Are we moving too fast?

Categories: MicroMedia, Web IndustryPosted on November 30th, 2007

It’s my day job (and I spend most of my nights and mornings) staying on top of social technologies, being aware of them, experimenting with them, breaking them, and analyzing them for brands and clients. At least two days this week I worked 15 hours. If I can barely keep up, (I’m not the only one) so how do you?

Are we moving too fast? Leave a comment here, or on the media page.

Update Monday Morning: Thank you all for the kind words and support, I took a few days off blogging (although I had some other work to catch up on) but am now refreshed. I’ve made a resolution to try to look at the trends of the movement, and where I see traction, then I’ll take a closer look at the tools.

Posted in MicroMedia, Web Industry | 34 Comments »

9

Evangelism, Technographics, Culture, and Early Adopters…A lunch time conversation at Mozilla

Categories: Asia, Community Marketing, Europe, Events, Social MediaPosted on November 29th, 2007

(Left: Clever HR ploy or relaxed place to work? Mozilla’s “Beach” must keep vacation requests to a minimum)

Update: My host, Seth has responded from his community blog.

I’ve been an observer of the browser market for some time, since I live much of my awake live within one, and have been privy to interview the IE7 team on their launch, and also have been recently got a demo from Flock’s CEO (my thoughts on the opportunities).

Seth Bindernagel, of Mozilla’s Evangelism team invited me to swing by the Mountain View headquarters, I was in luck, as there were folks from out of town like Gen Kanai (Japan) that I’ve been wanting to meet for quite some time. As soon as I walked in the door, it was apparent these was a very, very savvy web team, so I wasn’t sure how much value I could add. Seth and I discussed in advance that success would be to get the teams to talk about the globalization of the web, how different users share products, and how social media impacts product adoption. You see for Firefox, and other Mozilla products, adoption is often done by customer word of mouth and referral –and blogs empower much of this.

There were a few main topics we hit: From Technographics (how different people use technologies depending on their needs) Early adopters vs Laggerds, and how Marketing and Product teams can improve to listen and talk. For most of these topics, each of the respective teams (Executives, Marketing, User Experience, Analytics, Engineering) had a response, so they were for the most part moving forward.

Technographics
Each culture shares differently online, and when you’re applying social media products (which encourage sharing) you need to be sensitive to understand if they are: creators, joiners, critics, collectors, consumers or inactives. Will internet users that just consume the web, and just visit a few websites a week be interested in the advanced functionality of Mozilla products?

Localization
The web is a fascinating medium, many companies think that by slapping on a .cn or a .de, doing some navigation localization will be enough to get product adoption…rarely is that the case.

Early adopters to laggards
For Firefox, many of the early adopters are the ones that are ’sneezing’ the product to others, and Mozilla has been great reaching to those folks. But what happens when the early adopter market becomes saturated with Firefox and now the focus has to shift down the adoption curve. Should Mozilla rely on ‘traditional’ marketing and advertising?

Stay tuned, I did a couple of web strategy videos talking about social media, marketing in Japanese and European perspectives, and even how to improve products with community, so stay tuned over the next few weeks for those.

Oh, and one of the employees (was it John?) made some funny remarks how Firefox was the greatest thing for IE6 innovation, do you agree or disagree?

Posted in Asia, Community Marketing, Europe, Events, Social Media | 9 Comments »

2

Video: Cyworld, Social Network with Communication, Collaboration, Self-Expression and “Peeping” (2:30)

Categories: Asia, Europe, Interview, Social Networking, VideoPosted on November 29th, 2007

Click To Play

Lars Schwenk, General Manager of Cyworld Europe shared with me what it takes to be a community, we were at Forrester’s Consumer forum in Barcelona.

If you’re not familiar with Cyworld that have heavy penetration in South Korea, (50% of Koreans is a member — and that 95 percent of its target youth market is active -Marketwatch) where it was birthed. Find out his four components of community: Communication, Collaboration, Self-Expression and what he calls “Peeping”. Something I swear I’ve never done.

I asked my Twitter network (over 1700 of them) what questions to ask Lars, and David Berkowitz wanted to know what we could learn from Asia’s deployment of Cyworld and what it means to the United States. If you’re interested in social networks in Asia, I was recently in Singapore and asked their top bloggers (video), two months ago I was in HK and talked to many of the web leaders, check out this four part series.

Cyworld launched in North America yet adoption has been very low, I learned from my travels that social technographics vary by culture, so to simply re skin a website for regions doesn’t work. Web Strategists must understand the people who they want to serve first, one size does not fit all!

Posted in Asia, Europe, Interview, Social Networking, Video | 2 Comments »

131

How I use Twitter, and you?

Categories: MicroMediaPosted on November 29th, 2007

Everyone will approach Twitter in a different way, and should find the way that works for them, here’s my approach on Twitter:

[Rather than answering "What are you doing" reframe your thinking to answer "What's important to my followers and me?"]

How I use Twitter
While I am high volume twitter publisher, I try to add value, here’s how:

1) As a ’shared feed’ reader. I’ll post up links of what I’m reading that I find is interesting in near real time, and give some commentary. I try to add value here, rather than adding to noise. So use me as a news filter.

2) As a chat room. We collectively work out problems, issues, and I gain insight to other people’s viewpoints. Often when conversations are just between a few folks, I shift to direct messages or email –sparing my community from hearing my minutia.

3) Event capture: Lately, when I attend an event (like Mark Cuban’s presentation at BlogWorldExpo, or Teresa’s webinar on Facebook yesterday) I’ll fire off the top nuggets I learn/

4) Listening tool: It’s interesting to find out what others are sharing and talking about, from very personal to big concepts. I frequently use the search tools around different topics to keep on top of what’s happening.

