Time 19:59

It had to come to this, the social web, the attraction of following a passion by blogging, the pursuit by companies of A list bloggers and visa versa for mutual gain, and the lower costs compared to traditional communications means all is coming to a head in discussions at Blog World Expo 10 in Las Vegas this weekend. This is a good thing because we’ll see what people and companies truly value.

Will mommy bloggers tire of doing product reviews for a few coupons and free stuff? Are we headed into paid content relationships and if so will companies want complete editorial control? Will corporations grow weary of the work it takes to be in “relationships” with amplified consumers? and do those companies even have a choice?

I discuss these topics from the Maketing Edge studio in Minnesota with Kasey Skala, head of social media for Great Clips, author of the Electric Waffle blog, and now attending Blog World Expo 10. Follow the trends from the Blog World Expo 10 conference with Trendistic

Time 6:15

We are working our way through the Heartland of America on our way down to the South by Southwest Interactive festival. The more social we get online and on our phones, the more it seems we want to meet in person. That’s why Rick Mahn and I are looking forward to the tweet ups in Des Moines Wednesday, March 10 at 5:30 at the Raccoon River Brewing Company. Then on March 11, we stop in Omaha at Caffeine Dreams at 8AM – 9AM, Kansas City, at Kansas City Cafe at 2pm – 3pm and Lawrence, Kansas. location is TBD. I know Lawrence there’s basketball this weekend, but we’ll coming by anyway. : )

Our last tweet up before pulling into Austin is the morning of March 12 in Wichita at the Donut Whole. 7:30am – 8:30am. I’m told they have a bacon maple donut that’s TDF.

We’ll do profile pieces on innovators in social media and mobile applications in the Midwest. We’ll capture conversations about what’s working and what’s next in business and consumer technology. During the coverage of South by Southwest I will get into some of the challenging topics including, the next phase for journalism, whether greater community participation is necessary for the social web to grow, and how will life change when more than half the web connections are made with a mobile device.

Gadgets & Devices

What’s a geek road trip without gadgets and devices? We’ll have the latest line of devices to try out from Verizon Wireless including Motorola Droid, HTC Droid Eris, Palm Pre and Pixi and the DEVOUR with MOTOBLUR and gadgets like the Verizon MiFi.

Oh yes and of course TShirts, plenty of TShirts. I can chuck the map, I’ve got turn-by-turn directions. Special thanks to Verizon Wireless for sponsoring this coverage.

I jumped into the fray on how will advertising morph in social media when I commented on one of my favorite thinkers, Stowe Boyd’s blog post on syntax for advertising or sponsored tweets. I’ll just pick up here from that post and subsequent comments. The issue is should Tweets that are paid for have an AD or #ad in each of them. Brian Solis continued this conversation in a Tech Crunch called Full Disclosure to which I commented.

I hope that revenue generation and market awareness/demand morphs from interruption and manipulation into support and association. An example is this, interruption – my blog post about toys is paid for by Mattel and is about Mattel. This Mattel toy is terrific, my kids use it all the time, yada, yada, yada. Clearly something I’d label AD (advertisement).

An example of support – my blog editorial content is about kids and learning. I am able to focus on kids and learning because Mattel gives me a portion of what I need to pay my mortgage every month. I don’t say good or bad things about Mattel based on their check. I just focus on my editorial content and my readers. Something I’d label SP (sponsor)

Another wonderful example of support and association is the SETEPS program in St. Paul, MN at the University of St. Thomas. STEPS stands for the Science Technology, and Engineering Preview Summer camp. My daughter benefited from this experience just last week by learning about aerodynamics, building a model plane and flying it, all for free, because these companies funded the STEPS program. Will I buy from them or invest in them? Yes. Is this form of product/company awareness better than a commercial that attempts to convince me I’m lacking something in my life?

Social media is about having a stake in each other. That doesn’t mean social media is not a place to market. It’s a place to make an investment in, a place to unify across a like-minded community. This concept is not new, organizations do this all the time today in giving back to the community. Social media allows this “feel good” form of marketing to have greater impact and be a more accountable source of direct revenue and other measurable business objectives for a company that fully embraces the concept, the technologies and the communities.

This post was inspired by Jeremiah Owyang on the topic of personal brands within a corporate community. In some ways, this is more an issue of individual popularity rather than a personal brand, but I’ll use the term personal brand because it is commonly accepted.

The issue of personal brands clashing with corporate brands is something I’ve commented in the past. BusinessWeek reporter Stephen Baker, @stevebaker on Twitter, asked, “How will social media impact business and change our careers?,” to which I responded:

“Hell, everyone is their own profit and loss center. How will companies deal with personal brands that outstrip the company, that’s an issue, who actually owns the information gathered when working for a company will be a battle ground in the coming years. If a person is able to develop a personal brand while also being paid by a company and decides to cash in on the brand, should the company have an equity stake in that personal brand? Ouch, that’s a tough one.”

Steve apparently found this comment interesting.

There are a couple of factors involving personal brands: First, the global economy and multinational companies focus more on the numbers, not on the people. This is not a criticism, although some people would say it is a short-sightedness on the part of companies, but that’s not a dog in this commentary. The point is the 30-year career at one company is extinct. No more gold watches.

Second, institutional failures: Today’s auto bailout is one failure in a long list of institutions that were perceived at one point to be invincible. One could argue that the perception was wrong, that every institution is vulnerable, Senate seats were always for sale in Illinois and elsewhere, that companies always fudge numbers, only Enron, et al, got caught, but again that is a different argument.

The point is today, the consensus among individuals is that they hold the key to their job security, not the entity that happens to pay them for their work that week. In this “I’m responsible for my job security and my skill set” world, attention is given to personal skills and promotion. Some do it better than others.

The Founding Fathers of Blogging

The key people to thank for the explosion personal brands are, Mr. Rogers and Thomas Jefferson with an assist to James Madison.

Jefferson was a strong advocate for free speech and persuaded Madison to include it in the Bill of Rights. Mr. Rogers told generations that each one of us is special and unique.

Enter Web 2.0, and we all have access to express our freedom and uniqueness.

