We’ve seen this so many times before that I’m actually excited for Indie Artist Eloise to be in this fiasco. What’s going on? There is an alleged scandal. Let’s be clear… there are always three sides to a coin… but you can get up to speed on the Paperchase Plagiarism scandal here.

And TechCrunchEurope’s coverage here.

Tote bag in question! Album in question! Indie Artist - Eloise – at the center of it all.  

I figured I would just take the comments I shared with Eloise and post them here. It really does say it all… So if we find that there has been an injustice - do you think my predictions will come true? HAH!

<Comments I posted on Eloise’s site earlier today – only this time, I fixed my typos! HAH!>

This is soooo great! I love this David and Goliath scandal… because we all know how it’s going to end!

Smart Amazon should be the first to step up and take respectable action. Paperchase will be flanked across Social Media platforms from US to Oz. Mainstream media will finally pick up the story and shamed Paperchase will have to send out Corp. Comms boy to save face and fumble with some garbage excuse. Hot lawyer will make his name taking your case pro bono only to have Paperchase and you negotiate behind closed doors for an undisclosed amount of money! You and your fabulous artwork will become famous over night a la – United Airlines Guitar Player and Where in the World is dancing man!

And why? Why is this going to happen?…. because of Social Media. That’s why!

When will brands learn that if you don’t play nice in the sandbox the masses will go Social on thier brands! Eeeeeee! Let the next case study begin! Woot! Woot!

Congratulations Eloise! This may just be the best thing to happen to you and your fantastic art yet! Shannon

I think I understand the difference between Online Marketing and Social Media… or as someone recently pointed out to me… not Social Media… but Word of Mouth (WOM). I guess we’re finally starting to enforce some nomenclature

Online Marketing which takes traditional marketing but makes it web ready evokes this reaction:

Social Media … or as it’s now being referred to, WOM evokes this reaction:

The difference? One broadcasts, manipulates and parades as butter when we all know it’s a version of. One uses humans, social tools to facilitate and enable… think; community managers, brand evangelists or better yet the public who fall in love with your brand – brand fanatics. Truly – there are people out there with a gift for building, nurturing and growing a community! We’re not saying throw everything else out… we’re saying that if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right! And getting WOM right as part of your marketing plan is ridiculously powerful.

I remember asking several people who appeared amazing-at-life a few questions including: If you could talk to yourself at 20 yrs of age, what would you say? – one response still rings true: “Buy your weaknesses, sell your strengths!”

If you’re looking to hire some really great and truly social types who absolutely get WOM. You want to chat to Barry Furby of Fresh Resources.

is a headline that definitely grabbed my attention. Luggage in hand I tore through Dublin airport desperate to pick up the Guardian where I could read the full article on my plane ride home to London. I’m sure I found the last newspaper in all of Dublin with minutes to spare,.. the paper came to me in bits but I was ok with that. I just wanted that part that contained Barbara Ehrenreich’s article on “The bad science that fooled the world”.  This isn’t the Guardian’s version… but it’ll do the trick.

First of all, I friggin love reading work from people who happily set out to challenge the mainstream way of thinking.  I like people who make me think. Barbara is one of those people.

I haven’t quite formulated my opinion yet, but she has made me wonder about several things. Is it possible that the happy happy, positive feel good movement was a major factor in causing this recession? Is it really just an income stream created to help lots of innocent people part with their cash? I think in a way it is of course, but is it to the extent Barbara suggests?

If you can spare the few minutes, check out Barbara’s blog. Part author, part activist and part PhD – she’s worth a skim even if you don’t agree with what she’s sounding off about.

I’m an optimistic realist who sees a lot of merit in reading books from Napolean Hill, Og Mandino, Tony Robbins and even Osho but there’s a difference between embracing a positive outlook vs. allowing positive thinking to become your religion. Right? But the question is …where’s that line? 

 The Secret  was probably one of the greatest marketing campaigns ever. I read the book and even watched the movie…  My thoughts on it all? I buy into the concept but find the content presented in The Secret severely flawed. The Secret however, quickly became a phenomenon. It went mainstream in no time… and not long after that, it evolved into some sort of religion. Hmmm, there’s that R word again… maybe Barbara has a point but maybe it isn’t a mass orchestrated corporate puppet master ordaining it all, maybe it’s those people who flock to quick fixes instead of stopping to ask a few questions along the way.

That’s it… just pondering a remark some child made in passing. Sometimes genius is in the most simple of things. Hmmm….?

I blogged earlier about a random idea I had about consumers being an active ingredient of a marketing/advertising campaign.

The more I investigate, work in and ponder all things Social and Digital the more I can’t help but think of ‘Engagement’ as being the Hero.

