Watching this video (below) explaining social updates I get the feeling that what they call “the ambient model” is identical to “the broadcasting model”, and that social updates (in the form being explained) is just a personal version of the one way mass communication model that we are all trying to innovate on behalf of brands.

Status updates explained from quub.com on Vimeo.

via Mike Arauz

It seems we’ve gone full circle here, from companies marketing to small then large markets. And now people marketing themselves and their social activities from close friends to large groups. Large enough to make the activities resembling dialogue so minimal compared to the size of the network that the conversation becomes a presentation.

As have been pointed out to me earlier when I have criticized the use of Twitter and other social tools for becoming “broadcast” utilities: That these tools are just tools, not uses – let people find their own purpose, don’t artificially limit them.

But it still is important to remember that just because we are people, not companies, our communication is not any less likely to become non-social. And if we as individuals can’t refrain from broadcasting, then how can we demand it from companies?

From the video:

“you hear only what you choose to hear. Everyone else’s broadcasts is just ambient noise until you decide to listen in”…

- Reminds me of advertising and the 3000 impressions we get exposed to every day, ambient, for sure.. :o)

I’m certain a lot of people get a lot of value out of their twittering and social updates, I for certain am one of them. But looking at how easy it is to turn our own best efforts into the same communications concepts we have tried to avoid for years.. It underlines the importance to keep looking for ideas and utilities for these social tools and be a conscious of our own use. Not just be as mesmerized as companies have been by the opportunity to “connect” with thousands of recipients and forgetting to explore the quality of this interaction.

Marketing used to follow simple rules, keeping us at a safe distance from our customers and only communicating to them through one way glass and one way channels.

But now, suddenly we need to start tearing down all the safety nets and expose our comfort zones. We need to get out of this protected marketing world, and back into the real world by building real relationships with our participants, not imaginary ones. This understandably terrifies some companies.

As Antti Öhrlin puts it in his introduction to the book Social Media Marketing:

“… we’ll do nearly anything to get your attention and make you buy our product or service. Anything but engage you in dialogue with us, as we would not know how to conduct millions of conversations simultaneously.”

This reservation against social media is also pointed out by Dirk Singer author of thisisherd.com, in his slideshow “Justifying social media to internal clients” on slideshare.net as he makes the argument why companies can’t afford not to participate.

But what is the role of companies in social media? A lot of the marketing twitteres I get in contact with seem to think it’s about feeding links onto the twitterverse, and the same can be said for several of the “brand”-groups I’ve found on Facebook. (of course these are the bad examples, there are lots of brilliant once as well.)

But this doesn’t create conversations, it just turns the social media tool into yet another channel for distributing information. Any “social Media” platform can be used as a broadcast medium, and this might be how we want to use it, but if we want to engage in conversations we need to start talking, not just sharing.

Henry Jenkins ads to the perspective:

Even highly successful media properties draw their viewership from an amalgamation of clustered communities. If you really want to be successful, you’ll recognize this and mine those communities to better understand how they operate and the culture that ties them together. via What Consumes Me.

And further extended by David Armano in an interview with Paula berg from Sothwest Airlines:

“the challenges all organizations face when wading into the waters of the social web. Since the medium requires actual people to be responsive and talk back, it doesn’t look like tradition marketing, PR or other forms of communications but virtually cuts across all these disciplines including customer service. But during Paula’s talk she reiterated that Southwest doesn’t try to control the conversations that inevitably arise around them—but citing recent incidents, they have learned that they can indeed lead them by engaging critics and telling their side of the story.”

Social media is about engaging in conversations, “the exchange of ideas”, leading or igniting them online. It’s NOT about feeding a tribe with links or messages.

Using twitter or other micro update formats to inform customers or send messages is brilliant, but it’s not engaging in social media, it’s just turns it into one more platform for informing customers.

What I’m trying to say is: Having a presence on social media is not social media, talking, discovering and building relationships are. It’s the nature of your activity that is important, not your choice of technology.

A lot of intense activity the last couple of weeks, with presentations and alterations has produced a new updated edition of the presentation The New Brand Landscape.

A lot of old stuff for old readers, but hopefully I’ve managed to add some fresh stuff. For new readers who might not have seen the first edition this hopefully will present some valuable and inspiring thoughts.

The New Brand Landscape 2 tries to explain some of the most important changes in digital media, it’s effects and the new opportunities for marketers.

Especially in hard financial times it is important to remind ourselves that marketing is NOT about selling stuff, it’s about giving the participant a reason to buy stuff:

Two things:

1. It’s not about selling, it’s about buying.
2. There has to be a reason to buy something, an incentive. The incentive is the brief.

So start using your most important tool: Ask why? According to Charles Tilly, in his book “why?” Toyota has it in it’s strategies to ask why? Five times to get to the core of things.

Just wanted to link to the presentation on Nike+ by Michael Tchao, General Manager of Nike Techlab, from Picinic 08′.

For anyone certain that the Nike+ case isn’t relevant to smaller, non-global brands. These 23 minutes will hopefully change your mind, as Michael discloses a lot of the thoughts and ideas that in the end led to the Nike+ phenomenon.

