Marketing in a Web 2.0 World

The Evolution of a Social Media Marketing in a Product Launch

2009-10-12T22:52:00.000-07:00

Here's a presentation that Melissa Mines, Marketing Manager at Cisco and I did with BrighTalk showing how we evolved our social media marketing tactics from the Cisco ASR 1000 launch to the the Cisco ASR 9000 launch.

Who has time for Twitter when there's Flutter?

2009-04-06T13:10:00.001-07:00

Web 2.0 Expo- Ford Motor Company Case Study

2009-04-05T21:19:00.000-07:00

The Ford case study was one of the best presentations at the conference. I wish there were more companies sharing their success stories (or failures) of how to actually implement these techniques in an integrated campaign.

The presentation was led by Scott Monty who manages the social media efforts at Ford and Maggie Fox from Social Media Group who is their social media agency of record. I captured my notes and also embedded the slides from the presentation below.

Getting Started

Before jumping into any social conversations they began by doing a SWOT analysis.What they found is not too much different that what I think most people will find. People are talking about them but they weren't leveraging and integrating these people into their communications efforts.

The Revolution

So they decided to change that. They revolutionized the way they interacted with bloggers. It started by inviting bloggers, the people who were already talking to them to a traditional media event. The bloggers were integrated into the process and invited to see and test drive new vehicles.

They continued that relationship online and as Scott puts it, "we wanted to make storytelling easy." They created web-ready content and distributed it through social media press releases.

What's important to note is that this does not replace their traditional media efforts nor is it packaged and distributed in the same way. Their social media releases are not pushed across the wire. Instead it's a pull method of obtaining content, the releases are optimized for search results, uploaded to the Ford website and RSS enabled so that people can subscribe to the content.

Challenges

Scott said that overall there weren't really any challenges. I don't think this will be the same case for every company. What's different at Ford? Alan Mulally, Ford's CEO. The shift to change their communication style was accepted from the top down. There was a little bit of a legal hurdle to get over since they were opening the access to their content including images and videos to anyone. They agreed to put a creative commons restriction meaning people are free to use the content, but they must link back to Ford and they cannot use the content for profit. Also all images and files are for web use only and can't be reprinted.

Results

More people are talking about Ford, they have received 500 posts since September 2007 and the content of the stories is richer and more inline with the corporate positioning. Some enthusiasts are even embedding the social media releases into their sites as a credible source of Ford news. There are 120 videos posted to YouTube which have received over 1.2 million hits.

Lessons Learned

Ford realized that in today's world, 'everyone is a publisher' not just the journalists and that digital content needs to be an integrated way of thinking, not just an afterthought. Also when it came to making this happen what really helped them get this approved and accepted internally was to sit down and explain this big scary thing called 'social media.' After education and understanding people's fears about it, it became a non-issue. People are only afraid of what they don't know so if you explain the mystery it becomes less scary.

What's Next

The Ford Story is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what's next. The initial creation of this site was done in 4-days (over the Thanksgiving Holiday). The future plans for this site are to pull in 3rd party content and become the centralized hub for all Ford content. They also plan to expand beyond auto bloggers to parent blogs, green, tech and finance blogs.

The Deck
Setting Content Free At Ford - Web 2.0 Expo
View more presentations from Scott Monty.

So, have you driven a Ford lately? Admittedly I haven't but all of this social media outreach gave me some warm and fuzzies so I think I may have to take a test drive this weekend

Web 2.0 Expo: Content Strategy

2009-04-02T22:28:00.000-07:00

What is your online content strategy?If it involves hiring a copywriter 10-days before the launch of your web page it's time to rethink your (non) strategy. As Kristina Halvorson would say, don't let your content be the forgotten elephant in the room. Here are my key take always from Kristina's session, "Content Strategy: What's Real, What's Relevant ."

Too often content is an after thought with the notion ("lies") that:

It's not that big of a deal
You think you already know what you want to say
You think you already have most of the content
You put it off as something you can fix post launch

What people don't consider is that your customers decided whether to do business with you based on your content. Ideally you should identify a single person in your company or organization that is responsible for your content, a Content Strategist. This person would be responsible for building your strategy to include:

Creation:

The creation of your content should start with your customer in mind. A good example of this is REI, they don't hammer you over the head with their products. Instead they want to be your partner in outdoor activities. Or Room and Board who sells through stories of real people who use their products. Ford Models builds a connection by providing everyday beauty tips on their YouTube channel. Content as to work for the user - an example of what NOT to do is Quicken, box shots don't help the customer decide which product to buy. They don't talk to the customer, they just want you to add products to your cart. When you create your content make sure it's useful, usable and enjoyable.

