All posts in M>PACT

How many times has someone come up to you and said, “Um… You have spinach in your teeth.” Or, “There’s toilet paper on your shoe.” It happens occasionally, but rarely, if ever, right? It’s called civil inattention.

No one likes to point out the flaw because we all know that the receiver is likely to be embarrassed or upset, or worse, he could possibly “shoot the messenger.”

Sadly, the agency business has gotten a bit like that. We don’t want to tell our clients that we think the approach they’ve taken, or the one they have asked us to take, is the wrong one. Why? Because it’s an awkward conversation, certainly, but also possibly because times are tough. Don’t rock the boat. Maybe.

My suspicion, though, is that it goes a bit farther than that. It goes way back to our childhood, when our mothers and fathers told us that it was impolite to point at the man with his fly open (even if it would have saved him embarrassment as he walked into church). In the euphemistic South, we are embarrassed by the mere mention of something untoward. We are taught not to embarrass and instead simply pretend not to notice.

Clients need to hire agencies that are bold enough to tell them the truth, to tell them what their customers won’t, to call out the elephant in the room. It can be a bit painful. We don’t want or need to do it to be overly critical. No, we need to be brutally honest because our client’s business and reputation depend on that kind of candor, and the client needs to know that they can trust us to provide that truth when others won’t.

Gap got a lesson in candor this week. My guess is that both the agency and Gap execs were “breathing their own air” when they came up with the new logo. They must have used up all the oxygen in the room that would have allowed them clearer thinking. When they emerged to show the world their new logo, the world said, “Eeeewww.”

Did the agency tell Gap what they wanted to hear? Was that logo the agency’s 20th solution down the list? Was it the president’s son’s version? “I like this logo. Yes, I agree. Let’s go with this one.” I don’t know, but it happens every day. Anyway, you get the point.

Agencies have a responsibility to tell their clients the truth about their advertising and marketing, which is sometimes brutal. But it’s necessary to ensure that the agency is providing the very best work and counsel — the work and counsel for which the agency was hired in the first place. To become a trusted and valued advisor, sometimes you have to tell your client she has spinach in her teeth.

It seems like the words ‘marketing,’ ‘advertising,’ and ‘public relations’ can no longer be mentioned without the term ‘social media’ following them. Once considered the communication of the future, social media are now thought of as requirements of the present. While I have my email sent to my phone for immediate readability, I too often become annoyed with the dozens of promotional and commercial spam offers I get on a daily basis. Worse, now it happens on Facebook, too—and by my friends!

It is easy to delete an anonymous mass email by a huge corporation, but it takes a second look and a little hardening of my heart to deny or decline invitations from an old classmate or friend. Though I say this, and will continue to be aggravated by these Facebook invites, I still support them as a must-have to marketing, advertising and public relations. Instead, the point I bring up is: Are they enough by themselves?

With over 230 million people with Internet access in the United States in 2009 compared to 150 million addresses that receive delivered mail from the US Postal Service, it is obvious the direction communication is heading. Quantity, however, does not always trump quality.

Similar to the sincerity felt in receiving a handwritten card from an old friend, sometimes traditional grass roots direct mail strategy outshines an easily deleted email. At a time when it seems your inbox is full with promotions and offers, and your Facebook is cluttered with Page and Like invitations, a well thought-out, traditional flier in the mail has never seemed more refreshing. But, just because you may choose to send a postcard or flier through the mail does not guarantee response. There are many factors that go into successful direct mail marketing.

The first to consider is evaluating your desired needs and goals. Why are you choosing to address the public? What is it that you have to offer? What do you wish to gain from contacting a mass audience?

Take a few minutes to write down three objectives you have for the mailing. One of these focal points may very well  be to get the receiver to visit your website or Facebook page. Concentrating on only these three objectives will not only help you to create a clear message, but help you target your audience, as well.

This is why the second step is carefully deciding to whom you will be mailing your material. A mass mailing to every Joe on the street will rarely be as successful as selecting a target audience that already has interest in or a need for your product or service.

Now, with the audience and goals determined, you can begin to create the actual flier that will be sent. Your handout should physically appear appropriate to the material you are presenting. This step should not be taken lightly; whether you need a professional letterhead or a bright design, the look should be polished and reviewed by a few people who fall into the audience you are targeting.

Throughout this entire process, try to remember that you are using a traditional form of advertising, and likewise, you should stick to a simple but informational message. Also, you cannot lose site of the fact that the handout should not be the end of the road; instead, you have to find a way to pull the potential customer into further communication with your company. This is where social media and websites come back into play. Offer an incentive for joining an email listserv, visiting your website, or becoming a friend of your business on Facebook. After seeing that you care enough to send a personal letter through ‘snail mail,’ the follow-up emails that come from you later may, too, seem more endearing.

As a public relations student, it seems that I am expected to not only be aware of, but also be plugged into, every social media out there—and right now, there are a lot.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flikr, YouTube, MySpace, Digg, Blogger… shall I go on?

Being connected to each of these sites can be as easy as setting up an account, filling in a few ‘About Me’ pages, and inviting friends. Actually maintaining each site and using it well is another story. The time and energy it takes to keep up with the accounts can become outrageous; it could be a full time job!

So here is my suggestion: don’t do it. By now, we all know the importance of social media’s role in the communications and marketing fields, but it has to stop somewhere. Like most things in life, becoming fully immersed and skilled in a few strong areas leads to greater success than spreading yourself too thin.

Too Soft

Recently celebrating its fifth birthday, YouTube is currently serving over 2 billion videos every day. While there is plenty of information, history, advice, tutorials, music, home videos and especially humor that can be shared and viewed through this site, I do not subscribe. Unlike many of my friends who subscribe to their favorite ‘channels’ on YouTube and post videos of their own, I find this form of obtaining information and communicating too much of a time waste. This is not to say I don’t watch an occasional funny clip or find a tutorial helpful, but it is too easy for me to get sucked into video after video of nonsense; therefore I do not have a YouTube account.

Too Hard

One of the more professional social media, LinkedIn, allows you to connect with other professionals by uploading information about your education, work experience, and even adding your full résumé. A brilliant idea in theory, I found the site more difficult to navigate and set up than others. It wasn’t the site’s layout or overwhelming options that I found most irritating; it was the fact that LinkedIn sent over 700 invitations on my behalf to people I know, and don’t know, without my even being aware of it!

The site asks for your email at various times to confirm your identity, and at some point it apparently was able to access my complete email address book. Within the next 24 hours I had received over 100 emails from friends and strangers alike asking why I invited them to this network. I even received one email from an angry wife inquiring how EXACTLY I knew her husband. I didn’t.

Needless to say, I decided LinkedIn was not the social network for me, so I cancelled my account, if for no other reason than to stop the wave incoming emails from those confused.

Just Right

Facebook is the obvious network for a college student like me. I have had my account since high school and know my way around the network as well as any other college student. The newer network that I have found surprisingly intriguing, however, is Twitter. Once opposed to this status-updating network, I wondered how people could find it interesting. I have discovered that you make it interesting.

I now enjoy posting comments about recent news or activities that I can attach links to or tag the appropriate friend’s or company’s twitter account. I attempt to make it both significant to my life and hopefully engaging in some way to other people.

I have found the sites that work—and don’t work—for me, and I think that is what social media are about and why there are so many options. It is not about the number of sites you can be connected to but rather the quality of time and information you dedicate to the sites that fit your lifestyle best. Social media are great tools to help promote you or your company. They should be used to complement your services, not appear out of control or be impossible to manage.

For more information on the various social media and which ones may be most appropriate for you, or for help in setting them up, please contact Morris Creative Group.