Customer Experience Crossroads

Marketing new products: audio e-mail from GoldMail

There's an interesting trend afoot in marketing that we might call Guerilla Social Marketing. It's hard to tell that it's actually marketing if it's done well.  The basic pattern is to find a discussion group in a place like LinkedIn that relates to your product/service. And ask a question about your product/service. Result: you get exposure AND information.

I'm running across this a lot lately. Here's an example that was relatively nicely done, and lets me tell you about an interesting little tech company.

An advertising guy posted a question on the Innovative Marketing Group discussion regarding a product called GoldMail, a product that can embed audio in slides, put a clickable link in e-mail, and track the clickthroughs. His question was seeking creative ideas for taking this product to market.

It's a good example of a product that is fairly straightforward functionality, bundled in a useful way. You can do this in other ways, but perhaps not as easily.

I like thinking about problems like this, and it didn't take me long to come up with several ideas for marketing this product...

[1] I think you would find professional speakers, presenters and trainers to be a very receptive audience for this product. And an advantage to tapping this market is that they are very active marketers themselves, sending out a lot of newsletters and so forth. To get quick uptake, you could offer a special deal through the association to it's members. In the US, National Speakers Association is what you need. In Canada, it's Canadian Association of Professional Speakers. There is also an international association.

[2] Bloggers might be quite interested in something like this to add audio to their blogs. You could offer something through Typepad, a major blogging platform. Again, you might want to provide them a preferred rate, so that Typepad helps you market the service. Since people are already paying for Typepad, they should be more receptive to paying for additional functionality.

[3] Real estate agents. The leading brokers offer many innovative marketing tools to their agents, and this seems like it could be a great fit. Look for the leading brokers in major markets that are doing innovative things. If you get one major broker on side, others will hear about it and you will get demand pull.

[4] Partner with e-mail newsletter provider, such as Constant Contact, to offer their users additional functionality. Again, you get established base of users, and by doing a little revenue sharing, they can help you take your product quickly to a much larger market.

[5] As a straight promotional strategy, offer a free account for a year to everyone on the top 15 marketing blogs list. (Which is actually a few hundred bloggers, including me www.customercrossroads.com) By getting usage and buzz from this group through reviews, etc., you will quickly build demand traffic.

I assumed, as others on the discussion did, that the company is his client. So he could have just been trying to get a little buzz going, not really seeking ideas at all.

Indeed, few consultants are likely to post their actual work challenges in a place like this, for fear of looking incompetent.

So I'm assuming the actual strategy was related to buzz or linking in some way. In short, Guerilla Social Marketing. Which has likely worked, at least in a small way, since you read this post and now know about this product.  I can't say I like the general trend, but it's happening a lot. If you decide to do this, be subtle about it.

Postscript:

After writing this post, I learned that you can become an affiliate marketer for GoldMail, and collect ongoing royalties from others who sign up. That wasn't my purpose here. Just so you know.

I have nothing against affiliate programs, it's just not something I do.

This just in: digital nomads, social networking in the workplace, Burger King Studio reprise - how to manage social media

I have to tell you that the guys who created Burger King Studio -- Mess Marketing in Chicago -- demonstrated awesome social media management skills.  You will recall my post wherein I gushed about the cool t-shirts you can make online, and gave them what-for about glitches on their purchase process. Look at all the things they did right here:

♥ They are keeping track of social media mentions of their project. [check]
♥ Rob Robinson, creative director, immediately posted a comment on the blog [check]
♥ Then he tracked down my e-mail and sent me a personal note there too [check]
♥ He apologized for the problem, acknowledged my concerns, said they would give the feedback to the web team, and would also try to find my custom designs!  [check, check, check, double check!]
♥ I got an additional wow when a package showed up at my office, with two t-shirts, some cute buttons, and a catalog of the project showed up. [2 checks and a gold star for that one!] 

This is totally going to make workouts more fun while trainer TK - aka the princess of pain - is tossing medicine balls at me.

♥ Oh, and one more thing. They went hunting for my custom designs, and have promised to send them along as soon as they are made. [extra credit!]
Here they are:


I told him, via e-mail, that I was planning on using the t-shirts as prizes for a workshop I am doing for a client on consumer trends. Because I thought their project was pretty leading edge.  Which it is.

Okay, so he's getting a little earned -- aka unpaid -- media. And he had to exert a little effort for it, as do you. But look at this circle of happiness that was created. He gets more profile. I get cool t-shirts. AND I get a killer story for the next dozen or so presentations I give. Everybody wins.

And an even more loyal BK customer, who really likes to have it her way.

***

Stopping by Chris Brogan's blog I found an interesting report from Citrix about web commuters -- the workshifting phenomenon.  Some startling statistics like these: by 2008 there were 33.7 million US teleworkers. Forrester is projecting big growth, such that as many as 1/3 of the workforce will work from home at least part of the time.  Given that you can't flip burgers or change hotel sheets from home, I'd guess that this means knowledge workers will be telecommuting a lot.

A study Citrix Online commissioned found that 73% of American workers and 53% of small business owners want to be able to work remotely.

In the late 80's I was part of a Future of Work Secretariat that the ministry of labour in Alberta launched. We were talking about this stuff then, but the technology just wasn't there. Now it is.

Apart from technology support, what does this group of people need?

***

In a similar vein, Aon Consulting has published a report about employee attitudes around social media in the workplace. Aon is looking at the big shift towards Millennials in the workplace, and their comfort level with social media, and seeing a disconnect with the ways employers communicate.

45% of the 8000 respondents in the study already work remotely. Almost half use instant messaging at work. Four in ten use text messaging at work -- not to talk to family and friends, but to exchange information.

"The internet’s power not only gives people access to a wide range of news perspectives, but it grants each  person an outlet to express his or her own opinion on it. Employees are using social media to collect  information, to interpret and communicate it to others."

So many organizations seem determined to keep the lock on social media. If this study is any indication, it's not going to work.

***

Have a great weekend!
 