Publication:

There are many forms to publish content including: text, graphics, video, animation and audio. You should plan for a specific goal or result regardless of how and where you publish your content. Create a list to understand the business objectives and the user goals.

Governance:

Think of your content from a lifecycle perspective. Have a plan to update or remove. Do NOT do what Swiffer did and create a YouTube contest then abandon the site after the promotion is done (they haven't logged-in in over 10 months!). Have a plan to take it down if you're not going to maintain it.

Web 2.0 Expo: Designing Social Websites

2009-03-31T19:26:00.000-07:00

I attended two workshops at today's Web 2.0 Expo: Designing Social Interfaces: Principles, Best Practices and Patterns for Designing the Social Web and Designing Social Websites.

The first presentation was more of an read out on the analysis of different social features popular on sites like FaceBook, LinkedIn, Flickr and others. I wish they would have done more of an analysis of which ones actually work, what makes them work and who they work on. Anyhow, the slides are still interesting and can be viewed here.

For me the more interesting presentation was from Christina Wodtke. I've embedded her slides below and here are some of my key takeaways:

"Behavior is a function of a person and his/her environment," this is Christina's theory to social sites. Environment is half the equation and something we can control. Christina shared an interesting analogy that you can follow the same process to designing the architecture of a building as you would a website. For example when you build a wide and open staircase it becomes a natural place for people to take a seat and socialize (for more on this check out A Pattern Language).

Christina identifies 4 motivations for contribution:

Reciprocity - an example is LinkedIn endorsements, people who ask for endorsements are likely to give an endorsement back. Another example is when fund raising groups send you mailing labels as a gift, by doing so people are more likely to return the favor by opening their wallets.
Reputation - Cisco's NetPro discussion forum do a good job of this by through a point system.
Increased Need of Efficacy - The reason people use sites like Digg is because it's an effective way to obtain information they have something to gain.
Attachment to and Need of a Group - This goes back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, people want to have a sense of belonging. Then when they build their reputation it increases their self esteem.

Anyone who's building a social website should learn more about the Ross Mayfield's Power Law of Participation where a ' low threshold participation amounts to high engagement'. Then follow the AOF method:

Define your activity (ie. what are your users doing? what do they have to do for you to be successful)
Identify social objects (ie. videos for Netflix, photos for Flickr)
Choose your features (ie. sharing, tagging, advice)

(Note: this is an older version of the deck she shared at the Web 2.0 Expo, the slides are almost identical, when/if she updates SlideShare, I'll update the embed.)

Design for Product Managers

View more presentations from cwodtke.

The Launch that Keeps on Giving

2009-03-29T17:39:00.000-07:00

Readers of my blog have already heard me talk about the Cisco ASR case study and how we used social media and web 2.0 to build community. I have also presented this many times in person and my most recent appearance for a CIO/IT Executive MeetUp was recorded and can be viewed here:

Trace Your Marketing Reach

2009-03-09T10:20:00.000-07:00

If Web 2.0 is the engine behind the next generation of uber marketing programs, content is still the fuel it uses. In most cases, Web 2.0 is still largely content driven. But now content has evolved past “prepared marketing messaging” and moved into “ability to have an intelligent, relevant conversation”. Either way, content is still king. Whether its blogging, twittering, or creating viral videos – marketing programs are still made up of people who “create message” and people who “distribute message”. The one question that’s difficult to answer however is which parts of our message are resonating. Thanks to a new company called Tynt, there may be a way to find out.

Tynt allows you to track which parts of your web copy is well, copied. Here’s the write up from Leeana Rao at TechCrunch:

Tynt’s product, Tracer, lets website publishers see what content is being copied and pasted off their sites. Each time a user copies content from a website and pastes it into an email, blog or website, Tracer automatically adds a URL link back to the original site’s content, helping to drive traffic back to the original site. Publishers can easily add the Tracer technology to the code of their site by inserting Tracer’s one line of java script in any site template.

As Leaano notes later in her post, there are other solutions for copy protection and tracking – but Tynt’s focus seems to more on marketing than intellectual property protection. As a marketer, I absolutely want people stealing what I write. Copy it and paste it everywhere! Just tell me what parts you liked.

