On Transparency with “Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook”
I’m currently in a mad rush to finish reading an advance copy of a book due out in November 2009 by Darren Barefoot Julie Szabo. This book is a phenomenal read and is titled “Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook”. Before I go on, I just want to put it out there that I was thrown by the title at first. In other words, I was confused about the authors meaning until I continued reading the rest of the title, “A Social Media Marketing Handbook” after which I grabbed my gut and had a big chuckle to myself as continued reading the press release. Just thought I’d share that little anecdote. 
Without doing a direct quote from the book, there is a part that addresses honesty and authenticity on the internet through social media, be it via a blog, YouTube, Twitter, etc. The example used in the book was the lonelygirl15 marketing scheme that was, to my recollection, both lauded and looked down upon (Read this and this as examples). On the one hand it was incredibly cool that this so-called video blogger named “Bree” (16 years old) also known as lonelygirl15 on YouTube, was actually a 19-year old actress–which was astoundingly clever. But on the other hand, this reveal was bittersweet in that it immediately alienated the fans and betrayed the cool-factor of how transparent Bree was and the authenticity of what she talked about in her videos.
The good part of that “experiment” is that it served as a litmus test if you will, for just how people want use the internet and the immensely strong resolve for how people want to connect with others online. The closeness of getting to learn about a person who seemed to have no reason to lie about what she shared was betrayed. Fans were inadvertently made the butt of what effectively came across as a viral marketing trick. The feeling of connectedness with Bree and her honesty was amazing and it made you feel like you (the viewer and fan) were friends with a real person. While the medium (the internet) is virtual the desire to connect with real people real, and the eventual relationships that people do build via the many tools on the internet, (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Viddler, Blogger, etc) are also real–NEVER forget this! (As an aside, other iterations of this marketing scheme were used, but in a way that wasn’t alienating by virtue of the kind of content that was being marketed–in this case a film along the lines of the shaky Blair Witch camera film style. For example, the video clips that were posted to the internet and passed off as if they were real to market the film “Cloverfield”, by my standards, was a sheer genius means of getting the film known and built a strong following before it’s release. Learn more… with J.J.’s Viral ‘Clovefield’ Diary)
A real, genuine, and positive testament to what kind of community could have continued around lonelygirl15 before news broke of it’s falsehood, were she blond, 25 and an even more active video blogger, is the very real, Justine Ezarik of ijustine.com. She has a huge following–primarily young females–and most of what she does is in real time, in that she shoots a lot of video and posts it to the web relatively close to the time she shot it. She essentially streams a portion of her life on the internet, interacts with her fans, or friends as she puts it, via different social networking sites, and even features them in her own mini web show, “Ask iJ“. The majority of the tools that she uses are free social networks that she uses to share and connect. More importantly, I haven confirmed whether she did this on purpose or it just happened this way, but all the internet tools that she uses and what she does with them now serve as her calling card or business card as far as her personal Brand “iJustine” is concerned. Finally, all of this is done in a positive way that is honest, authentic and non-alienating to her fans and business partners, while never compromising her own privacy and safety.
Authenticity goes a long, long way and that is what continues to amaze me so much about this present phase in our age of the internet.
In closing, I’ll give a more thorough review once I’ve gotten through this book.
‘Til then, stay synced!