Don't make your Twitter feed just another one-way convo

A sure sign that a fad or trend is going mainstream is that how-to conferences start to spring up. I just got a notice of a Twitter conference. Here's the PR blast highlights:

TWTRCON SF 09 INITIAL SPEAKER LINE-UP INCLUDES MC HAMMER, GUY
KAWASAKI, VIRGIN AMERICA’S PORTER GALE, INTUIT’S SETH GREENBERG,
EDELMAN DIGITAL’S STEVE RUBEL AND PAUL SAFFO

Conference Focused on Twitter for Business to Be Held May 31 at
San Francisco’s Hotel Nikko...Technologizer founder and editor Harry
McCracken will provide the official live Twitter feed.

Tonia Ries of Modern Media (a host or sponsor of this event) thinks you can get a head start on your competitors by having a Twitter strategy now:

“Companies are finding they can use Twitter to reach and engage customers, influence opinions and activate markets. Business leaders who develop Twitter strategies now will have a head start in tapping the potential of this powerful new platform.”

Let's do a little deconstruction, shall we?

MC Hammer --> Celebrity Twitter feeds make sense. It's just People and US with a live feed. Hardly a dialogue

Guy Kawasaki --> another personal brand. Makes sense for him, too, to keep his high profile.

Virgin America --> using it to respond to individual questions and highlight deals. Gives people a place to rant or rave. The more effective business approaches to Twitter seem like this to me. Opens a door to accessibility to the corp. that has been pretty closed until now.

My Take:

Yes, Twitter has it's uses. But there will be lots of abuses, too. It's not a magic bullet. And you can hardly call a Q+A function a "Twitter Strategy". Or perhaps I just don't get it.

One of the things Twitter is not, is a way to reach young adults. They are less likely to be on Twitter. The most likely group? 45 to 54 year olds. Next most likely: 25 to 34.  All that texting you see young people doing with their phones? It's much more likely to be some kind of SMS or instant messaging application. They're sure not reading the tweets of their twittering parents.

Resources:

What Mr. Kawasaki has to say about using Twitter: (It triggered a lot of commentary)

Twitter Traffic Explodes, by Sarah Radwanick, at ComScore. Found the link on Guy Kawasaki's Twitter feed, but he didn't post the link. Annie Colbert, one of his ghostwriters did. Except she signs her tweets, so she's not really a ghost unless you don't know what the initials AC at the end of the posts mean. See how complicated this thing already is?

Twitter Older than it Looks, by Alexei Oreskovic at Reuters. Courtesty of the ComScore story.

[edited 5May09 to shorten the PR blast quote]

What makes for compelling community sites? Air Miles has some good ideas.

Now that everyone's getting in on the community thing, it's certain that only the appealing will survive.

But which sites will be appealing enough to attract a crowd that comes back again and again?

Air Miles has now launched a community site. This seems like a potential winner, since some people are pretty passionate about points collecting.

Browsing the discussions, I learned that you can collect points simply by searching on Yahoo. Which is a fascinating concept all by itself... I presume this works for Air Miles because of data mining possibilities.  Which would turn some people off, but not dedicated collectors.

They have a place where you can post pictures of your trips taken on points, which is kind of a fun idea.

The home page has a scrolling list of things people have purchased with miles. Darren from Ontario just got an 8MB iPod Touch for 3150 miles. These items are clickable, and take you to the purchase page.

A lot of thought has gone into this site, to make it engaging. I bet it creates a stronger commitment to collecting and using miles among community members.

It's a good example of why you need a few things in place if you want a vibrant community:

[1] Understand your audience. You are probably not aiming to serve the average here, look first at your raving fans.
For example, one of the tips shared on the site is to have an extra Air Miles card in the glove compartment of the car as a back-up in case you forget the one you always have with you. Now that is a fan. That is the person you want to attract and keep happy.

[2] Set some objectives for the site. What value will it bring users? What value will it bring you? 
Air Miles says "Learn Tips and Tricks. Discuss Ideas. Share Memories." This is really well defined, and the site supports these promises.

[3] Add a number of ways to interact and engage users. If it's boring, no one will come back. In addition to the features noted, I saw instant polls, highlighted tips, and similar eye-candy here and there.

Getting a new community going is difficult. One of the problems is that members ask questions and no-one answers them. This is where a moderator can come in handy. For example, Monique is looking for a place to stay in New York near Rockefeller Plaza. She posted the question on March 19. No one has responded. But surely a moderator could have answered this question, and should have. Monique is probably already disappointed. And seeing this kind of dangling question may discourage others from posting.

So when you build your community site, have a real plan. Why would anyone want to spend time there when there are plenty of other places to go.

How we present ourselves to the world: manage your wardrobe, manage your social media presence

Culture is so pervasive that you must respond to it in some fashion. You can't refuse to play, because refusal to play is a response.

Consider clothing and personal appearance. Regardless of what you do, you are making a statement. The statement might be investment banker, hip grandmother, organic farmer, or a thousand other statements with lots of nuance.

I was at a new millenium kind of event called Podcamp recently. Very cool free conference that was about things like podcasting, social media measurement, and building online communities. Here's a shot of the opening introduction to the conference.

I noticed a number of behaviors that really stood out in this subculture. For example, in every session there were people sitting on the floor with their Mac plugged in. The plug-in part may be incidental, I'm not sure. A lot of people were wearing t-shirts with provocative slogans. Even though it was sweltering, a number of people were wearing a toque, including one of the presenters. Then there were people like me who were clearly pretenders in geekdom. No toque. No Mac. No iPhone. No t-shirt slogan.

Many of these folks probably think they just don't care much about clothing. But they are wearing the identifying marks as surely as if they were wearing a pinstripe suit on Bay Street.

[Yes, yes, you are saying, but how does this connect with social media Susan? I'm getting to that right now.]

Social media has already become so pervasive that we now have to manage our social media presence just like we manage every other aspect of how we present ourselves to the world.

