Ensuring that your advertising dollars are being used as effectively as possible is the goal of every marketer but sometimes it’s not clear how this can be done. Using Google Analytics, a free web based analytics tool, marketers are able to make strategic decisions based on real data and can determine immediately if their ad dollars is leading to revenue for their company.

A great example of how an organization uses analytics to make business decisions lies in the American Cancer Society and their use of analytics. They were able to directly measure their online spending vs the amount of online donations received.

In the fight against cancer, every dollar counts

The American Cancer Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem. Ensuring their advertising dollars are generating online donations is crucial to their objectives since a large portion of their overall revenue comes from donations. Using Google Analytics, the Society was able to determine that 20% of the traffic on their website was from visitors using the site search tool and so they were able to add content that was more relevant to this group of visitors.

It helps us use our dollars more wisely for our mission… Google Analytics is literally helping in the fight against cancer

Without having analytics tools to help in their decision making, the Society would not have been able to effectively allocate their advertising budget based on how well their online ads were performing. By having Google Analytics as part of their strategy, the Society were able to boost ROI (return on investment) and help treat patients around the country. For the full report, visit the Google Analytics cases site http://www.google.com/analytics/case_study_acs.html.

West17Media offers analytics consultation to help your organization get the most out of your online ad spending. To find out how we can help you, contact us today.

If you have a page/group/event for your company and advertise on Facebook then this announcement is for you. Facebook announced on Nov 10 that you can now target the friends of your fans through what’s called “Friends of Connections” targeting.

In the past you were only able to target fans of your page/group or people who weren’t fans. With this new feature you are now allowed to target friends of your fans and in addition to seeing your ad they will also see ’social actions’.

For example…

Priya is a fan of the Nordstrom, Inc. Page. When Nordstrom, Inc. promotes their Facebook Page, they can choose to target ads to Priya’s friends by selecting the “Friends of connection” filter. Priya’s friends will receive the Nordstrom, Inc. ad with the following sentence: “Priya Gupta is a fan of this Page.” Priya’s friends are naturally more interested because Priya’s interaction with Nordstrom, Inc. is showcased directly in the ad (from Facebook Ads newsletter).

For a better idea of how this feature works, see the screenshot of the Facebook ads targeting screen. Using this feature you can see in real-time just how many people your ads will reach.

West17Media has experience advertising on Facebook so if you have a page and want to get more fans, more interactions and increase your brand’s visibility, then contact us today to find out how we can help you.

In  world where Real-Time is becoming the ‘de jour’ word Facebook has done an admireable job of adapting first with how it has evolved its Status system from something rather static to something that now seeks relevance in real-time. Amazing really how they managed to keep pace with over 350million users and growing (fast).

But in the last year things have been a changing.

A key indicator and a common comment by the younger generation:

• ComScore has revealed that the time young people are spending on Facebook has been declining since July ‘09. These declines have been steep in relative terms with September reaching 16%.
• Comments by teenagers like ‘when mom and dad are there it is hardly a party anymore’

Also lots and lots of blog posts talk about how people feel Facebook leads to a disconnect after all just how many friends can someone have?

It makes alot of sense that young people would wish to have their own space after all they are exploring their individuality when they get to that age. Also as cool as Facebook and even Twitter are, they have people glued to their smartphones and computers not to people, places and friends.

With FourSquare you get all the perks and perceived benefits of Facebook but you are driven to engage in the ‘real-world’ rather than just via a colour screen of varying sizes. Sure I socialize with friends on Facebook and Twitter, but those sites don’t really encourage that kind of relationship and FourSquare does through its geo-location awareness and game play style of interaction.

With FourSquare I can get a notification of a friend being nearby. This gives me the chance to go visit with them and with FourSquare’s ad platform when my friend and I go for lunch we may be even able to get a coupon to a place nearby.

Source: http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/media/e3i15e6314384dccfe3fbf6715a445e0e2b

Today we want to give you 5 tips on how to protect yourself on Facebook. With an ever increasing population on Facebook, it’s becoming more important to be aware of how your information is being shared and who you accept to be your friends.

