These are the things that I think make a good digital strategist, but if you have thoughts on this as well (it’s a subjective thing obviously), I’d love to hear from you in the comments or on Twitter.

Ignore the experts and industry publications.

A while ago, I stopped reading Mashable completely. I don’t visit the site, and I almost never click on Mashable links that I see in tweets. I only occasionally pop over to PSFK or The Next Web, but really infrequently if at all. And I don’t follow Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, CC Chapman, or other people who are widely considered to be social media experts. I’ve got nothing personal against these publications or these people (I’m sure they’re all talented, intelligent, and lovely), I just don’t feel like they add value for me.

So much of what happens within the little circle (and it’s truly little) of social media expert-dom, is tail chasing stuff. It’s tweet-bait headlines, bold and unfounded proclamations, and lots of recycled thinking. In the social media age, it’s all about the tweet-byte (it’s the new soundbyte), and rarely with the bother of thought to support the re-tweetable snippet.

For me, where I tend to find the most value (in terms of making me a better strategic thinker), is in going way outside of the industry chatter. Which brings me to my next item…

Expand your purview.

I’m fascinated by things like behavioral economics, the history of the banana or the credit card, physical computing, and the way people work best. Some of my favorite things to watch or listen to are Modern Marvels, This American Life, those “Inside” shows on CNBC, and the “How Stuff Works” podcast.

I love knowing things and I love knowing about things. And though these things aren’t necessarily a direct analogue to my day to day job, I find that this breadth of random knowledge and understanding of stuff, actually helps me to be a better strategist. Understanding how something works or how people behave, is far more interesting (and valuable) to me than answering “WILL GOOGLE PLUS KILL FACEBOOK??? OMG!!!”.

Be a Jack/Jane of many (applicable) trades.

Expanding your purview doesn’t specifically mean that you need to go out and familiarize yourself with every piece of trivia and minutiae on earth. And maybe you don’t care about all of that random junk I listed above. If that’s the case, it’s your duty as a good strategist, to at least become well-versed in what the other departments within your organization do, how they do it, and what makes them tick.

At one point in my life (actually, at several points in my life) I thought that my mish-mash of jobs and odd educational path was holding me back. I was sort of good at a bunch of things, but great at nothing in particular. I’d dropped out of more schools than most people generally apply to, and flirted with degrees in English, design, web development, and lots of other things.

As it turns out, that total lack of focus and commitment early on in my life, has served me better than almost anything else I’ve done. It’s allowed me to have a surface level understanding of sales, marketing, development, design, finance, operations, and almost everything in between. I may not be able to code an app from scratch or create a 30 second TV spot by myself, but I sure as hell know a good amount about what goes into making each of those things. And when I sit across from a developer or a creative in a meeting, I am able to speak the language enough, and able to understand their needs enough, to get their respect and to get things moved forward.

Have an opinion and be a skeptic.

I used to work with someone that we called “The Contrarian”. He loved to just give an opposing opinion, mainly for sport and for his own entertainment. Don’t be that guy or girl, but do be a skeptic when everyone else is running off of the cliff with reckless abandon.

As mentioned above, it’s very very easy to get sucked into the cycle of back-patting and tacit agreement in the social media strategy space. But, there’s huge value in at least considering the zig, when everyone else is zagging. Even if you end up ultimately going with the majority, asking the tough questions will almost always make an idea better, faster, and stronger.

Being the lone skeptic in a crowded meeting, can be a lonely and difficult position, but it’s a critical role that makes any strategic organization better.

I’m a fan of the “so what?” line of questioning. When developing a plan, or goals, or any part of a strategy, stop and ask “so what?” at each turn. You’ll be amazed at how it helps to form your ideas, and stress test your plan.

Be wary of statistics.

I once saw a presentation in which the speaker said something to the effect of “50% of users are actively doing X” in order to support his point that the client should do “X”. My first thought was, “What about the other 50%? Are they NOT doing X? How is this supporting your point?”.