This trend is important enough that there are now tools being created to help you manage your multiple online profiles.Or search the profiles of others. Example: Profilefly and  Ex.plode.us.

Other tools help you stay on top of Twitter, such as Thwirl, or TweetDeck. But this is only the beginning.

Andrew Crighton posted about the challenge of having real friends versus Facebook friends. Some people are starting to maintain two profiles on sites such as Facebook, one for their personal friends, and one for the public world of acquaintances and business presence.

I see this as trying to keep the personal and private distinct from the public presence of your personal brand. 

You may have noticed a recent shift in the kind of activity you see on sites like LinkedIn, now that so many people are looking for work. A recent McKinsey Quarterly article, When Jobseekers Invade Facebook, asks what happens to the value of these social sites when they become "increasingly cluttered with self-promoters, career artists, and marketing entrepreneurs."

What is clear is that managing your personal brand image is becoming exceedingly complex as a result of social media. It's only a matter of time before you can hire a personal social networking advisor, just as you can hire a wardrobe consultant or a personal coach. [Any one know of any examples yet?]

Resources:

Good overview of current state of social media worldwide from Universal Mccann on slideshare

More on social media

You will recall the recent posts based on an interview with retail specialist Christine Whittemore, of Flooring the Consumer.

We ran it in three parts:

Using social media in a traditional industry: Flooring the Consumer Blog
Using social media: focus on the message, and bridge new and old
The social media paradox: you can put carpet on You Tube, but it will keep you busy

When she kindly responded to my questions, she sent a few of her own, asking me to be part of her Bridging New & Old series.
You can read what I had to say at her amazing blog.

[Her blog is amazing. I'm not just saying that because she interviewed me. I stand in awe of her detailed posts, filled with informative links. Thanks, and keep up the great blogging!]

Social marketing reprise: don't just be talking to yourself, okay?

One of the dangers we face here in the social media world is that we may just be talking to ourselves. Which is not a good thing if you spend a lot of time trying to build business on your blog. HubSpot captures this issue brilliantly with a cartoon on their blog, shamelessly copied and reproduced below. [Hoping you guys don't mind. I did put a link in it.]

The social media paradox: you can put carpet on You Tube, but it will keep you busy

This is the third of a three-part interview with Christine Whittemore, creator of Flooring the Consumer, a trade blog in the carpet industry, and Carpetology, a consumer focused blog on everything carpet. Read part 1 here and part 2 here.

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Pushing further into social networks

As Ms. Whittemore has continued to learn more about the social media environment, she and her colleagues have reached into new areas.

In 2007, and again in 2008, she participated in writing the Age of Conversation, a collaborative book created with bloggers around the world. Each author contributed a chapter, and the book proceeds have been donated to the children’s charity Variety.

Being involved in that project was what led Ms. Whittemore into other online sharing tools, including Facebook and Twitter. “We had a reason to experiment with some of these tools to figure out whether they make sense and how to use them.  I’m in admiration over Wiggly Wigglers (here on Facebook) and The Engaging Brand (here on Facebook) and how they use Facebook to nurture their community and business.”

She has now started experimenting with Facebook for Wear-Dated, and has a video series called A Foot’s Perspective on YouTube. True to form, both these properties are cross-linked and linked to the Carpetology Blog. There are Flickr sets for Wear-Dated, Solutia’s brand of carpet fiber. “These are long term projects that allow me to keep on learning and experimenting.”

Ms. Whittemore also describes herself -- accurately -- as an "enthusiastic participant" in the Bathroom Blogfest, an annual event that I was involved in instigating that created many opportunities for additional blog profile through cross-linking.

The "social media paradox"

When asked about key learning and missteps, Ms. Whittemore says, "The biggest misstep is not experimenting and trying these tools.  They are efficient and powerful and here to stay.  So, not becoming familiar with them puts you at a disadvantage."

Unfortunately, as many new media practitioners know, time pressures often expand with involvement in social networks, something she calls "The social media paradox".

"My biggest frustration is not having enough time.  I bet you are familiar with what I term the social media paradox: you get involved because you have a bit of extra time.  Before you know it, the social media project has snowballed and taken on a life of its own. 

"You develop a community.  You must nurture it, but that leaves less time to be looking outward at what others contribute to the conversation, and keep up with other new developments." 

The challenge becomes to "still be aware of what’s going on outside your immediate circle". If you don't maintain this connection between the online and offline worlds, she believes you become "too insular".

Another key area of learning has been in keyword placement and search engine ranking. "I knew nothing about SEO when I started out.  As my writing has improved, I’m developing more sensitivity for how to position ideas and keywords for greater benefit.  The Carpetology Blog has helped tremendously as all postings have some relationship to carpet."

She still wishes she had more time for formal training in online copywriting principles and SEO (Search Engine Optimization), as well as Google Analytics and other tools. All in service to meet the goals of the entire exercise: "understand what matters to web visitors".

Trends: social media is growing, and the consumer is in charge

Ms. Whittemore believes that blogs and other social media tools are becoming more accepted, even in traditional industries. "I’m seeing more exploration taking place with LinkedIn groups forming", she notes, and "Corporations are getting increasingly involved in social media which means that acceptance is growing."

What isn’t changing is that the consumer is in charge and begins research at a web browser.  "The only way to be discovered is by participating in the online conversation and creating content that is authentic, trustworthy, relevant and valuable. And that will only become more true going forward."

Christine Whittemore is certainly one of the people actually driving change in traditional industries. I have no doubt that Solutia's competitors are wondering how to catch up to this two year lead in online conversational presence. They could take a lesson from her, and just get started.

The development of these online properties certainly shows the potential impact available from new media involvement for any industry, no matter how traditional, or even low-engagement the category might seem.

Using social media: focus on the message, and bridge new and old

I've been very interested in marketer and author Christine Whittemore's approach to social media in the carpet industry, a space not necessarily well known for innovative marketing. She graciously agreed to answer some questions about the  two business blogs she is now responsible for. In this second article in the series, (read the first one here), we'll focus on how she keeps the target audience engaged, and metrics for success.

