Social Hallucinations

Baby, say it one more time

Throughout my career at media agencies I've faced many times the question 'how many times people have to see our message to get it? We have developed tools that based on the research and common sense helped us to establish the levels of so called effective frequency. This graph from Armano's and Rubel's presentation on 6 digital trends seems to be in line what we've been doing and believing (I am curious how they've come to those numbers). Majority of people need to hear things 3-5 times before they sink in. This of course depends on the complexity of the message, the context and the environment we are communicating in. It requires crafting the messages that it are easy to understand and are relevant to people.

 

Though, it doesn't mean we need to push the same message 5 times through the same channel, over and over again in hope people finally get it. When message isn't relevant, they will never get it, rather get annoyed or immune over it. The repetition and effective frequency is more to me about "lightning lots of small fires" like Mark Earls says, meaning we create many contact points with people in spaces where they already are, where they are in the right receptive mode and context. It is not necessarily about sending out the same message but adapting the message to environment it is going to be seen in. Integrate and adapt, be always in beta to get best out of it and make sure people hear what you say by communicating smarter.

The World is a Global Village

Marshall McLuhan explores how electronic media are changing society moving from individuals of print culture to tribes of electronic media culture.

The old media aren't replaced by the new ones, the just change the role they play in people's lives and society along with cultural changes the new media trigger. Evolution.

It is incredible to see that 50 years old interview and experience how future proof are some McLuhan's thesis.

via Wabi-Sabi Lab

Your Life, Your Game: The Art of Collecting Points

Great show by Jesse Schell game developer and great performer on how Facebook and diverse social platforms will influence our reality, not only the way we communicate but the way we learn, shop ... the way we live! To sum up his fascinating thoughts: everything will be part of the game and we will earn points to get rewards...figure it out!

Making is Connecting

The new promise of creativity and innovation by connecting digital tools, activism, happiness and social capital by David Gauntlett

Digital tools aren't really worth much unless they are enable people to do stuff, innovate, initiate the change. Brilliant.

Are People Turning into Distrusted Media?

Definition of media got extended significantly over many years, starting from newspapers to social media that are media disseminated through social interaction or even people. Are people media? Are we the mere instruments conveying information that are currently losing trust of other people. Can our communicative abilities be reduced to objects that transmits information?

I don't agree with Armano's theory of decreasing trust in people as the result of overall decrease of trust in media, the correlation doesn't imply the causation. Following Armano's deduction, we could easily come to the conclusion that we are on the way to slow social disaster of mistrust and alienation along the growth of social media. This is oversimplifying of human relations built on trust. Trust is essential to human relations and is fundamental for social interaction and their development. The question lies in how far circles of trust stretch. 

"Trust surveys"  suffer from the lack of understanding of what people define as friends/peers. Those surveys deliver mere numbers without any understandings. Facts.

As I wrote two days ago, the main culprit here are "friends" and our language. We should maybe look at the decreasing trust in friends / peers as the result of the devaluation of friendship caused by media as Facebook. We have experienced rapid growth of our circle of friends with people who were in fact strangers to us. 

I say it once more: we still trust "people like us" but we are simply not sure whether Johns we follow on Twitter are really like us...

The importance of digital literacy

Howard Rheingold on the importance the literacy in participation and sharing is what will decide whether Internet will be useful tool or garbage. 

The Internet as Playground and Factory - Howard Rheingold from Voices from The Internet as Play on Vimeo.

Virality is not a strategy

"Virality is something that has to be engineered from the beginning…and it’s harder to create virality than it is to create a good product.  That's why we often see good products with poor virality, and poor products with good virality.  The reason that over $150 Billion is spent on US advertising each year is because virality is so hard.  If virality was easy, there would be no advertising industry."

(Josh Kopelman)

Image by aussiegall via Flickr

You can't build your product, communication strategy around viral cause viral isn't something you can plan and decide how it should act. Virality is something that is the result of human interactions which you can't only predict but you can't control either. In stead of focusing on virality, shifting efforts into creating the good products and spreading them / news of them is what matters.

As Noah Brier says "if a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody there to hear ..." . Stuff doesn't become viral per se. It becomes viral cause some people heard about it, tried it, liked it and shared it with others who tried it, liked it and shared it, and so on.

via Noah Brier

Popularity isn't easy - this is also very relevant

Danish Mother Seeking - Update

Video was removed was YouTube .... well it just proves all my points. However video can be seen here.

______________________________________________________________________________

Danish Mother Seeking is busted! Karen26, Danish mother seeking... was hired by Visit Denmark to promote Denmark abroad. This is rather disappointing that such a good idea that would work really good to promote safe sex, was used to promote Denmark. That's also pretty shocking that such an angle was chosen to tell the story of Denmark. 

