PardonMyFrench

Revisiting Roblox

A few months ago I made this post called Is Roblox Safe? Not Sure So I Blocked It and I've received a lot of traffic from this post.  Some from parents looking for answers and some from Roblox supporters as you can see from the comments in the post.  Usually my answer to these comments is that I have little kids and I don't want them that involved with consumer generated content.  Also, don't forget that the trigger for my further investigation was that my firewall-antivirus software Bit Defender flagged the site as not child friendly.

Well last Friday I received an email from the CEO of Roblox David Baszucki.  He was kind enough to want to talk with me about my blog post.  I guess that means that either a) someone sent him the link or b) he or his marketing team was watching Roblox's google results.  We spoke within the hour of his email...

1. He wanted to talk about which software I was using to protect the laptop (Bit Defender) and they were going to consider adding it to the software they test.
2. He wanted to reassure me that even though the content is consumer generated they flag obviously offensive ones and remove or if something is marginal, but gets flagged as inappropriate they investigate immediately.  
3. He spoke with me about the ads I was seeing and told me that they carefully monitor what appears on the site
4. Finally he wanted to know why I thought they were associated with Lego because they are extremely cautious.

Anyway, I thought he was very professional and that they do try hard to monitor the site.  As I wrote earlier, then later in replies to the comments, and then when I spoke with David, I have little kids and I don't include Roblox on the list of sites they can visit.  I do think Roblox is a lot more professional then when I wrote that post, but for Jacob and Kaela it isn't for them.  When they get a little older - perhaps around 13 I will probably change my mind, but right now, no; I don't even let them on YouTube without me.  

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

I Am CNBC - Brilliant Campaign Even With Flaws

Are you a regular watcher of CNBC?  I've always been a fan going back to my Harrisdirect days and since about September it is part of a rotation of programming I leave on while working in my NJ office (that would be first Fox and Friends, Mike and Mike on ESPN, CNN, and then back to CNBC straight through to Mad Money).  Anyway, not sure when they started running the I am CNBC ads (the I Am American Business has been around) but I think the campaign is brilliant even if it does have some flaws.

I Am CNBC is Brilliant

1. It puts personality behind the anchors
2. It gives the anchors a chance to talk about what makes them click giving people more of a chance to bond with them
3. The black and white imagery really makes the ads stand out and really lets you connect with them
4. After all the news business is about the reporters and their opinion/spin and less about the actual reporting of news (this helps, but explain MSNBC)
5. Helps them cross sell between shows so that when you are watching one program they can serve ads with a different personality in them
6. The I Am campaign has legs, but...

I Am CNBC Has Flaws

1. This campaign is screaming social networking
2. Where are the ability to leave comments, post your own video as to why I Am CNBC Viewer, etc
3. Why no Twitter accounts, Facebook links, LinkedIn, YouTube, and etc?  This would be a great way to continue the conversation. Sure you probably think that the majority of your viewers aren't using those products, but I'm willing to bet Twitter and YouTube would be of great use.
4. The I Am American Business doesn't seem to resonate with me.  Maybe it is because I can read/learn about their stories elsewhere and I find it hard to believe that all of them are rabid CNBC watchers, besides those come off as paid endorsements.
5. Why no ability to embed videos or widgets on blogs, websites?
6. Did I write how much more interesting this campaign would be if you let people film their own 30 second video as to why they watch CNBC just to get the chance to have it put up on your website?  Save me the excuses of being serious all of the time...
7. Where's Michelle?

Anyway, I love the I Am CNBC and they passed my TiVo test.  Too bad with a little more effort they could have expanded more into the Social Networking world.  One final note, if they did have links to SocNets out there I couldn't find them on searches or links from their website.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Zannel Is My New Favorite Social Network

Do I have a Facebook page?  Of course I do and I log into it but not as much as I did in the past.  I'm actually a fan of Facebook and I think they are trying to take a leadership position in aggregating all of your social media.  Do I have a MySpace page?  Yes, but I only log in on a rare occasion and as some of you readers know, I'm definitely not a fan.  Twitter?  Yes I do make tweets and actually enjoy reading what other folks are doing.  Friendfeed?  Yes, but other than help to provide aggregated feeds I'm not sure why I should visit it.  To be fair, I tried using it before my Dad died, but ever since then I haven't given it much time.  YouTube yes of course but I don't post a ton of videos.

That's a lot of social networking and without a playbook it is hard to figure out where to spend your time.  Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are my favorites but then I got this great new cell phone and I sure would like to use it for making posts.  Sure I can post to twitter but then getting all of those tweets on your phone is enough to make your friends think you are perverted with all of the vibrations going off in your front pocket.  So enter Zannel.

