Nathan Bush

Men of the World, It's Time to Occupy Pinterest

2012-02-14T12:57:00.000+10:00

This is a call out to men all over the world: it's time to Occupy Pinterest.

The ladies have invaded this new platform and made it their own. It is time to tear down the frilly curtains and mess the place up a bit. It's not going to be easy and task before us is massive.

If you have had a browse on Pinterest you would have seen the unrelenting barrage of cupcakes, high wasted denim and 'love yourself' quotes. It's as if Oprah has created an army of bright eyed followers who are hell bent on overcoming evil cuteness, beauty and self assurance. It makes me sick. Even worse, when you look at the numbers, it confirms our fears: of the 10.4 million Pinterest users, 97.9% are female.

Honestly guys, how did we get here? How did we let the females occupy what is one of the newest, simplest and fascinating social networks and make it 'uncool' for us to use?

It's time for us to start pinning.

For generations guys have long enjoyed looking at pretty things (in fact, it is often used as the basis on why we are the 'simpler' of the two sexes). Think about how grown men can congregate over the form of a car, the little tingle we get over beautifully presented data or the glossy swimsuit calendar your dad kept in the garage. We like looking at pretty things as well. We should be pinning them!

I have already started. I have boards set up for 'Geeky Graphs', 'Great Quotes' and 'On The Stereo'. I'm looking to expand this further into manly territory with 'Beards to Grow', 'Toys For My Dream Shed' and 'If I Wasn't Married I Would Look At This Type of Girl'. These will be macho visual feasts.

But I can't Occupy Pinterest alone. I need the brotherhood to get behind me.

In one month's time, I don't want to log on to Pinterest and be assaulted with retro cushions, saturated sunsets or cute quotes with questionable fonts. I want to see crude comics, impossible golf holes and women who enjoy playing American football.

That's the Pinterest I yearn for. Men, it's time to Occupy Pinterest.

Black hat social media. What social media can learn from SEO.

2012-01-10T20:45:00.000+10:00

There are plenty of quick ways to look like you're winning in social media. Auto follow anyone mentioning your keyword. Pay a large third-world database a couple of hundred dollars to sign up. Ask for permissions which subtly share content automatically. Run deceptive Facebook ads around a borrowed, but unrelated, interest. All these are all legal (or close enough). But they're not in the best interests of the user.

It reminds me of the early days of SEO.

Tactics to achieve a high page ranking included stuffing meta tags full of unrelated or competitive keywords, hiding text on websites by making the text ad background the same colour, duplicating sites and content, creating doorway pages that are built for search engines and redirect to a consumer page and buying dodgy links on unreadable websites. All were legal but unethical. It was referred to a black hat SEO.

Eventually the algorithms were changed and those implementing black hat SEO were punished. Those who had been and continue to publish valuable content and generate reputable referrals reaped the rewards.

And so I think it is with social media.

If you choose to initiate black hat social media it's not difficult to notch up a large disconnected group of fans, generate a bunch of random comments or reach thousands of eyeballs. But you're wasting your time and your money. As social media continues to mature, users will get smarter, the technology will recognise real engagement and genuinely social brands will reap the rewards.

Yes, white hat social media can be time intensive, a long slog and at times, really tedious. But stick with it - don't be tempted into black hat quick fixes. The cream will rise.

Facebook Exploitation by Expedia

2012-01-04T17:05:00.001+10:00

Just noticed some very cheeky Facebook advertising from Expedia after Michael Clarke's wonderful test innings this afternoon...

Obviously, clicking 'like' doesn't send Clarkey a congratulatory telegram but makes you a fan of Expedia. Totally unrelated.

It's sneaky and short sighted by Expedia. And they're not the only perpetrators. Let's hope Facebook clamps down on these types of ads.

Facebook fans say the darnedest things

2011-12-21T15:41:00.002+10:00

We run and moderate a few pages and are constantly surprised, shocked, amused, revolted by some of the things fans say (it's amazing some of the things teenage boys can come up with in regards to donuts). Most of these comments get removed because they are offensive or derogatory but they are often the most entertaining.

