Why are we so immersed in Social Media??? Part 2 The New Norm

For part 1 of this subject I took a very lighthearted yet cynical view about Social Media and its users. For part 2 I'm going to take a more objective view on the subject matter. For those who don't know my company is a Below the Line Ad Agency, which focuses on non-traditional advertising. So basically Social Media is on my mind and my clients' mind 24/7.Maybe that's why I keep talking about it. But this blog piece is my elementary Freakonomics moment where I want to combine Social Media and different instances in time.

The question still arises though, "Why do we keep going on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, MySpace, and the occasional LinkedIn connection?" My answer is simple but like most simple things in life, it is hard to understand. I hear a lot of people complaining people that the net and SM platforms are taking away the social aspect of everyday life, that kids will not be able to communicate or interact anymore. I have a different look at it. In the 80s and early 90s most business men were using phones, faxes, and couriers to transfer information to their clients. Now all it takes is an email or even a text message with a link to a PDF to send that information. Don't get me wrong Client relationships need to be strong, but a lot of work can be done via  a weekly conference call instead of constant contact during the work week.

This is where I believe most modern workers lost a feeling of being social. Technology took away the social aspect of work and home, but yet technology also brought the solution. The more un-social work and home has gotten, the more demand of being social was on the rise. Hence the rise of Social Networks. All of a sudden social spaces went from being perverted to trendy and finally the New Norm. The New Norm re-connected many people and enhanced their social well being. For instance my "frat house" roommate from Delta Chi and myself, message each other about meeting up and occasionally when the magic moment where both of us are free, we finally get together for a drink. And this is only possible because of Social Media.

As I said before, this is how I define Social Media:

“The collective thoughts, emotions, memories and events of many modern human beings”

-http://youngrichnerdy.blogspot.com

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Social CRM is the Future

Over the past 2 months I have had some experiences dealing with some great companies and not so great companies as a consumer. In this blog I will only focus on the great companies. These 2 companies Blue Sky and Scosche are 2 smaller tech companies both dealing with audio. As having an alternative life after work I produce music and DJ so I'm really in tuned with the new Audio Technology coming out. So this past Saturday while recording my Blue Sky monitors totally blew. The first thing I did was email their customer support. Guess what???? They mailed me back within 30 minutes apologizing and explaining the problem. As mad as I was about my Studio Monitors blowing up, the tech support was able to calm me down and we are currently solving this problem.
The second company Scosche, I had an awesome experience with. My girlfriend and I bought 2 pairs of their headphones and within the month, both broke in the identical manner. This was just unacceptable, so I went to their tech support site to the instant chat. The support was great and he apologized. He said it was unacceptable as well and that he will replace the models. So I send it in and within a week, the support emailed me back saying that they will be upgrading the headphones to on of their top of the line models. I don't expect any company to upgrade a product, but just to replace a broken product. But the support these two companies given were enough for me to become an advocate of their brand.
CRM is the future of brand advocacy no matter what product you provide for your customers. These two companies showcased class and dignity for their brands and products that should be studied throughout every company.

This is America and "You Can't Hustle the Hustler."

Speaking to a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs the past few weeks. The common sense is that we're all scared and afraid of the unknown. There were a few signs of hope but these signs are not significant enough for us to keep our head up. I watched a doom prophecy show the other night on the History Channel and they were all saying that Americans were doomed because we're too comfortable with our way of life and we can't conform. 

I don't believe in that. That's an answer that an elitist would say. This is America people, land of opportunity. As long as we have the opportunity to make a solution, America will be great. Elitists say that we're doomed to our own failures in oil. Guess what in the 1800s there was an oil scare. The difference was that the oil was actually whale oil. Obviously we moved to our modern means of energy but in America we will "Hustle" our way to a solution to make life better. America was built by immigrants who had a dream. Did the second richest man in history Andrew Carnagie build his wealth by going to Harvard? No he did not. Did Domino's Pizza start with an economic business plan with a golden parachute? I highly doubt that since they started by paying $500 for a pizza store name DominNick's. Did Thomas Edison go to MIT or CalTech to become the greatest inventor of all time? The answer is no. They were hustlers in the finest definition of the word.

Hustler: –noun

1. an enterprising person determined to succeed; go-getter.

 

My point is this. In America we can't get too comfortable because there are people hustling to make a better life for themselves and their family.  Solutions are being developed every day to make life better and that is the reason why I believe America will succeed. I still believe that if you can go to any country in the world there would be many people coming into our country in lieu of their own just because you can have an opportunity. That is the reason why my Grandmother, Mother, and Father came here. To give my brother an opportunity to become successful, but we know it doesn't guarantee it.

Where is hip hop music heading? Cause it'sleaving a alot of fans behind.

After listening to an intern today about hip hop music and how great Drake is I had to put my two cents into this. I grew up listening to rap and hip hop. I used to turn on the radio at night onto Hot 97, and make sure I recorded on cassette tape the hottest tracks like Biggie's One More Chance, Fugees' Mona Lisa, and random tracks Funkmaster Flex played. Luckily I grew up during the Golden Age of Hip Hop and music in a whole was not  tainted with the internet. But those days are long gone. I always thought I can grow with hip hop music, but the older I get the less relevance it has in my life. The new artists today has no relevance in my life since, I can't "stunt", "floss" or even "roll." With an exception of a few artists such as Eminem, Drake, and Kanye, I really can't see any young or elder adult take hip hop that seriously these days. The only thing I can see a young adult do with hip hop music is either dance to it at a bar, club, or sing the hook in your car.

