The New Media Planner

Well, I’m writing this from the blogger lounge on the 4th floor of the Austin Convention Center, thinking about my time here so far at SXSW. I’ve got some quick thoughts.

1) Lots of people complain about the value of these conferences, but they still attend them. I’ve heard multiple times about how worthless some panels were, about how self-aggrandizing most people act, and how much self-promotion goes on. But attendance here is up from last year by a lot. I think this mentality is summed up perfectly from this TechCrunch post.

2) This is a cliche about conferences, but the real value is in the lobby. I’ve had engaging conversations that have changed my worldview in the most unlikely of places, and the panels have really only confirmed that a) these presentations are dumbed down for the lowest common denominator and b) I’m smarter than everyone on stage (/s).

3) I think the real value in this conference is not so much the information being passed, but the invigoration of being around a bunch of smart people who think like you do. Candice K. sums it up best with her Tweet: “@ckuzov Today is the first day that I have ever been in a room FULL of people that do exactly what I do everyday. It’s pretty freakin cool.”

4) The sum is usually greater than it’s parts. I’ve found that the individual panels themselves haven’t been eye-opening in any capacity, but I’ve found myself piecing together interesting nuggets from some of the more interesting panels and forming new ideas. This has been a gratifying excercize.

I’ve still got a day and a half to go, so I’ll do a full recap, but i figured I’d at least get these thoughts down while I was in a blogger lounge. I mean honestly, you kind of have to.

Why Keep Blogging? Real Answers for Smart Tweeple – Saturday 9:30 – 10:30
Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Lizzie Skurnick
Scott Rosenberg
Josh Fruhlinger
Emily Gordon

This panel was extremely disappointing. Lots of really talented, really experienced people that didn’t dive in to any content that was interesting to users who haven’t been blogging for 10 years.

1) Communities form online around People, not content. INTERESTING!!!

Everything else was not that great.

Notes from SXSW 10 on the panel – Is Technology Weakening Interpersonal Relationships – Friday 3:30 – 4:30

Panelists:
Corinne Weisgerber
Ashley Brown
Jenn Deering Davis
Matthew Weber

I was looking forward to this panel, and it started out promising…but it ended up pretty boring. All the panelists were PhDs (or about to be), and it was a little disappointing that they were sharing personal anecdotes rather than research they’d been involved in.

1)   If you are on social media and your spouse isn’t, be wary of their feelings with the SM
2)   Most people don’t think bosses should connect with their employees, and employees shouldn’t connect with their bosses in SM
3)   Your friends are now constructing your identity online, whether you like it or not
4)   Social Media is making it difficult to date, but easier to connect (expectations already set, blind date is dead)
5)   What constitutes a relationship? A feeling of co-presence? Technology hasn’t gotten to that level (many people would beg to disagree)
6)   Push technology leading to addictive behavior (crackberry)
7)   This old lady rambled on about Throat dancing or something…she was probably smoking Austin’s finest…
8)   Actually, any Q&A is so risky…many times, people don’t know how to ask questions and either end up rambling on for too long, or making self-promoting statements

Notes from SXSW 10 on the panel – Social Media Marketing for Your Business – Friday 2:00 – 3:00pm.

Panelists: Tony Adam and Chris Winfield

This was a good panel. They started out making sure that we knew they weren’t going to talk about Facebook and Twitter, and they stayed true. Here are the six things I took away from the conversation.

1)   Use other forms of social media to help your business – Facebook and Twitter are done to death
2)   Forums can be especially helpful in connecting you to your core customer
3)   Technology has definitely opened the door for users to connect, but you still have to be a “damn human”
4)   SEO is an integral part of social media – use the linkability and visibility to help build a brand and increase awareness
5)   Check niche sites – that’s where the majority of the action is
6)   Use social news aggregation sites sparingly – know the audience before posting; this will help you be successful.

Just as an FYI, I’m going to be posting notes from the panels I attend for posterity. If you want to see the aggregate, I’m going to be tagging them with SXSW10. Enjoy!

If you read the post I wrote earlier this year, I swore to you I’d be more diligent about updating this blog. And guess how that’s worked out?

So I wondered to myself why blogging is so hard.

I think blogging is hard because, especially for me, I’ve been so beat down by irrelevant blogs and content. I don’t want to be responsible for more useless drivel to invade the interwebs. So whenever I think I want to write a post, I do a quick search and find that someone has already blogged about what I want to say. Have I become that shallow?

I recently spoke at Ignite Dallas (and I totally bombed…video to come) about an (unoriginal) idea I had that I dubbed “Emotional Investment”. The point of my presentation was that there are too many outlets of good and bad content on the web, that we’re becoming shallow. One exact quote that I used was “…we’re becoming casually interested in many things, rather than passionate about a few…”.

