a thousand cuts :: adam cohen's blog

Why Companies Should Leverage The Community Roundtable

adam — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:34:18 +0000

Over the last couple of years I’ve been fortunate to get to know the founders of the Community Roundtable well. Jim Storer and Rachel Happe are two talented community practitioners with tons of experience. When Jim told me about his idea for TheCR (as it’s known in short), I was intrigued from day one. While there are many social media practitioners, blogs and community platform companies to leverage out there, TheCR provides at least two unique differentiators as part of its value proposition:

The Community Roundtable is a peer network of social media practioners and community managers. In essence, TheCR is using community to enhance and better people and businesses who are practicing community management every day. This isn’t social media or community 101, it’s 501. It’s a network for people who practice the discipline daily.
The Community Roundtable is pushing the envelope to advance the field. With their background in organizational design, TheCR team has built a framework of business processes to apply to various stages of community lifecycle. This isn’t (only) for selling community into an organization, it’s aimed at best practices at sustaining and growing them. TheCR is the answer to the question, “You have a community. Now what?”

As companies look at branded and non-branded, public and private, enterprise and customer-facing community platforms and decisions, TheCR provides a highly concentrated armament of resources and network of peers for support. Rosetta, my agency has been a partner from early on due to the complement to our own value proposition, and as Rachel describes it, I’m a self-professed “Cheesehead.”

So it’s not a surprise that Rosetta is pleased to be a sponsor, along with Fuzebox and Powered (another Rosetta partner), of The Community Roundtable’s first annual State of Community Management 2010 report. This 60+ page report, with an introduction from Altimeter Group’s Jeremiah Owyang, is a tremendous resource that combines the voice of participating members representing “over 180+ years of community management experience” and what the group learned in 2009. It’s an asset to anyone exploring starting or improving their community initatives in 2010.

How Social Media Has Changed My Job

adam — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:27:02 +0000

TK479: "They told me it was less boring than looking for droids on random planets." TK455: "I have a bad feeling about this."

In the last 2 years of blogging I’ve been able to share my own views on social media, interactive marketing and other topics. During that time my day job at Rosetta has evolved from working with exciting companies like Coach and Borders to leading our Search and Media practice. I’ve had the fortunate experience of working with talented teams and innovative clients, with an agency leadership team who was willing to help me launch our social media practice over a year ago.

Helping clients leverage social media has been a passion but up until recently only a part-time gig; I’ve had many fun and challenging responsibilities to work on in parallel while trying to see if we can add social media to the value proposition Rosetta brings to the table. In the meantime, this blog has served as a way to capture thoughts and more importantly to hear from you, continuing conversations that weren’t as suitable for Twitter or some other forum.

For my two-year blog anniversary post, I’m excited to share details about my expanded role. As we’ve grown our social media team, I’m pleased to share that my role is now 100% focused on helping clients develop social media programs. My goal is to build integrated programs that treat social media tactics as informed strategies, leveraging deeper understanding of a brand’s most valuable customers and prospects through Rosetta’s Personality®-based segmentation.

What this really means:

After 15 years in consulting (first 12 at Accenture), I’ve been able to craft a role for myself (with leadership team sponsorship) at a digital agency I’m excited about.
For a long time I’ve been advocating that social media marketing tactics should be treated alongside other digital initiatives in an integrated and strategic way, leveraging CRM, segmentation and consumer insight. Now I get to truly focus full time on making that happen.
I’ve spent the last two+ years learning and applying what I’ve learned in social media, now I get to learn and apply on a full time basis. (But I’m no expert, just trying to help clients make informed decisions).

