People are still craving knowledge about social media
I just finished the social media measurement seminar with Glenn Fannick of Dow Jones (Update: He’s since posted some poll results). It was a free seminar, so there were a lot of registrants (over 1100) the actual attendee roster was over 600, but what was most impressive was the engagement of the audience, there were lots of responses to the three polls we queried and over 190 questions. Justin Flowers said he learned a lot from the webinar (his expectations were low since it was free), and there are dozens of responses within Twitter. The webinar will be available for anyone, and the slides, so stay tuned for that.

Yet, many organizations have not adopted
One of the questions from the crowd was “how do I convince my management to embrace this new social media world?” It was interesting to hear that many folks are having a hard time convincing their management to join in this scary new online world, where customers are talking directly to prospects and your employees are no where to be seen. Convincing management (often digital immigrants) to join the online world (where digital natives live) can be challenging.

Look at the coming generation
I suggested that a conversation start with executives about the changes in communication, and if they have pictures of kids of their desk, that’s a good way to start the conversation. Ask you senior leaders how their kids communicate, if they don’t (perhaps they’re too busy running the company) ask them to take a closer look, and get back to you. My former CEO analyzed that his kids were using IM on PC, surfing the web, Text messaging on phone, school work on the couch next to them and the TV on in the background…and that was considered studying!

Immigrants vs Natives, guess who wins?
This next generation of digital immigrants are using the the web and other digital channels to communicate, update each other, and talk (Forrester’s 2007 stats indicates nearly two-thirds of teens access a social network at least once a month) and nearly 1/3 of adults access social networks a month. This doesn’t include other tools, just social networks. The truth is, this next generation of natives will enter the workforce with connections to employees, customers, prospects, partners, and even competitors, firms must be ready.

Getting started
So, for those guides that are leading the immigrants, start by education, focus on the opportunities and risks, and come forth to executives with a plan. More on that in the future.

Update: Brij has some analysis on our webinar and posted the poll results.. If you review our webinar and blog it, (even if you don’t agree with us) let me know and I’ll link to it.

Missed the webinar and want to read the highlights? Heather Havenstein of Computer World has a great write up: Companies must listen to the Web 2.0 world. Those that ignore social media critics risk being blindsided by negative comments, experts say. More thoughts from direct news.

The web industry is part of an ecosystem, and one of the major families are the press, who get high level news out to the masses.

Last week, I had a meeting over at the San Jose Mercury, (map) one of Silicon Valley’s most well known technology newspapers. Every day they focus in on what’s happening in our industry, and do a great job of covering events, gathering viewpoints, and offering editorial insight from their columns in their opinions section. Check out the Good Morning Silicon valley blog for daily news.

There’s still a lot of concern over the print newspaper industry as layoffs continue to occur. In most cases, the online revolution has been a big impact, but we’re starting to see journalists use social media to find stories, and have supplementary blogs that provide greater depth than a printed column. A few journalists, like the opinionated Kara Swisher have figured out how not to just comment on the situation, but to actually lead a conversation –all using her blog.

I was really fascinated by the original linotype they had in the lobby, I was looking at all the contraptions it took to print, including looking at the keyboard that didn’t have a shift key, so there were characters for both lower and upper case. There were bands, pipes, gears, wires, outlets, sliders, and every possible mechanical device on this steampunk looking press, it really was impressive to see. Why this complicated machine? It actually printed out metal with characters on it, which would later be sent to the press.

Yesterday, I moderated another panel, (here’s a review) and I’m told by the conference organizers it went well. I’ve managed panels of dueling CEOs in the same industry, and even one of the most popular panels at the Web 2.0 Expo between the very outgoing Robert Scoble, Chris Pirillo and Thomas Hawk.

Sadly, the value of most panels are really poor, and this is mostly due to the lack of moderation. Just yesterday, I heard that one nervous moderator asked the panelists to introduce themselves, then went directly to Q&A, providing little structured value to the audience. On the complete opposite end, I’ve seen one self-important moderator answer questions from the crowd, when it was his job to field questions to the panelists.

How to Successfully Moderate a Conference Panel:

Think of the audience as your customers
Treat the audience like your customers, they’ve paid with money and time to come to your panel. Your job is to give them the information they need, or to entertain them, and often both. You’ve one of the most difficult jobs as you’ll have to set the pace, maintain some control, but know when to back off. Remember that you’re here to serve the audience first and panelists second.

Picking the right panel members
Often, a moderator is asked to select the panel, this isn’t always the case, but you are likely going to be involved. Find folks that don’t always agree, and look for experts in the field. I find that 3-4 panelists is great, any less becomes difficult to flesh out all the points of view, and anymore becomes unwieldy. One time, I was 1 of 5 panelists, and I think I spoke a total of 5 minutes, a real waste of time.

