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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Clubhouse and Facebook’s New Social Audio Apps, IG Hides Likes, Which Countries Use Social Media the Most

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope you’re ready for a great and productive week. Here’a few marketing and digital stories that caught my eye…

 

Clubhouse is inching closer to launching an Android version of its social audio app. This news comes as Facebook began beta testing its own social audio app called Hotline. I think social audio makes more sense as an additional functionality added to current platforms versus a standalone app.  I’m really excited to see what this functionality could look like integrated into LinkedIn, for example. I also think Clubhouse’s ability to build and retain loyalty with its top creators will be a huge factor in its long-term viability.

 

I am always in favor of hiding vanity metrics from social media sites. This post perfectly explains why. Years ago, a study was done into what determines popularity. Thousands of teens were selected and they listened to dozens of songs by new artists. These were songs that none of the respondents had heard before. The teens were broken into multiple groups. The first group listened to each song, then at the end they were asked to rate the song, and they were given an option to download the song if they liked it.

Another group was asked to listen to the same songs and rate them, but this group had the ratings and number of downloads shown from the first group. What the researchers found was that the songs that were rated the highest with the most downloads, were more popular.  Then for the third group, the ratings and number of downloads were not only shown, but the songs were also ranked according to both rating and number of downloads. Researchers found that when the ratings and download numbers were added, the most popular songs were downloaded at an even higher clip.

What this shows, in my mind, is that we are lazy. We let other people decide what’s interesting or worth our time, rather than judging a piece of content on its own merits. We scan for number of Likes or comments or RTs and use those numbers to quickly judge the value of content. This is why I am in favor of any move to hide such vanity metrics on social media.

 

Think the United States is the top country in the world for time spent on social media?  You would be wrong, the US doesn’t even crack the Top 10!  People in the Philippines spend just over 4 hours (yikes!) a day on social media. The average American spends about half that time on social media.

 

So that’s it for this week’s Monday Marketing Minute! Are you subscribed to my newsletter Backstage Pass? Every Friday, I give you tips and advice on how you can create happy customers that drive real business growth. I also profile how brands are doing just that. Add your email to the banner below and click Subscribe!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Clubhouse is Big in Japan, Canva and Reddit Keep Growing

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope you are ready for another amazing week! Here’s some stories that caught my eye over the last few days:

 

So we all know Clubhouse is growing like gangbusters here in the US, but I was surprised to learn it is also pretty big in Japan. Without checking, I would guess that means Japan is likely the 2nd biggest market for the iPhone as well. The social audio space is going to be fascinating to watch, as now both LinkedIn and Reddit are saying they are also investigating adding social audio functionality to their platforms.

 

There will always be a market for any tool that simplifies the content creation process. There’s no better example of this than Canva. So many people in business and marketing are so bad at graphic design, and so many of us wish we weren’t.  Canva slots in to fill that need perfectly. It’s definitely not Photoshop, but most of us don’t need to be an expert at PS, we just need to be able to easily create basic visuals and infographics, and Canva fills that need for us. I love it and use it all the time, and am not surprised to see that it continues to grow like a weed in the summertime.

 

Reddit is another site that continues to grow quickly. Sure, some of the communities can be pretty toxic, but the site really does offer a unique experience versus the other established social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Lately, when I google an issue, I am finding that a Reddit community is one of the top 2-3 results for that search term. If you want to start learning about Reddit, just google one of your favorite hobbies or shows or artists and add Reddit to the search term. There’s probably already a community set up on Reddit for that topic.

 

So that’s it for this week, I hope yours is wonderful, I’ll have at least one more post up here this week. And check out #ContentCircus tomorrow night, we will be discussing how to share the same content on different platforms. For instance, what’s the best way to share a blog post like this on Facebook?  On Instagram?  Twitter?  We will talk about that tomorrow night on Twitter at #ContentCircus starting at 7pm Central!

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How to Be a Better Marketer

Marketers, as a profession, are one of the least-trusted groups around. They are the guy at the party that everyone dreads seeing. You are with your friends having a perfectly delightful conversation, then here comes the marketer. He steers the conversation to himself, and brags incessantly about his accomplishments. When someone in your group attempts to change the subject to something more interesting, he immediately dismisses the introduced topic, and moves the focus back where it belongs. On him.

This is how most people view the average marketer. And often, this illustration isn’t that absurd. Yet, most marketers aren’t bad people, they simply fall prey to human nature far too easily.

The reality is, we all act in our own best interests. Period. Yet, good marketers understand how to make human nature work for them, and not against them. They understand that in order to reach their desired goals, they have to also provide equal or greater value to someone else.

 

TLDR: How to Be a Better Marketer

  • Respect your customers, market to them as you would your friends and family.
  • Your marketing communications should focus on and create value for your customers.
  • If your marketing isn’t relevant to your audience, then it will be ignored.
  • Understand who your customer is before you market to them.
  • Don’t sell your product, sell what your product allows the customer to do.

 

Why are marketers so distrusted?

Let’s back up for a minute and talk about how one brand figured out how to be better marketers. As with most good stories, alcohol is involved.

Bill Samuels Sr founded Maker’s Mark in 1953. Senior was the epitome of a craftsman. He loved crafting bourbon and prided himself on his ability to do so. His son, Bill Samuels Jr, took over as President of Maker’s Mark in the 1970s with one clear directive from his dad: “Don’t screw up the whisky.”