5) Traffic driving tool: I use it to direct people to this blog, sometimes (I’ll admit) a bit too enthusiastically. Google Analytics indicates this is one of the largest referrers of folks to my blog.

6) For work: When I’m conducting interviews or briefings that aren’t confidential, I’ll state who I’m speaking to and what I find interesting, if you listen closely, you’ll hear me tweet about other interesting findings from my job as a social media analyst. Also, I will announce new research, request interviews, and promote workshops, conferences and other services.

How I don’t use Twitter

1) Personal Minutia: I rarely talk about waking up, eating lunch, or starting my car, instead, I want to add value.

2) Excessive personal discussions: I’ve been criticized for not @replying at people, but it’s because I’m sensitive to not overload the community with a discussion that’s only relevant to a few people. Instead, I may direct message them, favorite a tweet, or shift to email. Update as of Sept 2008, I have sent/received over 4000 direct messages, out of 10,000 updates. So 40% of my communications shift to private discussions.

A few people have found me too noisy (filling up their stream) but there’s a simple solution, although I would hate to see it happen, one can simply opt-out. You’ve got to do what’s right for you and I understand.

If you’re a Web Strategist at a company or agency, read Web Strategy: What the Web Strategist should know about Twitter.

I hope to see you on Twitter, add me as a contact. Also, one of the keys to Twitter is to add people you know, it then becomes more like a chat room. Following me alone isn’t sufficient, see a list of active twitter accounts on Twitter Poster.

So, how do you use Twitter?

Recent Mentions About My Twitter Usage

Business Week: CEOs talk about who they follow on Twitter, see what CEO of Mzinga, and CEO of SocialText said.

Mashable: Twitter Professors: 18 People to Follow for a Real Time Education

ZDNet: The 10 best techies worth following on Twitter

Posted in MicroMedia | 131 Comments »

14

Two Upcoming Webinars, Join Me! (And Seth Godin)

Categories: Conference, Social MediaPosted on November 29th, 2007

Relax from the location of your own desk or home and listen in to learn how to best use social media tools to enhance your web strategy. Here’s a few upcoming webinars I’ll be participating in, please join me.

Your Social Network Strategy: Join or Build?
My first official Forrester Teleconference

My first research report will be answering this topic, and I’ll be presenting my findings and give marketers practical steps to move forward. Many of you are already familiar with my extensive coverage of the social networking industry, and even this well read list of “white label social networks”

“The social networking industry is hot and hyped, leaving marketers confused on how to strategically engage. Marketers are being asked by their management to develop a Facebook/MySpace strategy without first looking at the bigger picture. With nearly 80 white label social networking sites available, some brands invest in building their own social network around their brand but, sadly, with no one showing up. Marketers need knowledge and strategy before jumping into a social network craze. This teleconference presents actionable steps on what to do before implementing a program”

Using Social Media to Grow Your Business

This presentation is scheduled to begin on Friday, December 7, 2007, at 1:00 P.M. U.S. Eastern / 10:00 A.M. U.S. Pacific.

Steve Mann, SAP Total Customer Experience, Competitive Program Office, Services Marketing

Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester Research Senior Analyst and Web Strategist

Seth Godin, Worldwide Best-Selling Author

Moderator: Robin Fray Carey, Social Media Today

Looking forward to seeing you online, and talking to you!

Posted in Conference, Social Media | 14 Comments »

13

A Debate: Can the Social Graph be Monetized?

Categories: Events, Social GraphPosted on November 28th, 2007

Background info: Social Graph
If you’re not familiar with the social graph, it’s a representation of our relationships in social networks. There’s a movement underway to be able to separate our social graphs from the social networks, so we can ‘transport’ our friends whatever website we decide to use –without having to re add them. Start with Explaining what the “Social Graph” is to your Executives.

Last night, at a roundtable hosted by the Conversation Group and new company called Something Simpler we conversed > debated > argued if the Social Graph can indeed be monetized.

Naysayers
Tom Foremski also fears monetization and suggests that “I think this could be the Achilles’ heel of social networks–if you push the monetization too far–you will lose your networks.” Tom wasn’t alone, as Om Malik suggested that the only way you could monetize the graph was to ‘pimp your friends’.

Hopefuls
Yet John McCrea and I agreed, I suggested that authentic, efficient, word-of-mouth can evolve to information no longer being advertising. I’m talking about natural endorsements. How could this work? It happens every day. Many of my friends tell me which brands they like by simply wearing the logos, driving a brand car, to outright telling me what they like. Can this truly be different on the web? Why does it scare us so? I mean just last night, Salim Ismail from Yahoo’s Brickhouse (also on the panel) whispered into my ear, he had questions about my new Nokia N95, I gave him my clear and honest feedback –without being paid by Karl Long, Nokia’s top blogger.

Even if we agreed, aggregating the Social Graph isn’t easy
The challenges continue to mount, besides the fact we can’t agree if we should move forward, trying to implement will be a challenge. Aggregating the social graph (which is what we’re trying to do) has many obstacles, here’s a few from a recent blog post on the topic:

-Social Network vendors scared to open up and let customers and their relationships easily move to other networks
-Agreement needed between all vendors and participants
-Ownership over project and data
-Lack of general market awareness
-User adoption (sadly, I think most users are sheep)
-Likely, a need for a single login
-Creation and costs of third-party silo
-Privacy concerns: many European countries may not embrace
-Multiple security issues
-Legal and government may get involved

[When it comes to friends and marketing, trust continues to be a point of contention. Yet for every free service people rush to use, they forget that they are the ones entering the data, and that companies need to monetize. A balance must be struck as success will require trusted and authentic marketing]

Votes from around the room
If things weren’t cloudy enough, at the close, we went around the room to give our final thoughts and to answer “Can the Social Graph be Monetized?”. Chris Heuer was recording, and I hope he posts it up, yet I took a tally from the attendees.

