Ode To Twitter

In honor of my 1000th Tweet, an Ode to Twitter.  (Ok...yeah...it's really not that clever, I know.) 

Twitter, my world hasn't quite been the same since your birth

140 characters to articulate my random thoughts to all corners of the Earth

Twitter, oh Twitter, you are so very cool

you let me hear the wisdom of gurus like Kathy Sierra, John Maeda and Jared Spool. 

though there are some that i'd rather hit

like CSS guru Christopher Schmitt 

it's oh so terrible that you can't figure out a way to get paid

but at least @jetblue will let me know if my flight is delayed

off in the distance, we can see large banner ads lurk

still, (unless you fail) you allow me break up my day at work

they say no one's figured out how to use you as a marketing tool

I disagree...@amazondeals gives me discounts on all that is cool

@barackobama tells us where the next President will be a guest

plus, as a bonus, we can rip apart Sarah Lacy for that lame ass interview at SXSW

but most of all twitter, i love the conversations you allow to take place

all sorts of people with different experiences to showcase

the occasional debate with @brianwmniles or @bradjward

direct messages from @debrouillard to get me fired up make me feel so adored

from anticipating the next smartass remark from @tsand

or @tonydunn announcing a new Tales From Redesignland

to @wnalyd antagonizing me with the latest news about "email's death" being to blame

and random updates from the original doteduguru, @kylejames

and to all the others whose name I didn't say

when I chat with you all on twitter, you make my day

and so Twitter, on the day of my 1000th post, I salute you

on the 10,000th post, maybe i'll get a Twitter tattoo :-)

What Web 2.0 means to me

Generally speaking, I recoil when the term Web 2.0 is brought up in conversation.  It's a sham term that is generally applicable in every possible situation involving the Internet.  Honestly, if you look at definitions of Web 2.0 out there (and had no experience with the Internet prior to 2004), you'd think things like design, usability and standards just weren't important before Web 2.0 came along to tell us that they were.  

So for me, when I think about Web 2.0, I view it more in terms of a new kind of marketing philosophy. The web has obviously evolved from a medium primarily to gather information to one where people can actually "do stuff".  This has opened the door to new kinds of messaging that weren't available before. 

Push versus pull: There are a lot of definitions of push and pull marketing out there (mostly having to do with tangible products that require distribution channels and such) but when I think of these terms, I think of direct marketing versus stewarding brand loyalty.  In this case, direct marketing is primarily email.  It's an active approach - you're pushing a message out there directly to your users and asking them to do something.  Conversely, I view things like blogs, forums or social networking primarily as pull marketing - you're putting stuff out there but the onus is on the user to visit your blog or participate in your forum/social network.  If you've done a good job of creating brand loyalty, you won't have any problem with finding interested users to participate - but they will typically only be the ones that are super psyched about what you're offering instead of just your run-of-the-mill customer.  It is important to do both types to keep users engaged at the level that they want to be. 

The different between mass messaging and individual message: The days of sending out a message directed at a mass audience are over.  It's the difference between "Dear Sir or Madam" and "Dear {FirstName}".  Users expect you to know who they are and how they've interacted with you before.  Each message you send out should create value on an individual level for each and every person. 

Be authentic: People are thirsty for companies to be real (no spin!) and transparent.  They have a world full of information at their fingertips now so they can check the official company line against all of the unofficial information floating around.  Now, this one is tough.  I get it - when people have a mirror held up to them and they don't like what they see, they tend to blame the person holding up the mirror instead of themselves.  Nonetheless, straight shooting with your customers will build their trust in you and create some deep brand loyalty. 

Let go of control: If you want engagement with your product online, you have to be prepared for the fact that not all the comments are going to be glowing and fluffy.  People are going to say things you don't like, but you have to refrain from trying to control or censor it.  That will only blow up in your face.  The last school I worked at actually had rules against students saying negative things about the institution, and towards the end of my time there, tried to enforce them against online speech.  How do you think that went over?  I'll give you a hint - pretty soon a Facebook group popped up calling for the president's resignation and it had a ton of pretty active, engaged users.  Oops!  Instead of trying to censor, engage your users and show them that you care and are listening to their concerns.  Better yet, show them that you are doing something to fix their problems.  Their feedback is like a constant (and free!) focus group for you to pull information from.  Utilize it for all it's worth!  