Take this example on the Target page...

Politically incorrect and insensitive... but pretty funny. *post removed*

Keep it simpler than cereal

2011-12-20T13:49:00.004+10:00

I'm currently reading Bryce Courtenay's 'The Pitch'. It's a collection of his newspaper columns where he expresses his thoughts on advertising and marketing (when he was using his literary powers for evil rather than good).

He wrote a column on useless trivia he quotes a fact which I actually find very useful...

"The Lord's prayer has 56 words,
the 10 commandments 297,
the Gettysburg address 266,
the US Declaration of Independence 300
and an average 300gm packet of breakfast cereal 1300."

Keep it straight, keep it simple.

Dealer-chic or Incomparable - not both. How Soda Stream got it wrong this Christmas.

2011-11-30T13:18:00.001+10:00

I just finished reading the latest trendwatching report called 'Dealer-chic'. It talks about how consumers are now conditioned to look for the best bargain. Interestingly, it talks about how we want to find the best price not only for financial reasons but also to prove social worth.

The report also talks about the total opposite of 'Dealer-chic' and has coined it 'Incomparable'. These are products that are so valued, desired or esteemed that there is no substitute. Hence, there is no need to discount the product to drive sales for 'Incomparable' products.

'Dealer-chic' and 'Incomparable' are two polar opposite strategies and won't work if deployed together.

Let me give you an example. Last week Soda Stream launched a $2m brand campaign in the lead up to Christmas...

This is a brand campaign aiming to make the product desirable. It's an 'Incomparable' strategy.

However, last week we see the same product being flogged off cheaply on group buying site, Catch of the Day...

This is the anti-trend of 'Dealer-chic'. And we know that 'Dealer-chic' does not work with 'Incomparable'. It might work in the short term but will render a lot of that $2m quality message worthless in the long term.

There are tonnes of other examples out there but this just happened to be very timely. We're seeing more and more 'Dealer-chic' being implemented as a result of consumer expectations and pressure on marketers to show instant results. It is a trend that can be capitalised for some but just be careful you don't undo all your 'Incomparable' work in the process.

4 Reasons TV Will Change Forever in 2012

2011-11-29T19:18:00.001+10:00

In the last five years we've seen a total overhaul of the mobile phone. Next on the list will be the television. In fact, the new iteration of the TV might not even be called a TV but something more along the lines of 'a digital screen for the lounge room'. Or it could be slightly more wanky - I'm not going to coin it.

Here are four movements that point towards 2012 being the year that changed TV forever:

Apple TV. The number one indication that 2012 will be the year of digital screens is that Apple has "finally cracked" an Apple TV - as in, a whole TV, not a boxed, plug in attachment. Apparently, we can expect it out next year. And we know that where Apple plays, mainstream audiences follow. Competitors and long term TV manufacturers are scared and so they should be.

Catch up TV. Catch up TV is slowly but surely rolling out. Foxtel just announced their catch up service while all the commercial networks have limited catch up programs available (and I mean, limited). In contrast, the ABC continues to expand on its very impressive iView app with plans to expand to the iPhone this Summer. I still find it amazing our government funded national broadcaster leads the charge in transmedia broadcasting.

Real time interactivity. Perhaps a little behind the time but catching up, traditional TV stations are incorporating real time conversations in their programming. We see a lot of this in programs such as Q&A. Adam Ferrier just wrote a great post about how Channel 10 are bringing interactivity into TV with their Sunday Soapbox. It's good to see that they're using it for good - bagging Karl Sandilands. The next step will be interacting via the TV rather than through a third party device such as a phone or a tablet.

