Social Media, Brands and Friendship

It seems like anytime I shop in a store or hear a commercial, a brand or commercial entity of one sort or another asks me to become a fan or a friend on Facebook and to follow them on Twitter.  As someone who tries to help businesses figure out how to use social media to connect with their customers through these channels, this post may sound strange and even hypocritical.  But there’s something that’s been bugging me lately, and it’s time to say it out loud-

I am not sure I want to be a fan or friend of every brand out there.

C.C. Chapman had a great post recently, with a video that asks whether or not a brand cares about you.  When I think about it, only a few brands seem to care about me as more than a wallet.  And to be honest, why should they?  A brand is usually a straw person, a legal construct- it’s a liability shield protecting personal assets in case anything goes wrong.  It’s not a neighbor, good or otherwise,  no matter what State Farm tries to tell you.

Yet we seem to want to anthropomorphize brands into people.  We ask questions, like “What’s a Brand’s personality?”  Yet the personality of a brand is decided frequently by committee and a team of marketers, and the proof of whether or not they’ve guessed right is whether or not the consumer buys into this story.  It’s a company, a corporation, a manufacturer, a retailer.  It’s not real.

The people that run the business are real.  The people who give voice and talk to customers and engage are real.  But how far does that relationship really extend?  When do I think or feel a company cares about me, personally?

The closest I come to feeling like a brand actually cares has been my experiences at Disney, where everyone at every level seems to go out of their way to make sure your day is going well.  It enhances the experience, and while you may not be inviting the shop clerk, bus driver or bellhop over for dinner and drinks, you get the impression that they are being engaged for more than just a tip.  They say things like “Welcome Home” when you check in, and make the experience as much like family as it can be, and this is about as close to reciprocity as I’ve seen a brand experience get.

In contrast, let’s take a typical retail experience.  For example, I am extremely fond of Williams Sonoma and many of their sub-brands like Pottery Barn.  (And I should disclose here that Pottery Barn was founded by Paul and Morrie Secon, and they were close family friends of ours – so I have some affection for the brand based on that alone.)

We have Pottery Barn furniture, dishes, and Williams-Sonoma is by far my kitchen gadget store of choice.  I have their cookbooks, and I am a fan on many levels.  But when I saw a prompting when buying something at the Pottery Barn to become a friend on Facebook, I started to think- maybe I don’t necessarily want Pottery Barn to be my friend.  Despite the fact that Morrie Secon was a lovely man, played french horn, and one of my parent’s friends who I always loved to see come over, Pottery Barn was sold long ago and is no longer Morrie and Jonnie, his wife, and Paul- it’s a company.  I’m not talking to Morrie if I follow them on Twitter or Facebook, I’m talking to a representative of a larger company.

Even as a company, it’s not that we aren’t fond of one another.  I have a long standing relationship with the Company.  I’ve written positive blog posts about their simply outstanding customer service.  I would highly recommend them to my friends.  But we have a largely transactional relationship.  They have stuff I want.  I give them money, and they give me the stuff I like.  Pretty simple and straight forward.  But the reciprocity of a true friendship pretty much stops right there.  It can’t give me a hug like Morrie used to, and ask me how things are going, and to be honest, it doesn’t really care, as long as I keep up my end of the relationship and keep buying stuff at regular intervals.

Chuck Williams doesn’t come to dinner despite the fact I cook “his” recipes  (the carrot soup is awesome) and even serve it on “his” dishes.  I get emails, but they never offer to come babysit, or just have lunch, or meet up for drinks.  Our friendship is limited to a one way exchange of sale emails from them to me, and my giving them money in exchange for goods- that’s where our relationship largely ends.  And that’s the way we both like it, 99% of the time.

However, I want to be able to get in touch with someone to solve any problems after the sale.  I want that level of friendship, and to be honest, Pottery Barn has held up that end of our relationship very well.  They are responsive by phone and in person, and I have even called headquarters to remark at how great my experience has been.  Even without Morrie and Paul answering the phone, I still feel like I get my concerns or feeling heard, which is great for any company, especially these days.

But do I want to be a fan?  Do I need more contact with Pottery Barn than the catalogs and emails?  Do I want to hear more from them on twitter?  They want to take our relationship to the next level, and I’m not sure I’m ready.  I feel pushed, a bit, and unsure of what this new level of commitment will mean.  Do they want me to attend their cooking and decorating classes and take a turn with other fans selling aprons in the lobby?  How much more of my attention and brain space do they want?

