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The Ad-Blocking Battle Has Begun

Yesterday, Apple released iOS 9, which adds the ability to do “content blocking” to Safari and most other apps that show web content. Not coincidentally, dozens of content blocking apps were also launched, most focused on eliminating web ads. Then the Internet exploded as ad-supported content creators squared off against hordes of angry users who saw the beauty of an ad-free mobile web experience.

File Sep 18, 2 59 14 PM

At the center of this skirmish was Marco Arment and his ad-blocking iOS app, Peace. Marco created a simple and highly-effective app that leveraged the Ghostery database of web ads, trackers, and other cruft. The availability and efficacy of Peace was touted by influential folks and it quickly rose to be one of the top-selling apps in the iOS app store. I bought it, I loved it, and I shared it.

Then a funny thing happened: The pundits realized that ad-blocking software might threaten their ad-supported livelihood. And they turned against ad-blocking generally (and Marco specifically) in droves. Suddenly Apple and Marco were going to kill the web, sending the children of good and noble content creators into the streets, penniless, shoeless, and hopeless.

Marco caved. Others didn’t.

The Cesspool of Ads

There are a few elements of this tale that should cause alarm:

  1. Web advertising was always a faustian bargain – No one would agree to be party to today’s ad-supported web, but they’re opted in by publishers who want the money. The annoying and misleading images are only the visible face of a privacy-invading machine that tracks everything we do online.
  2. Web ads are awful – Users hate ads and have trained their brains to ignore them, so advertisers resort to ever-more intrusive and obnoxious ways to collect clicks. Too many web sites are simply honeypots to collect as many “impressions” as possible, and even the “good” sites are littered with trackers.
  3. It’s a bottomless barrel – The intermediaries who place ads on the web sell unfilled “inventory” to others, further down the stack. Even if a publisher wants to avoid the bottom of the barrel and place only good, relevant ads on their site, they have no control over the secondary and tertiary market for their space. The dregs will surface, and they’re pretty horrible.
  4. The ad-supported web is untenable – Ad revenue has declined so dramatically that it’s almost impossible to build a sustainable business based on web site display advertising. A publisher has to be lean or mean to make it work, but how long will it last?

Everyone who lives in this ad-supported world understands these things but they live with them because the lure of money is too tempting. A few have broken out of the mold, trusting good ad networks like The Deck, making a living off feed sponsorships like John Gruber, or selling value-added services like Ben Thompson.

The Question for Enterprise IT Bloggers

In our niche of enterprise IT, there has been almost a decade of head scratching by bloggers and would-be advertisers alike. How should a storage or networking company advertise? Should a niche blog have ads?

Enterprise IT companies can try to go through the big, conventional display ad machine, buying impressions from the big guys. They’re hoping that the vaunted targeting capabilities work, and aren’t just corporate spam like a billboard at an airport or logo on a Formula One car. They can also buy ads on individual sites, but it can be tedious to work with dozens of individuals and the results can be hard to measure.

Many bloggers just threw up their hands and removed the ads from their sites. The income just wasn’t worth the effort. Some also faced the backlash from readers who were exposed to poor or misleading ads washing up from the bottomless barrel. And then there was the criticism they faced when readers assumed that an ad would tilt the balance of their editorial independence.

When bloggers ask me about web advertising, I like to share my own experiences, which have mostly been negative. I removed all of the ads from my sites and focused instead on value-added services. But curated ads and relevant blog sponsorship isn’t a bad idea, as long as everyone strikes a realistic balance between revenue and outcome. Regardless, I’m not at all worried about the rise of web content blocking generally or ad blocking in particular. It’s just not my battle.

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Getting the Balance Wrong: Six Cardinal Sins of Corporate Influencer Programs

We at Foskett Services are deeply involved in the mechanics of corporate and industry social media and PR. It comes with the territory, running Tech Field Day, participating in events, and generally getting involved. And this has made us the target of many “influencer programs”, from Microsoft MVP, VMware vExpert, and EMC Experts to Cisco Champions and many more.

Most of these influencer programs get some things right and other aspects laughably wrong. Rather than pick on any one, let’s set up a straw man to point out the biggest sins of corporate influencer programs, as we see it.

How do you treat your champions?
How do you treat your champions?

Introducing the Simplex Sycophant Society

Let’s imagine a company, Simplex Networks, that wanted better to reach out to social media influencers and a crack team of Social Media Expert Consultants convinced them to start an influencer appreciation marketing program. The Simplex Sycophant Society is integrated with the core message of Simplex Networks and functions to externalize marketecture and message management for MBO and KPI acceleration. Or something.

