TheWayoftheWeb
Content and Digital Marketing Specialists
Hugh MacLeod at GapingVoid is rarely wrong! Incidentally, I highly recommend his writing on Social Objects, How to be Creative, and The Hughtrain.
And to balance the amount of links deservedly pointing to GapingVoid, I just thought I’d mention that there is, in fact, a TheWayoftheWeb Facebook Page, which I hope will become a place where I can chat about ideas, aggregate any questions etc in addition to my network of fantastic people on Twitter.
Because that’s a difference between the old world and the new.
I’ve been following the always awesome Gary Vaynerchuk for the while on Twitter, as well as watching his videos at GaryVaynerchuk.com. If you don’t recognise the name, he decided to launch Wine Library TV from his basement, became a major internet celebrity and business success, and now also speaks with authority on what is happening to business and marketing, such as this great appearance at Web 2.0 Expo:
Another great example of how he does things differently to a traditional marketer or businessman appeared on Twitter yesterday:
In case the image is too small, he’s actually telling people not to buy from his own company, because he was about to reveal a free shipping code for wine.
Now companies have special offers all the time, especially at the moment, with the economic climate – that isn’t unusual.
In general, they wouldn’t, because it would seem stupid to stop people paying full price while they’re willing, and then to get the boost at a lower price.
But what that misses is the amount of immensely annoyed people who find out they missed out on a special offer by valuing your product enough to pay full price – and by a matter of days, hours, or minutes.
Not only are they likely to be annoyed about your brand in general, but are they likely to pay full retail price ever again if they know you could launch a sale at any second without warning them?
Sure, you might get a higher profit on one purchase, but what will the difference be over a year? five? ten? Especially when they’ll tell everyone they know?
A new report from Netpop Research has some interesting data (and apparently it’s free until Jan 31, 2009 if you register at Netpop). (Hat tip to ReadWriteWeb)
I want to take a look in more detail, but some of the big points:
The last group sounds a lot like the stereotypical boss of a large company, which is why it’s so important for communication and ways to demonstrate the value of social networking, communication and conversation. And an extra $21 per person is the kind of information that helps!
I’m downloading the report now for a deeper look.
Earlier today, a lot of blogs and forums were buzzing with the news that Ford had contacted a fan forum site, TheRangerStation, demanding they relinquish the use of all Ford logos and trademarks and pay restitution fees of $5000. The coverage ranged from hugely popular car blogs like Jalopnik, to forums like Mustang Evolution.
It seemed particularly weird, considering the company had set up TheFordStory to reach out to customers on a more personal basis, they were featuring blogs and communities as part of Ford Digital Snippets, and one of my Twitter contacts is @ScottMonty, who is head of Social Media at Ford.
So I messaged him to ask what was going on, along with a few other people, and Scott immediately started responding on forums and blogs even while he was finding out the details.
It turns out that actually TheRangerStation was selling vehicle decals using the Ford oval – perhaps without any ill-intent – but a very clear case of trademark infringement. Particularly as something very similar happened back in January regarding a Mustang Calendar made by a forum, which was soon clarified.
What has been really interesting is that an official statement is on the way, and in the meantime there have also been emails from the law firm in question. And all the while Scott appears to have been actively searching out as many communities as possible, ranging from Digg to individual forums for specific car models, to clarify what is happening and update people as much as possible.
It’s to be applauded that they haven’t waited for an official statement before reacting – Motrin, for example, still have a post from November 20th on their homepage after the Motrin Moms backlash. (Edit – official response now posted)
If you insist on an official statement, and you only post it on your own site, you rely on hordes of angry people taking the time and effort to visit you instead of rushing to post an angry response on whichever site they discover the story. By actively going out into the community, a lot of sites have already changed their original posts, comments have been calmed, and many of the negative commentary that would have been indexed for all eternity by Google will now reflect the situation more accurately.
It does also raise the perennial question regarding accuracy – a traditional mainstream media source would be expected to contact Ford to get their response pre-publication, even if the response didn’t arrive in reasonable time, or it was a ‘no comment’. And while I wouldn’t expect that of forum posters, it should be something that blogs and people serving news to their communities should consider implementing, in order to provide the best possible information, and to resist the urge to copy and paste to follow the herd based on the assumption that everyone is telling the unbiased truth.
Even as I write this, there’s still a trickle of Tweets promoting the original story, with no fact checking whatsoever – at a time when traditional news companies are falling, and we’re all in a position to play a part in a huge change in new reporting and distribution, we should be making every effort to raise out game.
One of the great things about my job at Bauer Media is that I get to help out a hugely diverse range of brands. One such brand is FHM in the UK, which is relaunching with a new website. I haven’t been involved in the main site itself, but the excellent team working away on the new site seem to be happy about my input, and most encouragingly, they see this as the start of an evolution, rather than an end result.
Click on the image for a fancy flash Homepage Tour (Update – not any more due to the loss of flash and removal of aging web features)
There are a couple of interesting challenges for the small part I’m playing initially:
1. FHM has had a number of disparate social media outposts, and I’m spending time finding all of them, and updating as necessary. And then putting them all into a cohesive plan. It’s a bit of a change from the usual job of starting from scratch – and it’s going to be interesting seeing if it’s possible to reawaken some groups from stasis.
2. Because FHM is enormously popular and has so many different editions being published around the world, it means there’s a lot of different properties on the same social networks, and ideally I need to work out when and where they can work together – and at the same time try and eliminate the scammers using the FHM name.
Hopefully I’ll be able to come back with some examples of successful solutions shortly!