A Social Marketing Book Club!

by | Oct 9, 2007 | Blog, Resources, Social Marketing

Consummate bookworm CK has announced the next round of the Marketing Profs Book Club, and the featured book is one of my favorites for nonprofits who want to do social marketing — Robin Hood Marketing by Katya Andresen.

You might remember that I did a review of the book last year and thought it was a great guide to developing a marketing mindset in your nonprofit communications. For more on the book, read CK’s interview with Katya. I’m looking forward to many stimulating online discussions at the Book Club, which will start November 13. Sign up by October 12 to be part of the Book Club, and you will be entered to win one of 50 free copies of Robin Hood Marketing!

I was honored to be asked by CK to put together a short introduction to social marketing as a bonus to be offered to all Book Club participants. This free eBook, Social Marketing at Your Fingertips: A Quick Guide to Changing the World, is now available for download. It briefly explains what social marketing is and isn’t, outlines the social marketing mix, offers an abridged review of Robin Hood Marketing, and provides a list of resources for more information. I hope you find it helpful!

Social Marketing University Update

by | Oct 8, 2007 | Blog, Professional Development, Social Marketing

I’m excited about the 3rd Social Marketing University training that I’ll be leading next week (October 15-17) here in Los Angeles.

I have a few excellent guest speakers, who I think will add a lot to the program. Dr. Deborah Glik, the director of UCLA’s Health and Media Research Group, will be sharing a case study of a social marketing program she developed. Hendre Coetzee, the CEO of MobileCause, will give an insider’s view on how to use mobile marketing to bring about behavior change. And at the Next Generation Social Marketing seminar, Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles Fire Department (who I wrote about here) will be sharing how he has used social media to extend the reach of his messages and engage the community in his department’s mission.

We still have some spaces available, so if you would like to join us, please register as soon as possible!

The Tip Jar – 10/1/07

by | Oct 1, 2007 | Blog, Resources

After being out of town, out for various Jewish holidays and trying vainly to catch up with work, here is the next edition of the Tip Jar…

  • My daughter, who’s in first grade, still makes friends by asking other girls, “Do you want to be my friend?” As we grow older, friendship becomes more of a social process that evolves organically and less of an up-front question. That’s changed with social networking sites where we have to expose ourselves to flat-out rejection all over again to build our friend lists. I’m still trying to decide whether Facebook offers enough value to me to keep up with it on a regular basis. I’m finding that the more people I add as friends, the more useful it is, though I have a strange mix of friends, colleagues and family. If you’re on Facebook, do you want to be my friend? Here’s my profile (only accessible once you complete the free registration) [update: link fixed!]. I wish I could take the Facebook class offered at Stanford by BJ Fogg of the Persuasive Technology Lab. They will be exploring how motivation and influence operate on Facebook. There’s still so much to learn.
  • Speaking of social networking, should we be surprised at yet another such site popping up around the issue of social change? The Changents site centers around change agents and those who want to support their efforts.
  • And if you are feeling overloaded by all the social networking sites you are part of, the NOSO Project may be just what you need. According to the website:
    NOSO is a real-world platform for temporary disengagement from social networking environments. The NOSO experience offers a unique opportunity to create NO Connections by scheduling NO Events with other NO Friends.

    These “NO” events, called NOSOs, take place in designated cafes, parks, libraries, bookstores, and other public spaces. Participants — whose identities remain unknown to one another — agree to arrive at an assigned time and remain alone, quiet and un-connected, while at the same time knowing that another “Friend” is present in the space.

    NOSOs are scheduled by users through the NOSO website. They last for a duration of 1 – 30 minutes, after which participants disperse and return to their regular activities.

    Or, you could just grab a cup of coffee by yourself and disengage from the grid for a while. Nah, not ironic enough.

