Category Archives: Transparency

People will buy your stuff if they buy into you, so use transparency to your advantage

Folks care more about how you made something than what you made. Well, not really. If what you made isn’t good, they won’t be interested in you at all. However, if you have a modicum of success, then folks will want to know as much about your culture, gear, tools, vision, operating principals, habits, and process as possible.

So, if you’re in business, you need to learn to make your organization as attractive as possible.

Let people know about your business’s personality, your narrative, why you matter, who you are in the community and your backstory. How, you ask? Well, the best way is to let them in on your process — your magic — and what makes your products and services special. And by special, I don’t mean the best price, the best quality, or the best service — though those are always top-winners — but also your personality, your unique narrative, the story of your existence, why you matter, what you’ve gone through, who you are in the community, or who you used to be.

I tell clients they need to give till it hurts when it comes to blogger outreach and online engagement. You need to offer the gift people want and not the gift you’re ready to give. You need to do the same thing when it comes to developing a cult of personality online.

All things being equal, people will buy your stuff if they buy into you. While word of mouth, referrals, and ratings are valuable, what do people see when they arrive at your site? Are you too corporate? Is your company a black box? How generous are you when it comes to the value-for-value?

Be transparent with your process and showcase your mastery

Back in the day, the very first company I knew about that did an amazing job of sharing the kitchen sink online — everything, to a painful level — was a Savile Row tailor by the name of Thomas Mahon who has had an amazing blog about the ins and out of making bespoke, handmade suits called English Cut.

It’s incredible how much of the shop he gave away: chalking, cutting, sewing, measuring, fabric selection, cut, fit, and finish. Honestly, he taught you everything about bespoke suit-making except actually teaching you how to make a suit.

We’re all so afraid of giving people a portal into what we’re doing with the mislaid assumption that everyone can, or even wants to, do the stuff you’ve already achieved mastery in. So, why keep the process so close to your vest?

In a post-recession America, more and more people are interested in investing their hard-earned dollars into people, into personal production, into innovation, and into a generous attitude. They want to have the utmost certainty that their money is going to the right folks: honorable men and women who have both the mad skills, the generosity of spirit, the responsiveness of service, and the transparency required to do long-term business with — to build a trusted relationship.

I used to be a professional photographer. I started off as a commercial shooter but ended up shooting for Corbis and Pacific Stock. Since real, professional, photographers are so rare, I was always being asked to speak. Nobody wants to be a photographer more than a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, or an accountant.

While I was always being invited to share my images in a slideshow, you know what? People suffered through my photography in order to ask me the questions they were more interested in: what equipment, film, f-stop, aperture, and ASA I used.

“What lens do you use?” folks would ask, or “Are you Nikon or Canon?,” or “Do you run Fuji 100 or Kodachrome?” Inspiration, the Muses, or innate talent don’t matter. What really matters is the quality of the glass in a lens, the depth of field or the point of focus, or the hours and quality of light during which one makes images.

It doesn’t really matter whether I felt severely insulted that all these amateur photogs fancied all of my “shooting for the best stock shop on the planet” success to be reducible to the camera bodies I chose (Nikon F4s and N90s), the lenses I picked (Nikkors: 20-35mm 2.8; 35-70mm 2.8; and 80-200mm 2.8), the bag I used (back Domke F-2), the film I favored (Fuji 100, Kodachrome 64, and Velvia 50 slide film — this was a long time ago), or the time I shot (the first and last hour of sunlight during the day).

Give away the shop to build trust and respect online

People are hungry, curious, and looking for a leader or confidant. Becoming a guru to folks online requires becoming a subject-matter expert. And if everyone online recognizes you as an expert, if folks incessantly share your good advice to their friends and followers, and if you’re willing to give away the shop to build trust and respect online, you’ll be able to not only sate the curiosity of the skeptical but you’ll also make sales, especially in an environment that lacks innate trust and respect (like SEO, social media marketing and digital PR — yeah, what we do).

So why don’t you take some time to realize and recognize a couple of truths: Folks want to know more about you, folks really want to like you, folks would love it if you engaged with them, folks really want to know how and why you’re successful, and folks really want to know that if they give you money you’ll be able to give them something back of equal or greater value.

What will you do right now, after reading this article, to better connect and engage with your natural allies and future customers? How will you earn their respect and build their trust? How will you woo them and impress them with your amazing abilities to cut wool and tool leather in such a way that they’ll want to be your customer for life?

OK, now do it. I dare you.

