Here’s the pitch: (go vote)

Social Health: Who Wants to “Like” Hemorrhoid Cream?

Social media is a powerful medium, and can really improve patient outcomes. It can also add some much needed life to marketing plans, and help brands build relationships with patients. With any luck this will be a win/win for patients and brands. Right now the entire Pharma world is busy figuring out how to jump into social media. The problem is very few people are thinking about whether or not someone really wants a relationship with their Rx. Imagine announcing to the world on Facebook that you “like” your prescription Rx cream. Really? You want to do that? Well, different strokes and all. In this session we’ll talk about how to chose the right social technologies to achieve the brand’s marketing goals. Part of that decision matrix is understanding people and how and why they use social technology. We’ll definitely talk about why Pharma should never say they want “viral” marketing. In a best case scenario, this will be a highly interactive presentation taking live suggestions and questions from the audience and discussing their unique situations. Tell me your product, we’ll talk about your audience, and we’ll discuss the appropriate use of social media technology for you.

Questions Answered:

1. Why segmentation data isn’t enough.
2. Why you need to understand why people use Facebook, not just that they do.
3. Do all pharma brands need to be on Facebook?
4. Would you follow a brand on Twitter? Why?
5. What the FDA really says about social media.

That’s my pitch!  I think it will be fun and informative.  So, hows about sending me to SXSW?

My first assignment is

“Color symbolism: An essay on color symbolism in various cultures and two stitched pieces demonstrating traditional and nontraditional color harmony.”

Color, a Natural History

I figured I’d start with the book: Color, A Natural History of the Palette. So far, it’s really, really interesting.  Lots of great context on the social/historical/cultural implications of colors.  Totally surprised by some of what I’m finding. Frankly, I’ve only read the first chapter and am completely stunned by how fascinating “ocher” is and how the color is found and created in natural settings.

The book ranges from the eminently practical to the ethereal and metaphysical.  Here’s a couple of my favorite quotes so far.  (I love having a Kindle — I don’t have to type these!)

The first challenge in writing about colors is that they don’t really exist. Or rather they do exist, but only because our minds create them as an interpretation of vibrations that are happening around us.

The best way I’ve found of understanding this is to think not so much of something “being” a color but of it “doing” a color.

But, in simple terms, coloring can be divided into two main causes: chemical and physical.

The sense that light is a manifestation of the glory of the sacred—that the numinous is held within the luminous—is common to almost every faith.

That last one was in respect to why a particular indiginous people chose a more shimmer shade of ochre that had a rich deposit of hematite in it, rather than a flatter one that was offered by outsiders.  The cultural implications  are really what I am finding most fascinating.

It has me thinking a lot about how we use color to communicate things we could never express verbally.

Continued over at “Treffpunkt,” the RTCRM Interactive Strategy team blog

Bansky - Let's just hide this, shall we? Photo used by CC permissions DanBrady

There’s an old maxim in advertising that you have to get them young.  It’s why Coke new that soda machines in elementary schools were a good idea, at least as far as building loyal customers goes.  There’s a cultural concept here too.  If you can indoctrinate kids into a particular world-view, you have them for life.  Even if they later reject that world-view, you still have it in their minds and they are still viewing the world through that lens — even if it’s a rejection.

Back in June, NPR ran an interview with the band Devo.  It’s mildly hard to believe that an interview with a kitchy 80s band inspired a whirly-gig of thoughts, but it did.  During the interview, the guys from Devo talk about why they not only allowed but encouraged their music to be used in advertising.

We always kind of liked that subversion of mixing fine art with commercial art. ~Devo

Well, that makes a whole lot of sense.  TV commercials are a mainstream form of “low-culture.”  If  you want more evidence of this, just go to the movies right now.  I saw Inception (fabulous, btw) the other night.  We were treated to 10 minutes of ads before the movie.  The second or third ad was one of insanely fabulous Old Spice ads.  People cheered.  People prompted the lines.  It was like a one-minute Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Then the rest of the ads played and people tuned out.  They were lame, uninspired, and totally inappropriate for the target audience.

You know alternative music isn’t alternative anymore, when it’s featured in car commercial.  Remember the first time you heard Nirvana used in a commercial.  Ow.  You knew you were officially old.

