The Danger of Relying on Facebook

The Danger of Relying on Facebook

Last Tuesday, the world freaked out because of a glitch in the internet.

Specifically Facebook’s parent company Meta, and most of their affiliated social and internet related sites and features became inoperable starting around 10am eastern time.

I am actually writing this on Tuesday March 5th, two hours later and it’s still down on laptops, but currently working on my phone via the app.

The ramifications for the ordinary, everyday user is just an inconvenience.  I can live without Facebook, Instagram, Threads even though I post daily, it’s not like a primary source of marketing or making money for me personally.

However, for others, this kind of thing is costly.  Imagine not being able to do business because people could not reach you.  It will be interesting to see if there will be an estimate of the millions of dollars lost due to the Meta platforms being down for a few hours.  Considering the size of Facebook alone, I imagine over a billion dollars in lost revenue.  

I pulled some numbers from the website, The Social Sheperd that say there are over 3 Billion monthly Facebook users world-wide. 2 Billion people are on Facebook daily.  In the United States, over half the population has a Facebook account and 7 out of 10 Americans who use the internet are on Facebook too.   I have a couple of coworkers that fall into the category of internet users but not on Facebook.

From a business standpoint, I had a client a few years ago that lost at least a weeks worth of revenue what Facebook decided to shut down his business account.  He was spending $20,000 a month just on Facebook ads and getting a 4 to 1 return.  Fortunately he was able to scramble and rebrand his business and build it up again with money he had saved up, but many business people that place such a heavy emphasis on marketing platforms they can’t control are stuck when that platform fails like Facebook did

My advice has always been to create your own spot on the web, something you own.  Your own website, not just a social media page.  I know it’s tempting to just rely on the easy way but if it’s also a lazy way, you could be sunk.

One more success story to share with you, and this is about an HVAC company that has been around for 10 years without a website or social media.  I met with the owner recently because he is looking to invite WOWO radio listeners to become his customers.  I asked him the secret to his successful growth over the past decade without the usual online presence and it came down to having good relationships with a few key people in town that have kept him and his company busy.  The good old fashioned trusted word of mouth that you earn when you run your business right.

Now in order to invite our listeners to become his customers, he’s going to invest in a basic website which we can direct listeners to and will give his company credibility to those that don’t know him yet.

What about you?  Are you needing some guidance and help on how to market your business?  Contact me and let’s talk.

Reintroducing ScLoHo

Reintroducing ScLoHo

Last week, when I was recording the podcast version of my weekly update I mentioned briefly what a ScLoHo is. Today, that is the focus of both this article and podcast episode.

If this is the very first time you’ve listened to the Scott Howard Genuine ScLoHo Media and Marketing Podcast, welcome aboard.  If it’s the first time you’ve read an article I’ve published on this website, come on in.

Today I’m reintroducing myself, Scott Howard also known as ScLoHo.

I’ve been podcasting nearly every week since March 2017, so this is the beginning of my eighth year hosting a podcast.

I also checked my blogging history and I launched my first blog in 2004, 20 years ago.

The ScLoHo nickname began even before that as an email address because there are many Scott Howard’s out there and I needed something unique.

ScLoHo is a mash-up using the first two letters of my first name, Scott, first two letters of my middle name, Louis, and first two letters of my last name, Howard.

When you take those 6 letters and try and pronounce them, it becomes two syllables because there are only two vowels. Sclo (Sclow)- Ho (Hoe).

In 2004, I launched a couple of blogs, one was a personal blog, the other a media and marketing blog using Google’s old Blogger.com platform and eventually launched a few more blogs, all of them under the ScLoHo online persona.  At one point, for a couple of years, I was posting over 30 times a week on all of these blogs and this was not my fulltime job.  I was working for a group of radio stations from 2003 thru 2011 and blogging was just an unpaid side passion.

However, the ScLoHo name became pretty well known both locally and online.  I have used ScLoHo as a Twitter or X handle, along with nearly all my other social media profiles.  My personal email is @ScLoHo.net; I own the ScLoHo.com and .net domains and basically it use to be if you Googled ScLoHo, you’d find me.

Interestingly there were some people who knew me as ScLoHo and others who only knew me as Scott.  In the  summer of 2010, I was walking at the Tincaps baseball game, taking a lab around the stadium, when a group of friends from an advertising agency saw me and shouted my name.  Except, some yelled ScLoHo, and the others shouted Scott.

