Online Advertising

I am now accepting various types of advertising on the blog. Have a partnership idea or something to pitch? Go here for more information.

Facebook Marketing

This is old news to those who, like myself, have worked in Internet marketing, but tools like Facebook and Twitter can be valuable. Here are some of the tips I’ve learned in various positions.

1. Be Yourself. Many businesses believe that they should create a Facebook or Twitter profile with the name of your company: “Acme Boxes.” This is the complete opposite of what they should do.

First, having your presence consist only of a faceless corporation is boring. The Internet has a short attention span, so everything needs to be catchy. Your identity should not be “Acme Boxes” — it should be “Bob Smith (who happens to be CEO of Acme Boxes).” Use your real name and picture. The person Facebooking or Twittering should post about all sorts of things including funny anecdotes and personal interests, not only the newest sale his company is offering. Facebook and Twitter users want to befriend interesting people, not corporations. (Billionaire and Virgin founder Richard Branson has many Twitter followers, but I bet that very few of them care what his company does on a daily basis. Branson is just a cool guy.)

The brand awareness that your company gains — after all, it is listed in your profile and occasionally discussed in your posts — comes indirectly. Be informal and fun. Leave the formal, boring communications jargon to the marketing department that deals with traditional media outlets. People who use social media frequently are young, tech-savvy, and cynical when it comes to advertising. Be a real person online — everyone can tell when someone is just there to sell something.

2. Do Not Spam. The quickest way to lose potential customers and be ignored in the social-media sphere is to put a sales pitch in your status every hour. Fewer than half of your Facebook status updates and Tweets should be related to business. Again, people want to befriend you, not your company. The Internet is viral — for better and for worse. If one person does not like you, everyone will find out soon enough. (Although, if one person does like you, everyone will know as well.) Post on a wide variety of interesting subjects. If you post something with the word “baseball,” a Twitter search for that word will bring up your post. And you might get a few baseball fans to follow you and learn about your company.

3. Be Careful. There was a line in an episode of the 1990s, American sitcom “Newsradio” that went something like: “Taking something off the Internet is like trying to take the pee out of a swimming pool.” Even if you delete an e-mail, a Facebook post, or a Twitter entry, chances are that it still exists on some hard drive or server somewhere. Especially if someone saw it, did not like it, and saved it. Just because marketing is less controlled by executive suits in the rapid-fire Information Age does not mean that anything and everything is permissible. Don’t be like the teenage girl who posted scandalous pictures of herself on Facebook only to have everyone at school see them instead of just her boyfriend. Think before you post. Even if you are not the CEO or Vice President of Communications, you still represent your company in the subconscious minds of your Internet community.

More thoughts to follow.

Clumsy Men

BELLEVILLE, Illinois — So I just saw this commercial for Yellowbook, which seems to be new name for the Yellow Pages here in the United States. [The one I watched on television seems to be a few seconds shorter than the YouTube version.]

My reaction: Yet another American commercial in which men are portrayed as idiots! The husband is incompetent. When the wife hears about his new job, she expresses no concern for his well-being. Instead, she takes out a policy to get some money in case something happens to him!

If this had been the only commercial to make men look silly, I would have laughed at the joke. But when I see such a trend over several years, it is impossible to ignore the subconscious message that women rule and men are buffoons.

Life Under Rocket Fire

RISHON LEZION, Israel — This is what life is like forty-five minutes south of where I live:

Imagine that you are 18 years old. You have just completed high school and in a few months you will enter the army. In the meantime, you spend your time going out with friends and working to save some money – like any other typical teenager in Israel.

One afternoon, you come home exhausted from work and collapse into bed for a nap. Suddenly, in the middle of your nap you find yourself waking up to the sound of glass shattering – all over your back.

It takes you a moment to realize that the window above your bed has exploded and that shards of glass lie everywhere. Your dad comes racing in, picks you up and carries you outside to safety.

