When people call me a “Social Media Consultant”, it makes me cringe. Rather than focus on the medium, I’ve always preferred to focus on the audience, how a product benefits that audience, and then finding what mediums will get that message to that audience. If it’s on social networks, then that’s the medium to pursue.

Some people thought this campaign was silly. Personally, I found it amusing, but that’s not what struck me the most about it. The Old Spice Man was both on TV and in viral videos. The company obviously spent calculated efforts using both new and old media. This gives me hope.

I’ve often felt that new media fanatics write off old media as dead. I don’t know. As a business owner, if someone offered me a free TV commercial during “Dancing with the Stars”, I’d take it. The sheer numbers alone would drive traffic and hopefully my website could field people who might not be worth my time.

People involved in old media describe new media as a “fad”. They see it as a lesser medium, not worthy of the time and money often reserved for old media. They don’t see that it’s leaner but more segmented, and just requires more of a sniper vs. cannon approach.

The Old Spice campaign used both the cannon and the sniper. It drove mass awareness by using TV commercials and then engaged those masses with a clever YouTube and Twitter campaign.

I must send props to the people at Old Spice and their agency Wieden + Kennedy for recognizing that these mediums are not mutually exclusive and can actually work best when used together, depending on the scope of your product and the demographic you are pursuing. I’ve worked in places that considered old media dead already and other places that felt new media was a novelty you set up just to say you have it. I’ve worked in places where the new media people seemed to have to compete with the old media people. At the end of the day, all people care about is that you are delivering a message that is useful in some way to them. The medium is irrelevant.

Essentially, you get a link and the more times people click on the link, the bigger your photo shows up in their influence graph. Now, the graph looks pretty cool, but let’s break down this concept for the end user (the clicker):

1.) I click link.
2.) I make your picture bigger for other Fast Company readers to see.

As someone who loves using technology to make marketing campaigns more interesting, I am not quite sure what the end goal is here. Do people really think true influencers will actually value having their photo show up bigger on Fast Company? Is the Dalai Lama keen on showing you that he has more clout than you? Can you see Alan Greenspan hovering over his computer, furiously spreading his link around to ensure that Bill Clinton does not beat him on the influence graph?

Influence is something we earn by gaining expertise and by executing on it. It’s also something we can waste if we get too carried away in our own egos. I don’t question that influential people could certainly “win” this contest, I am just not quite sure they would actually care to. It is self-promotion for self-promotion’s sake and reminds me of those weird programs where at-risk kids go door to door and practice their speaking skills for money. Couldn’t they just spend that time selling something? Raising money for charity? Anything?

So I have to agree with Amber Naslund’s assessment. The graph is a cool idea, but I wish Fast Company appealed to my desire to be helpful rather than my desire to be known.

*pic from http://www.rohitbhargava.com

Often we focus on coming up with the best product or the most creative story. When it comes to the audience, the answer often becomes “as many people as possible”.

Let’s think of the logic of that. You are a person who obviously hears stories from time to time. How frequently do you hear a story that you like, your neighbor likes, your mom and dad like, and your kids like? How frequently do you watch conservative or liberal TV and go “Man, those people are crazy?” How frequently do you discover lame movies or music on iTunes or real life that someone else is totally gaga for?

People are much more different than businesses often consider. This is why the “as many as possible” campaign fails.

Theoretically, you should consider the end user from day one when you actually build a product. By the time you get to actually marketing it or getting PR, the “Who and Why” question becomes easy. Accept the constraints of having an audience to woo and you’ll find the numbers will soon follow.

I have been blessed in career to have sold to some really great customers. I don’t look at sales as something “slimy”. There is nothing more gratifying than actually meeting a need that a customer has had for a long time.

In an ideal world, a great product sells itself. This mentality will hurt you though. Why? Because your competitor may have a product that isn’t good, but has an aggressive sales staff that closes every deal it gets its hands on. For those of you who would like to learn a process to compete against people like these, I’ve broken down my sales process for you:

1.) Break the ice first. I’ve found breaking the ice varies from region to region. Southern women tend to take the longest, while those in the Bay Area and Northeast want to get straight to the point. If you launch too quickly into your pitch, your intentions to sell are too obvious and you may be wasting everyone’s time anyway.

2.) Ask questions. This is the most underrated aspect of selling. Ask about problems and pain points that may pertain to your product. Ask budget and time frame. Ask if they are looking at competitors and why. The more information you get, the more specialized you can be when actually solving a problem (which theoretically your product should do).

