK to be yourself. Look, the right person must naturally fit that particular role, just like Brett Favre naturally fit in Green Bay. Ford is not going to bring in some 19 year old blond or some Grandma for that role…It wouldn’t make any sense with the image they are trying to portray.

The evolution of this role is already changing. Why? Well, a 140 character twitter message has become more credible than a 30 second commercial. It came for one source, unfiltered, unedited. Think about it. If that twitter message came from one person not a “corporation”, it can be trusted if that person built credibility with the audience. The audience knows that person can be held accountable by what he/she says. Not held accountable by the company they work for, but by the actual audience! If that person isn’t truthful, they may as well quit! With a commercial, the audience knows the company can always just buy another commercial. If the social media person builds up credibility with the audience, that only helps the brand and the organization build a positive image of transparency. I’m not saying you don’t buy ads, I’m stating the importance if consistency and perception. It’s important that that person have DIRECT contact with the crisis department and the PR people. The social media “spokesperson” could have more of an impact on the perception than anyone. Think about it. That’s the person the audience trusts now.

The other day I came across a job offer ad on the internet from a HUGE car dealership place here in Dallas. They had the name of the company, then the ad read, “Lookin for college kid to twitter, do our emails and facebook.” “You can do this from your dorm-room or wherever.” This was a “high-end” dealership mind you. NOT cheap cars!  I thought, OMG! This is your brand you dumbass! This KID would have front line interaction with the buyers and potential buyers!! Not just that, you have to do a number of things to make social media work, not just twitter and facebook! LOOK! It’s no longer college kids hooking up and finding parties online!! This is REAL! This is marketing, business development, crisis communication and PR ALL wrapped up in one platform! Until people realize that, companies will continue to struggle to find the right approach and truly get ROI from social media. This is why I state the importance of finding the right spokesperson for the role. It’s not a “short term” ad buy…it’s an investment into the position of your company. If it hasn’t already, social media will very soon become a college course or even a degree!

At the end of the day you want to make sure the social media “spokesperson” you have doing your social media fits the chemistry, the image and the perception of the “team” or company. They are a direct reflection of your organization and it’s image. Always keep them in the loop on what’s going on and never lie or tell partial truths. As the evolution of this role changes, the important thing to remember is authenticity. So, don’t hire some inexperienced college kid for your social media needs, hire a spokesperson that represents the personality of the company and its image.

Author: Richard Harmer, Brand Strategist – Brady Media Group

There are many reasons why people start businesses. Money, believe it or not is not the driving factor, it’s passion. Passion for what you do and what you sell. That’s why you started. Steve Jobs has passion! Of course he now has $money$ too. You believe in your product so much you think there is NO WAY others can’t “believe” as much as you! I mean, so help me if I tell you why your product sucks! This passion can backfire and often does!

Here’s my point…I’ll be quick, I promise. When was the last time you signed up for an email newsletter? OK…When was the last time you read one? I’m willing to bet rarely if at all. Why? You don’t care!! Nobody “reads” email “blasts” (I said blast because you and I both know what it is…it’s a blast to push something…be honest! It’s not an “informative” “newsletter”). If you don’t get me in the subject line, sorry, too busy trying to sell my own products, can’t be worried about buying yours! Email marketing has changed. 99% of the ones I get are horrible. I can tell just by the way they look how bad the stats are. Luckily I don’t get any in my professional email, I do get them in my personal email however…funny, to date I have NEVER signed up to receive an email “blast”. Hmmmmmm….anyway, can they still work? Believe it or not, yes. Below you will be what has worked and why and what does NOT work and why.

Look below…This was an email I received in my inbox. Go ahead…I’ll wait…………………

WTF are they thinking? Really?! You think anyone with a life will actually look at that?! This looks like a yard sale! You DO NOT have to put everything you ever learned in a single email. Nobody cares! This thing had golf clubs, tires, heavy text, the kitchen sink, a baby…throw it in!!! What is the point of this email? Look how long it is?! Wow! I thought, man these people need my help bad! But, I’m busy and they don’t even know they need me. So, I’ll just use them as an example for all of you on what NOT to do. : ) Why? Because I care, that’s why. Honestly I can tell you a million things what’s wrong with this email, but I think you can see it for yourself. Oh…this was sent on September 23, 2010. So it’s not like it was sent 5 years ago when we didn’t really know “how to” do these the right way. Unbelievable! Right? Use common sense. I mean, would you read that?!