The Sderot Media Center Community Treatment Theater performed Children of Qassam Avenue in Jerusalem this week, and I would have gone if I had known about the play. As the above YouTube clips shows, the performance is a group of teenage girls showing what life is like under a constant rain of rocket fire from Hamas in the Gaza Strip. As the new school year has begun, principals have been repairing and upgrading their bomb shelters and related buildings.

Even though the number of deaths and injuries have been low, a generation of children is growing up with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Related: Letter from Israel: The Gaza Conflict

Beautiful Women

Nearly every image of women that people see in advertisements, movies, and photography — and sometimes even television shows and broadcast news — is distorted. This short video shows how.

Arguing on the Internet

Like to debate in online communities like, say, blogs? Here are some of the rules.

Cell Phone Refuseniks

Refuse to use a mobile phone? You’re not as alone as you might think.

A Taliban Hostage

David Rohde, a New York Times reporter, was kidnapped and held by the Taliban in Afghanistan for more than seven months. Here is the first article in a series in which he writes about his ordeal. As a former journalist, I might be biased — but reporters rarely get the praise that they deserve. It is a tough job.

Facebook Breakups

RISHON LEZION, Israel — I was dated a girl here who had stopped using Facebook because she learned through her boyfriend’s relationship status that he had broken-up with her. As harsh as that sounds, it seems that it is more common that people think.

Gilad Shalit

RISHON LEZION, Israel — Hamas kidnapped an 18-year-old Israeli soldier three years ago and has been holding him in the Gaza Strip ever since. Israel released twenty Palestinian prisoners today in exchange for proof that he is alive. This is a video made by Hamas and released an hour ago. The soldier talks to his family and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Here is an English translation of his remarks.

Crazy Conservatives

RISHON LEZION, Israel — While Thomas Friedman worries that the political environment in the United States is dangerously similar to the one in which Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin was assassinated, David Brooks argues otherwise:

Just months after the election and the humiliation, everyone is again convinced that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and the rest possess real power. And the saddest thing is that even Republican politicians come to believe it. They mistake media for reality. They pre-emptively surrender to armies that don’t exist.

They pay more attention to Rush’s imaginary millions than to the real voters down the street. The Republican Party is unpopular because it’s more interested in pleasing Rush’s ghosts than actual people. The party is leaderless right now because nobody has the guts to step outside the rigid parameters enforced by the radio jocks and create a new party identity. The party is losing because it has adopted a radio entertainer’s niche-building strategy, while abandoning the politician’s coalition-building strategy.

The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. But it’s not because the talk jocks have real power. It’s because they have illusory power, because Republicans hear the media mythology and fall for it every time.

As I wrote in a prior post, journalists and pundits are extremely powerful because the perceptions they create can sometimes become reality. So I agree both with Friedman and Brooks.

I hope this is obvious to everyone: Every conservative likely watches Fox News at least on a semi-regular basis, but not every Fox News viewer is a conservative. I can watch either CNN or Fox News on Israeli cable, and I usually choose the latter. Fox News is barely journalism and provides only superficial analysis, but at least the channel covers politics. CNN seems to be drifting towards covering celebrity, gossip, and entertainment all the time. (And I get CNN International, which is supposed to carry more hard news than the U.S. one.)

The legions of angry conservatives — who are assumed to exist based solely on the high ratings of Fox News — do not exist today just as Richard Nixon’s “silent majority” did not exist in the 1970s. This is a collective case of a tiny mouse that has the ability to roar.

However, this does not mean that Friedman is wrong to worry about a poisonous political climate. The number of angry conservatives may be far lower than politicians think, but it takes only one nutjob to assassinate a prime minister — or a president.

Related: Maureen Dowd eulogizes the late William Safire, who was a respectable conservative unlike the blowhards of today.

Print Media

Perhaps bloggers can help print media. This is heartening — I still prefer to hold newspapers and magazines in my hands.