Father and son were diametrically opposed when it came to the topic of marketing. Junior was a showman. He loved marketing and appreciated the power of promotion and sales.

His father absolutely hated marketing and distrusted most marketers just as much as the rest of us do. Senior hated marketing so much so that often when junior would attempt to have a marketing discussion with his father, Bill Samuels Sr would simply stand up and walk out of the meeting.

So Bill Samuels Jr was at an impasse. He knew that Maker’s Mark needed to do SOME marketing in order to grow, but he also knew that his father would simply continue to shoot down any attempts the son made at adding marketing communications to the mix.

Finally, Bill Samuels Jr decided that it would probably be a good idea to better understand why his father was so opposed to marketing. The son figured that if he understood why his father didn’t want to invest in marketing, then maybe he could come up with a compromise that would be palatable to his father. Bascially, Bill Samuels Jr was marketing the idea of investing in marketing, to his father. So his father was his customer, and the son was learning how to better understand his objections to marketing, so he could factor that into his efforts. Which is what all good marketers do.

Bill Samuels Sr didn’t view the people who bought his bourbon as being customers, he viewed them as being friends and family. And he viewed marketing as selling, and in his mind, you didn’t sell to your friends and family.

So this prompted Bill Samuels Jr to completely shift his mindset toward who the Maker’s Mark customer was, and in turn, how to communicate with them. Samuels Jr went back to his father and said they would define the Maker’s Mark customer as being someone who they would like to invite over to their house for drinks. Bill Samuels Sr signed off on this, and Jr got to work on building a marketing strategy based on communicating with friends and family, instead of selling to strangers.

As an aside, this shift in marketing strategy opened the door for Maker’s Mark to launch one of the most successful brand ambassador programs of all time. In the early 1980s, Maker’s Mark was the recipient of some wonderful exposure in national publications like The Wall Street Journal. That surge of PR catapulted demand for the brand’s products, which actually created a massive distribution problem for Maker’s Mark. Prior to this, Maker’s Mark was essentially a regional, Kentucky brand, and its distribution channels were regional as well. But thanks to the exposure in the WSJ and other publications, there was suddenly national demand for a brand that not only didn’t have the distribution channels to handle a national supply, but the product itself took years to make.

While the brand didn’t have a national distribution channel, it did have customers across the United States. More than that, it had customers that loved the brand. So Bill Samuels Jr. decided to embrace those happy customers, and empower them to market for the brand. Maker’s Mark began to mobilize its customers across the country to demand Maker’s Mark be shipped to their corner of the country. The efforts of its customers slowly expanded Maker’s Mark’s distribution from coast to coast. These efforts by Maker’s Mark to empower its customers to market for the brand would eventually be folded into an official brand ambassador program, which still lives on to this day. You can learn more about the program here.

Bill Samuels Sr. distrusted marketers for the same reason most of you do; He found the very idea offensive, as he felt that marketing was selling, and you don’t sell to friends and family. So Maker’s Mark focused on treating its customers as friends and family, and adjusted its marketing strategy accordingly. Bill Samuels Jr would later call it ‘marketing without fingerprints’.

The key takeaway? If you respect your customers, that changes how you sell to them.

 

The power of being second

Let’s go back to human nature for a minute. It is human nature to want to take care of ourselves first, and everyone else later. For instance, if there’s a shortage of a particular product, say gas, do you let everyone else fill up their tank first, then you go get your gas a week later?  Of course not, you will try to fill up your tank of gas today, and you assume everyone else will do the same. That doesn’t make you a bad person, it just makes you human. We all think of our wants and needs first, before others. Not all the time, but in general.

It’s no different for most marketers. Most marketers focus first on getting the sale, and pleasing the customer can come later. But smart marketers understand the power of pleasing the customer first, and how that will LEAD to sales.

In 2004, Sarah McLachlan released the single World on Fire. Her record label gave her $150,000 to create a music video to support the song. Just as she was preparing to begin filming the video, she came across a letter written by a volunteer with the group Engineers Without Borders. This letter detailed the work that the group was doing to help impoverished people around the world. Sarah was so moved by the work Engineers Without Borders was doing, that she decided to take all but $15 of the $150,000 her record label had given her to create a music video, and she instead donated it to 11 charitable organizations, including Engineers Without Borders.

Now, this was a very generous act on Sarah’s behalf, but her record label still wanted her to create a music video. So Sarah took the last $15 from her budget, and bought a video tape. She then, working with a few friends, created a very low-tech video for World on Fire.

But the video told an incredibly compelling story. What Sarah did with her video was explain to the viewer all the normal expenses associated with creating a music video, and how much each item normally costs. Then, Sarah detailed what the money was actually spend on, via her charitable donations. What resulted was, and absolutely amazing music video, created for just $15:

This video received a Grammy nomination for best music video, the only such nomination of Sarah’s 34-year career as a recording artist.

So let’s break this down: Sarah received $150k to record a music video for World on Fire. Instead, she donated almost all of that money to 11 charitable organizations around the world, impacting the lives of millions of people. And she still got to create a music video for World on Fire, which received a Grammy nomination.

All because Sarah didn’t use her video as a way to ‘sell’ her song, but instead she used it as a tool to help others, to advance causes she is passionate about, and to tell a compelling story. She got the sales she (and her label) wanted, but she got so much more than that.

