It’s a group blog for us to talk about all sorts of social media, digital marketing and public relations stuff from the point of view of four Gen Y bloggers in our first job doing digital in one agency or another.
Think of it as four blogs in one! Do check us out and give us feedback!
I just finished attending a two day conference, the Singaporean leg of the international Social Media World Forum and instead of giving a run down of the two days, here are my thoughts on what differentiates a great conference speaker from a mediocre one (and let’s face it, we all appreciate the great ones):
1) Add context
Sony Pictures showed a short clip of Sophie’s Diary which really helped solidify the concept of the programme way better than just talking about it could. We’re in a fast-paced industry where things change all the time and while your material may be familiar to you because you work with it everyday, it doesn’t necessarily mean everyone in the room has the same level of familiarity (and you shouldn’t assume that they do),so it really helps to bring things to a ground level before examining it. (tweet from John Kerr)
2) Be relevant and current
Dell Hell? Comcast technician asleep on the couch? Old news, let’s move on. Either do the homework necessary to keep current at such events, or don’t speak. (tweet from Dorothy Poon)
3) Share your own examples
Don’t be afraid to share. Intercontinental Hong Kong shared their small success of using a Facebook Fan Page for a chef with only a hundred fans to reach out to customers and directly bring in revenue. Is it a bad or small example because they only had just over a hundred fans? Certainly not. Also, when you talk about what other people are doing and not what you’re doing, it doesn’t make you sound very credible. (tweet from Claudia Lim)
4) Be specific
I know no one has all the answers for certain subjects like social media measurement measurement, but I think speaking with general vagueness like “there’s no one size fits all solution” doesn’t help anyone. Suggest one or two metrics if there isn’t the whole package (tweet from Bernard Leong)
Late upload (all my fault) but here is the 6th episode of The GennY Podcast once again with Dorothy and myself talking about things that that happened at Ad:Tech 2009, and our observations.
The show notes:
00:00 – Starting off “live” from Ad:Tech
00:24 – A slight comparison of Ad:Tech 2008 and Ad:Tech 2009 and trends we’ve noticed
00:51 – First trend: The audience still seems to be semi to largely clueless!
01:51 – Is there a trend of inertia of companies not wanting to get their feet wet?
02:52 – Second trend: The idea of strategy vs tools. Shouldn’t this be common sense?
03:20 – There really needs to be a bigger strategy than “collecting followers”
03:32 – Should marketing move up from the tactical level to the strategic level?
04:52 – There should be a budget shift from expensive TVCs that no one is watching, especially when numerous presentations show data that TV isn’t as powerful as it used to be
05:45 – If your digital initiatives aren’t working for you, prove that your traditional media initiatives are
06:36 – Maybe the truth hurts? The blind faith of buying an ad makes you feel better?
07:22 – So how do you deal with intangibles? Maybe you can’t have it both ways?
07:49 – Maybe online interactions have a different angle. Maybe it’s not about sales. Maybe it can be used for feedback?
08:12 – Are advertisers just conning themselves? What does 4.5 million eyeballs even mean?
09:00 – Dorothy sighs in utter exasperation. You’re doing this to her advertisers! You!
09:08 – Maybe we’re just in a stage where we don’t know what the different numbers mean
10:50 – How is employing one person to take care of your social media presence a more expensive investment than producing and buying a TV ad?
11:08 – In the future, advertising should be come “invisible” and woven in
11:52 – There seems to be a universal Generation Y culture
13:27 – Maybe they just want to reach more people, but as Seth Godin says, the world has shifted from the “how many” to the “who”
14:32 – Hopefully we’ll have the rest of the crew back soon and we’re trying to make this regular!
So Dorothy and I were speaking at Ad:Tech Asia yesterday at a youth panel, and there was much discussion at the panel, on Twitter and online about what was said. We decided a quick episode of GennY would be a great way to talk about our thoughts after the panel. You can check out this blog post with lots of details with what was said at the panel.
The show notes
00:00 – Daryl and Dorothy start us off, this is focused on the fallout after the Ad:Tech youth panel, 2009
00:27 – First point: Why this obssession with the distinction between “new” and “traditional” media?
01:55 – Daryl mentions that the tools are all the same and references Brian’s (@litford)’s comments in GennY #4 about the same tools having different usages, with different results. (GennY Podcast episode 004 – 22:34)
02:15 – Dorothy mentions that consistency across the different platforms is the key
02:55 – Is it about distinguishing the differences between them, or about how they can work together?
03:11 – Who do “influencers” really have to be?
05:34 – Down with “faceless” corporations on social media channels!! It’s impersonal and we can’t relate
06:55 – How about spokespeople from companies being the “faces” online?
07:44 – There are “stages” and “levels” in social media and the difficulty ramps up at each stage
08:17 – Perhaps co-ownership is the way to go. As long as there is someone available to listen
09:35 – Final point: Are youth really that different?
10:00 – Do older generations remember banner ads or TV ads?
10:18 – Marketers don’t like to hear that Gen Y doesn’t want to hear from “faceless” corporations, but isn’t it the same as receiving a telemarketer phone call or junk mail asking to sign up for a new credit card?
10:53 – Do the older generations go on websites and think “Wow this banner ad rocks I want to click on it”? Because if they don’t, why do they think we will?
11:10 – At the end of the day, would you be interested/excited about the ad if you were a consumer?
11:40 – Why would you do selective focus groups who may not even be your target group, when you could do it online with your fans and get fast feedback?
