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Archive for March, 2009

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Future of PR: When Agencies Represent Communities –Not Brands

Categories: Community Marketing, PRPosted on March 29th, 2009

We continue to see that communities will continue to gain more and more power as they lean on each other to make decisions, support each other, and share their lifestyle. What happens to agencies that traditionally serve brands?

Seem far fetched? Not really. We’re already starting to see bits of this: I’ve seen user innovation in car forums, Facebook groups, and networks of mommy bloggers. Or take for example UserVoice , GetSatisfaction or Ideastorms that allow communities to define what features they want with products.

Imagine for a second that these communities, say bike-enthusiasts, or young mothers, or even home-theater-fans could start to define using organized innovation tools what products and features they want. What if Doc Searls vision for Vendor Relationship Management systems (where consumers define what products they want –brands bid for them) takes off?

With communities in the driver seat over product, a shift will happen as communities can define the spec of future products and therefore multiple brands will bid for their business. As a result, we should expect the agency model to flip over, where PR agencies start to represent communities of customers –rather than brands.

What if these communities (we’re likely all part of at least one) started to band together and used UserVoice to define what we want? What if a savvy agency saw this, and decided to take our ideas to market on our behalf?

What could this wacky idea look like? These PR agencies would take the community defined spec to brands, bid for the top design, and even help negotiate the terms. As a result, they could skim profits off the transaction, or maybe offer new services such as community support, or organize events. Either way, if they stay as the conduit between them. Some users in Twitter mentioned this already happens, that agencies represent communities in non-profits, or at the chamber of commerce, but I’m thinking much broader, into the context of commerce.

Perhaps it won’t be that polar, existing agencies that represent brands will adopt the right skills and relationships, and will retain their relationship with brands. If you’ve access, a forward looking report called the Connected Agency discusses how this could work.

What do you think of this wild idea? Far-fetched or is it already underway? If communities assert control over what products they want, will agencies follow suit?

Update: we’ve now 40 comments below, and without a doubt the wisdom from the commentators is greater than the original assertion. I think one key finding from everyone is that this trend is far greater than PR, and impacts all agencies, and marketing as a whole. Secondly, it’s difficult to determine who these agencies will monetize, and some suggest they’ll go away all together. We’ll keep on exploring this topic, I’ve some new ideas on consumer crowdsourcing that I’ll blog soon. Thanks for being part of the dialog.

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Social Network Humor: Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook

Categories: Social Networking, VideoPosted on March 28th, 2009

I grew up on watching Three’s Company the San Diego sitcom, and got a real kick out of this funny video. For some reason, Friendster reminds me of one of my college roommates. Caution, this is one of those videos that you may want to watch at home as it has some borderline adult humor, may not be safe for work. Buy hey, since it’s Saturday, that shouldn’t be a problem, right? If you like this video, I’ve been collecting them and tagging them here.

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: March 26, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on March 26th, 2009

digest3

I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly digest on the Social Networking space, which I cover as an industry analyst. By creating this digest (I started this over a year ago) it really helps me to stay on top of the space I cover.

I’ve created a new category called Digest (view archives). Start with the Web Strategy Summary, then quickly scan the succinct and categorized headlines, read text for my take, and click link to dive in for more.

Subscribe to this blog in your feedreader, or use the email subscription box in the right column. Or you can subscribe to this digest tag only and not receive my other posts.

Web Strategy Summary
Facebook undergoes user revolt for latest redesign, although they trump most other social networks for usage. Expect to see more integration between social networks and traditional media sites like Twitter and BusinessWeek. Earlier this week, Twitter announced API integration with SalesForce –notice the connective tentacles from social networks spreading everywhere. This is a race to see who can spread the fastest.

Feedback: Facebook community not happy about latest changes
Communities always overtake the brand, and even in this case, Facebook’s redesign is getting some fire from many members, and Facebook may make some changes to meet the community concerns. Ben Parr from Mashable suggests Facebook should stay the course. I suggest next time, that the redesign have a bit more community testing and acceptance before making dramatic changes.

Usage: Facebook is for your Mom and Dad
Apparently so, since the “older” generation of “Women over 55 remain the fastest growing group, and growth among the teen and college-age set has been relatively paltry. In absolute numbers there are now even slightly more members between the ages of 45 and 65 than there are 13-to 17-year-olds.” says Wired

Deal: Twitter integrates with SalesForce
SalesForce CRM can now show simple displays of twitter conversations and discussions within it’s interface. This is the first step in many where social networks and communities become the first step in CRM. My take here.

