The other day I came across an Oreo tweet.

A very small tweet for sure, but I wanted to do a blog post around it anyway.

Not because it’s the greatest tweet ever written (because it isn’t) or because it’s the greatest idea ever (because it isn’t).

But because I think it can address many questions about using Twitter for digital marketing if you’re a B2C brand operating in the low-engagement side of the consumer spectrum.

Or, as the Americans like to call it, FMCG.

Fast-Moving-Consumer-Goods.

So, what about that Oreo tweet, then?

Flirting With The Great Gatsby

Oreo tweets a picture of two cookies in the shape of a pair of characteristic glasses, belonging to Dr. T.J. Eckleburg from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel The Great Gatsby. The tagline “Have a cookie, old sport,” is of course a paraphrase of something that Mr. Gatsby himself would have said.

A Great story calls for a great cookie. twitter.com/Oreo/status/33…

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) 10 maj 2013

The tweet is timely, since a movie version of The Great Gatsby recently premiered in the US. (It has a great soundtrack by the way – find it on Spotify here.)

Here’s a few things the tweet does very well:

> It relates to something happening in pop-culture right now. It’s great that it’s timely, but the scalability is even better. Using the cookies as backdrop to celebrate recent events is something that could be done endlessly.

> When all is said and done, Oreo sells cookies. By using the cookies as artistic components, they comunicate the cookie front and center. They could be talking about anything; the cookies just keeps it all together.

> They flirt with the nerds, in this case those who appreciate The Great Gatsby. Those cookie glasses aren’t exactly the most obvious symbol for the film, so they go for the slick reference instead of more obvious ones.

The Content Strategy Lesson For FMCG Brands

Many brands just tries way too hard on Twitter, especially FMCG brands.

Every once in a while, a viral FMCG hit comes along, like the Old Spice Guy for instance. And that’s great.

But having viral hits of that magnitude isn’t a strategy. You should be able to market your products successfully via Twitter without those viral monsters as well.

And I think that Oreo has found a great concept for Twitter content right here.

As an example, I think Oreo demonstrated the power (pun intended) of this simple concept during the Super Bowl when the power went out for a while, and they reacted quickly by producing this tweet.

Power out? No problem. twitter.com/Oreo/status/29…

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) 4 februari 2013

The Oreo tweet is elegant and simple, easy to do variations on creatively — and it stays on product.

(In this particular case, the client and the agency where physically located in the same room, but having social media control rooms might just be the future for big brands.)

So find a scalable Twitter concept like this for your product and have fun with it. Keep it simple and don’t go overboard in terms of creativity, instead focus your efforts on being timely.

After all, Twitter is a “now” type medium.

The post One Great Oreo Tweet + A Content Strategy For FMCG Brands On Twitter appeared first on Doktor Spinn.

This is not a blog about leadership and I have no illusions about being a stellar leader myself.

To be honest, I think I’m average.

I get maybe 33% of decisions right by design, 33% turns out well because of blind luck and 33% is just stupid decisions that I try my best to learn from.

The final 1%, well… I have no idea what happens with those decisions.

But the other day I was thinking about leadership and thought it would be fun to jot these thoughts down for safe keeping, maybe to remind myself or to inspire a fun discussion somewhere.

So, without claiming to be an authority on the subject, here’s nine “dark-and-dirty” leadership hacks:

1. The Push-Up Effect

When I was doing my military service, I served as a platoon commander. I learnt something very strange when leading the mandatory physical training in the mornings.

If you tell a group to do 25 push-ups, they will be able to execute them.

If you get them down on the ground and tell them to do push-ups on your count, without knowing how many they will have to do, even the toughest recruits will struggle already at 15 push-ups.

If you want to get the most effect from a team, it’s not enough if you’re the only one with the bigger picture.

2. Don’t Expect Psychic Powers

Communication is a funny thing. If you ask someone to do something, ask them to repeat your instructions back to you.

