studio J

Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

I know that many people out there are ready to hang Facebook out to dry right next to other evil companies after their latest change, but I wish they would stop and think about it first. Not all ‘privacy changes’ are bad! Maybe it’s the tech geek in me; maybe it’s the marketing person in me; maybe it’s a bit of both.

Let’s say that the California Widget Company has a new advertising campaign on Facebook. They’re promoting their latest high-tech product, the Widgetizer3000. Through their Facebook affiliation they can poll the demographics and other profile information to look for things like ‘technology’ or ‘gadgets’ in your interests and if it finds it and you match their target demographics… BLAMO! You get an little ad on the side of your screen for the Widgetizer3000.

This is targeted marketing 101, folks. It isn’t new, it’s just the tools that are new. The same thing goes on in magazines (you don’t usually see an ad for toothpaste in a car magazine but you’ll probably see an oil ad) and newspapers (think about where the sports memorabilia ads are placed) and even billboards (compare ads in your Financial District to the ads in the suburbs).

Is there really all that much harm in others knowing what movies you like or what coffee shop you tend to frequent? Welcome to social living, folks. We asked for it and we got it. If you don’t want to participate, that’s cool too! Don’t share information like your address and phone number or your dog’s name on every website you visit. Practice common sense and guard your identity online just as you would offline.

If you want to know a little more in-depth about the back end stuff, PCWorld did a great article on how the new Likes and Connections work and what you can do to limit what information can be used.

Copyright © 2010 Jeanette DeHoff

It’s all about ME.

Isn’t that the message we tend to get from everyone these days? We all have a website, a blog, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn profile, a Twitter feed, a podcast… We customize our computers and our cell phones… All so that we can express ourselves and voice our opinions and hopefully people will hear what we have to say.

Of course if everyone is talking, who is left to listen?

Soon, all of our technology will not only be listening, but it will be paying attention:

You get home after work and start dinner. Your digital recipe box shows you recipes based on what foods you have in the house (no sugar, since it knows you used the last of that in your coffee this morning). It notices that you made something with garlic in it but knows from your home inventory that you don’t own a garlic press. It tells your TV, which later recommends a cooking show that has convenient product placement in it. When you log in to your email, your browser lists a few recommendations that might interest you. Among them is a website where you can order that Slap-Chop that you saw in the cooking show. Of course your digital recipe box in the kitchen will know when your order arrives and will download other meals you can make with that new Slap-Chop (and the free cheese grater that comes with it)!

While this may be a little over the top, I don’t think it’s too far off the mark. (Facebook is leaning that way with their latest customization, but there is a ton of backlash in the privacy department.) Technology is merging and combining. Look at computers and phones. It used to be that you had a home desktop computer and an on-the-go phone. Now, they’re interacting with each other, sharing information and soon may just merge into one device. Vizio is already marketing a TV that has internet apps to access Facebook and Twitter to tell people what you’re watching and gives you the weather report along the bottom while you watch Mythbusters.

Here are a few things that I hope will come of this:

• Comcast DVRs will get a recommendation engine that looks at what programs I watch (both on TV and online of course) and suggest other shows or movies that I might like.
• My refrigerator will recognize that I’m low on milk and put it on my grocery list. When I head to the checkout lane, my phone will text me, reminding me that I forgot to get said milk, thus saving me a trip the next day when I finally remember.
• Next time I’m watching Rachel Ray whip up a batch of amazing-looking potatoes and steak sandwiches, I will be pleasantly surprised to find those recipes in my suggestion box when I next check out the Food Network website.

What’s your wish list for this connected and personalized future?

Copyright © 2010 Jeanette DeHoff

How long does it take to become known as an ‘expert’? Well, Google it and you can find countless articles, blog posts and books about how to become an expert. Funny thing is, no one can seem to agree on the definition of an expert. Even the word starts to look and sound strange when I type it so many times.

