Video by Scholz and Friends, a German marketing agency. Link via Leslie Carothers who’s also on Twitter, ask her opinion about furniture. Interesting that I often find out about new interesting content from friends in Twitter or email, people send me ideas and links, wom in action –even when I was on a Twitter hiatus.
Archive for the ‘Web Marketing’ Category
26
Video: Marketing Through the Decades
Categories: Video, Web MarketingPosted on January 17th, 2009The Fight on Google’s Results Pages: Community Platforms
Categories: Search Strategy, Web MarketingPosted on January 13th, 2009Dell’s Bob Pearson was right, a company’s corporate homepage is really Google.com
As I was doing follow up research on some of the vendors in the community space, I was entering in some keyword searches on Google to find different product pages. Although a common practice, it’s interesting to see which vendors buy sponsored links on the right hand column of the search screen. It’s not easy to tell if they’ve purchased these keywords directly to display if someone enters a vendors name, or if they bought greater search terms like “community software”, either way it’s an indicator of what Google, or the vendors think their most relevant competitors are.
Search marketing is a pretty normal practice, but over the years I’ve seen and learned a few ethical, and not so ethical ways companies do battle for mindshare. A few examples:
Brands often forget to purchase the paid keywords for their specific product name during a launch, a well placed blog post from a competitor mentioning the specific product name can yield some pretty tremendous search engine juice. History tells us that many press release link to the company’s homepage, but not to specific product pages, forcing bloggers, press, media, and analysts to do Google searches to learn more, the result? A competitors blog can easily be visible above the fold. While discussed and reprimanded by Google and other search engines, when I was in web marketing, I heard cases of competitors supposedly clicking on our paid search terms, and since we had a limited inventory of pay per click, they would use up our inventory. Now I’m sure Google has ways around this (by looking at IP address or other behaviors) but every technology has a workaround. For even more nefarious uses, former colleague and internet expert John Cass gives a breakdown how one vendor was using trademarked product names in search marketing strategy, and the difficulties of enforcement. (link via LiveWorld’s Bryan Person)
So what’s right and what’s wrong? Time tends to average things out, and those that play above the table will eventually look victorious, those that kick under the table tend to get punished –or others see it and walk away. On the other hand, all’s fair in business, there are no rules, and this just is an indicator of who’s hungrier for your business.
Screenshots
Below are some screenshots of some vendors search engine results pages (SERP) and you can see the different sponsored links on the right. Here’s what I see when I search for Liveworld, Kickapps, and Telligent.
Update: Sam Decker, CMO of BazzarVoice created this interesting matrix was created that shows which vendors are buying keywords for other competitors SERP pages. link via LiveWorld’s Bryan Person.
With your brand being mentioned so many places online, it’s a difficult task to manage how it’s positioned and where it appears –in fact, in many ways, you can’t control the brand, as it’s now ‘owned’ by those who talk about it (or always has been).
Now, if your job is to be the caretaker of your company’s brand, or you’ve been hired to do so as a PR firm, you should keep on eye on how it’s positioned on Wikipedia (and follow these rules on how to update it), if you’re in the social media space, also monitor and manage Tradevibes, Crunchbase, and now Appappeal.
With the recent concerns about brandjacking, or getting your brand punk’d, this helpful tool user name check can quickly scan the popular (and not so popular social networks to find if your company’s name (or personal) has been taken. The service sometimes goes down, so be patient with it.
On a related note, Mukund suggests here’s some targets PR folks should look at when pitching social media companies, I left a comment suggesting a few others, maybe you can help him round it out. Targeting team blogs like centernetworks, or other influentials may yield a better spend on time and effort –I’m nearly tapped out in time reviewing products.
I’m often asked by companies and indiividuals on what they can do to stand out. Here’s what I’ve learned… but don’t just take my word for it, add your own tips in the comments.
