5 Ways to Be Authentic: Copy Us

Read an interesting post at PR-Squared the other day. It talked about being "authentic" in the twittering world when you work for a company/brand that may not agree with your desired level of "authenticity."

When I hear the word authentic, I think both being original and not being a corporate shill. Now we're all in advertising, so we're all shills to somebody. And as far as freedom to be original, at the confessional we work for a pretty relaxed company. Sandals are unisex office footwear around these parts, and interns here for interviews are usually the most dressed up people in the building (with the exception of our Account Director's, but they have to leave the office to go make us money, so we forgive them). So it's a relaxed, fun atmosphere. That being said, I did come up with some quick thoughts on how to maintain some level of personality and interesting level of thought for bloggers, twitterers or people who, well...these people.

1) First ask, what are the personalities of your brands and your higher-ups. If your image is stiff and the higher ups like it that way, you’re probably going to be stiff too.

2) Second what are the personalities of your clients. They may have a stiff brand, but they may be just like you; however, if your clients are stiff and and may be offended by your ribald wit, be careful, and try not to praise their direct competitors.

3) That being said, work within your boundaries. You don’t have to be shocking or “edgy” to be effective or funny. If you keep pieces informative and topical, smart people will want to read them. If you feel they're dry, keep them short and people won't have time to think, This is kind of boring, because they'll be finished reading before they get to that thought.

4) If you work for a a more “stiff” company, grow your personality slowly. Start off walking the company line, then work in a little flavor or humor. If no one bats an eyelash, continue to work in personality. If you go too far, trust me, you’ll here about it, but by moving slowly, you minimize your chance of going so far that the effects will have any lasting repercussions. In my very first blog posts, I didn't attempt to draw an allusion to myself and this fashionable orangutan, but when people got a slow feel for my personality, that tone and sense of humor made complete sense.

5) Style is subjective. Be yourself, but be smart first. No matter how funny you think you are, the whole world may not agree. I remember watching a guy completely bomb at an open mic comedy night, which happens. Now I assume he was "the funny guy" among his friends, but a big joke he had about constipation and pulling on some sort of chain a la tug of war to rectify the matter was too gross for the crowd's taste. A valuable lesson I learn every day: My funny ≠ everyone's funny. Oh, and no matter how funny you actually you are, you inevitably will say something too stupid or too offensive. People keep telling me I'm going to do that some day. So, I go back to: Be Smart.

In 3 years of being a blog, we've had advertisers call us out and tell us our opinions were wrong. We said, You have a right to your opinion. We’ve had also had 2 or 3 posts we took down–and that was mainly because we didn’t think, Oh, right, we probably shouldn’t praise one of our client’s direct competitors. As much as we thought a campaign was pretty smart, it's just not wise to make the people who put bacon on your sandwich feel you like the other guy better. Besides, that was probably an intern anyway. Silly interns.

But we've had good conversations with advertisers who responded to both criticism and praise. We've befriended many other wise people in the blogosphere, who thought we were smart enough to follow us, and we do the same. And we've brought in new clients, because they read us and thought, These guys might actually have a clue.

If you're smart, the time you spend blogging and twittering may actually make you some money...provided you don't completely suck at it.

--George C. Convery, Copywriter

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How to be a Social Media Jerkhole: Talk about yourself all the time.

Click to feel the bigness. (from xkcd.com)

This is the inaugural post in a series that will probably be abandoned when the next big project at the agency comes down the pike and buries me (in a good way, of course). But for now, let's talk about social media. I mean, really talk about it.

More specifically, let's talk about brands. Brands aren't that much different than people.

People are inherently narcissistic. We love to talk about ourselves. So do brands. And with the proliferation of digital channels, there are more ways to do it then ever.

I've got a problem with that. Because, unless you're a good friend or you're saying something really interesting or you're paying me to listen to you, I don't care how awesome you think you are. I'm pretty sure most people would back me up on this one.

So here's my first tip for brands looking to break off a little social sumpin'-sumpin':

Stop talking about yourself all the time.

Don't think I haven't noticed. We've all noticed. The spammy self-promotional tweets. The over-amped, unsolicited press releases to bloggers.

You may own that media buy. That 1/4 page ad. That :30 broadcast spot. But you don't - and can't - own a conversation that happens off the reservation. It belongs to the people, comrade.

