Why social media is like door-to-door selling
In this guest post, David Thomason argues why, from a client’s perspective, social media has been overvalued
Of all the eulogies to Steve Jobs last week, the one that most caught my attention was the one in Advertising Age, headlined Digital Maverick but Marketing Traditionalist. That such a visionary who transformed the way the world communicates still favoured traditional media to get Apple’s messages out should encourage us all to take a cold bath before blindly following the lemmings into the social media abyss.
It seems the advertising and creative industries that embraced Apple with an almost religious fervour (OK, Apple’s technology and design is terrific) have now adopted social media as their next messiah. Eyes light up among agency people when the strategy or creative presentation turns to social media. And the new media evangelists tell us that ‘engagement’ is what communication is all about now.
Engagement has always been a crucial part of effective advertising, irrespective of the medium being used. Remember David Ogilvy’s classic Volkswagen campaigns? Or as much as we might loathe the company, even today’s Advanced Medical Institute.
As a client, I’d much prefer to run my campaigns using traditional media such as these have than use social media. The vast bulk of people with money to spend do still read magazines, do listen to the radio, do watch television, do see billboards, and do visit stores.
Sure, as marketers we all want to trial new things and see what’s possible. But let’s keep that in perspective. The fundamentals of effective advertising haven’t changed. There is no ‘new economics of advertising’ as one breathless blogger asserted on Mumbrella last week.
I like to think of social media as the modern day equivalent of the door-to-door salesman. Both are one-on-one. Both require the potential customer to open the door. Both are ‘buy now’, with little opportunity to build saliency for when the customer is actually ready to buy. Both have a very low strike rate. Both require a significant investment of staff time. Both reach relatively few people.
‘Ah, but what about Old Spice?’ I hear you ask.
While engagement is one mandatory for an effective communication, it’s pointless without ‘reach’. Yes, you might get lucky and score a phenomenon like ‘Old Spice’. But when you’re relying on luck (and the chances of success are extraordinarily slim), as a client, I can’t afford it. I can afford to take a chance if I’m investing heavily in other forms of media and therefore my overall campaign risk is low. But if I have a limited budget and can only afford one medium, then social media would definitely not be it.
I apologise to The Campaign Palace and Panasonic, but unfortunately their current practical jokes campaign (that I presume was hoped to go viral) demonstrates my point-of-view. Very funny, clever idea, sort of linked to the product proposition, can help make the brand more ‘cool’. Extending it over 28 days is good, because then, even if you’ve only watched a few, Panasonic is likely to be more salient for a while. But even if their campaign generates a massive 50,000 views, that means some 20,950,000 Australians won’t see it.
But are those who are viewing that campaign likely to be in the market for a blue-ray recorder in the near future? What does Panasonic do next month to maintain its newfound saliency? Or the months after that? How many cameras do they need to sell to get an ROI and can 50,000 random views deliver that? And how do they carry the creative into effective point of sale activity when that creative remains unknown to most who are actually in the market for such a device?
Without reach, the Panasonic campaign is a dud. Pity, because the idea deserves better. But then again, if they only had a small budget to begin with, this strategy should never have been proposed.
It comes back to the fundamentals of effective advertising. Byron Sharp nails those succinctly – “to build/maintain mental and physical availability. Consistent and clear branding, consistent use of distinctive assets, high reach media, near continuous spend”.
So can social media play an important role in modern day advertising?
Absolutely!
Putting aside a good website which is a ‘must have’, social media could be a good promotional mechanism, although I’m struggling to think of a standout example. And it can add reach, but only through ads or content in already high reach or highly targeted pages. But then, so can other media and it should be evaluated as such.
But a powerful advertising vehicle in its own right? I think not.
So the lesson from Steve Jobs is simple. If you’re going into social media, be sure it’s for the right reasons. And buying shovels in a gold rush is not one of them.
David Thomason is the former general manager of marketing at Meat & Livestock Australia
to make it easy for folk to reference this, I am going to call this post ‘WTF’ and reference bad generalisations. david you are entitled to your opinion, and you chose to express it on an industry forum so it is understood you have put your opinion out there for scrutiny. this isn’t an attack on you, but it is an attack on your point of view, one that you have every right to hold. i just think it is massively wrong.
