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Authenticity, Social Media, and Presidential Candidates’ Digital Strategy

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I think we have two different definitions of “authenticity,” especially as it relates to marketing…

Marketing Strategy – Ranking GOP Presidential Candidates According to Digital Strategy : MarketingProfs Article: “Donald Trump takeaways: Use social media to be controversial and troll the media—it’s the most cost-effective way to get mainstream media mentions. Obviously, you want to protect your brand with integrity—a line that Trump has crossed a few times—but don’t be afraid to side with unpopular beliefs or call out someone. People are starving for more authenticity.”

From marketing or digital strategy standpoints, there are certainly anecdotal insights businesses and groups can glean from the current crop of GOP candidates for the 2016 election.

This conclusion about Trump’s campaign raises a much needed question about the nature of social media marketing as it relates to authenticity, however. It’s a question I frequently get from clients, especially in the beginning stages of a campaign.

My take is that “authenticity” as a social media tactic involves more than just one way trolling towards something like the media. It means more than being controversial, glib, or quick-to-the-point (especially as a business). Instead, the authenticity that the author says people are starving for has more to do with communicating an experience that is possible.

That is most frequently accomplished by incorporating visual imagery with precise text. So, if you’re looking for authenticity to drive part of your marketing campaign, look to Instagram.

A few examples of product-oriented companies that do a good job of using authenticity on Instagram as part of their marketing are ThisIsGround and Bexar Goods. You can see the types of “lifestyle products” I enjoy viewing and interacting with on Instagram… but I’ve made quite a few purchases from both companies as a result of their marketing there. Or take Newspring Church here in South Carolina… they do a great job with their design, sites, social media campaigns, and Instagram by telling their story and giving glimpses of what it’s like to participate there.

If you’ve been in the public eye for thirty years, have billions in the bank, and once appeared on a network reality show… troll the media in search of authenticity.

If you’re looking to build a successful business or expand your organization or group, then think long and hard about the concept and how you might be able to use social media to showcase glimpses of the experiences that you offer.

Episode 18: Thinking Out Loud 93: Working Out the Wrinkles as Writers – Thinking.FM

Elisabeth and Merianna are reunited and it feels so good! They discuss finding reason, meaning, and purpose in writing in decisions we make as writers. They also discuss creating purposeful pauses rather than head-scratching confusion. They also ask how can I revise to achieve the effect I want in the reader?

What are Elisabeth and Merianna reading?



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Episode 17: Thinking Religion 59: Trump and Symptoms of a Deeper Problem – Thinking.FM

trumpbling

Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson discuss domestic terrorists and the Carolinas, the myths of American Progressivism, creation stories, Trump’s views of citizenship, hate licenses, and the soft cultural underbelly of fear.

Show Notes:

Thinking Religion is 22 minutes long.

Sign up for the Thinking Religion newsletter … delivered weekly and full of interesting tidbits, ideas, links, and thought provoking analysis that complements the show.

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Internet’s Action and Reaction Loop

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I’m archiving this snippet and article to revisit in 2020… I wonder if we’ll look back on 2015 as a “tipping point” of the internet as we knew it?

The Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow in 1996 does seem like a long ago dream.

Perhaps immediacy is not a democratizing state of being for modern humans? Literalism is the enemy of imagination, after all.

The Internet’s Loop of Action and Reaction Is Worsening – The New York Times: “Hear me out. If you’ve logged on to Twitter and Facebook in the waning weeks of 2015, you’ve surely noticed that the Internet now seems to be on constant boil. Your social feed has always been loud, shrill, reflexive and ugly, but this year everything has been turned up to 11. The Islamic State’s use of the Internet is perhaps only the most dangerous manifestation of what, this year, became an inescapable fact of online life: The extremists of all stripes are ascendant, and just about everywhere you look, much of the Internet is terrible.”

