Media – Page 9 – Phil Bernstein's Advertising, Marketing, and Sales Training Blog

Social Media as Time Suck: Godin and Pastis Nail It

For about a year — from mid-2008 through about mid-2009 — I made a concerted effort to use social media to boost my online presence. I tended to my profile on LinkedIn, and participated in its “Answers” forum. I added a Facebook Fan Page. Put up a profile on Biznik. Tweeted regularly. And, of course, blogged several times a week.

My hope was that with a more robust online presence, potential clients would find me, learn about me, enter into a dialog with me, and spend money with me.

What I didn’t count on was all the easy time-wasting that went along with it — checking my blog stats, following links on Twitter, answering tweets. It was fun, but it was also a great way to feel like I was working when I was doing anything but.

Also, as near as I could tell, I didn’t make a dime on any of it.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve encountered a couple of interesting takes on the phenomenon. Stephan Pastis’ “Pearls Before Swine” (above) and the passage below from Seth Godin‘s new book, Linchpin.

If you sat at work watching Hawaii 5-o reruns, you’d probably lose your job. But it’s apparently fine to tweak and update your Facebook status account for an hour. That’s “connecting to your social graph.”

Don’t even get me started on Twitter. There are certainly people who are using it effectively and productively. Some people (a few) are finding that it helps them do the work. But the rest? It’s perfect resistance, because it’s never done. There’s always another tweet to be read and responded to. Which, of course, keeps you from doing the work.

At the beginning of the year, I dropped just about all of it.

I’m now slowly dipping my toe back in the water, for one simple reason: on some gut level, I believe Bill Gates would write me a large check if only he knew who Phil Bernstein was, and I need to give him an opportunity to find me.

I’m still going to ignore Twitter (this blog goes there automatically), but the blog is now back two or three times a week, I’ll answer the occasional question on LinkedIn, post an occasional link on my Facebook Fan Page, and declare victory.

What say you? Is social media really generating a measurable return for you? Or is it just a giant time suck?

Post your comments below.

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Is ESPN Selling What World Cup Fans Want to Buy?

Copywriting guru Dan O’Day likes to advise his students that in an ad, you’re not selling features, or benefits — you’re selling results.

ESPN‘s new World Cup Soccer ad is a great illustration of the difference.

The feature ESPN is selling is World Cup Soccer coverage.
The benefit to watching soccer, the ad implies, is sex.

So far, so good — I’m reaching for the remote.

But at the end, you see the result. View the ad, then discuss.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2FRXmjfVaE]

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The Yellow Pages: An Indirect Obituary

So far this year, I’ve met with 92 companies in seven states. When I meet with a business owner or manager for the first time, there are two questions I always ask when we get around to advertising:

1. What advertising is working best for you these days? I get a variety of answers to this question — sometimes TV, sometimes radio or direct mail, occasionally newspaper.

2. Is there anything you’re doing that’s not working, or that you’re not sure of? To this question, the overwhelming winner — or more accurately, the overwhelming loser — is the Yellow Pages.

For decades, the Yellow Pages was a no-brainer. Everyone had one, everyone used it, and a business simply had to have a major presence there to compete.

No longer. The Internet has replaced the phone book, and the telecommunications companies know it. In New Jersey and New York, Verizon has asked regulators for permission to stop delivering the White Pages to its customers. According to the Newark Star-Ledger:

Telephone books, those once indispensable directories that still land with a thud on every doorstep, may soon be heading the way of the rotary dial.

Verizon, the state’s dominant land line company, is pressing regulators to allow it to stop annual delivery of millions of residential White Pages to its New Jersey customers. The telecommunications firm said it would save 1,400 tons of paper annually by stopping distribution in the state.

It is part of a nationwide effort by phone companies to scale back production of the thick volumes, which, in the digital age, have become increasingly obsolete. Verizon has a similar request before state regulators in New York, while AT&T has already received approval to stop delivering White Pages in states such as Florida and Ohio.

The reason they’re doing this is simple: it costs a lot of money to print and deliver millions of books that nobody ever opens.

They’re still happy to print and deliver the Yellow Pages, though — not because it benefits their customers, but because it still generates revenue for the phone companies and the publishers.

Does it still generate revenue for the advertisers? What we’re hearing around the country is that it doesn’t. An increasing number of long-time Yellow Pages advertisers has drastically cut back or even eliminated their presence without seeing any adverse effects.

There are some exceptions to this: if you’re targeting low-income communities, or rural areas that don’t have reliable broadband access, the Yellow Pages may still be an effective way of reaching customers. And it remains a great source of leads for radio and television salespeople.

But for the vast majority of consumers, the “real” Yellow Pages is now Google.

When’s the last time you opened a phone book?

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Dentist, Market Thyself

Last week I called on an orthodontist — or more specifically, the practice’s office manager. I learned two things of note:

1. Things are really, really slow these days. Parents are still bringing their kids in for braces, but in smaller numbers. And their lucrative adult-braces business is way down.

2. The doctor has steadfastly refused to advertise.

So it was with interest that I read — and mailed to the orthodontist — Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal article on the trend among those in the dental profession to increase their marketing. The article told the story of Dr. David Wong of Tulsa, OK. Dr. Wong’s business has dropped about 10% in recent months.

Dr. Wong has upped his advertising, taking advantage of low newspaper and broadcast rates, and now sends email reminders to customers on top of traditional mailed postcards. He is even on Twitter, aiming to connect with customers as “not just the guy in a white coat with a drill in his hand.”

“It’s a lot more work,” he admits. “You can’t go to the office and just be a dentist anymore; you have to go to the office and be a dentist and a CEO.”

Ed Ridgway, a practice consultant, offered this take on his Dental Marketer blog:

Are you growing your practice – or just waiting for the competition to eat your market share?

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Pitfalls of Social Media Marketing

During my presentation/interview at the Northwest Business Virtual Summer Conference, Tom Cochrane asked me what the big difference is between marketing with social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc) and using the traditional sources such as TV, radio, and print.

I replied that there has always been something of a “contract” between the audience and old media — radio listeners get their content at no charge, and in return accept the fact that advertising is part of the landscape. Same for newspapers and television: the information arrives either at no charge or heavily subsidized. Although there is more interaction than there used to be, the content is still “consumed”, and must be paid for somehow.

The fundamental difference with social media, I told Cochrane, is that people use it to communicate with each other, and do not expect to be pitched to. Even though Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are essentially free services at this point, the users, rightly, or wrongly, have a different set of expectations.

Since making those remarks, I’ve encountered a couple of good posts that expand on the topic:

At Marketing in Progress, Brett Duncan takes on the Twitter spammers:

It saddens me to see so many people constantly posting tweets and Facebook updates that go something like this:

Brand X is helping me lose 10 pounds a week. It can help you, too. CLick here . . . .
If you want to make $1,000 this week on the Internet, I have what you need.
Want to earn what you’re worth? Sign up with Brand X. Ask me how.
I get 300 followers a day. Go here to find out more.

Nobody gets on Twitter looking for crap like this. There’s nothing “social” about using social media as your own advertising medium.

And The Digital Marketer offers counsel on how to avoid damaging your social media reputation.

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising and Marketing Blog.

Request your free copy of Phil Bernstein’s white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.