The problem:
There are so many brands now, in fact with the introduction of websites, and blogs in particular, many are developing personal brands, something not as easy to accomplish in past years. With this profileration of brands, it becomes so much more difficult for brand to stand out from the millions of others. Sure, you’re thinking the long tail solves this, and well yes, in a way. In reality there are leaders and followers being created in each sub-niche, so the rules of getting noticed still apply.
Have a goal
Before you do anything, think about what your objectives are. In particular for brands or personal brands, identify the keywords that you’d most want to be associated with. Try to think of keywords that people would search for, are long-term, and aren’t some made up name that no one would seek. Your goal may be association with these keywords which you’ll be gunning for. Or, if your goal is to network with others and to grow your reach, focus on how many quality relationships (perhaps defined by people that would help you and you’d help back) that you can grow. Or if your goal is to learn about a new topic and eventually master the subject material, focus on how you’ll learn by reading, then eventually writing on that topic.Develop a unique brand
I really don’t think URLs are as important as they used to be, often folks will Google your name to find you, and the fact that we disperse to so many websites (Facebook/Twitter/Friendfeed/What’s next) is an indicator of the distributed web ruling the destination website. There are millions of blogs/companies out there, and if you’re trying to get noticed, you’re going to have to compete to stand out. Having a default blog template to your website isn’t going to be enough, you’re automatically segmenting yourself with others. Develop a unique look and feel by designing it yourself or finding someone who can help. If that’s too difficult, at least create a custom masthead image that will brand your site.Get personal
If you want to stand out, you should add your picture to your blog, and develop a visual icon that demonstrates who you are. While not everyone shows their picture (Louis Gray comes to mind) he did develop an icon “LG” that represents his personal brand. Use this icon on all your other social media properties in a consistent manner. Also, register the same handle on other social media sites, and cross link them from your blog. Take for example Jive Software, who in a crowded space (80-100 vendors) has encouraged Sam Lawrence to develop a unique voice that he inserts –and leads– in the conversation about enterprise social software.Attend local events
One thing I found very useful when I was trying to get noticed was attending many events. I attended 2-3 tech events every week, which was easy to do in Silicon Valley. By doing this, I was able to meet folks who were passionate about the space, were speaking at other events, and developed a network to interact with online during the day, and one I’m very active with now.Lead events
You’ll soon start to notice a gap in the events you’re going to: a particular topic isn’t being covered, or a particular style of a topic isn’t being approached (unconference, roundtable, lecture, networking) and you can start to quickly develop your own events. I’ve seen so many do this, in particular blogger dinners, or meshwalks or barcamps.Be interesting
Given the large number of people talking about the same thing you are online, you’re going to need to differentiate. Sure, standard business strategy but it’s amazing how few fail to do so. Many simply quote what others say, adding very little value, instead, you need to consistently be intersting. Here’s a few approaches: conduct analysis, respectively disagree with the mainstream, break news, compare and contrast services, develop lists or indexes of companies or topics. When I met Scoble in 2005, I asked them how I can be a better blogger (get links from A-listers) he told me to ‘be intersting’, I took that too heart.Archive your achievements
As you develop your repitorie of speaking at events, leading events, or being quoted in articles or top blogs, start to create an archive that links to all these achievements. You don’t need to make it totally visible, but you’ll want to be able to share this with decision makers (next job, speaker selector, media, recruiters) to indicate on one page how you stand out.
I’ve so many other tips on how to get noticed, but I’m going to leave this an open discussion in the comments, leave examples and tips for others on how to best get noticed.
What Facebook’s New ‘Engagement Advertising’ Means to Brands
Categories: Facebook Strategy, Web Advertising, Web MarketingPosted on August 21st, 2008Update: Only a few brands will trial these new ads, after testing, will then be broadly released later in the year.
A few days ago, I had a private briefing before the press with Tim Kendall, Director of Monetization at Facebook, below are the findings, with specific recommendations for brands. As I get more information, such as results and data, I’ll update this post.
