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Have you ever heard of TechCrunch’s “Elevator Pitches?” I had not, until yesterday afternoon when the CEO of Yovia came down from his top floor, magnificent view, warm and cozy with an espresso machine, office and asked for my help to record a video. Excited by the prospect of stepping away from my computer and relaxing my bloodshot and tired eyes for a moment I jumped up and followed him upstairs.
He was going to record a video to submit to TechCrunch Elevator Pitches describing Yovia. I listened in awe at the grander picture. Listening to him speak, I thought to myself, “He did it! We are exactly what and where he’d always promised he would take us.”
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I’ve spent a little time and San Francisco and had the chance to witness what I would consider the best marketing and business strategy. In 1980 David Johnson, took a look at what the people around him were doing, and with a little creativity became one of the most famous street performers in America, if not the world. He tried dressing up like a robot, which everyone was doing in the 80’s, but realized that didn’t work, everyone else was dressing up like a robot and may of them were doing a much better job. So what do you do when you are in a crowded market, and everyone is doing the same thing as you? Do something different. Pick up a bush and scare the crap out of people.
David Johnson is the World-Famous Bushman, at Fisherman’s Wharf. He hides behind a bush and jumps out and scares the crap out passers. That’s it. He doesn’t ask for money, just has a jug, and people give him money. So why does he bring in a reported $60,000 per year, with NO upfront costs? A strong value proposition. If he scares the crap out of one of your friends, you are probably going to give him money because of how funny it was. Then, you and your friend he scared are going to walk across the street and watch him scare the crap out of more people. That’s a viral ratio, and a strong business model. You just “bought” something, which in this case was giving him a buck for scaring your friend, and are now going to watch other people use his product.
The other amazing thing about Bushman is that he illustrates peoples willingness to pay for a quality product. He gives his product away for free. He doesn’t say, “Hey, give me a dollar and I will scare the crap out of your friend.” People see his product, and decide that it was worth giving some money. Bushman knows he has a value proposition and relies on the quality of his product to generate revenue. Sure this model won’t work for everyone, but we can all take the time to see if we can’t employ some of his tactics. Are you struggling to keep up with your competitors? Take a look around, and ask yourself if you are doing the same things they are. Maybe it’s time to do something a little different.
Watch the bushman at work, I picked this video because you can really see the crowd gather.
Mike Palmer
Analyst
So, if Web 2.0 is user-generated content, what is Web 3.0? There has been talk about ‘Authenticity’ as the new buzz word. It makes me sad to think that being authentic is a buzz word. The worst part is the people need to be told that authenticity works. Please tell me what schools are teaching how to be fake, and I will begin the letter writing campaign. Let’s get to the real message, “stop wasting our time with trash.” So, with that in mind, what will be the best way to get rid of the trash. Sort it, decide whether you like it or not and move on. As the push for ‘Authenticity’ grows, there will be a greater emphasis on content. Not user-generated content, but user-controlled content. The community will determine what they want to see and the rest will fall behind.
Enter StumbleUpon. A fairly new browser plug-in that lets you rate the content with either a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, StumbleUpon is the beginnings of the user-controlled content movement. Users determine what they like, and based on that feedback, the content is shown to more people to get more feedback. If they don’t like it…Thumbs-Down.
Right now, this idea is mostly attributed to content, videos, games, etc. What if this was applied to businesses and products? Imagine what would happen if every product you thought about or wanted to buy was filtered through the thumbs up or thumbs down process. What would happen to the multitude of mediocre companies following the “Its ok not to have the best product, we can just spend more marketing dollars” mentality. This model would increase the ‘Internet Effect’ on products, where only the best products are consumed.
Even more important, what will happen to customer service? I spent over an hour on the phone with Sprint’s customer service, was disconnected twice during that time, and I had to call them back. I imagine my experience would have been wholly different if I wasn’t a faceless consumer to them, but a thumbs up or thumbs down. It would be like leaving feedback on an eBay account. The technology is still a ways off to be on a large scale and may only be a pipe dream, but we would see a different world of people consuming the most highly ‘thumbed’ items. Wouldn’t it be great to see a company bend over backwards for good feedback the same way eBay sellers do?
Mike Palmer
Analyst
For those of you who have not attended a Marketing Sherpa landing page optimization class, should do so. Pretty much guaranteed to grow your business if it depends at all on something online:
The New York Times is reporting that Yahoo intends to join OpenSocial a google lead alliance.
Yahoo’s backing, which could be announced as early as this week, would bring a large base of users to the OpenSocial alliance, which is seen as a counterweight to Facebook’s successful courtship of application developers. The alliance, which was announced in the fall, already includes MySpace, Bebo and several other social networking sites.
In a mid-morning brainstorming session, I was discussing the difference between Viral and Word of Mouth marketing with one of my colleagues. My colleague was convinced that they are the same thing, and I felt that they were wholly different. We began to iron out some solid distinctions between them and realized that, in some ways, they are also similar. The main conclusion we agreed upon is that the most effective marketing strategy is somewhere between them both, fine tuning a message to have some of the aspects of each.
Viral marketing, as the name implies, is much like a virus that spreads quickly from one person to another. When compared to WOM, it has a lower engagement. This lower engagement is what allows the message to transmit quickly. It is easy to forward an email, or post a YouTube link, but it is much more difficult to show someone how well a new tractor can plow a field, even if it is exceptional. The problem with viral marketing is that the audience hears the message then moves past it. It is a trend or a fad, then it’s gone. When was the last time you saw Star Wars Kid?