Votes | Answer
3 - Users must engage with social graph first/ monetization comes later
2 - Brands will benefit by ‘pullling’ social graphs (communities) to their site
2 - Over advertising will kill it
1 - Embed in Value now
1 - Advertising (but must be honest) can work
2 - It can’t be monetized

Your voice wanted
Enough. Let’s turn it over to you. Can the social graph be monetized? Chime in the comments. What would make it work, what are the pitfalls. Can marketers make money in an authentic and trustful way using social networks?

Posted in Events, Social Graph | 13 Comments »

2

Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Nov 28, 2007

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on November 28th, 2007

I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly summary, please send to your busy executives.

I’ve created a new category called Digest where you can start to track and access these going forward. Quickly scan the succinct and categorized headlines, read summary for analysis, and click link to dive in for more. You can subscribe to this digest tag only, which filters only these posts tagged digest.

Need to make decisions about your web strategy? I’m here to help: subscribe to my blog, sign up for emails (right nav), follow me on Twitter, or add me on Facebook (I’ll add you back for each).

Web Strategy Summary
I’m starting to hear of OpenSocial creep into strategies of many brands, including companies that are briefing me. Privacy continues to be a major concern as users feel uncomfortable with how their data is being used, expect this backlash to continue as marketing becomes more personal. Money is starting to trickle into this space, from IPOs of older and existing social networks.

Trends: The social web with the Giant Global Graph
Tim Berners Lee in his latest blog post, supports the Giant Global Graph (GGG), which suggests that what’s really important on the web isn’t documents or the data, but the relationships and people and topics that we’re interacting with. As we evolve and shift to the socialized web, we should expect to share content with peers online.

Privacy: Beacon cause concern, backlash forming
Colleague Charlene pointed out to me last week that she’s seeing how Beacon can really expose personal information to her online network –without her expressed consent. The problem may not be entirely on Facebook’s shoulders, as the third party companies that are partnered with this social selling program should be held accountable by allowing the service to be opt-in, and not opt-out. Respect of users is critical for success.

NewsFeed: MySpace to replicate Newsfeed –a nod to OpenSocial
In order for viral apps to spread among a community the newsfeed has been invaluable at Facebook. No surprise that MySpace appears to be gearing up to launch the same feature, giving developers in the upcoming OpenSocial movement an opportunity to quickly share.

Money: Classmates.com early Social Network to IPO
One of the oldest with a strong hold with baby boomers in North America is going to have an IPO –a rare exit strategy for web companies. They’re looking at a total 12M Class a Shares and Price at $10 to $12 Each. So that means a total an estimate of about $117.7 million after fees and expenses.

Advertising: China’s Alibaba seeks monetization
This recently IPO’d SMB online marketplace Social Network launched web advertising products. Alibaba, which calls this product Alimama (which has been tested) will have ties to blog advertising.

Performance: Yahoo 360 reliable, MSN Spaces not so much
With users spending an average of 20 minutes on some social networks, the need for dedicated website uptime is critical –especially when you’ve got paying advertisers or customers. This list compiles which websites have the best performance, where Yahoo 360 (an unremarkable social network) is followed by Facebook to lead the pack. MSN Spaces suffers from the most downtime.

Talent: Facebook is the “Cool” company
I live very closer to Facebook, and can drive to Google, and have friends working at both. While Google is still clearly the established leader, there’s been a few rumors being discussed as Facebook as the “hot” company to work for, and talent leaves. With Google’s stock prices being so high, many who join are interested in the great culture, and amenities, but the promise of ‘cashing out’ still is the desire for many Facebook employees.

Stats: LinkedIn and Facebook have largest growth
Take a look at the growth percent numbers of Facebook and Linkedin, both are way above the 150% mark. Myspace has single digit growth, but has an established foothold with a large audience. The other to watch? Disney’s club penguin, with small numbers, has over 150% growth.

Privacy: Youth not sensible, Political Crackdowns
Many of today’s youths are putting tremendous amount of personal information online without giving thought to future employers, colleges, fraudsters and the malicious. BBC explores the alarming trend of youth an their online footprint precedes their reputation. In a somewhat similar situation, the government of Syria is using information within social networks to track criminals –digital finger prints may just be easier to track.

Demographics: Facebook mainly women, US, UK, Canada
Great data here, this graph (click on image to see full size) indicates a breakdown of self-identified Facebook users, most from US, UK, Canada, and a majority are female. It would be great if the graph could further break down ‘penetration’ by country, so we can see which countries have the highest adoption rates.

Although I’ve been doing this digest for a while, I’ve recently become an analyst covering this space, so I need to know what’s happening. If I missed any stories (or if your company is doing something cool in this space) leave a comment.

Need to know more? Here’s 10 Web Strategy articles I wish you would read.

Posted in Digest, Social Networking | 2 Comments »

33

Ten Web Strategy Blog Posts I wish you’d read

Categories: Reading SamplerPosted on November 26th, 2007

I’m answering a lot of questions and see myself referring to the same blog posts and concepts over and over. There’s a few posts that I recommend that you read, some of them were published a few months ago, but are starting to become very relevant. In fact, I’ll send this post to a few clients that need to get up to speed.