1. Status Updates
Have you ever updated your status with your new phone number? Although this is an easy way of letting your friends know, you don’t want to let ALL of your friends know, do you?A good rule of thumb is to not put any personal information like phone numbers and addresses in your status updates. If your friends really need that information or if you really want to give that to them, send a message.

2. Adding Photos/Videos
When uploading, you can tag your friends but ask yourself if they would want to be tagged – if you’re not sure then send them a message and ask. It’s easy to do and it avoids having someone tagged when they didn’t want to be. This mutual respect is an important factor in making the experience on Facebook as positive and safe as possible for you and your friends.

3. Importing Blog Posts
Facebook gives you the option to import your external blog so your friends can read your blog posts (called ‘Notes’ in Facebook). But, be careful. If you’re importing from your blog make sure that your privacy settings on your blog match those of Facebook. For example, if your blog is private and requires users to sign in (ie Opendiary) but your Facebook profile is public, then your notes are now available for everyone to read.

4. Wall Posts
Posting on your friends’ wall. We all do it. And with the ability to comment on their status, we do that too. But something which we shouldn’t do is to say something private on their wall or status. Send that in a message. As much as you think people care about how sorry you are for your friend, they don’t.

5. Updating Your Profile
Having information in your profile will give your friends a sense of who you are but you can provide too much information. Because your profile is viewable by your friends means that whatever information you have included (including phone number, address and email address) is available to them. Facebook has a great feature called Lists which you can use to separate your friends based on specific criteria. Some examples include friends, family, business. The benefits of using Lists is that you can restrict your business list from viewing certain photos, videos and other parts of your profile. We will be posting a video next week showing you how to use Lists to segment your friends list.

Being mindful of your privacy settings protects you and your friends. By understanding how the different components of Facebook work, we become a more informed consumer and ultimately will help make Facebook more user friendly, relevant and safe for its users.

Would you share your phone number with all your friends? Let us know what you think!

With the rise in popularity of social networks, and the number of employees who use them, concerns over how to protect your company’s information becomes an issue.

45% of employees are allowed to use social media during work hours

According to a recent study, 45% of employees are allowed to use social media during work hours (either for personal or business) which means that for almost half of all organizations have employees who are engaged online while at work. What does this mean?

Say for instance that John Smith, who works at a technology company in a big city, is working on a major project with a tight deadline. His company has invested a lot of money already but they are still behind schedule and if they don’t get back on pace soon they are in danger of losing the client. John’s role in the project is a major one and if he completes his task on time then the entire project can be brought back up to schedule. However, John is having trouble on one part of the programming and is worried he won’t be able to finish on time.

So, while taking a break on Linkedin, John updates his status saying “This project is killing me…probably not going to finish on time ”. To John, this is a harmless status update but to  one of his connections on Linkedin, Sam, this is far from harmless. You see, Sam is the project manager at the client for which John’s company is doing the work. Spotting this update from John, who knows that John has a crucial part in this project, he immediately calls his boss, who phones John’s boss and they call an urgent meeting to discuss the project. Thing is, John was just a little stressed out but is very capable of finishing the project on time; however, Sam’s boss has heard enough and they end up dropping John’s company as the contractor. Subsequently, John is fired.

Now, this is a simple example of what is a seemingly harmless status update. However, it escalated into John’s company losing the client and ultimately John losing his job.

Although this is a fictional example, there are many cases of employees sharing information about their job, their clients, a product/deal, writing offensive posts and other sensitive information which shouldn’t be made public. For some humorous examples, read 30 Ways to Lost a Job on Twitter. However, what’s stopping John, or others like him, from sharing whatever information he feels like sharing?

Unfortunately, there is no magic answer. How this is managed depends entirely on the company itself and their Code of Ethics, their Privacy policy, or whatever other systems they have in place. However, how they apply this raises the issue of personal privacy. Because the employees are using a company computer to access the social network, but since the information is stored on non-company servers, what authority do company’s have over what an employee puts in their profile and what they share online?

Just like an organization has an agreement which employees sign stating that they must respect sensitive data, so too does an organization need a document which applies to social networks. Many organizations assign code names to internal projects so if word does get out, it doesn’t breach the privacy of the project. It’s important to be proactive because it’s not an easy task to monitor the activities of all employees, but it’s within the right of the organization to require that an employee follow certain guidelines while using social networks on company time.

