There’s an old axiom among fishermen that goes something like this, “Some lures are meant for catching fishermen and others for catching fish.”  Having grown up fishing, my tackle box is living proof of that truth.  Seems like the flashiest and most colorful lures never caught a thing while the rattiest, most beat up piece of wood with hooks has a history of catching the most and the biggest.

The real truth is all lures will catch fish if fished properly, at the right time in places where there are fish.  Social media seems to be one of those kinds of lures.  It’s the hottest, shiniest new lure out there in the marketing lake. There are a lot of people fishin’  but only a few that are catchin’.

R2integrated just published a study indicating that nearly 50% of companies using social media have no social media strategy.  That probably also explains why 65% of those reporting indicated that they hadn’t increased sales as a result of using social media.  Yet 77% said they were doing social media for lead generation.  Huh?  Fifty-four percent said that social media is integral to their business.  Whaaaaa???????

So, half don’t have a strategy, Most know what they would like it to do. It’s not doing what they would like it to do but it’s integral to their business.  In the word of Bill Cosby, “RIIIIGHT!”

Social media has caught a lot of fishermen but it hasn’t put many fish in the boat.  So as most businesses cast and crank their social media lures into a vast ocean with a few prospects swimming in it, there are a few who’ve used strategy to locate fish concentration and entice those prospects into their pond.

What is a social networking strategy?  If you think about it in purely social terms, it’s why you get invited to a dinner party.  You either supply interesting conversation…which usually means you’re don’t talk about yourself constantly because you’d be a complete bore and you’re really not that interesting.  Or, they really like your significant other.  In any case, your social media strategy should have its own shiny new lure to draw fish into your area of the lake.  Then you need to know what bait to use to get and keep them involved.  And that’s the difference between fishin’ and catchin’.

We are expecting the delivery of a couple of iPads in the next day or so.  As a result, I’ve been poking around the iPad app stores looking for some content for  the wonderful device that we anticipate receiving.  Mr. Murdoch has said that the iPad will be the savior of print media as we know it.  That’s good because I like to read my newspaper without a keyboard in front of me.

Unfortunately, when I look at the free apps for the Wall Street Journal, Popular Science, Newsweek and others, I find negative reviews galore.  It seems that these publications charge nearly as much or more for the iPad edition as they do for the old school print version.  Not very green of them.

Now we understand that there’s programming involved in getting it on the iPad, but we doubt that it’s as difficult as the old cold type versions of newspapers we see in western movies.  So, why exactly are the iPad versions so expensive?

In the first place “free” is not a sustainable model. That is presuming you would like professional journalists doing their jobs being objective, investigative and unbiased.  (Hoy, that’s a whole different discussion)  So regardless of our desire for free, it can’t happen long term.  A Wall Street Journal on the iPad has every cost associated with the collection, gathering and writing of information as does the tree killing old school version that I know and love.  What it loses is the production, printing and delivery costs.  It adds a cost from Apple.

From a revenue point of view, we may be buying in-depth advertising rather than a quarter page.  So the cost of the ad will depend on what’s behind the first photo and how deep the content is that can be explored by the reader.  Hard to understand for a medium with ink under its finger nails.

It maybe even harder for internet savvy readers to understand why they should pay for content.  Enter the Drudge Tax.  The Drudge Tax is an idea floated by the FTC that would tax news aggregators like the Drudge Report for using/stealing content paid for by the traditional media and then channel some of that tax back to newspapers.  That is after the bureaucrats take their cut.  Consumerists are up in arms saying that 74% of consumers are against that tax.  Duh?  Who wants to end free?

The point is good content is not free or even cheap.  And while blogs, facebook and twitter have made us all publishers of some sort, the quality of what we collectively publish is highly suspect.  Except of course for What’s New at ZLRIGNTION which is beyond reproach.

Good content should be a competitive advantage for traditional media turned digital and it should not be free.  Nor should any Tom, Dick or Drudge be able to cheapen the value by violating copyrights of the creators of the content.  Believe me these news aggregators are making their money for doing little more than linking to traditional media outlets.

