The Limited Super Powers of Social Media

Social Media is so powerful it can leap buildings in a single bound. It can topple Governments, start revolutions, cook you dinner. Uhm yeah right.


I like the real world. You know that world that Klout doesn't measure. In the past I have tried using my extensive Twitter network (professional network that now has people I call real friends) and Facebook network (real friends...like friends pre-Facebook....ones I am close with off line) to help with everything from choosing cell phones to recipes. In my network I will get maybe a response or two.


My client Chunk-n-Chip has given me free reign to try everything I want for their marketing. It is from running their Facebook page and seeing 80% of Fans with 100% private profiles that I investigated just how much of Facebook is private thus negating the 'Privacy is Dead' mantra from idiots like Pete Cashmore.


Well my client makes one of the best gourmet ice cream sandwiches on Earth. They are based in Los Angeles/Orange County. Most of my friends are in Los Angeles. Do you know how many out of 300 are Fans on Facebook? 8. Do you know how many I have contacted to give away free BOO-Yahs!! who then don't take me up on it? A lot. My client has a rabid customer base. People drive 30 mins or more through Los Angeles Traffic to find them. Yet on Twitter I rarely get more than 3 or 4 out 4700 Followers playing a game to give them away.


Now comes this Eat St contest. We created this video hoping to win a segment on the Food Network Show. The requirement to vote is to register. People can vote once per day. We have about 18 employees. I told them all to register, to tell their friends and family, to post on Facebook to help us win! Vote everyday! We have 23 votes since January 5th! If you click the link and see votes vs views for all the submissions you will be amazed. If you don't think every one of these businesses hasn't told friends and family to help vote. To all share with their networks, why such a poor vote turn out?


Power of social media? KLOUT? People will do easy things. But make them take effort is hard. Social Media does nopt fix the need for a carrot. A BIG CARROT! Unless they are pissed they are passive users when it comes to Brands. Chat someone up about football people jump in. Mention a Brand and echos. I see this on major Brand Facebook pages when on average less than 0.01% of Fans participate. 


And thus is the big lie. The Power of Social Media happens only when people are pissed or bribed. Rarely does it just work because 'People want and love to share or participate'. You need to give them a reason and often this is a bribe. And bribes aren't always the best way to incentivize customers. In fact it could erode your Brand Image or your Pricing Power and Margins. But you need to give Fans a reason to take Action. This is the hardest part of Social Media. Things don't happen by magic and they aren't easy.


BTW prove me wrong. Register on Eat St and help my client win by voting. I bet you won't. Your lazy and are thinking 'What is in it for me?' just like everyone else.

Google Plus is a Conversational Game Changer

For anyone who has been playing on Google Plus the one thing everyone including myself has said is that it allows better conversations than Facebook or Twitter. Lengthy ones too. The format for this is almost as good as Livefyre for blogs. The difference is Livefyre allows you to bring in people from Twitter very easily.

So why do I say this is a game changer? For anyone who watches the Daily Show like I do and laughs as Jon Stewart slaughters Fox News almost every night for fibbing, being hypocritical, and sometimes blatant lies you feel Jon is responding for you. We can not respond directly to Fox News. Yes we can tweet. But who will see. Yes they have a Facebook page but it is all short form.

But on Google Plus even though they have the Mastheads of their Talking Heads. Their posts are very...well...Newsy. They don't really talk opinionated Politics. Why? Because people are talking back. When they first started their Google Plus page they had hundreds of people commenting when they went political. Mostly negative. And guess what? You can't turn it off like you can on Facebook!

So they are actually the News Organization they claim to be on TV but generally aren't in my opinion. There is no crazy Hannity attacks or weird hypocrisy from Fox and Friends. It is just News. And that is because for the first time...people can talk back to them vs just Jon Stewart. And they can not stop this.

So warning to Brands who venture into the Google Plus space. Maybe being a good citizen, or giving good customer service should be a focus for you. Because if you have a Google Plus Brand page, while people can't wall post, they sure can comment and you can not stop them.

First Post of 2012

Well here is to a great year for everyone. Alien's are an optimistic bunch so let's focus on a good year with lot's of growth for business, personally and having fun while at it. Now that the Space Daiquiri hangover is gone let's get down to business.

First off we will be blogging more often again and most likely moving the blog to a different platform in the next 3 months. Being bullish on Google as possibly taking over the net if they can integrate everything, who is to say Blogger can't be something beyond a simple blog one day? The G+ integration with other Google properties has slowly begun.

If you have not visited our Brand Page on Google Plus please do. We will be sharing our posts from here, news articles of note, and other stellar blog posts relative to advertising, marketing, business, mobile and social.

Sky Pulse Media on Google Plus

Next there was this great article written by Henry Blodget of Business Insider that discusses the misleading view that Facebook is beating Google. What Henry uses so incredibly is the data that us Alien's you always see crunching over and over to prove our points. The fact is currently Facebook in bringing in about $5 in GROSS REVENUE if that per user per year. That comes out to less than $0.50 per month. I don't know if Google has 800 million users like Facebook does. But say they did. They make over $10 in NET PROFITS per user per year and $50 per user in GROSS REVENUE.

The one thing Henry Blodget as all the Media refuse to cover is the fact that on a per person basis use of Facebook has been falling quite rapidly. It is unknown if the new timeline etc will change that. Back in April 2010 I wrote this analysis of the numbers taken directly from the Facebook Statistics Page. Since then all those stats have disappeared from the page. Why? Obviously they look unflattering. The last one to leave was time spent. It used to say 55 mins per person per day. Then 700 Billion minutes per month. Now it is gone. Because usage has dropped to below 30 mins per day per person. And that doesn't help support the IPO.

One thing Henry might agree on is my view that Facebook is really a massive pump and dump scheme by some big investors hoping to leave main street with the wreckage. Remember the Web is littered with companies that ruled the Web and were called invincible: Netscape. Yahoo. AOL. AOL Time Warner. Myspace. EBay. Priceline. Etc Etc. And Facebook will be one too.

Facebook has a nice business. But who says a better communication platform won't have people leaving in droves. They did this to Myspace. They will do it to Facebook if the offer is good enough. And technically facebook has had nothing but massive failures outside of photo sharing. Open Graph, Places, Commerce, Brand Pages. Nothing has been a huge success for participation. Because as Henry points out, we want to be social on Facebook vs hang with Brands.