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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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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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Epilogue: Wal-Mart and Edelman

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Well, as many PR bloggers have already reported (best round-upto date is Constantin’s), Edelman has emerged from the cone of silence around the Wal-Mart fiasco. On Richard Edelman’s blog, an apology and acceptance of total responsibility. And on Steve Rubel’s, a short comment and link to Richard’s blog.

Quite frankly, I do not see how the agency could have done anything else. It could be Edelman’s fault. Might not be. Probably is. Doesn’t really matter. Whether it was their fault or not, the agency must fall on the sword for the client. Or lose the client.

I know a lot of folks would love to be privy to the post mortem on this disaster. To them, I say, how does it feel… to want. We know what we know and we ain’t likely to know much more. And I don’t really care. I’m more interested in:

  • what Edelman does in the future. Will they finally learn and get it right the next time? What Richard and Steve say is all good and well, but the proof is in what they DO;
  • the lessons we can all learn about honesty and grassroots marketing from this fiasco.

I’ve commented on a number of other blog posts about this mess, among them Kami Huyse and Peter Himler, that the real shame is that had they done this right, with honesty and clarity about the sponsorship, this RVing blog might just have worked. People with RVs do stay in Wal-Mart parking lots. That’s not an invention. They might have rallied around a blog that focused on them, their lives, their culture.  If it was well written, corporate sponsored or not, the public might have enjoyed it. Many do shop in Wal-Mart, image problems notwithstanding.

Bottom line, had there been truth, I would have given it a big, so what. A good idea is still a good idea even if the corporation has it. The error isn’t in sponsoring a blog to advance a corporate objective. The error is the lie. People can forgive many things. But generally and pretty universally, we hate being lied to.

I’m pretty sure the folks at Edelman and Wal-Mart get this now.

There is nothing wrong with trying to spark something in the "grassroots."  If you’ve understood the situation, and deliver a compelling message, it will take fire. That’s what viral means — the message is so compelling it propels itself through the social network. But we cannot create a grassroots effect   Artificial, the campaign has no life, no community and cannot spread without more artifice and manipulation.

You must tap into something in the community for grassroots efforts to bear any fruit. Two recent examples come to mind, and I’m sure it will surprise none of my readers that both come from science fiction television, Firefly and Farscape. Momentum came from the community and the producers were smart enough to engage with, to love their communities. They treated them with respect and love, and guess what? When the franchises needed support, the communities around them sprung to action.

In both cases, the TV shows were cancelled and fan support had a great deal to do with subsequent movies. In the case of Firefly fans, strong DVD sales provided further proof for the movie studio that the decision to greenlight a feature film (Serenity) was the right one. And when it came time to promote the film, no fan base was more loyal than the Firefly fans.

Except maybe the Farscape fans, who lobbied for a resolution to their much loved and highly acclaimed series, and finally got it in 2004 with the Peacekeeper Wars miniseries. I wasn’t a Farscape viewer when it was on TV but now, having seen all the episodes, I can say without hesitation that it is a damn shame the show was cancelled. Can we have some more, please?

In both cases, the grassroots communities were there, and the shows were able to tap into the love to make things happen. Fans didn’t mind when Joss Whedon asked them to do something for Serenity. They knew he’d pay them back in spades. In fact, both fan groups are still going pretty strong online and to date, there are no (public) plans for more of either on TV or the big screen. [Boo Hoo]

That’s how a company can tap into the grassroots. And I do not believe that it  is only possible for science fiction franchises.

However, it is only possible when we understand that a grassroots campaign only works when the initial impetus comes from the community, not the corporation that benefits.

It’s grassroots marketing when the roots really are in the grass. When they are not, it is probably astroturf.

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What’s so Viral about Marketing?

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Just recently, I wrote a blogger outreach strategy for a client. My piece was part of a larger "viral marketing" effort. Which got me thinking…..

What’s so Viral about Marketing anyway?

As my readers know, I hate buzzwords. We throw them around as though they mean something Important, mis-use them horribly and in the end they often mean nothing at all.  State-of-the-art. Yeah right. Web 2.0. Uh uh. Even our beloved Cluetrain is woefully abused.

Viral Marketing. Hmmm. Seems everybody wants to do Viral Marketing these days. It’s the new black. Or whatever.

But the more I think about this, the more I realize we are once again creating a monstrous buzzword and removing the meaning. Viral Marketing (note, with a cap M) is being equated with the tools we are using, not the messages we are sending. When in fact, it is the message that is viral, not the marketing tools themselves. A good (or bad) story about a good (or bad) product will spread no matter what. It’s just faster, more efficient and sexier when we use social media than the old way. You know, just talking to people in the (real life) community 🙂

MySpace. Second Life. YouTube. Blogs. They are communities, and if we want to market within them, we must learn and play by the rules. Just like in the real world. Or the members kick us out. As they should.

