Archive for March, 2008

Social Media Housekeeping, and How Can I Work 4 Hours a Week?

Categories: Social MediaPosted on March 31st, 2008

Just a few minor things:

I read all your comments and tweets
Firstly, when I meet blog readers, I often ask for feedback, to me the constant feedback reinforces what I’m doing right, and what I can improve and grow on. Today, one reader suggested that I make sure to close the feedback loop when it comes to comments. While we both agreed that it’s impossible for me to respond to each comment, I want you to all know that I read each and every comment. Why? it makes me smarter around topics that I’ve initiated, so thank you all for that. If you can’t tell, I try really hard to listen, I just can’t always respond to all messages.

I’m not adding any more new Twitter followers
Secondly, I won’t be adding many new followers on Twitter. I’ve noticed a massive influx of new Twitter users (perhaps due to SXSW) and will no longer be following those who are following me. I can’t click on that many emails, and It’s not offering me any additional value as my message stream is already very large. It matters little as you can still @jowyang and I’ll see your message. Sam Lawrence did analysis on my Twitter behavior (even on a Sunday) and noticed that about half of my tweets are @replying to others.

How can I scale?
The trend here is that I’m having a hard time scaling, but I’ve nearly completed my clone in my bio-vat in the garage, so there will be another Jeremiah appearing soon, well, I wish. I’m trying ways to stay efficient, I’ve reduced the amount of time I spend answering non-essential email, and downloaded Xobni with limited satisfaction.

At some point, I may have to follow Tim Ferris’s advice (although I’m a big skeptic) and start outsourcing some of my life, see his video. I’d start with email, then editing some of my reports for grammar.

Posted in Social Media | Comments

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Up Close and Personal with Technographic Data

Categories: Analyst, Forrester, TechnographicsPosted on March 30th, 2008

(Part 1 in a 3 part series)

Although it’s Sunday, I’m up early reviewing the data that Andres R, (one of our consultants) and I will be presenting to a client. It’s my first official project that I’m delivering and it’s a real learning experience. I’ve been in heaven lately, swimming in lots of social media data from our massive surveys we deploy, and in this case, we ‘cut’ data from the database to help a client understand the Technographics of the people they are trying to reach.

Being new to this process at Forrester, the research is similar to user experience research I used to conduct. We conducted stakeholder interviews to understand the business goals and drivers, worked with our data team to match the client provided persona and demographic information with our own data, and then conducted analysis.

While I certainly can’t give away any of the details, it’s very clear that two of the three personas that client is trying to reach has heavy use of social media, and the third doesn’t. Furthermore we segment the persona down to the Technographics, to understand how they use each social tool (from blogs, social networks, bookmarks, rating sites, etc) and to then share with client.

Armed with detailed knowledge about how their personas use social media, they are better equipped to move forward with their plans. It’s very clear, based on the data, which tools would work well for the particular personas, and which ones would not. It’s important to understand the people that you’re going to reach before deploying tools. Put people before tools.

You can learn more about Technographics, we’ve made some high level data available on the Groundswell site.

Wish me luck on my first project deliverable.

Posted in Analyst, Forrester, Technographics | Comments

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Twitter Is My Social Computer –How it could extend to be yours

Categories: MicroMedia, Social ComputingPosted on March 28th, 2008

Computers exist everywhere
It took me a while to figure out that wherever I go, whenever I want, I’ve access to one of the world’s most powerful computers. It’s not an IBM Mainframe that spans my whole living room, nor Google’s search engine, and not the latest Alienware box. It’s Twitter.

Social Computing Defined
At Forrester, we define Social Computing as: “A social structure in which technology puts power in communities, not institutions.” and this is true for social networks –esp small and fast ones like Twitter.

What Google can’t do
While Google is great for finding information and websites, it’s NOT great for getting opinion, hearing nuance, or telling me relational information. With Twitter, I can ask information about opinions, and receive responses from real people (many I know, most I don’t) that often have first hand experience with the question at hand. Lastly, real people understand detailed and complicated questions and situations, and the more people answering, the more chance of you getting your answer.

How I’ve used Twitter as my Social Computer

Recently, I was at a swanky restaurant in SF, a CEO was picking up the tab so I could order whatever I wanted. I asked folks on Twitter “what should I order at Restaurant X” I received several responses, and immediately noticed a pattern and ordered the ribs with confidence, it was a success.

I frequently ask questions about what people think about in the news, I often receive popular opinion back from politics, tech issues, and other question. There’s a lot of gray answers here, but it’s a quick way to scan and obtain the variety of opinions about a particular topic. This method fuels the start of my initial research phase, I can get all the ideas on on a table, then hone in on the ideas that matter.