But the poor folks at Simplex have hired the wrong team to manage their program and they’re making some huge mistakes! Let’s dive into their poor decisions.

“We’ll Draw From Our Biggest Supporters!”

Jim and Jon and Jane are always writing and speaking about Simplex. They love their doodads and never miss an opportunity to praise the company. They’re shoo-ins for the Sycophant Society.

But it’s a huge mistake to draw only from “champions” you know and appreciate! The most credible voices are those who are willing both to praise and criticize fairly and deservedly. It can be uncomfortable to see a negative review, but those can be even more important to a company than endless commendation. These programs should educate insiders as well as would-be customers.

It’s also important to reach for unfamiliar voices. We too often believe that the people we know are the entirety of the world, but this is a huge mistake in the segmented world of blogs, podcasts, forums, seminars, and events. Look first for people you don’t know rather than those you do.

“We’re Recognizing our Amplifying Army!”

Simplex pitched their program to bloggers as recognition for hard work but that’s not how they sold it internally. Their Social Media Consultants focused on messaging, amplification, and influencing the “experts” and “MVP’s”!

Be clear on the purpose of the program, both internally and externally. If the program is totally self-serving, you will end up alienating the very people with whom you’re trying to connect! Are you getting the balance right between recognition and influence? Do your “champions” feel valued or put upon once they’re part of the program? How much homework do they have to do to maintain their “award”?

It’s a good idea to set a limit on the size and makeup of the Influencer Army, too. Do you allow partners and employees to join? Why or why not? What are the criteria for inclusion and how will you remove people fairly? These things can quickly get out of hand!

“We’ve Media-Trained Official Internal Interactors!”

The Simplex PR team was very sensitive about opening up so they only allowed a special team of media-trained spokespeople to interact with their program. They were scared that independent writers and speakers might go off message, and there’s no way to go over their heads if they start saying uncomfortable things.

But media-trained spokespeople are boring, and on-message-only chats are unlikely to inspire coverage. The Internet of carefully-crafted marketing has trained us all to cut through the BS with a vorpal blade of wit and cynicism. Slick spokespeople are a relic of “a more civilized age” when writers played the game too.

It’s especially disappointing to see fantastic, credible individuals inside these companies overlooked and stymied in their attempts to reach out to their peers. Look around and you’ll see that the best spokespeople are already speaking and would do a much better job than Mr. Slick if only they were given the support!

“Let’s Have Our Sycophants Push This Out For Us!”

The pitch to Simplex Networks was to use their Sycophant Society simply as another vehicle for one-way marketing communication. So they put together weekly lists of suggested tweets, monthly product-specific writing assignments, and annual production quotas. Then they were surprised that their “champions” started falling out.

What was the point of this program again? It comes back to balance of benefit between the company and it’s champions. It’s ok to ask influencers to share your message but be very careful with this. They’re not just a corporate mouthpiece and you can quickly overstep their bounds of independence. The truly worthwhile will fall out of the program and you’ll be left with the shills. Is that what you wanted from the program?

Some try to overcome this resistance with rewards, from free product to cold, hard cash. But this too can backfire if it looks excessive or goes undisclosed in alleged independent content. Work for balance before all else and you won’t have to bribe your influencers.

“We’re Making That an Official Component of the Sycophant Society!”

Simplex saw people come up with all sorts of cool ideas, from social sharing concepts to in-person fun at their events. So they decided to bring these under the “official” Sycophant Society umbrella. Then everything fell apart because it just wasn’t fun anymore.

Companies should be wary of glomming onto erstwhile spontaneous activities and corporatizing them. Enjoy what your influencers do. Support them as needed. But allow them to thrive on their own rather than smothering them!

One additional benefit of keeping activities at arm’s length is deniability: If something negative does arise, it’s good to be involved but not committed to a publication or a party. You can benefit from the honest feedback without being on the hook for it.

“We’ll Invite the Sycophants to our Simplex Day!”

Since they already had an annual analyst and press event, Simplex decided to allow their Sycophants to tag along. But why were they ignoring the financial overview? And what about that golf outing they skipped? Plus, quite a few just couldn’t get time off work.

One reason we started Tech Field Day was the proliferation of events throughout the year. There’s something to go to somewhere just about every week, and multiple things some weeks! Yet independents must be choosy, selecting just a few events to attend out of the yearlong schedule. Even if their company is enlightened enough not to require vacation days for events, there’s an inevitable push-back to be had when requesting time off a dozen times a year.