The Corporate Blog Manifesto Update

2009-03-05T16:39:00.000-08:00

This is a guest post from one of the great Web 2.0 and Social Media Marketers on my team, Don Nelson. He often has insightful emails and this time I asked if I can post it on my blog.

Quick background - this email was actually a response to someone who sent a link out to Robert Scoble's post from 2003, "The Corporate Weblog Manifesto" and I thought it was worth sharing so here you go:

Just in case you jump right into the content and not see the date of this posting.....Scoble wrote this in 2003 which pretty much makes it a dinosaur in Internet time. However, there are still good points to be made here in 2009.

My take is this....

Tell the truth: always always always. If you're not sure, best to leave it out of your writing all together.
Post fast on good news or bad: it is after all about communicating with our customers and the influencers in the many markets and industries we now play in.
Use a human voice: we're all on the honor system of sticking to corporate and ethics, so hopefully you know which lines not to cross.
Make sure you support the latest sw/web/human standards: technically, not so much these days with our Blog platform. we already have RSS and try to instill the proper use of keywords for search engine optimization.
Have a thick skin: opinions and elbows - everyone has them and they will use them so be prepared for all manner of responses to your writing
Don't ignore Slashdot: there is much more beyond just Slashdot these days. we do keep social media monitoring in our pockets and try to do as much as we can with what we've got to help guide you in the conversations out there.
Talk to the grassroots first: base your writings on established concepts and leadership and you should be fine. It doesn't hurt to know or build relations with a broad range of sources that you can read and interact with via your blog but know that PR is also handling relation building here too.
If you screw up, acknowledge it: as clear as it can be word for word
Underpromise and over deliver: excellent strategy and should be used at every opportunity
If Doc Searls says it or writes it, believe it: I had to look him up so I'm thinking so did you there are many "experts" so I'd extend this to those you know based on level of influence you think they have in any particular market.
Know the information gatekeepers:
Never change the URL of your weblog
If your life is in turmoil and/or you're unhappy, don't write: true. unless you can turn the turmoil/unhappy experience into something that relates to your company fixing it for you!
If you don't have the answers, say so: same as #1 and #8, true to the last word
Never lie: see #1, #8 and #14
Never hide information: disclose disclose disclose where appropriate or just don't write about it
If you have information that might get you in a lawsuit, see a lawyer before posting, but do it fast: similar to #1, #8, #14 and #15, when in doubt leave it out of your writing or pursue our legal contacts if unavoidable.
Link to your competitors and say nice things about them: true to an extent. now partners and ecosystem partners, they should be acknowledged/credited when it directly impacts your writing.
BOGU (Bend Over and Grease Up): true also to an extent. more simply stated, if someone comments on your writing, treat them all as if they are VIPs
Be the authority on your product/company: you are all experts, but do pay proper respects to whom you know and/or reference in your writing.

Enterprise Social Media

2009-03-05T15:58:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post to share a growing list of Enterprise Social Media bloggers - make sure your company is on this list!

Skittles Twitters The Rainbow

2009-03-02T18:06:00.000-08:00

What if a real company decided to turn their whole site into a twitter conversation?

That’s what skittles did in what can only be described as a bold move to embrace Web2.0.

What a unique approach. In a traditional viral campaign, you launch a viral concept and it takes on a life of its own, living in media largely beyond your control. Skittles did one better. They launched a viral campaign and turned their website into an incubator for the virus. Talk about putting your money where your mouth is! An argument could be made that the skittles website isn’t core to their product sales, so replacing it with a twitter results page isn’t as big of a risk as if a B2B company were to do it. But still, you have to respect the moxie of Skittles’ Web 2.0 marketing team. What a great campaign!

The Good, The Bad and The Yelp

2009-02-12T21:56:00.000-08:00

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water . . .

You open a business. You market it aggressively. You do your best to serve your customers. You have a few “learning experiences”, but over all everything goes well. Then tragedy strikes. You get “yelped”. Some customer who you barely remember posts a scathing review of your product or service on the consumer feedback site Yelp.

Think it couldn’t happen to you? If you’ve got customers in the local retail sector, you’re most likely on yelp. For those of us working for companies that sell to the enterprise, we have our own demons. Our disgruntled customers are as likely to buy domains of “ourcompanysucks.com” and make a career out of vilifying us. But we have infrastructure for that. We have huge multi-touch marketing teams and great PR departments and legal representation if needed and about a million ways to engage our customers directly using a number of different channels, some of which we’ve covered here.