Fast Tip Friday: Be Consistent

It never ceases to amaze me how many emails I get with "monthly" or "weekly" in the title which don't actually come out on a monthly or weekly basis.  Someone is too busy, they don't have the content for it...pick your excuse.  Users will notice if you say you are sending regularly but really don't: "What do you mean weekly?  I didn't get anything from you last week!" 

If you know you're going to have trouble being consistent, play off of that in the email - "the every once in a while newsletter" or the "sometimes monthly update".  There's nothing wrong with that - it manages the expectations of your users by letting them know that if you have something to say, you will. 

Getting Real Recruiting Results with Interactive Technologies (eduWeb 2007)

I was surfing the web looking for a something I wrote for my MBA and randomly came across the PowerPoint slides for the presentation I did at eduWeb in 2007 titled Getting Real Recruiting Results with Interactive Technologies.  I still think a lot of the points are very relevant to admissions offices so I thought I would throw them up here in case someone found it useful.

Getting Real Recruiting Results with Interactive Technologies

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

I believe in Santa Claus

Nothing drives me crazier than the "I believe" argument.  

"I believe email is dead"

"I believe you shouldn't email people on Fridays"

"I believe that teenagers will respond better over social networks"

Well I believe in Santa Claus.  Does that make it so?  I have no verifiable evidence to back up my assertion (and, in fact, there are mountains of evidence against it) but that doesn't matter.  I've made a pronunciation about my belief in Santa Claus on a blog and people will buy it. 

"But Karlyn, that's CRAZY!  Obviously Santa Claus isn't real!"  

But is it really that crazy?  None of the above pronunciations are any more real than Santa Claus, yet they've been made and people eat them up!  No statistics are offered to prove them and, when they are requested, never given.  

If you call yourself a marketer, you have to do all the steps - not just execute the tactics.  How do you know if what you did actually worked?  Stats are important and can oftentimes be very surprising.  We all carry around pre-conceived notions of what we think works but we can't be so pompous as to close our minds to the reality of what the statistics tell use work.  An honest look at the numbers always reveals the truth.  It's just not sexy, so most people skip it altogether.   

So I beg you: Never believe a pronunciation you hear someone make until you've tested it for yourself.  A helpful guide it may be, and if it works great.  But do your own research and figure out for yourself what will work.  Don't be afraid to try something that 90% of the people out there say will be a failure.  Never assume something was successful or unsuccessful because you hear anecdotal evidence - there are always ways to measure quantifiably.  All any of us speak from is our own experience and your experience with your audience may be completely different.

And never get in a discussion with me where you say "I believe" without giving stats.  It just doesn't fly :-) 

Fast Tip Friday: Exclamation points do not make things more exciting.

I've decided to add a new weekly feature.  Since we all have the attention span of 5-year-olds on Fridays in anticipation of the weekend, I've decided use it as a time to write short posts about a topic that can be digested in a minute or less.

The first topic: Exclamation points

You can always tell when a person is inexperienced in writing marketing copy based on the amount of exclamations points they use.  They rely on them, instead of words, to make boring copy more exciting.

Repeat after me: An exclamation point at the end of a sentence does not make that sentence exciting if the copy is boring.  Two or three exclamation points just make you look silly.  To avoid the appearance of being an immature writer, follow these simple rules: 

1. Limit your copy to one exclamation point per page
   
2. NEVER use multiple exclamation points
   
3. Proofread, proofread, proofread - really ask yourself why you selected the exclamation point in the first place and what you're trying to convey.
   

Happy Friday!

Failures can be more interesting than successes

I was talking to my boss about blogging last week and she suggested that I include posts about failures in here.  Everyone has failures so I'm not ashamed of admitting mine.  It's about reflecting on them and learning what you can.  So here goes: 

Two years ago I put together a strategy for the last school I worked at to include video on our website.  The original point was that it would be shot by current students and be really true to their experience.  It was purposefully going to have an amateurish quality to it, since I think that adds authenticity.  I got approved to get a ton of video equipment, final cut and an iMac but it took a while to get it ordered and delivered so I didn't actually get my hands until Spring 2007.  I had been toying with the idea of having a student do a video blog for a while and I recruited a kid that I had known for years to be my guinea pig.  He shot video for about a month and then came to ask if he could take the camera on his trip to London.  I said sure, not seeing any real downside to the situation.  Unfortunately said student thought it would be a good idea to ignore signs at Westminster Abbey that warned him against any photographic devices and had all of his tapes confiscated.  He lost everything.  