Here are a few suggestions to keep your company’s information secure:

1. In the description of an employee’s current job, have them use the description from the public job description so as to keep any specifics (such as the names of projects) private

2. Require that employees don’t talk about the specifics of any projects when updating their status, writing a blog, etc. Many organizations have a company blog (Direct2Dell)

3. Require that employees make their profiles private (or protect their tweets) so that only their friends will be able to see their profile information

Above all else, you need to establish trust with your employees. If they get angry with their job, they can easily share information, which shouldn’t be shared, with anyone they want using Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, or many others. How your employees respect you on social networks all begins with your organization respecting them.

Okay, this debate continues to rage and the irony (for me at least) is that there is no debate because there is no either or scenario.

Jasper Blake and I have had a chat (via email and commenting) back and forth for a while now because of his post “The Question is Not Can You Measure Social Media ROI? It is Should You?“. The article he wrote was essentially a discussion around his title and with some source information from his peers (very respectful first impression I thought).

However as happens in the Social Web, through the comments area, the discussion has evolved and in my opinion moved to a new separate debate. I alluded to this fact in the first line of this article and that is ‘conversations‘ are either ‘measured‘ or not. Further it appears (generalizing here) the social media world seems to be battling back with talk that ROI is too hard or is limiting the view of the value of social media. Great minds like Olivier Blanchard are fighting hard to keep the conversation on measurement with Olivier being a strong advocate of ROI-based measurements.

There are many examples of this casual attitude (or apathy) towards measurement and a couple examples can be found (or referenced) in the comment section of the article (here and here).

So I want to add my voice to the ‘hum’ of this debate and say without any reserve that ‘developing a social media strategy or campaign without making every effort to measure the Impact or ROI is just plain old Poppycock’. Surely there are circumstances where costs, tools or resources make measurement challenging, but to whole-heartedly dismiss the effort of measurement is foolhardy from a business perspective. Further this attitude not only doesn’t answer the typical questions we marketers are faced with from financial, sales and C-level executives but it likely engenders fear in the ‘unknown’.

Who is out promoting this attitude, none other than Lionel Menchaca of Dell. A company known for its social media success and clearly (see following quote) tolerance of its marketing and communication professionals.

“I frankly don’t care that we’ve done $3 million in revenue through Twitter – but I do care that Stephanie Nelson is out there answering questions and engaging with customers.”

The goal of every marketing effort but NOT exclusively should be to measure whenever possible, this is not only a marketing necessity, but a requirement of business. Admittedly social media marketing isn’t without considerable challenges when it comes to solid accepted measurements and tools to cheaply and efficiently communicate those measurements but that doesn’t give my peers a free pass to give up and then flip flop implying social media shouldn’t be measured.

If measurement were a mountain, I would say it must be climbed for the sake of our clients, our employers and our customers who deserve more than just business as usual from marketers.

Join Roger on October 7th, 2009 during Lunch from Noon to 1pm for an opportunity to learn about social media.

“Welcome to the world of Social Media. Social Media is much more than using a few of the newest technology tools and some Internet wizardry to improve your marketing. It’s causing B2B companies worldwide to rethink their go-to-market strategies. Join us as we explore the new world of Social Media and how it relates to business-to-business marketing efforts. You’ll see examples of how some B2B marketers have faced very real challenges. You’ll leave with an understanding of the strategy, tactics, tools, techniques and measurements you need to establish as you venture into the world of Social Media.”

Where:
Lunch & Learn sessions are held in a boardroom at the Alastair Ross Technology Centre (3553 31 Street NW, Calgary). Lunches can be purchased (cash only) at Choices Cafe in the lobby.

When: October 7th, 2009 12pm to 1pm

Signup at our Facebook Event page.

Join Digital Alberta’s panel of experts to learn how consumers will be using Social Media in the next 500 days.

Social Media is in the mainstream now. According to comScore, out of all developed countries, Canada has

* highest Internet penetration (71%) – vs. U.S. of 61%
* time online (45 hours per month) – vs. 32 hours in the U.K. and 30 in the U.S.
* 84% of Canadians (c18mm) are active on social networks viewing 828 pages and spending 6 hours per month on these sites

The question becomes: How do consumers use Social Media now and how will they use it within the next 500 days? Knowing their next steps in using Social Media technologies and platforms to enhance their day to day lives is the determining factor in the success of your business. The power is with the consumer. Your force is in knowledge. Let the force be with you!

