These grammatical slights are not creative. They are examples of lazy, uncreative people expressing themselves in lazy, uncreative ways. Like telling an old joke over and over again to the same person, what once was impactful for its uniqueness has become ineffectual by way of ubiquity.

As a brand – you stand for something. You have some concept that you are – or desire to be – tied to, and your messaging reflects it. Google is synonymous with search, in the common vernacular. Mercedes’ name evokes images of luxury, and quality. Harvard and Yale make you think of the best and brightest minds. Victoria’s Secret is sexy. One thing these brands share is a consistency in their messaging. They know their audience – broad or narrow – and they know how to talk to them, but not down to them.

You want to stand apart on Facebook? Stay true to your core message. Know who you are. Know who you want to be seen, as. Ensure that your status updates, wall posts, comments, and photo captions reflect this. Be true to the message you want to convey, and do it in a genuine manner. Own your voice.

I’m all for the creative use and application of language in order to communicate your point. In fact, without a certain irreverence and spontaneity, we’d be stuck with a decidedly restrictive set of words with which to conduct our affairs. Get creative; spread your word, and spread it your way. Toss out the rules that hold back the more artful aspects of your expression. Poetry pwns pedantry, every time.

Between you and me, I think most people out there don’t understand Twitter. I think they’re confused by the RT #hashtag @mention mumbo jumbo. But truth be told, it can be an insanely powerful business tool and can help spread your brand’s message like a wildfire.

Think of it like this: on Twitter you can chat with someone without being their “friend”. You’ve never been able to do that on Facebook. I’m not hating on Facebook, it’s amazing for so many things, but Twitter is a completely open arena for two-way communication.

The problem with Twitter is that people who aren’t confused by it sometimes abuse it. This is mostly by companies or people trying to sell you something. Realtors are a great example. Do you follow any real estate agents on Twitter? Don’t bother. All they do is Tweet house and apartment listings. Isn’t that what you already do on your website, Facebook page and blog? Don’t show me the same listings on 3 or 4 different channels and expect that to get my click. Say “Hi” to me or link me to an article you wrote on how awesome a particular neighborhood is. Would you ever meet someone in person and just start shouting real estate listings at them without saying anything else or even listening to them? Then don’t do it online either.

Twitter, more than any other social network, is more like a modern-day AOL Instant Messenger. Remember when people used that? The key is that it’s a conversation tool and shouldn’t be used to broadcast a one-way message. You are not a billboard, sir.

So how do you grow your following on Twitter? Well wait, why is having a big following important?

It depends on your intentions. What will Twitter function as within your business? It should definitely have a unique purpose and not just be an extension of your Facebook page or regurgitate the same information as your blog; otherwise, what’s my incentive to interact with your brand on multiple platforms? A lot of people are using Twitter for customer service. Dealing with compliments, complaints, questions, and overall brand mentions are easy to track and practically instantaneous. You want a big following in that instance, to take care of as many customers through that interface as possible. If you’re using it for feedback and customer interaction, a bigger following means a bigger data set. In both these instances, a bigger following also means a larger reach when you post the occasional promotional tweet.

Now let’s figure out how to grow your following. I’ve basically already told you, but I’ll say it again: Talk to people. Be interesting, produce or link to cool content, and sound like a human. Have a profile photo and an “about” blurb, and make them both awesome; now start using Twitter’s search feature to find people that would be interested in the content you produce. Say “Hello”. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

This may sound like common sense, and that’s because it sort of is. If you’re providing value, entertaining or educating your followers, they will love you for it, and probably spread your message to their friends as well. The problem a lot of people face is they don’t see instant results and they give up. Let’s dispel the myth of overnight Twitter success right now. This is going to take time and effort. You should be spending at least a couple hours per day on Twitter (spread out throughout the day) if you want this type of growth. For example, I spend my morning checking my feed and finding some interesting content to post throughout the day. After that I check in every 1-2 hours for about 20 minutes and have a few conversations, and explore other people’s content. It sounds like a lot of work, but the return is fantastic. When you’re active and followed by many, you can participate, influence and help control your brand’s message, even when you’re not the one Tweeting about it. What company wouldn’t want that?

