Je T'aime Google

I don't care what "sentiment" says, no way is a kid who slaps his mama's date and the Dorito out of his hand going to upstage the intelligent, engaging storytelling of Google's "Parisian Love" ad.


If it has any flaws at all, it's that the viewer has to read it. Google did well to present it during the Super Bowl because you'd be hard pressed to find viewers who want to watch any commercials at any other time. However, during the Super Bowl, you have people who'd rather watch the commercials than the game glued to the set (I'm a fan of both).

"Parisian Love" proves you don't need a big budget, just a big idea, to communicate well. Google can do a lot of things, from Analytics to Adsense, from Google Docs to Google Wave, and everything inbetween, but they chose to show what made Google great to begin with. It distills down search to its most relevant and meaningful terms. And they did it all by engaging the viewers in a complete story arc that lasts less than 60 seconds.

I'm Team Google.

I'm Gonna Need You To Come In On Saturday... (The Post About Motivation)

Motivation. I used to think it was directly linked to the amount of metabolism you had....I had, which meant I was doomed. I had hardly any metabolism to begin with, and when I turned 30, the little I had packed its bags and left a "Dear Janet" letter on the nightstand that merely said "Good Luck."

Thankfully, I actually become more motivated as my mortal and biological clocks ticked louder and louder. What's been difficult has been maintaining consistency across all platforms -- my health, my family, my writing, my work, etc. I was killing Wii Fit in January, but one flu and one trip to NYC later, and I stepped on the balance board for the first time in a month last night.

Same with this blog. I was so proud of myself for posting somewhat regularly for awhile there. Then...nothin'. I kept saying, it's about being authentic. Don't post if it isn't going to be meaningful to your followers...all beautiful 15 of you. However, I do always have ideas about what to write, but I just lost that routine I so desperately crave to keep me on the horse.

Soooo, I decided to write about that tonight. I watched the Super Bowl (Hell Yeah, Saints!), and I realized, those guys stay motivated. I need to, too. Maybe I'll ask our readers. Share tips on how you stay motivated -- is it carrying a picture of the family or of that Audi you want? Is it psyching yourself up? Is it a pitcher of coffee? Tell me all your tips because I guarantee I'll probably try them all, and videotape myself doing so for a future post.

Sticking it to the Man

Occasionally a good challenge comes up that's just too darn good to pass up. Here's the deal. My boss's boss's boss issued a challenge to me and my team: get 10,000 Twitter followers on the @NaxosRecords account by the end of March. Will we stick it to the man? Can we do it?

I think so. The intent is obviously the more people we have in our community, the higher the raw numbers of click-throughs and retweets become. Right now, we average about a 7% click-through rate and a 12% retweet rate, with roughly 3300 followers. I'd love to see all 3 numbers increase! Thankfully, the challenge is just to get our numbers up, and not interactions. One of the great things about Twitter is that the average age of Twitter users falls in the 25-54 range (marketingcharts.com, 04/2009), which is our target audience. It stands to reason that there are at least 10,000 classical music fans in the Twittersphere. The big key is how to motivate them to follow us.


This probably needs a separate post, but Janet and I recently attended SocialFresh, a great conference for social media geeks. Definitely check it out - the guy that runs it is a BAMF and deserves mad kudos for putting it all together.

Anyway, Paula Berg (@PaulaBerg) formerly of Southwest Airlines, gave an incredible talk about the power of social media, specifically Twitter, to help propel @SouthwestAir into 2 of the largest grossing days of sales in the history of SWA in 2009. It took her from the beginning of 2007 to 2009 to connect with over 1M Twitter fans with her team. Those two years focused on bringing the employees passion and love for SWA to Twitter, building trust, and adding value to the Twitter community. Her team tweeted about everything from delays, weather, and news, to funny/inspiring stories about SWA, passenger's pictures and videos, and crazy tales from employees. It was and continues to be a pretty solid mix of corporate/business information and feel-good human stories.

I bring this up because this is the ultimate test of whether or not social media marketing will have longevity with companies: ROI. At the end of the day, we are all in business to inspire people to spend their money with us. If we can't prove ROI with our social media efforts, then what the hell are we doing?

The Power of Search on Twitter

I'm in the middle of watching the Texas/Alabama National Championship Game, and when Colt McCoy got hurt, a major spike on Twitter happened. It's actually pretty incredible how much information gets disseminated on Twitter before the networks have any information. Take ESPN for example. They only have what happened to Colt, but they don't have anything posted about Colt's status and it's been almost an hour.


At the same time, @JoeNBC (Joe the host of the Morning Joe on MSNBC) already posted a tweet about Colt breaking his collarbone during the Championship game. (I'm really hoping that his source is wrong, but I'm doubtful).



As you can see - the power of Twitter and getting information as it's happening is key. I know there are a lot of people who don't get Twitter, but when you think about the political, military and social implications of being able to access and post information instantaneously, it's pretty darn powerful.

Resolutions Aren't Enough. You Need An Anthem.