“Engagement has always been a crucial part of effective advertising, irrespective of the medium being used. ” > WTF? you think TVC’s are largely engaging? you can’t have an interruptive medium, which TVC’s are, then say engagement is a crucial part of the channel
“The vast bulk of people with money to spend do still read magazines, do listen to the radio,” > WTF? define vast bulk? check your data first before saying this, last I checked magazines weren’t doing so well, and radio in its current form is struggling. this is a grossly wrong generalisation
“The fundamentals of effective advertising haven’t changed. ” > the fundamentals haven’t changed, the way these fundamentals are employed have dramatically changed. I have to write WTF now as that is my gimmick in this post where i can reveal my pent up creative rage
” Both are ‘buy now’, with little opportunity to build saliency for when the customer is actually ready to buy. ” > WTF? social media is in fact just the reverse. it is weak when it comes to ‘buy now’ as you call it, but it is solid for building awareness
“Both reach relatively few people.” > WTF? how can you say that Facebook as one example reaches relatively few people. have you even checked the data?
“social media could be a good promotional mechanism, although I’m struggling to think of a standout example.” > WTF? you can’t think of a standout example? what sort of research did you do, read Hogs and Hefers Weekly? sorry, cheap shot
“it can add reach, but only through ads or content in already high reach or highly targeted pages.” > WTF? so what about conversations, where do they fit in? or apps, where do they fit in? get over this idea of ‘reach’ being the be all and end all
“But a powerful advertising vehicle in its own right? I think not.” > WTF? I am sure the executives at Facebook will take this on board.
“So the lesson from Steve Jobs is simple. If you’re going into social media, be sure it’s for the right reasons” > WTF? I am not a Steve Jobs fanboy, but to use a dead person to further a tenuous case is offensive, and you are just plain wrong. Steve Jobs does not a provide any lesson in the respect you indicate, in fact social media was a key part of Apple’s distribution strategy, with reference to iTunes. it is not that offensive really, i am just being dramatic, but you get my point
“But if I have a limited budget and can only afford one medium, then social media would definitely not be it.” > WTF? you are ruling out a medium without even knowing what it is you are trying to achieve. who does that?
there are times when social media just isn’t needed, and there are some really bad examples of social media gone wrong. but this ‘article’ has little logic to it, WTF, and is based on grossly inaccurate generalisations
david i am sure you are a top bloke, and you are probably great at your job. but channel planning is not your job, so why write articles on it? i don’t write articles on the beef industry. before writing an article, do more research, or even better speak to your peers that have successfully used social media. a lot of people want to share their mistakes and their successes. that way you can avoid posts from people like me who feel the need to put WTF in every paragraph to make a point. but the point had to be made. i do give you credit for posting your opinion piece, brave.
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David,
Working in the social media space, I’m always telling people they need to learn how to use the new tools available to them as marketers, so they can decide when and how to use them effectively and judge when their advisors are talking bs.
All marketers will soon need a working knowledge of social media concepts and the current leading tools. This knowledge doesn’t mean they need to use them exclusively or in every campaign.
The biggest issue I see with advertising agencies is not that they get doe-eyed about social media but that they claim expertise in the area, however treat their clients as guinea pigs, using them to experiment with social media and build expertise.
I also see them claiming credit for work solely performed by clients (to the extent of asking third parties for access to statistics on online activities and presenting the ideas and work as their own). This type of behaviour really undermines their own credibility.
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Wow. Another article deriding social media and then closing with, oh, but it’s good to use it as part of a wider campaign.
Is this still new news to anyone in the industry? Feel like I’ve read this post 100 times already.
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I’m starting to think more and more that the biggest value social media offers (client side) marketers is the increased transparency of word of mouth amongst their customers and leads. That has immense value, but it doesn’t pay the bills. Your mileage may vary.
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Not sure if this is headline candy or not… but I’ll take the bait. David, I agree with you that social media alone will rarely do the job. Mainstream ads still have a hell of a lot going for them. But the problem with this post is that you categorise social media as only for “advertising” or a “promotional mechanism”. When done well, it’s something you don’t turn on and off like a campaign. You build a (for lack of a better word) community over time – interacting and responding with your customers constantly. Occasionally, when you have something new in market or a message to get out there you can get creative and feed this community with content or some added value. Campaigns are not the starting point. And in regards to door to door salesmen, if every prospect your salesmen sold a vacuum cleaner to went on to sell to their friends, family and neighbours off their own back, then you’d have a decent comparison. But to think that social media ROI only comes from conversations you initiate only speaks to a very small part of opportunity in this space.
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David, I only have one error to pick up on. You’re wrong about Ogilvy. Bill Bernbach created the ground breaking ads for Volkswagen. David Ogilvy did corny ads for Rolls Royce.
Bill Bernbach believed in communicating in an original way, in any medium.The headline and copy in Doyle Dane Bernbach’s classic first press ad for Orbach’s store, with the pic of the cat in a high fashion hat, was all in the form of a conversation. Creating conversations and dialogue between people is social media. It is truly an original medium. I’m sure Bill Bernbach would have used it for VW.