  • Hip-hop music is being used to bring about social change in a region in Kenya, spurred by a musician named Geoffrey Arthur Ogalo (better known to his fans as Tera Mos). He is leading a group of hip-hop artists in Kisumu, who are shying away from using vulgar language, and sings about problems that youth encounter in their daily lives, how to protect the environment, and other issues like poverty and HIV/AIDS. The phrase “Tera Mos” – also the name of his best-known song – means “don’t hurry me up because I need to be sure before I leap” in the Dholuo language.
  • For those who watch the Superbowl just for the commercials, a new website called Firebrand is about to launch. Its “commercials as content” programming includes commercial jockeys (CJs) — along the lines of the VJs back when MTV actually showed music videos — to contextualize the commercials and guide viewers through the spots, contests and promotions. It will be viewable via TV, web and mobile devices. Users will be able to create their own playlists and share their favorite spots. Hopefully they will also include social marketing spots in their content, and this should certainly be added to your TV ad/PSA distribution strategy.
  • A couple of excellent reports have come out on the use of blogs by government agencies. The first is called The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0, and is downloadable from the IBM Center for the Business of Government (thanks to Mike Kujawski for the tip). The second is an article by Maurice Muise of Environment Canada, called “Government Blogs: What They are and Why You Need One (or Two or Three…),” which includes some great examples. This document came via the Social Marketing Listserv, and as far as I could find is not online, so if you’d like to take a look, send me an email and I’ll forward it to you.
  • If you want to reach Generation Y with your story, Sam Davidson at Cool People Care has some tips for how to best get your message out in a way they will listen. He says: get digital, get relevant, get simple, get practical, and get original. Get over to the full post to find out how. And here’s an example of how voter mobilization campaigns are reaching this demographic through text messaging reminders to vote.
  • I’ve written about this before, but here is more confirmation that depictions of healthy behaviors on television influence health behaviors among viewers. According to researchers at USC, those who watched episodes of the show ER that addressed the topics of teen obesity, hypertension and healthy eating were more likely to report a positive change in their related behaviors and increased knowledge about nutrition. Similarly, even in Saudi Arabia, the most popular comedy series Tash Ma Tash, watched by nearly the whole country each night during Ramadan, is working toward social change by addressing topics like women’s rights, corruption and other social problems.
  • Social media has been playing a role in the reporting and response to the gripping protests by the monks in Burma. With over 263,000 members of the Facebook group supporting the monks’ protest, blogs, YouTube videos, cellphone photojournalism, Flickr, Second Life and other tactics, detailed so well by Angelo Fernando and Beth Kanter, the dynamics of real-time protest and reportage have completely changed. Similarly, those supporting the Jena 6 are also using social media to create a student movement around this issue.
  • England’s health secretary, Alan Johnson, is hoping to change the MRSA superbug infection rate in the nation’s hospitals through a simple behavioral and cultural change. NHS doctors will no longer be allowed to wear the long-sleeved white coats that have come over generations to represent authority and tradition, and they must remain bare below the elbow whenever they are in contact with patients. The MRSA superbug may have been spreading from one patient to another on the cuffs of the doctors’ coats, and eliminating the coat will make it easier to wash hands and wrists correctly. Watches, jewelry and ties will also be verboten. It’s a simple change, easily enforced, but could make a big difference in patient survival.

Time is running out to register for Social Marketing University, which will be happening October 15-17 in Los Angeles! There are still spaces left, so come join us for a fun and informative training.

Photo Credit: justbadpot

Passing Off the Costs?

by | Sep 19, 2007 | Blog, Cause Marketing, Technology

Sony, the Ad Council and the National Crime Prevention Council are running a contest to create a television PSA on the awareness and prevention of cyberbullying. The grand prize winners — an individual and a school group — will receive thousands of dollars worth of video production equipment. Consumer-generated marketing — great, right? Yes, until you look at all the requirements and restrictions they put on the entries.

The contest submissions must be broadcast quality — that can cost serious money. They specify tiny details like the required PMS colors and proportions of each organization’s logo. Entrants have to get talent releases from everyone involved and location releases.

And each person involved in the production has to confirm that “neither he/she nor anyone else has engaged or taken part in (or induced or encouraged anyone else to do so) in any activity or conduct that may or is likely to harm or create a risk of harm, physical or mental injury, emotional distress, death, disability, disfigurement, or physical or mental illness to any person, other living thing or any property.” Does this mean that kids who have been involved with cyberbullying (or other types of bullying) in the past cannot be involved in this project as a part of their rehabilitation?

