The latest, greatest craze in social media tool is Peach. This adorably named private
messaging service is filled to the teeth with features that would make a teenager coo.
"I love my peach peach...yaaaaa!"
If you haven't used or heard of Peach, here it is in a nutshell: It's a mobile app that
allows for media rich private message. It has this cool feature - that is mostly
targeted at super nerds and teenagers - called "Magic Words" that allow you to
type in a command, like GIF or DRAW or SONG, to pull it all sorts of media rich
content, through which you can communicate with others...or just yourself on your profile page.
"So alone..." Scott Pilgrim
Anyway, it's cool to, like, a certain number of people who are pretty giddy about it.
"Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!" (from The Yes Dance)
But I'm not really intereseted in Peach other than playing
around with it and watching where it goes.
"Moving to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches." Presidents of the USA
What's more interesting to me is the succession of new apps and networks that
we get all riled up about only to forget about them next week. I'm not saying that Peach will
be our latest flash in the pan victim.
But I am saying that it fits a pattern, especially with marketers.
Today, I'm going to talk about our obsession with hype around new apps.
Why we are always looking for the newest, latest, and greatest app,
and what we should be doing instead.
Hi, my name is Tara, and this is Truly Social.
Remember Ello? Groupon? Fab.com? Turntable.fm? Diaspora? Meerkat? Path?
Color? Shopkick? Highlight? Zaarly? Chatroulette? I could go on.
"I'm not listening to you. You're Crazy."
You may have never heard of these jobs, but at one point they were all hot *BLEEP*.
They were going to kill Facebook or Amazon
or Twitter or somehow disrupt the entire world.
"How's that working out for you?" Tyler Durden
And every marketer and their dog got on board somehow. Even with peach just coming out
of the gate we're seeing articles like this one from Digiday highlighting brand
activity already appearing on the network. No matter what is the newest
hype machine there will be more than a few brands and agencies gathering
nervously in their boardroom to ask: "What is your *BLEEP* strategy?"
I've been part of the startup world since
2005 and have seen this question pop up in various forms over the years.
"What is your gamification strategy?" was asked when apps like Foursquare
and SCVNGR were on the rise. "Pew Pew Pew"
"What is your daily deal strategy?" was hot when Groupon, Gilt and Fab.com
were in the news.
"What is your mobile strategy?" followed the news that Snapchat was giving
Facebook a run for their money.
And now I expect: "What is your command line strategy?" in reference to
the success of Slack, a great collaboration tool that has been
in the news of late, and now Peach who also uses text-based commands - or
"Magic Words" in place of buttons.
"I'm not Button anymore...I am MUSTACHE!" Button (My Little Pony)
The truth is that questions like these are NOT ALL strategic. In fact, if you
add a tool as a prefix to the word "Strategy", you're acting like one.
"Ha ha!" Nelson
A strategy is about finding the best way to achieve your goal.
A tool is a tactic and you should only add a tactic if it aligns to your strategy.
When something is hot, be it Peach or Periscope, it is better to pay attention and
understand that tool, put it in your toolkit, and add it to tactics when the strategy calls
for it, rather than jumping on board right away.
"Aaaaaaaah!" Button experiencing brain freeze from drinking too fast.
Now, experimentation isn't harmful per se, but it does show a lack of respect for your
audience, especially when your other tools are on promotional autopilot.
"Hey Ron, who's driving?" Brian Fantana. "It's okay, it's on cruise control." Ron Burgundy.
It doesn't demonstrate ingenuity, it demonstrates haphazardness
and results in a lot of eye-rolling.
Liz Lemon demonstrates her epic eye-roll.
even the DigiDay article read like was rolling its eyes. They opened the article with:
"Try as they might, brands and publishers simply can't resist the latest shiny social bauble."
As an individual, I'll sign up to new networks when I hear about them to get my
username or just bang around a bit, but I'll keep the focus on having the conversations
where my friends are, rather than trying to get them to change their behavior and join me.
"That's an interesting theory." Edward Norton as Narrator
So, go! Grab your name on "Peach". You just never know when you may need it.
But the minute someone asks you what your Peach strategy is, say to them:
If you focus the tools, you become one.
"The taste of peachiosity! The taste of peachiosity!" Lipton Peach Iced Tea Commercial
My name is Tara and this has been... Truly Social.