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Focus on the message and bridge the new and the old

Ms. Whittemore believes that the relative ease of using social media tools -- versus traditional marketing communications -- allows the marketer to “focus on your message from the beginning", rather than the mechanics of delivery. But there are no quick results.

“Regardless of your industry, you still have to start from scratch to build your credibility, reputation, trustworthiness and your voice - one post at a time. And, then, you have to find ways to cross-merchandise your posts by bridging new and old forms of communication.”  Among the methods Ms. Whittemore uses to do this cross-merchandising: sending out press releases about the blog, mentioning it at presentations, and listing the blog address on a business card to hand out.

Marketers need to be prepared for ongoing learning. “I’ve heard it said that there’s no such thing as a social media expert because we are constantly learning and figuring out new approaches to what we are doing", she says."It takes time to internalize what works, and it’s easy to miss the obvious.”

As an observer, I can see a very consistent and significant effort to cross-link to previously published posts, and to engage other bloggers with comments, shout-outs and links to related content. It's an impressive effort, and really highlights that this sort of initiative requires real resourcing and time commitment if it is going to work.

The personal rewards: clear thinking and disciplined process

When people ask me about my own blogging experience, one of the things I always tell them is that my writing has improved enormously. This is Ms. Whittemore's view as well.

"Becoming successful in this environment has definitely been a stretch." She is now responsible for 3 blogs (Flooring the Consumer -- the trade blog, Carpetology -- the consumer blog, and a personal blog about her community -- The Smokerise Blog).

She publishes two to three times a week on the business blogs, in addition to writing trade articles, press releases, website updates and presentations. “Although I enjoy the written word, I never considered myself a writer.  I do now!” 

She finds the glut of information a marketer needs to deal now with a challenge to process, and hopes that the writing discipline will help with that. “I’m hoping that it will also force me to process information more quickly as it’s hard to keep up with and share the wisdom that is available.”

Engage your target audience with relevant stories

Ms. Whittemore has found that ideas, stories and examples need to be very relevant to the audience, and not too abstract. The blog needs to communicate with passion and relate to the retail experience, whether it’s in flooring or not.

While this sounds simple enough, a quick read of her blogs shows the effort that goes into this. For example, the January 12 Flooring story was about holiday store windows, and links to three other articles about store windows, complete with images, and highlights the web sites of some of the most interesting ones, such as ABC Carpet and Home, and Bergdorf Goodman. Like all the articles in this blog, there is a highly personal tone -- she explains why she doesn't have more of her own pictures of windows due to family commitments over the holidays -- and a veritable link-fest of connections to relevant content, pictures and even embedded videos.

An example of the consumer oriented content is shown in the image above, taken from the December 12 post on Carpetology. The carpet-buying sheet is a consumer-oriented one page sheet that outlines useful tips for buyers, such as keeping a sample of the installed carpet to support warranty claims. This is the sort of material that is usually buried deep inside the corporate website, and probably doesn't reach nearly as many people as it might located inside social media. The blog posting goes on to talk about how all vacuums are not the same -- "beware the beater bar!" Practical, relevant advice.

Ms. Whittemore believes the challenge now is to find ways to connect online and offline effectively. “There’s so much rich and relevant content available online that all can and should benefit from. It’s up to us as marketers to figure out how to engage those offline conversations … and make it part of the rich online discussion.  Otherwise, we’re just talking amongst ourselves.”

This theme is the topic of a new social media initiative called Bridging Old/New, “that I hope you will participate in.” [Yikes!]

Measurement and impact: tie it to the business objectives

Many bloggers are free agents of some sort, and pretty much in control of where they spend their time. We may want results, but no one is looking over our shoulder and asking the question. An employee spending this kind of time on social media is going to have to justify it for at least one stakeholder. I was curious how Ms. Whittemore is doing that.

“The beauty of this digital medium” she said, “is that there are all kinds of measures available: visitors, pageviews, subscribers, bounce rate, time on page, comments, and more.” It all depends on the purpose of the blog. Which is why her measures vary across the blogs.This is truly one of the smartest things I have yet heard spoken on the topic of social media measurement: to have objectives, and link your measurement to the objectives.

“For Flooring The Consumer, I monitor subscribers over time, comments both online and offline (I get many offline or email comments), and whether posts lead to other conversations.

“For the Carpetology Blog, I monitor overall traffic and which terms visitors have searched on, whether they have come from or go to the Wear-Dated website (http://weardated.com), and key word rankings. 

“And then, I look to see whether traffic I refer to the website is better qualified and stays longer than traffic coming from other sources. The Carpetology Blog was launched at the end of December 2007; and we redesigned the WearDated.com website on June 1, 2008.  Although it’s still early, it’s exciting to be noticing improved results!”

External recognition is always nice, though, so Carpetology was submitted to the Forrester 2008 Groundswell Awards. The submission required quantification of the value of the blog, which Ms. Whittemore kindly shared with all of her readers in a post on the Flooring site. Note that the application was for the consumer site, but the sharing was on the trade site, a neat trick that continues to support the advocacy mission with retailers. Ms. Whittemore reports that that particular article generated some great feedback from readers. The site now also has a very short pop-up survey to gather feedback from readers. Few angles are missed here.

Focus on value for audience, not measures

Despite having a good measurement strategy for her own initiatives, Ms. Whittemore cautions that measures are built over time, and there are no quick fixes. “You will NOT see sustainable radical day to day changes across any of these measures.  For improvement, you will need to show up day after day and produce authentic, relevant and valuable content. So, don’t fixate on the measures; better to focus on your audience and how to create value for them.”

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The third and final article in this interview series will be about the lessons learned from this work, and Ms.Whittemore's view of trends.

The "me" portal: Why you need a Facebook portal strategy, not just a viral/WOM marketing strategy

Finextra reported on a survey that says about half of Facebook users (25 to 34 year olds at least) are interested in banking on Facebook.