I started to realize, while looking through my Google Reader, that I’m falling in to this trap just as much as everyone else. How can I really believe that I can skim through 1000 blogs and actually come out with some good information. The truth is, I can’t.

I’ve also wondered why I haven’t been as happy lately. Is it a quarter-life crisis, as John Mayer so eloquently put it? Actually, I think this phenomenon is partially to blame. I remember when I was a cub, listening with wide-eared wonder to Joseph Jaffe’s podcast, feeling that social media really was going to change the world. There were a few outlets that I read, including Seth Godin, David Armano, and Hugh, and the knowledge-base of social media as advertising phenomenon was still new. It was easy to keep up with what was going on in the space, because there were so few outlets that devoted time to it.

And those outlets wrote with passion. I mean, Joseph Jaffe moved me, man. He started in on the Across the Sound podcast, and I started digging what he was saying. I bought it hook, line and sinker, because I saw what he was talking about, and it was truth.

Fast forward to 2009, and C-Suite executives are asking ME about social media, not the other way around. There are more blogs on social media strategy than there are on important topics, and Twitter is over capacity almost all the time. Is there knowledge being added to the space? Maybe, but I can’t seem to find it anymore.

I remember when I began to move away from Joseph Jaffe…I started to realize that he had said his piece and counted to three, and he was moving on to selling the ideas he created, rather than creating them and giving them to us for free. I began to be angered by his audacity to STOP moving the knowledge-base forward, instead focusing on speaking engagements and selling books. I later realized that my anger came from the fact that I didn’t feel like I could look up to him anymore as a social media guru, but only as a social media talking head. And good for Jaffe…he sold his company to Powered, and now is part of the largest social media agency in the US. He achieved every “social media expert’s” dream, right?

It seems that no one is really passionate about the space anymore. There is passion, to be sure, but it’s not around the growth of the media or what real people are doing to really change things. Now, it’s around how to make money, or how to gain followers, or how to make money, or even how to make money with social media. If I want to learn about what people are ACTUALLY doing in social media, I’m now relegated to the same resources that have always given me useful, actionable information about old media – Nielsen, Forrester, and the other research outlets.

I guess my point in all this, is that the world is moving. And I guess I haven’t moved fast enough.

I guess it’s time for me to find my passion again. Then maybe blogging won’t be so hard anymore.

I thought I’d share this, as I thought this was quite interesting. Google is trying a new social experiement, and it’s going to be big.

Earlier today, I ran across this TechCrunch article about Google making an announcement. I think they’ve already rolled some of the functionality out.

Doing a search, I found this in my search results:

If it’s not readily apparent, the results include specific results from my friend Paul McEnany, the illustrious owner of heehawmarketing.com and general social media smartguy under the title “Results from people in your social circle…”

We all know that information told to us from a friend is 100x more relevant than something an independent 3rd party can tell us. This will also give users a sense of who in their circle is interesting in the same things they are, without having to check profiles like Facebook or MySpace.

Don’t quote me, but I have a feeling this is going to be one of the most useful updates to Google’s results in a long time.

Are these results showing up for you yet?

UPDATE: Google has released a blog post and video about Google Buzz here.

In my experience, one of the most important aspects of an SEO campaign is something that most people never even consider when engaging in search engine optimization. This aspect is the developing a keyword strategy.

Many clients are under the impression that they should be ranking for generic keywords, and this is usually born from an ignorance of how the system works. Anyone in a marketing capacity that has to help in some way with SEO should know that this is an ignorant standpoint. (Ignorance in this sense is not a negative, but a truly uninformed standpoint).

Keyword strategies are the solution. When a client asks you to help them rank #1 in Google for the keyword “diamond”, you need to help them understand why a) that’s not realistic and b) that’s not the most profitable strategy.

Clients may not want to hear it, but is their site really worthy of ranking for such a generic keyword? Would landing on your client’s page really satisfy the needs of all the people searching for that term? The answer (unless your client is DeBeers or some other firm that has spent millions of dollars making their name synonymous with the word “diamond”) is no.

So instead, you need to look at the fringe keywords, or the keywords that really may make a difference in their business.

First, make a list of the questions that their website will answer. Honestly, this list can be exhaustive, but there will be some themes that pop out. Is your client selling diamond engagement rings? Then one question would be, “Where is the best place to buy a diamond engagement ring?” Another question might be, “Who has the best price on diamond engagement rings?” Once you write down this list of questions, you’ll notice keywords start to emerge. Write these down.

Next, visit a free tool like Google’s keyword tool and figure out how much traffic these keywords get. A good rule of thumb is that the more traffic a keyword has, the more competitive it will be to rank on. So look for opportunity keywords that have a decent amount of traffic, but not so much that trying to optimize would be fruitless. Also, Google’s tool also shows you the proposed competition on the Google adwords platform.