The key takeaway? Good marketing isn’t about the person sending the message, it’s about the person who hears it. If you create a compelling marketing message, the sales will take care of itself.

 

The best marketing is invisible. The worst marketing BECOMES invisible. 


This is Times Square, in NYC. Look at this picture, but really it’s the same with any picture you see of Times Square.

You always see marketing and advertising messages everywhere. Flashing billboards, and blinking lights as far as the eye can see.

So. Much. Marketing.

Now look at the people. Every single person in this image has one thing in common. Can you spot it?

Every single person is totally ignoring every marketing message.

Everyone in this picture is completely ignoring these hundreds of marketing messages that are all around them. The reason why is because these messages lack relevance. If a marketing message is irrelevant to you, then it is worthless to you.

It becomes invisible to you.

Now let’s go back to the Maker’s Mark brand ambassador program for a minute. We’ve already talked about how long-running it is, and how successful it has been. In order to join the brand ambassador program, you have to apply. In other words, you have to raise your hand and offer to perform the duties that Maker’s Mark asks from its ambassadors. So when Maker’s Mark delivers marketing messages to you, those are marketing messages that you asked to receive. Those messages have relevance for you, so you don’t perceive them as being marketing.

Let’s be clear: If a marketing message has relevance for you, you don’t view it as being marketing.

On the other hand, if a marketing message has NO relevance for you, you ignore it.

The best marketing is invisible. Meaning you don’t SEE it as marketing. You see it as something that has relevance for you.

The worst marketing BECOMES invisible. Meaning, if the marketing message is totally irrelevant to you. then you totally ignore it. It BECOMES invisible to you.

We’ve trained ourselves to view marketing as something bad, as a distraction, an irritant. Actually, that’s not fair, we have simply been exposed to so much BAD marketing, that we tend to view ALL marketing as bad.

Good marketing is relevant to us. It creates value for us, and respects us. As a result, we don’t view it as marketing.

What happens when we don’t view a marketing message as being marketing? We open ourselves to LISTENING TO THAT MESSAGE.

Once a marketer has gained our attention, then they have a chance to convert us into a customer.

The key takeaway? If your marketing message is relevant to your audience, then that audience will listen to your message. If your marketing message is irrelevant to your audience, then that audience will ignore it.

 

The best marketing is spoken in the voice of your customer

Let’s say you are a diehard fan of the movie Inception. Your friend Tom hates the movie, and thinks it is completely overblown.

You are trying to convince Jim, who you don’t know, to watch Inception. But at the same time, Tom is going to give the argument for why Jim should NOT watch Inception. And it just so happens that Tom is also Jim’s cousin.

So who do you think will be able to persuade Jim to watch or not watch the movie Inception? You may say that Jim will listen to Tom, because Tom is his cousin and he trusts his opinion. You would  probably be correct. But at the same time, Tom knows and understands what types of movies Jim likes. Tom would explain to Jim that he doesn’t like movies like Inception, why he doesn’t like them, and Jim would probably ultimately agree and not see the movie.

In the end, the fact that Tom and Jim were cousins wasn’t the deciding factor for Jim.  It was the fact that Tom understands what type of movie Jim likes to watch. You don’t know what type of movie that Jim likes, so in explaining what you liked about the movie Inception, you were actually making the case to Jim for why he should NOT watch it.

Think of marketing as a tax that your brand has to pay because it doesn’t understand your customer.  If you know precisely who your customer is, and you understand them completely, then you know how to create marketing that appeals to them at every stage of the process from awareness to sale, and beyond. Your marketing costs are significantly lower because you are crafting perfect marketing communications that are relevant to your customers, that create value for them, and which resonate with them.

When you don’t know who your customer is, when you don’t understand your customer, then your marketing costs increase at an exorbitant rate.

The key takeaway? When you understand your customer, you can speak to their wants, needs and desires. You don’t market to them, you talk to them. And they listen.

 

The best marketing doesn’t focus on your product, it focuses on your customer

The most effective marketing doesn’t sell your product, it sells how your product fits into my life.

Watch this Red Bull commercial, and as you do, notice how much time is spent focused on the Red Bull energy drink:

The Red Bull can isn’t shown till the last 2 seconds of the commercial. The logo is shown a few times throughout, but the star of this commercial is clearly the extreme athletes that Red Bull sponsors and supports. Red Bull doesn’t market its product, it markets what happens after you drink it.

Don’t sell your product, sell the change that happens to your customer as a result of your product.

This is one of the most powerful marketing lessons you can learn. When someone isn’t familiar with your product, you sell the benefits of owning it. You sell the changes that owning this product will create for the owner.

Don’t sell me the product, sell what the product allows me to do.

Look at Nike’s iconic marketing campaigns. Just do it. The shoes and clothing is an afterthought, the focus is on the athletes and their accomplishments. Think of Apple’s marketing for the iPhone in recent years. The focus is more on what the iPhone allows you to do, the content it helps you create, moreso than the actual tool itself.

Notice how these examples of how to improve your marketing are focused on understanding your customer and marketing from the customer’s point of view. Customers don’t buy products, they buy solutions to problems, or improvements to their lives. If a particular product can consistently meet or exceed their expectations, then the customer will become loyal to that brand.

