Being Blonde

I met Les and Paul, aka The Shower Guys, when I presented to eBusiness West Lothian. They are a small family business, but they are also social media naturals. They make friends wherever they go and they’re clever with content. I’m delighted that they agreed to write the first guest post on the Blonde blog.

Why did the Showerguys choose Twitter?

Since first being introduced to twitter only three short months ago, our business has connected to a whole new group of people, some local, some afar. In the past our fellow Twitterers would have been referred to as customers, targets, prospects or something equally offensive. What they are to us, however, are real people who have chosen to make an investment of their time in a community that wants to talk.

Its easy to forget that the current culture of chat and friendship in social media is very new. About 15 years ago, I remember attending a seminar on security at the NEC, sitting amongst a bewildering arrary of technical, electronic devices designed to isolate their owners from the hoards of the great unwashed who were by all accounts set to rampage through the nation destroying the delicate fabric of our society. “There was” the speaker commented in a knowlegeable manner, “a move in society towards ‘cocooning’ “.

This unstoppable trend was to present great opportunities for the security industry as society was set to built high fences around itself and arm itself with every electronic weapon the technogadgeteers could invent.

I remember being shocked by this notion of a faceless society without community. There was a developing mantra; isolate and protect yourself, trust no-one - a mantra that placed self protection, personal gain and greed at the core of things. Fortunately, online Social Media applications are helping to change these outdated notions very quickly, and whilst some will be resistant to change, I considered it vital that our business embraced these new methods if we were to survive through the recession and be in a good position to grow thereafter.

Trading as The Shower Shop (www.theshowershop.org), our business as Bathroom Fitters would not seem to lend itself easily to the required change, there are no computers involved, our skills are very traditional and easily understood by everyone. However by adopting a slight change in the way we were representing ourselves, we created an online persona that was wholly in line with our real selves and so The Showerguys concept was born.

We ‘Twitter’ as Showerguys on a daily basis to communicate our thoughts and ideas to our approx. 900 followers. Some of our tweets are aimed at attracting visitors to our blog where passing visitors and commenters assist in the construction of our Google Rank. To encourage this we regularly employ one or two response mechanisms, including ‘WHAT’S MY TOOL?’ and ‘WHERE’S LES SITTING?’ both of which feature a touch of classic Carry-On humour mixed with tongue in cheek competition. We even give out with small prizes for guessing what Paul’s tool is called, or for identifying where Les is sitting this week.

In order to build closer relationships with Twitterers in our immediate vacinity, we invest considerable time in talking directly to people about anything and everything. People instinctively know we are a business, they know what we do, but we never try to sell to them or directly advertise the installation of bathrooms. We consider the ‘elephant-in-the-parlour’ approach to be more agreeable.. For people who don’t know us yet, our Twitter bio sets the tone from the start and the response has been very positive. A successful commercial outcome is for The Showerguys to be considered  the number one Bathroom Fitter  in our Twitter community.

Many people are surprised when we tell them of the effectiveness of Twitter as a ‘face to face’ networking tool.  Let me explain, Imagine a room full of strangers, people who have never met, they do however, share one thing in common, Twitter. Welcome to the world of the TweetUp!

They Twitter all day and now they have got together in a pub via the power of twtvite.com to put the faces to the avatars they have been speaking with for the last few weeks. Polite certainly, a little shy at first maybe, but give it a few minutes and it’s amazing, you can’t stop them talking! After restricting themselves to 140 characters for so long, it is as if they are set to burst, quite simply the best free networking you’ll ever find in my opinion.

Very early in our Twitter ‘career’ we were approached to produce an interview for Tweetabix.com, a site devoted to people who Twitter, responding to several questions about Twitter and our use of it. In order to make it more appealing we made it on video. Constructed during the course of one working day, it reveals our thoughts on Twitter at the time, see what you think.

Only time will tell if we were right to make the change, but one thing is for sure The Shower Shop web site will never again feature unmemorable, unreadable tosh aimed at presenting the false and misguided impression of a large corporate organisation. Mission statements, ISO9000 and ‘fake-it-till-you-make-it’ marketing deceptions have officially been banned by order of ‘The Showerguys’.

Follow us on http://twitter.com/showerguys
View our blog http://www.theshowershop.org/videoblog.htm

I’m only 85% of the man that LinkedIn wants me to be.

