Behind the Glamour of the Chief Alien

I get this all the time, especially when I meet someone and we exchange cards.

"What is it like to be Chief Alien? It is something I have always dreamed of but knew the chances were such a long shot I completely blocked even a thought of it from my mind. But since You are a Chief Alien, I just gotta know. What's it like? C'mon I am dying to know?

And you all were thinking how awesome this life could be for you. Well it's not all glamour, free space daiquiri's, and all the best party invites (though there is plenty of that). Real work goes on behind the scenes. Work over stale cups of day old coffee, and work hours way into the night. In fact to prove it......

After a long nights sleep in my Atmospheric Conditioning Pod, I wake to this:

A spattering of Trade News Emails.

The dashes are all the commentors via LiveFyre from Spin Sucks and check it out: I got 1 LiveFyre point! Totally rocking those LiveFyre points! When someone Like's your comment you get a point. Grow Blog and Creativity Unbound blogs are also pretty solid places you can earn these valuable points. I heard one day there will be a catalog with valuable prizes you can buy with them including diamonds, cars, and trips to Europe (editors note: this last part has not be confirmed and thus must be deemed highly unlikely)

One new out of way left field Twitter follower (maybe they want marketing help?! But I am a big bacon fan...sigh) 

Two yellow highlighted work related emails, yes BOO-Yahs!! are part of my daily work life.

And of course the X showcases the daily email from Hong Kong to discuss the electronic bank transfer of $50mil to the US for a generous commission to me. In which I always respond "Send it in small bills to a secret location and its a deal". I get so little spam but this Mr. Lee is a shifty fellow.

So there you go. No emails from world famous SuperStar DJ's (they call me directly), no invites from Buffet to Davos (was told next year...maybe) or my agent trying to get me onto Celebrity Alien Rehab (more likely) or the Amazing Echelon Class Space Cruiser Race (less likely), not even a new Daiquiri recipe! I swear sometimes really big incredible awesome stuff goes on, but the life of Chief Alien is not as Glamorous as you all might think. 

So maybe that job you have now is sounding really freaking AWESOME now!

PS: Dear Email Marketer try making your way through to me via this inbox!

Don't be a Clutter Generator LEMMING! But you are!

Clutter! You cause it. You are part of it. Don't be a Clutter Creating LEMMING. You do your clients zero good. Be unique. Be special. Be powerful. But don't be a Clutter-Nut!

On the Sky Pulse Media website we ridicule the LEMMINGS! But YOU ARE A LEMMING! Trust me you are. Look in the mirror!

Get a Sharpie and write LEMMING on your forehead. 

It's OK. It will remind you of who you are. It sickens me to see the Big Name Marketer Names telling Brands to all do the same things. When really they are giving ZERO advantage to the Reader or Client or Brand. This goes for Traditional Marketing, Digital Marketing, Social Media, and Mobile Marketing.

I want to use this as my reference point. After 14 years of having a personal hotmail account it got corrupted. So I decided to create a Gmail account which now is over a year old. I was so excited to start fresh. But as is normal I started subscribing for emails from all sorts of places. From Entertainment, Music, News, Politics, Retail, Travel. When I log in to Gmail this is what I see. The check marks are what is being deleted unopened.

So think of this. What if every Brand that has a Fan Page sent you 1 update a day to your Facebook Feed. Or 1 Tweet into your Twitter Feed. Or 1 alert to your Mobile Device. Or 1 email to your Email Account.

That is what is happening. That is why the Big Name Marketers are lying to you. It benefits the Gurus who give talks and sell books that you are a LEMMING. It benefits the Social Networks. It benefits LEMMING News sites like Mashable. That is the big scam! It does not benefit you. Whether it's LBS, SMS, Social, Digital it's all Clutter! And adding more to the Clutter will not get you seen. It is why people only engage with 4.6 Brands via Social. They run from Clutter yet Advertising thrives on Clutter because more Advertising means more Billings! And it is why the Industry seriously STEALS money from clients through lies and deceit. It's why Brands with 5 million Fans on Facebook get only 500 responses.

My advice to you. Be different. Be creative. Opt In RULES! Its not the Message. It's not the Ad. It's getting it seen that makes you relative. Figure out how to separate yourself from everyone else. Trust me standing on a corner in NYC with a Sandwich board during rush our will earn you more impressions than posting to your Fan Page with 5 million Fans.

My next post will highlight a few unique campaign strategies that worked from being creative.

Why Brands Have Low Engagement via Social Media

*title change from Why Social Media is not a Good Sales Channel

I recently blogged about why Social Media is not getting the attention of the C-Suite

LINK

Specifically those folks want sales. Facebook is promoting itself as a Sales/Marketing Channel. Thought Leaders like Joseph Jaffe view Social more as a Customer Retention (Customer Service) and Loyalty Building Platform (Conversation when you can get it). In my blog post I trounced Facebook Fan page engagement numbers from the Sales point of view. But is it the Brand's fault? I think it is the platform's fault. And it is not changing any time soon!

I have done studies showing that 90-95% of all Tweets and Facebook Updates do not get viewed. What I mean by this is the volume in the streams are so much that no one with 200+ connection will ever see them all. The total I have unread is 462 since yesterday afternoon. If you are not on my first log in page...your post doesn't exist.

I get about 2400-3000 Tweets in my daily Twitter feed. At least if you Mention me I will see your Tweet. You can not Mention all your followers in 140 Characters.

So the real Engagement numbers from the following viewpoint is better looking than using the percentage of Total Fans. I have a client with 1100 Followers and when I post a Schmap showing their up coming location I get around 20-40 Views per Tweet. The one below I tweeted 4 times yesterday. Taking a very generous 10% seeing each post, that is a decent 15-30%+ engagement rate. When I post photos from my runs I get around 20+ Views on TwitPic which is great if only 70 people see the post.

So the problem isn't always bad content. When I view a Brand's Facebook Page and see pitiful numbers, the reason isn't because people don't care, it's because they do not see the Posts! 

Which completely devalues Facebook as a Viral/Engagement/Free Marketing Platform. As you can see Doritos is giving away $5mil so you know very well if people saw this post they would at a minimum 'Like' it. I mean why are you a fan? Even if I use the 10% rule and only 91,000 saw this post, they had 109 actions of engagement....for a $5mil contest? (This is very pitiful most do a little better).

My next post will discuss some potential solutions which all have Pros and Cons.