It’s ironic that I’m finding that I might just be ready to start placing sensible limits on my devotion and engagement with brands.  While I appreciate the efforts to strengthen our relationship, it’s starting to feel, well, a little bit smothering.   I’m not necessarily ready to, say, start seeing all sorts of other brands on the side, but you never know- too much of a good thing sometimes makes people stray to the wild side.  They might start perusing Restoration Hardware catalogs, and maybe even take a peek into an Ethan Allen on the weekend, just to see what such a walk on the wild side might feel like.   Before you know it, they’re buying new vegetable peelers from Bed, Bath, and Beyond and buying vanilla from Trader Joe’s, while insisting the quality is the same.

This is the crux of my problem with the new “Add Me”  and “Follow Me” frenzy-Companies and brands want to collect people like baseball cards or frequent flyer miles, with their data and email addresses acting as points- yet I’m not sure what the ultimate goal is.  He who has the most emails wins?  If social media is about building relationships, if friendship means something more than a typical customer-business transaction, then how does being your friend on Facebook or Twitter extend or enhance our relationship?  How much more of my attention and money do you want, really?  And what are you going to do for me in return to make this social relationship something more special than just more ads?   If you want a relationship, then let’s have one- but let’s understand the terms and conditions up front, and not pretend we’re friends if all you really want to do is upsell me at every turn.  That’s not what I would expect over dinner with Paul and Morrie, after all.

I’m not sure how all of the brands flooding into the social media space are going to find the balance between engagement with their customers, and possibly overwhelming them with such faux love and concern that it starts to feel like we’re getting stalked  in our in-boxes by bad boyfriends while trying to play solitaire on Facebook.

I’m not sure what my current limits are for giving Brands my attention all the time in all channels- after all, when does that kind of passive demand for attention start to feel like the neediness we all find pretty unattractive?  When does the scent of desperation start to fill the air?  When will you start to leave me alone, and accept that our relationship will be limited?

I am fond of brands and companies like Pottery Barn.  But unlike the real life relationship I had with Morrie,  I’m  starting to search for the boundaries of  the relationship with Pottery Barn, so I don’t have to feel we have to break up in order for me to get some breathing room.    That said, please don’t be offended if I don’t follow you on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.  I think we’re close enough already.

Tags: attention, brands, communication, facebook, friends, Morrie Secon, Paul secon, pottery barn, social media, twitter, Williams Sonoma

How Social Media Works

I heard about Max Brenner, Chocolate by the Bald Man, through Seth Godin.  I read about Max in Seth’s Meatball Sundae book, and this was reinforced by the blog post/interview with Seth on Hugh McLeod’s (@gapingvoid) website.  Ever since, I’ve been intrigued by the very thought of a chocolate restaurant, and the thought of the indulgence that waits within.  When we’ve been up to NYC recently, we haven’t been able to get there, so I was thrilled when I heard that they were expanding and opening a Philly location.

So for my birthday, I told my husband I wanted to try Brunch at Max Brenner’s, since it had now been built up to legendary status in my mind.  Like many things you anticipate to be fantastic before the actual experience, I actually began to worry that no restaurant or experience could live up to the hype I had built up in my mind- there was bound to be some disappointment after all this deferred gratification.

I was so wrong.  It lived up to any expectations and beyond.  (Now here I go, contributing to the hype.)  But seriously, I have rarely gone to a talked-about restaurant with my family, including my 14 and 11 year old sons, where they have had a good or better time than I have had.

Max Brenner’s is a bit like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, at least the Chocolate only parts.  The menu (which you can preview here) drew laughter and joy from all of us, just reading about the chocolate on chocolate specialties, each one sounding vaguely more decadent than the one before.  For example, the chocolate-based drinks are served in special cups/mugs/glasses that make each one feel like an exotic treat, and the butterscotch/caramel sauce that accompanies some dishes comes in a little vial that reminds me of a chemistry experiment.

What was great is that the meals were as good or better than the description.  I got the spicy tuna sandwich, and frankly, it’s the best tuna sandwich I’ve ever had.   (And I only chose that over chocolate crepes as a brief nod towards trying to eat healthy, even on this indulgent day.)  This experience wasn’t just about great food, though- it was also about whimsy, about fun, about silly, and about pleasure, and making dreams come true.  Max tells his story of making his dreams come true in the menu.  He brought us into his dream and we left with a great memory and a story we won’t fail to share with friends and family.