Privacy: UK government discusses monitoring social networks
Fueled by the thought that terrorist discussions could be within social networks, the Guardian suggests that social networks like Facebook and MySpace could ‘hold information’ and perhaps make it accessible to authorities.

Spending: Social media marketing funding to increase
This data is from eMarketer, that indicates that most marketers are going to increase their social media spend, and only a few (3%) will decrease. These findings are related to the report we just published on the same topic.

Integration: BusinessWeek syncs Twitter Comments
One of the first media companies to integrate twitter comments is now BusinessWeek –which allows users to provide feedback and responses about articles from Twitter which will be aggregated on BW.

Transparency: Questions over transparency over Yelp –and other SNS
Yelp under continued scrutiny over how it’s treating restaurants and small businesses. There’s been increased criticism against this company as the community asserts control over restaurants, this quote sums it up best: “Yet as the site grows, some of the businesses scrutinized on Yelp are turning the tables and griping about the company itself.”

Best Practices: Online Moderation
This moderation professional is sharing a great deal of expertise, swing over to Mike’s blog.

Money: Tencent grows and grows
Tencent, a fast growing social network in China is generating revenues based off virtual goods. Their reporting healthy revenues at 70.5 percent or $719.1 million, a 95.5 increase over 2007.

Data: Social networks trump email
Social networks more popular than email says this report from Nielsen and covered by Cnet, and further goes on to show that member communities are more popular than email. Data from eMarketer via Cnet

Usage: Twtiter fastest growing soical network
Twitter’s growth up by says Nielsen sporting: “Unique visitors to Twitter increased 1,382 percent year-over-year, from 475,000 unique visitors in February 2008 to 7 million in February 2009,”

Irony: Government employees disocuraged to use social networks
Although these employees are encouraged to use social networks, they find it ironic they’re discouraged not to use these same tools.

Submit: I’m listening. If you’re a social network, or widget company, I want to know of your news, send me an email, or leave a comment below. Help me stay up to date but first, read how to score your announcements.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

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Orlando Tweetup on April 22, Forrester Marketing Conference April 23-24

Categories: Blogger DinnerPosted on March 26th, 2009

I’ll be in Orlando at Forrester’s Marketing Conference April 23 and 24th, live blogging (maybe some live streaming), meeting clients, and listening and learning from Marty St. George, SVP of Marketing for JetBlue, Greg Clayman, EVP of Digital Distribution for MTV, and Annis Lyles, VP of Media and Interactive for Coca-Cola North America. We’re offering discounts to those that are headed out, as well as a night off the hotel rooms.

Even if you’re not attending the conference, the Tweetup on the night before is wide open for anyone to attend, hope to see you there. The Tweetup is on Wed, followed by the conference on Thursday and Friday, leaving the weekend open for you and your family to head out to Disney World if you’re able.

Leave a comment if you’re coming to the Tweetup!

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Sponsored Aggregation: Impacts to Twitter, Federated Media, Microsoft, and the Community

Categories: Aggregation, MicroMediaPosted on March 24th, 2009

My job is to dissect new and moving parts into ways that business decision makers can understand, I hope to do just that:

Web Strategy Summary
Twitter is finally monetizing. Working with social media marketing vendor Federated Media, Microsoft has sponsored an aggregation tool that collects all the voices and tweets of executives. While none of the executives were paid, and it’s not influencing their editorial, these public tweets are being monetized by the brands involved. (Added this previous sentence, thanks to Dom in the comments) It’s featured from the Twitter homepage (top right column) this program called ExecTweet gives exposure to the voices of executives and promotes Microsoft’s campaign.

Getting the Facts
I just got off the phone with Matthew DiPietro the Marketing Manager at Federated Media, to understand how brands are now working with Twitter and how the money is moving about. While I believe that Twitter could best monetize by becoming a CRM system, they’ve instead decided to do a variation of what we call sponsored conversations.

Sponsored Aggregation
This isn’t the same as other sponsored conversations programs where the bloggers (or Twitters in this case) are paid, but instead the voices and tweets of executives are aggregated. The executives (including my own CEO @gcolony) is aggregated on this site called ExecTweets, and there is no change in the editorial from the twitter users. In some cases, these execs may not even know they were added to this aggregation page. Individuals can submit other executives to be added to the aggregation page, which will soon be the untethered voices of this executive zeitgeist.

The exectweets site has some voting features that help to allow users to vote up the top discussions, and FM will help curate some of the discussions they think are most relevant. They didn’t say it, but I’ll bet they’ll put emphasis on conversations that best match the Microsoft campaign that’s sponsoring it called “Because it’s everybody’s business”

I’d apologize for creating yet another buzzword, but it’s my job to help define new trends, and there’s constant changes in this space, so I’m trying to use terms that people can understand, use and be actionable with.