Find out what success looks like
Look at the context of the conference, what is it about? who is attending? what are the other panels? Ask the conference organizers what success would look like, what questions does the audience want answered and what is their level of sophistication?

Get to know the panelists
This is often difficult as many panels never meet in advance, but in our social world many folks are online and can be found. Do Google searches on their name and the topic at hand, and you may be surprised what you find online.

Research the topic
The most entertaining panels have a dash of debate, look at an issue from many angels, practical steps to get started, and tell a few jokes. Find where the points of contention are and be sure to bring it up, this is how you’ll bill the panel. Use a blog post, Twitter or other feedback tool to glean questions from the community.

Properly market the panel
Successful panels will often have a title that is catchy, in tune for the conference, and has a detailed summary of what the audience will get out of it. You should blog about the upcoming panel, and the panelists should too.

Develop agenda bulletpoints
I try to establish some general high level bullets, 3-5 is good, so it helps the panelists to prepare and research. Don’t get into overly detailed questions, you never want them to be overly rehereased. I always have some secondary questions if no one asks questions, and it’s best to throw some curve balls to panelists after they warm up.

Have prepared notes
Print out the research you did of their bios, points of contention, the high level agenda, and follow up questions you may want to do. I’m known for requiring the panelists to bring a case study or example with measurable results.

Before you use powerpoints, really think it through
In most cases, panels should focus on the discussion and interaction between the panelists. Presentations should only be used in these situations: They add value by visualizing a conceptual concept, you’ve some industry stats that preface the event, or there’s a funny video that gets the crowd warmed up. Have a mental checklist: Is this going to add value? Does this give each panelist an equal response? Is this truly necessary?

Have a pre-briefing meeting
It’s really hard to get panelists to all get on the phone together, I can only think of a few times when this has worked. Instead, have a quick meeting in person before the panel actually happens, it will only take 15 minutes. This is good bonding time, be sure to remind them of the general structure, but make sure they’re relaxed and going to have fun. Listen carefully to the conversation, as you’ll pick up interest points that will help you setup questions while on stage.

Housekeeping
Prepare all your notes, laptops, make sure everyone has water before you get on stage, in some cases, plan out where folks will sit. Remind the panelists, yourself, and the audience to turn off cell phones. Smile a lot, and have fun…ok, now we get on stage.

Be a leader and know the impact of body language
I’ve studied this a few times, when I moderate, the body language I give off will be echoed by the panelists. If I sit up straight, or if you fidget, they will follow, the same happens when you speak. Look at the panelist when you ask a question, then look at the audience, If you look at the panelists after you’ve asked a question, they will instinctively look back at you, it can be odd. Unless responding to another panelists, the panelist should be addressing the audience so keep your attention on the audience.

Set the stage by providing context
As the first speaker the moderator should set the stage by quickly give an overview of why this panel was accepted, and what you’re going to cover. I tend to avoid the usual banter about ‘how this panel is going to be great’ or make length introductions about panelists, that usual pretty-talk is often low value.

The first question should be a warm up
You should tee-up the crowd, and the panelists by asking a broad, easy question. Ask for a definition, or talk about the history of the topic, or why this topic is so interesting to the panelists.

Ask about benefits and opportunities
Some moderators let them conversation dive into the weeds too fast, focusing on ratty details, nuts and bolts before prefacing ‘why’ these things are important in the first place. Guide the panelists to discuss the benefits, and why these things are great in the first place.

Ask about risks, challenge the panel
The audience is tired of industry zealots. We all know the panelists are passionate experts in their field, but you need to ensure a balanced viewpoint is given. Give an example of how it’s not worked, and then ask the panelists to explore the risks. Give them the opportunity to talk about overcoming pitfalls, your audience won’t want to make the same mistakes.

Monitor the back channel
Monitor the “backchannel” which are conversations in IRC, Meebo, or Twitter about your panel. After the very disruptive revolt at SXSW 2008, moderators and speakers need to pay attention to how the audience (customers) are responding to what’s happening on stage. (added March 2008)

Never let panelists pitch
This one really irritates the audience, as they’ve spent time and money investing in a panel, they don’t want to hear vendor pitches. Typically, when one vendor talks about how great his company is, the next panelists will need to one-up, and it never ends. The moderator needs to pre-warn panelists that won’t tolerate this vile deed, and will cut them off in public, and that’s embarrassing for everyone. BTW: If you’re in the audience and you see this happen, you have a right as a customer to demand them to stop.

…but let them tell a case study
I prefer that panelists demonstrate their expertise by showing their experts in the field, or provide a case study how their customers have been successful. There is a very thin division between this and a vendor pitch, so it’s best to remember that a panel is more like a white paper, not a brochure.

Keep on track
Panels will often get off-track to new discussions, while that’s certainly normal, your job is to gently bring it back into context. You’ll have to re frame a question or ask for further explanation on the topic.