But what do you do if you’re a small corner shop? Your options are much more limited. Much of your revenue base is dependent on new customers, meaning you’re not able to preempt negative reviews with your own information. But even if that weren’t the case, you don’t likely have a very large marketing budget. And if you were going to use it for anything, it would be to get new customers, not lose old ones. Unfortunately, many business owners are facing this situation now.

Could this mean the end of business as they know it? Maybe for the bad ones. If you remember, authors found themselves in a similar dilemma as Amazon’s user reviews system became more relied upon than the publisher’s canned marketing pitch. Today however, more books than ever are being sold through Amazon and with rare exceptions do authors have trouble with allowing every single customer to have an open public forum with anonymity and almost no barrier to entry to posting their review. Its just become part of the paradigm in publishing – if you want good reviews produce a good product.

I’ve spoken to some local business owners about their reaction to yelp and its effect on their business and without exception all were driven to improve some aspect of their service because of it. How is this a bad thing again? It’s certainly not a bad thing for the folks at yelp, who’ve seen the unique visitors triple over the last year. As a business owner, I’d be terrified of yelp to the point where I’d go out of my way to satisfy each and every customer as if they were the Internet Yelp’r from hell. As a customer, I really digg that.

Cisco Ends the Search for the Perfect Valentine's Day Gift

2009-02-04T12:58:00.000-08:00

This is a great B2B example of a viral video. This video was posted to YouTube, blogged about and Twittered about and in 5 days has over 8,400 views!

Cisco's Newest Social Media App

2009-02-03T15:23:00.000-08:00

Cisco is breaking social media ground yet again with it's new VNI PC Pulse application. I happen to work with one of the masterminds (Thomas Barnett) behind this application so I was able to talk him into an interview to give other social media enthusiasts a back stage view of what went it's creation.

Can you give me a brief description of the new Cisco VNI PC Pulse application?

>> Thomas: Cisco has created a free application to show users how much network bandwidth they consume and the types of applications they use. This application shows users the amount and types of traffic that flow to and from their computer and provides aggregated network usage proof points of all global users of this application for comparison purposes.

This is a great idea, how did you come up with it? What is the benefit to the end user?

>> Thomas: As part of our Visual Networking Index (VNI) initiative, we are interested in activities that can help provide qualitative views of network-based consumer video usage patterns and trends. Cisco has sponsored and will continue to explore consumer preferences and perspectives through surveys/questionnaires (see Cisco VNI Pulse political survey and Initial Cisco VNI Pulse consumer survey). A natural extension of our direct engagement with consumers was to offer a free utility application to develop a deeper understanding of consumer video behaviors and attitudes on a global scale. End users can gain a better understanding of their personal PC use and compare their bandwidth consumption with the aggregate average of others worldwide. They can compare their personal historical bandwidth usage stats (i.e., personal high, personal average, personal low) against WW stats (world high, world average, world low). The application measures LAN and Wi-Fi connections.

What have you learned since the application has been available?

>> Thomas: Data retrieved through the Cisco VNI Pulse application showed that on January 20, 2009 (the day of the U.S. inaugural festivities)individual users downloaded more than twice the amount of data they do during a normal day, at 322 MB vs. a typical average of 159 MB. Doug Webster, a marketing executive with Cisco, speculates that many people had the inaugural festivities streaming in the background while they did other things
Are there any social elements of the application? Thomas' Response: At this point, the ability to compare personal bandwidth usage against world stats is the primary social feature. Users could also compare their usage directly with family, friends and colleagues that choose to use the application. Cisco plans to develop a interactive web page in later in 2009 that will provide additional social networking elements.

What is the main objective of the application and how are you measuring your success?

>> Thomas: By using the Cisco VNI PC Pulse application, consumers will gain a better understanding of their online preferences and needs. The aggregate data will help Cisco build a better understanding of what we all demand from our networks. Data from this application will be shared publicly on a quarterly basis. We will measure our success the number of global users we are able to attract and the quality of new and insightful findings that we are able to share with the telecommunications industry and others interested in IP networking consumer trends.

What future apps can we expect from Cisco?