The Social Media Dilemma

Social media claims to be able to put a human face on an entity, a business. If it is done through one individual employee and this face gets too popular then, some say, it can overshadow the business. This is nothing new. In the past it was usually the CEO.

Take Lee Iacocca. For millions he will be forever associated with Chrysler, even though he was president of Ford at one point in his career. The same is true for Jack Welch with GE, a hell of a personal brand that took root and flourished at GE. Welch turned that brand into the Welch Way.

Today many, many more personalities throughout a company have the ability to gain notoriety to a much wider audience than in the past. Thirty years ago the headhunters knew who the top players were in an industry. Today one can forge a brand while working for a company, however, the question is to what end: individual gain, greater value to the company or, the more likely scenario, both.

A case playing out before us is Scott Monty and Ford. Monty had a strong brand while at the agency Crayon. Ford realized the value of social media and the rest is the present. And in this present moment, Monty and Ford are making great strides together. It is an example of how personal brands can relate.

The Clock Watchers and Good Management

A danger of personal brands is how do you judge time spent on developing a personal brand in conjunction with company goals. Can it be measured in time and type of information disclosed? Consider an employee who discusses faults about the company that may be detrimental to the company but can enhance the employee’s “personal brand.” (Please don’t tell me that every fault, every wart, every mistake needs to lay bare on the Web for the company to be transparent. If you believe that, a.k.a. Bob, then let’s start with you. Sorry that may be a bit harsh, but done for affect I think it works, no?)

More about my experience with personal brands and employees in this article about the Bob case at Media Bullseye.

Discretion, whether offline (“Honey, do I look fat in this dress?”) or online (“Sorry about the nimrods in customer service. If it were up to me I would have given you back your $576.87”), is a valuable quality to possess.

Trust is the critical characteristic in a world that has this ease of access to information and others. Trust is a two-way street. Why? Because it’s about relationships, whether an online relationship or someone you manage and evaluate as their “boss” (I dislike that word).

Owyang has written about four ways companies are addressing the issue of personal brands and social media. Jeremiah, I hope you don’t mind me quoting you directly here to keep the flow going, thanks. Owyang writes:

“How companies respond
Brands respond to these risks in a number of ways, I’ve categorized them based on level of sophistication.

First Reaction: Keep marketing faceless: Lean on traditional marketing, avoid human voices to come through.

Second Reaction: Approach with team or hybrid approach:Rather than encourage personal brands, you may instead see corporate team blogs that have an equal weighting to employees. Another example is with Dell and Oracle employees who fuse their name with their employer –it’s both personal and professional.

Third Reaction: Let the customers be the product face: Perhaps the most sophisticated way to market a product isn’t to put your employees on the product blog, but instead, your customers. I don’t see too many examples of this currently, but you can expect this to be an approach in the future.

Fourth Reaction: Allow personal brands to proliferate: Some companies allow for employees to create their own blogs, generate revenue on their blogs, and be who and what they want.”

Regardless of a company’s blogging policy, people are free to blog. (You are not the boss of me.) If they are blogging about work-related topics, then their work life provides them information useful to their blogging and perhaps their personal brand. Even if they don’t mention a thing about their company, by working they simply gain knowledge about the industry, trends, other companies, etc. It’s just part of work.

There will be situations where either side, company or employee, will need to enforce their policy or their liberty by terminating the employment. Those circumstances, I trust, will become more rare as the corporate culture accepts the reality of Rogers and Jefferson and the blogging culture who wish to blog about their work accept the responsibility of their role in achieving business objectives.

The foundation for each party is trust, the prerequisite for each party is communication with each other, the reward for each party is the knowledge gained from the social community.

Apologies for the long headline, but that quote from Ted McConnell, general manager-interactive marketing and innovation at Procter & Gamble Co, will go down as one of the greatest business quotes of all time. He said it in a recent speech where he questioned whether marketers have a place in social media. He doesn’t even like the words social media!

I admire McConnell for his position and longevity at Procter & Gamble, one of the most successful companies in the world. So I hope he doesn’t mind if I take his quote and place it in a slightly different medium just for the irony of it. P & G made an entire category of deriving money from real estate dedicated to men and women breaking up, the soap opera. GL baby, Guiding Light and its super couple Reva and Josh, known in web circles as Jeva If there is a way to monetize the continuing saga of emotional discovery, P&G can find it.

More Movement Than Market

Here I go again with this movement idea, but McConnell’s perspective supports this concept, social networks are more a movement of communities, than a marketplace for your stuff. A movement to connect, a movement to share, a movement to change – albeit in many of these movements there may be occasion to purchase something, and surely everyone in these movements is a consumer of something. I contend, and perhaps if I’m interpreting his words correctly that McConnell may agree, that social networks are a unique breed of communication. He is quoted in Ad Age “I think when we call it ‘consumer-generated media,’ we’re being predatory,” he said. “Who said this is media? Media is something you can buy and sell. Media contains inventory. Media contains blank spaces. Consumers weren’t trying to generate media. They were trying to talk to somebody. So it just seems a bit arrogant. … We hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it.”

His words underscore what many in social media (ok networks) have said, for a company to be in the social space it requires a cultural change at the corporate level. To benefit from social networks is to be a part of it, not an intrusion in it. The prerequisite of admission is to be truthful, candor helps, to give in the spirit of community growth not corporate gain, and to recognize that being social is a two-way communication. So be prepared to change a few things based on what you hear. P&G’s main rival, Unilever produced one of the text book examples of social media at its finest, Dove Evolution

Given his perspective then, it makes sense that when Comcastcares on Twitter aka Frank Eliason, responds to a customer, it is from an empathic user who may have suffered the same frustrations.

Is Business Week reporter Steven Baker active on social media (podcasting, blogging, & twitter) because he doesn’t have enough press releases to read? No, it’s because he is curious what he may be missing, excited about the new answers he’ll get on his blog that, had it not been for these relationship creating channels, he would have never known, and I would have probably not been quoted in Business Week.

Is Guy Kawasaki blown away by Twitter just to sell books? No, and while people do learn of his books on social channels like Twitter, they come to know him through by interacting with him. That’s what blows him away about Twitter. I know this from listening to him on a teleseminar yesterday, that I learned about from social media. Imagine that.