The sponsor of the study, Worklight, builds secure Web 2.0 applications. (Such as, presumably, banking on Facebook. But also corporate collaboration on Facebook).

While I am skeptical of the value of some of the findings, in the absence of a lot more detail, this is certainly a clear indication of where things are headed. I'd like to put this in context for you, because we look at far too many of these things as isolated events. They aren't.

I did a major trend study in 2001 on wealth management on the web. At that time, banks were still hoping to become portals, a strategy I predicted would fail. (And it did.) I also predicted Yodlee and its aggregation strategy would fail, because of the security and privacy fears expressed by people. Despite, I might add, the real interest people had in aggregation. Well, Yodlee didn't fail.

Yodlee, as we now know, changed tactics, and became a platform for trusted front-end providers like Citibank, thereby neatly solving the security and privacy concerns for many. The build in the area of aggregation has taken a lot longer than many thought it would, however. Seven years later, it's still kind of leading edge. Perhaps because the FIs themselves are wondering what the real benefit is from their perspective.

We also investigated stock trading on your cellphone. There was a surprising -- at least surprising to me -- amount of interest. It wasn't high, but it was a lot higher than I expected for 2001. And everyone had the usual concerns. But this was before the smart phone as we now know it had really arrived. Cellphones are quickly becoming a communication hub for many, especially youth. As time goes by, people will wonder why they can't get SMS alerts on interest rates, stock price movements, and many other financial things. They'll want to transfer money to a friend by phone, instead of just by e-mail.

Small payments are a natural for the cellphone, and are hampered in their growth largely by existing stakeholders. Where there are fewer entrenched stakeholders, lower barriers to entry, and less built-out infrastructure, cellphone payments have taken off. Seriously, why would you want to dig around in your wallet for coins or cards for a can of liquid refreshment when you already have your cellphone on your hip or in your hand?

Finally, the ME portal

Facebook, and it's cousins, are becoming a kind of portal. As meatier applications are added, it's easy to envision a time when your Facebook account is open at least as often as your e-mail/calendar manager. Indeed, would I want Outlook if I could get that kind of functionality on something like Facebook or LinkedIn? Although some of the features on FB and its cousins are kind of clunky still, the trend is definitely moving in this direction -- the "me" portal.

Why wouldn't I want package tracking for FedEx in Facebook, instead of having to log in somewhere else? Sure I get e-mail, but then I have to manage it.

Why wouldn't I want E-Bay watch-list tracking in Facebook, instead of having to log in somewhere else? Again, the messages would be there when I want them, but I wouldn't have to wade through them.

Surely we could make this "Why wouldn't I" list longer. [What's on YOUR list?]

Will Facebook be the winner? Who knows. What we do know is that these applications are picking up steam, not slowing down. If you aren't thinking about social network strategy, you need to start. Because it isn't all about viral marketing. It's also about real functionality and access points.

Resources:

Facebook users want web 2.0 banking, Finextra, June 4 2008.

Facebook Polling: a quick tour and a surprising finding

After holding forth about the future business applications of Facebook, I decided I should put my money where my mouth is, and do a quick little research study.
Facebook makes that easy for you with their polling feature.

Here's what I wanted to know -- what kinds of applications for business would interest people who are already on Facebook? So here's the question I asked:

What application for business would you be most likely to use on Facebook?
[a] A way to post RFPs / find suppliers?
[b] A way to bid on RFPs / find projects?
[c] A project team collaboration function / group?
[d] A way to sell content like e-books / e-learning?
[e] I would not use any of these

Facebook polling is so inexpensive, I thought I could afford to get 100 responses, which would cost about $25.00. [I do want to be clear that this is not a scientific poll, it's just a way to take a quick read on something.]

I couldn't select exactly the group I wanted -- freelancers and SMB people. So I went for age as a proxy, and asked for age 35 - 49. I was surprised that the oldest selection was age 49, actually, since surely there are many people using Facebook over the age of 49. I know several well, in fact.

I sat excitedly at my computer waiting for the colorful dashboard to show results. Which it did, looking like the chart above, with several other colorful charts breaking down my poll by age and gender.

Surprising Finding

When I had 49 responses, Facebook shut down the poll.

Before they did that, here's what I learned:

1. About half would be interested in one of the proposed functions
2. About half indicated no interest in any of them
3. The most popular of the proposed functions was [c], the project team collaboration function. This is the one I want too.

I received an e-mail from Facebook explaining that they had shut down my poll.

Hi, Susan,

Facebook Polls are intended for market research purposes. Facebook Polls created to promote products or services or that are otherwise deemed not appropriate are removed accordingly. Along these lines, Facebook has automatically removed your Facebook Polls (order #Facebook Poll).

To see the final results, go to: link 

Responses Desired: 100

Actual Responses Received: 40

Price per Response: $0.25

Your credit card has been charged an additional $10.00 This completes your order.

The Facebook team

I'm surprised that they thought this was promotion. So maybe it was deemed otherwise inappropriate. Perhaps the only people allowed to do research on Facebook itself are officially authorized. Perhaps using the word Facebook in the poll flagged my little project. As far as I know, they can't stop me from blogging about it.

Anyone have some insight into this?

I was thinking it would be cool to hire some savvy Elance developer to just make me the application I want, but now I'm reassessing.

Holiday notice

I'll be skiing in Banff. If you're there, say hi. I'll be the person doing the face-plant right in front of the lift line, wearing a fuzzy hat with ear flaps [that looks really cute, actually]. So I likely won't have the strength to post after a hard day of skiing. See you in the new year! And thanks for all the reading and the comments, which really make it fun to keep at it.

The future of social networking

I've been experimenting with Facebook. Here's what I've learned so far:

[1] Scrabulous is addictive. This is an asynchronous version of the board game that you can play with Facebook friends around the world. I'm now having to ration myself on it as a treat for getting my work done.

Applications developers are trying to find addictive applications like this. Most applications don't seem to have this quality. They are something you have a look at once, then uninstall. They seem largely designed for youth, who are amusing themselves by sharing music lists, lists of celebrity likes and dislikes, and similar fluff.