Now imagine what happens when currently hip bands allow their music to be used in a mainstream way.  You could say they are selling out, but what if, like Devo, the do it with intent?  What if they use the technology of television to help sway culture in their direction?

This was the “ah-ha” I had about why authors like Cory Doctorow are writing Young Adult (YA) fiction.  Duh.  Doctorow has a clear, clear, clear world-view and uses his fiction to help spread the message.  I’m a huge fan of his writing, but there’s often a moment in his books where I feel like we cross from telling a great story to proselytizing.  Thankfully, he’s a great writer and the moment passes and I’m back into the story.  One of his stories, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, even inspired a non-fiction work based on a cultural concept he created as part of the storyline. The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business is one of many real world people trying to bring to life Doctorow’s fictional concept of “whuffie.”

Of course someone like Cory Doctorow wants to write Young Adult fiction.  Why wouldn’t he want to inspire tweens and teens to work towards his vision of a world-to-come?  Lots of people have been inspired by fiction.  Just think of the impact that Star Wars had on an entire generation?   I’ve seen many adult authors turning to YA fiction.  On one side it’s a chance to sell more books.  On the other, it’s a chance to build a loyal following.  Some authors have even managed it the other way.  Stephanie Myer, of Twilight fame, has written a pretty decent adult novel called the “Host.”

In some ways it’s an obvious statement to say if we want to know what’s coming, we have to understand what kids are in to.  But it’s not just text messaging and bad teen vampire spin-offs that are the cultural products they are feeding us.  We, in so many ways, are feeding them.  Authors, artists, musicians, and movie/TV makers are often using the medium to sow the seeds of cultural change.  It’s done so subtly that often we don’t realize it until it’s done its work.

Whether that’s good, bad, or indifferent — I leave up to you.  But pick up a YA novel written by a respected adult fiction author and see what it has to say.  There are a lot of fun ways to be subversive.  Of course the moment we start writing about them or you hear about them on the news, they cease to be subversive and instantly become mainstream.

Sometimes innovations seem to just happen naturally, but any innovation requires someone to risk trying something new — even if that thing seems like a “gimme.”  Many people have ideas all the time, but very few actually speak them and more importantly take action to bring them to fruition.  And, many people have ideas that are not innovations.  To be an innovation it has to help something grow and move forward, not just be change for change’s sake.

I’ve decided to apply professional discipline to my own career and life now.  I haven’t done a full risk matrix, but I have played out many possible scenarios.  I’ve had a pretty interesting life and career so far.  I started out as a professional Stage Manager and Prop Designer and then spent the next 10 (ish) years  working my way around the Interactive world.  I’ve designed sites, and even won a couple of awards.  I’ve built sites – not something I’m really good at.

Most of the time, I’ve been on the marketing side – agency and client side.   I’ve been part of the group that develops and executes interactive marketing strategy.  I’ve worked on everything from media plans to content strategy to social media.

What I haven’t done is often expressly discuss the other things I’ve been doing.  The thing is,  I think it’s this “other” stuff that has made me really good at what I get paid for.   The “other” stuff seemed like things you don’t talk about at work, and really did people need to know about it?

Yep.  It’s time.

I say I’m connector of people, ideas, and information.  More simply, I’m a good strategist and tactician because I can see through other people’s eyes and connect patterns and dots together.  I can do this not because I got an MBA, which I didn’t, but because of all the things I have studied and done.  Don’t get me wrong, I think an MBA is probably a good thing for a lot of people to get.   But while my peers were getting MBAs, I was on a slightly different track.  I was in “seminary” – to use a convenient word.

Over three years, and two different jobs, I was a part of the inaugural class of Kohenet: The Hebrew Priestess Training Institute and on an ordination track with the spiritual group to which I belong.  Welcome to the risk — talking religion with work!  Don’t worry, I’m not going to preach at you or try and convert you.

