Blending personal with marketing is something I have done for years, some would say it’s a character flaw as I’m constantly looking at how marketing impacts and influences my life, but I can’t help it, it’s in my blood I guess. I recently had twin girls, Isabelle & Olivia, and although I had planned extensively for them, cribs, stroller, dresser, rockers, play yard, etc. etc. it wasn’t until recently that I started getting into buying them clothes or decorating their room (note “room” not “nursery” - a slight distinction, but an important one). When I was thinking about how to dress them, what colours to use, theme of room, etc. I kept vacillating and realized that I had no idea who they were or what they might like as individuals. They aren’t carbon copies, they are distinct and unique human beings - how could I design something for them or try and force-fit a ’style’ onto them without having met them? What if I was wrong? (and it’s not cheap being wrong…)

Now some may say I over-analysed and what’s wrong with picking out a nursery theme for them in advance and letting them deal with it? You don’t get choices when you are a baby. Well… because 4-months in I see their distinct personalities coming out and they are quite different. Olivia lights up when she sees girly dresses and Isabelle goes nuts for the colour red for example. I’m getting to know them now & have a good sense of who they are and how I can incorporate their differing personalities into their wardrobe, room, and toys. 

I started from a simple premise: they needed to feel comfortable and secure. Everything else is just window dressing. So I knew I wanted them to feel at peace in their room instead of being overwhelmed with bright colours, they needed a place to sleep & a place to put their clothes, but that was as far as I got. We knew we needed to paint regardless of the choice, it was a very dark colour initially, and Kevin suggested (and painted) two colours - sky blue & light yellow sunshine for trim. Very uplifting and calming colours and a warm space for them to spend time in. That worked. 

So that’s where we ended up - a painted room we wanted to spend time in. Pretty good starting point - in marketing terms, I was in the door & willing to spend some time browsing around. The foundation was set experientially. Of course it’s not *my* room, it’s theirs so all I did was added two dark wood 3-in-1 cribs that could be painted if the girls wanted to individualize their beds down the road, an antique white dresser that can also be painted if they want, a neutral rug, a funky lamp, and some wall stickers. That was it. No other “stuff”. No wall art, no “princess” or “jungle” pre-packaged theme, no elaborate crib bedding sets, just a relatively plain room that felt good for wee ones. Now that I see who they are I’m starting to refine, change, or add to their space to make it their own.

Why did I feel like I needed to rush and get all this done & design the perfect ‘experience’ for them without any context outside of what *I* (Brand “Mommy”) thought they’d like? Of course I built the foundation, but I left the door open (and mandatory) for iterations, changes, and growth. I let them show me who they were. I design for them, not for me. I facilitate and enable their personalities & mediate the differences, not dictate my taste. 

I’m designing their “user” experience in the world — and funny enough, the same principles about getting to know them apply if you are a brand too.

[photo credit: shashchatter via Flickr]

This June 8 & 9th the Search Engine Strategies conference will return to Toronto. I had the pleasure of speaking at the event in 2007 and as the landscape continues to evolve, this year looks to have some great sessions on “what’s next” in search, along with the tried and true sessions about SEO & SEM. This year I’m covering SES right here on (3i). I hope to impart some of the goodness I’ll be learning over the two-days and if you have any particular sessions you’d like me to recap, let me know in the comments!

In addition to the keynote by the excellent Miss Rogue, Tara Hunt, author of The Whuffie Factor, the first day has some fantastic sessions, including:

• Is PageRank Broken? The Future of Search
• Universal and Blended Search: Comprehensive Visibility Challenges
• Optimizing for Video Search: Virgin Territory?
• SEO Then & Now: What’s the Same? What’s New? [I'll be featuring an interview with one of the panelists, Anne Kennedy, in the coming weeks on (3i). ]

Day 2 again features some terrific sessions in addition to the keynote by Emanuel Rosen, author of The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited:

• Follow the Carrot: Cool Mobile Apps
• Information Architecture, Site Performance Tuning and SEO
• Social Media: Do Big Companies Get It?
• How to Speak Geek: Working Collaboratively With Your IT Department to Get Things Done

If you are at the conference make sure to find me to say hi, or if you aren’t attending, follow along here and leave me a comment with your perspective on the hot issues being discussed!