Web Strategy Summary (90 Words)
Facebook launched a new product called ‘Engagement Advertisements’ that encourages members to interact with the ads by leaving comments, sharing virtual gifts, or becoming fans. To combat dismal click through rates of traditional advertisements, these features emulate widgets and encourage users to increase member adoption, viral growth, and brand interaction. Brands will only succeed with these “WidgetAds” if they create content that puts community first, lean on new interactions, integrate with other tools, plan for the long haul, and change how they measure success –traditional internet advertising tactics won’t apply.
[Facebook's 'Engagement Advertisements' emulates natural activities of members --in hopes to increase interaction, network spread, and brand preference]
Facebook, a Fast Growing Global Social Network
Facebook, noted as the largest social network, is on a growth rate to increase it’s active users to 90million active users today in August, 2008 up from 54 million aprox at the start of the year. While presumed to be of a younger college educated demographic, it’s not the domain of the young alone as the largest growth rates are educated white collar workers, over age 25. Facebook has global growth in markets such as 66% growth rate in EMEA, and 35% and 33% growth rates in Europe and Latin America, respectively.
Engagement Advertisements Integrate with Natural User Behaviors
Facebook’s innovative way of monetizing is unique, they were the first to launch a developer platform (F8) as well as the ill-fated Facebook Beacon, and are now launching with a new interactive marketing and advertising product.
[Facebook's 'Engagement Advertisements' more akin to interactive marketing with a social twist: "WidgetAds"]
Unlike Beacon or Facebook Connect, both products intended to aggregate the actions on third-party sites (like Blockbuster.com) this new product called “Engagement Advertisements” is intended to nicely integrate with Facebook’s newly redesign profile and news pages. Early brands to trial this include: Paramount Pictures whose video commenting for Tropic Thunder ran two weeks ago –I’ve asked for campaign results. Future early adopters also include General Mills’ Betty Crocker which will have image commenting and the ability to ‘fan’, and video commenting for Addias, both to trial late August.
Engagement Ads provide three unique experiences
Rather than clicking on the ad and being whisked away to a branded microsite, these ads allow members to stay within the contained walls of Facebook and their social community. Engagement ads come in three major flavors:
1) Comment Style Ad: Members can now leave comments on these advertisements, much like wall posts. Brands that are focused on entertainment, new product rollouts, autos and apparel are well suited. The ad can show up to 4 comments per object, and the activity spreads to the users newsfeed.
2) Virtual Gifts Style Ad: Brands can now create virtual items that users can share, spread to each other. This wildly popular behavior within applications and Facebook is suitable for consumer products, entertainment, and some media.
3) Fan Style Ad: A play off the Facebook pages, users with a persona affinity for a product (like Apple) can become a fan, triggering a notification to their network, and could then tie on social ads. Will work great for established brands, like guitar hero, passion products, luxury products, or any brand with a rabid customer base.
Forrester Data: Social Networks foster communication, self-expression
With horrible click through rates (I’ve heard cases of .04 percent CTR) of ads on social networks, some brands prefer to focus resources elsewhere. Why the low rates? Our research indicates that youth primarily exhibit behaviors of communication and self-expression –not searching for products, looking at ads, or hunting for information.
Common Behaviors of Youth on Social Networks
See what my friends are up to: 86%
Sent a message to someone: 79%
Posted/updated my profile: 70%
Looked at profiles of people I didn’t know: 65%
Sources: North American Technographics Retail And Marketing Online Youth Survey, Q4 2007, Forrester Research
This youth data supports that social network behavior is in fact, ’social’ and these respondents are not seeking to find out about product information, nor learn about the latest products at a media site, product review, or a search engine like Google.
[Brands will only succeed with 'Engagement Advertising' if they lean on user behaviors like communication, self-expression, and social exploration --traditional internet advertising need not apply]
Knowing that the use case between social networks and product-focused sites is key for marketers to deploy successful marketing. For success, marketers and advertisers need to focus in on the key social behaviors, and integrate the marketing activities within the community.
Demystifying Facebook’s Marketing Tool Chest
Facebook’s marketing toolset is confusing, and many brands frequently ask me what is the current set, and how do they use it, here’s the current toolset as of today. Remember that when it comes to groups and brand engagement, the most powerful activity is for employees to actually participate in the community with their customers –not stand by the idle wayside. With that said, here are some of the other tools available to marketers to engage the Facebook community.