So, essentially, the contest sponsors are asking for someone else to invest the time, money and creative energy in creating a finished spot for them, in exchange for the production equipment they would already need to own in order to create the spot. Perhaps this is the kind of thing a school-based video production class or semi-professional producer could pull off. But it also excludes an awful lot of people who might otherwise want to enter the contest. And those who do enter the contest but don’t win get nothing for their efforts — no opportunity to show off what they created or share it in other venues.

If Sony, the Ad Council and NCPC wanted to get more youth participating and engaging with this issue, why not solicit a broader range of videos with fewer restrictions, select the most creative and persuasive entries, and then cover the production costs to turn those ideas into a professionally created PSA? They could do it on YouTube or MySpace so that everyone can see all the entries and comment on them. This approach would seem a lot fairer to me, and potentially much more effective in ultimately affecting the issue of cyberbullying among youth.

I’m not sure whether this contest was underthought (in terms of the implications of the rules) or overthought (by the lawyers), but I have to hope that it’s not just all about passing off the costs.

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The Tip Jar – 9/18/07

by | Sep 18, 2007 | Blog, Resources

On this lovely (almost) fall day and my 13th wedding anniversary (hooray!), here are the latest tips from the world of social marketing…

  • The internet has become the primary source of health information in online US households, with 78.1% of adult web users finding it online, according to a Burst Media survey of 3,700 internet users. Women go online for health information more than men (83.5% vs. 72.4%) and 90.1% of women age 25-34 search for it online. The internet is the main source of health information for 45.1% of respondents, more so than health professionals (23.0%) or friends and family (12.9%). It’s more important than ever before to make sure your organization’s health information is search engine optimized on your website.
  • Last year, my 9-year old son was spending a lot of time waddling around Club Penguin, the preteen virtual world recently acquired by Disney. Slate’s Michael Agger went penguin for a while to report back to the rest of us adults what cool things are going on over at the old iceberg. I’ve been searching for info on any social marketing activities that may be happening there, but all I could find is an internet safety initiative with NetSmartz (a partnership of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and Boys & Girls Clubs of America). Does anyone know of any other health or social issues promoted within Club Penguin (aquatic safety or avian flu prevention, perhaps)?
  • You can watch a video of Michael Rothschild of the University of Wisconsin’s School of Business speaking about “An Introduction to Social Marketing: Considering Its Philosophy and Process as Input to Public Health Practice.” He’s one of the field’s big thinkers, so definitely worth watching.
  • Former Apple marketing executive Steve Chazin has released a free ebook called Marketing Apple (pdf), which lays out the principles that have made Apple so successful. These include things like “Focus on what people do with your product, not what your product does” and “Do not define a new category: try to occupy shelf space that already exists in your prospect’s mind.” Good advice for social marketers as well.
  • I guess someone took my advice about blimp marketing from a previous Tip Jar. On September 10, the American Blimp Corporation donated ad space on its blimp with a floating jumbotron to encourage people across Central Texas to do good deeds for strangers on the anniversary of 9/11 the next day.
  • Do traffic rules remove a sense of personal responsibility for our actions on the road? The Dutch town of Makkinga (population 1,000) thinks so. Its traffic planners got rid of road signs, traffic lights, parking meters, stopping restrictions and sidewalks. The idea is to get drivers and pedestrians to interact in a considerate way that doesn’t rely on external rules, but on socially responsible behavior. I don’t think that would work here in Los Angeles, which was just rated the US city with the worst traffic congestion.
  • When people are convinced to adopt a behavior that goes against the established social norms, chances are that they will not continue it for long. But as an opposite case study, the Wall Street Journal tells the story of Susan Taylor, a woman living in a subdivision of Bend, Oregon, who decided to make some changes to her lifestyle to combat global warming. Though her subdivision’s covenants prohibited it, she set up clotheslines in her backyard so she could hang her clothes to dry instead of using the electric dryer. She experienced disapproval from her neighbors and sanctions from the homeowner’s association, including threats of legal action. She’s been fighting it and trying to get them to come around, but now has to hang her clothes in the garage. She’s thinking about moving to a less restrictive neighborhood rather than having to compromise what she thinks is important.
  • I’ve just come across the Inglehart-Welzel Cultural Map of the World, which shows that many basic values correlate across countries’ cultures and can be expressed with just two different dimensions of values. On one axis is the range of traditional values versus secular-rational values, and on the other is survival versus self-expression. It’s interesting to see how the countries cluster together on the graph in groups that include Protestant Europe, Catholic Europe, former Communist countries, English-speaking, Confucian, South Asia, Latin America and Africa. And understanding these underlying values is key for social marketers to help determine what will best motivate people in each of these countries to adopt health or social change. For a more humorous representation of the world’s countries, see this map of the world according to Americans.

