Posts Tagged ‘Gowalla’

September20

Computer contact isn’t human contact.

By: Spike Jones

And this is something that I’m reminded of just about every. Single. Day.

The latest reminder comes from young gun and all-around over-deliverer here at FH Texas, Marc Matthews, who is on daily Facebook duty for one of our clients.

As professionals, we are SO caught up in this social media echo chamber that just seems to get louder and louder everyday. We debate best practices and all have our own opinions on how things should be done. We scrutinize case studies and guide our clients through the landmines of digital fields. Facebook, Twitter, Gowalla, Foursquare. Shiny object over here. Shiny object over there.

But fundamentally, at our core, we crave human contact. Sure, it’s nice to get retweeted or get a comment or three on Facebook. But it’ll never, ever, EVER replace human contact. Not too many years ago, I found my birth mother using the interwebs. And while it was cool to learn about her on the internet, actually MEETING her face-to-face was something that emails or digital pictures or anything done behind a glass screen with a keyboard and a bunch of wires can’t trump. Ever.

So while you’re out there devising your digital strategy to take over the world, remember that you’re only working on one piece of the puzzle. Word of mouth is still social media’s daddy. And 90% of WOM happens offline. So it’s great if you make contact with someone via digital means, because it can be the beginning of something great. But when you connect the dots between online and offline, then you’ve got something much more tangible and much more powerful.

Posted in: lessons learned, marketing, rants, word of mouth2 comments

April6

Odds and Ends

By: Spike Jones

I’ve got a lot of things floating around in my head, so I’m going to use this post to get them down on “paper.” They will be random, but stay with me.

1. Derek Sivers recently gave a talk at TED about how to start a movement. I wrote a post about this based on the same video he uses back in June, but David pulls some new insights from it. My favorite quotes, “Nurture your first few followers as equals, so the movement is not about you.” “Leadership is overglorified. The first follower is the one that transforms the lone nut into a leader.” “If you really want to start a movement, have the courage to follow and show others how to follow.”

2. I’m about to take the Foursquare/Gowalla plunge. I’ve held off for just about as long as I can. And what fascinates me about these new apps and what’s left out of all the buzz is that these are some of the first (popular) apps out there that are bridging the gap between online and offline. We are about to witness a rapid evolution and will be able to trace it back to these two.

3. As I’m prone to do, I’ve been thinking more about Social Media consultants lately. First of all, I’d like to clarify that I’m not a hater of all SM consultants. But if you know me, you know that I put all my stock in successful practitioners instead of those who talk a big game, but have no real success stories with clients to show for it.

Like I said, I’ve been rethinking that. And I believe these folks who spend all day on Twitter trying to build and maintain their following and who have no real experience are actually good for the industry. Because while the rest of us are actually doing the work, they are doing all the yelling – which gets the industry attention. So they do serve their purpose.

I told you they were random thoughts.

Posted in: junk drawer, marketing5 comments

© Copyright askspike.com. All Rights Reserved.