kenekaplan Measurement, Politics, Social Media, Web 2.0

Nielsen on Obama & Clinton’s Use of Social Media & Social Networking

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Today I joined my pals on Intel’s integrated social media team for a presentation by Nielsen’s BuzzMetrics team.  They shared their year-long look at online mentions of Intel.  What I saw was that Intel had over 6 million mentions online from groups, communities and blogs.  There were spikes during events like the Consumer Electronics Show and the Intel Developer Forum, but what I saw was a steadily climbing drumbeat of mentions.  What I learned was that we have lots of work to do to progress our participation — not just in conversations about Intel, but in conversations that matter.   Not as marketers of story schillers, but as interested, engaged, talkative participants.  Like the kind of person you’d like to invite to your rockin’ house party.

Here is PodTech’s Jennifer Jones talking with Pete Blackshaw EVP of Nielsen Online.  They talk about how Obama and Clinton are using social media, social networking to connect with people and share what the campaigns think is important in a timely manner.   They also look at what corporate marketers need to do to make their brands better. Blackshaw tells Marketing Voices that he will be releasing his new book on July 2008 called Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends; Angry Customers Tell Three Thousand.

kenekaplan Marketing, PodTech, Social Media, Web 2.0

Brand Engagement = Social Media + Storytelling

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This is from Jennifer Jones of PodTech’s “Marketing Voices — an episode worth repeating…

The many online social media have become an important part of the marketing mix for many corporations and organizations. Whether it means listening to online conversations, participating in communities of enthusiasts, clients, consumers or social networks, or simply increasing transparency, understanding how social media can be made to work for you is key to building stronger brand engagement and loyalty. It’s also going to save you money. But how?

In this video podcast, Marketing Voices’ Jennifer Jones, and others, talk with industry insiders to find out how combining social media with the art of storytelling in blogs, wikis and podcasts will foster conversations, convert incremental audience, and ultimately increase audiences’ engagement with brands. How can you use social media to create a voice for your brand that resonates beyond your corporate Web site? How can syndication help move your brand’s voice to your audiences, and bring those audiences back to your brand?

kenekaplan Community, Jeremiah Owyang, Marketing, Social Media, Web 2.0

Riffin’ on Storytelling @ Community Roundtable

Picture 224, originally uploaded by jeremiah_owyang.

This is a photo by Jeremiah Owyang, who invited me to the Online Community Roundtable gathering he hosted at Forrester. Bill Johnson put on this wonderful event with very engaged people who were sharing their wisdom and online audience building experiences. Jeremiah made sure I got up and spoke. Nothing prepared, I started with my favorite topic of storytelling and tried to connect with what everyone in the room was talking about. The audience pulled me in and along we went, having fun playing with the role of storytelling in social media, social networks, online communities…and our personal lives.

A presentation highlight for me was Forrester’s Charlene Li’s “I am social when I…” Use IM, email, social network, bookmark…   More of us are getting more social every day.

Here’s Bill’s even summary and a post with photos and a video by Jeremiah.

This would be a great event for a few pals who are helping grow the Intel’s  Open Port online community for IT pros. This is a creative, open model that could replace regular weekly meetings at work.  Just get three people to share what they’re working on and get the live feedback from a concentrated, open-minded group.  Who would you invite?

Person Bill Johnson
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kenekaplan Marketing, Research, Social Media, Web 2.0

Catchin’ Up with Social Computing Tenents

Encapsulating the essence of why social media tools are evermore meaningful to more people — young and old — these are some highlights from Forrester Research’s April 2007 report on social computing trends by Charlene Li:
clipped from www.forrester.com
Individuals increasingly take cues from one another rather than from institutional sources like corporations, media outlets, religions, and political bodies. To thrive in an era of Social Computing, companies must abandon top-down management and communication tactics, weave communities into their products and services, use employees and partners as marketers, and become part of a living fabric of brand loyalists.
The exponential growth of processing power and storage capacity puts unprecedented computing power into the hands of users.
The social impact: The mainstream populace, not just the wealthy or educated, can tap into technology’s power to change social mores
Social Computing: 1) innovation will shift from top-down to bottom-up; 2) value will shift from ownership to experience; and 3) power will shift from institutions to communities
multiple email addresses, and thousand-member networks will be the norm — even as these youth settle down, have families, and pursue careers.
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kenekaplan Blogs, Marketing, Media, Research, Social Media, Web 2.0