If you’re new to my blog, or need a quick review, please read these 10 posts:

1) The Three Spheres of Web Strategy (and the skills required)
It’s a role at many large corporations, a program and defines a scope. Find out what it means (the three spheres) the roles and requirements needed to do it right.

2) How to explain Open Social to your executives.
There’s a lot of geek talk about this new alliance between Google, MySpace, Six Apart, LinkedIn, Oracle, and Salesforce, but what does it really mean? I explain in clear English with my analysis.

3) How to evolve your Irrelevant corporate website
When I first introduced this concept at a conference, some audience members were not happy with me, they felt threatened that all of their energy fixing the corporate website will need to change. The earth turns.

4) Edgeworks Concept: How Social Media impacts Company Communications (Expanding upon Brian Oberkirch’s theory)
Are you in corporate communications or PR? This one is for you.

5) What the Web Strategist should know about Twitter
“Twitter, a scalable instant messaging service, is being used by early adopters in the tech industry, what is it? and how can it improve my communications?”

6) The Many Forms of Web Marketing for the 2007 Web Strategist
“This document catalogs the many tools and tactics available for corporate web strategy in 2007. Even if your strategy or resource limitations restrict you from entering all spaces, awareness of the changes in our digital landscape are critical.”

7) Explaining what the “Social Graph” is to your Executives
Similar to the one listed above, this explains the concept, again in boiled down easy to understand English.

8 ) Web Strategy: The Many Forms of Monetization using the Web
Here’s all the various ways that companies can generate revenues from their website.

9) The Impacts of Social Media on Corporate Customer Reference Programs
Traditionally, these programs have companies harvest customer opinions and hand back (filtered) to customers. What happens when customers talk to themselves directly.

10) Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle
For the corporation that is really advanced and wants to apply social media to all aspects of the customer experience. Do not attempt until your organization is ready.

In a few days, I plan to break down VRM and Intention economy, still doing some reading on it.

Posted in Reading Sampler | 33 Comments »

0

Web Strategy Reading: Nov 28th, 2007

Categories: Reading SamplerPosted on November 26th, 2007

Video: KD Paine on Social Media Measurement, on Program Plans, Strategies, and Best Practices

Categories: Interview, Social Media Measurement, Video, Web Analytics, Web Marketing, Web Strategy ShowPosted on November 26th, 2007

Katie Paine shares how internal teams use measurement of social media, she’s been doing PR measurement for years, and has evolved to measure social media. She’s often told me “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. Of course, trying to manage social media has been hotly debated in my last post.

She invited me to present at her metrics conference a few months ago, but new hire training took priority. She’s one of the top thinkings and practitioners in the space, so give her your full attention in this video. Learn more about her company KDPaine and Partners, thanks KD for your time.

You may remember the video blog, Web Strategy Show I used to run at PodTech (my previous employer), the show is designed for those who make decisions for websites, (I call it a Video White Paper) and I interviewed many of the top thought and practice leaders in our industry. These videos tend to be longer in duration, I use a tripod, and we discuss the topics in advance. This is different than my quick “street” video shots I do with my digital camera.

Having left PodTech, (a great place for content creators, as I get to take my show with me) I didn’t get a chance to publish all my tapes (there’s just a few interviews left), and put out a blog post to see if anyone wanted to publish them on my behalf. Cece, from On24.com, a webcasting and media company for some well known brands, immediately contacted me and followed-up. They have a quite a few other videos focused on IT and Marketing topics, on Insight24. They’ve even created a specific channel for the Web Strategy show.

Thanks to Cece and the very professional On24 team!

Posted in Interview, Social Media Measurement, Video, Web Analytics, Web Marketing, Web Strategy Show | 2 Comments »

80

The Four Tenets of the Community Manager

Categories: Community Manager, Community Marketing, Web IndustryPosted on November 25th, 2007

Summary
The budding Community Manager industry holds 4 tenets; these values resonate as a common thread within the role. The include community advocation, brand ambassadorship, online communication skills, and product requirements gathering and improvements.

Methodology
Recently, I’ve been doing some research on the Community Manager role, which is appearing at most brands that take online communities and communication seriously. This was a role I had this role at Hitachi Data Systems, and many of my friends and peers have this role around the industry, and I’ve written about it extensively.

16 real job descriptions
I put out requests on Twitter, blog and email to get submissions, as well as scoured the public job listings and I’ve reviewed 16 job descriptions from companies ranging from LinkedIn, Buzz about wireless (Sprint), Vancity, Communispace, Imagination Corp, Microsoft, Flock VMware, GamesforChange, Disney, ACDsee, Dogster, SimplyHired, Yahoo, and many others. It was a global sample from B2B to B2C, and the beliefs and values that these individuals require in the job description indicate a direct pattern.

The Four Tenets of the Community Manager
In the following, I’m not going to list out all my findings, but it was clear there were 4 number of Tenets, or beliefs that each role holds. In nearly all the job descriptions, the following beliefs were spelled out as requirements for the role.

1) A Community Advocate
As a community advocate, the community managers’ primary role is to represent the customer. This includes listening, which results in monitoring, and being active in understanding what customers are saying in both the corporate community as well as external websites. Secondly, they engage customers by responding to their requests and needs or just conversations, both in private and in public.

2) Brand Evangelist
In this evangelistic role (it goes both ways) the community manager will promote events, products and upgrades to customers by using traditional marketing tactics and conversational discussions. As proven as a trusted member of the community (tenet 1) the individual has a higher degree of trust and will offer good products.

