Dick Clark's legacy: Interactive teens

By John McGory

“It’s got a beat and you can dance to it.” That phrase summed up the brilliant career of one of America’s great showmen, Dick Clark. He passed away last week at the age of 82.

Clark took over a local Philadelphia teenage music television program, Bandstand, in 1957. 

The national television networks were looking for programming and Clark pitched Bandstand to ABC. The network picked it up and changed the name to AmericanBandstand.  The program first aired August 5, 1957.

Clark’s easy-going style harnessed the power of the young to change popular culture.  He played a key role in merging television, advertising, music, dance and teenagers.

What can modern day advertisers and social media gurus learn from the media-savvy Clark?  What did he do that made American Bandstand a national sensation?

Clark’s biggest plus was not to get in the way. American Bandstand was not about Dick Clark. He wore conservative suits, smiled oh-so politely and introduced new music and culture with a simple wave of the hand.

The show’s highlights were new music, new dances and new clothing styles. Teens in small-town America could see what was hip in Philadelphia and later Los Angeles. The show allowed teens to be interactive.

He asked for their opinions on music and dance. The “Rate-a-Record” segment allowed teens in the studio and at home to judge new music. The phrase, “It’s got a beat and you can dance to it” came from teens judging records that appealed to them.

Clark gave some advertising advice in an article he wrote for Advertising Age in 1972 that still applies today. 

“Make sure commercials are believable.”  One suggestion for believability he had was through the “judicious use of the vernacular of the day.”  He warned not to be caught using out-of-date phrases such as “groovy.”

This advice seems obviously simple.  But take a look at today’s advertising.  Many advertisers are straining their credibility through the use of seemingly hip phrases and stunts that quickly grow cold with overuse.

Youth drives culture. Dick Clark understood that and didn’t try to be a part of the new culture. He said he couldn’t dance and, more importantly, didn’t want to dance. He was a reporter who gave the facts by showing teens as they wanted to be seen. The teens said it had a beat, not Clark.

  

Clark said this about the young. “They’re more fun. They’re not jaded, they keep you young. I’ve seen them lead the way—not only in sociological and political aspects, but out there on the street of commerce.”

Dick Clark’s ability to keep his dignity while still showing the newest trends and styles allowed him to prosper for decades. He didn’t get outdated because he never got sucked into changing along with the culture.    

Today’s marketing and advertising ego-driven world tries so hard to be hip and cool.  Unfortunately, they often end up looking lame.  Clark’s American Bandstand had a simple yet edgy strategy.  He let teens interact and got out of the way.   The world could learn a lot from Clark’s unassuming, hands-off style. 

John McGory is a partner at Webface, an original content creation company.   Let us help you reach your customers in cool ways.      

Women buying power and men

 By John McGory

Some Like it Hot, Billy Wilder’s classic comedy featuring Marilyn Monroe, is about two men who dress as women to hide from the mob.   Jack Lemmon tries to explain to Joe E. Brown in the final scene why he can’t marry him.  After numerous excuses, he pulls off his wig and says “I can’t marry you.  I’m a man!”  To which Brown replies, “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

Men portraying women on screen goes back to Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle and include Dustin Hoffman, Michael J. Fox, Alec Guinness, Tony Curtiss, Robin Williams, Divine, Eddie Murphy, Jerry Lewis and the Wayans Brothers.  The movies are often madcap comedies with the men playing outlandish female characters.

Today’s advertising and social media doesn’t need screwball copywriting.  It does need men who study how women think and act.  Why?   Here are three reasons:

    1.       Eighty-five percent of brand purchases are made by women. 

    2.       Surveys show 91 percent of women feel advertisers do not understand them.

    3.       Only three percent of creative directors for advertising agencies are women.

These statistics suggest the “Mad Men” stereotypes of advertising are alive and well.  Companies and organizations need to realize that women control $19 trillion of our economy.  It wouldn’t hurt to try and understand them a little better.

Here are a few physiological facts that might help a man channel his feminine side.

