For those unfamiliar with SNCR Fellowship program, SNCR has over 100 Founding Fellows, Senior Fellows, and alumni that comprise of business leaders, academic scholars, communications professionals, journalists, futurists and technologists from around the globe. SNCR Fellows come from diverse backgrounds but all are leaders in their respective fields (a list of fellows can be found here). Fellows volunteer their time each month to collaborate on research initiatives, educational offerings and establish standards and best practice that help to shape the new communications and social media landscape.

Through this series of blog posts we will like you to meet our Fellows and introduce the current research project that is currently being conducted by a SNCR Fellow. We also would like to invite you to share your thoughts on the work we are doing here at SNCR.

We look forward to introducing our Fellows and sharing more information on their research projects through this series.

The Next Web: Facebook now lets developers push targeted ads based on users’ app preferences and purchases – “Facebook has introduced a new way for developers and marketers to target users with specific adverts based on their existing app purchases and microtransactions.” >> Read More

Wired: Beyond Scorekeeping: Klout’s New Plan to Become a Social Network – “How does this new service, called Klout Experts, work? For the past few months, visitors to the Klout website, vanity-trolling for their ratings, have been notified that “someone” has asked them a question, and provides a space to answer in 300 characters or less. So far there’s been only been a thousand or so questions, but Fernandez says that will soon increase to thousands a day. People are answering those questions, and in the next few months the database of answers will climb into the millions. Klout will soon be able to match popular questions with answers, rate them, and deliver better answer. It will also identify which experts are best—allowing sponsors will to target them as influencers.”  >> Read More

Online Media Daily: LinkedIn Debuts ‘Channels’ In Revamp Of LinkedIn Today – “Two years ago, LinkedIn launched LinkedIn Today, a digital newspaper that compiles stories from around the Web based on what a user’s connections and industry peers are reading. On Wednesday, the professional networking site unveiled a redesign of the news site with a refreshed look and a new content discovery feature called Channels. Through Channels, people can follow more than 20 broader topic areas crossing over different industries, including Your Career, Economy, Social Impact, Big Ideas, Innovation, and Higher Education, with more to come over time. Once someone begins following a channel, they automatically get updates directly to their home page feed on the desktop.” >> Read More

SocialTimes: Study: The Future of Social Selling – “Sales professionals see the value of social media, but are still in the early stages of measuring ROI, according to a report conducted by Forrester Research and commissioned by Hearsay Social. Using social media, 80 percent of customers discover new brands, products, and services through family and friends, while 36 percent rely on salespeople, the researchers found. Businesses that require more personal interaction and trust, including those in the real estate, finance, automotive, and high-end retail industries, have the most potential for growth on social media, according to Hearsay Social founder and CTO Steve Garrity.”  >> Read More

Herald Online: Research and Markets: 2020 Foresight Report: Social Media in Wealth Management – “Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/ctf795/2020_foresight) has announced the addition of the “2020 Foresight Report: Social Media in Wealth Management” report to their offering. The advent of social media presents a valuable opportunity for wealth management companies. As internet access and smartphone adoption increase, a growing number of internet users are becoming involved with social networking. Companies are developing their processes to be able to respond to web-oriented consumers. Banks and other wealth management institutions are engaging customers with social media, which is shaping up as a strong channel for promoting new schemes, identifying customer needs and receiving feedback online. Companies have started to use social media sites as a marketing tool to communicate with external customers and to promote their products and services.” >> Read More

The editorial review committee for this semi-annual publication will consider all types of original, previously unpublished manuscripts. For more information on submission guidelines for the Journal of New Communications Research, please visit: http://www.sncr.org/publications/submission-guidelines.

This publication is dedicated to creating a bridge between the theoretical examination of these topics and the pragmatic implementation of new media and communications tools and methodologies, with an emphasis on the establishment and promotion of best practices. For a list of previous journals, please visit: http://sncr.org/node/543.

Articles must follow the style of the Publication Manual of the  American Psychological Association. Manuscript submissions should be sent via email to journal_submission@sncr.org.

