When Social Media Went Mainstream…

Originally uploaded by loscuadernosdejulia

I suppose in a way this may be the indication of spending too much time in Social Media. And yet, had you been in my place, would you not react in the same way to the letters “RSS”?

I posted recently about the Social Media Cafe in Manchester, and by the look of it one of the members is about to start a blog. From where I and a few pals stand, things looks bright for Social Media and its use in Manchester, as elsewhere. But there are yet too many hurdles to overcome. Whilst my journalist friends are looking at the use of Social Media tools in the traditional media, I decided to narrate the two experiences I have recently had in dealing with an art depository and a fashion network’s event. In the light of this experience, Manchester has got a lot to improve.

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It’s been twice in the space of November that I had to deal with the rather suspicious attitude to Social Media, and blogging in particular. First, I went to one of Manchester’s major museums where it turned out that I needed to fill out a photography permission form. I know the collection well: I have been visiting the museum since 2002; a lot of paintings displayed there are in the “knowledge minimum” for the History of Art, which I do know well, being an historian; and, most importantly, I can access many, if not all of them, online, either via the gallery’s website or via several online museums.

The pictures I wanted to take were therefore not “for personal study purposes”: for those purposes I can browse the images online, or read a specialist monograph. I wanted to take the photos of paintings as they are in the gallery space, in frames, among other works, possibly with the visitors standing in front of them. The photos would be uploaded to Flickr and used on my Arts and Culture blog, to tell my visitors about the collection.

Some of you may already be asking themselves: who would need that, if the gallery has got a website? This is a good question. My answer is: the gallery’s website does not provide a feel of the collection. I see my duty as a blogger to tell precisely about this side of the museum, rather than some well-known facts, and for that I need pictures of the gallery space. As a visitor, I am empowered by a few means to make the gallery collection appear more vibrant and appealing to prospective visitors – and I don’t ask to be paid for it.

Update: I have been given a permission to use the photographs after I showed which ones I was going to use. I was also explained the problems the depository encounters even when trying to produce the photographic images on display for their own purposes. There are still many things that the museum can do to improve their interaction with Social Media, and their use of up-to-date means of online communication on the website is one of the things that are begging to be changed.

In hindsight, I should probably have written to the museum, explaining my intention. My only excuse is that this was the first time in England that I had to ask for a photography permission: I genuinely assumed that this would not be a problem as it has not been with very many other art collections and depositories where I have taken photos previously. I generally have no problem with photography not being allowed at the special exhibitions. But the collection in question is on a regular display.

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So, an art collection that does not deploy Social Media tools and is generally against the use thereof by others. But here we may be dealing with the case of “old-fashioned” thinking that can be pointed to a correction path by the overwhelming proof of the goodness of Social Media for museums. Another example of a very strange attitude to things comes from the fashion side. This post is only intended to highlight the problem, rather than to go into details. However, my recent experience of visiting a fashion networking event in Manchester has not left the most favourable impression. It was held in the network’s private club in Central Manchester, and the road to the hub of fashion could not be any more dangerous than the one down the abismally lit spiral staircase. Inside, however, I was greeted by a rather cold appreciation of Social Media: “huh, a blogger?” The network’s website is just as ‘private’ as their venue, and by the look of it does not aspire to become any more ’social’ in terms of the use of various SM tools.

This is the problem that I noticed across many fashion brands’ websites. Whilst I can see the necessity to restrict access to certain portions of the website, I honestly struggle to see how this necessity relates to images. The brands go the extra mile to ensure it is impossible to take a screen grab – but what they do not seem to realise is that one can use a regular camera to photograph the screen, if this is absolutely necessary. What happens next, is down to three questions: 1) will the user give a proper name to their picture (i.e. ‘paul-smith-pin-up-girls-cufflinks), in which case it is searchable, or leave it as something like ‘IMG_1234′, which really tells you nothing; 2) will the user credit the website for the use of the picture; and 3) will the brand know about this off-page activity. The answers to the first two questions are on the user’s conscience, but the third question is entirely upon the conscience of the brand.

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At the end of it all, the question I am asking myself, is: who is currently using Social Media in the UK? Naturally, people with the background in Media, Music and Marketing sectors have so far been the most outspoken supporters of this new means of communication and distribution of content – whilst the ‘Art’ and even Fashion industry lag significantly behind. But what really puzzles me is how the Social Media really is being perceived by these late adopters. The suspicion and a degree of arrogance that I noticed – and the fact that on many fashion brands’ websites there is no single bookmarking button (not even ’share this on Facebook’) – made me think that the Social Media folks are perhaps currently on the same bench, as once was the bourgeoisie class, snorted at by the old aristocracy. We know, of course, how the story went.

Following the yesterday announcement, this is an update about a talk on Email Marketing at Interactive Marketing 2008, presented by Lee Chadwick of CommuniGator. I wrote an article (below), and if you want to see some pictures from the event, visit Interactive Marketing photoset on Flickr.

GlamOnWeb Email Newsletter with Disabled Images

GlamOnWeb Email Newsletter with Enabled Images

How often do you get marketing emails into your mailbox? One of my mailboxes is regularly suffocating not only with spam, but with some good emails from trustworthy organisations. Unfortunately, they often use images in the template. Fortunately for me, I’m interested in their content (La Perla lingerie, for instance, or Victoria and Albert Museum newsletters), so I click on “allow images” to read that particular email. The biggest problem is that the image usually contains not just an illustration of the product, but the details of the offer, as well. So, had I not been interested and deleted the email without opening or clicking through to the website, the success of the Email Marketing campaign of that particular organisation would instantly decrease.

Lee Chadwick of CommuniGator Talking Email Marketing at GMex in Manchester

This point was precisely among those that Lee Chadwick of Communigator touched upon during his talk on Email Marketing at Interactive Marketing 2008 in Manchester. As one of the leaders in Email Marketing, Communigator has developed a successful business strategy to help brands and businesses to get the top results from their marketing campaign. And what one needs to bear in mind – especially at the unstable time of financial crisis – is that a marketing campaign has to be successful, regardless of its budget.

To achieve that, Email Marketing campaign should be automatic by at least 80% and must be an integral part of a business’s general marketing campaign. I must admit that each and every time I hear speakers reiterate this point about integration of different kinds of marketing into one campaign I cannot stop wondering how well they are actually being heard by businesses. What looks and sounds like common sense in theory is, in fact, not when it comes down to practice.

Further to the automatic and dynamic creation of content, a successful Email Marketing campaign has to be relevant to its end user. Since recipient is interested in content (and to read it, he or she will spend some minutes of precious time and a certain amount of bandwidth), it is vital that this content is right and engaging.

Say, you are writing a copy for your newsletter’s headline. How to know if it is engaging? In some companies, apparently, they write the copies on the board, turn off the light in the room, close the door, and then storm back in the room, and turn on the light. The most engaging is the headline that instantly catches the attention of the majority. There may be other ways of testing the headline text, and you can always rely on Google’s format of 25 characters for the ad title copy, to get the idea of how short and attention-grabbing your message should be. Ultimately, though, your task is to reach out to the existing or potential customer.

This means, in turn, that the right headline and no broken images or text are only the beginning. To reach out to the customer we need to speak to him or her, and this affects not only the style of speech, but also the content of the newsletter. In terms of style, you can use a newsletter template to dynamically generate the welcome phrase, say: “Dear Jim, here is your November newsletter”. Most crucially, though – and this was the most important part of Lee’s talk as far as I am concerned – if you have a website and have access to the data about your visitors (which you should have), you must use the data to generate highly personalised newsletters.

Why is this a must? A woman who is also curious enough, I often grim upon hearing the word “personalised”. Instead of making me feel like my wishes are being catered for, the word “personalised” secretly implies to me that my choice is actually narrowed down to the point of being restricted. But no, in this case (especially when we have access to the sophisticated tools that allow you to see the clusters of visitors’ activity on your website) what we have is simply a situation when a visitor’s movement across the site is being analysed and used to supply the visitor with information and news about products the visitor is most likely to buy. If Figleaves analyses my activity on their website, they will see that as a customer I am particularly interested in print and lacy tights and stockings. Thus, ideally they should be sending me an email newsletter focusing precisely on my website browsing history, as well as on my previous purchases. There may be other ways in which you can use your website’s data, but the bottom line is – if you have the data, don’t take it for granted. Analyse it, make the most of it.

Unfortunately, many businesses still do not see the potential of Email Marketing, and because a marketing campaign entails a certain amount of spend, the money is channelled into the well-tested, well-known outlets. As I further spoke to Lee about the potential of Email Marketing for fashion and art organisations, it became clear that these two consistently fail to address their existing or prospective customers in the way that would allow to build not only a brand awareness, but a brand following, which is far more important in terms of the results and the impact of a marketing campaign.

Interactive Marketing 2008 is the must attend event for B2C and B2B marketing and communications professionals. Today is the final day of the event, and there are workshops on Engagement Marketing, user-friendly websites (yes, too many of them are still not), and viral marketing.