Sun's Schwartz: A Model for the Social Media CEO?
This past weekend, the Saturday Interview in the business section of the NY Times focused on Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun. Over the course of a single column, Schwartz shared more insight into the evolving media world (and how businesses should work) than most other CEO I have seen in recent past.Among his gems is the (sadly) rare understanding the lawyers only provide legal advice, but they don't make the business decisions, unless you let them. How many great ideas have we all seen die because businesspeople have taken legal advice as gospel and refused to question it? The headline of the NY Times piece quips, Take this along with Schwartz's nuanced view of how to properly use legal advice, and there is an interesting point emerging.
Could it be that the simplest reason why we are not seeing more organizations embrace social media comes down to fear of snarkiness and fear of lawyers?
To be realistic, these are some very serious downsides. Getting sued is pretty high on the list of things that every CEO wants to avoid, and just below that (or at least on the list) is bound to be getting skewered by snarky criticism.
Yet Sun is paving a path worth noticing, if not following. They currently list more than 2700 employee bloggers, including the CEO. They are tapped into their customers and their product line and innovations reflect this dialogue.
They are not mired by ethical controversies as many peer organizations are, and they are experiencing a resurgence by taking a different approach to marketing right from the top. When asked about purchasing land in Second Life, Schwartz noted:
I'm not going to advertise during the Super Bowl. What a waste of money.If Schwartz's mission of positioning Sun as a new media company is to be believed, he's one CEO that seems to have his company (and himself) heading in the right direction.Where am I going to advertise? I'm going to buy land in Second Life.
For those seeking a model for the new Social Media CEO, Jonathan Schwartz just might be it - even if he's not the only one this year. He's officially on my list of top ten people I'd like to meet someday.
Last night Bill Gates shared his vision of the future to kickoff the Consumer Electronics Show - and focus attention during the annual gadget-fest on the role of Microsoft's Vista in how consumers will be using electronics and technology in the coming year.
Not surprisingly, his focus was on connected experiences and how the vision behind Vista is not just a sexed up user interface for your PC, but also the promise of connecting all your digital devices, and more importantly, sharing content between them. When Bill Gates makes a prediction, it's worth paying attention to - and his prediction here is that users will continue to demand inter-connectedness from their devices. Yet if users are in control of content, they need to be able to share it more easily.
On The Simpsons last night, Homer made a joke about not being able to figure out how to load a video onto Marge's iPod. It's a problem more and more consumers are facing (even the smart ones!) - and not just around the iPod.
Giving them control means allowing them to use, share and even modify the content they are consuming with ease. Of course, as a marketer, my mind first turns to what this age of control that Microsoft and others are dedicated to ushering in will mean for the art of marketing. I was tempted to create list here, but I think the solution is not necessarily a top ten list, but rather a single principle: marketing with content worth consuming - and letting consumers share it easily.
The age of control is placing a new emphasis on content marketing ...
that is, the idea that you need to create (or let your users create) more than just a marketing message.
This is the formula behind BMW Films. It means focusing on the content, and also giving people the right incentives and tools to pass the message along.
Blurring the lines of interactive, broadcast and word of mouth - ultimately the goal is to generate a branded message that has a value and helping people to pass it along. The value can come from many things, whether it is useful, entertaining, humorous, or just plain wierd. The marketers that understand the value of creating quality content are the ones that will stand out.
The others will be ignored. So in this age of control, before you launch your marketing efforts - ask yourself if you are creating content worth interacting with. If the answer is no, chances are your customers are already filtering you out.
Yesterday I had the chance to do a for Tom Parish which he just posted on his Talking Portraits website. The topic was initially about Social Media Optimization, but more specifically about the role of marketing with social media in the enterprise and some good discussion about common questions that people are asking about the role of social media in this world. A few topics we cover in the interview are:
- How is social media different from online forums and other longstanding discussion based sites?
- What is SMO and why is it getting so popular?
- What is the potential business value of marketing with social media?
- How do you navigate the internal sales process required to sell in social media initiatives?
- What are some big trends in social media for 2007?
As the year comes to a close, it's time to look forwards to next year and what are shaping up to be some key trends for marketers to track through the year.
To add to the already vibrant discussion of trends to pay attention to, here is my stab at a few top marketing trends that I will be watching in the new year (in no particular order):
- Sharing a Corporate Personality - For too many years, large organizations have focused much of their marketing and communications on becoming faceless - yet the danger of facelessness is now becoming better understood. In short, companies cannot connect with customers in a meaningful and emotional way without having a personality. As more organizations realize this fact, we will continue to see more corporate bloggers and more touch points for customers to interact with the true personality of a brand.
Look for social media to play a bigger part in overall marketing strategy as a result.
- Widget Marketing - A trend I have been since earlier in the year, widgets have made significant strides as an accepted marketing technique in recent months. Many new blog oriented services are launching Widgets in Typepad's , startups offer their own widgets as a quick way of introducing their service, and new products like (a compact clock-radio-like product that has a wireless connection) are bringing widgets out of the online world and into the real one.
For marketers looking to offer a quick introduction to their service, or those seeking to create an online connection with customers - widgets will find more users in 2007.
- Social Media Optimization - Originally introduced just a few months ago, SMO has rapidly into a movement in the online marketing industry worldwide. Primarily being driven at the moment by those in the search marketing industry, in 2007 I suspect SMO will continue to get broader use from marketers interested in building traffic and buzz online, moving far beyond linking strategy and smart SEO into the marketing mainstream.
Hooks to allow site visitors to easily share and bookmark content may become more commonplace than those ubiquitous email a friend links.
- AutoTagging and AutoSorting - I have written often about the trend for and how companies like Riya are leading the way for photo recognition technology that allows imagery on the web to be more effectively tagged and organized. In 2007, we will see more solutions like this that offer autotagging, autosorting and the next extension of this technology .
.. auto recommendations, where new content of any format can be recommended and people can find new content more easily.
This will continue to create waves in how users watch video online, find music, and browse the web.
- Human Filtered Search - One of the effects of the personal media revolution is an exponential increase in the amount of content online. This will continue to lead online users to search beyond the algorithm for new ways of finding information.
A key method for this is , where people are sorting content on the web, creating their own groupings and sharing that with others. Just as Jerry Yang initially built Yahoo as a directory to help him and friends sort through the exploding amount of content online, now sites like and are offering alternative ways of finding information online. The human side of search looks set to become a force in 2007.
- Contentcasting - Putting content online, and then trying to spread the word about it is so 2006. Contentcasting is set to be the new standard, enabled by RSS and a growing number of online users that are finding the only way to keep up with all the news and information they care about is to subscribe to feeds and access it that way. Contentcasting will relate to videoblogs, audio podcasts, and frequently updated content in any area of the site - from a blog to a newsroom.
Got content that you want to spread around? Don't just market it -- broadcast it and let your users/customers pick up the feeds.
- Online Identity Shifting - If you add the success of Facebook, Myspace, Vox, Second Life, LinkedIn and Flickr together - you would come to a single conclusion: that having and sharing your identity online is hot right now.
This is not about blogging or about uploading your photos online, this is a phenomenon of having an extension of your personality online to share with friends, family and colleagues. With the number of assets we can now create - from photos and videos to full podcast programs about our lives, the appeal of sharing this with those you care about will continue to represent a force in driving more people towards social media. Within these online representations of self, brands and products will continue to play a large role.
People will talk about products they like and don't like - they will share brand experiences, and they will even become brand ambassadors for products and services that they care about. In this world where individual lives are shared online, there will be huge opportunities for marketers in 2007.
icio.us, and optimize content for consumption on social media sites. Yet I have also written before about the inherent difficulties of tagging (suggesting that a might be the solution).
The biggest issue is that multiple people can use many tags to indicate the same thing. This creates a difficulty in aggregating similar content, because you cannot rely on a single tag or keyword to show all relevant content. Other problems stem from differences in syntax.
For example, right now, publicrelations is a different tag to public_relations or public+relations. Chances are, most people would mean the same thing by using any one of these tags, but there is currently no way to aggregate them. Spelling and plurals also cause issues, as someone might use the tag socialmediaoptimization or socialmediaoptimisation depending on where they are from.
When it comes to images, the issue is more basic ...
most images online are lacking any tagging or semantic data to describe them. They are therefore effectively invisible to search.
With all of these minor issues with tagging, I came across Michael Arrington's post yesterday on TechCrunch , a soon to be launched online photo site.
One of the intriguing features of this site is the ability to set up autotagging with facial recognition. Taking the work of in one step further, Ookles is extending this idea into autotagging. After beta testing the site, Arringon describes a three step process to train Ookles to recognize a particular face - and then every photo uploaded from then onwards will recognize the same face.
Today on Techcrunch, Arrington posts about , another such offering taking the different tact of creating a plugin to let users generate semantic data around images. Looking at both of these services, it is clear that the uses go far beyond simply organizing your holiday photos.
In this age of consumer co-creation, left and right.
The problem is, it's not easy to know when and where this is happening. Training a technology like Ookles to recognize versions of a brand's logo and autotag real uses, as well as derivative uses with specific tags could help brands to monitor logo usage and spot potential brand issues. In my view, the ideal use of autotagging for images would be similar to how the DDB music database is integrated into music sharing sites such as iTunes.
Currently, when you import music, you can automatically get a list of song tracks, album data and even cover artwork downloaded automatically. These new technologies being introduced by both Polar Rose and Ookles offer the same potential - to allow people to upload images of people, places or things, and get automatic suggestions for tags that describe those images. Aside from being a great time saver, its one of the more powerful ideas I have seen to help organize the growing billions of photos that are being posted online every year.
Social Media Optimization has been hitting the big time at several recent events on web marketing including a session entirely devoted to conference last week and discussion of SMO at the recent WebMaster conference. I was reading of the session that featured many smart folks in the world of interactive marketing, including , , , and . I really wish I had been in town to be able to attend the event and participate, but reading some of the posts about the event and session, it seems that the concept of SMO was to the entire audience of search marketing professionals at the event and some even considered it the of the entire event.
Clearly, SMO is growing up - and finding lots of advocates and that are introducing new tools for SMO, talking about smart techniques and sharing insights and expertise. But why has the concept taken off in such a big way? Others have been talking about Social Media Marketing, or Consumer Generated Marketing, or Content Co-creation.
In short, there are lots of new concepts being introduced by smart folks every day in the world of interactive marketing. Why is SMO different? Here are a few thoughts on what the secrets behind the growing popularity of SMO might be:
- SMO connects search marketing to social media.
Over the past few years, search marketing has been the darling of the interactive marketing community, with more and more time and sessions at just about every online marketing event dedicated to search. Yet recently, the new darling of this same community is social media and viral/wom marketing. SMO bridges the gap between the two, and so far has been primarily driven by those in the search marketing community. - SMO is about optimization. Part of the reason why SEO is so popular is that is focuses on a site or blog that already exists. For many organizations or individuals, the concept of SEO offers an attractive alternative to conducting a redesign, rebranding, or more hugely involving activities.
Optimizing a site that already exists makes sense. SEO makes sense. SMO offers the same appeal.
- SMO is actionable. This could easily be first on the list, but all the initial discussions about SMO on several blogs were centered around rules. Though conversation has gotten much broader, the fact remains that there are tangible things that webmasters, bloggers and just about anyone else can do to implement SMO on their sites.
This makes SMO a concept that can be easily understood and used by anyone who has a site online - and not just web marketing pros.
On Friday last week, there was a great in the Washington Post Express about a different category of fantasy games that offer an alternative to Fantasy Football.
Now officially giving up on my Fantasy Football team after losing my players in back to back weeks to season ending injuries, I may just be seeking an alternative fantasy league myself. For those readers of my blog unfamiliar with the American phenomenon of Fantasy Football - the premise is very simple: choose a player at each position from any team, and each week your fantasy team gains points based on how each of these individual players performs. In this way, you can combine the best players from multiple teams and have a stake in multiple NFL games as you watch how each of your players perform.
As I have commented , it's a brilliant brand extension strategy for the NFL that keeps it's brand front and center during the football season, and leverages the statistical element of the game to deepen it's relationship with NFL fans.
Now, however, the idea of fantasy gaming is starting to travel beyond football ..
. and even beyond sports. The is a great example, allowing people to choose their roster of stars and win points each time a star appears on the cover of a tabloid or gossip mag.
Of course, you lose points if your stars are busted by the cops ...
or the fashion police. The rise of concepts like this raises an interesting truth about the power that fantasy games can have to raise an individual's personal stake in just about anything. In each case, the core benefit is engagement at a deeper and more personal level.
In a way, this is the reason why online stock trading has become so successful. By removing the barrier to trading and watching investments, you can come up with your own fantasy portfolio with real money, and track your investments real time. Here are a few other ideas for how fantasy games could be used by real world marketers to extend their brands and engage customers:
- AMC Opening Weekend Fantasy - Each weekend, you can bet on the movies that will have the largest opening weekends.
Tie this into movie marketing and viral campaigns already being launched for many movie openings, and this could be a big idea in Hollywood.
inconsistencies in how Technorati reports inbound links to blogs, tying Technorati. Readers could get points based on how many inbound links posts from their favourite blogs get over the course of a week. - AllRecipes/Whole Foods Food Fantasy - One of the best recipe sites out there, AllRecipes, could launch a fantasy game that lets site visitors select products to add to their fantasy lineup and win points based on how many views of recipes that use those ingredients get, or even tie it into sales data from a large grocery chain such as Whole Foods to win points based on bestselling items.
- PRWeek Fantasy Placements - This one is likely to get us in trouble, but what if the entire PR industry could select fantasy teams based on clients, stories, and PR agencies? All readers of PRWeek could choose which clients, stories or PR agencies are likely to get prominent news placements on online and offline media and win points based on the favorability and prominence of the placement.
I'm heading to the site right now to choose my fantasy congress. Unfortunately, the way my luck has gone for Fantasy Football, I wouldn't be surprised if I lost my chosen Senator to a season ending sex scandal before too long ..
.
The rise of phenomenally viral videos on YouTube is happening every day now, ranging from the silly to the funny. Recently I came across the Free Hugs video posted above on YouTube less than two months ago and loved it.
Aside from making me miss living in Sydney, it struck me as a wonderful social commentary, music video and promotion for the (the band recording the soundtrack), and plea for people to just be nicer to one another. On the , Juan Mann (the originator) talks about the story of why he started the campaign:
I'd been living in London when my world turned upside down and I'd had to come home. By the time my plane landed back in Sydney, all I had left was a carry on bag full of clothes and a world of troubles.There is also a recap of the history behind the campaign outlined in a , which offers some great perspective on how quickly this viral video has really grown into an international campaign.No one to welcome me back, no place to call home. I was a tourist in my hometown. Standing there in the arrivals terminal, watching other passengers meeting their waiting friends and family, with open arms and smiling faces, hugging and laughing together, I wanted someone out there to be waiting for me.
To be happy to see me. To smile at me. To hug me.
So I got some cardboard and a marker and made a sign. I found the busiest pedestrian intersection in the city and held that sign aloft, with the words Free Hugs on both sides.
According to the entry, as of yesterday - the video has more than 6.4 million page views, making it the 14th most viewed of all videos on the site. Juan Mann even published a noting that the campaign is continuing and asking people to visit to make a difference.
There are many lessons in here for any social marketer looking to use viral videos and YouTube as a springboard for launching a cause related effort. In particular, here are a few elements that I believe have made this campaign such a runaway success in such a short time:
- The video tells a compelling story - Just as good documentaries and movies do, there is a connection with the main character, an element of conflict when he is banned from hugging, and a redemption as he overcomes this barrier.
- Sharing the video is a safe personal statement - By sending the video to someone else, you are making a personal statement that you believe more hugs could make your day better.
It is simple and non-controversial. Unlike email chain letters, political statements or potentially misinterpreted jokes, this is one of the few safe videos to send to someone.
- The emotional themes used are universal - The video starts out with loneliness as a key emotional theme, and continues through a journey to happiness and even love among strangers.
Unlike many social marketing campaigns trying to make a point about a disease or condition that people cannot truly understand unless they have a personal experience - Free Hugs is something anyone can connect with.
Visit the site the Juan Mann has launched (with support from Oprah) to see what you can do to join the movement.
John Bell, founder of our 360 Digital Influence group here at Ogilvy has a great about helping organizations understand how to approach social media as part of their overall marketing communications efforts. This is a question we are often asked by clients who see all the movement around them, but also worry about the risk, effort required, and whether the knowledge they have is enough to tackle social media.
Yet as we have seen in most of our successful client situations, a company that gets it is usually driven by one or two passionate individuals who have decided to lead the charge on social media. It is the inertia to start that is often the biggest barrier. How can you best get over that barrier?
Check out John's list of questions to help you find your organization's social media score:
- Does anyone within the company already blog?
- Do any of these existing bloggers post on business related issues (vs. personal blogs)?
- Has senior management stopped making jokes whenever a junior staffer mentions the word wiki in a meeting?
- Have you ever invited customers or stakeholders to a company meeting just to hear their perspective?
- Have you ever published public information - done an interview, released some news, said something publicly - without prior written approval from the legal department?
- Is Web publishing decentralized in your organization?
- Is the IT department a faciliatator vs.one giant sphincter that everything must squeeze through?
- Does your company reward entrepeneurial behavior from within the organization?
- Does your C-level leadership (CEO, CMO, COO, etc..
.) understand the difference between Robert Scoble and Bob Lutz?
- Has your marcom team read 30 blog posts from at least 10 blogs?
- Has your marcom team downloaded and watched/listened to audio or video podcasts?
After reading a post on one my favourite marketing blogs, - I was recently pointed to the George Mason University admissions website, which struck me as one of the best examples I have seen of connecting with high school students in a memorable way and encouraging them to consider applying. Contrary to the typical student testimonials and bad marketing writing that you would typically find on many admissions websites, the MasonMetro site shows the personality of the school. The most entertaining part of the site are the , a series of short videos recorded by Mason's mascot - Gunston.
In one, he makes fun of all the other local school mascots with memorable one-liners such as UVA's mascot who he describes as two musketeers short of a candy bar - and Maryland's , about whom he says this is too easy - who could a turtle intimidate ...
a snail? Aside from these comic observations, what makes this site so powerful as an admissions tools is the combination of several choices:
- Take on the competition directly - Schools have a rivalry, but often admissions sites try to mask it by only talking about their academic partnerships with other schools in the region. By having Gunston take on the competition, they are sending the message loud and clear that they are not afraid of anyone and think GMU can stand beside other schools in the region.
- Integrate social media - From Gunston's profile page on MySpace to the ability to subscribe to the , the site offers content in multiple formats for a generation of high schoolers who have grown up used to getting content in this way. Net result: the admissions messages break through the clutter.
- Show, don't just tell - By using lots of video across the site, Mason can portray what life as a student is really like - from attending the classes, to living on campus.
This allows the site to offer more than just brochure-ware, and takes you inside the Mason experience.
Nonetheless, the core marketing message of the site breaks through and is directly featured at the end of each of Gunston's video shorts when he declares Now go away and do not come back until you have applied to Mason. That kind of fun and direct message is sure to win over the college-bound.
Note: I did my Masters degree at Mason several years ago, but only became aware of this site after reading about it on Ypulse and am not part of any alumni events or groups for Mason.
On Monday, November 13th I will be presenting as part of a panel of several folks at the last Business Blogging Seminar of the year hosted by SixApart. The event should be a great introduction to blogging for those unfamiliar, as well as a practical how-to event designed to help current bloggers maximize their traffic and optimize their blogs. It should be a very educational event and I'm looking forward to learning from all the presenters, as well as sharing my thoughts about and how it can be used to help promote your blog.
Business Track: (designed for Customers Power Bloggers)
How to use a Blog to: market your business or communicate internally within your company.
- Case Study: Clip ‘n Seal--Delivering a big impact with a little budget
DL Byron | Textura Design
- RSS Tools: Managing information overload, pod casting tools and techniques, Feedburner
Technology Track: (designed for Developers, ProNet members and Personal Publishers)
Extend customize the blog you have today and find out what is coming next.
- Technical Demos
- Integration Tips Tricks
Byrne Reese | Manager MT | SixApart
David Jacobs | Principal | Apperceptive, LLC
4:30 - 5:00 PM
Social Media Optimization: An Easy Guide to Promoting Your Blog
Rohit Bhargava | Vice President, Digital Influence | Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
The half-price special registration offer has been extended by SixApart through 11.
06.06. To register, click the image above or .
Hope to see you there!
Dove's has been one of the most talked about campaigns of the year, earning praise from people in the advertising world, as well as from real consumers for representing something different to the typical fashion advertising. By focusing on the distorted perception of beauty that much of the fashion industry is guilty of promoting, Dove successfully separated it's brand from that category and made it stand for something different and something real.
Yet, even as all these hooks are part of the campaign, the early part of the campaign was mainly driven by TV ads, and billboard ads featuring their real models. Now Dove is getting smart about social media, using it to drive even more interest online in the central theme behind the entire campaign. One of the most popular videos on YouTube right now is Dove's Evolution of Beauty, a video also posted on their website.
The video is a wonderful example of how the world of high fashion often creates unattainable images of beauty that real women feel pressured to live up to. Even more, it's a symbol of the new promotional strategy for many videos that could easily become TV spots. I am not sure if they are running this video on television, but the fact that it is posted on their site and being watched on YouTube (and has nearly a million views already) is an interesting new phenomenon.
It's the ultimate in video distribution, where you can spend your energy on the creative development of something that stands out, and use relatively cheap online channels to spread the message rather than purchasing expensive TV network time. This is the new wave of advertising - one where ad agencies maintain their niche for developing creative video advertising, but media buying groups are the ones left out.
Note: Dove is a client of Ogilvy Mather, a part of the WPP group which Ogilvy PR also belongs to.
This piece of video was produced by O M Toronto - however we at Ogilvy PR have had no involvement in this ad and I personally have not worked on the Dove campaign at all.
PR blogs have been on fire the past week debating the with Edelman at the helm. Some have taken a subtle delight in Edelman's failure (see comments on ), while others have shared fears about what this means for the future of PR and social media.
At it's core, the Walmart case illustrates what is quickly growing to become the dark side of social media - the ease with which the truth can be manipulated. More and more consumers believe that new blogs or videos posted online are real if they look real. Accordingly, there is an expectation from consumers that companies are using personal media to communicate more authentically with them.
As companies start to fail this trust by using personal media covertly for marketing or advertising, critics are coining terms like flogs and astroturfing to symbolize this emerging dark side of social media.
Yet this criticism is not new when it comes to complaints about authenticity in marketing. That debate has long existed, and in part this has led to a situation where most US consumers have become adept at filtering out irrelevant or outrageous marketing claims.
Unfortunately, consumers are learning that their built in radar honed over a lifetime of seeing (and ignoring) interruption marketing messages is now inadequate. Consumers are being duped easily by phenomena like the , where a seemingly authentic conversation turned out to be a publicity stunt. Consumers are no longer as confident in their ability to spot a marketing message.
As a result, their guard is up. Their radars are peaked and they are on the lookout for anything inauthentic. They pounce on corporate missteps like the one from Walmart and blogs that raise the most hell or break the news get the most traffic.
It is the personal media equivalent of the journalist's search for the scoop ...
the blogger's search for the dupe.
Looking at all these risks, some organizations might conclude that it is wiser to simply avoiding doing anything with personal media altogether. This is a big mistake.
Despite the risks, using personal media for marketing can offer a chance for an authentic dialogue with customers, a chance to ask for and act on direct customer feedback, and a unique and human voice for what may otherwise be a faceless corporation. In short, the benefits are worth it. But how can any marketing team hoping to engage in personal media avoid the fate of Walmart, Dell and others?
How do we counsel our clients on using personal media in a way that engages people rather than offering them fuel for contempt? Below are five lessons that may help in avoiding the dark side of personal media, and finding success in the blogosphere:
- Be as transparent as you can. Transparency is key, as flogs and astroturfing are both based on marketing efforts that are dishonest and lack transparency.
Yet full transparency can make a campaign boring or give away too much too quickly. The trick is to strike a balance where you maintain authenticity without necessarily giving away every detail.
- Don't be afraid to admit you are marketing.
This is the single biggest myth that lots of marketing teams believe ...that if they admit they are marketing people will stop paying attention. If a marketing message resonates- the fact that it happens to be marketing doesn't matter. This is one of the central concepts behind WOM, that consumers are willing and often happy to support marketing and even become brand ambassadors for something they believe in.
- Understand who your detractors are, and assume they will always hate you. One of the many concepts I picked up from Seth Godin that I am fond of quoting is that every customer has a worldview. And this world view is nearly impossible to change.
Chevy Tahoe's viral promotion failed because people who hate SUVs are highly vocal, and people who like them are embarrassed to admit it. The lesson here is to know who hates you and assume they will be vocal about their hatred. The only way to manage this is if that group happens to be relatively small, or if you have a equally vocal group of people who love you.
- Make sure you have supporters that will fight for you. This relates to the point above. When engaging in personal media, you can't succeed if everyone universally hates you.
You need to find a way to engage those people who like your product, service or what you are trying to do. Ultimately, these voices supporting you in personal media will matter far more than anything you are able to release in your marketing.
- Listen, participate and respond.
This may be fifth in the list, but is perhaps the most important. If you look at every instance of personal media marketing horror stories, from the Kryptonite Bike Lock, to Dell Hell, to Walmart ... each could have been managed far better if the companies involved had listened, participated and responded to issues or problems raised on blogs. This is important at all times, and particularly after launching new campaigns and marketing efforts as well.
For a collection of blog posts about the event, check out . A few highlights include being the featured story on , getting picked up by , and a article that was just published.
There are also several larger media pieces planned after the event in many longer lead print publications which will be published over the next few weeks.
Despite Sun launching their virtual press conference in close proximity to this event, it looks like Intel's effort to do something original to illustrate the power of the Core 2 Duo chip and Centrino mobile technology is winning lots of rave reviews. My favourite so far comes from (aka Spin Martin ):
I love this event. Why?
It’s blogged. It’s podcasted. It’s videoblogged (by way of machinima).
And it walks along that line of social network spaces and video game spaces. It’s profitable. It’s performance art.
It’s real-time. It’s social. It’s a use of advertising that’s not preachy, but demonstrable use of products.
It’s *everything*.
Thanks for playing WITH us, Intel, and not talking AT us.
Kudos to Intel for getting it right at a time when it is becoming increasingly common to see stories of companies getting it wrong take up more than their fair share of the headlines.
For the last two days, as most interactive marketers know, there have been two dueling interactive marketing conferences taking place in downtown NY about 5 minutes apart from one another. The event, sponsored by MediaPost and the event sponsored by IAB this year decided to choose the exact same days to hold their events rather than overlapping or separating as they have done in the past. The result was many folks attending one event holding a bag from the other, many with two different name badges hanging around their necks and lots of conversation about what was at each event between marketers.
Most agreed that the OMMA event was larger and more attended, however the Mixx event seemed to feature many more actual clients (rather than just agency and industry folks). The interesting positioning of the Mixx event was that it as the official interactive event of Advertising Week. As such, the event certainly drew many clients used to working with advertising agencies and had many panels focusing on ways of using online video and case studies.
The OMMA event, in contrast, featured numerous sessions on the finer points of interactive marketing - including search marketing and email marketing. I spent more time at OMMA, mainly because I was part of the panel discussion titled Rules of Engagement: How Brands Participate in the Conversation and moderated by Pete Blackshaw from .
In our panel, we discussed the opportunities and pitfalls of brands getting involved in the conversation, shared some views on who is doing it well and who isn't, debated where this new effort should fit within an organization's marketing function, and how blogs should and shouldn't be used to help a brand participate.
Some highlights from points that I shared from our experience in working with clients were:
- There is no ideal owner for social media initiatives within an organization, but there is definitely a first mover advantage where the individual with the passion for doing something with personal media often becomes the internal champion and leader of the effort.
- The rules of engagement for brands involve a three phase approach of listening, participating and leading. The interesting nuance of this phased approach is that it is not necessary for every brand to become a leader.
For some, simply listening or participating may be the ideal solution to engaging in the conversation.
- A blog is not always the answer. There are some situations where brands may realize far more effect from participating in existing dialogue than in launching their own blog - and though it may seem like the default way to have your own voice in the conversation, sometimes it is more important to find other ways to participate rather than adding just a soapbox online for your own opinion.
Ross, in contrast, painted a very basic picture of the online industry -- and struggled to convey FIM as an innovator and a company who gets it by repeatedly referencing his purchase of MySpace and the popularity of the Simpsons (not to mention is $6 billion dollar pocketbook to purchase anything else he wants). In doing so, he pointedly sidestepped the real question ..
. how FIM would do with keeping the popularity of MySpace on the rise while still adding advertising and trying to gain further revenue from the site. Yahoo has set the example with their cautious approach to integrating a large brand into conversation by only agreeing to do and having yet to do any significant advertising on del.
icio.us. FIM, on the other hand, wasted no time in commercializing MySpace and has plans to do more.
How brands participate in the conversation will continue to be a question of vital importance as social media continues to draw more attention from marketers. Who are some other folks that are getting it right (or wrong)?
This is my second year participating in the huge global movement known as Blog Day (set each year for August 31, due largely to the fact that the numbers 31-08 together can spell the word Blog ).
is a day where bloggers around the world are challenged to go out into the blogosphere and find 5 blogs from different cultures, different viewpoints and off their normal reading path. I am particularly excited about this year because of the great blogs I discovered (and still read today) from . So, without further delay, here is my recommended list of global blogs for Blog Day 2006:
from a self declared American living in Transylvania is a travel, photo, poetry and biography blog all in one.
From engaging tales of way that many travel blogs don't. It's not focused on travel tips, but this blog would be the perfect way to remember my time in Romania. Regardless, it is a wonderful way to learn about places I should visit and images.
The premise of the blog very simply is to connect people by letting them swap items that represent cultures. Currently the blog other requests to be fulfilled. Check out the site, become a contributor and declare your own personal wishlist for cultural stuff.
blog.
PSPs, iPod videos, 3G phones, and laptop screens. Billed as sort of a distribution, talent and innovation.
The blog features daily updates blog getting a chance to vote for their favourite films.
- I love food blogs, particularly ones that feature high quality images of food. Aside from offering an international culinary tour, most offer interesting commentary about the food.
The Candy Blog does all that and more, with it's long list of candy featured in individuals posts. Each post is indexed by type of candy, brand, and country of origin. The site also features a unique Candy Rating system ranking each candy from Superb to Inedible.
For any lovers of candy, or those seeking unique cultural gift ideas ...
it's a fun blog to check out.
- I had to include at least one marketing blog on my list of 5 for Blog Day, and this is one I have been reading for several months now. Erik Hersman, the blog's author, grew up in Kenya and the Sudan (though he currently lives in the US) and talks about technology and how it is impacting and changing Africa.
I can usually find a different and interesting perspective on Erik's blog and it certainly goes outside of the typical marketing blog in covering issues and bringing ideas from a generally underrepresented part of the world. Worth checking out.
Today's email newsletter carried the story of JupiterResearch's new initiative they are calling their .
The offering is described in the language below and is further explored in a launch announcement blog post from Emily Riley, their lead analyst:
Social Marketing helps companies capitalize on cutting-edge marketing techniques. Through best-practice analysis and consumer and executive surveys, the research shows marketers how to profit from the use of Weblogs, podcasts, really simple syndication (RSS) and other emerging marketing tools, as well as how to develop, execute and measure word-of-mouth campaigns.There is one big issue with the service that needs to be noted right away -- which is that is a recognized term for an entirely different type of marketing that relates to social issues and advocacy.
JupiterResearch certainly won't be winning any fans in that community among the likes of or by choosing to hijack the social marketing term for social media. Aside from this oversight, there are some subtle signs that offering this new service may be a bit of a stretch for JupiterResearch. For example, though they have launched a large number of , readers cannot leave comments or trackbacks on their posts.
With many smart agencies, research organizations and independent consultants launching services in the social media space - it is no longer enough to issue a statement declaring a new expertise. To make it credible, organizations need to demonstrate a commitment to social media in everything they do.
These results show a strong life for the idea of SMO, but how good are these numbers?
For anyone marketing with social media, optimization alone can set you up to become more visible - but the next challenge is bound to be how to measure it. If this were a marketing campaign, how would I judge success? Is something like a Social Media Score even possible?
Just as SEO or SEM have evolved their success metrics and sophistication, SMO will need to have a separate criteria to help marketer's claim success. This is the next frontier I hope to see some dialogue about on the New PR Wiki page. Getting SMO into Wikipedia is a great first step.
Now SMO is living and breathing. As personal media continues to rise in relevance and influence - the need for SMO and related services will only become more apparent. In time I believe we will see SMO find its place in the overall marketing mix as a core expertise.
For years now, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for websites has been honed into a fine art with entire companies devoting considerable effort to defining best practices and touting the value of SEO for raising a site's performance on organic search listings. While I believe in the power of SEO, there is a new offering we have started providing to clients which we call Social Media Optimization (SMO). The concept behind SMO is simple: implement changes to optimize a site so that it is more easily linked to, more highly visible in social media searches on custom search engines (such as Technorati), and more frequently included in relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.
Here are 5 rules we use to help guide our thinking with conducting an SMO for a client's website:
- Increase your linkability - This is the first and most important priority for websites. Many sites are static - meaning they are rarely updated and used simply for a storefront. To optimize a site for social media, we need to increase the linkability of the content.
Adding a blog is a great step, however there are many other ways such as creating white papers and thought pieces, or even simply that exists elsewhere into a useful format.
- Make tagging and bookmarking easy - Adding content features like quick buttons to add to del.icio.
us are one way to make the process of tagging pages easier, but we go beyond this, making sure pages include a list of relevant tags, suggested notes for a link (which come up automatically when you go to tag a site), and making sure to tag our pages first on popular social bookmarking sites (including more than just the homepage).
- Reward inbound links - Often used as a barometer for success of a blog (as well as a website), inbound links are paramount to rising in search results and overall rankings. To encourage more of them, we need to make it easy and provide clear rewards.
From using Permalinks to recreating Similarly, listing recent linking blogs on your site provides the reward of visibility for those who link to you
- Help your content travel - Unlike much of SEO, SMO is not just about making changes to a site. When you have content that can be portable (such as PDFs, video files and audio files), submitting them to relevant sites will help your content travel further, and ultimately drive links back to your site.
- Encourage the mashup - In a world of co-creation, it pays to be more open about letting others use your content (within reason).
idea of providing code to cut and paste so you can imbed videos from their site has fueled their growth. Syndicating your content through RSS also makes it easy for others to create that can drive traffic or augment your content.
In the meantime we are always on the lookout for new ideas in Social Media Optimization to encourage even better thinking. Perhaps we may even see the rise of entire groups or agencies devoted to SMO in the future ..
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