• “Young American Consumers’ Online Privacy Concerns, Trust, Risk, Social Media Use, and Regulatory Support” by Hongwei Yang, PhD, Assistant Professor, Appalachian State University

• “The Psychology of Social Media” by David G. H. Phillips, Escola Superior de Comunicao Social-ESCS and Lecturer, University of Gloucestershire in the United Kingdom and Lauren Hockey

• “Health Organizations’ Use of Social Media during a Pandemic Situation: A H1N1 Flu Context” by Masudul Biswas, PhD, Assistant Professor, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania

• “Sustainability Engagement in the Social Web” by Michael Hopps, Project Specialist, Social Media Marketing, Cisco Systems

• “Higher Ed Documents Social Media ROI: New Communications Tools Are a Game Changer” by Nora Ganim Barnes, PhD, Director, The Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and SNCR Senior Fellow, Research Co-Chair, and Ava M. Lescault, Senior Research Associate and Associate Director of the University of Massachusetts Center for Marketing Research

• “The Missing Link in Social Media Use Among Top MBA Programs: Tracking Prospects” by Nora Ganim Barnes, PhD, Director, The Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and SNCR Senior Fellow, Research Co-Chair, and Stephanie L. Jacobsen, Lecturer, MBA, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

We would like to thank the contributors, the JNCR editorial review committee, and JNCR editorial review Chair, Dr. Dean Kruckeberg, for their contribution and time.

The journal is available as a print publication and via e-reader for $60. To purchase this issue of the journal, please click here. A complimentary PDF issue of this journal, as well as previous journals and research reports, is available to SNCR Fellows and Members. Membership to the Society starts as little as $21 a month. More information is available here.

In addition, we are seeking submissions for future issues of the Journal of New Communications Research. More information submitting to the journal can be found here.

Brian Solis: The Imminent Shift from Social to Digital Engagement – “How do you define engagement? No matter how you define it, engagement is something that we most likely underestimate. Engagement symbolizes the touches that occur in various moments of truth and this should completely change not only how you engage someone in each moment but also how the inside of your company works with one another to make it frictionless and experiential. Whether a customer stands on the stage of awareness, consideration, purchase, or post purchase, touch points open and close. And, it is in those moments that engagement, regardless of source or shape, affects the next steps and impressions of customers.” >> Read More

The Verge: Google adds remote desktop to Hangouts, lets users simultaneously video chat and troubleshoot – “Google+ Hangouts just received a small but potentially quite useful upgrade today — as of now, Hangouts include a remote desktop feature. This lets you remotely control the computer of someone you’re having a Hangout with for troubleshooting purposes, and the Hangout lets you keep chatting and walk through the troubleshooting process with the person on the other end.” >> Read More

Mashable: Twitter Advertising Now Open to All U.S. Users – “Twitter first introduced advertising options in 2010, and has been expanding advertising on the social network ever since. Most recently, Twitter opened its advertising API to third parties, which will let larger advertisers create more sophisticated campaigns on Twitter. The company launched that program with five partners: Adobe, Hootsuite, Salesforce, SHIFT and TBG Digital.” >> Read More

The Measurement Standards: Way Above Standard Fare: Two IPRRC Papers That Concern Measurement Standards-setting – “There were two papers at IPRRC 2013 one by Marianne Eisenmann and Julie O’Neal, and one by Sean Williams—that have significant impact on the Conclave’s pursuit of public relations and social media measurement standards. >> Read More

ZDNET: Futurists…and the ‘End of Work’ – “The benefits of digitization are numerous. One of the benefits is that businesses can cherry pick the lowest-risk highest margin businesses and give away information services as a loss-leader.” >> Read More

Newspaper Death Watch: A Citizen Journalism Experiment Goes Off the Rails – “Those who fear that crowdsourcing may soon make professional journalists obsolete should take a look at some of the links below related to an amateur sleuthing experiment on the popular Reddit social news site that went horribly awry last week. The goal was commendable enough. A “subreddit” was set up to enlist the members of this massive community (14 million monthly visitors by one report) in the hunt for suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing. Participants were told not to name names and to focus their effort on combing through thousands of photos posted on the Internet in hopes of finding the origins of the backpacks that exploded, killing three people and injuring 282 others. The rules quickly went by the wayside, though. Names began being tossed out more or less at random, photos of anyone carrying a backpack were flagged as suspicious and chatter from the Boston Police Scanner were posted as fact. Most damaging was a rumor that Sunil Tripathi, a Brown University student who has been missing for a month, was one of the bombers.” >> Read More

Beth’s Blog: Advancing Social Media Measurement for Philanthropic Outcomes #sm_re – “How do you measure your network to learn how to improve outcomes?   That was one of many questions raised at during a Twitter Chat last week around the #sm_re hashtag.     The chat was a prelude to a convening on April 25th at the Robert Wood Johnston Foundation of  40 thinkers and practitioners, bringing diverse perspectives and expertise into discussions to develop measures for evaluating the impact of social media on philanthropic outcomes.” >> Read More

