I’m seeing more “free” offers come through friends feeds, such as on Twitter. I even participated in one, as an experiment. As always I encourage people to do whatever they want with Twitter, but we must consider the value of the collective attention spans we attract. The more people we reach see ads from you, the less they will value what you have to say. The number of ads you present is inversely proportional to the likelihood they will choose to continue hearing what you have to say.

We all now have the power to control what we hear and when we hear it, and that’s what’s new.

Now, the ads I’m seeing in particular on Twitter are for Macheist: I bought the @MacHeist 3 Bundle. 12 Top Mac apps worth $900+ for just $39 AND I just got Delicious Library 2 FREE! http://mhtweet.com/uQ1gyd

I happen to be someone who would be interested in this ad, as Macheist is a great program, but I’m torn. I know that many of the people who follow me wouldn’t be interested and would therefore just read it as a message I was passing on, however even less personal and constructive than a retweet. The social stream starts to feel more like a traditional ad campaign or SPAM in this context. Only now I have to weigh other factors such as personal trust. I know that the people I know will keep it to a minimum, and if they don’t, I (and others) will decide whether or not to keep listening.

In a world where the consumer gets to create and control his media, products and services must simply be good to survive. What’s interesting is that as more of my friends participate in promotions like the one above (three so far), the more compelled I feel to participate. This is for two reasons. One, I know that I won’t annoy them by sending it back, and in fact will reinforce their decisions to post. Two, some of this just boils down to basic peer pressure. If ten of my friends get something for free that I want, do I really want to be left out?

Having said that, I’m a huge believer in the power of word of mouth marketing, and this certainly falls into that category. It’s just a little more blatant than someone sharing that they enjoyed using a product. In this case, I’m not even sure my friends have used the product yet at all, which is why it feels less credible. I do appreciate the transparency of the message. It’s very clear where it came from, why it came to me, and what I could get out of it, which makes for a quicker assessment of value.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Marketing, Social Media, Technology

I think it surprises most people to learn that Twitter (and Facebook for that matter) are not profitable enterprises. It takes more than extreme growth and steady usage to make money, as explained in this post urging us not to forget lessons learned from the dot-com bubble bursting. Personally I feel that there are opportunities to monetize Twitter than haven’t been full explored. There is money to be made in the spin-off apps such as Twitterrific, which syndicates ads from The Deck in order to provide a free version.

The problem is an antiquated method of procuring profit from eyeballs. Many of the tactics that used to work simply don’t fly in the social media world. I’m not against making money, trust me, but we need to get more creative about it. Word of mouth marketing exists on Twitter. I have purchased a few items that I can trace to friendly tweets. But no one from those companies knows it.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Social Media, Web

The point is well taken, if with a grain:

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Andy Swindler Categories: Fun, Social Media, Technology, Web

I was happy to let this Facebook TOS thing boil over as I expected it would, but a lot of people have been asking what I think, so I thought I’d write it down for posterity.

This is another example of what I’m starting to call corporate democracy. Facebook is the innovator in social networking, which is what makes it fun and cool. But consider that it is still not a profitable enterprise. Therefore, they also have to innovate in the revenue category. They have stepped too far a few times (the most stark example was Beacon a couple years ago), and each time the community reacts quickly and honestly.

In this case, I joined the group along with thousands protesting the new terms. In a matter of days Facebook reverted back to the original terms. In my mind, this was a non-issue. 100,000 people click a button and effect change. If only it were that easy in the political system. But then again things aren’t usually that obvious with complex issues.

I’m sure Facebook will continue to try new avenues to gain additional control over user content and find revenue streams. If they step too far, the community will push them back. Facebook knows that the social networking space is fickle (Remember Friendster?) and they don’t want to lose members. I’m not saying don’t pay attention or don’t worry about it. Nor am I saying trust the corporation and don’t worry about your privacy (be sure to set your Facebook privacy settings appropriately). But I am confident in my trust of the well-balanced relationship Facebook currently has with its constituents.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Social Media, Technology, Web

Okay, most of them are on MySpace, too. But I’m not over there much these days. Some great apps to check out in this round-up, including a Snood-equivalent time-sucker called Bubble Town, some gorgeous Facebook art, and a SUPER addictive word game called Twirl. Well, if you’re into words.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Fun, Social Media, Technology, Web

We’ve certainly never installed a camera this deep!

