Category: Social Media

  • Differentiate or die?

    I’m close to finishing “A Clash of Kings” – Book 2 of George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire”. Pages 879-913 has lists of houses and characters. The lists will continue to expand in the next book, I’m reasonably sure, and I will probably have to spend Rs.200+ and buy this app. Many fantasy superstars have existed before GoT – Potter, LOTR, but this is the first time I have been immersed in one. Generally speaking, works of fiction are unique, and yet, such is the abundance and the related scarcity of time that there are choices to be made. So why GoT? Mostly courtesy the huge buzz the TV series generated on my various timelines. Let me now shift the story to brands, where abundance and time scarcity takes an even worse toll.

    The title of this post comes from an article in FT. Without getting into the author’s bias/(vested) interest, I think he has a point when he says that the increasing focus on efficiency is stifling innovation and on the other side making consumers ‘number and dumber’.  On the business side, why bother with niche audiences when access to large sets of consumers through databases and mass media (now social media too) is much easier. On the consumer side, larger tribes are easier to find in the search for belonging. Of course these are generalisations, and I’ll be the first to admit that there are exceptions.

    In the case of mass brands solving mass needs/wants, functional benefits are increasingly becoming a commodity. In an earlier age of information scarcity and relatively unfragmented media, differentiation could be as simple as just being visible. The story is different now, though the recent turn of social towards media would indicate that only the channels have changed. But IMO, there is a high chance that this trend will prove to be shorter than the reign of mass media, and true differentiation will evolve from a user perspective after everything from product to design to communication to experience has become a commodity. Arguable. 🙂

    Increasingly, brands are using social media to target better, and that’s how platforms are selling their users too. I wonder if/how many brands at this stage are attempting to make their stories personal to the user. Different social platforms offer different contexts – in the way they are designed, in how users consume them, in terms of the need they satisfy, in terms of devices they are best suited for etc. Think of how Facebook, LinkedIn, 4sq, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Path and the other services you use fit into your lives. Yet how many brands are trying to fit themselves into these contexts? Yes, we’re still in the early days of Big Data, but how much of investments are brands making in this as opposed to say, better FB targeting? What do you think – is it a scalable form of differentiation? Is it because of the pull towards familiar forms and templates of communication (read targeted mass advertising) that brands are loathe to walk this long path?

    until next time, differentiation by integration?

    Bonus Read: The Future of Storytelling

  • Social grows up to be media

    On the first page of BG Verghese’ “First Draft”, he talks of The Times front page on the day he was born -21 June 1927. The paper was priced at one anna and “only carried advertisements on its cover page as was the general practice.” This was how traditional media companies had always worked. They had probably begun as journals, and later had sponsored information. (ads) In an era of information scarcity, this was probably required and appreciated. Even if they were not, the complaints would spread only as WOM. More importantly, while they took money from readers, their real survival (generalising) depended on advertisers. In the case of radio and television, it is even more evident. Then came the internet, and a story that has oft been repeated. We’re not going there.

    Though from email to BBS to Geocities to Friendster and beyond, everything can be considered social media, it began for me in the form of blogs (in 2003) became social networking via Orkut and really took flight with Twitter (May) and Facebook (July) in 2007. By this time, ads had begun to be ‘noise’ as media platforms proliferated. Twitter as well as FB served different purposes. As the cliche goes, “On Facebook, you connected with people you went to school with, and on Twitter, with people who you wished you went to school with.” In fact, such was my affection for Twitter that I even walked the talk. 🙂

    Why this long winded narration now? Because what I’d considered social is now very clearly becoming media that happens to have a social past. Facebook’s Promoted Posts will now reach people who have not Liked the brands as well, and it is working on measurement systems that resemble GRPs. From its options – a real time cloud API company and a media company, Twitter has clearly chosen. It has now started throttling the third party apps that made it the rockstar it now is. In their chosen line, this is an inevitable step to protect the ‘value’ it sells. Promoted tweets can now be targeted on the basis of interest.

    The disappointment, even if I reconcile myself to the fact that social is media, is the extent of evolution, or rather, the lack of it. Of the two, I have better hopes for Facebook now. Mark Zuck, despite the IPO, still controls it and from whatever he has spoken thus far, it seems this is not just a business for him, and though the ‘Promoted’ stuff on Facebook has now taken centre stage, the potential of the Open Graph remains and if it does evolve (as mentioned in an earlier post – last paragraph) it will continue to be interesting. Twitter? Oh well, Google’s AdWords is a megabucks one-trick, and it has Android. In the Google-like path it has chosen for itself, I can only hope that Twitter has a vision beyond being “sponsored”. If there is anything that media history has taught us, it is that irrelevance is just one service away.

    until next time, growing pains

  • Until the customer is king..

    Instagram just released v3.0. One of the biggest changes in this version is the introduction of Photo Maps, which quite obviously, plots your photos on a map. The default is opt-in, not opt-out, though they’ve done their bit to give the user control over data.  I updated despite reading this Wired article on the privacy implications and the bug that briefly exposed private photos!