Coincidently, a few weeks ago, I was involved in a Twitter conversation with Kawasaki and a couple of other folks. It was about the economy, plus I had a surgery that week so it was an anxious time which must have been evident in my posts. Kawasaki sent a direct message to cheer me up (thanks Guy). There is a person that need not reach out at all. His physical world circle of friends must have been large enough to keep him busy, entertained, and enlightened. You see, but there is always more, more ideas, more debate, more risks, failures, and successes. That is the joy that is social whatever the noun you give it, technology makes being social that much easier. Is there money in that? Well, I did buy Kawasaki’s book Reality Check.

Time 22:51

One part chat room, one part instant messenger, and one part blog, the microblogging platform Twitter has gained in credibility and usefulness among businesses and journalists. I don’t want to say popularity, although it has 3.2 million users, because this word is less meaningful. Useful is how the author of a new book Twitter Means Business, Juilio Ojeda-Zapata, shares his insights from his upcoming book.

At its core Ojeda, believes Twitter helps build relationships, and relationships underscore business in many ways. A journalist to his core, Ojeda has been with the St. Paul Pioneer Press since 1987 and a technology writer for more than a decade. In this podcast, he walks through his personal journey on Twitter and it was his second look at the platform that got him hooked.

According to Ojeda, Twitter is an alternative means to get a reporter’s attention in a non-intrusive way. I have found it is an excellent to learn more about a reporter’s interests, immediate and long-term projects, and how they interact with the Twitter community.

Two ways to learn who is on Twitter is to search key words in either Tweetscan www.tweetscan.com or search.twitter.com or browse through TwitterPacks, a wiki dedicated to allowing individuals to list by a variety of categories. For example, there is a Twitter public media category

Twitter Means Business is available to order at www.twitin.biz.

Society for New Communications Research Symposium, – November 14 in Cambridge, MA. I am a senior fellow for this organization and I invite you to review the agenda for this forum. It is a smaller venue that gives attendees exceptional opportunities to talk with some of the countries most thoughtful and experienced social media practitioners. Some of those practitioners attending will be Shel Holtz, Francois Gossieaux, Steve King and Todd Defren.

The social media idea path is like watching cells grow and multiply. Here is the exciting path of this idea related to Dunkin’ Donuts and the Super Bowl. Sunday, January 20, I’m on Twitter the night of the Green Bay/New York Giants NFC Championship game. People tweeted about the final moments of the game and upon its conclusion, I started tweeting with my Boston friends who like Dunkin’ Donuts, how that popular east coast franchise can capitalize on the Super Bowl with two teams competing from their two largest markets, Boston and New York City. Those friends included Doug Haslam, Chip Griffin, Geoff Livingston (DC guy but also responded to tweet string), Scott Monty, Sarah Wurrey, and Mike Volpe.

A quick review of the Dunkin’ Donuts website reveals that Dunkin’ has extensive experience working with NFL promotions and even has run contests with both the New York Giants and New England Patriots. Excellent. Dunkin’ Donuts slogan is America Runs on Dunkin’ – Are you thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?

On Monday, January 21, I thought of an idea and blogged about it on our marketing blog about a Super Bowl contest that ties into the slogan, Dunkin’ Donuts Has a Super Opportunity , the team with the most rushing yards would earn for that market a free something, maybe a Dunkin loyalty card with a free cup of coffee loaded on it or a free coffee during the two hours after the game (you get the picture). I also sent in a link to the idea on the Dunkin’ Donuts website, through customer relations.

on Wednesday, January 23, I received the resonse below. I’ve given the response grades, and invite yours as well. A couple of more data points here. 1) I did not submit to a PR or media inquiry because I did not find an email for one on the site at the time and 2) Dunkin’ Donuts is currently running (pardon the pun) a user generated campaign on You Tube called How Do You Keep America Running.

Here is Dunkin’s reply to our Rushing Yardage contest idea:

Dear Albert,

Ref # 4488839
Here are my grades for their response:

1) Timeliness they at least replied within a couple of days. – A Excellent,

2) Sincerity, it looks like a boilerplate response – C to me some of the copy is a bit condescending , however, I can understand this given that someone might claim rights to an idea, which leads to my next grading topic,

3) Legal cover, nice job lawyers – A

4) Brand loyalty impact, has the response improved your feeling of the brand – B While the response did not uniquely notice the submission, it did attempt to respond in a timely and polite manner and for that Dunkin’ Donuts deserves some credit.

Overall It’s a B, time for another coffee.

I know it’s early, but can you imagine a political convention without a known nominee going in? Hot damn, that’s the best reality TV that can be. So get this, the last convention that was somewhat in doubt was 32 years ago with Reagan and Ford, however most pundits say the last true brokered convention was 56 years ago. Let’s not quibble, the fact is this year both the Democratic and Republican conventions have a chance of being decided in real time. They resemble sporting events and not coronations.

They would be the first brokered convention with mini DV cameras, live blogging, Twitter, Utterz… yipes!

Obama, Clinton, Edwards for the Democrats and McCain, Romney neck and neck with one more heavy Giuliani still poised to win a couple of big states on the Republican side.

Look I just can’t get too excited thinking about it because the chances are still slim, but indulge me for just for a moment.

Delegates will become citizen journalists and spin doctors will all of a sudden wish they had a Twitter or Utterz account. (Twitter and Utterz training available here act now!).

Sure those folks are wired with text messages and crackberries, but they will need to reach out to people that may not be in their distribution lists. They may have to reach out to someone that was the opposition just 10 minutes earlier. They may want to try and drive web users to online polls or engage them to show which candidate can motivate outside the walls of the convention hall because that’s the ultimate victory. Eegadds!

Will journalists be plugged into twitter profiles for the candidates or the candidates’ spokespeople (that is a separate conversation whether to have surrogate profiles to float trial balloons)?

Yes social media friends, a brokered convention is one part crisis, two parts breaking news, and all of it adds up to an interesting scenario for microblogging platforms. Stay tuned.

Here is some background on the convention process and brokered conventions

Election 2008 Countdown and Delegate Count

Democratic Convention Watch

Power Line News

Republican National Committee

Democratic National Committee

Time 32:16

Plenty of attention is given to participating in blogs, join the conversation, be open, be authentic, yada yada yada. The early adopters have tested the social media space with ample case studies for dozens of new books and information for panel discussions.