You will quickly find out that your way of giving instructions isn’t exactly as crystal clear as you imagined.

And remember, this often has nothing to do with people being stupid or not paying attention. Having interaction between two complex brains, via vocal cords, eyes, ears, air and tons of preconceptions from both, it’s rather a miracle that we can understand each other at all.

So respect the complexity of the communication process, never look down on your subordinate and talk about what you both understood from your exchange and everything will be fine. Eventually.

3. Pace Your Leadership

This is another military story.

If you never get your hands dirty, your team won’t respect you. If you get your hands dirty all the time, your team will kick back and applaud you while you do all the work.

But in my military service, I found a great trick.

When everyone had full stomachs, the sun was shining, the vehicles worked, well then I didn’t do shit. I told them to do their job while I just kicked back.

because the team was in such a good mood and everything was going well, they didn’t seemed to mind all that much. If they suggested me to pitch in, I just said that I could do that if they traded places with me (as a platoon commander, you serve about twice as long as most).

And they laughed about it and dug in.

But then, when the freezing cold in the dead of night hit us, and our terrain vehicles broke down and the fire wouldn’t lit, and everyone was hungry and at the brink of exhaustion, then I was rested and strong.

But my team didn’t think of that. They probably only saw me being super-though, really getting my hands dirty when they needed to see me like that the most. I hadn’t been sweating through my clothes all day, so i could give them my best effort, make clear decisions and fix our broken-down bandwagon.

So don’t waste energy on trying to be Caesar when things are all good. Save your strength for when your team are the most susceptable for your leadership.

4. The Moleskine Rule

Okay, so I’m a digital guy.

But digital devices run out of battery. And they go pling-pling and demand all kinds of attention.

So I like note-taking the old-fashioned way, Hemingway-style. So I ask people on my team to carry a Moleskine.

I don’t want to keep in my mind who has a perfect memory and who hasn’t. If I get feedback from my team, I want to write it down. If I give feedback, someone better write it down somewhere as well.

Be strict with note-taking. The younger the team, the more crucial.

5. The Anti-Curling Technique

Curling, for those of you who never heard of the sport, is played with heavy stones you shoot slowly over the ice to position well to grab points.

In this sport, one team member literally follows the stone all the way unit it stops. On top of that, they carry a broomstick and use that in front of the moving stone to either sweep the ice to make the stone glide better, or swoop in ice crystals to slow it down.

It looks ridiculous of course, but it’s actually quite fun.

But sweeping the ice every step of the way in professional situation is a bad idea. Your team will get “curled”.

If they come to you with a problem, asking for a solution, then you shouldn’t give it to them. Even if you easily could.

I know it sounds crazy. But here’s the thing:

You tell them to go back, think it over and come back with two possible solutions. When they do, you ask them which one of the two solutions they themselves will go for. And then you ask them to go with that.

And here’s the kicker:

This process is so time-consuming, the team member will try to cut corners by coming up with two possible solutions before turning to you.

And when they realise that you trust their judgement on which solution to go with each and every time, they will get confident enough to start coming to you with solved problems instead.

6. Basic Dog Psychology

I can’t believe I’m writing this tip down. And chances are someone will think I’m a proper douche and give me a sound yelling in the comment field for comparing humans with dogs.

I almost deleted this one, but what the heck. Like this:

Dogs respond very badly to negative feedback. They can’t really process it, basically because it makes them afraid of, well… everything.

In fact, dogs are so dependent on positive reinforcements from their pack, that the absence of it is terrible enough.

I’ve found that using positive reinforcement paired with holding back on positive reinforcement works really well amongst us humans as well.

Now, I’m not saying that you should avoid confrontation, but it’s so easy to push harder than necessary in an emotional situation. Most people who have done something wrong are already terribly ashamed and going berserk on them will actually only hurt the team’s result long-term.