And I’m cool with that because I have no inclination to undergo the rite of passage that LinkedIn is suggesting.

Am I the only one who thinks that LinkedIn recommendations are completely devalued by the high proportion of people who are clearly collecting them in much the same way that people collect Twitter followers? In many cases the same “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” philosophy is obviously being applied.

If someone spontaneously recommends me (and I’m not fishing) without any expectation of a favour in return, then that would be worth something. But there’s no way I’m going to ask.

Whenever someone asks me to be a referee I think about it carefully, even if I rate the person in question. After all it’s a bit of my reputation that’s on the line as well as theirs. I doubt very much that a similar level of due diligence is applied to many LinkedIn recommendations.

LinkedIn is a useful networking tool, but there is a brazenly self-serving side to it that leaves a bitter taste in the mouth sometimes.

1) We were executing someone else’s idea.

We’re more than happy to do this. Some of our best work is the result of executing someone else’s idea. Bad experiences arise when the idea has been sold in to the client before we’ve been consulted. Sometimes the idea is under-ambitious, sometimes over-ambitious, sometimes technically impossible, sometimes completely inappropriate to the target audience, quite often a print or broadcast mindset has been applied to web design or content generation, and we’d be rich if we had £5 for every time an idea has been promised to a client for a wildly unrealistic budget.

All of these scenarios are avoided by a collaborative mindset and early consultation.

2)  We were brought in too late.

This is hinted at above. We are most definitely more effective if we’re consulted before an idea goes to the client. Even better (much better) if we can work with you collaboratively from the briefing stage.

3)  Our advice wasn’t asked for or listened to.

This is rarely malicious. It is usually the result of junior project managers being extremely busy. “Digital” is not their primary discipline and it is a long way from being their primary concern. We’re contacted to do our thing at the very last minute, when listening to us is just going to add unwanted items to their to-do list.

Sometimes creative people get wedded to ideas that are just plain wrong. Sometimes creative people want to protect every minute detail of an idea that is basically sound but that has room for improvement.

4) We had no direct access to the client.

What the client is asking for may not be the most appropriate way to achieve their objectives. Are you qualified to challenge a brief and recommend relevant alternative approaches?

The digital aspect of their brief may be little more than an afterthought (”oh yes and we’ll need a campaign landing page or microsite”). Are you qualified to recognise that a huge opportunity might be about to be missed?

5)  We screwed up

Sometimes (very rarely) we let ourselves down and there’s no-one else to blame.

Our people are very good, our processes are robust, we learn from our mistakes, but nobody’s perfect.

I was invited by TRC media to speak about Branded Content to a group of independent production companies last week. I was the last on of several speakers but decided to spend the day to listen to what the others had to say. I’m glad I did.

The other speakers were Mike Dicks of Bleedinedge, Adam Gee, cross-platform Commissioning Editor at Channel 4, Lisa Sargood, BBC Multiplatform Commissioner, and Charles Wace, Chief Executive of Twofour Group. Each was speaking about their experiences in the realms of multiplatform content, 360º commissioning and/or platform convergence.

As usually happens when you attend an event whose scope lies outside your usual areas of interest, it was disproportionately interesting. That said there were some useful parallels between the world of TV company commissioning and that in which we talk digital marketing with advertisers.

There was a general feeling that the multiplatform bit of multiplatform commissioning was growing in stature and influence - no longer the poor relation of the “main”, broadcast programme idea, no longer the bit that comes “after”.

Parallel 1 - Digital is no longer the poor relation to broadcast.

This is being driven by a growing catalogue of award winning case-studies and some amazing numbers being delivered by multiplatform properties.

Parallel 2 - TV companies are suckers for awards, just like us and our clients.

Many examples of multiplatform excellence were cited, one of the most compelling of which was that of the partnership between CNN and Facebook for the live streaming of the Obama inauguration speech. The numbers (quoted here on Mashable) were tremendous.

What made this especially interesting to commissioning editors is the way in which a mass online event became a “shared” viewing experience. You and your Facebook friends could share feelings and observations in real time, creating the virtual equivalent of the mass, shared broadcast experiences whose demise as a result of media fragmentation is lamented by traditional advertisers.

Taking this comparison further, Mike Dicks described Facebook as having “gone ITV”. In other words its user base has expanded well beyond the geeky early adopter phase and is now a genuinely populist channel, potentially affording populist opportunities to advertisers.

