RonAmok!

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending my second Podcamp Boston (#PCB4). In my opinion, PCB is by far the most influential conference in Social Media.

I haven’t figured it out yet, but there’s something about the region that produces Social Media content creators. Perhaps there’s something in the water. Perhaps it’s cultural. Perhaps it has to do with Boston being the birthplace of the American Revolution–an area seething with strong opinions and a propensity to throw tea into harbor. But whatever the reason, Boston is truly “The Hub” of the Social Media world. How else can you explain the fact that Chris Brogan, Chris Penn, C.C. Chapman, John Wall, Steve Garfield, and Ann Handley–all people who have been using Social Media since before it actually had a name–live within such close proximity to one another?

“You’re Famous?”

I was seated at a round table waiting for the next session to begin. Across from me, a woman tapped lightly on her personal media device. Shortly after the session began, I sensed that a man had joined our table. At the end of the presentation, Chris Penn instructed the audience to introduce ourselves to everyone at our table. I glanced to my right, smiled, and reached to shake the man’s hand.

“It looks like I have the pleasure of introducing myself to the most famous guy in the room,” I said.

The man smiled and shook my hand sheepishly. “Thank You.”

“You’re famous?” the woman on the other side of the table asked. “What do you do?”

“Well,” the man answered, clearly uncomfortable with the “famous” label, “I like to bring people together to share ideas. I organize conferences.”

“That’s why you’re famous?” she asked.

“Well, I also co-founded Vonage,” Jeff Pulver said.

It wasn’t the first time that I had met Jeff. We once shook hands in October 2007, when I thanked him for hosting an open bar for an event at Podcamp Boston #2. But this time, I had the opportunity to speak with him one-on-one for just a few minutes. I asked him about his upcoming 140 Character Conference to be held in Los Angeles on October 27th and 28th. Jeff’s eyes lit up as he told me about his thoughts on the conference and the implications of  the real-time Internet. We were in the middle of a conversation when it became clear that others were politely waiting for their chance to speak with Jeff, so rather than monopolizing his time, I politely excused myself and let them have a few minutes with him.

As I walked away I remember thinking to myself, this is EXACTLY the type of person that I came to meet at Podcamp Boston–smart and passionate about his subject.

“The serendipity of life. We are always in transition. It never is how it was. It will never be what it is today.”
~Jeff Pulver

The State of Now

On Sunday, Jeff lead a session called “The State of Now,” forty-five minutes of rapid-fire concepts delivered without notes or a presentation. As my pen sped across my notepad in a poor attempt to capture his thoughts, I cursed the fact that I never learned shorthand. But here are some of the gems that I deciphered from my illegible notes:

Real-Time Conversation: The state of Human communication has hit an inflection point, as indicated by the fact that we can get a tweet-back from anywhere in the world–instantaneously. Such ubiquitous access to real-time information will cause massive change in our lives…the key is to figure out what we’re going to do with the information.

The Velocity Effect: The “velocity effect” is a repercussion of the fact that we now have more access to real-time news and information than at any other time in human history. With such access, our behaviors are likely to be effected. For example, Jeff posed the following scenario:

What if we  merged the trending topics of various information sources such as Craigslist and Ebay? Individually, the information is interesting, but if we apply mathematics to make sense of the merged data, one might have an advantage of placing orders based on the monitoring of real-time events because “…the first and second derivatives of this information is valuable.”

The Social Network of One: Your personal network allows you to use the freedom of expression to determine who you are and to set up peering relationships with friends or even “frienemies.” We have the “…opportunity to take serendipitous opportunities to another level” by asking strangers for a favor.  Jeff described an example where he was standing on a street corner in New York City and needed help unpacking some boxes. He sent out a request for help on Twitter and seven minutes later, eight people showed up to help.

Social Platforms Are Addictive: Some people lament the addictiveness of Social platforms; Jeff Pulver embraces it. “It’s contagious,” he said. “You can’t get enough of it…(Social interaction) is “… a part of your digital soul…”

Jeff round up his talk with a warning: “Now is not the time to put your head in the sand. The Big Bang has yet to happen.”

Thanks to conferences such as Podcamp Boston and speakers such as Jeff Pulver, I know we’ll be ready for when it happens.

Photo Credit: C.C. Chapman

Tags: PCB4 Podcamp Boston Chris Brogan Chris Penn C.C. Chapman John Wall Steve Garfield Ann Handley Jeff Pulver 140 Character Conference Vonage

Not only did I have the great pleasure of seeing Gary Vaynerchuk speak live at the Marketing Profs Digital Mixer last Thursday in Scottsdale, AZ, but as a bonus, I got to chat with him over lunch. Gary is one of those people who can recharge the batteries of everyone around him. He’s the New Media Evangelist’s New Media Evangelist. Very smart and very entertaining. His only flaw is that he’s a NY Jets fan (Says the Pats fan!)

I recorded his entire talk with my Flip camera, but unfortunately the sound wasn’t up to snuff. So instead, I went through his entire presentation and pulled out ten of my favorite Garyisms. Here I present:

Gary Vaynerchuk on…

…content: “If content is King, marketing is Queen and she runs the house.”

Pumping out great content is not enough. The best everything, is not the best business. The best running shoes are not the best sellers. The best song is not number one. The best Pinot Noir is not the biggest seller. Marketing is the difference

…changing the rules of Marketing:

At the end of the day, nobody cares about anything that you do unless you give them eyeballs to convert an action. When the eyeballs go to different places, you better go there. If the fish leave this pond and they go to that pond, be there.

…Word of Mouth:

The Internet is so different today than it was five years ago, it is scary. Word of mouth is on steroids. Here’s why. Because now we have tools that let us keep pushing the conversation forward. The word is traveling. Word of mouth is changing so much.