We marketing types LOVE statistics. 72% of our time is spent trying to find any report or study, which has some snippet or stat (usually pulled totally out of context) that we can use to support the point that we’re trying to make, to sell in the idea that we’re already married to.

I love data, but I hate marketing statistics.

I’m not saying that statistics don’t have a place in strategy, because they most definitely do. I’m just saying (maybe hoping…wishing) that we strategy types were smarter and more honest about the stats that we chose to use to support our ideas.

Consider the source at least, and then think about what the data is really saying. Was that report on “The Power of Social Ads”, actually funded by, or put out by Facebook? If we take that little snippet and put it BACK into context, does the story we’re telling still hold up? Let’s not insult our clients with fluff that we don’t actually believe in.

Say “no” a lot.

Let sales people be the “Yes” men and women. A good strategist needs to know when and how to say “no”. Just because the newest whizbang social-digital-mobile-game-changing-omg-whoopdeedoo-app-site-etc just came out, doesn’t mean that we should suddenly shift all of our time, attention, and resources to being there.

Understand the client’s needs, their capabilities, their resources, and their appetite for adopting emerging technologies and platforms. THINK whether or not this change to, or addition to, the plan actually makes sense for them in the bigger picture.

Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do something.

Use common sense.

Common sense is one of the most underrated skills that a strategist can have and use. It’s incredibly easy to over-think and over-analyze and over-complicate things. By nature, we strategy folks have a great desire to make things complex. There’s a feeling that if something is too simple, that it can’t possibly be smart strategy…and that’s a dangerous way to think.

Be sure and stop yourself often, and ask “does this make sense?”, or “would a user do this?”.

Learn how to build stuff.

One of the people in the digital/strategy/nerd space that I admire most, is Noah Brier. I’ve followed Noah for years now, and had a rather loose, digitally-based acquaintanceship with him, where communication has mainly happened via Twitter, email, and the occasional blog comment string.

Among the many things I admire about Noah, is his ability to build things as someone who doesn’t have a formal background in programming or development.

He’s built things like BrandTags and MyFirstTweet, and more recently, built an actual business called Percolate.

I can’t speak for Noah, but I’m guessing that his time tinkering and learning how to build things himself, has elevated his professional career in a pretty dramatic way.

Not unlike being a Jack or Jane of all trades, knowing how to build stuff gives you context and understanding, that allows you to be a better strategist.

I’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of hours over the years, learning how to build websites, fiddle with databases, understand the basics of APIs, and just pick at how things work. I’ve had scant formal training at best, and I can’t program much from scratch; but damn if I can’t find some basic scripts online, and try things out until I see how something functions.

Be a user, not just an evangelist.

I can’t tell you how many meetings I’ve been in over the years, where someone is selling in a program, based on some technology or platform that they themselves have never used. Strategists that are tone-deaf to user needs, and that only view platforms from the brand’s perspective, are destined to fail.

It may sounds painfully obvious, but don’t push a QR code program if you have a flip phone. Don’t talk to me about how Twitter is a game changer if you haven’t logged in for months. Please spare me your brand page “engagement” strategy, if you don’t follow brands on Facebook and have never yourself been a page admin.

You don’t need to love every technology that comes out, but you do need to be familiar with it. This space moves incredibly fast, and the best way to stay on top of where things are, is to be immersed in it personally.

What am I missing?

This is obviously just my personal opinion. What am I missing? What else makes for a great strategist? Comment away, or respond on Twitter. Would love to hear the thoughts of others.

I understand that the current and conventional methods of market research and focus groups is generally and widely accepted as being directionally helpful and accurate, but this built in bias has always been an itch for me that I could never quite scratch.

Last night, while reading some of Super Freakonomics, there was a section that spoke to this itch, near perfectly.