Parallel 3 - Commissioning Editors, like advertising clients, are turned on when digital channels deliver “broadcast” numbers.

Based on his experience of multi-platform projects, Mike presented an ideal multi-platform production process and timeline. Contrary to the instincts of most TV producers this has the digital components of the multi-platform property commencing before the video/film aspects of the project. This was music to my ears. Mike’s full presentation can be viewed here and the timeline is slide 14.

Parallel 4 - the digital aspect of a multi-channel project should be aforethought, not an afterthought.

Building on the CNN/Facebook case-study, Adam Gee waxed lyrical about Sexperience. The online element of this property delivered 1 million page views in a single night, and continues to deliver 5,000 elements of user-generated content per week, long after the series has gone off air. At its peak Sexperience was ranking number 3 on a Google search for “sex”. It is still appearing at number 6 at the time of writing.

He also cited the example of Embarrassing Teenage Bodies. 99,000 teenagers took online STD risk assessment tests in just 4 days.

Building on the theme of user-generated content, Adam described himself as not so much a commissioner for content, but a commissioner for the infrastructure for content. For instance the back-end technical engine for Sexperience online is being re-used for an Adoption project on which he’s working - a direct lift of the technical IP and a direct lift of the infrastructure. Multiplatform commissioning editors are waking up to the fact that there is long term value not just in content, but also in the technical IP that turns that content into a compelling user experience.

Parallel 5 - content IP and technical IP can be equally valuable.

Adam finished his talk with a list of significant differences between what he called “networked media” (they are no longer “new” media) and television. These differences  are the foundation for the challenges and opportunities with which multi-platform commissioners are presented.

And there’s our sixth and final parallel.

Parallel 6 - a TV mindset doesn’t cut it in a multiplatform world. This applies equally to commissioning editors and advertisers.

Amen.

I presented to the West Lothian eBusiness Group yesterday. The subject was Blogging for Business, based mainly on our own experiences here on the Blonde blog. A nicer, more appreciative audience you’d struggle to find.

It was also an opportunity to road test Prezi - a potential antidote to death by Powerpoint.

Prezi describes itself as the “zooming presentation editor”. It aims to avoid the linear narrative (stuck on rails) progression of Powerpoint by using a zooming approach to navigation. It really is a case of zooming pictures painting a thousand words because I won’t be able to do it justice by describing it here. The site is well worth a visit because the simple visual tutorials will quickly give you a good idea of what it’s all about. Basically, though, it avoids the use of slides by arranging the content of your presentation on an “infinite landscape”. You then progress through by zooming in and out

My Blogging for Business presentation can be viewed here. You can follow the path I created by clicking the next arrow, or zoom out using the magnifying glass and click on any element that interests you.

Based on the interactive tutorials I was able to get up to speed and put a presentation together in less than a morning. The main drawback, as far as I can tell, being that some elements of presentation structure are hard to change retrospectively. There’s an Undo button, but undoing everything after the component you want to change to get back to it can be frustrating to say the least. The secret, as with all presentations, is good planning before you start creating.

I have upgraded to a Pro account which gives access to a desktop version (the first presentation was put together on the Prezi site) and a huge amount of extra memory space on their site.

Well worth a look and a play.

We’ve been members of CreativeBrief* for a while now, but yesterday we finally got round to publishing our agency showcase on the CreativeBrief site. Apparently this should significantly increase the number of potential clients that have a gander at us. Here’s hoping.

The main navigation for these showcases is fixed for all agencies, and they act as a sort of hybrid between a website and a credentials presentation.

We’re collating initial feedback at the moment so treat this as a public beta test at the moment.

*CreativeBrief may not describe themselves like this, but to us they’re a new business referral agency. Clients use them to condense and keep confidential the process of drawing up shortlists of suppliers for the provision of a range of marketing services.

As part of its ongoing sponsorship of the Scottish Football League (SFL), IRN-BRU has just launched a new £70,000 fund to help with youth development at the 30 SFL clubs, and a promotion mechanic that will allow the fans to determine how that fund is allocated.

The promotion is called Score With IRN-BRU. It is an SMS text based promotion that is being prominently featured on a number of pack variants. Participants text “Score” plus the division and first 4 letters of their club to the promotion number.

You can win for yourself, in that all participants (over the age of 16) are entered into a draw for one of five home cinema systems.