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@ non creative. I guess they dont have Roy Morgan data where you work, if you did you would know that the TV and mags hvae 90% + reach, commercial radio is around 63%. Perhaps not the vast bulk but pretty good all the same. You describe TV advertising as interuptive. You forget that people choose to watch TV and choose to watch the ads. The ad will engage if it entertains or interests the viewer. Really depends if its a good or bad ad.
I guess the really interesting thing about your post is that it confirms all the poorly founded prejudices we grey beards (anyone over 40) have of social media evangalists such as yourself.
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David is looking for good examples?
Dachis Group | Archirival’s US Red Bull “stash” campaign is a great example of using social media to reach customers that weren’t engaged through traditional techniques.
Case study here http://www.archrival.com/work/2/red-bull-stash
Sure, Red Bull has a brand that was originally built on top of traditional advertising and marketing approaches, but moving forward social media is a core channel for engagement rather than an extension.
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I agree broadly with David’s post.
Advertising is about selling product and is most relevant as we enter the purchase window. Because we don’t know when individual purchase windows are going to open, we need to strive to maintain brand salience continuously.
Byron Sharp’s take on this is to maximise reach continuously. I would add that the task should actually be to maximise the reach of advertising that is noticed.
If adding a social element to a campaign can help to increase the chances of a campaign being noticed, then all the better.
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Gezza, you nailed it.
Despite declining audience figures due to media fragmentation, an engaging ad on good ‘ol FTA TV will eclipse what’s achievable via any and all social media channels – as it should, for the cost. And viewers DO engage with good creative on TV.
If social media evangelists pulled their heads out of their backsides they’d realise that type of engagement varies my medium, and that engagement in social media is all too often a negative for the brand – eg a customer using Facebook to complain about you
Other than exemplified in handful of instances, social media campaigns have quite pathetic reach compared to traditional channels. Depending on what you paid for creative, despite no media costs they can still deliver very poor ROI becuase you’ve got to employ people to monitor the new complaint channels you’ve just opened up against yourself.
As for @non-creative’s initial post, i’m struggling to find any evidence of an argument. It’s just replete with idiotic, juvenile expressions of surprise and baseless rejection of the Thomason article. If this is demonstrative of the depth of intellect prosecuting the social media case, no wonder so many of the consultancies are struggling, merging and shutting down.
Had to laugh at this remark:
“Both reach relatively few people.” > WTF? how can you say that Facebook as one example reaches relatively few people. have you even checked the data?
If i see one more social media evangelist begin a discussion or preso with the breathless but ominously intoned claim that “Facebook has X00 gazillion users” i am going to scream
99% of them have no money or influence
50% are just there to share photos of their grandchildren
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I like the fact that David has made his case against social media through a blog post, also known as social media.
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Bravo David. And Gezza … you beat me to it regarding the ramble from ‘Non-Creative’. Mind you I am sure that in his/her world they are correct, but all advertising people should discard their own POV and think like the target consumer, and the data corroborates what you say Gezza.
I also think a read of Professor Byron Sharp’s book “How Brands Grow” should be on the cards for all the naysayers of David’s piece. It is a very challenging read and I know I had to re-calibrate some of my thinking.
When you interpret Sharp’s learnings, it is clear that of course social media has its place. As do ALL communication vehicles. It is the appropriateness of each of those vehicles to the brand, and the ability of that vehicle to produce reach that produces increases in a brand’s share (probably the most important marketing metric of all) that should matter most.
As David says, you may have a ball-tearer of a social-media idea that is massively engaging and produces good word-of-mouse multiplier effects, but it is still (in general) slaughtered by the mass reach (and word-of-mouth) of the mass media in terms of building market share.
So, to look at David’s fictitious example of 50,000 views (something we would all deem a success I expect), and if we assume the word-of-mouse effect was a multipler of 10 (I can find no hard empirical data on this – does anyone have any) which is probably on the high side, we have maybe 500,000 people ‘exposed’. Given Australia’s population is 22.7 million … we’re still talking over 22 million in splendid isolation with no possible impact on market share.
Conversely, I think a communications plan that doesn’t include a social media element is selling the brand short – given that social media is a good channel for the brand (I have doubts it is for incontinence pads) and that the budget permits – then go for it!
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@sasha You must be trolling. You say that 99% of people have no money, and 50% are just there to share photos of their grandchildren. Even being generous and implying an average parenting age of 18, you are implying that 50% of users are not only 36, but that every one of them has children, and 100% of them share photos. It would seem on the surface to be a poor argument
@gezza You create a misleading statistic when you wrote than TV and mags have a 90%+ reach. Without even entering into the debate about why reach is a poor metric and only exists because we didn’t have anything better at the time, the original article did assert that the vast majority of people read magazines. Circulation figures for magazines are nowhere near able to achieve 90% reach.
A key issue with the article, most of which I do agree with, is that it compares social media with door to door selling. On that I disagree, since you generally don’t know door to door salespeople when then come knocking, while with social media, you are usually being introduced through someone you know.
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a blog post is no more social media than a newspaper is
social media debate is such a punish. soooo boring
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I’ll bet you David says the same thing about PR too.
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Most interesting is the fact that after all this time there still is a debate… one would think that the naysayers would have gone by now, swept away with the positive evidence of Social media successes
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So tired of this. Social media is its own beast. If you’re banking on it being a sales and advertising tool only, you’ll be disappointed. Today ABC News has written about why social media rocks. http://blogs.abc.net.au/newsed.....ement.html I’m glad some people get it.
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@Michelle Prak that’s a great example – a taxpayer-funded media entity with no commercial outcome required. They can waste money on whatever they want. But if you are arguing that “social media rocks” if you don’t need to sell anything, I think you might be onto something.
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Gezza – I am over 40 AND advocate for the use of social media (where appropriate).
Don’t have a beard though – that’s so 20-something!
Throw out your stereotypes.
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If you think social media is like door-to-door selling, you’re doing it wrong.
Social media is not the salesperson, arriving unannounced, to spruik the latest and greatest product, and make a sale on the spot. It’s your mate recommending their accountant to you, over a beer at the pub. Or mums comparing notes on the best supermarkets to shop at, over coffee. It’s the water-cooler conversation you have with colleagues. The small-talk you make with your clients before a meeting.
Social media is the same conversation humans have been having for millions of years. Only with newer gadgets. Far from being some new-fangled fad, it’s probably the most traditional (and effective) form of advertising there is: word of mouth.
If you’re using social media like a TV campaign, to simply blast out a one-off message at the public, or make an offer for a limited time, then it absolutely won’t work. To work effectively, social media requires a brand to create a relationship with its customers, through an ongoing conversation with them.
This could be via regular offers, like some of the wine companies do. It could be a regular promotion, like Crust pizza’s Friday draws. It could be by answering service problems promptly, like many of the telcos do (see Twelpforce for a fantastic customer service story using Twitter, for example). Sporting organizations, for example, both in Australia and overseas, find it a very useful way to speak to and rally fans. As does the music industry.
It’s only once that relationship is in place that social media can come into its own, to share new news with the most loyal of customers (who will then amplify that), to receive instant feedback on campaigns, to take advantage of topical issues etc.
Now in some cases, that relationship can be created very quickly. The fantastic Old Spice social media campaign was conceived in response to the amazing buzz in social media created by the great TV ad. In fact, having a spiky, talked about “traditional” campaign is the perfect springboard to an ongoing social media conversation.
But however it is created, social media done properly requires some kind of relationship that opens the door to the conversation. Which is why it’s nothing like the cold-calling door-to-door salesman.
It may not have the reach of TV. Sure. A TV ad may be viewed by millions. But it can also be ignored by millions. A personal recommendation from a friend is much harder to ignore. So while social media may lack reach, the quality of its contacts may be higher, if done properly.
Additionally, social media trends have a way of making their way into traditional media, often as editorial (ie. unpaid media space). Many key influencers like politicians and journalists are active in social media. How many times have we seen a story refer to something a politician or player or actor tweeted? Or things posted on Facebook? Remember the amount of editorial on TV, radio and print devoted to the Vodafail blog and hashtag?
But as a number of people have pointed out, social media shouldn’t be seen to be in competition with TV, radio, newspaper or magazine. In fact, social media is often at its best in the times on the media schedule BETWEEN the big bursts of above the line activity. Why would you simply run your campaign for a few weeks, then go quiet for a few months, then come back for another burst, then return to radio silence, when you can have an ongoing conversation with the public for a very, very small cost?
Social media is simply an additional opportunity to speak to customers, and to do so in a different way, a way that mirrors the way humans have been interacting since time immemorial. It presents brands with a chance to be part of those conversations they have never had a chance to be part of before. Why would you ignore that opportunity?
Take a Facebook page started by a fan of Bubble O’Bill ice creams. A brand with a pretty tiny advertising budget. Instead of ignoring it, Unilever embraced it as a way to collect lovers of the product, and for the company to communicate with them. It now has more than a million fans, and has become the main channel by which the brand communicates with its customers.
There would be countless examples of products that are just as loved, if not more loved, by Australians, that could speak to their customers and nurture a veritable army of fans and advocates online, but that unfortunately, have chosen to ignore this possibility.
The point is, the conversations are happening out there. As they always have. You can either ignore them (as Vodafone initially did, at its peril), or you can be part of them, and use them to add to your brand in ways that were not possible before.
Oh, and if you’re into vacuum cleaners, consider following Vacuum Cleaner King @vacuumcleaners2 Full of useful info…
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Michelle Prak you are hilarious! the ABC wasn’t writing about how social media rocks, it was writing about how the ABC rocks because newsreaders are tweeting. This was ABC PR, pure and simple – do you geddit?
@over 40 – WOM works both ways. If people dont like you for whatever reason, fair or not, they’ll bag you out to others. Social media just amplifies this for the world to see – you’re just giving your customers a bat to whack you with.
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sasha, negative comments will happen on social media, as they do offline. Isn’t it better for a brand to be part of that conversation, than to ignore it? The right corporate response to criticism can do wonders for a brand. Ignoring it can do the opposite.
Sure, you get the usual whingers that will bag anything, but people see through that. They don’t take everything they see in social media as gospel, just as they don’t take everything anyone tells them offline as true. Same rules apply. And if the criticism is unfair, you often find others going into bat FOR you.
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OMG… I can’t believe Mumbrella doesn’t have a maximum word count in their comments thread… The operative word being ‘Comments’ people… not ‘novels’!
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Agreed, Alison F. Many many TLDRs above. Agree broadly with main article though; social media evangelism is as dull as hell and mostly bull. For some businesses though, Facebook in particular has been a big deal- many of these are tiny, run from home enterprises which use the FB as their only advertising outlet.
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Sorry David, it was Bill Bernbach who was responsible for Volkswagen. Not Ogilvy.
Interestingly, Bernbach is also responsible for this quote; “Word of mouth is the best medium of all”.
Seems to me that Bernbach was a social media advocate long before any of us.
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Well said David. You built a brand that people loved primarily through traditional methods. The reason people loved the ad’s was because they were written by those who understood what they were doing in that medium.
sadly, it’s a case of the tail wagging the dog, in-so-far as digital people tend to write the TV commercials these days and they can’t do it with the required charm and humour that will illicit word-of-mouth, that is, social media. It’s not hard but i fear that it may be a dying skill.
BTW: Old spice started out as a commercial, funny that.
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David you are damn right mate. SM (social media) is a salesman.
You’re partly correct about that statement. SM can act as a salesperson between 10% to 50% rest of the time it is a customer service rep, it is a reference point, it is a research tool, it is a networking tool, it is a what you want it to be.
So if you view SM only as a salesperson thats because thats how you see it. Have you ever tried building any campaigns on them yet?
Its all good to beater and batter SM but when was the last time you tracked an effective TV, print or radio campaign? Did you measure the reach in number of people who actually said I saw/read or heard your ad? Did they want your brand to to talk to them? how did they respond? what do they feel about your brand?
Now tell me how much would it cost get answers to just above questions leave aside the implementation costs?
A successful case study is what Coca Cola Australia is doing right now. All its advertising, TV/radio/print has focussed on share a coke campaign on FB.
Do you know Bigpond used Twitter as a customer service tool and dropped its inbound call traffic by 15% in a week? How would you measure that on your bottom line? and the brand satisfaction moved up by 2% for the same period.
Now, please substantiate your article with such stats and proofs for us to believe in your POV (point of view).
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“As a client, I’d much prefer to run my campaigns using traditional media such as these have than use social media. The vast bulk of people with money to spend do still read magazines, do listen to the radio, do watch television, do see billboards, and do visit stores.”
Why are articles like this still being written?
Social media is misused because it’s treated as something weirdly separate, it’s not, it’s a normal old part of the media landscape. It’s not a magic bullet that guarantees any success. But it is in constant use by people of all ages, all day, everyday.
You follow people where ever they take you, it will always be changing, sometimes you’ll need to get across some things which take you out of your comfort zone and there’s bound to be a few failures.
Unfortunately it’s not about what ‘you’ prefer.
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I just think it’s funny that the people who swing their punches at social media … are the ones who know next to nothing about social media! Lol! 🙂
… and amusingly (and ironically) such people display their lack of knowledge in their actual posts … for millions upon millions of us to see and hold close to our grinning hearts for decades to come.
Here’s to social media, the (long-awaited) librarian of communications.
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Alison_F
I’m glad there are some who can elaborate and express themselves eloquently in the age of ‘OMFGLMFAO’.
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