ABC TV news is free. It always has been, it always will be. Same thing goes for ABC Radio. But news programs on the ABC don’t rate very well. They don’t rate very well because:

• The ABC hasn’t got enough money to pay for the hottest weather girls (no offence Jenny Woodward, I love you)
• ABC news programs don’t undertake large-scale branding campaigns and if they try, they are dwarfed by the commercial networks
• The programs they put on before the news programs don’t rate very well
• Commercial news tends to be more ‘tabloid’ and appeals to a broader audience

This makes sense. It’s rational. People don’t doubt the quality of the journalism on the ABC, or the talent of the reporters, they just prefer other news because it’s more exciting. And if they’re in front of the idiot box at 6pm they’ll just flick to whatever channel they usually watch. Which is why Channel 7 and Channel 9 news on Sunday nights are consistently some of the highest rating programs in Australia.

Which is cool, except that more and more people are getting their news online these days. At the moment online news channels fall into pretty much the same sort of categories as TV news. You’ve got the ABC, and you’ve got the commercial networks. Except that online, the newspapers and the broadcasters and the ABC all compete for eyeballs. Which kind of flies in the face of media-ownership laws, but no-one seems to care because it’s the Internet.

I’d argue that because it’s the Internet there are an infinite number of potential news channels. Actually, that’s a lie, there are 6 billion potential news channels. Presuming animals can’t write news stories. Although bears can play ice hockey, so who knows, maybe there will be a bear news channel soon. Either way, it won’t be long before citizen journalism actually really properly happens in a meaningful way. Follow the Twitter feed of any major news story and you’ll get information more up-to-date than any major news source because chances are, you’ll be reading eyewitness accounts straight from the plane crash/riot/party room, whatever.

Murdoch’s idea that people will pay to get online news from News Corporation is completely misguided. It’s a simple case of supply and demand. Demand for news is high. Very high. But supply is infinite. People might read News Corp websites at the moment, but if news.com.au has a subscription cost and smh.com.au doesn’t, people will flock in droves to the free choice. It’s not a matter of choosing a ‘tabloid’ over a broadsheet either. Online newspapers are virtually all pieces of populist proletariat shite. As soon as one publication charges money, people will flock to the one that doesn’t. And there will always be an entrepreneur or a government department somewhere along the line with a free news website. (Or a free celebrity gossip website, or a free sports website, or a free travel website; you get my drift).

Journalists argue that unless publishers make money, they won’t get paid and the quality of journalism will suffer. That’s a bit like the warning at the start of the DVD which says that if you watch a pirated DVD you’re hurting the future of the film industry. It’s like a record company saying that pirating music hurts artists. It’s a load of bollocks. News, and opinion, like art, is in the hands of the creators. Before there were big movie studios and big record labels everyone flocked to the town square to be entertained by a talented groups of poorly paid artists. The town square is now online, we’ve actually come full circle. News is the same. I can now get my news straight from someone who was there and my opinions from whoever has a blog at hand. Credibility of the sources is quickly decided by the public. I don’t need Bill O’Reilly, Laurie Oakes or Richard Wilkins to enlighten me, I have Mike Wilson, Alizera Sedaghat and Perez Hilton.

You could argue that. like movie studios, Government news channels and commercial networks still have a place producing ‘blockbuster’ journalism. You could argue that without professional reporters there would never be another Watergate, and you’d be right. But the revenue to pay those reporters isn’t going to come from individuals. Individuals as a group just don’t care enough. It needs to come from taxes. But to avoid the government having a monopoly on the news (which would be cool if you could trust your government, but populations inherently don’t) there needs to be publishers from the free market.

Free-market publishers can make their money any (legal/ethical) way they choose. Donations and subscriptions from happy customers and subsidies work OK, but they’re not ideal. The best way we’ve figured out so far is advertising. It’s a pretty sweet deal to be honest. People are, in general, pretty happy to sit through some ads if they know they get a good content pay-off. Hell, if the content is that good people will happily head to JB HI-Fi to buy the whole DVD series. The problem is, news just ain’t that entertaining. No one is going to want to pay for it, unless it has a direct bearing on their wallet, as is the case with The Wall Street Journal.