A Second Life? Virtual Reality’s Coming Impact on Marketing

Emotion + Experience = Marketing

I do wonder about the scale of virtual reality. With Google investing in Cardboard, and Facebook spearheading Occulus Rift development, there is certainly a case to be made for mainstream adoption.

Of course, there was once such hype around Second Life as well.

Interesting read from Mike Elgan…

How Virtual Reality Is Redefining Marketing: “Advertiser-supported virtual reality and mixed reality content will have experiential marketing content instead of ads. These can not only be convincing and immersive, but potentially social and participatory. Best of all, they can go viral and spread across the world in minutes. And that’s why virtual reality and mixed reality will totally transform marketing. It combines the emotional impact of experiential marketing with the viral scalability of Web campaigns. “

“Reading of many books is a distraction.”

Keep in mind…

Focus Fracas – The Chronicle of Higher Education: “We talk a lot about distraction, but the way we tend to talk about it suffers from historical amnesia. Since the invention of writing, people have warned about its supposedly harmful effects. Socrates thought it would weaken readers’ memories. ‘Be careful,’ Seneca warned, ‘lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady.’ In his Moral Letters to Lucilius, written between AD 63 and 65, Seneca touches on a condition that today might be diagnosed as attention deficit disorder. The ‘reading of many books is a distraction,’ he cautioned, that leaves the reader ‘disoriented and weak.'”

Episode 16: Thinking Religion 58: Personal Branding and The Academy – Thinking.FM

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Thomas Whitley and Sam Harrelson discuss the issues involved with marketing and personal branding in an academic environment, whether academics and graduate students should blog, the demise of peer reviewed journals and scholarship, and whether or not MOOCs were ever a good idea.

Show Notes:

Thinking Religion is 50 minutes long this week.

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Gender Equality Reflected in Pantone’s 2016 Color of the Year

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This might make Franklin Graham’s head explode, but I think it’s a good move to associate design with “politics” and assert the relevance of seemingly mundane things such as color choices to cultural conversations:

Pantone Color of the Year 2016 – Rose Quartz and Serenity: “Joined together, Rose Quartz and Serenity demonstrate an inherent balance between a warmer embracing rose tone and the cooler tranquil blue, reflecting connection and wellness as well as a soothing sense of order and peace. The prevalent combination of Rose Quartz and Serenity also challenges traditional perceptions of color association.”

Religion’s smart-people problem

Religion’s smart-people problem: The shaky intellectual foundations of absolute faith – Salon.com: “But we shouldn’t be deceived. Although there are many educated religious believers, including some philosophers and scientists, religious belief declines with educational attainment, particularly with scientific education. Studies also show that religious belief declines among those with higher IQs. Hawking, Dennett and Dawkins are not outliers, and neither is Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.”

I Love Field Notes (and Good Marketing)

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Those of you who know me well know that I carry a Field Notes notebook pretty much everywhere inside of their Gentleman’s Memo cover with a Space Pen that has their branding on it. That’s a pic from just now as I was writing this. Note the coffee stain on the notebook cover. Character.

Branding hegemony aside, I do love their stuff. I use notebooks more than any other form of technology (analog or digital) for everything. My notebooks have been my “Inbox” for about 10 years now and I lovingly keep them archived in a special order so I can re-reference things or read back through long ago thoughts as needed. Their notebooks are durable, small, and able to take the daily wear and tear I put on them which can be a considerable amount since they ride in my back pocket when not on a table somewhere.

So in the midst of all the Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday emails I’ve been receiving from various companies and groups, I was happy to open and then read this one…

Field Notes Brand: “Today only, buy anything and and get a Field Notes ‘Pitch Black’ 3-Pack free. No coupon codes. No minimums. No bull. Heck, you don’t even need to be aware of the deal. If you buy something today, you’re in. But get moving, as we expect Thursday to roll in sometime later tonight.”

Like computer interfaces, the best marketing is marketing that gets out of the way.