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Fun, Gadget, Technology, Web

Back from BlogWell — a riveting, fast-paced look at how some of the big guys do social media. I caught presentations from The Mayo Clinic, Proctor & Gamble, Sharpie, and Molson (who filled a spot at the last minute and brought much beer). Consistent themes included:

• Start with a simple campaign or technology, then grow.
• It’s not about marketing. It’s about interacting.
• Be proactive about transparency and disclosure.
• Don’t pour beer into a frosty mug (drop a note in the comments to find out why)

I was especially struck by the presentation from Susan Wessel at Sharpie (and not just because of the limited edition Barack Obama Sharpie’s), who indicated that for all their visibility, Sharpie is actually a pretty small company. As the primary PR rep for the company, she engaged in blogging and Twitter on her own time. I think this is the way it’s going to be for businesses for the foreseeable future who are unwilling or unable to commit additional resources to social media campaigns. In this case, she wanted to prove its value and the only way to do that was to do it. This is truer of blogging than any other form of marketing I’ve seen. The worst thing you can do is never start.

Maybe I especially remember Susan since I got her very last limited edition Barack Obama sharpie marker. Good word of mouth there.

Here are a couple of photos of Andy Sernovitz from GasPedal/The Blog Council and Adam Moffat from Molson mid-beer:

Here’s a good write-up on BlogWell from Chicago Tech Report.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Social Media, Web

I’m attending the BlogWell social media conference today, which is put together by Andy Sernovitz at GasPedal and The Blog Council. Really looking forward to hear how some larger companies are embracing social media, as they often have a harder time adapting to change and truly adopting the notion of transparency.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Web

In our office we always talk about how the only way to survive and thrive in this new online/social networked world is through transparency, honesty and responsiveness.

In this “white page” type article from Eventbrite, the author gives “tips” about using Facebook to promote an event. Most of the tactics he talks about are actually about creating a false perception of popularity and “tricking” people which I feel is the exact opposite of the transparency we usually talk about being the cornerstone of the online revolution.

But then again, maybe as soon as too many people figure out how to “game” the system, new technologies will emerge to force out the shady practices. Perhaps the only way for little guys to stay in the game and compete with the big guys is to cleverly exploit the weaknesses in the system while they can.

As someone who occasionally promotes performances on Facebook, I’m a little tempted to try some of the tactics in the article, but I worry it would be a short term pay off as people would stop using Facebook the moment they felt they could no longer trust the relationships they had established on the site.  Then we’d just have to chase them to the next social media site.

http://www.eventbrite.com/blog/how-to-promote-your-event-online-part-2-facebook/

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Katie Hawkey Categories: General, Marketing, Social Media, Web

I just had a scary thought. Some day the social networks will be used to mine friend groups for advertising opportunities. Who hangs out with who, where, what they did, what was said. Maybe even what they wore in the photos or videos that are posted. What they were drinking, eating, etc. Facial recognition can be used to tie people to places, let alone the popularity of GPS devices and phones.

We tend to think of advertising as direct and in our face. The good thing about this is that it often makes it easy to discern and ignore. If technology advances to the point of allowing advertisers access to all the private details of our social lives, creative marketers will use this information to target us more directly. While in many cases targeted advertising is good in a consumer culture as it offers services we need, often we find ourselves fending off services we don’t want or need. Worse still is the likelihood of giving into to services that we are convinced in an instant to want but really don’t need at all.

The only way to fight this is to leverage the power of social media and community feedback to establish some safety in numbers. It’s a consumer culture, after all, and as consumers we have the ability to dictate how companies market to us, especially if they’re using our social networks to do it.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, General, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Web