After finding out who was behind the campaign, I must say I asked myself about the ethics - not about the ethics of use of social media, but about the ethics of the content, about the way the governmental company chooses to present Denmark for the world. Respect is missing.

Let's look at aftermath first: over 1 million views, over 5.000 comments and lot of commotion on blogs and in mainstream media...primarily in Denmark. It is pretty understandable Danes are shocked over the way their compatriots have chosen to promote their country. It is like a bad reality show. The comments from Visit Denmark and agency behind - Grey Copenhagen heats the situation even more up. I heard Peter Helstrup, strategic director at Grey Copenhagen say:

"I think, this is the most effective campaign, that was ever created for a danish company" 

Well, this is impressive viral campaign that used controversy, fake & real approach and delivered over million views in just 3 days. As I wrote yesterday views, buzz has nothing to do with effectiveness, it has nothing to do with social media. This is just a tactical and short-term solution, deeply rooted in traditional media thinking focusing on creating controversy in order to boost up views numbers on YouTube (views are still shiny objects for so many). They could as well just show bare breasts. (Btw I would like to hear more about the goals that were set up for the campaign apart from views and appearance on TV2)

What about relevancy of the campaign? I keep on asking myself, how this campaign is relevant for Denmark? Isn't Visit Denmark's major goal to attract tourists to Denmark? It seems like the major efforts were put into promoting this video in Denmark. Apparently, Denmark is where the most response came from. I googled this morning to find any comment, any blog post about the campaign outside the boarders of scandalized Denmark. I found one at Mashable titled: Danish Woman’s One Night Stand Video Is a Government Hoax. Not to mention the comments that appeared on YouTube.:

"its amazing to see all the foreigners who have lived in denmark for a long time (decade or more) come out and slam Denmark. I lived there for a decade too, and was disgusted by the petty racism and xenophobia. Not to mention shallow women who will fuck you but not even hold a civil conversation."

"Lets get to Denmark, and get laid! that its all folks! Nobody is interesting in little right wings shiit Denmark!"

No one can deny it - the campaign has backfired and it seems there is no plan to handle the crisis situation. I've heard around that Visit Denmark is deleting comments from people that criticize the campaign.Is it true?!

This is where public engagement begins and we can talk about social media marketing and Visit Denmark seems to be unprepared to handle it. This is when the real things happen - not while the views counter is going up and people leave comments hoping she will find the father of the child, but when the discussion gets heated and opinions about content appear all over the Internet.

Visit Denmark got blinded by the shiny promise of millions of views and lot of buzz. They got those views along with disgusted, disappointed, shocked people and apparently no plan how to handle the bad response video generated.

Companies and agencies chase the shiny objects like buzz and views, missing the big picture and opportunities that are available for creating the public engagement and relationships. Using social media tools will not make you social. We keep on mistaking traditional media campaigns using social media with social media marketing. Social media marketing is about ideas that are rooted in understanding of human behavior and emotions and that get people together, make their lives more exciting or easier. Social media marketing is about people (not views)

Is the next episode coming: Danish Tourist Agency Seeking the lost trust...

TicTac Micha Rocks Again

TicTac Micha is back. He didn't stop to entertain the world after the great performance in Copenhagen. The great response from all over the world, the lots of fan emails showed that TicTac Micha is great and there is the need for more.
So he is back with the World tour. The first stop was in Malmö, Sweden where he rocked at the midsummer party!


and here is his first performance from Copenhagen - watch TicTac Micha video here.

Stay tuned for more updated from Micha's tour by visiting his website. :-)

Connected Silos

Online vs. offline, digital vs. analog - two different and opposite elements of the communication world. The media thinking is stigmatized by dualism that makes us perceive and understand the world as being divided into two categories that can't connect, but just exist one next to another divided by a silent wall of the silo thinking. Silos are easy to control and manage. Silos allows the regime of truth and can't surprise. When something came in, something must come out at the other end. But digital is not a silo. Every media have digital component and can be connected one with another.

1+1 =3

Connected silos that can communicate and connect online with offline reality creating the new immerse experiences. Two different elements that put together, create the new reality. The connected silos aren't the humans' extension they create the new dynamic structure, which we become a part of.

Does it exist, one may ask? See yourself.

