Within social media business circles this past week a great deal of attention has been paid to Stussy-Amsterdam’s controversial “Strip for Likes” effort on Facebook. While many have contended that the apparel companies’ initiative is highly objectionable and certainly there is some question of the broad message of such an approach, it will in-fact prove out to be a matter of “reaping what you sow” in a highly dysfunctional era.

As a backdrop Stussy is a relatively small apparel line compared to its halcyon days of upwards of twenty years ago and caters to a very upscale young “street” market. This is not mainstream brand but certainly satisfies a niche market and sports a loyal youthful following. To re-launch their Facebook page and summer collection their advertising agency developed the idea of “strip for likes”, in which a model who take off an article clothing as the page became more populated. At the time the effort started, Stussy’s page was virtually ignored with a few hundred followers and quite frankly many fine quality posts, photos and video efforts were ignored.

Skipping forward less than a week and Stussy has slightly under 11,000 “likes” and for those so inclined, the model is now in a bikini that you would see by the tens of thousands in the most prudish of beaches. If there is a joke to the final point, it is cutting for it emphasises many pathetic elements of our society, relationships and for that matter what the public clamours for online.

Personally I found the initiative foolish, ill-conceived and set’s an extremely poor tone with attitudes towards women but also as someone who buys their products and thinks this will do little for the line. That is certainly a matter for individual opinion but there is still one more in the strange evolution of the currency of “likes” and it is not a pleasant realisation.

This entire effort, whether you think is a good marketing campaign or a display of dreadful social responsibility was to derive “likes” and utilise an aspect that fouls the online world, sexual perversity.

A young model with that very sweet “girl next door” look willing to strip layers of clothing is the evolution of the currency of likes, what companies will do for a very questionable asset and without a doubt has brought legions of preserve onlookers. The voyeuristic look of a girl taking offer is clothing for something has simple as a “like” is a foul verdict on males who prey upon a Lolita at every chance. The proof is in the commentary on their wall, the new likes because the howling old wolves, who need a blue pill to muster the right stuff, are not interested in the apparel line and will certainly not be purchasing for their grandchildren, they just want to stare at a young girl taking off a layer of clothing.

While these teams of fossils have gathered around with their crinkly old bodies waiting for a girl to be humiliated and degraded in a simple modelling gig, for this is not about sex as much as degradation and feeling superior. Surely this legion of little blue popping fossils who have not had an erection without pharmaceutical assistance since their black and white television broke realised this would not be akin to the pornographic downloads they clamour for each day? Equally, did Stussy not realise this would be the social leech it would attract?

However this has what has become to this once brilliant world of social media where the currency of likes has replaced sensibility and true building of relationship is losing ground. What Stussy and many fail to understand that in the “selling of likes” it is the social media industry that has convinced you that it is a currency that will be met with sales. Though that can be the case for some, it is not a guarantee and in this situation the company has likely in question not attracted new clients and alienated existing ones. Oddly if their effort was to garner more unqualified “likes”, the market for such an approach is extremely affordable and would have allowed them to target age groups and regions significantly more accurately, albeit still “hollow” leads. Assuming Stussy is not about to launch a line of low quality items for those in the “autumn of their years” they now have effectively created a multitude of “Facebook” followers that will not buy their clothing and only serve to confuse their social media team for years to come.

Honesty and integrity may have fallen out of fashion for many a decade but the new evolution of business will see it return in droves

John Davies is available on his personal page on Facebook , Google+, as well as or Twitter.

Written by John Davies
©John Davies Worldwide Productions, 2012
All rights reserved

Like old brown shoes you long since were cast away but found in the back of the closet, I tend to believe now that much of the so-called experts in social media aren’t quite experts at all and “yesterdays news”. In-fact it seems the re-hashing of information has led to countless misconceptions whereby the interests of the mainstream and those of who aren’t fossils are simply mistaken and yesterday’s approach keeps getting spilled out as honest points of connection grow dim.

It has become painfully aware to me that many corners of the business of social media, with its either a ever so dowdy approach or simply a “pose” has little to do with connecting to the market but rather convincing others that they are connected.

However they are not connecting and like the dancing dad at the wedding who proclaims he’s “hip”, while the eyes he cannot see are rolled back, the lack of connection in social media is not simply resulting in lowering numbers but a backing off by much of the audience that brought it to this level.

The frontier days of Facebook, now so white-washed away have been replaced by the proverbial tip of the cap, predictable efforts by social media, a further watchdog of sorts where many are concerned of career backlash and rarely a sense of heartbeat, sex appeal and anything that got it there.