Social TV. There are now social networks such as GetGlue for people to check in to TV shows. That's TV shows, not physical locations. I suppose with over 40% of people using social media while watching TV this should be no surprise. I don't think these isolated social networks are sustainable in the short or long term. Facebook will eat them up with their 'doing' check-ins (watching, reading, listing) in the short term and they will be an integrated part of the TV in the long term. However, they are very interesting to play with and give us an indication of what's to come with social television.

2012 is going to be a big year for television. And unless the commercial networks make some big changes next year, it's going to be a difficult few years for them.

Give the disaster in social media disaster some perspective

2011-11-23T22:18:00.001+10:00

When you think of the word 'disaster' what do you think of? My mind goes to giant oil spills, political scandals and Australian second innings totals.

It's only in recent years that the word 'disaster' was more often than not led by two words: social media. The great social media disaster. Australia - heck, the world- loves them.

We saw the outrage, the humiliation and the irreparable damage that such a social media disaster can do this week with the great #qantasluxury debacle. It was all over the newspapers, blogs and of course, the tweets. They're also coming to a social media strategist's PowerPoint presentation near you soon. Yippee!

But if we take a step back and look at this particular social media disaster, does it really have Alan Joyce (the real one) losing any sleep? I doubt it.

Firstly, the brand was in plenty of shit before this hashtag took off. They've got plenty of bigger problems- like keeping their planes in the air.

Two, it's a twitter outcry. It looks massive because tweets are public. However, tweeters actually make up a relatively small proportion of the population. And those who don't tweet don't even like tweeters let alone know what a hashtag is.

Lastly, and I think this is the most important one, it was a marketing promotion. They didn't insult half their customer base or leak business secrets. They tried to run a competition for a pair of pj's and it didn't go very well.

Let's move on.

Don't get me wrong, social media is a very, very powerful force but this is just headline fodder.

At the end of the day, it wasn't a desirable outcome. It was a big, fat fail. It turned the volume up on a disgruntled audience and made a small department of their business look a bit silly. If there's an upside I bet they got a heap more followers. But I wouldn't call it a 'disaster'. We wont remember it in three months time and it will make no difference to Qantas' bottom line.

Disaster? It's not even close.

BCM: Agency Hangout

2011-11-12T00:22:00.000+10:00

With the announcement of brand pages on Google+, it wasn't enough for us just to be on there - we wanted to do something new. So we started a student connection program called Agency Hangout. Each week a staff member of BCM is available to chat to students via the Hangout feature. These conversations will be archived for students to access at anytime. As far as we know, this is the first project of its kind in the world.

Queensland Government: Road Trip

2011-11-09T07:50:00.000+10:00

Getting your licence is an exciting time but often the process is boring and uninspiring. Our new site, Road Trip, developed for the Department of Transport and Main Roads presents learning to drive information in a modern, fun and approachable way. Elements of customisation and gaming facilitate the learning and sharing between friends.

BCM: iDevices White Paper

2011-11-08T07:21:00.000+10:00

It's been a long time bugbear of mine that there is the perception that Android and iPhone usage is almost on par in Australia. The analytics we run on a daily basis does not agree with this. This led me to compile a wide range of research and penned a white paper showing just how much iPhone dominates the web browsing behaviour of Australians at this point of time.

Interestingly, not only do we see that the iPhone makes up 60% of traffic but the iPad even contributes more traffic than Android devices. The resulting paper is called 'iDevices Dominate Mobile Browsing with 84% Share'.

Dear Twitter, can you please add a 'like' button...

2011-10-25T22:50:00.000+10:00

Dear Twitter,

Sometimes a tweet is not worthy of a retweet or warrant a reply. Sometimes it's just a cool tweet and you want the person who posted it to know that you've acknowledged it - kind of how I liked Clive's steak...

Here's a simple solution for this problem...

A 'like' button. Or if you're worried about copying Facebook, call it a 'chirp', 'cool', 'up' or 'nice' button. It doesn't really matter what it's called - it's just a public acknowledgement of good content.

I'd see it replacing the Favorites button. Who uses that anyway? The like button would do the same job and more.

