Eric Tsai

Social media is quickly becoming part of our everyday reality. However, the landscape is very dynamic. Platforms such as Friendster and MySpace were eventually trumped by Facebook. Now we have Twitter. Is that merely another stepping stone toward something better?

I caught up with successful branding and marketing strategist Eric Tsai to get his thoughts …

Damien Hoffman: Eric, what is social media marketing?

Eric: Social media marketing is to conduct marketing activities via social network channels or platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

Damien: How can companies keep up with the rapid changes? When should they get involved with a new platform?

Eric: Companies should maintain focus on their core strategies and only adopt what make sense accordingly.  There will always be new technologies and concepts.  Keeping up means achieving similar results with new tools.  Do you know where are your customers?  Why are they using certain platforms?  It’s also important to consider your company’s ability to handle and utilize new concepts and platforms.

This is why pilot programs are important.  We can see companies like The Wall Street Journal and New York Times are trying very hard to reinvent their broken business models.  I think they’re doing the right thing because trying is better than doing nothing.  Getting involved with new platforms is a tried-and-true process.  These platforms must also align with your internal structure, company culture, and resonate with your customer.

When search engine marketing (SEO/SEM) first came out, many companies were slow to adapt.  Only the “early adopters” (see Roger’s bell curve) truly benefited.  Once Fortune 500s entered the “early majority” phase, it became clear search engine marketing was here to stay.  That’s when small and mid-size businesses caught on in the “late majority” phase.

There is definitely risks involved when investing in new platforms.  However, ultimately it’s part of the innovation process that companies should consider. When a technology starts to get commoditized, it’s time to innovate.

Damien: Do you think Tumblr is the next Twitter since Twitter has the character limitation and a very high abandonment rate?

Eric: I don’t think Tumblr is the next Twitter because it’s another micro-blogging platform with different feature and focus.  It’s like asking if Blogger is better than Typepad, Wordpress, Posterous or all the other blogging platform out there.  The key for Twitter is to find their niche audience.  Many people use a combination of both Twitter and Tumblr by pushing out the same content via both platforms, or they use each very differently.  For example, I use Twitter mainly to inform and deliver content to help people interested to learn more about marketing, branding, and social media.  On the other hand, I use Tumblr as my photography exhbit of brand space and interaction.

Even though Twitter has a high abandon rate, it’s still growing fast and the people that stick with Twitter are usually very loyal.  Plus, many popular 3rd party apps are already integrated with Twitter.  Even Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM aggregates Twitter content — so it speaks volumes about the strength of the data from Twitter.

Damien: What other platforms should companies be watching?

Eric: It’s important to realize that platforms are created by identifying emerging trends.  I’ve always recommended companies to not just focus on the platform, but the trend of where consumers are going to be, their communication habits, and the influencers in those areas.

Platforms come and go.  So, what happens if Google is gone tomorrow?  How will your customer find you online?  If you provide enough value, people will find you.  Just like print will never go away, it has its place.

With that said, I think companies should realize continueous advancement in connectivity and real-time web.  This leads to a lot of new ways of looking at technology that can help achieve amazing new concepts like “augmented reality” and “location based” platforms.  These tools can aggregate data and connect peoeple instantly.  If you think from that angle, it’s easier to identify which platform fits your business model and how it will benefit your overall brand strategy.  At the end of the day, success is about business not technology.

Damien: Eric, thanks for your thoughts on social media marketing.

Eric: My pleasure. Thank you.

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Wonder what it costs to have your product or service attached to modern gladiators under stadium lights? Ad Age reports this year NBC’s Sunday Night Football took in an average $339,700 to capture a 30-second share of consumer attention (-21.8% year-over-year).

Other top eyeball magnets included Grey’s Anatomy ($240,462/30-seconds) and Desperate Housewives ($228,851/30-seconds). On the flip side, you can reach consumers in between Jay Leno jokes for between $48,803 and $65,678 depending on the night of the week.

This year’s rate drops were expected “With the economy weighing on marketers’ ability to spend.” However, my contacts on Madison Avenue say some firms are starting to spend again and others will soon follow suit as the fear of being left behind spreads to Mad Men like H1N1.

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Is Kanye West the Modern Don Draper?

With the smash success of Mad Men, the compliment du jour in ad land is to compare someone to Don Draper. As a weekly reader of Ad Age, I have seen the glamorous analogy thrown around a few times.

Don Draper’s real life counterpart lived 50+ years ago. Today the real marketing stars understand how to get millions worth of PR free in top publications and across the global blogosphere. Don Draper may have reached Sally Homemaker, but people like Kanye West are reaching the eyes of millions — maybe billions — more persons.

Here are three reasons Kanye West is the best PR man alive:

1) “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” If that were ad copy, it would be as emotionally charged and impressionable as you could ever dream. However, those are the words Kanye declared in a major public service announcement after Hurricane Katrina. That video clip was a shot heard ’round the world (and at the time, the world desperately extolled anyone who could express their feelings in the media).

This event alone does not make my case. But here comes the pattern …

2) Tantrums, threats and public acts of petulance. Kanye has had so many public outbursts, MTV.com has a timeline. By the end of 2007, Kanye had walked out of the 32nd Annual American Music Awards when Gretchen Wilson won (later calling her a “Redneck Woman”) and declares a conspiracy against him, stages a “Heavenly Persecution” act during his performance at the 47th Grammy Awards (indicating he is the central focus of “haters”), said he would have a “real problem” if he did not win album of the year at the 48th Grammy Awards, stormed the stage at the MTV European Music Awards because his video did not win, and most recently interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the MTV Music Awards to express he thought Beyonce should have won.

If you don’t think this guy has a premeditated PR strategy, I know some guys “off” Wall Street who have some risk free investments for you.

3) #RIPKanyeWest. For those unaware, that was the most popular tag on Twitter yesterday. Even I surfed to Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) News to see if Kanye had truly finished his grand performance on Earth. Alas, it was simply another celebrity death hoax gone viral.

Kanye is not the first to take advantage of the death hoax. However, it’s a legitimate strategy for PR firms who believe all press is good press. In Kanye’s case, I believe he simply saw it work for others (e.g., Britney Spears) and added it to the list of deliverables to his boss: himself.

Conclusion

When taken together, Kanye’s actions add up to a well thought out, consistent, savvy guerrilla marketing scheme. Don Draper may have been a superior creative within the old messaging model, but Kanye is truly a Mad Man of the Information Age.

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