The hidden winners in the blogosphere who get a fraction of the fanfare are market researchers. This podcast is dedicated to the corporate executives who are skeptics of joining the conversation, but as you’ll hear here, have considerable reason to at least listen to it, it being first the podcast and then the thousands of conversations taking place on the web daily.

Look at just one segment of commentary and social media, www.tripadvisor.com, they have more than 10 million reviews of hotels. Forrester research shows that 36 percent of travelers look at reviews and of them, 73 percent report the reviews affect their choices. More from an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer – It’s just the tip of the iceberg known as the blogosphere, but in reality is a bunch of people talking just like they do at parties, conference rooms, or ball games. The only difference is online, you can listen in on them.

This podcast is the second and concluding episode of a conversation with Umbria founder Howard Kaushansky. Umbria, at www.umbrialistens.com is one of a handful of companies that provide detailed insights into what people are taking about in blogs, and reviewers’ comments on the web and to a great extent who is saying it.

The bottom line is this

1) There are millions of comments being made on the web about nearly every industry or profession.
2) Even if your company has no intention of starting a blog, the comments that exist can provide significant insight into your company, your competitors, and your market.
3) Blogs and social media is not just a playground of the younger generation, middle age baby boomers use social media, blogs, and travel sites just as much as the 18 -24 year old set.

On another note, Marketing Edge listener Alison Coffey is the winner of the Join the Conversation book drawing. Our next book is Paul Gillin’s The New Influencers. To throw your name in the drawing send me an email at marketingedge@providentpartners.net with the words New Influencers in the subject line.

The following is a conversation between Al Social and Darrin Marketer, their names have been changed to protect the innocent; they are both avid Twitter users with two very different perspectives on the platform. We invite you to interrupt them with your comments.

Al Social – Twitter has done so much to enrich my life.

Darrin Marketer – yeah me too

Al Social – This summer I kept in touch with the family while kayaking the Fjords of Norway, imagine that texting from my phone to post to a blog, website and mobile while in the water.

Darrin Marketer – Yeah, I saved 20% off a computer on Dell outlet

Al Social – New ideas about global warming from Tris Hussey, social media insights from Jeremiah Owyang and Todd Defren. Santa Cause gives twitterers great places to contribute to social change.

Darrin Marketer – it’s the greatest freakin’ opt-in Ad server on the planet, these people are agreeing to follow companies just to get essentially ads pushed at them. I’ve got plenty of clients using twitter to hawk their stuff and getting people to agree to get it.

Al Social – no dude, it’s not about ads it’s about idea exchange. You are just gaming the system. It’s all about the collective of people to advance change.

Darrin Marketer – yeah right, ok I got an idea, let’s get people to follow some company that pushes the latest super bargains for that week, what’s wrong with that? It’s all about me baby, all about me.

Al Social – No no, it’s a snapshot at people’s life is not a bazaar.

Darrin Marketer – that’s where you are wrong my friend, life is a bazaar, and everyone is trying to scrap a piece of turf, a piece of attention. Twitter is just another way to pull the spotlight over to you and there is nothing wrong with that. Oh and your boy Santa Cause, he’s helping promote business, so my friend you just proved my point.

Al Social – Well you are surely not being creative, you’re slapping an old model over a new way of connecting. That’s going to ruin it.

What do you think? Is twitter an opt-in ad server, a social hang out, or both?

I have to comment about Twitter, the micro-blogging tool at www.twitter.com. It is like instant messaging to those whom you are following and who follow you, plus your messages post to your page on the Twitter Web site. You can follow hundreds of people you’ve never met. It’s possible to share a subset of followers with others, but it is unlikely two people will have the exact same set of followers. The messages are usually fast and furious and can be disjointed because not every one has the exact same circle of followers.

Twitter’s prompt for your input is “What are you doing now?” The reason I detail this is to underscore the socialness in this particular platform. Twitter has two unique attributes:

1) it is about the now – quick flashes of ideas, reactions, questions and statements, and
2) it can have a very diverse group of people following each other – it’s less about groups of like-minded “friends” and more about sampling the snapshots of individuals’ lives.

This weekend a well-respected blogger, Marc Orchant, passed away. I read this as I was working and occasionally catching Twitter messages (known as “tweets”). At first I was taken by surprise because this harsh dose of reality is not something you’d expect to see. Then others who where among the people I follow paid their respects to Marc I was aware of Marc’s work on Blognation, but did not know him. I read that he and I were of the same generation. . I said a prayer for his family and friends. That’s when I started to think about “What are you doing now?”

This news caught my attention as I learned Marc has a family, and I reflected about when my mother died. I was 12; she was 41. Another tweet appeared. It was someone going to a party. Another tweet about some social media report, then another tweet about Orchant, and another about some new video platform.

Here I sat, observing exactly what micro-blogging and “What are you doing now?” is truly all about. These unique characteristics of Twitter give a snapshot of life, with a bit more detail in the image. It was like looking out of my grandmother’s apartment building in the Bronx when I was growing up right after my mother died. All around me, regular stuff was going on, just like you can overhear the conversations – a guy buys a newspaper, someone is yelling at the driver of a double-parked car, the elevated train rattles the windows – and for me at that pivotal moment in time, nothing was regular.

This was my first experience online with real-life stuff, not just a discussion of blogging or using video or some conference. It hit home that this forum, Twitter, and other forms of social media are different than most communications media that have come before.

This is not some place to hoist a billboard and pitch your wares. It is a place of ideas, for sure, but equally of emotions. It is a place of lives and, now I can see, a place of memories. Social media is first a people place. Marc, your leadership in this special place will be remembered.

The marketing buzz word in 2007 is community. Marketers are trying to plug into, tap into or leverage these social network communities for their companies’ benefit. Not quite sure that’s the right approach here. Communities can’t be leveraged (one step away from manipulated in my dictionary) to your advantage, that’s old model selling in an environment that essentially rejects being sold to.