Women’s brains have more neuron cell bodies, giving them enhanced blood flow and better efficiency.  This may explain why women often learn language better, have a better memory for detail and can fight better than men.

A woman is generally more empathetic, expressive, articulate, diplomatic and sensitive to others feelings.

Trying to understand women is a challenge for men.  Actors playing a role will study mannerisms, facial expressions, speech patterns and body movements.  Great writers do the same.  

If your company or organization wants to reach women customers through social media and advertising, then paying close attention to how they think and feel is critical to your success.  What is funny or interesting to a man can very easily fall on deaf ears to a woman.  You need to know your customer.

Thomas Hardy, the English author, wrote in the great novel Tess of the Urbervilles “Did it ever strike your mind that what every woman says, some women may feel?”  Men, we aren’t perfect and never will be, but keeping Hardy and your audience in mind may help you be a little more sensitive and successful. 

John McGory is a partner at Webface, an original content marketing company.  We produce videos and copy that can reach your clients.

Making a good impression by engaging your community

By John McGory 

This blog loves history.  It also loves the Internet and social media.  Put them together and you realize that when old meets new, powerful friends can be created.

Today’s history lesson starts with The Impressions, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame soul band out of Chicago via Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Curtis Mayfield and Jerry Butler led the group to a string of 1960s and 1970s hits. 

The civil rights movement used many of their songs as anthems. The songs often encouraged community engagement.  Community engagement promotes trust building and arm linking, while raising awareness and visibility.

The band’s 1969 hit, “A Choice of Colors,” http://youtu.be/Zr0SLv9WFr4 captured in a powerful way the importance of improving as a nation through community engagement.  One of the inspiring stanzas in the song was:    

People must prove to the people

A better day is coming for you and for me

With just a little more education

And love for our nation

Would make a better society

The Impressions call for community engagement was not a new one. In the late 1800s, English common law advanced the concept of community engagement.  It was used as a way to actively implement change.

Fast-forward to today and it’s clear that social media and the Internet are the contemporary active agents of change.  So, is not surprising that one of the mantras of social media is to build community through engaging others in conversation.

The emphasis in community engagement is to build honest relationships for the sake of community, not for the sole purpose of moneymaking.  That is what is now termed “content marketing” in social media circles.

If your company or organization is active on the Internet, then you need a community engagement plan.   Here is an eight-step program for such a strategy:

1.       Determine the goals of the plan

2.       Decide on whom to engage

3.       Develop engagement strategies for those you already know

4.       Develop engagement strategies for those you do not know

5.       Prioritize those activities

6.       Create an implementation system

7.       Monitor your progress

8.       Maintain those relationships

This simple plan for community engagement works whether you are selling lawn mowers or improved community relations.  The purpose is to build trust and understanding through conversation.  The Internet simply allows you to expand to a wider community outside of your neighborhood.

You build a community when “people prove to the people a better day is coming for you and for me.”  If your fans don’t think a better day is coming, then why would they want to be in your community?

Social media and the Internet reach more people than Curtis Mayfield could have ever dreamed of when he wrote “A Choice of Colors.”  But the words of the song are more appropriate than ever.   Community engagement is a 120-year-old concept on how people change.  Social media is its new powerful friend.

John McGory is a partner at Webface, a content marketing company www.web-face-solutions.com. Let Webface help you engage your community and give your fans the hope that a better day is coming. 

Are Universities Today's Living Dinosaurs?

By John McGory

Social media is the greatest “do-it-yourself” communications tool of all time. Unlike the printing press, telegraph, telephone, radio and television, social media unleashes the power of the individual to communicate to the world.

Social media puts the printing press into each of our hands.  It makes us television producers, columnists and telegraph operators.  We can form and enrich relationships with people around the world and down the street.  “Social” in this context means much more than a “howdy-doo neighbor.”

This medium is still in its infancy. We will determine what it grows up to be.  Our hands are on the controls. How will it change us?  Here are a few potential areas. 

Social media will further democratize knowledge.  The printing press took the power of knowledge away from the Church and made it secular.  Social media will do the same to large institutions.  Universities, governments and corporations will face challenges.