The “pack” need to see you enforcing set boundaries, but never go ballistic…

7. Leave While You’re Ahead

I’ve never actually learnt this one, but I know it in theory:

Don’t get crazy drunk with the team. Have fun, drink moderately and then, before it gets too late, excuse yourself and get the hell out of dodge.

Go home and spend some quality time with your family or something.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the coolest dude ever. Not even twelve shots of vodka will change the fact that you have hiring and firing power. You negotiate people’s salaries, allowing them to put food on their tables.

Let them get crazy drunk, play spin the bottle and dance on tables. Yes, you might miss a crazy fun night out. Yes, they might think you’re boring and beg you to stay. Sometimes, they might even mean it.

But it doesn’t change what the right thing to do is. Go home.

8. Take Time-Outs

Here’s another military learning:

Say you’re leading the team through the woods. After a while you realise that you messed up somewhere along the way.

I’m all for communicating, but in this case, don’t turn around and tell the team that we’re all lost, and that they probably won’t get any food, nor will they get any warmth and sleep.

They could in theory help you get your bearings back, but their minds will be pretty occupied with how annoyed they are with you, how bad the situation is and bad it will get when it gets… worse.

Instead, take a break, occupy them with something and take the smartest person aside and sit down with that person, using your senses together with the terrain, the map and the compass.

If you only get out of sight of the team, the two of you will figure it out. And the person you take aside will be your ally, in whatever decision you decide upon next.

Most questions I get from the team, well, honestly I have no idea how to answer them.

But I don’t say that. I say “let me get back to you” and then I go into a room, close the door, have a panic attack, calm myself down, figure out what to do, take a deep breath, go back and then, with full confidence, I say, “okay, so here’s the plan…”

9. Trust Your Gut Instinct

I never knew leadership was so much about guessing all the time.

Your gut instinct will probably play a huge part in all of your day-to-day operations, so get used to it.

It’s scary at first not knowing if you are about to make the right or the wrong decision. But you won’t know until afterwards and that’s just something to get used to.

If there’s no way for you to make a more informed decision, then to heck with it. Make the bloody decision and be done with it.

Even if you acquire all the information there is, the information might still point you in the wrong direction anyway. So there are no guarantees.

So when push comes to shove, what you have in the end is your instinct and your ethics. And you might just have to put them to more use than you thought.

In ice-hockey, we used to say that a good goalkeeper has tons of luck. I’d say the same goes for leaders.

Do you have any tips or tricks on leadership? Please share in the comments!

Image credit: Desktop Wallpaper HD

The post 9 Dark-And-Dirty Leadership Hacks appeared first on Doktor Spinn.

For a presentation, I gathered some Facebook EdgeRank infographics and thought I should post them here as well.

Looking at this first moontoast.com infographic, I find their tiering of the fanbase interesting.

How difficult is it to segment and target fans who have actually purchased from you?

If you have Facebook Connect on your e-commerce site, that shouldn’t be much of a problem on the actual site, but is there a way to target them on Facebook. Maybe FanGager has such a function?

Here goes.

PostRocket is a nifty little service, kind of like Buffer but for Facebook with better image handling.

But the big question these days is how much third-party Facebook publishing apps are affected negatively by EdgeRank versus good old-fashioned manual postings?

Anyway, interesting with this infographic are that 96% of fans never visit the brand site twice.

We knew that the action took place on user’s walls and this seems to hold very true still.

If I were Batman, I would definitely spend more time keeping an eye on Bane.

In this infographic by topolilly.com, it’s interesting to discuss why Facebook treats video content with so little love.

After all, video content seems to be booming everywhere else.

Or is it simply because we don’t go to Facebook for video or that the interface just isn’t the right place for it?

Or do we just don’t like to share video on Facebook as much?

Interesting also that they say “links only if necessary”… well, 9 times out of 10, I’m more interested in driving traffic to a site that I can derive value from, rather than building engagement for Facebook, the company.