Keep an eye out for a post within the next few weeks about how powerful a simple Twitter search can be for your business.

image by stevendepolo

As social media becomes more robust and more people adopt various platforms, brands appear to be increasingly interested in taking previously real-world activities and turning them into social media activities. Why talk to your customer on the phone when you can chat with them on a social platform? Why have an in-store event at only one location when you can have a virtual gathering? Why have an in-person meeting when you can solicit responses via some antiseptic community platform?

I’ll tell you why.

Because the REAL WORLD is important. Humans have evolved over a significant period of time to interact socially in certain ways. Our brains crave (and indeed grow from) interpersonal experiences. As much as we like to think that digital replications of those real world experiences are just as good (or better), they are not. Edward M. Hallowell talks about the importance of the “Human Moment.” He defines the “Human Moment” as “an authentic psychological encounter that can happen only when two people share the same physical space.”

The Human Moment is critical, and you can’t have one via Facebook.

Now, I am, of course, a huge proponent of the power of social media. The point of this little dish is not to bash social media and suggest a return to a pre-agrarian society. My point is simply that brands (and, indeed, all of us) should not lose site of the fact that adopting digital experiences at the expense of real world experiences is probably not in anyone’s best interest.

Being an expert in Social Media is like being an expert at taking the bread out of the refrigerator.You might be the best bread-taker-outer in the world, but you know what? The goal is to make an amazing sandwich, and you can’t do that if all you’ve done in your life is taken the bread out of the fridge.

Peter Shankman, 20 May 2011

Ouch, Sir. Very ouch. I have never described myself as a “Social Media Expert”. Rather, I subscribe to the philosophy of Bill S. Preston, ESQ., who famously quoted an Ancient Greek of some renown when he said “The only true wisdom, consists in knowing that you know nothing.” and as Mr. Preston’s esteemed colleague Ted Theodore Logan affirmed: “That’s us, dude!” As I see it, the title of “expert” is one that is better given, rather than taken. It is a far, far, better thing to be called an expert, rather than call yourself one. And so on the issue of self-titled “experts”, Mr. Shankman and I are in accord.

Where I take issue with Mr. Shankman’s diatribe is in the misstep of lumping so-called “Social Media Experts” into one big pot. Bearing in mind that true social media expertise is easily identified, but difficult to quantify, when endeavoring to define an “Expert”, it serves to separate the wheat from the chaff. Social media demands a specific set of faculties: command of the written word, an understanding of who you’re addressing, and a zero BS modus operandi. You’ll forgive me, Mr. Shankman, but it is in fact about engagement. It’s about talking with someone, instead of at them. That’s what the arrow of social media has added to the quiver of marketing: a direct, potentially meaningful and easily mismanaged, tool with which to engage consumers.

And so with this squarely in mind, on several points, I’ll agree that Mr. Shankman is correct. Social media is absolutely about transparency, relevance, and brevity. Like Mr. Shankman, those tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand staunchly on-end whenever I encounter grammatical woes in professional correspondence. Just last week a prospective job candidate wrote to me, stating that she was “fluent in both Mandarin and England”. Good grief. But I’m a firm believer that those sensitive to issues like these recognize others of the same ilk. With very little effort, it’s easy to see who is an effective communicator, and who isn’t.

So Mr. Shankman, rather than drinking “the same damn ten-year-old Kool-Aid” (which you say is synonymous with repeating the ills of the dotcom era), take a step back and recognize that like you, there are those of us out here that get it. We understand the value that social media adds to an overall sales and marketing plan, and like you, we find it abhorrently distasteful when the Kool-Aid goes bad.  And as for making the whole sandwich – indeed, serve up a whole, amazing one (as long as you know not to serve a Double Down to the Judges of Top Chef).

When I look at the ways I filter my own information streams, it’s a combination of tools provided by the social networks on which I’ve chosen to be active, and some home-made tools that were born from those most organic drivers of innovation: circumstance and convenience.