Moreover, analyst and press days are usually inappropriate for independent techies. There’s too much filler and not enough deep interaction to justify a three-day trip for every company. And we also get back to the “inappropriate influence” factor when you add in golf or ski outings, giveaways, and luxury accommodations.

Rather than just bringing your influencers to your existing analyst and press events, why not set up a special event just for them? Time it to coincide with another industry event to minimize time off, or just join an existing event.

Suggested Tweets

So there you have it: Six things influencer programs too often get wrong. Don’t by like the Simplex Sycophant Society. Get the balance right.

Disclaimer: Did we mention we have many horses in this race? We run Tech Field Day, help with the SolarWinds thwack Ambassador Program and the Aruba Ambassador Program, and assist with outreach for other companies besides. Our primary goal with these efforts is balance between the objectives of the companies and the independent writers and speakers we work with. That’s kind of what this post is all about!

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“Everybody’s On the Internet, and Nobody Cares”

I really enjoy Marco Arment‘s blog and the links he posts and comments on. And I recently read his post, “We’re Just Flipping Through Index Cards”, with a reference to a podcast interview John Roderick by Myke Hurley that got me thinking. John is talking about the music industry, and Marco is talking about the app store. But a lot of it rings true for enterprise IT, too.

The old gatekeepers of information are history

PR Before the Internet

Here’s an example, thanks to Marco’s transcript:

[Ten years ago,] you were dependent on this whole cultural architecture of magazine writers, newspaper writers, college radio, commercial radio, public radio… and if your record got into the stream, and the right person liked it and talked about it, then pretty soon you’ve created a storm of interest that started with one or two people who decided that this record was something that really mattered.

Now substitute “tech press” and “tech analysts” for the influencers he’s referring to and you see where I’m going with this. It used to be that corporate PR could focus on a few well-known individuals to get their message out, just like the music industry focused on DJs and music writers.

I was one of those writers near the tail end; my friend Howard Marks was there in the thick of it. He tells tales of magazines so thick with ads they had to pay extra for articles just to meet postal service “minimum content” rules! And Gartner was the strongest force in the enterprise IT space, with end users paying for their recommendations and following them to the letter.

Democracy Wins!

But that’s all gone now. Storage Magazine folded, and only a few publications remain professional, relevant, and useful (hello, Network Computing!) Even conferences have changed, with independent shows being replaced by vendor-controlled events.

Where do end users go for advice and information about new products? And where to corporate PR and marketing folks go to talk about their wares?

John continues:

Well, five years ago, all of a sudden the conventional wisdom started to change. “Oh, no, we don’t have to do any of that anymore! You just put it on the internet, everybody listens to it, and ‘the crowd’ decides! And you don’t have to do any of that bullshit anymore. You can just tweet about your record, and everybody’s going to listen to it and love it!”

And for a brief moment, when the internet was still comprised mostly of all the right people, it was just the cool kids that were on there. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah could put out a record on Myspace, and the cool kids would all get it.

That was the enterprise IT world about 5 years ago when we started Tech Field Day. A few of us had made the jump to the Internet, and some great new folks started to appear. And what we said mattered just because someone was there, and they were saying something.

Another great thing happened thanks to the Internet (especially blogging and Twitter): Techies became influencers. The old guard ignored the Internet at first. Then they tried to firewall their content and make people pay. Then their empires collapsed. Content was king and democracy won, for a while at least.

What Now?

But in the last few years, things have been changing. Everyone is on Twitter and “social media professionals” have been gaming the system long enough that link fatigue is setting in. Here’s John again:

But, of course, that window was short-lived. Now, we’re back to a world where everybody’s on the internet, and nobody cares. Nobody’s following your tweet link to your record anymore! Except your fans, people who already like you.

My Twitter feed is now 85% links to people’s Kickstarters and YouTube videos. And I only follow people I know! Imagine following your favorite bands — it would be never-ending. Everybody’s trying to promote themselves the same way.

The problem is now, if you hire a publicist, what are they doing? They’re just tweeting about it, too, because the magazines are gone, the record stores are gone… it’s anybody’s guess how to promote a record now. …

I’m sure this sounds familiar to enterprise IT PR and marketing folks. They fill their corporate Twitter accounts with links but get few tweets. They try to build up their Facebook pages because that’s what the pros say to do, but have precious little actual engagement. And they’re inundated with potential social media outlets, from tweeters to online publications to events. But there’s just too much chaff and not enough wheat!

It’s Not the End of the World

In that podcast, John bemoans the decline he sees in the quality of music today, seemingly blaming it on this noisy social media world. I don’t agree.

