…and what about Direct Response?

The impact of Social Media is so wide ranging that it encompasses elements of all of these erstwhile marketing silos and even some outside of marketing.

Most marketeers quickly grasp that social media is a tool to create positive brand awareness, even on a massive scale (see the Old Spice campaign).

Social Media - hard to pin down?

And PR? Puuuleaze!!! Social Media is about relationships – tick. Crisis management – tick. You can’t do crisis management properly today without doing it through social tools. And Social Media – possibly even more than PR – is very much earned media. People don’t share sub-par stuff with their friends.

Direct response? Dominos have announced a 29% rise in profit partly ascribed to FourSquare. Social coupons through services like Groupon are driving sales in unprecedented levels. Facebook has social ads that drive traffic to F-commerce websites.

Digital? Social tends to be digital by its very nature. In fact, most good and successful uses of digital tendto be social. (You can probably tell we’re not big fan of typical banners, skyscrapers or brochure type micro-sites.)

SEO these days often only means one thing, so-called Linkbait. Linkbait is just a technical word for remarkable (but not necessary on-brand) content that attracts in-bound links and builds PageRank. Good social media – like an informative or entertaining blog post/ video – can drive links too.

And then there’s the not so small matter of customer care. That could be social too.

In some companies, proper application of social could even impact product development in a massive way. You might recall that the best way to get people to talk about your business is to ensure you have a remarkable product.

So business is waking up to the need to take Social Media seriously. Yet while this hurdle has been passed there is a new hitch, precisely because social pervades almost all aspects of business.

Most brands have budget lines for brand advertising, PR, direct response and digital/ SEO, but not for Social.

The simple answer is that brands need to get with the program and add a Social budget line, a catch all for all of the above. Or is it?

Some companies will create new Social Media budgets that will cater for these things. In others Social Media will become part of the way existing departments do things.

As you dump your organic waste into the relevant recycling bin, you slip out your iPhone. You check in to recycling.

Woosh, oh cool! You’ve unlocked the Goodie Green badge. As you turn to leave for work you can’t but help yourself; you suppress your smile. Sarah is now only one level higher. And besides – she has no points in ‘Neighbourhood Watch’. And in that group you accumulate badges much faster.

A screenshot of the causeworld app

In policy wonk theory talk abounds of libetarian paternalism – two concepts long thought to be at loggerheads. But it simply comes down to this. How a caring but non-pushy state can help irrational citizens make better decisions. It’s called nudging.

But how can the state help its citizens become more engaged? And can we use social media to achieve this?

When Foursquare wanted to get people to check into venues they correctly anticipated that their new network would need to incentivise its users. It was not like your friends – one major incentive to use these applications – were on Foursquare. But with rewards and badges, age old techniques from the world of gaming they managed to get people checking-in.

Tom Chatfield, author of Fun Inc and deputy editor of Prospect magazine, recently spoke at a TED event about the lessons from games. That is to say, the techniques used by games to increase engagement.

We evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to be satisfied by the world in particular ways; and to be intensely satisfied as a species by learning and problem-solving. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the virtual arenas that games create is that we are now able to reverse-engineer that, and to produce environments that exist expressly to tick our evolutionary boxes and to engage us.

Tom talks of having features in games like having an experience system, having multiple long and short term aims, rewarding for effort and giving rapid, clear and frequent feedback.

He explains how uncertainty could help.

“This is the real neurological gold mine so far as gaming is concerned. Dopamine elevates when you get a little prize for doing something, but what really lights up the brain is the unexpected reward: the one that couldn’t be predicted. And so the right amount of well-calibrated uncertainty can create intense engagement in all manner of tasks.”

He says these windows of enhanced attention can be a good time to teach a player something, or to impart information.

But what he finds most thrilling is the potential for collective engagement. That people don’t only do things for rewards but that they do it because there are other people around them.

Clay Shirky in his recent book Cognitive Surplus dwells very much on this same theme. He points out that groups of people can produce civic goods in their free time, and this is because of a number of innate human traits. Two of them are personal. The need for feeling autonomous and competent. Two of them are intensely social. The need to belong and to share.

But a simplified belief that people are good won’t do. Shirky points at mistakes made by eBay, before they had their reputation system in place: Some users cheated. And in another example he tells how two female artists, dressed as brides hitch-hiked across Europe and the Middle East. They came to grief. He contrasts this to the positive experience of thousands on Couchsurfing.org, including single female travellers. Here the system was designed to encourage (or ‘nudge’) for good behaviour.