That will likely shock some, annoy others but the online storm of social media networks did not grow because we suddenly could share an article online, tick a “like” or log-roll a “+” and go merrily on our way. It came from honest energy, right, wrong and whatever lay between including a whole lot of hips forward emotion.

In many ways, the growth of social media was the evolution of punk but like the genre, it was raped of its soul when big business stuck its greedy paws into our world. The genre, once ruled with Richard Hell youth filled passion turned into pretty boy bands with mascara, well-thought of sleeves and latte swilling publicists ready to stamp another into the market when the public tired of the last. That isn’t punk and just like how it died or at last shuttled to rare confines, realms of social media and marketing efforts will feel the same brunt if they don’t stop posing.

Finally this does mean I suggest a return to those frontier days even if they were possible but instead true engagement with social media teams or decisions that are part of the “core”. Merely reading trend reports to sound “oh-so hip” and connect with a group that they otherwise have no interaction with will not last long and it is very clear the mainstream recognizes the “pose”. This applies to every age group and for that matter all aspects of “building relationships” as the real frontier of networking in the horizon expands into an honest global village much like the old where there the pose was quickly squashed.

Honest, open relationships where you speak with your clients with pride in what you provide but with a further understanding as consumer with similar interests. It’s simple; it’s the importance of being earnest.

Written by John Davies
©John Davies Worldwide Productions, 2011
All rights reserved

John Davies is available on his personal page on Facebook and Twitter.

The super-connectivity of the digital world has brought business and consumers together from all parts of the world. While the great tea routes of commerce and explorers of the past exported items from around the globe, the present era’s interaction is immediate with very few barriers.

While the modern day market caravan is more the shape of social media efforts, clever marketing copy and the ever-present splash page, this instant connectivity heightens the need for responsible and experienced stewards of the ship. Social media, as the name implies is highly sociable and with “everything” on the tale for public consumption it is imperative that those guiding the ship represent the company, its mission statement and understand client needs and background.

Is there any difference to meeting potential clients at black tie affair or many other “meet and greet situations? In truth, trim off the digital graphic presentation and any other selling tool and it will return to classic notions of working the rooms, sans a fine champagne.

This becomes a turning point for social media platforms as whilst many thought the platform was open season for sales calls, to be successful you must be both learned and possess sturdy knowledge of the company in question but express in a professional manner

Yet social media is exposing the failing grounds of many in the public eye, from major sporting events whose child-like expert is only capable of prying comments of “cute guys” and other “genius” best left to drawings of unicorns and rainbows to companies who allow their products and services to be offered online like a second rate sale item. This becomes a massive hurdle to be bridged as with engagement, the need for a qualified business team to represent the companies at every turn becomes mandatory. The latter point must be clear because this cannot be the blind ambition of media and marketing consultant off in the ivory tower who casually understands the underpinnings of the company but an in the trenches executive.

Engage prospective clientele with earnest intent, representing the companies’ activities in a professional and accountable fashion.

John Davies is available on his personal page on Facebook and Twitter.

The ability to nurture is one of the most overlooked skills in today’s marketplace. Whilst the technological revolution has accelerated connectivity and provided an apparent ease of doing business and reaching clientele, the ability to nurture is never more important.

With super connectivity, an ability to reach your client comes within an instant, yet with this ability there is a need to nurture these relationships with earnest intent. The minefield of various social media outlets, notably Facebook and Twitter, serve as evidence of those who treat said avenues as an opportunity to meet and greet the marketplace with others shouting out the moments’ sale offering.

As social media moves into the future the near Neanderthal approach of screaming sales, including the obvious log-rolled affiliate program, will slowly disintegrate and only those who foster open, earnest relationships with clients will prosper. As positive is the improvements ushered in with technological improvements, this retracing of building business relationship is extremely positive and will further bring about more creative solutions to marketplace needs.

This draws an interesting set of crossing business paths as while systems accelerated and bridge all communication barriers, they must be used to return traditional notions of adding value to your community.

The paradox of bridging the communication gap is that as connectivity accelerates those who slow down and get to know their clientele will prosper and additionally enjoy a more enriching career.

John Davies is available on his personal page on Facebook and Twitter.

As the weave of social media grows over the internet and radically reshape its forms, the need for engagement accelerates yet for the most part it has resulted in precisely the opposite.

