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.

I enjoyed George Colony and Forrester’s exceptional work in research and analysis for more than a decade. Like Colony, I have lived through the 90s enterprise tech ascent and the ‘01 free fall. Recently Colony listed 5 reasons this tech recession will be different.

Colony contends that technology will be down but not out in part because technology is more prevalent in our daily lives than in the past. Let me highlight his fourth reason by citing it directly here because it involves social media, Colony writes,

“4) Customers live on tech. The consumer landscape is very different than it was in 2001. Forrester’s consumer surveys show that each succeeding generation takes more tech into their day-to-day life. The delta between the Y generation (18-27) and the X generation (28-41) is extraordinary — Y spends twice the amount of time on cell phones and half the amount of time reading newspapers. For more on this, check out our report, The Gen Y Design Guide. In a recession, the use of Facebook, Linked In, eCommerce, blogs will increase, not decrease, as people look for jobs, companies stay closer to their customers, and easier-to-ROI Internet advertising accelerates. Companies will have to stay focused on their web sites, social strategies, and eCommerce this time around — or risk losing their next generation of customers.”

Colony accurately believes social media is a general platform upon which millions of people live and work. I however, believe business and sociey can maximize the benefits from these technology platform by expanding social media’s greatest contributions (freedom of expression, connecting ideas, allowing for deeper thought) to reach other corporate culture silos. What is missing from this observation, perhaps assumed by Colony, (I’m not one to doubt GC) are corporate culture shifts that are required to maximize the benefits experienced by society from this rich, broad space called social media. Here are three areas that need a different paradigm for companies to benefit from social media.

1) Hierarchical View - (Advertising & Marketing) The corporate view that the social space is more or less like a mass market with “A” listers, and media properties and through aggregation services to net the small fish, it can become something with which they familiar. This is an old and tired perspective. Allow social media to breadth within and around your brand so the company and its people can absorb the influential ideas surrounding it.

2) Short-Sighted View – (Finance) The 30 day and quarterly “make the numbers” rat wheel that was prevalent in the 90s, and led to all kinds of PR an accounting schemes to make the numbers work, (Enron seems so long ago doesn’t it) are an imposed deadline. ’

Tell me really, are innovators really driven by a deadline? Do cancer researchers really need another goal that involves a stock price for their reward or do they get up every morning to beat a disease that claimed their parent or child, or stimulates their intellect to the point of obsession? Patience is a human virtue that seems to have little relevance in an economic world. That perspective needs to change.

3) Human Capital View – (Human Resources and just general office politics) Let me preface this one by saying, it could be a naïve pipedream. The last 20-30 years has seen and escalation of divisive communications. It’s not limited to politics or election year cycles, these topics and times just call more attention to it. The divide and conquer mentality is a function of economics, in vogue trends, work environments, two generations of 24-hour news cycles, the entertainmentization (new word) of news, and plenty more. What it has created are cultures that hinder innovation and foster a “gotcha” environment under the guise of accountability.

In numerous companies bureaucracy is stifling innovation. In some cases their customers and employees circumnavigate the obstacles using social media, gain some wins to run up the flag, and pray those that see it will have enough backbone to be their champion. A skunk works mode of innovation to be sure, and not one that has been accepted by the corporate culture allowing it to multiply.

Transparency Continued

Admission of a mistake openly serves the greater good, e.g. Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital’s wrong side survey as blogged by their CEO Paul Levy. His leadership should be recognized as it was by US News and World healthcare editor and writer Avery Comarow he wrote, “Levy has been agitating for more transparency for some time… Others should emulate this. I doubt that many will.”

This transparency should also be held as an example across all of corporate America. Hhmm we can we begin, oh yes I did quick search in the social media monitoring tool Radian6 using a rather limited word combination of transparency + bailout, it was mentioned more than 20,000 times in the last 30 days. Yes more transparency may have prevented the Wall Street Meltdown, nice catch to all those concerned.

So if we are to be transparent we need to be what, less vengeful, less harsh, less quick in assuming that transparency = accountability that leads to punish by detractors waiting in the wings. That kind of environment defeats the purpose of transparency which is improvement and discussion. I’m not decoupling responsibility from accountability, I’m reinforcing that transparency is a function of improving, of shared learning, that makes something greater than the individual better.

Sometimes our divisiveness wants to conclude the case before hearing all the facts, understanding the intent, learning from the mistake. Sometimes human nature instinctually pounces on prey that is bleeding instead of supporting its healing.

