The game theory of discovery and the birth of the free-gap

It all started because of the discovery problem.

Too many things to choose from, more every day. No efficient way to alert the world about your service, your music, your book. How about giving it away to help the idea spread?

The simplest old school examples are radio (songs to hear for free, in in the hope that someone will buy them) and Oprah (give away all the secrets in your book in the hope that many will buy.)

There’s a line out the door of people eager to spread their ideas, because in a crowded marketplace, being ignored is the same as failure.

Most people, most of the time, don’t buy things if there’s a free substitute available. A hundred million people hear a pop song on the radio and less than 1 percent will buy a copy. Millions will walk by a painting in a museum, but very few have prints, posters or even inexpensive original art in their homes. (In the former case, the purchased music is better–quality and convenience–than the free version, in the latter, the print is merely more accessible, but the math is the same–lots of visits, not a lot of conversion).

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The importance of brand “appeal”

More and more, I like the word “appeal” and its implications for marketing and facilitating the building of relationships.

The definition of “appeal” (according to the World English Dictionary) is “the power to attract, please, stimulate, or interest.” So, if we apply that to marketing, it means thatbrands that think in terms of “appeal” are more likely to try to attract, please, stimulate, and provide interest for the consumer — all behaviors of engagement, which is the foundation of relationships.

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Using Twitter for Marketing and PR: Do the Pros Practice What They Preach?

It seems that everyone claims to be a Twitter expert these days. Of course, most are not. But several of the real Twitter pros I know—including those who have written books about using Twitter as an effective marketing and public relations instrument—have figured out how to best leverage the 140-character microblogging tool to promote themselves, their books, their firms, and their clients. And some of them actually follow their own advice!

How Smart Marketing Book Authors Use Twitter

For example, Mark Schaefer of Schaefer Marketing Solutions is the author of the book The Tao of Twitter: Changing Your Life and Business 140 Characters at a Time. He and his firm provide affordable outsourced marketing support to address both short-term sales opportunities and long-term strategic renewal.

Mark uses Twitter to help deliver on that promise for a number of his blue-chip clients, including Nestle, AARP, Anheuser-Busch, Coldwell Banker, Scripps Networks, Keystone Foods, and the U.K. government. He also very effectively promotes himself and his book on Twitter as part of his own marketing, branding, and relationship-development strategy.

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Courage and minimalism: A new view to focus on your target

Courage. Now, there’s a word not often used in marketing – though often used in business. We call leaders courageous when they make unpopular decisions, usually internally, that change process significantly enough to create a turnaround. Perhaps to drive costs down, perhaps to drive morale up – but always to make a significant change. In marketing, in my humble opinion, courage is the ability to very clearly identify, select and stick with a target audience.

I believe those (marketers) who are most courageous are the ones who dare to dabble in the psychology of status – a concept first introduced by Herbert Hyman (1918-1985) in 1942. The premise of the psychology of status is that individuals use groups of reference to evaluate aspects of their lives – both positively and negatively.

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Two Big Lessons from Morgan Stanley’s Social Media Investment

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Image from Wikipedia.com

1.  Tell Your Story in Social Media or Someone Else Will
Wall Street brokerage powerhouse, Morgan Stanley, made a bold investment decision:  within the year, all of its 17,800 financial advisors will be tweeting on Twitter and connecting on LinkedIn.  Bullish on Social Media, its head of U.S. sales, Andy Saperstein, proclaimed:

MSSB is committed to continue leading our competition in innovation.  This will be a significant competitive advantage.

So where did Morgan Stanley break this bold announcement?  Well, ah, it didn’t….That announcement came in an internal memo that was leaked to the press and whizzed through the corridors of social media until Morgan Stanley finally acknowledged that the memo was genuine.  Social media moves in real time.  Not having a presence in social media assures that you will be chasing the story rather than telling it.

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The Power of Strategic Social Media Marketing

As business storytellers, we have spent the last three years watching, learning, and immersing ourselves in new media. The digital evolution yields immense value in audience reach, messaging power for B2B and B2C companies, and in accessibility to customers and information. The number of participants engaged on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube demand a company’s attention.

How to harness the power of these channels is the key marketing question. In much the same way we begin every marketing initiative, we start with the end zone—what’s the goal and how will we reach it? For our clients, Return on Investment is answered in the larger context of strategic marketing and public relations; social media is not a stand-alone marketing channel with a disparate ROI.

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Authenticity increases Return on Relationship (ROR)

“It’s not authentic if everyone loves you.” – Stephen Strong (Alberto Culver) at theChicago Brand Advocacy Series.

That is a message that every marketer needs to hear loud and clear, especially as the focus on social media gets stronger and recommendations carry more purchasing weight than ever before!  The term “authenticity” gets used a lot now, but how many brands actually subscribe to being authentic, not just saying they are?

True authenticity in marketing requires brands to change their public filters.  It used to be that a whitewashed image was the way to get consumers’ notice and buy-in (literally)…but now, if brands filter out any and all slight imperfections, consumers quickly get wary.  If the only product/service reviews you allow the public to hear are about how amazing your product/service is, you quickly lose authenticity points.

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The Gamification of Social Media

Empire Avenue is the new game in town. It sits squarely in the social networking space, but it has a different twist – one from which I think businesses may be able to gain valuable insights, all while allowing people to enjoy themselves.

What is it?

Essentially, it is a rewards system that makes what we already do on the web   – create and share content – fun by making it a stock market-like atmosphere. You can earn money (their currency is “Eaves”) by buying other people and you can see your own worth rise by getting other people to invest in you. When tied to other accounts such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn and blogs, your net worth rises based on the content you either create or share. But like the other sites, it’s also a social network itself. It’s a chance to connect and brainstorm with others by finding affinity groups (“Communities”) within Empire Avenue.

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Facebook: The Social Accelerator?

image by ericaglasier.com @EricaGlasier 

We live in a world of accelerating change. As our communication technologies evolve, it becomes easier to connect more and more of us around the planet to each other. The web collapses space and time, dissolves geographic boundaries, and gives us windows into each other’s worlds.This is causing shifts in the way individuals perceive themselves, their immediate relationships with friends and communities, and the context of how they relate to society at large. 

David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect, prognosticates, “Just by increasing the efficiency of communication and reducing friction in relationships between people, particularly on a global basis, it will lead to a more integrated sense of humanity.”

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If they can do it…

Yesterday, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney announced that it would allow its advisers to use social media platforms, providing all 18,000 advisers access to LinkedIn and Twitter in June and graduating to Facebook soon after that.

It is the first large financial firm to do so, marking a sea-change in the industry’s resistance to adopting potentially confidentiality-threatening tools. Morgan Stanley’s only real social toe-dipping to date was the infamous report on How Teenagers Consume Media they commissioned from a 15-year-old on work experience.

However, Andy Saperstein, head of wealth management says, “Many of our clients have been demanding social media. Many of our advisers have been demanding it.”

Of course, it’s the clients that probably made the most impact. Staff are one thing, but when the guys who pay you big bucks start to demand something, you sit up and listen.

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