There have been attempts at getting citizens more engaged.

Tim Berners-Lee last year helped get government departments to open up their data, in much the same way as the Obama administration has tried to do. The result is Data.gov, a repository for all kinds of government data, ready to be used by creative programmers for the good of society.

Says Tom Chatfield:

Politically, the idea is far from libertarian. There is still a vital role for the state in collecting, publishing and paying for data, and also in getting the best out of developers. But a world where mashers inherit the earth is also an oddly appropriate example of Cameron’s “big society.” For once, this is an area where those irritating buzzwords—“the wisdom of crowds,” “the long tail,” “nudge,” and the rest­—actually work, and where the ideas they enshrine mean citizens taking decisions for themselves rather than relying on the state.

But mash-ups are all good and well. They rarely encourage collective civic action like tools such as Ushahidi – the crisis information crowd sourcing tool.

Cameron is on record saying ‘the success of the Big Society will depend on the daily decisions of millions of people’. True. But perhaps there is a role for government in providing the platforms and systems that allow people to be their best.

Defra is under pressure. The scheme that pays farmers for protecting wildlife is also set to be cut. Can they be incentived through a digital system to continue doing this voluntarily? Arts funding is reported to be one of those areas that will be cut in the coming spending review. Is there a place for government in launching a social funding tool like Kickstarter?

Content is reasserting itself as King, the Search Engine Optimisation industry is moving into the ‘content’ business, a domain Public Relations – who specialise in ‘earned’ media – previously saw as theirs. That was the conclusion of a talk / debate I attended at the CIPR yesterday.

But not only that, PR is not countering. The industry has not moved into doing lucrative SEO either. Philip Sheldrake put it eloquently:

Has the PR industry missed the boat on the optimisation of web content to attract the attention of Google, more commonly known as search engine optimisation? The emergence of the multi-million pound search industry during the last decade suggests that may be the case.

Search agencies are increasingly packaging planning, content development and analytics, into a payment-by-results model. It’s a compelling proposition for a marketing director that is seeking guaranteed outcomes.

Now search agencies are starting to use PR tactics such as press releases, bylined content and wire distribution to drive their campaigns prompting the scrutiny of the role of PR versus SEO.

Content: Art or Science

Are PR and the SEO industry in fact playing the same field?

A distinction was made by Kelvin Newman, Creative Director at SiteVisibility (an SEO company), between technical SEO and link building SEO. The former, I have argued on this blog, is actually dying a slow death. When I repeated this assertion yesterday, it was greeted with nods and disagreement in equal measure.

The point was made that SEO is the science and PR the art of using content to build reputation. And as such, said Wilson McInnes, Managing Director of NixonMcInnes, they come from two very different perspectives and even appeal to different kinds of people. PR was strategic, while SEO was merely tactical. PR was concerned with brand, SEO was not.

Good and small agencies are starting to offer an integrated solution. But all this was academic, was a consensus of sorts. Clients, particularly big ones, still have separate budgets for PR, advertising, SEO, digital. And until this changes, agencies will have to pitch specific services, even if there is a lot of overlap.

Still, it was felt that SEO in particular was moving in to eat PR’s lunch.

In that respect social media and PR are much closer related than PR and the SEO industry me thinks. Social media is about brand too. It is strategic, not just tactical. Because good integration of social media into a business is likely to fundamentally change the way the business operates.

Die Antwoord (The Answer) is an assault on your senses and sensibilities. Die Antwoord is all over Twitter now and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they become a trending topic this weekend. Die Antwoord is an Afrikaans zef rap-rave band from South Africa.

You heard that right. Afrikaans Zef Rap Rave. That is not the best known musical genre. As Vice magazine queried in October when they interviewed Ninja, the lead singer of Die Antwoord:

“…nobody from South Africa ever really makes it overseas. You do realise that?”

Die Antwoord would have none of that. Ninja spurns those assertions in their track ‘Enter The Ninja’:

Fuck you all who said I wouldn’t make it
Who said I was a loser
Who said I was a no-one
But look at me now
All up on the interweb
World-wide, 2009 Futuriste

Die Antwoord have come from what is often (wrongly) seen as a cultural backwater to be the music sensation of 2010. They have overcome the stereotypes about Afrikaans (the baddies in ‘Lethal Weapon 2′ anyone?).

But theirs is a marketing storm that money can’t buy. How did they do it?