Maybe I am a bit naïve about the transformation social media can help bring about in corporate America and society. Perhaps George Colony is wrong when he asserts that people will spend more time connecting online with Facebook, LinkedIn and the like, that the youth generation intensify their friend relationships by being constantly connected with their phones. And perhaps Forrester was wrong in 2007 when they said that Facebook marketing means communicating not advertising, as does all social spaces I contend. Perhaps T Boone Pickens is just a rich old man with nothing to do. (He is leading a huge social network of passionate followers of new energy)

If we are wrong, then all this social stuff is just another channel. Direct Mail, 1-1 marketing, email marketing, it’s just another one of those Meatball Sundaes to use Seth Godin’s term. Then have at it spammers of the world, congratulations because nothing will change, innovation will stay about at the same pace as always, unless of course the rest of the world catches up to us and then it won’t stay the same here now will it? It’s what my generation of wiseguys would call SSDD.

I, however, think differently. And you?

Time 31:36

Creative marketing takes time to, well, create, and time to execute. So when I saw a case study about Hubspot’s inbound marketing system on Marketing Sherpa I was intrigued by their approach. Instead of a typical “we are greater than sliced bread” marketing, the Hubspot internet marketingcreated a unique website that invited businesses to use a small part of the Hubspot system. That part of the system is called website grader and businesses by the thousands visited www.websitegrader.com to enter their website. The website is then graded on a series of attributes that search engines look for in ranking sites on a scale of 100. We start this conversation at about the 4:00 mark in this podcast.

Provident Partners, thank God, first pulled an 85, however, still room for improvement. That’s why we have on this podcast Mike Volpe, Vice President of Marketing for Hubspot. We get into the 5 key areas essential to getting a passing grade and increasing the odds you’ll achieve your search ranking goals. And yes, we use the www.providentpartners.net site as the “patient” in this visit to the search engine doctor. Volpe starts this commentary at about the 19:00 mark in the podcast.

5 Key Areas to Improve your website’s rankings are

1) Title on all pages can change
2) Keywords and descriptions meta tags of page content for each page
3) Put blog on a company URL and integrate into your website
4) Domain renewal – sign up for as many years as you can afford
5) Permanent redirect for yourcompanydoman.com and the other for www.yourcompanydomain.com

This Example Can Apply to Other Businesses

Volpe is an excellent marketer who realized Hubspot needed a way to break out in a crowded field of marketing platforms. I believe the tactics used in this campaign can be replicated by other marketers for a variety of product launches, professions and industries. The keys are as follows:

1) Create a web presence that allows prospects to experience part of your product or service.
2) Product needs to have remarkable elements
3) Take the time to understand the interests of the bloggers that write about your space
4) Include was to invite comparison between the status quo and life with your product or service

Some readers might say, well this works for a web-based software product, but how can it apply to other areas. Ok, let me take that one on.

A business consultancy can create an assessment tool in their area of expertise. Technomic Asia a consultant group has an China Readiness assessment tool to measure a company’s ability to compete in the China market.

A winery can have a dinner selection with multiple choice of wines to select, your choice will be compared against what a famous Sommelier recommend with that same meal.

A furniture store, design, or organization consultant can allow users to help themselves using your website. For example Ikea has done a great job with their space planner portion of their website. They depict your space and you manipulate their furniture in it. This is slick and it worked for me two years ago when we redesigned the Provident Partners office space.

If you have other tips on getting good search rankings, we invite you to share them here with other readers.

January 2008 Book Drawing Giveaway

This month we are holding a drawing to win the book The New Influencers by Paul Gillin. Here’s my review of the book posted on Media Bulleye . To be in the drawing, email me at marketingedge@providentpartners.net Good luck. For every entry, comment, and completed survey Provident Partners will donate a food item to a St. Paul, MN food shelter.

Time 16:00

Jeremiah Owyang, senior analyst for Forrester and author of the well-read Web Strategist blog, is our guest on the Marketing Edge. You know, as of this posting, he is at the top of the Tweeterboard, a ranking of influencers using the microblogging platform Twitter.

In this podcast, we touch upon his big three trends to look for in 2008 and the following items:

-Social media is like jazz: don’t ask, just listen. He explains it better than I can write about it.