I’d rather have fewer people liking, commenting and sharing an URL that I actually control, than having them interact with “Facebook-only” content.

The post Facebook EdgeRank Infographics x4 appeared first on Doktor Spinn.

Originally from Alnö outside Sundsvall in northern Sweden, and having lived in New York, London and Munich, Stockholm still is my favourite city.

There’s a special light coming in from everywhere here, the air is crisp and it’s just a very cool place to live.

Since both my wife and I use Instagram (JournalistLisah & DoktorSpinn), every now and then we manage to capture a piece of the city’s soul.

So, I’ve compiled some of them here in this blog post. Enjoy!

Strandvägen looks good in black and white (by Lisah Silfwer)

Lonely bench in Hagaparken (by Jerry Silfwer)

Gröna Lund (by Lisah Silfwer)

Nybroviken at dusk (by Jerry Silfwer)

Hågelby Gård (by Lisah Silfwer)

The library (by Jerry Silfwer)

Rush hour (by Lisah Silfwer)

50 shades of grey from Vanadisparken (by Jerry Silfwer)

Djurgården (by Lisah Silfwer)

August Strindberg (by Jerry Silfwer)

Swan in Brunnsviken (by Lisah Silfwer)

Hagaparken (by Jerry Silfwer)

Skinnarviksberget (by Lisah Silfwer)

Vasastan (by Jerry Silfwer)

Skeppskajen (by Lisah Silfwer)

Morning light at home (by Jerry Silfwer)

Now, I know my wife’s a stronger photographer than I am (even though I rarely admit to it). But I took this one of her and I take full credit for it — of course. I love you, honey.

Lisah Silfwer (by Jerry Silfwer)

The post Our Instagram Tribute To Stockholm appeared first on Doktor Spinn.

There’s this thing that I’ve been thinking about for several years:

How do you recognise a rockstar consultant?

It might sound elitist, but having worked on the agency side for years, it has become very clear to me that a rockstar easily outweighs three or four regular consultants.

But finally, in a discussion the other day, I arrived at an answer.

And the answer surprised me greatly.

But we need to first ask ourselves, is there really such a thing as a “rockstar consultant”?

Rockstars Comes In Many Flavours

In my career, I’ve worked with many individuals that, without a shadow of a doubt, are rockstars.

Some have been young, straight out of school. Some have been at the end of their careers. And some somewhere in between.

Being a rockstar has absolutely nothing to do with age.

Some have been amazing account managers. Others strategic masterminds. Others creative geniuses. Yet others have been leaders, some inspiring, some actionable.

And many have simply been experts in the overall craftsmanship of communication.

Some have charisma and can light up a room, some you won’t even notice until you see their craft having effect right before your eyes.

Some are extroverts, some are introverts. Some are team players, some are individualists.

But there’s just something about them all:

> You badly want them on your team.

> They always find a way to blow your mind.

> They make things look easy out-oh-the-box.

> Others push themselves around them.

> They can’t help creating controversy and drama.

> Mysteriously, they tend to always come out on top.

> You can see it in that their eyes, that they “get it”.

Basically, there’s just something about them. But what is it?

The question has been driving me crazy for years.

Why We Can’t Live Without Them

As an entrepreneur, you need a core team of rockstar to build around. But since they are so diverse, recognising them in recruiting situations is almost impossible.

Most consultants, especially at prestigious agencies, are really talented people.

They’ve been at the top of their game throughout school, they come with stellar recommendations and great track records.

But here’s the thing, in an environment where everyone has great talents, the bar of mediocrity suddenly becomes crazy high. And there’s only a few individuals who can elevate themselves well beyond that bar.

And as for the most of us:

We want to be rockstar consultants. But how can we?

We can’t exactly mimic a specific rockstar, because that will only make us a bleak copy of an extraordinary individual at best.

Getting To Understand Their Psyche

A brilliant and experienced former colleague of mine once said, a PR rockstar in his own right, that the best consultants had this thing in common:

They tend to have this deep black void in their chest that they tried to overcome.