Brian Solis: Without Analytics, Big Data is Just Noise – “Meaning comes from the intersection of multiple sources. In the old days, journalists triangulated truth against a handful of sources. Today, we need to triangulate truth against millions of sources. An avalanche of information is not necessarily a good thing. More often than not, it’s a path to obfuscation rather than enlightenment, where speculation inflicts irrevocable harm and sensationalism travels farther and faster than tolerance.” >> Read More

Forbes: How To Measure Your Social Media Return On Investment – “Here are a few ways to ease that annoyance. Though measuring social media ROI may not be perfect, it’s not impossible either. These three methods can help gauge what your small business is getting out of its social media commitment.” >> Read More

Search Engine Watch: Top Video Trends & Opportunities: Mobile, Social, Ads & TV Everywhere [Report] – “Video is a powerful way to reach audiences both for publishers and advertisers. Marketers already know people are watching online video more than ever, but what are they watching? When are they watching it? What are consumers’ preferred methods of watching? The Adobe Digital Index team explored these questions and several other topics that are important to making a bigger splash through video. The team recently shared the findings of its research in The U.S. Digital Video Benchmark. The Adobe Digital Index team looked at 19.6 billion video starts on media websites to confirm the growth of broadcast video consumption across connected devices. But the useful insights don’t stop there. Here are the top trends found in The U.S. Digital Video Benchmark.” >> Read More

Mashable: Just Who Uses Social Media? A Demographic Breakdown – “A new study from the Pew Research Center and Docstoc shed some light on just who uses social and on what platforms. Some of the findings seem in line with what you would probably guess, but others were surprising. If you think the smarter, more attractive sex is more socially prolific than us men, well … you’re right. Women use social media 9% more than men do. Despite having more distractions, people living in cities have the most social media activity, at 70% of the population. Perhaps it’s the connectivity of large-city life. In terms of racial and ethnic groups online, Hispanics lead the pack at 72% engagement, with African-Americans trailing at 68%, who are ahead of Caucasians at 65%. And in a strange twist, despite being somewhat economically disadvantaged, 72% of adults with annual household incomes below $30,000 use social networks, more than those with higher wages. >> Read More

Marketing Pilgrim: B2B Marketers Say Twitter is Now but Google+ Is the Future [Infographic] – “If all of the business to business marketers could come up to the front of the room please? Now, could you raise your hand if you think Twitter is the number one social platform for business? Hmm…wow, B2B Marketing is right. 85% of you chose Twitter as your number one social platform. LinkedIn? A close second with 82%. YouTube and Facebook? 77% and 71%. Finally, Google+? (Quick count) Yep, 36%. >> Read More

Forth Source: What ‘Big Data’ and Social Media Monitoring means for the future of consumer experiences – “Recently, much has been made of Big Data; what to do with it, how to analyse it, the tools needed to manage it. But big data is just data – just because there’s lots of it doesn’t necessarily mean more insights, especially if the right tools aren’t being used to analyse that data. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that each of those data points represents a person. But, things are changing. Brands now have tons of customer information at their fingertips and are beginning to use it to understand their customers better, to make business and marketing decisions, and to monitor what their customers are doing. We see more and more brands taking advantage of the opportunity that social media gives them in terms of data, and so they should.” >> Read More

Forbes: Taking Care Of Business: Social Media Will Transform Customer Service – “Social media is no longer just a clever marketing tool: It’s also a fast-growing channel for customer service. Over half of consumers now use social media to directly reach out to companies to report satisfaction, lodge complaints, and ask questions, says Nielsen’s 2012 Social Media Report. And one in three social media users now prefer social care to contacting a company by phone. Small businesses should move beyond marketing, and find ways to use social media to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty” >> Read More

The Fellowship is a volunteer-based program. We welcome all futurists, scholars, technologists, business leaders, professional communicators and members of the media from around the globe to apply to this program. All those interested in the Fellowship are asked to complete an online application, found here, no later than Friday, January 11, 2013 at 11:59pm PST.

Applicants must provide a detailed summary of their professional and academic backgrounds, three professional/academic references, and a project proposal that is in line with SNCR’s 2013 priorities. The 2013 research priorities are:

•    Business model disruption in the pro/am, social data-enabled world
•    Gamification of online collaboration
•    Business, cultural, societal, political impacts of global social media trends
•    Integration of digital / social strategy and presence
•    Micromarketing and hyper-local marketing based on real time, actionable social data
•    Mobile / wearable technology
•    New roles, titles and skill sets created by new communications and social media
•    Nonprofits’ use of social data to improve strategy and operations
•    Problems and risks created by social media / new communications technologies and trends
•    Turning unstructured data into real-time actionable business intelligence

Those who are selected will collaborate with the other SNCR Fellows on research, educational offerings, and establishment of standards and best practices in social media, digital media, mobile and more.