And you can win for your club, in that all texts feed into a series of league tables hosted on the Phenomenal Footy website. The higher the position of your club when the competition closes on 28th May, the more money it will get for youth development.

To allow ardent fans the opportunity to keep a close eye on league table movements, we’ve developed widgets for desktop and social media. These give real time updates on the progress of your team. These will no doubt become increasingly useful as the competition progresses to its climax at the end of May. The promotion is only a few days old but there is already a healthy level of activity. If this competition is anything like the Real WAGS competition we ran last year, then things will hot up in the final furlongs. Over 47,000 Real WAG votes were cast in the last 15 days of that competition.

The Score With IRN-BRU promotion is another example of the brand’s “Real Football” approach to its sponsorship of the SFL. This marries the strong grass-roots community presence of the brand with the strong, grass-roots community passion that characterises the support for SFL teams.

This week we were delighted to be involved in the launch of the 2009 Edinburgh International Festival with the design and build of their new look website. The website showcases the ‘Enlightenment’ programme of events from 14 Aug – 06 Sep. It also showcases the new EIF brand and the newly commissioned (and slightly controversial) Edinburgh Toile by our friends in Glasgow, Timorous Beasties.  (Not the Edinburgh Toilet as one of our developers mistakenly called it throughout production!)

Having worked closely with EIF for the 2008 Festival, we were keen to improve the usability of the site and make searching for events totally intuitive with both a general search and search using a diary mechanism.

The initial response to the new website has been fantastic and we’ve already got our eyes on events for when tickets go on sale on 04 Apr.

www.eif.co.uk

Our “IMMORTALising Grolsch” paper has been shortlisted as a finalist in the Online Excellence category of the Marketing Society Star Awards. Woot!

It’s a tale of dynamic content, brand development and rigorous return on investment analysis.

Fingers crossed for May 29th.

UPDATE 1st APRIL

Just heard that the paper has now been shortlisted in the Digitally Led Marketing category at the national Marketing Society Golden Jubilee Awards. Double woot!

Fingers now crossed for June 8th too.

I was invited to contribute to a feature on Radio 4’s Click On show about Sponsored Conversations (aka paid blogging). It can be heard here for the next six days at the time of writing (about 10 mins 20 seconds in).

The conversation was interesting as far as it went but, let’s be honest, the detailed mechanics of paid-for blogging aren’t a specific area of expertise for me. There were other questions on the topic guide that we discussed before the recording that I wish I had been asked. Particularly the issue of why paid-for blogging is so emotive and controversial. This is something that is close to my heart because it relates to some of the reasons why I find working in digital so rewarding.

So, Phil, why do you think this area of sponsored conversation is so controversial?

Two reasons. One broadly relating to the general idea of what the internet is for. The second relating more specifically to the “fragile ecology” of social media.

A cynical view of advertisers (and the majority of people that advise them) is that they cynically view any medium or communication channel as having been created with the sole purpose of delivering an audience that can be bought. That simply isn’t true of the internet. It’s a fabulous interactive communal resource that allows human beings to achieve a variety of goals - few of which have anything to do with the world of marketing.

I’ve met a lot of people in digital agencies who, having been involved with the internet since its inception, are very much in the “helping people to achieve their goals” camp rather than the “marketing” camp. It is entirely unsurprising therefore that the idea of advertisers buying a blogger’s audience raises the hackles for a large proportion of the digital community.

Looking more specifically at social media, perhaps the biggest implication of the growth of dialogue and peer to peer communication has been the devolution of influence away from the organisation to the individual. And, what’s more, this devolution has not led to anarchy. In fact quite the opposite. These networks and communities are driven by a generosity of spirit, and are self-regulated by good manners. Social media exponents can be rightly proud of what has been achieved.

Again, in this context, it is only natural that some (many) should resist the notion of the advertisers wading back in to “pure” spaces where their influence has thus far been diminished.

The worry, clearly, is that advertisers will view social media in much the same way that palm oil producers view the rainforest; a resource to be harvested with not much concern for the sustainability of the whole operation.

At Blonde we talk a lot about “elegant reconciliation”. How can we elegantly reconcile the goals of human beings with the objectives of our clients. By and large this entails a new definition of what “advertising” means in digital spaces to avoid some of the pifalls described above.

Thanks to crustmania from whom I “borrowed” the image. They kindly made it available under the terms of a creative commons licence.