Corriere della Sera is the most read newspaper in Italy.
Two days ago it published an interview with the former Marketing Manager of Red Bull Italy, a woman, who was forced to resign just after her maternity leave.
The news was first published on page 38 then it gained a prominent position on the newspaper website and then became rather popular on Friendfeed, Facebook and Twitter. The news was the most read of the week on the newspaper website.
The question ask to Red Bull was, and is, very simple: is it true that this woman was forced to resign because of her maternity?
For a company which based most of its business on its image and disruptive perception this attitude so ‘800s is embarrassing to say the least.
48 hours later still no vital sign from Red Bull.
Any advice?
Forget about iPad, Kindle and all other devices. Once upon a time, newspapers had a publisher and a staff of journalists.
The publisher was in charge to define the newspaper structure, the editorial path, the news selection, etc. In one word the Menu.
Every morning, the paper was ready to be read, page after page, article after article and the reader was feed by the news following the menu issued by the publisher.
Then, thanks to new technology, readers eventually had the option to create their own menu, a la carte.
And so begun the nightmare for newspapers that became disposable while there were around the web thousands of news sources free of charge. More, the once readers became suppliers of news making journalists redundant.
Ok, we all know the story but apparently no one knows how to get out from here alive.
The late Haiti earthquake was a chance for the mass media to show that they have learnt how to deal with the stream of the crowd information.
But newspapers lost again the chance to play an active role in keeping the world informed about events.
At least in Italy, where we read in depth analysis from major commenter and amusing article on how Twitter is changing the way information travels. Instead of using their website and Twitter to keep us update about the earthquake, they were narrating how it works on paper. Rather stupid, I would say.
We all remember the horrible event of 9/11/2001: we were all stuck in front of TV screen passively witnessing at the events.
Today, we would have been in front of our computer desktop with several windows open: the TV live coverage, the Twitter stream, a chat with friends and relatives, YouTube.
This is a lesson for the information to come and for the media: being proactive, open to crowd information, multiplatform. At least if they do not want to become the next dinosaurs.
When you approach a client to sell your service, when you write a post in your blog, when you tell someone what is your job do you use a lot of bizarre words (i.e. technicalities)?
Do the abuse of these technicalities make yourself feel a real expert or they entitle you to feel a real expert?
Or do you try to make yourself understand and use common words?
As a good friend of mine write in her profile: My Grandma’ does not understand what is my job.
Maybe Winnie does look for a language a bit too plain but the naked truth is that this is the way people talk.
One of the huge mistake commonly done by corporations when narrating their brands, their products is to use uncommon words or their own definition.
If your customers name your product as cookie, there is no reason that you call it snack. This will make your website, your product almost invisible for the search engine, just to say.
That’s why to listen to your customers voices is so important. Because it helps in understanding how they live your brand, how they use your product, how they define it.
Don’t be afraid to speak with plain words, don’t be afraid to make others understand you at the first glance: they will be grateful to you and feel that you are as they are and not the usual corporation just pretending.
Results
This is where we have to admit the situation is still rather messy.
We all love to discuss of magnificent future, when the Web will have completely took over other media or devices put under skin will permit to interact with others, or up to you to define the hyperbole.
But we live today and our customers need results and if we want to gain respect for our industry we must deliver results, tangible results.
At the LeWeb’08 I had the feeling that too many speakers were talking about vision, which is good, but starting without a basement, which is bad.
I love to predict my own vision of the future business but I love to prepare a reasonable background which helps me in measuring results and understanding why something went right or wrong.
In my opinion, corporations should send their own people to attend to events such as LeWeb or Marketing 2.0 or Picnic (for more info about the late event, get in touch with Gianfranco Chicco) not for the sake of it but to prepare them to have a conversation with consultants in Social Web.
They should sent people not to discover classified information but to get literate about Social Web and be in the position to get the best out of it.
Then, the generation of results will be part of a collective effort and the metrics to measure them fair and realistic.
Does it matter how many fans has your Facebook page if they do not interact with you? Is that a fair metric? Not at all, interactions is the fair one and interaction means engagement.
Our industry is still in its infancy, but as we claim that the Web grew up faster than any other media before to get more respect (and higher share of money), so we must consider that it’s time to act as adult even in terms of responsibility for the committed budget.
That’s why when approaching a prospect, showing solid case history (better if proprietary….) to back up your concept is a wise move.
Localization
New services and new apps are delivering the concept of proximity as a powerful marketing tool. It’s clear that having the chance to segment by geography (region, city, etc.) deliver new opportunities to articulate commercial offer within a communication thread.
This is the strategy we are pursuing with a client/friend of mine, Italian Food Net, the first Web TV dedicated to Italian food and wine. Through their amazing numbers of viewers and the geographic distribution, we are working with product placement along with commercial offer about the product, declined by country, city. Our goal is to implement a system: you like the pan we use, click on it, get the info about the range of product and a special offer to buy it: as simple as it is. It’s a way to generate revenue without traditional advertising strategy, which I believe it cannot work in the Social Web world.
