Money can’t buy love, but it can buy you millions of guaranteed friends to support your politics, purchases, or personal pursuits.
I just generated over 100,000 friends, followers, and fans for 4 separate clients over the past 96 hours! The catch phrase immortalized by the Beatles “Money can’t buy me love”, has been repeated as the golden rule of relationships for decades by hopeful hearts and probably poor romantic novelists has now been proven a farce. What seemly separates social friend fishing as opposed to true personal interaction is the message relevance and method of continual, hierarchical engagement. The expected end result is not to collect friends, followers, and fans, but to create an army of like minded individuals that can be lead to a specific action. Whether that action is one of capitalism or cause, integrated socialization into any media campaign can create exponential results.
The idea of pay-per-friend came from my initial pay-per-call platform I built years ago, in which you only paid for qualified client calls generated from our advertising. Unlike pay-per-friend, pay per call is a one shot, one kill deal, when a call comes in the advertiser answers, the interaction is now over. Referral potential from a call in client is low. In a pay-per-friend model, targeted friend is engaged, we continue to feed the target client relevant interaction, which create additional interaction with the target friends circle of influence, thus semi-viral fellowship begins to grow exponentially.
Pay-Per-Friend campaign basic steps – minus social technology details
Step 0: Start with the end in mind – simply put, in a perfect world what is the end result? Do you want 10,000 calls into the governor’s office? Change the perception of consumer confidence in a specific product or brand? Or promote your stock to those most likely to buy? All is possible, but the goals need to be set ahead of time.
Step 1: Set the stage / Client targeting via digital listening – this means selectively harvesting followership by listening to the interactions within the social sphere and create immediate engagement based upon the relevance of the conversation which compliments a per determined position.
Step 2: Socially class engaged as a leader or lemming – simply stated, does the engaged follower have their own following. Dependent upon the influence of the engaged participant, semi-automated to personal social interaction may be the best course of action, as opposed to the lemmings that will follow and syndicate a social conversation just to be a part of the group, cause, or conversation.
Step 3: Cross connect social, mobile, and traditional media platforms – Create tasks that help identify your social army, and allow you as the brand, advertiser, or agency to connect those identified as influencers to cross pollinate to other social mediums. The easiest way this can be achieved is to give influencers access to social, mobile, and ad mob tools to elevate their influence status.
Step 4: Seed social action and let leadership take form – plant a single seed in the mind of an individual, and potentially change the world. Carefully crafted and timely interactions will yield a predictive result. Those of social influence will lead an army of followers to an end action. Dependent upon the levels of influence of your social sphere, interactions can range from syndicated to highly personal.
Step 5: Create a rewards system – rewards can be a powerful motional tool, but like any compensation, the expectation must meet reality. Doesn’t promise and not deliver, or you will create a viral Acoup d'état.
Step 6: Measure the social success, optimize and repeat– from step 0 to now, friends were engaged, mobilization occurred, and most likely new opportunities emerged.
Step 7: RECYCLE– Just because you won the war, does not mean you throw your army away!
Hey Here’s an Idea, Let’s Create a New Brand, the GPAD Tablet to Compete against Apple’s iPad and Samsungs Galaxy for the Christmas Season, with little budget, resources, and time, just because some guy bet you a dollar you could not do it! I should have walked away, but he double dog dared me!
John Says, "for the GPad Life marketing strategy, we had to just reinvent all the rules of consumer electronics marketing, because they just did not fit into our timeline".
Have you ever looked in the mirror and said, what in the hell was I thinking? It all started when I had the pleasure of having a front row seat to a private session of Google, Apple, RIM, and a few other heavy weights talk about the future of developing applications (APPS) for smart phones at an Emory’s Wireless Forum event. In sitting on the first row I noticed a lot of iPads, so I had to ask Google, "I understand this session is about app development, but we should also have a question about supporting devices. So my question is Mr. Google (I rather not call him the Director of App Development for all Things Android or you’ll know who he is)when are you going to get man up to Apple and start developing a tablet friendly OS, before Apple gains any more market share. This is where I get into trouble without an entourage, because I am too encouraged to speak my mind without filters. Google looked at Apple, Apple Looked at Google, and Mr. Google answered it’s something we are discussing, and we have partners launching with our 2.1 and 2.2 OS. Another panel member stated that there is only one other competitor the Samsung Galaxy 7’ table hitting shelves Christmas. So I did a little research as well, and found one other minor player, which is a no name Chinese brand in Kmart which if anyone buys me one, please leave the gift receipt.
