Best Practices in Social Media

 

Gavin over at Servant of Chaos has kindly tagged me for my view on best practises in Social Media.

I'd really like to talk about some of the ways I think brands could be behaving and talking to customers in social media because there's a valuable contribution for business entitites to sometimes (not always) get involved with the emerging media topography, but it's mainly theoretical stuff at the moment as I've not persuaded any clients to put some money and action into where I think they should, or even recommend how to conduct themselves in this enviroment but that will come in due course and I think some new legal entities might need to be established for that because the existing corporate structure doesn't allow for making mistakes and yet humans do that all the time, so unless we want brands to sound artificial we're going to need some human contribution at some point.... As I say, more on that later.

In the mean time I really think it's important to share one golden rule that I learnt the hard way with mIRC (early Twitter I like to say)  back in the mid 90's and through to a couple of years ago. It's crucial in social media to be unfailingly polite and for most people this is the opposite to how they feel behind the security (and often the anonymity and distance) of a keyboard.

Those who know me in real life are fully aware the only power I respect is that which is earnt. I've no hesitation in telling anyone what I think if I believe they are being innapropriate and that's because nobody owns me - It's a two way street though for mutual respect. One has to take it to give it.

However in social media I take a different approach. Despite sometimes wanting to be more combative or plain speaking I try hard to be polite, courteous and silent under criticism in social media. I'm not like that in real life particuarly when I lose respect for people and it's interesting that even those who know me through my blog can sense that. My temper has got me into more trouble than I know where to begin, in the past but it's also saved my life too in violent encounters.

Aside from that, the usual authenticity, transparency and honesty are very important. As indeed they are in real life but the internet is a different media from real life and requires different rules. Capiche?

Anyway now that I've got that out the way I think you should all know that Gavin has made a really smart move and started a social media jobs website which is going to keep him comfy during his retirment years because he just got on with it. The widget isn't working for me on this post but you can go check it out over here.

Zimbabwe

It's the start of a long journey once more, but this is the first piece of good news to come out of Zimbabwe for more years than I can remember. Morgan Tsvangiri is an African hero. - what a guy. I hope the power sharing works better than it sounds as they invariably don't solve that much. Hats off to Thabo Mbeki too for brokering this first step.

Boguskysoft

 Lots of people that I have a healthy respect for in the advertising world have criticized the new work by Crispin Porter for Microsoft and I can't agree with them. I'm with Grant and Adrian on this one because from what I've seen so far the work achieves two important goals.

 Firstly I like it. Not in a rapturous Gorilla or Monkey kind of way but it's likable and that's not an easy thing to achieve. I've rarely watched Seinfeld even though it's likable and funny content, I'm not a cheerleader for Bill Gates (I think luck was an important factor in his success) and generally I don't find using stars to be a credible route for marketing communications. BBDO starfuckers I think George calls this genre.

 However it's not important what I feel. It's amusing and that is a matter of subjectivity. I'm sure you can make you're own mind up on that.

 More importantly there are a lot of strategic communication problems that are in my eyes being solved by the work I've seen so far. I also think it's kind of interesting that it's quintessentially American advertising and yet there's a Windows Video Channel on Youtube it is universally distributed. A potent communications model for some American centric global brands if you stop to think about it (McDonalds? Nike?). Something along the lines of act local, think global (A word play on an oxymoron I've long disliked). But anyway, Microsoft using a Google owned distribution channel and not their own? Even Soapbox points towards the Youtube content. That says a lot to me after a chat with Geert in LA a couple of months ago where it was pointed out to me that use of non MS software is/was often frowned upon.

 I think it's only the commercially naive who could believe that communications can solve the Microsoft problem. The job of advertising here is to ameliorate the rising dissatisfaction with the brand and possibly communicate that Microsoft is determined to get closer to its customers through more down to earth and likable dialogue; for surely even monologue commercials such as this provoke a discourse that was seldom seen in the fifities when advertising took hold. Look, even I'm doing it. It's the internet you see!

 Back to the problem. What is Microsofts problem? Why is one of the most succesful companies on the planet in trouble. Simply put the operating system is unwieldy. If you pay a army of coders to improve stuff, they will invariably make additional stuff that isn't needed. It's called feature creep and is a recurring problem with technology associated designers. Reliability is also an issue when it comes to discussions of unwieldiness. The bigger the system the more opportunities there are for the system to break down and that is often the case with Microsoft. That's their core problem but the immediate emotional problem is they are increasingly unliked.

 I've recently made the transition from Microsoft to Apple and I couldn't be more delighted with the results but it doesn't mean that I'm blind to the advantages of the de facto operating system of the world. Without Microsoft I'm not even sure Apple would be as good as they are. Who knows? Nobody can prove stuff like that anyway. It's all theoretical. But in any case maybe you can take a look at the first piece of content I saw, liked and decided to write about. It's not revolutionary, but then neither is Microsoft anymore.

 Just off the top of my head I think shopping in the budget shoe store is strategically right for Microsoft. The future for the brand is one of lower entry and upgrade cost for the average user. Apple is still one of the most profitable brands on the planet because it charges a lot more. A sitcom genre is just right for mainstream America as primary customer segment (with Mexican family making a first sensible guest appearance - California is majority Latino in 10 or so years) but also for the wider world. A sitcom is quintessentially American. It's likeable, funny, comforting and about as far removed from excessive oil, corporate greed, dirty politics and war as one could wish to hope for. In short it's the best of America, and I don't even watch them so this is not a fanboy's perspective.

Seinfeld is an excellent pick.


 Microsoft is simply never ever going to be hip and so this is a mainstream ad - Any hint of hipness and the same critics calling for Crispin's blood would be accusing the brand of unreal aspirations or tonality fumbles . Think General Motors over Toyota Prius and a profile of the customer is conjured up pretty quickly. This is a comfortable way to get to know Bill Gates, a man rarely associated with humour and love him or loathe him, he comes across as likeable, keen to be liked and not without a sense of humour. I'll leave you with the lastest segment that I've only seen while writing this article and frankly I think it's close to brilliant in that way that American sitcom writers are the best in the world at. I've laughed out loud while eating in an upscale restaurant in Beijing with my fellow late afternoon diners enjoying my mirth and while I'm not prepared to go back to Windows (Indeed my next move is likely to be Linux) I'm more inclined to cut Bill Gates some slack the next time I'm sat in front of a Microsoft product running on a computer (highly likely). And maybe that's the point, maybe it's about stopping the hate and giving one of the most remarkable people (faults and all) in the history of commerce and technology some room to manouevre. I know I will. What do you think? Do you really still hate Microsoft more after watching this?