Redirect panel hogs
Although rare, some panelists will overstep themselves and overpower the other panelists. It’s your duty to find an appropriate time (watch for when they breathe) and interject in a nice way. Compliment their opinion, and be sure to pass a question to the deserving panelist. (Insights from a concall with Warren Pickett of Ad:Tech)

Listen in
Watch the body language of the panelists, the one who wants to get a word in will be giving you non-verbal indicators, the audience will give off vibes of attention, boredom, or even disagreement. You’ll find little disagreements between panelists, be sure to pick up on those to segue to the next panelists, ask them for a contradictory point of view. This can be difficult.

Let the panelists talk to each other
Don’t over structure your panel by leading into a moderator question and response pattern alone, allow for some healthy banter between the panelists, and let them chatter, jab, and joke among each other.

Know when to pass the mic
Don’t let any particular panelists dominate the session over others, you can interject between their breathes and quickly pose the same question to the other panelists. I realize this seems rude, but this is your job, you represent the audiences time

Know when to shut up
I’ve been a panelist many times, and have certainly been annoyed when some moderators go too far, they may try to make it more of a game show, insert too much humor, or answer the questions from the audience. Don’t be that guy. Success happens when good conversation starts to take place on it’s own, and you only need to gently guide.

Field questions from the audience
Always repeat the question from the audience, so everyone can hear and it’ll get on any recordings. Summarize long winded questions from the audience. Don’t let an over active commentator steal the show by asking too many questions, suggest that some discussion can be followed-up after the event. If there are no mics in the audience, you may need to walk down and bring the mic to them. Ensure that the questions are spread from different folks, and only let a single person ask a second question once everyone has had a chance.

Ending the panel
Finally, at the end, let the members talk about where they can be found online, or where others can learn more about them. It’s best if you start, in order to set an example. “I work at company X in Y role, I can be found online at Z”. Thank the panel and audience, then prepare for the audience to come up to the stage and have 1:1 discussions.

Encourage the discussion to move online
Often the conversation between the panelists and members was so engaging that the never want to stop discussing it. Create a wiki, forum, or Facebook group to continue the conversation. Also assign tags at the session so that anyone who is blogging about it will be found. If you’re a blogger you may want to write up a wrap-up and link to anyone who took pictures. Thanks to Zena in the comments for this suggestion.

Final touches
Later, send a thank you email to all the panelists, keep in touch with them, and always cherish how well this has gone for you. Congrats, you’ve just moderated a successful panel!

eHow: How to Moderate a Panel

Derek Powazek: How to Moderate a panel

Guy Kawasaki: How To Be a Great Moderator

Paul Kedrosky: 10 Rules for Being a Great Panel Moderator

If this post helped you moderate a panel, or you’ve further suggestions, please leave a comment.

Update: April 2008
This post has now become recommended reading for moderators at Ad:Tech and Web 2.0 Expo.

I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly summary, read the summary, then quickly scan headlines, read the bullet, then click to learn even more.

I’ve created a 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, I’ll add you back.

Web Strategy Summary
More money moves into this market in the form of investments and new versions of social networks are launched. Wordpress, Moli, and Mig 33 receive the largest chunks. As a potential recession looms, the companies that have raised capital will have a chance to outlast the storm.

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Investing: Mobile Social Network Mig33 raises $13mm
Mig 33 a friendly branded social network lets users connect from anywhere on the globe to their contacts has raised a serious amount of money. I’ll expect a majority of that money to be pushed to the marketing budget in these crowded markets.

Investing: Blogging Software Wordpress get funding –go social with $29mm
Automatic, the parent company behind wildly popular wordpress blogging software has received $29.5M in funding, (that’s a lot), which will likely develop social features, including a social networking type of model. Expect social networking to become a feature of nearly every site, including someday this blog.

Investing and Launch: Moli launches, funded $30mm
I was briefed by the Moli team, they’ve launched a social network with an emphasis on user privacy, it appears to be a website with a robust user experience, and many controls for the user to see who can access their information. Of course, time will tell as this crowded market decides on which network will gain adoption. They’ve also received $30 million in funding from private investors.

Valuation: Widget ad revenue was estimated at about $20 million in 2007
MSNBC has an interesting article on widget valuation, and looks forward to 2008. Expect widget networks to continue to gain in growth in 2008, this is where advertising dollars will shift to.

Data: Enterprises concerned over Security and Resources for Social Media
Awareness ran a survey and found out the two many concerns for corporations revolve around the control over data, as well as the lack of resources to manage these programs. They’ve provided a white paper here.

Features: Facebook allows users to optimize profile
It’s safe to assume that many profile pages are overwhelmed with applications, as a result, Facebook has launched a feature that lets you create a separate profile page where you can segment applications. It’s a similar approach to tabbed browsing.

Copyrights: Hasbro misses a key opportunity with Scrabulous
Scrabulous is no more, but does this give birth to a new industry? Hasbro may have missed a huge business opportunity, but we should expect this same issue to occur again as the crowds take control of our brands.

