I recently returned from a whirlwind trip following U2 on the West Coast swing of their latest tour. The trip took me to three different cities in the span of a week where I saw the show from a variety of different perspectives and vantage points. The last stop was in Pasadena at the famed Rose Bowl.

As many of you probably know that Rose Bowl show was noteworthy for a few reasons. First, 100,000 people occupied the stadium making it one of the largest concert events in the history of California. Also, U2 used the performance to record their latest concert DVD and they streamed the concert live via YouTube. The statistics that followed the live broadcast were staggering. Ten million streams from 188 countries across the world made this the largest streaming event in YouTube’s history.

A friend who knew I would be attending the Rose Bowl concert sent me the following email before the show, “Aren’t you a sucker? Now, I can have the same experience free while still laying on my sofa.” In a sense he has a point. Thanks to social media he saw the same show, but he hardly had the same experience. Not even close. And this is as big a commentary on the effectiveness of social media vs. in-person Word of Mouth as there ever was.

What I experienced in the span of a week led to countless stories and memories that I’ll cherish and share for a lifetime. It was by definition the ultimate Word of Mouth experience. He didn’t experience the camaraderie that comes with spending an entire day in the General Admission line and the subsequent loss of humanity in the stampede that follows when the gates finally open. He didn’t experience haggling and begging our way back to the Vegas strip among 20,000 other stranded cab seekers. And of course, he didn’t experience the magic that is a live U2 event.

He may have been comfortable and it certainly was free to watch the Rose Bowl show on his laptop. But as I was there smashed between fans from London on my left, Hawaii on my right and Canada to my back, I was part of something bigger. I was part of something 100,000 strong in fact. A community of passionate people that if only for three hours of our lives were connected to each other. Social media is great. It has the ability to extend real life situations, but make no mistake, it will never replace those situations and experiences.

My friend may have sung along to “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” from the comfort of his own couch, but I sang the same song at the top of my lungs with 100,000 others. And as I glanced around and the band fell silent it was clear that we shared something too. An overwhelming moment that only those within those walls can truly remember. I will never forget the looks on the faces of the people surrounding me. Those looks can never be defined by any social media application. Once again, U2 taught me a lesson, and once again, I’m better for it.

Here’s the thing about numbers – they suck. They cloud people’s judgment. They associate meaning to things that are meaningless and often take away from what really matters.

Take sports. Let’s compare A-Rod’s statistics to Scott Brosious’s, the man who stood at third base just a few years prior to A-Rod in New York. Scott Brosious, who retired in 2001, is a career .257 hitter with a total of 141 home runs. A-Rod is a career .306 hitter with 553 home runs. Over his entire decade-plus career, Scott Brosious didn’t make nearly the sum of money that A-Rod will this year alone at $28,000,000. Yet if they each strolled down Broadway, New Yorkers would heap praise upon Mr. Brosious in a way A-Rod could only dream.

Why? Because beyond all the numbers that A-Rod’s accumulated he hasn’t provided moments or built relationships the way Scott Brosious has. The clutch hitting and late-inning dramatics that Brosious provided is the equity that has made him a Yankee legend despite his pedestrian numbers. So what does this mean? It means that if you’re spending time worrying about accumulating more Twitter followers and monitoring your blog traffic your missing opportunities to build moments and share experiences that naturally make you more valuable.

I’m done trying to poke holes in social media outlets. They aren’t the problem. Twitter is a perfectly effective and maybe even revolutionary medium. The bigger problem is the people who use social media and their infatuation with building numbers instead of meaningful relationships.

We’re so concerned with numbers and having to measure something that we associate false values so we can rationalize our own existence. Right PR people? Height + Width X ad rate X 3 = PR value? Following that formula in PR makes us devalue the real target audience because we’re always searching for the biggest. It’s the same as building a social media campaign around accumulating followers instead of cultivating relationships. You neglect those that really matter.

“Our goal is to accumulate 10,000 followers by the end of this effort.” What happens if you achieve your goal? Now you’ve got 10,000 people who on the other end are just happy that you increased their numbers for them. How often do you actually go through and read what your followers have to say? Probably not often because you’re just happy to see that number on the right side of the page grow. Here’s a news flash – so is the person on the other end. They don’t really care about you either.

The sad part is we seem to be ok with that. As long as we see numbers grow or have something quantitative to shoot for we feel like we’re striving towards something. And the truth is, we are. It’s just that we’re striving towards something completely meaningless.

