Social Media old skool style

Look at this picture. It’s a wall of coffee cards at a cafe around the corner from us.
I was staring at it today and realised ‘this is social media’. It may look like a plain old loyalty program (buy 6 get one free) but what distinguishes this in my mind is a couple of things;
- everyone has their name on thier card, and can see everyone elses, and if you go there a few times you’d like to see your name up there also so you feel part of the group.
- the cards facilitate conversation between the cardholders.
- there is a triple value add, first: I’m hopeless with remembering to carry these cards when I need them, second: I get a free coffee, third: I get to feel like a part of this small community and given that we only moved down here six months ago this one is not inconsiderable.

So to me it looks like social media before we started calling it social media.

TV goes Torrent

Yesterday Torrent Freak reported on Norwegian State TV embracing BitTorrent to distribute their own TV shows.

There are a number of interesting things to note:
NRK’s Erik Solheim is reported as saying,“With our own tracker we will get better statistics and gather important data about how this technology works.”
Measurement

“This type of distribution is reliable, cheap and popular with our audience,” Solheim told TorrentFreak. “The main problem is the rights issues. We hope to be able to make television shows with a creative commons license in the future. That will make it easier for us to allow full freedom for our audience”.
Sharing/adding value.

“It is important for us to start experimenting with new distribution methods. We don’t want to do like the music industry. Running around thinking that people will keep driving down to a record store when they can have the content delivered with the push of a button at home,” Eirik Solheim said in an interview last year.
Working with the audience they way they consume media.

Currently the BBC has iPlayer and ABC has iView – both terrific services but still with some limitations from a user point of view (e.g. limited windows of availability). With all three of these services being offered by State owned channels it will be interesting to see what, if anything, commercial networks can adopt from these content management models. You would think they would watch very carefully given that at least one TV station in this country has already been valued at $0.

Looking at the points highlighted above, Measurement, Sharing/adding value, and working with audience consumption habits, and adding on other online support for their material (websites. forums etc) has NRK just set up the ultimate social media campaign for itself?

Ultimately it is another move away from the broadcast mentality and moving to a more fluid definition of what TV actually is. It’s a move away from platform significance to platform agnostic media brands.

(Image by: dailyinvention)

Value add

We spend a lot of time thinking of ways to ‘value add’ – to provide that defining extra bit on top of normal service so as to stand out and really make a difference. It is now second nature for most people to be looking for ways to add value. It is the new normal.

But what about your marketing?

Is your marketing of the interruption based ‘me me me me’ type?
Brochures that talk all about you.
Website focused on you and what you do and how good you are at it.
Your message.

Where is your potential customer in all of this?

It can be a rude shock to explain to people that no-one cares about your message. They care only about the problem they have, and they are interested in whether or not you can solve it, but are they going to work that out based on your current marketing material? I’m still surprised by the number of companies who insist on using such empty phrases as ‘we utilise the latest technology to…’, ‘cutting edge’, ‘a leader in…’. ‘committed to providing you with (insert generic superlative here) service’….empty phrases.

Value added marketing is creating material that is genuine use to those you would like as customers, not an arrogant noisy interruption. It may be a blog, or a series of podcasts, or instructional videos, or a forum, or a program to connect users of your product/service, or a feedback mechanism to allow customers to help you enhance what you do, or even allowing them to improve it themselves. It may be as simple as entertaining people.

I think it’s about being human, and treating your customers like humans instead of a demographic to be broadcast at.

(Image by Tommy and the photography factory)