Well I seem to be in the mood to pit competing thought processes against one another. The last post on Technology vs Story was on startups who build technology thats superior, instead of focusing on positioning their brand such that it becomes easy for a consumer to tell a story about them.
This one is on social media and how to build a brand which uses them. The internet has always been about interactivity and relevance. An ad doesn't get your attention because they slapped it bang in the middle of an interesting article or while you were watching a really funny video.
Correction, attention is certainly got, in fact the company has probably just incurred your wrath!!
Facebook, Myspace and the likes know that companies love the easy way out. So they sell highly targeted ad space to companies. Undoubtedly companies see value since they have never been able to target their communication as precisely as this with traditional media .
But, we are just extrapolating traditional advertising meant for non interactive medium in a medium which is all about interactivity and engagement.
This calls for new thinking and different content that engages you, provides value, makes you laugh or is just cool, and in turn begs to be forwarded using social media. The medium could be social networks or social bookmarks.
Content could be anything from articles, one liners, jokes, digs at competition, pictures, audio, video, applications or games.
Do you as a company want to buy eyeballs or earn them. One costs you money, the other makes you think creatively on how you would like to engage the consumer.
Surely brand engagement is what everyone dreams about. If you have done something on Social Media to benefit your company, startup or brand, do let us know
There have been enough and more imitations of the facebook and orkut models of social networking.The "Me too's" claim they are different because they are made for the Indian context.
An additional level of differentiation is the target group, a social network aimed at college students only is a simple example.
Reality is that everyone wants to ride the same "wave" and end up knocking each other off their surf boards.
Marketing Spends determine registrations. Awareness creation requires high spends and the revenue model is non existent for most players.
While everyone has been busy creating the same thing with a few different features, there has been one startup which probably has a bulk of the same features, but evolved a fantastic story.
The inspiration for this post is LifeBlob. I caught a part of their presentation at Barcamp Bangalore and it was amazing how a "Story" can change what would have otherwise been termed as yet another social networking site.
Lifeblob is very simply your entire life on a timeline. In their own words
"Just like you would write in your personal diary about your experiences, the events that happened in your life and stick pictures to make it memorable, we allow you to make posts on your timeline to capture those precious memories. What differentiates lifeblob is that your timeline has a social angle to it. When you make a post, you can include a list of people who are related to the post or who were participants if the post is about a real event. And in a flash, the post not only becomes a part of your timeline, but also becomes a part of the timelines of all the participants."
I just managed to subscribe to their service (which is restricted currently). The features are similar to other networks. You can blog, upload photographs / videos, add friends etc. The only new feature is you can attach a date to all of the above, and browse your life on a timeline. This suddenly changes the story.
The offering becomes different and the positioning is unique. The consumer has a story to tell about the startup rather than describe it in terms of cool features. Adoption by the masses is obviously much easier when the story is easily retold. (which is exactly what I am doing)
So if you are starting up and are looking for the next technological leap which will put you ahead of competition, remember that it probably doesn't matter as much as your story.
Let me know what your story is and if you want one, get in touch with me for a positioning analysis.
Buzz, Viral and Word of Mouth are terms which are sometimes used interchangeably.
Lets try and demystify these terms with a brief definition and a detailed presentation on Viral Marketing.
Buzz Marketing - A publicity gimmick which generates PR and gets the media biggies talking about you. Typically a weird and wacky stunt that serves as a great story for the media.
Viral Marketing - Online advertising campaigns that depend on peer to peer forwarding to spread like a virus
Word of Mouth - This is the Holy Grail. It is the sharing of opinion on a product or service typically after one has experienced it.
A detailed presentation has been attached. The viral examples are from an Indian Context. The rest of the content is universally applicable.
Just happened to be listening to "Kryptonite" by "3 Doors Down" and who knew that I could borrow the song for a post.
Superman was created on Krypton and can only be destroyed by a substance from the same planet - kryptonite.
Though that just sounds ironical, the question to ponder on is - Do marketers and companies have a kryptonite of their own? The answer seems simple - loyal consumers create a great company.
On the other hand, dissatisfied consumers now possess the power to bring these large organizations down. Blogs, review sites and the all too obvious networking phenomenon enable dissatisfied consumers to reach thousands of eager listeners.
Apple worked hard at creating an iconic status through the years. They launch innovative products with ease and then they screw it up.
Consumers love the company for the product, but they slip in something underhanded like a tie up with AT&T or a price drop in less than 2 months of the iphone launch. In fact following widespread crticism, Apple was forced to offer $100 credit for a purchase at an Apple store.
This results in the loyal fan, early adopter and advocate suddenly thinking twice before recommending the product. In fact it is suddenly cooler to say "I hate Apple" compared to "I love Apple"
That sounds very dangerous to me. Apple - The larger you become, the harder will be the backlash. Beware of your Kryptonite.
There has been enough said about Consumer Loyalty, Customer Lifetime Value and other such concepts. The one thing on everyone's mind is how to create consumer loyalty. This post will not give you a ten step process to address that issue.
What this post seeks to question is how many people within your organization are addicted to your product?
Would your employees use competition, if they were free to do so. Most companies have rules which forbid competition products from being used within the firms premises.
This kills the easiest feedback you will ever get. If you have to enforce rules on your employees to ensure loyalty, you might as well close shop and exit the business while you still have time and more importantly money.