I only heard John’s views because Marco blogged it. He presumably only heard it because he listens to CMD+Space and respects Myke. And I only listen to Marco because he has a history of posting quality content. See where this is going?

Social media is increasingly filled with noise like the Kickstarter and YouTube links John bemoans. But this just makes it more important to build a reputation and real relationships. “Followers” and “likes” are irrelevant if they’re hollow, and these are proliferating. But nothing can take the place of real credibility. People like Marco, Myke, and John are more important than ever, and they do make a real impact on opinions.

What We’re Doing

The same is true for PR in enterprise IT. You can’t just hire self-proclaimed social media experts and build followers. You can’t trust generic social media metrics without context. You have to build real relationships and have credible conversations with people that are respected in your space. These are the new writers and analysts.

One of the hardest parts of planning Tech Field Day is saying “no” to people we like. We know dozens of great folks in wireless, storage, networking, and the rest, but only a few can go to each event. It’s heartbreaking to tell folks they can’t come this time, but this is what we have to do. Tech Field Day wouldn’t work with 30 people in the room (we’ve tried!) so we have to pick just a few key folks. And our presenters love knowing that they’re reaching top people in their specific area of focus, chosen by their peers.

What makes Gestalt IT, Foskett Services, and Tech Field Day different is us. We’re not some generic social media company. We’re the audience as well as the speaker. We’re enterprise IT people and we would not do this if we didn’t love it. We believe we’re doing the “good work” John is looking for in the music industry: Setting up real conversations and building real connections in an open and democratic way.

Tech Field Day lets companies talk with influencers selected by their peers rather than arbitrary social media metrics

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One Year of Tech Field Day Video: 90,000 Views!

Tech Field Day is the signature event run by Foskett Services, and we couldn’t be more proud of it. For 2012, we added additional opportunities for interaction: Live and online Symposium events as well as Tech Field Day Roundtables at other major events. Through it all, we’ve tried to focus on producing the best content possible and placing it in front of any and all online.

Tech Field Day By the Numbers
2012 Tech Field Day Events: 14
Videos Posted to YouTube and Vimeo: 468
Total 2012 Event Video Views: 90,224

Evolving Video at Tech Field Day

Over the years, we have gradually shifted Tech Field Day into the public eye thanks to online video. Although a pro video team has been present at every one of our events, we didn’t make that video available to the public at first. The recordings were made available to our presenters, not all of whom were in a position to do anything with it.

We added live streaming video in 2011, throwing open the curtain for the first time. Now, anyone online could watch the proceedings and even participate remotely! This led to dramatically more interest and engagement outside the room, and we decided to make it a permanent fixture of Tech Field Day and all other events.

Midway through 2011, we decided to post high-quality recordings of all events on our web site, relying on Vimeo for high-quality embedding. And for 2012, we began uploading everything to YouTube as well, taking advantage of their massive audience.

Starting in the summer of 2012, we upgraded our video equipment to high definition and switched to Livestream. This gave us HD live streaming that was iOS and Android compatible! We will continue to improve the live stream over the coming year.

Tech Field Day 2012 Video Summary

Our audience loves video! For 2012, we posted 237 videos to Vimeo and 231 to YouTube from the 14 events we held. Together, video viewership was amazing, with 90,222 views! This doesn’t count people who just loaded the page or quit a few minutes in, either. These were substantial views, as defined by YouTube and Vimeo.

Our headline Tech Field Day events generate amazingly strong viewership. Wireless Field Day 2, Networking Field Day 3, and Storage Field Day 1 were held in the first half of the year. Now that viewers have had a chance to take a look, these events have generated 16,983, 16,535, and 11,552 views, respectively.

Although audiences haven’t had as much time to watch the videos from Wireless Field Day 3, Networking Field Day 4, and Storage Field Day 2 since they came later in the year, these events are performing strongly as well. WFD3 (September) is already at 8,064 views, while NFD4 (October) is at 7,942 and SFD2 (November) is at 4,437.

Overall, YouTube accounts for 62% of Tech Field Day video views, even though we usually embed and link to Vimeo because we prefer their customization options. This suggests that a majority of viewers are casually “stumbling on” these videos and finding the content compelling enough to watch all the way through!

2012 Tech Field Day Video Views

Thank You For Watching!

Tech Field Day is a challenging event for the presenters, the delegates, and the audience. The conversations are usually highly technical, diving deeper and lasting longer than most enterprise IT videos. The fact that our viewership is so high makes us beam with pride: We must be doing something right!