Join Digital Alberta’s panel of experts to learn how consumers will be using Social Media in the next 500 days. Find out what to expect from the Moderated panel of 4 experts.

About the Speakers:

Manoj Jasra
Manoj has been in the Internet Marketing industry since 2002, he currently leads Internet Marketing Strategies at Shaw Communications Inc. Prior to Shaw, Manoj was the Director of Technology and Sr. Strategist at Enquiro Search Solutions. Manoj provides business consulting through his company Jasra Inc and authors one of the leading Online Marketing/Analytics blogs: Web Analytics World.

Roger Kondrat
Social Media Strategist/Principal of West17Media
Roger Kondrat is the Principal of West17Media and a 12 year veteran of the Web including over 6 years with the Social Web. A serial entrepreneur, Roger founded several successful businesses, including two while living in Europe (UK-based), of which one covered social media and mobile phone trends and innovation. Adviser to businesses and marketers globally on strategies to develop, extend and optimize their use of online media (social media, SEO, content creation and campaign measurement) to reach customers and build brand awareness.

Roger is a recognized thought leader by his peers in social media as well as by our clients for my ability to communicate complex social media concepts, using analogies, anecdotes and laymen’s terms.

Lynda Brown
Lynda has published numerous projects, including the first national study of the games industry in Canada. She has been instrumental in the formation of the Canadian Interactive Alliance and chairs the Trade Team Canada, CGS New Media Group. She was awarded the 2005 CNMA Industry Advocate of the Year, has been recognized as a Wondrous Woman by the Wired Woman Society, and was recently named one of the top 40 under 40 by BIV. She sits on the boards of Great Northern Way Campus and the Vancouver International Film Festival. Lynda has a B.A. in Communications and a graduate degree in Educational Technology.

Douglas Walker
Doug Walker is the Director of Client Services for Social Media Group acting as the key contact for client engagements. Doug has seen the power of viral and word-of-mouth communications first hand. He has conducted a unique experiment to become the world’s leading authority on the subject of Rock Paper Scissors. The experiment was a massive success and led to interviews by hundreds of media outlets including Rolling Stone, CNN, BBC, New York Times, and the Today Show. He is the also the subject of a feature film documentary at the 2007 Calgary International Film Festival (Audience Choice Award) and runs the annual World Championships of Rock Paper Scissors in Toronto.

Panel will be Moderated by Norman Leach
Norman is a historian, freelance writer and professional speaker from Calgary, Alberta. He graduated with a degree in Strategic Studies from the University of Manitoba, and he now gives speeches around the world on Canadian military history. Norman’s writing has won him two Crystal Awards from the University of Lethbridge, and he has been awarded both the Canadian 125 and Alberta Centennial Medals. He has also been named an honourary peacekeeper by the Canadian Armed Forces. Most recently, he served as historical advisor on the Paul Gross production of the film Passchendaele.
5:00 PM Registration and Networking
6:00 PM Welcome and Social Media Panel
7:00 PM Expected Finish

http://www.digitalalberta.com/social-media-and-consumers-next-500-days

Another great video about the VALUE of using Social Media that nearly anyone can follow and be entertained with. Use this video when trying to explain the value of Social Media and how it can affect your bosses ‘bottom-line’. The best part for me is at the beginning is the direct comparison to traditional sales prospect generation, very solid contrasting and controversial right away.

A great video about Twitter that anyone can understand. Use this video when trying to explain to new users how Twitter works. We recommend this one as an ice breaker in a meeting in which you are supposed to convince managers much older than you to use this new ’social media’ stuff.

Words to live by in business no?

What does this mean to you and how have I managed to publish it on a social media blog about social media?

We get asked all the time the following:

• Should I tweet?
• Should I blog?
• Should I Facebook?
• Should I be on Linkedin?

The list goes on from there, but these are the most common and obvious questions we get as a team. We just got back from a major conference with New Horizons franchisees, where I personally got (at the start of my presentation on Twitter) a question that went like this – Why are we talking about Twitter and not Linkedin?