3) Savvy Communication Skills, Shapes Editorial
This tenet, which is both editorial planning and mediation serves the individual well. The community manager should first be very familiar with the tools of communication, from forums, to blogs, to podcasts, to twitter, and then understand the language and jargon that is used in the community. This individual is also responsible for mediating disputes within the community, and will lean on advocates, and embrace detractors –and sometimes removing them completely. Importantly, the role is responsible for the editorial strategy and planning within the community, and will work with many internal stakeholders to identify content, plan, publish, and follow up.

4) Gathers Community Input for Future Product and Services Perhaps the most strategic of all tenets, community managers are responsible for gathering the requirements of the community in a responsible way and presenting it to product teams. This may involve formal product requirements methods from surveys to focus groups, to facilitating the relationships between product teams and customers. The opportunity to build better products and services through this real-time live focus group are ripe, in many cases, customer communities have been waiting for a chance to give feedback.

While there is much deeper research on this role to be completed such as where are they, how much do they make, who do they report to, best practices, etc, I’ll just be publishing the above. Thank you so much to all those who’ve submitted content to me.

Additional Resources
I’ve been very involved with this new role, here’s some related content:

Meet your peers and Join the Community Manager group in Facebook

Understanding the Community/Evangelist Role, and profiles of a few of my Favorite Folks

Capture from the Community UnConference
Forum One Community Roundtable–Strategies for Community

Video of Dell: When the Web team leads product development, the evolution of Dell Hell to Dell Swell

Video: Web Strategy Show: Community Strategies with Jake McKee

Update: Also see this association of community managers (IOCMA) that are now calling for members (link via Connie)

(Update: based upon comment feedback, I modified the language of this 4th tenet for clarification, thanks Shashib, and Connie)

(Update 2: Kevin adds a lot to the conversation and challenges the idea that “They aren’t your communities to manage“, also read Evan’s response to Kevin.)

Posted in Community Manager, Community Marketing, Web Industry | 80 Comments »

0

Video: MySpace’s Jay Stevens shares the value of Community (3:30)

Categories: Europe, MySpace, Social NetworkingPosted on November 24th, 2007

Click To Play

Jay Stevens, an executive for MySpace EMEA, was one of the keynotes at Forrester’s recent Consumer Forum conference. He shared with me the value of community, his definition of community (find out what “peeping” is all about) and the opportunities afforded to marketers who use social networks to connect with customers. He gives a few kick steps to get started, a must-know for anyone getting ready, what’s the recommendation? Get a strategy.

I also was live blogging his presentation Marketing in a Networked Culture if you want to get more in depth information, thanks Jay for your time.

Posted in Europe, MySpace, Social Networking | No Comments »

13

Reviewing the Nokia N95

Categories: Feedback, MobilePosted on November 23rd, 2007

I recently received into my possession a Nokia N95, one of the top phones from the Nokia line. I was intending to buy this phone, but apparently Nokia had provided Charlene with one for analysis. I’ll be reviewing the phone, it’s features, and web capabilities over the coming weeks.

Initial Attractions: Large screen and 5 megapixel camera. The last time I ran into phones of this quality, I was in Japan (live video streaming via cell phones were already available). I take a lot of pictures (over 20,000 in flickr) so this will help me reduce gear –gotta love convergence.

Setup: I went to AT&T, the only service provider (I asked my twitter network for help, responses came in fast) and signed up for a low voice plan and unlimited data plan ($20) and $5 worth of monthly text messaging (for Twitter). Picked up a jawbone headset, will test this too.

Expectations:

1) I hope to be able to fully manage my blog comments, approving comments, and alerts easily.
2) Access websites like Techmeme and my feedreader with ease, and the rest of the world wide web.
3) Use this as my ongoing camera and video capture going forward. (see this flickr pool of N95 photos)

What’s better, the iPhone or the Nokia N95? Robert says the iPhone is better, but the N95’s camera saves it.

One of Nokia’s top bloggers and social media strategist is, Karl Long who I run into quite frequently, if this topic is of interest to you, I recommend you read his blog, or connect with him.

Posted in Feedback, Mobile | 13 Comments »

8

How to give Feedback to brands using Social Software

Categories: Feedback, Social MediaPosted on November 22nd, 2007

Today is Thanksgiving, an American Holiday where we give thanks for all that we have, and we do it with others. What a perfect time to discuss sharing and feedback in the social sphere.

Social feedback is a good thing, if done correctly, it can help companies include customers and prospects in shaping better products and services, I’m all for it (and have written about it extensively) and am in the position companies to participate.

A few days ago, I gave my public feedback about three brands on my blog, most of which responded in a timely fashion. Having been on the receiving end many times for public feedback for my employer, I know what it feels like.

[While it's so easy for consumers to 'blast' at brands with negative criticism, let's consider taking the high route to encourage better behavior from brands, give them actionable recommendations, and be accountable as brands respond. These social tools give us the opportunity to build a better products and services, let's use them responsibly and maximize their abilities]

Today, I’d like to set forth some ground rules for those who plan on leaving feedback from their social tools. These will help both the customer, their network and peers, and the brand to make improvements.

How to give Feedback to brands using Social Software:

1) Put yourself in the position of others
For many, posting their brand grievances online is a frustrating and liberating experience, a swell of emotion will be part of the experience, including the desire to lash out and spread the frustration you once had. While it’s never a great idea to post when you’re emotional, consider how the readers of the post will feel. Your network and friends, will they glean the helpful information about the dangers in the product or service if it’s filled with emotion and four letter curse words? Secondly, consider yourself in the position of the recepient of the bad news, by griping will it make them more likely or less likely to respond? Try substituting the name of the brand you’re complaining about with your own company’s brand and see how it goes.