If somebody came to my store and loved Wine Library and got great service and she was the biggest socialite on the Upper East Side in Manhattan, how many people could that yenta have possibly told? A hundred? But now, if Chris Brogan thinks my wine is yummy, he can re-tweet that sh*t to 18,000 people. And 34 if them may think that is cool. And one of those 34 is me. I have 18,000 and I re-tweet it. And you know who follows me? An editor or producer at Fox — who tracks it back and all of a sudden your consumer is on the show.

Word of mouth, remember that. In your world, marketers, it’s the word of mouth that’s changing. Your fan-base, your friends, they’re the ones that are going to build you. They always were but the difference is that they are no longer armed with sling shots; they’ve got machetes too.

…Social Media technology:

Twitter, and Seesmic, and Facebook…are tools. They’re a screw driver, a telephone, a car. They don’t make a difference. You make the difference. Use the tools.

The tools are there. You just need to use them. Creating a Twitter account or making a Facebook fan page is like buying a house and not furnishing it.

Anyone who doesn’t spend at least an hour a day on search.twitter.com is making a huge mistake. The free data that is on search.twitter is amazing. You can search anything, and see what people are saying about it. You can eavesdrop on every conversation in the world. And it’s free.

…corporate resistance to Social Media:

We’re living in an age where the gatekeepers have been eliminated…companies don’t want to hear that they can’t control the message anymore…If your product your service is broken — you’re broken. ‘Cuz your intern or your cousin or your neighbor is going to expose you on the Internet. Try spending less time and effort trying to control your message and fix your message. You’ll be far better off. Because if you don’t think that every iPhone in 2010 is going to be streaming direct to the Internet live, then you have no idea what’s going on. You’re not paying attention. So if you have cockroaches in the back of your pizzeria, clean that sh*t up.

…Social Media Marketing success:

Everyone thinks this is some magic pill. There’s no magic pill. Here’s what works. Work. You’ve got to work. I don’t want you to spend a lot of money, but I want you to spend a lot of time.

Remember when your grandmother used to say, “Stores aren’t the same anymore.” When the butcher used to say, “Sally, you want some lamb tonight?” You can do that, virtually. And if you are outsourcing these types of activities to interns, then you’re dead. Please don’t do it. Outsource everything else.

It’s all about authenticity and transparency. You can build enormous brand equity…Way too many people are scared to ask for what they want. If you are transparent and authentic, there’s nothing to be afraid of.

…B2B and Social Media:

There’s only one thing that we consume. We consume brands. That’s what we do. When you have brand equity you win. So, depending on your space, my biggest game plan would be to build the biggest brand equity that will be attractive to all the partners in your B2B space. Always build brand.

…results:

Way too many of you in this room have had great ideas, and can make things happen, but you haven’t been patient enough. You didn’t see a return on your investment. It wasn’t worth it. Nothing comes easy. The great stuff is hard. And so I pumped out a show for 18 months, and then finally, one of them who was a New York Magazine writer that became a fan, and she wrote an article, and then Joel Stein read that article at Time magazine and he wrote an article, and then Conan’s producer saw that and put me on the air…and away it went.

…personal brand:

I want my DNA to be my personal brand. I want Gary Vaynerchuk to be my personal brand. I do not want to be known as the wine guy. I want to stay-on-brand that’s coming and flowing through my body, my DNA.

…Personal Brand vs. Company Brand?

You build both. Steve Jobs has personal brand and the company’s got brand. Understand who you are. If you are an introvert, be the greatest introvert that there ever was.

Tags: Gary Vaynerchuk Chris Brogan MPDM New Media Evangelist Ron Ploof Wine Library TV

The second of our video series explaining serial content strategies.

Here is a complete transcript of the video:

The Double-Value Curve

Last AmokTalk, we described the Long Tail and the things you need to think about with respect to your marketing strategies. With that as our foundation, let’s look at the data another way. Let’s change this axes from “downloads” to “value” – meaning the value that a particular piece of content means to an individual looking for that content.

And here’s how it works. When you first release your serial content, it may or not have any value to your customer. It depends on whether or not they need that particular information at that particular time. Let’s look at three scenarios:

First, we have a content-consumer who is looking for “timely” content. Perhaps they like trying new restaurants, and their favorite restaurant-blogger has just published a new review. In this case, the information is timely, and so the value to the content-consumer is high.

But what about another content-consumer, someone who has no persistent need for new restaurant reviews? In this case, when the review is fresh, it has no value to her. But then, at sometime in the future, let’s say that she’s looking for an opinion on that new restaurant that she just drove by. Well, at that Moment of Truth, this review will be very valuable to her.

And lastly, there’s is a hybrid example, formed by combining both scenarios. Let’s say that a content-consumer reads our restaurant review the day it’s released, but he does nothing more with the information than tucks it away into his memory. And then, at some time in the future, when his girlfriend talks about this restaurant that she just drove by on the way home from work, he remembers the review, and finds it for her. In this case, the review is valuable at two different points in it’s lifetime — forming what I like to call as the double-value curve.

Newspapers have built a revenue-stream around the double-value curve. Have you noticed that fresh content is free – yet if you need to go into their archives, you’ll need to pay for it? It brings up an interesting question. How come people will pay for information that used to be free? The answer’s simple, because the value of information is directly proportional to how much you need it at any given moment.

Now, I’m not saying to go out and create a pay-for-use model for your company’s serial content. But it’s important for you to remember that the value of your serial content has less to do with you and more to do with the immediate need of your customers. And by understanding the power of the double-value curve, you can build complete marketing strategies around it.

In the next AmokTalk, I’ll share some real world data with you that illustrate the power of combining the Long Tail with the Double-value curve.

Tags: ronamok double-value curve marketing serial content serial content strategy amoktalk