Advertising will not be the obtrusive ogre that has stalked us for decades.  People will exchange information among peers regarding products and services.  Companies that abuse our trust will suffer.  Television, radio and newspapers will not hold the captive audiences they once did, so molding public opinion will be challenging.

Politics will see rapid change.  Like-minded people will find it easier to collaborate on issues.  Politicians will bypass traditional media sources and speak directly to the people, but this freedom comes with a price.  Politicians who lie to the public will be sent packing.  Campaign contributors may wield less influence as social media reintroduces democracy to our political system.

Social media will drive down profit margins.  The flow of information among people will expose cost differentials among similar products.  Businesses will need to keep up with lower-priced competitors or face the consequences.

So how does a business prepare for such tumultuous change?  Here are a few simple “do-it-yourself” activities:

1.  Get training on how to effectively use social media. Owners need to quit pretending social media is a fad and understand its implications to business.

2.  Review your advertising mix and track its effectiveness.  If certain forms of your advertising have slumped it may not be due to the recession.  Fundamental changes are taking place and it may be time to try new strategies.

3.  Tell the truth.  The fastest way to oblivion is deceiving your customers.

4.  Don’t oversell when using social media.  How bored are you when someone tries to sell you insurance at a cocktail party?  Social media is the same.  Bores will not be tolerated.

Social media will change the world forever.  Its power is not yet fully understood.  What is established, however, is that we are not going back to traditional advertising, politics and business as usual. 

Aldous Huxley’s wrote in Brave New World that “When the individual feels, the community reels.”  Social media allows the individual to feel and tell his friends all about it.  The community is beginning to reel.

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 John McGory is a partner at Web Face (www.web-face-solutions.com) , a marketing and communications company that helps businesses and organizations prepare for the future. 

When Peanut Butter Met Jelly

By John McGory

Dean Keith Simonton, in his 1989 book “Scientific Genius,” suggests that geniuses are superior because they form more novel combinations than the merely talented.

Exciting new opportunities or experiences are possible through novel combos.  When peanut butter met jelly, magic happened.  The same can be said for Monday nights and football, sizzle and steak, Oreos and milk, spandex and clothing and recliners, remote controls and flat screen TVs.  Once the atom of creativity is split between entities, the fusion of genius is created.

The rush to social media for business applications is impressive.  Companies of all shapes and sizes are creating Facebook fan pages, Twitter accounts and blogs.  But in many cases, rather than creating magic, these efforts are provoking ire from the boss who wonders why they are paying someone to tweet, “Have a nice day.”

Like Einstein and energy, mass and the speed of light, astonishing business results come from the combining of ideas.  It takes a truly creative mind to fuse unlikely combinations that turn a zipper into Velcro.  But it doesn’t take Lennon and McCartney to put together simple social media and business ideas to make sweet music.

Think strategically about how your company uses its newsletters, blogs, social media and web sites in tandem.  These vehicles need to act in unison to create community and eventually drive traffic to your web site.

After scratching our collective heads over our own web site, social media channels, blogs and newsletter, we at Web Face decided to coordinate two or three messages at a time.  Here are some non-techie ideas on how to put it together.

1.  Create a blog.  Keep it short, in the 150-to-500-word range.  Make it topical, interesting and fun. Entice the reader to want to know more about your company without pushing a hard sell.  If you have different topics, create several blogs and include a link to your web site.  Write catchy headlines.  Hire talent if you don’t have the staff to create attention.

2.  Create an email newsletter.  In the newsletter put two or three teasers about your last few blogs.  Link the blog so people can find it.

3.  Tweet your blogs and post them on your web site or Facebook page.  Track your blogs to see where your traffic is coming from – your tweets, your Facebook page or your newsletter?    

4.  Track which topics drive traffic.  Improve the system as you progress.

The key is to take a couple catchy blog ideas at a time and promote them using the social media tools available.  This combo of your ideas and social media tools will bring more customers to you.  It isn’t peanut butter and jelly, but this simple lesson on combining ideas can bring a new appreciation of the power of the Internet.