Blog, Feed & Socialize

I just read a nifty report released on February 6 by Forrester’s social computing wise Charlene Li — “How Consumers Find Web Sites: Social Tools Play A Significant Role For Youth.”
Often we “know” what we ought to do today to build for tomorrow, but seeing results of surveys and hearing recommendations based on those findings gives us fodder we need to influence people and convince them to support our efforts.
Here are some things from Charlene’s report that I’m seeing happen already inside Intel…things that we are working to refine and disperse as best practices to other groups as they become more active with their online audiences/communities.
clipped from www.forrester.com
Blogs help with search rankings in several ways: Comments on blogs provide more content to index; frequent updates mean that the search engine’s Web crawlers come more often; and inbound links from other blogs and sites mean higher relevancy scores in algorithms.
Services like FeedBurners’ FeedFlare and Bazaarvoice’s ShareThis automatically insert links into blog posts, content pages, and product pages, making it simple to tag or share on sites like Facebook, Digg, and del.icio.us.
Investments in MySpace.com and Facebook will reach not only a quarter of the online youth population, but also support natural word of mouth and email, which are top sources of site referrals for youth. The key is tracking where traffic originates — for example, from a note posted on Facebook — as well as the channel, be it from a blog, email, or word of mouth. Use services from providers like Hitwise and Compete to map traffic patterns of your target customers.
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kenekaplan Social Media, video, Web 2.0

Video Upload Once, Syndicate to Many with TubeMogul

I stumbled upon TubeMogul and set up a free account. I haven’t tested out the services yet, but would like to learn from others who have tested or are using the service. Please let me know what you think.

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From the TubeMogul site:

Features

Stunning Charts – easily create charts that track videos and/or video publishers.
Powerful Analysis Tools – create custom groups of videos, video publishers and online video sites, and receive analytics by group.
Universal Upload – Upload your videos to all major video sharing sites in one shot!
Aggregated Analytics – track online video analytics across online video sites including Google Video, MetaCafe, MySpace, AOL, Yahoo!, Revver, YouTube and more!
Communication Tools – effortlessly email charts to the recipients of your choosing.
Data Export – exports charts and other data to Excel.
Ease of Use – enjoy TubeMogul’s intuitive user interface and easy to understand charts.
Advanced Features – TubeMogul also provides advanced custom reports, viewership demographic reports, and multivariate video testing upon request. Email us at comments@tubemogul.com for more information.

The benefits of using TubeMogul include:

  • Save Time – uploading videos to each site in your distribution is no longer necessary – upload to TubeMogul and let the Universal Upload tool do the rest. Then you can login to understand your viewership across online video sites in one place.
  • Increased Reach – with your videos on more sites at no extra effort, your opportunity to gain viewers multiplies! Users of Universal Upload have witnessed up to 3x more views per video.
  • Improved Understanding of Viewer Base – better understand your customer base to create more targeted and relevant content or products and services.
  • Track Trends & Buzz – create groups of videos important to you or your industry and track spikes in viewership to identify trends and monitor the pulse of online video viewers.
  • Assess Marketing Efforts – assess the effectiveness of your marketing efforts by analyzing spikes and trends in viewership across any range of time.
  • Competitive Intelligence – see what’s working for your counterparts and competition and compare and contrast viewership trends with your own.
  • Share the Intelligence – send and share data and charts with colleagues or friends.
kenekaplan Marketing, Research, Social Media, Web 2.0

Connected Agencies & Corporate Marketing Change Agents

I just skimmed Forrester Research’s report “The Connected Agency” from their Interactive Marketing Professional team. This is great stuff I’m going to read again and map out how I feel and where I fit in their scheme of things.
UPDATE: I got a nice call from Forrester this morning (2/11/08). Here is how you can access the full report:

The link we discussed (www.forrester.com/connectedagency) now directs visitors to the main report page, where Forrester clients can log in and download the report, or non-clients can purchase a copy for $279.

As an corporate communications dude, I see how things are changing inside. Silos are coming down. People with skills are connecting with people on different teams to get advice, maximize resources and share learnings.I see agencies and vendors evolving quickly too. They’re racing to capture talented people, participate in key communities (for their industry and for the benefit of their clients) and they’re mastering new tools.There is an healthy pull pulling both corporate communications/marketing and agencies/vendors up to new heights, faster and faster. And along the way more people from both sides are participating online, testing and improving new Web 2.0 tools. We’re also learning a lot and getting better at making sense of data and sharing it quickly, broadly. Those abilities will improve in 2008.One thing I’d like is to start pulling in what Forester pegs to happen in 2013 “the agency is part of the community.” I believe we’re actually seeing “the agency promotes the community” in some cases right now. But I do think Forester has it right here:

* 2008 to 2009: The agency involves the community. Even in 2007, agencies and marketers began to reach out to consumers: Chanel worked with viral agency BuzzParadise to tap select bloggers for participation in special events and to receive insider brand news; Publicis launched a blogger advertising network, with the twist that amateurs create the ads. Agencies need to keep consumers involved consistently and begin to build a specialization in specific target markets or with communities based on the brands with which they are working. Where’s the money? Brands will pay a premium for the high conversion rates that the agency can guarantee based on its community insights.