Too much Text
Too many graphics
Way too long
ALL Selling!!
Product push
No focus…where should I end?!

You get the point.
This person has no relationship with me! Never met him, I have no idea who he is. That is mistake number 1. You are more likely to turn people off than gain a following by doing this. I wouldn’t buy anything from this cat if he had the last putter in the world and I was putting to win the FedEx Cup!

Email example below:

This was for a new company in Texas. The stats on this email were very high, not just that, it was amazingly successful…for a few main reasons. The subject line had the words “Sneak Preview”. You see I knew the audience of 3500+ was anticipating the opening. The person that sent the email has great relationships in the community and with this audience. The “sneak preview” was the focus. An “organically produced video” was done. People LOVE media and video! The video was nice, well-done, shot in HD etc… but not too polished and over produced like an Avatar movie. Why? I needed video and the person in the video to be herself and real. Otherwise it would look staged and gimmicky. There is a fine balance. It’s OK not to spend thousands on a video. Other than celebrity videos, look at the top videos on Youtube that went viral. The actual email was simple: VERY little text… Call to action, click to go to the new website, click to get the sneak preview video, date of opening. Colors and look were consistent with the brand message and personality. The viewer didn’t have to scroll much if at all (depends on screen size of course) to see the entire email. The actual text in the boxes they didn’t even have to read…there were clearly identifiable buttons for them to push.

Your goal is to get the viewer OUT of the email ASAP. (Or at least want to come back to it later.) You need them to engage with you on your website and take action. (Assuming your website doesn’t suck)

Again, this one email was extremely effective! It worked for a LOT of reasons. Letting your audience feel invited they are about to see something for the first time is intriguing to them. You have to know your audience! It was a carefully thought-out strategy that DIRECTLY affected the bottom line in a very positive way. Now there were other factors here, but that goes back to doing your homework.

So next time you think someone is drooling over your “gizmos” think again. Know your audience and be passionate, but know your limits on pushing too hard. Email is a time to invite and engage, not a time to sell and push anymore (unless your Apple and people are camping outside your stores to buy…in which case PUSH). In this article I used email as an example, but think about the other ways you connect with buyers and potential buyers. Are you on a platform to sell or engage? Should you be educating and building relationships? In the end you don’t have to be Steve Jobs or Starbucks to find buyers, just build good relationships with the target audience, identify the real “believers” and let them sell your stuff. Amplify their voices by including them in your outreach. Sometimes that just involves talking to them or letting them in on a sneak preview video tour of your new place.

Oh…if I get an email from you that looks like the first one, I’m calling you and telling you how much it sucked. Don’t be a statistic.

Author: Richard Harmer, Brady Media Group

Ok, now that you feel you’ve been tricked by Victoria’s Secret, I’m going to make you feel even more tricked! Have you ever bought anything from the Victoria’s Secret website? Notice how easy it is? It’s easy to navigate, easy to look around for what you “need”, easy to find that bra or panty you were looking for and very easy to buy! You see the web is still very passive. For the most part if you go to the site you pretty much know what you’re looking for. Victoria’s Secret understands that if they make it anything like the in-store experience you’ll never buy. They want you to get what you need, add to your “shopping bag”, maybe look around a bit at the online specials then pay…ASAP! The online “experience” is MUCH different. If they make you look at stuff you don’t care to look at your likelihood of buying goes down. This is mainly due to the experience of how you feel while you’re in the actual store. Those companies that understand this difference end up succeeding far beyond their competition, especially if they have a strong brand that borders on a “religious experience”. 

So, my point here is to PAY ATTENTION to the details of your customers’ FULL experience. The difference of them buying or not buying could be very slight. Like one button too many on the Internet to purchase, or where the low cost perfume was placed in the store. Once you have your brand established and you gain a following, make it an experience all the way through, no matter the platform. Understand your buyer and WHY they do what they do! Understand your brand, its perception and WHY you’re in business in the first place.