Something to prove. Compensating for something. Or looking to get back at someone, even.

I can’t say for certain if he was right.

BUT, there really is a fire burning in these people’s eyes.

Also, such an analysis is pretty grim. It would mean learning how to spot people with great potential combined with serious psychological issues.

It could work, but it could also be a hit-or-miss-miserably-strategy.

And so the other day, when discussing this with a brilliant creative mind, I arrived at an epiphany.

The Trademark Of A Rockstar Consultant

The realisation really surprised me. It felt even controversial.

But here’s the trademark that applies to every rockstar consultant I’ve ever worked with:

They don’t need to be told how to succeed.

If you want them to take over a small client, they turn that client into a big one, without asking.

If they’re asked to do something, they do something else that getter better results.

In feedback talks, they give you suggestions on overall improvements.

They don’t ask for more, instead they let their work take them where they want to go.

And the good news is, this is something we all can imitate. We can all be rockstars. We must only stop waiting for others to make it happen for us and instead take matters in our own hands and think, solve and create by trusting our instincts.

Image credit: carpentryanddesign.com

The post The Trademark Of A Rockstar Consultant appeared first on Doktor Spinn.

Are you involved in blogger outreach?

Or, are you responsible for creating engaging Facebook posts for your company?

Let’s see if we can kill two birds with one stone in this quick post.

We’ll start with how to post on Facebook and finsih up with a very powerful way of adding incentives to your pitch.

Here we go.

The Anatomy Of A Perfect Facebook Post

Salesforce reached out to tell me about Jennifer Burnham’s infographic Blueprint For A Perfect Facebook Post (Images).

I like Salesforce, especially since they acquired an even cooler company, Radian6. I think it shows that they’re serious about social integration and CRM.

Anyway.

In all its simplicity, I thought it was very useful. It’s the little things, you know.

But I’d also like to give Salesforce a big up for their pitch.

Here’s why.

+ A Blogger Pitch Secret

I work with blogger outreach from time to time. But… I’m also a blogger myself.

This has its perks. For one, it’s great fun to be pitched by others.

I’m always a gentleman (or I try to be!), but most pitches are rubbish for countless reasons.

But in this pitch, Salesforce used  technique that I’ve been using myself with much success and it goes hand in hand with my favourite social media mantra, “sharing is caring”.

Here’s one of the things they said in their pitch:

“If you decide to blog about it, I’ll send a hundred relevant visitors directly to your post from our social media campaign as a way of saying thank you. Just email me a link to your post and I’ll send the traffic.”

Oh yes. Bloggers know traffic. And they love it, myself included. It’s currency.

And this is a resource that most companies have, traffic to send to the blogger. Those of you who don’t blog might think that this sounds very “transactional”, but most bloggers love this.

It’s “speaking our language”.

Now, I don’t know if Salesforce will link back to me when I’m giving away one of their pitching secrets like this, but that’s okay.

Just remember to always ask yourself, do I have any traffic streams to send a collaborating blogger’s way?

If so, don’t be shy to use it!

The post Blueprint For A Perfect Facebook Post + 1 Pitch Secret appeared first on Doktor Spinn.

Today, I would like for us to get real.

Today, I would like for us to talk about money.

And my bet is, it’s going to be painful, so brace yourself.

But. It can be a temporary pain. Because if you know where money is leaking out, then you have the opportunity to assess a strategy that will set you straight.

Therefore I want you to answer these questions for yourself and your business.

Money Lost On Online Lead Generation

Ponder these two questions:

How much is a lead worth to you? And how many leads is created from online research in your industry every day?

These aren’t silly questions. Because these online leads are ending up somewhere. How many of these are you loosing each day to competitors tht you could beat?

If you’re as good as you think you are, shouldn’t these leads come to you instead of to your competitors?

