Late last-night, on my way back home on an empty seven train (NYC), I overheard an argument (well not really the whole discussion… just what she responded to what he had said. Which I don’t know what it was) that made me think, once again, how much brands are -or at least should behave- like humans. Well, at least, apparently like this man being yelled at by his girlfriend.

“…You know, the thing is that you never have time just for me. You give me all this bs of wanting to look after others well-being and this and that, but all you want is the recognition from those around you… you’re not going to admit it, but I see how you get when you get all those e-mails congratulating you, or when we go to dinner they all tell you how much they like what you’re doing…”

Ok, I don’t know exactly what she was referring to but I do know, however, that it sucks that looking “after others well-being” had become such spectacle within the network one interacts with, to the point of undermining one’s initiative (whatever it may be that benefits others) by concentrating the attention on him/her, rather than on those being helped. The reason why this has become so, is because we’ve been living in a world in which looking “after others well-being” is so rare, that if someone does it, everyone goes crazy admiring the nice idea/initiative, running down a message that may have been genuine. Or some others flat out say, he/she (or it) is just doing that for the attention…

So my point is that we’ve lost some of the innocence that make us humans believe that there are people (or brands) that could be, genuinely, driven to benefit others; so if we all, as a group, start heading in the same direction, looking for others well being, that idea will become a common denominator of us all and it would be normal to want to make our communities a better place to live; and shift the attention to those ripping the benefits (the audience/market) rather than on the messenger, the “benefit creator”, the brand.

Brands in Social Media must understand that it is not longer about them, but about their followers; and the more brands think about this, the easier it will become for everyone, the more legit your message will seem and our society can evolve with a sense of innocence that it is always nice to, legitimately, believe someone is doing something positive for the sake of doing it and not just for the attention… well, if sales, profits and/or positive brand recognition come with it all, so be it.

Aroldo Nery
Strategist/Brand Director @ The Re Agency

As I traveled around Latin America during the last two weeks, and stopped in Colombia, I noticed a refreshing attitude on the streets and it made me think about the way society in Latin America interacts with one another and its relationship with Social Media. If you were here, and walked up and down the streets, you’d notice the desire of the masses to engage, interact and be part of a social/cultural evolution. People on the streets are willing to help one another and come up with ways to give a hand in order to just get a few Pesos in return. Driving down from Monserrate, on a traffic-jammed street in the outsides of Bogota, I noticed men and boys running up and down the bumper-to-bumper lines of buses at the traffic lights. They’d run by the bus drivers’ window, shout a number, listen to what the driver had to say and write it on a scribbled notebook as they collected the few coins the drivers handed to them. The point of this running-up-and-down at traffic lights is to give bus drivers the times/frequency in which the previous buses, covering their same routes, go by this specific area in the city. It helps the bus drivers keep a distance (time-wise) from the bus ahead of them, so there is enough time for more people to gather at the bus stops for them to have a worthy day at work, which is equal to enough passengers in their buses. Seems complicated but it is rather simple and resourceful from people with lack of technology managing to come up with a way to help, interact and make some Pesos in return.

Now, if this is the nature of our people, of our culture; why is it that corporations, brands, businesses and/or services haven’t had a stronger initiative to find ways to connect with the other half of the country/region that do have access to technology and are practically early adopters of this Social Media type-way-of communication? Catalina Ruiz-Navarro is just one influencer in a community of almost 20 million internet users in Colombia, with an overall growth (internet users) of approximately 40% annually - and similar numbers throughout the region. I don’t want to dwell on the Common Sense approach to Social Media Communications but as I mentioned on a previous post, “the idea of Social Media is to be spontaneous, genuine, personal…” and it is a great opportunity  for businesses to figure out a genuine, non-intrusive message to establish a relationship with a genuinely-formed community that would be willing to be part of your community if you have something to contribute.

Aroldo Nery

Strategist/Brand Director @ The Re Agency

Gucci.

Synonymous with high end. The very word dribbles down your mouth and slides onto your body in the form of the perfect ensemble. Scores of men and women pay ultra high prices for the ultra exclusive social status that comes from being seen inside of it. Since 1921, Gucci, has established itself at the top of the social ladder.

Welcome to the world of luxury, if you can afford it.. If you can’t however, now you can pine for it on FacebookFacebook.

Yes, Gucci, one of the most exclusive luxury brands in the fashion industry has a Facebook Page, and it’s brilliant. You see there’s been a bit of a debate about whether luxury brands can integrate into public social networks without losing that aria di esclusività. However The House of Gucci has accomplished this splendidly.