Engagement Ads: (new, and detailed above) allow community members to interact with the ads in the profile and newsfeeds –without leaving the Facebook site, increasing interaction, social spread, and brand engagement. Currently unproven, brands may not be ready for these types of new ads, until they change how they measure success.
Standard Advertisements: These Text and image ads can appear on homepage or profile pages, neatly integrate with the new redesign.
Social ads: Are helpful for brands to increase the velocity or acceleration by marketers, allowing them to buy ads that echo the behaviors “what did my friends do” of opt-in users. These primarily appear on the newsfeed, which will encourage spread to an individuals network. Some brands have been under fire from users who felt this was invasive.
Traditional IAB graphic ads: Advertising laden brands may still purchase the standard IAB skyscraper and banner ads from Microsoft both an investor and partner. With low CTRs, some brands have better places to spend their money for return on investment.
Facebook pages: Launched last year, brands can (at no charge) create their own pages, embed applications, encourage discussions, and start to garner “Fans” of it’s products. Most brands are incorrectly using these, based upon the findings from my recent report on the best and worst of social network marketing for 2008 -Forrester Research.
Event Feature: based pages allow marketers to promote events through viral invites, rsvp tools, and event rollups from media and community interaction. While a useful utility, for most brands that market on the web, this is often a side-effort, not the primary push.
Facebook Connect: Perhaps the biggest untold story is the day when Facebook (and other social networks) will connect with corporate websites, I’ve outline future scenarios in this post What ‘Facebook Connect’ Means for Corporate Websites.
Applications: Facebook was afirst mover to allow third-party developers to create an entire eco-system of applications that are growing their own applications. Most brands are harassing successful apps through sponsorships, cross branding, and a few are building their own apps, see how Dell was able to let the community create –and spread– ads on their behalf. Also read my posts on Widget strategies to learn more, or my overview of Facebook’s F8 Developers Community.
Key Takeaways
Monetization of social networks continues to be a challenge, and Facebook continues to innovate, however for this announcement, brands and Facebook should:
To Succeed, Brands Must Learn Social Marketing
While costly, risky, and foreign to brands, the biggest missed opportunity for brands in social networks is to become part of the community, interact and build real relationships. Although we should expect interaction rates and viral spread to increase with engagement ads, brands should wait and see how these ads CTR perform. For those brands that are ready to forgo the risk, and pursue ‘Engagement Ads’ they should:
Be community themed: Ads created by the brand will succeed if the content is first focused on the needs of the community. Rely on new interaction activities: The rules of the game have changed, the goal is to increase interaction within the community –not pull them offsite. Approach with an Integrated Mix: Facebook offers many tools, ‘Engagement Ads’ shouldn’t go it alone, instead increase chances of success by involving other tools. Change how they measure success: Brands must also change they way the measure success with these interactive ads, rather than weigh success solely on page views or referral traffic.
Marriage of Widgets and Advertisements offshoot: “WidgetAds”
Looking forward, this announcement helps to set in place how online marketing will start to evolve. Widgets have already become advertising units, and now these advertisements are starting to become widgets. Expect Engagement ads, and Widgets created by third parties to start to exhibit these behaviors outside of Facebook. Facebook Connect, Google Connect, and OpenID will bridge social graphs with interactive ads –springing forth a new generation of widgetads.
Although innovative, Facebook must focus on marketers
Although pushing interactive marketing, Facebook must hand-hold many brands with their frequently changing marketing offerings. Facebook must develop a client solution that will help optimize these tools with professional services based on data, results, and demographic information. Marketers can’t afford to experiment with their brand without the help of a trained and experienced group of social marketers provided by the platform.
The only caveat being that the experience of users, always, always comes first, I’ll point to others that cover this aspect.