So write out your feedback in the way you feel, then walk away for an hour, and take another look, does it meet the criteria listed above? Remember good online feedback isn’t just about you releasing your frustration, but also about improving products and services for you, your friends, and the brand. Also, be sure this is the right place for feedback, if the company has an active support forum, you may want to at least post there first, or cross post, linking them together.

2) Don’t just complain, give recommendations
It’s so easy to point out the faults of others, I could spend all day writing a gripe post about every brand I come into contact with. The responsible and sensible contributor will offer recommendations or scenarios to help improve the service. Really call it out, and spend the time to make it actionable for these companies, it’s quite possible they’ve never looked at it directly from your perspective (scary huh?) and when management reads your post (not filtered through corporate politics) they’ll have a better sense of what you want.

Spend the time to make sensible and realistic recommendations, what could a brand do that would win your trust over and you’d be willing to tell others about. Do keep in mind that there are often strategic limitations that can’t appease every request, but at least these brands have a starting point.

3) If the company responds, acknowledge, be collaborative
Now the table is turning. I’ve spoken at many conferences for PR and marketing and I encourage those on point to respond quickly, authentically and with genuine concern –even if they don’t have the answer right away. Many times, bloggers just want to know that they are being heard. Here’s how the roles reverse; after providing your feedback (given the two conditions above) and the company responds via email or comments, you are expected to update your post to reflect the actions of the brand. Why is this? remember that we’re working in a collaborative sense to offer feedback, and that requires communication both to and from. Secondly, it’s likely your feedback will easily be found on the internet (for many years to come) and you should certainly offer a company reprise if they’ve really earned it. If you remember the example of Jeff Jarvis’ Dell Hell example, he’s know touting the virtues of Dell –as they’ve come full circle.

So update your posts when your brand first contacts you, but more importantly after issues have been resolved or fixed, it’s the responsible thing to do. No need to do in real time, just be sensible.

So there you have it social folks, here’s some guidelines that I will be following in my online feedback, and I hope that you pass this to others, as with these many social tools the opportunity to build better products and services is here.

This is one of the ways a web strategist gives thanks!

Posted in Feedback, Social Media | 8 Comments »

16

Insight Community Vendors: List of Companies that provide Community Insights, Intelligence, Research and Data

Categories: Community Marketing, Industry Index, Social Computing, Social Media MeasurementPosted on November 22nd, 2007

There’s a new class of company that has emerged, they offer insight, intelligence, and data about communities that can help improve products, service, and the interactions between customers and brands.

Not to be confused with community tools, such as this List of “White Label” (Applications you can Rebrand) Social Networking Platforms these companies harvest insights, make sense of it, and arm business to make adaptive and iterative changes. And not to be confused with companies that Companies that Measure Social Media, Influence, and Brand.

List of Companies that provide Community Insights, Intelligence, Research and Data

Listed in Alphabetical order

Communispace
“Since 1999, we have created and managed more than 275 online customer communities to help our clients deeply engage with, and listen to, customers in ways that deliver extraordinary insights, generating phenomenal business results. We enable companies to operationalize what it really means to be close to the customer throughout their organization by offering full service community capabilities–from strategic planning and design to member recruitment to expert facilitation, insights and analysis reporting.”

Impact Interactions
“Impact Interactions is dedicated to aligning strategies with organizations’ business goals to produce significant, measurable results. Impact Interactions has helped numerous organizations such as AARP, Cisco, Intel, and SAP create highly successful relationships with their site visitors while providing industry leading reporting on the site’ success.”

MarketTools (of Zoomerang)
“MarketTools leads the way to understanding the opinions, desires and motivations of your customers. As the defining provider of market research for the on-demand era, MarketTools helps you connect with the universe of voices within your target market or gives you the tools to do it yourself—so that you can make the right decision.”

Networked Insight
“At the intersection of social networking, collective intelligence and search, Networked Insights discovers customers’ needs as they happen. Armed with our insights, businesses can fundamentally improve their products, the way they market them and how they communicate with their customers…built to help companies discover customer insights as they happen. We have developed the first technology platform to both engage and stimulate interactions among passionate consumers while enabling businesses to tap into the insights gleaned from these interactions…provides Customer Interaction Networks that help businesses tap into the collective knowledge and sentiments of their customers to drive better business decisions.”

Satmetrix
“Most companies gather customer feedback in one form or another, yet few are able to see financial results from that effort. We deliver the technology and expertise to: Get the right feedback from the right people at the right time, Distribute the actionable insights to employees so they can take action and change the results, Build an enterprise view of relationships and interactions that impact overall customer loyalty, Link loyalty data to financial and operational metrics to evaluate its impact on the business.”

Passenger
“With Passenger® powered communities, brands gain contextual insight, drive innovation and build advocacy - through ongoing customer collaboration.”

If you know of others in this space (please understand the scope first) please leave a comment, thanks!

Posted in Community Marketing, Industry Index, Social Computing, Social Media Measurement | 16 Comments »

4

Forum Videos are now up –see Video Archives

Categories: Forrester, VideoPosted on November 21st, 2007

Charlene just posted that the videos captured from the Forrester Consumer forum in Chicago last month are live and well (actually, they’ve been published for a while). I recommend you check out the video highlights, which include segments from.