Frankly I’m very grateful to see a more formal career path emerge from ideas. I’m looking forward to sharing more here with a reinvigorated sense of purpose, and to thanking a lot of people in person over the next few weeks. At risk of forgetting to call out a few, a hat tip to a few folks who continue to inspire me in this space: Len Devanna, Ken Burbary, Marc Meyer, Aaron Strout, Jim Storer, Kyle Flaherty, Tim Walker, Amber Naslund, Beth Harte, and Rachel Happe. And certainly Mark Taylor who has been my biggest advocate. Now to deliver on the promise…

Photo credit: st3f4n via Flickr

Donation Connect: Text Some Good

adam — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 19:24:05 +0000

The devastation in Haiti has struck a chord in individuals and organizations around the globe. I’m going to shamelessly plug this app since it’s a great way for our agency to contribute to the cause. What started off as a project to showcase Rosetta’s mobile team skills turned into something better - a useful app which allows people to look up charities that accept donations via SMS and click to donate. It’s a simple directory service with buttons to send a text message right from your iPhone. Donation Connect also allows you to promote your donation and the app through Facebook and Twitter. The app is free; if you like it please use it and tell a friend about it. Let me know what you think. This was created on volunteer time after hours from our mobile and creative teams.

Donation Connect (iTunes App Store)

The Ultimate Location Based Service

adam — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:20:52 +0000

With all the buzz about geolocation and geo-tagging services, I still can’t find a service that:

…allows me to see where my friends are right now, especially if they are near me
…allows me to forecast where I’ll be and when, if I want to
…allows me to see if my forecast lines up with my friends (maybe even suggest a common place to meet?)
…provides really easy tagging of photos, audio or other posts by location, including favoriting or voting on most relevant/interesting for that location (and reporting spam if necessary)
…recommends places of interest to me based on my history or my friend’s history in locations - I’d love a “Pandora” of locations and related content
…allows me to share location with ‘groups’ of friends (I’d love to me more open about my location at a conference/event for connecting with professionals, but at other times restrict my sharing to people I know or even only share with people in that location)
…really gives the user a tangible benefit for sharing info by location. (Yes, Foursquare has a lot of potential here in working with businesses).

Ultimately whether it’s Foursquare, Gowalla, Dopplr, Google’s Latitude, Loopt, Brightkite or some other player, there’s room for improvement/consolidation here. Any one of these does a lot but not all of the functions. Ultimately the one that wins is the one that everyone actually uses. (cough cough Facebook cough cough). And don’t forget the security risks associated with sharing, which Jim Storer discussed almost a year ago. What do you think? Do you use one or more of these services? What do you like or hate about them?

Photo credit: cibomahto via Flickr

A Free eBook for Marketers: Learning in 2010

adam — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:19:12 +0000

I virtually met Ellen Hoenig Carlson several months ago through Twitter. As I have continued to work on social media initiatives in Rosetta’s Healthcare practice, Ellen’s blog has continually been a tremendous resource to gain insight on the subtle (and often not so subtle) intricacies of marketing in healthcare and pharma. Ellen reached out to me to be included in her ebook for Pharma marketers, entitled “The Gift of Learning for Pharma and Healthcare Marketers in 2010.” First, I’m very grateful to be able to contribute and be included. But second, my background is more traditional retail and high tech - so it’s great to read the themes from some of the top healthcare social media strategists included. Below are the other contibutors; One of my goals in 2010 is to meet as many of them as possible in person, Ellen included.

Phil Baumann, Phil Baumann online blog, CareVocate Interactive Media Solutions
Wendy Blackburn, ePharma Rx blog, Intouch Solutions
Dave deBronkart, The New Life of e-Patient Dave blog, Society for Participatory Medicine
Angela Dunn, Odom Lewis blog, Executive Search Specialists in Healthcare Marketing/Medical Education
Susannah Fox, Health Research for Pew Internet & American Life Project
Fard Johnmar, Path of the Blue Eye Project, Envision Consultancy
John Mack, Pharma Marketing blog, Editor-in-chief of Pharma Marketing News
Jonathan Richman, Dose of Digital blog, Bridge Worldwide
Marsha Shenk, Thriving Enterprise blog, The Bestwork People
Andrew Spong, STweM blog and Consultancy, UK
Steve Woodruff, Impactiviti blog and Consultancy

Themes the authors wrote about include, from Ellen’s blog summary:

1) e-Patients are at the center and critical to learning and design;

2) Authenticity isn’t a ‘nice to do’, it’s a ‘must’ (and you won’t be the one who decides whether you’ve succeeded);

3) Don’t get distracted by ‘bells and whistles’ - remember the basics and keep your brand core strong;

4) New marketing challenges require new ROI thinking…the ROI of connection, authenticity and compassion;

5) The marketing cycle of life is going through unprecedented change requiring all marketers and communications people to unlearn much - the movement from paid marketing to earned marketing requires a different mindset and skills; and

6) Effective marketing and engagement will require new kinds of leadership skills.

