Ken Fox - Strategist!

Cue a cool theme song that is reminiscent of the old private-eye or cop dramas.

Cold Call Carl - No. 15

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See all the "Cold Call Carl" comics here.

For Me, This is Like Peanut Butter and Chocolate

Combining two of my favorite things: old socialist propaganda illustrations and making fun of social media gurus and conferences. But now that I think about it, they really aren't that much different from one another, are they? Click image for better.

It's a Good Gig If You Can Get It - Part II

Back from the Blog Expo

It took seeing the new Geico commercial to remind me that I have an xtranormal account, which is a great tool, even the free version. In this little movie, Drew is back from Vegas, reporting to his supervisor on what he "took away" from the blogging and new media conference.

Not Much Left to Show Them

Cold Call Carl has a new job. Now he works for Social Media R Us. (Click for the large) He's finding, like many in the practice have found, that they've taken it in-house.

Inspired by a post over at Make the Logo Bigger.

More Cold Call Carl.

If You're Not a Guru By Now...

The preponderance of experts in the field of social media is astounding. It really shouldn't be such a mystery anymore, requiring a conference per month and seminars out the ass. It's basic common sense, but we had to turn it into an industry. A recent visit to my Linked-In network showed me people I know who couldn't compose a paragraph in an email now touting themselves as experts in the oh-so-mystical realm of social media. Here is one such person conducting a recent seminar. We catch up with her just after she prompts the audience, "Let's think of some social media tools we use today!" Thankfully, there were a couple of smart-ass bastards like me in her audience.

Everyone Knows Everything and No One's Ever Wrong

(...Until later*.)

Posterous. Tumblr. Twitter. Does anyone remember Friendster?  I got an email over the weekend from Technorati, the one-time leader in ranking blogs. They actually wanted 15 minutes of my time for a survey. I don't have three seconds for Technorati anymore, though they were once THE measuring stick for blog popularity. Digg. Stumble Upon. Fark. Fuck, it's all too much. The damned Yellow Pages runs ads on the radio now promising to get your business on all the social media sites the kids are using, including The Facebooks. Let's make a viral video! The 30-second spot is dead! Run around in circles chasing your Long-Tail. Engage the consumer. Hash-tag corned-beef hash. Groupon Coupon. SEO is king. SEO is dead. Twitter killed search. Instant Search killed Twitter. Twitter is Search. MySpace waste of space. LiveJournal is a DeadJournal. Xanga? Don't make me laugh.

Wild Frontier, kids. And for every sharpshooting gunslinger telling you what to do there are a thousand slick-suited tramps pulling covered wagons full of snake-oil. Problem is you just never know. Zuckerberg could do something so outlandishly invasive next week that a mass exodus will occur by Halloween. Goodbye, Facebook. Hello, Next Big Thing.

Don't get me wrong. Social media is good for your business. But beware the gurus and old-school agencies pretending to be reinvented. Trust your gut. Try it all. Ditch what doesn't work and move on to the next thing. Anyone claiming to know for sure what's going to work is either lying to you or just trying to convince himself.

It's fluid for now and for the foreseeable future.

*Credit.

Forget Your Troubles, Friend! Dance-Band Fame is Yours!

It's the Great Depression and Japan has yet to bomb Pearl Harbor, sending millions to work, and every magazine is filled with ads selling items or ideas that will help John and Alice Dustbowl make some much-needed cash. You can be a tattoo artist, or learn how to make big money in the promising field of cartooning. You can buy a saw-sharpener and go around sharpening people's saws. Learn to stuff birds. Be a baker. Be a diesel mechanic or get into Air Conditioning, "America's next big industry!" Others are just as vague as can be, and only promise happiness, riches, fame and the ability to get whatever you want if you will only send a dime for the book. The modern counterpart to these ads in our tough economy would be, "Learn to be a Social Media Guru in Your Spare Time!"