Features: Geni launches news Timeline
With the popularity of Facebook’s newspage, Geni has launched an events update type of feature that lets you keep track of your family members updates, as well as post your own updates. Secondly, they’ve added an improved photo feature, all good features built on top of our first social graph: our family.

Upgrade: Facebook applications easier to embed
Although overhyped (partly my fault) Facebook has made it easier for widgets to be embedded on static websites now using client side javascript code, rather than depending completely on server side code. I’ve outlined exactly what this means for the web strategist.

Widgets: Low revenue from widget advertising
Mashable reports that videoegg’s eggnetwork of advertising is providing low advertising generation for it’s 3rd party widget network. Two things to remember: 1) this is the early days, and adoption and acceptance of this medium has not yet been realize to internet marketers and advertisers 2) Only a few will make a lot of money, and it will come from mass scale.

Leave a comment if this was helpful, or if you’ve anything to add. Feel free to email me if you’ve suggestions for next week’s digest.

Don’t forget to attend this Complimentary Webinar on Social Media Measurement How to Listen Effectively and Engage in the Conversation this Thursday at 12:30 EST/9:30PST with Glenn Fannick, Product Development Manager at Dow Jones.

It’s not often I’m able to do free webinars, often they require membership or payment, so this is real treat. I’m told there are over 800 registered, so please pass the word.

Need to prove successes to your boss? Measure your results in flight? learn more by viewing my other posts on social media measurement.

A Widget Case Study
Yesterday, I gave a teleconference on Facebook as a ready-made marketing program. I gave a few examples of success, and the audience was hungry for success metrics and numbers. One of the case examples was about rebranding an application/widget in this case, Rock You’s vampire application.

Sony rebrands popular Vampires Widget with 30 Days Night, upcoming Vampire movie
Vampires, which you may already know as the RPG where members bite each other to receive points (and duel) was already popular with over 3 million installs in Facebook.

Sony pictures, the parent company of the very scary 30 Days Night vampire horror film rebranded the existing application, and launched a sweepstakes contest to generate registrations and glean intelligence. The grand prizes? 4 wheel ATVs and $1500.

Specifically, they placed banner ads on the rebranded vampire applications which promoted the movie (one could assume that those who opt-in for the vampires application would also like a vampire movie) promoting the sweekstakes.

The measurable results?
The campaign was only live for 3 weeks, and there were 59,100 sweepstakes entries. (success was deemed at 10k, this clearly moved beyond that)
The visits (I don’t know if they were unique or repeated) were 11,642,051 for the bite page, and 17,652,567 for the stats page (I believe these are part of the interactive experience of the game.
Sony was happy, it exceeded expectations, and users of the application weren’t over branded.

RockYou asked me to keep the price confidential, but based upon the results they told me, I suggested they double the rates, this is despite what Mashable reports on.

What worked?

Fishing where the fish are: Sony figured out where the already existing community was (remember to fish where the fish are) and rather than trying to rebuild something completely by scratch, they leveraged an existing successful application.

Rely on specialists for new arenas: In my many briefings with vendors and clients, specialized firms often provide something a general interactive firm or corporate web marketing team can’t. They have experience, know their area, and in this case, they knew to rely on someone that already knew Facebook.

Compliment the existing user experience: Sony didn’t beat the 3 million existing users with heavy advertising (and I’m sure RockYou wouldn’t have let them) over the head, instead offered value by giving away prizes, and tied in a movie that already existed.

What could have been better?
In my opinion, it would be great if:

The campaign lasted longer than 3 weeks.

Rather than simply embedded, Sony could sponsor elements from the movie and integrate within the game. (vampires could fight at different scenes from the movie, key characters from the movie could become non-player characters, etc). They already have a multi-player game that could have tied in.

A spin off game could have emerged just around the game, where members could give virtual gifts to each relating to the movie, then cross-selling other sony products and merchandise.

Also realize there are very few applications in Facebook that are this popular, don’t expect these type of results to occur every time.

Widget Network Developers
Looking bigger, RockYou isn’t the only vendor doing this type of work, also see Slide, Clearspring, Gigya, and a bunch of others. If you’re in the space, feel free to leave a comment below adding to the conversation.

For those Forrester clients who attended the webinar, I hope that clears up the question (as I promised to find the answer), and thanks to Ro Choy and team of Rock You for the details. If you need to know more, read this weekly digest of the social network industry, or see all posts tagged Facebook.

Congrats to college graduate Andrew Cafourek for getting a job with Outrider. How’d he do it? by creating a professional looking site, being an excellent blogger, posting his resume, and learning how to use the tools to network with others –he demonstrated his web marketing prowess by doing it.

I’m always thrilled to see when the community connects, especially if it happens on my blog, and this is no exception. Andrew read my people on the move series, and connected with the folks at Outrider and received a job offer (read his post). He’s now packing his gear, moving to St Louis to start his new career, and life, straight out of college.