Dissolving the Meaning

I've been going through oceans of fluff written by social media experts. 5 tips how to... 10 advice on how not to do...etc.
Many social media experts are on their quest to rule the world the way mass media did and still do. Social media experts claim the right to be legislators and impose us values. Their advice is becoming a contemporary myth, telling us what the best behavior is. Their efforts focus on convincing the world they say the truth. They are not neutral. They don't create the meaning for the social media. They make the meaning disappear, they dissolve the meaning of the communication facilitated by social media.
Communication that is impossible to reject, because it is the context and the background of contemporary times. Communication that teaches us about ourselves and our reality. If social media disappeared suddenly, we would feel like abandoned on the desert island...

Photo by Ahmed

Walled Gardens of Newspapers

"...But people don’t use the Times less than they did a decade ago. They use it more. The difference is that today they don’t have to pay for it. The real problem for newspapers, in other words, isn’t the Internet; it’s us. We want access to everything, we want it now, and we want it for free. That’s a consumer’s dream, but eventually it’s going to collide with reality: if newspapers’ profits vanish, so will their product." James Surowiecki, The New Yorker.

Newspapers should face the truth that they are not in newspaper industry but in information sector. Their job is to inform people and Image via Wikipediamake sure the news find the way to them as they want, not like newspapers want.
For sure there is the need for well paid journalists who can deliver high quality journalism and I am sure there will always be people who are willing to pay for quality content. As Surowiecki points out at the end of his article:

"(...)For a while now, readers have had the best of both worlds: all the benefits of the old, high-profit regime—intensive reporting, experienced editors, and so on—and the low costs of the new one. But that situation can’t last. Soon enough, we’re going to start getting what we pay for, and we may find out just how little that is."

Problem arises when we stick into channel and can't look outside its walls. Paper is just a carrier, there can still be delivered outstanding journalism online. It is content people are looking after and they are willing to pay for unique content that is interesting them. Newspapers tend to think about online in terms of accessibility, but it also has another dimension - exclusivity, where content becomes the socially desired object. Relevancy and quality are the key.
It is incredible to hear from the chief editor of Kristelig Dagblad - Erik Bjerager - that "Online media aren't able to replace newspapers at the moment".
It seems like there is no hope if this the mindset driving that industry. Ignorance? Fear of change? Lack of imagination?
We perceive ourselves as the innovative society, that is ahead of the game, but we are locked in the jail of thinking based on opposites - black vs. white, online vs. offline - industrial way of thinking. The way that makes it easier for us to create predictable routines. Today, we are living in liquid era where things merge, divide, transgress. We need to adapt to stay tuned.

Some say about the need of finding a business model, but the best business model is in first place to understand what drives people behavior and choices and then provide services products that are relevant, in other words - to get things done properly.

Something is Rotten in Danish Newspapers...

Indeed, it is. In the storm of declarations about digitalization, revolution...blah, blah, Danish newspapers seem not to really get the point and keep on talking about "the control of user experience".
Danish newspapers renewed their efforts to stop websites like Google News from linking to individual articles rather than a newspaper's homepage. Their argumentation - better control of user experience. This is rather silly move in the eyes of declining readership. Dying industry trying to keep the status quo and graving their own grave?
I always believed any form of news whether it is from newspaper or blog should be slippy, they should be easy accessible for its users. It is not about how you want to serve your news, but how people want them to read. It is about letting go and making sure your news find the way to people. This is the way to survive, not to control.
"The Danish Newspaper Publishers Association are frustrated that Google News in Denmark wants to list and link to articles of Danish newspapers without paying them royalties." Yes, keep on being frustrated while people find the news elsewhere...And then you will complain that you are dying and government should help you to survive. What about adapting to the market developments and focusing your efforts on reinventing your business model and ways of attracting readers instead on thinking out how to "better control the user experience".
As R. Murdoch said, journalists should understand that their role is to serve, not rule / control.

found at Global Voices Online

_{Photo by TalkingTree}

Looking into Future

We are getting closer to the end of the year and it means lots of predictions and trends coming to be heard around. While working on the presentation about the changes in media world taking place in the coming year, and the social behavior laying behind those changes, I've found this video that gives a look at the world of brands, media, communication, technology and that in 2010 done by Faris Yakob.

trends, predictions, media, future

Television Without Borders

I've come across an interesting news site Link TV that broadcasts programs that engage, educate and activate viewers to become involved in the world. Link TV mission is about giving people broader perspective on news and covering topics that aren't available in the US media. Lots of interesting news and topics covered. It is really worth exploring.

It is a good example of online taking role of educating people. I had an interesting discussion today about media literacy among youth today. The conclusion was that youth today lack tools for filtering and coping with the information overload. I've observed the tendency for taking the first information available for granted, they express rarely any criticism toward what they find on Google or watch in TV. There is definitely the need for this type of initiatives that have educational aspect and show diversity.

TV, education, media literacy