Rogerio|De Paula Assis

I just picked up on something the Obama government is trialling in the US and thought it would be worthwhile posting here. I reckon this guy is not only making history in way of his background but also in setting a new benchmark on how political leaders and government departments are humanising themselves and becoming more accountable for their actions and how they spend public money.

It’s not a new idea as such but as far as I know it is the first time it is being used in such a big scale and what an amazing pulse check for a President this could turn out to be!

Check the video below and then visit Open for Questions to check it out.

As marketers, we all love a bit of hype and are specialists in repackaging things that are not necessarily new (and hopefully make lots of money out of it).

For instance – in my opinion – the most overrated web 2.0 word thrown around these days is Social Media.

At the core of it, social media is used to describe a platform through which a conversation between two or more people take place. Whether it happens on Facebook, Linkedin or at a supermarket isle, they are essentially the same thing: people discussing, interacting and exchanging information on things and interests they have in common.

As far as I am aware, this conversation thing has been happening for a few million (or is it billion?) years at least, so can someone please tell me when did that become media?

Back to my first paragraph, maybe it’s because no one could make a buck by becoming a Conversation Specialist, but all of sudden people are prepared to pay for advice from a so-called Social Media Strategist?

Yes social media platforms play a very important role in helping brands listen to, engage with and influence consumer behaviour, but the way some of the experts go about it is a bit predatory and opportunistic.

People have always talked and will continue to talk about brands they love or hate. Yes they are more connected than ever now so their voices can become louder and reach further, but please oh please stop making it sound like it’s something complex and out of this world.

Social media is not rocket science, no matter how high or low tech is the platform you’re using. Social media is a lot of common sense, along with full transparency of who you are and why is it that you’re interested in joining the conversation.

Disagree? I am always happy to be proven wrong!

Get the ball rolling and let me know what you think about it…

Facebook has never really appealed to me that much.

I guess the main reason is that it doesn’t have much penetration back home where most of my friends are. So on a personal level I do have an active account and use it to keep in touch with some of my triathlon mates and people that I only see occasionally or have worked with in the past, but certainly I don’t consider myself a heavy user…

Nowhere near as much as other people I know anyway, including my girlfriend, who’s logged on from the time she wakes up till she goes to bed.

I think most people? use Facebook as a way of keeping in touch with their friend’s lives without having to bother to meet them face to face for a catch up. It has become people’s dose of daily ‘socialising’ so they can feel they are part of a bigger group and not feel ‘alone’.

On a more professional level, I’ve been doing a bit of work with my triathlon coach to help him increase website traffic and hopefully generate coaching leads.

Amongst other things, I started him on Facebook (he’s a bit of a gumby when it comes to computers) with a simple profile and also created a group for his athletes to join. Within the group we added a few key races that we know most people usually attend and let them invite others to join too.

Lastly, he’s automatically broadcasting new blog post via his status update. I know some people will say this isn’t good practice but in this case I think it is worthwhile as the updates are not so regular (weekly at best) so it is unlikely to annoy people.

So far the results have been really good and Analytics says 5% of the traffic coming through to the website is coming from Facebook.

At this stage and with limited time available, I am not sure how much more we can actually do to leverage this social network but if you have any other tips or good examples on how you use Facebook to connect with your audience, feel free to post away!

Surely by now you all know about Bullshit Bingo, but have you heard of the Web 2.0 version of it?

iPhone app developers, here’s your chance to become rich and famous…

How many of us would be prepared to pay $2 bucks to have the Bullshit bingo in our iPhones, perhaps with some randomly generated ‘buzz words’ each time you run it, or even themed words based on meeting types? We could even setup a website with user generated content where people people can generate their own themes and relevant buzz words around industries they know about???

SO, why don’t you tell us what your bullshit bingo would look like?

It’s not often that I see ideas that really excite me these days, but I have to give credit to beautifulstranger.tv for their efforts!

These guys are basically venturing out on the street searching for ordinary people with good fashion sense. They stop them, interview them, ask about what they are wearing and post it online, with links to brands and online shops where you can buy whatever you’re interested in. Talk about engagement, relevance AND a business model that can actually generate quality leads who are actively interested in your brand!!!

Go and check it for yourself at http://beautifulstranger.tv

Jenny Williams at Ideagarden is helping put the Ad-tech 2009 Sydney agenda together via a new initiative called ad:tech-brain. Basically, the idea is that instead of consulting with a bunch of industry experts to decide what the industry wants to hear, they are actually consulting with the industry to decide what we want to hear.

It is an interesting concept to watch and participate.

Here’s the full story so get in there and have your say!

Yesterday I met with one of my clients to discuss a possible tactical campaign against a competitor who’s been pretty active for the last few weeks.

Without naming names, there’s a disease awareness campaign supported by a big pharma company interested in getting people over a certain age to go and see a specialist about their eye health.  They are trying to raise awareness of a disease that affects 1 in 7 Australians over 50 and can ultimately cause blindness. We’ve seen ads on TV and newspapers, and marketing intelligence says they will continue to do so for the next 2-3 months.

But because our competitor only sells a prescription drug for this particular condition, they are not allowed to identify or mention the drug’s name on TV, which means they would be doing a big push with their representatives detailing the product to healthcare professionals to make sure they close the gap when/if people make a move to see their eye specialist.

But what would you, as a consumer who’s seen the ad on TV or on the Sunday newspaper do if you were interested in finding out more about it?

Google is your friend, right?

You would think this big pharma company, with all the millions of dollars invested in traditional advertising, would have their basis covered with a simple SEM strategy.

The fact is they didn’t and we have been able to (with minimum investment) not only feature at the top of the Google Search results, but also tailor the message to talk to, capture and direct people the way we prefer them to go, off the back of someone else’s investment, simply because they overlooked a fundamental aspect of consumer’s behaviour and path to action.

It makes you wonder what sort of advertising agency is advising these people and getting paid for it!!!

AFA Adschool Digital Marketing Workshop - Search, TV and Newspaper

It’s been an interesting couple of days in the social media scene as things got a bit messy with NAB’s ubank allegedly faking user generated content through myfuturebank.org blog (now taken down).

I won’t go into too much detail on what happened (Google is your friend!) but whilst all the social media experts were bagging NAB’s conduct it was also interesting to read a different side to the story by Charis Palmer here. She makes an interesting point in saying that we are all too quick to judge without really considering a few fundamental things that are the basis of social media marketing these days.

The key learning that comes out of a case like this is the need for education within organisations, providing people with a set of rules for transparency when talking about or on behalf of their companies. No one can blame an employee for trying to promote (or defend) the company they work for being transparent is fundamental to maintaining your credibility.

Ultimately no one likes to be taken for a fool and once you cross that line you either:

a) Assume you stuffed up, apologise and quickly rectify things – here’s the perfect example with Bigpond on twitter

b) Pretend nothing’s happened (i.e. take the website down) and live with the consequences knowing that it will take a lot of time and hard work to regain your credibility back.

By the way thanks to Julian Cole for pointing that one out during the AFA Digital Strategy lecture on Social Media. Nothing like seeing things unfold as we learn…