Here we are. 2010. Another decade flew by, and yet we aren't teleporting anywhere or driving hovercrafts, much to my chagrin. Every year we make resolutions -- to quit smoking, to lose weight, to join the gym, to find the "one," to get that job or start that business that's going to let us retire early. But before you know it, 10 years are gone. That's not to say baby steps on the ladder of life haven't been taken, but, somehow, you thought you'd be farther by now. So what went wrong? You read the books, you tattooed "Carpe Diem" on your arm, you joined the gym. What happened? Why aren't you lunching with Oprah and Bill Gates yet? Oh, I don't know the answer. And that isn't what this post is about. Maybe Tony Robbins has a blog that could help you there.

I didn't ever really make new year resolutions in the past. I tried. I said all those same things above. I've had small successes -- I gave up meat for Lent when I was 14-years-old, and 23 years later, I'm still a vegetarian. I figured, if something was worth giving up for 40 days, it was probably worth giving up for good. Mind you, the next year, I gave up Lent for Lent.  One year I gave up fast food for the whole year. That was monumental for a latch-key kid who grew up on TV dinners and McD's. However, I still grab an Extra Value Meal now and again. So why didn't that one stick? I blame it on whatever they put in the fries (Note: Don't read Fast Food Nation if you love McDonald's fries).

Instead of resolutions, something that I did, and I'm not sure where the inspiration came from, was that whatever the first song I heard was after the new year rang in became my anthem for the year. This one is tricky because DJs love to play New Year's Day by U2, so I began to set rules after hearing that one every few years. A few of the memorable songs that became soundtracks to my years were "Let Love Rule" by Lenny Kravitz, "Touch of Grey" by The Grateful Dead, Led Zepplin's take on "Nobody's Fault But Mine,"and "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" by Judas Priest. I was always a little surprised how these songs would turn up during the year to get me through. They became my mantras, my anthems.

The bottom line to succeeding at New Year's Resolutions or any goals in life is to write them down, give yourself deadlines, and outline actionable steps to how you will achieve them. I'd like to add, get yourself an anthem. Every soundtrack to life needs one. I'm hoping that when I turn on the radio this year I'll hear the theme to "Rocky," because, let's face it, the song rules. However, it will sure make achieving your goals this year a hell of a lot more fun. Commit. Know the result you want. Do the work. Hear your anthem.

What songs inspire you?

My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess SOCIAL MEDIA is pretty serious.

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it"

-- Ferris Bueller

Technology (specifically, the technologies that propel social media's progress) moves pretty fast, too. Some would argue, that if you do stop and look around, you will definitely miss it. Thing is, you don't want to miss the point of slowing down to look around.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there are NO experts in social media. Pipe down. Yes, there are wise ones who have grown with the mediums and certainly know more than most how to find method within the madness (Do I need to mention Chris Brogan in another post? I didn't think so). However, I would argue that precisely because there are new technologies within new social platforms across the social 'verse announced daily it seems, that there might be passionate hunter-gatherers out there who love to be first to try the new app or whatever so they can conquer and share the social (r)evolution, but that doesn't make them an expert. It makes them an explorer -- the ones who bravely go where others fear to tread...at least first.

The good news to my claim is that this means that anyone can become an expert. Participate. Explore this new frontier with us. Discover something we haven't, or find ways to use the tools in a different way to suit your needs. In the words of Timothy Leary "Tune in. Turn on." And to avoid the urge to "Drop out," slow down, and enjoy this new social world around you. Take the time to dig in. Or, to use yet another analogy, avoid the shallow end.

When you're out there trying new things, be authentic. Admit that you don't know it all, and start conversations with others to find answers. Share knowledge. And finally, make it part of your daily routine. You need to exercise your social muscles so they don't atrophy...and so you'll be ready when that next new thing comes along and you have to incorporate that into your world of social tools.

Sooo, anyone have anything to say about this? Anyone? Bueller?

Will they stay or will they go?

Have I ever said how much I love analytics? Well, if I haven't said it enough, I love analytics. I enjoy looking at hard data and analyzing it. One of my favorite temp jobs I ever had was actually with a market research firm in Dallas where we took thousands of data points and drilled them down into their essence. It was a lot more than just saying X # of people enjoyed Y product or whatever. There's a lot of interpretation in that data.

Take for example a heated debate I got into with one of my colleagues about Social Media and the Holiday Season*. We agreed that the subscriber numbers would go up.

Where we disagreed was how those subscribers will react to the various product pages, etc. My guess is that while we will see actual subscriber numbers increase, interactions will decrease since users will be using their networks to reconnect with old friends, communicate with family members, coordinate events, etc. She thinks those interactions will increase on our corporate pages.

We recently started actively monitoring our social media networks and don't have any data prior to May 2009, so I have no evidence that I am right or wrong.

Do you have any idea which the outcome will be? Will our subscribers even increase during the Holiday Season?

*Holiday Season refers to the time period from Thanksgiving-New Year's