 

Your job as a marketer is to create fans.

In 2010 I attended the FIRE Sessions in Greenville, South Carolina. One of the speakers was Steve Knox, who at the time was the CEO of Proctor and Gamble’s Word of Mouth unit, Tremor. He said something that stopped me in my tracks:

“Victory in marketing doesn’t happen when you sell something, but when you cultivate advocates for your brand.”

Think about that quote and what it means. Who are advocates for your brand? They are the customers that LOVE your brand and who are advocating on its behalf. So they are not only buying your products, they are actively selling your brand to other customers.

How would your marketing change, if your goal was to cultivate advocates? To create customers that love you and who will advocate for you.

The amazing part is…you will still be creating sales. But you’ll also be creating so much more.

 

If you want to be a better marketer:

  • Respect your customers
  • Create value for your customers
  • Your marketing MUST be relevant to your customers, or it will be ignored
  • Understand your customers
  • Don’t market your product, market the positive changes in my life that your product will create for me
  • Don’t focus on sales with your marketing, focus on delighting your customers. If you create happy customers, the sales take care of themselves.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Telegram Surging, LinkedIn Joins Social Audio Bandwagon, Micro Influencers Get Engagement

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope you had a glorious Easter weekend and are ready for a productive week.  Here’s some marketing and social stories that caught my eye:

 

The focus of this story is how Tik Tok continues to do well, but I think Telegram’s surge is more timely. Notice how high Telegram is on both the Downloads and Active Monthly Users lists. I mean, Telegram now has more Monthly Active Users than Twitter does. Which is ironic, since a decent amount of the new users going to Telegram are coming from Twitter. It’s also an interesting commentary on how social media is mirroring mainstream media when it comes to how people get their news and information. Up until the 1980s or so, most people got their news from the Big Three; NBC, ABC and CBS. Then cable television came along, with more shows and more options for news. And that trend has only intensified in the time since. I think we are seeing the same thing with social media. It used to be that most people when to Facebook and Twitter for breaking news. But since Facebook and Twitter have begun censoring accounts that share some information, people are following those banned users to other sites like Telegram. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  Do I think Telegram will be here 5 years from now? I’d say probably not, but then again there’s no guarantee that Twitter and Facebook will be either.

 

From the ‘We all saw this coming” department, LinkedIn is planning to incorporate social audio functionality into its platform. I think this may work better for LinkedIn than other platforms, as LinkedIn’s users are more geared toward professionals, which in this case simply means they are more likely to come from a similar background with similar interests. Contrast that to Twitter and Facebook, which is sort of a catch-all for users. I think social audio rooms work better for more tightly defined topics that attracts perhaps fewer people, but people who are more invested in the topic being discussed.

 

Micro influencers or T-Shaped Inflencers drive more engagement. This works because one to one engagement doesn’t scale and neither does your attention. As a person’s following increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to engage with everyone in that group. Having said that, Twitch streamers seem to have cracked the code on how to drive engagement at scale.

 

So that’s all I have for this week! I hope you have a wonderful week, and please subscribe to my Backstage Pass newsletter if you haven’t yet, by clicking the image below.

PS: I have a massive post coming tomorrow. Check back here then!

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Does Your Company Need a Word of Mouth Accelerator Program?

Accelerator programs have become quite popular in recent years as a way to accelerate the growth of new companies. Typically, when a company is accepted into an accelerator program, the company is provided with mentorship, training, and often additional financing. The idea is to take a company that shows promise and growth, and accelerate that growth.

Clubhouse has taken an interesting spin on accelerator programs and the social audio app has created one for its users. In this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute, I briefly mentioned a new Creator Accelerator Program that Clubhouse is launching. In short, the program is designed to take promising creators (room as well as club hosts), and give them the tools they need to accelerate the growth of their rooms and clubs. This help and support can come in several forms:

  • Audio equipment to improve the quality of the shows
  • Creative and strategic instruction from Clubhouse’s team
  • Helping creators find guests for their shows
  • Helping creators design and create promotional materials
  • Helping creators promote their shows both on and off Clubhouse
  • Providing a monthly stipend to creators and helping to match them with brands on potential sponsorships, etc.

Overall, I think this is a fabulous idea, and it will go a long way toward further strengthening the loyalty that Clubhouse users already have for the social audio app.

 

What About A Word of Mouth Accelerator Program?

So this got me to thinking: If Clubhouse can create an accelerator program for its users, why can’t your company create one for its customers? What if your company created a Word of Mouth Accelerator Program? A Word of Mouth Accelerator Program would take customers who are already creating word of mouth around and about your brand, and it would accelerate their efforts.

Here’s an example: Let’s say Tim is a tech blogger, and a fan of Hewlett Packard products, and owns an HP laptop, which he loves. Tim’s blog is called Technically Speaking, where he writes about the tech industry and covers emerging products and technologies. While Tim loves his blog, it’s pretty much a weekend project for him, as he has a full-time job that takes most of his time during the week. When he has time on the weekends, he will write a new post or do a product review. He typically writes 2-3 posts a month.

Although Tim doesn’t have the time to create content regularly, his posts and YouTube videos where he reviews new products have developed a small following of fans who enjoy his style and delivery. And who identify him as an ‘HP fanboy’.