Jobs aren’t the only thing you should be thinking about, vendors should realize that where conversations are about their industry is there marketplace. In many cases I know the savvy buyers and savvy sellers are checking each other out in my comments, this is all encouraged as long as everyone is adding value to the conversation and not just taking.

Congrats to Andrew and the Outrider team for connecting!

Congrats to social media author, advisor, speaker and expert Shel Israel to join Fast Company with his co-author to launch the Global Neighborhoods online video show. Shel pioneered much of the thinking of business blogging with the Naked Conversations book (I purchased 65 copies for me and my colleagues) and will be leading the same passion for social media with his upcoming show.

When we look at what Fast Company is doing, they’re really empowering a new generation of medium as video becomes a part of the web, they’re enhancing their text based product to now add rich media. I’m sure they’ll consider how to incorporate other tools like social networks into their programming.

Congrats Shel to the next leg of your journey, please wish him luck at his announcement post. Ill be adding this announcement to my next people on the move in the social media industry.

A few minutes ago, I completed my Forrester teleconference on Facebook, apparently it was very popular and hand more sign ups than most other topics. During the session we ran a poll to those that were attending (most are web marketers and web strategists). Here are the responses:

1. Do you use Facebook for your personal or professional life?
a. Yes 124/196 ( 63%)
b. No 50/196 ( 26%)
c. Not Sure 3/196 ( 2%)
No Answer 22/196 ( 11%)

2. Does your company use Facebook for Marketing purposes?
a.Yes 45/196 ( 23%)
b.No 103/196 ( 53%)
c.Not Sure 25/196 ( 13%)
No Answer 25/196 ( 13%)

3. Does your business plan on using Faecbook for business in 2008?
a. Yes 68/196 ( 35%)
b. No 27/196 ( 14%)
c. Not Sure 76/196 ( 39%)
No Answer 26/196 ( 13%)

Although a very limited sample, and just of those that are focused in on social networking, It’s interesting to see that a majority of the members on this call were using this tool. Forrester should be using Facebook to reach this audience, such as the Forrester Facebook page that I initially created, that’s now being maintained by Alexis. I’ll be unbiased, you should also take a look at the Gartner page while you’re at it, I was one of the first to become a fan.

During the call there were a lot of questions about widgets, open social, and a few who requested success metrics for some of the campaigns, it felt like a pretty savvy crowd, I’m expecting to receive a few meeting requests from clients to further discuss Facebook and social networks.

It’s easy to get the tools mixed up, but it’s important to know the differences. Quite often (usually by executives) I’m asked the difference between Forums, Blogs, and Social Networks, here’s usually how I explain it (focusing first on usage and benefits rather than technical details):

Forums are like social mixers, where everyone is at equal level, milling about and discussing with others. These many to many communication tools allow anyone to start a topic and anyone to respond to one. Members are often at equal level, and content is usually segmented by topic. (rather than by people).

Blogs are like a keynote speech where the speaker (blogger) is in control of the discussion, but allows questions and comments from the audience.
Blogs are journals often authored by one individual, and sometimes teams. In the context of business communication, these are often used to talk with the marketplace and to join the conversation that existing external bloggers may be having.

Social Networks are like topic tables at a conference luncheon. Ever been to a conference where different lunch tables had big white signs inviting people to sit and join others of like interest? It’s like that. Social networks allow members to organize around a person’s relationships or interests, rather that just focused on topic. People that know each other (or want to meet each other) will connect by a variety of common interests. These are great tools to get people of like interest to connect to each other and share information.

It’s important to know the many different tools in your tool chest as every type of accessory fulfills a different need. Before you jump to tools, you should first understand who your community is, where they are, how they use social technologies, and most importantly, what they’re talking about. To learn more about the many forms of web marketing, see this updated list (now in Italian, Indonesian and French).

Update: Several have suggested that this announcement is nothing new, (See initial announcement in 2006) and upon further investigation (and a quick email exchange with the Facebook team) confirms this to be right. What’s new is that it’s now easier to do than before. Regardless, the awareness of this feature is low within the marketplace, and everything I write in the following still stands true. Consider this awareness raising, and more of these types of distributed web tactics to continue in 2008.

My goal is to simply tech speak and boil it down to what it means for you, a web strategist. I’ll update this post as I learn more information.

What Facebook wrote
In their most recent announcement they gave a very technical explanation regarding the announcement:

“This JavaScript client library allows you to make Facebook API calls from any web site and makes it easy to create Ajax Facebook applications. Since the library does not require any server-side code on your server, you can now create a Facebook application that can be hosted on any web site that serves static HTML. An application that uses this client library should be registered as an iframe type. This applies to either iframe Facebook apps that users access through the Facebook web site or apps that users access directly on the app’s own web sites. Almost all Facebook APIs are supported. The exceptions are:”

Web Strategists’ Translation
This means that web owners can now embed existing Facebook applications easier than before. Now, in addition to being able to create an application/widget that will sit on Facebook alone, you can now easily embed it on your own website (in addition to leveraging the social features that Facebook offers).