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Don't Be Seduced by the Lure of Astroturfing

I wrote this a couple years ago, but it is still really relevant, especially after all the interest in Jonathan Trenn’s article, Flogging: Advertising or not – it’s wrong. Wrong or not – it’s inevitable:

Whenever you engage the Internet on behalf if a company or organization, you are acting as a brand ambassador. If someone is curious as to who you are and why you’re so passionate about an event, product, or service, the understanding is that they will pretty easily be able to find out that you’re a marketing professional.

For some, that is enough. Legally-speaking, it is enough. In terms of building a long-term relationship with your current, future, or present customers, hiding your identity as a professional marketer in the folds of your online profile may be considered deceitful.

You may be attracted to covert online marketing: special ops, black ops, spycraft – “fifth column marketing,” if you will. Don’t be.

The blowback that can result from using a false name, a false email (a Yahoo, Google, or Hotmail address created for the campaign and the false name), and a false bio, isn’t worth it.

There is a term for shooting for the short term by being opaque in your intent, no matter how effective it may be: astroturfing, which “describes formal public relations campaigns which seek to create the impression of being a spontaneous, grassroots behavior.”

Accusations of astroturfing can compromise the integrity of the organization you are representing, and further put your ability to communicate future messages in danger.

Over the short term, pretending to be just another denizen of an online community or a blog works if you can pull it off. It isn’t tough to sneak in and talk, talk, talk.

Even though your reputation online is more defined by your contributions to the conversations rather than who you are, the culture of the Internet doesn’t suffer being fooled, duped, or suckered.

If you are ever found out, you are screwed.

Flogging: Advertising or not – it's wrong. Wrong or not – it's inevitable.

I’ve been thinking about this flogging thing again.

By flogging I mean blogs that are intentionally created to appear to be innocent/detached from an agenda yet push an agenda (often with key insights) for commercial purposes.

WalMarting Across Amercian was a flog. It was wrong. It wasn’t advertising – it was PR.

I also think they’re inevitable. Many people in marketing, advertising, and PR won’t care about transparency and authenticity. They’ll care about sales, and branding, and stopping that piece of legislation.

Here in DC you’ll have coalitions pop up all the time. “Citizens for This”, “Americans for That”. They’ll place ads in major newspapers ( the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USAToday). But you can’t contact these groups. You’ll see a P.O. Box, an “info@AmericansForThat.org” and if there’s a phone number, you get voice mail.

They’re usually corporate sponsored and often have ties to business groups and their K Street lobbying firms.

On the advertising end, I think top people at agencies and on the client side have the same viewpoint. Do what needs to get done and don’t screw it up. Best flogging practices will come about and PRESTO! They’ll be all over the place.

I don’t think we in social media have enough power and influence to stop it. Period. I’m writing an article for ZDNet that says essentially that. When it’s published (likely this week) I’ll point to it.

But for now, what should we do?

What Chris Kieff's wife can tell us

I’ve been having a running conversation with Chris Kieff about the ideas of authenticity, transparency, and flogging. We agree on most things, disagree on some others.

I have a problem with something he says. Not because I disagree, but because I think he may, in the end, be correct. And there’s not much we can do about it.

Until last week, he was one of the purists. Someone who would be upset at flogging and want to point it out. Then he had a conversation with his favorite focus group. It was a focus group of one. His wife.

“It’s just advertising” she said, meaning of flogs and false persona blogs. (For the record, I say it’s not advertising. It’s marketing, there’s a difference.)

That got Chris to thinking. Hmmm…maybe it is. It may not be what should be, but what should be and what is are two different animals. And in the real world, “what is” carries the day 95% of the time.

Essentially Chris is saying “Let’s face it. It’s going to happen. Fake blogs are coming. In fact, they’re already going on now. I may not like it, but whether or not I like it, isn’t important. It’s happening and it’s going to continue to happen. The problem is that we haven’t developed the cues to recognize flogs”.

In other words, we know what a commerical looks like on TV. Most of us now know what an infomercial is. A print ad in a magazine or newspaper often has a frame around it saying “Advertisement”. Those are the cues that tell us “Advertisement”. And the problem is that we haven’t been able to develop the cues to directly identify a flog.

That’s an excellent point because it’s true. And some marketers will take advantage of this and create flogs. They’ll often get away with it as best practices develop. We can’t prevent this because it isn’t against the law.

Where I disagree with Chris is that I see blogs as a form of personal expression and direct relationship building platforms. It goes beyond a comment here and there, it’s about trust and sharing. People, on some level, rely on that trust. So to me, personal blogs – unless patently obvious or explicitly stated are wrong.

But back to Chris’ wife. “It’s just advertising”. Think about that.

That mindset is the result of years of being advertised too. Of years of being somewhat misled, fibbed to. Outright lied to. We are all that way to an extent. I know I am. The advertising industry has created an atmosphere that has caused tremendous cynicism in people who are under the age of, say, 105.