Lastly, referral content is shared, topics spread and people will offer up new suggestions, related content that isn’t necccearily going to be found in a web search.

Success requires lots of followers…a potential workaround
Now I realize that I’m fortunate in having so many followers (unlike other guys who ‘buy’ they friends by trying to offer a Mac Book Air) I’m grateful to all of the followers. Yet not everyone can gain from the network benefits, so I’ve thought of a way this can be shared with others, but I don’t have the tools to build it.

A Framework for Enhancing Twitter to be a Social Computer –For AnyoneIt’s possible that someone can build an engine that lets anyone participate in Twitter as a social computer, here’s how it could work:

Purely opt-in: Members could indicate they want to answer questions (and in return can ask them).

Members could then post a question “#question what are some romantic restaurants with a view in SF”

Anyone that is a member would then see the #question come in with a unique ID number attached to it
“question1853 @jowyang asks: question what are some romantic restaurants with a view in SF”

All members who received the question can choose to respond
“@question1583 Check out Starlight lounge or Waterfront restaurant”

All of the answers would then be aggregated on one page viewable by anyone, common answers by keyword would get weighted, and those who are ‘friends’ of the member would weight higher.

Of course, it needs to be very easy to use.

When I mentioned this idea last time, a lot of folks didn’t think it was ethical (as some of the terms included leverage) but I believe there’s an opportunity for an entrepreneur to build a answers or Q&A tool that is successful on LinkedIn and Yahoo. Let me know if you build it.

Posted in MicroMedia, Social Computing | Comments

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Social Networks could have more info about Generation Y than Government

Categories: Social Networking, Web UsagePosted on March 28th, 2008

This is entirely speculative post, as I don’t have access to US Government databases, yet the concept worth thinking about. I certainly don’t know the answer, and posed the question to my twitter community with a variety of responses, there wasn’t a clear agreeing side.

Government Data
The US Government has a wealth of demographic, workplace, educational, and financial information about it’s citizens, I’m sure there are other databases collecting information. Yet when I think about the information being created by ourselves on the social database (myspace, facebook, blogs) only a portion of the above data may be found, but an entirely different set of information can be found.

Social Database
Our research indicates that a majority of teens in North America are using social networks, in fact more than 2/3rds are active monthly users, and about 1/5th are daily users. We’re all aware of the stories of how teens are using these tools to communicate as their primary forms above phone, and even email.

Types of information commonly found in the Social Database of Gen Y:

Demographics
When I take a look at a few of my younger friends I see they’ve uploaded (willingly) information about their: age, sexual preference, political stance, work, school, email address, IM clients, phone numbers

Pschographics
They also share some of of their psyhographics: what they like, what motivates or saddens them, hobbies, music. With some time, you could eventually interept their profile to find some inner drivers and motivations. Status messages can really be telling, it’s obvious to me when someone is going through relationship pains.

Technographics
While not as complete as formal research, they also share their technographics (how they use technology) by looking at their activity, mini-news feed, see what type of applications they’ve downloaded and used. Beyond web use, you may see elements of consumption of cell phone, tv, and other technolgies present.

Relationship Network
Perhaps most importantly, they share their network information, you can see who has become their friends, what they think of each other (top friend apps) and eventually find nodes, influencers, and sneezers.

Privacy
Although much of this profile information is hidden, privacy continues to be a top concern, yet many of those afflicted with information sharing in a way they weren’t expecting have to always remember they were the ones who put that information out there in the first place. Even if someone decides to delete a profile, they comments, applications on third party sites, will leave a residual ghost that may be impossible to erase.

Considerations
Generation Y (and everyone else) should have a mental filter in their mind before publishing anything on the web. One should assume that this information (or pics) should be considered public, seen by those you don’t want to see, and here forever. While this may not always be the case, it’s a good filter to have.

Posted in Social Networking, Web Usage | Comments

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: March 27, 2008

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on March 27th, 2008

I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly digest on the Social Networking space, which I cover as an analyst.

I’ve created a new category called Digest (view archives). Start with the Web Strategy Summary, then quickly scan the succinct and categorized headlines, read text for my 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), or follow me on Twitter, (I’ll follow you in return).

Web Strategy Summary
This week is slow, as my host Dreamhost has been down. Updating this draft post has been difficult. The most significant news is Yahoo joining the OpenSocial alliance. Expect to see more social networks and widget creators focusing on building OpenSocial compliant applications.

OpenSocial: Yahoo steps into the fold
In a not so surprising move, Yahoo joins the OpenSocial collective, and a non-profit organization is formed.

Market: VCs: “No More Social Networks”
I have to agree with this, I can’t stomach another social networking pitch either. We need to stop deploying the same tools and figure out what really matters: how to communicate and be part of communities.