Your Email Privacy (Thanks, Government)

Scary, true, and worth your attention if you value your privacy…

Mozilla will let go of Thunderbird | Boing Boing: “There are many good reasons to use standalone email clients, but for Americans one of the most compelling is the absurdly outdated Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, which treats any file left on a server for more than six months as ‘abandoned’ and accessible to law enforcement without a warrant (no, really!). That includes all your Gmail previous to June 2015. Really. All of the efforts to reform ECPA have died on the vine, because law enforcement loves this creaking piece of legislation.”

Vote out your representative if they don’t “understand technology.” That’s not an excuse anymore.

Don’t Hold Up Signs on the Internet…

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We’ve all seen them before and I’m seeing more and more of them now that the Holiday Season is upon us (and today is “Giving Tuesday”).

I know I’ve seen a number of well-intentioned pictures of people holding up signs to support a specific cause on social networks this winter. A large number of those, especially on Facebook, have been churches and religious groups.

I hate to be Donald Downer, but be careful with such postings, especially if they include your face. It’s very (very very) easy to take those and do less-than-well-intentioned things with the images after they’re found via Google Image Search or a Twitter Search or Instagram hashtag search etc.

You’re not Michelle Obama, but that doesn’t mean that your own perception of your network size (or good intention) protects you from the wilds of the internet in 2016 and beyond…

Michelle Obama gave the Internet a sign—here’s what it gave back: “But once Reddit got ahold of the photo, its users—well-known for hosting Photoshop battles such as this—went wild adding anything and everything to the blank page”

So be careful, or you could be espousing something you probably wouldn’t agree with.

Episode 15: Thinking Out Loud 92: Let’s Talk About Self-Editing – Thinking.FM

Elisabeth is joined by author Stacy N. Sergent this week (Merianna is out for family leave) to talk about great pups, NaNoWriMo, writing as a lonesome experience and also a communal experience, the role of editing, and the psychological flow of being a writer.

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My Favorite Music Steaming Service(s)

I agree with the post linked here… Spotify:

Spotify Is the Best Streaming Music Service: “As countless Rdio fans sit back helplessly as their accounts go dark, it’s time to be blunt. Spotify continues to outpace its growing army of competitors, and if you’re going to spend money on a streaming music service, you should sign up for Spotify Premium. Or save a few bucks and get the free version, because it’s pretty damn great, too!”

HOWEVER! I will include the caveat that I love Google Music’s ability to upload my own music and my wife and I (and our newborn and kids) make great use of the uploaded music on Amazon that powers our family’s Echo. Don’t get me started on my 10 year old (heavily) curated Pandora station which makes me pay for Pandora One every year.

It’s a hard-knock-life for us streamers.

But yeah… Spotify at the end of the day.

Becoming Entreprenuerial In Your Profession

Earlier this year, my good friend Thomas (a PhD candidate and officiant of my marriage) wrote a very timely post about his decision to blog despite some who advised otherwise…

Why I Blog — Thomas J. Whitley: “Though many academics have resisted the move toward ‘branding,’ it has long been a part of academia. One’s credentials, what they’ve written, and where they’ve taught make up their brand and determine, to a large extent, who reads them, who assigns them, and who thinks of them for panel invitations and professional society nominations. Branding has only become more important with the ubiquity of information readily available on the internet.”

Whether you’re a teacher, preacher, business, nonprofit, politician, or insurance salesperson… you should blog.

“Giving away” your knowledge results in so many worthwhile returns.

Trust me.

Fusion’s 8 Person Snapchat Team

Fusion is a popular “millennial” lifestyle news / site and has a team of 12 devoted to Snapchat, Vine, and Instagram (8 alone for Snapchat).

I talked about the how’s / why’s news and lifestyle sites are devoting such resources to these networks recently, and this is further validation:

Fusion’s got a 12-person distributed news team: “The digital news site and cable network for millennials on Monday announced a new team to create stories and videos meant to be read and watched exclusively on social platforms. The social newsroom of 12 people includes eight who are focused on Snapchat alone. Others work on Instagram and Vine. Fusion hired Laura Feinstein, a former editor in chief of Vice’s Intel-backed Creator’s Project, to lead the group.”

