Use of Web 2.0 Technologies

How do companies deploy technology?

McKinsey reports that the use of Web 2.0 technologies clusters in to two types of organizations - those who do so for communication reasons and those that are knowledge-centric. The former groups centers on Blogs, Podcasts and RSS. The second group leverages mash-ups, peer-to-peer networking and social networking. Both are underpinned by web services; now a basic ingredient.

When improving things it seems that not only are functional requirements needed; but so are communication and sharing strategies.

Answer the following three questions then pick your tools.
1. What do we need to do?
2. To whom do we need to communicate how we're doing?
3. How is the work going to get done?

Also, with the wide support for the collection known as Web 2.0 it is clear that this stuff applies to our day jobs.



NB: Free registration required to read article and a tip to Michael Gass for the link.

Social Media and Marketing

What did Decartes say about thinking?

Cogito Ergo Sum suggesting that the mere act of thinking proves existence.

The difference, and hence difficulty, between conversations and advertising is similar where the outcome is directly related to the action.

I participate, therefore I compromise.
I pay, therefore I control.

Social Networks as a Data Overlay

What's the value in a social network footprint?

Understanding where your customers participate among the myriad of social networks influences a number of marketing activities. Some examples include:

1. Social Media Strategy: Should we have a MySpace page or Facebook app or LinkedIn group? How do our current segments differ in their use of social networks?
2. Customer Relationship: Improve the understanding of the lives of customers
3. Direct marketing: Overlay house list with social networks and profiles/interests for segmentation

Companies that maintain active email lists of customers are already one step ahead of others in terms of understanding how and where their customers participate on line.

Advertisers Thoughts on Social Media

How do agencies respond to the 'social media question'?

For a series of thoughts see the post in iMedia most of which are about the relationship between advertising and the medium. In short, the old rules don't apply.

One of the first steps is to listen; but another good place to start is to understand the footprint your customers have in social media. Social Networks provide a good place to start understanding how people use social media. For example the following chart illustrates which networks a particular audience uses compared to a benchmark. While the top two networks are similar (MySpace and Facebook) there is a gap between the two groups for LinkedIn, Plaxo and Classmates. Exploring why people do /do not chose a given network provides insights for marketing.

Talking about Conferences

Need a place to be for Halloween?

How about Austin, TX for the Society for Word of-Mouth conference. Hope to meet and learn.

Birds of a feather...

Birds of a feather...
Originally uploaded by Light_Rider

Why do networks work?

One of the original roles of advertising was simply to convey information - availability, features, pricing, etc. In an iMedia article Cindy Gallop makes the case that marketers no longer are the fine purveyors of information. They have been replaced by a variety of nearly instantaneous sources.

People in the search or consideration stage turn to numerous resources for information, clarity, and reinforcement of their own opinions. If the resources are highly interconnected they are likely to a) share the same information often reinforcing the message and b) spread the information quite rapidly. These cliques (yep, that's the technical term) can either support a point of view or provide contrarian views.

For this reason understanding the flow of information and the architecture of influence is a new discipline for marketers.

Age Differences Among Social Networks

Should we consider different social networks when targeting based on age?

We know that social networks attract different audiences for different reasons - music, connections, and association. But can we see differences that help drive marketing strategies for specific age groups? The answer is 'yes.'

Rapleaf published an overall view of the gender and age of members of a variety of social networks and MiningLabs published some highlights of the differences in audience composition.

Consider an education marketer: If the objective is to attract high-school students then a social network dominated by the 15-18 year old crowd would be a logical choice. Similarly, if the objective is to increase enrollments among adults then a network with twenty-somethings (or older) might be a better choice.

Using the the information provided by Rapleaf - here is the age profile of two 'class reunion' social networks; Classmates and MyYearbook. One skews decidedly to the younger crowd while the other spans a wider, and older, audience.










This simple example illustrates that understanding your Social Network Footprint might help with developing a variety of acquisition and retention strategies.

Cowpaths Lead to Lemmings

What do bovine trails have to with marketing?

Chris Brogan has posted some videos on his current thinking - it opens with a story about why the roads in Boston are the way they are. Seems they were built on the wanderings of cows. I think the point is that we build on what we know - adjacent possibilities are easier to see (and implement) than starting afresh.

Social media is new(ish). The issue is that we often frame it in terms from the old world and have trouble adapting because the previous rules of the game don't necessarily apply. We blindly follow what has worked for us before.