Privacy: How to use Facebook’s Privacy Features (video)
Teresa did a great video on how to use the privacy features on Facebook. Well done.

Widget: Mytopia launches pan networks
This widget game creator is launching several widgets on multiple platforms without being OpenSocial compliant. Unlike OpenSocial the games work across the different social networks, not as individual installs or instances.

Profile: Widget creator slide profilled
Money magazine dives into the world of slide and interviews Max Levchin. With a large inventory, and disappointment with advertising on social network sites, can Max’s ‘engagement’ metrics be they key?

Money: Hong Kong Investor pours more into Facebook
Li, a HK investor continues to put more cash into Facebook: “Li had previously invested US$60 million for 0.4% of Facebook. Li didn’t specify Thursday how much of a stake he now owns in Facebook”

This digest is a bit thin compared to previous weeks, so please leave a comment if there was something relevant that was missed.

Posted in Digest, Social Networking | Comments

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Silicon Valley Sightings: SF Chronicle

Categories: Silicon Valley SightingsPosted on March 27th, 2008

Above, SF Chronicle perches pleasantly at Fifth and Mission in SOMA district (Google Map)

One of the real pleasures I’ve had as an analyst (thanks to Tracy in our PR department) is the opportunity to meet many of the journalists and reporters in the tech industry. Yesterday, I had the privilege to meet the tech reporters Verne Kopytoff and Ellen Lee who contributes tothe Tech Chronicles blog of the SF Chronicle that are covering technology and social computing.

This landmark building, near the Metreon, SF Shopping center and Moscone was an impressive building to see. Below, you’ll see the stained glass windows paying homage to the Gutenberg printing press, the letters on the ceiling in the main foyer, and the ever present TV stations.

Today, I’m off to UC Berkeley to speak to the Journalism School on the impacts of social networking on news, I’ll be sharing that the SF Chronicle’s comments often get up to 80 comments per article, a unique way how the audience starts to participate.

(Silicon Valley Sightings is an ongoing PhotoBlog that captures the intersection of Tech Culture in the San Francisco Silicon Valley Bay Area, check out the archives. All photos by Jeremiah Owyang)

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Email Consumes Us

Categories: Web ToolsPosted on March 26th, 2008

We live in a hyper-connected world, yet part of the blowback is the excessive communication that occurs –I fear it will only get worse over time.

Today, I spoke to an Executive at medium sized corporation who confessed that she cannot keep up with her email inflow. She receives about 500 emails a day, and told me at the end of the day she sorts by sender. First from her CEO, then by the folks on her team directly reporting to her, and then whatever else she can get to.

Despite the many collaboration tools available to all of us, we use email for way too many tools (I’m guilty too) from: Status updates, document management, calendaring, collaboration, social networking, and even for ‘conversations’.

Part of the reason I blog is that I can get my message, thoughts and story out to thousands of people in just about twice the amount of time it takes to write an email. My colleagues follow me on twitter, and often know where I’m at, what I’m doing. Scoble publishes his calendar so those he needs to interview can help schedule. Yet despite these, I, my colleagues, and Scoble and you likely have more email than can be consumed.

Ironically, most of my social media peers and I still use email as one of the main ways to communicate back and forth to each other But even more, there are more inboxes to check, twitter, facebook, linkedin, I’m getting business messages from these tools and I’m sure you are too.

So what’s the solution? It’s going to be part process, and part tools. Some have committed to responding to emails only in five sentences or less, and new tools like Xobni are starting to appear (I’ve requested a beta account)

Questions for you
1) How is your email intake? Can you handle it all?
2) How do you make your communications more efficient?
3) We’re headed to a hyper-connected world with an increase in communication channels, how will you cope?

Update: I’m all for solutions, and have found that aside from the excellent comments below, that some suggest to only check email twice a day (11am and 4pm) and to set that as an expectation. Colleague Julie Katz has announced an upcoming strategic report to help marketers how to understand how to reach those that are consumed. Hopefully, this email service vendor ClearContext promises to help with the problems.

Posted in Web Tools | Comments

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Are you a Purist or a Corporatist?

Categories: Groundswell, Web TheoryPosted on March 26th, 2008

Last night, at the Blogger dinner in SF (see pics tagged ‘groundswell’), there were several discussions among the attendees from Josh, Shel, Debbie and others around their ideology and stance when it comes to the impacts of social media to companies.

Josh created a scale to help identify where peoples beliefs are, he describes it from his post as:

EXTREME PURIST

10 = The groundswell is such a powerful force, the people in it will always prevail. All companies can do is watch and listen. Their employees can participate, but only as independent people. Corporate efforts are doomed to fail.

9 =

8 =

7 = The groundswell is powerful, but companies have a role in it. Groups of people inside of enterprises can get together and make themselves heard. Even so, the groundswell will always prevail over their interests.

