So Many Channels, So Little Time!

Who were the Web 2.0 Wunderkinder? My first call was to C.C. Chapman, whom I wrote a wee post about last spring. C.C. is a long-time blogger, podcaster, and new media maven who recently launched a company with Steve Coulson, The Advance Guard, and is always up to about a million things. (As an example, while part of the team at crayon, he worked on the "Virtual Thirst" campaign that Coke ran in Second Life.)

My second call went up to Montreal where I reached Mitch Joel of Twist Image. Mitch has been called "Canada's Rock Star of Digital Marketing" and the team at Twist Image has introduced clients as diverse as Scotiabank, Unilever, and SkiDoo to the brave new worlds of digital marketing.

Though C.C. and Mitch had slightly different takes on my question, I was able to distill their responses into these three recommendations:

1. Be Strategic

"You can't just slap on new media and hope for the best," C.C. cautions. "You need to think about this stuff strategically, up front. Discussions of new media should be built into the planning phase of your marketing efforts and the focus should be on how to integrate these technologies, not just add them on to what you're doing already." Aside from ensuring that your forays into the new media landscape actually support your goals and don't just float randomly around cyberspace, its also a lot easier to pull the plug on something when it's still being planned and before you've sunk a lot of time and money into it.

For Mitch the question concerning which new media avenues to pursue really comes down to Marketing 101: "A lot of brands say, 'We're going to be part of the conversation,' and jump into this or that social media forum. They forget that these media are a strategy not a tactic and, what's worse, that their consumers don't necessarily want them to be part of the conversation. The Big Question that marketers need to ask is: Why do people love us? How do they want to relate to us? And more importantly, how do they want us to relate to them? If you can answer these questions, the channels you should choose will become obvious."

2. Get Help!

"Somebody has to know this space," C.C. says. It's a big and ever-changing world out there and few marketers have the time and resources to keep up with it all. For this reason, C.C. recommends finding someone who "can walk you through the options and show where they sync up with your objectives. You need someone who can say, 'Here's what we're looking at; here's where a podcast could help; here's where we could try some influencer outreach.' That sort of thing." Similarly, Mitch advises marketers to "bring in a non-self-interested 3rd party who has been in this space."

Of course, since a lot of these technologies are cheap or even free to access, it can be quite tempting to just start experimenting on your own. While C.C. sees value in this sort of experimentation, which can take place "under the radar," as he puts it, Mitch warns that such experimentation is a kind of rabbit hole. "You can spend a lot of time chasing your tail." While some of the options may require hands-on involvement on your part down the line, an outside expert can present you with the relevant options at the outset, so you don't have to stumble on them yourself.

3. Understand the Medium

The key to getting the most from your online efforts is understanding how things work. What are the ground rules? What do people do on this or that site? Why are they there?

"If you are going to upload content to YouTube," Mitch tells me, "first, you need to ask yourself, 'Are people on YouTube looking for our stuff?' If they are, great, but then you have to make sure that the stuff you upload spins in the wheel that is YouTube. You also have to remember that most new media options don't really fit into the 'campaign' model. They require ongoing effort." As an example, he cites corporate blogging. "When it doesn't work, it plays out like this. First you see three posts, then two, then none. Frankly, if your company hasn't updated the 'News' page on your site in two years, you're not going to keep a blog going for very long."

Moreover, working with these new media generally calls for a continuous education process. "First of all, if a company starts blogging, or just begins following the blogs," C.C. says, "they need to learn how to react to posts and deal with negativity. Secondly, since doing influencer outreach is a good way to get your toes wet, they need to learn how to differentiate between sites that have real influence and those that don't. You know, one mention on Techcrunch can be worth more than 10 mentions on sites with little or no traffic."

"Finally, and this can be the hardest lesson, people need to learn that the power of these new media lies in the fact that you can't quite predict what will happen with them. These programs are always a little organic and evolving. That means they are a moving target and you have to pay attention to what's happening and how people are responding."

"Companies want to be part of the conversation, but they forget to listen. When the Today Show went into Twitter, for example, they kind of pissed off the community. People were talking about them out in the open, but it didn't seem like they listened. It's awesome when your company is trying something new, but are you listening?"

4. (Don't) Believe the Hype

New and emerging channels of communication can be powerful tools for marketers. In other words, the "hype" is legit on some level. On another level though, irrational exuberance regarding this or that technology may have led some marketers to make costly mistakes.

"I think virtual worlds got way over-hyped," C.C. acknowledges, "and I feel bad for the people who bought into the idea that every company has to have an island in Second Life. I don't think virtual worlds are going away, but I think we are going to see the emergence of more close-knit communities and places where people go to consume, rather than create."

"Similarly," he continues, "there has been a lot of hype about social networks and sites like Facebook. Facebook will still be around after the hype has died down, but more importantly, as the technical platforms becomes cheaper, I think you'll see companies setting up their own, specific social networks."

Ever the optimist, Mitch doesn't buy the hype about the hype. "Nothing is over-hyped," he opines, "if any particular medium seems to have failed, it's because the marketing community didn't understand how to use it or tried to force a traditional message into a very modern channel."

"This is a whole new world. How long has the iPod been around? Facebook? Second Life? Virtual worlds and all the rest of it is just getting started. The opportunities are endless and, frankly, it's all underutilized."

"Nothing is tired," Mitch adds, "Everything is exciting."

Image Courtesy of brianpolensky.