John McGory is a partner at Web Face.  Web Face (www.web-face-solutions.com) can help you combine the ideas that will make your company’s social media efforts soar.

Vaudeville Tips for Going Viral in Peoria

By John McGory

Does your social media business plan “play in Peoria?”  If not, then consider a few 100-year-old tips from the vaudeville stage to attract an audience to your tired Facebook act. 

Vaudeville was the main form of entertainment in our country from the 1880s through the early 1930s.  The term vaudeville came from the French phrase “voix de ville” or voice of the city.

Social media is today’s vaudeville.  Our “voix de ville” comes from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

The original vaudeville show was a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill.  Comedians, singers, dancers, Shakespearian actors, jugglers, freaks and anyone else who could entertain an audience shared stages across America.

Entertainers strived to refine their acts to work their way from the small towns to the big-time venues of New York and Chicago.  “Will it play in Peoria?” was vaudeville’s mantra, as promoters knew talent would shine through no matter where it played.

The similarities of vaudeville and social media are hard to miss. Many gather on common digital platforms these days to provide entertainment, social commentary and business, all on the same bill.  Statistics show that more than 90 percent of Americans work to be noticed in the social media theater.

Yet many businesses still struggle on the social media stage.   They strive for the big time but too often end up getting the hook.  Here are five vaudeville principles that apply to your social media efforts. 

1.      Keep it clean. Vaudeville promoters passed out blue envelopes each Monday to acts that used lewd language or themes, warning them to change the material or be blackballed.  Off color content will repel more people than attract. Keep your web sites, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts PG clean.

2.      Know your audience.  Vaudeville comedians drew on numerous accents for their acts.  They would not, however, make fun of Germans in a town full of Germans.  They made fun of Italians.  (ba-dah-bing) Be relevant, not repulsive.   

3.      Content rules.  Milton Berle, the late vaudeville and television comedian, said it took 18 months to two years to develop seven minutes of good stand-up comedy.  Having quality social media content takes time, effort, talent and continuous editing.      

4.      Pay for talent.  Telling a joke does not make you a comedian.  Hire the talent to make your web site and social media channels crackle with excitement.  The business owner is the promoter, not the act.

5.      Keep it current.  Audiences in 1920 wanted to hear Swanee, not By the Old Mill Stream, which was so 1910.  Vaudeville audiences wanted fresh, exciting and fun stuff.  Your audience wants the same.  Update your social media material on a regular basis.  If it never changes, you’ll be playing to an empty house.

Keep these ideas in mind as you try to attract an audience for your business.  And who knows?  If it plays in Peoria, it just might go viral!

Why do you think most business social media campaigns don't attract an audience?  Too boring?  Visually unappealing?  What one tip would you give to make a social media campaign zing?

John McGory is a partner in Web Face, a Columbus communications and marketing company that will help your company “Play in Peoria.”

Women Make the Social Media World Go 'Round

By Martha Wilson

Men have long lorded over the remote in the home, but move over Rover, there's a new in-house sheriff when it comes to social media.

Arguably women have always been the better networkers, so a recent Digital Year in Review whitepaper that showed females making leaps and bounds in time spent on social media was not exactly a bombshell.

Link that with Pew Research Center findings that men make choices in only about 26 percent of all couples, and you're left with one conclusion--women make the social media world go 'round by being the deciders. That bodes very well for businesses doing social media marketing to the X chromosomes gender.

For most women, social media is a fabulous tool to connect with like-minded individuals, to locate needed products and to speed up multitasking in order to gain more time with the people they love.

“Companies looking to reach women — whether as consumers, entrepreneurs, employees, or advocates — have an unprecedented opportunity through social media to engage them,” says Jessica Faye Carter, author of the Technicultr blog. “For women, social media presents abundant opportunities to lead, effect change, innovate, and build relationships across sectors, locally, nationally, and globally.”

Conversations between companies and female consumers are moving beyond “what do you want?” types of questions to getting real-time feedback from women on products, services, and marketing campaigns—sometimes before they go to market.