Those selected will also gain access to SNCR’s latest reports and journals focused on the cutting edge of new communications research combining business and academic perspectives, receive monthly updates on innovations in the field, and receive an invite to the Annual SNCR Symposium and Awards Gala to share research, trends, and best practices in new communications.

If you would like to learn more about SNCR, we invite you to take a look at some of our current research projects like Mobile Money for the Unbanked led by SNCR 2011-12 Fellow Ingrid Sturgis, Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism of Howard University and Social Business Study led by SNCR Senior Fellow and Co-Research Chair Vanessa Di Mauro, CEO of Leader Networks.

We also invite you view our other research reports here and research presentations here.

If you should have any questions regarding the SNCR Fellowship application or if you are interested in finding out more information about the Society, please feel free to contact me at ghernandez (at) sncr (dot) org.

We’re thrilled today to announce that The Society for New Communications Research, a global nonprofit think tank and research and education foundation, and Social Media Today have formed a partnership to provide research, case studies, whitepapers and best practices to communications professionals and business leaders. The collaboration between our two organizations will bring the best independent, unbiased research and papers by SNCR’s fellows to the Social Media Today audience.

For our members, the partnership will be bringing us a rich new source of terrific insight and research.   SNCR’s thinking about social media over the years has blazed a lot of trails; not content to look at social media as purely as a new marketing tool, SNCR’s researchers have delved into the deeper issues around social media and politics, new roles for companies as creators of content, social media adoption in developing countries, and many more next-generation topics.  Their annual meetings are mind-bending opportunities to find out what will be happening not today, but tomorrow.

For our sponsors, this partnership will mean a new source of editorially independent content that can be branded and linked to inbound marketing efforts. We’ll be producing white papers, exclusive posts, ebooks, and much more that will lend burnish to your brand, and attract new customers to your products.  SNCR’s methodologies are first-rate and their analysis acute.   Their researchers’ areas of expertise is broad, encompassing online community, social business adoption, social media globally, social media and impact, “content marketing,” and more.  We’ll be able to bring new topics to SNCR, as well as let you know about current projects that may become part of your marketing plans.  Further, we’ll be able to use our syndication capabilities to make sure that your branded study receives the widest possible audience.

This partnership is a true benefit to both of our organizations, and please join me in thanking Jennifer McClure, Founder and CEO, and Gina Hernandez of SNCR in making this

About Society for New Communications Research (SNCR)

The Society for New Communications Research is a global nonprofit 501(c)(3) research and education foundation and think tank focused on the advanced study of the latest developments in new media and communications, and their effect on traditional media and business models, communications, culture and society. For more information, visit http://sncr.org.

About Social Media Today

Social Media Today is an independent, online community for professionals in PR, marketing, advertising or any other discipline where a thorough understanding of social media is mission-critical. Every day, we provide insight and host lively debate about the tools, platforms, companies and personalities that are revolutionizing the way we consume information.

This article originally appeared on Social Media Today on November 27, 2012 and has been republished with permission.

While, of course, there is no home-run “formula” (except for cute kids and keyboard-playing cats!), there are ten practices successful companies use that can improve your video storytelling  and marketing outcomes.

1. Find a human story. The purpose of a great video is to establish a human connection with your audience, not to drown people in facts. Video is a storytelling medium, and at the heart of every great marketing message is a great story. Companies that have been successful with video understand that it starts with a compelling story rather than worrying about going “viral.” Viral is not a strategy. Most B2B videos will never go viral. Your goal is connecting with your specific audience, and your chances of success improve if the story behind your video is powerful, and shows some human passion. Create videos that appeal to your specific community.

This is where B2B can learn a lot from B2C. Panera Bread, for example, does a great job showing the passion of the bakers behind the company. Goodwill Industries International has some great videos that focus on changing lives. Product and service videos, for example, don’t do as well when they are focused on the technology and features because the underlying human story is lost. A great technology example is Cisco’s Valentine’s Day video – it never gets into technical detail. Instead, it’s a funny story that grabs attention. Story always trumps production.

2. Simplicity and brevity matter. Videos have mere seconds to grab attention. Companies that are successful focus on content that is simple. Simplicity, like humor, is the antidote to complexity. Ford, for example, encouraged devoted fans to submit their own 30-second videos focusing on their one favorite car feature and why they love it. Videos should be well under two minutes; 90 seconds or less is ideal.