For me the skills I’ve learned from all of this that enable me to do my job well are:

• Critical thinking
• Applied Curiosity
• Collaboration
• Presentation
• Research
• Empathy
• Analysis
• Fearlessness
• Project Management

From my first day the Shakespeare Theatre when I was asked if I was afraid of snakes, because I was going to be in charge of two baby pygmy ball pythons for Anthony & Cleopatra.   To having to learn to repel, field strip a Baretta 9mm, and manage Secret Service Inspections — all as a 23 year old Prop Runner.  As I moved into more Prop Design and Set Dressing, I had to learn to see the vision of the Director and Set Designer — and put myself into the world of the show.  My greatest compliment as a Prop Designer was for a production of A Raisin in the Sun at the http://www.olneytheatre.org/.

From my “seminary” training, I learned how to listen and provide pastoral counseling.  I learned applied empathy and critical thinking skills.  Trust me — sit in room of 20 opinionated, educated women and discuss a Torah portion and what it means.  You have to apply dozens of skills to that, which only improve your analysis, critical thinking, discussion, debate, presentation, research, empathy and collaborative abilities.

I think there is a lot of value in publicly discussing how our “other” interests and experiences make us better at how we earn our living.  So many of us have informal Liberal Arts educations, that for one reason or another, we don’t really discuss.

It’s time to innovate and take some new risks.

It’s time to talk about all the “other” things I do and how the lessons learned there can translate to the corporate world of marketing and communications.

This may not seem like an important statement, until you factor in that my current job is Director of Interactive Strategy.  You’d think being obsessed with the latest gadget and every new feature Google rolls out would be what I live for and it was.  I had an epiphany on the bus this morning, though.

Quite simply — I’m bored with technology.

What excites me is people.  Why do people do what they do?  Why do some people favor Twitter over Facebook?  Why do some people swear by their iPhones and others are perfectly happy with basic phone that makes phone calls.   The iPad in itself is just not interesting.  Okay, it’s kind of interesting — but the interesting part is how it may change the way people do things or understand something.

The Kindle (still one of my favorites), is interesting because it finally created a way that mainstream people began to accept digital books.  The gadget is not what’s important.  Even Amazon proves this point by providing Kindle Apps on all kinds of platforms.  This seems to baffle people.  Why would Amazon create a Kindle App for the iPad when that may doom their gadget?  Frankly, it’s because Amazon seems to get it’s not about gadgets.  It’s about people reading.   The Kindle provided an experience that was so similar to reading a print and ink book that it was comfortable.  But, like the iPod, it allowed you to carry your entire library around with you and shop from anywhere.  Even the much maligned design of the Kindle illustrates this ethos.  It’s not about the gadget.  The gadget should disappear when you read.  It’s about the words on the page.  Why is there a keyboard?  Because people like to make notes in the margins of their books.

As a marketer, I don’t care about the technology.  I care about the people I’m trying to reach.  I care about how they use technology to communicate.  I care about ways to create experiences, which technology makes a lot easier.  I love articles like these from Mashable because they show ways we are using technology to rebuild community experiences that time, distant, a crappy economy and a ridiculous lack of work/life balance have begun to remove from many of our lives.  These are things marketers should be looking for, especially pharma marketers.  What do people already do?How can we help with that?  Another great example is from the world of law enforcement (again via Mashable).  This is not about cops thinking, “we should be using Facebook.”  They saw that technology offered new ways, possibly more efficiently, to do things they already needed to do.

I’m bored with technology unless we’re talking about what you could do with it, what you do with it, and why you do it.

I want to talk about you.

You are interesting.

Despite my outgoing personality and insane level on social media involvment, I’m not very good at the conference/cocktail party networking thing.  I attribute this to my being an INTJ and a Virgo.  The “I” of INTJ means I tend to be introverted, and not comfy making small talk with tons of strangers. The Virgo means that I like to control situations and have things neat and orderly (not my house, just my life).

Nutshell is I suck at just chatting up strangers unless I have some specific thing I wish to say to them.

Thank goodness for the “back-channel.” I’m at the ePharma Marketing Summit and if it weren’t for Twitter (and my colleague Croom), I wouldn’t have spoken to a soul.   Twitter is the introduction to a whole bunch of new people and thanks to one smart person, Shwen, we had a “tweeple” lunch yesterday where many of us met in person.  Social media and technology has opened up an entirely new avenue of conference and post-conference networking.