Related Resources
This is cross-posted on Forrester’s Interactive Marketing blog See all posts tagged Social Networks, Widgets, Facebook, or my weekly digest Forrester Report: The Best and Worst of Social Network Marketing for 2008 Forrester Report: Online Community Best Practices Forrester Report: Online Communities: Build Or Join? Forrester Report: Google’s OpenSocial: Good News For Marketing Widgets But No Silver Bullet Forrester Report: Get With It With Widgets
As usual, the conversation spirals off into Friendfeed.
Update: Forrester clients can access a short brief with additional recommendations for interactive marketers.
How “Janet” Fooled the Twittersphere (and me) She’s the Voice of Exxon Mobil
Categories: Case Study, MicroMedia, Web MarketingPosted on August 1st, 2008The game is up, “Janet” is not an official Exxon representative
A few days ago, the Twittersphere was curious, interested, and excited to see a member of Exxon Mobil’s employee ranks to join the twitter conversation and engage in conversation…sadly, she’s not a real employee. You can see the fake Twitter account called ExxonMobilCorp
The mystery unraveled –in 3 days
Shel Holtz was one of the first to discover this (update: he’s posted this thoughts), as he commended Exxon for their efforts, their response was “It’s not us”. The mystery continued to unravel as I received an email from the Houston Chronicle Press wanting to talk to me about what I knew (Update: The Chronicle’s story is now live) –the word hit mainstream analysts and press in three days, secrets don’t remain secrets for long in internet speed.
“Janet” has been posing as an Exxon employee, answering questions about the direction of the company, where philanthropy resources are being spent, and even responding (a few, which were very off-tone) about the Exxon Valdez.
A real conversation with Exxon
I spoke to Alan Jeffers, Spokesperson of Exxon Mobil a few minutes ago to get his side of the story, and to offer some words of wisdom, which I’ll share below. First of all, Exxon has been “brand jacked”, (and will now make the official punk’d list), they were caught off guard because they were not monitoring and responding to their own online brand.
Alan was forthcoming, honest, and appears to want to do the right thing, I posed a few questions to him, his responses in quotes:
What if this was an employee in a remote arm of the company, would it then be ok?
“It’s not really relevant, there are only people that are authorized and not-authorized, even people with the best intentions, may not know what the appropriate position is or the facts, we think that there’s a problem, as we don’t want to be misleading people and there’s a lot of errors what the person is posting even if it was something that had the best of intentions could be misleading.
It’s our perception that social networking is based on honesty, transparency and trust, it’s important that they become forthcoming about who they represent”
This is slap hands on everyone’s hands, Exxon hasn’t really done anything wrong, they were just caught unaware. In fact, the whole Twitter community (myself included, see my write up) has been fooled including this list of brands on twitter.
What message do you want to give to Janet the supposed company representative?
“Be forth-coming about who you are, it’s ok to be in support for or against something, but you should be forth-coming about your identity”
What lessons have you learned about monitoring your brands in social networks?
“We need to be diligent about what is being said about you, by you, and those pretending to be you”
I see a lot of opportunities for Exxon here, it’s clear the community wants to talk to you, you can roll with this by coming face forward:
“We’re going to examine what is going on, and if indeed if there is anything to do, I want to underscore we’re not trying to prevent anyone from going out. There’s lots of opportunities, we want to speak to people, and to learn what people think”
Alan and Exxon employees have a big opportunity at hand –once they’re ready.