Here's 4 cool things the like button could achieve:

Bookmarking. Just like the Favorites button does, the like button saves all the content you've found interesting in one place. It would be great if Twitter made this easily searchable.
Recognition. Ever posted a tweet that you think is awesome only to be met with radio silence? There's the chance that your followers read and enjoyed your 140 character commentary but had nothing to add or it wouldn't be relevant to RT to their followers (kind of like Clive's steak). With the like button you can go through old posts and see how many found this useful and who saw your post. This would be gold for brands.
Top tweets. When looking at new followers, I look at their three latest tweets. For the good tweeters these are often @ replies which don't have any context. Instead of the last three tweets, imagine if you saw the most liked posts in the last month. You'll get a pretty clear idea of how good the content is from that account.
Highlights. Tweets fly thick and fast - that's the beauty of Twitter - it's real time. But what about an added feature where you can see the most liked posts since you last logged in. It can show you the important stuff you missed. Ideally, it would recognize your personal like preferences and tailor these highlights to your behavior.

The 'like' button for Twitter is probably not a new idea but one that I think would add valuable to features to Twitter. It might even entice Facebook-only users over who can relate to the behaviour.

What do you reckon? Should we include it?

Cheers

Nathan

Unfortunately ad or is James O'Connor an arsehole?

2011-10-22T04:17:00.000+10:00

Obviously it's just a coincidence but a pretty funny one (wait for the ad)...

The Paradox of Social Media: Choice Maker or Choice Breaker?

2011-10-18T08:52:00.000+10:00

I just finished reading Barry Schwartz's very excellent book, The Paradox of Choice. In a nutshell, it explains how we've given ourselves so much choice that it ultimately leads to dissatisfaction.

Schwartz gives tips on how to avoid this unhappiness. Keeping in mind that this book was written in 2004 - just before the social media boom - he gives two recommendations which are very interesting given our new-found online connectivity...

"Unless you're truly dissatisfied, stick with what you always buy... You'll encounter plenty of new things anyway. Your friends and coworkers will tell you about products they've bought or vacations they've taken. So you'll stumble onto improvements on your habitual choices without going looking for them."

Fantastic. Social media makes it easier for us to make decisions.

Oh, but then...

"We evaluate the quality of our experiences by comparing ourselves to others. Though social comparison can provide useful information, it often reduces our satisfaction... Social comparison seems sufficiently destructive to our sense of well-being that it is worthwhile to remind ourselves to do it less."

Arrrgh! Social media is the saviour and the enemy.

Being exposed to like-minded recommendations means we don't have to search far and wide for alternatives but can cause us to constantly compare our own lives to the (seemingly) happy life all our friends have. It's a double edged sword.

What do you reckon? Has the explosion of social media made decision making simpler or added a whole new level of complexity?

PS. I'd highly recommend this book - both from a consumer behavior and personal point of view - or, for the lazy visually minded this 20 minute TED presentation covers the key themes.

TEDx Brisbane: My 3 Highlights

2011-10-16T06:54:00.000+10:00

Today I had the privilege of attending TEDx Brisbane. If you're not familiar, it's a free, day long showcase of some of the most forward thinking and inspirational people who have amazing ideas to spread. In fact, that's the motto of TED - "ideas worth spreading". So with that in mind, I thought it was only decent of me to spread the ideas that I found most inspirational - in saying that, all speakers were awesome - but here were my top three speakers and ideas...

1. Eva Cox

Call me totally naive but I was unaware of Eva and her legendary status. If you're as naive as me, Eva is (according to Wikipedia) "a writer, feminist, sociologist, social commentator, stirrer and activist". And anyone who knows me, knows that this is the type of person I rarely identify with. But Eva was awesome. She had such strong convictions, made rational and convincing points and managed to get a standing ovation even though she was delivering via Skype. Eva's main point was "we should value people who look after people, not just those who look after money (that part is easy)". You can get an idea on Eva's passion and knowledge here...

