Archive for April, 2008

Video: Sea World’s Social Media Program and Measurement (7:10)

Categories: Case Study, Social Media Measurement, VideoPosted on April 2nd, 2008

If you’re in need of a vacation, take this roller coaster ride with Shel Israel, who’s on a mission to explore social media when it comes to companies, a topic I’m focused on as a researcher. Sea World worked with Kami Huyse to “move the needle” to reach out to an influence community called “American Coaster Enthusiasts” to reach them using social media tools.

They used YouTube, Flickr to publish their media and encouraged the community to use the videos (creative commons rights) and were encouraging content to be created. You’ll learn that this six week campaign reaches specific downloads and activity, some were downloaded 100,000 times.

What about this makes a good strategy? Sea World found their passion community (many brands have one) figured out how to have a discussion with them using their tools, let go of their own content for it to spread and be used by that community, and resulted in positive increase in product (park visits) usage.

What could they do better? Sea World should involve the coaster enthusiasts to help design, build, and promote the next generation coaster. Sea World could also sponsor their site, hold and event for them, and figure out other ways to make them brand ambassadors.

Towards the end of the video, they make some pretty incredible findings on how people found out about the real-world park through the web.

Also, I recommend you follow Shel’s Israel’s blog, or his Twitter account to learn more the impact of social media on culture.

Is it just me, or did the opening remind you of an older (ok a lot older) version of Johnny Knoxville?

Update: Kami gives an summation of the whole campaign, over a year later. For counterpoint, econsultancy raises important questions about metrics and measurement.

Posted in Case Study, Social Media Measurement, Video | Comments

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Getting ready for next weeks’ Forrester Marketing Forum in L.A.

Categories: Events, ForresterPosted on April 2nd, 2008

We’re gearing up for next weeks’ Marketing Forum in Los Angeles, with over 800 expected attendees, the company is really excited to deliver great content, facilitate networking, and showcase technology vendors that help solve marketing problems.

The speaker lineup is impressive, aside form Forrester analysts presenting their key industry findings we’ve speakers from Fedex, Nike, Wal-Mart, Dell, Leapfrog, and more. The event team has been working hard to prepare all the logistics, and I’ve already listened in to dress rehearsals for presentations (our speakers rehearse dozens of times, in order to deliver high value)

Also, each of the attendees are getting a copy of the upcoming Groundswell book. I’ve been asked to do what I’m best at, help facilitate social media during the event, so I’ll be sitting in the front row in the blogger bullpen, if you’re a attending and attend to blog, stream, tweet, the conference, come up and sit with me, or please say hi. Looking forward to seeing you next week.

Watch the Forrester Marketing blog for details.

You can check out the last time I went to the consumer forum day 1 and day 2. Leave a comment below if you’re going, I look forward to meeting you.

Tag for the event is forrmarketing08

Update: Marianne Richmond has high expectations of the event, we’re looking forward to seeing her!

Posted in Events, Forrester | Comments

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Weekly Digest of the Social Networking Space: April 2, 2008

Categories: Digest, Social NetworkingPosted on April 2nd, 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.

Web Strategy Summary
Culture continues to be impacted by social networks, more real world case studies emerge and adoption continues to rise. Watch OpenSocial as more containers (social networks) adopt the protocol and widgets will spread in an easier method.

Guide: Picking a Community Partner
A great practical guide on how to select a white label social network or community vendor.

Web Usage UK: 25% of 8-11 year olds on Social Networks
The trend continues on as social networks become a major form of communication for our next generation. It really seems as if the adoption of social networks is happening at a faster rate than nearly all other forms of communication.

Jobs: Facebook ad Career Builder partner
Facebook to now received Career Builder job modules to help it’s highly educated member based to benefit from job listings. Expect to see job posting widgets appear from competitors.

Art: Social Network Visualized
Social networks visualized in this fascinating graph where members relationships are seen.

Trend: Real time chat to be new Social Networking feature
Expect to see more containers –and vendors –offering chat features for social networks, expect attention rates to increase on social networks as members communicate longer periods of time.