I have over 1,000 Facebook “Friends”. Many of these are people I’ve had class with, worked with, or am related to. Others are casual acquaintances, the results of “networking”, or some other professional association (among other things, I’m a member of The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, The Free Shakespeare Project, etc…). The final group of these Facebook contacts is comprised of the brands/companies/industry minds I’ve chosen to “Like” – it’s this group that is the cause of both much consternation, and doubly much enthusiasm.

My personal solution has been to use Facebook’s built-in “Friend List” mechanism to create news feeds populated with topically-grouped information. For example, I have an “A List”, which is made up of my closest friends and family. A list called “Locals” is made up of the people, places, and brands local to Boston that I’m interested in. Another is called “Brands”, which is where every brand/corporate page I “Like” gets placed. This is my irrigation system, and I’ve come to rely heavily upon it; needless to say I suffered feelings of acute distress when the latest iteration of Facebook for iOS lacked the ability to filter the news feed by Friend List – something supported in the previous version (for shame, Facebook).

On Twitter, I follow far more people than I am followed by. I use Twitter less as a soapbox, and avenue for the cataloging of errant thoughts, of which I have many during a given day. Just as on Facebook, I’ve used Twitter’s built-in “List” feature to organize the feeds I follow. I have lists titled “Friends”, “Locals”, “Shakespeare”, “Scotch”, “Dailies” etc… the constitution of which should be fairly self-explanatory, given their names. Again, I’ve effectively filtered out messages unrelated to what I’m curious about at the time. If I want to know what’s up with Shakespeare, I’m not going to the “Scotch” list; if I’m curious about what The Glenlivet is doing, I’m not going to “Friends”.

Ay, there’s the rub

From the marketer’s perspective what I’ve done is negate the ability for your message to reach me in the way that was intended. Instead, I’m a potential customer/client/evangelist who has decided that I only want to receive your message when I feel like receiving it. This is the painful realization that so many brands and businesses must grapple with when embarking upon their maiden voyage on the sea of social media. But that’s the point. As marketers, and as brands, it’s time to realize that our messaging, be it tweets, Facebook content, a Flickr stream, or anything else, has the capacity to engage with a more broad and more targeted audience than ever before. The flipside to this is that at no previous time has the audience been so able to actively – and rapidly – reject that messaging.

Shakespeare On The Common

Gone are the days when the savviest consumers are going to put up with interruption-based messaging. To refer to my previous example, though I am a passionate Shakespearean, I’m also an aficionado of single malt scotch. If I’m sitting at a performance of Shakespeare On The Common, I don’t care to receive messages about a tasting of The Macallan, happening next week. That said, when I go to my aforementioned “Scotch” list on Twitter, I’ll be thrilled to see that news. Getting that message to me at the right time, and in the right place, is critical. Facebook, Twitter, and their ilk are the right places – but getting the timing right means understanding that it’s out of your control. Marketers, though giddy about the prospect of connecting with a consumer on the same channel that consumer uses to interact with their friends and family, must understand that just like a phone call from my Mom, hitting “ignore” doesn’t mean “leave now and never come back”; rather, it means “I hear you, but I’m not ready to listen just yet.”

This is not to say that the voyage is hopeless – the waters are not so choppy that you are certain to sink. Rather, what’s crucial to realize is just how vital it is that the messaging being sent out is compelling. At Pandemic Labs, we hold fast to the axiom that “Content Is King”, and never has this been more apt a description of its nature. Unnerving though it is to suddenly have no guarantee that we’ll reach an audience exactly when and how we’d like, the shift must now be to understanding that the channels in which consumers are engaged simply don’t work that way. These channels offer multiple ways to filter content (as I’ve done with my Facebook and Twitter lists), and ensure only one thing: that when a consumer decides they want to receive your message, it had better be compelling, lest it be cast back into the stream as irrelevant to their needs.

So why is this post titled “Be Cool”? Is this some ill-advised reference to an even more ill-fated sequel? With all due respect to the former Vincent Vega – decidedly no. Nay, it’s as simple as this: too often, marketers misunderstand compelling to be defined as flashy, ornate, and aesthetically stimulating. Messaging developed with these ideas in mind doesn’t work in social media; it doesn’t work in a place where the veil of “marcom” is too easily torn asunder. The truest definition of the term – the explanation that breaks the word down to its core – is that it’s a way of describing that which is irresistible, demands attention, and commands respect. The savvy marketer’s practice is to ensure that each piece of content they put out is compelling, and understanding that the most valuable customer might be the one that never sees it until they decide to.

