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I saw a few interesting trend tidbits in my online travels lately:
Email is fading.
While annual email volume is in the trillions, 80% of it is commercial or unsolicited. Meanwhile, personal email has declined by 40% since 2003, and millions of teens do not even have email — but instead rely on cells, texting and social networks.
Do you know what geo-location means? If not, don’t feel bad, most people don’t. For those of you who have no clue, a geo-location app such as Foursquare (or Gowalla) allows mobile phones to not only tell you where your friends are hanging out, but also where the latest special deals are when you “check-in” at businesses as you go through the day. You gain points with every check-in, and if you frequent one place more than someone else, you get to be the “Mayor” of that location and may even get a better deal.
One of the great things about credit unions is the sense of community they foster. We’ve worked with several on projects that involved them giving back to their communities. Some spearhead volunteer projects or hold an open house where they have activities for the kids, giveaways, music, and free food. Others sponsor local sports teams or charity races.
The conversation never stops online, and we expect to be able to access it when and where we want. We are used to connecting to friends, family and coworkers in short bursts, interacting and building on comments and ideas, then moving on to the next topic of interest. There is no delay, no hierarchy, and no limits on who connects to whom.
“The average attention span of an adult is 20 minutes.”
- Brad Vander Zanden, University of Tennessee“On the Internet, the average attention span is three to five minutes. We have to cater to that.”
- Steven Hirsch, co-chairman, Vivid Entertainment
Would you agree to do anything someone on Twitter told you to do as long as it was legal? One poor schmuck has.
That’s right. David Perez, a 29-year-old ad agency recruiter, has agreed to wear a pair of glasses complete with a webcam, and follow the Twitter commands of followers for a full 6 days. Think of him as an internet puppet and the audience is pulling the strings. If anyone tells him to jump into a fountain, he will and you’ll be able to watch in real time.
Perhaps it is the nature of Social Media that causes it to build buzz, but Facebook continues to hold the top dog spot. If you have no other SM strategy for your credit union, then you should start here.
We live in a world bursting at the seams with new web sites. Each of these sites offers to transform our lives in unimaginable ways but very few maintain any lasting power after the hype has subsided.
Seth Godin is the author of ten bestsellers about marketing that have been translated into 30 languages. Since he left Yahoo! as VP of Direct Marketing, he has blogged over 3000 posts, has the #1 blog written by an individual, and emails daily insights to a continually growing list of opt-in subscribers.
I had the pleasure of participating in BarCampBank Chicago last week with some great Credit Union people from at least three states, including the Illinois and Michigan state leagues, CUNA, and even one lonely person from a community bank. There was no set agenda, the topics were determined by the group, you literally moved in and out of the discussions, and there was never a lull in the conversation – nicely organized chaos.
If you don’t have something that interests me, I’m gone.
So get to the point.
Don’t waste my time blathering on and on, adding copy, bullet points and fine print until my eyes glaze over. Just give me enough to let me decide if there is something there for me.
Traditionally, marketers have gathered information from others, then isolated themselves from the rest of the world, all alone in their office bubble, dreaming up concepts and doing their creative voodoo, then broadcasting it out into the world and crossing their fingers in hope of reaching a few receptive ears.
Traditional media is based on buying exposure – how many people will see this newspaper ad, this TV spot, this outdoor board, this trade show booth. As a result, buyers of traditional media calculate what it will cost to “rent” those eyeballs just long enough to get a message across, then pray for a 1% response in order to pay for the media, and (hopefully) make a profit.
What are the majority of people doing on Facebook and Twitter? According to Kaitlin
Villanova, a 26 year old social-media strategist, “It’s the modern-day version of knitting – to kill downtime.”
A while back I wrote an article that attempted to explain Twitter and how it should be used for CU Marketing. In the article I danced around a very important point that I probably should have lead with. We, the younger generation, are not freaks eagerly ingesting any and everything that happens to appear on a trendy social media site. We are just as discerning as the rest of humanity and very good at tuning out any and all shameless plugs.