In a previous post, I outlined some of nuggets, such as:

Richard Edelman was insightful from the top of the mountain, Christie Hefner delivered powerful examples of virtual worlds and social networks, Christina Norman of MTV pushed energy into her polished presentation. The Zefrank, Jeremy Allaire, and Pud panel is the most entertaining, but if you’re thinking of implementing a social media strategy, listen to Charlene’s presentation followed by Josh. I live blogged the event, see my day 1 coverage, and day 2.

And I’m throwing a touchdown pass to Andrew, the videos do work in Firefox, I’m watching Christie Hefner of Playboy right now! (update: Andrew is actually referring to the slides, and Charlene has responded on his blog, thanks Andrew for looking out)

Posted in Forrester, Video | 4 Comments »

10

Video: How to be a professional video blogger, interview with Steve Garfield (2 minutes)

Categories: Interview, VideoPosted on November 21st, 2007

Many video bloggers have emerged, but very few have been able to turn it into a profession, how’d he do it? tune into this video, and found out what motivated him.

Steve Garfield is a videoblogging hero. He’s one of the few in the medium that is able to monetize, hold an audience and continue to build great content. For the industry (I was in it) it was difficult, although there are advertising and sponsorship dollars, they’ve not shifted over from the TV audience (although it’s clear eyeballs are moving to the web).

One of the things Steve prescribes is to keep videos short, you’ll notice I have two types of videos, long form “web strategy show” videos that are 10-15 min, and “street style quick interviews” that are 2 minutes. I try to list my time codes, esp when they are short, I want to respect your time.

I really enjoy Steve’s online charisma and energy, for some reason, he presentation and delivery reminds me of the great Jerry Seinfield. That’s saying a lot, as I’ve met a lot of our famous video bloggers after working at PodTech.

I’ve been slowly posting the Boston videos to my blog, (I space things out over time) and Steve was the best, and therefore the last, yesterday he actually beat me to the punch, and posted on his blog. Be sure to see his vlog post on mediasnacking.

Steve, thanks for taking the time, we really enjoy all that you share.

Posted in Interview, Video | 10 Comments »

8

Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: Nov 21, 2007

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on November 21st, 2007

I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly summary, please send to your busy executives.

I’ve created a new category called Digest where you can start to track and access these going forward. Quickly scan the succinct and categorized headlines, read summary for analysis, and click link to dive in for more. You can subscribe to this digest tag only, which filters only these posts tagged digest.

Need to make decisions about your web strategy? I’m here to help: subscribe to my blog, sign up for emails (right nav), follow me on Twitter, or add me on Facebook (I’ll add you back for each).

Web Strategy Summary
I’m starting to notice the changes that open social concept is bringing to the social networking space. Although nothing has been deployed in full force, the desire for companies to quickly become ‘open’ or not be part of the party is evident. Most of the below are updates, there hasn’t been any amazing news this week. Confused about Open Social? here’s how to explain it to your executives.

Money: YouTube monetization moving slowly
Co-Founder Stephen Chen suggests that monetization will happen, but will take some time, at the New TV conference in SF this last week. Here’s why: at AdTech it was greatly discussed that the advertising dollars were still on the TV and will slowly move over to the web, which we shall start to see in 2009-2001.

Advertising: Is Facebook’s Social Ads a success?
All Facebook is reporting that Fred Wilson has been experimenting with Facebook advertising and having limited success. In this one example they provided they had 8 click throughs for a bundle of 1000 ad inventory. I still have had my dashboard properly populated by Facebook for my $20 test.

Linkedin: The Second Coming?
Bernard at RWW has a great analysis on LinkedIn, the good’s the bad’s and the potential futures. He suggests that LinkedIn, while criticized in the past, compared to Facebook reaches 80% of his contacts, has some limitations and hopes to see some future features from it.

Growth: OpenSocial Spurs Plaxo adoption
The team over at Plaxo must be excited, as they’ve really been on the forefront of open and shared aggregated personal information. With the announcement of OpenSocial, this was no different, they’ve really benefited as adoption has increased. I noticed this too, as I started to get invites from folks to join Plaxo.

Media: MySpace music ads to bypass music stores
MySpace, which is cleverly leaning on it’s already media hungry audience, is going to experiment with ads that promote music downloads for a fee. This new revenue stream is a great idea, making MySpace a container of a music store, and saving the digital natives time from purchasing it elsewhere. All I can say is, what took so long?

Mobile: To interact, users lean on cell phones
As mobile continues to proper in Asia and Europe (and slowly gain traction in North America) internet users will continue to access their social network inbox, feeds, and track their friends updates. For many, this trend will increase according to CNN as “Just as you receive e-mail and instant messages on your cell, you can now access the “status updates” and buddy profiles that are a fixture on social networks.” Companies that create social networks should start planning on making the mobile experience great.

Branding: Coke vs Fox branding on Facebook
Great blog posts here analyzing the difference between online personas of Coke vs Fox. Companies need to let down their guard, and join the conversation and communicate with the community. Not just replicate their corporate site.

Normalization: Google + Orkut, when do they marry?
Google, which boasts many users that have registered for their products, has an amazing opportunity to add social features across all of their products. Nate suggests that the first place to integrate would be to tie the Google Groups list serv tools with it’s social network product, Orkut. In the future, we should expect all of Google’s products to be movable and portable, and then interacting with social features.

Revolt: Backlash against Facebook’s Beacon
Moveon has decided to take it on themselves to boycott, protest, and start a petition against Beacon so “…that no Facebook user should have their private purchases online posted for the entire world to see without their explicit opted-in permission.” Have we stopped to review all the terms of service first? I somehow suspect it’s going to take a lot for Facebook to change it’s latest monetization effort.