Needless to say after I introduced myself that was a odd moment for that kind of question, but it stands to my point that people ask if they ’should’ be on this platform or that one.

My answer although not always goes something like this (with image below); can you really afford to be the last to develop a strategy for the fastest growing business and consumer networks in the world?

Can you afford to miss out on talking to this audience?

In my mind it is fine if a company chooses not to get involved but to do so before a proper evaluation of the facts, figures, possibly a strategy outline and finally a competitive analysis is just wrong.

Everyone I talk to that says I don’t know if I can afford to get involved I am nearly 100% behind them. I say you know what, sometimes adopting something new or different takes time, but I always always recommend training. If I or the MMM team train your organization and get you to internalize the value and you still decide to wait then you are making a strategic decision based on some level of informed knowledge which is way smarter.

If you think you can’t afford social media, like any other product or innovation, at least do you and your organization a favour and learn about it. Informed decisions are always best practice no matter the industry or title.

On the other hand remember what I said in the title ’tis best to dig your well before you’re thirsty’. Once you learn about social media you may realize it’s time to start engaging.

Last Monday (July 20) we brainstormed an idea to launch a Canadian Social Media Professionals and Enthusiasts group on LinkedIn. The concept was to have place to discuss and accumulate knowledge on social media collectively, publish jobs and network like crazy.

Well it proved successful.  We started promoting the group from July 22.  Within 24 hours we had 40 members sign up; in 48 hours we had 80 members and now we are just starting on 72 hours and we are at 115 (ish) members. There are already over a dozen topics or news items published and about 20-30 comments (don’t ask me to count them).

Personally I have met three new professionals (already on Twitter because of the group, learned much about people’s feelings on Auto-DMs and had someone promote me as one of their #FollowFriday recommended people to follow.

I call that successful. By far, this is the most active group of its kind on Linkedin and I think once we hit 10 more members we are the largest of any other group of its kind.

For me though, as I said to one of my new friends on Twitter, the most important part was the activity. Comments are already coming in fast and furious and topics are being started by others (not just me) as well. Community and communication within a community are a sign of success and I think we have achieved that.

If you are interested in becoming a member, please join today as the group will like evolve into an invitation only group at some point just to ensure that the quality remains high and the noise remains low.

Link: Canadian Social Media Professionals & Enthusiasts

That was quite a mouthful for a title wasn’t it?  Well I wanted a title that said why you want to read this article.

In case you didn’t know – I am Roger Kondrat, Founder of West17Media a Social Media Consultancy based in Calgary.

In my short life, I have met lots of CEO’s, CMO’s, other consultants, other experts and so on. This is not a litany of name dropping but a testimony to my good fortune. These people have influenced my life and my business skills have developed on a very preferential curve because of them. Thank you!

Today I want to drop a little bug in your ears, about how to deal with the older wiser cat in the room – your client – and his concerns.

*I will use the terms him, his and he throughout. Please consider their usage as gender neutral.

So you sit down with your prospect and start talking.  Sometimes you hit your stride and they get what you mean right away.  Other times you are at a loss for how to explain yourself to their satisfaction.  Here are some tips on how you can handle this situation like this:

• First the intro.  They may ask about your business right away so you always explain it, if this is the case. If not, take the time right from the start to show an interest in their business by asking them about theirs. Don’t respond too quickly at pauses; these are moments of reflection and a chance for them to think of what they missed or you to think of another important and relevant question to ask.

• No matter what, take the time to understand their business. They will feel on a gut level that you are a good organisation to deal with, even if they haven’t yet figured out why, if you can internalise what they are doing, where they are going and the key impacts on their bottom-line.

• Always always remember the bottom-line.  They won’t forget it, so you better not. Your bottom-line is to them, no matter what you say, is all details and/or bull$hit unless it ties into a credible theory of making $$s.  Coke makes lots of money, everyone knows them, knows their product and so their ad spend is about branding 90% of the time.  The business you are talking to is not Coke and is thinking how you can grow their $$s directly.

• The business you are talking to, odds are doesn’t even have a proper marketing plan, which if you are in social media like us always puts that much more pressure on you. Don’t panic, this is going to happen 90% of the time. Stay calm and talk about their infrastructure and focus on the items you can work with.

