There are posts all over the place about how using lists is one of the best ways to craft a popular blog post. Even at Podcamp Boston 3 this past weekend, Chris Brogan, made an entire point of using lists to make popular posts. In fact, while writing this I just Stumbled on a blog post called “7 Unmissable Tips For Writing Great Content For The Web.” Look at point number 1: “Lists Work Like a Charm.” Lists are everywhere!
Before I go on in my rant about why I don’t like list-based blog posts, let me be crystal clear in saying that I do recognize that lists work. I am in no way claiming that they are not a great way to get popular posts. If they didn’t work then their wouldn’t be a list featured on the front of just about every Cosmopolitan cover. (note that there are two lists featured on this cover)
My dislike for them, therefore, does not lay in the results they achieve. My issue is more ideological, or philosophical, or some other sort of -ical.
So why don’t I like lists? The answer can be found within the reason why so many other people do like them. As Abhijeet Mukherjee, author of the post I mention above, says:
The primary reason behind the success of list posts is that most people like to scan, and if it’s interesting enough, read it in full and maybe leave a comment. So, a list post that is carefully crafted with bold headings does a good job as far as grabbing the attention goes.“
Lists are great for scanning. But that’s it. Mukherjee indicates that lists allow a reader to scan and read deeper into what he’s interested in. I disagree. 99% of the time, there is nothing deeper to read in a list post. Therein lies the core of my dislike for them: they are educationally shallow.
Hopefully right now there are half of you booing and half of you cheering. If this is happening then we can have a list/no-list slugfest in the comments of this post and all get riled up. Before that happens, though, I will go into a little more detail about my viewpoint.
Personally, I like reading posts that delve deeply into the subject. I very rarely get any benefit from list post because they do not go deeply enough into the subject matter. If you write a blog post on the “10 best social networks for marketers,” I will learn which ones you like, but I will not know the details of how you formed your opinion. That means that more often than not, I will then look for a deep post on one or two networks that I gleaned from your list. That is just more work for me.
The second reason I do not like lists is really an offshoot of the first. Because lists do not delve deeply into the subject matter about which they are concerned, the writer doesn’t need to know anything about the subject matter. I do not know a thing about Linux, but I could go to Google, pull a random ten Linux-focused sites I find and craft I great looking post called “The Top Ten Sites About Linux.” Think of all the people I would mislead. Conversely, I could not write a post about why one specific site is the best Linux site on the web. That depth of analysis requires knowledge of the subject matter and therefore is much more difficult to fake.
My solution to this lists-work-but-I-don’t-like-them problem is to create a “Deep List”. I have not yet done one of these, but the idea is:
- Make your list (e.g. “5 best social media marketing campaigns”)
- Before you post your list, write a blog post for each of your five points going into detail about each one.
- Publish each of your Deep Posts first.
- Then post the list with each element of the list linking to it’s respective deeper analysis.
That way, you go deep, provide real value and expertise, but still get a list-based post with which you can rocket to the top of all your favorite social media sites. You get to use the list as a tool, but still provide value to those of us that want more than a surface-level understanding of things.
5 Comments- Jul 08
- 18
Social Media Marketing Session at PodCamp 3
- Posted by Matt Peters
- Published in Company News, Social Media Marketing
This weekend is PodCamp 3 in our good ol’ hometown, Boston. For any readers who are attending, you should make sure to check our the last minute updates. For those of you who are not attending, or who do not know what PodCamp is, I quote here a paragraph from the PodCamp guide:
First, PodCamp is YOUR conference. There’s plenty of open space and plenty of open times on the schedule. The best experience you have might be in a casual hallway conversation. Take charge of your PodCamp experience by deciding what you want to get out of the event, and get it. If you want to grab some old or new friends and have an impromptu session, go for it. More importantly, help out your community. If someone needs help with their laptop, volunteer. If someone can’t find the restroom, show them. See some trash on the ground? Pick it up. Need help? Ask, ask loudly, ask often.”
Both Brennan White and I attended the last PodCamp and this time we are very excited to be leading a session entitled, “Social Media Marketing is Not Evil.” Shameless plug: our session is on Sunday at 4:00 PM.
In many ways, our session has its genesis in the last PodCamp (a story you will hear in the talk), and has been growing and evolving since then. In particular our session will center around three idealogical concepts that have been fundamental to our company since day 1. In preparation for Sunday we have decided to briefly present these core concepts here for review and discussion. We would very much enjoy hearing peoples thoughts on our ideas and other concepts which people consider fundemental to their own new media marketing tactics.