I liked this guy. He sells marimbas. Now that's a sure route to happy-land.

That's Right, - "And Associates." The Return of Ken Fox!

See more Ken Fox wisdom.

Viral Marketin' Guru

If you visit her site, she'll toss around those phrases that quickly let you know she's all about affiliate marketing and work from home stuff, which tends to drift into MLM and other get-rich-quick ideas, all the while repeating the words, "Twitter, Facebook, Social Media and Web 2.0."

But who am I to make fun of someone's dream? Cynthia here is taking the bullshit by the horns and turning it into CA$H! Besides, she's Certified!

Thanks to Every Sandwich for the tip.

Some People Should Stand When They Talk

The Guru at His Twitter Avatar Photo Shoot

Twitter has enabled a lot of people to take themselves way too seriously.
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OK, Gurus, They Did What You Said. Now What?

Last night I heard a phrase that catches my ear every time I hear it used in advertising, "Log on to our..." It irks me because we don't "log-on to" anything unless it's secure and requires a user name and password. We simply "go" to your website, we don't log onto it.

Anyway, that's a minor and debatable point. This time the ad said "Log-on to our Facebook page." The ad was for a group of regional medical centers, but everything else in the ad was lost to me, as I wasn't listening until the Facebook part. I'm sure it had to do with the chain of hospitals' commitment to "quality care, innovation and helping our community," three bullets that took the internal CMO and his committees 18 months to agree on.

And now they're on Facebook, just like the big boys. They're using Social Media! Just like they've been reading about in every magazine, probably including a very interesting piece in Hospital Marketing Monthly titled something like "Opening the Conversation: 10 Ways to Engage your Patients and Prospective Patients using Social Media." Just like a bunch of consultants told them they should. Just like their incompetent marketing agency pretended to know all about. It probably took them forever to get it all approved and there is probably a rigorous process of checks and edits before anything gets posted on their Facebook page, but they're finally there. And I'm sure someone in HR or Communications sent out a notice, or wrote a nice story in the company's employee newsletter, announcing that "We are Moving into Social Media!" and urged all hospital employees to friend, fan or follow their employer, thus instantly creating the illusion of popularity.

I'm sure they're patting themselves on the back at this point, delighted that they finally did what they've been hearing about for so long. And now they will sit and wait. And then they will start to wonder, "Was the only reason we did this so that we can post press releases and photos of employee events?" Then the CMO will say to his team(s), "I'm hearing a lot about this Twitter thing. I think we should create a committee to study a Twitter strategy and then recommend some initiatives." And in about six months they might set up a Twitter account, and within it they will post links to their Facebook photos and generic, mundane press releases. They might even hire a consultant who is an expert in Twitter Strategies, who will show them a presentation saying as much.

Everyone's on Facebook now, gurus. And they all have a Twitter account. Are you going to now recommend they be on Google Buzz? You used to tell them they needed a blog, and so they started a blog. Then they abandoned that because it quickly proved to be a pointless exercise in self-promotion that no one ever read, much less commented on. (Hell, even the new media agencies that used to advocate blogs don't bother to update their own blogs anymore.) And the YouTube channel you insisted they create isn't getting any views. And their MySpace page is dormant. (Yeah, you recommended a MySpace "presence," remember?) In their ignorance, they accidentally but wisely declined your urging to open up a shop in Second Life.

At some point, the game is going to be up. The doors are starting to close as everyone tells you, "We already have someone working on that," or "We took that in-house last year." And even you can't fool the laundromat, the local pack-and-ship place or that quirky-cool restaurant you found downtown that they need to hire a Social Media Expert. Perhaps after the speaking gigs dry up and your vast knowledge of how to navigate this "crazy new frontier" is just plain old common knowledge, you will close up shop and start looking for a real job. Maybe the hospital chain will hire you as their New Media Strategist, and you can sit in a cubicle and update the Facebook page and monitor talk of your company on Twitter, where you will be pasting pre-approved 140-character responses to angry customers in between linking to photos of the employees at their recent 5K run.