[2] Seeing status reports on my friends is interesting. I love their sense of humor, which often comes out in these reports. It makes me feel like I know what's up in their lives, even though it's been months since we've had a coffee. But I've also learned that I can inadvertently send messages out to my network that I didn't really want to send to everyone. [Like how addicted to Scrabulous I am.] Or the fact that my book on Innovation is finally coming out in January. I wasn't really intending to make these announcements in this way, but I did anyway.

[3] It's impossible to manage the circles of relationships effectively right now. My mental map looks like this:

I have an inner circle of friends and colleagues that can have access to pretty much anything there, and already know a lot of it.

Then there's a big second circle that are colleagues or relatives, but not really close. I want to manage the information flow a bit more there. Then there's the big outer circle of people I want to stay in touch with, but are more like acquaintances. Some may be very respected, I may be a big fan, but it would be a stretch to say we are friends. A few on the outer edge are just members of the same organization I am.

And the stripes might separate business from personal.

I suspect others have this issue also, and we need better tools to address this. Right now, the tools lack sophistication. For example, Circle of Friends lets me say how people in my network fit together, but I can only do this publicly. [How rude is that! Guess what, you're in my circle of barely-know-you-and-care-even-less. Bob made my inner circle, but you didn't. Hello!]

[4] Some people want to be friends with everyone. Today I had a request from Marwan, a 20 year old I have nothing in common with, and no friends in common with. He wouldn't qualify for my outer circle. I'd have to study this phenomenon to understand it, but this sort of thing seems to happen a lot.

I've had sales people try to be my friend on Facebook. Seriously.

[5] The groups application is incredibly easy to set up, but has limited utility. I have set up two groups so far, and been an administrator on a third, and found the lack of good tools somewhat frustrating. This application could not serve as a work collaboration tool in it's current form. Although it wouldn't take much to fix it.

Clearly, I'm not the only one with these ideas. Because there has been an explosion of applications designed to bring social networking to business people in a more sophisticated way. Most seem to want to build a completely new network. Personally, I don't think that will work very well except for those with deep pockets and fantastic ideas. For one thing, it's largely been tried in existing online communities dedicated to specific topics.

My take:

If you are thinking about building a better hot dog stand -- and it seems that many people are -- I would advise you to put your hot-dog stand where there are already a lot of people looking for hot-dogs, instead of trying to get them to walk a few blocks to a new place.

It's a lot easier. It's often cheaper. You won't have to build a completely new platform, you can piggy-back on an existing one.

Consider the challenges faced by competitors to people like Yellow Pages, who are trying to get massive numbers of people over to a different location. This is the challenge you are facing in building completely new networks. If you can be where lots of people already are (just mixing my metaphors a bit), you improve your odds a lot.

Things are pretty fragmented and early stage on the networks thing. But we will see a tremendous amount of development here. It's a good time to be a networker.

Resources:

I subsequently found a good thought piece on this topic from Suw Charman on the Strange Attractor blog here. Here's one of her thoughts that caught my interest:

My worry is that exposing these hidden networks to the harsh light of the explicit hierarchy could kill them, or vital parts of them. In old-style command-and-control companies, the very fact that you know someone rather senior in another department may rankle with your boss in such a way that they start to work against you, and that would undermine the very fabric of the company. After all, a company isn't a single entity at all, it is a group of people who have social relationships and who need some of those relationships to remain hidden.

Web 2.0 Watch: Facebook as the new collaboration tool

I started a new Facebook group recently, and am finding the groups application a bit sluggish. When I went searching on Google for a way to upload a document to Facebook, I discovered a whole new set of collaborative tools.
Here's a few of the ones I found:

Scrib'd -- a free service that lets you upload and publish any document on the web, and also embed it in many different formats. To solve my problem with Facebook, for example, I would upload the document, then link to the document's permalink in Facebook. Problem solved. Read their FAQ here.

ThinkFree Docs -- they describe themselves as YouTube for Office documents. They have a Facebook application already set up, and are working on iPhone integration, according to the ThinkFree blog.

Adobe Share -- discussed on Tim O'Reilly's blog. Adobe Share will be a place to upload or download any digital object, and share it with either a specific group, or the whole digital world. Mr. O'Reilly also referenced  Adobe's recently acquired Buzzword, which is an online word processor that also allows collaboration.

It turns out that I'm not the only one who wants better group functionality on Facebook. Some companies are starting to use this platform for business purposes. Serena Software in California reports that they are launching Facebook Fridays (part of their recruiting and profiling strategy), and also launching an employees-only Facebook group. Reported in Businessweek, second BW story here.

My take
Web 2.0 is really about working together online, not just putting up information. It's not just two-way traffic, it's more like multi-dimensional traffic. It's the brain xynapse model on a computer.

Social networks may be a starting point, but they are going to morph into work networks as well. This means -- once again -- that weensie enterprises will have access to similar capabilities as huge enterprises. Such as collaboration tools.

I spent a lot of money on a collaboration tool for the client part of my web-site a few years ago. It was only a qualified success. I will soon be able to supercede it's capabilities for free, or very close to free.

And this development of document sharing online is also another major democratization to publishing, just as web sites initially were, and blogs now are.

I recently conducted a study [on my own dime, or I couldn't tell you this] on teens and technology. Canadian teens are fully expecting to be amazed and delighted by the new technologies that come their way. And I'm 100% with them on that. It's just really cool. Our challenge as business people is [a] staying on top of this stuff and [b] figuring out how to leverage it. Equally cool, but somewhat more difficult.

What's your take?

We're still calling it new media, but the media keep changing

Strategic Leadership Forum, if you're in the Toronto area, is a good place to hang. They may seem dusty, if you judge them by their web site and brochures, but they have great programs and speakers. Case in point, this week's session on using new media to communicate with customers.

James Powell, currently a Marketing Director at Rogers, and Sean Moffitt, word of mouth expert and world class networker gave a fabulous evening to a group of about 20 marketers. Good speakers, great examples, well prepared and engaging.