1: “Mutual Value Proposition”
More so than almost any other idea, this concept was fundamental to why we founded Pandemic Labs. Our term for it has undergone some evolution, but lately we have found ourselves telling clients that social media marketing has to be a mutual value proposition. What do we mean by that? We mean that a properly done and successful social media marketing effort must provide genuine value to both the company AND the consumer.
This may not sound all that strange to you, but think about it. The ads that make your favorite magazine twice as thick as it needs to be don’t add any value to you. They benefit the advertiser and the magazine…they do not benefit you. Television commercials just interrupt what you are watching. I bet only a handful of commercials in your entire life have been so entertaining that you wouldn’t have rather been watching the program they interrupted. But many new media methods allow for the marketing effort to provide mutual value. As an example, look at the myUsearch.com blog. This blog doesn’t have company news and thinly veiled attempts to convince you how great they are. It provides genuine information that is useful to college-seekers (consumer value), and therefore drives consumers to myUsearch (company value).
2: “Consumer Primacy”
An offshoot of our concept of a mutual value proposition is the idea of consumer primacy. To get right down to it, “consumer primacy” is just a fancy way of saying, “put the consumer first.” This is a very difficult thing for many companies and brands to grasp. Even many people who have genuinely embraced the idea of mutual value still plan social media marketing efforts based on how those efforts will help their company. When approaching things from this side, you will invariably make a campaign that is more valuable to you than it is to the consumer. It is just human nature…we naturally think of ourselves first.
To remedy this, do and exercise and only think of things that are valuable to the consumer. Make a list…don’t be afraid to list things that would cost your company a lot of money and have absolutely no apparent marketing ROI. Now that you have a list of things that are genuinely valuable to the consumer (informative blog, educational videos, entertaining website, etc…) look at the ideas from your side. Now you can be selfish. Find the one where you can also make it a valuable marketing tool for the company. Approaching things like this will ensure consumer primacy and, in turn, ensure that you marketing initiative is a true mutual value propisition.
3: “Collateral Benefit”
The final concept in the trio is the idea of “collateral benefit.” This is something which can be easily seen in the world of social media. At it’s basic level, it refers to the ability to benefit multiple people by publically interacting with one. We see this all the time on forums. One person asks a question about how to do X with Y. Another person answers. That is a one-to-one interaction…the answerer only had to exert effort to benefit one person. But because the interaction took place in a public forum, everyone else reading that question also benefited from the answer. This is the inverse to the military idea of collateral damage. It is more efficient and preferable to use one bomb to destroy 10 buildings than it is to use 10 bombs to destroy one building each. In our forum example, there might be 100s of people who benefited from the answer, but the answer only had to be given once. It is a clear case of collateral benefit.
With this in mind, we can begin to theorize how marketers can apply the concept of collateral benefit. What if I could could have a positive effect on 10 consumers by interacting with only one? That would save money and time. Ways of doing this are a big part of many of our newest social media campaigns and, as much as I would like to, I can’t go giving away all the details here.
Conclusion
If you are in Boston, you should come to PodCamp3 this weekend. If you can’t make it, make sure to check back here next week for all sorts of good updates and ideas from the conference. I hope you all have a great weekend.
Last month, the WSJ published an article on how book publishers are using viral videos to promote new books. “Book Trailers” is the name that authors and publishers have given to these videos aimed at YouTube audiences and they are quickly becoming a normal part of the marketing cycle of a new book. Instead of making an expensive and time consuming book tour through various cities, why not grab a camcorder, sketch a few scenes on a storyboard and create a few minutes of film related to the plot or theme of your book? It is, in fact, something that every book publisher today is doing.
One of the world’s biggest publishing houses, HarperCollins, went even further and built a book trailer studio in their offices that will have the capacity to create 500 book trailers a year. This is a sign that established players in such an old-fashioned and non-technical industry like book publishing are recognizing and unleashing the potential of viral videos.
Perhaps one of the best examples out there for a successful book trailer is the short movie
that came out of this idea for the book “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein. When she finished writing this book about the “secret and dark history of capitalism” and how governments have used the aftermath of every major crisis in history to induce radical political measures, she sent the book to Alfonso Cuarón, the Mexican award-winning director of Children of Men. Teaming up with him and his brother Jonás Cuarón, they created the short film/book trailer “The Shock Doctrine” that even landed a couple of film festival award nominations in Venice and Toronto. The book’s website ShockDoctrine.com is rich in social media elements and leverages the success of the book trailer, making it a central part of the online presence of the book and the author.The short movie itself is not an ad for the book, it’s more a short documentary that explains the central thesis of the book. Representing a good recipe for a viral video, “The Shock Doctrine” engages the viewer in the think process of the author and leaves him begging for more.