Seth Godin is right.  Being remarkable means doing something worth talking about, worth sharing with others.  Max Brenner does this.  The quality of the food, of the chocolate and even details down to the glassware and shopfront made us giggle in delight.

Social media makes sharing this experience and spreading the word easy.  I learned of Max through social media, and I am further spreading the word out the same way.  But the social proof is that my experience matches or exceeds the experience of those who recommended it to me in the first place.  As a result, I was willing to make a 45 min drive and spend money based on a friend’s opinion, and I hope you’ll consider giving Max’s restaurant a try if you’re in NYC or Philly, because it was simply fun.

I get no direct benefit from this other than your good will and thoughts after you taste the chocolate, and say “Now THAT was worth the trip, for sure.”  Well, that and the fact that my children now think this is the best restaurant we’ve ever dragged them to so far, meaning we’ll be back, for sure.

Tags: brithday, gapingvoid, hugh mcleod, Max brenner, memories, seth godin, social media, special

Interesting or Identifiable?

I’ve been reading Chuck Klosterman’s “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs- A Low Culture Manifesto”.  It’s basically a collection of essays-each one different, but each one (so far) displaying Chuck’s great sense of humor, connecting what you would think are wildly disparate things together in a way that gives you pause.  I first heard about Chuck Klosterman through Ira Glass and This American Life, in particular, the great show that’s entitled New Kings of Non Fiction, which is just amazing and easily worth the price and a donation to WBEZ.

In an essay talking about how MTV’s “Real World” helped to define reality TV and how everyone becomes a one-dimensional archetype because it’s easier to cast and tell stories than dealing with the real world complexity of ordinary humans, he says near the end, “Being interesting has been replaced by being identifiable.”  And this struck a real chord with me.

There seems to be a real tension in life between being genuinely interesting, and being identifiable.   You find this in everything from food, to stores to social media.  In food, there’s a group of people who are always looking for the different and inventive (just watch Top Chef) but most Americans seem to eat more frequently at chain restaurants, serving up familiar and predictable fare, even when they are visiting new cities.  This is a clear case of going for Identifiable over Interesting.  Identifiable is predictable and known- you don’t have to think too hard.  Interesting can have upsides, but it’s risky and you don’t know what you’re getting in advance, and that can be pretty scary.

Even in retail, I see a confluence of both stores and merchandise that plays into choosing an archetype over choosing your own style.  Department stores have gone under major consolidation, so you are basically left with the ultra-high end Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom’s, then Bloomingdales and Macy’s, then Sears and JC Penney, who are basically on the same fashion wavelength as Kohl’s and not far behind are Target and Walmart.  The lack of variation leads to a lack of choice, so we see more and more stores popping up with similar pair structures like the Gap/Old Navy and  Ambercrombie/Aeropostale.  When I shop for clothes for my 14 and 11 year old sons, I find wherever I go, my choices come down to Preppy, Sports Kid, Skater Dude, Rockstar/punk, and My Mother Dresses Me.  My choice in clothing for my kids seems loaded with buying into a stereotype, and I feel like I have to guess the right one to avoid too much scrutiny from either teachers or other students.   Getting the line right between “cool” and “I still respect my elders and won’t cause trouble” is not easy at all, but I have to admit, occasional social media conference t-shirts work well to blur this line between cool and geek.

In social media, it can seem like everyone wants to have an “elevator pitch” of who they are and what they do, classifying themselves into archetypes for others.   For those that seem much more complicated than a  simple label, it becomes harder to market your business and ideas because they aren’t easily labeled or defined.  And in an attention-deficit world, anything that’s too complicated gets left at the curb.

Life is easier if we pigeon-hole everyone we know.  They can be classified and re-categorized, but it saves you time and effort and actual thought if you play the archetype game.  It’s easier to identify people, to tag them, to label them, than get to know them.

But in reality, people and friends are more than trading cards.  We may have lots of friends on social networks, but how many of them are friends that would buy you a cup of coffee or let you crash on their couch?  In a quest for new media popularity, are we going for identifiable over interesting because it’s simply easier?   People are more complicated than the simple archetypal mold we try to fit them into.  But it takes time, effort and actually listening to people consistently over time to see past the label and delve into the interesting.

I’m not sure if we can easily walk the line between interesting and identifiable, because interesting simply takes more time and engagement than a simple identification and label system of interfacing with the world does.  But I know I extract more value out of interesting than I ever have from identifiable relationships with others.   So I’ll continue in my quest to be interesting, even though it often seems the vast majority of people value identifiable, because it’s quicker and easier.  What’s your choice?