Anyway, to make a short blog post longer, I saw first the opportunity, as a Media ROI Evangelist, to help bridge the market between East and West, but when I talked to several Chinese manufactures they really only wanted to sell product, not build a brand. I felt their strategy a little shortsighted, since I see electronics as more of a commodity, especially in China.Then the ahha moment hit, I have launch dozens of brands into the marketplace, for a lot less than big brands spend. Plus, I have a fairly good rolodex of rainmakers that could compensate in areas which I was weak. To seal the deal, comes my long time friend, Bob who said, wow, very complex; you need at least $20-50+ million to launch out a brand to compete against those guys. I said naaaa, blah, blah, 3 minutes later we just bet a dollar that I could not create a competing national brand in 6 weeks.
Then it happened, I drank the Kool-aid, and became the first Gpad Life Evangelist. The more I researched the marketplace, the more a really saw a need for the market to change. If you LISTEN to what your consumers are telling you their needs, it is easy to meet their demands by… well I don't know, building the product they want, at the cost everyone can afford. Rumor has it that the first release of the GPad may even have a camera and 2x the memory than the iPad, and is bigger than the Samsung Galaxy, but these are only unsubstantiated rumors. 🙂
Anyway Bob… you will owe me a dollar this week, and for all of you buying a GPad Life this Christmas and beyond, be vocal, tell us what you want, tell your friends, rant, rave, or make fun of us. At the end of the day, all reviews are good reviews, because your helping us build a better product.
If anyone would like to know the details of what we have actually done (including very little sleep) for Project GPad aka GPad Life.. heres our first 5 weeks…..
1)Did all of the legal corporate crap… Corporate filings, CPA, Bank acct, etc
2)Used digital listing and influencer interviews concerning the iPad and people potentially looking for a second trusted source
3)Found several factories producing a better product than Apple (practiced my Chinese)
4)Created the brand GPAD, which I actually did previously for a prospective client, but he never paid me, good news is that I own the trademark.
5)Build a website, ecommerce store (launching in T-96 h)
6)Integrated the ecommerce engine into a fulfillment house
7)Established Logistics and reverse logistics protocols
8)Got cap less merchant account a great rate
9)Created Branding materials
10)Created a media partnerships launching on Radio, TV, Print, & more
11)Established call order center
12)Established customer service center (offshore) – I know but to expensive onshore
13)Tomorrow I am pulling in some a few hundred thousand to increase project staff, ad budgets, and overall project revenues.
All this done for A LOT less than most think, we should to make the project profitable for under $250,000 and 4 bodies. By the way, we also have other clients that we managed as well. The secret is let your vendors do the heavy lifting, and pay them on performance, not time. In the end, stuff gets done faster, and it saves you lots of money.
But what happens next? I have no idea. Let’s see if any of these GPAD balls come crashing down around my ears. For the time being, we may actually sell a few thousand pads, and change the way people perceive retail electronics marketing, and potentially creating new competitor to the tablet market by pulling in rapid consumer support and product adoption.
So tune in for the rest of the story as it unfolds. Good news is if we do well, feel free to buy GPad Life for 1 gazillion dollars, or you could always hire my firm Adreka for your next marketing launch 🙂
Can Social Listening Make Consumer Behavior Predictive?
Over the past few years, I have been using a hodgepodge of analytic tools in to monitor, engage, and in some cases change the course of consumer behavior through a variety of engagement strategies. Given that my first few ventures included running a few thousand dating, gaming sites, and entertainment websites, I thought that among my peers what I was doing was common place. I was recently invited to speak at Goizueta Business, Emory University’s MBA program, and had the unique opportunity to interact with both business leaders and the brands that they represented. As part of my introduction, Dr. Benn Konsynski (former Yahoo and Netscape adviser), played the following video, which was more of an eduction my me than the attendees for my presentation.
In the above video, IBM is using data grouping and analysis in real time to make better decisions.
In my experience real time data is a small part of a much larger picture. Yet, what if you could process real time data of not only current events, but project forward that data into a fairly accurate forecast. Now let's take this one step further, if you understand the yin and yang, the cause and effect that relates to changing behavior patterns, and you selectively engaged those which influence the mass opinion, could you change the attitudes, behaviors, and perception of those which influence others?If you captured the sentiment of those socially influencing others, would you actually cause a ripple effect in which human behavior of those following be altered to a probable outcome? My name is John Cataldi, and I am an entrepreneur.
There seems to be about 3 Billion Reasons to Leave Coal in the Stocking of Several Political Media Buyers for Wasteful Media Spending
Political advertising may potentially outperform holiday advertisers in hyper spending by November. Mediaweek reports that over, three-quarters of the $3 billion expected windfall will be spent in the final seven weeks leading up to November’s elections. Kantar Media released an expenditure showing that political ad spending is up over $160 million over the 2006 elections.