Their page is simple, (while it is still a facebook page and lacks the elegance of the Gucci brand, they kept true to their name) they feature a brief history of the brands’ less than humble beginnings in Italian and English.

When you visit their “wall” you find a plethora of “updates” featuring their latest campaign ads; needless to say the images are exquisitely produced. The real brilliance however is the apparent paparazzi shots of celebrities unsuspectingly toting Gucci products. Amongst them are Salma Hayek, Sienna Miller, and Camille Belle. Each celebrity shot is lnked to where YOU can purchase the product on the Gucci e-store.

So, lets do a quick recap… Gucci boasts 421,555 fans, and to those fans they transmit, on a daily basis, updates on their campaigns, seasons’ ensembles’, Gucci insider’s news, and celebrity product shots (i.e. free sponsorship). Now, although only Gucci Facebook admins can post on the wall, the updates are open territory and they portray the story of international desire for Gucci.

The verdict is in, social media’s versatility allows it’s campaigns to be molded to any brand.. So the next time you want to stand out, take a page from The House Of Gucci and try something a little more.. avant garde.

Sheila

Social Media Communications Specialist @ The Re Agency

Please… correct me if I’m wrong; but advertising/marketing is about finding the single most appealing cultural relevance of any given brand, and coming up with the most spontaneous way to make a connection with any given demographic, right?

In order to do so, as professionals helping brands make such connection, we still need to have the ability to observe from the outside, and be attentive to everything that is going on beyond the Social Media halls: read magazines, books, pay attention to outdoor advertising, what type of concerts are going on, what’s selling at music stores, how outdoor advertising is being displayed and -simply- just how people go about their daily lives making their way through everything mentioned above. These will give us the ability to make a better and smoother transition from one way of communication to the other, without falling into the same old same old.

Why are we so determined on the idea of handling this new way of communicating (as a business model) the same way traditional media handled theirs? As an industry, we did a great job to bring advertising to what -I’d like to think- we all wanted it to become: a true and direct connection with our consumers. I mean, that was the thinking behind the minds of our pioneers (I refused to quote them, because by now, I’m sure you all know hundreds of their quotes), and now that is here we will halt its evolution if we don’t stop for a minute and think.

Although I’m a firm believer that brands can’t just come into our lives, one day to the next, invade our personal space and expect to be received as any other human out there, the level of intimacy brands are able to reach with their consumers is that of a human - a person, even a friend. Therefore they need to be treated (from our pov, as the ones shaping the brands’ personality) as such - with common sense. I don’t think any of us go around our circle of friends stating the obvious: “hey we’re going to this meeting, you need to be polite, shake hands and be respectful…” (If you do, I’m sorry). Instead, we could, however, tell them: “as we walk into the room, Mike is the person you should shake hands first, he likes baseball and hates the Yankees…”

The reason why I draw this simple analogy is because they are just that: simple, not very difficult to come up with, to notice, to see with just a little bit of common sense; and it bothers me that companies spend so much money on “research” that tell them just that: state the obvious.

In addition to the link/example above, and with all due respect to the people at white paper source, they came up with a Social Media Marketing report that had been well received (and appreciated) within the industry, and people are going crazy over findings such as:

“Nearly all marketers who’ve been doing social media marketing for years report it generates exposure for their business and a significant 64.86% strongly agree.”

I mean, I would hope so. If I were aspiring to become a professional athlete trying to to catch the attention of scouts/professional teams, and have years trying, I hope my chances of being noticed increase over time (assuming I’m talented enough and have the right agent = for our sake, a good Social Media marketing agency).

“Improved search engine rankings were most prevalent among those who’ve been using social media for years, with nearly 80% reporting a rise (and most reporting a strong improvement).”

Again, if out of all the guys trying to get signed, I’m the one who’s been doing it the longest (and assuming we are all at the same level), I should be ahead in the ranking, don’t you think?

The idea of Social Media is to be spontaneous, genuine, personal, using common sense; and although the program has some great information, we should try to devote our resources (time, money, personnel) to figure out what are the ever-changing cultural insights that can help us make a human connection with our consumers without being intrusive, and help this new business model evolve.

Aroldo Nery

Social Media Brand Director @ The Re Agency

When you think of social networks and social media in general you don’t quite conjure up an image of Albert Einstein and Sir Issac Newton gushing laughter and tweeting away about their uber productive days. The image tends to create itself in a (let’s say) less advanced light.

However the days of social networking are evolving, in the least likeliest of places.

A recent endeavor funded in part by the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) could be the beginning of something that will benefit and connect the greatest minds of the 21st century.