-The corporate structure needs to become more flexible if social media is to gain greater status. Owyang believes 2008 will see a rise in the job function of community manager in large companies.

With more than 3,000 followers and friends on Twitter and Facebook, do you wonder how he juggles his day? First rule: Get up early.

We also get into one of my key themes about social media: It’s making companies incorporate some of the best practices of political and grassroots organizations. Listen, be responsive, be sensitive, seek consensus, build your base — those are just a few. Platforms like Twitter help facilitate the movement of people and opinions that give life to ideas. This is the essence of the political democratic process.

As corporations seek a greater understanding of social media, the social graph will play an important role. This is another Owyang prediction for 2008.

Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to invite all your friends to join you on some other social network? Owyang predicts the expansion of widget networks and with it the expansion of the use of social media in 2008.

Lastly, I promised Jeremiah I’d post a link to one of my favorite places in San Francisco, the Buena Vista, home of the Irish Coffee.

Share your comments on this post. For each comment posted, Provident Partners gives a food item to a St. Paul food shelter.

Last call for the drawing of the book “Join the Conversation” by Joseph Jaffe. Send an e-mail to marketingedge@providentpartners.net and we will include you in the drawing. The winner gets a copy of the book with my comments in the margins; it’s our way of continuing the conversation. Get your e-mail in by midnight on Dec. 19.

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?

Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester, Seth Godin author of Meatball Sundae, and Steve Mann head of social media for SAP doing a webcast at noon central today. http://tinyurl.com/yutq4b I’ll live blog it here. Just the highlights please, OK

Owyang outline to consider and approach social media POST = People, Objective, Strategy, and Technology. Bottom line point - think it through for the long term. Jeremiah’s blog is http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/

Mann - excellent point about the correllation between those who engage in the community or your discussion early will be more likely to convert as the sales cycle moves forward.

Godin - Classic Godin line, you can’t be like that brother-in-law life insurance salesman at parties who only goes to hit you up for insurance. Remember that this holiday season.

Owyang refers to Lego community to embrace customers to help build new products http://mindstorms.lego.com/eng/community/default.asp - He is very clear that this is not about giving away product ideas, no it’s about getting product ideas. And the pay off for them is to be a part of an inside group that then become advocates. Passion is the result of asking for opinions (that last one is my line, so if you don’t like it don’t blame Jeremiah)

Mann makes excellent point again - not every conversation is going to be positive or rosey. However, there can be positive that comes from that, whether its improvement to the product or customer service. It is so refreshing to here someone like Steve who answers to a corporate structure speak like this. It is both a reflection on him as a leader and on the management of SAP.

Godin - Social media is not for every company. I have said this for awhile (listen to Great Blog Debate November 2006) The issue for me is that some companies need to evolve into social media as opposed to “Using Social Media to Grow Your Business” which is the title of this webcast.

You gotta love this one from Owyang - An eye opener ready?

So it used to be that sales managers would take a win/loss report and marketers would pull out the wins to put in their communications. Enter social media, and buyers are taking about the every same things that are in your win/loss reports in the open. Agh! imagine that. Now what?

Companies using social media correctly

http://www.ideastorm.com/

http://www.threadless.com/

Lastly the panel was asked in a couple of words what advice would you give to companies about considering social media (I paraphrasing here on the question) And they said

Owyang - Let Go

Mann - Evolution not revolution

Godin - Be remarkable

Anyone commenting on this post we’ll have a drawing for Seth’s new book Meatball Sundae, Those of you who don’t feel lucky can get it here http://www.squidoo.com/meatballsundae

The technology dilemma: New technologies are developed quickly and less costly today than even 10 years ago. New technology implementation requires the precise work of three groups: path finders, bridge builders and commoditizers.

1) Path finders: They forge a wild river. They develop for the joy of a challenge and/or the dream of wealth. Many times they traverse to unknown places. They prudently cut a path with precision moving toward a desired destination. They may not know exactly where they are going, but they are learning and discovering with every step.

2) Bridge builders: These are the ones who help the masses on the populated side of the river come across. They painstakingly educate those fearful of going over the bridge and in some cases hope they don’t loose sight of the path finders.

3) Commoditizers come along with the masses and build different uses for technologies that have become common. They help drive the price down, expand usage and, with it, less risk in implementing that technology in a typical business.

The issue that Jeremiah Owyang of the Web Strategist Blog raises in his Utterz post from Nov. 29 is whether the technologists are moving too fast. In my parlance, are the path finders rushing ahead so fast that they are in danger of being alone in the wild?