3. Humor works, so lighten up! B2B does not mean ‘blah to boring!’ Humor doesn’t just work for B2C. So, please, B2B, stop avoiding humor. Part of the emotional range of the human experience is humor, and it makes for a great “marketing” connection. Humor is also a great way to break down complexity and that’s why humor can work well in B2B, especially when the technology is complex. A simple, fun story can cut through layers of noise. NetApp has a great example featuring a rap competition. Another great example is from Serena Software, called “Mash it.” Kinaxis, the supply chain management solutions company, cleverly parodies the “relationship” customers have with their supply chain management providers. CodeWeavers had fun by having the CEO and the CTO dress in drag to increase press coverage of their product, CrossOver, at Macworld with New York Times tech journalist, David Pogue. And Cisco has several funny videos that have done well (see Valentine’s Day above).

4. Honor your brand and values. While “authenticity” has sadly become a buzzword, it factors into video credibility. When humor works, for example, it is also because the companies using it are authentically fun. Humor must be part of the brand personality of the company, and consistent with what people believe the company truly is. B2B companies including Hubspot and NetApp have been successful with their humorous videos, in part, because fun is an authentic part of their culture.

Dollar Shave Club is a great example of authenticity. Its successful 2012 launch video, which earned over 4 million views in less than one month, is consistent with the company’s marketing voice. From its website to its product packaging, fun is a key part of the company’s brand.

Even a video of a CEO talking to a Flip camera is OK if it’s sincere and not scripted. Several years ago in response to JetBlue’s service crisis, the CEO responded via videos that were effective because they were apologetic without the “BS” PR-speak.

5. Let go of control. Empower the best storytellers, who, by the way, are most often found outside of the C-suite. Of course, Dollar Shave Club’s CEO Mike Dubin, who put a human face on his company, is an exception. The best storytellers outside the executive rank have talent and credibility, and, because they are often close to the customer, they know how to tell stories without the PR-spin. Ford, for example, interviewed on video the design team behind the Ford Explorer and it was compelling because it was real employees discussing their experiences. Cisco did this to great success with intern Greg Justice, who rapped about his reputation as the most interesting intern in the world. This also includes letting your best customers and fans tell their stories. For the Fiesta Movement, Ford gave 100 bloggers cars for 100 days and asked them to video their experiences. The results were compelling and funny, including this one about zombies. Ford empowered others to tell stories in a way that Ford itself could not have done.

6. Take risks. The risks don’t have to bet the farm, but successful companies try, experiment, fail sometimes, and learn from those mistakes. Every company that experienced video success also told me about creating videos that didn’t work well, but the downside of experimentation wasn’t huge – they weren’t betting the brand per se. Cisco, for example, vets its videos internally first to reduce some risk and to make sure everything fits with its message and brand. Still, there is no way to be completely risk-free in marketing and innovative companies accept that. Cisco has taken some creative risks by releasing some very funny videos. Taking risks is also about upending expectations. The Art of the Sale series, for example, helped to change IBM’s stodgy image. It worked well precisely because it was unexpected from IBM!

7. Forge your own template – then reinvent it. After the success of the Old Spice video, parodies proliferated across the Internet. Cisco even did one – and while its target market loved it, many pundits didn’t. Yet, the video was meant for its core audience, not for the press. Marketing is in large part an art, not a replicable science. What worked for Old Spice won’t work for other brands. There are many templates to be written and successful companies experiment to see what works for them. Don’t try to bottle a formula. It doesn’t exist.

8. ROI Goes Beyond Sales and Views. Successful companies have clear objectives before launching video campaigns, and they have multiple ways of measuring video “success” that goes beyond sales. These metrics include unique viewers, the amount of buzz and favorable comments the video generated, the conversations created, and lead generation among the most common metrics. Despite the fact that B2B sales cycles can be long and complex and that tying sales directly to video is difficult, videos can drive awareness, press coverage, customer conversations, and positive PR – all of which can increase sales, indirectly, over time. Innovative organizations recognize that they have to be both flexible in trying to measure ROI, and in allowing themselves freedom to learn what works without obsessing over sales in the immediate short-term. Still, measurement is critical and social strategies evolve with experience.
9. Think ‘Call to action.’ Add a strong call to action for viewers at the end of your video; think about what you want them to do after watching it.

10. Distribution. And, of course, a clearly defined distribution strategy – involving some push methods and the right partners – is key to success. Plan how you will promote your videos before you launch them. Make sure you promote your video across all online channels and partnerships, and across offline channels, too.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on video storytelling.

Kathy Klotz-Guest, @kathyklotzguest