The Punch, News Corp’s blog, did a pretty good job with their Liberal Party coverage today, but they were still beaten to the punch by the Twittersphere. I found out Turnbull hadn’t lost the leadership from @warlach, not David Penberthy. Unless News Corp has a monopoly on news, something they’ve always wanted, something they’ll never ever get, no one is going to part with cash to get it online. And as long as we have other free Internet distractions, and I’m fairly certain we will Rupert, you’re stuck with an advertising model. Learn to love it.

It’s graduation time again. I hate this time of year. It’s quiet for a bit, while all the third and fourth year students drink themselves into comas and pretend for a few more weeks that they don’t actually have to ever join the real world. But, like a Powderfinger song, soon enough it comes - the realisation that it’s now time to get a proper job. In about a week the resumes are going to start piling up. They think a straight-A record and a weekend manager position at Baker’s Delight qualifies them to work in an agency. It doesn’t sweetheart. There’ll be a lull over Christmas and New Years of course. Some travel. Time spent with family. Then the resume deluge will begin again on about January 28, two days after Australia Day. By then it will be too late. Employers won’t be interested and business will be a little slow so thoughts of hiring will be furtherest from our minds.

You, you silly things, have chosen to study a degree in which supply of graduates outstrips demand by, literally 1,000 to one. Your chances of making an impression are about the same as a wave on your favourite beach. You might as well have studied arts and had a good time. You should have done something for society and got into nursing. You’d have gotten paid more as a graduate. As smart as you are, and let’s face it, you’re not dumb, but you’re not Secretary General material, you’re, basically, fucked.

If you can fight off disillusionment for a little bit and still want to hold out hope of getting a job, specifically, a job in social media, here’s what you have to do. And do it quick, before everyone else.

1. Find an advertising, PR or social media agency and offer to work for free for a little while to ‘learn’ and help out. Make a list of the best ones. Start at the top.
2. Turn your computer off and network; socially. Facebook is not a social network. Facebook is a place to stalk hotties. Go to industry events and ask lots of questions. Learn how to use a fucking phone and don’t be afraid of it. Phones get things done.
3. Get good at grammer and seplling before you applies or you will be ignoreded, or worse, laughed at.
4. Once you land an unpaid gig, give it a set time limit. Have goals you want to achieve. Have obligations they have to meet. Don’t take no shit.
5. Make sure you get your hands on briefs and your arse in meetings.
6. Work harder than anyone else. Be proactive.
7. Prove that you can help make the agency money. Find a way to do this. If you can do this you will go a long way. If you can’t do this, go work in Government.
8. Be awesome and extremely likeable. Be the kind of person people want to have around.
9. If you do happen to be a thought leader, you should be blogging.
   1. It is highly likely that you are not a thought leader.
10. Be patient. Do not give up. Hassle, nicely. Hassle again. Do not give up.

1. Start a Twitter account and give people incentives to follow you. The more topical the better - it keeps people interested and they’ll stay tuned. Like this:

2. Use Google’s keyword tool to find whatever keywords related to your business are being search for the most. Blog about them and Make videos about them. Make them entertaining. Watch your web traffic go through the roof. Like this:

3. Become an expert, start a blog and use your knowledge for good. Industry secrets don’t exist anymore. If you try and keep them to yourself someone else will trump you. We’re operating in a knowledge-based economy. Be the fountain of knowledge, be prolific and people will turn to you, and when they turn to you, you can start relationships with them (you know what I mean, don’t be rude). If you can’t write, podcast it. If you can’t talk, make videos out of it. Make claymation. Do something, don’t just sit there hoping people will come to you because you know so much. Publish. It’s free.

4. Start a Facebook group that people will want to join and subtly sponsor it. Don’t just start a fan page for your business, create a community that people want to be involved in. If you sell surfboards, create a fan page for six foot waves. If you sell wedding photography create a page for people who hooked up with a bridesmaid and are proud of it. If you sell candles start a Facebook group for people who are afraid of the dark. Like this:

5. Figure out whoever the key influencers are for whatever it is you’re selling. Read their blogs and leave comments on them regularly. Proper ones. Ones that make them feel loved. They’ll get to know who you are and then when you want to sell something you won’t have to make a bunch of new friends. Never forget thatthe purpose of a conversation with a new friend is not to sell something. It’s to have another conversation. Seth Godin told me that. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, or what you’re selling.

Step One: Make the blogosphere part of your morning commute: turn up to work 20 minutes before everyone else and read blogs for 19 minutes.