But the lab context is unavoidably artificial. As one academic researcher wrote more than a century ago, lab experiments have the power to turn a person into “a stupid automation” who may exhibit a “cheerful willingness to assist the investigator in every possible way by reporting to him those things which he is most eager to find.” The psychiatrist Martin Orne warned that the lab encouraged what might best be called forced cooperation. “Just about any request which could conceivably be asked of the subject by a reputable investigator,” he wrote, “is legitimized by the quasi-magical phrase ‘This is an experiment.’”

And again, I find myself most fascinated by the intersection of economic and psychological theories…or behavioral economics.

“Every time you ask for the ROI of Social Media, a kitten dies somewhere. It doesn’t mean anything to put a number on a conversation. Social Media is nothing new, we just used to call it….talking. If you believe that businesses are built on relationships, than it should be your duty to build relationships.”

The full post is here.

And as a side note, this week/month so far has really seemed like it’s contained a tidal-wave of amazing stuff in the local online/interactive/social/digital media and advertising space. Some people have returned from Planning-Ness with great decks and info, Hubspot had their “HUG” event, and of course FutureM and the stuff coming out of FutureM is fantastic. Let’s hope this pace keeps up, and Boston stays abuzz with this sort of conversation. Exciting times.

As such, I want to do this more frequently, and am thinking of trying to do a one-on-one coffee with someone new, every week. It doesn’t much matter who you are or what your background is (though online/product/marketing/digital/advertising types are preferred), but mainly that you are interesting and passionate about whatever it is you do.

So if you are up for grabbing a coffee (Espresso Royale on Newbury Street is my go-to spot), get in touch.

Focus on the Wrong Metrics – A fan or a follower isn’t a business objective. Social media has enabled marketers to chase metrics that don’t impact their business. The reason for most of the discussion surrounding social media ROI is caused by measuring the wrong metrics. Reach, leads and sales should be some of the tangible metrics that are measured as part of social media marketing strategies.

Amen.

So often I hear marketers say things like “We’ve got a gajabillion Facebook fans!”, and when I ask “Ok, so now what?”, I receive a blank stare back. It isn’t just about collecting fans or followers, it’s about leveraging those open connections you’ve made, effectively. Extracting (and providing) value through that channel.

Whenever there are random numbers thrown around in our office, I always think of the exchange between Jerry and George in the Seinfeld episode The Little Jerry.

JERRY: Hey, guess what! Little Jerry ran from here to Newman’s in under thirty seconds!

GEORGE: Is that good?

JERRY: I don’t know.

Hey, I’ve got 40,000 Facebook fans! Is that good? I don’t know.

Full article here. Link via @pc4media

Friend: So you have to be IN the place to check in there?
Me: Well, you are supposed to be.
Friend: How does Foursquare know you are actually IN the place?
Me: It uses GPS to see where you are.
Friend: But can’t you just check into places nearby, even if you aren’t really in them?
Me:Yah, technically. Well, yes.
Friend: Well that seems kind of stupid.

And I had no response for that last line. She was right, that is kind of stupid.

Whenever I find myself explaining Foursquare to someone that doesn’t give a shit (there are bazillions of people like this by the way, lest us nerds forget), they initially think it’s completely stupid and don’t understand why on earth you would ever bother checking in someplace on your cellphone.

That is, until I explain that through Foursquare, businesses are able to reward their best customers (frequent checker inners) with cool freebies and specials. For instance, “Mayors” of Starbucks get a coupon…albeit a really lame one. Then these people who didn’t get it a minute or two earlier, start to see the value to them, as potential Foursquare users.

And as a side note, forget the pitch that you can use Foursquare to “see where your friends are”. My informal market research says that about 98% of non-nerds (and about 100% of non-nerd females) think this is totally creepy and passionately explain to me that this is a very strong reason for them to NOT use Foursquare.

ANYWAYS…so back to the value proposition that actually can attract new users. The freebies and discounts and rewards.

The big problem is the cheating. If your whole value proposition to the user is based around earning rewards for participation, but the mechanism for tracking participation is COMPLETELY full of holes and totally game-able, you’ve got a big problem on your hands. Namely in that people will get quickly disillusioned, angry, and quit. Foursquare game over.