So create products that your employees want. Earn the right to their loyalty, do not force it down their throats. If you achieve it, you have a marketer in every employee of your company who truly stands for and believes in the company.
Before I ask for your views, here is a quote from Steve Jobs in a recent interview on the key to Apple's success
"The team worked really hard. And the reason that they worked so hard is because we all wanted one. You know? I mean, the first few hundred customers were us"
Traditional Marketing represented as Marketing 1.0 was about hitting the consumer with 360 degree communication, so that the consumer finally succumbs to buying your brand.
Marketing 2.0 is about engaging the consumer in a conversation, hence building trust and authenticity in a low trust world. The conversation could be a query on a brand, honest feedback on a product or co creation of communication content. The opportunities are immense, but the effort required is enormous.
* Image derived and adapted from - Creating Digital Dialogs - A Social media Overview
There was a time when landline numbers had to be written in a diary or etched in memory. There were no fancy mobile phones with unlimited storage memory.
You had to remember the phone number of a person if you had to chat with him/her. The phone number was the only way you could be reached. If you had an easy number, people could remember it and hence reach you when they needed you. Hence everyone wanted a number which went 12345678.
The domain name is similar to the telephone number. Most of the type in traffic needs to remember the portal name in its actual form, if they want to visit the website. If you don't know it, you won't be able to reach the portal (if you don't know the number, you can't reach the person).
Custom Save Numbers
Now you can store the number of people you would like to stay in touch with, in a format and name you choose. His phone number could be complicated but it does not affect you.
I have names of companies stored in a way I can understand and access easily. The names are typically related to a benefit I associate with them. So I need a bill register for my startup cafe, I call the person "Bill register Andy" - His company is called Total Retail Solutions but I couldn't care less.
Custom Save Websites
Websites are increasingly being stored in a customized manner using social bookmarks and feed readers, as already described in Can you succeed when your domain name suxx!!. Going forward, is there a possibility that the importance of a domain name will be reduced to inducing the first few visits. Once the visitor is convinced of the websites utility, he might just choose to save it with a name he is comfortable with.
To give you an example, I visit a page with a long and convoluted name (many /'s and .net attached to it) everyday at work to get past Websense, and I don't think it would have made a huge difference to my visiting pattern if it were called http://www.circumventor.com.
The site is just too useful, and I will visit it irrespective of what its called. All I do is type the first 2 letters and this is one of the first few sites suggested by my browser navigation bar. I have also saved it as a bookmark on my browser and on delicious as, yup you guessed right "Circumventor".
Now I am sure it would make life easier if its domain name were easy too, but the lack of it does not affect my visiting pattern as I have already custom saved it.
Can there be more changes expected?
The future for browsers could well be to introduce a feature which allows you to custom save your website in the browser navigation bar. This will allow you to type "search" and not "google" to search the web. (extreme example - but you get the point)
We might even have an online browser (like virtual desktops are in place), so that you can easily access your frequently used websites, from any location, with a name that you choose to associate with them and a navigation tool bar that allows you to brand the websites and not depend on their domain name.
Hence what your domain name is called can progressively become irrelevant to the all powerful web user. He might just choose to brand you more than you can brand yourself.
Not one decent .com domain name discussed the pain you underwent in trying to find that ideal domain name. You probably used every creative technique known to mankind to get a decent name, and strangely are still dissatisfied with the final result.
The obvious question is how important is the 4-6 letters and 2-3 syllable domain name. It sure does make life easy, but assuming that a website providing information based content thrives on just the all important domain name would be naive.
Online Behavior is Changing
The web visitor is undergoing change in the way (s)he visits and revisits websites. Social bookmarking, rss feeds are just some of the trends, which suggest that the domain name is being typed less often than before. Moving forward this could reduce even more.
Netvibes and other Feed Readers
Take Netvibes for example, it adds to the options by allowing you to personalize the web. It is about having the web where you want it, the way you want it.
It lets individuals assemble all in one place their favorite websites, blogs, email accounts, social networks, search engines, instant messengers, photos, videos, podcasts, widgets, and everything else you enjoy on the Web.
Whats more, they allow you to rename feeds, which means you might just end up naming a blog/website in a manner that the creator did not intend.
"Content is King"
Sorry to indulge in this oft heard cliche, but this is true more than ever. The similarities between a telephone number and a domain name (yes! there are many) ensure that visitors return to your website only if it proves to be of value to them.
So spice up your content and use free online marketing tools to spread the message. More on this in another post.
I have a parallel blog on Innovative Marketing Techniques and it has the domain name http://gawdlevelmarketing.blogspot.com. Now that domain name sounds like the perfect recipe for failure, but considering the amount of time I have been able to spend on the blog, its doing decently for itself. In fact let me try and use this as a base to test this theory on content vs domain name.
Wish me the best of luck, I am gonna need it
According to this report, more than 47 million .com domain names have been booked already. Hence its highly probable that you are unable to find the ideal domain name for your online venture.
It calls for extreme creativity at your end to decide on a name that is indicative of your business and yet easy to remember.
In fact Seth Godin goes as far as to suggest that one should first find a domain name and then figure out which business you should be in. It seems like a great way to fail, but a radical thought nonetheless.
What if you can't find an acceptable domain name? Does it spell doom for your online business? Have you just failed before you even tried?
Do share some of the techniques you have used to decide your domain name. Till then, let me analyze if online trends suggest hope for the imperfect domain name
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