Some of my takeaways:

[1] Know your customers. There's no one right medium to reach them. You need to reach them where they live, where they have fun, where they shop, and of course in the media they encounter while doing those things.When you know your customer, the choices are much clearer. [Of course, how can I not love someone who wants to go deep into customers' lives???]

[2] You don't have to use new media to be heard. You could just be creative with existing media. The point is to think about the media, not just blow the budget on television

[3] Don't assume the execs will see your edgy stuff. That's not the neighborhood they live in, and those aren't the magazines they read. Take responsibility for marketing IN to the organization

[4] When faced with questions about ROI and GRP and other payback-type acronyms, focus instead on the opportunity cost of shifting the budget to something different than your traditional spend. For the cost of one full page ad in a major newspaper, you could run a whole new-media campaign

[5] Major agencies have business models that don't support these kinds of projects all that well. Try out some small shops that want to win awards. And give them a bit of room to have fun and do cool work -- after all, you have them on a shoestring budget

[6] The blog world tends to say 'gotcha' a lot when a major company tries something different and it isn't totally brilliant. Ignore that and get out there. There's learning to be had and the risks are small relative to the potential

[7] New media are driven by advocacy, dialogue, authenticity, openness. Yes, you're heard that before. It's not going away. If anything, these themes are gaining momentum 

Key insights:

It's pointless to talk about the internet as a specific, monolithic medium. E-bay may be a medium. Google Ad-words may be a medium. Facebook may be. Blogs may be. But the internet really is infrastructure, like asphalt or paper, that can carry many different kinds of things.

When we add the new, the old doesn't always go away. We have credit cards and debit cards and internet bill payment, but we still use cash and we still use cheques. They may be buggy-whips, but they linger on. Communication tools appear to be similarly constructed. We may have reduced our snail mail, but we still use it, and sometimes in new and creative ways.

Resources:

James Powell talks about the Rogers Picnic, an event created to target males aged 18 - 24, in Marketing Magazine.

Facebook's plan to hook up the world, by David Kirkpatrick, Fortune, June 11, 2007. Talks about Facebook's move to let anyone write applications for their platform. A blog buddy recently suggested we start a remote Scrabble game using -- you guessed it -- an add-on to Facebook. If you haven't taken the plunge, you'd be well advised to invest a couple of hours in your education. Be forewarned however -- as Sean Moffit told me a while back, it can take a lot of your time if you let it.

Sean's blog -- Buzz Canuck -- is worth a read. He's launched a blog-off which will make us all entered raise our game.

The social etiquette of blogging -- corporate bloggers, too

I noticed in the newspaper that business students are being taught which fork to use. Makes great copy. It got me thinking about the norms and conventions -- you could call it etiquette -- that have arisen around things like blogging and other social networking.

We often don't notice these norms until someone violates them, and we feel annoyed. A great example is to violate the norms of conversation, and see what happens. Don't let the other person speak. Don't take turns. They'll think you are a complete boor, but you'll know what a social norm is.

Here are some of the conventions that I've been annoyed about when people violate them. If you are starting a business blog, or writing a corporate blog, you will do well to stay inside the lines. If you are a PR publicist for a company or an author, you could pick up some tricks here, too.

Some ideas about blogging etiquette

1.  Share the link love

We're all trying to make a go of things out there on the long tail. It's not easy to find readers. So when we cite other content, we link to them. Permalinks make this easy. Publishing a blog roll is another way to share the link love, and let your readers know other interesting places you have found worthwhile at least once. This one rule actually drives many of the others.

2. The web is full of wonderful content. It's a conversation. You cannot build a walled garden, and it annoys others when you try

You want people to find your blog and your posts, but you don't want to help people find other interesting content. Not fair. Anything that smacks like this is kind of annoying. If you have 10,000 readers already, maybe you can get away with it. It's still annoying. Big corporate sites might struggle with this one, and we are probably prepared to forgive them.

3. Make it easy for others to find and reference your content

Your permalinks should be as easy to find as your Digg, Technorati and Delicious bugs. You don't want people to track back to their own article on the same content ... you don't want to risk them linking to their content in comments? Wow ... sounds like a newspaper column, not a blog. [Below you can see the Globe and Mail's share-this-article pop-up. No permalink. Grrr.]

3. Be brave. Use your name.

It's personal, and it's a conversation. Don't make me hunt all over your blog to figure out who you are, so I can use your name when I reference your post. Anonymous comments are equally tired.

4. Remember that most of us are not getting paid for this, we're doing it for profile or because we are passionate about the subject matter, and enjoy writing.

I review the odd book. Some I buy. Some are new publications that are sent to me, unsolicited. I invest quite a bit more time reading your book and writing a post than you did when you sent it to me. Most publishers and publicists totally get this, and are grateful for whatever coverage they receive. [And I'm grateful for the books and galleys.] The best ones provide access to author Q&A, as with the recent Chocolates On the Pillow Blog Book Tour.

Not long ago, I sent a publicist a link to the review I wrote, a very positive review, I might add. They wrote back asking me to insert specific wording into my post linking to the corporate web site of the authors, who sell training. Um ... that's a bit over the top, OK?

5. You want me -- or anyone else -- to comment on your technology, your company, or your upcoming webcast? Make it interesting.

My readers -- and my clients -- are very interested in staying current. What's happening, what's new in their industry or in other industries, what technologies do they need to know about. I spend a lot of time working on this. Don't we all? 

So I'm interested in hearing about anything new. But you've got to provide me with a little real information. Even better, let's do a little e-mail Q&A. Don't just send a link to your corporate home page. Really, this is no different than any mainstream media journalist. You want someone to pay attention to your press release, it needs to say something worth paying attention to. Are your customers getting better results? Does your new widget solve a long-standing problem? Find something to say. Offer to make a senior person available for interview by phone or e-mail.