3.) Create a solution. Depending on what you sell, this could or could not be complicated. A tip? When you get to this step, you should be able to say, “Because you said you wanted something that __________, I’m recommending ________.” Or you could use “Product X solves (insert customer problem here) by doing ____________. Show how your product solves problems versus merely pushing a solution on someone.

4.) Clarify that your solution actually does indeed solve a problem. Does your customer still have concerns at this point? Are they satisfied with your solution? If not, return to step #2.

5.) Ask for the business. Remember that time frame is key for this. If your customer told you they aren’t looking to buy for a few weeks, you can “always be closing” by asking for a follow up appointment instead of a sale.

I hope this helps. I get really bummed when I see great products floundering because “they aren’t ready yet” or because “they don’t have the time to sell”.

If you have any questions, just ask. I’m happy to help.

When a company first starts using social media, it’s like watching someone’s dad play with his first video camera. They seem to share everything in an attempt to “engage” just to show some results. That’s not a judgment, mind you. Everyone has to start somewhere and it’s just counterproductive to be mean about it.

The most powerful thing you can use social media for is listening. “Engaging” your audience without fully understanding who they are and how they relate to you is not engaging at all–it is as irritating as the ad that won’t stop blinking on the blog you are reading.

It is easier than you think to make people to want and need your product. Use tools like Tweetdeck, Google Alerts, RSS, Radian6, Community Insights or ScoutLabs and listen. Track terms in your industry, follow the players who are thought leaders in your space. Understand the current issues occurring in your industry. Create a product that goes above and beyond to solve these issues while not creating lots of other issues. Then show people your product. You can use an ad, a social media guru, whatever. The medium isn’t nearly as important as the message, which is “We are solving these issues you have.”

Listening and then acting upon what people need is far more powerful than any “engaging” you can do. I predict the companies that do it best will win out in 2010.

That’s why I genuinely don’t focus on numbers until numbers are needed. I focus on what the late and great Elvis would say, “Taking Care of Business.”

The question we as marketers should not always be “What can I do to get more customers or traffic?” This is an instant gratification response. It feels great to log into Analytics and see that spike, but it isn’t necessarily going to last. The question should be “What messaging should we put across to make our company more sustainable and therefore profitable in the future?”

Think about it: if I put out one message that gets me 500 customers, great. That’s 500 customers I didn’t have before. BUT, if I put out a message that gets me the passionate lead architect or designer I needed to make my product great, that person has the potential of getting me thousands if not millions of customers with a fraction of the work. My message in a small, obscure community could get me one big investor who helps save my company. Who cares if only five people saw one particular message?

Each marketing message shouldn’t be about bringing in masses. It can be used to bring in employees, investors, partners, company cheerleaders who essentially do the selling for you, or press fanboys. You’re just communicating. As in chess, a big bold move too soon can make you vulnerable to attack from your enemy. Setting up the pieces first means you are in a better position to let numbers drive themselves.

Call a BMW 750 a Nazi sled–I don’t care. From the moment a concept for a car is created to the moment you drive it off the lot, each employee cares that you love your car. You can claim that’s what they have to do because they cost so much, but I know for a fact that there really isn’t a lot of profit margin in BMWS. They just see it as their means for being a sustainable company.

BMW is publicly traded, but is primarily owned by one family. An American corporation might say, “Oh, we can cut costs here in the suspension and the leather. We can fire this guy, or we can have a recall just so we can find other problems with the cars we can charge them to fix (which, sadly enough, happens). That means one extra point of margin in each car, which earns us X more dollars a year.”

I don’t care if Scott Monty is on Twitter. It’s hard for me to have a love affair with American car companies based of empirical knowledge. I’ve driven a Mustang GT and watched the back end squirrel about when I wasn’t even flooring it because Ford can’t build a suspension that transfers power to the ground. My sister’s Chrysler minivan needed a transmission after 38,000 miles. I saw the paint flake off a Suburban’s inner console when it only had 200 miles on it. I just can’t recommend American cars because I’ve worked at a dealership and have seen them come in on trade and am never impressed. They flood the market with fleet sales too, which means your American car is worth less because it is less rare.