I'm always reminded of the not-so-old adage from Hugh McCleod:




Brands shouldn't be afraid to go off script. In fact, I encourage it to clients. It breaks the barrage of sanctioned messages consumers are used to seeing. It makes a brand seem more human.
Some ideas:

• Retweet a dumb video of puppies.
• Share photos of the marketing director whiffing at the company softball game.
• Write a company blog about something you're passionate about- and are not paid to do at work (P.S. I strongly recommend that you avoid religion and politics. The discussions they rile up rarely end well.)
• Promote someone else's blog post that you like - maybe even a competitor (If you're confident in your service and dedicated to giving your customers content of interest, what have you got to worry about?)

Just like in real-life interactions, no one wants to talk business all the time. Every now and then undo that top button. Loosen your tie. Lighten up a little. And take the emphasis off your business. You'll find it'll make folks more willing to listen to that promotional bit your brand throws out into the social ether next time.

So, when you're not talking about your business, what are you talking about?

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Welcome to Twitter...Hey! Come back!

by M.M. McDermott

Twitter skeptics have a fresh round of ammo to snap into the chamber. Recent news says Twitter's retention rates are in the toilet. If you go weak in the knees for stats and visual aids, here's the Nielson article. Or just look at the sweet chart we liberated from them:


Raw data suggests that 60% of new Twitter users never come back after their first month. Now before you commit Twari Kari (See what I did there? I'm adorable.) consider that there's a pretty good chance those percentages are off. Many Twitter users utilize third party apps like Tweetdeck and Twhirl to carry on their Twitter conversations; Nielson's data doesn't factor in third party app usage. It can only measure those using Twitter's homepage to post. Just taking a look at my twitterstream, I can see that up to 50% of the people I follow tweet using something other than "web". That's a big frickin' blip in the data.

Regardless, I can see why turnover would be high. The Twitter experience depends on relationships and conversations to survive. Otherwise, you're just screaming announcements into the ether like the crack-addled homeless guy in front of the discount store near our house.

One thing social nets like Facebook do well is allow you to quickly build a circle of friends on their site through friend suggestions, contact searches, group and interest queries, etc. With Twitter, it's not that easy. Twitter's people-search function isn't that intuitive. And more refined search functions are only available on third party sites and online directories, not Twitter's homepage.

Everything's fragmented. And fragmentation can be scary for people. Especially when they're new, all alone, staring down at a profile screen with zero followers. You start to feel a bit pathetic. As a rule of thumb, sites that make people feel like losers generally don't track well in the return visit department.

But I've put together a quick Honey-Do list of suggestions for Twitter to boost retention. They're no doubt already considering stuff like this, but I'll throw it out there anyway. After all, it's not brain surgery. Brain surgery's way grosser.

• Boost people-search functionality on Twitter's main page. Include query elements you'd find on sites like Twellow. If that's too much back-end work, at least pick a few trusted third party Twitter search and directory sites and include links to them on Twitter's people-search page. That way, no one has to go off the reservation looking for friends.
  
• Create a regional welcome wagon. Kind of like the neighbors who show up at your front door with pie when you move into the neighborhood. Appoint local Twitterers to reach out to new members, engage them in conversation, suggest friends in the region, etc. If Twitter ever launches a paid Twitter-Pro style account, give the welcome wagon group free accounts. It could be all the incentive they need to help in new user retention efforts.
  
• Provide a more detailed How-To list for new users to follow when they sign up. This will help take the guess work out of establishing the account and building a network. I think LinkedIn does a pretty good job turning their How-To list into a challenge of sorts - a Percentage of Completion bar like you see at a fund raising event. The more you do on LinkedIn (add connections, make recommendations, fill out profile info) the closer you get to that goal. At the end of the day, everyone likes to feel they've accomplished something.
  
• And to piggyback off the previous point, try what 12seconds.tv does. The mini-vlog site awards "badges" to folks who hit milestones: join the site, you get a badge; post a certain number of videos, you get a badge; participate in one of their promotions, you get a badge. Why not give Twitter badges to users for display in profiles. Give badges to those who reach a certain number of posts, followers, and retweets. If you don't think badges work, then perhaps you've never heard of The Boy Scouts of America.

Even if Twitter never enacts any of these, take heart lonely tweeples. You'll always have me.

Unless you're lame. I don't follow lame-oes.

Other tales of Twitter worship here.

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