Breakdown of all the moving parts:

Twitter Community
First and foremost, focus should be on the Twitter community. This small advertisement was featured on the site displaying ‘house ads’ that would promote Twitter features, which is almost a warm up for this Microsoft Ad. Being on the fish theme, I remember that some web designs happen slowly as to not shock the users. The saying “change the fishbowl water a little at a time” comes to mind.

Executives:
Executives that were selected or nominated to be in exectweets aggregation can now benefit from getting additional exposure and provide thought leadership amongst the land of 140. The downside now is their personal conversation are now associated with this campaign, and their general brand. I’d doubt that John Schwartz CEO of Sun would not want to be associated with this program, although I’m told that execs can opt-out.

Federated Media:
FM continues to impress me over the years, lead by John Battelle, they continue to develop innovative ways to sponsor influence, sponsor conversations, and insert brands directly into the editorial flow or develop brand association. Of course, they’ve had a few blunders in deployment but have a strong framework they use in their playbook regardless of the toolset. Their biggest challenge will be that they need to be careful not ensure that all programs are transparent and authentic, in order not to burn any stakeholders.

Microsoft: Tying in it’s campaign to reach executives and those who want to listen to executives, Microsoft benefits from associated branding by sponsoring the development and launch of this program. In theory, this should segment higher qualified clicks to their site “business if for everybody” as the link is on the exectweet site –not twitter.com. Update: I also learned that McCaan, Microsoft’s agency was a large part of this project.

Twitter: This nearly accidental microblogging network benefits by, well monetizing. This small ad takes up very little real estate and gives them the opportunity to trial methods to advertise. I strongly encourage them not to disrupt the editorial flow, and instead focus on the data portion, and monetize the firehose or develop products that brands need to manage discussions.

Impacts
While it’s going to gain buzz from being new, don’t expect click through rates to the Microsoft campaign to be high, as it’s not in the editorial stream of tweets. However, it could generate more qualified CTR from those that are interested in what executives have to say, and secondary benefits from association with the top leaders. Expect this to be a rotating inventory for future campaigns, as Federated Media has done innovative conversational marketing during the height of blogging.

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Social Media Marketing Storyboard #1: Fish Where The Fish Are

Categories: Social Media, storyboardPosted on March 24th, 2009

I sometimes find that imagery helps to convey messages better than words.

If you like it, you can pass it around, embed it, or download it from the Slideshare site and use in your own decks.

Love to hear your feedback on both the message as well as my delivery –I’m trying a few new things around here.

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The Future of Twitter: Social CRM

Categories: MicroMedia, Social CRMPosted on March 22nd, 2009

Twitter has multiple business models to choose from
I get asked over and over: “How do you think Twitter will monetize? What’s their business model?” While it’s clear they’re already experimenting with ‘house’ ads, ads that promote features of their service, I’m not sure that’s going to be the right direction for them. We already know that click through rates on social networks are low, why? because people are there to communicate with each other –not search for information like Google or on a media site. It’s possible they could turn on ads in the search tool, as people are seeking information. Yet all of these tactics have been done on other social sites, I think that Twitter has a unique opportunity to tap into the lucrative CRM space.

Manually tracking a large brand within Twitter isn’t scalable
It’s important to first realize that managing a large brand on Twitter isn’t scalable, with hundreds –maybe thousands of tweets about a marketplace a day, individuals will have a very difficult time managing, Brian Solis has some relevant stats on growth. The next challenge? determining who these people are, and if they are a potential customer is important, who are these people, are they important, where do they live? Lastly, responding in near real time is going to be key –as some users may ask their peers for product recommendations during point of sale, right in the store.

Twitter has two of the three key features of a CRM system
First, let’s break down why Twitter is going to be a Social CRM, let’s start by analyzing what entails Customer Relationship Management:

1) Customers: Yes, they got that. More than that, they have prospects, which to some marketers is far more valuable. As prospects start to talk about products, they’re indicating engagement, and could be further down the buying process. Both are valuable, however the challenge is mapping which Twitter ID is which customer –many don’t use their real names.

2) Relationships: Got that too. Now I realize that the intended definitions of CRM meant the relationships between customers and employees of a brand, but now you can see how people in Twitter are connecting to each other, and those that follow a brand, their indicating affinity towards them. The interesting thing is they don’t just offer affinity towards your brand, but also competitors, which helps in segmenting your market, and can help with poaching.

3) Management: Here lies the opportunity Twitter has no management tools to support this, as a result, their data is being whisked away in the API and being aggregated by two types of companies. The first company? Traditional CRM companies are importing the data into their own systems, in fact we know bits and pieces of this are happening for Facebook. Secondly, brand monitoring companies like Radian6, are importing twitter data into their listening platforms, and then offering simple workflow and task management.