Culture, woman murdered over Facebook usage
This sad article depicts a father angry over a daughter’s Facebook usage in a conservative culture.

Segmentation: Social Networking for Small Businesses
Great to see Rodney Rumford featured in this recent article from Forbes discussing how small businesses connect using social networks.

Container: Hi5 launches widget platform
In the next container to launch it’s widget container for opensocial applications, Hi5 now opens it’s doors. Hi5 has a launch program with restrictions on how much an app can distract the user experience.

Verticals: More music artists launch social networks
A great opportunity for the white label social networking industry to grow communities for fans including Kylie Minogue, and 50 Cent.

Leave a comment if there’s a story I missed.

Posted in Digest, Social Networking | Comments

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I Remember Exodus

Categories: Ruminations, Web IndustryPosted on April 1st, 2008

Note: This is a repost of a previous post I had on my older blog, I’m reposting it as it’s still relevant, and I’m migrating some of my older content to this blog.

Left: The “e” from the Exodus logo that formerly used to reside on the HQ building. It’s currently in my garage, and I look at it every time I park my car –because I want to remember

I started my career at Exodus Communications, and was there for three long years. If you know your internet history, Exodus was a flagship turned bloated startup that exploded, then died painfully into highway 101. (I didn’t do it, I swear!). We hosted pretty much everyone, massive data centers with great security, right on the backbone. If you were an internet company, it’s likely you were with Exodus at one time or another. We even bragged “we ARE the internet”.

I still half-jokingly apologize to friends that bought stock just out of guilt for a promise that never was. The Exodus (EXDS) Stock split FIVE times in just a little over 12 months…if I can recall corrently–then it went to pennies and we filed chapter 11 –Twice! 3 CEOs later, 10 rounds of layoffs, I was the final 33% (or was it 12%…I forget) and I left on to greener pastures. I wish someone would create a [Edit: I did create a] wikipedia history of Exodus, it’s worth remembering, and a good lesson.

F*cked Company (one of the original grass roots conversational aggregators) always had clever names for us at Exodus Communications.

“Exit Us” or “Mass Exodus” or “ExoDUHs” or “XX for-eyes-us”

I remember the people
I learned some powerful lessons at Exodus Communications, I saw a complete business cycle in 3 years, had countless reorgs, and figured out how to survive 10 rounds of layoffs. (The secret is “embrace change”, btw). Most importantly, I remember the people. I had a great manager, (John Perera) who became my mentor, even came to my wedding, and we have lunch whenever we can squeeze in the time. Waili was even my groomsmen, Can you believe that? A sales guy in my wedding party. (just kidding…us IT folks figured you hated us and that’s why we got shipped over to the otherside of the freeway)

I know many other Ex-Exodus Alumni read this blog, I think the greatest takeaway was the people that I met, there was a strong caliber of people, risk takers, movers–the enterprenurial spirit ran deep. I’ve noticed that almost everyone I keep in touch with has a day job AND a side business! (rock on!) We still keep in touch, and even had a BBQ a few years ago. I’m even having lunch with a few alumni today at Rivermark.

I remember the Ferrari we had parked outside of the front door at Exodus, which was used to motivate sales closes, eventually it was awarded to the top earner.

Yahoo and EMC now inhabits the Mission College Towers (left) I used to call home, I drive by there frequently on my way to work.

I remember the dot bomb parties. I went to many dot com launch parties in SF, San Jose, and Tahoe. I saw eStamps, Beenz, Pets.com, and a bunch of other silly companies spend thousands on parties for no particular reason –then reality set in, a business model is sorta-kinda needed.

I remember the sock puppets, lime and purple logos, and a fleet of 3-Series BMWs on 101 in seemingly standstill traffic. I remember that having an Exodus badge got special treatment at luxury car dealers on the peninsula. I remember people doing silly things with big ice blocks and vodka, people dancing and bragging about ‘hittin the gold mine’, and C-level execs performing stunts to garner attention.

I’m sure if I watched carefully, I would have seen people jumping into pools to get attention/money/recognition. So although I was a dot bomber (many others fared way worse that me) I walked away with a lesson.

