Over Christmas, I attempted to sell Twitter to my 17-year old sister. Three years prior, I successfully encouraged her to sign up for Facebook, arguing that her early adoption will make her the idol of her freinds once the site catches on (and it did, and she was).

She now uses Facebook for all communication. She has no email account–posting on friends’ walls is a more efficient form of communication for high school students. Every status update signals a flurry of comments and discussion.

So when I attempted to explain Twitter–how you can have status updates, but it’s only 140 characters, and how you can follow people…I quickly realized how stupid I sounded. Twitter provides no value to her. The character limit is even more absurd from this perspective. Posting links that require you to use TinyURL–this makes no sense for someone that lives on Facebook where photos, videos, and links can easily be shared with ease.

I then shifted to the argument that you can follow people you do not know (e.g., RealShaq, CNN, Scoble). But you can do this on Facebook via pages and public profiles. In fact, her teacher uses public status updates to communicate with her class.

In short: can someone give me a compelling value proposition for users of Twitter? Specifically, why it seems to be so popular among technophiles/bloggers but no one else?

Adult Friend Finder has filed for an IPO in 2009.

Should you buy? Besides the thrill of the a possible annual shareholder meeting, there’s some interesting details:

• AFF has $420M in debt on which they have defaulted payment. They need someone to lend them money–that’s where you come in.
• Adult Friend Finder had revenues $250M in the first three quarters of 2008–all of those $20/month subscriptions add up quickly.
• It claims to have 950,000 members and ranks 40-60th most visited site on the Internet.
• The IPO would like to raise $460 million. At current prices, 4 Adult Friend Finders would equal 1 General Motors (market cap $2B, 12/25).
• The planned ticker is FFN–not very clever.
• Adult Friend Finder is not the first porn company to go public. New Frontier Media, NOOF, currently trades on the Nasdaq.

Here’s the full details from the filing with the SEC. Anyone want to pool an investment to split the trading costs?

2012 is a typical disaster movie. Today, I saw the trailer in theaters, and it had quite the cliffhanger at the end. The trailer’s call-to-action, however, was different:

Instead of a link to the movie’s micro-site, the trailer’s call-to-action is “Google Search 2012.” This strategy has appeared before in other TV advertisements–people do not memorize URL’s, but remembering to search a keyword is more natural.

Failure 1: 2012 is a common term.

Searching for 2012 queries the following results (pictured below):

The top five natural searches have no relation to the movie. After two pages of searching, I finally found Sony’s desired website in the sponsored links section. It costs Sony for every click on its paid search link (assuming the consumer even notices sponsored results).

Failure 2: No micro-site.

Normally, a custom micro-site is a costly endeavor for marketing campaigns. But for movies, it serves as a place to which people can link. The paid search result is 2012’s “Official Movie Site” on sonypictures.com, with only a trailer and no other content–explaining why there are no natural search results for 2012’s official site. Why not send people to YouTube (currently 800K views of trailer)? The user experience is much richer (voting, comments, related videos).

Failure 3: no online content

That’s right. The trailer’s call-to-action leads to a Sony Pictures page with only a video of the same trailer. Sony did not created any online content (news, synopsis…something to reward me for visiting), yielding a negative net benefit after following all of Sony’s desired steps (they wasted my time).

I’m not sure if this was to create buzz around the predicted apocolypse of 2012 or to measure the efficacy of the trailer using Google search. Either way, this was a lost opportunity to connect with consumers.

I’ve had quite a few ideas at Amex. Stupidly, I would explain my idea in 5 minutes to my boss, only to have it quickly shot down, cursing the company for its failure to accept change and appreciate innovation. I learned that selling an idea is incredibly difficult–especially in a slow-moving, large corporation.

Luckily, Seth Godin has a great hack (via Free Prize Inside. Just finished the book–highly recommended).

Take it Slow
Do not go straight to your boss with your idea. This is because he or she, as well as your co-workers, will ask themselves the following three questions when they hear your idea:

1. Is it going to be successful?
2. Is it worth doing?
3. Is this person able to champion the project?

You need each answer to be a resounding “yes.” This will not occur by casually explaining your idea. People will discount your idea because getting a “yes” to the above questions is difficult–the default and expectation is “no.” How do you get to “yes?”