Tags: chuck klosterman, clothes, food, indentifiable, interesting, MTV Real World, social media

Vernacular

This is something I think about often- on the web, we have our own vernacular- a local language, a lingo- words that have different shades of meaning than they do to the rest of the world.  Yet the way we use language and talk about things matters, and it can clarify or cloudy what people are talking about.

The classic example is the word, friend.  Online, this can be someone you’ve never met, or someone you’ve known and have been inseparable from since childhood.  We tend to use the word friend rather than acquaintence or neighborly polite interest in each other, yet in the “real” face to face world, if someone says “Oh, we’re great friends”- this implies a level of closeness and relationship that is far more extensive than most online friendships.  This difference can cause lots of confusion, because real world friendships imply that there’s a certain amount of going out of the way for each other that occurs, and it’s not always clear if that quid pro quo exists, and to what degree, with online only friends.

Now I have had plenty of great experiences where online friends have become real world friends- (Chris Pinchen a.k.a @cataspanglish and @citilab is just one example), so there’s cross-over, but we haven’t yet developed words that differentiate this relationship in a way that others can appreciate if they’re not part of the online group.  My husband used to regularly ask “How are the people in the Box today?” referring to my online associates.  Now that he knows them in real life, there’s a different sense both of what I do, who the people are, and what our friendship is.  He’s constantly amazed by my ability to locate friends I do know in cities we visit, and the fun things that evolve from local recommendations, chats, dinners, etc.  These online friendships expand with face to face meetings, and then bleed out into the reality of life as well.

We also have other words we use- Trust, Whuffie, authority, strengths, influence, and even search- mean different things in an online context than in life.  Asking” When does authority become authoritarian?” means something totally different said in a history class rather than talking about the influence or ranking a blog may have on Technorati.

Our language when discussing social media and social networks have off-line analogies, and we have to remember that sometimes we need to decode our jargon for people new to the space.  It’s hard to try to teach people about the nuances of this space, when often they need more experience participating to really understand the culture.  It’s like going to Spain, and having to learn both Spanish and Catalan in order to be understood by everyone.  It takes more than high school level spanish to really express yourself beyond a child’s level of language, to be able to get the shades of your meaning across.

I think it’s easy to dismiss the new comers to the space who misread what it is said, making rampaging  bull in the chinashop mistakes and offend the early adopters in the process.  It’s like a clumsy kid who doesn’t read the social situation well and ticks off the cool kids freshman year.  Their reputation may get cemented early, and changing that perception requires a fair amount of luck and social guidance by others who get it.  Opportunities for social redemption are equally hard online, and it requires people both realizing that they have made a faux pas along with an interest in correcting it.

We’ve all made mistakes and accidentally spammed friends, hit reply all, forgotten to use BCC, etc.  Apologies and making this behavior as rare as possible maintains relationships and trust; continued incidents start to try the patience of our friends.   But I think we all have to take the opportunity to try to  help a newcomer, to make them feel a bit comfortable, and maybe reach out in a friendly way to try to help them understand.  An ounce of education may help prevent the noixious behavior we dislike online and on social networks, rather than immeidately shunning everyone who sends us a spam twitter follow DM.  I’ve certainly been reactionary there, and I know I can do better to reach out to people and be more helpful.  The trick is trying to do it without seeming paternal or imperious, but merely friendly.

In the eagerness to participate in all of these new channels of communication, I see newcomers coming on too strong, or are too eager, like a new puppy, to feel liked and included.  They want to be instantly accepted and respected, without realizing that social networking is a long term, not a short term, strategy. (Read Hugh McLeod’s new book to get more information on this, or the numerous excellent posts by C.C. Chapman on the subject.)  But as much as the experienced people don’t always feel it’s their responsibility to clue in the newbies, what if we all took one moment and tried to do just that?

As a parent, I often find I have to explicitly teach my kids things that I think are obvious.  I need to share my experience with them, so they start to understand and learn both how to fit in and meet the expectations of those around us.  None of us were born with a perfect sense of humor, knowing how to read, and able to write like Hemingway. It’s only through patience and mentoring by our family, our teachers and friends that we become who we are in the end, and maybe decoding some jargon, and helping some others along should be part of our mission.

I’m going to try to be more randomly helpful, at least once a day- how about you?