CRM Incumbents Moving In
Today, SalesForce announces it’s integration with Twitter, or at least, their aggregation of their data in what’s called the ‘Twitter Firehose’ in order to suck in the discussions and allow it to be managed within the SalesForce system. As a result, brands will start to monitor –then manage– the discussions that happen online. I was briefed by Clara Shih (related book), the creator of FaceForce (now called Faceconnector) (Facebook + SalesForce integration) last week, and while I think they’ve taken one step forward –there’s more to be done in confirming IDs, influence, and intent to buy. Update: Here’s the Service Cloud site, which emphasizes customer service and support.

Twitter’s Opportunity –should they decide to take it
Although they have not directly said it, I think Twitter can go further than this, they could be their own CRM system, by perhaps offering their own analytics system to brands, that will help them to track and manage the conversations within the 140 sphere. This has tremendous opportunities for Twitter should they create their own brand management system that they can resell to the world’s companies to monitor, alert, track, prioritize, triage, assign, followup, and report on the interactions with brands. The myriad of authority based tools will need to be incorporated, as some users have a larger network and are therefore more influential than others. On the other hand, they just might leave the firehose open for the incumbent CRM companies to take advantage of –and miss this opportunity, hell, Scoble is already expecting brands to contact him when he has a major life event. Either way, with a recent funding amount of $35mm, they’ve enough run rate to first manage growth, then prepare for monetization.

There are a few layers when it comes to how Social CRM can evolve, I’ll save that for a future post. On a related note, this is one of the key findings from our many interviews for the upcoming report: The Future of the Social Web.

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Beyond the Money: Some VCs Provide Startups With A Competitive Edge

Categories: Venture CapitalPosted on March 21st, 2009

Surprisingly, some of the most important resources from a VC isn’t the financial funding.

When I meet with startups I find it helpful to find out who their investor is, secondly, it’s important to watch how VCs are funding, as it impacts what type of technologies we’ll see in the next few months. I don’t know as much as I want to about the VC world, so when I have questions I turn to Jennifer Jones, just this weekend we were engaged in the topic of the overall value that VCs bring. No, not just the money aspect, but the other intangible benefits, as VCs provide several intangible services to their portfolio companies, as I understand it, they include:

VCs Provide Startups With A Competitive Edge by Offering Additional Services:

Thought Leadership
VCs are required to anticipate future trends, and as a result they are highly connected, obtain information from a variety of sources, and have to quickly synthesize what’s next. Some of the VCs are more active in public, and are on the speaking circuit, and are sharing their ideas. Take for example David Hornick, who does a great job at this as he discusses why and how he’ll invest the $650mm they raised in high tech. Considering the recession this fund will fuel a great deal of innovation –even during a downturn.

Strategic Guidance
Often, VCs sit on the Board of Directors of their portfolio companies and provide guidance, direction, and access to other decision makers. This not only protects the VC to keep an eye on the company, but gives the entrepreneurs a chance to bounce ideas off senior and seasoned investors.

Being Part of The Family
Access is important. When I meet with startups, it’s important to know who invested in them, as it indicates their network. If you watch carefully (real carefully) you can see that startups that share the same investor use each others products, exchange executives, and are talking to each other. They often have offsites

Ancillary Services
Some VC firms have education teams and marketing teams that provide a broad range of services to the portfolio companies who don’t have the resources to hire full time marketing staff. In fact, I’ll be doing a workshop with Giovanni Rodriguez in the near future for a VC group. Recently I held a dinner discussion with Allegis capital and Scale Venture Partners, to meet their portfolio and discuss market trends.

Umbrella Branding
Perhaps the most under utilized is the benefit of being part of the brand of a well known firm. There are certain firms that are known for investing in certain verticals, or have a track record of success that lights my eyes up. Companies often tout their investors in briefings, especially if they are a top tier firm.

Parties… eerr um Networking
Ok, that’s my polite way of saying great parties, well networking too. During the height of the economy, some VC firms flew the executives of their portfolio companies out to a one week retreat in Hawaii. Also, some of the best parties in all of Silicon Valley are at August capital –social media networking nirvana.

Recruiting and Fundraising
I added this bullet after the fact, after seeing how David Hornick has added to the conversation it’s too important to pass up. VCs offer additional services like recruiting, which I’d be so bold to say is often executive placement of the right folks. Secondly, they help with fundraising, which I would assume would be for additional rounds of investment, I would expect that this would often mean a solid reference from one investor to the next.

