Marketing Roadmaps

Susan Getgood

Pay-per-post

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I hadn’t really given much thought to the OTHER cause celebre of the past few weeks, pay per post, because I was so embroiled in the fandango of the large chain store and the big PR agency (I’m going for three posts in a row without using their names. No promises after that.) It had a faint odor of "not quite right" but I couldn’t put my finger exactly on why.

It came up in another context last weekend and in part due to comments from Jeneane Sessum, I decided to take a closer look. Here’s my take:

The arguments being made by some of the big A-list bloggers (Calcanis, Arrington) seem a little weird, given their reliance on advertising/sponsor support. Provided the pay per post blog entries clearly state that the post was a work for hire, I don’t see anything terribly wrong with the model. It really isn’t that different from freelance writing. You have to disclose your interests, including whether you are being compensated in any way for your words, but assuming that’s done, what’s the harm? Readers can make up their own minds.

One of the best things about the ‘net is the wisdom of crowds.

However, I think it would be very difficult to make a living under their model, given the prices being paid for this freelance work (can you spell sweatshop?), so I am a wee bit interested in following the money. Who is making the serious money here? I’m betting it is not the bloggers.

My other concern is that I would not want to see companies replace blogger relations efforts with pay per post. Pay per post is an article about your company. Blogger engagement begets viral marketing. We shouldn’t confuse the two.

There is a real, tangible and long term benefit from active engagement with bloggers who care about what the company cares about, whether it be issues, products or both, and this cannot be replaced by pay per post. I’d hate to see companies take this shortcut, thinking they were going viral.

And ending up just sick.

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Sci Fi Sunday

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More serious topics will be back this week but for the past month,  I’ve been in a real science fiction TV marathon. So far I’ve watched all the episodes of  Farscape, most for the first time and some more than once, caught up with Stargate SG-1 (but only from season 9 for reasons which will become clear if not already), finally getting into Doctor Number 10, and yes, watching my first episode of Battlestar Galactica.

So here’s what I want for my next sci fi show. I want Ben Browder and Claudia Black, playing any characters, don’t care. John and Aeryn from Farscape, Cam and Vala from Stargate. New characters. Doesn’t matter. They could read the phone book to each other and it would be good. And I want Adam Baldwin (Firefly, Serenity, Angel)  in the mix. Sidekick, villain. Doesn’t matter.

Pretty please with a cherry on top.

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From the in-box: Why blogging matters and Crayon

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A couple of items from the in-box

Eric Kintz from HP sent me a link to Why Blogging Matters, a group post written by six top marketing executives (David Armano, Digitas; Pete Blackshaw, Nielsen Buzz Metrics; David Churbuck, Lenovo; Dan Greenfield, EarthLink;  Eric Kintz, Hewlett-Packard and Will Waugh, ANA)

They each tackle a topic to explain "Why Blogging Matters."  Now, there isn’t anything terribly new in the post for someone who has been involved in social media marketing and PR for any length of time, but this post still matters.

Because six top marketing executives who get it and are demonstrating social media leadership in their organizations is worth something.

Particularly given the ethical lapses we’ve seen elsewhere in the blogosphere recently.

Neville Hobson wrote me about Crayon, his new venture with Joseph Jaffe, Shel Holtz and CC Chapman. Neville describes it as a "true mash-up that combines the best in traditional and new thinking about marketing, advertising and PR." The new business will be virtually located in Second Life and will launch this Thursday from their Second Life home, Crayonville Island.

This may just give me the impetus to check out Second Life. Even though I’ve got my hands pretty full with the first one. 

🙂

Good luck guys!

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Wrapping up loose threads — things remembered and wal-gate

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My posts on the Wal-Gate fiasco and the gift chain Things Remembered have both gotten a fair number of comments, so before I move on to my next topic, I wanted to wrap up the loose ends on both of these threads.

First, Things Remembered. A number of commenters wrote about their great experiences at the chain and thought I was perhaps too harsh, expected too much. Perhaps, but that is one of my points. Sometimes you do only get one chance with a potential customer. We should always strive to make every customer service moment a great moment. The day I was there, there was one clerk to wait on about four potential customers. He clearly didn’t want to be bothered with my oddball request. For all I really know, they DID have something that might have worked just fine, but he didn’t want to bother. It was too hard. Much easier to sell an engraved pen.

The other point, and you are welcome to disagree with me, is that companies should strive to deliver extraordinary customer service. That means meeting the customer’s needs, and helping them out even when the customer might end up buying from someone else on that day. It is all about recognizing the lifetime value of that customer, and recognizing those moments when extraordinary service is possible. Things Remembered has an opportunity to deliver extraordinary service by referring customers with oddball requests to other vendors. It won’t happen very often, but when it does, it will be a defining moment for the customer, as it was for me. Can a company be successful without delivering extraordinary service? Sure, but why settle?

To the company’s credit, a vp from Things Remembered did leave a comment on the original post. Will I shop there?  I am more likely to now, knowing that at least they are paying attention.

Final thoughts on the specific incidents in Wal-Gate: late Friday, both Richard Edelman’s and Steve Rubel’s blogs had news of the agency’s initiatives to fix the ethical problems surfaced during the whole nasty episode. They’re going to do an audit around the world to make sure they are applying best practices, everyone at the agency is going to have to attend an ethics in social media class, and the me2revolution team is going to be available in some fashion 24/7 to consult anyone in the agency on social media projects.

Umm. Why weren’t they doing these things already? And will it really be enough to change the agency culture? While it doesn’t seem like enough, I’ll reserve judgment on what they’ve said until we see what they do next. And I don’t mean whether they do the "Edelman University" or what great external experts they get to speak.

Let’s hope the next time we hear about a social media project driven by Edelman, we hear about a project that met everyone’s expectations: the client, the customers, the community and the agency’s PR colleagues and peers. For Edelman’s sake.

Because I do think they are now out of chances. They have got to get it right or get out.

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Flogging, this horse just won’t die, more Wal-Mart and Edelman

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It must really suck to be Richard Edelman this week.

I had decided to stop writing about Wal-Gate, even after no WOMMA sanctions for Edelman because it seemed excessively cruel to keep beating a dead horse. Give them a chance to get their house in order, I thought.

Until today’s news that there were two more "flogs" for Working Families for Wal-Mart written by Edelman staffers without attribution.

Enough already.

This can’t be simply  "one bad apple" who didn’t get it. There are just too many rotten apples and too much evidence that this is culturally acceptable behavior at Edelman.

Far from transparent or honest, it is Fifties-style PR with a social media patina (paraphrasing a comment by John Wagner on an earlier post here.)

And it is most certainly not what we did, or should, expect of a social media leader.

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Some more recommended posts on this topic: John Wagner, Katie Paine, Tom Murphy, Constantin Basturea

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