Zannel is basically like Twitter on steroids.  It is integrated with Twitter so your posts to Zannel can also appear as tweets (that of course feeds into Friendfeed and then to Facebook).  However, the best part of Zannel is the crisp clean videos and photos you can post from your cell phone.  All you do is take your video-picture, email it to your Zannel account, add some text to the body of the email and wham instant Zannel post in one minute or less.

As you can see from my posts I'm just testing it out, but I do need to spend some time figuring out my new phone and how the camera works.  I'm planning on broadcasting from the Republican National Convention starting on Sunday when I fly out to be part of the NJ delegation team.   You want to see what it looks like behind the scenes?  You got it.  Just follow either on this blog (widget on right hand side) or on my Zannel channel.

Zannel will make you pull out your cell phone manual to figure out how your camera phone actually works.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Quick Hits from Today's AAPC Conference in NYC

I was on the opening panel at the AAPC Conference in NYC today. Diane Rinaldo from Yahoo was the moderator for our panel and she did a fine job.  I can't say I learned a lot from the panel, but then again it was on online advertising which I've been doing a longgggg time.  I did get a lot of great questions from the audience, probably more than I expected so I'm pretty sure we did well.   I caught two other panels in between meetings and here's what I learned.

• Mindy Finn played clips from the documentary Primary reminding all of us  how far we've come in the political world.  It seems like ancient history watching JFK make phone calls to see how the voter turnout was in a certain district or when they just stood in line shaking hands.
• Brendan Burns gave a good presentation on using social media at the Lance Armstrong Foundation.  It was great to see someone so enlightened when it came to using Facebook and other social networking tools.  Brendan reinforced that a) check to see what others have already done with your brand in places like Facebook b) don't try and control the message but seed it with information c) get involved with the community by providing widgets, communications, and applications d) when you try to control the message yourself don't be surprised if you have no followers
• Brendan also proved once again why the worst form of online advertising you can do is to buy banner ads (directly) on the social networking sites.  I get why these companies try to get a piece of the ad dollars, but really it is about letting go of your brand and letting these folks turn into evangelists for you; pushing messages there will fail no matter how cheap they are.
• I had originally intended to leave during Becki Donatelli's (and my boss) panel on Online Fundraising because I had already seen three of the presenters.  However, Becki smartly had everyone condense their decks down to 2-3 pages and then we went right into a discussion.  Another surprise was that Andrew Rasiej from Personal Democracy Forum and techPresident was also on the panel.  This panel besides my own was a highlight from the day and I got out of it a) a more organized minority is more powerful than a disorganized majority b) all candidates at all levels must have some demand for what they are trying to accomplish; no amount of smart marketing can get you to the finish line without it c) open source government and not just open source campaigns will be coming in the near future due to the ease of use of social networking tools, cheap technology, and low bandwidth cost d) show your donors actually giving money because it helps motivate friends e) focus not just on donors but the most networked individuals

Then I had to leave in order to get home (I actually made it back from Columbus Circle in about 2 hours and 15 minutes and most of that was on the subway-path).  However, I'm glad I made it in.  I learned something and met some interesting people.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Not All Bloggers and Social Networks Are Evil, Just Some of Them

Coming on the heels of the post I made yesterday regarding how to (unethically) scam YouTube, there was another initiative to have people paid to make positive posts about Hillary Clinton.   

This reminds of a post I made a while back called Bloggers versus Political Bloggers where Political Bloggers seem to get away with a lot more than what I've seen around the marketing blog world.  In my two years of actually working in the political world, I've seen posts made that were based on no facts and when pointed out to that, the author just ignored the comments.  I've seen well known columnists shill for a politician and create negative comments about their competition.  Add to that the brew ha with over zealous commenting bots and pay for comments and you can see that it really is a wide open range for what is acceptable and not acceptable.

From the corporate marketing world pay per posts are frowned upon.  Making obviously fake posts and websites (like WalMart flogs) are quickly discovered and reported on.  Shilling for a corporation or product is considered unethical unless you properly disclose it.  Marshalling tactics like some of those mentioned in the YouTube post above are not kosher; why else would Dan refuse to name clients of his that participated in these schemes.