[You can start to bring the Facebook community to your own corporate website, rather than directly developing on Facebook alone. This is a step towards the community now leaving the social network and moving to other locations]

This is really making the social features and widgets of Facebook portable. This is important as your web strategy is now distributed in many locations. For corporate web strategists, you’ll need to expand the scope of your plan to include how some of these widgets and applications could be embedded on your own microsites and corporate websites. This also means this is a ‘bridge’ to get active Facebook users closer to your corporate website.

Impacts to Google’s Open Social
If you’re not familiar, I’ve outlined what Open Social Means to your executives, read this first. Essentially, Google and it’s many partners wants to make it easy for widgets to move from one social network to another with little re-coding: portable and re-usable widgets. Unfortuantly, this has yet to be seen, and Facebook’s announcement allows widgets to be more portable, somewhat creeping in on Open Social’s intentions. In the long run, expect all of these companies to be working together, sharing API data, as those that don’t will be left out.

What you need to do:

Action: Do nothing at this point, let’s wait to see some case studies of how this is being implemented.

Plan: This doesn’t keep you from correctly planning, so continue to make your web strategy a distributed one, where content, applications, and people move from social network to social network, and to your own corporate website. Talk with your interactive agency, web developers, and social media gurus on what some of these possibilities could mean. Have weekly 30 minute brainstorming parties and see how this could be implemented and integrated within your current activities.

How to think of this: Plan on adding social features to your own corporate website so that visitors will interact with your own content, re-sort it, edit it, and mash it however they want. The future of content is amorphous and ubiquitous. (I’ve been saying this since 2005 and now we’re finally starting to see it happen)

Click To Play

Which department should take leadership of your corporate web strategy? Earlier this week, I flew out to Vegas to speak on a panel with Alastair Duncan is Chief Executive of MRM, at Intel’s sales and marketing event.

I was really impressed by his nuggets, that I got him on video in the Sands conference center to talk about ownership and governance of web programs within corporations. Alastair’s blog is located Participation Marketing.

What you’ll learn?

Who really is in charge of web strategy programs? Which department (listen to his insightful answer)

How to avoid making your website an irrelevant ‘picture on the wall’

How can Marketing and IT actually get along?

Twitter no mo’ Kidder
‘Less you become Litter

The time for fun and games is over, Twitter needs to step and be the robust communication platform it’s fans are expecting it to be or users may end up leaving. The cracks are starting to show.

Shel Israel puts forth a passionate open letter to the founders of Twitter, RE: Fix it before we nix it, exposing the weakness of fast built ruby on rails experiment that is not scaling. Sadly, I’m not surprised to see the ‘bring that beat back’ or lol cat, as Twitter is the website that had more than 5 days of downtime in 2007. I know of some pretty creative developers that wanted to build applications on top of Twitter but were restricted due to limitations in APIs. There are currently over 600 messages in Get Satisfactions support forum for Twitter, there’s a lot of requests, and a lot of passionate users. Lastly, Allen Stern wants to see a business model, members of the site should know what it is, as it directly impacts them.

It’s time for Twitter to grow up, both for it’s infrastructure, communications with customers, find out what features are needed, and start to grow. Put that $5.4 million funding you received last month to good use.

So, you’re going to launch a social media campaign huh? You’ve got all the tools, resources, and processes together, but did you remember to set some goals?

I get to meet and talk to many companies that are adopting social media from a variety of levels of sophistication: unsure, scared, excited, embracing, overly ecstatic. One of the biggest challenges they have is forgetting to visualize what success looks like. In many cases, they are overly focused on fondling the hammer, that they forget about the overall goal.

Even if a company is doing a trial project (externally, internally, whatever) part of the expectations of the project should include a page, slide, or document that indicates what success will look like –even if they know that it may not be reached, here’s a few example to get you started:

A few examples of what success could look like for you:

We were able to learn something about customers we’ve never know before

We were able to tell our story to customers and they shared it with others

A blogging program where there are more customers talking back in comments than posts

An online community where customers are self-supporting each other and costs are reduced

We learn a lot from this experimental program, and pave the way for future projects, that could still be a success metric

We gain experience with a new way of two-way communication

We connect with a handful of customers like never before as they talk back and we listen

We learned something from customers that we didn’t know before

As you prepare your plans (you’ve got one right?) to use social media, don’t forget to include a section on “what does success look like”, and visualize and aim for you goals. Oh, and guess what, your goals can change over time, and they should.