Chris Brogan makes a good point about power and the social media tools available for the individual to increase their personal power. http://chrisbrogan.com/social-media-as-personal-power/. I believe marketers should view the growth in these powers not as a function of tapping into, but as an environment to participate in. The verbs I used above, tap, plug, and leverage all involve in varying degrees to take from. It’s best to approach this as something to engage in, join, and contribute to. Subtle difference that will enhance the participation for any marketer evaluating what social media means to their company. I also commented to Brogan’s post.

Time 12:56

The first stop for marketers who are attempting to determine how to approach social media is to listen to the conversations taking place on the web. Most executives are going to ask, what are people saying about our company or our industry? Who are they and does it matter to us?

While the numbers for social networking are mind boggling, an estimated 60 million users on Facebook alone, the perplexing issue for marketers that have must justify their spending is what is the impact to the company, will it grow sales, brand, influence? Or conversely, will not being there hurt us in some way?

In this podcast we highlight one company that can help answer those questions. Umbria, who can be found at www.umbrialistens.com. There tools search blogs, product review comments, and other social media sites looking for company mentions and more importantly context. For example, it is not good enough to learn that Starbucks was mentioned, but that a woman having a bad day found a moment of peace over an egg nog latte at Starbucks. Now that is listening. Umbria industry reports include healthcare, consumer electronics, and other industries

For those into the viral marketing concept, whether Umbria or a strategy that includes alerts and watches from Google, Technorati, Digg and others, the key is having a process that puts your ear to the ground – sorry had to use a cliché somewhere in this piece. Other tools include Sentiment Metrics and Cymfony, there are plenty of choices. Ths issue is with growing numbers of participants in social media, this tactic should be on your 2008 coporate marketing budget.

Do you have a strategy for listening to social media? What tactics do you find helpful?

Join the Conversation Giveaway

Joseph Jaffe’s book Join the Conversation is a good one. Well worth the read. We are giving away a copy with my comments included in the margins. It’s my way of joining the conversation – email me at marketingedge@providentpartners.net with Conversation in the subject line. We’ll have a drawing for the winner on December 19.

Giving Back

Every comment and email we get Provident Partners donates a food item to a St. Paul food shelter. Last month 24 items were donated. Thanks for sharing.

Here’s a classic case of social media run amok. There is a post today about the F-word being used in the Disney movie “Enchanted.”

It’s making it’s way up the Digg charts.

The problem? After listening to the clip posted on that site 10 times, I can’t hear it. I went to the movie on Thanksgiving and it wasn’t even a question. Never even thought about it. Why? ‘Cause the language is not there. There is nothing remotely that sounds like that.

So is this a case of blogosphere hysteria? Just cranking it up for the “link love,” as Web gurus are fond of saying?

The original post by Peter Sciretta claiming the profanity was made at 12:18 a.m. today, Nov. 26. In his comments, he posts the following:

Peter Sciretta says:

November 26th, 2007 at 2:21 am

Eric,

Just to clarify: The story was corrected two minutes after you posted your comment (the posting log says 12:18), this was long before Will read the story or posted his comment. The only thing I have added since Will’s posting was the bolded text telling people to read the rest of the story following the video. I felt that if Will missed it, than other people would as well.

However, I could not find any reference to a correction and why is the original post still up. The fact is, it is wrong. This is the kind of thing that must drive corporate marketers and PR folks mad.

Should Disney even respond? As of this posting, I was unable to find a response. Perhaps it doesn’t deserve one, but given the dollars still left in the Christmas movie-going season, I think it pays to call it like it is.

It’s a blogsphere prank, but nonetheless a real-world situation in the making. What would you do if you were Disney?

Time 18:45

The old maxim “you don’t argue with the guy who buys ink by the barrel” isn’t as accurate as it once was. The combination of blogs, new online publishers like TechCrunch and the Huffington Post, and social media sites are creating new opportunities for professional and unpaid journalism.

The key to social media’s success is voices. The dilemma for social media is finding and determining the valuable content of those voices for you. Helium.com is a Web site designed for long-form written content and has an interesting way of sorting out what’s valuable. The site attracts those who have a desire to write, and its 90,000 members rate the articles on the site, giving all readers some guidance on the quality of the content.

This community grading apparatus rewards objective, accurate articles and banishes self-promoters to the valley of propaganda. (There really is no such place on Helium.com. That was my editorial license to say that garbage articles are ranked at the bottom.)

It’s a combination social media community, wiki (kind of ), blog and content provider. There is also a way for other publishers of Web sites and print publications to post requests for articles. Writers then submit articles for that particular topic for the publisher to potentially purchase. It is like a job board that matches buyers of articles to providers of content. Hey, it might not be enough money to quit your day job, but it is a way to fulfill a passion, share knowledge, and build your expertise and writing portfolio.

Helium.com also allows for contributions to non-profit groups, including Teachers Without Borders and Collegiate Society of America, as articles are purchased. It’s the concept of giving back to the community for writers as well as tapping into those non-profits as sources of quality articles.

Communicators should review this site as another step in determining the social media strategy. These are the interesting attributes of Helium.com:

• Source for industry trends across tens of thousands of topics
• Venue for your ideas and passion
• Potential revenue if articles are purchased
• Establish greater credibility as a writer
• Give exposure to issues that are not being covered in the mainstream media
• Plant the seeds of debate that others nurture -– that, after all, is the essence of social media

Marketing Edge Holiday Giveaways: Yippeee!

1. Society of New Communications Research Symposium VIP (very impressive pricing) in Boston December 5 and 6: Give a look at the agenda at www.sncr.org/symposium and if you want to go, e-mail me at marketingedge@providentpartners.net and I’ll send you codes for a little dough off the top.

2. Join the Conversation book giveaway contest: Joseph Jaffe’s latest book is the talk of the Amazon charts, and we will give a copy away on Dec. 19, with an added bonus. In the spirit of joining the conversation, I have included written commentary in many of the chapters. It’s the ultimate form of keeping the conversation going. Send me an e-mail with “Conversation” in the subject line and you’ll be included in the random drawing.

3. Movie trivia in this podcast episode: Listen toward the end of the podcast for a sound clip from a movie. Tell me what movie you think it came from and we’ll give one person who provides the correct answer a $10 Subway gift card. Hint: It’s a classic! Either send me an e-mail or submit your answer in the comment section.