It’s been three weeks but the next episode of The GennY Podcast is finally here! Full disclosure: This was actually our first recording, but we felt that the episode we released first was better suited to be our first, introductory podcast. Coincidentally, some topics actually touch on what was said at Social Media Breakfast | Singapore 6, but in slightly more detail.
Once again, this episode was brought to you by the same people behind episode 1 (Krisandro, myself, Dorothy, Yin and Yinqi), but we hope to shake that up for subsequent episodes.
GennY Episode 2 Team
The show notes:
00:00 – Daryl starts us off – introductions all round
00:55 – Yin starts us off on the topic: How can we get traditional companies to start slowly on the social media path?
01:35 – Social media allows you to know what your consumer wants, what trends they’re picking up, and hence customise your communications/marketing
03:02 – Why don’t companies go where their audience is?
05:42 – Is there a perceived credibility problem with social media?
06:48 – How well received would brands be on Plurk?
07:50 – Maybe if they talked about things other than just selling, they might be better received.
08:31 – No messages from unknown faces please!
11:46 – Should employees reach out from their own identity, or create one aligned with a company?
13:02 – “Dear All” = Fail
15:03 – How about Facebook Groups?
15:39 – Facebook Groups more as personality “labels” rather than a communication channel
16:40 – Maybe Facebook Groups would work if the creators made an effort to communicate to the group
16:47 – But this can be overdone too
18:20 – Is this an intrinsic problem because Facebook Groups have no RSS?
If you’ve been following me on Twitter or Plurk, you may have gathered hints about a podcast coming your way.
Well, it’s here! It’s called Genny (pronounced Jenny – you have Krisandro to thank for the name) and the deal behind the podcast is that we decided to just get a handful of people from Generation Y in Singapore, and just really talk about what’s going on. Sometimes it’ll be about social media, sometimes it won’t be.
First, let me introduce the people in this podcast:
GennY Episode 1 Team
Krisandro, myself, Dorothy, Yin and Yinqi make up the people behind this episode, but it’s a revolving team and the voices will change from time to time, depending on who’s available to record the show. (Big thanks to Ingrid for putting together the graphic!)
As our first episode goes, this is pretty raw because we just sat in a room and talked into a laptop (Anyone wants to sponsor us proper podcast equipment?), but I hope you enjoy it anyway. It can only get better.
The show notes:
00:00 – Krisandro starts us off – introductions all round
00:53 – The topic: How is Gen Y different in the work force?
01:28 – Will Gen Y mindset change during the recession?
02:26 – Gen Y has no qualms with changing jobs, even in a recession
03:39 – Perhaps Gen Y feels there isn’t enough recognition at work
05:08 – Did the media influence Gen Y’s outlook on life?
07:56 – How is Gen Y different outside the workspace in peer-to-peer interactions?
09:57 – How does online interaction affect offline interaction?
10:51 – Krisandro claims he’s 19
11:01 – Are there different norms that apply online and offline?
11:58 – Maybe it’s easier for us to verify if people are weirdos online
15:10 – Blooper!
Please check out the podcast here and give us your feedback! If you’d like us to cover a certain topic, just drop a message in the comments. Thanks for your support!
So today Estee, Ian, Michael, Dorothy and I headed down to Sheraton Tower to speak to about 450 P&G Executives about Generation Y, the New Consumer and our purchase decisions as well as media consumption habits.
Michael, Dorothy and Ian getting ready.
Without a doubt, it was the biggest crowd I’ve ever spoken to (not including emceeing) and I hope they found it useful. One big concern (as always) is how “safe” it is to put your brands in the hands of consumers. As one of the execs put it, how do we know a blog won’t serve as a “brand spoiler”?
Left side of the room
Right side of the room.
I think it’s simple. The point I tried to hammer home today is: If your content or brand or product or service doesn’t suck, it won’t happen. By suck I mean the whole world hates it. I don’t think it has to be a perfect product, but a flawed one open to feedback is fine. And if you’re P&G, the textbook example for great brands, why should you be afraid? Your products should speak for themselves!
The one question I always want to ask is this: If you have kids (say, above 15). Do you really believe that your current media buying habits are in sync with their media consumption habits? I tried asking this today, but less than 10 people in the audience had kids over 15. So it became a moot point.
To some extent I think that’s a very dangerous position for an organisation to be in. If your key decision makers are at the age where they’re not interacting with Gen Y and think they are “safe” in the knowledge that what has worked for the last 30-40 years of marketing will still work, that spells trouble.
The smart companies will pick the brains of their youngest employees. MTV did that when I was there. Almost every week they would ask me “What would your age group think of this?” or “Is this lame to you?” or questions like that. I remember one instance where somebody two levels above my immediate superior (meaning she’s VP level) came to me and asked my opinion on some new VJ audition tapes.
I’m not trying to be a diva, but it astounds me that there were 140 students at Ad:Tech last week, and almost none of us were approached by execs just to talk.
Let’s put it this way: Every six months new graduates enter the workforce and decide what to buy with their newfound spending power. If you haven’t been communicating to them earlier, what makes you think you can do it now?
ps: While we’re on the topic of Gen Y. I found it weird to receive this as a “thank you” gift from P&G:
I don’t want to seem ungrateful but… Boss for women? I don’t get it. In future, either get “thank you” gifts that can go to either sex, or label your “thank you” gifts appropriately.