The great turning part of social media, though difficult to pinpoint, clearly started with youthful vigour. Building relationships through a cyber wonderland, yet maintaining a youthful joie de vivre. It was a frontier world of cyber rights and wrongs, at least of a cyber generation and for the most part without the watchful eye and certainly lacking an overlay of business. Yet as you cut away all the little subtleties it did something that is sorely lacking now; there was engagement. The simple action, albeit in a cyber version, of reaching across the aisle and engaging in conversation was both sheer brilliance and natural but also something sorely lacking in today’s version.

Of the present social media world, many corners of it appear to be more of endless colonnade of overturned soapboxes for good natured souls and hucksters to sell their wares. Pounding out manufactured, if not simply fixated scripts for the all-mighty but rarely engaging. The failure of many, that will be there undoing is that social media requires honest engagement, an open handshake of improving the lives of your community.

In this manner, social media can be used as the ultimate of business tools, well beyond a simple analysis of your Profit and Loss Statement but to truly bridge gaps with the marketplace and establish your brand.

Yet the pendulum will swing both ways as failure to earnestly care of your client wishes will rear its ugly head and if all you are concerned with is the quick sale, be ready for a long wait. Those who do not honestly engage in conversation or for that matter earnestly care for their communities’ best interest will watch their businesses decline. The present failing of social media is that is in many corners turning into yet another magazine, rife with advertisements and endless photo ops but rarely content that is worthy of intelligent consumer lifting in from the newsstands.

In the strange twist of events, the new business frontier looks a great deal like the old and once again, the importance of being earnest is at the root of success.

John Davies is available on his personal page on Facebook and Twitter.

While it can take years to develop a reputation of quality and honour within the modern world of super connectivity, it can end in the briefest of moments. The public, connected with powerful information sources such as Twitter and Facebook receives updates near instantly on their collective mobiles long before a news agency can develop a story. In the early stages of a “newsworthy” item, opinions will be made, possibly not based on fact and depending on how deep the situation relates to the mainstream an individuals’ fame and surge or flicker.

Though in many situations, most notably humanitarian concerns, the public will move in near unison yet quite often there is no apparent rhyme or reason. The examples are endless, such as while the public rushed to the aid of Haiti during the earthquake in 2009, a year later it was not as charitable with the events in Japan. The “how and why” is a peculiar mix, further confounded in the winter of 2010 when the public became enamoured with the ramblings of a drug addicted actor, never questioning why such comments were somehow fascinating. That along with a contemporary musical artist, clearly emulating, if not plagiarizing a hit performer of not-so distant past, makes understanding the tipping point of what is “wrong” as opposed to “right” in the public eye a challenge.

Many of these answers are a near impossible to find or at least scan on the surface. Within a glimmer of twenty years the world has shifted into hyper technology growth and the mainstream is only mid stream in understanding how it changes virtually every aspect of business. Where substance and content were once king, cultivating the right image and maintaining it is of absolute importance. One era’s scowl of lip synching in music, sending said artists into oblivion is now accepted with open arms along with audio tune. If true “substance” in the arts is waning, has fostering reputations in business environments suffered the same fate with “the spin” taking over?

Despite this and the countless counter culture reactions by the public, there is equally a broad swing of the axe if you fall astray. That is no more timely example than GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons, who through his action of hunting and killing a elephant in Zimbabwe and then releasing in a video has unleashed a massive negative wave of public sentiment against his company. While animal rights activists and those including this author find his attitude extremely flawed, why is it different from the mutterings of an entertainer, clearly nearly mental collapse and suffering from significant drug dependencies? Why does one cause problem for business while another creates a surge of public interest and demand. With respects to the situation of Bob Parsons, while animal rights advocates scream foul, others spout comparisons to Teddy Roosevelt on the hunt. What side of the equation you stand on, assuming you come into the conversation without significant pre-existing opinion, is how “the spin” effected your judgement.

The answer may simply be in a sliding morality scale where sports stars and entertainers are not subject to the same standards as those in business, though much of that could relate to how much are devoted to “the spin” of the former group and cleaning up tarnished images. This is the slippery slope because while athletes and entertainers find their reputations quickly re-built after scandalous behaviour, the rest of the world is not so fortunate.