NOTE: Provident Partners donates a food item for every comment (on the blog or by e-mail) we get. Our monthly budget for this community program is $100/month.

A word about trust on in the blogosphere and social media in general:

There is considerable discussion about how businesses can tap into these conversations. Another angle is the practice of paying bloggers, which some say is no different than paying ghostwriters of a book.

All of the above will be tested during the next couple of years as society continues to use social networks and other sites that have “word of mouth”-like components. A key to figuring out how business can use social media is to understand why social media is different than any other media.

Social media is a movement. Social media is a people place, not a market place.

The blogosphere has had millions participate because of a need to be recognized, even by just one other person. Social media has taken hold in equal numbers because of the need to be a part of a group, the need to connect. These are basic human needs, not driven by economics.

There is also a cynicism in the U.S. that I believe has contributed to the rejection of most forms of advertising, a growing distrust of corporations and a political system viewed as destined to be at odds for the foreseeable future.

The major structures of our society — financial, legal, and political — have their roots deep in the last century of ridged, industrial growth and are not yet capable of appreciating or assimilating a more open discussion created by social media.

If you are a marketer, a business, and look at social media from the perspective of it being a movement, it will change the way you approach social media. You will be a participant rather than a party-crasher, a thoughtful listener rather than a loud bore, and a valuable contributor rather than a self-serving taker.

Blogs that contributed to my thinking on this were:

• PR-Squared
• Web Strategist
• Doc Searls on the intention economy (at Stowe Boyd’s /Message blog)

What’s your take? Make a choice: Is social media more movement or marketplace? Remember, every comment we get we will contribute a food item to a St. Paul food shelter.

After a few days to let things settle and let me think (and as the story now bubbles up to the New York Times), here are a few observations about Chris Anderson’s post about blocking a group of PR people from e-mailing him and the subsequent comments:

PR lessons

1. College communications and PR professors should make this post mandatory reading. Don’t send e-mail to a reporter if you haven’t read some of his work. Repeat this mantra throughout your school years and into the workforce, if in fact there is such a thing as “pitching reporters” five or so years from now.

2. CEOs of PR firms need to evaluate the structure of the process that allows such e-mail tactics. By that I mean revenue model, client demands, training, mid-level oversight, database compilation — everything in your firm. There are dozens of reasons for sloppy pitches. Uncover them.

3. Use Anderson’s comments to your advantage. Show your clients (particularly the most demanding ones) that if they can’t generate real news and you can’t package what they have in a way that is interesting to the audience of your specific outlets, that’s not something a longer or more “big-name filled” media list can fix. Period. It’s a product issue, not a PR issue.

We’ve been in situations where the client says, “Call Walt Mossberg and get in there.” The correct response is to point out what Walt Mossberg requires to even be considered, then work to make those qualities a reality for your client. Not until your client walks the walk can you expect someone like Mossberg and Anderson to talk your talk.

4. Media databases are fine as a starting point, but just like any list, they’re not perfect. Having said that, Chris Anderson’s pitching tips as listed in Cision’s MediaSource as of Nov. 5, 2007, clearly state that his preferred method of contact is snail mail, that he should not be sent pitches when there’s an appropriate editor on staff, and that news releases should be sent to the magazine’s general e-mail address.

Now, the main email address is listed as editpress@wiredmag.com. I trust that the main e-mail as listed in Bacon’s — Cision; hate the new name — is not going to Chris’ inbox. If it is, then that’s a problem, eh?

And it says mail, as in snail mail. That’s great. The guy says he doesn’t even want an e-mail. Why? I bet it’s because it’s too simple to send him crapola when using e-mail. Here’s an idea: Actually hand-write him a note. A technology editor pitched with a hand-written note — that’s rich. But the point is, he’s eventually going to “black-list” folks that way, too, by never opening his paper mail again. It’s the message that matters, not the medium.

5. The media are changing. PR folks, maybe you don’t need these publishers anyway. If you have a good story, tell it yourself. Tell it by being a part of the discussion on the Web, and if the publishers want to write about that content, then they will find you. I’ve seen this work first-hand: no pitches, no calls, no lists. Just follow up between reporter and client directly as a result of blogs or podcasts. Let whoever wants it come and get it. PR is dead. Long live PR.

6. There are great PR firms on this list: Weber Shandwick, Fleishman-Hillard, Edelman, Tunheim. I’m sure they have opportunities to break stories. Is Wired the only outlet? Of course not. Perhaps Fast Company will get the first call the next time one of these firms has an interesting story. In the old days, it was said that you shouldn’t argue with the guy who buys ink by the barrel.

Well, Times — I mean, times — have changed, and now lots of people buy bandwidth by the megabit. If you’re really upset about this public chastisement, there are plenty of ways to re-evalaute the media landscape. While I don’t necessarily recommend this option, it sure might give some people satisfaction.

7. A warning to those PR pros pounding their chests about not being on the list and condemning those that were: If it’s open season on any person and any e-mail, it can be you next week in some other blog. Yes, there is a lesson here and it may be this: Who needs PR firms if they are going to make a mistake that some intern inside a company trying to get free press would make?

8. On the other side of number 7 is this: Only use PR firms who have relationships. Really? You mean that even if your client has a garbage story, your buddy Chris is going to write about it? I mean, you have a relationship, don’t you?

Crazy, isn’t it? If it were only about relationships, then, as a result of Anderson’s post, PR rates should double for those firms who claim to have them.

On that issue, I found a disclosure on Chris Anderson’s blog that is noteworthy:

The list of my potential and real conflicts is impossibly long and I find it arbitrary to only list the conflicts that involve money (such as a paid speaking gig), since the friendships are much more likely to influence me. So for those of you who care about such things, be forewarned: I don’t follow (or believe in) j-school standards of impartiality. The only thing I will promise is that I have no financial stake in the future prospects of companies I write about, which means no investments of any kind in them. If I praise them it will be because I’m honestly impressed, not because I hope to share in their financial success.

Chris doesn’t follow (or believe in) j-school standards of impartiality and his friendships are much more likely to influence him. Hmmm — good to know.

One last note here: Chris Perkett, president of Perkett PR, outlines how one of her firm’s people ended up on the list in this comment on Chris’ original post. If the story is true, then including this person on the black-list is just not right. While being frustrated is understandable, including someone that has had an e-mail exchange with him in the past is wrong.

