THIS RT @photomatt: Reading comprehension for concepts longer than a tweet is at an all-time low.—
Briana Campbell (@MsMatchGirl) May 20, 2013
I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about attention spans, of late. My own, and the attention of others.
I recently read Dorie Clark’s “Reinventing You” – it’s a simple-to-read yet fairly comprehensive guid to self reinvention in the modern world. And honestly, I wish it had been published five years ago, when I was beginning my own process of career reinvention.
Obviously, one can’t change who they intrinsically are. Bu they can change the course of their lives. At the very least, they can try.
What is it that makes something last? What is it that makes words become a story? And what makes that story become a legend? What is it that takes something beyond the moment and turns it into part of our collective culture?
What makes Tony the Tiger an icon and Katy the Kangaroo an also ran?
What made Diet Coke take off and Tab fizzle out?
What made us a adopt the red-suited Coca-Cola Santa as our symbol of Christmas?
What makes one movie stay in our collective consciousness and another be forgotten about the moment it leaves the theaters? What makes a band immortal and another a “one hit wonder”?
Branding? Advertising? Men around a big conference table, smoking Luckys and drinking Scotch?
Magic?
Is it just me, or do the rest of you feel that a lot of marketing directors and members of the C-Suite still think that social media is a magic bullet?
One that can replace ad spend.
One that doesn’t cost money (hey, Facebook, is free, right?).
One that will magically sell all the things that you want the public to buy from you.
Yeah.
I know.
That’s crazy.
There is a chain shoe store near the office building wear I work. I walk past it a few times a day. And every day, at least once, I peek in the window. I see some cute shoes (anyone who knows me knows that I’m, like many girls, a fan of cute shoes), yet I’ve never gone inside.
Why?
Because there are too many shoes in the window. Seriously. Way too many shoes.
Yeah. I know. But stay with me.
It should come as no surprise that I’m of the firm belief that social media needs to be at the center of your marketing plan moving forward.
“Technology is changing. People are not changing. This is pivotal.”
I wrote these word in the blog of the last company I worked for almost a year ago, in May of 2011, in a post entitled Storytelling and the Power of the Social Network. And while this might be old news, I think it’s news that bears repeating.
Waldorf salds. Chicken Kiev. Wedge salad. Benihana. Mink stoles. Gin Gimlets.
Trends of another time. Perhaps.
But trends that were the thing to have. The order to make. What makes that happen? Continue reading
