Carl Setzer

Recently, my son started exploring vlogging and video creation. Inspired by the fame acquired by those YouTubers he admires, he focuses on emulating their styles. And on his stats. He finds it frustrating that his follower growth is slow. The expectation, I suppose, was to post a few videos and have followers blaze in. I constantly reinforce my belief: focus on quality, the followers will follow. Focusing only on stats and followers is much like the high-school kid who makes all their decisions based on maximizing social leverage, that which gains them the most popularity. It's a short term proposition, and the proverbial "moving target". Ultimately, you end up shallow and vacuous, with no depth or understanding. Many times in my career, through my whole life really, this notion comes up. Whether a business struggling to appeal to everyone, or just my own ponderings of why some piece of content hasn't taken off, I, too, look. Tis a struggle: focusing on quality over...

Something that struck me this morning: the internet grows bigger, driving us to go closer. We have tools that let us broadcast to unimaginable numbers. Yet it's the personal that works. Even with thousands of Twitter followers (or more), the relationship is based on a one-to-one feeling of connection. Even large brands are trying to push into that space. It makes sense: none of us want to be just a number. Our marketing and PR tools need to be built focussed on creating that sense of connection.

I posted this on my other blog a few weeks back, then thought it would be more relevant over here. So, without further adieu... Reading this at Venture Beat just annoyed the crap out of me: GlassUp raised $100K on Indiegogo — but PayPal is refusing to pay up . This isn’t the first time PayPal has dealt with similar issues, even to the point where their president publicly intervened in a resolution . This troubles me regarding PayPal’s future.  These rules need to significant repair if PayPal wants to remain relevant in this space. StartUps, heck, any business CANNOT operate with random and inconsistent access to funds. I think PayPal’s growth as a purchase transaction processor might be the root of these aggravations. At a brief glance, I see vigorous efforts to protect buyers from fraud. Noble, but hampering these transactions that vary from that model. Policies need to evolve with market changes. Especially market shifts that reflect your company’s goals and objectives. Da...

I noticed this gem trending on Reddit today: Zales Fires Top Earning Saleswoman Because She Needs Surgery . Basics: Zales fires one of their best performing sales staff right after being informed she will need to take a disability leave. However one feels about this, the most crucial piece is that this is from 2009. 4 years later, this is rising on Reddit. You can guarantee that Zales will get hate messaging about this. Reminds me of one of the recurring issues I saw at Starbucks: Starbucks Hates The Military Rumor. This guy kept recycling, often at the most random times. Lesson: be very careful with your PR. Even false accusations will cycle through cyberspace and provide you regular aggravation. True ones will continuously rise up and bite, teeth sharper with each retelling.

Just read & posted on Chris Brogan's latest piece (sorry about the full link, the iPhone Blogger inability to insert links is a bit of an issue for me): http://www.chrisbrogan.com/i-am-not-authentic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+chrisbrogandotcom+%28%5Bchrisbrogan.com%5D%29#dsq-form-area He talks about authenticity in the blogosphere, as it's bandied around quite a bit. His key point is that it IS NOT simply unfiltered honesty. That authenticity still works within social norms. Good points. However, it doesn't go over what authenticity IS. I've long viewed it as anti-BS. The blogosphere is exceptional at BS detection. PR spin is flammable. In the Internet age, you can't control the message. You must not twist verbiage in an attempt to mislead or bury an issue. Anyway, that's my basic notion. What about you?

Just read this piece over at PCWorld . Geez, it just seems that the parties involved are hell-bent on damaging their own brand. First, Facebook still is denying that they were trying to smear Google. Please! Gotta call BS on that. If this was about "the people", then do it openly. Facebook seems to think we're stupid. Own up, grow up and move along. And Burson-Marsteller...the "pros". I'm shocked they accepted this project, though give them credit for owning up and giving a mea culpa. But I'm stunned that they went and deleted a negative comment from their Facebook page. At times like this, you must be hyper vigilant and extremely sensitive. Both Facebook and Burson need to grasp they've damaged trust. Angry denouncements only expand that divide. Every decision in the near-term needs to be focused on rebuilding trust. I don't know if they'll find themselves with lost profits or such, but the potential exists. Trust is the currency of the mod...

Finally reading up on Facebook's campaign to smear Google . My first thought was how laughable it is for Facebook to defend this by stating "they're concerned about Google's privacy concerns" just makes my head spin. Let's pretend that this is legitimate. Then it should be done in the open, acknowledging their own issues with managing privacy. Otherwise, you look childish and deceptive. In today's media saturated space, losing consumer trust can be fatal (not that I think this will kill Facebook. It can be one proverbial nail-in-the-coffin, though). My impression? This was an attempt at being hyper-competitive and has backfired. Facebook looks childish and grossly unprofessional. Burson-Marsteller (a whole 'nother post) looks grossly unethical. A bad, bad choice that will add ammunition to the anti-Facebook crowd. There is a point which this energy can obtain critical mass. Facebook needs to work on building up the trust "bank account", not c...

As I'm updating my resume and looking over past work, I came across some media tracking spreadsheets I'd crafted. The company is international, but the data I had was (mostly) national (US), with little bits of Canada thrown in. Anyway, what I received were spreadsheets from an agency covering all media stories. The main thing I did with this was break it down by focus (positive vs. negative, for the most part). So, I've been considering what I would do differently now. This is just a stream of ideas, so please understand them as such. I would like to build reports with more depth. Look at regional coverage. Map out city by city, etc, across the globe if possible. Layer this on top of a map. Then with that report I'd break out positive, negative & neutral focus. It's important to note that it's hard to ascertain focus when one doesn't see the coverage. Anyway, I also thought it would be good to look at what's generating the coverage: new products, n...

A few years back, when I worked for a large global company, a major NGO launched a campaign against us. I found it fascinating how so many people felt it was a major campaign by that org (no, it wasn't). Actually, from their side, it was simple. One of their directors wrote an article for the Guardian, then their network of Blogs and MySpace accounts posted links to it with a "call to action" (call/fax/email "us"). This had a significant impact on us, and received a fair amount of media coverage. This campaign utilized very few resources on the NGO's side. The largest effort was the writing of the article. Well, that's in regards to the campaign. The real work for this was years in the making. They built and maintained a large, global network of advocates. The NGO interacted regularly with them. Information was shared, input solicited, and the audience was listened to. Relationships created and maintained with two-way discussion. Then a blend of MySpace...

Here's a good post raising questions about all those "social media experts". It's easy, I guess, to become bedazzled by buzz terms (Twitter, Facebook, et al). However, if your company is looking to invest actual money in something like this, if behooves you to spend some time researching. One site I learned about from this, though, is Help A Reporter Out . Peter Shankman's effort to connect reporters with good, solid sources. It looks like a great way to help both reporters get in front of real sources (not just PR shlocks) as well as get good PR folks in front of relevant media. One of those real solid "win wins" we hear so much about.