Now, imagine how much these lost leads would be worth to you in cash.

Money Lost On Talent Acquisition

Having a great team onboard is crucial for any company’s success.

But are you the most attractive company to work for? If you are, but you aren’t providing solid social proof of this online, then this will cost you each and every day.

Because any candidate worth recruiting will do thorough research of your company online.

They will check everything, down to the private blogs and Twitter accounts by potential colleagues. If the company seems boring, why should they not choose a more compelling company?

Because, let’s face it. Awesome talent has choices. And given how transparent and overflowing with information the web is, they will factor in what they can learn about you online.

So are you showing off your awesome corporate culture? Are co-workers happy and acting as online ambassadors on your behalf?

Ponder how much money you’re loosing on a daily basis if your online employer branding isn’t at least up to par.

Money Lost On Online Conversion

Are you running A/B-testing to get proof on what works on your website?

Are you producing valuable content to be relevant enough to get visitors asking for more?

Ask yourself if your online conversion is where it can be. Because if your competitors beats you by only a few percent, they will break you in the long run.

Here’s why:

Let’s say you and a competitor both attract 5K visitors to your websites on a daily basis, but your competitor has a slightly better conversion rate on sales and returning visitors.

Then it doesn’t matter if you happen to sell more online today, because it’s just a matter of time before your competitor will beat you online.

And online doesn’t require the same costs as maintaining physical stores for instance, so chances are that their online supremacy will start to hurt your offline business as well.

So ask yourself, how much money are you loosing daily on not having the best online conversion as you possibly could?

Money Lost On Organic Traffic

Are you buying your traffic? Spending lots of money on AdWords and banners? Or maybe suspicious affiliate- and seeding programs?

Ouch. These days, THAT’S got to hurt.

I’ve never grasped the basic logic of it. Say you spend $5,000 bucks on getting 5,000 extra hits on your website and from this traffic boost, you get one extra customer that actually clicks the “purchase” button.

(A conversion rate of 1 major purchase per 5,000 unique hits isn’t exactly science fiction.)

Now people get upset. $5,000 for a sale that generated what, $150? Let’s go yell some at the Marketing Director, shall we?

The Marketing Director yells at the digital specialists on staff. “Let’s work only with affiliates instead, who only gets paid when they generate an actual sale from now on…”

What if those $5,000 were spent on creating some useful content instead? Something that potential customers actually are searching for.

And let’s make that content evergreen, so it never ceases to be useful to people.

A visitor who fins something useful for free are more likely to return. And to share, thus lending the company hi or hers social graph for a moment.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that this content also only generates one sale.

Well, now at least you’ve increased the value of your site.

Gotten a decent amount of new subscribers and increased the ratio of returning visitors.

And you made a bunch of people happy, instead of interrupting 4,999 web surfers who got lured in by clever advertising but decided to leave.

Money Lost On Social Growth

Most companies spend money on campaigns.

But ask yourself this:

When the campaign is over, what are you left with in terms of equity?

I’ve always liked this graph:

The Community Strategy model.

Are you transforming your web traffic into loyal followers in social media, digital ambassadors that interact with your brand. Personal influencers who endorse you even if they don’t have to.

I usually say this to companies:

If you can win one die-hard ambassador each day, then you’re doing something right.

Honestly, there’s very few brands in the world that has 1,500 die-hard fans that are prepared to spread its gospel. Which is a shame, because 1,500 people active in linking, sharing and discussing could easily re-arrange the whole web in favour of the company.

Because if you give one person the reason to fall in love with your brand, others will see this mutual bond and allow themselves to be influenced by it.

Ultimately, people’s projected self-images, their identity, is largely made up from the choices they make.

And who to buy from or not does indeed qualify as such lifestyle choices.

So how much money are being lost everyday for every potential love affair that’s lost?

How To Stop Money From Pouring Out

Tha answer to all of these money problems actually is… money.

Or rather, how to distribute them wisely.