Take note of this indicator, as if there is heavy competition

on the keyword on adwords, it will also more than likely be difficult to rank for organically.

Focus on the keywords that are on topic for your client’s individual web pages. If your client wants users to download a whitepaper on one URL, tailor the keywords to setting that expectation. If your client wants them to buy a product, tailor the keywords for that specific task. This is a crucial key in making your SEO monetizable.

After following these steps, you should have a reasonable keyword strategy to help your clients rank for the right keywords. Realizing that all keywords are not created equal will help you start to formulate an SEO plan that is both beneficial to your client’s business, but also realistic in achieving results.

This year, I plan on doing some things a little differently. I’ve decided, first and foremost, to create a list of Social Media resolutions that I’m going to try to focus on in 2010. And like most new years resolutions, don’t hold me to these.

1) I resolve to be more responsive:

It’s become quite easy to build an audience. Some Tweeters even have this down to a science. However, once you get to a certain level, it becomes almost impossible to respond to everyone. You know how annoying this can be, though…if you take the time to reach out to someone, you expect the common courtesy of a response. This is just unsustainable.

However, my plan to be more responsive dovetails nicely in to my next resolution, which is…

2) I resolve to value quality over quantity

It used to be that you needed thousands of followers on Twitter in order to have any sort of credibility. 2009 taught us that this is not always the case. I am reminded of a couple of bloggers in the north that, between them, had over 25,000 followers. They decided to have a Tweetup, and only were able to activate 4 or 5 people. What is the value in that? We all are guilty of following people we could care less about. I’m going to try to cull that list.

In being more selective about my audience and about whom I pay attention to, I hope to be a more active and more responsive member of the social community.

3) I resolve to build a brand, but not limit myself to the brand.

Miss Rogue had a great blog post before the end of the year. In this post, she talked about how everything she was doing was on brand, including writing the book she was working on. She was remiss, however, that she had become so predictable because she’d done such a great job of “living the brand.”

I took this to heart, because first, I haven’t begun building a brand. I’m so inconsistent in writing my thoughts down that I haven’t decided what I want to do. However, I’ve also taken her advice to heart. While it’s important to build a brand through strategy, it’s also important to continue to be relevant to your users, even if that means morphing your brand over time.

4) I resolve to contribute to the social media knowledgebase

Many of the articles I read on social media are high level (like this one). They usually offer some theoretical strategy for building an audience, or bringing a brand to success. However, I have yet to find any articles that really contain some substance or meat.

I aim to change that in 2010. I’ve actually had the pleasure of working on some social media campaigns for some big brands, and I want to begin sharing the knowledge that I’ve acquired. I think these types of posts are what are going to help social media stay relevant and top of mind for the New Year.

Interestingly enough, I’ve chosen to write about my occupation. But as I sit here and contemplate the field I love, I keep returning to the question, “What the hell is New Media Planning?”

In the past, media planning was about as boring an occupation as you could find. It was (and still is, to some extent) filled with people who were clock-punchers. Spots and dots never changed, the formulas always spit out the same results, and the tools that were used were, well, pretty standard.

There was an unspoken agreement between media planning agencies that there wouldn’t be anything too out-of-the-ordinary when planning media. Sure, you’d see the occasional clever billboard or out-of-home spot, but not much more than that.

However, in May of 1995, when the National Science Foundation ceased their sponsorship of the web and it was officially open to ads, the game changed. Most people didn’t hear the old, stodgy door start closing, though. But it did start closing, whether they liked it or not.

Fast Forward 14 years, and you’re still not seeing a ton of innovating in the media planning space. The traditional media planners have insisted on keeping their inane processes. The slow move to change has been riddled with media directors more interested in curbing innovation. As for the technology, well, they’re waiting for it to become “proven”.

My path has lead me to this place, though. I’ve learned that many people aren’t just unwilling to change. They’re AFRAID to change. This gives me hope, because, for whatever reason, change is easy for me. As a matter of fact, the ADHD is a blessing, because I’m restless if things aren’t changing.

If you think about it, the tools that we now have to plan media are insanely more useful than Nielsen or SRDS ever was. Where research companies in the past made their money on static research findings (think MRI), technology now gives us the ability to collect our own data through impromptu panels. Services like Google’s Ad Planner, Compete.com and Quantcast give us insight in to websites that we previously had to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to access.

Technology, and subsequently new media planning, will be the saving grace of the advertising world. The holy grail (no advertising waste or complete advertising relevancy) is actually within grasp. And I’m glad to be mixed up in it.

And for the record, I’ve decided that my definition of new media planning is this: the process of planning media usingtechnology as a means to administer advertising and marketing messages to consumers through various media channels.