Known as myExperiment; the new forum will essentially be a social networking site where scientists can share information and make connections with other scientists.  The site was developed in a joint venture by  Professor David De Roure and Professor Carole Goble and their goal is simple, to facilitate and aggregate information in a digital community.

‘We are introducing new approaches to make research more reproducible, reusable and reliable…‘Research Objects are self-contained pieces of reproducible research which we will share in the future in the way that papers are shared today.’ as said by Professor De Roure.

myExperiment will be synced with other established e-science sites already in use; Eprints which is a research repository in Southampton University and the new e-Scholar institutional repository from Manchester University.

Although it may seem a bit strange at first, it’s not surprising that the worlds most brilliant minds are using the new mediums of communications to possibly save the world.. and do that other amazing stuff they do that I can’t even wrap my mind around without having a stage 5 panic attack i.e. space time continuums, black holes, and such.

Transmitted via Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science

Sheila

Social Media Communications Specialist @ The Re Agency

When it comes to Social Media, here at RE, we don’t just refer to the physical (well, virtual) space in which these conversations take place. We analyze the overall spectrum of the Internet as an independent world with a culture of its own.

If you’re managing a brand, I’m sure you are aware of the importance of understanding the ever-changing cultural landscape in which we (and your brand) live in. Just to give you an example (and to keep it simple), throughout the last year or so, many people have noticed changes in their reading habits, mainly influenced by their “addiction” to the internet, and started wondering if Google is making us stupid.

Now, I’m not here to tell you what to think about that, but I will tell you however, that no matter what our opinion is on the subject matter, there is no way of pulling the breaks on this express train.
Although I can personally relate to Paul Davis on the importance of finding time to “slow-read” a book away from the distractions of the numerous browsers we’re constantly dealing with, I agree with blogger Lethe Basher with the idea that we’re experiencing a shift from a Readerly Culture (paid journalists) to a Writerly one (online community), in which more and more people are writing about what they are reading and watching.

I believe an active, writerly culture is far more intelligent than a passive, readerly one, Basher says, and I agree. We like to write, and I’m not talking about essays, blogs, etc. I’m talking about writing as a way of “instant” communicating with each other. As a culture, we’ve learned to choose writing (SMS, Facebook Facebookmessages, TwitterTwitter, e-mails, etc); over lets say, face-to-face conversation, telephone, even SkypeSkype; because it gives us the freedom to think our response. It gives us the opportunity to sound smarter, funnier, cooler. It gives us time to react appropriately to certain arguments. Even if the time it takes for you to respond to a text message is three minutes, you have those 180 seconds to think what you’re going to say. I mean, you can’t leave someone on the other side of a phone conversation waiting for three minutes while you think about what you’re going to say, can you?

Are we getting dumber? I doubt it. As a society we’ve done it over and over again: adapting to new forms of communication and using it to our advantage, from Gutenberg’s introduction of the printing press to Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone and beyond. Nicolas Carr writes in his Is Google making us stupid article:

“Sometime in 1882 Friedrich Nietzsche bought a typewriter…One of Nietzsche’s friends, a composer, noticed a change in the style of his writing. His already terse prose had become even tighter, more telegraphic…’You are right,’ Nietzsche replied, ‘our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.”

We’re evolving, changing; so is it dumb to prefer text message to talk to a girl, over let’s say, a phone call? After last night, I’d say it’s smarter (one more evidence that we’re using these advances to our favor). Why? Last night, my friend was constantly on the phone, texting back and forth with this girl, so I asked him why he didn’t just call her. He looked at me as if I was crazy and asked me: “why would I?… Do you know how many of the last six messages I’ve replied have been with your help?” Indeed. He’d asked my opinion and would choose words carefully, crafting his ideas, type and re-type, receiving smiley faces from the girl, lolLOL reviewss and “u r so cute” type of answers -crafting his plot- that would eventually lead him to his final goal: to go out with her.

Seriously, how can one blow out a date over text message, if you’re given the time to react, to think? In the Internet world a lot of time means minutes, seconds; but time nonetheless. So for you brands out there, you have the time to respond to what this “writerly culture” is saying about you, and only a well-crafted message can get you a date with your target audience.

Aroldo Nery

Social Media Brand Director @ The Re Agency

Since we’re all about helping brands and companies connect with their consumers in new and innovative ways, we’ve created a visual guide of how social networks can help you do just that..

So for those of you who need to get up to speed and simply want to learn how social media builds links to consumers. This breakdown’s for you:

Enjoy!