Image by Danndalf

This post has been rattling around in my brain for many months now, never quite finding its true form. It was not until yesterday that I realized my frustration in finding the appropriate expression was not due to my own cerebral impotence, but because the question posed in the title is, in fact, one of the most difficult marketing questions of our time.

If we are more connected than ever before, why has it become more difficult than ever to make a connection?

Please note that I am making use of the varied definitions of “connected.” We are more connected, in that we are more “joined”, or “linked,” but a true connection (“association; relationship”) is harder than ever to establish and maintain.

Thinking about this in the abstract is, admittedly, daunting. Can any one of us really distill the truth and patterns behind the modes, methods, and meaning of modern human communication? I don’t think so. So I focused only on myself; I took my own life and broke it into its component communicational parts.

First there are Pipes. These are the ways that messages can travel (phone, email, etc.) Second, there are Devices, the platforms that form the end of a pipe. So, phone (or voice) is a Pipe because it is a method of information transfer that can be utilized on a cell phone, landline, or computer (Skype). These days, almost every Pipe is accessible on more than one Device.

First I looked at the Pipes that bring me my information:

• Phone (“Voice” is maybe a more appropriate term)
• SMS
• IM
• Email
• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• RSS Reader
• Internet Protocol (websites and such)

Then I looked at the platforms (or Devices) onto which those Pipes empty their information (three, in my case):

• Computer
• iPhone
• iPad

The results actually surprised me a bit. I am a freakishly connected person. A person wanting to contact me, send me a message, or expose me to content has nine ways to do so in near-real-time and at any given point in the day (24/7/365) I have at least one device on or near me that can receive most (if not all) of the information from those pipes.

My average day is filled with phone calls, text messages, emails, tweets, messages on social networks, and information I consume via my RSS reader. In the 18th century a message could be delivered from Paris to Antwerp (188 miles) in roughly three days. By my count, I receive roughly 900 individual messages per day (in the various forms listed above) from all over the world. The sheer magnitude of modern connectivity and communication is barely comparable to times past.

Now, I didn’t live in the 18th century, but I would venture a guess that were I to live in Antwerp and receive a letter from you (sent from Paris), I would almost certainly read it and give it my full attention. Today, however, you are lucky if your message to me gets seen, much less digested, much less appreciated.

Despite all of our fantastic methods of communication and connectivity, I am less likely to consume any individual piece of information/content than my 18th century counterpart. More to the point, it is because of our myriad methods of communication that I simply cannot consume everything. It is a paradox of our own devising. The very tools we build to facilitate human connection, in fact, make true connection all the more rare (and, I’d assert, more meaningful).

I cannot help but think of the Ouroboros, the ancient symbol of the snake eating its own tail. The snake’s head in this case is the ceaseless progress of technology that has given us all of these communication platforms. But the snake doesn’t move forward. Progress is paid for by sacrificing part of ourselves. Eventually will the loop not close completely? Will we not be so connected that we can’t connect at all? If this is the case, then I question my own use of the word “progress” in an earlier sentence.

What does this have to do with marketing (social media or otherwise)? Excellent question.

I have a theory: our race for greater and greater connection with consumers is actually having the opposite effect. Consumers are saturated. I am saturated. You are saturated. We are plugged in, connected with and without wires to the fastest, vastest, and most complete collection of information in human history. To simply maintain our sanity, we have no choice but to block out a large part of the signal. Our brains have not evolved to effectively handle the number of emails that a high-level executive receives in a given day.

The modern marketer’s solution to reaching their consumer is to employ every possible way to connect. If one Pipe is good than ten is better, right? Wrong. If you cannot make a meaningful connection with me on one medium, then trying the same failed tactic on ten media will serve only to trip my signal vs. noise filter. Henceforth, I will subconsciously file your messages/content as noise.