>> Thomas: We have developed a new mobile application that is currently available for iPhone users and will soon be available for Blackberry users as well. The Cisco Global Internet Speed Test (GIST) for iPhone application is publicly available via the Apple iPhone App Store in iTunes (http://www.apple.com/iphone/appstore/).

To learn more about the app check out Doug's post 'Are you a Super User?' or of course go directly to the download site and check it out for yourself.

Pulse on the Blogosphere

2009-01-13T20:34:00.000-08:00

The Military Counter Attack Plan for Bloggers
Who knows how to protect and defend better than the Air Force? Well they are not only protecting our country but they are also protecting their blog and they have a detailed flow chart to determine their every move.

Friends for Burgers?
That's Burger King's new message with their Facebook app that promotes giving away a Whopper when you delete 10 of your friends. Now that is an expensive burger if you ask me! Check out other anti-social Facebook apps here.

Intel's Show & Tell
Intel's published their Social Media Guidelines for everyone to see. If you're trying to figure out what your guidelines are this may be a good place to shortcut your process.

Media on Twitter
This isn't acutally a blog post but a great reasource. If you're using Twitter as a communication channel to reach the media this Wiki page lists all the top dogs! A must for your PR department.

Social Media is the End of Tradeshows

2008-12-19T12:48:00.000-08:00

Just about every company is using the current economic crisis as an excuse to re-evaluate its event strategy. More than just a few companies have decided to forgo their booth presence, something that would have been unheard of just a few years ago. Scobleizer puts the blame of the dying tradeshow industry on bloggers and social networks but I think tradeshows have been struggling to show tangible return on ROI for quite some time and social media offers the first successful alternative.

Whatever the reason, social media and web 2.0 are being utilized more than ever to connect with customers. Here are just a few ideas I had when it comes to leveraging these tools to maximize your involvement at a tradeshow:

Blogging - okay this is an obvious one but make sure you have one or two people covering the show. Summarize keynotes, write about what's hot and what's not - and not only traditional blog posts but microblogging with Twitter is a great way to make people who aren't at the show feel like they know the major happenings and video can really bring things alive!
SMS - if you have a keynote session you can use SMS as a way to poll the audience or take questions.
Widgets - Maybe you can create a widget that ties everything together, your blog posts, event schedule, collateral - you can even create a countdown to the show or any other major announcements.
Virtual Presence - In lieu of a booth promote and send your customers to an online environment where they can not only attend a virtual event but they can ask questions, network and be part of a community you can grow over time. Check out what ON24, Unisfair and InXpo are doing in this space...
PowerPoint - Post your webcast and keynote presentations on your community (ie. Facebook), on your blog and on SlideShare to extend the reach of the content.
Mobility - Leverage the fact that everyone has a cell phone these days. Allow people to see the event schedule from their phones and offer to provide reminders to your events. Provide mobile promotions where you can send links to content or videos to those who request them. You an even enable your sales folks to send mobile business cards to people they meet.

If you have other ideas I'd love to hear about them...

Running a Blog Like a Newspaper

2008-12-18T16:22:00.000-08:00

When it comes to running a corporate blog I think we can all learn from Molly Mulally, Marketing Manager at Abrevity. They didn’t just jump into the blogosphere blindly; they had clear, achievable objectives in mind: increase web traffic, demonstrate industry leadership and build a following of readers who are interested in learning about the industry (not just Abrevity).

The Abrevity blog provides a platform for Molly and her team to quickly and easily generate new content used for educating customers and partners. For an emerging industry like data classification, this allows Abrevity to demonstrate both domain expertise and legitimacy in the market.

However the “why” is not what sets them apart from most blogging companies – it’s the “how”. Molly manages her blog team like a newspaper editor. There are deadlines, word counts, editorial meetings, and assignments. The team of six bloggers meets weekly to discuss upcoming story possibilities and each blogger is expected to write one post a week on a topic in which they are considered a subject matter expert. This does not only ensure that the Abrevity blog has a constant flow of fresh content but that the different facets of the market are covered by an ‘expert’.

Molly also considered how they would participate and have a voice on other industry blogs. To keep a pulse on the market, each of the bloggers has a list of blogs they follow as well as Google alerts set up based on their subject matter expertise and they are encouraged to comment on other blogs as appropriate. To make things fun there is an incentive to participate in other blogs – each week, the blogger with the most comments gets a free lunch. Oh and Molly thought of everything, “Hey great post” does not count – comments must have ‘substance’ and add value to the conversation. To keep track of the conversations they have across the team there is a tracking sheet created which is updated and managed weekly.