Step 1: Build your Reputation as a Champion
You may have a great idea, but the company does not think that you can handle it. If you have a reputation of getting things done, you’re much more likely to capture the confidence of others. People will not embrace your idea and run with it–it’s your vision and it needs to be led by you. Start by doing small things: leading a taskforce, organizing lunch, volunteering for a project.

Step 2: Talk to Others
Innovation is realized through teams–not through individuals. You need to get several stakeholders on-board before pitching your idea to superiors. This will likely include legal, brand, operations, etc. Each person will pick apart your idea; but once you have their stamp of approval, selling your idea to upper-management will be much easier.

Step 3: Without the Idea, We’re Doomed
Create a sense of urgency by making it clear that action must be taken. Once people understand the current crisis, they are much more likely to accept your idea. Do this before you explain the specifics of the idea.

Step 4: Guaranteeing Success
You cannot prove that your idea will work. What you can do is present your idea with confidence, reinforcing your recommendation as a “sure thing.” You need to go through all of the necessary steps for your colleagues to believe that it will work. This includes, if necessary, running focus groups, analytics, ROI, etc.–whatever it takes.

Step 5: Pitch Idea to Your Boss
You have multiple stakeholders on-board by creating a sense of urgency and proven yourself a project champion with a strong reputation. Finally, when you sell your idea, the project is less risky and an endorsement would be a no-brainer. Each of the above questions is now a resounding “yes.” Again, create a sense of urgency and focus on the likely success of the project.

Naturally, this takes much more time than my previous approach. But the results are superior and you are improving your reputation as leader.

Additional Links

Selling Ideas to a big company – Godin
Selling your ideas to your boss – Graduate Engineer
Selling your boss – People at Work and Play

There has been a lot of criticism of Facebook lately, mostly because a general manager of interactive promotion at Proctor and Gamble said, “I really don’t want to buy any more banner ads on Facebook.”

P&G, the world’s advertising leader, made a bold statement about Facebook. They tested Facebook’s sales pitch–that consumers can “interact” with brands via applications and pages. Conclusion? Not so positive.

Proponents of Facebook like using words such as conversation, dialogue, interaction, etc. Yet, I have not witnessed any promotion that has successfully had a “dialogue” with consumers that translates into conversions.

Example: Crest White Strips

Fans: 9,000
Total engagements: 870 wall posts (30 per month), <100 discussion board posts.

Example: Bank of America, America’s Cheer

Fans: 3,712
Total Engagements: <200 discussion posts

Dialogue? Conversation? To pay for the creative-build and maintenance, I estimate the cost per interaction well over $1. Also, consider the number of fans for the crest campaign:

The promotion began in fall 2006, when P.& G. invited Facebook members in 20 college campus networks to become Crest Whitestrips “fans” on the product’s Facebook Page. Facebook said it was a great success, attracting 14,000 fans.One could argue, however, that with the additional enticements that Crest provided — thousands of free movie screenings, as well as sponsored Def Jam concerts — a brand of hemorrhoid cream could have attracted a similar number of nominal “fans.” (via NY Times)

Why the lack of conversation? I believe it has a lot to do with the structure. Facebook pages are walled gardens–having a discussion on a Facebook page requires constant maintenance–it’s like chatting through blog posts rather than AIM or Gchat–not so efficient.

Thought Experiment: should a Laundry Detergent brand (i.e., Tide Ultra 2x) use Facebook Pages?

“ I have been saying these things for two years now…no one wants to be a friend of laundry detergent. I don’t care what you do, what you say, what you give me…I am never going to be friends with a cleaning liquid. BUT I AM GOING TO BUY THE PRODUCT…I LIKE CLEAN CLOTHES. ” (via Lotame Learnings)

If you’re going to have “discussion” or “dialogue,” it probably should not be centered around selling a product or advertising a sweepstakes/promotion. Would you post on a discussion board or wall for promotion of Tide Ultra 2x? I cannot think of a compelling reason.

Successful brand conversations, however, are occuring at record pace, especially on Twitter. Comcastcares should be a role-model for successful consumer engagement. Comcast does not focus on converting customers or engaging users in a sweepstakes, but rather seeks out customers already vocalizing their opinions of comcast through blogs, tweets, accounts, etc. Until Facebook understands this level of corporate engagement and builds the neccessary structure (i.e., something better than “Fan Pages”), I’ll stay short on Facebook.