Her opinion is important as any of ours. Because it’s opinions like hers that will both allow flogs to exist…yet make them struggle. Why? Because the expectations are lowered. And people aren’t going to engage with a blogger if they feel as if they’re being lied to. And it’s also important because she’s not an ‘industry insider’ and it could reflect the attitude of the masses out there that think authenticity and transparency (or at least translucency) is important. It would be nice, but it’s not expected.

She, as a consumer, is a thought leader. She didn’t know it. Neither did Chris. Neither did I.

In the end, I still have to disagree somewhat. I think that a false personal blog, one that is cleverly wrapped up enough that one can’t tell has the potential to cause great harm And not just to brands, but to readers.

But I also know that many on the marketing side don’t care about these principles of which we speak. So they’ll forge ahead, creating flogs and spoiling what some of us hold up in an idealistic manner…proving Chris Kieff’s wife right the entire time.

It’s just advertising.

How social media will get screwed, Part Three

A couple of years ago I was talking to a friend of mine. She’s the head of a decent sized ad/PR agency here in the DC area. She had someone that had been doing SEO work for her for just a short period move away. It was more project work and he’d no longer be avialble. Now no one else at the agency knew SEO or even SEM.

That’s typical of this area. So I mentioned to her that she had a great opportunity to hire someone to provide the service as it is becoming increasingly important in the marketing world. Her agency would stand out.

She responded by saying that she should look to “hire someone young and train them”. Problem is, no one at the agency was knowledgeable enough to teach anyone anything on SEO. It was hire someone young (read cheap) and have them wing it.

Unfortunately, that’s been the attitude of many ad agencies when it’s come to anything related to online marketing. They don’t seek out to learn best practices first. They don’t play a role in any social media. They don’t got to the same conferences. They don’t think they need to. Because they often don’t respect it.

That’s why a lot of ad agencies will build websites full of flash. It looks great but it takes too long to download and search engines can’t find them. Big mistakes but it’s done all the time. It’s part of their portfolio and the client seems pleased, so they consider themselves experts.

That’s why a lot of marketing agencies shove marketing messages down peoples’ throats on social networks. It doesn’t work that well, but the client is on this site and that site and those sites are currently hot.

That’s why a lot of PR firms use less than transparent methods (like flogs) to push forward brands.

With social media, it’s my guess that it will only get worse. A lot of those same ad agencies and PR firms that are currently resisting social media will be finally adopting it in two or three years. Sure, some will still resist and many that go that route will disappear. But those that do take on social media will do so in typical fashion.

Between now and then, they won’t really have attempted to learn much about social media. Sure, they’ll have an agency blog that they’ll post something on every 11 days. Key people may have a Facebook account. But they won’t know the intricacies of the industry because they’ve never paid attention.

So they won’t care about concepts like authenticity and transparency. They’ve never “done” those two things and they won’t understand why they should start now. It will be inconvenient. Just like the 15 out of 16 that Forrester studied are finding out.

But they’ll want to jump in the game. To say they “get it”. So what will they do? They’ll hire someone young (read cheap) and “train” them.

The people they hire may be right out of school. It’s their first job. They’ll be doing what the ego-driven boss says. This new young employee may be pumped that they’ve got this cool new job at the agency downtown. They may not be up to par on the standards that we’ve talked about for years. Or if they are, they may be so desensitized to ethical breaches that they won’t care.

They’ll go along to get along. After all, MOST PEOPLE DO.

I’m saying this because I think that social media is a couple years away from really taking off. Right now it’s big, but it’s not huge. Marketing communications is changing, but often social media types don’t have a set seat at the table. But those PR firms and ad agencies do. And they’ll have the client’s ear just as the client wants to jump into social media.

So this means these marketing communications companies – which should still outnumber social media agencies by far – that are entering the social media space, will be hiring people without extensive backgounds in this field. These new hirees will be carrying out projects designed by their superiors who’ve got the results-driven “shove it down their throats” mentality. It may not seem right, but today we’ve got different level of honesty. Cutting corners is no big deal. Everyone does it. Why challenge the boss?

So incompetently run campaigns will be more common. They’ll be more cleverly hatched than the ones of today. But they’ll still be done poorly. Many won’t get caught. Some will, sullying the industry. Sort of like the way spammers have hurt email. Clients may not know the difference between actual expertise and fluff because they hadn’t been paying attention to online trends. So they’ll go with their current agencies.

This could be commonplace. It could almost become the norm. It could be the way things are done.

I’m just thinking that the standards and guidelines that we talk about today aren’t going to be respected by many practitioners of tomorrow…because they’re too inconvenient to follow.

Chris Abraham

Because the Medium is the Message