6 =

5 = Companies belong in the groundswell. They have interests just as the people do. They will set up corporate efforts — presences in places like Facebook or their own corporate blogs — and connect with their customers. They can’t shut down or co-opt people in the groundswell, but they can form meaningful relationships with them. And they can accomplish goals like marketing or collaborative innovation, if they respect that they’re not in charge.

4 =

3 =

2 = Corporations and other major institutions are powerful and will always be powerful. This so-called “groundswell” is similar to any other medium — people are there consuming it, and corporations can reach them within that medium. Flare-ups of negative publicity can be contained or at least “handled” so they cause minimal damage.

1 =

0 = Corporations have power because they have money. This groundswell thing is a flash in the pan and it doesn’t matter. If it gets too far out of hand we’ll buy it and make sure we control it.

EXTREME CORPORATIST

To me, the industry shifts over time: there was a lot of purist talk from 2005-2006, books, presentations and blogs came in with strong cluetrain values. Then, we started to see monetization of social media, social media optimization, and agencies, pr, and marketers getting on board.

I fall in the 5-7 range, you’ll often hear me say that companies need to let go to gain more, and that the power (trust) is in the hands of the participants, so employees should participate.

How about you? But really think it through and explain why this is your belief.

Josh has responded to some of the comments he’s already received.

Posted in Groundswell, Web Theory | Comments

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Customers Should Avoid Community Software Vendor Lock In: Own your data

Categories: Data Portability, Social Networking, White Label Social NetworkPosted on March 25th, 2008

Many corporations are outsourcing their community platforms
I’ve been talking to more and more companies that are creating their own corporate communities around their brand. For the most part, they lean on the SaaS models that the white label social network, collaboration, or even insight community vendors provide. While it certainly makes sense for marketers to lean on application service providers (it’s all setup, ready to roll, without the hassle of dealing with internal IT) and a decent to moderate price.

Avoid vendor lock in: own your data
One thing that I think is worth mentioning is that customers of these software providers need to protect themselves against vendor lock in, and the best way to do this is to make sure you own your data. The data is the ethos and soul of your community, it’s all the profile content, interaction content, uploaded media, and discussions.

Good for the industry
I’m hearing that most vendors have a clause that says that the client owns the data, but when you look deeper there may be vague descriptions or time limitations –which could really muck things up if a client wants to pull out.

Now why is this important for customers? It keeps them empowered to take their data and switch providers in the rare case a social networking vendor isn’t providing the right service or support.

What’s in it for community software vendors? It holds them at task to make sure they grow, take care of customer needs, and ensure that the relationship –and product roadmap continues to improve.

What should you own?
Customers should be able to pull their data (all of it) at any time with no questions asked, for a period as long as the forum has continued, or to receive periodical backups and exports perhaps monthly or longer. They should be able to get it at will, with no questions or withholdings by the vendor. If someone has a clause that has been written that meets these objectives, please leave a comment below, I’m no lawyer, so I won’t be creating the specific agreement content –but I know what it should meet.

Concerns and considerations
Of course, by owning the data doesn’t necessarily mean that you can quickly switch vendors, as the data will often be structured differently quite a bit of massaging from experts will need to occur, but you can sleep better at night knowing your more in control of what really matters –the ethos of the community.

If you’re a client (or vendor) in this situation, I’d like to hear about what policy you’ve all agreed upon.

Update: In one case, one client sent me an example of a vendor only offering the last 30 days of archived content. Only after they discussed it further with the vendor that they received the details. Vendors need to be more upfront about what this actually means.

Posted in Data Portability, Social Networking, White Label Social Network | Comments

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Case Study: Dissecting the Dell Regeneration Graffiti Facebook Campaign

Categories: Case Study, Facebook Strategy, Social Networking, Widget StrategyPosted on March 24th, 2008

Situation
The market pressure to create technology products that protect or at least damage their impact to the environment continues to grow. Sustainability and green-tech campaigns are coming from nearly every tech company –esp hardware manufactures. Dell is no exception and launches this Regeneration campaign.

[Dell Leaned on an Active Artist Community In Facebook to Create, Vote, Self-Regulate what it "Means to be Green" Regeneration Campaign]

Goals
I’ve not spoken with the Dell marketing team, but it’s pretty obvious this is a campaign helps to help improve Dell products to be more eco-friendly, and of course, spur affinity torwards the brand from green leaning consumers, the ReGeneration site has more details.

Strategy
Dell Computers, along with Federated Media (A social media marketing agency), and Graffiti Wall (A popular self-expression Facebook application), deployed an interactive marketing campaign that encouraged existing Graffiti artists to be involved in a contest that spurred a member created campaign resulting in affinity towards Dell. The artists were encouraged to ‘own’ the message, their creativity would spur a contest, and would continue to fuel the campaign.