Courage of Convictions

Jerusalem Post columnist Jeff Barak takes issue with people who criticize his columns while remaining anonymous. I agree. I use my real name everywhere on the Internet, and anyone can see my background. I have the courage to defend my convictions even when they are controversial. Why does everyone not do the same?

Personal News

I recently started working as Marketing and Communications Manager for Speech Modules, a company that is a pioneer in the speech-recognition industry. Check it out.

Facebook Exodus

Getting sick of the social-networking website? You’re not alone.

God Squad

I don’t know whether this article is funny, depressing, or scary. Maybe all three.

Bonus question: What would liberals say if this were occurring in evangelical churches, and what would conservatives say if it were Muslim mosques?

Bonus thought: As a former newspaper editor, I have to admit that I love the Page 1 photo and the wonderful — if obvious — puns in the headlines and article. Sensational art and breezy writing are two of the few things had tabloids have always done better than serious broadsheets.

Cyberterrorism

A proposed U.S. law would allow the president to seize temporary control of private-sector, computer networks in a national emergency. Is this an unfortunate reality of modern times or a potential infringement on civil liberties?

Bonus points: Provide your answer in the legal-and-philosophical context of this question: Who owns and controls the Internet?

Public Relations

The Pentagon has been profiling reporters based on their coverage of the war in Afghanistan and manipulating the resulting news stories accordingly. Is anyone really that shocked?

I’m also pleasantly surprised to see that Stars and Stripes is an independent newspaper. I thought the U.S. military controls what stories were published.

Vampires

RISHON LEZION, Israel — The cable channel HOT here is showing a new drama named “חצויה (Halved)” about a 15-year-old girl who meets a hunky, teenage vampire, discovers that she is half-vampire, and now has to help save the world. (English here.)

After “Buffy,” “Angel,” “Twilight,” and now “Halved,” I must ask: Why are teenage girls obsessed with vampires?

Elsewhere: Caitlin Flanagan, Lexi Borowitz, and Vanessa van Petten suggest some answers.

Death of Nation-States

Coming Anarchy offers a hypothetical map of how Europe may look in ten years:

Even if only a few of these microstates were to be born, it could have serious consequences regionally, transatlantically and globally. In Europe, it would suddenly create a host of rich and poor states, which their previous host states balanced out. Northern Germany will get poorer and the two southern states stay very rich for example. Over time, the lack of wealth transfer from southern to northern Germany, or from northern to southern Italy will likely create less developed and poorer states within Europe no longer able to stay afloat. As an Italian friend once joked, without the north, southern Italy would turn into a Catholic Pakistan. As reader DJ noted, now more than ever, regions of today’s states are trying to maximize the economic benefits of globalization while minimizing the social costs, leading to richer regions breaking from poorer ones.

So what will independence look like? It won’t have the same meaning that we think of today. At the local level, these newly minted states will enjoy previously unparalleled independence, flexibility and likely prosperity. However, at the same time, they will be subservient to the European Union on international matters such as defense, some foreign policy, trade agreements, transportation and environmental issues. Also and perhaps most importantly, a credible Europe wide defense would have to exist to make the creation of new states viable.

As I have noted in prior posts here, here, and here, the nation-state is dying a slow death as the two forces of globalization and localization pull it in opposite directions. The intertwining of all countries’ economies necessitates that all nation-states work with each other, and another result is that all governments can fall victim to forces beyond their control as well. The Internet is also creating an infinite number of niche markets and communities within societies worldwide through the mass-segmentation of the cultural market. Mass immigration — Latin Americans into the United States as well as Arabs and eastern Europeans into western Europe are two prominent examples — is changing the ethnic characters of nation-states as well. France is becoming less “French,” and the United States is becoming less “white” and Protestant.