2. Jeff Waldman

Jeff Waldman build swings. Rope + a piece of wood, timber or rock. Whatever he can find. Simple. He started building swings in public places in San Francisco. Just for fun. And people loved it. It made children happy and brought out the hidden child in adults - which made them happy. He was then granted $10K to bring the swings to Los Angeles - see video below. And has just got back from installing swings in Bolivia after getting a grant from Kickstarter. Such a simple idea that's delivering moments of happiness and connection all over the globe.

3. Gordon Hamilton

Gordon is a composer and conductor of the Australian Voices choir. He takes the meaning of "compose" ("to make or form by combining things, parts, or elements") to a new level. Noticing the amount of entertaining and thoughtful comment coming through his Facebook feed, he has started composing music based on this conversation. He has even started composing via crowd-sourcing. The results are very funny, and at times very moving. Here's the "Toy Story 3=Awesome" song...

These were only three of the ideas being shared. There were 20+ more. With conversation before, during and after the official presentations were done my brain was ready to explode.

Huge credit and thanks to all the people who put this event together, volunteered their services and sponsored to provide the post-beer. Events like this on a local level all over the globe are essential for solving major issues with new thinking. Fingers crossed I get invited back again next year.

Apple's 'Find My Friends' Fails at Finding Friends

2011-10-14T07:32:00.000+10:00

It's fair to say that if you are starting a new social network in 2011, you're starting a fair way behind the 8 ball. And if you're joining a new social network in 2011 there's a good chance you already have a friend, follower or community base somewhere else on the net.

For this reason it always amazes me when new social networks, such as Apple's 'Find My Friends' never use the established networks to help people establish their initial connections. Instead, it relies on people contacting their friends, who may or not be interested, via email to join up with them. It's a slow, obtrusive and disjointed process for the user.

Social networks thrive when people can be social. Without other people they are redundant. Obvious point.

We've seen with Instagram the success that can be had with allowing users to find existing Facebook and Twitter connections who are already using the service. The user knows foor sure who is interested in the new platform, can easily connect with one or multiples and can start using the features of the network immediately.

Denying that Facebook or Twitter is futile. We're not that silly. There's much more opportunity in capitalising on these existing relationships and using them to your own advantage to establish meaningful connections and get people using the network straight away. Seems simple to me. Here's hoping we see this in the next update.

Stadiums QLD iPhone App

2011-10-13T07:46:00.000+10:00

Anyone who knows me knows I'm a sport nut. So it's probably no surprise that developing an iPhone app for Stadiums Queensland was a dream project. Released last month, the Megafan app aims to make the stadium experience the best possible experience.

Built for all stadiums in QLD including Suncorp Stadium and the Gabba, the app guides users to their seats, gives a stadium map for beer, food, ATM's and toilets, provides transport info, relives great moments and even allows you to view live scores from around the grounds. You can download the Stadiums Queensland Megafan app here.

What Next: Technosuming

2011-10-07T06:44:00.000+10:00

Technosuming: the changing way consumers are devouring products and services.

Twice a year at BCM we hold a seminar on a topic that we think has the biggest impact on our clients (and the marketing world) at that point in time. This is usually has a digital skew. Last month we held a our seminar on Technosuming - the changing way consumers are devouring products and services.

There's something really interesting happening at the moment. Consumer confidence keeps plunging - inflation rising, house prices down, there's a bunch of new taxes, the stock market is all over the place. The headlines are getting scarier and consumers are genuinely cautious. Retailers aren't only saying they are doing it tough - they actually are doing it tough. However, through all this, internet use continues to soar. You might have seen the stat last month that the value to the economy of Australia's internet use is equivalent to our iron ore production. So while consumer confidence is down, internet use is up.

This hour long presentation demonstrated to our clients the opportunities available to bypass this downfall if smart online practises are seized upon. The presentation isolates eight key trends we are noticing right now, examples of how they are being implemented overseas and where we see them heading (we're not perfect - we predicted that there may be NFC in the latest iPhone).