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Twitter Zen: The Four Conversational Paradigms

Twitter can be confusing for the uninitiated, and the fact that there are effectively four different ways of viewing it certainly contributes. Although the main Twitter stream seems like a unified set of short messages, the client applications used by end users present it in very different ways.

The stream of tweets is subdivided by privacy controls, and most clients separate out directed “@replies” and searchable “#hashtags”. There are also private direct messages to consider. No wonder new users are confused!

The main, public twitter stream can be viewed by anyone, but nearly everyone only sees a very small portion of it. Users only see the tweets from people they “follow” when they are logged in to the Twitter website or using a third-party client. If you don’t follow enough people, Twitter can seem like a wasteland, with no action at all. Follow too many, however, and it can quickly overwhelm your attention.

Probably the most confusing aspect of the Twitter stream is the situation around “@replies”. There are basically 2 types of tweets:

  1. A Tweet beginning with the “@ sign” will only be visible in the main stream for people following the sender and recipient. This is important, because many people wonder why their message to @someone does not get any attention. The reason is likely that many people are not following that person.
  2. If you want to make sure that a certain tweet is seen by your followers, as well as the intended recipient, put their @TwitterID somewhere other than the beginning. This is the second type of “@message”, one that will call the attention of people mentioned in it but not be hidden from everyone else.

Hashtags can also be confusing, and can quickly overwhelm the content of a tweet. Essentially, any single word beginning with the “#” symbol becomes a clickable, searchable term in most Twitter clients. Many events and topics have an agreed-upon hashtag, and these form special universal streams that many people follow. New users should not worry too much about hashtags, but should consider using them as a way to gain a little bit more visibility.

Direct Messages (DM’s) transform Twitter entirely, making it function more like a private instant message service than a public conversation. I personally use Twitter DM’s far more frequently than Google Talk, Skype, or any other instant message service. And many people have DM’s sent as SMS text messages or e-mails. The best way to contact heavy Twitter users is through a DM, but you can only DM users who follow you.

As you can see, Twitter is not a simple, universal, open conversation. The stream is divided based on who you follow, hashtags, @replies, and DM’s. Depending on how one uses it, Twitter can be an intimate conversation or a global podium.

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Twitter Zen: Joining the Conversation

It can be difficult to start using Twitter, since you must decide who to follow and it will take some time before people follow you back, let alone interact with you. Imagine yourself walking into a room full of interesting people, all having conversations with each other. Do you expect everyone to notice that you have arrived, stop what they’re doing, and greet you warmly? Or do you expect that you will need to find someone interesting and join their conversation?

It takes quite a while to work up to numbers like these...

The first thing you should do is locate a few interesting people to follow. Don’t go with the initial set that Twitter offers. Rather, think of some people (both famous and ordinary) that you would like to have a conversation with. Search for their Twitter people and follow them. Since you’re reading this, you might like to start with me (SFoskett) and some of the Tech Field Day delegates (my tfd-delegates list)!

After you have done this, Twitter will recommend other interesting people in the “who to follow” box. Don’t bother with anyone “Promoted” (that means they paid to be suggested) and focus on the “natural” suggestions. These will be people followed by, or similar to, the people you selected above.

Ignore "Promoted" suggestions, but the others are likely worthwhile

Look through the “Tweets” of these people, and see who they interact with. Follow some of them as well. And check out who the people you respect are following (here’s my list) until you have followed a few dozen people.

Read what they have written, how they interact, then join the conversation. Reply to something they say or chime in with an interesting anecdote, and see what happens.

Many new twitter users wonder why no one pays attention to what they say, but there is a reason for this: Only people who follow you will see your simple tweets, and it is unlikely that many people are following a new user. Twitter users are not actively trying to exclude you, they just are not seeing what you are writing.

Join a conversation by including the “@TwitterID” of some people who will be interested in your tweet so they will see it. They may decide to follow you back, and begin conversing with you. I personally follow back anyone who engages in interesting conversation with me, and I believe many others do as well.

If you’re having trouble engaging with other Twitter users, consider the form and content of your tweets. Are they interesting, with wry observations and witty anecdotes? Are they readable, following convention for format and grammar? Are they directed at people who will care about the topic? And, once again, are you engaging people by including their @TwitterID so they will see what you’re saying?

It’s very easy to get dispirited at first. I actually created a test Twitter account to try these suggestions, and it took weeks before I had any real interaction and followers. I empathize with the plight of the new tweeter, but I heartily recommend that you stick with it. Once you’re part of the Twitter conversation, it’s worth it!