Experimentation with these are important, these are radically different ways for companies to communicate with customers, so be sure to indicate to your management how this is experiment, and you’ll need a bit of wiggle room and latitude for the unexpected. It’s their job to empower and trust you, knowing the risks that could happen as you learn to let go to gain more.

It’s important to setup expectations for yourself, your management, and your customers (feel free to let them know why you are doing this) in order to give yourself a purpose as you embark on connecting in new ways.

A few weeks ago, I revisited The Museum of Technology in downtown San Jose, the ‘blue fruit in an orange box’ (see google street map) building sticks out amid the glass corporate buildings and grand hotels. A great landmark for a city centered in innovation. This museum boasts many interactive exhibits, a showcasing of past and previous technology, shows, and even an imax screen for those seeking an enveloping experience of sight and sound. Don’t take my word for it, find out what others say on Yelp reviews.

I had a fun time exploring the exhibit talking about the internet: reviewing some history, catching up on some trivia, and learning about netiquette and abbreviations you should know. (see below)

A bit of trivia for you, the museum is on the site (or close to it) where San Jose’s old Chinatown used to be, but is no more. Also of interest, I used to work at the Fairmont while in college helping with the audio visual work for large conferences. Playing with audio equipment, large projectors, and running around in the catwalks was a lot of fun (and great food for employees).

Update, Monday Jan 28: I’m holding off on publishing the web strategy survey (details here) for a few days, I may get my hands on some better tools/process, so please hang tight.

This survey should help both readers to understand their peers, as well as for me to understand the readers.

This Monday, I’m going to publish the first ever survey for this blog. The goals? To learn about readers, (who they are, what they do, what their challenges are) and will publish the findings for all readers to learn from. Secondly, I want to learn about what you think about the web strategy blog, what works, and what can be improved.

While not all feedback will be incorporated (it’s not physically possible) I’ll take considerations into mind. While this blog is serving the web decision maker, it’s still mine, and I’ll maintain editorial control. I can’t be all things to all people, so ultimately, I’ll be the final judge.

I won’t be using this data in any malicious way, and respondents can stay anonymous. Of course, if there is a business opportunity, and someone needs help from my employer, I will pass on any messages, but of course this will be voluntary and completely opt-in. If I didn’t you could leave comments and my reputation would quickly be tarnished, the control is in your hands.

Here’s my proposed survey questions what do you think?

1 About you
-Title
-Kind of work/industry
-Experience
-Do you use social media?
-Budget
-Size of team under you
-Open ended section

2 About your challenges
-Is your organization ready for social media?
-Where are you as far as implementation?
-How many months/years has your company been implementing social media?
-What type of tools have you deployed?
-How would you describe the reaction of your company to this change?
-What are your biggest challenges (open)

3 About the web strategy blog
-How did you find this blog?
-How do you consume the content on this blog
-How do you rate the blog/share with others?
-How do you rate the amount of content being published (frequency)
-What’s woroking well
-What needs to be improved
-Open ended section

4 Contact info (optional)
-Name
-Email
-Company
-Option to receive follow-up email

I’m being very open-source in this survey process, as I want to make sure readers get as much out of it as I do, your feedback encouraged.

Click To Play

I was just at Intel’s Sales and Marketing event on Tuesday, and was really glad to meet Intel’s EMEA Web Strategist (which is what I call decision makers), Taj Peyton. He’s responsible for understanding each of the unique needs of cultures in his European market and developing localized versions of the corporate Intel site –no easy undertaking.

Watch this video and you’ll learn

-Why you should or should not localize
-What you research
-Other than language, how are regionalized sites are different than corporate website
-How to get started
-Management is a nightmare, what tools to use?

I ran out of memory, so the interview got cut short a few seconds, but there’s a lot of meat in his presentation. If you’re planning on localizing you website, be sure to really understand the demographics (who are they), physhographics (how they think/feel), and technographics (how they use technology) before deploying, otherwise you may have just wasted your resources.

And yes, that’s the Wynn in the background, one of Vegas’s newest hotels. Intel put me up at the brand new Venetian extention, the Palazzo, each room is a suite (3 HD flatscreens), it’s opulent. I’m pretty sure I was the first person to every stay in the room as they just opened up last week, why do I think that? I had to plug in a lot of the appliances, I’m sure that’ll never happen again

Here’s where you’ll find me, (and my presentations) over the rest of Jan, and all of Feb. This excludes any ongoing Silicon Valley events (is this updated?) that I may attend.

Web 2.0 Marketing: What’s Real and What’s Hype (Microsoft/MarketingProfs | Webinar, Feb 14

DealMaker Media, Social Networking ‘08 | San Francisco, Feb 7

Customer Support is the New Marketing | San Francisco, Feb 4

Dow Jones Webinar, Social Media Measurement | Jan 31st (Free)

Web Guild Web 2.0 Conference: Crowdsourcing | Jan 29

Forrester Teleconference: Strategy For Facebook | Jan 28

Why Web Strategists should consider widgets
Expect widgets to act like a network, the span over many different containers like social networks, websites, and blogs. Since widgets are opt-in by the publisher or social network member, it’s a great way to track who’s actually interested in the content. As a result, the opportunity for more sophisticated marketing and advertising moves from carpet bombing to opt-in nearly GPS radar-like accuracy.