And Localization has an impact on the search word, too: the latest Tweetdeck release allow to search Tweet based on the localization. Again, it’s all in the quest for a tighter and closer relationship with customers: it helps CRM programs, it helps in making tailored made offer, it helps in discovering the difference about how your product is perceived in various regions and act appropriately.
Then, it is strictly related to the trend of mobile internet. Penetration of smartphones is driving this revolution and, if infrastructure (wifi, broadband, etc) is supporting it, this will be a huge market opportunity even for small and medium business. Local restaurant, shops can benefit from localization making themselves visible to everyone passing by. Any other suggestion?
Tomorrow: Results
Now that LeWeb has ended, it’s time to wrap up what we’ve got from this event.
The ’09 edition was far better than ’08: yes, the inside temperature was a factor but in my opinion the average level of speakers was higher as well as the topics.
It was a great pleasure to meet in person thought leaders such as Chris Brogan, Jeremiah Owyang, Steve Rubel and have the chance to chat with them.
And this is the introduction to the first of the three words I bring back home with me from Paris: humanity.
As underlined by Queen Rania in her speech, we can have all the most incredible technology, the most amazing tools but if we do not act as human beings, if we are not compassionate, the world is not going anywhere. We have to leave our desk and go through everyday life to get a real grip on the situation outside. Because we are working on the most ancient human attitude: creating empathy.
Her speech was rich of compassion and created an immediate empathy with the attendees. Indeed, for security reason, it was impossible to get close to her but we did not feel the distance at all.
(Just for the records, give a look at the tweets about FB head of developers: he read his speech as the truly corporate person, a speech written by PR and Legal, and it was truly disappointing, distant.)
The same empathy I felt talking with Chris and Jeremiah and Steve: recognized leaders available to talk with everybody, without giving lesson but sharing their knowledge and being thankful because you read and appreciate them and their work. Because the Web is made of passion and talk about your passion.
I strongly believe that if you are a real thought leader, you are not afraid but welcome people who wants to talk with you.
Too many times, in the local blogosphere and in several events, we meet people acting as stars, distant, unfriendly.
Well, maybe they should go back to school.
The main result of the Social Web and its tools, of all this advance technology, is a rebirth of humanity, of being in touch with someone, of being personal. That’s a great achievement.
Tomorrow: Localization
In two days time, I’ll be @LeWeb 2009 along with other some 2.000 people. Quite a huge number of attendees for a Web event in Europe.
But what I want to stress, today, is some events in the agenda.
- Roundtable about mobile apps: mobile is and will be more and more a major way to access to Internet. In these days in Paris, I replaced any maps and info service through some apps on my iPhone (the interactive subway chart, Google maps, just to say a couple of them) and when looking for reference in a shop, me and the guy working there used it to find the info in few seconds. Clearly the adoption of these devices is changing faster then we think the world around us.
- Roundtable about platform: if we want to see a consistent growth of the Social Web, platforms must be open and interconnected. We are all part of several social networks and the need to share info and thoughts across platforms in an easy and fast way is crucial.
- Jeremiah Owyang consideration about the speed of the Web: when real-time is not enough fast. This is going to be a very interesting presentation about the Intention Web. Check Jeremiah’s anticipation here on his blog.
And a lot of conversation about monetization, yes, monetization not Roi. This is crucial if we want to seriously create sustainable business model and not squeeze money out of the pockets of our clients.
My expectation are very high as very high was my disappointment for last year conference.
The agenda seems more consistent and focused: I’ll keep you posted about.
Strategic monitoring process is based on some steps that we believe are crucial for the success of the operation.
We try to design the iterative process, a process which requires a consistent cooperation of the client.
With all the major corporations realizing that the social web may have a beneficial impact on their reputation with their customers, we can see a list of newly born social network about almost every topic.
The result is that the web ecosystem is getting more and more crowded, think of a traffic jam on a motorways, and the navigation through a terabyte of new information deliver solid headache.
Too much choice equals no choice at all.
At the same time, I feel that there are many concerns about the quality of all the stuff uploaded every minute.
Trying the give a dimension, every minute, 20 hours of video are uploaded on YouTube and the quality level can’t be consistent.
It’s clear that to gain relevance and retain some top of mind in this plethora of contents require very strong assets:
1. Strategy – no operation into social web should be put in place without a clear strategic frame
2. Tactics – for each part of the strategy, actionable should be defined in advance
3. Plan B – no one can give you a 100% guarantee that the activity will be successful (if yes, be very careful) maybe not even 50% guarantee. So better be have a plan B ready for any situation that may arise
Even after those steps are fixed, clutter is and will be the worst enemy for any social web activity in the near future, at least until people has a job and a family
This is the document for the conversation with students of the Master in Communication at the Luiss University.
Enjoy and let me have your thoughts and comments.
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