They have been bubbling under the radar for a while, before this week’s explosion. I know, because I am one of the lucky ones to have been following them since their inception. I’m Afrikaans myself and one my guilty pleasures is reading Watkykjy, the legendary Zef Afrikaans blog that became Die Antwoord’s home.

Die Antwoord on Google trends

Watkykjy has been going since 2000 and regularly attracts about 100,000 unique users per month. But it’s much more than that. Watkykjy is home to an identity. The home of Zef. As such they have been organising events and parties as well.

Die Antwoord got their own little buitekammerttjie (little outside room) on the Watkykjy site about 10 months ago, where they had a number of tracks available for free download. Watkykjy also regularly plugged the band to their fanatical audience. Die Antwoord became headline acts at Watkykjy jols (parties). Die Antwoord even made a song Wat kyk jy! Still, these were parties inside a small subculture. How did it break out?

Die Antwoord aren’t loaded (not yet anyway). But around them gathered a bunch of talented individuals who loved them and saw their potential. People like Rodger Ballen, an American Photographer who lives in South Africa and who has shot the cover for their $O$ album. Leon Botha, an artist, Hip Hop DJ Solarize and the world’s longest surviving Progeria, opened their sets. People like The Wedding DJ’s.

As someone who knows them intimately said:

They don’t have huge budgets. Just friends with a passion for what they do. Sean (photographer and the guy that shot the Zef Side video) is a case in point.

http://www.metalbox.co.za/

He’s a young guy who’s friends with Ninja and Yo-landi and just understands what they are trying to do.

Still, the video had Die Antwoord’s signature all over it.

If you look at the work he’s done for Die Antwoord you’ll notice how it’s completely different to some of the other shots he’s done for other South African bands. That’s Ninja’s next-level influence.

The video made a difference. For impact (awareness), little packs a punch as a good video. It is very well produced and high quality (just like the Enter the Ninja video above – the artwork of which was made drawn & painted Ninja himself), and importantly full of Die Antwoord’s quirkiness. Still, this was done on a low budget.

The video by Sean and Die Antwoord

This is what Forrester spoke about in their Groundswell book when they talk of Energizing your crowd. Die Antwoord has support and a platform for take off.

Die Antwoord simply released their videos online, on YouTube and Vimeo. They started a Facebook Fan page. Next they built a good looking website (that nobody on an iPad will see), but through which you could listen to all their tracks for free. (Note to all you SEO heads, it’s Flash so technically not good for SEO – still the content is so good – it doesn’t matter – this reeks of Linkbait.)

Screengrab from Die Antwoord's website

The most important thing

And that brings me to my last point. Yes, Die Antwoord had the backing of Watkykjy and a few other fans with blogs like me. But what really matters is their talent on several fronts. The music is tight, the hooks catchy, the look disturbingly cool. And they have a narrative (brand if you like).

Besides their sound, their Zef look, their accents, where they’re from, all of this is loaded with meaning. They disturb, they delight, they smash stereo types, they’re sexy. It’s remarkable.

This is the first lesson of social media. If your product is a dud, forget it. Buy advertising, that’s your tax for being boring as they say.

If it’s good, you’ll have an army of crazed advertisers to support you at a very low cost.

Leon Botha - DJ Solarise - Die Antwoord

This week a flurry of interesting bits of news flashed across my screen. Like this tweet:

US study of PR hiring – knowledge of social media, blogs SEO, now as important as traditional skills http://bit.ly/En6rF

…and this one

@MajorPlayerJobs: RT @DanGoldgeier PR agencies poaching creatives? ;- Interesting trend, see my take here http://tinyurl.com/lm5pq4

…and this one today…

@TessNeale: Is it time for companies to hire a Social Media Administrator? http://is.gd/3kOTl | by @dmscott – we have, and highly recommended it.

The holy grail: Creative technologist Aaron Koblin

Media guru Jeff Jarvis predicted a short while ago that the upheaval that has beset journalism will also hit advertising and public relations. That process now seems well on its way.

“Advertising is failure” he says.

I myself produced a presentation, now a year old, which asked – Will PR inherit the social media earth? (Included at the end of this post)

Because if PR is about public relations (and not press releases as Brian Solis puts it so eloquently) then it should be the part of the industry geared to make most of these social technologies that lie at the heart of digital media.

But this outcome – the paramountcy of PR – has been all but certain. Simply because of inertia. Many organisations never change until they have to. And then it’s too late to change.