Tactics
I was briefed by James Gross, who shares his thoughts mid-flight, a Director at Federated Media, as well as CEO John Battelle (interview), and they explained the contest to me.

1) Existing application with thriving community

Graffiti is a self-expression application in Facebook. It has popular (rated 4 out of 5 stars) Based on 242 reviews, and has 177,506 daily active users. Rather than creating a new application, this campaign took advantage of an application –and community–that already existed.

2) An art contest: What does Green mean to you?

Facebook members who used Graffiti were encouraged to join in a contest to win a 22″ environmentally friendly Dell monitor (appropriate for artists) to create art around the theme of “What does Green mean to you?” The contest lasted for one week

3) Engaged contributors spur theme
Over 7000 pieces of artwork were created and submitted to the contest. If you watch the replay of the art being created, you’ll see hidden messages (like easter eggs) from the artists as they discuss what green means to them. Many of the drawings had the Dell logo or the regeneration logo embedded in it. The Regeneration microsite promotes a few contributors.

4) Self Regulation
There were few negative pics that would detract from the campaign, as the community of existing artists will self-regulate and vote off pics that were not appropriate.

5) Community Voting and Winners Announced

Voting began on the second week by the members and over one million votes were cast. The winners were from United States, Canada, Sweden and Maldives. You can see the actual winners here, or click image.

Results
The campaign was a success, thousands of engaged members participated, created the campaign on behalf of Dell (similar to the Chevy Tahoe campaign a few years ago), and the community was rewarded. I don’t know for sure, but I’ll guess the majority of the campaign dollars were spent creating the microsite, then hiring FM, and working with Graffiti. The monitors, were likely less than a $1000 each.

Over 7300 Graffitis created from Jan. 16th-Jan 23rd around the theme of “What Does Green Mean to You”
Over 1150 fans of the contest

Over 1,000,000 votes were logged from Jan. 26th-Jan.31st for the artwork. (Here are the Top 150 based on votes)

Over 1,000 ideas have now been submitted over at ReGeneration.org

209 comments to the post at ReGeneration.org

Over 197 blog mentions in Technorati

What could have been better
When it comes to social media, the mentality of short lived campaigns should go away. Communities existed before a brand reaches to them and after the campaign stops. Marketers should plan for long term engagements with these people, rather than short two week spurts. There was clearly traction here and now’s the time to step on the gas and continue forward.

Secondly, the artwork created by the winners (and runner ups) should be included in future products, such as digital wallpapers, in the primary branding for Dell, and even the artists should be given an option to continue as sponsored artists. With the relationship forming, take it to the next level. Encourage artwork to be part of next generation green computers, with proceeds going to non-profits or back to the artists to continue forth.

Thirdly, the campaign was limited to Facebook, which isn’t the extent of artists on the web, as well as limited to other social networks such as Bebo or MySpace where similar communities can be found. The contest should have been created not just within the walls of a closed gardens, but also spread to the open web.

Summary
Unlike most marketing campaigns that deploy heavy ads, fake viral videos, or message bombardment, this campaign let go to gain more. Overall, this is a successful campaign as they turned the action over to the community, let them take charge, decide on the winners, all under the context of the regeneration campaign. The campaign moved the active community from Facebook closer to the branded Microsite, closer to the corporate website, migrating users in an opt-in manner that lead to hundreds of comments was clever. Well done.

Articles and Related Case Studies

Article: Virtual art for the natural world

MediaPost Social Media Insider: Maybe Advertising In Social Media Should Be An Oxymoron

LA Times: Web Scout: Spinning through online entertainment and connected culture

Case Study: How Sony connected with the Vampires Application

Case Study: Facebook Sponsored Group Analysis: Target vs Wal-Mart

Posted in Case Study, Facebook Strategy, Social Networking, Widget Strategy | Comments

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The Need For the Social Media Manager

Categories: Community Manager, Web Industry, Web TeamPosted on March 23rd, 2008

Update: Constantin has created a new wiki of Social Media Managers and Strategists at the New PR Wiki.

I stand by my research, personal experience, and industry monitoring that the need for social media managers will continue to be in demand for the foreseeable future.

This post is a direct response, refuting and correcting Steve’s post that the Social Media Manager will go extinct.

While I enjoy Steve’s predictions (as well as a peer) that the Social Media Manager will be extinct, I’m here to respectfully correct him and leaning on my research findings from my recent Forrester report: How to Staff for Social Computing. In fact, we’ve found that there are two roles to be found in corporations serious about online communities.

Steve comes from the PR agency perspective and from his view, this makes sense. Yet, I come from where demand actually happens: in corporate enterprise marketing, where I was a social media manager at Hitachi.