So Summer comes and I had nothing to work with.  Plus there were very few students on campus at this point so really there was nothing to shoot.  But I was lucky to have a very industrious student interning for me named Geoff Ankuda.  Now hear this: if you ever get the opportunity to hire Geoff, do it.  Even as a student, I viewed (and treated) him like a professional and he lived up to every expectation I had. 

I gave Geoff a lot of freedom that summer to work on projects he wanted to and one of them was video.  The college had a great summer program for high school students that recruited a lot of students for the school so Geoff decided to take on shooting video of the camp and edit it as one of his projects.  I was thrilled.  Not only would this be great recruiting material for the camp, but it would also be great for former campers to really show pride on their social networking profiles about what they had done over the summer by posting the videos (we were just going to use Google video to host the files).

Geoff spent weeks laboring over this - when the summer camp was running, he was out there every day shooting.  In between, he was sitting in my office editing.  He ended up creating dozens of short video clips about this camp, which not only included some of the interesting activities they did but also really candid interviews with the campers.  The end product was exactly what I had envisioned it being.

But I wasn't the one who had final approval on it.  The people running the camp did.  And they didn't like it. It was a bit too real it seemed, and lacked the sort of marketing fluff and dramatic music in the background that are typical of recruiting materials.  So well I put it up on Google video anyway (where I'm positive you can find it to this day), it never made its way to the main site like I had originally intended.  Both Geoff and I were disappointed.  I felt terrible that he had put so much work into something only to be told no.  While it's a harsh reality that you have to deal with in the real world, I was hoping to shield him from that while he was a student and still gaining confidence in his abilities.  

This project for me was like a comedy of errors and there were definitely times throughout it when I looked up to the sky and, with my palms turned out, said "why????"  Every time something started to go right, something else would happen that would blow everything off track.  By the time I left this school in the fall, we had used some video on the site, but were certainly not at the level I had hoped for.  

What did I learn and what would I do differently: 

1. Manage expectations.  I think the primary reason the video never got used was the fact that people didn't really understand what YouTube style video meant.  They thought it was going to be professional quality recruiting style video, when that was never the point.  Next time I would make sure everyone understood and had viewed and approved an example of the type of video I was talking about.
   
2. Set ground rules.  I'm known to be pretty lax with student workers.  I think if you trust them (and play a major Catholic guilt trip on them), they will usually rise to the occasion.  In the name of authenticity, I basically gave a student a video camera and said "don't break it and don't film anything that could get you expelled or arrested....go!"  It never occurred to me that the student would lose a month's worth of footage by bringing it somewhere he shouldn't.  If I ever do this again, I am definitely going to come up with a few common sense guidelines.
3. Time management.  I'll be the first to say it - I am HORRIBLE when it comes to taking way too much stuff on.  I know it sounds like one of those fake answers you give when you're interviewing and they ask what you're weakness is, but its true.  Looking back, this video thing was huge and I just didn't have time (along with everything else going on) to deal with it.  I also didn't want to stand up to my former employers and tell them that, because it just wasn't something that was done in the culture of that office.  I wanted to be able to do it all...and that's good...you want employees that are excited about their jobs and have high goals...but sometimes you just can't achieve it all. 
4. Some things are just out of your control.  Well it's important to reflect on the things you could have done differently, its also important to say that some things are just out of your control.  I couldn't control the fact that the director of this camp has a vendetta against Geoff for not being a cadet at the school and therefore wasn't inclined to use something he produced.  I couldn't control that they decided showing students use a wooden (fake) knife in survival training was just too scary a scene for prospects and parents when they didn't have a problem with us filming it in the first place.  You're always going to have things in a project that you just have no control of mitigating and for your own sanity, its important to acknowledge them.   

Have you had any projects that were colossal failures?  Share them in the comments, along with what you learned!