blog

If you’ve been unplugged from your favorite social network the past few days, you might have missed one of the most impressive social web campaigns in recent memory. If you’ve been active on Twitter or Facebook, I’m not sure how you could have missed this: Procter & Gamble launched an amazing social campaign to promote their Old Spice body washes.

Combating the notion that body wash is only for ladies and recognizing market research shows that women purchase as much as 70% of the shower gel for men in their households, P&G’s partner agency Wieden & Kennedy based in Portland, Oregon launched the TV campaign in February called “Smell Like a Man, Man.” The commercials feature actor Isaiah Mustafa speaking directly to women of the household while portraying an over-the-top manly man that does not alienate or belittle men, but reaffirms that it’s okay (and even desirable) to be a masculine man.

The original commercial became an Internet phenomenon, already gaining more than 13 million views on YouTube. The Old Spice Man returned a couple weeks ago with a new commercial, and this time popular social networks were seeded with solicitations for users to submit questions for the Old Spice Man.

In the past few days, the Old Spice Man has posted an amazing 184 video responses to the Old Spice YouTube channel. Most of the responses are 30-60 seconds long, and are directed at various individual questions and comments on a variety of social networks. Some are directed at celebrities like Demi Moore and George Stephanopoulos, some at influencers in the digital world like Digg founder Kevin Rose and Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis, and many more at average unknown internet Joes.

These short videos have become amazingly popular, flooding Facebook and Twitter with shared links and retweets, and gaining much more attention as a collective whole than they ever could on their own (although they have individually gained between 25,000 and 340,000 unique views). The real victory is that for at least two days, the entire Internet has been talking about the Old Spice brand.

So what makes this campaign so successful, and what lessons can be extended to your own social campaigns? Here are a few of my observations:

• Respond in Real Time: Social interaction via web exists in the here and now – often something is “old news” in these contexts within a matter of hours. Although the Old Spice Man responses weren’t completely instantaneous, having a professionally created video response from a commercial spokesperson the same day your question was posted is pretty impressive. If nothing else, a quick response communicates one important thing: your brand is listening.
• Engage the Influencers: By responding to and engaging with some of the most influential people in social web, the Old Spice brand quickly became the talk of the Internet. When you engage influencers, they influence others on your behalf. The campaign even went so far as to send real-life flowers to actress Alyssa Milano after a back-and-forth exchange on YouTube. Your target audience may not always be the whole of the Internet like Procter & Gamble, but targeting key influencers in your niche market can help your message spread to your audience quicker.
• Give Community Managers Freedom to Speak for the Brand: If the Old Spice Man video writers had needed to get corporate approval for every video script, there is absolutely no way they could have generated 84 personalized videos in 11 hours on Tuesday (an average of one video every 7 minutes not counting breaks). By trusting those managing your social web presence to speak freely on behalf of the brand, it is much easier for them to respond to individuals quickly and directly – resulting in greater impact for your brand.
• Give the Audience Freedom to Extend the Brand: In response to a popular request on Reddit, the Old Spice Man provided users with the tools to create voicemail messages using his voice, and users used it to create an online voicemail generator. This extended the Old Spice brand to the personal voicemails of their audience, a place they themselves never targeted. By giving the audience access to some of your brand assets, they may extend your message to locations you yourself may have had difficulty reaching.
• Engage the Audience on a Personal Level: Although the sheer volume of requests from the audience for replies far exceeded Old Spice Man’s ability to respond to each of them, his very public responses to individual people (and not just celebrities) made the entire audience feel like they too could get a response. When your audience feels like your brand cares about them personally, they too will personally care about your brand.

The campaign wrapped up Wednesday evening with two response videos that expressed the personal connection that defined the campaign: a touching personal message to Mustafah’s own daugher, and a final farewell specifically thanking all of those who submitted questions and comments that time did not allow responses to.

In less than three days, the 184 YouTube response videos garnered more than 5.2 million views (where the Old Spice channel was the most popular on the site), grew the Old Spice twitter account from around 5,000 followers to over 66,000, and grew the Old Spice Facebook page to more than 592,000 fans.

How can you leverage these same concepts on a scale your brand can afford to grow your own web audience?

I’ve had some great opportunities come across my plate the last few weeks.

No, I’m not leaving dynamIt. No, I’m not leaving weBuild. And, I’m going to keep running Startup Weekends.

The opportunities have not been for me – they’ve been for others. I’ve had multiple friends, colleagues and acquaintances reach out to me in the last 2 months with open (or newly created) positions in their organizations. The organizations range from political campaigns to Fortune 500 companies, from NPOs to funded startups. The positions – community managers.

While I’m relatively plugged into the digital world, I’ve not had anyone (who is currently unemployed and/or employed but looking) to recommend for these positions. Why? 1) Great candidates I have in mind are employed and busy and 2) Because the skill-sets, experience and behavior required to be an effective community manager are not being brought together outside of industry right now. Yes, I’m looking at you Higher Ed.

[My position is that higher ed, in general, is that it's an insufficient representation of real economy and practice. It's siloed, territorial, tenured (gag), theory without application, and too accessible - too many colleges and universities. Topic for another post.]

Community management (Check out the robust report: The State of Community Management) continues to evolve. John Bell actually separates conversation managers from community managers. Community management can mean purely digital, purely experiential (real tangible world), or – where I think they can provide the most value – a combination of both.

Community managers have to be persuasive, innovative, and empathetic. Depending on organization, brand, goals and audience they need to be customer service representatives, PR specialists, brand managers, researchers, strategists, sales people, analysts, teachers, marketers and advertisers. Going forward, I believe they’ll need to be event planners, content creators, producers and team managers themselves.