“News” as we know it in its commodified post-industrial state is changing its delivery mechanism on an increasing pace from newspaper to newspaper delivery to radio to television to cable to the web to social networks to messaging…

Should You Use WordPress.com or Host Your Own WordPress Site?

I am often asked by Harrelson Agency clients and potential clients if they should use a WordPress.com site or have us build and host a WordPress site for them. Money is often a main concern, as you can pay $100 – 120 a year for a pretty solid WordPress.com site without much fuss. A hosted WordPress site can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars in building costs, and more for hosting and programming. As with anything, discuss the costs upfront with the agency or company building your site if you go the self-hosted route.

There are advantages to the “set it and forget it” style of a WordPress.com website financially, but there are also a few other variables to consider if you’re looking to have a serous presence on the web and translate that into bigger goals for your company. Remember, WordPress started off as a blogging platform. While you can manipulate a WordPress.com site into a more “professional” looking business or church or group site, it’s not always easy depending on your needs and skill level.

If you do self host, you can use custom / commercial themes, plus all other free themes that exist. You can modify, customize, or do anything that you’d like with your site. With WordPress hosting, you’re limited to a set of free themes that exist in the theme repository. Also, you can’t modify the CSS or other codes within the theme. If you’re looking to customize the site with scripts and customizations (as an author / speaker / consultant / business etc) it’s definitely advantageous to be on your own server. This includes everything from being able to do custom embeds of media to accepting payments to contact forms etc.

Simply put, there are (often mission-critical) things you can’t do with WordPress hosted sites that you can do with a self-hosted site.

Plugins are also a big deal, especially as the web matures. You can upload any free, paid, or custom plugin that you want with a hosted site. This allows you to really maximize WordPress’ potential as a content management system and expand that functionality. With a WordPress.com site, you’re not allowed to upload any free, paid, or custom plugins. Everything from search engine optimization (especially needed in 2015) to handling social media sharing to newsletter delivery to some really cool media handling plugins to how your site displays posts etc are covered. Here are a few popular plugins, but I have a standard 10-15 that I typically install on a new site and highly recommend for flexibility and security and making WordPress more than just a blogging platform.

Of course, spending $99 once a year is a nice idea and provides a sense of regular expense if you’re looking into a WordPress.com site with ads turned off and a custom domain (and a little extra storage). There is a higher initial cost for a WordPress hosted site (typically anywhere from $2,000 to $35,000 for most group, church or business sites depending on many variables). However, the cost of a self-hosted WordPress site over the span of a few years evens out and you get a much “nicer” custom experience that is built around your own brand. This also frees you up from being shackled to whatever changes WordPress.com might or might not make as it evolves as a commercial arm of the larger WordPress ecosystem, as we’ve seen just this week … although the changes are all very positive this time. I’ve never had a client want to go back to something like a hosted service after they realize the options available and how the site “pays for itself” over time.

Maintenance is a very big concern for security and speed reasons these days, or at least it should be an absolute top priority. That does require that you keep your site updated, have backups, keep SPAM controlled and keeping your site optimized. That’s something we do for clients, of course. WordPress.com frees you up from that worry or need for maintenance, so that’s a plus for that side of things. However, like everything else, it’s a tradeoff between convenience and the ability to make something truly “your own” in terms of appearance and functionality.

The biggest point I always make when comparing what we can do with what WordPress.com hosting offers is that I believe you really cannot maximize the potential of your site / blog / online presence / long term branding unless you have access to the additional functionality of plugins and the ability to maintain custom modifications (and get down to the nitty gritty code based level allowing for you to make the site look and act like you’d like for it to). Being able to take payments, offer audio / video / text media downloads etc are all big benefits of what we offer with a self-hosted site, but the biggest benefit is that it’s “your” site and belongs to you, whatever may come down the road.