Never Mind Marketing

Lately, I have been nearly consumed with identifying the correct calling, job title, etc for a number of people. Society, in general, views people as a commodity and places “it” (an individual) in an area of need without much thought to the fit of that person.

Managers, or the ones in my circle, are realizing that one size does not fit all; and that people have gifts and talents that are not universal to all job descriptions.

I’ve found two pieces lately that encapsulate this concept well:

SCHOOL FOR ANIMALS
by George Reavis

Once upon a time the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a “new world” so they organized a school. They had adopted an activity curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming. In fact, better than his instructor. But he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and also drop swimming in order to practice running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school so nobody worried about that, except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of so much makeup work in swimming.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class where his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of the treetop down. He also developed a “charlie horse” from overexertion and then got a C in climbing and D in running.

The eagle was a problem child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class, he beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted on using his own way to get there.

At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceeding well and also run, climb and fly a little had the highest average and was valedictorian.

The prairie dogs stayed out of school and fought the tax levy because the administration would not add digging and burrowing to the curriculum. They apprenticed their children to a badger and later joined the groundhogs and gophers to start a successful private school.

FARMERS vs HUNTERS
by Seth Godin

10,000 years ago, civilization forked. Farming was invented and the way many people spent their time was changed forever.

Clearly, farming is a very different activity from hunting. Farmers spend time sweating the details, worrying about the weather, making smart choices about seeds and breeding and working hard to avoid a bad crop. Hunters, on the other hand, have long periods of distracted noticing interrupted by brief moments of frenzied panic.

It’s not crazy to imagine that some people are better at one activity than another. There might even be a gulf between people who are good at each of the two skills. Thom Hartmann has written extensively on this. He points out that medicating kids who might be better at hunting so that they can sit quietly in a school designed to teach farming doesn’t make a lot of sense.

A kid who has innate hunting skills is easily distracted, because noticing small movements in the brush is exactly what you’d need to do if you were hunting. Scan and scan and pounce. That same kid is able to drop everything and focus like a laser–for a while–if it’s urgent. The farming kid, on the other hand, is particularly good at tilling the fields of endless homework problems, each a bit like the other. Just don’t ask him to change gears instantly.

Roughly half the Baby Boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964) update their Facebook or other social networks “regularly”. According to  senior Analyst Lisa E. Philips of eMarketer Online. She says, “About 47% of online boomers maintain a profile on at least one social network, according to several sources. Their contacts include family, friends and co-workers of all ages.”

The report goes on to discuss Boomers’ favorite networks and methods of buying online. Of the networks included as “social networks” in the study, 73% of the group maintained a Facebook profile.

It is important to note that women 36-45 are the fastest growing demographic on social powerhouse Facebook. Keep this in mind when you are targeting this generally affluent group in marketing campaigns.

Einstein Bros Bagels has introduced an interesting marketing venture: Give away bagels to every new Fan on Facebook. If you are in an area serviced by Einstein, you could get yourself a free breakfast. Since January 24th, the fan page has grown from 41,278 Fans to 374,815 fans:  That is 333,537 new fans, and 333,537 bagels.

Some new features announced at last night’s Facebook launch party:

Product releases included:

• The new home page to 80 million of Facebook’s now 400 million users worldwide
• Better chat accessibility
• The games and apps dashboards
• New search type-ahead, and a new method of finding and displaying people whether or not they are your friends
• A new image uploader, built from the ground up by Facebook
• HipHop, the new project it open-sourced earlier this week

Zuckerberg also told us tonight that the updated News Feed UI should alleviate a lot of user confusion between the meaning of “News Feed” and “Live Feed,” and that friend lists are getting demoted from the home page because they’ve “always kind of been a power user feature.”

Zuckerberg said, “Improving chat is the biggest request we get from our users…”

I said, “thank, God.”

To mark their 6th birthday, Facebook announced that they hit 400 million users, and were rolling out some changes. Most notably, revamped ads and a new homepage.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, wrote in a blog post this evening:

So to celebrate six years of Facebook and the 400 million people on the service, we’re doing what we like doing most—building and launching products for people. Tonight we’ll host a celebration at Facebook headquarters, and we’ll release a handful of new things that will improve people’s Facebook experience, including a couple that people have requested a lot. We’ll post more details to our blog in a few hours.

How do you like the new changes?

By Shannon Aronin

Nonprofits have been hit hard by the recession. Now many nonprofits also face the typical “donor fatigue” fundraising challenges that follow any major natural disaster such as the recent earthquakes in Haiti. All of the traditional funding streams have been hurt, and nonprofits, by and large, keep plugging along – doing more with less, to hang on till better times when they can again focus on their mission with vigor. It’s hard when you are short-staffed and under funded to consider jumping into anything new, but for nonprofits your very survival depends upon committing to building and maintaining a strong social media presence. Here’s why:

1. ALL of your donors are online. The stereotype that social media is for kids is simply false. Study after study proves it. The largest growing demographic on Facebook is women over 55. More interesting, there has recently been a big jump in social media users age 63-75! Individual micro-donations can be difficult to solicit because it takes so many more of them to make a dent in your organization’s budget, but remember, this strategy won Obama the White House. Social media can also support fundraising event participant growth (from galas to individual pledge events like walks) through the sharing of invitations or requests to friends.

Even traditional foundations’ program officers can be reached and moved by your relationship, something that can get a lot stronger when you are Facebook friends or even connected on LinkedIn. You already know that your Millennial supporters are on Facebook and Twitter, but so is everyone else and their grandmother.

[Read the rest at theKbuzz]

How you can help the victims of the Haiti earthquake:

World Vision: http://www.worldvision.org
Mercy Corps: http://www.mercycorps.org
American Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org
World Concern: http://www.worldconcern.org/
Donate $10 to the Red Cross relief effort by texting HAITI to 90999.

Here is a screenshot of the new Facebook layout. We’re told the changes are “exactly the same” as this screenshot from late last year.

From Seth Godin’s Blog:

For most products and services, most of the time, people sign up for the cheapest reliable alternative plan.

If everything appears to be the same, then of course they’re going to pick the cheapest one that’s “good enough”.

In the face of this understandable strategy, you have a few choices:

• You can be cheapest (difficult to sustain).
• You can be more reliable (great if you can figure this out).
• You can be redefine the playing the field to be the only one (most preferred).

Buying a new microphone or lights for your DJ business doesn’t do any of these three to your competitive status, it merely makes you feel good. Same with re-organizing your office, painting the parking spaces or buying a new laptop. They merely keep you where you were.

The scalable, profitable strategy is to change the game, not to become the most average.

I’m getting tired of hearing, especially lately, that Facebook is responsible for 20% of divorces.

Let me make this very clear:

NO IT’S NOT!

The U.K. firm making the claim says that spouses uncover their partner is cheating via Facebook’s private messaging tool (how exactly they do that is up for debate). Cheating, and the following divorce is not the fault of Facebook. It is the fault of individuals with a questionable moral compass.

Stop looking for blame and start looking in a mirror.