In 2011, I left radio for 10 months and worked for a website development company where a friend of my challenged me to merge the two and launched the ScottHoward.me website.  The dot me domain was not due to my ego, it’s because both the dot com and dot net domains were taken by other Scott Howard’s.

I imported over a thousand stories to this website from my blogs and eventually scaled down my updates from several a day to one a day to once a week.  The only time I’ve done less than a weekly update was a few months in 2022 and 2023 when my duties at the radio stations as a sales manager overseeing 4 stations and 8 salespeople needed my attention more than this. At the time, I also figured after 300 podcasts and over 1500 articles, I pretty much had shared everything there was to know and media and marketing.  I did monthly updates.  My focus was to help my team grow and to take the spotlight off me and on them.

However at the end of last summer, things changed.  I decided to step back from management and rehire myself as a member of the WOWO radio sales team.  With that change, I decided to return to weekly updates and to get back out in the community again instead of behind the scenes like I had been doing for nearly 4 years as a manager.

What’s my backstory?  Well first of all I never wanted to do sales.

In high school, my first venture into radio was on the air.  After graduation, I was on the air at radio stations full time in Marion and Kokomo Indiana and then returned to my hometown of Fort Wayne and was on the air at WMEE.  WMEE has always been owned by Federated Media and in the 1980’s WOWO was our competition, owned by another company.  WOWO was the big dog, the radio station that had the highest ratings and most listeners for decades.  However in the early 80’s I was part of the WMEE air team that finally beat WOWO and became the most listened to radio station according to the ratings.

Next stop was back to Kokomo and Indianapolis before taking my growing family to Detroit.  Up until I moved to Michigan at the ripe old age of 26 with 10 years of on-air experience, I had only voiced radio commercials, but never wrote and produced advertising campaigns.  The company I joined in Detroit was different and awakened a curiosity in me to figure out how to communicate and motivate people with a radio commercial to spend their money with a particular business.  I learned how to create ad campaigns that were distinct and unique, and most importantly, created top of mind awareness of a business so that consumers would eventually need them, those businesses were already Top Of Mind.

While in Detroit at Crawford Broadcasting and station WMUZ, I grew our production department, did a stint as fill-in host and eventually hosted the morning show for awhile and also took my first advertising sales position.

In my mid-30’s, we moved my family back to Indiana, I returned to working on the radio at WFWI in Fort Wayne and then took a hiatus and worked outside of media.  Finally in 2003, it was back to radio full-time for good, all most.  Eight and a half successful years with a group of Ft. Wayne radio stations, followed by full time at a website development company, another radio station and as the Social Media Guru for a multimillion dollar eCommerce company and then back to Federated Media in 2013.

Nearly 30 years between my first time with Fed Med as a WMEE Disc Jockey to my current position on the WOWO Sales Team.  I also spent close to 4 years as the General Sales Manager of WOWO and a year on an interim basis as sales manager of 3 other stations.

I’ve been a guest speaker with Huntington University a couple of times, Ivy Tech Fort Wayne, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne and this year will be making my second appearance speaking at Trine University.

I’ve worked with over a hundred companies and organizations and consulted around a thousand in both formal and casual settings to help them become better with their media, marketing, public relations and internal sales and marketing.  Just in my 10+ years with WOWO have won a few achievement awards, called Feddies for Federated Media and even my own website won a best of contest by a competing media outlet.  Awards are nice, but what really motivates me is to have the opportunity to help others and share the wisdom and knowledge I’ve picked up over the last few decades and I’m continuing to learn as a life-long student.

Teaching, Training, Motivating and Encouraging has been a lot of what I do.  Helping people make wise spending decisions with their advertising and marketing is my bread and butter.  Being a dad, husband and grandparent keeps me grounded as well as my Christian faith.

There’s a philosophy about marketing and advertising that I call using Human Relationship Principles that I’ll review in the near future, but for now, you now know a lot more about this Scott Howard aka ScLoHo then you did 10 minutes ago.

 

Lure Them In

Lure Them In

The dictionary defines the word lure when used as a verb as, “tempt (a person or animal) to do something or to go somewhere, especially by offering some form of reward”.

Lure can be a negative word, but whether it’s fishing, hunting, selling, or advertising, setting the bait is key to alluring or attracting what you are trying to capture.  

In advertising, we are attempting to attract and allure a specific audience.

Since the beginning of time, it’s been known that you only have one opportunity to make a good first impression and regardless of if it’s a fish, wild game, or humans, you don’t have very long to capture their attention. Equally, it doesn’t take much to scare them off.