Kantar Media’s interpretation is that core advertisingis pacing better than expected for television and radio. They believe that this is a result of special interests in the retail, telco and financial sectors driving media spending. With the foreknowledge that Kantar is a division of WPP, and sister to marketing agency Ogilvy & Mather, who handles the media campaigns for several elected officials, including candidates in New York, I would submit a different theory, which is based loosely on my last blog post.
For those that do not know, media is purchased on a political rate which is higher than most other media rates, averaging about 20%+ in my experience, but could go potentially higher. Plus, all political campaigns have to pay the media networks upfront. This is compounded by several media networks dedicate only a certain percentage of airplay to political media plays, though there have been times that a politician’s message can be bumped by a higher paying candidate depending upon the network. Currently many of the political campaigns that I have had exposure to and in some cases the pleasure to work with have hit a tipping point in their persistence to spend heavily on only one or two media channels, with the biggest offenders being TV and Radio. I use the term "tipping point" as the point of inflection that the ability to gain any more voter support from this particular media channel is diminished exponentially, given you have already overly saturated the media channel to capacity.
My advice to politicians….
Use social analytics to create more effective messaging, but only to registered voters!
Track your political media, by using traditional media analytics to see what media is creating voter action.
Use multichannel marketing strategies to spread dollars where it is cheaper and more effective, across all media types that are relevant to your voters.
Get rid of, or spend less on political media that is not working.
Use convergence media tactics to get the most out of every dollar spent (IE if a potential voter calls in to make a donation, their phone number can be exported to an SMS alert list, they can be socialized into Facebook and Twitter, etc)
And if all else fails and your back is against the wall, with six weeks left in the campaign there is always Pay Per Voter Marketing!
Will Paying for Voter Action Rather than Gross Media Spending Be the New Measuring Stick for Political Campaigns?
With less than 20 days left until the gubernatorial election, tens of millions of political campaign dollars will be spent in last minute media purchases. The hope is to sway voter favor to the political candidate of choice by flooding the market with the most media. Ironically, over 65-80% of political spending is ineffective and will not reach most voters or drive polling results, as a consensus among top brand managers. Political campaigns are now embracing pay per voter action also referred to as pay per performance marketing as an effective means to reach and engage registered voters, prior to their campaign dollars running out. According to McKinsey Research, “Multi-channel marketing can increase effective consumer reach by 200-400%”.
Given the growing trend in tracking voter actions in relation to a campaign’s media spend, Adreka announced today the launch of their Pay for Voter Action Platform. “This is the first pay for performance media platform designed for the political space,” says project manager Alicia Armstrong. Adreka measures voter engagement by tracking voter actions directly related to a campaign’s traditional and social media interactions which include phone calls of donors and volunteers. Moreover, Adreka’s platform also engages online influencers (those having a large online following), from Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and localized political blogs. The goal is to create voter action that is predictable and measurable in our clients favor, says John Cataldi, Media ROI Evangelist for Adreka Advertising.
Adreka’s, Pay Per Action Political Platform works by 1) understanding what is really important to the majority of the voting populous through social analytics; 2) creating and syndicating relevant media across TV, Radio, Internet, Social Media, and Mobile Media; and 3) measuring what media channels are effectively affecting voter options. The end result is a political media campaign that only allocates media spending on the media that sways polls into the candidate’s favor. As an added benefit, many voters responding to Adreka’s political adverts can be legally tracked and marketed to via their mobile device and social media network.Depending on the campaign, costs can run from $10-$250 per voter action. “I have seen Adreka in action; this type of political and media convergence is a game changer for any election”, says leading political consultant, Gabe Winslow.
Not understanding how the media conversions can be directly correlated to voter response is prevalent even in campaign watchdog groups. Ross Johnson, Chairman of the Fair Political Practices Commission of California stated, “More campaign spending means greater influence. To believe otherwise, is to presume that candidates for public office live in a cave”. According to Cataldi, “If political campaigns were compared to corporations with similar media spends; the end result would be the destruction of most top brands. Ross Johnson is correct in that more spend equates to more media, but an effective spend can outperform an opposing campaign by a factor of 10x. I believe that the future of not only political, but all media spending will be measured on performance and end result, anything less is a waste of dollars and time.”
About Adreka, Inc. Adreka provides the leading media monitoring and engagement platform for marketing, communications and customer support professionals. The company's new digital listing technologies allows the monitoring of all forms of social media, mobile, and traditional media, with a heavy emphasis on analytics, predictability, and media effectiveness. Visit www.Adreka.com, call 678-804-7144, or email sales@adreka.com for more information.