• What we do is try to make the client aware of gaps we see in a courteous manner during our exploratory phase and then we add on some friendly recommendations to the bottom of our proposal. This is a great way to build trust and confidence. If they have a marketing bone in their body, they will think these guys are talking way over our head but these are really great recommendations we can do on our own.

• Next big thing is stop lying. No, I know you are not ‘intending’ to lie but when you tell something to your customer like ROI when you mean impact, you make everyone including yourself look bad. ROI is simple it is $$s in, $$s out. These guys are business men.  It doesn’t matter how much you smile, talk over their head and dazzle them.  Their view of ROI will be the same. Look smart, stand out and talk about terms the way business men talk about them. (FYI this is a huge topic in social media right now so I just had to drop it in.)

Now last two big items, integrate whatever you are doing for your client into their existing practises and read what they read.

• When you integrate, you are showing your value.  You are making yourself a consultant and not a salesman when you do that. If you are a peer of ours or another agency or even a solution provider, integration is what will distinguish you from the grinders and grunts in your industry that are just moving product.

• Read the books they read. People ask me all the time if I read Seth Godin and I always say “Yes I do.” They then ask an uncomfortable question like ‘do you like Seth Godin’s books?’  I know they like them, I can see it in their eyes but I always have to be diplomatic in my response because at the end of the day I haven’t learned a single thing from the guy. He is a great guy (apparently), a gifted writer and orator but his books are clearly for non-marketers because the detail is low and the rubbish is high.

• Having said that, it’s important for me to read his books because my prospects, leads and clients do. Read the books your clients do.  It will tell you what they are worried about because you read to get a leg up after all right? It will also tell you what your clients will ‘think’ they know about your work. Knowing where fact meets fiction is helpful in shaping a compelling argument that helps your client.

And with that I shall leave you with one final piece of advice: no matter how great you are, no matter how smart, it’s your client that matters the most. Don’t forget that or the reminder will come with a sharp pain where your wallet once was.  Besides, happy clients do speak kindly about their suppliers that it’s almost embarrassing so keep them happy and your ego will never need to be stroked again.

Cheers!

PS. No I am not misspelling my words I just prefer writing in a British/Canadian style and no I won’t change

So I have been talking (internally) for ages about doing some talking head videos for this blog and our Facebook Community. I have blogged for so many years (my old blog) that in a way I just don’t write as often anymore for the ‘fun of it’. So rather than have someone else blog for me (very bad mojo), I figured I would try my hand at a different medium e.g. video and sometimes sound too.

What do you think? Is it cool with you guys if I do one or two talking heads a week? Any topics you want to hear about.

These are the topics/ideas I am thinking of creating a video post about right now:

• ROI
• Marketing Intelligence
• Marketing Research and Social Media
• Privacy and Facebook (recently re-raised as an issue in Canada)
• Facebooks new virtual currency
• Ethical/Resourcing issues for social media agencies when working with a client
• The ever present tips and tricks. Thinking of doing a show like this on a regular basis.
• etc

Thats where I am right now, but I am open to other topics and your feedback is always appreciated.

Oh two more little things, I will also create some nice Jing screen recordings of how to setup Twitter and Facebook. Yes I know there are millions of videos out there but lots of people ask us for our take on these, also because of the many UI changes to sites like Twitter (recently) and Facebook (another one soon) these are usually out of date.

So my last item is some of my videos will be hosted exclusively within Facebook so you may want to scout out our FB Page shortly or now if you have time.

Take care and have a great weekend!

Clients often talk about their customers and I often think, are we talking about where you think they are or where they in fact are e.g. Facebook, Twitter, some vertical social network or Laconica install.

Some questions I often ask to help clients answer this primary question and you should definitely ask your management team when looking for an agency whether its social media or traditional marketing.

1. What are your objectives for your company, your marketing and if possible your online strategy too? The more the better for you and your agency.
2. Have you commissioned any professional research from a market research company or off the shelf product from a major research organisation like Forrester?
3. Do you have a list of identified competitors? If so have you clearly identified their strengths and weaknesses?
4. Why do you want to get involved in Social Media?