Author: Richard Harmer, Brand Strategist – Brady Media Group

Whatever demographic your business relies on, “become” it! If your demographic is kids, follow your own kids around, listen to them, or listen to other family members kids. Compile the information you’ve come up with by “becoming” your key demographic or key buyer. Be one of them… it’s common sense. Understand your buyer! Take the time to listen; don’t try to sell them on your stuff or your company, just listen. They will tell you exactly what to do next.

For example: Blockbuster is in a huge transition period with their business. They’re between the digital world and the “going to the store to rent a movie world”. This is a hard time for them. This could have been their chance to pull way ahead and positions themselves better for the future. All they had to do was UNDERSTAND who the buyers, or renters in this case were, what they were doing for fun and how they were watching movies!! They had ALL the resources, the name, the demographics and the reach. Blockbuster had one hell of an opportunity, but failed to use common sense and acknowledge what was happening. Common sense seems nonexistent when these types of companies become nothing but a complex bureaucracy. This is or was a multibillion dollar company that thinks they have all the answers. Well, they don’t! The industry they’re in, as of today, is an industry they could’ve led, they chose not to. They settled into a complex, no use of common sense, soon to be bankrupt company with little chance to succeed. It didn’t have to be that way.

So all business owners and executives, ATTENTION! Crawl out from your mahogany desk, get in the trenches and LISTEN to the people that want to buy your product. Look around on the internet and find out what’s going on. Join the conversation…it’s already going on without you. Chances are, there are blogs on the internet that say why your company sucks. Use common sense and it won’t be like trying to look into a crystal ball to see where to go or what to do next. Common sense tells me the internet and your “following” will tell you a lot about what you could do next. They, the consumers, are in control now…not you. Sometimes you have a rare opportunity to lead your entire industry into the direction you want it to go. Sometimes using a little bit of common sense instead of business sense will be the very thing that opens opportunities that could lead your business in the direction the industry is going! Think about it.  

Author: Richard Harmer, Brady Media Group

First and foremost, you have to understand “WHY” people LOVE you or your product or service to begin with, assuming you’ve been in business long enough to get a customer. No matter what platform you’re using to reach your customers you must have a great “story” or stand for something larger than just another “flippin” company selling some stupid “gizmo”. I mean really, if you stink, you’re still going to stink on YouTube! Now you can just stink in front of more people…and then they can tell others faster how much you suck! Got it?! Oh…and, if you suck and are NOT on YouTube, guess what?! Others can still say YOU suck on YouTube and YOU can’t be there to defend yourself…because you failed to get a YouTube channel! Geeeeez, that’s pretty harsh isn’t it?! Well, that’s the world we live in…and it’s only getting worse, so get used to it! What’s my point? Your brand or company is no longer in control. You see the consumers are in control now. They determine, when and how they want to communicate with you. They determine who and how many people they want to talk to about YOU (good or bad), what they want to hear from you and what information they need to make a decision to buy. What matters here isn’t the fact they do all this, because consumers have always “done this”. It’s the speed and volume in which it happens. They can spread a message faster to more people now than ever. You’re one bad twitter feed away from you losing your ass! One bad blog away from scrapping a multimillion dollar advertising campaign that your top ego in charge developed out of the genius of his own mind. I know, CRAZY, but true!! How do you control “it” (your brand, your message, the future of your company)? What’s your story? Really, what’s your story and answering WHY you’re in business to begin with will tell you where to be, what to say and how to say it, even who to say it to.