    I’d written my first post that referred to Big Data recently, and the day after that, I read this very interesting post that talked about various applications including an algorithm that can identify cities based on their unique architectural elements and other distinguising characteristics. But a few weeks earlier, WSJ had an interesting post that talked of how large corporations see big data as a means to get personal with customers using information gathered by placing tracking files in people’s browsers and smartphone apps without their knowledge—so they can be stalked wherever they go, with their “experiences” on commercial websites “personalized” for them. The post describes not just its real world analogies but practices as well, and predicts a future where the user will declare your own policies, preferences and terms of engagement—and do it in ways that can be automated both for you and the companies you engage. An entire ecosystem across apps and corporations built in a consumer centric fashion.

    But as the post itself admits, the move toward individual empowerment is a long, gradual revolution. Until then, we need to define our own limits of sharing, fully understanding that it is a give and take. Not just what and where, but whom too – since all it takes a RT or a ‘Share – Public’ for something shared in a close circle to go public. How much of privacy would I give up to open myself to opportunities, or get an experience that is tailored to my needs and convenience. On the other side, a modern corporation needs to understand the choice the consumer is making and use the information to not just provide genuine value, but also make it easier for both entities to adapt to the rapidly changing landscape.

    until next time, kingmakers

  • The path to mediocrity

    Seth Godin wrote a post on the masses vs great design, and how the brands we love refuse to become democracies. Yet, on an everyday basis, and across product offerings – from web design to entertainment, I see brands clearly pandering to the ‘masses’. And they’re not going to disappear in at least the medium term, because they spend resources in wooing and keeping consumers, though these consumers are hardly ‘loyal’. The undemocratic approach that Godin mentions is for the rare breed of confident, gritty, focused brands which have answered their why, what, how and when very well.

    On HBR Blogs, I found an article by Bill Taylor – “Bad Service can be good business” a very interesting read. It showed two different scenarios where the headline is applicable -companies who try to keep the costs down to the barest minimum and charge a premium for anything but the basic (the author quotes Ryanair as an example) and companies whose offerings are so compelling, and whose reach is so vast, that making the investments required to deliver high-touch service would be making a big strategic mistake. He cites new media companies like Facebook, Twitter etc as examples.

    Most of the companies I was referring to in the first paragraph are trying to be one of the above. But they play an in-between game, starting at some point and thinking that they’ll figure out a way to get to their destination. But IMO, it can’t happen that way, because once you set expectations, you fall into the ‘trap’ of fulfilling them, without really figuring what your brand stands for. You’re forced to play the reactive game, watching your competitive landscape and fencing with them. As you progress, you’re drawn further away from the active game of pursuing a goal with focus. The trap, hence, is mediocrity, and it is surprising to see it these days because the web and social platforms specifically are a great way to find that slice of audience which will give the brand a chance to deliver that focused product/service. I’m not talking of superficiality here, but the DNA of the brand, and the organisation, the strand around which everything is built. I’m also not saying that all mass brands are mediocre. In the purpose that they have defined for their brand, Ryanair is anything but mediocre. Despite the seeming difference in the two scenarios from earlier, they are bound by a commonality – clarity of thought, which inspires clarity in everything that the brand does.

    until next time, clear blue ocean

  • Data: Growing up

    The Facebook story might be facing rough weather, but that hasn’t stopped the social network from pushing out new and interesting things. It launched “Page Post Targeting Enhanced” – features that make it a media platform offering sharper slices to marketers (easily) by allowing filters based on gender, interests, relationship status etc. It has also rolled out Facebook Stories that highlights “people using Facebook in extraordinary ways”. Venture Beat has a very smart take on how this can be the future of news by intersecting two of the most interesting contexts – location and interest. As a media platform, one can imagine the advertising potential.

    Twitter already has local (city specific) trends, though, from experience, many people seem to think that they’re viewing national trends when Twitter is actually showing them local trends. Twitter already has Promoted Tweets and is enhancing features that allow better targeting.

    Media buying in the age of traditional media consisted of a plan being prepared (and negotiated) after evaluating the reach, cost and other parameters of various options across platforms – print, OOH, TV, Radio etc. The (reach) data has always been contested, and the (post) measurement is more of a myth than reality. New media platforms, on the other hand, are significantly better in terms of transparency and in addition, have better native and 3rd party tools for self publishing, distributing and measuring. The data is one click away from the marketer. After a certain tipping point of reach that these media achieve, traditional media would be forced to provide this level of accessibility, and then, IMO, the value provided by media agencies would be reduced significantly, as tools would make it easier for the marketer to plan real time and measure too, across platforms.

    In essence, data that the marketer needs, to make informed choices on the why/what/how/when of platforms, is easily becoming available.  The data that really needs to be converted into information is now flowing in the reverse direction – from the consumer and his actions across platforms to ______. And this data is not just for marketing, its use is across the board and affects product, customer care, operations, technology and so on. It is Big Data, the players are evolving, and the next stage in this ever changing game has begun.

    until next time, don’t worry, it’s already a buzzword. 😉