I've embedded below an edited version of the presentation (some slides and videos don't make sense in isolation), the intro video we created to set the scene and a pic of me in full flight on the day. Feel free to leave any questions below.

8 Blogging Tips

2011-10-05T07:25:00.000+10:00

A while ago, a mate of mine and Online Community Manager, Daniel Oyston asked me to contribute one video tip on how to write a great blog. Then he put it together in a neat little video and put it up as a post on his (very good) blog. Have a look. There's some really smart folk on there and some massive bags under my eyes...

If you had to isolate one blog tip for newbies what would it be?

Time for a makeover...

2011-09-29T23:32:00.000+10:00

Yep. I'm doing it again - changing the layout of this blog. It's like a form of self torture. But I think I've finally got a format that suits my purposes of keeping it really simple, putting emphasis on the content and keeping it clean (in look at least).

Bear with me while I fix all the tidbits (like making the name of the blog replace the template name!)

Loyalty, Location and Likes

2011-09-27T08:11:00.000+10:00

A few weeks ago I was asked to sit on a Networx panel for a discussion on Loyalty, Location and Likes. Like always with Networx, it was a great night - I learnt heaps from Mark and Rachel who were also on the panel.

I mainly dealt with the 'like' part of the discussion - using examples like Triumph, Sunny Queen, Donut King and Department of Transport to demonstrate different motivations for different groups. We all had a quick chat with Cat at the end of the night which might give an overview of what was talked about:

Immobile Apple

2011-09-20T07:51:00.000+10:00

Did you know...

Apple, makers of the very popular mobile, the iPhone, don't have a mobile website...

Anyone know why?

We're all creative

2011-09-16T07:41:00.000+10:00

Today I had the honour to speak to some enthusiastic and bright QUT students who were on the crossroads of lazy afternoon television and collapsing on Friday nights. They were in the final stages of various types of marketing and advertising degrees.

I was relieved to see many of them still didn't know what they wanted to specialise in. This is a good thing. I reckon aiming to be a writer or a copywriter or a suit or a media buyer or a digital person is not only unrealistic - it's limiting. We discussed that we're all creative (sounds wanky but true). If you think you're not in a creative role, you'll never see yourself as responsible for coming up with creative ideas. Even if you don't draw or you don't write copy - that doesn't mean you're not creative.

It's the ideas that are creative. How they're executed puts a sexy layer on them, but the idea is creative. And it can come from anywhere in an agency. We're all responsible for creative ideas - wherever you end up. Just get in, have good ideas and no department or role will limit you.

Second to this, I think I may have scared them when I said: "If you apply for a job, we will stalk you". As in social media, not a "I know what you did last summer" kind of way. It's true, we've not employed someone who was a "digital native" but invisible on Google.

It is with this advice that I thought it was long overdue that I get my arse back in gear and blog more. You'll be hearing more on here... hopefully.

Government Gets Their Tweet On

2011-08-06T22:33:00.000+10:00

Government and departmental twitter accounts can easily be boring, cold and uninspired. But l've seen two examples lately which kick arse. They're spoken like real people who you'd actually like to hang out with and talk to. Naturally, they have high levels of interaction and sharing - which is exactly what we're here for.

Awesome work by all involved!

Example 1: @2011 Census which appeared on the front page of Reddit

Example 2: @VictoriaPolice tweeting from the football via Mumbrella

Todd Sampson's T-Shirts

2011-08-02T16:00:00.000+10:00

Late last year I decided to archive all of the shirts that The Gruen Panelist, Todd Sampson, had worn on the show. Seemed easy at the time. Thousands of freeze frames later and we have Todd Sampson's T-Shirts! And even a Facebook page.

So far it's been doing it's thing around the twitterverse and a few blogs but it will be ramping up again this week as Gruen hits the screens again. All good fun, even the man himself says so...