In a perfect world we’d say, “Screw numbers, they’ll come if we do our job right.” If we work to provide value to others and establish relationships the numbers will come in greater force than they ever could have otherwise. But it doesn’t work that way because it’s too damn hard. How do we measure if someone feels connected to our brand and how do we know if they feel compelled to share what we have to say with others? I sure don’t have the answer. But I do know that strategies built on numbers mislead and misrepresent. Ask A-Rod. Ask Scott Brosious.

Is your green brand, message or platform relevant? Can it stand the test of time? Does anyone care? We’ve always put these questions to the famous three-legged green bar stool test: Is your green marketing “Approachable,” “Believable,” and “Doable”?

This post covers the first leg: Is your green brand approachable? We believe that changing the average shopper to an eco-conscious consumer is not prompted by the radical fringes. Most people can’t see themselves plying the north Atlantic in a Zodiac saving whales, or huddled in a make-shift tree fort hugging a Sequoia in Berkley, or chained to a five-ton Caterpillar to keep a developer from blading the desert.

If you and your brand are going to entice eco-friendly behavioral change, then you absolutely most be a welcoming, guiding inspiration in your customer’s life.

One example of this approachability is Green Depot. It is a consumer focused “Home Depot” for green building and remodeling. The Wall Street Journal said, “With its boutique feel, the store is laser-focused on the consumer – not so much builders. And while protecting the environment is part of the shill, marketing puts heavy emphasis on keeping consumers healthier and saving them money on heating, cooling and other energy needs.”

The Green Depot gets it. They are both an online and bricks and mortar boutique that makes it fun and easy for consumers to embrace sustainable green products in their lives and homes.

Patagonia has been “getting green” since the start. Their Footprint Chronicles allows you to track the impact of a specific Patagonia product from design through delivery. This is a welcome transparency and differentiator in the consumer products industry that allows you, the consumer, to make an educated choice on how and where to buy your apparel, and what tangible impact you may have on the environment with your decision.

And to prove eco-consumption isn’t just for the well-heeled, Walmart released the somewhat surprising findings from their green consumer survey just before Earth Day. It revealed an adoption rate increase of 66 percent from last year in its sustainability Live Better Index, which has been tracking consumers’ decisions to purchase five key eco-friendly products since April 2007. This growth in the sustainability index shows that concern for the environment has a growing presence in shopping baskets of the retailer’s 200 million annual customers.

Three of the 10 Ways to Measure the “Approachability” of Your Green Brand

1. Make it Neighborly: Does your consumer feel like they have a vested interest in the promotion and outcome of your cause by purchasing or investing in your product or service? It’s that old adage: “Think Globally, Act Locally.”
   
2. Make it Friendly: Are you selling from fear tactics, or are you helping to empower your consumer? We recommend empowerment, because change happens when people feel they have a choice that can positively impact an outcome.
   
3. Make it Inclusive: Social norms almost always trump individual altruism. If everyone else appears to be doing it, then so should I. There is a terrific article in The Atlantic about “Social Proof,” that illustrates this concept.

Berkeley Tree Sitter

Three of the 10 Pitfalls That Make Your Green Brand “Unapproachable”

1. Far-flung Causes: Although groups like The Water Project have an important mission of bringing clean water to Africa, it is so removed from the average American’s life experience that it’s difficult to compete with consumer mind-share based on more geographically immediate causes.

2. Over Glamourization: When Animal Planet is trying to get its viewers to live vicariously through modern day eco-pirates like they feature on Whale Wars, it sort of sinks the entire eco-genre into the silly, silly fringes.
3. Snootiness: Prius has a tremendous following of eco-evangelists of all shades of green.  Tesla Motors does not. One costs around $35k, the other $100k. Enough said.

Is your green brand approachable, believable and doable? Know of one that is?

You can learn “How To Reduce Your Carbon and Hype Footprints” AND make your green brand approachable, believable and doable, with my SlideShare presentation:

 Manny Ramirez got busted for steroids last week and I should have been a lot happier about it. My two favorite teams are the Angels and DBacks, each benefiting differently from Manny’s stupidity. But instead of relishing in the moment, I was annoyed because that long-haired moron and his decision to ignore the hard work of his peers reminds me of what’s going on in the Word of Mouth and Social Media space right now. 

This week alone I’ve either seen or received four separate announcements about new social media companies. I’m all for entrepreneurship, and at first glance it seems like this uptick in recognition is a good thing, until you look at the fact that most of these new “businesses” are full of people looking to capitalize on the latest “fad.” 