It feels like yesterday at times when the Cluetrain Manifesto was published, but in reality it’s been 10 years since the seminal, and controversial, book was published. To mark the anniversary, Keith McArthur began the “Cluetrain Plus 10” project which has 95 bloggers covering one of the 95 Theses that make up the book.

Cluetrain, for me, helped articulate the changing landscape of customer/ company interactions as the Internet began to come of age, along with other more brand/ e-comm focused books of the time. Although I see some parts as a tad one-sided and biased in terms of forcing a point, versus the natural evolution (and constraints) of business, the manifesto I’ve chosen to write about - Companies attempting to “position” themselves need to take a position. Optimally, it should relate to something their market actually cares about – rings truer than ever at this stage of the game in my view.

When companies decide to exist and build a product, one of the most natural and necessary things, for company wide alignment, is to develop a market position. All too often the way they go about it is internally, or shareholder, focused vs. allowing the focus to rest on their customer and their needs, insight, and focus.

Unfortunately it’s not surprising to sometimes find a force-fit approach lacking the fundamental questions all sustainable, successful companies in today’s market answer:

Why would anyone care?

What do they care about on a personal/ group level vs. as a “market”

Who are you really – are you part of the solution, or part of a problem?

What you do and who you are matter, especially as the world becomes increasingly wired and we become billions of loose threads interconnected 24/7. The absence of the connection - to something tangible we can relate to, be interested in, give a second thought to, and know there isn’t a hidden agenda, outside of making fair profits – means the potential loss of: trust; perceived value; a sale; a future sale; a referral; knowledge; social capital.

People still buy from companies they don’t really “connect” with (be it at a product, customer service, or emotional-brand level), but they do so grudgingly, and, on the whole, are open to other, more fulfilling, options. A company who is committed to a goal that makes sense to them as people, whatever that goal may be, in context, wins.

If you wanted to reach the people who may be interested in your product, would you want to be a company people understand & respect, or a company that’s a last resort?

Wouldn’t it be great to have your customers, and potential customers, on your side & providing you with actionable feedback, or would you prefer to be under siege & on the defensive?

The Internet offers one platform to become aware, and active, with the people who may benefit from what you have to offer them. But a strong position, in whatever regard, transcends the medium, and becomes part of the overall experience. The feedback loop in action. For this to truly work, the position has to be a real thing, not a product of a myopic “communications” view driven by expediency, lack of imagination, interest or insight, into the very “demographic” you are attempting to position for. Sometimes, when you dig deep enough, what you find will surprise, delight, and perhaps scare you. Maybe even open up a whole new opportunity you wouldn’t have considered if the “market” didn’t provide it to those who interacted with and listened to them.

How is that not the way to go in the long-term?

[photo credit: RichardLowkes via Flickr]

Social media is picking up steam in both the traditional media & in corporate boardrooms day by day. Everyone wants in on the action and wants to figure out how to use social technologies to their brands benefit. With this type of attention brings thoughts akin to “get rich quick” or mistaking a sound, over-arching, communications strategy that integrates social media, with executing social media tactics. Tactics and tools employed are not a strategy and won’t work just because someone tells you that you have to “get on Twitter”. If a consultant or agency pushes a particular tactic your way, ask them to explain why, outside of “it’s hot right now”.

When thinking of social tools there is no set formula or one-size fits all approach. What you get out of integrating these tools is dependant on the strategy you set at the outset. Twitter won’t work for every company, nor will having a blog. What will fit is what is determined based on the same principles any communications strategy or marketing plan is: knowing your product, your audience, your strengths and your weakness. Research is a must – not only what the current sentiment surrounding your brand is, but research into the established norms of the types of tools that may be right for you to use. Communities have a tricky habit of having their own way of doing things and it helps to set expectations up front before deciding, for example, that micro-blogging is the right approach to take. Not every brand can (or needs to) crowd source and not every company can afford to have constant interactions on a micro-level, in fact, sometimes the change that is most beneficial will have little to do with “getting the message out” and more to do with internalizing your customer.  