A lot of these themes apply to other industries - so I think it’s a great gift for all marketers. Download a copy of the ebook, share it, and drop by Ellen’s post to let her know what you think. Thanks again Ellen for including me.

Download: Best Strategic Learning Investment in 2010

The Gift of Learning for Pharma and Healthcare Marketers In 2010 (free eBook)

View more documents from Ellen Hoenig Carlson - Advance MarketWoRx.

Social Media in 2010: Getting Smarter

adam — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:04:15 +0000

It’s that time of year where the pundits predict the death of brands, the trends of new media and the upcoming changes in marketing. I typically avoid these kinds of posts, but I wanted to weigh in primarily because part of my role at Rosetta next year will be to execute against the predictions. This is going to be a fun year.

My one primary thought about social media in 2010: Social Media Gets Smarter. We’re already seeing evidence of companies using social media more strategically. eMarketer’s recent post highlights a shift in budget and a growing movement of how companies are leveraging social media in a smarter way. I see social media becoming as sophisticated as more traditional CRM and marketing tactics. I love studies like this one from comScore and GroupM that demonstrate the effect of social media on paid search results (50% increase in CTR on branded paid search for people who had exposure to a brand in social media - that is compelling alone).

The good folks over at Trendspotting have also assembled a list of quick, “Twitter-sized” tidbits on predicting changes in social media in 2010. I am thrilled to be included in their list alongside some excellent predictions from folks who have inspired me in the last few years, including Chris Brogan, David Armano, Paul Gillin, Jason Falls and David Meerman Scott. Marketing Hot Seat contributor Marc Meyer is also included.

Here are my predictions that show up in the presentation. I’d highly suggest the read - Trendspotter did a great job keeping the content in an easily digestible format.

Social media tactics become integrated tools in the relationship marketing arsenal.
Companies struggle adapting processes for customer interaction in marketing, sales, customer service & PR.
Marketing programs focus more on activating brand advocates than general customers.
Social media monitoring industry consolidates and matures, drawing closer to web analytics.

Each of these probably warrant a post on their own. I based my predictions on day to day what I am experiencing in terms of client demand in the social media space, but it’s one digital agency view. What do you think?

2010 Social Media Influencers - Trend Predictions in 140 Characters, by TrendsSpotting

View more documents from Taly Weiss.

Photo credit: greeblie via Flickr

Marketing Hot Seat: Andrew Davis

adam — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 02:07:20 +0000

A few months ago I had the opportunity to visit the offices of Tipping Point Labs. After some great discussions on Twitter with Andrew Davis, TPL’s Chief Strategy Officer, we agreed to meet and grab lunch to talk further. I quickly learned how smart Andrew is. TPL has a unique perspective on content marketing as a strategic platform to drive business results. I thought Andrew would be a perfect addition and unique perspective to the Marketing Hot Seat, and I was right.

You’re the CMO. You have a marketing budget of $1M. Your company is a consumer product company, relatively unknown / early stage. Customers who know the product like it. CEO wants ROI within 12 months. What do you do?

The Client: Mimoco

When Adam invited me to participate in The Marketing Hot Seat, I immediately started looking for the perfect ‘client’ to apply our methodology. As Adam specified I needed to find someone who was relatively unknown or early stage, but someone who had enough potential that we could move the dial significantly in twelve months or less. That’s when a friend introduced me to the perfect client: Mimoco.

The Product: Mimobots

: Mimobots- MIMOBOT by Mimoco (Via Flickr)

Mimoco’s line of designer USB thumb drives are a geek’s dream. According to the Mimoco design team they have:

“…Fused the art of contemporary characters with the functionality of personal data storage devices making its name known in both the pop-culture driven Art Toy underground and the savvy high-tech ‘tronic world.”