6. Copyright applies

There are blogs that are aggregators. They scour the web for interesting content and put it up on their own site. Many don't even link to the original content. Others link, but take entire articles and post it without permission. I don't have the time to police this, and I suspect most others don't also. But it's beyond annoying. Especially when they get more traffic than I do with content they didn't write. Grrr.

7. Making people open your web site so they can see your advertising in order to read your article, which arrived by RSS or e-mail is annoying

I don't have an answer to this one. I've considered doing it myself to boost ad revenue at least enough to cover the out of pocket costs. I decided it was disrespectful to my readers, so haven't done it. Now I find that FeedBlitz, the people who bring you e-mail subscription capability, are adding advertising to the e-mail. This is a little annoying. I can stop it by paying a monthly fee. Sigh.

Resources

The Long Tail -- an article in Wired, which became a book, by Chris Anderson. You can find it here on Amazon The Long Tail.

Permalink -- a permanent web link to an article that will not change its address as long as the article is on the web. Wikipedia entry here.

Trackback -- a link code that lets me put a link in your blog to my article on the same topic. It's considered polite to actually reference the blog and the content as part of an asynchronous conversation. Anything else is considered spam. Not having trackback capabilities on your blog -- it's not really rude, but it's not conversational either. It's like not letting other people get a word in edgewise. It's not equitable. Here's the Wikipedia entry. I know that all blog platforms do not have trackback links. And that's also annoying.

I found some interesting posts about blog etiquette. There are likely thousands, if not millions more. But here are a few links:

Ward Jenkins at Ward-o-Matic -- inspired to write about blog etiquette after his fabulous article on Polar Express animation attracted an avalanche of links, many of them comment spam.

Lisa Williams at Learning the lessons of Nixon published a blogging code of conduct. Not far off Thumper's Mother's Rule, and the world would be a better place if everyone did this.

James McGovern at Thinking Out Loud says blog etiquette is all hogwash.

Rohit Bhargava at Influential Marketing Blog wants to combat snarkiness by creating the Golden Rules of Blog Etiquette. You need the password 'be good" without quotes to enter the site. [Apparently one of the golden rules is to write short posts. I see I have violated this one, and often, so please accept my apologies. I'll try to be more concise in future.]

Custom-manufacturer with clever marketing idea: Freddy + Ma

Custom manufacturing really seems to be taking off, and here's another example: Freddy & Ma, makers of custom handbags.

Pick a basic style, choose a leather color, then go wild on fabric choices, from a fantastic selection of fabrics. So many wonderful possibilities, and a very engaging interface.

And how did those clever people entice me to their web-site? They offered TypePad bloggers a generous discount on a bag. And look at all the free publicity they are going to get from this, to say nothing of new customers.

Social Networking on Four Legs: Pets are People Too

You can now build a page for your pet in an online pet community. Or rather, a people community about their pets....
Dogster is for dog lovers...Catster is for cat lovers. Hamsterster is for -- well, you get it. PetPop promises that you can "meet new pets in your area".

NeoPets, one of the smaller sites, claims 70,000 members. with 70 million members, is actually a virtual pet site, providing a full suite of community-type functions for the neo-pet-owners, including virtual travel opportunities. 

SNiFLabs takes all this to the next level with their  new dog collar that wirelessly monitors Rover's activities. In addition to keeping tabs on your canine, the service can facilitate people networking via Rover's friends and acquaintances in the park.

Unlike impersonal web services, SNiFlabs lets someone you know and trust make personal connections for you: your dog. Every time you take your dog out for a walk you meet other dogs and other dog owners in your neighborhood. The SNiF® tag takes advantage of this and automatically keeps track of the dogs you have met while out and about. Want to meet new people? You already have something in common with other dog owners. Need to find a good plumber? Want to try a new neighborhood restaurant? Chances are that some one in your dog's social network can make recommendations for you.

We seem to be hungry for community and connections, but we're finding new ways to meet those needs.

Paying it Forward with LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a profile site that business people are intended to use to stay connected. I've had a free profile for quite a while, and recently updated it. In fact, LinkedIn is now a Typepad widget; you can get your own button for your blog.

Seeking recommendations: feels pushy

The site keeps reminding me that I need to ask other people for recommendations. But this just feels pushy to me. (I am a Canadian, after all, and we don't push, we line up.)

So this week I tried something new. I decided to give recommendations to a few people on my connections' list who hadn't asked for a recommendation.

Early results seem very positive, I heard from one person who was pleased about it. And it was definitely a Girl Guides moment for me, generating a nice warm feeling.

Where is LinkedIn going?

I have always assumed that LinkedIn is based on the web-advertising model. But they seem to have pushed into new territory while I wasn't looking.  They now have "business accounts". If I upgrade to a business account ($19.95, $50 or $200) monthly, I can contact people I don't already know through their In Mail service. This is reported by LinkedIn to be 30 times as effective as e-mail from just anybody.

I can't honestly say this has been a problem for me yet, as sales people seem to have no trouble at all finding me through the usual channels. But if that changes, it might change my mind about the network. And this definitely makes me think they have put a glass ceiling on the seniority level of people who will play ball with their application.

For instance, I couldn't find Seth Godin. But Jackie Huba has a listing, and so does Guy Kawasaki.
 

What are the rules of polite society?

Looking at my list recently, I also realized that I hadn't put people on my network that I know very well and see all the time, for the most part. Mostly I had put in people I might lose touch with, and didn't want to lose touch with. The people whose phone numbers are in my cell-phone speed dial are not all there. And there are a few people there now that I can't honestly say I know well. They asked to join my network, and I said yes. Now I only say yes if it's someone I actually know, not just someone I met.

But what is the polite way to clean house? Or maybe you don't clean house.

We haven't yet figured out all the norms of the brave new world of business-social networking.

References:
Here: a LinkedIn discussion about the value of being linked in. These people like it, and make me think I'm not really giving it a chance

Here: a discussion at 37 signals about LinkedIn, which seems more negative

Here:  the social networking blog tells you the key is to expand your network as fast and large as possible, whether you know people or not. Hmmm...