I read ‘Freakonomics’ a few months back and they had some interesting things to say about these so-called experts. Sure, they have tons of knowledge about their particular field, but look carefully and you’ll find two things fairly commonly: 1-They use their ‘informational advantage’ to serve their own interests and 2-They will fudge facts and numbers to give their point more impact knowing that most people will simply believe them. Now I’m not saying that you should never trust someone who calls themselves an expert, but a healthy dose of skepticism serves one well in this world.

My friends over at bluepint (despite their amusing refusal to capitalize anything) made an interesting point in a recent article about social media. Their topic was how to get a job in the social media field and their top advice was:

please don’t refer to yourself as a social media guru, ninja or rockstar

How easy it is to let the success of a few clients go to our heads, eh? It’s just not possible to be an expert in a field that is so young and changing day by day and minute by minute.

I have shied away from calling myself anything of the sort and have stuck with ‘consultant’. I believe that it encompasses what I do and how I approach it in a very broad sense. Each of my clients provides me with a new challenge and a new opportunity to learn something. It could be that I’m learning more about how media can be used for marketing or picking up a new software skill. I’m never afraid to tell a client, “I don’t know the answer to that, but I will certainly find out.”

Would you rather hire an expert who uses what he learned in the past or hire a consultant who will find the answers you need and put them to work for your brand? If I’m not learning, then I’m not doing my job.

Copyright © 2010 Jeanette DeHoff

I’m not sure exactly what flavor my blog would be to be honest (maybe blueberry? tutti frutti?) but it’s tasty! Having no idea what that means, I should move on to something that makes sense:

You may have noticed that I’ve gotten rid of the ‘Random aMusings’ title for my blog. Why, you ask? Well, I am proud to announce that I am returning to consulting under the studio J name. In light of this, I wanted to eliminate confusion by sticking with a single image and a single brand:

While my main focus is marketing design and social media, I offer overall strategic advice (including market research) as well as basic web development and other related services. You can view some of my past work or my resume right here on this site and contact me for more information and a consultation. If you’re already familiar with my work, I encourage you to share the good word and feel free to direct others to my portfolio!

Copyright © 2010 Jeanette DeHoff

I’ve finally compiled my own personal 5 Commandments of social media for businesses. There are many other rules of the road out there (using RSS Feeds, hashtags, following others to get followers, using lists and mentions, improving Klout, etc) but the Commandments here are all about the message.

1. Question the medium – First and foremost, evaluate each medium (there’s more than Facebook and Twitter!) for your business. If you are a customer-facing, packaged goods or entertainment type of company than most likely Twitter and Facebook will benefit your efforts. On the other hand if you sell office supplies to large corporations, your tweets will probably go unnoticed by your audience, but perhaps LinkedIn or a company blog would be useful for your salespeople.
2. Know your audience – At this point, I would hope that your company has determined who their customer is (otherwise please go back to Business 101 – do not pass Go – do not collect $200) and how to reach them. Now, listen to them! Find people who are talking about similar products and services, competition and other brands. Not only will you find out how to talk TO them, you may get some better insight into your own brand and product, ideas for new offerings or ways to improve the existing ones.
3. Don’t throw away the rules – Social media is, at it’s most basic form, just another means of communication. Don’t try to get cute and be more like the kids. Keep the rules of grammar, spelling and professionalism that you use in any other marketing message. Exceptions to this rule are mostly for Twitter, where phrases must be shortened at times (& instead of and; / instead of or, etc). Consider less wordy ways of getting your message across as well – brevity is your friend.
4. Be relevant – few things are more annoying than a company who simply tweets “Check us out!” or “Tell a friend!” and links to their homepage. Build on the idea of knowing your audience – what news and issues are important to them? Are your customers tech-heads? Keep an eye on the big blogs (Ars, TC, Giz) and tweet or FaceBook those out to your followers and fans. Don’t just copy and paste, though. Give your own two cents.
5. Establish a voice – This sort of encompasses all of the rules above. Don’t be an anonymous announcer-type. Whether you have an individual or a team managing your social media, be sure that all of your messages have a unified voice and a tangible personality. Don’t be afraid to make (tasteful) jokes now and then or stand up for a cause that benefits your company to show your customers that your business isn’t all business.