Here’s the saddest part: I want to be able to recommend American cars. I want Ford to beat Ferrari at Le Mans like they did back in the 60′s. Engineering wise, they really don’t compete with their Japanese and German counterparts. Service-wise, I’ve heard of some really shady practices at American dealerships.

So I don’t care if you have a company evangelist. I care that you have customer evangelists. Just take care of us. We’ll take care of the evangelism for you.

It’s very frustrating to know a company’s website or web presence doesn’t convey benefits to customers. Anyone can write, but saying you are a competent copywriter without practice or training is like thinking you can be in the NBA because you can dribble a basketball and you are standing on a court. If your competitor has the equivalent of Kobe Bryant driving up the lane with copy that actually sells, are you going to be able to hack it?

Copyblogger was one of the first blogs I read. I found the author Brian Clark’s writing to be both entertaining and informative. If you have or want any sort of web presence at all, I’d recommend reading his free e-book Authority Rules. It’s a quick read but very worthwhile.

As a marketer, I LOVE the Oprah. Oprah is a landmark. She is the only person who can legitimately be afraid of beef and then gets sued for it. Oprah’s endorsement has sparked careers (see Jill Scott and Barack Obama), sparked new martini crazes, and books like The Secret. Oprah’s blessing on your brand is basically money in the bank, and well, I think she knows that.

WHY is Oprah’s endorsement so powerful? Because it’s genuine. When Oprah recommends her favorite things, they actually are her favorite things at that time. People don’t have to figure out if she has ulterior motives or not and they know she doesn’t need the money. She’s also not doing it as a favor to someone else.

So all this talk of “Free!” being the new economy. I admit, free can and does work. I’m not telling you to ignore Chris Anderson’s book because I haven’t read it although I’m a bit afraid of the hype (that goes out to Seth Godin). The hardest part of getting customers is acquisition and if you reduce the barrier it takes for customers to get to you, they are more likely to use you. But “Free!” is not and will not be a savior. If you give me something for free and it sucks, I will not only not use it again, I will tell my friends not to use it either. Or I’ll tell them, “Hey, it’s not bad for being free, but I wouldn’t pay for it”. You can fix it to be better, but you’ve already given me the first impression that you aren’t the best out there. Why would I get burned again by even spending the time to listen to your “Hey, we fixed it” pitch? My time is my money and you’ve already burned me once.

So back to what I deem “the Oprah Effect”. Oprah is genuine and she is powerful. Her viewers know that she is picky and intelligent, so she has basically sorted through the crap (free or not) to show them ONLY things that are good. So sight unseen, free or not, they will buy what she recommends to them in droves. If you are a competitor to this product, people won’t care if your product is free if it isn’t good.

A truly genuine endorsement from an intelligent and powerful person will trump something that is merely free every time. The only way to get an endorsement is to create something people like and then ask them to spread the word. If you are launching something for free that sucks, admit in your marketing that you are looking for feedback. Let people shape your brand to make it not suck. Grandfather those people in at free for helping you out, and start charging for the product.

THEN get on Oprah. Or if you can’t get on Oprah, get on the equivalent of your Oprah in your specialty field. Or make customers feel like Oprah for recommending you. That’s for you to decide.

As a marketer, you are opening your audience to that other product and you are opening yourself up to their clients. This concept is often called “reciprocal marketing“. It costs you a developer’s time, the time and money it takes to send a newsletter, as well as a possible press release.

Why Does This Totally Rock for the Customer?
Having an API means you can keep your software’s interface clean and easy to use. It can focus on what it is supposed to do well. Then, you can integrate with products that make up for what you lack. The more you integrate with, the more flexible solution you can offer your customer.

A big pet peeve of mine in software is called “feature creep”, which is indeed as frightening as it sounds. Rather than integrating with other products, a software company will add on and add on until it is damned near impossible to figure out. It’s expensive and will leave your customer feeling stupid and frustrated because they can’t make your software do what it supposed to do. Your customer isn’t necessarily stupid–your software architect might just be a big jerk for not taking the user experience into account.

To me, software developers that build rather than integrate are like those dads who refuse to hire people to work on their houses. They are crappy at plumbing and crappy at landscaping and crappy electricians, but dammit! They did it themselves. So what if house visitors have to poke the doorbell six times and yell “rosebud” just to tell you they are at the door?

If you are in software marketing or business development, get familiar with products your customers could use and then consider an integration. It’s a lot cheaper than other forms of marketing and can offer tremendous value to customers.