As a result, people find fault with every new technology. For example, the Greek sages thought writing was going to make people to 'cease to exercise their memories and become forgetful' and that the printing press would 'weaken people's minds' and undermine authority. These predictions were in fact correct, but the unseen (and unimaginable) benefits of both writing and printing clearly out weighed the problems and democratized information. These points have been said before: the quotes above are from Nick Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"; Cathy Taylor's the problems with online video (social media) is another examples.

Applying metrics and rules from a previous generation of technology (brain to scribe, scribe to press, analog to digital, corporate to community) is risky business.

The Value of Influence

What price should we pay for influence?

In Cathy Taylor's post yesterday on the the IPG and SocialVibe hook up one of the reasons mentioned was that marketers could measure the influence of endorsements. Presumably the points earned in the SocialVibe model stand in as the metric of interest. Definitely an interesting way to learn how social networks work.

Influence seems to be just as thorny a problem as 'engagement.' How can we assign a value to it until we understand what it is. We might want to start by wrestling with some basic research questions: What is it precisely? How is it transmitted? How long does it last? These suggest a strategy of taking small steps first before deciding on a CPM-like metric. Who knows what the levers are that make it all tick and work together.

And a word to all who worry about the measurement question first: Any new media has similar growing pains - can you imagine the Bulova accountants trying to determine the ROI on the first TV spot in 1941; a $9 - 20 second ad during a baseball game. I doubt the marketing team used TRPs to make their case.

SPARKing Conversations

What actions can marketers take in a conversation?

Just like real conversations, marketers need to understand what their role is - listener, one of equals, or even instigator. We tend to talk about SPARK; an acronym for the types of things marketers can do. They are:

• Stimulate - provide people with the things to talk about. Inject something valuable then step aside. "Here's an idea we've been working on, what do you think of ....?"
• Participate - join the conversation as an equal. "We think ...., what's your opinion?"
• Amplify - provide the tools to allow people to broadcast their stories and opinions loudly. "This topic is important, we'll help you talk more about it."
• Repair - sometimes we must offer the other side of a story or simply correct facts. "We chose this course because ..."
• Kindle - bring together people of like minds and interests. "Here's a place for you to discuss ..... amongst yourselves."

One might think of these as different kinds of conversation objectives; each with its own strategy for implementation.

Creating Customers through Conversations

Where have I been for the last several months?

Thinking a lot about how the major trends in marketing will affect what we do. This may come as no surprise but the Internet has made everyone an expert. With answers to every conceivable question at our fingertips we have become collectively much smarter - and opinionated.

Conclusion: the traditional sales funnel leaks.

While media might drive awareness, it falls short in the realm of consideration. Report after report puts influence in the hands of other consumers or people like us. This fact raises some interesting questions about the role of marketing and how it works. Namely, if advertising effectiveness is eroding and people have more information - what is the appropriate way to participate?

So, this blog (and the company I work for Recipe 31) is focused on the question: "how to create customers through conversations?"

Mind Mapping Pigeon Holes

What's on your mind?

Noah Bier recently created 'brand tags' a word association game for brands -- the site shows you a logo, you enter the first thing that comes to mind, and then check out the cloud.

Two thoughts:
1. People will really define a brand; not just customers.
2. Not everybody sees the world the same (no real surprise there.)

Grammatical Pronouns and Marketing

What do pronouns have to do with marketing?

In an article on Chief Marketer I argue the answer is 'a lot'. The point is that one of the difficulties in monetizing social media may come down to an issue of grammar. Social networks are conversational and participative - that is first person: we, my, our, us, and I. In contrast, advertising has a long history of being targeted and direct as in "hey you, listen to me and do something."

Changing the grammatical person will do wonders.

Made Me Laugh - Nuts

Andy Sernovitz had a good post on 'nuts' the other day; liked both of them.

Nut Roaster and Nut Poppers

Product Requirements for an Ad Agency

How would a product manager design an ad agency?

iMedia's recent Brand Summit included some marketers describing what the ideal agency should be. This nine-minute video is all you need to define your requirements. I can think of a myriad of ways an agency could satisfy what these buyers want - integration with business and execution.

Power Points:

1. Know the client's business and how you can help strategically.
2. While you may be a specialist boutique with world-class expertise, work as part of the whole team.
3. Channels are tools, media is a tool, creative is a tool -- without working together to foster or stimulate the audience it just won't be worth it.

Marketing is the New Sales

What can B2B sales teach us?

