What do 3D Movies have to do with Social Media and Marketing?
June 11, 2011 Leave a comment
Today I had the pleasure of taking my sons out to brunch and a movie. Since we usually go out as a whole family unit, it’s rare that I get to spend quality time with just the boys. We all had a good time and it was wonderful to spend time together. The movie was a lot of fun too, but it got me thinking: I’ve seen several movies in 3D in the past year and this is the first one I’d describe as “somewhat good.” The rest have been neat from a visual perspective, but not good movies in terms of plot or story.
It seems that whenever a new technology comes into the entertainment industry, the entertainment that follows is sub-par at best. For a short while at least, everything is just a way to showcase the new technology. Think about all of the terrible music that came out when the music industry discovered that funky voice modulation thing … “Do you beLIEVE in life after love?” Remember that? And the terrible movies and commercials that were developed around that slow motion effect they used in the Matrix? And now we’ve got this, admittedly very cool, new version of 3D and a TON of crap movies to go with it. Video games are the same way; the story lines in video games were so much better back when the graphics looked like they were drawn by a middle-school student.
The industry has to understand how to apply the technology before they know how to use it in a way that makes sense instead of using it in a way that just showcases the technology.
That’s the entertainment industry – but it applies to business and marketing as well …
How many companies have you seen with a seriously misguided presence on Facebook or Twitter? Or a website with technology crammed in for technology’s sake? Those sites are usually heavy on animation and Flash, take ages to load and are completely inaccessible on a mobile phone. What about good companies with really amateurish websites?
It seems like the business world largely still doesn’t understand social media and the internet. Or, if they do understand it, they don’t understand what their customers want from it. As a result, like the entertainment industry, they’re either misusing the technology completely or over-using it because it’s cool – and the product itself suffers for it. Still other companies are failing to jump on the bandwagon and establish any online/social-media presence whatsoever – a serious mistake in my opinion.
Businesses are simply failing to correctly market to the modern consumer.
I see opportunity for those who understand the medium and know how to use it. Even if you’re sitting in your living room in your boxers running your business every day – if you treat your customer right and use the technology correctly, you can kick a larger competitor’s ass.
Here are my three rules – as both a consumer and a marketer who relies heavily on social media:
1) Keep it simple and professional. As a consumer, animated websites are just annoying. As a marketer – keeping track of one website is tough enough – add in a twitter account (or five), a Facebook Fan Page and so on and it can get unmanageable – unless you know how to link all of them together (and that’s the subject of an upcoming post). So make it simple on both ends – simple to load, read and use for the consumer and simple to manage for you. Twitter and Facebook are easy to put together – but when it comes to your website, remember to make it look nice. If you had a store, you probably wouldn’t let the slightly dumb but well meaning neighbor kid handpaint the sign. That same principle applies to your website – either do the work right, or pay someone to do it for you.
2) Don’t be afraid of the ball. If you know your business – you shouldn’t be afraid to talk to your customer. Most of the time, you’re the expert and they’re seeking your expertise. If you had a physical store and they walked in, you’d rush over to help them. At the most basic level – that’s all social media is: you connecting with your customer. Sometimes that connection is on the professional level – and sometimes it’s just a way to add another dimension to your business persona – but it’s a connection.
3) Remember Exclusivity. For the longest time, I just didn’t get social-media. I couldn’t understand why my customers weren’t following my tweets or becoming fans on Facebook. Then it clicked – why would they? They have my company’s website, they use it regularly and the content is essentially the same. You have to do certain things that are only available to your fans and followers – even if it’s just publishing news about your latest sale or promotion via those mediums a day early. The benefit is what I call institutionalized word-of-mouth. It is much easier and faster to click the retweet or share button on a social media platform than it ever was to physically tell someone about something. Think about this: the average facebook user has 130 friends. So, when someone clicks Share on a post you make on your Fan page, that’s the equivalent of them having a sales presentation for 130 friends where they talk about your product. You NEED people to friend/fan/follow – so you NEED to make those options worthwhile to the customer.
I’m going to do a post in the near future on twitter basics and another on how to connect your website to your facebook and twitter accounts. Until then – I hope someone benefits from what I’ve written above.
James is Running 