Growing up, people who were older than me used to listen to Biggie and Pac and listen to their lyrics and not just that, memorize the meaning to it. After listening to hip hop and rap today, I have no idea nor clue what they are trying to say. Then one of my friends said, you're just too old for it. Well if this is the case then great, I can't bring my intelligence down to understand non-sense. On Biggie's Juicy, he overwhelmed us on how he took himself from poverty to success, now kid's have to listen to someone talking about black and yellow.

Whether I'm getting older or I just out grew hip hop and rap music, I will still listen to the classics.

Artis we should've taken over Atlantic Records 4 years ago.

I was texting with my good friend Artis the past few days on how Warner Music is operating at a loss. A few years ago when we were at Atlantic Records we were discussing the future of the music business. This was around 2006. Artis asked my brother and I where do we see the music business in 2010. We bluntly told him that the business will be insolvent but more than ever the population will want new music. As contradictory as it sounds, that is the reality of what the music business is today. 

So around 2006 Artis was able to secure a meeting with  some pretty high ups over at Atlantic to discuss future strategies and planning of their artists and businesses. After our introductions and brief presentation, he asked where do you see music in the near future, we said everything is going electro and there's going to be rappers and artists coming from different races and areas in the world. First off nobody believed us, second which really pissed me off was that they said that Pop music was going to start to use more instruments. Well tell that to Ke$ha and Far East Movement. That was the first prediction that came to fruition.

The second prediction we came up with was that artists will start to look for corporate sponsorships to release new music. This is a little difficult to grasp because we talked too much business at the table, but our thoughts was that if you go this route the public will reject most of the music that is associated with a product or brand. Since music is still ART, people will ultimately reject this music. There's a bunch of examples out there such as the Bacardi Music Launce, Axe music launch and the Toyota music launch that failed. Here's a tip, Brands and Sports work 99.9% of the time, Music and Brands may backfire on you 99.9% of the time. 

The lesson from this was that Artis, my brother and I were right. LOL J/K. The real value to this story is to always look ahead in your business no matter what industry you are in and sometimes the executive may not have all the answers, as we saw from the banking crisis.

I Figured out Who ruined our Economy! Diddy aka Puff Daddy.

I was thinking the other day what happened to our economy. The easy way out is saying both the Democrats and Republicans spent too much, the American people Spent too much, and most importantly it was Bush, Clinton and Obama's fault. 

But I found the root of this problem. We have to travel back in time around 1994 for the answer. I was born in the 80s so I can remember most of the 90s. In the early 90s I remember my parents saying, no we can't afford a new Super Nintendo, nor a Mongoose bike, or even a new jacket from Marshalls. But what I did learn was that you have to work for the things you want. 

But this is the year everything changed. Economic Super Villon #1 came about. I'm not talking about Bernake,  Geitner, Soros, Bush, Obama, Greenspan or even The Fed. I'm talking about Puff Daddy aka Diddy, aka Sean Combs, aka the original Versace Hottie himself. 

As a people, we were content we didn't want much. We wanted to be Responsible and save and buy things we can afford. But when Puff Daddy hit MTV with Biggie wearing Versace and D&G, that was the day everything went downhill for our country. All of a sudden kids wanted Versace Shades and Moschino t-shirtS. Obviously these are clothes that nobody could afford, but since credit was good for over a decade, people bought these liabilities and the worst part is, it didn't stop with clothes. It began with cars, then vacations and most importantly houses. The problem was that it didn't just infect the kids, it infected our parents. All of a sudden our parents were saying "Hey credit will always be there so let me buy a new house and buy a new car." How were the Baby Boomers going to act when they can get everything they ever wanted since their parents the WW2 and Depression era citizens kept telling them they couldn't afford things. So us and our parents got everything we ever wanted for that time.

Then all of a sudden there's no more credit, no more money and no more Jobs. Even though I used Diddy as an escape goat, the lifestyle he lives is HIS, not ours. He did work hard for it and fulfilled his American Dream, but we can't compare ourselves to anyone except for what YOU Want in this precious life of ours. I respect Diddy and all the entrepreneurs out there, but he is still an individual who wants to act this way in his life. Also he can obviously afford it.  

My final thoughts on this post is that we need to be responsible for our actions and our way of life. I know it is hard, owning our own business is a ticket to insanity or enlightenment but everyday I struggle to be responsible for all our actions in our business.  Also my generation was infected by Diddy's lifestyle and everyday I regret buying those Versace sunglasses 10 years ago.

Why are we so immersed in Social Media? Part 1

After working on few social media pages for myself and clients, this question still arises. You can say that Social Media is about connecting, its about re-connecting, its about interacting, its about taking action, its about all this stuff. But what is it really about?

From my own perspective, Social Media is just too big to understand. It is the collective thoughts, emotions, memories, and interactions of almost every modern human being. Once your post goes on this social media sphere, almost everyone in your cloud can see it.

Most of us know what the personal aspects are in Social Media. The common Facebook wall phrase, "OMG I haven't seen you since graduation in 1996!!!!" happens to appear a lot. Well 1996 is a long time ago and most likely you'll never see that person again, EVER.  Past the awkward moments and nonsense being posted on people's profiles, the personalities have really started coming out as of recently. The greatest achievement of Social Media is that people are finally being themselves on the internet. For this reason alone is why I see people so involved in Social Media.