The decision to buy almost any product now has a number of people involved providing their opinion, recommendations, and thoughts. A good B2B sales strategy identifies all the players: the emotional buyer, the financial buyer, and veto holder in addition to the user. As trust in advertising decreases and people turn to others for opinions and recommendations it seems to me that the approach of B2B sales should percolate into marketing.

Behavioral Targeting

What should this term mean?

A group of folks is working on defining 'behavioral targeting' and how to measure it. Here's what I said about it.

Working from a high level down:

I'll make the assumption that behavioral targeting is a marketing tool as opposed to a financial, operational or even a sales tool. If so, then a definition of marketing is in order first before defining the boundaries of behavioral targeting. A definition I often use is:Marketing is the alignment of needs and solutions to everyone's mutual benefit.

The above keeps the focus on the important thing and removes the tactical or implementation steps to another set of discussions: what needs, how do we align, how are we compensated fairly, where we should promote, etc.

In this context then it appears that behavioral targeting is both a method of inferring the paths used to satisfy needs and a method that allows a solution or message to be placed along the path.

An audience segment is a group of people that exhibit a similar need and is reachable in a reasonable manner.

While one-armed paper hangers is a group with a similar need, reaching them effectively might be difficult at best. People looking at and evaluating graduate programs is both a reasonably homogeneous group and is relatively easy to target.

On the measurement question, I'll go back to marketing, budgets and campaigns. The purpose of spending marketing dollars is to change someone's behavior (and I'll put attitude and awareness in that category for the moment). The other tongue-in-cheek definition I use is "marketing is behavior modification." Money is often allocated via a campaign which should have a measurable objective -- we want x people to take y action in z time frame. So, on one level Behavioral Targeting must support the metrics by which marketing campaigns are judged. In the end, this must be revenue with a few key steps in between.

Of concern, like most web analytics, is the temptation to measure that which is easy to do. We all remember 'hits' and then 'page views' and now 'time on site'.

Some other thoughts:
1. Behavioral Targeting is database marketing - using the best information available to get an offer in front of a prospect.
2. Behavioral Targeting should not be limited to the web - if we can infer a person's need and stage, then we should use all available tactics to reinforce that position.
3. The biggest challenge will be deciphering or inferring intent based on a small subset of information. Like the movie business, its one thing to watch the actions in a silent movie but quite another to hear the story. Why? remains elusive.

Bogus Leads

When is a lead really bad?

At a recent meeting of the Wasatch Online Marketing group there was a discussion of a search campaign that produced bogus leads. The client has a very technical product and a very narrow audience they are trying to reach. So, they introduced a white paper describing their solution and got a lot of leads. Unfortunately many were "bogus" and the discussion turned to search-bots, mad-robots, click-fraud, and auto-populating the form.

In reality, the issue was the offer and information had general appeal to a wider segment. While the audience that requested the report aren't buyers, many may be influencers or users of the category. So, before throwing the baby out with the bath water ask yourself: are other people interested in what I have to say?

If the goal is to increase lead flow among a highly-targeted group then there will be spill over into non-buyers. These may be useful or they may be chaff. If they truly are chaff then general search strategies aren't appropriate and vertical or niche engines a better option. The smaller the market, the more targeted you should be - up to picking up the phone and calling them.

Power Windows

What's happening online?

In my day job I read a lot of news letters and marketing pieces.  Thoughts of the week are now published on Power Windows on the company's site.   Hope you enjoy.

White Space and Market Sizing

How big is a market when none exists yet?

When looking at the white space of a category for new opportunities the wrong question to ask is: "How big is the market?"

By definition new areas have no defined market boundaries so the answer is 'zero'. This is hard for executives to hear - they want safety in numbers. Sure, we can come up with numbers but latent demand, like the advertising value of UofP's exposure on the super bowl, is a 'bit' difficult to calculate and defend. Any answer is wrong - just remember the need for 5 computers and 900,000 cell phones.

The objective of analyzing white space in a product positioning exercise is to determine if it is probable that a category could be created. Is there a need , or more often a combination of needs, that can be satisfied totally differently than alternative offerings? Note that most new markets tend to be a subset or reconfiguration of existing, larger markets. Consider that Billboard now tracks 45 charts for singles, 47 for albums and another 7 for videos. The second question is: Are we capable of satisfying that need? If you can articulate a need and envision a solution then you're on the right track.

The goal is very different than a line extension exercise.