Step Two: Turn up to work 40 minutes before everyone else and write a blog for 20 minutes.

Step Three: Wear glasses

You’ll be amazed at what you can achieve.

According to data released by ComScore this month, 800,000 Australians visited the Twitter website in June. Most of them had less than 10 followers and many had no followers at all, but regardless, 800,000 is a big number. It’s about 4% of our population, which makes it a critical mass. Twitter is here. It’s going to stay. It’s not a fad any more and, as of three months ago, its popularity was growing at a rate of 6000% per annum. Look at the chart of Twitter growth compared to Facebook growth and you’ll get the picture:

But just how popular are Facebook and Twitter going to get?

Twitter’s growth-rate of 6000% is, of course, completely unsustainable. If the site kept growing at that rate the entire population of Australia would be on the site by Christmas. That isn’t going to happen. Twitter is currently in the middle of the biggest growth spurt it’s ever going to have and basing predictions on the current rate would be pointless.

What we do know is that 6 million Australians now use (or at least spy on their grandkids using) Facebook and that figure is about double what it was last year. Twitter will never be as popular with the general population as Facebook because it’s nowhere near as handy for stalking potential bed-fellows, spying on your teenage children or organising parties. For that reason, Facebook seems likely to remain the social network of choice for those interested in, well, socially networking. Which is pretty much everyone.

MySpace, let’s face it, is like a virtual shopping mall where awkward teenagers congregate after the movie has finished and before they’ve found someone to pash. MySpace should have used its momentum, when it had some, to become an entertainment network. It could have rivalled YouTube, but it was being run by old media folks who were too scared of being sued, too worried about pissing off advertisers, and didn’t understand that everything is now free. Watch those same old-media folks push News Corp into the grave by charging for online content.

For that reason, Facebook, in my humble opinion, will continue to dominate. And when an organisation dominates online, when a website becomes the market leader, all the other players fall by the wayside. Look at Google — Microsoft can’t even claw 5% market share and they own the fricking operating system AND the most popular web browser. Amazon is killing the competition, Seek.com.au rules jobs, eBay stands alone (except in New Zealand, where TradeMe stands alone). Facebook is in exactly the same position. Facebook will continue to grow because its market share is now so great it will be too inconvenient for people to go elsewhere. At least for the next few years. Look at the following Google Trends chart if you don’t believe me. The blue line is MySpace, the red one is Facebook. The blue line is actually going down pretty steeply, it’s just not going up as steeply as the red one:

Google Trends: MySpace vs. Facebook

My prediction is that Facebook will peak in 2010, by which time it will have around half the Australian population as regular visitors: 10,000,000 unique visitors a month. It will level out from there and most likely decline if the next big thing comes along. And keep in mind, that may not happen. There has, so far, been no ‘next’ Google. Fads replace fads, but useful tools just stick around. (Remember when people thought the Internet was a fad?)

Geocities was ‘the next big thing’. MySpace was ‘the next big thing’. Blogs were ‘the next big thing for business.’ But they all fell by the wayside because something better came along. MySpace replaced personal website building tools like Geocities because it was easier and it connected people. Facebook replaced MySpace because it had better tools, did a much better job of connecting people and was so simple even your parents could use it (damnit). Twitter replaced blogs for business because blogs were hard work. Blogs took time, effort, and they’re long. Twitter is quick, easy and short. Any business owner with a computer can setup a Twitter account and even an illiterate monkey can keep it updated.

People will soon get sick of Tweeting among their friends because it’s too limiting. It’s no secret that I’m not a big Twitter fan and I prefer Tumblr, but for businesses, Twitter is the ultimate communication channel. Dell have made $3 million from retail offers on Twitter and Starbucks use it as an EDM solution. It’s a complete no-brainer. Every business should be on Twitter right now. Even if they just use it as a news feed.

Where will Twitter go from here? It’s hard to say. The model is flawed, all they’re doing is providing an easy-to-use news feed. They have zero competitive advantage and no real USP. All they have is a brand; a cute little blue bird; but the brand has the equity of an eagle. My prediction is that within two years 70% of Australian businesses with a website will also be on Twitter. There’ll be around 3 million account holders, but more importantly, I think Twitter is going to have more unique visitors than Facebook, just. By 2011 you won’t be able to interact with an Australian business without coming into contact with their Twitter feed. I’m calling it 10,000,001 unique users a month.