They need to understand technology, design, communication theories, group dynamic, psychology and economics. They need to be gadget freaks, trend mongers and absolutely live and breath their mission. They need to function well in a environment of fractured hours and location. They must be able to interface with (soon) every business unit and function within an organizations.

Ya, this sounds like a lot. It sounds like the successful candidate needs to be everything to everybody. That’s not what I’m saying. A successful community manager needs to be a generalist. Specialization or experience in a certain field may contribute to tighter (or quicker) integration with a particular community, but all of the skills named above are important.

Higher Ed needs to start cultivating this group. Too often we work to specialize people as they spend 4 years learning and drinking. The reality of the situation is that most communities are comprised of myriad people and interests. Though a single point may be the rallying cry, often diverse interests and connections based on them are what drive engagement along the chronological and even pure volume axes. Beyond interests, the data, communication, planning and delivery call for a wider shallower approach.

There are plenty of great marketing, advertising, public relations, communications, etc programs that exist within universities around the world. There are actually a number of programs integrating across functions and specialties – getting closer to real-world experience. However, I’m not aware of any programs or tracks focusing on community management.

With multiple disciplines being explored and taught, native digital communities to test and learn from and non-revenue-critical circumstances to operate in, Higher Ed is a perfect training ground.

So I’m looking at you, chairs of departments and deans of colleges – there are jobs waiting to be filled by new economy workers and digital natives. It’s time to get together, fashion curriculum and develop community management chops within your walls. The demand will only grow, and you’ve got the opportunity to build capable candidates to meet it.

PS – don’t feel shy in reaching out to industry to ask for guidance

Clients often ask me what technologies and platforms they should invest in when it comes to open information exchange, socialization of business functions and internal and external communication.

This question is a good thing.

1) It means they are thinking about it. It means that they are trying to understand what is important now, and what will be important in the future. They are thinking about the economics of purchase, implementation, training and meaningful use.

2) It means that they are aware of trends and modern web history.There are peaks and valleys when it comes to networks, platforms and technology. MySpace and Friendster were all the rage, and now Facebook and Twitter are top-of-mind (though keep a heads up for MySpace as they begin to evolve).

My advice is always simple: Invest in behavior. All generations (not just those entering the work force) have a thirst for information. Twitter and Facebook are where interaction is taking place right now, but we are seeing status updates, posts and information becoming more independent from these platforms. I can publish an update to Twitter, Facebook, my blog, my Tumblr and LinkedIn in one submission. The behaviors of status reporting, commenting, micro updates and content sharing are not going away. Can anyone really anticipate which network will be hot or what technology will be ‘in’ ? My answer is no. However, what most in the industry can and will agree on is behaviors of updating and expectations of access to real-time information and domain experts is only just beginning.

So, invest in it. Figure out how to foster a culture of information exchange coupled with productivity. Find out how your people work best and how the behaviors described above can positively impact their workflow. Utilize current technologies and platforms, but concentrate on how information and publication/consumption behaviors can be analyzed and perpetuated for the good of your people and your clients.

The technologies will live and die, but the behavior will only become more core to how we all interact with the information economy that is the undercurrent of society.

Is there a Social Media Dress Code? Should there be? Is it situational? Does it matter? Should it?

I say no. If I’m heading down to a big law firm, a big company or walking into a half-century-old PR firm who buttons up, ya, I pull on the suit and rope on the tie. While I do dress according to my day, I can’t wait to stop. I understand that traditional business is suited up, dressed to the 9s and perhaps a bit more conservative and structured. However, Social Media is about channels of connection, it’s about brand championing, it’s about reaction-engagement-participation. Social Media is about common language communication and time and space shift*.

I contend that dressing Social Media in a suit actually inhibits it. Think about it like this – are you more apt to give a real answer in a focus group observation room with 1 way mirrors and a camera or in a cafe, at your home or somewhere you feel comfortable? Is your conversation and thought process more natural when you’ve ironed your shirt and lint-brushed your trousers or when you’ve pulled on the sweats and are sitting in a more ergonomic chair not worrying about wrinkles and dog hair? The point is, for Social Media to be effective [read: gain valuable insight, true connection, trust and reliance] it needs to be second nature, unobtrusive and comfortable.

To that end, were I heading a large company/department looking to at least explore and hopefully implement a Social Media campaign, I would actually feel more comfortable talking with someone “dressed down”. 1. Social Media is trendy – I expect domain experts and thought leaders to reflect this 2. Successful Social Media implementation is not a toe in the water, it is commitment. As described above, someone consulting on this and coaching my people toward a positive result and experience should fully embrace the realm and “personality”. I’m pretty sure clients/customers would rather be talking to someone “like them” horizontally than a suit from above. As Cone points out, 93% of Americans expect companies to have a Social Media presence. 93% of Americans (all of us consumers of something and clients of someone) do not wear suits.

Again to the time and space shift* – Social Media pieces aren’t used in a conference room or in a board meeting (well, some are getting tweeted out!) but on breaks, on the run, on the road, after hours. Social Media is used/produced around life. If that life happens to be a business professional meeting, then by all means rock the double-breasted. However, just because you’re used to seeing a suit doesn’t mean that your clients and customers want to talk to you in it = your SM campaign doesn’t need to wear one = the thought leaders, domain experts consultants and participants in the field probably won’t be wearing them… at least not all the time.

*(time and space shift is Dave Berkus language)

What do you think? Should big corporate get used to seeing backwards hats, jeans and sneaks when they’re learning about the world of Social Media and how it can and will connect them more intimately with their clients, industry and (the way things are heading) the world?

one.

nick @NickSeguin