There is bucket loads of information, insights and research out there that states online users in this day and age are looking for:

1. Fame

2. An experience that they can share with their networks.

3. Immortality

Brands want the online audience to swap their cash for said product/service – Brands are active online in an effort to capture those sales. I can’t help but see two islands that need a bridge.

Online consumers are looking for something specific, Brands are also looking for something specific… marrying the two could prove to be more of a win win. All this leads me back to an earlier random thought – what if consumers were enabled to be an intricate part of an online marketing and ad campaign? Literally able to jib jab themselves into copy, banner ads, videos, photos and more.

side-bar: HAH! I love how jib jab can now wear both hats: noun and verb! That’s a great measurement of success for a brand – non?

I just read an article titled ‘Why Social Media Purists Won’t Last’ and it reminded me of a blog I should have done two months ago but didn’t. This post written by Jason Falls gives some very good arguements for how Social Media can no longer be maintained and guarded by the purists. If you haven’t read it yet, it is definitely worth the 6 minutes. This post has lots of merit and is something I do find myself nodding in agreement to. Although I wonder, if I were to take a few minutes out of my day and sit still, would this post make me uncomfortable? I’m thinking yeah, yeah it would. Albeit, only a smidgen.

In September of this year I had the pleasure of working with some very smart people on a global smart phone account. I was providing the b2b social strategy, compeltely built on insights, monitoring of conversations, supported with analytics that led to crowdsourcing and co-creation of solutions, that all supported innovation and on and on it went. The proposal was a very proud moment for me. Fast forward to the client meeting.

The client had their set of objectives, needs and ideals and I definitely had mine. I was committed to delivering a social media movement that would rival Dell, one that would be used as a case study in Birmingham’s Masters coursework for social, one that… ok. I’ll stop here.

What happened? The purist in me met the realist client and neither the two shall meet. The meeting was mediated by one of my colleagues who managed to walk the fine balance between the ideal social media solution and the parameters, restrictions and objectives of said client. A more balanced (washed down) proposal was sold and they all lived happily ever after!

What did I take away from all this? I received one incredible lesson as to why the Purist model needs to evolve if it expects to survive in today’s world. NOTE – I used the word “evolve” not “compromise”. 

The fundamentals of Social Media remain true. One person represented it best when he describe it as simply – Social >media – anyone remember who coined this? I shall do some digging so credit can go where credit due.

So yes, to Social Media Consultants everywhere, the purist days are probably not numbered… they’re over.

Do you care what it is exactly I want you to tweet? It’s not porn, it’s not racist or anything else offensive to your next door neighbor. What is it then? I want you to tweet a marketing message that has been disguised to appear genuinely from you. I’ll give you $250 for pressing a button! So? Will you do it?

Tempting – isn’t it? Do you think average joe with 10,000 twitter followers will find it tempting? Absolutely.

Full disclosure? I am a marketing and advertising type.  (but not one you can easily cookie cut by any means.) How do I feel about this? Bah! Not impressed. Why? Several reasons that I’ve attempted to outline below – what will this mean to our networks, relationships with friends and perception of social anything a year from now? Two years from now? I appreciate there are the full disclosure type companies but I tend to think they’ll be in the minority… most companies will work hard to hide <seed> their marketing messages as genuine tweets from mates. I can’t help but think that this is dodgy space.. why?

#1 – It’s not honest. Granted it could be argued that it is the ‘friend’ who is tweeting his love of said brand that is being the dishonest one. Regardless – when a brand is exposed in this space as acting in a way other than honest and authentic – they are in for one helluva run. The Nissan Cube, Habitat and the classic Dell brand can all testify to this harsh reality.

#2 – it’s not the way Social Media (SoMe) is done. It is a “Get Social Quick” scheme and for those of us who’ve earned our stripes know this does not work. There is no long term growth achieved. I’d even argue that this takes you one step forward and three steps back.

#3 – smells like MLM. Network Marketing. Pyramid. Whatever you want to call it. Now everybody is a mark. Now every twitter list is a dollar sign. Now every potential twitter account that befriends you is actually a robot looking to build a list to benefit from Black Hat Tweets! (That’s what I’m calling it as it feels a lot like Black Hat SEO) And when said person discovers that they are being considered a mark or seen as a dollar sign, what do they do? They revolt. (or bolt in the opposite direction)

#4 – it exploits a space that prides itself on trusting the recommendations of others. Hmmm. I wonder how long this will last. AC Neilsen can be quoted as saying- 78% of people trust what their network recommend to them.

#5-  it is setting a brand up for a beating. When exposed to be paying for fake recommendations how do you think said brand will be received by the social space? If the brand is big enough and the story is outrageous enough there will be one helluva a job waiting for some PR firm. (Hopefully a PR firm who appreciates that we’ve evolved and social media is no longer a fad)

What do you think? Am I over thinking this? Is there a place for this type of evil? HAH!