Yesterday I arrived home from Oklahoma City (I was speaking at the Women Entrepreneurs Inspire conference) and when collecting my mail my attention was drawn to a brown envelope that said Important Information Enclosed.  It didn’t have my name on it, instead it was addressed “Dear Neighbor”.

Hmmm – perhaps there is something important going on in my community that I need to know about.

Maybe there is something important from a neighborhood group, local chamber of commerce or the city.

Sadly that was not the case.  It was a piece of junk mail from Time Warner Cable (note that they excluded their name from the front of the envelope).

Hmmm.

Dear Neighbor? I am not your neighbor.  Do you live here?  Are you a resident of my neighborhood?  Actually, Time Warner, you aren’t.  According to the dictionary a neighbor is “a person who lives near another”.  You are not a person and you don’t live near me.  Don’t try to trick me with false terminology to earn my trust and ultimately waste my time.

Important Information Enclosed. There is no important information.  Although it does say that I have been “pre-approved” to get cable through them.  How nice.  A personal letter to let me know that they are willing to take my money and allow me to be a customer.  The headline says “Three Innovative Services, One Good:time.”  That isn’t important to me.  It probably isn’t important to anyone.  If you did have important information for me you probably could have used my name.  My bank sends me stuff that says “Important Notice” and it usually is – changes to the terms and services of my bank or something relevant.  Maybe I am more aware of how lame this is because I just finished reading Trust Agents.

The Immediate Results of Deception: Higher Open Rate

I would suspect that by writing misleading things on the envelope they probably get higher open rates (I opened it after all).  I bet that Time Warner had tested a variety of different headings on their mailers and found that this got the highest open rates.  You know what would have made it even higher?  Subjects like “Someone in your family died” or  “Audit notice from IRS”.  Neither of these would be accurate either, but I bet the open rates are great. (OK, maybe I am being a little dramatic, but you get the point).

Social Media Application

It reminds me of things that you are seeing in social media (especially recently on twitter).  I get a DM that says “click here to learn more about me” and it is an affiliate link to some MLM scheme or a get rich quick site.  When you can effectively lie to people about what they are clicking on you can sometimes get more clicks.  That is what those phishing scams do when they say “lol – is this you in the video?” and you click to a link that gets your twitter password and hacks your account.  Misleading headlines can get clicks.  That is for sure.

The Medium Term Results of Deception: Nothing

The problem with these types of bait and switch marketing tactics is that they don’t produce real results.  So, I opened the “important information” from “my neighbor”.  It was something from Time Warner.  I didn’t even read it (except for the purposes of throwing it away).  If I was interested in cable or changing internet I would have opened it with the correct label on the front.  The fact that you tricked me to open it doesn’t make me more interested.

At the same time, I bet that some people who open it (even out of deception) do end up responding.  I would assume this is the case, otherwise they probably wouldn’t do it.  The question is “are those extra sales worth your reputation?”

Social Media Application

When you click on a link that wasn’t what it said it was, what is the impact?  You probably navigate away pretty quickly.  Sure, they stole a few seconds of your life, but after your confusion settled you probably didn’t stick around to check out their service.  In fact, you were probably annoyed and unfollowed the person who sent you the stupid link.

The Long Term Results of Deception: Lack of Trust

The problem with these tactics is that they generate a lack of trust.  The worst case scenario is that someone I me gets it and is annoyed enough to take some sort of action (blog post, emailing the company, etc).  More likely is that it creates a lack of trust with the company.  It makes the company look weak – they have to trick me to get me to read their stupid ad.  It violates my trust since they lied to me.  It makes me question their integrity.  It is also disrespectful and insulting to me.  It also has the impact of the boy who cried wolf – if they ever really try to send me something of value I probably won’t believe them.

Social Media Application

When someone tricks you with their spam links it violates your trust.  You will probably stop following them and maybe even flag them as spam.  Over time, as this grows, we’ll invent technical solutions to punish these people – like spam filters or sites like twitter freezing accounts.  In the long run you lose out from this behavior.  People won’t trust any information from you and will be hesitant to click on your links.

If Your Message Doesn’t Suck you Don’t Need Deception

Here is the thing – if you really have a great message or an “important offer” you shouldn’t have to use tactics to deceive me to get my attention.  If the headline read “awesome deal to save you $$ on your cable and internet” I would have known what it was about and only opened it if I was interested.