In this case, the attributes of an excellent filmmaker combined with an interesting thought proposition, resulted in a successful viral video effort that has more than 600,000 views in YouTube and contributed to drive sales for a traditional-media product: a book.
1 Comment- Jul 08
- 3
What Napoleon Can Teach Us About Marketing
- Posted by Matt Peters
- Published in Advice and Tips, Social Media Marketing, Viral Marketing
In 1793 Napoleon Bonaparte was a young officer fighting a gruesome battle at the Siege of Toulon. He had not yet become the great general or Emperor that we all know today, but nonetheless, even as a young man, he displayed a shrewd and calculating knowledge of how to lead men and affect their actions to further his goals.
Napoleon, a 24-year-old Captain at the time, had set up a gun battery in a forward position. In fact, the battery was so far forward that Napoleon’s superiors said he would never get anyone to man it. The battery was so close to the enemy and so exposed that to take up the post meant guaranteed death by enemy artillery. Indeed, the first men ordered to the post refused. Undeterred, Napoleon had one of his sergeants create a wood placard with a message on it and place the placard on a stake near the gun battery. The message on the placard read: The Battery for the Men Without Fear. The position was manned day and night from that point on by soldiers eager to prove their heroism, and Napoleon’s battery dominated the city’s harbor. The resulting withdrawal of the British Royal Navy led to French victory and the start of Napoleon’s illustrious career.
So what does this teach us about marketing? Speak to people’s deepest emotions in order to succeed.
Here are some of those deep emotions which, when activated, lead people to take action:
- Pride (specifically in one’s background, country, religion, etc…)
- Manliness or femininity
- Feeling of safety
Of course, the idea of appealing to these elements within people is not new. You can see each of the three above examples in any Chevy truck commercial. If you drive a Chevy truck you are not only safer than others on the road, but you also manlier than non-Chevy truck drivers, and also more proud of America. Chevy hits as many of your emotions as possible. But wait, what about Ford? Ford’s commercials say their trucks carry more weight and make you more manly. And then there’s Dodge, and Toyota..oh damn, they all say they are the most manly. One can pull a train, one can stop an airplane, one can drive off after a 3-ton rock is dropped in its bed. This is the equivalent of Napoleon having four gun batteries and placing the same placard in front of all of them. It wouldn’t have worked. A superlative is, by definition, an exclusive thing. There can only be one best, manliest, sexiest, bravest, —–est.
So, continuing our truck example, we have four pickup trucks lined up in front of us. Each truck has a wooden placard in front of it saying: Truck for the strongest men.
Confused, we all stand in a clump staring at one sign then another then another. Noticing our apparent confusion, the makers of Dodge, Chevy, and Ford quickly decide to tap into a different emotion. We watch as a new sign is posted in front of each of the three trucks saying: Truck for men who really love America.
Hmmmm…
Well, now we’ve pretty much turned away from Toyota because we all want to support America. But, we still stand in confused clump, unsure of which truck to choose because they all claim the same superlatives. Noticing this, the makers of the trucks go to great lengths to show us how strong their truck’s frames are, and how they perform in crashes. They each post a third placard in front of their trucks saying: For men who love their families.
I’m sure you can all see the pattern here. I will not go further into the unending stream of wooden placards shown to us. The point, I’m sure, is obvious. If everyone is “the best,” then no one is.
So what does this teach us about marketing? I think it teaches us that what was revolutionary for Napoleon is now commonplace. Napoleon “thought outside the box” and chose to approach his men though different channels than just passing orders down the chain of command. Today, however, Napoleon’s tactics are very much “in the box.” As such, it is important that marketers pay special attention to how the competition is appealing to consumers; not to mimic it, but to intentionally take a different course.
This is especially true in online marketing where the ability to target consumer micro-segments is unprecedented. Find the people you want and then hit their emotions in ways that they haven’t been hit before. At first it is likely scary, just like it would be scary to tell Ford to stop fighting the “I’m more manly that you are” fight. But, if you take a second and step back, move outside the traditional marketing dogma under which you were trained, you will see the true genius of Napoleon: Approach people differently than they are currently being approached.
Be different. Prove your superiors wrong. Lead people to the actions you want them to take. Market like Napoleon.
2 Comments