To give a concrete example: I was contacted earlier this year by a potential partner on LinkedIn. They did not have what I needed; they were not able to make a meaningful connection with me. Having failed on LinkedIn, they proceeded to try on other channels. Twitter was next, followed soon by phone calls and emails. Their message was the same, their value proposition unchanged. But now, instead of interacting with me in one Pipe, they were bothering me in all Pipes. They were causing a plumbing problem. So what happened? They got filtered out. Their signal no longer has any chance of reaching me. Much as Cypher in The Matrix “doesn’t even see the code anymore,” these messages pass by me without even being registered by my conscious mind.

It comes down to this—as a marketer, you must deal with two very important things:

• Connecting with your consumers
• Making a connection with your consumers

If you’ve gotten this far in the article and you think those are the same thing, then you might as well stop reading.

Making a connection has a business impact, but it is not achieved by connecting in as many ways as possible. In fact, connecting in as many ways as you can will likely preclude meaningful connection.

You must first know your consumer. Where does that consumer spend their time? From which Pipe are they most likely to receive your message/content? Once you have identified the Pipe to use, approach with your message and value proposition. If that works, then you continue to use that method of connection to deepen the relationship, always letting the consumer choose if he/she wants to expand to another Pipe. At that point, you have made a connection, perhaps one of the most rare and valuable of human interactions in our hyper-connected world. If the consumer doesn’t engage with you on the first Pipe, do not spam all their other Pipes with the same approach. You will only harm your cause.

Just because you can connect with me multiple ways doesn’t mean you should. Respect the saturated state in which we all exist and do your part to remove the snake’s tail from its mouth. Make the question posed in the title of this post a non-issue for you and your consumers and you will find yourself poised to capitalize on greater customer engagement and loyalty than has ever been seen before.

By alancleaver_2000

The vast majority of posts here on Context Over Dogma deal with social media specifically with respect to use in marketing. But as we all know, social media has implications throughout our lives and across numerous business and personal disciplines. Every so often, we like to address a non-marketing facet of the social media world in which we live and play. These issues will, in some way, affect us all.

Early last week, I came across an article that detailed goings-on at The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. During a recent job interview with the Department of Corrections, Officer Robert Collins was forced to give up the password to his private Facebook account. Rallying to Officer Collins’ defense was the ACLU, which sent a particularly scathing letter to the Maryland Department of Corrections, in which it called the move “a frightening and illegal invasion of privacy” and stated that “[n]either Officer Collins nor his Facebook ‘friends’ deserve to have the government snooping about their private electronic communications.”

I shared the article with my own Facebook friends, and watched the comments roll in: “NO!”, “$%*& NO!”, “%@#&#* &#*&@!” etc… If colorful metaphors can be taken as indication, clearly, a nerve had been touched.

Rushing to the defense of Employers’ right to learn about Applicants was a trusted friend who has spent years working as an auditor for a large accounting firm. In response to my question about whether people thought that Employers should be able to demand private Facebook passwords, he said, “They absolutely can and they will…There’s nothing private about your Facebook profile…I disagree with it, but many…companies are now actively monitoring employees’ Facebook profiles in accordance with new FINRA regulations.”

Umbrage, while misplaced when taken with Employers’ screening of social media sites like Facebook, is well suited for cases like that of Officer Collins. The fact is, you choose what information is made public on your Facebook profile. You choose to share and discuss articles with your friends. You choose to post status updates to your wall, and let others post to it, too. You even choose to publicly click “like” on endless links to keyboard playing kitties. You choose what to share, and (perhaps more importantly) what not to; and between these two, a line must be drawn.

Potential Employers don’t have the right to go through your private correspondence (paper or electronic). Why then should they have access to your private Facebook messages? Why should they, by simple virtue of asking for your password, have access to chat histories, your private email address, account & privacy settings, and photographs? Is this really the shape of things to come?