Mimoco has a series of licensed Mimobots that include Star Wars characters and Hello Kitty (among others) as well as a full line of custom designed ‘bots’ for purchase at their web store. They also sell their products at ‘geek boutiques’ nationwide.

The Opportunity: Geek Chic

Even reading the Wikipedia entry for the term ‘geek chic’ hits home. It’s got all the ingredients for an extremely well-focused, niche-targeted marketing campaign. Extremely successful designers, developers and entrepreneurs fit into the category of ‘geek chic’ including the likes of Zach Klein (founder of College Humor, BustedTees and Vimeo,) the Flight of the Conchords and even comedienne Sarah Silverman.

The Plan: Embrace Chic Geeks

In order for something like Mimobots to generate a million more in sales, we’re going to focus on one, extremely well-connected community: those chic geeks. We must walk like them, talk like them and, most importantly, work with them to make Mimoco relevant in their world. Part of the allure of a brand like Mimobots is that the brand must straddle the divide between mainstream (read sell-out) and exclusive (always cool,) so mass marketing is out of the question. (Just look at what Johnny Cupcakes has built by exploiting this niche.)

The plan:

Strategy - Build a strategy that focuses entirely on the Chic Geek market: the e-commerce platform, a content platform, strategic partnerships and even monthly custom designs by ‘famous chic geeks.’ We’re going to set some goals, build an influence pyramid, find the content opportunities and create an editorial calendar. ($120,000)
Build - We’re going to reinvent the Mimoco e-commerce experience to focus on the designers behind the designs; to tell better product stories and to drive deeper relationships with the geeks we’re going after. We’re going to build a new digital universe and distribute content on channels that geeks adore (channels like Vimeo and Feedly.) ($250,000)
Create - Using our editorial calendar, we’re going to create the best geek chic content on the web. We’ll profile the best of the best, partner with prominent geeks to deliver high-quality content designed to deliver on the brand’s promise. We’ll attend events, produce a weekly podcast, distribute weekly video content, shoot images and write - write a lot. ($300,000)
Measure & Refine - Our strategy will remain intact while our tactics, channels, content and platforms shift. (Gone are the days when you can launch a website and walk away.) With weekly and monthly reports to measure our effectiveness the strategy team will refine the methodology. Perhaps we’ll try exclusive offers like StuffedRobot.com or enhance the post-purchase experience with more geek chic on-device content. ($120,000)
Create More - Invariably, content opportunities, new product development concepts and smart partnerships emerge the more we dive into the strategy. Perhaps something like printing a Geek Chic magazine (yes, we believe in the power of print) that includes a Mimobot with each issue works. With that in mind, the final portion of our budget is dedicated to exploiting those opportunities. ($210,000)

The Outcome: 90 More Sales A Day (On Average)

At the end of the day, our entire strategy will be successful only if we generate about 100 more Mimobot sales everyday (At an average of $30.00/sale). Will it happen overnight with a strategy like ours? No. However, we know that a powerful, underground brand like Mimoco has too much to lose if we grow too fast. With our plan in place, this time next year they’ll be selling 1,000 more Mimobots than they are today (enough to make up for the slow-grow strategy.) Guaranteed.

Let Andrew know what you think of his approach in the comments. Thanks Andrew!

Spread the Joy: A Little Augmented Reality and a Rosetta Snow Day

adam — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:42:00 +0000

What do augmented reality, snowdays and New Orleans have in common? A Happy Holidays card and helping to spread some joy from Rosetta.

Every year agencies of all types like to show their stuff with digital holiday cards. Looking to raise the bar from last year, the Rosetta team is trying something new. Our team took their passion for technology, social media and working for a good cause to dream up something fun - and we hope people find it to be a “different taste” from the usual agency card. Grab your webcam and see what I mean .

Happy Holidays from Rosetta

What’s more joyful than catching snowflakes on your tongue? If we catch a million snowflakes, on February 20, 2010, we’ll be in New Orleans providing some joy to local children at City Park: a snow day. Read more at the card site, and I look forward to sharing stories of the joy from that event in a couple months. Have a happy and healthy holiday season.