Currently, in large corporations, specialized marketing managers, are found often sorted by industries, but also sorted by mediums and channels. For example, there are corporate marketers that focus on Web Marketing (my background) Advertising, Direct Marketing (email, mail) Search Marketing, Event Marketing, and even Print Marketing.

While I agree that social media skills will eventually become a normal bullet point in nearly every marketing resume in the future, today, and the foreseeable, we’re needed specializing for the following two reasons: 1) The specific duties are foreign to most other marketers 2) Online communities (like the support team) require a dedicated role.

In our recent report, we indicated that there are two distinct roles appearing within corporations, the social media strategist (I gave the example of VP of Social Media, Ed Terpening at Wells Fargo) and the community manager, who is responsible for being an online face to the community (Lionel Menchaca is a great example).

So, until the roles of medium based marketers (like direct marketer, web marketer, event marketer) go extinct or this skillset completely normalizes or the role of communities (another way of saying customers) go by the wayside, we’ll continue to see the growth of these dedicated and specialized roles.

Steve is wise to assert that the blur between social media and traditional media as we know it is correct –from a PR perspective. But when it comes to corporate communities, developing social media programs, these are skills that the majority of traditional marketers have –nor understand.

As an analyst, many of my clients (at Fortune 5000 companies) consult with us for social media guidance, I’m increasingly on more and more concalls where these individuals have a dedicated role in this new medium.

Lastly, to drive my point home, I’ve been publishing a series of blog posts called “On the move” that list out (in groups of 5-6) individuals that have been hired to fulfill this specific job. If you notice, the rate has been increasing, not decreasing over the past weeks. Looking at actual job movements is a more accurate –and telling—way of looking at social media jobs than keywords from a job site.

Posted in Community Manager, Web Industry, Web Team | Comments

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People on the Move in the Social Media Industry: March 21, 2008

Categories: On the move, Web IndustryPosted on March 21st, 2008

I’m starting this post series (see archives) to recognize and congratulate folks who get promoted, move, or accept new exciting positions. We should congratulate the following folks:

Tom Diederich joins Cadence as the Social Media/Web Community Manager. He’s working for Carlos Soares, my former colleague at HDS.

Brian Chappell joins Ignite Social Media as Sr. Social Search Strategist, and tells me he is seeking other talented individuals. Brian’s blog is here

Daniel Thornton moves from Journalist to Community Marketing Manager at motorcyclenews

Michael Brito accepted the position at Intel managing social media for the consumer segment, a great company doing lots of the social media front.

Adriana Gascoigne joins Ogilvy helping clients with their social media strategy as Vice President at the 360° Digital Influence Group at Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. (and they are hiring)

Aaron Uhrmacher was appointed to the role of Global Peer Media Lead, where he will provide strategic consultancy to clients and internal teams, at Text 100 Public Relations

How to Connect with others:

Submit an annoucement
If you know folks that are moving up in the social media industry, leave a comment below, or if you’re feeling shy (it’s cool to self-nominate) send me an email.

Seeking Social Media Professionals?
If you’re seeking to connect with community advocates and community managers there are few resources

Also see my Web Strategy Jobs powered by Job o Matic

Also see my community manager group in Facebook

Check out Jake McKee’s community portal for jobs

See Chris Heuer’s Social Media Jobs

SimplyHired aggregates job listings, as does Indeed

ForumOne Jobs for Social Media and Community

Hiring? Leave a commentt
If you’re seeking candidates in the social media industry, many of them are within arms reach, feel free to leave a link to a job description (but not the whole job description, or I’ll delete it.

Posted in On the move, Web Industry | Comments

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You can now access Forrester Technographic Data

Categories: Forrester, TechnographicsPosted on March 21st, 2008

I wish I had this data when I was launching social media at Hitachi, sadly, I focused on tools first, rather than first focusing on how people used technology.

Forrester has a lot of data, I learned in new hire training that we deploy the most surveys second to the US Census. On it’s own, data doesn’t mean anything, so we have made the information (when it comes to social media adoption) easier to understand using technographics.

Colleagues Josh and Charlene are sharing Forrester Research survey data on the Groundswell site. You can now find out the Technographic data by different major countries, segment by age, and gender using a flash engine –at no cost.

How to access Forrester Technographic Data:

First, understand that Social Technographics classifies people according to how they use social technologies, read these 8 slides.

Next, go to the profile tool, and experiment with many of the drop downs and toggles.

Then, you can determine which social media tools to use, based upon understand those you are trying to reach. It’s always dangerous to build your house starting with a hammer (tools), first, figure out who you’re building it for, then build a plan.

Data comes from the following surveys:

US: Forrester’s North American Social Technographics Online Survey, Q2 2007, 10,010 respondents.