To Chris Perkett: Well said, though I don’t think it will do much good.

Time 12:57

1:00 – 8:00

No catch really, just the reality that everything is integrated. Kind of like the Chaos Theory for marketing. Every piece of data you get about a market or customer behavior can make a difference. OK, enough theory — here’s what is happening. The U.S. Postal Service is pushing variable data and direct mail capabilities. Hey, the right creative can drive about 5 percent of the recipients to give you so much data that you’ll be able to begin a meaningful dialog. Those are the metrics of USPS direct mail piece called Direct Mail Deli. I like to call it “the sandwich piece.”

We interview Rod DeVar, manager of advertising and promotion for the USPS, about the power of using variable data in direct mail pieces. The dynamics of the Web being able to serve relevant data on sites — whether its banner ads or associated products and services — is refining consumers expectations even when it comes to the old standby, direct mail. That paper-based communication, too, now needs to be as relevant and targeted as a frequently visited dynamic Web site.

So when catalog recipients account for 37 percent of a retailer’s Web site sales, that’s a good combination that can get even better.

8:00 – 13:00

In this podcast, we also tie in a preview of the Blog World Expo session “Integrating Social Media into the Marketing Mix.” Imagine that. Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers and one of the speakers in that session. He highlights participation in social media from Nikon (digital learning center on Flickr) and Kodak (1000 Nerds Blog).

Kodak is also one of the major sponsors of the USPS direct mail piece, along with AdAge and Printing Impressions. Oh, one more thing: The USPS direct mail effort also drives recipients to its new Web magazine, Deliver. And if you think that the Web 2.0 crowd is too cool for direct mail, a podcast and writing contributor to Deliver magazine’s site is Joseph Jaffe, author of Join the Conversation and host of the Jaffe Juice podcast (formerly Across the Sound). Here’s the first installment.

Didn’t we start this post talking about direct mail? Wild.

Time 14:43

OK, let me put social networks into some kind of perspective so those that have a life beyond the Web can appreciate the concept:

So you’re having a baby. I understand, having five children myself, that women get together for a baby shower and talk about baby stuff. That stuff might include some of the experienced mothers sharing the joys of an early epidural or the sense of victory they have when scoring a great sale at Baby Gap. It could also be the expectant mother asking about C-sections or the complications of having twins. (Tell me about it: I almost fainted when I heard we were getting two for the price of, well, eh…two.)

Now those same conversations and more are taking place both down the street and on the Web at sites like Real Savvy Moms. This site also includes medical experts taking mothers questions and — oh, yes — plenty of things to buy, if necessary.

Those babies grow up, and drive cars, and go out well too late at night. And when they do (in Minnesota’s Twin Cities) they share their experiences (well, not all of them, but just the ones they want to share) at Vita.mn. The site is a networking hub of sorts for night life, culture and entertainment. And of course, the concept is that a restaurant, band, theatrical play, etc. that is recommended is worth experiencing. It’s true: “Everybody is a critic.”

And if you thought you have seen it all, there are 448 members of the Handbell community on Ning.com. (You need to be invited to be a member; those who don’t play handbells need not apply.)

Emarketer.com has an interesting report by Comscore showing that heavy users of social networking sites are heavy users of online retail Web sites. It describes the top 10 categories of products that are most active among online retail users of social networking sites (which proves you can lead a horse to water).

Give me more social networking

If you wish to drink more social networking water, then consider Blog World and New Media Expo, November 7-9 in Las Vegas. Excellent line up all three days, and there’s also a two-day conference package.

The variety of tracks lets attendees focus on a clear path to greater understanding, whether it’s the early-adopter jumping into the medium with both feet or the skeptic that is just trying to figure out what all this stuff means for their next marketing management meeting. Give a look-see.

If you are going, ping me at amaruggi@providentpartners.net and perhaps we can get together. You know, socially.

How do I reach all of these social networkers?

Lotame (LOW-tuh-mee) is one way. Lotame calls its audience analytical technology “Crowd Control.” The interview in this podcast with Lotame’s president, Andy Monfried, highlights how advertisers can reach users of social media sites within the topic areas important to both advertiser and user. After all, that’s the beauty of how technology and communities are progressing: It’s offering information to a person who is more likely to value that information as a enhancement to their knowledge base instead of considering it a chunk of time to be Tivo’d from their mind — if, in fact, it even made it that far.

Profiling can be a good thing, even for the consumer. Crowd Control can show the degrees of interest in a user’s participation with information and social sites of a certain topic and, like magic (well, kinda), more information is presented that the user values. This technology is best suited for midsize and large enterprises. Lotame’s Web site is directed to publishers and advertisers.

Time 7:58

Karen O’Brien, a partner with the Crimson Consulting Group constructs a new way for marketers to evaluate the customer landscape. O’Brien says the outdated description of acquiring customers is to acquire, retain and grow them. Web 2.0 technologies, social media and the abundance of conversations taking place on the Web about products and services have painted a new perspective of the market.

That perspective, according to O’Brien, is attract, engage and extend. Her work won the Marketing Thought Publishing contest sponsored by the Silicon Valley chapter of the American Marketing Association.

I agree with Karen — and with that change comes the uncomfortable reality for marketers, CEOs and sales people that they don’t have control of their brand, as was once thought. One can make the case that companies never controlled their brand. People talked about their negative and positive experiences just as much as they do now. The difference is the proverbial backyard fence is replaced the Web and today their opinions are received by more than the next door neighbor and Aunt Mildred. Nothing against Aunt Mildred.

In this podcast, we discuss the Forrester social media ladder and an excellent example of corporate blogging policy at Sun. O’Brien will be speaking at the Online Market World event at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on October 3.

OK, here’s a blog post about a blog post, about a…well, you get it.

The issue: Bob Lutz is the vice chairman of product development at General Motors and the chairman of GM North America. He is also one of the most prominent Fortune 500 bloggers, as he’s the leader of several contributors to GM’s Fastlane blog. Apparently he was really busy during the past couple of weeks. He didn’t post anything on his blog during that time, and some bloggers who keep a close eye on GM thought this was the beginning of the end of Lutz’s interest in blogging.