Your advertising message faces the same challenge. What your ads say, how they sound, and how they are delivered in the first few seconds, dictates whether your potential prospects will tune in or tune out to your message, or continue to read the message. 

Reporters and authors have long known that the headline and the first sentence are what dictate whether the reader tunes in and continues with the rest of the story, or tunes out. In an effort to develop the all-important “creative hook” at the top of your ads on websites, many headlines end up with more “creative” than “hook”.  

In order to get the maximum effect out of your ads, we recommend you carefully consider the first few seconds of every ad, blog, text, email, or post that you create. 

Here’s a bonus tip.  Often, you will find that the best line of any ad or letter, or the best words/sentence, is in the middle.  When you find it, move it to the first line, or use it as the headline.  

To read the 8 power openings you can use to capture more attention for your marketing efforts, click here.

QR Code Mania

QR Code Mania

Sometimes technology comes before it’s needed and then there is a triggering event that propels that emerging technology towards mainstream use.

This is the story of QR codes.

Do you use them in your business?

They’ve been around for quite awhile and some of the early uses left people wondering “Why?”

The triggering event that propelled them into the mainstream consumer world happened in 2020 and 2021.

You recall a mere 4 years ago when this coronavirus with the name Covid-19 created a huge upheaval in our world.

Initially at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020 we were told it’s no big deal, just a few isolated cases in the world and if it came to America, we could isolate it.  But a few weeks later a different strategy was urged. First we were told to stay home and shelter in place for a few weeks. Different government agencies and groups were giving conflicting advice and the whole thing turned political instead of just a health issue.

It was up to states and local governments to create and enforce rules, while solutions were being fast-tracked that led to millions getting vaccine jabs and others saying it was a hoax, or at least not as big of a deal as the media was portraying it to be.

A lot of confusion and upheaval but also a few changes in the way businesses operated.

One shift was the move back to one-time use items instead of reusable.  For years, climate change advocates were moving us away from plastics and even some paper to old fashioned alternatives.  In my life, the local Taco Bell that I would stop at for my breakfast burrito used to give me my food on a tray.  When the pandemic hit they were drive-thru only but when they reopened the dining room, it was no more trays, here’s your food in a paper bag.

I’ve seen other restaurants switch from glassware and silverware to disposable in order to eliminate potential cross contamination.

And we’ve finally seen the rise of QR code use.

Useful QR Code use, not the silly QR code use from a decade ago.

Many restaurants and drinking establishments switched from having printed menus that would get touched by 100’s of people and were big germ spreaders to placing QR codes on the table so we can scan and view the menu on our phones.  Some establishments also have a set up where i can pay my bill with QR code technology.

Let me be clear that in case you are unaware of what these QR codes do, they are simply a way for a consumer to get to a place online by scanning a QR code.  This makes it possible for you and I to visit a website without typing in a URL or doing a Google Search or any of that.

A QR code is a tool that the camera on your smartphone or tablet can read and interpret as a hyperlink to something online. That’s all it is.

From a business standpoint QR codes can be a money saver too because instead of printing hundreds of menu’s and then tossing them when they have changes or simply are worn out, the business can update the online page.  Someplaces update it weekly to reflect their specials.  This was prohibitively expense when all we had was ink and paper.

QR codes can by a shortcut to trackable hyperlinks too which helps businesses but doesn’t look scary to the consumer.

In 2012, I wrote an article about Idiotic QR Codes that I’ve linked here.  The Air Force Reserve was running a traditional billboard campaign that you would see as you’re driving and expected people to have their phones handy to be able to scan a giant QR code while speeding down the road.  Talk about the dangers of multi-tasking distracted driving!

I’ve written other articles about QR codes in years past that you can find here.

A big challenge in advertising and marketing is the ability to track results. and while the use of QR codes is not a solution for everyone, everywhere, I discovered a marketing success story from URL shortening service Bit.ly that was used by cat food company Smalls in New York City.

Smalls recently launched an advertising campaign throughout the New York City subway system that scratched just the right itch for cat parents in the Big Apple. These adorable ads had the power to make even the most dogged commuter pause and purr with delight. according to the article.

Signage on the subway system included QR codes.

Knowing that this campaign marked their grand entrance into the world of big-city advertising, Smalls wanted to get the most out of their efforts by leveraging QR Codes to drive viewers to their website across every ad placement.

And what were the results?

By putting the spotlight on these irresistibly photogenic cats and pairing them with concise, compelling messaging, Smalls managed to not only create brand awareness but also guide people toward their ultimate goal—interacting with the brand on their website. With smartphones in hand, subway riders could easily scan the Bitly QR Code and enter the Smalls universe.