Tim would be an ideal candidate for a Word of Mouth Accelerator Program. He is already creating content that promotes the HP brand, and his content has proven to be popular with his audience. His audience also understands that he loves the HP brand, and as a result his audience has a more favorable impression of HP.

If HP launched a Word of Mouth Accelerator Program, here’s some of the ways they could help Tim:

  • Give Tim access to a design team that will help Tim brand his content across all his content channels, including his blog, YouTube channel, and all social media platforms he uses
  • Work with Tim to give him access to new products so he can review them on his blog. HP likely has a program now for press and publications to give them access to new products for reviews, so they could easily add Tim to this program
  • Give Tim a new HP laptop and all the audio and visual equipment he needs to create better content
  • Give Tim access to a Virtual Assistant who will work with Tim to schedule social media posts, maintain his content channels, and help with the content creation process
  • Work with Tim to connect him to HP’s SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) to secure interviews for both his blog and YouTube channels, or to simply provide advice on the tech content he creates
  • Work with Tim and HP’s partners to help secure sponsors for Tim’s content across all channels

All of these steps together would work to accelerate Tim’s growth and his ability to create content. It would also deepen his loyalty to the HP brand, so as his audience grows, that audience will be further exposed to the HP brand. In fact, as Tim’s audience grows, it’s easy to see a point at which Tim decides to quit his day-job and become a full-time content creator.  Sponsored by HP.

In short, a Word of Mouth Accelerator Program would take Tim’s limited ability to create positive word of mouth around and about the HP brand, and accelerate it. If you imagine taking such a program and having say 10 content creators, it’s easy to see how your brand could quickly amplify the positive word of mouth that these customers create about your brand. As the Word of Mouth Accelerator Program grows, you will have more content creators applying, and more promising candidates to choose from. Which further guarantees the success of the program.

 

Wait, isn’t this just a Brand Ambassador Program?

A Word of Mouth Accelerator Program would be similar to a traditional Brand Ambassador Program in such regards, but not the same. Remember that a brand ambassador program benefits your company in four main ways:

  1. By increasing brand promotion
  2. As a reputation management tool
  3. By helping with customer service and support
  4. By increasing customer feedback

A Word of Mouth Accelerator Program would help generate more promotion for your brand. So it could be a standalone initiative, or it could live within a larger brand ambassador program.

If you think about it, a traditional brand ambassador program has always been a way to accelerate certain behaviors that your customers are already engaging in.

For instance, happy customers are already promoting your brand. They are already defending your brand to other customers. They are already proactively helping other customers with support, and they are already soliciting and giving feedback to your company. A brand ambassador program is simply a way to give them better tools and support from the brand in order to accelerate their efforts.

A Word of Mouth Accelerator Program works on the same strategy. It takes a form of behavior (creating promotion for the brand via Word of Mouth) that’s beneficial to the brand, and accelerates it.

I love the idea of a Word of Mouth Accelerator Program as a way to support customers who are already creating positive Word of Mouth for your brand, and to give them the tools and support to accelerate their efforts.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Clubhouse to Launch Creator Accelerator Program, Facebook to Enter Social Audio Space

Happy Monday! Welcome to the first full week of Spring! I hope you have a busy and prosperous week ahead, here’s some digital and marketing stories I noticed the last few days:

 

So two of the biggest questions everyone is asking about Clubhouse are “Is it going to last?’ and ‘Will it be acquired?” We may have gotten a hint at the answers to both when Clubhouse recently announced it’s Creator Accelerator Program. I absolutely love this idea. What Clubhouse is going to do, is take a select number of its room hosts, and give them the tools and support they need to accelerate the growth of their rooms and clubs. Everything from audio equipment to working with brands to secure sponsorships and speakers, to compensation. Moves like this will absolutely drive loyalty for Clubhouse, and it’s not lost on me that other social media sites could have made similar moves to support its content creators in those early years, and didn’t. This will resonate with users and could signal that Clubhouse is building something that will last, and that the founders want to keep as a standalone platform.

PS: I talked in-depth about the current ‘creator economy’ that we are entering in last Friday’s issue of my Backstage Pass newsletter. If you want to subscribe, click here!

https://twitter.com/joinClubhouse/status/1373680825049391105

 

After some speculation that Facebook might want to acquire Clubhouse, it now seems that ‘The Social Network’ is planning on building its own social audio functionality into its platform. Now, going back to what we just discussed with Clubhouse’s Creator Accelerator Program, consider that Facebook wants to give you the ability to create a similar Clubhouse-style room, on Facebook. If you are a Clubhouse user who has a room and/or club on Clubhouse, and you are in Clubhouse’s Creator Accelerator Program, will you now be interested in also building a new social audio community on Facebook?  Probably not. You would probably devote your time to building your platform on Clubhouse, especially since Clubhouse would be using its Creator Accelerator Program to support your growth. This is an important point: Facebook and Twitter can copy the social audio functionality. but if Clubhouse is doing a better job of SUPPORTING its creators, guess who will likely win?

 

This really seems like a bad idea waiting to happen.  Facebook is considering a version of Instagram just for kids under 13. Instagram blocks kids under 13 from using its site, but the site also notes that some kids are able to get on the site anyway. So the rationale is, let’s make it easier for them to get on, but only have them interact with other kids their ages, and not adults. Parents and privacy groups will be watching this story very closely, as they should.