The squeaky wheel got the grease: Lutz took a couple of minutes away from his day job at one of the world’s largest auto manufacturers — dealing with global supply chains, Al Gore’s global warming alarms, and $3.50 a gallon gas prices — to remind his friendly blogosphere colleagues that, in fact, he is not bored with blogging. He’s just been tending to a few more urgent and important issues.

Now, I’m as big an advocate for new PR techniques as other folks on the social media circuit, but these kind of situations can make some execs say, “Hey, I don’t need the aggravation of blogging.” Part of me says the blogosphere can seem like the tail wagging the dog, that it’s excellent in some cases and a major distraction for many others.

Lutz’s retort was wrapped in a larger blog post, so kudos for the way he handled it. And when I get a bit cynical about the usefulness of blogs for corporations, I give Shel Holtz a read to level set on the issue. His writing about the Lutz situation inspired this post today.

My mom said, if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything. In the world of social media, I’ve taken that little maxim just one step further: If you don’t have anything worthwhile to say, listen for a while. I mean, the blogosphere shouldn’t penalize those who put quality before quantity and avoid posting just for the sake of saying something. That “something” too often ends up “nothing,” anyway.

Dozens of times I think, I’d like to post about this or that, but usually a child’s homework, a soccer game, work, driving kids around, basketball practice, workout, or a rare quiet dinner with my wife takes precedence. It’s just that simple, and because of those priorities, it seems odd that a blogger — especially one like Bob Lutz — should take flak. So again, Shel is right in this case: The unfortunate solution is to just get thicker skin and keep the faith.

In the end, there are more positives than negatives to the pursuit of blogging. Just ask Bob Lutz.

I spent most of the week in the New York metro area, first speaking on a panel on the issue of podcasting and blogging at the Business Smart Tools conference in Stamford, Conn., then reporting from the Streaming Media East conference in Manhattan.

Loathe the name podcasting, even though it is accepted as new word in the dictionary. Judging by some of the questions that are prevalent at these conferences, marketers may do well to not use words like “podcasting” when trying to present the idea to management.

The concept may better be positioned using terms like audio, radio, video, or something a bit more retro. I highlight some other ways to describe this wonderfully mislabeled medium in this podcast, er…Marketing Edge show.

I also spent some time at the Streaming Media East show, which was excellent. One of our clients unveiled a fun new presentation tool called Proclaim, which is one of the reasons that brought me to the show.

While there I listened to a great keynote from Martin Nisenholtz, senior VP of digital operations at the New York Times Company. He discussed how bloggers complement journalists, not replace them. Bloggers will continue to act as self-appointed watchdogs of the media, and as traditional journalists increasingly join the blogosphere, it becomes easier for the average Jane or Joe to become part of the news conversation.

Publications will continue to add more multimedia content to their Web sites. “All the news that’s fit to print” at the New York Times takes on a new meaning with the limitless space of Web site, and it also has a way to capture your heart. Check out the Manny Fernandez piece called “Johnny’s Cave.”

This piece shows how powerfully video can tell a story, and with a writer like Fernandez weaving the thread, it simply leaves you numb. This is journalism at its finest.

Sharing is good: It’s the only way to do it in this era of social media. Go ahead. Be social.

Here are links to the video services I mentioned in the podcast:
Brightcove
Feedroom
YouTube

We invite your comments. For each comment we get, we’ll donate a food item to a local food shelter.

Live blogging is cool, but is it rude when you are in the middle of someone’s presentation? Hmmm, my parents would think so. Instant reaction is great theater, but should it be the stuff thoughtful blogs are made of? Are you looking for the silver-bullet marketing tactic or the next big thing? Well, you’ve come to the right place.

In this podcast, I chat with Greg Verdino, VP of emerging channels at Digitas and digital marketing seer (yup, a thoughtful guy and it’s not because he has the same hairline as Seth Godin) about dealing with these issues.

Bottom line for Greg: Every company needs to have a deliberate social-media strategy. These venues — blogs, podcasts, and all the other next big-thing things — are not something to be treated as one-off pilot projects. They should be considered as part of a holistic approach, one that seeks first to understand how the individuals that make up a company’s market are using the new media and then to understand what benefits can be reaped by the company from using some or all of them.

Greg is the author of the informative blog found at www.gregverdino.typepad.com.

Greg and I will be speaking at the Business Smart Tools conference on May 15. So will other marketers from General Motors, Xerox, and answerYES Interactive, among others. Provident Partners is giving away two more passes to this event. E-mail us at MarketingEdge@providentpartners.net. The senders of the first two e-mails we receive will be as lucky as Scott Monty of Boston, who won a pass to the conference in last week’s drawing.

We’re also giving away Seth Godin’s latest literary gem on marketing, The Dip. We will name names of the winners soon, and the book is due out May 10. For every e-mail we receive for these giveaways, and for every comment on our blog, Provident Partners will give a food item to a local food shelter.

Podcast length: 12:25

Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on the wall in the conversation between a big company’s CMO and the general counsel on whether the company should have a blog? I would love it. You have that chance by listening to David Ritter’s presentation at Social Media 2007, a conference for marketers and corporate communication leaders sponsored by Business Capital Edge. The conference takes place April 5 and 6 at the Sheraton in downtown Chicago.

David is an attorney with the firm Neal Gerber and Eisenberg. His presentation — “My employees are blogging: What do I do next?” — has received excellent reviews, and he is our guest on this episode of the Marketing Edge. I’m a cautious counselor on blogging, and David’s presentation is a must for any marketer approaching the “blog now!” Kool-Aid punch bowl. This podcast outlines some of the many parameters marketers need to consider before even approaching a conversation with other senior managers about blogging. There is also room in this debate for those responsible for human resources, as well.

Also, be sure to register for our contest. We’re giving away two full-ride registrations to Social Media 2007. Just complete this quick seven-question form.

Here are a few excellent sites and resources for corporate/employee blog policies, just to whet your appetite:

• IBM’s blogging policy
• Plaxo’s blogging policy
• Sun’s blogging policy
• Business Blog Wire: general articles on the topic
• “The Corporate Blogging Book” by Debbie Weil