The problem is part generational. I have been asked to speak at large PR firms on social media and PR (what I thought was a detailed analysis and compelling argument why PR must embrace social media), only to hear the head of brand PR state: “We can’t believe what we read on the internet!”, and “We Brits will never give up on newspapers, we love them!” Ahem! I had to take two steps back and start again.

But it’s clear, underlined by the tweets above, studies and blog posts doing the rounds now, that some are asking the questions about the best way to staff the agencies, businesses, and organisations of the future.

The agency model in itself is coming under pressure, as the internet does not like middlemen. In the one link above David Meerman Scott elaborates on Jim Stewart’s idea and explains the need inside companies for the role of the social media administrator.

…there is a need for this new role, much like in the late 1980s we developed the need for a System Administrator (Information Technology department people responsible for computer networks) and the 1990s brought Webmasters (responsible for company websites).

I see the Social Media Administrator not as someone who develops content and participates in discussions on social media (although they could certainly have a business related personal blog or twitter stream).

This is not the senior leadership role for social media in an organization but rather the coordination point for company activities. The role would be someone who manages and provides consistency with an organization’s social media presence. Of course, to be done well, the skill set of a Social Media Administrator would need to include deep knowledge of tools like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

I think this is wrong. The social media person inside needs to be senior. How else could they get things done?

But I digress. I will deal with the slow decay of the agency model in another post. (We, by the way, don’t call ourselves an agency, we plug-in to you.)

There will still be a need for advice and cutting edge development and production skills. There is a role for PR and Ad people if they embrace the change brought on by digital media.

But why are PR firms hiring creatives from ad agencies – as one tweet alludes to – you may ask? Should they not be looking for a spotty programmer, or even better – the glamorous spotty programmer 2.0, aka: the social media expert? (We’ve also come across the term creative technologist recently. Presumably a ruby-on-rails genius that moonlights in an electro band and directs music videos when he has a spare moment. Aaron Koblin springs to mind).

Lorraine Barker, Head of PR at Major Players – a big marketing recruitment firm in London – claims that PR is looking for the ad creatives:

In the last 18 months we’ve seen a substantial increase (200%) in client requirements for Planners and Creative Directors (At PR agencies)…

To keep from being drowned out in an increasingly crowded media space, PR agencies are evolving. Creative Directors are being drafted in to inject fresh thinking and bring a new dimension to campaigns, while Planners are delivering consumer insights and developing rigorous strategic frameworks to underpin the big idea. The result is a focused PR offering that stays on brand, on tone and most importantly – makes people stand up and take notice.

So they are looking for archetypal coke snorting ideas factory & story geniuses with a certain je ne sais quoi?  Turns out no.

The newer roles are different from the traditional planner or creative you might find in an advertising agency and while some PR agencies are happy to consider above the line candidates, many don’t want the chin-stroking musings of the storyboard creative.

We’ve found that the most successful among those we’ve placed are candidates who have had a high level of involvement in the creative or strategic planning process – not only candidates from account planning, but account handling, research & insight and new business. However, it’s equally about the candidate’s hunger and passion for all things media and the latest comms channels, trends and cultures.

Mmm… ok. It seems the PR agencies are looking for content producers, experts, researchers and social media fundis?

Brian Solis – who has written extensively about the need for change in PR – defines his future roles for a new media team:

There is no doubt in my mind that eventually all PR agencies and consultants will follow suit and transform from publicity firms into New Media marketing and communications firms rich with in house and contracted content producers, digital sociologists, research librarians, community managers, digital architects, connectors, and industry experts or strategists.

Brian goes on to define what each of these roles would entail, it’s worth a read.

The reason why researchers, trend watchers and industry experts feature in both Brain Solis and Loraine’s list is easy to explain. Digital is bullshit allergic. You have to know your client’s business inside out. You have to keep up with the medium.

You can’t tweet for a client if you don’t tweet yourself.

PR ranks social networking, blogging skills highly

But of course the other categories Brian mentions will be key as well, including the content producers and what he calls digital architects (creative technologists).

Now research – also mentioned in an above Tweet “Study: New PR Hires Must Blog, Tweet & Use SocNets” confirms what he said:

In what marks a dramatic shift away from a mainstream-media approach to public relations, PR hiring managers in the US now say it is nearly as important for prospective hires to have social media savvy as it is for them to have traditional media-relations skills, according to a survey by iPressroom.

All very exciting, all very scary.

What we can be sure of is that come September 2010 neither PR nor advertising will look the same as now.