And my advice is simple:

Spend money on making your company worthy of people’s love. On earning their loyalty. On being generous with whatever value you have to offer.

Not on advertising funnels where the only way to increase sales is to a) interrupt people more creatively or b) pay more for more exposure.

So how do you acquire true fans?

Just as in real life — you go the extra mile for those who deserve it.

You listen more to the fans than you talk to them.

You share their messages more than you expect them to share yours.

You stand up for them before you ask them to stand up for you.

You spend your marketing money on them (and not on the silent mass that never has acknowledged you).

You lead by example by standing up for what you believe in instead of trying to please all.

Image credit: DeviantArt

The post Money You’re Losing On Being Less Than Awesome Online appeared first on Doktor Spinn.

I’ve worked within many disciplines of marketing. Each and every one has merit, all depending on what the brand is setting out to accomplish through marketing.

It’s not a contest, but many professionals sure are trying to make it into one.

When I decided to focus 100% on digital, the majority of my peers in the traditional advertising and public relations industry tried to convince me that I’d better set my mind to making my transition a temporary one.

Why?

Because they were convinced that traditional marketing would catch up, and when it (meaning they) did, my specific line of business (“digital marketing”), wouldn’t be considered a separate discipline for more than a couple of years.

“Enjoy it while it lasts,” they said.

The Digital Gap Is Increasing

Now, depending on where you’d place the starting marker, I’d say we’re well over five years into the complete professionalisation of digital marketing.

And traditional marketers… hasn’t caught up yet.

In fact, in general, they aren’t even close. Instead, the gap is wider than ever.

And this is quite in order; digital marketing is like nothing we’ve ever seen before. As soon as you stumble upon something new, yet another endless abyss of potential knowledge opens up under your feet.

A few examples from the top of my head:

1. The constantly emerging complexity of inbound and outbound SEO, SEM and SMO and what happens when penguins and Google authorships re-writes all known maps.

2. Big data acquisition and statistical social media analysis, cross-referenced to the vast seas of internally generated data sets.

3. The challenges with producing multimedia communication fast, cheap and how to seed it.

4. The explosive importance of inbound marketing in general and content marketing in particular.

5. A whole new body of knowledge on how to work with influencers who aren’t driven by reporting someone else’s news. And being relevant in a time when everyone has access to their own printing presses.

6. The mechanics of e-commerce fuelled by list-building and socially sparked email send-outs, a complete and total shift from chronological to event-based communication cycles.

7. The fascinating and never-ending science that is on-site conversion, with everything from eye-movement analysis and A/B-testing to advanced social psychology insights driving how we optimise online communication.

8. Moving from “marketing as fireworks” to MaaS (Marketing as a Service).

9. How the Hippie Web is quickly being replaced by a more exclusive and transactional Money Web.

10. Working closely together with coders, programmers, art directors, interaction designers and big data engineers, incorporating them into the strategic communication process. And oh, did I mention how content and platforms must work on all types of screens?

This Is Business Unusual

Now, I hate to say it, but traditional marketing doesn’t just “absorb” all of this during business as usual.

This is, to paraphrase Henriette Weber, business unusual.

And, so what is in fact happening?

Boom. Instead of seeing digital marketing specialists disappear, they constantly get better positions within companies. and they start new innovative agencies.

Boom. I’ve helped several start-ups to recruit marketing specialists. And what main competence do they want for their first hire? Digital marketing specialists, hands down.

Boom. If you’re doing a campaign today, who does company want to establish the strategy? More and more, digital. Why?

Because, if you look at the simplified model below, if it works in digital, it’s easy to make it work elsewhere as well. Digital is the best representation of how communication flows through a society that we have to date.

The complexity of social marketing requires a new way of thinking.

Because digital is what moves people’s perception of the world the fastest. It has taken over as our primary outlet for both information absorption and multi-level dialogue.

So, what does all of this mean?