It’s been just two months since the launch of the Abrevity blog and the ROI is already apparent. Molly has been able to track and identify the blog as a source doubling Abrevity's web traffic and collateral downloads and a noticeable uptake in sales leads since starting the program.

Molly’s recommendation to those looking to start a blog is, “Do your research, and don’t start too ambitiously. Start with realistic posting deadlines and how many posts a day (ie. one a day vs. one a week).” However my advice is to seriously consider following her process and run your blog like a newspaper!

5 Things You Can do in Less Than an Hour to Fight Poverty

2008-10-15T22:28:00.000-07:00

"One Issue, Thousands of Voices." That is the purpose of Blog Action Day and this year's focus is Poverty. As I think about this topic I can't help but reflect on a trip I took to Tanzania a couple of years ago. During that trip I got to see first hand what poverty really is. Driving through towns and seeing houses made of dung and cardboard, passing by children who were obviously malnourished and starving. That experience really made me feel guilty for ever complaining about anything in my life when I really am so fortunate. But there are things that YOU and I can do NOW to fight against poverty and help those in need. Here are just a few things I was able to do TODAY (in less than an hour):

Cleaned out my closet and donated my clothes
Commented on this blog where $1 will be donated to a food bank to feed the poor
Clicked a link on The Hunger Site to give 1.1 cups of food to the hungry
Donated to the United Nations World Food Programme
Wrote a blog post to increase awareness about poverty

For more ideas on what you can do check out this list for 88 ideas and see how you can make a difference!

To Blog or Not to Blog?

2008-10-15T17:17:00.000-07:00

With only 54 of the Fortune 500 companies blogging, this is a question still being pondered by many. Cisco, HP and Intel are in that blogging minority and Reem Abeidoh of Problogger interviewed me, Tac Anderson of HP and Michael Brito of Intel to come up with A Guide to Corporate Blogging.

Ryan McLean commented on the post stating, "I don't think I will ever be in a fortune 500 company. But if I ever am then this post will come in handy." I agree with Reem's response that despite the company size "ultimately the process is very similar." And although I represented the Cisco blog in this interview I have helped build blogging strategies for many small companies and have followed the same process successfully. So whether you're coming from a big or small company this guide is a must read!

Tac, Michael and myself are also contributors to the Conversations Matter blog.

CORRECTION: Reem is not a Problogger staff member, she is a Social Media Strategist for Outrider.

Mac, PC & Linux - Parody Commercial

2008-10-11T21:51:00.000-07:00

A parody of the Apple Mac vs. PC commercial with a guest appearance of the cutest Linux you've ever seen!

Cisco Social Media Case Study - Free Webcast

2008-10-07T18:07:00.000-07:00

In addition to all of the conferences I'm speaking at (as noted in my previous post) I just finished a live webcast that is now available on demand here. Enjoy and feel free to submit questions here on my blog and I will respond to you. I am also welcome to feedback and suggestions for improvement. Thanks!

Social Media Marketing Summit - Recap

2008-10-02T16:21:00.000-07:00

I presented the Cisco ASR Case Study example at today's Social Media Marketing Summit. I was a little rusty since I've been on LOA for 2 months now (for those who may not know I had a baby girl on 8.8.08). I stumbled on a few words then to top it off the computer prompted me to restart now or later for an update and of course I accidentally pressed now. The crowd responded with a "oooh noooo" and it still took me a minute to realized what I had done. I tried to keep my cool and keep on going and according to this post from Trisha Lyn it sounded like I didn't do that bad (I swear I didn't pay her).

Uunfortunately didn't catch much of the other sessions with the exception of of a presentation, by Tara Hunt. Her presentation, "Increasing the Social Capital of your Brand" was largely based off her book "The Whuffie Factor" which she is expecting to be released in April. Her delivery was awesome and although the presentation was high level it sounds like it'll be a good read to reinforce the basics.

As for my presentation, if you missed this conference you'll have two more opportunities to catch me. I'll be speaking at the Social Media Strategies Conference and the SIPA Mid-Year Marketing Conference.

If anyone who has seen my slides or better yet who has seen me present has comments or suggestions for improvement, please let me know!

