Not-for-profits bore me

I’m bored with how the only time I ever see you is when you’re out on the street asking me for money.

I’m bored with the doomsday talk.

I’m bored with constant appeals that shout the same message at me.

I’m not listening anymore; but I want to listen – just not to the same old noise. “support”, “donate”, “volunteer”, “desperate assistance”

I think there are two issues with the way not-for-profits and/or aid organisations are opperating these days.

1. They generally try to engage people at the problem through largely negative stories (but we’ve almost become numb to these through repetition)

2. They like the safety of traditional modes of communication – TV, magazines ads etc (but many people don’t read magazines or watch TV much so how can they see these?)

There is a new generation of highly socially aware individuals earning income and looking for a way to help these organisations. But they don’t want to help in the traditional way. It’s no longer sensible to ignore new ways of communicating to them. Online is the key. Correct me if I’m wrong but I’m seeing few examples of leadership from the not-for-profit community in engaging with online mediums.

Take for example the Red Cross. A quick search on Facebook shows a number of Groups for various international chapters – none of which have over 6,000 members.  The biggest group  is  “Invite a friend and I will give  $1 to American Red Cross” – a group created by an individual, Jeff Epp, which has 50,000 members.

Why doesn’t the Red Cross official groups have hundreds of thousands of members? Because they have yet to change the way they talk to people. Using Facebook and the like requires a new approach, one that is innovative, inclusive and challenging the norm.

There are a few making headway – check out the Field News section of  www.doctorswithoutborders.org for some good original video and podcast content. If you have anymore examples I’d love to hear them.

Is Boxee the Twitter of 2009?

 

 

So internet TV has been around a while now in the form of things such as Apple TV and streaming video from broadcasters such as CNN (here in New Zealand we have it in the form of TVNZ ondemand). 

Though we have certainly not reached tipping point in terms of  popularity, I predict 2009 will be the year that internet TV will really start to become a viable option for many more households.

And it makes sense, especially when you compare the cost of using internet TV vs a satellite or cable subscription.

For example, in New Zealand we get our digital television through Sky TV and they pretty much have a monopoly in the market. I was thinking lately about how much real value I get for the $80 a month I pay for a subscription to Sky. The answer, bugger all. I watch maybe four channels out of the 40 or so available on a regular basis. I’m getting ripped off.

And this is where internet TV will change things because I no longer have to pay for what I don’t watch – I only pay for what I do watch -  and I watch it when I want to.

There’s also some exciting stuff coming around the corner in terms of aggregation of internet TV channels. I was listening to the Internet Marketing Weekly podcast recently and it mentioned a new business called Boxee. Boxee looks to be leading the way in terms of providing a programme that not only aggregates a number of online streaming TV channels, but also aggregates all the media on your computer including music and photos. AND it provides information on what your friends are viewing at the same time, allowing you to jump in and watch the shows their watching as well.

I think this is pretty exciting as it takes the ‘home media centre’ idea and connects it with the social networking space. Boxee is only in Alpha right now but if all goes well it could make a big splash in 09 in a similar way to that of Twitter in 2008.

How to make IT sexy

Lately I’ve been working with, and meeting, a number of tech start-ups who are launching some fantastic new products. One has even found a way to make the world wide web faster. 

Anyway, what I’m finding is that while the products are great, the way they are delivered to the world is lacking in sex appeal. In fact I think I’ve stumbled upon a little marketing gold mine…

Ok, so what I’m saying might sound a little obvious, but I think there’s a real need for good communications advice in the IT industry – especially to start-ups. It’s during the start-up phase that IT companies need to sell themselves the most. To potential investors and potential customers.

But so often the message communicated is focused towards an IT and tech audience. Now I don’t blame the business owners for this. When your engrossed in the day to day development of your business it’s easiest to stick with what you know. But in New Zealand especially, the tech audience is small and there isn’t a lot of money to be found. The key may just lie in making IT sexy -  changing the message appeal to a wider business audience.

This means not talking product in terms of what it does, how it works or who it’s for. In fact it shouldn’t even be about the product in the first instance.

It should be about a need. What need exists that this product is out to solve? Why should I care? What’s the so what that makes this product unique?

There are, of course, a few IT products that cannot, and do not need to be made sexy. But I challenge any tech/IT start-ups to think about how they communicate their business in a fresh light. It may be a case of getting a communications consultant in to give the business the “outside in” perspective required to create a message that appeals to those fat cat investors.

Social media is no different

Really enjoyed David Meerman Scott’s post on “Learning from the 3M Post-It Note debacle: Social media ethics defined”. At the end he offers five social media guidelines that I thought would be worth sharing here as well.

Read them, and you’ll probably find like I did, that they are rather common sense. And probably of more interest is the way the relate to the ethics of ‘real world’ marketing. In the real world:

• a company wouldn’t get away with pretending to be something they’re not
• a company wouldn’t get away (these days) with blatantly lying about their product or service
• an employee wouldn’t disclose confidential company information in an email to their friends

So why do companies and individuals think that the rules are different online? Although the internet may seem quite a inconspicuous place – the amount of tracking that now goes on means that it won’t be long before the truth comes out.

Companies should just stop trying to be ‘tricky’ about marketing online and just do as they usually do. People say the rules are different – I believe they are very much the same.

David Meerman Scott’s Social Media Guidelines:

1. Transparency
–Never pretend to be someone you are not

2. Privacy
–Unless given permission, don’t blog about something disclosed to you

3. Disclosure
–Disclose anything people might consider a conflict of interest

4. Truthfulness
–Don’t lie

5. Credit
–Give credit to bloggers (and other sources) whose material you have used in your blog

Making ratings really mean something

Facebook is on to something with its “thumbs up, thumbs down” rating function.

thanks robbweb2k for this image (oh and I guess Facebook)

I’d consider myself a pretty difficult person to engage with in terms of online ads. I’m not much for clicking through but lately I have been engaged, to some extent, by clicking on a thumbs rating for many of the ads on Facebook. 

I did a bit of a search on Facebook to try and find out where this data goes to but had not luck. I assume however that it’s given to the ad buyer to help them understand their audience better and the whether their messaging is engaging or not.

As far as I’ve seen Facebook is the only website to have this feature. Why? Imagine how much more valuable online advertising would be if you could collect direct feedback from the people you are trying to reach at the very point they engage with your ad.

It’s only a matter of time, surely.