Copyright © 2010 Jeanette DeHoff

Years ago there was an epic “Clash of the Titans” defining moment in sports. It was the culmination of careers, a chance to put one’s name in the history books. It was known as the Super Bowl. Once televised, it began to draw viewers in record numbers each year. That sadly is where it took a turn. Advertisers began to realize that they could reach millions of eyeballs by advertising during this event and over the next few decades it became all about commercialism instead of athleticism. Fortunately or unfortunately agencies got good at catching our attention. Really really good.

I truly believe that the apex of advertising during the Super Bowl was the 80′s and 90′s – who could forget the Big Brother Apple ad or the talking Bud frogs? These campaigns were well thought out, creative and memorable for sure but let’s be honest, they just happened. Today, advertisers try much too hard to make their ad the next one that people will talk about for years to come and they’re simply trying too hard. They try to force the funny and it just comes out feeling forced. In the last few years they got worse and worse. 2008 saw one terribly offensive GM ad and last year we got groin kicks and slap-stick comedy at its worst.

This year it seemed as if advertisers were backing off a bit and going for the “oh isn’t that silly” chuckle rather than the epic room-wide gut laugh and cheer. I can live with that while we wait for the next big thing to happen naturally. In the meantime:

• Pantless men in general aren’t funny. To men it’s embarassing and to women it’s just not necessary.
• E*Trade please stop with the talking babies already! (At least none of them threw up this year.)
• Budweiser, we know you love your Clydesdales and yes they’re beautiful but they’re boring.
• Coke, thank you for teaming up with a fellow American icon (The Simpsons) and giving us a smile.
• Intel seems to have gotten themselves a top-notch agency. Keep those coming!
• Denny’s – Hey, if you keep the free food coming, the viewers will forgive you for making them sit through 30 seconds of chicken screams.
• Google is simple and intuitive – as always.

Also, please correct me if I missed something, but did Pepsi not advertise at all this year? Does that say something? And did anyone else notice the blessed, blessed absence of male ED ads? Thank goodness!

Congrats to the Saints on a well-deserved and much-needed win for their city. I have a feeling that Bourbon Street will be partying for DAYS!

PS – I love The Who. I really really do. But please don’t make them risk strokes and heart attacks just to continue entertaining us.

Copyright © 2010 Jeanette DeHoff

In my recent bout with learning about SEO and SEM, I have come across an apparently new pet peeve: people who don’t have a clue how to use a search engine. Did you know that every time you type words into Google or Yahoo or (heaven forbid) Bing, they do actually GO somewhere and DO something. They don’t get sent out as a wish and a hope that something relavent will turn up. It goes into a highly technical algorithm that decides what web pages most closely match what you’re looking for. Marketing companies and departments spend large amounts of money, manpower and other resources to make sure they are on that list. They do it by going through enormous lists of keywords that WE (you, me, the average user) type into the search engine and optimizing their sites for those keywords.

For the less technically-minded, let me make this as short and simple as possible:

1. Unless you actually know what boolean logic is, stop using ‘and’ ‘or’ & ‘not’ in your searches. They’re usually ignored right along with ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘but’ and many other useless words.
2. It is not going to enhance your search to include slashes, plus signs, hyphens or other random characters that you pull out of your… keyboard.
3. Runningallyourkeywordstogetherwillnotgetyouverygoodresultseither.
4. Using complete sentences does little good unless you are searching for an exact phrase, in which case use quotes.
5. Just because Google has a built-in-spell-checker-for-idiots does not mean you can stop trying.

Bonus internet-related tips:

1. Your searches and info are being used to target marketing and advertising towards you. Get used to it, quit complaining and be glad you can be offered relevant ads for similar shoes that you’re searching for rather than Viagra and free iPod scams.
2. Stop using your Comcast/Earthlink/Time Warner/SBCNet email address. Get GMail, Yahoo, Hotmail, SOMETHING to show people that you’re living in the 21st century.
3. Please please please please stop putting “www” in front of your email address. It makes you look like an idiot.

Copyright © 2009 Jeanette DeHoff