Options for Janet
It’s also interesting that Janet tweeted this, just a few hours ago: “btw, @jowyang , thanks for that wonderful piece: http://tinyurl.com/6nol2e”. Janet, I highly recommend that you do one of the following: 1) Turn over the Twitter ID keys to Exxon, 2) indicate that you’re not an official representative. I see that you’re attempting to preserve the brand, but you can be a brand advocate to Exxon without attempting to pretend to be an employee –in fact, you may be hurting the brand. (Update: Aug 3, Janet has deleted that tweet thanking me and continues to pose as an official Exxon representative)
Key Takeaways
Lack of identity confirmation continues to plague the web
Identity is a serious issue on the web, we’ve no great way of confirming true profiles, therefore, going forward, before we can conclude a blog or twitter or Facebook account is official, we need to see trackbacks coming from the corporate site, or contact info and get confirmation.Companies must monitor their brand
Brands should be monitoring the discussion and instances of their keywords in social networks –failure to do so results in becoming case studies.An opportunity for the real Exxon to step forward
The power has shifted to those that participate, so while Janet may have achieved momentum by participating, further opportunity lies within Exxon when they’re ready to come forward.The community (myself included) need to first validate identities
This fourth one, I just added. It was too easy for someone to assume a brand’s identity and we all fell for it, myself obviously. We need to first determine if these are the real employees and validate. I’m exploring some ways to do this, we’ll revisit this topic soon.Legal and Trademark issues complicate
Update 12 hours later: It’s become clear that even more issues are bubbling up from comments, and the social media club dlist, which I’m part of. For example, in UK there are clear laws (not just guidelines) about being transparent about buzz marketing campaigns, and some are suggesting that Twitter be responsible for being a brand cop, while some say brands should be accountable. Some are suggesting that Janet become the “Scoble” of Exxon while Marshall Kirkpatrick says Exxon should walk completely away from Twitter.Corporations should have internal social media policies
Update August 8: Zdnet has additional coverage on this bizarre case, Janet, in a recent tweet suggests she’s an actual employee, that’s standing by her employer. Zdnet suggests that companies should have internal social media policies, dictating where the guidelines are, a good point.
Note: I incorrectly had Dallas Chronicle, and have subsequently changed it to Houston Chronicle.
Brands Obsess over Female Bloggers (Examining the Economics)
Categories: Web MarketingPosted on July 17th, 2008
I just got back from the pre Blogher party at Guy Kawasaki’s house, even today, as I gave a social computing workshop, I heard from yet another brand that they are desperately trying to reach women bloggers. Why? Well first of all, many of them control the financial spending at the household (ahem, that’s true at my house) and they are also ‘creators’ with blogs, pictures, video and podcasts –they’re influencers. With so many brands understanding the new “Google” world, where influence can happen from digital creators, they do what they can to reach them.
I spoke to a few of the bloggers trying to find out what works and what doesn’t. One indicated that when brands pitch them, they should really read their blog to understand their editorial agenda. I talk to brands, and they think it’s a mob rush to reach these women, and therefore very difficult to get in front of them.
I was talking to many female bloggers and learned that one of the party organizers from Kirtsy that about 50 brands submitted schwag for this pre party (although as you see above, only about half made the bag). I took a picture of the good stuff that I brought home (for once, says my wife). Also, Blogher received $5 million in funding this week (update: read interview, link via Chris Bishops) to build an advertising newtork, and the Blogher conference will have about 1,000 attendees in SF, many having traveled all over the country.
Now despite the attention being given to this hot market, I see two major problems. First of all, this market is already getting statured by marketers pitching these influential women, secondly, some of them (as I’ve heard) are not fully disclosing how they recieve these products, whether or not they keep or give them away.
So my questions to you is this:
When this organic and natural market gets saturated from the many vendors pitching at them (would make Scoble blush) what impacts does this have to: 1) credibility of the women bloggers, 2) Effectiveness of brands trying to reach this inundated market? 3) If credibility and demand is reduced to this market, will it decrease their influence? How will they be able to maintain these levels? I think something has to give.
I certainly home someone reads my above questions at blogher to the female congress, it’s a real issue that I hope they address.
Key Update 12 hours later (a moment of clarity):
First, to be very clear, it’s not the character of the bloggers I’m challenging, it’s the economics of great demand for a limited supply, please don’t misconstrue this.
After a good night’s sleep (something I rarely get) I can see what’s going to happen now:
1) The opportunities for brands to get in front of bloggers to review products has become saturated, pitching to them has become less than effective.
2) Therefore, the advertising network that blogher, sugar, glam, or others puts forth where be where the excess demand goes, brands will simply pay to advertise their products on the major nodes of the network, based on other blog network models, there will be little trickle down for b-a list bloggers in this space.