Knowing your limitations and setting realistic goals up front will help determine how social media will fit within your organization and to do that you have to understand your internal, as well as the external landscape.

Social media is not a cure all for what ails you, and not all of your customers want, or need, to have the same type of relationship with you. Blending how you interact, how you internalize, and what you can offer of value with how your marketing/ corporate message is/ can be disseminated is the path to take when planning. Don’t fall into the trap of taking a short-cut, integrate at the outset.

[photo credit: Vita Arina via Flickr]

This is a bit of a rant about something that is occuring all too frequently these days on my favourite social tool - Twitter. Yesterday an article in the Globe & Mail by Margaret Wente appeared that questioned, in her particular snarky tone of voice, the value of Twitter. You would have thought she questioned the cuteness of puppies by the vehement reaction by the Canadian Twitterverse. Update after update sought to match her snide tone and “set her straight”. It was an over-the-top reaction to a piece that in the grand scheme of things was just one persons opinion based on the plethora of mainstream media attention Twitter has been getting recently as the “next Internet phenom!!”. 

We really need to stop being so defensive. It’s a tool some of us use. It’s not for everyone after all and none of us own stocks.

Sure, it would have been nice if Wente had spent more time getting to know the tool before writing a piece about it, but let’s not forget that not every one has hours to spend figuring out the ins and outs of what is a highly charged, established community who are quite vocal when they deem you aren’t using it right. Not every one wants to either. If we cheer when Twitter makes the Wall Street Journal or The Star, are we not asking the general public to join based on what they’re reading? As with anything in life (and marketers should really know this already) people go through phases before deciding to buy (or join). Sure, we’d *like* them to take a test drive, but sometimes we have to rely on the dry specs and pretty pictures to even get on their consideration list. So Wente (who most likely has been hearing about the wonders of new media and Twitter from her colleague Mathew Ingram for months now) checked out the public stream and wasn’t impressed. Not surprising, there’s a lot of updates there about what people are having for lunch, and unless you have a group of people for whom you care about what they’re having for lunch, it really would seem silly for the lay person if we’re being honest. Of course that isn’t the *only* thing happening on Twitter, and not the reason I use it (I’ve explained before here and in an interview on CityNews recently why I use Twitter), but it takes a lot of time and energy to build that network… and maybe that isn’t time some people want to invest, or know they have to. Twitter works when it’s a conversation vs a monologue and perhaps, just perhaps, someone may have other channels they use when they want to converse. 

Let’s also add some perspective to the time investment using Twitter properly is - some people may not be able to bill clients for the hours upon hours they spend using the tool each day either, because they aren’t in marketing communications, PR, or customer service (or an entrepreneur, artist, etc.). Let’s keep that in mind when we jump all over people for not “getting” the tool.

I’m not a fan of Wente’s writing (or opinions) for the most part, but I recognize frustration with over-hype when I read it, and that’s what her piece felt like to me. I also wonder why no one called out the most glaring thing in regards to her article — she asked @biz (the guy who OWNS Twitter) for a chance to interview him the day before the piece ran. Did he care enough to defend it, or even respond? Perhaps her view of Twitter may have been different if the guy with the vested interest in getting positive coverage of his business by Canada’s largest daily paper had gotten back to her.

Twitter is for some, not for others, and it would be productive in my view to allow that there is more than one way to use the tool, or not. 

Also, that everyone is entitled to form an opinion based on what they read/ see. It’s up to the community to convince people the tool is right for them if we are going to get so defensive when they don’t “get it” and vocalize that, question it, or poke fun at it.

[photo credit: merwing via Flickr]