Texas Star Pharmacy – in Plano, Texas is a client of mine at Brady Media Group – We have been working with them for over a year now and have had a huge amount of success. In fact, they will be opening another pharmacy soon! Determining WHO they were and WHY they started Texas Star Pharmacy was where we had to begin. By assessing the company and their strengths it was actually the customers of the pharmacy that determined what the marketing approach was going to be. Because of the powerful and very loving personality of Dr. Donna Barsky, the owner and pharmacist of this independent pharmacy, we determined it was her! Her customers LOVE her!! She is extremely caring and a natural teacher. She loves helping people and sharing her wisdom with EVERYONE she sees. So what did we do? We merely provided opportunities for her to be…well, her, in front of more people. Our approach? Heavy on some tradition PR tactics, mostly TV so people can see her (and her demographic was watching TV), radio, creating “organic media” that included internal educational videos and podcasts all made by her, a slight change of the logo, a tag line that fit, print material that made her more prominent and an email that went to her customers. Of course there were a few components that were more in depth, but the point here is we only did what was going to be affective and what she could maintain. It wasn’t this large elaborate campaign that didn’t make sense. It was simple and kept to the core of who she is and what Texas Star Pharmacy is about, helping others. They needed help developing and telling the story, the message developed from that story and finally the strategy. They didn’t need to change in order to “fit” in to satisfy an audience she was never going to reach. What made them tick? What platforms made sense based on their audience and abilities? We answered these questions (along with a few others) and built a strategy for HER and Texas Star Pharmacy. No ad agency or PR firm can make you passionate or develop a product that people will use. If people won’t use it, it will flop…everytime! It won’t matter the “strategy” behind the campaign. If it will solve a problem for the end user all you may need is a great story to tell.   

So where do you go from here if you don’t suck? Keep it simple stupid!! Don’t make your message complex! Work with what you have! Be Authentic! You may have to dig a little to find the story and develop the message, but if you can do that YOU become in control of your brand again. Yes, the consumers can control and drive growth and how much they talk about you, but they can NEVER change WHO you are and WHY you’re in business. That’s something you can always stand on! That way, if that bad tweet comes out, you can proudly stand on your record and offer to help fix the problem and even admit fault in front of EVERYONE! There’s a lot to be said about authenticity and transparency. Admitting fault on a very public stage requires a lot of courage!! From that courage you can gain respect and credibility with your audience and even outside your audience. So when I said “almost” everything changed, I meant it…”almost”. What hasn’t changed is WHAT makes a great company. Media, marketing, advertising, branding and how we communicate will keep changing, but if you’re loved and don’t suck, you’ll have nothing to worry about… just make sure you’re evolving your communication methods like everyone else, so they can see you being…you.  

Author: Richard Harmer, Brady Media Group

It’s absolutely crazy to think, we as a nation will grow if the creators can’t create and the inventors cant invent, that’s how we got here!! That’s also why I don’t work in the “corporate” world, I’M SMART ENOUGH NOT TOO!!  Kind of the same reason why the good politicians shouldn’t be in politics; They can be highly affective if they don’t have their mouth ducked taped by the people that put them in the office to begin with!  This country is so filled with the “good ole boy” network that stagnation has set in! Look around! This is “The United States of Stagnation!”

To ALL businesses: If it’s NOT working, STOP doing it!!! I don’t care how long “it’s” been “that” way, CHANGE IT! Many times I get, “Richard, it’s complicated.” I say, “SIMPLIFY IT!” Lack of innovation starts with complexity, not the complexity for the innovation itself, but the complexity to get the innovation in front of others. Complexity starts with red tape and red tape is created by idiots that are protecting their money and jobs. If innovators and creators see the “brick wall” (red tape) ahead, why would they bother to invent or create?! Look at Blockbuster…What the %$#@ are they doing?!  They don’t have a “business” problem they have a “perception” problem, which creates their business problem. Those at the top are too arrogant and the systems in place are too complex to make a change noticeable to the public so the perception can change. I’m sure they have their “internal” changes, but do YOU see it?!  I don’t! They’ll have to shake it up quite a bit if they want to survive. Move everyone from the center of the table to edge of the table so the creators can create and change can happen, so it can be seen. 

America faces a tremendous problem if it can’t create, but we, as a nation, created the problem. It’s time for us to un-create it. Make it simple again so we can adjust for change and be innovative. Maybe then we can figure out health care, education, the economy, terrorism and all the other issues we’re dealing with today. If we can get rid of the red tape maybe we can get back to being the United States of America instead of the United States of Stagnation.

Author: Richard Harmer, Brady Media Group