Here’s my approach:

1. Twitter during the conference. always using the conference “tweme” code (trust me they all have them now, and they are usually pretty simple to figure out). I do it almost as a way of taking notes on what is being said more than commenting and giving my opinions.
2. Start following interesting conference tweeple, be sure to “@” them when they say something interesting and “retweet” good posts by other people. Be sure to look for the official conference Twitter person. There’s probably one there.
3. Ask at least a couple of public questions during QA sessions, if you can come up with anything good. It gives other people a reason to come and talk to you! Do start with your name. I’m terrible about remembering that part. Today I would have been the “woman in lavender.”
4. Organize tweeple meals or at least attend them. You can just listen and nod attentively, if nothing else.
5. When you do talk to people in person don’t just take the business card and file it away.  That night, the next morning — hit LinkedIn.com! Send them a network invite( mention that you just met them at the conference, refer to your conversation to jog their memory).

My boss insists that I at least talk to a couple of people at every conference and convince at least one person that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to social media, so I’ll get invited to participate on panels at future conferences.  I guess you could call the whole approach “influencer networking.” Often conference back-channels can be thoroughly overwhelming and distracting,  thank goodness for the back-channel at ePharma or I’d never speak to anyone!

[tags]networking, social networking, conferences, back channel, twitter, linkedin[/tags]

There’s been lots of buzz around Twitter since it launched in 2006. Twitter really came onto the scene at 2006′s SXSW conference and has been growing steadily since. Lots of brands are jumping on the Twitter wagon and more are wondering why anyone would care. At today’s Digital Coffee Klatch (DCK) for the RTCRM staff in DC, we’ll be discussing what Twitter is and how it is used for personal and marketing reasons.

One of the biggest issues right now with social media and marketing is that people seem to forget to match the technology to the business goals. There are specific types of social media technologies that lend themselves to specific types of business goals. Before jumping on the Twitter wagon you should know what it is you want to achieve and how you will measure success.

However, it’s good to have an understanding of what Twitter is first.

Here is the dicussion guide used at the Digital Coffee Klatch, I hope it helps to illuminate Twitter and the marketing possibilities for you. Questions? Twitter @carlenlea.

Meet Twitter

• Twitter in Plain Language
• Twitter History
• Quick Tour
• Twitter from anywhere
• once you sign up you never need to go back again
• It’s a service — not a destination
• Twitter in the News

Brands using Twitter
Questions for Discussion: Why use Twitter? Is it good for Awareness, Aquistion, or Retention? What are key business or marketing goals that Twitter would be a good tactic to achieve? How would you measure success? What are the operational issues to plan for?

• How Companies use Twitter to Bolster their Brands
• Presidential Campaigns
• Who I’m Following on Twitter

Tools to Manage your Brand Reputation

• Search.Twitter.com
• Quotably
• Tweet Beep Alerts
• Ping.fm

Twitter Alternatives

• Get Satisfaction.com
• Plurk
• Pownce
• Tumblr

Cool stuff with Twitter

• Current TV Debate Hack
• Twitter Vision
• 140 Char resume | See mine
• Twemes
• TwitterVision
• Group Tweet
• Loud Tweet

Twitter Terms:

• Tweets = Twitter Posts
• @username = reply to someone else
• #word = twitter meme

[tags]twitter, lunch and learn, social media, education, coffee klatch[/tags]

I’m all for companies making eco-friendly products fun and hip. I’m all for gestures like carbon off-sets. Each one is a step in the right direction. But my fear is we’re just creating new stuff — not a new way of life. Groups like the Center for the New American Dream are trying to re-educate Americans — but it’s an uphill battle.

I lapse regularly myself. As soon as see that hot new cell phone — I want one. I have a perfectly good cellphone that takes decent pictures — but it’s not shiny and new. I spend more on food and would rather have a fabulous meal (with fresh, local, organic ingredients — of course) than most new things that companies want me to want. But still — it has an awesome camera and it’s hooked into Flickr – I want it.