As a result, Smalls reached up to 3.6 million subway riders and 500,000 New York City cat parents, building more brand awareness and driving new traffic to their website.

I’ve used the free Bit.ly services for years along with Google’s URL shortening service.  Both offer free and paid versions of QR Code generation.  A couple years ago when I was looking to add people to my team, I created cards that I handed out at career fairs with a QR code that potential candidates could scan to go online and see our openings.  We’ve also used them at a fund-raising event to make it easy to receive online donations.

Need help deciding if you should include QR codes in your business?  Reach out and let’s talk.  I’d also like to hear from those of you who are already implementing QR codes and how you’ve incorporated them.

 

 

Digital Discrepancies

Digital Discrepancies

I was born in the 1900’s.

I heard that line last month when comedian Nate Bargatze was hosting Saturday Night Live. Of course I didn’t watch it live on Saturday night, I saw it a few days later because we have YouTubeTV as our streaming service and my wife was catching up on some of her favorite shows.

Back in the 1900’s, (I’m talking about the century, not the decade) we saw a change in advertising targeting options mostly with the growth of cable TV that happened in the 1980’s and 1990’s and what that brought us as consumers was hundreds of TV viewing channel options instead of just the local broadcast TV signals.

Baby Boomers like my wife and I, Gen X and even Millennials like my kids are different from the current Gen Z in terms of media and entertainment experiences and choices.  Social Media giant Facebook is on the cusp of being 20 years old, and that was a game changer.  Media was not just one way from them to us.  With Social Media, we all got the opportunity to have a voice online and share our thoughts and media beyond what the traditional media companies were offering.

A dozen years ago, I took a break from radio and worked for a couple of web based companies.  Targeting to the “right people” was the sales pitch for these new digital advertising options which was pretty cool we thought.  I mean if you could only send your ads to the people who are most likely to respond… that was a game changer too.

However, there are a few flaws with that kind of thinking because it ignores Human Behavior.   I’ll dig more into that in the future but the basics are that we don’t just respond to targeted ads when they are presented to us, there has to be a need on our part to spend our money, or something stronger than a targeted ad that has created the desire within us.

There is a real problem with highly targeted ad placement, in that the controls for the systems that spit out those ads are not very reliable. Some of us are overserved ads for things we might want to buy is one flaw.  Another is getting served ads AFTER we made the purchase because the algorithms haven’t been created to address that flaw.

MarketingCharts.com released a report that says:

Only 15% of US advertisers are very confident in their ability to see all creative running across all channels, and even fewer (13%) are very confident in their ability to tie creative performance back to campaign ROI, according to a survey  commissioned by Claravine and conducted by Advertiser Perceptions.

In total, the advertisers surveyed – all of whom spend at least $50 million on digital advertising each year – estimate that the wrong creative is served to the wrong consumer about one-quarter (25%) of the time. That includes a majority (56%) who believe the wrong ad creative is served at least 20% of the time, and about one-sixth (17%) who estimate that it’s served to the wrong consumer at least 40% of the time.

Advertisers believe that their ROI would increase by an average of 29% if they were able to serve ad creative to the right consumer every time.

Now, I’m not at all against digital advertising, I just believe it’s not as complicated as some will have you believe.

Instead of targeting individuals, you need to go back to targeting known audience groups.  You can do this with social media and other digital advertising but it’s what really what advertising was all about back in the 1900’s.

When mass media like radio, print, TV, heck even Cable TV were the choices business had, they used the characteristics of the media channels audience as the determining factor for where to spend their advertising money.

Going back to my knowledge and expertise in tracking digital targeted ads, I know that when you dig deep enough, all the data becomes less and less reliable.

I challenge you to think like a person, a consumer, a person that could be your customer and the habits and characteristics they have, and then create ad campaigns that speak to them with a relevant message on a form of media that they are likely to use.

If you’re in the Fort Wayne Indiana area, I can help you walk thru this process in person.  Contact me, Scott@ScLoHo.net and we can set up a time to help you avoid all of these Digital Dispensaries and actually grow for the future.

 

Is It A Thing or Is It A Fad?

Is It A Thing or Is It A Fad?

Let’s jump into this topic headfirst with the reason I’m talking about this subject right now.

Around July 5th, a new social media app, Threads was launched and it’s been all over the news because… well.. the news media thinks it’s newsworthy.