Although I’ve been doing this digest for a while, I’ve recently become an analyst covering this space, so I need to know what’s happening. If I missed any stories (or if your company is doing something cool in this space) leave a comment.

Posted in Digest, Social Networking | 8 Comments »

29

Brands not respecting my time, and how to fix it (Updated)

Categories: FeedbackPosted on November 20th, 2007

I’ve a few experiences recently where I found very frustrating, and think it’s important to share with others. One, so others are aware of potential pitfalls, and secondly, hopefully brands can be improved in the future. Rather than just rant, I’ll provide some analysis and make some recommendations how things could be done better.

Real Player:
Recently, I downloaded Real Player to my new business laptop, it was required for a specific media format. I was disappointed in all the ways they tried to embed themselves as being the default player, adding different features, and trying to ’spider’ itself across my PC. Most of the options required a savvy user to opt-out, rather than opt-in for these unwanted features. Despite my being careful (this is not time being spent productively) apparently I missed one and a Weather Channel desktop widget was deployed in my system tray on my desktop. I did not want his tool, and removing it became equally as painful.

As a user, I don’t feel that Real Player has respected my rights, and I recommend they make these extra features (most laden with marketing and advertising) as an opt-in, not a opt-out. Instead, build resources for your community that they actually want, and have asked for, rather than pushing it on them.

Update (A few hours later): Ryan Luckin from Real Networks has left a comment, suggesting that the recently launched upgrade will solve these issues, including the removal of popups in the current player. Thanks Ryan for the prompt and helpful comment. I’ll check out the product when I get time.

Delta Airlines:
I almost didn’t make it to Barcelona last week, as I wasn’t able to get my printed tickets in hand on time. I thought it would be ok to check in using my confirmation numbers, but they required printed tickets (which were at home). The gentleman at the desk, without even looking at me, said he couldn’t help me, and I’ll need to get my printed tickets. Unfortuantly, I was in Las Vegas, the tickets were in San Francisco and the flight was leaving in 2 hours. Needless to say, not a good situation. He didn’t offer any suggestions to help me but encouraged me to contact my travel agent, and reiterated “I can’t help you”. That really pissed me off (as well as made me panic a bit), I had to collect myself, and then after a few minutes request to purchase new tickets (which he didn’t even suggest) and then he asked another attendee to help me, he didn’t even want to deal with me. Obviously, things got sorted out, as I purchased new tickets, but had to leave 16 hours later, and be bounced from three planes from Vegas to Barcelona.

What could have been done better? The customer service folks can always help me, don’t ever tell customers ‘you can’t help them’, yet where there are options to help them. Ultimately things worked out, but the customer service reps that go the extra mile win the adoration of their customers.

PeopleSoft:
Recently, I had to use this enterprise software to input my travel expenses, it’s a long and tedious process, with a cludgy user interface, and non-intuitive controls and buttons. I always know enterprise software when I see it, as it comes with a manual, and often a training class. Products on the world wide web that I frequently use are often so easy to use –respecting my time. As I completed entering in dozens of entries, I would continue to ’save for later’, and the system acknowledged these changes. Apparently this was not sufficient, as you exited the system you needed to do one more save in order for the previous saves to go into account. I didn’t do this, and was surprised to find the next day the hour (or more) of data entry input was reduced to only 4 entries. Frustrating to say the least.

How can enterprise software be fixed? I’m not sure, I’ll bet it’s complicated, but let’s try to put users first, when they press ’save’, let’s really mean it.

Update (A few hours later): Jake from Oracle Mix labs left a comment suggesting I join their online community to provide feedback. In the spirit of social collaboration (that’s what I’m all about) I signed up, my user profile is here, if you’re already a member and want to connect.

It’s rare that I criticize products and companies in public, but I’ve highlighted my experience, and was thoughtful enough to provide recommendations, rather than just rant.

What should brands do to get back in my good graces? Acknowledge my situation and strive to make improvements. I’ll be gentle (having been a community manager) so don’t feel intimidated, I’ll treat you with professional courtesy I would expect in your situation. Curious to see which brands respond first.

By the way, that was great therapy, I feel much better.

Special Note, on being a responsible blogger I’m keeping this post updated as the companies respond. It’s the right thing to do as a responsible blogger, as when a company embraces a customer back, the blogger should point out responses. So far, we’re setting a good example between social collaboration between customer and company, and living the benefits for both parties –let’s build better products and services.

Update: (A few days later) This post has inspired me to give some practical ways you can give feedback to brands, please read: How to give Feedback to brands using Social Software.

Posted in Feedback | 29 Comments »

2

Video: What’s Marketing Profs? Ann Handley explains in 2 minutes

Categories: Interview, Social Media, Video, Web MarketingPosted on November 20th, 2007

Click To Play

One of my favorite people I’ve had the chance to meet online, do some joint projects, and finally meet in person is the wonderful Ann Handley of Marketing Profs. What is Marketing Profs? I describe it as a user group, trade pub, educational resource, and of course a community. They have a blog, twitter account, and Facebook account, so go sync with them. Ann and her team does a great job providing never ending great content for Marketers, all packaged nicely and tightly for their audience. I was so pleased to meet her in Boston at the blogger dinner, and we immediately hit it off as we did online.

Ann has been leading up the social media aspect of the company, listen in to find out what tools she’s been using, sorry for the shaky cam, I’m usually better, it was a long night, I recorded quite a few interviews that night.

Posted in Interview, Social Media, Video, Web Marketing | 2 Comments »