At West17Media we offer an extensive array of questions for new prospective clients but the above are a few that I often ask in the very first conversation.

Let me explain a little bit about why I ask these questions and how they can relate to you internally and externally.

Answer 1. This one tells me you are serious and not likely to have unrealistic expectations; you take your businesses strategy, direction and efforts seriously. A company that is smaller (SMB) often can’t answer parts of question 1 but if they can answer most of it or all of it, that is really something rare. Working with those SMBs to help grow their organisation can be really exciting.

Answer 2. If you haven’t spent the money on this very important piece of business information then please drop everything (yes stop reading) and run out and get some quality intelligence on your market. This can be in the form of more expensive custom research or at the least off the shelf research from someone like Forrester. I personally always feel sad when I talk to a company that is in this situation. Go go go go…

Answer 3. Look at those guys your sales team talks down or face down on a day to day basis and define what exactly they are good at (because they don’t do everything wrong) and what they do poorly. Don’t stop there; put it in a grid of some kind and compare them against you. If you want to be clever, find out from your customers what services they value the most and the least, then grade each company’s strengths and weaknesses. Often this can give you a rating like a product rating. This is hugely valuable to you and your organisation, but to West17Media we are mostly interested in the basic grid.

Answer 4. Some clients ask us to pitch on vapourware like work. They want us to put a huge amount of effort into a pitch on work that doesn’t really exist. Why? Because they want to learn more about the value of Social Media. The first time this happened we were a little embarrassed because doing a pitch is about selling us, not about convincing you to buy Social Media. Had we known and had that been communicated, we would have recommended you attend one of our Social Media training seminars. It’s low cost, low risk and you walk away with a sound grounding of the basics.  You may even be ready to make a decision about whether social media is right for your organisation. Often around 50% of those attending will need more time to consider Social Media and absorb what they learnt, the rest are usually pumped and ready to take the next step. Either is fine with us, I promise.

Oh things are a changing……

I remember years and years ago when Yahoo first started evolving into a portal. First of course it was the directory service, remember there was no Google Search in those days. Then they added some news information, ads (of course) and eventually Yahoo! Mail.

Of course there were many steps in between those I mentioned but I think my point can stand now. Yahoo! ‘was’ a place on the web where you could spend the majority of your time reading news, sending emails, building website and much more.

It was in many ways the Anti-AOL, free and open. Two things AOL was not.

With AOL we had a closed or ‘walled-garden’ Internet that discouraged open space and the limitless nature of the Internet. Once the web stopped being so darned complicated it was the beginning of the end for this once mightiest of Internet companies.

But since 2004, there has been another giant in the making – Facebook – the ‘de jour’ term from as early as 2007, now has over 200 million users (worldwide). This is huge by anyone’s estimation except for the Internet’s No.1 and No.2 of course – Google & Yahoo!.

What is interesting though is what it means that Facebook is so successful now. After all the world made a choice nearly 10 years ago when we started leaving AOL behind and embraced a much more open version of the Internet.

So what has changed? In today’s Internet….

1)  we have many many more websites and options than we had before, an order of magnitude of increased complexity for users.
2) Increased complexity has led to multiple forms of expression
3) your identity now exists online and
4) the web has fragmented that identity amongst many services & web apps.

Facebook has jumped into the web ‘defragmenting’ your personality with its AOL like approach to your identity. Bringing together what you look like, what you do, who you know and where you go better than anyone. Yes yes, Friendster was first and MySpace was there before as well, but that only proves the need we had.

Facebook has done this by integrating these desire into one slick service and when users became upset with its initially too AOL like behaviour they launched Facebook Connect. This service allows Facebook to further consolidate their core value as the centre of our online lives and additionally removing the need for all those passwords, signup forms and more.

Facebook Connect is a huge huge feature that makes every bit of difference as they grow. With this feature they are now able to retain tight control over their service while still allowing users to enjoy the ‘free’ web.

In essence with Facebook Connect, Facebook has now built a hybrid version of AOL and Yahoo without any of the draw backs of either platform. No ‘walled garden’ bye bye AOL and no or low identity ‘fragmentation’ which is what Yahoo! ushered in.

If you are wondering where Facebook is going, you have know why it exists and this is my theory.

What do you think?