UPDATE: If you're going to the WebGuild Social Media Strategies Conference use this discount code to save $150 "community56"

3M Goes Viral for All the Wrong Reasons

2008-09-16T20:21:00.000-07:00

Rather than paying a $2,000 licensing fee for an already viral photo, 3M decided to recreate a fake watered downed version and call it their own. Now, they are going viral but for all the wrong reasons. This is just one of many posts that have and will be written about their faux-pas rather than their savvy marketing. What they should have done is taken notes from Motorola's marketing folks. When Motorola saw the fame and viral effect of the "Backdorm Boys" they didn't try to steal their idea with their own recreation. Instead, they approached them with an offer that resulted in their participation in what ended up being the "most effective use of interactive marketing - new media" at the 2006 Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards.

Next time someone should make sure 3M gets the memo...

Social Media Conversation with 1to1 Media - Part II

2008-08-25T16:16:00.000-07:00

Here's the second half of the podcast from the interview with 1to1 Media. This session focuses on measuring and monetizing social media. From a Cisco perspective one of the things we look at is increasing the overall 'share of voice' we have online. Tac from HP shares some of his successes with search engine optimization through the use of social media with their AR / PR initiatives. Michael at Intel looks at trying to apply a quantitative value to the different results they receive. We then share our perspective of 'what's next' and end with advice for other marketers looking to 'take the red pill':

"Start with a few small wins that you can get under your belt and
expand your efforts from there" ~ LaSandra Brill, Cisco

"Set your expectations appropriately." ~ Tac Anderson, HP

"Take your time and don't rush into it." ~ Michael Brito,
Intel

For more 'words of wisdom' check out the 'Conversations Matter' blog which we all contribute to.

Social Media Conversation with 1to1 Media - Part I

2008-08-19T22:02:00.000-07:00

July was social media month at 1to1 Media and I was asked to participate in an interview along with Tac Anderson of HP and Michael Brito of Intel. Why us? Well we all have jobs at Fortune 500 companies and our roles are focused on internal and external social media initiatives (and we all blog at Conversations Matter). The interview which is also available as a podcast (sorry, buzzing due to technical difficulties) was broken into two parts. The first part focuses on the challenges we faced when it comes to implementing social media.

Because the three of us have been practicing social media for sometime now and because we are all in positions where social media is valued in the organization, the challenges lie in the execution. How do you match the right strategy and tools to the people you are trying to reach and how do you ensure that your team is choosing to go down the social media path for the right reasons. For that Cisco has adopted Forrester's People-Objective-Strategy-Tools (POST) methodology (perhaps with an extra look at the Strategy).

However for the folks who aren't lucky enough to be at the next phase of adoption, I am commonly asked how I was able to get management on board to execute social media campaigns (like the ASR launch). And although that wasn't addressed in this podcast, I thought I'd address it here. For me the journey began with education to my team on social media and how it can benefit us to participate in 'conversation marketing.' The next phase involved testing the waters with small projects, successes of those projects led to the support of social media as a standard marketing practice with a team to support it. It's been almost a year since my team has been chartered with finding the right opportunities to engage in 'conversational marketing' through social media with our customers and we constantly live this cycle of adoption as we get deeper into social media.

Stay tuned for part two next week...

Same ol' Voice Brand New Megaphone

2008-08-17T19:04:00.000-07:00

There’s a new facebook group trying to influence Barack Obama’s choice of Vice President. The story here is that in the old days, there really wasn’t any way for Barack Obama to get real time polling information outside of a few hundred poll calls and there certainly wasn't an effective way for a community to quickly ban together to influence such a decision.

But now there’s an outside chance 100k people might directly influence his VP pick – in real time. That’s awesome – that’s the power of Web 2.0. Other than physically assembling thousands of people for a riot or march or standing in front of Lucky's collecting signatures – how else can this number of people collectively have a voice in such a short time frame? This isn’t a petition – it’s a near real time shout. These aren’t just signatures, they’re virtual profiles that carry all the weight of an individual’s identity.

It makes you wonder if we’re still not seeing the real potential of Web 2.0 technology. Imagine if at Apple they wee thinking of a new color scheme for the iPhone. Why risk screwing that up? Just ask your 100k strong iPhone facebook group what they think. This is not a random poll. These are real people who’ve proactively built connections and who have confirmed identities. In fact, with some analytics, you could dissect the demographics of your group to get a better feel for the result.

At no other time has it been easier to assemble a few hundred thousand like minded individuals and get heard. The question for us marketers (and in this case, Barack Obama) is: are we ready to listen?