The pace of what technologists can do is outracing how significant portions of the population can use it or can pay for it. The question technologists and consumers should answer jointly is: Can the new technologies be applied to provide sufficient value that it is worth changing from what we do now?

Social media and different issues than the 90s:

• A more fragmented market, which could mean less total revenue per technology
• Less costs, which potentially mean higher profits per technology
• Insanely short product life-cycles, putting all technologies in danger of being overtaken
• Potentially misunderstood brand power of technology, when the real asset is the communities

The Bar Syndrome

What would make me the most nervous as an investor? Understanding exactly what the asset is and how will that asset sustain itself and grow. I believe a good metaphor is that many of these social media technologies are like investing in a bar or restaurant. If that establishment can be replicated to attract enough people, then you’ve got a winning franchise. If, however, the people are fickle or a new bar opens down the street with better looking, livelier people, then what is left?

The accessories

We are to the point of application accessories; widgets is the accepted term. The issue is how these accessories are going to be paid for. An interesting question formed in the negative, just to make it more painful: What two technologies can you give up today?

A typical business with an abundance of meetings, limited budgets and cautious management needs time just to understand how these technologies are going to add value to the company. Patience is a virtue. Will the marketplace reward patience?

I worked at a venture capital firm in the 90s. There were companies working on 360-degree images of shopping malls, med-tech applications for desktop radiological reading, and video-on-the-Web capabilities. It was just a question of timing more than applications. Those ideas are well in place today and profitable.

History does help predict the future; we just need the patience for the future to catch up with us.

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.

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 17:04

Many companies are trying to understand how forms of social media can be applied to achieve their business and branding objectives. This podcast features two examples of the successful use of social media and user generated videos.

On this episode of the Marketing Edge, we feature Vespa scooters’ Go Green Challenge and the UPS new product launch of Delivery Intercept. We also provide some of the elements of these very different campaigns that may help other companies determine whether they have the chance for a successful social campaign.

The technology platform used in these two cases is Vsocial www.vsocial.com . To me Vsocial is a video platform that is on the opposite end of the spectrum from YouTube. It is structured for businesses to host a video generated campaign as a complete web-based platform or with developer APIs so agencies can create the custom experience for those engaged in their campaign. Provident Partners has a vSocial site at http://www.vsocial.com/user/?d=144923

The agency work featured here is Matrixx Pictures for Vespa’s Go Green Challenge and Lbi Atlanta that created the UPS Delivery Intercept program. Side mention here, Archie Manning (old school) Peyton Manning’s dad, is the spokesperson for the Delivery Intercept program. Script and copy writers should listen to Archie’s segments, the writing is outstanding.

What Makes These Good Campaigns

Here is a general list of criteria for these two examples that I believe companies can use to evaluate their audiences as they consider similar types of campaigns. Let me underscore, these are general profiles of an audience. In some ways even trying to put people in categories goes against the grain of social media and 1-1 marketing, nonetheless, marketers like to have some semblance of structure as we describe the market we are seeking to attract. So here goes.

The Vespa campaign audience I categorize as Creative and Socially Conscience. This includes people who may be in areas including:

The creative type of audience is more likely to participate when the campaign involves producing something from scratch or interpreting a situation. Some may be in it for professional exposure so incorporating a set of judges known in that craft is also helpful. These types of campaigns involve lots of work and time on the part of those producing the content.

The UPS Delivery Intercept campaign is what I call Naturally Occurring

These are events that are part of everyday life and as such are likely to be recorded. This audience is participating for fun, hobby, 15 minutes of fame, and being part of a group.

In this category, there is less burden on the participant to be creative in building a storyline and requires less production skills. Their submission is a chronicle of an event that is potentially appealing to a similar audience. These are the characteristics of the Delivery Intercept program. In many cases, successful campaigns also have some recognition and reward, whether it is prize money for the winner or a charity of the winner’s choice.

Comments Bring Good Things

Remember any comments to this blog or emails to marketingedge@providentpartners.net will result in a food item contributed to a food shelf in St. Paul, MN. Also did you listen to the opening minutes of this podcast for the movie quote question? If you are the first two listeners to submit the correct answer you will win a $10 gift certificate to Subway, so quick hit the play button and send your email answer. What can I say, we like to see people satisfy their hunger.