About John Cataldi
An avid technophile, serial entrepreneur, and media spokesperson, John Cataldi is the CEO of Adreka, an open media exchange to allow agencies and advertisers to target, create, syndicate, and track their traditional and interactive advertising. Visit www.JohnCataldi.com for more information.
Socially Catering Airline Passengers and Brand Loyalty in the World of Social and Mobile Media
Missed Connection, Missed Opportunity to Positively Socially Connect with Airline Brand
Can this really be happening to you?! After you waited 45 minutes on the tarmac, just to be moved to another plane that did not have enough flight crew, which caused a you to have an overnight stay in a in a connecting city that you had no desire to stay in, without luggage, and no cell phone charger. To make matters worse, you now have to wait in line behind the other 80 people that missed their connection, with only two customer service agents that have no authority to do anything other than give you a card to call customer service (that happened to have closed 15 minutes prior to you calling). This makes you have to rearrange your other flight plans for the week, because you now have to re-schedule tomorrow’s $500,000+ client presentation (with one power bar left on my phone) which you will now have to fly to them as opposed to them meeting them at your office. This has probably put you in a very bad place… at least in mind and temperament. Ok, I could be projecting my most recent airline encounter.
Yet, I know I am not alone. With over 2 billion airline flights worldwide each year, it is estimated that 15-25% of flights are delayed, with 2.5% of airline flights canceled (Source AirlineComplaints.org & NY Daily Journal). In travel requiring multiple connections, an additional 2-6% of airline passenger flights are missed do to carrier connection delays in which the first carrier was late on arrival causing the air traveler to miss their connecting flight (U.S. Department of Transportation). Additionally, flights missed outside of the airports ability to control, 7% of consumer missed flights is self inflicted by the consumer not giving themselves enough time to arrive to the airport to handle all the eccentricities’ of travelling in a post 911 world.
For the airlines marketing brand, ironically, and to the airlines dismay, fault, in today’s socially interconnected world of Facebook, YouTube, UStream and the 250+ other social networking communities, is 90% of the time blamed on the airline (Adreka Social Analysis – Airline Industry). In 2010, within the social sphere, over 2.8 million blog entries depicting a strong dislike or bad airline experience has been reported since January of 2009 (Adreka Social Analytics). Given that the average social account averages 130 friends / syndicated connections, the net influence of an airlines brand name is potentially muddied in the eyes of 364 million future customers.
So what can the airlines do in the way of brand strategy to take the sting out of the consumer’s temperament and still maintain the bottom line?
The Reactive Airline Marketing Response
The frontline of an airlines brand defense is to know your customer! Give real time support, anywhere! Most customers just want access to quick information, to questions like where’s my gate, and is my flight on time. If a problem arises, over 90%+ of customers want to vent yell at someone. We want to feel that we are heard and understood. Given empathy and understanding is a majority of the battle. Peer to Peer (P2P) communication via teleconference is the easiest way to deploy massive, centralized, and real-time customer support over the footprint of X major airlines, servicing on average X hubs domestically, Y worldwide.
Create a positive outcome, syndicated brand strategy – Problems will always arise, you’re your organization handles crisis as it occurs will define your brand socially. Whether it be voice, video, or an online chat, record and socialized the consumers end result – they are already going to talk about it on their facebook page, beat them to the punch and turn a consumer question, or resolved issue into a marketing opportunity.
The Proactive Airline Marketing Response
Monitor and engage all social media. There are over 500K new blogs posts daily, with approximately 5% being travel related, allows ample opportunity for an airline to measure, monitor, engage and positively re-enforce brand daily.
Create Tools and Mediums to better foster proactive communication. P2P in customer service kiosks, Iphone / Ipad apps, 24/7 customer service lines, allow the customer to be engaged early, prior to their issue being turned into a negative experience and shared with prospective future customers through socialization.
Provide automated or real person follow up dependent upon the severity of the situation. Reaching out to your customers, post a rectified bad customer experience, adds an additional layer of we care.
Airlines that implement a portion of the strategy points above will have in essence an unfair competitive advantage over those that ignore the socialization of their consumers negative travel experiences. Not to mention, it any of the above airline brand strategy steps would have turned my negative experience into a positive story about an airline that had a unified brand and loyalty program. Because of my negative airline experience, I was able to create a real world case study with a simple solution that I will potentially save the airlines tens of millions of dollars in brand loyalty loss, and provide consumers everywhere with a better travel experience. I believe I just proved capitalism and karma can co-exist!
Happy travels to where ever your final destination may take you – John Cataldi – The Real Mad Man
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