For instance, in China, Unilever, the makers of Pond’s Age Miracle moisturizer, asked bloggers to try the cream and share findings. That risk paid off. Consumers gave the moisturizer a big thumbs up, leading to the adoption of social media strategies by other Unilever offices in Asia.

And Kmart launched a new program, Smart Shoppers Unite, which mixes deals with shopping advice and lifestyle discussions. Features include tips from The Frugalista, a popular bargain-shopping blogger, coupon section and games. This network is interest-based — anyone interested in budget-conscious shopping can join.

No doubt, social media is becoming a major tool for women of all interests, says JoAnn Bamberger, author of Mothers of Intention: How Women and the Social Media are Revolutionizing Politics in America.

“I think we love our villages and we love reaching out to the people we know and interacting with them and sharing our stories and experiences,” Bamberger says. “I think that's something that the world of social media has allowed women to do in a way as never before.”

So, what’s the bottom line? The research is clear. Go after the deciders – women buyers – using social media platforms to boost your bottom line.



Social media helps women spend more time with the ones they love.

 Martha Wilson is an associate at Web Face, www.web-face-solutions.com

Taco Bell and the Magnetic Boy

How about that Taco Bell baby shower?       

Facebook has introduced brand tags that let users promote products in their photo posts.  "Hey did you really have your baby shower at Taco Bell?"  Stephen Colbert finds this all too creepy as he skewers the social media giant in this video.  Check it out here.   http://on.mash.to/lZKM5M

Junior is coming over, hide the silverware

In Web Face's never-ending effort to show you the world is even stranger than you thought we introduce the magnetic kid.   Yes, this six-year-old Croatian boy has forks, cans and even 50-lb objects sticking to him.  Now skeptics abound saying the kid is only sticky as a typical six-year-old.  Watch the video here and decide for yourself.  http://huff.to/kD2W8p

In God we trust..All others bring statistics

If someone is whispering in your ear "Psst..you wanna buy some newspaper advertising space cheap"  then maybe you should read this post: "100 Awesome Marketing Stats, Charts and Graphs."  Social media is not this year's Pet Rock and here are the stats to prove it.  Check it out here http://zite.to/mEVFW2

Vitameatavegamin-It's tasty too!

Is your web site tired and listless?  Does it poop out at parties?  Do you need video to add vitality to your site?  Then reach for a dose of Web Face to put some pep back into your internet presence.   Check out our new and improved web site to see how Web Face can bring your social media efforts back to life.  You got questions???  Give us a call and arrange for a Complete Social Media Check Up today. 

http://web-face-solutions.com/

And if you want to see one of the funniest skits in the history of recorded film check out Lucille Ball in Vitameatavegamin at http://youtu.be/jVfBRRm7RgI

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Tsunami suicides                                                   April 26, 2011

Suicides are up dramatically in the region where the recent Japanese tsunami hit.  Not an unexpected development considering the devastation and long-term concerns over the problems at the nuclear power plant.  The question is "Does video of the devastation impact the survivors in a negative way?  Is it simply too overwhelming?"  Read more here:  http://huff.to/g9zxeh

Library of Congress

The Web Face logo is not the only thing going on at the Library of Congress.  Here is a discussion on "An anthropological introduction to You Tube."  Now wake up, you are not having a flashback.  It is by Professor Mike Wesch of Kansas State University.  It is long (about an hour) but fascinating look at You Tube and the development of man as a lip-syncing video star.  Check it out at http://youtu.be/TPAO-lZ4_hU

It is all about you.....

That is true.  It is all about you.  But how do we convince people of that?   Tell them.  Over and over again if necessary.  If your company, association or organization needs a speaker for a central Ohio upcoming event, Webface is here to help.  We have a 15-minute to one-hour presentation on video and social media and how to use it to attract attention.  There is no charge  

Will work for food

Webface works with companies and organizations to make sure they are reaching out and grabbing people by the collar and eyeballs.....check us out at www.web-face-solutions.com. 

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