As with any reporting or writing you really need to understand the motivations behind the author.  Whether it is to make money, retire early, support a candidate, or whatever it really matters to understand what the blogger's storey is (mistake on purpose).  Besides figuring that out, your best bet is to get multiple views on a subject that interests you and that includes main stream media.  Personally I've found that the "truth" is always somewhere in between the different views and who knows you might learn something new in the process when you listen to an opposing view point. 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Politico, Compete Study Rains on Social Networking Parade

Political news site The Politico just published a study it completed with Compete.com which looked at web surfing behaviors of people who visited the current crop of Presidential contenders' websites.  While some of you readers might be saying to yourself, oh great another political marketing post that I'll just ignore, I think you should spend a little more time studying the article and the results.  If a political marketers has challenges with social networking, then perhaps maybe you should rethink your strategy too.  The article called Campaign seek measure of internet success has some great quotes in it and a link to a table to run some of your own comparisons.  Here are some highlights from the article...

• Some of the more newsworthy efforts have focused on campaign-created MySpace, Facebook, Meetup and YouTube pages — and so far, the payoff has been difficult to measure.
• But the results reveal interesting online habits among the politically attuned. A significant number get their news from mainstream media versus political blogs. YouTube, meanwhile, is one of the most reliable ways for candidates to communicate directly to voters. But the candidates’ official Meetup, Facebook and MySpace pages appear less effective at that.
• Half of those tracked by Compete visited MySpace in September, and 54 percent visited YouTube. Nearly two-thirds went to Wikipedia, a quarter logged on to Facebook and 7 percent visited Meetup.
• Meetup, the darling of the 2004 election cycle, barely registers with any candidate other than Internet phenom Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)
• Two percent checked out the candidates’ MySpace pages, and 1 percent hit his or her Facebook page.
• YouTube is in a different league, with 16 percent of its readers visiting candidate-specific pages
• The political readers captured by Compete were much more likely to get their news from a mainstream source than from political blogs. Forty-eight percent went to CNN, followed by Yahoo News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fox News, USA Today and, to a lesser extent, Politico.

So are these social networks all hype?  Well for politics I think they are over hyped, but they do serve useful purposes in connecting people.  While for advertisers, they provide a cheap and often free way of advertising.  Plus, the word of mouth potential of course is always there.

However (and that's a big however), as an acquisition vehicle I don't think the majority of advertisers have quite figured out how to use them.  Sure for every Ron Paul advertiser there are thousands of other advertisers that don't have the right message or product to move the social networking needle. 

This study clearly shows for the majority of political advertisers that they should put the spending back towards more traditional internet mediums.  Besides that I think advertisers should really think of social networks as a CRM vehicle (yes I wrote that).  That's really where your strategy should be moving towards and less of an acquisition vehicle.

PardonMyFrench,

Eric

Sell LinkedIn Short and Go Long on Facebook

So a week after my post called Hey Eric, What's With All of The Facebook and LinkedIn Invites?, I've received plenty of friends/networking requests and watched myself log into Facebook more often.  It isn't that I'm spending a ton of time there, but it is much more user friendly and visually pleasing to use.  I still have a ton more contacts at LinkedIn (125) versus Facebook (21) and I just think it is due to that most of my former colleagues are not on Facebook; plus being a 1989 college graduate pushes out my available Facebook friends to next to nothing (20).

Anyway, I guess I wasn't the only one who thought about using Facebook for professional purposes.  According to Jeff Pulver, writing an article over at BusinessWeek he makes Confessions of a LinkedIn Dropout.   Now, I won't "drop out" of LinkedIn, but use it like I have in the past - a repository of contacts and job searches when I need it.  However, here are highlights from the BW article and see if this is familiar to you because it is to me:

• After a few years on LinkedIn, all he was left with was a bunch of contacts in his network that he doesn't know.
• Easier to join groups and networks on Facebook
• Easier to include your every day life too

I'd be remiss if I didn't link to this post from LeeAnn Prescott from Hitwise which shows that LinkedIn traffic is up  323% in past year.  So, doesn't that show that I'm a little off when it comes to going against a trend?  No.  Take a contrarian view and perhaps you should be selling LinkedIn short now and going long on Facebook before every one 35+ years old ventures over.  The traffic uptick is impressive, but perhaps that's just due to a new marketing team focusing on increasing eyeballs. 

If LinkedIn doesn't want to get Amazoned by Facebook, they should open up their platform and let their tech users create applications and widgets that professionals want.  As I wrote before, I'm not leaving LinkedIn, but find the pull of Facebook's usability strong.  I'm pretty much a newbie over at Facebook so if you want to send me groups to join or if you know me, a friend invite, please do so. 

PardonMyFrench,

Eric