Threads is connected to Instagram which is connected to Facebook which actually changed their corporate name to Meta in 2021.  Sort of like when Google changes their corporate name to Alphabet in 2015.

Anyway back to Threads and the news it’s making, mostly because of the number of users or subscribers it’s signed up.  News reports proclaiming it’s breaking records compared to other social media apps are true but with a footnote.

Facebook or Meta or whatever you want to call it is still the worlds largest social media platform when you count the number of accounts or users they have.  However if you look under the hood and ask some reasonable questions like “how many active users?” and “how active does an account need to be to be considered active?” , those numbers will shrink.  More on that in a moment.

The reason Threads has gained so many subscribers so quickly is because of two things:

  1. The Hype.  Free advertising from the media.  Because when Elon Musk took over Twitter and started making changes in 2022 that disrupted the Twitterverse, many Tweeps from the old days were not happy and looking for a Twitter Alternative.
  2. The Facebook/Instagram subscriber database.  If you have an Instagram account, you can sign up for Threads in less than a minute because Threads is currently tied directly to Instagram.  As of March 2023, Instagram has 2 Billion Monthly Average Users. That’s made it easy to pull those people over to Threads.  Twitter only had 233 MAU in March and as I write this just 5 days after the Threads launch, over 100 million have created a Threads account.

Regarding Threads, Is It A Thing or Is It A Fad?

Honestly it’s way too early to tell.

I recall in 2009 when the program director of one of my radio stations proclaimed that Twitter was just a Fad.  This was 3 years after Twitter launched and a year after I hopped on as a Tweep and built my ScLoHo Brand to national recognition with some of my Tweets being quoted by mainstream publications like the Wall Street Journal along with some more niche platforms.

The real test will be as the year unfolds and next year too. Right now people are signing up because they’ve heard about it and it’s easy.  But are they going to be active on Threads?  We have to wait and see over time.

There are some limits to the functionality compared to Twitter and other social platforms and that will evolve with time.  I’ve seen my friend Kevin Mullett and others explain the pros and cons of Threads. Scroll thru the Facebook comments until you find Kevin Mullett  here: https://www.facebook.com/djtrend/posts/pfbid02A7eh8tYxLLhcc1vmhf7xxfzLpzYXyQRU12swiuXTjTsc2JD6cro9V3DBP9ZCE9GVl

Also my friend Anthony Juliano had a very common sense approach that he shared on LinkedIn this week.  Anthony wrote:

My take on Threads, in a nutshell:

1. Yes, it’s a thing
2. A lot of people are joining it
3. But you don’t have to
4. Unless you want to
5. Oh, I understand: new stuff is neat!
6. But it probably won’t change your life, and
7. Do you really need another distraction?
8. It’s okay if you do, though, or see it as something that will move you toward your goals
9. But it’s okay if you don’t
10. And you can always change your mind later. To join or unjoin Threads. Or anything else. These tools aren’t going anywhere, and if they do you didn’t miss anything.

Except that last point #10 .. you can’t unjoin Threads without deleting your Instagram account right now. However, you can decide not to participate and simply keep your account without using it.

If you are an early adopter like I used to be and Kevin still is, go exploring on Threads.

But for marketing your business the way some people have relied solely on Social Media platforms to be the lifeline of revenue for their income… hold off.  At this moment Threads doesn’t have a way to run sponsored content, but they will in order to survive.

Because not all social media platforms last, no matter how much money the parent company has.  Google has failed numerous times including their Google Plus social platform that they simply could not convince enough people to use and it was killed off.

One last thought on the counting process of users or subscribers.  Monthly Average Users seems to be a standard for  many including the social media world. Monthly is also number that is used in the radio broadcasting world. The Radio Advertising Bureau says that over 90% of Americans listen to radio at least once a month.

I can give you real numbers that are much better criteria to look at when deciding where to spend your ad and marketing money.

In Fort Wayne, Indiana, the Nielsen company does a survey twice a year that gives us weekly numbers, not monthly.  And by taking a deep dive, we can look at specific hours or listener demographics.  Much like the targeting options on Facebook for certain qualitative criteria, we can look at that information for any of the radio stations in Fort Wayne, not just the 5 stations Federated Media operate.

Our oldest station, WOWO is now 99 years old and doing well.  Our other stations which include Sports Talk 1380 the Fan, WMEE, K105, and The Bear are also  doing well with a lot of listeners that want to spend money with businesses they trust.  This is not a Fad, it’s a Thing.  A Real Thing and if you want more information contact me.