The real crime in what Manny Ramirez did is that he spit in the face of all of the hard work his peers put in to get where they are.  Same goes for these “social media practices.” Anyone can buy a domain and call themselves an expert, but what about those people out there dedicated to the practice of actually applying strategy to social media? And what of those people who understand it doesn’t begin and end with social media? That, instead, social media is simply one tactic in the complicated and inarguably effective Word of Mouth Marketing space. What about them?

What’s happening is, when you call yourself an expert and recommend a Facebook and Twitter page to an eager client, you’re doing a disservice to yourself, your client, and the industry. You might get a few followers and you might even generate some conversation, but eventually that conversation will stop and the results will prove that you took a shortcut.  Happens every time. Worse, the folks out there truly dedicated to doing it the right way are now competing with the “short cutters” and everyone’s work is suffering. Why come up with a comprehensive Word of Mouth plan when you can just slap up a Facebook page? 

We’re in an era of noise. Say enough crap as loudly as possible and eventually some of it will get through. Months ago I argued this point about Twitter. My point at that time was that the useful medium had turned into a marketing wasteland with “experts” all racing to post the latest links hoping to elevate their personal or organizational stature. While my position has hardly changed, I now have an even greater concern. The same practice of hasty thinking and disregard for peers that continues to haunt Twitter and led to “Man-Ram’s” downfall is quickly flowing into the Word of Mouth space. 

This might sound like sour grapes to some, and I’m sorry that you feel that way. In the face of today’s social media barrage, I think it’s more important than ever to fight for the integrity of Word of Mouth Marketing. But instead of calling people out or speculating about their intentions, I’ll do my best to practice Word of Mouth the best I can, never calling myself an expert and waiting for those around me to break down or fail the test.

There used to be a negative connotation with the word “viral” because it meant something that causes a sickness. Now everyone loves viral, at least in marketing. Viral is everywhere. It’s one of those buzzwords that you’re not sure you’re sick of yet, but you think you might be sick of it pretty soon.

So, what does viral really mean? When something is viral, it spreads quickly. In the case of marketing and advertising, that something is information. There have been countless “viral videos” in recent months, as advertisers have recognized their low cost and high ROI. Viral videos are sometimes actual commercials, and other times are specifically targeted for publishing on the web. There are also videos that aren’t intended for glaring success, yet become almost iconic due to their quirkiness, shock value, or sometimes, simple hilarity. Can you think of a viral video you’ve seen lately? I thought I’d bring along a couple of examples.

Now, the truth of the matter. What is it about videos like these that makes them so popular? I’ve already mentioned a couple of reasons above, but let’s look at them in more detail.

1. They’re original – So much of what we see nowadays is rehashed and rerun and redone. It’s all old news. These videos aren’t. You pass them on, and so does the next person, and the next person . . .
2. They’re short – Good viral videos are often commercials that fit perfectly into the “clip culture” of video websites like Vimeo and YouTube. Besides, who has time during their workday to watch 7 minutes of video that ends up taking too long to pay off anyway?
3. They’re funny/shocking/awesome/funny/hilarious – You must be picking up on my theme by now. Funny always does the trick. You laugh. You remember. You pass it along. Now it’s viral.
4. They’re just good – This may seem obvious, but really, it’s the stuff that counts. If the video isn’t good, it’s not going to be viral. Conversely, if the video is viral, it’s probably good.

Viral videos are coming from everywhere. People are making videos in their basements and they’re becoming viral. The essence of some of these videos is in their low budgets and creativity. Ad agencies are making them too, just on a grander scale. It’s more difficult for agencies to pull off timely content, but with videos like this one of a ball girl jumping to catch a foul ball during a baseball game, agencies are attracting attention to brands on the cheap. No media budget? Try making a video and post it on YouTube. You’ll have exposures out the wazoo if you do it right, and follow it up by getting your personal network of friends and coworkers involved. The bottom line is that anyone can make a video that turns viral, because the video will do most of the work for you, so long as it’s good.

By now you must be asking yourself why I chose that headline. Here’s the main message. A video, or any other information, isn’t viral just because we say it is. It’s viral because the public makes it viral. Tay Zonday recorded himself singing and put it on YouTube. Now the guy’s a superstar, because everyone else says he is. Check out the number of views under that video. Yup, that’s 26 million. Even Dr. Pepper thinks Tay is on to something.

Excuse me, but I think I might’ve just written the word viral one too many times. I’m going to go drink some Diet Coke and eat a couple of Mentos.