Tags: authority, cataspanglish, CC Chapman, chris pinchen, friends, gaping void, helpful, hugh mclead, language, newbie, social media, social networks, vernacular

Cafe Cultures and Social Media

Chris Brogan has talked about cafe-shaped conversations, and how conversations between businesses and the public need to become a bit more intimate, like the kind of conversations you might have in a Parisian cafe.  Having just come from a trip to Paris, Spain and Italy, I saw a bit of how this culture works first hand, and I think it has implications on how we use social media in this country and beyond.

In the many cities we visited in Europe, there are cafes everywhere.  They are places for a quick coffee and snack, places to share food and conversation, places to relax.  In Spain and Italy, the Siesta is still practiced- shops and businesses close mid-day for about two to three hours everywhere, and people take walks, have lunches, go home and spend some time with family, before returning to work.  Mealtime is typically 9 pm or later- if you try to eat at Western hours of even 7 or 8 pm, restaurants are empty and they look at you as an oddity. (They must all think Americans are like elderly people trying to get the early-bird special at Denny’s.)  I rarely saw any “to-go” bags, boxes or cups, except for the occassional Starbucks in Paris.  Everyone sits or stands at a counter and enjoys their espresso, chats with friends or the barrista and then goes on with their business.

There is a culture that develops around these small establishments.  There is pretty clearly a regular clientel in many of them, and people greet each other with familiarity and joy.  There is a community that has developed, and you could say that cafes are like religion- they have a ritual and a pattern that brings structure to life.

What struck me is how much of this is missing in America.

We don’t have the corner bar or pub where people congregate after work to relax in most areas.  In the suburbs, where you have to drive everywhere, you don’t have the same logistics that make this kind of neighborhood social gathering point a regular part of the commuity- the closest we get is pick-up line at our local schools, or perhaps the playground, and this tends to be limited to moms and kids below age ten- what happens to everyone else and their needs?  There’s the kids’ sport teams, and maybe the gym, but many of these activities don’t really encourage a bonding and growth of community in the same way relaxing with coffee in a cafe does.

In the U.S., we tend to go home and shut our doors.  We get in our cars and don’t ride public transport.  We don’t have to interact with people, and we seem to take the “home is our castle” myth to its logical conclusion- our homes and apartments are bastions to keep the world out and our possessions in, and once we enter, we roll up the drawbridge and don’t let anyone in.

As a result, social media tools, like Facebook, Twitter and more serve the function of the corner pub for many of us.  We can catch up with friends in far-flung places in just a few minutes.  We may twitter about the mango salsa at our local place, but this piece of simple information creates that “cafe-shaped” pieces of information we would exchange if we actually were sitting at a pub with each other after work.  Not all information is business related, but some is. Some exchanges are like pointing people to the great sale at the mall, or the best recipe for curry, or what you’re reading.  Not all exchanges are merely background life information, but some of this information is still useful- it’s what we would talk about, face to face.  We find out who hangs out with whom.  We find out where are friends are and what their doing- we stay connected in a very ambient way, like we would if we saw our friends for coffee  in person a few times a week.  And while it may not be the “highest” or “best” use of any of these communication tools and channels, it serves a very real purpose to help us get to know each other, well in advance of any real-world meeting.

I suspect there will be some differences in adoption rates of social media  in places where cafe-shaped conversations are already a part of daily life, because the need it fills is very different.  Social is already a part of their lives; they just want the media part, to amplify the messages and expand the audience beyond the narrow focus of the cafe. Regardless of the availability of technology, wifi, and the like, the cultural reasons for adopting online communication are simply different.

By seeing how different the cafe culture is in Europe, I wonder how, or if, we can ever breech this gap and begin to create stronger “real world” local communities, when so much of it is transferring into a virtual space and away from the real world.  Group-working environments like Philly’s Independents Hall and the communities we begin to bring together through Podcamp and Barcamp events help make the virtual actual.  It gives the local community a cafe, if you will, where we can gather and share, and hopefully extend that to a more regular relationship, and will go beyond needing an event, a party or big occassion to pry people out of their homes and interact.

The power of knowing so many people, literally all over the Country and all over the World, and having a sense of that cafe-sized conversation almost daily is amazing, yet it never can completely replace the power of Coffee and Croissants.  The person to person, face to face interaction, the power of the handshake – that is still a very important part of maintaining and extending relationships.

And all the Facebook coffee and drinks won’t replace a cappucino and a smile from a friend at Cafe de la Paix.

Tags: barcamp, cafe shaped conversations, chris brogan, cultural differences, eurpoe, independent's hall, indyhall, podcamp, pubs, social media