So how can this be fixed? I saw the other day that businesses are going to be putting up Foursquare window decals (a lot like the Yelp decals you see around now), and my initial thought was that perhaps those decals would have a barcode that users could scan in order to check in. Which would be one slightly imperfect and slightly clunky way to solve the problem of check-in cheats. But it appears that these are merely endorsement/marketing decals and that’s about it.

But it got me thinking more about how and where the barcode scanning technology could work more elegantly within the check-in space. And more importantly, where could the check-in scan happen so that it effectively locked down cheating, and also upped the value of the check-in to both users and businesses?

What I ended up with was the idea that POS receipts in stores could include unique barcodes that Foursquare users could scan in order to get credit for a check-in. This wouldn’t necessarily have to fully replace the GPS based check-in system, but it would be a way for businesses to tie some subset of check-ins to not just attendance, but to ACTUAL purchases.

Within this sort of receipt-scan-based check-in system, there seems to be a lot of possibility for users, for businesses, and for Foursquare…

Users could get some sort of “verified check-in” credit, which perhaps could carry more weight than non-verified check-ins in terms of how these check-ins affected mayorships for retail stores.

Businesses again, would be able to start to really quantify, track, and understand the value of Foursquare users and tie check-ins to actual dollars. There is also the obvious potential for Foursquare to provide business with some generalized customer profile data here as well, which when tied with purchasing behavior and patterns, starts to get really really interesting for businesses.

And lastly, Foursquare gets into a better position where they start to lock down the cheating issue and develop a more effective system for pulling all of this together in a way that both users and businesses can really benefit from.

Obviously this idea works only for businesses and locations where an actual purchase can and would take place…but when it comes to cheating and rewards, this is the segment of businesses on Foursquare where this problem matters most. Isn’t it?

The last bit regarding 4Food was particularly interesting:

Is social media the secret sauce for restaurants? I recently heard about 4Food, an organic burger eatery opening in Manhattan later this summer. Plans include servers taking orders on iPads and a 240-square-foot monitor in the restaurant to stream Foursquare check-ins, tweets and updates from the 4Food staff. Will that sell more burgers? Probably not. What might though, is the company’s plans to use a custom online application to crowdsource menu development. In addition to getting an order “their way,” customers are able name and market their creations, receiving $.25 worth of store credit for every sale of their unique menu item.

PS, Check out my badly-in-need-of-an-update post from last year, Boston Restaurants On Twitter.

PPS, Hill Holiday, you should make your blog URLs a little more search friendly. WordPress permalink settings. Know them and love them.

The Last Advertising Agency On Earth from FITC on Vimeo.

Seen first via @sagalyn

I have always hated the “opt-out confirm” step, and think that unsubscribe links in emails should be a single click unsub. This one though used some subtle placement and language tricks that I’d expect to see more from shady grey-hat email marketers, than big old-media magazines.

As most users probably do, I read the page left to right, skip over or skim most of the text, and my first instinct is to click on the button marked “continue”. Since I just clicked “unsubscribe” on the previous page, my mind is expecting at first glance, that “continue” will continue the unsubscribe process I have already started. It actually keeps you ON the list if you hit that button.

Annoying.

Particularly for agencies, there is a consensus that there’s got to be a better way. “I feel we could be facing an inflection point in our industry,” said Phil Cowdell, head of North America for WPP’s Mindshare. “The often contradictory forces of procurement-driven cost reductions and the marketing departments’ calls for more, smarter and better [approaches] will create an increasingly uncomfortable and potentially less effective operating zone for agencies. The only viable way forward is to shift from the procurement-oriented benchmarks of input measures such as CPMs [or cost per 1,000 viewers] to more output-oriented measures such as cost per hand-raiser and cost per lead. We need to move away from pure cost to a more-considered value equation.”

Via AdAge –> http://adage.com/article?article_id=138358