But you and I know an intern can do that.

Barfbag Comics, Number 2

Echo and The Narcissists

In my iGoogle Twitter window there's a lady in Perth live-blogging a stalker at her home while the police arrive. That's mildly interesting and slightly disturbing. Someone tweeted "Good morning, Tweet Peeps!" which made me click the "Unfollow" button. The usual runners and workout grunts are explaining how good they feel having completed a "great run." (I keep them around because they remind me I should do that too.) Others are linking everyone to what song they're listening to and hoping we'll join them in a global singalong. We are the World. Hands Across America.

I get a notice that someone is following me. I see he is also following another 10,000 and has 400 followers. I will not be one of them. He's a specialist in Customer Relationship Management and tweets nothing but. Someone else is following me. She has 25,324 followers and is following about the same number. I don't understand that and don't want to be a part of it. If you're following that many, you can't possibly be paying much attention to many of them. Just to be sure I'm not missing anything worthwhile, I check on what she might be tweeting. I look in at her feed to see nothing but a bunch of retweets, the Twitter way of saying, "I saw this somewhere and wanted you to know that I thought it was worth sharing with all of you."

I said something about real estate in a tweet and five real estate agents instantly started following me. I said something about hating when marathoners talk incessantly about their training and a bunch of marathon-types and runner's magazines started following me. Someone who tweets nothing but positive New Age tripe cloaked as "Inspiration" is about to get deleted from my "Following" list. I guess he thinks he's the world's "Life Coach." Not mine, buddy. Bye.

I say we all just get mini-camera implants in our eyes, and then we can all have our whole lives broadcast on a unique channel. The most interesting lives will have lots of viewers and people will do crazy-dumb stuff to get more viewers, which will mean they can start wooing sponsors to their lives. A guy's eyes will glance down in the morning to pick up a tube of toothpaste. In order to get compensated for the product placement shot, he will need to linger on the tube for about five seconds. The whores can charge a viewer fee so you can watch them do their thing. The self-professed gurus and knowledge-slingers can wax on and on as they drive their kids to soccer practice. ("Daddy, I got an A on my math test!" "Son, I'm talking to my followers right now.") You can keep your Facebook twisted-face pose on all the time, or that goofy trademark tongue-sticking-out thing you do. Think of the world as your bathroom mirror, admiring you as much as you do. Let's all be Balloon Boy's dad, or the desperate dolts who send staged clips to America's Funniest Home Videos.

Everyone's life on constant display. Everything you see, touch, experience, eat, drink and do, you can show the world. We see what you see. We see what you do. We're in your head, sharing your wisdom, your fears, your life. We're at your meals, your job, on your dates, in your dreams.

Sounds like a creepy, far-off Dystopian nightmare. But we're halfway there.

Social Media Lunch

I finally heard about xtranormal, the site that allows you to make little movies. It's got some bugs, and the voices aren't the best, but it's a lot of fun. My first effort below. My apologies in advance to any gurus out there who might feel offended by this. Actually, I take that back. I'm not sorry at all. The guru/ninja in this video will be known as Richard Head.

Social Media Crash Course

Grow th!s comic biggR for her pleazure!

Post #1500. Now What?

I started this blog in July, 2006. I was a partner at a "new media agency" at the time and our company blog was fast becoming nothing more than a series of links and shout-outs to conferences or inane, mundane industry news. I always tried to make my posts on that blog interesting, but they'd quickly be buried by a colleague whose psychotic desire to get our blog a better Technorati ranking consumed his every waking moment, to the point that he was posting 20 times a day. In frustration, I created this one.