Note: We’ll be watching usage and looking to fix or upgrade features - would love your input on what we could improve.

UPDATE: The WSJ covered our holiday card today (“Stop Licking Your Monitor,” 12/15/2009). My favorite quote is about “on-tongue recognition technology” from Rosetta partner Toni Hess.

No Amount of Social Media Overcomes Bad Customer Experience

adam — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:01:05 +0000

This is not a post to bash AT&T.

I know many folks who have had issues with their network, dropping calls and customer service. I’ve had quite the opposite. Sure I’ve dropped a call occasionally, but I actually switched to AT&T because they were the only service provider that had great coverage when I was traveling to a client in Ann Arbor, MI, years ago. In addition to my Blackberry, I purchased a broadband USB card that has helped me tremendously while I have been on the road. All in all I’ve been a pleased customer for nearly three years.

Where They’re Doing Some Things Well

On the social media side, AT&T has made some compelling strides over the last year plus. For years they have been working with Seth Bloom (who I have met and think very highly of) and they took the leap to put him customer facing representing the company. They have shown a good progression - starting with a Youtube channel and an engaging Facebook page, expanding to listening and customer service directly via Twitter, and making all the help more accessible via a social media landing page. This week AT&T announced a new iPhone app called “Mark That Spot” - it allows customers to indicate when they are in a location with poor 3G coverage - they are listening to customers, and it’s a good start. I’m not sure how many of AT&T’s competitors have made this much effort, frankly. For a recent issue I had, @ATTNatasha reached out to me via Twitter and has been extremely patient, helpful and proactive in working to resolve the issue. Just last week, when Natasha was out of the office, she asked @ATTJason to follow up on another request I had - he was professional, responsive and helpful.

Where The Experience Falls Short

Here’s where my personal experience with AT&T fell down. In September I took a 2-day trip to Toronto, Canada, for a conference. Before I left, I called customer service and asked for recommendations for voice, data and broadband plan changes that would help. I put measures in place for each. When I got back, I had a $6,000 bill. My average monthly bill for all services is $250.

Over the next 6 weeks, I had many calls with Natasha and other customer service reps. AT&T Billing (not Natasha) called me twice to threaten to disconnect my service while the September bill was in dispute. Natasha was able to work out several credits offline through her supervisors, and continued to keep me posted via Twitter. I really enjoyed working with her in this way - I avoided long wait times on the phone. However in the end her supervisors told her that she could credit me only so much, they believe my broadband card was legitimately connected, and still invoiced me for $1300 worth of data and roaming charges in a two day period. I have ample spreadsheets to keep track of the discussions and calculations we went through.

On my last call with Natasha, she delivered the news, and I immediately canceled my broadband service. I already have a Verizon broadband card activated. I am actively shopping for cell phone service. We agreed to disagree on the bill amount but considered the matter closed. Two weeks later AT&T suspended all service to my cell phone and only reactivated after I paid the amount due in full. I felt like I had no other option.

Here’s the point: No amount of interaction through Twitter or other social media outlets could prevent ultimately a bad customer experience and loss of a customer.

In the progression that AT&T has started in social media, a pivotal next step will be to integrate these customer relationships and interactions into their overall business process, with customer feedback being added to the product lifecycle, driving their programs and revamping their overall customer experience. I think I just lived at least a portion of what David Armano and Peter Kim are talking about when they preach “social business design.”

A disclaimer: Was user error involved? Probably - I may have left the broadband card plugged in overnight, which I have since learned is a quick way to rack up usage charges (even if not connected). I definitely did not download however many GB of data they have on record though. Was it worth AT&T to eat more of that cost to keep a long term customer? Apparently not.

Where have you had a bad customer experience? Did the company try to use social media to overcome it? Please no AT&T network bashing comments - there are plenty of other outlets for that.

