Get thee to Instagram

Round 6

#shelfie via Comedy Central

Gary Vaynerchuk goes out of his way to say that early adoption of new social media platforms is in our own interest, in “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook.” True, he doesn’t explain how to do that on a shoestring budget or if you’re a team of one, but that’s where strategy and priorities come in. Right? Right.

Marketers should be on new social media platforms determining what works and what doesn’t before the masses arrive. Remember when companies had no interest in Facebook? They didn’t understand that things had changed. “The days of stopping people from what they’re doing to look at your ad are, at best, diminishing …” Marketing 2.0 is about integrating “your content into the stream where people can consumer it along with all their other pop culture,” @Garyvee says.

Instagram is a good example. With 130 million monthly users and 40 million photos uploaded everyday, the platform has taken off.

↑Upside: Like Pinterest, it’s visually compelling and doesn’t require much time (compared to reading). You can connect Instagram to other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
↓Downside: Unlike Pinterest, you can’t share others’ images i.e. curate. You can’t hyperlink images; all roads lead back to Instagram, which is good for Instagram but not so good for marketers.

@Garyvee includes several suggestions for Instagram in #JJJRH.

1. Native Instagram content is artistic, not commercial. No ads or stock photos.
2. Instagram is where the young generation is, even more so than Facebook these days.
3. Multiple #hashtags are encouraged.
4. The best content is picked up by Instagram Explorer where it is shared beyond those who follow you.

Comedy Central is not only in the game but shows it’s ahead of most with this simple pic. The image gets the most out of a solo hashtag, “#shelfie”, which plays off the most ubiquitous  Instagram hashtag of all “#selfie”.

Tumblr (because the “e” made it too long? or did it get lost?)

Round 7
If you find Instagram to be too artsy, then you’ll want to weigh whether Tumblr’s for you. It’s dominated by young people and used by artists, photographers, musicians, and graphic designers to showcase their work.

@Garyvee admits to having a soft spot for Tumblr. He’s swears it’s not because he’s an investor. I don’t know, I suppose he’s looking at what it could become for marketers down the road. Tumblr is customizable to a degree few, if any, existing social media platforms are. There are tons of themes to choose from and you can change just about anything and everything to brand your Tumblr your own.

Unlike Facebook or Twitter, Tumblr is about your interests not your network. “Produce the right eye candy for your audience, and they will find you,” @Garyvee says. Curation is also a major part of the platform. But what @Garyvee really likes about Tumblr is that it’s GIF friendly. Those are the 2-3 second looping videos that have started showing up everywhere. The best ones are funny. The lame ones are of some poor sap staring into a pool of water while and animated waterfall does its thing in the background.

On this one, I have to disagree with @Garyvee. I know he’s a marketing god and all but I think he’s screwed the pooch. Even he acknowledges Tumblr is about publishing and not purchasing (at present). It’s not like Pinterest. People don’t go there to shop, and it’s not a platform filled with “storefronts.” This could change, of course. My take, as if you cared, is that the artists who populate the platform would flee if that happened? But it’s a bigger miscalculation by @Garyvee, I’m most concerned about. Google+.

GQ loves Mad Men

“Aside from Google+, there is no social media site that allows you to take advantage of this gorgeous, powerful storytelling format the way Tumblr does,” @Garyvee says of GIFs. Overlooking his obsession with GIFs (what GIFs, anyway?), isn’t Google+ a rather large “aside”? Sure it’s only getting its legs but people go to Google to shop millions even billions of times a day. It’s built. And it’s already were you are.

A great post that anyone who’s going get ready to Tumblr (yeah, I did it) should emulate is one by GQ magazine that throws its hands in the air for “Mad Men’s” season six premier. Great photo. Great pop culture reference. Simple yet affective text. An embed link in the text and the photo itself to “The GQ Guide to ‘Mad Men.’” Plenty of appropriate tags: “Don Draper,” “Mad Men,” “television” … Lookin’ good GQ.

Emerging networks

Round 8
When Vaynerchuk looks to the horizon, he sees a social world everywhere. What he says is hard to argue against. “That’s why it’s smart to consider the jab-and-right-hook potential of platforms that aren’t particularly social … Whatever isn’t a social experience now soon will be,” @Garyvee says.

LinkedIn — is on the verge of great leap forward and will soon be a daily check-in for most folks, @Garyvee says. He predicts that different social networks will serve different functions in our lives: Facebook will be the dining room, for entertaining; LinkedIn the library for getting deals done. That’s an interesting way to think about it. (Except that I’ve just summarized a book about how to make Facebook, LinkedIn, and all other social networks the center of your “get the deal done” businesses. Hmmm).

Google+ — doesn’t get any love from @Garyvee. It’s a question mark when it comes to being a marketing tool and it’s numbers, 500 million, according to Google, are inflated because users automatically get an account if they use other Google services like YouTube. He’s right about the latter but, if Google can figure out how to allow people to manage multiple accounts from a single sign-in or tab, then the game will change. Right now, the biggest impediment to using Google + for marketing is that marketers and businesses generally have separate accounts and separate Google + pages. Wrangle those cat into the same barrel and no one will be able to hear over the ensuing cat fight of marketers rushing in.

Vine — Snapped up recently by Twitter, Vine’s promise of six second videos encourages more people to watch video. “This platform could do to YouTube what Twitter did to Facebook,” @Garyvee says.