Michael Tchao at PICNIC08: Commercial Collaborations: Tools, Things and Toys from PICNICCrossmediaweek on Vimeo.

According to the panelists Matt Jones of Dopplr and Jonathan MacDonald of Ogilvy at PSFK’s Good Idea Salon London, mobile is all about a patchwork of situated software solving people’s personal and local desires.

Matt Jones spread the concept of Mobile being all about Place, and place is where culture meets location. The future mobile landscape will be a range of small ideas, small applications all working together to create a global mesh - as in contrast to many of today’s developments, where the focus is on solving massive global solutions.

Jonathan MacDonald added that we need to de-silo mobile and start talking of what it does, not what it is. We need to think about what people do in their lives, it’s about every single one of us.

I couldn’t agree more, and found Matt’s additions to the panel remarkably refreshing, putting a lot of stuff into context. Trying to build it into a more commercial articulation I would say that:

1. Mobile is about people, and they stuff they do, where, and how they do it. It’s not about technology, handsets or applications. As I have personally experienced, it is through being inspired by the customers and participants that the really groundbreaking revelations happen. Not through workshopping with clients or reading quantitative analysis.

2. People care about what’s closest to them, this also goes for the situations products and companies want to be a part of. Massive solutions, solving problems on a global scale, will not be as relevant or as interesting as tailored and local stuff.

The patchwork part is also very interesting but probably not from a conscious consumer point of view. The Patchwork implies that it is the combination of intelligence in and sensing by these local applications that the “grand machinery” will be produced. Not by a dumber, global, giant solution.

As a result one can say that Mobile will be about combining people and their ideas (culture) with their location. This doesn’t mean serving me coupons when walking past a Starbucks or sending me an SMS telling me to watch a TV program in the evening because some products will be featured. It’s about understanding my life, the activities I perform, which ones are relevant for your company. And discovering how you can ad value to this based on presence (being accessible when the situation occurs, not on the laptop four hours later), people (person + herd = culture) and place (location + time).

I’ve included this interview with Jonathan MacDonald, by Intruders.TV, for your viewing pleasure. :o)

As participants worlds fragment across a range of platforms, arenas, channels and screens, companies are met with an opportunity to build behind bigger ideas.

This means both the opportunity to move the marketing from messaging, to content to context. But also to explore the Brand Situation. Where the brand fits into the lives of their participants, and facilitates the situation relevant to the product, in order to create value and become invaluable.

This slideshow is a follow-up to my last one, Three Major Changes In Digital Marketing, and it tries to put these three changes into a bigger, relevant context.

I’ve added some voice-over to this one as well, even though it’s not earth shatteringly brilliant :o) It hopefully ads more value to the experience.

Find it on slideshare.net/helgetenno, or below.

Listening to Itay Talgam or watching Ben Zander it is remarkable how universal the thoughts of leadership in conducting are and how applicable these thoughts can be for brands connecting with their participants and ambassadors.

Itay Talgam was ending the wednesday session at Picnic08, and presented his insights into leadership, management and teamwork.

“In English it’s interesting, conducting. It’s all about, so it seems, connectivity. Being able to connect people in some ways, to become a conductor.” – Itay Talgam

I have previously written a small post on the next generation 1:1. On how we need to think about generating value through services and experiences, instead of pouring information participants don’t need into their intimate surroundings when they don’t want it.

This is because connecting directly to you participants is getting much richer than it used to be – we are moving from channels to arenas. We are moving from sending them information to thinking about experiences and services, and instead of playing on ONE direct channel just between the brand and the receiver take advantage of the dynamics of the crowd. Or “the ensemble” in Itay Talgams world, where he defines 1:1 as something limiting and negative to the creation of great music and great musicians.

“…the worst you can do is give clear direction, because it creates 1:1. You have to let the musicians play as an ensemble…”
- Itay Talgam

Itay ran through five different conductors and their way of conducting to prove and visualize his point. And went on to say that it’s not about authority, it’s about the meaning of music, and that leaders need to concentrate on the process, not the people.

Leonard Bernstein was pointed out as a conductor who balances the conductor role at it’s best in order to get the most out of his orchestra, let them develop and evolve, and create great music. Be inspired…

Stop trying to bludgeon your customers to death with unmotiated text and imagery.  The time for richer experiences on the net is finally here, and I strongly recommend evaluating the possibilities.

Bizreport has two articles talking about the future of online marketing:

In the first article  based on a report from Adotas the focus is the importance of 1:1 and viral campaign elements in future marketing strategies. Consumers are not as skeptical any longer to the medium (internet) and the time is ripe for the use of more effective ways of communicate. (read article on bizreport)

The second study, the Annual Online Customer Engagement Report, bases it’s finding on interviews with business professionals.  90 percent of which said engaging the customers was essential. 42 percent intended to use consumer generated contentish campaigns and 35 % considered starting a videocast. (read article on Bizreport)

Image by mju.tabor