As one example, the United States — a country that was never entirely a nation since its population has always been comprised of people from various ethnic groups — is slowing being ripped apart on religious, ethnic, and political lines. People who are conservative and Christian get their news from Fox News and other right-wing outlets; liberals and others watch MSNBC and read The New York Times. Two collective groups of people are creating entirely different mindsets and worldviews based on the specific media each group consumes. Texans denigrate Bostonians as intellectual, liberal elitists; Bostonians view Texans as gun-touting, evolution-denying extremists. Is such a cultural situation tenable? If Coming Anarchy is correct about Europe, then the United States might follow in the continent’s footsteps.

Update: A commenter, Jeff, asks a question that I should have answered earlier: “Clearly, you think this half-millennium old system is about to die, but what do you THINK about that?”

Well, I have several thoughts. The first is the present international order of large, complex nation-states is giving way to a globalized world consisting of hundreds of small, ethnic republics or regions. Think of the planet as becoming a gigantic, patchwork quilt.

On an idealistic level, this is something beneficial. People have a subconscious desire to live among those similar to them (cities, for example, self-segregate themselves into ethnic neighborhoods), and they want the right to choose to do so. Russia is a perfect example. The country is comprised of dozens of ethnic peoples essentially held together by force — first by the czars, and then by the communist dictatorship. When Russia breaks apart — and its demographic decline is a accurate precursor — the people in the resulting republics will be much happier, and life will be more free. The same holds true for the Basques in France and Spain as well as other peoples elsewhere. Liberal nation-states always champion the freedom of democracy enjoyed by their citizens — as long as some do not want to use that right to demand a country of their own.

So, in the end, such a devolution will be beneficial. But the path there is fraught with danger and instability. Nation-states, like people and corporations, are individual entities writ large that place a primary emphasis on self-preservation. The United States had a civil war when several states wanted to secede. Russia uses force to keep a death-grip on Chechnya while the far-flung eastern part is increasingly under the influence of China. The United Kingdom does not want Scotland or Wales to become independent from England even though no one can explain what it means to be “British” any longer. Modern-day Iran consists of several peoples who were united by the sword of the ancient Persian empire. Israelis, after more than sixty years of independence, are intensely divided and cannot reconcile their three competing desires to be a Jewish state, a democratic state, and a state in all of so-called Greater Israel. (I would not be entirely surprised if the the county ends up dividing itself into a secular and religious republics in forthcoming decades — though this would eerily resemble biblical history repeating itself.) All of these countries are facing crises of identity, and many may not survive as they currently exist.

A globalized order consisting of a patchwork quilt of ethnic enclaves may lead to greater peace and prosperity — why, after all, would Wales go to war with England to conquer territory that was not Welsh — but the path to that end will be very unstable as complex nation-states fight a doomed battle to save themselves.

Building on one of my favorite subjects, devolution, the decline of the state and the proliferation of microstates, I’ve put together a map of the future of Europe in 2020. It is purely speculative and in no way a firm prediction, but rather a sketch of the possibilities and list of the most likely cases. It is by no means exhaustive and you’ll notice seemingly obvious states such as Wales, Sicily, Crete and others are not listed. This is in part because I will argue that two local conditions are necessary for a viable movement and successful independence.

Neda’s Murderer

According to Andrew Sullivan, Iranian doctor Arash Hejazi has identified the man pictured as the person who shot Neda Agha-Soltan during a protest in Tehran. I do not speak Farsi, but Sullivan is a reliable journalist.

I do not know how Dr. Hejazi obtained this information, so any Farsi-speakers are free to translate his blog post and place the information in the comments.

Earlier: Rape and Neda Agha-Soltan

Israeli Advertising

RISHON LEZION, Israel — As I have noted in several posts in my Letters from Israel series, people here are frequently brash, politically incorrect, tactless, and traditional in regards to gender roles and stereotypes. This is especially true in advertising.