* 2010 to 2012: The agency promotes the community. Agencies focus dedicated teams on creating direct relationships with tightly defined communities. At shops like Leo Burnett, job titles shift from account manager to community animator. Media fragmentation, communities embodying multiple personas, and niche brands offer a rich opportunity for agencies to compile distinct portfolios of closely knit consumers, uncovered by disparate data sources. Much like a talent or sports agent, the community animator will begin promoting its own communities to compatible brands, rather than the reverse. Agencies will take the place of gatekeeper to those communities, and brands will need to pay to get in. By 2010, brands like BMW will have realized that mass marketing is over and that access to influencers is the way forward.

* 2013 on: The agency is part of the community. Agency staff will draw closer to the communities they interact with and ultimately become part of the community itself. Fast-forward to the future: The successful agency has intimate involvement with community members as an external mouthpiece and internal catalyst. This bond allows the agency team to “age” with its community, brokering relationships with new brands as the community’s needs change. Large groups like JWT will scale by managing a kaleidoscope of different consumer groups, introducing and handing off appropriate brands as communities evolve. Advertisers will consolidate business with agencies that can adeptly accompany brands throughout their life cycle within diverse consumer communities.

clipped from www.forrester.com
The Connected Agency
Marketers: Partner With An Agency That Listens Instead Of Shouts
by
Mary Beth Kemp, Peter Kim

Today’s agencies fail to help marketers engage with consumers, who, as a result, are becoming less brand-loyal and more trusting of each other.
A new definition of “mass media” is emerging. Content Creators comprise 13% of the US adult online population and 11% of online Europeans.(see endnote 8) Communities can now find and consume media that speaks directly to niche interests, published by other community members. The new mass media is made up of a collection of communities. While many consumers are involved, each individual community is small, fragmenting the market further. As more consumers become involved in Social Computing, these platforms will grow and eclipse today’s mainstream media.
New players compensate for left-brain deficiencies.
Pull dominates push; quality trumps quantity.
Creative talent resides inside and outside the firm
The agency promotes the community
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kenekaplan Media, Social Media, Web 2.0

Secret to Sucess? It’s All in the New Media Family List

 Saw this New Media Family List on Amy Webb’s MyDigiMedia blog and thought it was pretty cool.  Highlights from her post, where you can download a bigger PDF file and take a closer look:

In the six months since I first created the chart, there are a handful of notable updates:

  • AOL’s list has grown tremendously, while Google, News Corp and IAC have remained relatively unchanged.
  • AOL is heading strong into behavioral targeting and various ad network options.
  • Yahoo’s buy early and large strategy toned down considerably in Q3 and Q4 of 2007.
  • Google’s last acquisition was Postini early last fall.
  • Though I’m not tracking this on the chart, News Corp has also been selling lots of assets – namely local television stations.

Here’s the new Who Owns What page at mydigimedia. Download the new chart (PDF) here. And if you want to read my original post and learn more about why I started tracking all this to begin with, have a look here.

kenekaplan Jeremiah Owyang, Tech, Web 2.0

Pearls of Wisdom Come From Mind Crunching Reality

Lots of talk about Microsoft’s $44.6 Billion bid for Yahoo!  Most of it focuses on search and online advertising.  But I bet we’ll start hearing more about the social computing value of Yahoo! and how its people have been excerising their brains and buying plug and play social media assets for many years now.  Flickr, Upcoming and del.icio.us are a few names in teh Yahoo! family of aquisitions.  These tools help people interconnect their online activities form photo sharing to bookmarking articles to managing their calendar of fun community activities.

In a Forrester Research blog post by Jeremiah Owyang on this subject, I really liked this pearl of wisdom about the future of media companies:

A new definition of media.  My colleague Charlene Li has written before about the transformation media companies are undertaking due to the rise of social computing.  As syndication replaces aggregation, a media company becomes one which assembles an audience, not necessarily a firm which creates content (think Facebook v. CNN).  In light of this acquisition, I’d add one more dimension to this observation.  With Yahoo gone, the two remaining online media powerhouses:  Google and Microsoft are both technology companies.  These are firms who specialize in creating tools and innovations to facilitate the user experience of the Web and marketer access to customer data.  I think this acquisition signals for both marketers and media firms that the trend of Left Brain Marketing – a data-driven approach to marketing – is irrevocably changing who we call a media firm.  Tomorrow’s media companies are technology innovators who can connect audiences with marketing messages, not content creators.

Here’s Charlene Li’s Growndswell take on the bid.