Now, today things are picking up again for web (called web 2.0). The new era of social software is coming around, and coming fast, really fast. But I’m with Loic, who questions if we’re headed back to the crazy bubble 1.0 again.

Let’s do it right this time, please remember.

Leave a comment, what was the dot bomb experience like for you during late 90s- early 2000s?

Posted in Ruminations, Web Industry | Comments

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How to Deal with Internal Stakeholders

Categories: Web Strategy, Web TeamPosted on April 1st, 2008

The Web Strategist deals with many internal customers
A Web Strategist is an web decision maker, in context of this blog, they are often within large corporations. They have internal customers that range from marketing, product teams, product marketing, support, PR, advertising, IT, and a plethora of external vendors. For many web strategists’ much of your effort won’t be dealing with users or your web team of developers and designers but with internal stakeholders. I’ve seen a lot of this when I was corporate web manager, and I’d guess that over 50% of my time was spent dealing with requests, problems, prioritization of internal stakeholders. (I managed an enterprise intranet, extranet, and aligned a disparate enterprise intranet)

Your internal customer: the stakeholder
What’s a stakeholder? someone who stands to benefit or lose from your direct actions, as a result, they are your internal customers. Stakeholders can make your life heaven or hell, from their requests, or to they way they give feedback to your management chain.

Think of yourself as a chaperone
The way to manage stakeholders is to think of yourself as a chaperone, for your stakeholders, you oversee them, guide them, and direct them where they need to go. This is somewhat of a challenge, as if you’re overbearing and deny them their requests, they’ll escalate to their management (their parents), who will talk to your management (your parents), causing unnecessary headache. It can go the other way as well, if you bend to their will, they will dominate your time, and the user experience (your external customers) of the site could suffer if your put business needs first –rather than balancing the user with business needs.

How to Deal with Internal Stakeholders:

Develop great relations with your internal stakeholders
Make yourself accessible to these teams, and build relationships to understand their business needs and drivers and try to get ahead of their requests, learn to ancipate their needs.

Establish clear roles
Sadly, stakeholders will often grab the first person in the web team they see to make a request, either a small web update or a project with scope creep. Assign someone on your team to facilitate requests, and a role to properly scope projects so you’re always setting expectations.

Make the process very clear
Tasks, Projects and Programs all have different life cycles, roles, processes and requirements, you’ll need to spell out very clearly to your stakeholders how each of those are different, and set expectations.

Develop a ticketing and project system
Deploy a system that will both accept incoming requests, this will help free up team resources, help see all the requests from one view, and help to keep track of many requests. This system will eventually be a great way to report to your management team of your fulfillment, and great for customer satisfaction reporting. Thanks to Adam for the submission in the comments.

Lead the prioritization, but involve stakeholders
You’re always going to have more requests than resources, unless of course your company is headed the wrong way. Make it clear what your current resource threshold is and prioritize projects. As new requests come in, you can have stakeholders work with you to move budgeted resources around –forcing them to prioritize their own requests. Of course, you’ve the final say, and should be empowered by your management to lead this forward with conviction

Train stakeholders
Depending on how your website is setup, some of your stakeholders may be encouraged to publish directly to the website, you’ll need to educate them on how to use tools, analytics, and other know hows to be successful. Train stakeholders on how to understand web analytics and web reports –empower them to take ownership over the content they have on their site. Teach them to fill out a requirements and scoping document, saving your team time and ensuring they’ve fully thought out the request.

Make your schedule and reports available
Let all stakeholders know of what your team is working on, establish an internal calendar with project definitions available, including web analytics reports so business stakeholders can work with them

I could go on and on with other recommendations for success, but instead, I encourage you to leave nuggets in the comments. I’ll add great ones to this list and fully credit you.

Related Resources

The many Web Strategy Constituents: The external forces that shape your website

The Three Web Activities: Task, Project, and Business Programs

A Complete List of the Many Forms of Web Marketing for 2008

Video: Alastair Duncan on Corporate Website Leadership (3:30)

Posted in Web Strategy, Web Team | Comments