what we call Search Engine Marketing. I run reports to see what words you type into our search box, and then I instruct our site to point you to the products I want you to see. The most profitable products, for instance. Or maybe we have a batch of discontinued items weâd like to get rid of, so I nudge you in that direction.
But itâs hard to care about the Internet shopping habits of thousands of people Iâll never meet when Iâm not confident about my own existence. So I just sit here, watching my inbox, waiting for Dick to send that link to that Ant Farm simulation. When it doesnât arrive right away I minimize the spreadsheet and log into Facebook instead.
There was a time when I thought social media sites were playgrounds for bored teenagers, but eventually I figured out they worked just as well for bored adults. Actually what happened is a filmmaker friend talked me into joining MySpace. He said it would be good for networking. I rolled my eyes the whole time I was setting up my profile, but to my surprise I was immediately hooked. Eventually I migrated to Facebook, and in my time online Iâve met several other screenwriters and even a couple of indie directors, people I would probably have never known otherwise. Iâve never seen any of these people in person, of courseâthey mostly live in L.A. (like Sophia) or New York, but Iâm online so much these days that I talk to my Facebook friends a lot more often than my local friends. We trade witty comments, read each otherâs blogs, we have conversations about pop culture and entertainment and the screenwriting process. This interaction is usually the highlight of my day because it helps me feel connected to the world in a way I could never feel in this office.
Sometimes I wonder what the point is of physically spending time here, when the work I do occurs almost exclusively in the online medium. Nobody enjoys sitting in a gray box. I canât be the only person who feels like I spend half my life in jail. Imagine how much money the company would save if it sent everyone home to work. We could schedule teleconferences in place of actual onsite meetings. With the economy the way it is, you would think all ideas to reduce our cost structure would be on the table, but so far, despite occasional rumors of impending layoffs, no one around here has even mentioned it. Especially a guy like my boss, William. He thinks the only way to properly manage you is if he can walk by your cubicle and see you sitting in it.
âThomas!â
I look up, startled, and find William standing in the doorway of my cubicle. What a coincidence. I look down at my monitor and see a Facebook message from Sophia still on the screen, which I think William must also have seen, but I pretend otherwise and make the window disappear. Then I look at the spreadsheet of search terms, as if thatâs what Iâve been working on the whole time.
âThomas?â he asks me. âAre you okay?â
âIâm sorry. I zoned out for a minute. I was thinking about new ad campaigns and went off track there. You know how us creative types are.â
âYou were looking at Facebook, Thomas.â
âRight. Facebook ads. I was thinking it might be interesting to devote a portion of our search budget to Facebook and see what sort of click-through rates we get.â
William is everything you would expect a corporate drone manager guy to be. Balding. Oversized gut. He thinks âbusiness casualâ means wearing a dress shirt with no tie, tucking it into a pair of pleated tan Dockers that are a size too small. He says things like âthought leaderâ and âlow-hanging fruitâ and âbleeding edge.â Sometimes I play buzzword bingo in team meetings to entertain myself, and with William there is never any want for material.
But despite his keen grasp of MBA-speak, William sees no value in social media marketing. Williamâs
But itâs hard to care about the Internet shopping habits of thousands of people Iâll never meet when Iâm not confident about my own existence. So I just sit here, watching my inbox, waiting for Dick to send that link to that Ant Farm simulation. When it doesnât arrive right away I minimize the spreadsheet and log into Facebook instead.
There was a time when I thought social media sites were playgrounds for bored teenagers, but eventually I figured out they worked just as well for bored adults. Actually what happened is a filmmaker friend talked me into joining MySpace. He said it would be good for networking. I rolled my eyes the whole time I was setting up my profile, but to my surprise I was immediately hooked. Eventually I migrated to Facebook, and in my time online Iâve met several other screenwriters and even a couple of indie directors, people I would probably have never known otherwise. Iâve never seen any of these people in person, of courseâthey mostly live in L.A. (like Sophia) or New York, but Iâm online so much these days that I talk to my Facebook friends a lot more often than my local friends. We trade witty comments, read each otherâs blogs, we have conversations about pop culture and entertainment and the screenwriting process. This interaction is usually the highlight of my day because it helps me feel connected to the world in a way I could never feel in this office.
Sometimes I wonder what the point is of physically spending time here, when the work I do occurs almost exclusively in the online medium. Nobody enjoys sitting in a gray box. I canât be the only person who feels like I spend half my life in jail. Imagine how much money the company would save if it sent everyone home to work. We could schedule teleconferences in place of actual onsite meetings. With the economy the way it is, you would think all ideas to reduce our cost structure would be on the table, but so far, despite occasional rumors of impending layoffs, no one around here has even mentioned it. Especially a guy like my boss, William. He thinks the only way to properly manage you is if he can walk by your cubicle and see you sitting in it.
âThomas!â
I look up, startled, and find William standing in the doorway of my cubicle. What a coincidence. I look down at my monitor and see a Facebook message from Sophia still on the screen, which I think William must also have seen, but I pretend otherwise and make the window disappear. Then I look at the spreadsheet of search terms, as if thatâs what Iâve been working on the whole time.
âThomas?â he asks me. âAre you okay?â
âIâm sorry. I zoned out for a minute. I was thinking about new ad campaigns and went off track there. You know how us creative types are.â
âYou were looking at Facebook, Thomas.â
âRight. Facebook ads. I was thinking it might be interesting to devote a portion of our search budget to Facebook and see what sort of click-through rates we get.â
William is everything you would expect a corporate drone manager guy to be. Balding. Oversized gut. He thinks âbusiness casualâ means wearing a dress shirt with no tie, tucking it into a pair of pleated tan Dockers that are a size too small. He says things like âthought leaderâ and âlow-hanging fruitâ and âbleeding edge.â Sometimes I play buzzword bingo in team meetings to entertain myself, and with William there is never any want for material.
But despite his keen grasp of MBA-speak, William sees no value in social media marketing. Williamâs
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