That agency, much like Technorati, is a relic of a bygone era, when blogs mattered and people who "surfed the net" were fond of something they used to call "bookmarks." SEO was still 50% legit and the MySpace Exodus was yet to come. Then RSS feeds got popular. Then Twitter took off. Technorati is about as accurate a barometer of a blog's popularity anymore as Dane Cook is capable of making me laugh; which is to say, not very. But at least Technorati is still in business. That defunct agency suffered a Biblical meltdown at the very hands of the above-mentioned colleague, who now goes about to small-circuit meet-ups and clubs, touting his amazing Social Media Ninja skills. "You need to blog with regularity. Set up a Twitter account. Monitor talk of your brand or company. Become the expert in your field. Blah blah zzzzz" (You thought I arrived at my social media disdain by being a skeptical observer? No, I have seen the dark side.) Did that sound bitter? I know. I'm working on it. I'll credit the gurus their tenacity and inventiveness, having built personal brands based on pure bullshit.

I believe in social media, but I don't think it requires a big bucks consultant to tell you what to do. It might require an intern to maintain a Facebook page, update your Twitter feed and have the authority to respond to talk of your brand. Keep in mind that when you use social media to spam or intrude, (otherwise known as "sales") you fail. That's why the kids left MySpace and will keep creating new and hidden ways of communing away from the marketers. It's a customer service tool and a buzz generator...and little more. Don't count on big ROI, none that you can accurately measure, anyway. That's why you put an intern on it. There is very little investment. Any return will be positive talk of your brand that outweighs the negative talk. You go on and figure out how that translates into "conversions." I'm not interested. It comes down to taking care of the small stuff, which anyone in business since the moneychangers in the Temple will tell you is often rewarded by the Holy Grail of Sales - repeat business. Now you know all you need to know about using social media for your business. Be careful out there.

Anyway (damn, wasn't expecting to go off on social media), this arbitrary milestone of 1,500 posts in a little over three years (about 1.5 per day) has me pondering "the next step." (You know, like Bowie or Madonna, always reinventing.) I sometimes see this blog as a burden, as have the authors of many of my favorite reads in recent years, disappearing without a word or sometimes announcing the end with finality. Wordpress and Blogger (and Posterous and Tumblr and Facebook and MySpace and LiveJournal and Friendster) are littered with the skeletons of long-dead blogs. "It's one more thing to keep up with when we have plenty to do already," they've noted. I know the feeling.

But whenever I entertain the notion of quitting this thing, I end up going back to why I started blogging to begin with. I need to create, maybe bounce stuff off of others. (The whole "conversation" thing.) Its likely because my job, like many of yours, is a maddening exercise in kissing ass and shutting up, keeping a sharp eye peeled for the next bus someone wants to throw us under. We blog to vent, to entertain ourselves and maybe a few others, and to do the things we want to do that advertising and marketing won't ever allow. Nobody promised us a work-life that satisfied. That's why they call it work. We get a paycheck. We try to do our best. We can't forget that while we may have entered the "creative" side for loftier reasons, we aren't here to make art, but to make a living. Could my blogging time be used in a more productively creative way, like maybe woodworking or learning a new language? Absolutely. And I might just start building Spanish Adirondack chairs someday.

And like most of you, I've got bigger plans for a vast media empire with a hidden agenda that I hope to control someday from a huge tower, where I will issue edicts and proclamations across my vast realm as I recline in grotesque luxury, eating the hearts and brains of interns and washing them down with the blood of my rivals. (I probably won't be that big of a dick, having spent way too much time in the dirt of the trenches, eating shit.) Maybe for the time being, this blog just serves as the cornerstone of that empire. Or maybe it will only ever be the place where I dump the random stuff and one-off junk I feel like saying or doing. That'd be fine, too. It serves a purpose either way.

So, I think I just talked myself out of retiring this blog. Sorry.

Cold Call Carl - No. 10

Like the flight attendant who does magic tricks or the table-side salad maker who flips his salt and pepper shakers, Cold Call Carl has discovered his gift.

mas grande

Here's the whole "Cold Call Carl" series.