Cellcom, the country’s leading mobile-phone company, is running a new advertisement (shown above) that is generating some controversy. An army patrol is driving near the separation barrier when something hits their jeep. At first, the soldiers think they are being attacked, but it turns out that it was only an errant soccer ball that Palestinians on the other side of the barrier were using. The soldiers and the unseen Palestinians end up playing with each other. The ad’s voiceover at the end says, “What do we all want? Some fun, that’s all.”

Noam Sheizaf, a journalist for the Ma’ariv newspaper, is disgusted:

The fact that the Palestinians are invisible in this commercial, that the wall the soldiers are playing around was built on their lands – and that Palestinians are killed while protesting against it – the fact that in reality, if a Palestinian comes close to the fence to return a football or to wave a flag he is likely to get shot; the whole reality of the occupation, is something Israelis are refusing to see. Like the voice over at the end of the commercial says (“What do we all want? Some fun, that’s all”), we see ourselves as your usual happy-and-fun-loving-Mediterranean-nation, only in uniform.

Over at Jewlicious, a writer named C.K. says that others view the advertisement as a “harmless and humorous riff on an otherwise difficult issue – something Israelis are particularly well known for.” I lean towards this view. Sheizaf is taking a lighthearted attempt to breathe some levity into a messy situation much too seriously.

Still, from a marketing standpoint, Israeli commercials are very provocative to Western viewers, who tend to become outraged and offended by any insult to their sensibilities. Israelis, on the other hand, will usually just shrug their shoulders and laugh. To them, people should not be so serious all the time.

Here is a collection of famous — or infamous, depending on your point of view — commercials from Israel featuring the Vietnam War; the Titanic; a young boy with two blond, teenage girls; and feminine products that, for some reason, incorporate “69″ and “doggy-style” into the sales pitch.

Update: Here is a video reaction to the Cellcom advertisement. I cannot hear what the people are saying, so I would appreciate if any Hebrew-speakers could let me and my readers know.

Like a Record, Baby

Since I moved to Israel, I have lost touch with a lot of American popular culture. But I recently heard a cover of “You Spend Me Right Round” by some band named FloRida (see above), and I noticed that the refrain had changed.

The original lyrics are:

You spend me right round, baby, right round / Like a record, baby / Right round, round round

But the cover changed the words to:

You spend my head right round, right round / When you go down / When you go downtown

Here is the original:

Maybe I am getting old, but I hate when artists change the lyrics or meaning of the original songs. My assumption is that the record company changed — or asked FloRida to change — the words because they think the target market, teenagers, no longer know what records are. Which is preposterous.

Sales of records have actually been increasing in recent times (see here and here) because music loses much of its quality when it is transferred to digital format. A song sounds more, well, “full” on a record than on an iPod, at least to people with trained ears (unlike myself).

Related: Larry Derfner writes that music today is, well, crap compared to the 1960s and 1970s. I agree.

Same as the Old Boss

NewsBusters points out that the more government changes, the more it remains the same:

At a press conference today, Helen Thomas and CBS’s Chip Reid got into it with Robert Gibbs over how the administration has been prepackaging media events.

First Reid asked why the questions for Wednesday’s town hall on healthcare were being preselected. After Gibbs tried to dodge that question a few times, Thomas became involved, saying, “We have never had that in the White House. I’m amazed that you people … call for openness and transparency.”

Thomas said that the administration was trying to control the media, and she pointed out how they coordinated questions with the Huffington Post at a press conference…

Wednesday’s press conference was also not the only media event that was in some way coordinated. Previous town halls have featured Obama campaign supporters and Democratic politicians lobbing softballs at Obama.

One of the many things I disliked about the Bush administration was the fact that the president would tour the company to tout his health-care proposal and turn the event into an infomercial.

Like many Americans, I hoped that a President Obama encourage healthy debates and not resemble his predecessor. I guess I was wrong (see above). So much for Obama’s platform of change.

Twitter Lessons

What can companies who use social-networking tools learn from the role Twitter is playing in Iran? See here.