Anyone living in or having recently visited South Africa for the World Cup will be familiar with the terms “now now” and “just now”. “Now now” translates into “shortly”, it means give me 5 – 15 minutes and it will be done. “Just now” translates into “sometime in the future”, it means give me half a day and more likely that it will never get done.
Everything we see is about real-time: The power of now.
We’ve seen it in the execution of the Old Spice campaign, and in South Africa, last week you may have noticed the pro-activeness of Williams Hunt responding to @Brodiegal’s tweet, sending someone out to help her start her car.
Mike Walsh, Futuretainment has this to say about Lifecasting:
In social media, it’s becoming a more competitive tactic. The guys from Wheat Thins are running around delivering surprises, “Air Guitars”, Headphones, and Tabatha received a truckload of Wheat Thins delivered to her door.
Why is it so surprising to us that a brand should and can respond in real-time, particularly if they know your address (scary stuff.) When will it become the norm and non-newsworthy for a brand to respond “OMG”, in the now?
Cool is only cool until the next cool thing comes along, so the question is, where is the sustainability in this?
Old Spice, along with many other successful viral efforts, has received a lot of deserved attention. What I look forward to, is what they (not their audience) do with the great community they have created, which includes me. Personally I’m more partial to CH MEN on a man and wonder how long it will take before Old Spice reverts to its staid positioning, in my mind. Now that they have become entertainers, it begs the question, (ahem) how long can Isaiah last?
Ignite’s review of the Top 50 Branded Fan Pages (June 2010) points out the reason for the Biggest Fallers, “Fans will leave if you don’t keep them involved.”
We are raising consumer expectation, and best be prepared to continuously deliver. Because whether it’s service or marketing campaigns, when you don’t deliver, particularly if you have before, you’re really screwed. You’ll be accused in the public domain of being unresponsive, unoriginal or simply be surpassed by the next engaging content or brand.
Be able to keep it up, because if you’re not paying attention, not listening, you may also become the victim of BrandJacking or Sabotage. And here I’m specifically addressing those oblivious South African brands (like AA in @Brodiegal’s tweet.) What ORM are you running? Are you listening? If you aren’t, don’t be surprised if your competitor picks up on a lead where you have under-delivered and offer the person concerned a better deal. It happens globally, often. The only difference in S.A. is because the social media and marketing community is small, we are all too polite to start a war with each other. Wait though because as more brands climb on board, and we are already seeing the question “Who is running this Facebook account?”, we will see more aggressive tactics in the market. (It’s not a threat, it’s just an insight!)
Check boxes for South African brands in the early phases of social media, to ensure you are relevant in the now:
Iain Tait, Global Creative Interactive Director from Wieden & Kennedy (the agency behind Old Spice), was asked by Fast Company:
Brian Solis proposes that Context is King (We’ve gone from Content to Community to Collaboration to Context – I Can’t Ceep up). Your agency, your community moderator knows and understands your community. They are at the coalface of interpreting context into opportunity. That opportunity converts to the power of now. To capitalise (while we can) on the power of now, and to avoid the now now or the maybe never, just now, for heaven’s sake get your head out of the sand.
Self-regulate. Self-moderate. Are terms that are cropping up more and more in my vocabulary. It’s advice to clients. It’s advice to peers (who ask for it) It’s mostly advice to myself.
My personal approach on Social media is that I don’t comment on client related content or promotion unless I disclose that its client work. The reason, because I don’t and won’t suggest or promote something to my followers or friends unless I legitimately want to support it. And if its client work then I feel that they/you should know that.
Last year I got into trouble for doing just that. And its because it appeared that we were the only agency producing the work. So I removed the tweet and all was well. But it meant that I couldn’t even do that.
Then today standing in the queue at the bank, I noticed, again, the remarkable misrepresentation of “the world” about to descend on South Africa for the world cup in their murals. Even the teller confirmed that he thought it was all very white. Very odd. I took a photo. I was a moment away from criticising the creative, and then a little voice cautioned me against it. Why? Because its your client. And I don’t want it to seem that I’m criticising your client’s work, when I work on a banking client too. Which means I can’t talk about my banking client either. And the other major bank out there, I don’t think knows how to spell Twitter, so there is no point complaining about them anyway.
On that. Nobody likes a complainer. I learnt a long time ago, that as much as I sometimes want to be honest, that its best to keep upbeat in this medium. I unfollow people who complain too much. No matter how ‘influential’ people are meant to be. I hide people’s comments in facebook when they are too depressing or emo. My most used word in my tweets last year was ‘love’, and I like that. I’m sure that I get unfollowed, often, for my ‘purges’ which usually occur whilst I am waiting. Waiting for the menu. Waiting for my order. Waiting in the queue. Waiting for a video to load. Waiting for the kettle to boil. “Tweet while you wait.” (Hmm would make for a nice service campaign for a retailer, ‘tweet if you have waited in this queue for longer than 5 mins’) But I try not to complain. Which means that I’m not objective or honest in my complaints about issues that aggravate me as a consumer. And that’s largely because they are probably your client. Or mine.
Latest Twitter Stats in SA, argued and agreed upon by the top dogs sits at 88 000 users. I’d like to know what the average number of followers is for each of the 88 000. I hazard a guess that the majority of Twitterati with the largest number of followers and arguable influence are in actual fact in ‘The Industry’, particularly in SA. Which means that they can’t be objective I even wonder about Radio DJ’s with a large reach. What of their sponsors – how objective are they, really? How dare they, we, criticise or comment on a brand? Heaven help if you are up for pitch and client sees your thoughts. Eeek. Or maybe you’re just gutsy enough not to care?!
Where is the line between being a regular opinionated consumer and protecting your business interests? Mine, after testing all routes and as I become more engrained in brand work, is to self-regulate, self-moderate when I want to complain. And provide positive commentary where and when deserved.
It was fantastic to be approached by Content Marketing thoughtleader, Joe Pulizzi of Junta 42 to contribute to his collation of social media and content marketing predictions for 2010. The Question: What is your prediction for how brand marketers will create and distribute their own content in 2010? And my Answer: “Its my sentiment that in 2010, brand and business leaders, rather than just marketers, will start paying more attention to content. Strategically they will consider investing in and employing effort and resources into building that brand’s very own content management system. A silo if you will, of content that is sourced from various divisions and filtered to internal and external publishing platforms required or selected by various departments, one of them, being marketing.” Read more…