First, understand the distributed web strategy
Need to get up to speed on this, start with my primer on web marketing is distributed, not on two domains alone, followed up by a former CMOs perspective on the distributed web. Getting users to come to your corporate website is not the only goal, savvy fisherman fish where the fish are.

New players as widget networks emerge
I’m closely watching the widget industry with colleague Charlene Li. This time last year, there were no widgets in Facebook, and now there are over 13,000. I recognize that this is a growth market Widget ad revenue was estimated at about $20 million in 2007, or about one-thousandth of Internet advertising as a whole. According to the new comScore data for November, Slide claimed almost 144 million unique viewers, for a 16% market share, and RockYou claimed a 11.7% share, with 104 million individual viewers. In July, Slide had 130 million individual users, or a 15% share, while RockYou boasted 96 million users, or 11.1% of the total. (stats via MSNBC)

Spending low, but expect growth
According to the data (from Comscore) that 6% of internet advertising dollars were being spent on social networks, and only a fraction currently is spent on widgets. Expect that to grow in both camps. Widget networks aren’t limited to social networks alone, in many cases, they can be repurposed for mobile devices as well as standalone embeds on websites and blogs.

Measurement key as dollars shift
The article states that some of the growth is capped due to lack of measurement (a good reason why I created this list of widget measurement companies). You’ll need to measure to show success, as well as make in-flight course corrections in near real time.

Expectations in 2008
So, expect widget networks like Slide, Rockyou, Widgetbox, Watercooler, and many many others, to become like syndicated networks, offer self-serve advertising, begin to offer metrics, and offer unique co-branded, and co-sponsored marketing campaigns to brands. Two of these networks will likely be acquired by large media or internet companies in the next 11 months.

Case Study: Forbes Widgets
Here’s a case of a company letting go to the distributed web, I just ran into the Forbes site, and saw they had a full page devoted to widgets, that let it’s content, and brand spread of it’s site. Interesting that it’s sponsor, in this case Visa, goes with it.

What you should do
First, determine if your community and marketplace is using widgets, do research. If so, seek one of those widget networks, and trail an advertising campaign that will match to your right community. Don’t try to recreate a widget, leave it to the experts, and likely, your interactive firm won’t do it well, these are very specialized products. Rather than have the widget network vendor recreate a new widget, leverage an existing one by sponsorship, rebranding, or integrating with a unique marketing campaign.

Bombardment should wither
Traditional marketing is usually a head on approach where marketers carpet bomb screaming messages fighting for the attention of their community. Today, social media is really a lateral strategy. The most savvy brands will figure out how to “energize” customers so they tell others about the company and it’s products. There’s no argument that prospects trust actual customers more than marketers or advertisers.

I did a boomerang trip to Las Vegas (in under 24 hours) to speak at Intel’s annual sales and marketing conference, (alongside with Allastair Duncan of MRM, John Battelle of Federated Media, and good friend Jennifer Jones of Marketing Voices) they completely packed the venetian as over 5,400 employees assembled to talk about how to best connect with customers. While I’m not going to share any secrets, I can tell you that the focus on Social Media at Intel is moving at full steam. Out of the B2B tech companies, they’re one of the ones that are applying it to events, interacting with customers in communities such as Open Port, hosting blogger dinners, have a presence in SecondLife and are creating many videos and podcasts. For the most part, Intel gets it right, social media is being used by a wide group of marketers, and with varied levels of experimentation.

Benefits: When customers sing your praises
For a company that’s a component of an end product, being top of mind is a key. I learned that 25% of the global audience prefers Intel over other brands, 75% may be indifferent. I suggested that new marketing using social media is a great way to get that 25% to tell the other 75% what they like about Intel. They should develop a platform that enables customers to be the voice of the company, and to gain more, they need to let go. How to do this? let customers create messages, create advertisements, let them sing the praises from their blogs, and social network profiles. The company should be a supporter, echo and amplify customers, not force them into a corner.

Risks: Letting go to gain more
Sure there are risks of customers saying negative things about your brand, or competitors jumping in to derail, but with it comes rewards of authentic testimonials from customers, nothing is more powerful than that. Negative feedback? Consider it free customer insight, where you can then use it to fix your products, and come back to customers and show them they impact they helped you make. Develop a comfort zone by setting expectations up front to management and internal teams that like the real world, uncertainty is part of this.

Lateral marketing energizes your customers
Rather than focus on bombardment and forced marketing, companies like Intel, and perhaps yours, should consider that the most effective marketing, is the lateral approach where customers evangelize to your prospects on your behalf.