Digital First

As I said, it’s not a contest. All types of marketing has merit; it all comes down to what you’re trying to achieve.

But in case you haven’t noticed—digital marketing is not a fad.

Remember that the day your Head of Marketing knows more about digital than anyone else in the Marketing Department, because that’s simply why she or he got the job in the first place.

Or, remember that the day your traditional marketing agency is being sold to a powerful international network of digital agencies.

It was never about what role digital marketing should play in traditional marketing. It was always the other way around.

If you’re with me in my conviction about Digital First, blog it up. Tweet. Discuss in those LinkedIn Group’s where you’re active. Plus it up on Google. Discuss on this secret groups on Facebook. It’s time for us in digital marketing to stop excusing ourselves for existing. 

Image credit: Infocux Technologies

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One of my secret dreams is to get to create a music video.

Because I love creative music videos. Not maybe the type of videos one would expect from a geek like myself; I think for instance that the viral video from OK Go “Here It Goes Again” is funny and all, but I think it gets in the way of the actual song. Which is quite okay in this case.

No, I love music videos that enhances the actual music.

Like the video for Promise And The Monster “Sheets”.

Like the video for Elliphant “Down On Life”.

Like the video for Metronomy “The Bay”.

So, what are my chances to go all crazy Jonas Åkerlund-style and create a music video that rocks?

New Days, New Ways

Back in the day, my chances would be close to zero.

Because I’m a bloody white-collar consultant. I might be in a creative industry in some sense, but I’m not exactly a creative portfolio-type.

Also, I know next to nothing about music video production.

But times have changed. For the better.

Today, most people can do pretty awesome thing in easy-to-use video editing programs.

Even an amateur can afford cameras capable of better than nice image quality.

So, What Would I Do?

First, I would find an artist that I know who hasn’t yet gotten signed by a big label.

Like my wife Lisah’s sister, Marta. She’s a singer-songwriter—listen to one of her songs here.

I think there’s some real drama to this song.

Now imagine getting geeky with it by fitting an HD camera to a Jamcopters.

To get an idea how fantastic shots these gadgets can produce, check out this awesome skate video:

FIREFLY from samadhi production on Vimeo.

Now, imagine using the beautiful city of Stockholm by night as a backdrop for such a video.

Stockholm is quite stunning by night…

Imagine than Marta walking and singing alone along the night streets of Stockholm.

After a while, another lonely girl joins in, walking alone but still alongside together. And then, another girl joins. And another.

Soon, an army of lonely girls would be walking the streets and bridges of Stockholm by night, shot with smooth Jamocopters fly-by’s.

I think it could be absolutely beautiful. Well, who knows?

Feel free to add ideas in the comments!

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Do you care about Klout?

I think you should at least acknowledge it.

Yes, I do agree it can be gamed. I do agree it doesn’t measure influence.

But let me tell you, what it actually measures, if anything, is pretty secondary.

Because let me tell you why I bother to care about Klout.

Imagine this:

For the sake of argument, let’s say you run a webshop where you sell exclusive coffee and coffee making tools.

You might be interested in what’s going on on the web (since it’s your place of business) and you might be opinionated about such things. But when all comes down to it, what you care most about is your own bottom line.

What if you were to offer discounts to people with high Klout scores?

What if that worked very well for your bottom line? Would you care whether Klout is measuring influence or not? Probably not. If it works, it works.

I think Klout, or similar future services with more accuracy, has a real shot at actually boosting sales for etailers.

It for sure won’t be pretty. It’ll mean better deals for people who are already noteworthy online.

And if there’s any correlation between online status and economic status, this will only further societal gaps. But it’s bound to happen.

In extension, this will realise the dormant possibilities for us to start spending money together.

We’re already seeing it work at sites like Kickstarter.

So when I say I care about Klout and someone says “it doesn’t really measure influence”, well… they’re answering a question I never really asked.

Photo: Gary McLeod, wired.com.

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