 

So that’s this Monday’s Marketing Minute. I hope you have a wonderful week, be sure to check out #ContentCircus tomorrow night on Twitter starting at 7pm Central, and look for Backstage Pass to hit your email this Friday morning (if you are subscribed!). And I’m thinking there will be another post up here either tomorrow or Weds, so keep an eye out for that as well!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Biz Accounts Are Coming to Twitter, US Retail Sales Grow, Google’s Easter Scavenger Hunt

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! We are now dealing with Daylight Savings Time, which I hate.  We will have darkness at 9pm soon, then go back to darkness at 5pm in the Fall.  Ugh. Let’s get back to something more interesting, marketing and business news:

 

Twitter is working to finalize roll out of new profiles for businesses. Some of the features that these business profiles will have are still up in the air, and Twitter is working with users on feedback. We know that the new business profiles will be verified by default, will include a designation of the type of business it represents, and additional information on the business such as hours of operation, etc. Twitter hasn’t said when these new business profiles will start becoming available, but I would guess it would be sometime within then next 2-3 months.  This article from Social Media 2Day has a good rundown of what’s coming, and some of the possible features which are being discussed.

 

US retail sales are set to make a solid recovery in 2021 as we continue to work past covid. According to the National Retail Federation’s forecast, retail sales as a whole should be up around 7%. And online sales are set to surge around 20%. As I’ve been talking about for the last year, customer purchase patterns have been disrupted as a result of the lockdown, and most of us are looking for more online purchasing options. Take this into account when you are building your sales and product strategy for this year and beyond.

 

I am SUCH a sucker for scavenger hunts by companies. I think they can be SO much fun for customers if executed properly. Love this example of Cadbury letting people ‘hide’ virtual Easter eggs in Google Maps, then sending clues to others on where to locate the eggs. A great way for friends and families to continue the tradition of having an Easter egg hunt, even if its a virtual edition this year.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute. Now if you want more news, Friday’s edition of the Backstage Pass will have a special rundown of all the news happening in the growing creator economy. All the moves that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other platforms are making to pay content creators, and why your business needs to be paying attention.

If you aren’t already subscribed to my Backstage Pass newsletter, click the image below and get in! Backstage Pass comes out every Friday, and each issue gives a massive, deep-dive into a different topic to help your business create amazing content, marketing and digital strategies. Last week’s issue on training your customers to be better salespeople was the biggest yet, topping 2,200 words.

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The Secret to Creating and Retaining Happy and Productive Employees

Note from Mack: Today’s post is actually the issue of Backstage Pass that I sent to subscribers last Friday. I wanted to give everyone a taste of what they are missing by not subscribing to the Backstage Pass newsletter. If you want to subscribe, click the image at the bottom of this post. Each new issue goes out Friday morning. 

 

Today I wanted to talk about a topic that I am extremely passionate about; Giving employees the skills they need to succeed. Next week we will talk a bit about how you can do this with your customers, but this week I wanted to focus on improving the workplace skills of your employees.

Think about the last time you received an employee evaluation. You probably receive an evaluation from your boss once a year, maybe twice. And if your company is like most, your boss will tell you the areas where you are doing well, and the areas where you need some improvement. There will likely be some talk about how you have the potential to reach this level, if your skills improve.

Notice there’s one crucial aspect missing: The company doesn’t have a plan to teach you those skills that you will need to take your career to the next level. Maybe if you’re lucky, your company will give you a small ‘self-improvement’ allowance, where you are budgeted some money that you can spend on attending a conference, or purchasing training materials like a webinar. But the reality is, you’re on your own if you want to improve your skills and grow as an employee in your field.

I think we can do a lot better. I want to talk about how today.

Follow the Nick Saban Model

Nick Saban is viewed by most as the best college football coach of modern times. His Alabama teams have won 6 National Championships in the last 11 years, and are the current title-holders. What’s remarkable about this accomplishment is that Saban has won all these titles despite frequent turnover among his coaching staff, and often losing players early to the NFL draft.

Consider running back Najee Harris. When the 5-star recruit came to Tuscaloosa in 2017, he was at the bottom of the depth chart. In his 4 seasons at Alabama, he had 3 different running backs coaches. Normally, that’s a recipe for disaster when it comes to player development. Yet when his career at Alabama concluded in January, Najee was the starting running back, he had won the Doak Walker Award given to the best running back in the nation, and he finished 5th in the Heisman Trophy voting, the award that goes to college football’s best overall player. Oh, and he won 2 SEC titles and 2 National Championships, in 4 seasons at Alabama.

How is Alabama football able to flourish in an environment of constant player and coaching turnover? Could your business sustain and grow if your employees and managers were leaving every few months?

 

What makes Alabama football different?

The secret to Alabama’s success is player and coaching development. Alabama only signs recruits that it has evaluated as being potential starters. These recruits will typically start at the bottom of the depth chart, as Najee Harris did. But Alabama’s coaches sign recruits that it believes can be taught the skills they will need to become starters. Then Alabama’s coaching and support staff gives those players every opportunity to succeed. They are given state of the art medical support, nutritional support, weight training and coaching. The facilities are world-class, and on par with anything you will find in the National Football League.