Photo credit: dwfree1967 via Flickr

The Marketing Hot Seat: Rachel Happe

adam — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 02:33:44 +0000

If you don’t know Rachel Happe yet, you are missing out. I’ve had the sincere pleasure of getting to know Rachel in the local Boston social media scene, and it was clear from my first conversation with her that she knows social media and the power of community unlike most. With a background that includes working as a research manager at IDC and a senior director of social media products at Mzinga, Rachel brings a refreshing, thought-provoking view to what challenges large enterprises are facing with Web 2.0. Before reading her point of view on the Marketing Hot Seat, I’d recommend subscribing to her blog, the Social Organization and taking time to learn more about the business she is building with friend Jim Storer. The Community Roundtable is a tremendous wealth of value-add resources for social media practioners. (My agency, Rosetta, is a big proponent and partner, and I’ve been referred to as a CR Cheesehead - read on and you’ll see Rachel lives what she preaches). I’m grateful that Rachel has offered to weigh in this week on the challenge - please let her know what you think in the comments.

You’re the CMO. You have a marketing budget of $1M. Your company is a consumer product company, relatively unknown / early stage. Customers who know the product like it. CEO wants ROI within 12 months. What do you do?

Adam has graciously pulled out his marketing wizard wand and given me the role of CMO at an upstart consumer products company - not a likely scenario but fun to play with none-the-less! I’m lucky because I don’t have to deal with a lot of organizational complexity, legacy systems, or legacy structures set up for a vastly different information environment than the one that exists today. And luckily, I understand a bit about what’s changed. The cost of content creation has dropped, the cost of distribution has dropped, and the cost of customer discovery has dropped - all dramatically. That means that my investment will pay off relatively quickly.

My marketing focus is split between two key constituent groups. My first important constituent group is the channel partners who actually sell my product to the end customer. The second key constituent group is the consumers themselves - driving demand from consumers will help me negotiate more and better contracts with my retail partners. My goals for the year are to execute 1 exclusive large partner deal (think Target), 5 mid-size partner deals (regional chains, Zappos.com, etc), and 50 niche retailer contracts. Our channel manager will use our website including a blog, an email newsletter, and trade shows as the primary means of outreach to this audience. All of those touch points will be richly supported with online media from our customers and secondarily supported through our Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube outreach done with our end customers.

On the consumer end, we’ll start with research and capturing user interaction with our product. We’ll give our small team of young enthusiastic media makers the gear to video tape, podcast, and take pictures as they talk to users about their reaction to the product and how they use it. We’ll use that content for regular posting to YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter but we’ll also solicit content generated by the users themselves and post that. We’ll also use the research to design two online games - one individual and one team-based - that integrate with Twitter and Facebook. We will use a vendor like Bunchball that makes these games personalized, competitive, and branded. We’ll build a cheap-to-execute but unique version of our product to reward contributors for completing different tasks. Our team of media makers will also be charged with engagement - proactively and reactively interacting with people who are in our target audience and packaging the best of the resulting interactions and media for re-use. We will identify our cheeseheads and promote them.

Roughly, our marketing spend will look like this:

I’m expecting the following unit flow from each type of retailer:
Large = 60,000 units
Medium = 12,000 units
Small = 600 units
The profit from each unit is $9 and if I hit my planned goals, we’ll have $1,350,000 in profit by the end of the year. Covering my marketing costs by a bit but building a great foundation going into the following year.

What an awesome year!

…And what an awesome post, thanks again Rachel. What do you think of her approach?

Photo credit: Jim Storer via Flickr

a thousand cuts :: adam cohen's blog

Why Companies Should Leverage The Community Roundtable

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How Social Media Has Changed My Job

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Donation Connect: Text Some Good

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The Ultimate Location Based Service

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A Free eBook for Marketers: Learning in 2010

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Social Media in 2010: Getting Smarter

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Marketing Hot Seat: Andrew Davis

The Client: Mimoco

The Product: Mimobots

The Opportunity: Geek Chic

The Plan: Embrace Chic Geeks

The Outcome: 90 More Sales A Day (On Average)

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Spread the Joy: A Little Augmented Reality and a Rosetta Snow Day

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No Amount of Social Media Overcomes Bad Customer Experience

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The Marketing Hot Seat: Rachel Happe

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