Entrepreneurs should weigh all benefits
Of course, with the top tier VC firms, there are certainly considerations, getting backed by a very successful VC firm may mean they have more influence over the terms, may drive the direction of your company, and ultimately, may have more equity of the company. I encourage you to think about the other services, network, and events that your VC will offer you, find out by observing or talking to companies in their portfolio.

VCs offer more than just funding
VC should continue to provide thought leadership in their space, discussing in public why they are raising money, where they anticipate market growth, and how they plan to invest. This not only attracts new investors for their fund, but gives branding cover for their portfolio, and the folks in the industry, like me, visibility on the next trends. What they do beyond the investment makes a different –I can see it.

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Video: Into the Twittersphere

Categories: MicroMedia, VideoPosted on March 20th, 2009

I’ve seen quite a few parody videos of social networks, but this one takes the blue ribbon. Apparently, Supernews will be a regular show, starting tonight, I’ll tune in.

If you liked this, please ‘twote’ it to everyone you know.

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: March 18, 2009

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on March 18th, 2009

digest3

I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly digest on the Social Networking space, which I cover as an industry analyst. By creating this digest (I started this over a year ago) it really helps me to stay on top of the space I cover.

I’ve created a new category called Digest (view archives). Start with the Web Strategy Summary, then quickly scan the succinct and categorized headlines, read text for my take, and click link to dive in for more.

Subscribe to this blog in your feedreader, or use the email subscription box in the right column. Or you can subscribe to this digest tag only and not receive my other posts.

Web Strategy Summary
There were several announcements at SXSW, primarily highlighting new apps, and connectivity between the iPhone and Facebook. Simple ads appear on Twitter, and security pros are ever concerned about social networks as they connect to each other.

SXSW launches: Facebook, Tweetdeck
Facebook made a series of announcements extending Facebook connect with the iPhone, and there are several other announcements from this Techcrunch roster. Tweetdeck allows users to publish to both Twitter and Facebook simultaneously. Best Buy launched an API that extends their corporate website, my thoughts.

Advertising: ‘House’ Ads on Twitter spotted
This screenshot shows some “house” ads (promoting the features and fuctions) on Twitter’s right hand column, this could be a potential placement for other types of ads.

Security: Social Networks post Threats
This interesting article suggests that as social networks continue to share data across multiple platforms that security risks are likely to be exposed. For example, information that you share cross network could be seen by friends that are connected to competitors –causing potential leakages. Expect more risks to surface as the social web continues to proliferate.

Best Practices: Streamlining Community
Social media scientists will appreciate the heavy recommendations in this article, which suggests the following: User anonymity should be forced, Barriers to participation should be as low as possible, Moderation should not focus on users or on comments in isolation, but on the relational quality of comments. Read more in attacked from within

Fandom: Coke’s Unexpected Facebook Community
Adage highlights the Coke community within Facebook that has grown –yet it’s not from it’s own marketing team, but instead from fans.

Deals: Pluck wins Batanga
Integrating with it’s Sitelife product, Pluck powers the Batanga Latin music portal and claims to have 38% increase in registrations since the deployment.

Strategy: MySpace continues to focus on hypertargeting
In this article based on interview with MySpace’s Chris DeWolfe, MySpace is critiqued for having slower growth yet maintains a large community. They plan to focus on hypertargetted ads which are customized to users.

Redesign: Facebook’s redesign leaves some wanting
Facebook’s redesign last week has indicated how the web is moving real time, however with every change comes drawbacks, RWW suggests that the profile pages are limited, access with twitter, and confusion between pages and profiles. Ugh, now I need to take a closer look to make sure I can tell the difference.

OpenStack: Twitter now oAuth compliant
Twitter has now announced compliance with oAuth, which will allow third party developers to access the data–without exposing your personal info and login info. Ya’ know all those twitter clients that require you to fully login with your user name and password? Now it could authenticate, keeping your password just to yourself.

Data: Twitter growth, small, but quickly growing
Comscore data shows that “In February, 4 million people in the U.S. visited the site, up from 2.6 million the month before, according to the latest data from comScore. That represents a 55 percent month-over-month growth rate, compared to 33 percent growth in each of the two months prior.”

Culture: Cell Phones Cameras + Teens = “Sexting”
A recent trend among teens is apparently to share photos of themselves in suggestive and inappropriate situations. This has led some contributors and receivers to be considered to be participating in illegal activities.

Submit: I’m listening. If you’re a social network, or widget company, I want to know of your news, send me an email, or leave a comment below. Help me stay up to date but first, read how to score your announcements.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Stats for 2008 and 2009. Bookmark them, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

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