As noted by Oleg Ilin in his article “Online Reputation and Personal Brand”, your presence in Social Media outlets effectively introduces you to the world. This daily event, the once casual interactions that were without similar worry pre social media explosion but the future, with glass walls where everything is with glass walls requires an entirely upgraded vision of branding as well as greater social consciousness. Classic business values that seemed to skip a generation are ready to return and those in business today or finalizing academics will need to resurrect adding value to their community with products and services with the sincere issue of bettering its clients. Oddly, the new business world is accelerating and re-finding its value system, where quality and honesty reign supreme.

Echoing the best damn salesman I ever knew, “we are all salesman but to be successful you must believe in adding value to the lives of all around you, move past the quick sale and build your community”.

John Davies is available on his personal page on Facebook and Twitter.

While few would doubt it beforehand, the Goldman Sachs US $50 billion valuation of Facebook and subsequent US $450 million minority interest investment served notice of the not simply the potential social media giant but the enormous change in methods of communication.

Though the handwriting has been on the wall for quite sometime, the stunning endorsement of Facebook’s value should trigger to the entire business community, both large and small that lines of communication and relationships to the marketplace will continue to evolve as they have over the last decade. While hand-to-hand relationship marketing will always have its place, to ignore marketplace horizon is akin to business suicide. Those who do not respond and adopt proactive social media plans, with the aid of skilled professionals, will be a vestige of the past and quite possibly fighting for the business survival.

Social Media has went through a drastic serious of changes in the last decade from the networking of MySpace to the then upstart Facebook, with its youthful base. Despite the near shock of the valuation price, Facebook is undervalued at $50 billion. The massive “country” called Facebook with well more that 500 million subscribers, is well positioned for an IPO, with Goldman now in line to handle the deal. The maturation of Facebook from its early days has triumphed the financial growth of social media but more importantly for these purposes signalled the delivery of information, including marketing and news. With technological improvements and design changes to Facebook and heavyweight upstart Twitter, connectivity with clients has made the medium the first route for expeditious contact with the marketplace, the crystal palace of Marshall McLuhan’s Global Village where the medium is the message.

Prepared by J. Davies
©Helix World Media, 2010.
All rights reserved

While the relatively new industry of Social Media pushes forward in the marketplace for progressive businesses, many companies still have yet to capture its enormous importance. The peculiarity of the sector is that unlike many business concepts, as “textbook” is written, much of it is already obsolete. Though that may baffle business leaders intending to stay abreast of the concern, given technological changes, public habits, as well as the present topical issue of privacy, this must be expected. Social media platforms face a future of changing consumer loyalty and businesses must understand the speed in which the market evolves. Business managers must adopt a plan that merges both online and offline content but in a variety of different tactics and mediums in overall brand development.

The once street feel of Facebook has all but disappeared as the frontier days of 2005 where you could sense a pulsing base beat of trends has been replaced with endless applications, multi-tiered selling tactics and rapidly aging population. The sheer volume of groups and pages, of which users have chosen to casually “like” have turned Facebook into a “tire-kicker’s” shopping mall, where they stroll by stores but never pull out the bill-fold and in many cases echo the voyeuristic problems that crippled MySpace. While it boasts a vast membership base, social media campaigns need to be cautioned that it is not an issue of simply running out your product but finding a route for regular interaction within your desired market and equally ensuring you are positioned correctly.

Twitter has its own unique set of concerns but diametrically the opposite of common marketing approaches and in many ways more of a brand awareness tool to facilitate the next step in the selling equation. The portal offers a youthful zeal, with speed of information and in combination with a natural private barrier allows for the building of a brand but in the bite-sized morsel. The hurdle for business to understand is by the sheer size of “followers” your reader is inundated with “tweets” and needs a hook that leads them to content or landing page within a small timeframe. While there are weaknesses to this platform, it offers a tremendous method of pushing information quickly into the market, leading them to your website. Twitter is not an answer on its own but rather an integral component for well-informed businesses to get their message out and begin the marketing cycle.

Shining brightly in the horizon is Tumblr, a subtle star in the Social Media sky. Boasting ease of use and engaging, the fresh faced blogging platform offers users a visual experience and at this stage, has maintained its edge that screams branding opportunity. The youthful energy rolls through Tumblr low and hard and works perfectly in the overall branding experience and needs to be recognized by businesses quickly.

Prepared by J. Davies
©Helix World Media, 2010.
All rights reserved

While Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg attempted to defend the company’s privacy practices in an open editorial in the Washington Post, it lacked clarity in understanding the problem for the general user as well as long-term concerns for business.