3) The credibility of “blogger review” will be reserved for a few products, but the supply of excess product marketing demand will be alleviated through a blog advertising network.
History shows that marketers are great at figuring out avenues where there is less friction.
Edit: thanks to anna for noticing my typo
Cadence Puts Community in the Forefront
Categories: Case Study, Community Marketing, Web MarketingPosted on July 14th, 2008One of my most popular diatribes is my rant on the irrelevant corporate website, in summary, I suggest a gap between the reality of the public conversation and the biased marketese on company websites. Today, I’m starting to see more websites evolve, from Sun’s aggregation of public blog posts, to many companies launching social network features for their site.
Two of my former colleagues, Carlos Soares, and my former manager Peter Simonsen (Update: other team members include Jim Price, project leader, and Suzie Im, web designer extraordanaire) are now spearheading the web efforts at Cadence, and have launched a new website that puts the community front and center right on the homepage. You’ll find headline aggregation of corporate bloggers on the homepage, as well as a link to a budding community forum. They’ve organized blog and community discussions by topic area, making it easier for folks to find information. Recently, they hired Tom Diederich, as the community manager, sounds like they’ve got their work cut out for them.
Above: Cadence prominently features blog posts from employees, as well as one click links to community forums
Why community for Cadence? Their description says they “Provides front-to-back design tools and services for all aspects of semiconductor design”. Essentially, a developer community of engineers is who they are often going to serve, as such, developers will tend to communicate, ask and answer questions, and self-support each other. I’d guess this is a ’supporting’ (forums) strategy followed by ‘talking’ (blogs) objective, using Groundswell terminology.
Above: Although just getting started, the forum is seeded with topics, has member profiles, as well as tags and unanswered questions.
A deeper look into the forum features you’ll see on the right nav a listing of unanswered questions, as well as ‘popular tag’ content modules. The former to encourage self-support from members, and the latter will help identify popular topics in the community. Also you’ll find a rating and ranking system for popular discussions, such as this comment marked three stars.
What’s promising is the ability to leave comments on any of the blog posts, or within the forums, all just one or two clicks from the corporate webpage. I asked Carlos Soares “How do you deal with negative comments” and he responded: “Comments are pre-moderated. There are terms and conditions that people who leave comments should abide by. If off-topic we may address it directly with the user leaving a comment or not depending on the nature of the comment (spam, obscene, personal attack, etc.)”
What are some potential next steps for Cadence? To continue to reach to their community by aggregating all of the discussion in their market, not just Cadence centric content. By becoming an industry discussion hub, they could take expand mindshare from other competitors and customers. Examples of this would look like aggregating content from other blogs or forums that are not hosted at the Cadence domain. Perhaps another method is to invite engaged customers to lead blog posts and prominently feature them discussing relevant –and sometimes controversial –discussions on the site. Currently, there is not enough user interaction, most of the forum discussions appear to be pre-seeded by Cadence (a good practice) but Cadence should have a kick start plan, to attract, and promote community members (I addresses this in my Online Community Best Practices Report). Lastly, the forums don’t have social networking features, I highly suspect that engineers will center around specific activities and will want to connect with each other, therefore Cadence forums could evolve to a white label social networking platform.
In any case, this is truly a step in the promise of putting people and the discussions they have in the foreground, let’s revisit this in a few months and see if they community has taken the lead.
Jobs for the Web Strategist- Copywriter (part time) at Carroll Enterprises, Inc. (Worcester, Massachusetts)
- Social Media Project Manager at Creative Labs, Inc. (Milpitas, California)
- Director of Social Media Marketing at PTC (Massachusetts)
- 2166 Global Digital Communications Manager at Ford Motor Company (Dearborn, Michigan)
- Online Connection Pastor at LifeChurch.tv (Edmond, Oklahoma)
- Search Marketing Analyst at OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network (Los Angeles, California)
About
Jeremiah Owyang
Silicon Valley
The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer, Forrester Research.
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