Europe: Forrester’s European Technographics Benchmark Survey, Q2 2007, 24,808 respondents.

Asia Pacific: Forrester’s Asia Pacific Technographics Survey, Q1 2007, 6,530 respondents.

Posted in Forrester, Technographics | Comments

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What’s the Persona of Your Company? Examining the LinkedIn Company Directory

Categories: Social Media, Web IndustryPosted on March 21st, 2008

Combining both third party plus member data, LinkedIn can reveal a persona –and social capital– of our companies

LinkedIn announces it’s ‘company’ pages (your company is likely there) that displays both status updates of content created by members, as well as pulling in third party data about companies in this unique mashup. The center column displays people in your network, new hires, promotions, and the most viewed profiles.

While I see this as a minor new feature release, it could pave the way to some interesting models on how the intranet is now in public. There are plenty of opportunities to compare across companies, to help both current management of companies understand their workforce, new employees making decisions on which company they want to work at, and ‘outbound’ professionals to scope out prospects.

The sample size
First, remember that the data is only of those who are participating on LinkedIn, don’t assume it’s your entire workforce. What’s interesting is that for many employees, this is the first time they’ve ever been able to see the majority of job titles on LinkedIn, tenure, and other data that is typically held tight (or non-existent) by HR.

Retention Rate (at tech companies)
People leaving too soon can quickly add up to major costs. It’s safe to say that those that are active on LinkedIn are highly networked, have high social connections, and are more likely to be mobile

Regarding tenure, or really, ‘retention rate’ of the employees I found the following interesting

Hitachi, 3.5 years
Oracle 3 years
IBM 3 years
Microsoft 2.5 years
Yahoo 2 years
Apple 2 years
Google, 1.5 years
Facebook, 1 year

Update: Louis Gray has taken this to another level, I planned on doing this, but didn’t have the time, great job.

Roles and Education
It was interesting (yet not surprising) to confirm that a majority of Facebook’s employees on LinkedIn were engineers: 26% and 10% are from Stanford, and 6% from Berkeley, with a medium age of a mere 27.

At Google, which prides itself in it’s marketing prowess also has 23% SW engineers, with a medium ripe age of 29

Expand on this Platform: My Wishlist
Some interesting features I’d like to see from this company directory could include:

Creating job satisfaction ratings for previous and current jobs (help determine who likes to work where)

How connected is the average company? A more connected company is likely to have more relationships, clients, and partners

Creating a company directory, at least at the executive level (consumer created org charts)

Show which one of the employees is the most connected (interesting for sales and recruiters)

Average years of working experience per employee per company (determine maturity or youth of company)

What’s the average connections per employee per company (help determine social capital)

Industry comparisons between highest educated, longest tenure, etc.

Create a heat map that shows where employees are located

Which companies hired the most per college rate (example: Stanford students has strong affinity to Facebook, etc)

There’s an opportunity here for this platform to expand and offer more data about a companies persona, and how it relates to the rest of the market. I look forward to future iterations and improvements.

Update: thanks Brian Keith for the typo alert

Posted in Social Media, Web Industry | Comments

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: March 19, 2008

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on March 19th, 2008

I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly digest on the Social Networking space, which I cover as an analyst.

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), or follow me on Twitter, (I’ll follow you in return).

Web Strategy Summary
Bebo acquired by AOL, a major consolidation in the industry, with both companies have strong media plays, and may have reach for familiar demographics, this could be a partnership made in heaven. Facebook continues to sport new features, and society continues to be impacted from the adoption of social networks

Acquisition: AOL buys Bebo for $850
The largest news for the week is AOL’s surprise move to purchase 3rd ranked social network Bebo for $850 million. At first glance, the demographics line up well for both parties, yet it’s unclear what their media strategy will be for this experiential social network.

Acquisition: Demand Media Buys Pluck
I’m a few weeks late on this (I’m not sure how it slipped by me) but Demand media has decided to buy Pluck.

Debate: Up with Widgets, Down With Widgets
Interesting counter viewpoints here, this article on why widgets are a success barely alludes to the opportunities, and this counterpoint says why widgets won’t work.

OpenSocial: MySpace rolls out OpenSocial Library
The OpenSocial protocol is now starting to grow as MySpace launches it’s library of OpenSocial apps.

OpenSocial: Hi5 to launch developer platform
Like Facebook and MySpace, Hi5 is next to announce that they will allow applications to quickly and freely move from one social network to the next.

Privacy: Infamous Dupre tries to control MySpace profile
Dupre, who was pointed out in the prostitution scandal had her Facebook and Myspace page scoured by press, she tried to control but too little, too late.

Politics: Election battle fought on Facebook
CNN reports that the campaign could be fought –and won — on Facebook for the next president of the United States.