What do you think?

The Internet is a largely unregulated place. Sure, corporate lawyers try and throw their muscle around when they sniff a suit, but the reality is, there are no rules. Rotten.com still exists over a decade on; spam continues to infiltrate from the darkest corners of the globe and short of selling kiddie porn, you can get away with anything you want; no matter how bizarre, how random (WTF?), how sick or how depraved. It’s the interwebs. That’s the way we like it. The less rules, the better, just as long as you’re not hurting anyone.

Daniel Oyston, my favourite Canberra-based writer since the late (great) Matt Price, wrote a lovely little piece yesterday about the rules of social media engagement - the ones that have been made up by social media commentators along the way. He questioned whether we should try and follow them, or just give up and let the marketers do what they want.

He knew the answer of course; dumb marketers will corrupt anything to make a quick buck. As former Naked exec Mat Baxter said over at MumBrella the other day: “We’re aware of the hypothetical rules in this sphere - there are a lot of people out there who claim to have the rule book. But the reality is that it will be shaped by what the consumer will tolerate.”

If a client ever comes to me asking for a stategy their consumers will ‘tolerate’, I will resign, on the spot (not once the press gets hold of it, not after no-one can believe what I’ve said anymore because I’ve lied to them in the past) because I will know right then and there that I have failed in my fundamental role as a marketing consultant, whose fundamental job is to build relationships with people; long-lasting ones. Profitable ones. Ones built on mutual respect.

Go to any party and the most popular person is the one who talks the loudest. They’re the one with the best stories (even if you know they’re lies); the one you tolerate because they’re good for a laugh after a few beers. They have the most friends when everyone is drunk and doesn’t care, but when people need someone to rely on, when they’re moving house, breaking up, falling in love and falling over, they’re the person you call after you’ve spoken to your real friends. If you want people to rely on your brand, you don’t want to be that person. You don’t want to lie to people.

You want to be the first person they call.

I’ve been lucky in the last few months to work with a bunch of clients who understand that fundamental value - that in an age where customer recommendations fly around the planet at the speed of light, 87% of people trust their friends opinions and only 14% trust ads any more (Source: Neilsen Global Trust in Adversiting urvey, 2007), any marketing strategy not built on trust is doomed to fail. I get to launch two massive social media campaigns in the coming months. One involves a company with a bigger presence in this country than McDonalds - another one involves a drink brand that outsells Coke in Queensland. It’s going to be interesing to put my money where my mouth is for those, but in the meantime, I thought I’d share the rules of social media engagement as I outline them to clients. These rules were born out of The Cluetrain Manifesto (a must read for anyone who thinks customers are happy to ‘tolerate’) and have grown up quickly after watching countless stupid marketers fuck their clients over by recommending social media strategies that take consumers for granted.

If you’re running a social media campaign, or a business for that matter, forget any other rules you’ve heard. Forget what the latest, greatest theory is, forget what your new Twitter hero said last night, forget what your lecturer said at uni, forget what your mate said at the pub, forget what your boss recommended, forget what the client says they want. These are the rules you need to obey:

Rule 1: Treat your customers the same way you’d treat your friends.

That is all.

1. Marketing budgets will be slashed by 35%.
2. Marketing expectations will be raised by 35%
3. Facebook will not be sold, Twitter will not be monetised and MySpace will grow at precisely the same rate as the American Economy.
4. A major Australian corporation will get its first social media marketing officer/director.
5. Someone you know will be made redundant and start a new web-based consultancy with a mis-spelled domain name before moving to Northern NSW, assuring you they always had an interest in permaculture.
6. The following will officially be declared dead and later discovered to be, in actual fact, alive:
   1. Advertising
   2. The American Dream
   3. Fidel Castro
7. The following will finally be exposed as having been dead since June 2005:
   1. Banner Ads
   2. Kim Jong Il
8. You will wake one morning to find that Google has bought your competitor and now makes a version of your best-selling product.
   1. And it’s better than yours.
   2. And it’s free.
9. Radio. LOL!
10. You’re not in the car or housing industries are you?

Read these five books and you’ll know more about social media and the state of marketing today than everyone else in your marketing department/ad agency/lectures/company/circle of friends/blogroll/pub.