So when our iPads come in, we’ll pay for the Journal, the New York Times, Wired Magazine and all the others and hope quality journalism never dies even if its currently on life support.

More importantly, why should I follow you?

This Twitter thing maybe the largest bandwagon in the world. Micro blogging about burritos, traffic jams, and mocha. Wooohoo!

There seems to be two sides to the issue. You love it or you think it’s the most worthless waste of time ever to hit a mobile phone.

I’ve been getting follow notices from the strangest places. A grocery store twenty miles away from me. A convenience store chain. A fishing guide in Florida. Even a competing ad agency! Okay, I admit I follow them.

I appreciate their belief that I have something intelligent to say in 140 characters, but do they really expect me to reciprocate? Where’s the strategy? Where’s the cross promotion? Where’s your boss?

Social media is a great way to “socialize your brand” and it’s also a great way to waste your time and to look silly. Have a strategy? Answer the question, “Why should anyone follow me?”
If you have an answer to that question, use it in your bio…maybe even your name. If the answer is “Great deals at the grocery store!” maybe I’ll follow to see how great your deals are. But if your answer is, “Because I’m trying to use social media so I don’t have to spend any money!” don’t waste my time.

When we talk to teens, and we talk to them a lot, they tell us their biggest motivation for doing anything is fun.

They go to shopping malls for fun.  Football games for fun.  Facebook for fun.  MySpace for fun.  YouTube for fun.  They watch fun television programs.  Like fun movies.  Come to think of it, it’s not much different for adults.

Nothing supports the need for a fun factor more than social networks and YouTube is a prime example.  Marketers lust after the views that amateurs get by accident.  The “Charlie Bit Me…Again” video above had 118 million views.  But not all amateurs are any more successful than the pros who think they can make their YouTube channel the next NBC.

Without fun, your video will be limited by those searching expressly for you.

Facebook is much the same.  Take the State of Nebraska’s Facebook page.  It has 1,587 friends and fans.  Not bad.  But when you look at the page it is a never ending list of governmental announcements.  Should Nebraskans be interested?  Probably, but it’s not fun.  Contrast that with the fan page for Nebraska Football.  It has over 52,000 users who access the page at least once a month.  Fun, as well as life and death.

The fun factor influences our job satisfaction, life, marriages and leisure.  It’s why we spend mone on vacations, dining, dancing, concerts and sporting events.  It’s why we celebrate when we win and cry when we lose.

If we can harness fun in our communications, they become far more effective. Hopefully, Charlie helped this post be a little more fun.

Last night, my 26 year-old son, home from a Miami Ad School gig with Crispen Porter Bulgoski told me that he was reviewing the Xbox 360 games I had been playing in my man cave in the basement.  I have to admit, I go in an out of mild addiction to video games.  He proceeded to tell me that I was missing some of the most highly rated games.

Then he asked me if I knew what E3 was.  To which I said of course I do (I didn’t).  Then he proceeded to tell me that Blizzard Activision was coming out with some outstanding games and that EA Sports had totally ruined the NCAA 2K basketball series by coming out with a boring 2K nine version.  He told me that he totally opposed the practice of EA buying up franchises so that other game makers couldn’t improve on the games.

Whoa…too much information about video games.  I thought he was supposed to be learning how to be a great copywriter.  But it did give me inspiration for this post.

My son’s pretty normal.  Or at least as normal as anybody who wants to be an advertising copywriter.  When he’s interested in something he spends time researching about the product and what people are saying about it.  While he looks to opinion leader, when he publishes ratings he becomes an opinion leader.  And when he discovers a great product, he’s more apt to broadcast his opinion.  Likewise, when he gets burned by a bad product, he gets even.

I really don’t know much about EA Sports strategies.  But I do know that they have an image issue with gamers…at least one anyway…that will affect their sales to some extent.

The time Net Geners spend scrutinizing their next purchase should cause all marketers to develop strategies to deal with both positive and negative reviews.  If you don’t join the conversation, your ears will ring with this audience talking behind your back.  That said, if your policies offend them, if your product doesn’t meet their expectations, or if it’s just a product that doesn’t perform, no amount of conversation will change their opinion.