Analysis: Linkedin and Xing
RWW does some analysis by the numbers comparing the two business social networks, Xing and LinkedIn. Although Xing has a smaller user base, the attention data is much higher.

Culture: Will members outgrow embarrassing photos?
Facebook, which was intended to be a social hangout for college students has now grown to be much more than that, as business and family personas creep in. How will users react?

Findings: Social Network users consume media
Highlights from a recent digital entertainment survey show that “27% of respondents say that social networks could become the main way they access music and video content”

Growth: Ning exceeds 200,000 networks
Semi-white label social network Ning sports growth as over 200k communities have been created. Of course, that’s a non-stat if the active user base is low, apparently 70% of them are active, but how do you count this? one user visiting?

Usage: Facebook traffic to Eclipse MySpace
While never the sole attribute we should measure success on, total traffic to MySpace reduces yet attention data increases, with the opposite happening for Facebook.

Features: Privacy and IM to be added to Facebook
Facebook continues to ratchet down constraints to improve the experience at Facebook with a new IM feature that will be interested to see how it takes hold.

Leave a comment if you’ve any suggestions, or I missed any stories.

Posted in Digest, Social Networking | Comments

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The Benefits of Blogs: Feedback (Why Sam is sending me back to school)

Categories: Feedback, ForresterPosted on March 19th, 2008

Apparently, Sam is sending me back to school.

Sam Lawrence, CMO of Jive Software is one of our customers, and he’s reviewed the service that he’s received from Forrester and another analyst firm. One of scored a “C-”, and the other scored a “B”, read his report card to find out who scored what and why.

Customers in every industry (even the Analyst industry) are being empowered by social media tools, they can directly talk to each other, share experiences, and make decisions –often without the marketer or sales person present. I’ve been preaching this on my blog and in presentations and at my former employers for nearly 4 years.

Is this a disruption? Absolutely.

I advise my clients that the key is for the company to be an active part of the conversation in their marketplace, this is where customers, prospects, and partners will be. I was in a NY taxi when I saw this on Twitter, but pointed to it instantly (Carter says that was the right move), and wasn’t able to respond in the comments, but tweeted it, and I think my colleagues quickly saw it, two of them commented before I was able to get online, and Rob, who was with me at the event also commented.

More important that being part of the conversation, companies need to listen and when appropriate, act on the feedback. So now I need to go back to school (a “B” isn’t good enough), study up and find out what it’s going to take me to get an “A” from Jive and other customers.

Aiming for the honor roll, we’ll keep at it ‘till we do.

Posted in Feedback, Forrester | Comments

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Silicon Valley Sightings (Special Edition): New York’s Tech Scene

Categories: Silicon Valley SightingsPosted on March 18th, 2008

(Above: The Flat Iron Building [map], in New York’s Silicon Alley)

I usually reserve this tag for the interesting places I see in Silicon Valley, but am traipsing around New York for a few days.

I’m camping at the office of Bricabox, as a guest of CEO Nate Westheimer in a small thin incubator building with quite a few startups. We’re across the street from Madison Square Park, where there’s several social media, interactive firms in the area. Before lunch I had a briefing from James Gross of Federated Media, learning about a recent social network marketing campaign I’ll share with you later.

Now I’m told that the original Silicon Alley was actually in Soho, but there’s quite a few folks popping up in this general area, VCs included. I twittered I was having lunch at Shake Shack in the park, and a total of 7 of us joined up, great discussions yet in the cold (by my Californian standards). I met Ryan Anderson from Fuel Industries (he’s a Forrester client) and Matt Zarzecki from CafeMom a social network for mothers.

Silicon Valley is very insular, we don’t know much of what happens outside of 408 650 415 and it’s really fascinating to see different communities of the tech industry.

Here’s a list of NY Tech events, Allen Stern has a list of events this week, and Bricabox (I unique content system) has this list of NY Tech Organizations.

View from Hilton Times Square 48th floor, early morning

(Silicon Valley Sightings is an ongoing PhotoBlog that captures the intersection of Tech Culture in the San Francisco Silicon Valley Bay Area, check out the archives (which now showcase some tech areas in Asia). All photos by Jeremiah Owyang)

Posted in Silicon Valley Sightings | Comments

Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang

Archive for March, 2008

Up Close and Personal with Technographic Data

Silicon Valley Sightings: SF Chronicle

Email Consumes Us

Are you a Purist or a Corporatist?

The Need For the Social Media Manager

People on the Move in the Social Media Industry: March 21, 2008

You can now access Forrester Technographic Data

The Benefits of Blogs: Feedback (Why Sam is sending me back to school)

Silicon Valley Sightings (Special Edition): New York’s Tech Scene

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