As for the coaches, Saban hires position coaches with the idea being that they can be molded and promoted one day to being coordinators. For instance, if Saban hires a defensive backs coach, he hires that coach with the thinking being that eventually, this guy will be my defensive coordinator. So after a season or two as defensive backs coach, the current defensive coordinator will leave Alabama for likely a head coaching position at another college. Saban then promotes the defensive backs coach to defensive coordinator. The advantage to this approach is that his new defensive coordinator is already familiar with Alabama’s defensive players, so the transition will be much smoother.

Both the Alabama players and coaches are given all the tools they need to improve their craft. Access to this skill development prolongs their time spent playing and coaching at Alabama. Players who might leave Alabama as juniors to enter the NFL draft, are more likely to stay for their senior season. During their senior season, their skills will continue to improve, and as that happens, their NFL stock will improve, which means a higher draft position and a larger salary. Coaches that join Alabama as a position coach can gain the skills necessary to be promoted to coordinator positions, which eventually opens up even better employment opportunities for them at both the collegiate and professional levels.

But it all starts with having the foundation in place to develop the skills of the players and coaches. This results in increased productivity from both the players and coaches, and it results in both the players and coaches staying in Tuscaloosa longer. The investment made into facilities and resources for the players and coaches more than pays for itself.

How could your business better develop its employees and managers?

One of the frequent ‘perks’ offered to new employees is the ability to pursue work-related education. Maybe you can attend an industry conference once a year, or maybe your employer will give you a ‘book fund’ to buy 5 books during the year which will improve your skills. While this can be helpful, it’s truly not the same as having a system in place that educates employees and gives them the skills to not only increase their performance in their current position, but to also put them in a position to be promoted one day into higher positions within the company.

Let’s go back to your annual employee evaluation for a minute. What if you were being evaluated by your boss, Sarah, who is the current Director of Content. Your current position is Content Marketing Manager. Sarah asks you if you would one day be interested in being the Director of Content. You are thrilled at the prospect, and Sarah tells you that if you want to make that move, you need to work on this list of skills. If you had a training system in place for your employees, Sarah could then focus that training program on the list of skills you need to develop in order to one day be promoted to Director of Content. Sarah, as the current Director of Content, is working on training for her own set of skills, as she one day wants to be your company’s new Chief Content Officer.

Let’s now look at an example of a company that’s used such a training program to increase the skills of its employees:

Dell creates the SMaC U to turn its employees into Social Media Superheroes

In 2010, Dell created the SMaC U or Social Media and Community University program to give its employees the social media training it needed to connect with customers online. Amy Heiss has a wonderful writeup of where the program was in 2015.  Here she is talking about why SMaC U was created and some of the impressive results Dell saw:

Finally, a brainstorm hit. Every person already has access to superpowers – we just had to help them unlock those hidden strengths. We could show them how to amplify their voices, how to communicate instantly with millions of customers, and how to build relationships faster than a speeding broadband connection. We could teach them to use social media.

So, the Social Media and Community University (SMaC U) program was born. Now, our business is filled with superheroes. Their powers are strong.

Our sales superheroes have buffed up with a 69 percent year-over-year increase via social media. Our customer service heroes are battling the forces of customer dissatisfaction with a 98 percent first-time resolution rate on over 4,000 cases a week in social media. Our talent acquisition heroes are shining the Dell-signal into the sky, with 36 percent (up from 19 percent) of all external hires coming from employee referrals since adopting social media best practices.

This is such a smart endeavor because it’s accomplishing two key goals at the same time:

1 – It’s giving Dell’s employees vital social media skills that will help them do their current jobs as well as grow in their positions

2 – It’s helping Dell’s employees better connect with customers online. By giving Dell’s employees a better understanding of how to use social media tools, Dell can more effectively connect with its customers via social. This leads to more positive Word of Mouth, faster problem resolution (so that lowers customer service costs), and it improves brand perception.

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How can your business launch a training program for your employees?

So if your business wanted to create a training program for your employees, what would that look like?

First, let’s think about what you want a training program to accomplish. Here’s some possible goals:

1 – Reduce employee turnover

2 – Increase promotion among current employees versus hiring new employees to fill open positions

3 – Reduce the amount of time it takes to fill an open position

 

As you can see, the most important aspect of a potential training program is first identifying the skills that your employees will need training for. You can start by auditing your workforce to see which positions experience the highest turnover rates. Then you can analyze what’s keeping your business from promoting current employees to fill those positions. Once you have your training program in place, the amount of time it takes to fill an open position should decrease as a function of the program existing.

What’s the best way to deliver training for your employees?

There’s two main sources of training for your employees:

1 – Outside subject matter experts

2 – Internal subject matter experts

If you go with outside subject matter experts, you could have these experts come to your company and deliver training in person, or via live or recorded video (And, I do offer training for companies, you can learn more here). I think when you are just launching a training program for your company, it makes more sense to lean on training from outside subject matter experts to create your training material for you. Plus, bringing in outside experts to train your team can be a perk for employees and give them an incentive to want to participate in the training.

As your training program matures, you can shift more of the training from outside subject matter experts, to your internal subject matter experts. This will be a cost-savings that you can realize.

So in general, identify the skills that your employees need, the best way to deliver training on those skills, and in what format. You can continually reassess the progress of your training program and adjust as needed, which will make it even more effective and efficient.

 

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An Open Letter to Anyone Who Hates Self Promotion

To many of us, the idea of self-promotion makes us nervous. The reason is simply because we don’t like talking about ourselves.