Word of Mouth is a little different from Viral Marketing. The increased engagement of WOM, makes it a much more effective form of marketing because the audience to the message is open and receptive. A person is more likely to buy or act upon the information if they are referred by a trusted source. The person receiving the message listens and retains the information. One problem with WOM is that it is difficult for the message to receive wide-spread exposure, since it usually requires a reasonable understanding of the message. Calculus and Philosophy are broad ideas that have little opportunity to pass from one person to the other outside of educational institutions. The other problem is that it requires a personal interaction. Viral videos or links, lack the personal touch and specific recommendation that WOM implies. Your best friend telling that you will like a CD, would prompt you to go buy it, but a video from them that is about the CD will likely be less effective.
Both forms of marketing are more effective than typical display advertising, like Banner ads, TV Commercials, or Billboards, since these offer virtually no engagement or means to spread their message. The main way WOM and Viral Marketing are similar is that they both rely on a highly polar message. Someone must feel either very strongly for or against the message to relay it to their friends. Mediocrity and blandness is the biggest enemy to both Viral and WOM, since people just don’t tell each other about things that are ok. The community around the idea must be excited to achieve either Viral or WOM.
The funny thing about this conversation was that, while analyzing Viral marketing and WOM marketing, we came to a greater understanding of Social Media marketing. When we looked at the weaknesses in Viral Marketing and Word of Mouth, we realized the importance of striking a balance between the two. Social Media marketing fills that gap. With Social Media, it is important to create a high-level of trust by using credible sources so that the audience is receptive. By analyzing and optimizing the message, it is possible to increase the interaction with the audience. It engages the users like WOM. The engagement should be easy so that someone can be fully-engaged and alert early in the message. That being said, it is important to make sure that the message can be spread easily. If the audience is too caught up in the engagement or overwhelmed by the information, then they are much less likely to spread the idea. Social Media is an interesting balance between the two.
By: Mike Palmer
Analyst
2007 was The Year of the Social Network. It might as well be a new marker somewhere on an astrological calendar.
Every year Google & other search engines publish a report of the most searched-for terms over the previous 365 days. These terms constitute the “buzz”–what’s really hot on cyberspace and therefore in the real world. Often the buzz is intertwined with what’s big in entertainment, what’s being hotly marketed in stores, and major stories that make the news. The buzz is what matters to us—lots of us.
Of the top 10 fastest rising (global) searches in 2007, Google reports all terms involve social networking or sites with social interaction—except #1, which is the Apple iPhone.
Badoo, Facebook, and Hi5 (consistently among the top searches on Yahoo every day) are the three terms that represent sites designed solely for social networking. eBuddy, another term on Google’s top 10, is a web-based instant messenger allowing users to utilize accounts on MSN messenger, Yahoo messenger, AOL AIM, and other popular options—even if the user’s access is otherwise blocked (such as instant messaging disabled at work or school). Again, a search term steeped in a social theme.
Online games with community features, for adults and children, also ranked highly this year. The wildly popular Second Life remains at the top of search engine charts, while up-and-comers WebKinz and Club Penguin [our review here] (both social sites for kids that involve virtual pets, like the once-juggernaut Neopets) underscore the fact that children today are very ‘net savvy. They’re a new powerhouse market on the www—WebKinz necessitates purchasing stuffed animals that can be played with online, so every child enjoying the WebKinz site is adding a little more cash to Ganz’s (the creators) pockets.
Video sites such as YouTube and Dailymotion also achieved global search stardom in 2007. YouTube is a phenomenon that’s now part of our everyday lexicon, as sure as if Merriam-Webster put it front and center on their dictionary. Sites like Break.com, Funny or Die (who will ever forget Pearl, the abusive 2 year old landlord in Will Ferrell’s short masterpiece this year?), and MySpace Videos also remain popular, but YouTube reigns supreme. Dailymotion was created to focus on animated videos, but a visit to the site reveals it is a cornucopia of live action as well. Both sites allow for user interaction, again bringing social networking into the scheme. Users can create channels, rate videos, leave comments, interact in groups, and more. (Tip for 2008: Keep an eye out for a growing niche video site with the same features, but focused solely on cute pooches: World Wide Fido.)
Google’s top 10 terms for the U.S. contains many of the same searches, with the addition of TMZ (notorious celebrity video and gossip site, which also encourages user interaction through comments), social networking site MySpace (the founders of which also made Barbara Walters’s list of the ten most fascinating people of 2007), tragic Anna Nicole Smith, breakout TV show Heroes, and the Transformers movie.
What we can take away from 2007’s buzz is that the Internet is once again the place for socializing. In its earliest days the ‘net was about interaction, too—before the “Information Superhighway” it was all bulletin boards and chat rooms, remnants of which can still be found in newsgroups such as Usenet. The emphasis now has come full circle. Sites like Facebook and MySpace invite people of all ages to keep up with existing friends and make new ones. The fact that so many sites are also geared towards children just goes to show this trend will not abate. A whole new generation of social networking is on the rise.
I think it will be a safe bet that such sites remain popular in 2008. Safe bets for regular searches will also include celebrities, movies, music, games, TV, and sports. In fact, Yahoo’s Buzz Index tracks all these categories daily, so they are sure to remain themes. But dotted here and there across the board will be sites that allow users to form relationships, network, promote themselves, share their creations, play games together, and otherwise engage in activities where it takes two (or millions) to tango.
Dina Ely is a freelance writer, poet, and author of short fiction. Readers can contact her at dely723@yahoo.com