Decidedly, no. In this case, The Maryland Department of Correctional Services clearly overstepped its bounds, and kudos given to the ACLU for defending Officer Collins are well deserved. We at Pandemic Labs are passionate about social media, and about the crucial role that integrity plays in the space. We constantly strive to maintain the privacy of our clients, while still cultivating the level of transparency and the philosophy of engagement that social media demands. Cases like that of Officer Collins represent the natural growing pains involved with social media, and remind us all to remain vigilant in defense of our privacy. Monitoring of profiles is a prudent move on the Employer’s part – and leaves the smarts to keep what portions of  their Facebook presence they want to keep private, in the Employee’s hands. Culpability rests with them, and they should be smart enough to know what to share, and what not to. But asking Employees – even potential ones – to reveal their Facebook password isn’t just a definite no-no – it’s wrong, plain and simple.

Image by NickNguyen

In business, I hear a lot of talk about “touch points.” Consumer touch points, customer touch points, even employee touch points.

Touch points are important. The more you “touch” a consumer, the deeper your brand gets embedded into them. This, however, works with both good touch points and bad ones. A bad customer service experience is still a touch point, and will leave a lasting mark in the mind of the consumer.

But I think we need to also talk about “trust points.” Rather than looking at how many opportunities we have to touch a consumer (i.e. engage with them somehow), let’s look at how many opportunities we have to deepen a consumer’s trust in us (a “trust point”).

This is something I have been thinking about lately with our own clients, but I urge you to munch on this morsel as well. In a typical week, how many trust points do you have with an average consumer? With all of the social media tools available, brands have more opportunities than ever to gain trust and keep it. Unfortunately that means brand also have more opportunities than ever to mess up and lose a consumer’s trust. But that’s for another post.

Don’t just increase touch points, increase trust points.

Image by Beverly & Pack

If I had a nickel for every time someone brought up “brand voice” in a marketing meeting over the past year, I honestly think I’d be a millionaire. “Brand voice” is one of those concepts that’s easy to say, but hard to correctly put into practice. Over the past few months, however, it has occurred to me that a discussion about “brand voice” isn’t even the right discussion to have. We need to be talking about “brand voices”

Oh…that’s right…plural!

There has been (and still is) entirely too much emphasis on creating a massive, omnipresent Voice with which a brand communicates to all consumers at all times; as if consumers would rebel and lose faith in the absence of this Arch-Voice to guide them along the dark paths of the modern world. This is absurd, and its silliness has become even more apparent as conversational mediums such as Facebook, Twitter, Quora, YouTube, and blogs increase in importance in a brand’s communication plan.

“Why is it absurd?” You ask. It is absurd because people do not speak with one Voice. I do not speak to my family the same way I speak to my coworkers. I do not speak to my clients the way I speak to either my family or coworkers. Furthermore, I speak to my close friends in an entirely different fashion than I do to any of the aforementioned groups. I am, of course, the same person with the same accent and same linguistic substrata regardless of who I speak to, but as I speak to different groups of people, I most certainly dress-up, or dress-down, or dress-sideways my Voice by altering my argot, rate of speech, use of idioms and/or profanity, and overall tone.

You all do the same thing. Everyone does. It’s not a linguistic accident, or evidence of underlying schizophrenic tendencies, but a necessity of human communication. As Stephen Fry says in his Language Podcast (which every person on this planet should listen to), “You slip into a suit for an interview, and you dress your language up too. You can wear what you like linguistically or sartorially when you’re at home or with friends, but most people accept the need to smarten up under some circumstances.”

At no point in my life has this shifting of my Voice been held against me as an indication that I am somehow insincere or of flimsy character. I very much doubt that a close friend even thinks about the very different way I communicate when hanging out with him versus when we are at a dinner with a larger group of people.

This shifting of one’s voice is not a new phenomenon. I’m talking about changing our styles based on our audience, but linguists often talk about a process referred to as “code-switching,” which is the concurrent use of more than one language or language variety in conversation. Not only do people change they way they speak depending on the situation, but sometimes may even change their register, tone, lexicon, and argot in the middle of a conversation.

I bring this to your attention because this type of voice-shifting is a common occurrence in human communication. It therefore stands to reason that a similar shifting would occur in a brand’s communication. Why would a brand speak the same way on Twitter that it does on the customer service section of its website? Why would a hotel feel the need to speak the same way on its Facebook Wall as its front desk manager speaks to a guest at check in? These are fundamentally different situations with different contextual requirements and expectations.