What do you think?  Have examples of this?

Fan, Friend, Follow, Like -- all of these words have taken on new levels of meaning thanks to social media. It may have even motivated Facebook’s just-announced changes around Fan and Like.

Fan Pages will still function the same way, but “people will soon be able to connect with your Page by clicking 'Like' rather than 'Become a Fan.' People already 'Like' their friends' status updates, photos and links on a daily basis. In fact, people click 'Like' almost two times more than they click 'Become a Fan' everyday. 'Like' offers a simple, consistent way for people to connect with the things they are interested in. These lighter-weight actions mean people will make more connections across the site, including with your Facebook Page.”

“I DO like you in that way”
Social media has driven several “lighter-weight actions.” While it used to be about minimizing clicks, social media technology and design eliminates them if possible. Technologies like OAuth and Facebook Connect make it simple to login to sites and Twitter has tweaked itself to make Retweeting and Following possible without leaving the current screen. The use of “light box” design has also become prevalent to ensure users can quickly and easily Tweet, vote, login and more without leaving the current screen. This also eliminates the need for a new window or dialog box which can be blocked by browsers that can assume it’s a pop-up ad.

Connect the Dots
The Facebook news doesn’t require any immediate actions. Over time it will be easy to phase in Like, instead of Become a Fan. But taking a quick inventory of where a brand flies its Facebook flag is a proactive move. In fact, a smarter move is to review a brand’s customer touch points and make sure Facebook and Twitter buttons are used where it makes sense. This does not mean brands should festoon everything possible with Twitter and Facebook badges. But marketers have hard-earned, established connections with customers, including web sites and e-mail newsletters. Some of these connections are an obvious opportunity to promote a brand’s social media presence. It can benefit acquisition but, more importantly, it also lets the customer choose how they interact with a brand.

Related:
Facebook Friends Are Not Created Equal: Filter Connections to Find Relationships
Facebook Wants You to “Like” Brands
The Spectrum of Online Friendship 

Facebook uploaded by Balakov
Cross-posted to my work blog, Social Study

There’s an unwritten rule among people who write jokes. If I tell you an original joke, you are free to retell it. The first three times, it’s only polite to mention where you got it. But after that, drive it like you stole it.Over at Marketing with Meaning, Bob Gilbreath is giving us the rundown on the sights, sounds and lessons of SXSWi10. As I didn’t get to make the trip this year, I’m

There’s an unwritten rule among people who write jokes. If I tell you an original joke, you are free to retell it. The first three times, it’s only polite to mention where you got it. But after that, drive it like you stole it.Over at Marketing with Meaning, Bob Gilbreath is giving us the rundown on the sights, sounds and lessons of SXSWi10. As I didn’t get to make the trip this year, I’m

There’s an unwritten rule among people who write jokes. If I tell you an original joke, you are free to retell it. The first three times, it’s only polite to mention where you got it. But after that, drive it like you stole it.Over at Marketing with Meaning, Bob Gilbreath is giving us the rundown on the sights, sounds and lessons of SXSWi10. As I didn’t get to make the trip this year, I’m

This infographic from We Love Datavis reminded me of a dusty post from the first iteration of "Strategic Public Relations" -- circa October 2002.

After eight years, it still applies. So in honor of St. Patrick's Day, I am foisting this content on you once again.

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One of my mentors always told me about the art of strategic neglect. He took the concept from the book "On Becoming a Servant-Leader."

It's a fancy way to talk about basic time management and effectively managing your work.

Basically your customers are an infinite vessel. You could work 24/7 on their requests and never be "DONE" with your work. As a result, you must practice the art of strategic neglect. Strategic neglect realizes that there is typically more work to be done than there is time and energy to do.

Therefore it becomes just as important to know what to neglect as it is to know what to do. Prioritize your projects, focus on the most important item and neglect those less important items until they become a priority. You will be more effective.

Things to do/Time uploaded by theonlyone

One of the best professional development series in social media is coming to town with BlogWell Cincinnati April 7th at the Duke Energy Center. It’s an impressive line-up of professionals using social media to advance the business objectives of their respective organizations. The line-up is heavy with practical experience and you can expect lessons that will apply beyond the digital realm and