Be the change you want to see in the world.
– Ghandi

How do we radically shift our culture so we don’t measure value in stuff? How do we create a new paradigm that values quality over quantity? Think about all the giant “mcmansions” out there? They are huge and immensely wasteful. Imagine if people were more concerned about the quality of their homes than the square footage! Some people are — but not enough. And — too many of those who would gladly trade square footage for low-energy radiant heating can’t afford to.

So for now — do what you can. Examine your priorities and in the most American-way — vote with your pocket book. Buy that Sigg or Nalgene bottle not bottle water. Buy what you can from Farmers’ Markets and not food that has been shipped thousands of miles to your big-box grocery store. Learn that eating seasonally is a good thing and that you just don’t need fresh tomatoes 365 days per year. Or just change out the light bulbs in your house and learn how to properly dispose of compact fluorescent bulbs (pdf).

By all means do these things, but also learn. Educate yourself and don’t just wait for the next eco-trend. If a healthy planet is important to you, then it is your responsibility to get educated about what you can do. Each of us can do something. I can write this blog post. What can you do?

“If not me then who?
If not here, then where?
If not now, then when?”
— Rabbi Hillel

Just because we may not see the change — does not absolve us from trying.

[tags]environment, blog action day, change, eco-friendly, sigg, nalgene, dreams, seasonal[/tags]

Why you ask?

Let’s put the basics of good search engine optimization aside for a moment, and look at the new reason to care: social bookmarking sites. All those sites that you see under the “share this” link on my site and so many others — that’s why you care. When you click on a social bookmarking link, it pulls the page title and description. If it’s blank — you leave it to the visitor to fill it in. If you’ve pre-filled it with helpful, accurate information — most people just leave it be. If you fill it with inaccurate, self-serving crap, a lot of people will change it.

Still don’t think it’s important? Well, here is a screen capture of what I got when I tried to bookmark an article on blogging giant Shel Holtz’s site. Can you tell what article I was looking at? Can you tell what category of the blog I’m in? Me neither? Now, I have to type in everything myself or decide how much I REALLY cared about this article and if I still want to save it for later reference.

Now you may say — who really cares? So, CarlenLea’s bookmarks won’t be snazzy for her. Hmmm…okay. But what about the search and visibility value here? Social bookmarking sites provide those lovely in-bound links we all love. People like me share my links with hundreds (or thousands) of other people. So, do you really want to just let me write my own message here, or would you like to guide me a little? I’m actually really shocked that this fell through the cracks with some like Shel Israel.

Let’s look at Social Media Optimization guru Rohit Bhargava’s site and see if he missed this important little tidbit. I’m actually crossing my fingers here, because I really respect Rohit and he knows his stuff. So I’m going to be happy if his titles and descriptions are really optimized for social bookmarking.

But, sadly — they aren’t. Rohit’s are better than Shel’s but, it’s still a generic description not article specific, and the name of the article comes after the name of the site. Okay — that’s really just personal preference, but I really like to have the post title first on blogs. And very weirdly, some has added additional HTML text to the description which then appears in the description field of the bookmark. I have no idea where that bold and italicized text is supposed to appear.

This makes me very sad, and here’s a frowny face to prove it.

So, now I’m going to put my site up to the test. I’ve installed the “All in One SEO Pack” plugin for WordPress, so it should be pretty decent. I’m using the last article I wrote, which apparently wasn’t interesting enough to merit any comments — but that’s an issue for later discussion.

Hey look at that! (to the right –>) Custom titles and descriptions on article pages! Now, I know perfectly well that my title is too long by search optimization standards, but I can live with that.

So what have we learned here? Social media optimization and search engine optimization go hand-in-hand. The same rules really apply. Develop high quality content and pay attention to those titles and descriptions. Not only is Google using them as a way to see if you have duplicate content, which is bad, but they also matter because of all those thousands (millions?) of people who use sites like social bookmarking sites like:

• ma.gnolia,
• del.icio.us.
• furl, and
• blink list.

So figure out how to get article/page specific titles and descriptions on EVERY page of your site, and be sure to spend 10 minutes reviewing SEO best practices for title and description tags so you are sure to get the most benefit out of them.

[tags]social media optimization, social bookmarking, ma.gnolia, del.icio.us, bookmarks, title tag, description tag, seo[/tags]