Snapchat — Oh, snap. It’s too early to say how Snapchat, the photo- and video-sharing network that kills it’s content seconds after it’s created, will fair. Vaynerchuk admits he hasn’t figured it out. How modest of him. But he says he might. Of course, I might too.

E is for effort (I found the ‘e’)

Round 9

Holyfield vs. Douglas 1991 (l to r)

This chapter is about boxing and how Buster Douglas beat Evander Holyfield in a famous fight that many people reading the book won’t know or care about. The point is: If you are big or if you are small, putting in the effort to know your client base and jab natively on social media makes all the difference. Also, don’t go into a heavyweight title boxing match looking like you’re smuggling four pounds of meatloaf in your gut.

I’m a media company, you’re a media company, wouldn’t you like to be a media company too?

Round 10
This chapter is two pages. But to my way of thinking, it’s one of the most important. @Garyvee illustrates his point in a way that brings it home. All companies are now media companies. And if all companies produce their own stories, videos, photos, and so on, is there a need for the media? Is there a need for, gasp, marketers?

When Micheline started reviewing restaurants to encourage people to drive more and wear out their tires, there was little hint that the Micheline Guide would become the yardstick of fine dining that it is today. The same can be said of the Guinness Book of World Records, although it doesn’t apply to fine dining so much.

Conclusion, Round 11 & Knockout, Round 12

There’s not a lot to these chapters. @Garyvee mostly wraps things up by recognizing how much time is required to go native on the seven major social media platforms but argues that it’s time well spent in the long run. When he’s turned in the final edit of #JJJRH and is busy pressing the flesh at the Cannes Film Festival, Instagram opens up to 15-second videos. It’s big enough that he’s on it that night for four hours and his team is working to figure out the best way to tell stories on it. Oh, and he added a chapter on it in his latest book.

Next up? Google Glass, @Garyvee says.

by Ed Carpenter — He’s a bad mutha … shut yer mouth.

Build it Before you Need it

When it comes to getting the word out about your issue, cause, or organization, there are three types of media you can use: owned, paid, and earned.

Paid media is, simply put, advertising. Owned media are the channels, tools, and content that you control. At one point, that meant your brochure or newsletter. These days, those tools run the gamut from your website, blog, and e-newsletter to the latest social media fad (Vine, anyone?).

The third type of media, earned, is considered the holy grail of media. Traditionally, earned media has been defined as the visibility you earn when a journalist reports on your issue, cause, or organization. It is coverage in newspapers, on the radio, on TV. Typically, you or your organization orchestrate a strategic news moment, which you share with reporters through news conferences, press releases, or just targeted pitches. It’s not free media. You earn it — not only through the newsworthiness of your story, but through the sheer work it takes to land coverage.

In today’s digital age though, the definition of earned media has expanded. It’s no longer just what reporters are saying about you. These days, you also earn visibility through blogs, email, shares, and social media interaction and engagement — in other words, online content. This is earned media 2.0, and it’s more powerful than ever, accelerating visibility and conferring third-party credibility on your news.

We’re all media publishers now

There are two reasons for the evolving nature of earned media. One is that we are all media publishers now. At one point, only media companies and journalists generated content that people could consume. Now, with the advent of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, blog platforms, and so much more, everyone can amass an audience. The only distinction these days between traditional media companies/professionals and everyone else is audience size. Mass media reaches a larger audience size, but even that has shifted. Remember when everyone made a big deal about Ashton Kutcher having more Twitter followers than CNN? And that was 2009.

The second reason is that technology and the web have dramatically changed how we consume news. The days of sitting in front of the television for the evening news or waiting to read about the news of the day from the morning paper has passed. Now, we encounter news pretty much all day long, on multiple platforms (our smartphones or tablets, our desktops or laptops, via search) and from multiple sources (our favorite podcast, our high school friend on Facebook, or our favorite niche blog).

5 steps to remake your earned media strategy

If the definition of earned media has been redefined, we now have to rethink our media strategies as well. Traditional media relations is no longer enough. Organizations and causes have to embrace the power of their own media channels in order to tell their story and engage their stakeholders.

Our media strategies must integrate owned media outreach with media relations. That means 1) developing email content or blog posts along with press releases and targeted pitches to media. It means 2) prioritizing a social media strategy with graphics or other content that encourages sharing and engagement. During the media monitoring phase, it means 3) tracking not just the hits we get in papers or on the news, but also whether we’ve sparked conversations on social media or on blogs. And it means 4) using owned media or paid media to create an amplification loop that feeds off of any earned media 2.0 coverage that was generated. A great example of this type of integrated strategy is United We Dream’s “Operation Butterfly” campaign, which successfully combined traditional media outreach with great use of owned media engagement for maximum impact.

Build it before you need it

Finally, it means 5) building it before you need it. A segmented email list, a website with a blog or a section on your website that can be continuously updated, and consistent engagement on social media channels are now necessary owned media ingredients of an organization’s ongoing communications strategy. By spending time building engagement across your owned media channels, you’ll be well positioned to score with earned media 2.0 when strategic news opportunities hit.

Bilen Misfin Packwood is a 13-year media veteran who has worked as a journalist and PR professional, including a stint leading communications for Kamala D. Harris, San Francisco’s former district attorney, before founding Change Consulting. Bilen turned her observations about earned media into a Ted-style talk at SPIN Academy South 2012. Follow her blog at and on Twitter @bmisfin.

by Ed Carpenter — He’s a bad mutha … shut yer mouth.