When a brand knows who they are, they don’t have to worry so much about an Arch-Voice. Instead, they should focus on developing contextually relevant brand voices for their various communications channels. You can dress down on Facebook. You can dress down even further on Twitter. Your voice can be more refined and polished on your website where it’s a publication mechanism, not a conversational one. The number and style of your brand voices (sort of like linguistic dress codes) will be up to you, and, most likely, based on your consumers, communication channels, and product/service offerings.

If you take this approach of situation-relevant brand voices, you will make better connections with your consumers on each communication channel, and, I would bet, you will run no risk of sounding fragmented or inconsistent.

I think it’s probably safe to say that the rise of Twitter has had a direct relationship to the rise of short- (even micro-)form content. There was even a fantastic spoof video a while back about “Flutter: The New Twitter”. But the existence of Twitter didn’t create the long vs. short discussion, it merely altered our definitions of long and short. There is certainly a part of me that agrees with Tris Hussey that it is “kinda ironic that blog posts are now considered ‘long form’ content.”

But the fact of the matter is this: people should spend less time discussing which is better, and more time figuring out how to use them together to create the best possible messaging results.

The Library

When considering the use of long- and short-form content for a client, I like to think about everything in the context of the libraries of my youth (pre-internet). A library was full of books (long-form content), but there was no way to find what you were looking for without the card catalog (short-form content). Sure, you can argue that the books are more important than the card catalog because the books contain the information, but if I imagine the library at Emory University without a computerized index, then the books really aren’t very valuable because I would have no effective way to navigate the 3.4 million volumes.

To talk about whether long-form or short-form content is better is like considering the merits of a library with millions of books and no card catalog, or one with a card catalog and no books. Neither library in that case would provide value to a seeker of specific information.

The Match Made in Heaven

To create truly valuable content and messaging for your customers/consumers, you must have both forms of content. This allows discovery to take place in easily digestible ways, and true research and connection to take place in more robust environments. The nature of your company, your product/service, and your customers will inform the ratio of long- to short-form content that is most effective for you. There is no magical equation that will tell you how much to tweet, blog, make videos, etc. Regardless of your industry, though, it is important to realize that your consumers will naturally want to consume different messages in different ways and that this does not make one more or less important than the others. It all works together.

Personal Example #1:

Last week I was looking for a netbook. I wanted a quick way to narrow down my search. I needed the equivalent of a card catalog. So I went to Newegg.com (which is an amazing company, btw), pulled up the netbooks and sorted by highest rating. My experience has taught me that the Newegg community’s judgments on products can most often be taken as the word of God.

But I’ve never owned a netbook, so I wanted to dig deeper. In 15 seconds I had the #1 & #2 highest-rated netbooks on Newegg…I’d instantly narrowed my search. I then went to CNET to read in-depth reviews of each of the two netbooks and made my final decision. I used short-form content to point me to the right long-form content in order to make a decision.

Personal Example #2:

I “Like” Sony on Facebook. They are pretty heavy on the whole “talking about themselves” thing (you need to work on that, Sony), but every so often something of theirs pops up in my news feed and catches my eye.

This happened on January 13th when I saw a post by Sony that said, “Think the PlayStation Move is just for gaming? Check out the video — See what other cool things you could do with this device!” That post is 24 words—pretty damn short-form by any definition. But when I saw it in my feed, I knew I wanted to watch the video. The video itself is just over five minutes long, which I think in today’s faced-paced world counts as somewhat long-form. I could burn through 2-3 blog posts in the time I spent watching that video. So Sony used a 24-word message to get me to consume a five-minute video and together those things have piqued my interest enough that I continued on to read some long-form posts on PlayStation Move. Indeed a great example of using the forms together and not worrying about which one is more important.

In conclusion, think of the library. Look at everything from the point of view of your consumer. Provide them quick ways to focus their attention, then in-depth information and value. Realize that when short- and long-form work together, everyone wins.