So don’t.

In 2008 I made my professional ‘speaking’ debut. At South By Southwest. On the main stage. In the same room where 24 hours earlier a certain Mark Zuckerberg made his SXSW debut during the infamous ‘why is everyone coughing?’ interview by Sarah Lacy.

Did I mention I am introvert? That I was terrified? That this was the first time since college that I had spoken in public?

Did I mention that I absolutely love public speaking?

What changed? I mean, you don’t find many introverts who are into public speaking, and even fewer that love it.

What changed for me is I learned to stop putting myself in the spotlight. This is why so many people hate public speaking, because they feel like everyone is looking at them. And of course they are! I got past the nervousness of public speaking by putting the spotlight not on myself, but instead on my IDEAS. There’s nothing more satisfying than having an amazing idea to share, and then seeing the lightbulb go off over someone’s head. They GET why your idea is so valuable! For me as a speaker, there’s no better feeling!

So if you are uncomfortable promoting yourself or the platforms that you own like your blog or newsletter or podcast; there’s a few things to think about.

1 – If you are worried about being ‘that guy’ when it comes to self-promotion, there’s roughly a 99.9% chance that you are NOT ‘that guy’. The reality is that the shameless self-promoters don’t see themselves as such, and don’t CARE if you do. So if you are asking if you might be ‘that guy’, it pretty much guarantees that you are NOT.

2 – If self-promotion makes you nervous, keep in mind that growing your platform means you will have a bigger platform to promote the IDEAS that you are passionate about. Remember, don’t focus on yourself, focus on the ideas.

3 – If self-promotion makes you nervous, keep in mind that growing your platform means you will have a bigger platform to promote the PEOPLE you are passionate about. I love leveraging this blog and my newsletter Backstage Pass to put the spotlight on smart friends and peers who I think deserve your attention. Or put another way, the brilliant Carrie Wilkerson once told me you make more money so you will have more money to support the people and ideas you believe in.

 

If it makes you nervous to self-promote, don’t think of it as self-promotion, think of it as promoting the ideas that you are passionate about. And as your platforms grow, you can use them to promote the people that you are passionate about.

In 2006, on my first blog, The Viral Garden, I started a weekly ranking of the ‘top’ marketing blogs. I called it ‘The Viral Garden’s Top 25 Marketing Blogs’, and updated the list weekly. I ranked the Top 25 marketing blogs each week according to some criteria, at first it was number of Technorati ranks, later it was Alexa score. As you might guess, the list became very popular, as the blogs on the list were quite happy to promote their inclusion, which brought more attention to the list.

But over time, something irritated me a bit. I loved that the Top 25 list gave more exposure to the blogs on it, but I felt there were a lot of blogs that were left off the list that deserved our attention.  So I started something called ‘The Z-List’. I started with a list of a few blogs that I thought were awesome, that I wanted to draw attention to. I invited others to take the Z-List that I started with, and add a couple of their favorite blogs, and link to all. This would be a way for the list to grow, and for all these deserving blogs to get some additional links and attention. The Z-List became very popular, very quickly. So much so that a certain international thought leader approached me about moving The Z-List to his own platform.

The point in all this is, don’t fret over putting the spotlight on yourself. Put the spotlight on the ideas and the people that you want to lift up.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Twitter Moves Into Ecommerce (Again), UGC Drives Sales, What We Will Pay For Digital Content

Happy Monday, y’all! We are already into the second week of March! Over the last week, we began to see several states announcing that they are partially or completely reopening from covid restrictions in the coming days or weeks. As we move into warmer weather and out of cold season, hopefully we are setting up for a much better Spring and Summer. We all certainly need it! Let’s jump into the news…

 

Twitter is making another run at incorporating shopping features into its platform. Twitter tried this a few years ago, I think in 2014, and it really didn’t go anywhere. I’m unsure this effort will be much different. The reality for Twitter is, after the last couple of years, many users don’t trust Twitter as much as they once did. Twitter is rolling out a lot of new initiatives aimed at increasing revenue from users, but if the users don’t trust Twitter enough to engage in the activities that are required for the site to generate revenue…well you see where this is headed. These moves seem like good ideas that arrived about 3-4 years too late.

 

Your happy customers are your best salespeople. A lot of companies aren’t willing or ready to accept that, but it’s completely correct. Who do you trust more; Your favorite brand, or your best friend?  If your best friend says to drive out a new product, will you listen? Well there ya go. I started noticing about 10 years ago some restaurants encouraging diners to take pictures of their meals and post to social media. Such a smart move, and the companies that accept and embrace their current customers’ ability to sell to new customers, are the ones that reap the rewards.

 

One of the hot topics in 2021 will be content creators monetizing their content. Substack has made waves by giving content creators a way to make money off their newsletters. Twitter recently purchased Revue to compete against Substack. eMarketer posted this chart from the What If Media Group that claims that the majority of US adults were willing to pay up to $10 a month for digital content. I would assume that amount would be more for an individual content creator that the adult is a fan of.

 

So that’s what caught my eye over the last week! Another post here tomorrow, and then on Thursday I will be sharing last week’s Backstage Pass newsletter issue with you to give you a taste of what you are missing if you aren’t a subscriber. Want to subscribe now? Click the image below: