We work with a number of very large organizations, many of whom are just venturing into the social media realm. Without exception, the prevailing notion we encounter is that social media is for young people.

And, in our experience, the people most often likely to ascribe to that notion are middle-aged professionals and businessmen.

Here’s the thing – if you think that way, you’re misinformed. Not a little bit misinformed. A whole lot misinformed. Just because you may not be reading blogs or have a Facebook page, be participating on LinkedIn, engaging in forums, etc., doesn’t mean that everyone else is just like you. In fact, that might just be the most dangerous assumption you could make.

Don’t believe me? I’m used to that – I have 5 year olds. I’ll ask you the same thing I ask my kids – give me the benefit of the doubt before making a final decision. AdAge recently published an infographic outlining the demographics of social media. The stats might surprise you – I know they surprised a lot of our clients.

Focusing entirely on men, while there are certainly a lot of 21-24 year old men on Facebook (17.5% of the entire Facebook user base), there are almost as many 25-29 year old men (13.2%), 34-44 year old men (15.3%) and a surprising number of even OLDER men, those in the 45-54 age group (10.4%). Do “young” men dominate? Sure. But significantly so – not the way I see it.

And I’ll qualify this by also saying that every time we talk about stats there are always naysayers. I get that – I’m routinely one of them. Or at least a skeptic. But I believe best way to assimilate and interpret stats – especially those like these – is to look at multiple sources and compare results before making any judgments as to which are the most accurate. In the comments on the AdAge piece, you’ll see several links to other stats that you might want to explore if you want to dive into this issue more deeply.

Demographics of Social Media Users

Also interesting, from a visual standpoint, is the part of the AdAge infographic, which shows you the differences between males participating on social networks and females participating. As you can see, there are a greater number of men in the 34-54 year old age group participating on LinkedIn than there are participating on Facebook. Doesn’t that only make sense? Is it any big surprise that people who are serious about building networks and prospecting for new business and developing contacts and – imagine this - selling stuff to people - are actively participating on the world’s largest social network for business? And that they’re doing it more when they’re older than when they are young and relatively inexperienced?

Hmmmm. Have something you want to sell, do, be a part of, learn about, build? Doesn’t it only make sense to investigate social networks, where you’ll clearly find plenty of people, of all age groups?

Don’t Make the Same Mistakes I Did

Want an analogy about assuming everyone –including your clients and prospects – are just like you. I used to design jewelry. Really awesome, fairly expensive jewelry, mostly made of sterling silver and semi-precious gemstones. I only designed with sterling silver because that’s what I like. I never wear gold – and somewhat arrogantly decided that since I don’t wear gold, nobody else must really like it. Thus, all my designs were constructed only using sterling silver elements.

When the jewelry line launched nationally, I sold a lot of it. But at every single venue, I had women ask me if I had pieces that incorporated gold into my designs. When I replied that I did not, they sadly shook their heads and told me that they loved my work. And that they would love to buy my products. But that they like gold – and I didn’t have any. And even if I had only used a little bit of gold in my designs, that would have been enough to compel them to buy. But since I didn’t – since I overlooked the fact that there were people who like things or wear things or even do things that I don’t, they couldn’t become my customers.

I listened to those customers and immediately began integrating gold into my designs. The result: we quadrupled our sales – immediately.

The Bottom Line – Men Are Using Social Media

Moral of this story: don’t assume because you don’t do something – or like something – that your customers and your prospects don’t. Don’t judge social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or others if you don’t have all the facts. Don’t assume that because you’re not interacting on them, that no one else is. Don’t make the same kind of mistake I did – learn from it.

Men, especially in those in the 35-54 age group, are all over LinkedIn and Facebook. If those men might potentially be your clients or your prospective clients, doesn’t it only make sense to consider diving into social networking? Once you do, you might just be surprised how far it can take you and how much of an impact it can make on your business development efforts. Our clients are certainly finding that to be the case.

In fact, with roughly one million new members joining LinkedIn every week, at a rate equivalent to about one member per second, and 2 million companies having LinkedIn pages, I’m not sure why anyone would not strongly consider participating there.

Image Credit: Laura Leyshon

Men Using Social Media? Oh Yeah. is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

I discovered the brilliance that is Kendall Allen a few years ago. For me, her MediaPost content qualifies as ‘must read’ and it’s a good thing I live a few states away, because if I didn’t she’d have serious stalker issues . I’m a fangirl of the highest order and, although she’s a bona fide hottie, I have a massive girl crush on the gray matter that’s between her ears. Oh, and when I see her posts, I want to stop what I’m doing and read them. Holy crap, why she’s not paying me for that kind of devotion I seriously do not know.

I’m a huge proponent of collaboration in the creative process – actually, I think it’s great in just about any process – and if you’re not doing it, well, that’s your bad. Personally, I collaborate every chance I can. It allows me to produce better results for my clients and learn from the massively intelligent people I’m lucky enough to know and who deign to work with me. Enough about me.

Having read a great AdAge article recently about The Google 5, and being fortunate enough to have a creative client (T2 + Back Alley Films) who gets collaboration (which means I get to live it), Kendall’s post An Old Love Comes to Town on a Rainy Day really resonated with me.

The Big Ad Gig is brilliant. Powerhouse agencies creating opportunities for young minds and fresh talent to work on and present a multi-dimensional campaign and, in the process potentially parlay that into an ad agency creative job ROCKS. It not only allows talent to be crowdsourced and the opportunity to spread through both traditional and non-traditional channels, it supports young talent in the best way possible. It gives them a chance to learn, a chance to shine and has a big, fat reward at the end of the tunnel. And, I’ll give you dollars to doughnuts (what does that mean, anyway?) that there’s not just one winner in The Big Ad Gig. I’ll bet that all the participants get serious consideration (and jobs) as a result of the exposure that participation in the event brings.

The competition is over. I shared the YouTube clip because it made me laugh. Four women and four men gave it their best shot and, given the tragic events surrounding Tyler Clementi’s suicide, made more compelling by the the fact that the client was Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).

According to Kendall, their presentations were nothing less than “professional poetry.” I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see the outcome. But no matter the official “winner” — all the participants, and the process itself, are winners in my book. And a hat tip to Kendall for the back story. Oh, and if you’re not reading her MediaPost column or stalking her on Twitter, you don’t deserve her. ‘

The Big Ad Gig OR My Love Affair With Kendall Allen is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

This is a message I find myself struggling to get through the heads of my many talented creative friends on pretty much a weekly basis. And don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of great creative and realize how important producing great work is to talented designers.

But you can take your Flash and stuff it if it doesn’t do what I need to do – which is produce definitive results for the clients who hire me. Those clients don’t hire me so that you can do great work, have something new for your portfolio, reel or website and win awards. Those clients have businesses to run, employees to pay, products or services to sell. And they need results. And that’s why they hire me. My job: R.E.S.U.L.T.S.

There was an amazing piece in today’s AdAge, written by Mike Wolfshon, a creative, who totally nails this concept. Please do yourself a favor and read it. Especially you, my creative friends.

As Wolfshon so aptly puts it, portfolio pieces don’t matter. Results do. And these days, if you’re a creative type and you want a job – whether it’s for an agency or working for someone like me who outsources the bulk of my creative needs – I hope you’re prepared to come to a meeting and discuss results. Things like how you designed a website with the user experience in mind rather than what you thought was hip and cool. And how you factored in the importance of conversions, when designing various pages of the client’s website and landing pages. Or how the newsletter campaign you designed was specifically crafted to reach across social platforms and allow shareability – that oh-so-important factor in today’s world of content creation. Oh, and speaking of content, if you think you can whip up some web copy and stuff it with keywords (even though you barely know what those are) – because your other designer friends told you it wasn’t all that hard – and that would suffice. Well, you’re smoking some massively impressive weed.

And so, my brilliant and talented creative friends, here’s my plea. I don’t want you to do crap work. I want you to do GREAT work. But I’m looking for great work that WORKS for the one person that matters – the client. And that means results. Come to our meetings talking about results, and you’ve got yourself a gig. And if you don’t yet know about things like user experience, conversions, shareability and the importance of SEO optimized keywords, it’s not too late. Get out there and do what the rest of us have done — learn.

And your brilliance when it comes to design, coupled with strategies that focus on results will do what all really awesome creative is supposed to do – it’ll WORK!! That means that together we can manage to help our clients build strong businesses, sell more stuff to more people and, in the process, produce great work. And that, my friends, is a portfolio that you can be proud of.

It’s Not About YOUR Work – It’s About THEIR Results is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

I was reading today’s AdAge about The Gap’s sister brand, Piperlime, and their experiment with adding some edgy personality to their Facebook wall posts. The postings were in conjunction with a well-planned marketing campaign, and it ruffled the feathers of some consumers.

First of all, let’s just get on over the idea that it’s important to please everyone, every time. That’s just not possible. And I think that’s important for everyone, marketer or consumer, to regularly remind ourselves.

More importantly, Piperlime decided to step out from behind the shadow of The Gap and try to find the distinctive voice of their brand. In order to do that, you sometimes have to go out on a limb, and maybe even experiment a bit. They identified their target audience – an older Gen Y female, aged 20-30, identified what they perceived to be some shared behaviors and feelings, and worked with Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners to create the “Let’s Get Dressed” campaign targeting that demographic. Big surprise that not every consumer liked the campaign. What matters, though, is that apparently some did.

As a direct result of this campaign, the Piperlime “likes” on Facebook increased a whopping 934% during a two-week period, and the page’s comments increased 479%. Not every comment was favorable, but guess what – it doesn’t matter.

Engagement is what matters. A brand reaching out to an audience, tossing something – an idea, a statement, a slogan, a campaign – you name it – out there, and testing it to see what people think is what matters. Engagement is what today’s consumers are looking for and Piperlime’s tactics are creating just that.

The other thing we need to get over – as people and as marketers: the ridiculous idea that everyone should agree with us. How boring would that be? Personally, I post often (and well) on my personal Facebook page. Not everyone agrees with what I say or think and, as a result, we have interesting discussions, different points of view are shared and guess what – it’s fabulous! And interesting. Sometimes more than one friend has a differing opinion and I love the fact that they share their thoughts and feelings, especially those about which they are most passionate, with me and with the community of friends who pop in and out.

I say “Bravo” Piperlime. You don’t know until you try, and engagement is what matters. And even if it’s engagement from consumers who don’t like or agree with your message, the opportunity to directly interact with them and dig deeper into their feelings on an issue – and maybe even use the insights gleaned to tweak a campaign if needed is, for a marketer and a brand, pretty valuable.

What say you?

Engagement: Take The Good With The Bad is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

As the BP oil spill and environmental disaster continues, I find myself having almost daily conversations with friends and colleagues involved in the intertwined worlds of marketing, PR and social media about BP. Their strategy (or apparent lack thereof) in dealing with the crises (both the environmental one and the public relations one) is one hot topic. Many professionals that I’ve discussed this with wouldn’t want to touch BP or their business with a 10-foot pole. Others, always in search of a challenge, would be psyched about the opportunity to get involved and make a difference.

AdAge is conducting a poll – you can log in via this link and take it if you’re interested. The voting ends tomorrow, so go do it now, then see how the results have changed from the results you see in the image above, which were generated when I took the poll.

One person not interested in going to work for BP any time soon – wait, make that never – is Leroy Stick, the person behind the infamous @BPGlobalPR Twitter account. In an interview with AdAge, Stick says it all: ” This isn’t a PR nightmare, it’s an actual nightmare.” And, responding to the question about who BP should hire to replace their PR department with, Stick stated, “Nobody, they should halt the entire PR operation. They should hire people like Professor Rick Steiner to come up with real, responsible solutions to this real problem. Of course their publicity is going to be bad, but if they actually fix the problem the bad press could turn into good press.”

How about you, my industry friends … would you want to go to work for BP … today? Would you welcome the opportunity to help them find solutions to help turn bad press into good press or would you rather steer clear? Can’t wait to hear your thoughts.

And by the way, if you’ve not yet read this post, featuring SomaCow’s @orlandojamie and her amazing BP Parody Video, you are missing out. Go do it – NOW!

Marketing and PR Pros- Would YOU Work for BP? is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Irony, anyone?

McDonald’s announced with great fanfare the hiring of Rick Wion, its new Director of Social Media.

I read about it while sipping on a latte and skimming through my reader. When I saw AdAge’s coverage of Wion’s new position, it caught my attention. I might not have had another thought about it, but then I saw the line about Wion’s responsibilities including “using social media to build the business, manage customer problems and beef up outreach to target groups such as mommy bloggers.”

Mommy bloggers? Really? (Aside: Jessica, I hope like hell you sink your teeth into this one. And if you don’t know who I’m talking to folks, you will. Trust me on that one).

I may be out of touch on a few things, but this I know. I raised one crop of children in the 80s. I was a kid, having kids. I didn’t know any better. I took my kids to McDonald’s on a regular basis and their food was an integral part of our lifestyle. Today, I am raising another crop of kids. And I’m no longer a kid myself. I actually care about healthy eating and pay attention to the crap I let my kids eat. And McDonald’s is so not on our radar screen. Make no mistake, my kids eat plenty of junk. Fruit snacks, Cheetos and Pepperidge Farm Goldfish are a regular part of life around these parts. But those habits are counterbalanced, at least in part, by lots of fruit and veggies and yogurt snacks and other things that are darn good for them. But McDonald’s – maybe a random trip once or twice a year, in an emergency, and that’s about it for this mom.

I know there are lots of McDonald’s lovers out there and I, too, think of their fries from time to time with a wistful sigh. But put that in my kids’ bodies on a regular basis – just so not going to happen.

And so, @McDonald’s, count me as officially paying attention. I can’t wait to hear more about your outreach to mommy bloggers. In fact, I’m pretty much sitting on the edge of my chair on this one. And let me give you a tip, Rick, if you really care about outreach, you ought to consider making a healthy donation to Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution campaign – and put your money where your mouth is when it comes to healthy eating.

And by the way, I won’t even mention Wion’s poor choice of wording when mentioning his responsiblity for “handling customer problems” …. what about not assuming that all customer interactions are negative ones and just calling it “managing customer relationships” … well, that’s a whole ‘nother blog post, folks.

What do you think? Am I crazy or is this more than just a little ironic?

McDonald’s and Mommy Bloggers? Get Serious. is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Starbucks Twitter Page

I was having yet another conversation with a friend today who was questioning the efficacy of social media as anything other than an advertising platform. Having realized it was “free marketing” he has, naturally, already jumped all over it (his words, not mine) by creating the ubiquitous fan page on Facebook and using it to broadcast his message to the masses. But his point was that he didn’t see social media as anything BUT an advertising channel and he was lamenting about the “narcissistic bullshit” that he had to wade through in that milieu and how pointless it all seemed.

When I asked for a definition of “narcissistic bullshit,” he promptly replied that he was bored to tears reading through posts that mentioned “little Johnny was standing in line with me at Starbucks picking his nose.” However, when pressed, he admitted that he did care about maybe being able to sell his products to the mom who was so narcissistically sharing the fact that Johnny had a little nose-picking problem. And making a joke of it via some social media channel. Funny that it didn’t occur to him that the broadcasting of his message, his “sales pitch,” might be equally as annoying to people.

On the heels of that conversation, I read this week’s Ad Age, which featured an article about Starbucks and how they’ve managed to get their business brewing again via social media and integration of social media into their marketing efforts. Their success can be largely attributable to the fact that they were smart enough to realize that the opportunity presented by social media was the chance to build customer relationships, engage and interact with customers and make them a part of the brand itself. Ding, Ding, Ding.

Now back to my friend’s comments. The thing he is missing is this: while she was in line at Starbucks, making that comment on Twitter or Facebook, and maybe even also using Foursquare to check in, in the process that mom might’ve also forged a connection – virtual or not – with other moms. Moms who are or have been dealing with the same toddler-based craziness and who then see the brand – in this case, Starbucks – as an oasis from which to momentarily step off the merry-go-round, if just for a few moments, and enjoy a lovely Skinny Triple Shot Latte with Non-fat Vanilla. Let’s just call that a little bit of “brand image gold” for Starbucks.

My point is this – people (like my friend) need to get over themselves. Brands need to get over themselves. And they need to quit trying to shove marketing messages down consumers’ throats via Facebook, Twitter, etc., just because they think “it’s free.” It’s not about free – it’s about the conversation. And by the way, that’s largely what’s made Starbucks so successful – the genuine effort that they invested in engaging and interacting with the customers. It’s not really that hard. To quote my friend Molly Cantrell-Kraig in a recent blog post she guest wrote for us, “Perfection is not expected. Participation is.”

And social media is NOT, I repeat NOT free. It takes a passion for it, a strategy and a commitment to participate. Starbucks’ Twitter success came about because a former barista named Brad Nelson believed in social media. He approached the powers that be in the content and online departments and presented them with the idea of opening a Twitter account in 2008. And I’m sure that to describe their reaction as “skeptical” is an understatement. But Nelson did his homework, he was passionate and he pitched it by saying “It’s a lot like being a barista on the Internet.” Now that was something they could relate to. Despite their misgivings, they let him loose and today the brand has some 775,000 Twitter followers. Just knowing the story actually makes me want to follow them – and get to know Brad a little better, don’t you?

But, more importantly, Starbucks uses social media as a part of an integrated marketing strategy. It’s a tool, a channel, a place to reach out to customers, listen to them and engage with them, but it is, most definitely, NOT free. It requires strategy, experience, a huge investment of time and energy and it requires regular and consistent participation. If anyone tries to tell you anything to the contrary, they are probably one of the new breed of social media charlatans, trying to make a quick buck and an even quicker getaway once they’ve managed to get your money.

Social Media is NOT Free is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency