Happy 10th Birthday Google

On 7th September (last Sunday), Google was officially 10 years old as a business and its the most successful web company ever.

However, we should remind ourselves that Google is not as large as some would have you believe and that there are still 3 technology companies out there with a market value larger than Google’s: Microsoft, I.B.M. and Apple (in that order). To put this in perspective, Google's net income in the last year has been: $4.85 billion, compared with Microsoft’s of $17.6 billion.
(You'd think they could therefore come up with something better than the 'Bill & Gerry' advert then wouldn't you?)

So, what has Google provided the corporate landscape with so far then?

1. Google AdWords
   The definitive PPC (pay Per Click) advertising model, envied and copied by the competition. Ignore this acquisition model at your peril.
2. Google Talk
   A VOIP (Voice-Over IP) and messaging client (that hasn't taken off as much as Microsoft Instant Messaenger or Skype)
3. Google Picasa
   Their version of Flickr, a photo/image sharing site
4. Google Chrome
   A browser, claimed to be developed for the modern online application (it will be interesting to watch its growth in uptake in 2008)
5. YouTube
   Purchased by Google at the end of 2006, this king of video sharing sites has changed the face of online broadcasting. (What will happen to Google's original video sharing site Google Video in the long run is anyone's guess)
6. Google Docs
   A free word processor, spreadsheet and presentation application that may yet challenge the dominance of Microsoft Office.

Oh, and just so happens to have almost 70 percent of the search market sewn up.
So happy 10th birthday Google.

Web2.0 is growing in 2008

I've had a report sitting in my office for several weeks now that I know I should have read . I even admit to feeling guilty each time I moved it to do something else. However, last Saturday I did eventually get around to reading McKinsey's Building the Web 2.0 Enterprise: McKinsey Global Survey Results when the wife was out last Saturday and X-factor had finished.

This second annual trend watch analyses the adoption of Web2.0 tools & technologies within businesses. The results of this survey found that whilst 21 percent of the respondents are satisfied with their use of these tools and are seeing changes throughout the enterprise as a consequence, 22 percent said they were dissatisfied. Some even claimed to have stopped using certain technologies altogether, although this appears mainly to be Peer-to-peer technologies, which I think may be as they are increasingly seen as either: a complex media product (e.g. BBC iPlayer) or part of the seedy world of illegal downloads & sharing (e.g. Bit Torrents).

However one of the reports findings, that may well be cause for optimism (especially for developers and vendors) , was that regardless of whether a company was satisfied in Web 2.0 tools & technologies or not, all plan to spend more on them in the future.

The Dutch are first... again

The Netherlands has the largest number of social network users globally (relative to its size) according to this article. Apparently Hyves, LinkedIn and MSN Spaces are the most popular and in that order.

I have to admit, I'm not suprised by this. The Dutch are a very social nation and the only ones I know with just one word to encapsulate "a general feeling of well-being".... "gezellig"!
(Correct spelling thanks to my Dutch friend Boudewijn)

Usability has a commercial impact

According to an earlier article in Internet Retailing, some three-quarters of consumers say that bad usability on a company website has put them off dealing with that orgainisation.

The principles of good website usability have been around for some while, led by people such as Jacob Neilson from his excellent site (http://www.useit.com/) and Jesse James Garrett . The simple rules are there to be followed, some of them include:

• Try to keep you navigation options to around 7
  (There's a very good reason for this and its to do with human short-term memory capacity and other sensible stuff!)
• Tell users what's about to happen and then make sure it happens in the way they expect
• Build your site for the lowest common browser/device, not the latest or greatest (therefore JavaScript is there to enhance functionality, not to break the site when its not used)

I'm therefore amazed that poor website layout and design is such a problem in today's modern eCommerce world. But then I'm also suprised we still have: global poverty, no cure of the common cold and Nylon used to make shirts. As I've previously stated, you can significantly influence your users by providing a positive user experience on your website, but this is the first research I've seen in a while that says a bad User Experience negatively effects the impression that people have of that company.

A few things done well

I'm a great fan of Gordon Ramsay, the celebrity chef, who is known for his Kitchen Nightmares TV program amongst other things. In the show he turns up at a failing restaurant and tries to turn it around, usually shouting repeated expletives in the process. Following his initial observations of the staff & management, he suggests ways they can improve the business and a create a decent product & service. This quite often does actually work, usually if the people concerned follow the advice Chef Ramsay has dispensed.

But what is this wonderful advice then? What wisdom is it that means that restaurants can: cut costs, provide a better product and contribute to a good overall service?

It is to stop producing bad, lazy and fussy dishes. In other words make up a menu of only a few good meals from decent quality ingredients.

Aside from creating great TV, it also dishes out (no pun intended) a sensible set of rules that many companies beyond the restaurant market would do well to follow.

• Base your offering on the talent you have in your organisation
• Simplify your product offering or risk confusing your customer
• Listen to comments, then act quickly and accordingly
• Don't be afraid to listen to the specialist

Now where's the f&£$*ing difficulty in that?

Media Fragmentation

The 'Nichefication' of media has not been an instant thing, created by the arrival of a few online services, its been here for a while.

From magazines for everything, exemplified by the wierd guest publications quoted in the TV programme 'Have I Got New for You', through to the insane TV auction channels that I couldn't help but watch when I was sick and home-ridden recently.

As Bob Liodice, chief executive of the US Association of National Advertisers said in 2004:
“The mass media don’t exist any more”.

This presentation from Peter Hirshberg on the rivalry, inter-dependance and evolution of TV & Web, has got me thinking recently:



Hopefully the future of both combines the richness of TV and the interaction of the web. But one things for sure.. its won't just be one single channel of consumption ever again.

We-Think

I've spent the last few weeks slowly reading the book 'We Think' by Charles Leadbeater. I'm also certain that this book is gaining quite a good general readership right now (especially given the un-referenced but obvious similarity in case studies quoted in this article yesterday in the Sunday Times).

The book, based upon the premise that knowedge shared is more powerful (and fun) than knowledge retained, covers such topics as:
mass innovation
distributed ownership
collaboration
wider cultural change from crowdsourcing (democracy, etc.)
...and a whole bunch of other stuff that got my brain thinking
In fact, looking back, I can now see his influence on my Crowdsouring & News posting.

Here's an introduction to the book, done in a most inventive way





Obviously there are situations where mass collaboration does not work or even backfires and Mr Leadbeater is also quite open about these. Consequently I'd recommend this book, if only for the great case studies, and hope I can find more of them copied in other publications soon.

Visual Networking

I came across this phrase whilst learning more about the merging worlds of communications and entertainment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_networking

In essence it a cross between social media & video. YouTube is perhaps the first real mainstream Visual Networking tool, but here's a clip to give you a better explaination:


What does this mean for a new generation of users & customers?
It means a new way to engage and influence each other.

Facebook for the UK Enterprise?

There is a recent Forrester report entitled 'Facebook for the Enterprise: Catchy Phrase or a Strategy for Collaboration?'. This document highlights several case studies where social networking features have successfully been implemented within large companies.

I should also qualify that what it does not recommend is that companies set up a replica of Mark Zuckerburg's Harvard project to 'poke' their colleagues all day. But it does suggest that companies could use some social networking features to leverage the work of Information & KM professionals to solve business problems. (It also strikes me that if you have an younger workforce who are used to 'personal' social networking sites, that they will find the move to Enterprise Social Networks that much easier). According to Debra Aho Williamson , author of the recent report: B2B Marketing on Social Networks:Engaging the Business Audience

"...marketers will spend far more over the next few years to create and manage their own social networks for business customers, partners, suppliers and vendors"

Note: I'm currently writing up an interview I did for a magaine with Tim Young CEO of Socialcast, who are an on-demand provider of corporate social networks. He also provides several interesting examples (which I'll publish here soon hopefully).

However, all the examples I've seen of companies who have done this are based in the USA. So why have no UK organisations seemingly not stepped into this arena yet? Well UK companies may be willing to consider it following a recent survey that gave 88 percent of delegates (surveyed at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston and the Web 2.0 Strategies event in London) as eager to start using social networking for the business. In fact, 94% of the UK businessese surveyed believe social networking would be beneficial to use at work. This compared to 82% of US organisations.

So who did this research? That will be http://www.trampolinesystems.com/ , the UK's own provider of Enterprise Social Network products.

Artifical Artificial Intelligence

The Turk was an amazing device, built in the 1800's it was used to demonstrate to Royalty how clever a machine could be by playing chess against a human. The Turk was later exposed as a hoax, when it was revealed that there was actually a human inside it. (Note: It was not until Deep Blue that a real computer beat a chess champion 1997)

No matter how you define artificial intelligence (The Turing Test probably being the most well know), there is no case as yet of its official existence. However, what if you could ask a website a complex question or ask it for a task to be performed and get the results within minutes? What if you could ask the equivalent of a modern-day intelligent machine?

It sounds pretty amazing and it is. But its not computer effort that's primarily being used in Amazon's Mechanical Turk, its human effort. This service, run by Amazon uses a crowdsourcing method to send requests to a number of people and to have the results paid for only if the answers are correct / good enough. These Human Intelligence Tasks (HIT's) trade people's time & effort for a small reward. In fact I've heard of several night-shift security guards in the UK who have topped up thier earnings whilst keeping people safe in their beds at night.

So how does this help a company?

Well, it gives you access to a global workforce, instantly. From transcribing audio files (e.g. podcasts or CEO speaches to make them accessible), to writing reviews for local services(perhaps something Yelp should take note of), this uses the long tail of resourcing.

All I now need it to do is ask it to how to play chess......

Building branded communities... why not?

I'm still pleasantly suprised that the "buy or build" conversation comes up so much in relation to social media web functionality. But, I guess its good that potential clients are still asking what's involved in developing their own offering, despite the availability of so many white cost-effective white-label and hosted solutions.

But what do you do when you build it and they don't come? What if there is no Field of Dreams?

I had this recently when a start-up I know built a community part of its website and nobody used it. My first question to ask is "what were you expecting?". You wouldn't produce a product and not advertise it. Somehow they thought that a site would instantly create evangelic users who would encourage thousands of others, whilst instantly appearing top in Google of all keywords. (How I laughed... when I walked out of the room)

Then there's the case that visitors come, look around and disappear. Why? Well they don't find anything of interest! Either your navigation or search doesn't let them find what they want.. or worse still... your community isn't.. errrr... communicating correctly.

The worst thing happens is when brands ignore existing communities and try to set up their own in competition. .Partly through ignorance and partly from arrogance, this is commerical madness and will potentially see companies throw money at something they need not do. It may also create confusion and fragment conversations, making tracking & measurement harder.

So next time your CMO walks over and says something like "we need to build a community", forget what you see in films.

Hyperlocal news could work!

Well oh well... readership of newspapers is still in decline (but not half as quickly as advertising in them) and the media landscape continues to to shift. Yes, the continued growth of Press2.0, Citizen journalism/crowdsourcing, free online news and everything else associated with it has been given as the reason for this.

But one type of newspaper is showing a glimmer of hope.. the hyper local newspaper. Delivered locally and using locally-availabe sources, could this be the answer?
To quote Andy Lark:

There might just be one exception - where communities are strongest (say Austin [Texas]) papers might thrive due to their relevance and high-degree of localization. Where communities are most diverse (say New York), the broadcast form of print seems to be having less appeal in favor of real-time and highly localized digital ink.

State-side this trend seems to be growing, especially with a hybrid online & newspaper operation run by "enfant terrible" Rob Curley, picured below from his Fast Company article back in 2006. He started taking the local news content back to the community and in a multi-media way.

Its also happening over here in the UK and one example that blurs the lines between both is the G41 newspaper in Pollokshaws Road area of Glasgow. Its a website/newspaper that continues the trend of naming these hyper local rags after postcodes.

But could this glimmer of hyper-local hope... just be the last part of the newspaper industry going up in flames?.

Customers - a definition of a developing breed

Throughout this blog I refer to 'customers' as the main people that companies should:

• engage with
• worry about
• communicate with
• listen to, etc.

Yes, I could have used others, such as:

• Readers
  (if you have a subscription model that actually works or another model that makes money)
• Staff
  (if your target audience in internal
• Shareholders
• Leads / Prospects
  (if your target is aquisitional)
• and a bunch of others....

But I've use this term mainly because its simple, is the one I use most commonly and also the one you're most likely to try to engage and influence. Also according to last week's IMRG statistics, online sales are still showing double-digit growth, so its probably no a bad thing to give them a high business priority right now.

However, the internet has done more than simply change the way users experience and swap information, its created a new type of customer. To quote Alex Jefferies of Aberdeen Group in his recent report on Customer 2.0:

These customers expect to interact with peers and businesses when they want, how
they want, and in the channel of their choosing.

There's no longer the chance to turn a blind eye to this developing type of consumer. They have: an opinion, a voice and increasingly have the power to wield it. The company that doesn't facilitate and listen to all these touchpoints may find the conversation going on without them.

Online Reputation Market worth £60 million

In their latest report 'The Online Reputation and Buzz Monitoring Buyer's Guide 2008', E-Consutlancy believe that the market for monitoring reputations online will be worth £60 million in 2008. This market, made up of companies such as Brandwatch and Cymphony, is therefore set to grow by 30% by the end of the year.

Companies are realising that monitoring and measuring their reputation across their delivery and customer interaction channels provides the opportunity to understand what users are actually saying. Furthermore, by feeding this information back through the organisation they can potentially improve products & services (and hopefully not just to prep the lawyers for another round of 'cease & decist' letter sending).

We've had clients of our company Ideal Interface take a look at these online monitoring solutions and start using them, so it comes as no suprise that the market is growing. But what's in-store for 2009 and beyond?

This was a question I asked Gile Palmer at Brandwatch recently. His reply was:

I think 2009 could be an interesting year for technologies like Brandwatch - for starters they will get better at the core job - alerting people when interesting/worrying things appear online as well as giving a more medium term / long term view.

There's no doubt that the Online reputation monitoring is heating up. WPP has recently moved to buy TNS, who have their Cymphony social media tracking service, for a reported £1.1 billion. This has led some industry observers (including myself) to assume that larger players are looking to enter this growing market.

Interesting times ahead then....

Crowdsourcing & News

Having mentioned previously how retailers (coffee, PC's & high street fashion) are attempting to utilise the knowledge of crowds, I've turned my attention to how The Press 1.0 are using web 2.0 crowdsourcing techniques to solve problems in innovative ways.

Despite the forecasted death of the investigative journalist (or newspapers as a whole)*, there have been examples where the news industry has utilised crowdsourcing methods:

* due to the long tail of publishing and the proposed amateur-isation of the profession thanks to the knowledge of crowds

WECAN
Washington Examiner Community Action Network
http://www.examiner.com/wecan
This site, run by the Washington Examiner in the USA publishes databases of public information for its readers to sift through and report back. So far they have uncovered issues in standards and payments.

USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/
Gannett, the owner of USA Today announced back in 2006 that it was restructuring its newsdesks around crowdsourcing topics. An 'Information Centre' surrounded by seven descrete areas was set up. Apparently partly and admission that blogs and other social media may have somethign to say and partly to increase the size of the resporting team to incorporate "Pro-Am" (A combination of professional and amateur) workers.

Assignment Zero
http://zero.newassignment.net/
This combination between Wired Magazine and New Assignment is a bold attempt to bring journalists together with people in the public who can help cover a story. Participation in it is entirely volumntary and reporters contribute across the world and its hoped it can cover particular stories with more depth and relevance than before.

Well does this combination of citizen journalism and collaborative investigation work?

Some people think that this isn't a new form of journalism, its just journalism. Assignment Zero could also be seen as failing when they found that the crowd became too difficult to mange.
But to quote Mark Tapscott of the Washington Examiner:

Call me an ink-stained wretch or a hopeless policy wonk with a techno-geeky obsession, but if the possibilities of such a partnering of traditional media and Internet-age citizens doesn’t get your journalism juices flowing, I suggest a visit to your cardiologist.

The difference between Getting and Understanding

I've been speaking a lot with leading digital industry people recently and am getting suprised by the number of them stating phases such as:

• "Your customers 'get' this idea!"


• "Its a demographic difference, your target audience just 'get' it"


• "Do you have management that just "doesn't get it"?"

Well, it stikes me that 'getting it' just doesn't cut the mustard really. In this sound-bite (sound-byte surely?) time we live in, everything has to be communicated in mere principles. Why has it become socially acceptable for people to consume just enough information to be able to recite your ideas back and nothing more?

What happened to 'Understanding'?


I sadly think that understanding is becoming a dirty word, somehow conveying that you either took too long to grasp a concept or that the person explaining somehow said too much. Perhaps its the consequence of a time-poor society that even providing suitable explanation is too much effort to the listener.

The word is a description of what it is: a solid support on which to base something heavy. It conveys, not just the retention of small lightweight premaces or 'revision friendly phrases', but the effort of listening hard and the comprehension of what is important.

When did you or your company last take the time to understand?

Low quality video production... why?

So....

• Every video podcasting site will tell you its not expensive to produce video content for your website.
• Every salesman will tell you that their £500 digital video camera produces professional quality footage as standard.
• Every non-linear video editing (NLVE) software suite's specifications will inform you of the high definition, mulit-codec, images it can create.

But when you try it out, all you get is various clips that look like they were done on the cheap. Why?

Here's a clue...

Sometimes its not about the quality of the kit you buy, its about the skill of the person shooting and editing the video.

American Airlines Blog... was it a fake?

I've previously mentioned how I was unsure if the American Airline Blog at http://aaconversation.blogspot.com/ was either an awful blog or a parody.

If you try to get to this now, Blogger.com (the blogging platform the site is hosted on) tells us that "This site has been removed"



The death of this blog does however raise further questions.....
Was this stopped by the person(s) blogging, perhaps beacuse it was realised they were doing a bad job of it?
or...
Did American Airlines request the removal of this site as it was fake?

(Online) Video Killed the Television Star?

There are two views on how TV and YouTube will get along in the future

1. YouTube is a threat to TV and will become its demise
2. YouTube is an additonal channel to TV and the two will eventually create a hybrid media source

I personally believe that the latter viewpoint is true. My hunch is that the Internet will incorporate more and more video content in time, as:

• Video cameras become more commonplace & cheaper (quality of mobile phone video)
• Methods of posting video content to the internet become easier
• Broadband continues to increase in speed and overall usage
• People find it more acceptable to communicate and interact in this way

Note: This has already been covered intially in my post 'This time the revolution will be televised', so I'll not go into it again.

But on the other hand there are those who believe that Online Video will bring about the death of TV, particularly in the guise of YouTube. So are we right to ask Buggles to rewrite their song? Or is everyone just getting a little too paranoid?..... errr.... YES!

A recent study by IMMI found that 20% of primetime television viewers are watching some episodic television online and that this grou (the majority of them women) don't have the time to catch everything, so use the online episodes as a way to catch-up on the ones they missed live.

Here's their full report: ttp://www.immi.com/pdfs/OnlineViewership.pdf

As eMarketer agree, there is no reason to believe that the increase in online video is causing a subsequent drop in TV viewing:

It does then beg the question of where these extra hours are coming from.... perhaps they've stopped listening to 80's radio stations!

Social Media changes marketing & usability

If you're planning on advertising on social networks, you've probably already heard ort read that CPM's are incredibly low. Indeed, if you read Alex Nesbitt of Digital Podcast's thoughts, he believes that Google AdWords can be 100 times more effective than adverting on social media sites.

The argument has been made frequently that tracking CPM's and building communities are two entirely different things. Search and content sites are better for quantitative marketing and communities provide better qualitative understanding, providing insight into product / service improvements (see my previous post on ROI of Social Media for more)

Having spent years working with large companies to build usable websites , I've been a fan of the work of Jesse James Garrett, one of the pioneers of web usability. He basically stated that the web browser provides two different functions:

1. A hypertext system (content & search, e.g. Google, BBC, etc.)
2. A software interface (application, e.g. Online Banking, etc.)

His original diagram explained the ' basic duality' and the ways to deal with the specification and development of these two paradigms, from Abstract to Concrete & Conception to Completion.

But is this the entire picture? Well I have a theory its not and that we're missing something here.
I think that social media (discussion forums, blogs, etc.) actually create a place between Mr Garrett's two purposes. They create a 'third space' that combines both the content of the hypertext system and the application functionality of the software interface. Its this third space that's confusing, because the interface isn't just one thing or the other:
Its not just about look & feel, its about elements & navigation. Its not just about getting instant gratification and clicking'next' to the following page, its about interaction and engagement whilst your on that page.
Perhaps we need a new diagram Mr Garrett?

Who's the modern Edward Bernays?

I've been reading up more about Edward Bernays, the father of PR. He started the way the consumer-age (the 20th Century) marketed and communicated to its audience. He played a major role in helping to define the communication industry's direction and methods.

Part psychologist, philospoher and self-publicist, he pioneered things we now take for granted in the modern world such as: linking celebrity to promotion and product placement at events. However I was most interested to read that he spent a lot of time promoting the new and exciting media of the time... radio and then moved onto promoting TV.

As PR and Media have once again changed in the last few years, who would you say was the modern Mr Bernays?

Virtual Worlds

Having been involved with 3D/Virtual worlds for over a decade now (from the early days of contributing to Virtual Reality Special Interest Groups to finding new ways to improve the rendering speed of Second Life on my home PC), I'm still interested in their usage and development as a communication, simulation & training tool.

I am therefore curious to see what Google's new virtual world, called 'Lively' was all about.
Note:
I hope to be trialling it soon, so stay tuned, but here's the best review of it I have found so far:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article4318575.ece

However, what has really got my attention is this demo video (possibly fake) posted up recently to several virtuial world discussion groups and news sites. If this is real, then the likes of Lively and Second Life could find they have a limited shelf life....

A holiday for Social Bookmarking

When I posted recently on the use of social bookmarking tools, I commented that Delicious (http://www.del.icio.us/) was not as popular as I thought and was ranked just outside the top 1000 most highly used sites on the Internet. Since then I've been keeping an eye on the popularity of this site using Alexa, the Internet's dominant traffic analyis & benchmarking tool.

It seems the usage of del.icio.us (now renamed to http://www.delicious.com/) is fading as a proportion of total internet usage.... following a spike of usage in June.

Why? Surely the use of social bookmarking tools should be increasing?

At first, I thought this was because users might have moved from Delicious to http://www.stumbleupon.com/, but a quick look shows that they are having a similar decline and Digg is faring even worse.

So what's up? Has Social Bookmarking usage peaked already? If the proportion of users for both service have dropped since mid-June, have they stopped for a reason?

Here's a theory.... aren't the Millenials on holiday?

User Generated Content must stay that way

If the recent reports are true that http://www.yelp.com/ (the Web2.0 online city guide that allows user to review particular businesses), is offering to tamper with negative comments to sell adverts to advertisers.... then it casts a significant shadow over their authenticity and credibility.

It beggars belief if the claims of several business in the San Francisco area are true [more detail found here] . Mary Seaton, owner of the Soft Outlet in San Mateo, claims:

"I didn't receive a phone call from Yelp until I received a negative review," Seaton said. "A week after I received a negative review, a sales person contacted me and she said...'We noticed that you have some very positive reviews. We can push your negative reviews to the bottom, so that your positive reviews will come to the top.'"

This activity is clearly different from moderating your comments or any form of user prioritisation (e.g. my favourites, "was this useful?", etc.) and clearly runs against the whole idea of transparency and openness, key qualities for any company relying on user generated content for its business model.

You hope this is just the action of a single disillusioned employee....... and in no way linked to the allegations that Yelp have previously paid people to provide reviews.

Chief Conversation Officer?

I've previously mentioned that some companies have created a Chief Blogger or similar role. However, blogging/micro-blogging is only one toolset to use when trying to engage with your customers and listening to them is just as important.

With this in mind, why not have the title Chief Conversation Officer?

Definition:
A person in an organisation who is responsible for participating in social media and monitoring all channels. Their role is to undertsand the dialogue happening, to try to resolve where possible or viable and highlight issues back through the orgainsation to improve product, service or brand.

Has anyone else got a better definition?

Social Media Moderation Guidelines

I was speaking with the Head of Marketing of a large retailer the other day and she asked me if their were any guidelines for moderating participation in social media. To define this further, she wanted to know what moderators could & couldn't do or say on their updated User Generated Content site.

My first thought was to say "don't moderate, allow the crowd to do this for you"... but I didn't for two main reasons:

1. This is a site dedicated to a specific company's product(s) and not a general free-for-all chat area. Off-post topics are quite clearly breaches of the site's usage policy and really have no place there.

2. Its not the place where it will have immediate community membership/evangelism, therefore the self-cleansing aspect is not a likely following the initial launch.

But it did get me thinking about what you should and shouldn't moderate. This situation has been clouded further by the recent decision in the High Court that "Internet Bulleting Boards are more likely slander than libel" and a certain amount of give-and-take should be considered, however this is not a license to defame online, since the Judge in this case stated:

"I would not suggest for a moment that blogging cannot ever form the basis of a legitimate libel claim," he said. "I am focusing only on these particular circumstances."

There are however some usful point to consider before you head into this difficult situation:

• Know your target audience
  Would they consider moderation as censorship? Are they likely to self-moderate?


• Understand the impact of moderating
  Identify if this will cause an unneccesary delay in postings and the time/effort/cost


• Make sure your site usage policy is clear and available

The best starting advice I give these days (as I am definately not a legal person) is this social media legal checklist reference from Richard Best (note: He is in New Zealand, you should therefore consult with you in-house legal team first to check they are happy)


I guess all things in life should be done in moderation.... including moderation!

Attention Economics

"What's that then?" I hear you say

Economics deals with the demand and supply of limited resources. In the normal definition, this is materials, labour, cash, etc. But how about if we regard attention as a resource and understand that everyone has only a finite supply to provide?

Attention Economics is a concept proposed by Herbert Simon and in recent years has been adopted by the marketing / advertising industry. The idea that people get 'Information Overload' is thus superceeded by the theory that they get 'Attention Overload' . Therefore individuals get too many things fighting for their attention than is reasonable, possible and processable (for more info, see my previous post 'Branded to Death')

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it

However, awareness is only the first part of the entire 'AIDAS' marketing model, that then takes the person on a journey thorugh I(nterest), D(esire), A(ction) & S(atisfaction). Its therefore important to understand that capturing eyeballs is important but that once you've done this you should change your approach and try to generate I(nterest).


Note:
You don't generate Interest by trying to grab more attention. Hitting potential customers with more: red, flashing, pop-up, bold & sexually-themed messaging is not the way to get them curious enough to want to learn more. My theory is that if you keep trying to do this you create a form of message ADD where customers tune out and become blind to their affects.

The long tail of PR

I've been impressed recently by the contact I've had from PR companies in response to my blog postings. They have: taken the time to find my work, read my words, find my email address and craft an email to me.
Usually the email contains further information about their client's products (which are mostly relevant to my articles), links to additonal supporting work and in some cases an offer of a product demonstration or contact with someone at the company should I want to get some more detailed and personal insight.

This is the long tail of PR working in the way it should.

The long tail of PR, first highlighted to me in David Meerman Scott's book The New Rules of Marketing & PR, shows how PR companies are increasingly realising that they don't need to spend huge amounts of money 'blanket bombing' the top media (newspapers, magazines, etc.) and can raise a lot of interest by re-focusing their attention further down the 'tail' at much smaller & niche players such as myself.

There's a lot more thought about this topic on Chris Anderson's site (who is actually Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine).

I wonder, as blogging and social media continues to grow, how PR companies will decide to segment the long tail of their audience, media and influencers. The different methods of identifying, contacting and dealing with the niche players will potentially be the difference between a good and a great Web2.0 PR company.

Social Networking Wars...

More on the single view

After reading an eMarketer article [Brands Adjust to Media Fragmentation - now only availble if you subscribe], it brought back my thoughts from a recent posting on the Single View of customers and companies.

The fragmentation of old and even new media channels these days makes it difficult for companies to communicate effectivey. And following the further fragmented dialogue caused by these messages is an issue of exponential difficulty beyond that!

So how to you ensure a customer has a complete view of your own company?

In my opinion you can't fully right now, because as soon as you use different channels for customer communication you loose a certain rigour. As for controlling which channel customers use.... "forgeddaboutit". As I said yesterday, its all about channel relevancy.

Lets be frank, customers don't care if your call-centre/website/branch is out-sourced or have different staff training processes now...

...To them it is all the same company, regardless of channel!

But you can help yourself:

1. Interlink your activity wherever possible:
How often do you see a press release with no URL to additonal information of supporting data?
(Answer: still too much!). Online date should link to each other, it joins a users thinking with your efforts and was the purpose of the WWW in the first place. Don't forget that links between your different online submissions can help in your Search Engine Optimisation efforts as well.

2. Be consistent across all channels:
As any Marketing or PR manual will tell you, you must make sure you give the same message as often as possible. Channel mis-match confuses people and this is even more important digitally (where inconsistencies can turn up in the same Google search). Consider a quality process for all your externally-bound content. Have a corporate-wide terminology database, especially if you translate content (and make sure ALL translation companies have access to this source). Give call-centre/customer service staff the same information you give everyone else and be prepared to manage the exceptions / issues carefully, noting what those exceptions are (product, brand, circumstance, etc.).
Note:
There's far more information from Mr Bob Liodice on the subject than I could ever provide.

3. Track your messaging
Monitor what gets said across the web and who says it. Social Media monitoring solutions are increasing in their ability to detect sentiment and can be inexpensive to implement quickly.

The Conversation Prism

The Conversation Prism
Originally uploaded by b_d_solis

Brian Solis (Mr PR 2.0) has evolved the concept of the 'Social Media Starfish' (I'm sorry, I could never take that label seriously) into The Conversation Prism, explained further here.
Here he tries (and succeeds more than anyone I've seen so far) to map the different conversation sites and technologies across the Web2.0 landscape.

I think this is a bold step and one that we will see improve over time. I'm especially sure that there are far more indexes and scales along which to measure the impact, effectiveneess and relationships of these intertwining tools, services & networks. Lets see where this goes in the future.

[Cheeky note: I also hope that NBC don't realise their 'Peacock' has been borrowed!]

Channel Relevancy

Multi-channel marketing and retailing is not a new thing, in fact Argos claims its been in this business for 35 years now. However, times have changed and the Global economy is slowing down. The way that some companies will respond to this is to switch to lower 'cost to serve' (The average cost required to deliver a service to a customer) models in an effort to reduce staff & overheads.

But how do you know which channels to streamline without impacting your customers and therefore potentially affect revenues in the long term? This is especially important for companies that potentially have the same customer wanting one view of the them, regardless of the channels offered.

Here's my advice for Channel Marketing & Retailing...
Be relevant!

1. Understand your different customer types (create personas, measure, test & develop)
2. Understand their existing channel mix for information & purchase (which may be different)
3. Encourage a lower 'cost to serve' mix
4. But do not force customers to use a mix they do not want to - or risk losing them

Workforce Collaboration

Is your company using tools for allowing the staff to work more efficiently? If not, why not? Surely getting more out of the same team make good sense.

But is it that easy do?
There are now a number of software and web-based products & services that allow sets of individuals to connect & collaborate together to become more productive or useful.

1. Google Applications:
Do you find that Microsoft Office is too expensive, especially when you have more than one PC in different locations?
Do you find yourself using only 20% of the functionality in Word & Excel most of the time?
Do you find upgrading your Office suite a paid every time a new version comes along?
Do you want several members of the same team to view and edit the sme document, regardless of location?

Well.... not only does Google make its own word processor, spreadsheet, calendar and other applications available online, it provides them for free for individual use. It also charges just £25 per user license for large organisations to utilise the Premium version. Combining the useful functionality of most popular office applications, plus the ability for multiple users to share and work on documents, companies such as L'Oreal and General Electric are currently evaluating its usefulness as an MS Office replacement.
Take a look at http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2008/06/24/231178/google-apps-makes-its-way-into-big-business.htm for more information about it.

2. Basecamp:
This is a web-based service that allows multiple-user collaboration on a project. Its a growing suite of applications that provides: plans, task break-downs and areas for sharing ideas, Basecamp is very useful way to run projects, especially if you have a distributed or virtual team.

Projects don't fail from a lack of charts, graphs, stats, or reports, they fail from a lack of clear communication

http://www.basecamphq.com/

Note:
This tool has been developed by 37 signals, who have also produced http://www.highrisehq.com, an Online contact manager and simple CRM application (more on this when I get my hands on it)

Enterprise Social Network?

So, can a social network exist and work within a company? Well, some believe that it can be and along with other web2.0 technologies/ideas (e.g. wiki’s, image galleries & tagging/rating content) have loosely called this subject "Enterprise 2.0" or 'Socialprise' a term apprently invented by http://www.insideview.com. However its worth mentioning that some people still debate the existence of an Enterprise 2.0 market and others claim the term is an oxymoron.

But Forrester Research believes 50% of the Global 2000 are planning to adopt some type of Enterprise 2.0 solutions by 2013 and According to ABI Research, this market will be worth nearly $1.3 billion by then. In fact, Forrester's latest report "Facebook for the Enterprise" shows how some companies are already using some social networking features for:

harnessing the network to optimize workforce utilization, develop professional staff, retain talent, and locate expertise

To meet this apparent demand, even Oracle's On-demand CRM Rel15 [its Software-as-a-service (SAAS) response to Salesforce.com] now includes social media functionality such as 'Message Center', which facilitates real-time commentary like a wiki and ‘Sticky Notes’. This allows users to tag objects with a comment, subscribe to the related message stream and expose this as a portlet or gadget for embedding in an external home page such as iGoogle. (Apparently there's "even more to come" from Oracle). And with the adoption of Open Social, it means companies looking to include Social Networks in their Enterprise software now only have to include one standard.

Awareness Inc. claim to be the leader in enterprise social media. They have developed a social media on-demand application that combines the full range of Web 2.0 technologies - blogs, wikis, discussion groups, social networking, podcasts, RSS, tagging, photos, videos, mapping, etc. - with security, control, and content moderation. They even have major corporations such as: McDonald's, the New York Times, Northwestern Mutual, and Procter and Gamble as clients.
Conversing with Kevin Andrew from Awareness recently, he claims that his clients:

build brand loyalty, generate revenue, drive new forms of marketing, improve collaboration, encourage knowledge-sharing, and build a "corporate memory."

However, just having the technology or services available to you doesn't mean you have a valuable tool instantly on your hands. For years companies have had different "Enterprise Collaboration" tools available in the form of software such as Microsoft's Office SharePoint Server, but are these really "social networking" platform? (Some companies such as Scotiabank think they are, perhaps because they make good headlines). I'd suggest that they are not.

So "social networks are open for business", but are there any examples of companies who have actually implemented a social network within their company? Well yes, Kodak employees who take photos in their personal lives now share pictures online about their hobbies, families, and travels. http://blog.ogilvypr.com/?p=323

Does anyone have any further examples?

Calculating the ROI of Social Media

A few days ago I posted on why companies aren't using social media and mentioned that there is no definitive agreed ROI model. Following on from comments by Tristan & Elliefy, I've put some thoughts together on how you measure the Return on Investment of your Socail Media activity/campaigns.

There is a certain amount of thought done on this subject already and I agree with DJ Francis post that you cannot measure the ROI of Social Media the way that existing online campaigns are tracked:

You can’t apply a Web 1.0 gestalt in a world where the audience cannot only respond, but can also generate more content than any single company

Firstly ANY customer engagment campaign needs to tie into your existing overall business and marketing plans. However, I am not aware of any plans that have the aims of "ignoring customers" and "losing market share" (But you never know, a lot of companies seem to excel at this on the web recently).

Secondly, it is more difficult (but not impossible) to measure the intangible parts of marketing , e.g. Word Of Mouth, etc. This ties back to my reply to Ellify, where I cover what I believe is a lack of understanding by companies of the importance of qualitative data, rather than just measuring instant gratification from quantative data.

Now, your (online) Marketing Manager should have a set of overall objectives include items like these:

1. Increase the in-bound links to the site
   (so more people can use/subscribe to the site)
2. Increase the number of site users/subscribers
   (as registered users can be measured/communicated/engaged with better)
3. Provide better methods of engaging users
   (to become customers, premium users, brand advocates, etc.)

Now, the exact way you do this will depend upon your specific brand/products & services/users, but social media can contribute to all of these aims.


However, lets try to see what we can measure both qualitatively and quantatively...


Increased in-bound links:
Social Bookmarking can help your Search Engine Optimisation efforts by creating more in-bound links to your site. By monitoring and correctly engaging with the relevant bloggers, you can also get more traffic to your site and again further your SEO efforts.

Measure:

• In-bound links to your site
  (e.g. here's this site's in-bound links)
• In-bound activity
  (using your analytics package)
• Your overall rankings in search engines
  (a simplistic 1-to-10 is built into Google's browser toolbar)

Increase the number of site users/subscribers (increase conversions)
This is an obvious metric that can be measured and can be reported in any analytics package. By working on the points above you can assist your efforts to get users to your sight & sign users up. Even better, by creating user forums that are open (but in a carefully managed way is rewarded when they provide further details) thay can discuss and generate further information, hopefully growing to become a community, assisting each other.

Furthermore, by using targetted news releases and campaign-identified RSS feeds (or even Widgets, if you're brave), you can provide the necessary enticement in your content to keep bringing them back.

Measure: (using analytics or available databases)

• Unique visitors
• New registrations
• Member-get-member (Send to a friend) referrals
• Forum postings - new subject
• Forum postings - replies
• etc.

Provide better methods of engaging users
We know that functionality such as Online Customer Reviews significantly influences purchasing decisons and that customer research and share their experiences. So don't be scared to empower your Brand Evangelists in the process.

Measure:
Now measuring engagement is the hardest I believe (and perhaps why companies shy away from it so much. However people such as Ron Shevlin, who I've listened to and respected for years now) shows how its possible to measure engagement, but that there are differences.

Measuring engagement needs to be done in the context of a firm’s strategy and it’s own theory of the customer — that is, what behaviors the firm believes constitutes an engaged customer.

Final thought:
The exact amount attributable to social media is the important figure to calculate ROI (money made divided by money spent). But be careful as each company's is different and not every investment has a direct ROI.

Or to quote Mr Shevlin again:

Marketers need to stop getting their knickers in a knot trying to boil engagement down to a single metric that relates to a web site or the online channel. It’s a descriptor of a customer’s attitudes, not a channel’s performance.

A qualitative statement if ever there was one!

Note:
Here's a great Case Study on the ROI of Social Media Campaign for SeaWorld San Antonio.

Crowdsourcing

Crowd sourcing is a technique many companies are now using to trial different ideas, with increasing success:

http://www.ideastorm.com/
Dell's site has been running since early 2007 and has implemented a lot of suggestions already (the idea to offer Windows XP when there was a backlash against Windows Vista last year being an example)

http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/home/home.jsp
The coffee giant has created a place for dialogue between company & customer. Both these idea have been sponsored at the most senior level.

And now it seems the UK High Street fashion retailer New Look have created an engaging community space to crowdsource new ideas and get important feedback from their most important customers. Its early days yet to see if this is just a publicity stunt and a way to get cheap R&D; or if it creates better products and improves the bottom line for them whilst rewarding their Brand Evangelists.

News Releases Matter!

What percentage of your press releases gets coverage today? Most press releases get no media coverage. This isn't suprising considering that Google News and Yahoo News between them have 50,000 Press Releases a month!

This is a shame as News Releases are often the best quality and most frequently updated content on a corporate site.


I recall David Meerman Scott, author of the book "The New Rules of Marketing & PR" (which sits on my desk at a client's office), commenting in a recent podcast that

News Releases are still powerful and effective channel to reach the media

According to him studies show that a higher level of education you have, the less likely you are to click on adverts - therefore organic content such as your press releases becomes more important to a more intellectual audience.

As the Press Release also evolves as within the digital space, e.g. into the Social Media Press Release, its important to remember that quality still matters!

Horizontal Thinking

Thinking differently about working spaces can help just as much as the latest digital offerings.

But what about the situation when not all of your team are completely used to working in digital environments? Its still the case that some are more used to working in a room with a whiteboard and marker pens. So how can you help them work collaboratively?

Neil Maiden, Head of Human Computer Interaction at City Univerisity in London claims in a recent Computer Weekly article that whiteboards may not be the best way to encourage collaboration. By their very design they are a wall that gets monopolised by a particular individual. From my own experience, working together on one becomes cumbersome.

But what happens when you turn the whiteboard down and create a tabletop environment instead? Well you get a "table supported multi-user collaboration" environment of course. Put in a simplistic way.. its easier and more inclusive for people to work on a horizonal surface... who'd have thought?



The article goes on to cover digital tabletop technology such as Microsoft Surface, the digital version of this idea, manifested as a desktop... literally.

Could meeting rooms in the future be less about the writing on the walls and more about what's put on the table?

Why companies are not using Social Networking

By now, most companies are aware of Social Networking and have decided to do one of three things:

1. Do nothing, wait and watch (or ignore)
2. Carry out a limited trial
3. Fully embrace social networking

From assumption and experience, I gather that some large companies & organisations have still done nothing because :

• There is no reason for them to use social networking
  (e.g. they are too small, specialised or have no products/services to speak of)
• They are ignoring it, hoping it will go away
• Social Networking sites for brands/products have already been set up already by fans (and can therefore be monitoried and/or influenced in a cost effective way)
• They believe it is too difficult or technically complex to set up
• They have exisiting methods of communicating that do not suit digital technologies
  (I struggle to think who this would be.... but I'm sure they all have their reasons).
• They have been scared off by the transparency and humility required
• There is not a definitive Return on Investment model (ROI).
  Note:
  I was recently told this by a senior marketing type, who had for years used tradional hit & miss TV & Radio campaigns to keep his company just about treading water in its own market space. I had to quote the old Lord Lever phrase at him)

Now some companies, including clients of my company Ideal Interface, have decided to trial social networking sites or set one up in a specially sectioned-off area on their own company website. By creating these destinations they have created useful but still risk-limited efforts where they have started to understand customer interactivity. Some have even adopted a different voice/tone or a slightly different subject from their core offering in an attempt to measure and analyse the public voice.

What's your company's excuse for not engaging?

Comcast digital care manager deserves praise

Having just read this article from the New York Times, about Comcast's Digital Care Manager responding to bloggers and using twitter, I assume that Frank Eliason is the exec mentioned in my previous posting on this subject. If he is, I am impressed by his commitment to his role and customers, he deserves praise (and hopefully the rewards for managing a growing team with an increasing profile).

Note:
You can use http://www.twitterscan.com/ to freely monitor the conversation across http://www.twitter.com/ and even have an RSS feed provided.

Old and new media... what's the difference?

In a previous post, I'd asked what the difference was between old and new media. Although this post was based around the effects of blogging on the USA political system, the "citizen as a journalist" effect is having an impact that is being felt across a wider media playing field than just the American Presidential Race.

However, although there is no doubt that media has changed (and should continue to do so), I would like to consider if 'New Media' and 'Old Media' (in reality the social web) are really that different...

The case for (AKA "yes, of course there's a difference)
1. Anyone can be a blogger or make a comment, you don't need a degree in journalism (or a daddy that owns the newspaper) to write your own column these days. The barriers to publishing are minimal and the rewards are not necessarily financial (see my previous posting on Brand Evangelists)
2. Direction is set by the writer, not the editor, owner, shareholders, etc.


The case against (AKA "no, they're all the same now really")
As pointed out recently by Jeremiah Owyang, There is now a significant blurring of the lines between blogs and journalism. Old Media such as TV and Radio have had to change to be part of the dialogue that is happening out there. Newspapers have evolved so that their online versions are broader in content or material that the restrictive printed page and in some cases these online versions are more popular!


My take on this:
The media landscape has changed significantly in the last few years and potentially forever. The citizen as a journalist has grown from a small seed to a large and powerful movement & industry, including online video. To therefore compare Old Media and New Media is to compare the Old Media before the arrival of the Internet and Social Web. To that effect.... of course there are differences, just as there was a huge difference between the theatre of William Shakespeare and the Hey-day of TV in the 1950's & 60's.

But as all media now evolves at a faster pace, converging and fragmenting along every single axis... surely the challenge will not be to compare them but to understand how each is of benefit in this new media world we live in?

New New Media

Here's a really interesting interview Mark Molaro has with Paul Levinson, Fordham University's Chair of Communication and Media Studies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqZNGYit3kY

He discusses the way media is still changing and how the academic landscape is evolving in the digital age. He especially covers how consumers have also eventually become the producers and the impact this has.

However he states that Mass (Old) Media has a role in society, but its role is changing and evolving. He believes that here is now a trade off in two competing trends.

• "Gate-kept" media, who check and edit all content
• Everyone producing content, with no checks

He thinks that we have had too long of the first point and that the Web2.0 era has eventually given the second point its opportunity now.

He also challenges Information Overload and states:

"The damage is done when we have too little, not too much information"

Food for thought methinks.

AMA : Another Meaningless Acronym

The technical world is filled with Acronyms (I nearly wrote Anacronyms, but that's probably the basis of another posting). Features, processes and innovations are usually given TLA's (Three Letter Acronyms) to make it quicker and easier to communicate.

However, one assumes when you use them, that the other person knows what you're talking about and understands the acronym the same way you do. Here's a few terms you may well hear being used more recently, their official meaning and an alternative suggestion:

UGC
Official: User Generated Content
Suggestion: Uncomplimentary Griping Comments


RSS
Official: Real Simple Syndication
Suggestion: Reading Senseless Subjects


CRM
Official: Customer Releationship Management
Suggestion: Costly Repetitive Marketing


Has anyone got any other suggestions for TLA's alternative meanings?

10 Social Bookmarking Questions

I'm asked by lots of people about digital"stuff" and I have recently been in and around conversations about Social Bookmarking that have been either confusing or just plain wrong.
Hopefully the FAQ below should put a better perspective on things:

1. What's social bookmarking?
The act of submitting a distinct URL to a social bookmarking site and usually adding a description & keyword 'tags'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking

2. Are these the same as social news sites?
The lines between Social Bookmarking and Social News sites have become very blurred as both have the same sort of fucntionality and it is possible to submit the same links to both sites. In fact a lot of people mean both when they use either term. However, people use social bookmarking sites in slightly different ways to social news sites.

3. Why do people do this?
Site owners want people who use these sites as search portals to find their pages easily. Searching through a set of human-submitted and classified links produces (arguably) better results. Also as more people use the www over time, the importing of browser 'favourites' from one PC to the next becomes more intricate and the organisation requirements of these bookmarks increases. By placing your own bookmarks on the web, you write them to a single place that can be retrieved anytime subsequently.

4. What popular social bookmarking sites are there?
http://www.del.icio.us/ (Owned by Yahoo! and currently the most popular)
http://ma.gnolia.com/
http://www.stumbleupon.com/
plus many more (including social news sites) can be found here and here.

However, it is now also possible to insert URL's into popular social networking sites such as Facebook & Bebo. Therefore before deciding to encourage social bookmarking, its recommended you find which sites your target demographic is actually using.

5. How popular is this activity?
As of 18/7/2008 Yahoo currently lists 36,475,990 recognised inbound links to Delicious and it ranks just under the top 1000 of all Internet sites (I would actually have thought it would be higher... but there you go)

6. Why is tagging my content important?
Collective tagging by multiple individuals creates a "folksonomy”, a term created by Thomas Vander Wal in a discussion thread on information architecture. It is a contraction of the words “folk” and “taxonomy".

7. Of what use is it to my company?
a. Your pages on specific topics can be found by those who use these social bookmarking site to find new and interesting content (Note: getting on the 'Popular' page of del.icio.us is a good way to gain significant instant traffic for smaller sites, particularly bloggers)
b. Search Engine Optimisation: Since in-bound links are generally seen as a major contributor to gaining a higher placing in search engines, the creation of in-bound links from a number of people can only assist your optimisation efforts.
c. Understand your users more: By seeing what pages of your site your user bookmark and the tags they apply, you can see what they find interesting and track their terminology.

8. What potential issues does this create for my website?
One notable issue I have found happens when a company re-develops its website and uses different technology/URLs. All existing social bookmarks will be pointing at the old site URL's and you must ensure you have a way of elegantly handling those "Page not found" messages (404 errors).

9. What are the problems with users tagging pages themselves?

a. Not all tags are created equally:

The problems inherent in an uncontrolled vocabulary lead to a number of limitations and weaknesses in folksonomies. Ambiguity of the tags can emerge as users apply the same tag in different ways. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the lack of synonym control can lead to different tags being used for the same concept, precluding collocation.

Thanks Adam: http://www.adammathes.com/academic/computer-mediated-communication/

2. You have no control over what tags your users assign to your pages.
I'll leave you to decide what it does to your SEO efforts if several users decide to tag your site with inappropriate words..... you can do nothing about this.

10. How do I encourage my users to Social Bookmark pages?
Placing a small piece of code on the popular/obvious pages of your site can insert a link through to each social bookmarking site (and you'll consider doing this for all bookmarking services on all of your web pages first of all). For example: BBC website articles currently have 5 links beneath each article to: Delicious, Digg, Reddit, Facebook & StumbleUpon.


Hint: To ensure you don't have a huge list of links on each page you can use Social Bookmark Sharing services, of which the most popular is http://www.addthis.com/. This tool not only allows you to put one link on each page that allows you to save the URL on a number of the more popular services, it also provides some very useful analytics tools on its usage.

What about the UK Podcast market?

Figures from eMarketer's recent report show the UK podcasting market having fairly low usage, as on average only 8% of the population regularly engage with podcasts.



But hang on... 8%... that's not that bad is it?

8% is...

• the number of the UK population who are Scottish
• the total UK market share of Co-Op and Somerfield supermaket (who merged last week)
• the amount of people in the UK who are left handed

More examples of Citizen Journalism

YouTube Citizen News:
This service by the biggest video site on the web appears to be a altruistic go at empowering citizens to tell their own stories.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQkON7NN6WY

A potentially better attempt to harness this phenomenon though is http://www.nowpublic.com/
NowPublic has created a "less-amateur" citizen media by inserting a layer of governance and checks from a known group of experienced volunteers (including a former BBC News head) who oversee and manage content quality.

As we see more of these services start and grow, you do wonder if this is Press 2.0 in action...

Branded to death

The average person is bombarded with over 3000 brands or commercial messages per day. In fact, its now possible to show a person's day just by the brands they interact with:
http://dearjanesample.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/fun-with-brands/

Marketers have constantly had to interupt consumers far more to get their message through:

• Brighter packaging
• Bigger signage
• Attractive agents/models (sex still sells)
• etc.

But as we become more and more bombarded with these brands and their messages, we are more and more likely to filter them out.
You may see 3000+ brands/messages a day... but how many do you actually remember?
Google's Dr Cerf (who I still think was the basis of The Architect from The Matrix Trilogy) has the same view on this filtering and believes that by busing social media and influence he can create a better way of helping brands:

Brand Evangelists

Back in April I wrote about customers being Brand Evangelists. I've recieved positive feedback about this posting so I've decided to progress this subject further.

So how to you get the most from these unique individuals? How do you influence people who have no financial incentive to do what they do, just passion?


1. Understand them

What is an evangelist is and does your company have any? (You may be suprised to find out)

- Are they your target customer?

- What is it that they talk about? (and who do they tell?)

- Why do they feel they own your brand?



2. If you don't have any, roll your own

Employees can be great evangelists for your products or services and are probably doing the job already in some way. Encouraging innovation, providing the right environment for them and supporting their activities all plays a part in getting them to fly your brand flags.
One of the most impressive brand evangelists I know is Phil Mooney, the Coca-Cola archivist (basically a professional Coke collector for the last 30 years) who now has his own blog.



3. Empower them

Give them the materials and support they need.

• Content (RSS feeds, targetted news releases, etc.)


• Portable assets (image and video placed out there on available sites, e.g. Flickr, YouTube, etc.)


• Tools and toys (widgets and other stuff they can put in their blogs, sites, etc.)

Note: Liana Evans posting on the same subject here also includes coupons & exclusive opportunities



4. Be transparent / human / accessible

One reason that some companies have a lot of evangelists is because people identify and believe in them. I am certain that there is a relationship between the number/proportion of brand evangelists and the openness of the organisation.
Note:
I'm definately not saying that just having these properties in your brand statement will give you instant unpaid advocacy. You must practice what you preach and your customers must be able to tell (you will hopefully tell when you find you have more brand evangelists)

However some companies may find this more dificult than others due to the amount of cultural shift required, however the advantages should out-weight the drawbacks.



5. Allow their input

Your evangelists won't last long in a social vacuum and like any relationship (some do have a lot of passion) they want some reciprocation of their affection. Every sports fan has their own opinions on which players are best (hence Fantasy Football/Cricket/etc.) and speak to other fans, use old media (radio call-in shows) & new media (chat forums and discussion boards) to make their points known.
Likewise every evangelist has an idea for your brand. These may anything from a better way of phrasing the content on your website, through to entirely new product ideas. This feedback is invaluable... its your decision if and how you use it.

Companies pay hundreds of thousands of £'s * to figure out how to create brand loyalty whilst ignoring their brand promoters & evangelists... why? Your evangelists are some of your best: sales people, R&D and customer services representatives. And they do it for free.


What other method of influencing customers has that ROI?



*and to keep this blog equal, lots of money in every other major currency as well

The student YouTube generation

The students of Michael Wesch, an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University have made: A Vision of Students Today, a video which summarizes how students learn in the modern world.

There's no doubt in my mind that TV as a media and the Internet as a delivery mechanism will become far more intertwined in the future. How we make sense of this and use it most effectively will surely be the next challenge!

Citizen Journalism creates political problems

Having spent 2 weeks in the USA recently, I've been far more aware of the polical race being run there right now. (Note: as well as being intrigued by 2 political parties who use two very similar icons - an elephant and a donkey I understand - explained here),
However, whilst reading the International version of the Financial Times in LA, I was interested in the article on how bloggers are affecting the political universe right now.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f7226954-4707-11dd-876a-0000779fd2ac.html

The article centres around Mayhill Fowler of the Huffington Post and her blogging of inappropriate comments made by Barack Obama and Bill Clinton recently. It does raise the point about whether it is right to post everything a politician says. However if politicians are to have the same qualities we expect from companies these day (truthful and transparent) then surely close scrutiny is not a bad thing and will only eventually highlight inconsistencies and inaccuraties?

There's no doubt that this election in the USA has been the first proper one where bloggers have a significant impact.

"The revolution is happening. Its a good thing and we're all part of it"

says Chuck DeFoe from http://www.townhall.com/ when talking about the the impact of new media and politics.

However are old media and new media that different?

Online Consumer Reviews Significantly Impact Consumer Purchasing Decisions

Who'd have thought eh?

Some recent research by ORC (Opinion Research Corporation) a global market research company who's head office is in Princeton NJ, has found that customer purchasing habits are significantly affected by reviews given by others.
http://www.opinionresearch.com/fileSave/Online_Feedback_PR_Final_6202008.pdf

83% of those who looked for reviews and other feedback said these had at least some influence on their purchases. However, althought the majority said they used reviews, about a third claim to have posted their own feedback online. The most researched product / service area was Travel/Recreation/Leisure at 82% and the least was food at 24%.

Although there are a lot of places on the web to submit opinions & feedback, there are very few product owner sites that let you do this still. It seems that companies are very willing to get feedback on their products & services, but perhaps they just don't want it put on their own sites?

Similar thoughts on influence

Mr Matt Rhodes has posted an interesting article on Influncers, that is very much in keeping with my own thoughts on the subject:
http://blog.freshnetworks.com/2008/07/the-power-of-influencers/

However, I'm sure there is more to understanding different influence than just variance by brand, but its a good starter for discussion.

A single view

I've been speaking with a few clients recently about managing customer data and have found myself saying those wonderful words "what we need is a single view of the customer".

By this I mean that companies must try to identify the customer once and not try to create different records of them just because they chose to use several different channels of communication or purchase.

This is widely acceped as a goal of CRM, to save on more expensive aquisitional costs of re-marketing to try to repeatedly obtain the same

customer and use retentional techniques to keep them happy and purchasing instead. Simple eh?Well, yes its easy enough to state, but hard to implement as:

1. Customers are not able to be tracked across all channels all the time (and still then we can't and shouldn't track them down when they are carrying out 'anonymous' or secure tasks)

2. They use different methods for interaction acording to the channel they use.


However, is this view-point not being a little arrogant? Shouldn't the customer be able to communicate with companies in the different ways they want and when they want to?

Surely what's required is not so much for companies to have a single view of their customer, but for customers to have a single view of a company?

Adoption rates for technology

The evolution of media on the Internet is following the path of traditional media, only at a much faster pace. In fact it is possible to chart the progress of most technology over the recent decades . This graph is available from:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/02/10/opinion/10chart.large.gif

It shows:
Radio @ 50% adoption by 1930
Colour TV @ 50% adoption by 1970

However I feel the uptake rates of these technologies is more important:
Radio - 50% in 10 years
Colour TV - 50% in 10 years

What's even more impressive is the the uptake of the Internet to 50% in just 6 or 7 years (and the VCR in even less). I now can't help wondering what's likely to have a faster uptake rate in the future. Will it be a new device (less likely) or will it just be a device-agnostic service (more likely)?

Note:

It also reminds me that I need to re-read the 'Waves of Power' book written by David Moschella back in 1997, where he predicted the growth of the network economy and gave future growth rates for information-based sevices.

http://www.amazon.com/Waves-Power-Technology-Leadership-1964-2010/dp/0814403794

Thoughts from USA trip

Having spend the last 2 weeks away on the West Coast of the USA (honeymoon), its given me some time to think about the content of this blog and a that there is a more international perspective to modern corporate communication methods.

Its very easy when you reside in one country to forget that the web is a global medium, with all that entails....

So who views your YouTube videos?

You've decided to host some company video assets up on YouTube and you've recieved lots of views and several comments. But how do you know who these people are?

YouTube insight:
http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=IRJjhiDz6RU



Note: The recent Viacom/Google trial may soon mean that the YouTube viewing figures are far more available

Reporting dashboards

Interfaces for showing data are nothing new, but getting meaningful information from these 'dashboards' is another thing.


Avinash Kaushik has put together several examples of 'crappy' dashboards:
http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2008/04/the-action-dashboard-an-alternative-to-crappy-dashboards.html

It reminds us all that its not just about the information that you present, its also (and perhaps more importantly) about the actions you subsequently decide upon as a result.