1. Purple Cow - Seth Godin’s most-famous work explains how ‘remarkable’ has changed the way marketers must think about the world and the products they spruik.
2. The Cluetrain Manifesto - Explains why your market is smarter than you thought it was and how people’s expectations of marketers have changed.
3. Join the Conversation - Joseph Jaffe wrote the book on word of mouth and social media marketing and this is it. It’s an eye-opener for anyone wanting an overview of what this whole social media marketing thing is about and why it applies to pretty much everyone.
4. Conversational Capital - Bertrand Cesvet explains how to create stuff people love to talk about - a hugely important lesson when you’re trying to market the (seemingly) unremarkable.
5. The Long Tail - Chris Anderson’s seminal work on how the Internet has created infinite supply and infinite demand is a must-read for anyone scratching their heads and wondering where the world has got to.

1. Make your customer service truly remarkable. No, seriously, you don’t understand. Not good. Not brilliant: remarkable.
2. Find time to get active in your industry association. Offer to be secretary and do an amazing job. Do extra stuff that no one wants to do and do it really well. You’ll be a captain of industry in six months.
3. Read everything you can get your hands on. Whether you are the head of marketing for Coke or an Iranian potato farmer, right now, this very second, there are 100 insightful people blogging about ways you can grow your business and 100 book titles on Amazon which you’ll be recommending to your friends as ‘must-reads’ in 12 months time. Get an RSS reader and get to work 15 minutes early to read blogs. There are new distribution channels and opportunities popping up all the time, but you won’t know about them if you don’t read.
4. Start a blog that establishes you as an expert in your area of expertise and publish something useful EVERY day. If you can’t write, draw. If you can’t draw, make videos. If you haven’t got a video camera, make audio recordings. If you’re a deaf, blind mute that’s no excuse - you and I both know that Helen Keller would have been the world’s most prolific blogger if she was alive today. Stop whinging. Get over it. Start blogging.
5. Stop watching fucking Lost.
6. Hire someone to do something that is taking up too much of your time. The more time you have to think about marketing your business, the better off the business will be. Be brave. Take a risk. You’re smart. It’s the old adage — work ON the business, not IN the business. It will pay off now more than ever. Your competitors will be cutting back and you’ll be investing in idea capital. If you work in a large corporation and the powers that be won’t spend a cent hiring someone new in this current economic climate, convince your boss it’s a good idea by taking a big pay cut now in return for a big bonus when your work pays off. If you don’t believe in yourself enough to do that, what the f–k are you doing?
7. Engage your customers properly, start conversations with them online and offline (you know, like, when they’re in your store) and do it because you want to, not because it’s the latest fad. Smile like you mean it.
8. Create partnerships and do people favours. If you’re a wedding photographer, set up a deal with a local catering firm to send each other work. If you are a local catering firm, find a boutique local winery and help them set up a restaurant in the vineyard on Sunday afternoons. If you’re a boutique local winery start sending lots of free wine to local tour operators. If you’re a local tour operator, get a local wedding photographer to take a professional photo of everyone at the end of the tour and email it to them with a thank you note. What goes around, comes around.
9. Ask everyone in your company what the best thing about your company is and make it better. Ask everyone in your company what the worst thing about your company is and fix it.
10. Make your company a great place to work, give your employees free lunch, love them, not literally, and they will tell all their Facebook friends how amazing you are and their friends will tell their friends. If you want to find people to blog about your product, the guy in the mail room, the girl behind the reception desk and the lady with the mop are the greatest brand evangelists you’re ever going to find. Henry Ford paid all his workers double the award wage. Guess what they did with all their extra money? Bought cars. Think about that.

I was playing around with Wikipedia on behalf of a client this afternoon and was not exactly surprised to see that Tarnya Dunning from Telstra’s public affairs department had been doing the same. Unlike many unscrupulous contributors though (and by god there are many) it was nice to see that she had clearly declared what she was up to and appears to have done so with only the best intentions. Nice one Tarnya. If only Optus were as active and polite in the social media space as you (not to mention Vodafone).

Editing Your Own Wikipedia Article is frowned upon by Wikipedia, but it’s not banned and it can be done well. Social media marketers could do well to follow Tarnya’s lead. If you’re interested in the topic, check out the developing discussion on the rules of engagemen for social media marketers and bloggers here.