But you are not doing viral marketing simply by having a MySpace page, posting a video on YouTube, starting a blog or creating something in Second Life. It reminds me of the old Mickey Rooney/Andy Hardy movies, where the solution always seems to be  "Let’s put on a show." Nowadays, the "cool" solution is to do something "viral."

But guess what, campers?  You still need to cover the basics. Is this a good story? Who would be most interested in this story? How and where do we reach them? What do they want to know? How can we help them? Are we willing to give up control of the message?

That’s the deal breaker, isn’t it? Control. If you put the story to the community, you cannot control what it does with it. You can try, but  that is just as likely to halt the spread of the message as anything else. People don’t want to be used as corporate mouthpieces. They want add their own value as they pass it on, to feel like spreading the word is helping other members of their community.

So, remember: viral marketing (note the lower case) is all about a compelling story told to the right community. Get that right, and then get out of the way.

That’s viral.

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Other recent posts on this/related topic(s) you might enjoy:

The Dynamics of Viral Marketing (Eric Kintz, HP)

PR Meetup in Second Life (Kami Huyse)

Second Life (Todd Defren)

Text 100 Misses the Second Life Boat (Jeneane Sessum)

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Video contests aimed at the younger set — Chevy and Gourmet Station

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Last Friday (8th — I am VERY behind in my blogging), I learned about two video contests aimed at the "younger set," one from Chevy and the other from Gourmet Station.

Disclosure: my sources in both instances were women bloggers who were involved in the development of the respective projects, Nellie Lide for Chevy and Toby Bloomberg for Gourmet Station, and god bless them, they were asking for my opinion. Lucky for them, I’ve gotten my cranky post out of the way for today (see earlier "Forget Things Remembered"), so they don’t have to be too worried about getting what they wished for.

So, here’s the thing I find absolutely the most interesting thing about the two contests. Aimed at similiarly aged audiences — Chevy directly at college student, Gourmet Station at 20- and early 30-somethings, the approaches are very different. Now, of course, some of this can be laid squarely at budget. Chevy has lotsa bucks, Gourmet Station, not so much. In fact, the need to stay to a tight budget was acknowledged by the folks who developed the Get out of the doghouse campaign for Gourmet Station. 

Chevy’s contest asks college students to develop a TV commercial to "to reignite the love affair between Americans and Chevrolet."  It is supported by a standard format blog and a Web site. Chevy will produce the winning commercial and air it during the Super Bowl. Pretty cool idea. The PR effort used both the standard format press release, and a "social media press release,"  and you can read Nellie’s thoughts about that on the New Persuasion blog. Net: this contest is a good execution of a creative idea using a combination of new and old techniques, but it’s not revolutionary.

Still cool though and I’m very much looking forward to seeing the winning commercial since that’s the only reason I watch the Super Bowl anyway. Yeah yeah, I know, un-American. Your point?

Gourmet Station’s Get out of the doghouse campaign, on the other hand, is a grassroots marketing campaign. Folks are asked to create and submit YouTube videos talking about a time they were in the doghouse, and how they got out of it. The connection to Gourmet Station is the idea that a gift of a gourmet meal is one way to get yourself out. The contest site  is on MySpace and they’ve worked with comedians active on MySpace to attract a younger audience. Props to the company: they are also contributing to Borzoi Rescue as part of the program. So we’ve got a real revolutionary "smash-up" — YouTube, MySpace and Gourmet Station’s Web site.

I give Toby and Marianne Richmond, her partner in the project, credit for trying something truly new and definitely understand the desire to reach out to the MySpace audience. I  hope the MySpacers enter the contest. However, I find the site distracting and am not sure it does justice to the creative idea. The format is just too confining. Which is amusing, given how so many are using MySpace to express their individuality 🙂

I wish Gourmet Station had the budget to do a Web site for the contest that communicated the idea more clearly and effectively. They could still have used MySpace to engage the community, but not to tell the whole story. The MySpace site just feels too jumbled.

Now, I will be honest. I do not get MySpace. At all. Am I old and cranky? Perhaps. But it just doesn’t seem like an efficient way to convey information. It just reminds me of Web sites in the early days (94-ish) with or without <blink>.

My .02. YMMV. Possibly especially if you are younger 🙂 

Registration for the Chevy contest is closed, but the Gourmet Station contest is still open until early October. Check it out.

PS: Good Technology still hasn’t contacted us about the phone number problem.

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