Photo Credit: terpstra_brett

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Reaching Bloggers

by | Sep 18, 2007 | Blog, Social Media

Even blogs with a relatively small readership like mine have become the new holy grail of marketers because of the fact that the audience is so targeted to a particular niche. While a mention from an A-list blogger is certainly a coup, sometimes you can be even more effective by getting your message out through smaller blogs that have the very specific audience you want to reach, making up for quantity with quality.

I often get emails from PR firms, publishers, and individuals with something to promote asking me to cover their product/book/website/etc. on my blog. Sometimes I will immediately say yes because it’s clear that the information is of interest to me and/or my readers (and hopefully both).

Other times the pitch is so poorly done that it’s a waste of my time and theirs. It’s clear that they have no clue what I write about even though they say that they love my blog. Or they send me email after email to try to convince me of the merits of their product.

Blogger relations has emerged as a tactic of its own, similar to media relations but not the same. Bloggers generally do not consider themselves journalists, so a somewhat different and more informal set of guidelines apply from standard media outreach practice. But that doesn’t mean that your approach doesn’t matter. In fact, you may need to put more time into cultivating blogger contacts — it’s all about building relationships.

Others have created excellent lists of suggestions for how to pitch bloggers (see Toby, CK and Rohit), as well as examples of what not to do, so I am not going to cobble together my own list here.

The folks over at Ogilvy have recently developed a Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics, and they are asking for feedback to help refine it. Here it is:

  • We reach out to bloggers because we respect your influence and feel that we might have something that is “remarkable” which could be of interest to you and/or your audience.
  • We will only propose blogger outreach as a tactic if it complements our overall strategy. We will not recommend it as a panacea for every social media campaign.
  • We will always be transparent and clearly disclose who we are and who we work for in our outreach email.
  • Before we email you, we will check out your blog’s About, Contact and Advertising page in an effort to see if you have blatantly said you would not like to be contacted by PR/Marketing companies. If so, we’ll leave you alone.
  • If you tell us there is a specific way you want to be reached, we’ll adhere to those guidelines.
  • We won’t pretend to have read your blog if we haven’t.
  • In our email we will convey why we think you, in particular, might be interested in our client’s product, issue, event or message.
  • We won’t leave you hanging. If your contact at Ogilvy PR is going out of town or will be unreachable, we will provide you with an alternate point of contact.
  • We encourage you to disclose our relationship with you to your readers, and will never ask you to do otherwise.
  • You are entitled to blog on information or products we give you in any way you see fit. (Yes, you can even say you hate it.)
  • If you don’t want to hear from us again, we will place you on our Do Not Contact list – which we will share with the rest of the Ogilvy PR agency.
  • If you are initially interested in the campaign, but don’t respond to one of our emails, we will follow up with you no more than once. If you don’t respond to us at all, we’ll leave you alone.
  • Our initial outreach email will always include a link to Ogilvy PR’s Blog Outreach Code of Ethics.

It’s a great start, and I think it shows a great deal of respect for the bloggers they are contacting. I would suggest that they add that they will only contact a blogger after having read enough posts to determine whether their information or product is relevant to the topics that blogger writes about.

If you’re a blogger, or someone who wants to work with bloggers to get your messages out, what do you think of the code of ethics?

Photo Credit: ~Aphrodite

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