Though Mr. Zuckerberg noted in a well-crafted statement the social media titan had “missed the mark” with its privacy controls and will be implementing changes to rectify the problem, it comes up far short in understanding the broader implications. Facebook, as he noted, “has evolved from a simple dorm-room project to a global social network connecting millions of people” and to control the flow of personal information might be impossible with commercial traffic.

Facebook, like the former giant of social media, Myspace, now relegated to being a punch line, has grown because of the super connectivity and the web of contacts with like interests. To pull those or at least place roadblocks on the network, starts the deck tumbling downward as it slowly dilutes the affiliations and ultimately business dealings are the coldest of cold calls.

In light of this recent turmoil and given the company is intended on a mega IPO within the next eighteen months, the company will “add privacy controls that are much simpler to use,” Mr. Zuckerberg claimed. While there is still a broad jump between statement and fact as the company say’s it will allow users to turn off third-party services, it quickly has the selling feature of sending out a bulletin on Myspace.  With the latter, it simply does not work and is merely an automated release that the overwhelming majority will ignore.

Regular users have seen this as since the halcyon days of 2005 to the now open door policy, the lack of privacy has gradually eroded the true connectivity to consumer. As the company chipped away at its privacy settings and saw a massive demographics shift it lacked a “cutting edge” and the organic relationship to user or for business, the consumer dissipated. With this lack of privacy, the ability to reach your consumer, without them feeling like they are under the looking glass is impossible, yet with it, new releases have the allure of a flyer at your doorway.

Though the jury is out on whether the company can rebuild its reputation with respects to privacy, there are significant questions ahead for business users. It must find a way to recapture its youthful exuberance that “Tumblr” exudes and the free flow of information the “Twitter” provides.

Yet on the broader horizon lays the message that business entities need to create their own self-sustaining campaign that invigorates customers to not simply enjoy the brand but become the brand. By creating a sense of a digital dialogue, the company not only allows its consumer to feel they are shaping its future but showing loyalty to the needs of core clientele. That reciprocal function sits at the root of a positive social media campaign.

Prepared by J. Davies
©Helix World Media, 2010.
All rights reserved

On Tuesday, organizers of the upcoming London 2012 Olympics unveiled their mascots, two lovable characters “Wenlock and Mandeville“. As we would learn in the animated introduction that was reminiscent of the noted Children’s series “Thomas and Friends” from the 1980’s, they were forged from the last drops of steel used for the construction of the Olympic stadium and later re-tooled as a loving present by retiring worker, “George”, to his grandchildren.

A delightful tale, that went off the charts by any focus group of the intended viewers. Alas, poor “Wenlock and Mandeville” have not been treated so kind by the mainstream media but in an amusing turn of events, says a great deal of how far off course much of the business community is in understanding the present-day evolution in connectivity.

As per the Telegraph, Stephen Bayley, design critic firmly establishes the lack of touch with the present day as following his scathing review of the lovable duo, complains that they are, “appalling computerised Smurfs for the iPhone generation”.

While the “Smurfs” hit their heyday in the early 1980’s, with a modest revival in the following decade, making the notation a tagline for the generation looking to comfortable shoes and affordable prescriptions, comments such as these, sting with the inability to understand society is in the midst of the next phase of the Digital Revolution. Call it evolution or revolution but over the last decade the pace of change has pushed into top gear and those not realizing this, are left behind talking of, well pop culture icons thirty years past.

Equally, the “iPhone” generation comment is not only well off course in this situation but has the same residue that is fouling social media titan Facebook. With the latter, that now boasts its user base is growing exponentially; its largest growth demographic is women over the age of fifty-five. One very crucial point to remember in product launches, is should a new product get into the “wrong hands” and be associated outside of the intended market, it might never recover. While Facebook, whose success is based upon a pre 2005 paradigm, frets over public outcry on privacy that might be its greatest flaw. Facebook’s present demographics is a recipe to have your product, that tight new design, jettisoned into the wrong hands and killed off quickly before it ever gets a chance. With its now ever-present agricultural mayhem and other application’s it has lost its sex appeal fast and a product launch nightmare. With the power of the modern social media web, companies must now be wary that the wrong product placement will crush the launch straight out of the gate.

The evolution of the digital revolution is pushing quickly into an era, where product placement is at an entirely new level of visibility. The wrong move and your product could be associated out of its intended market and relegated to the discount aisle before it had a chance. The future of Social Media is reliant upon forward thinking and not rooted in the past and for that, the London Games have hit the target.

Prepared by J. Davies
©Helix World Media, 2010.
All rights reserved