I went through an interesting mental exercise yesterday morning in answering six questions from co-worker Mark Williams about our preparations for the webinar.
What I hope came through was this: There's a heckuva lot that goes into producing a webinar (far more than just showing up and talking for an hour), but that the learning experience is one that will help us plenty as we plan future events.
If you're seeing this post prior to 2:00pm Eastern on Tuesday, November 10th, there's still time to join us for the live recording our free "Social Everywhere 2010" webinar. Just click the image below.
I got a glimpse into Kodak's social media efforts during last week's 140 Conference in Los Angeles, and came away impressed.
Kodak was the primary sponsor of the event, so its presence was impossible to miss. Heck, even name of the conference venue itself -- the Kodak Theatre -- ensured we'd have the brand top of mind.
A couple of key takeaways for me:
* Kodak recognizes that social media engagement by brand helps to create customer evangelists. Case in point: Kodak's contest this past summer to rename its "lame"-sounding Zi8 pocket camera (disclosure: I was so impressed with the camera while testing it at the conference sponsor table for five minutes that I ordered one over the weekend).
CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett (pictured above) explained how the marketing group turned to their -- and his (@JeffreyHayzlett) -- Twitter followers and to the readers of their Thousand Words blog, for suggestions. The response was overwhelming. Kodak received thousands of recommendations and will announce the winning entry and camera renaming during a formal launch in January.
* Kodak's content-and-engagement approach to Social Everywhere is both centralized and distributed.
Here, on Kodak's "home turf," staffers can share their industry insights and "tell [their] story," as chief blogger Jenny Cisney (above) put it to me after the 140 Conference.
"No longer can you wait for customers to come to your website and come to you," Cisney said. "So that's why we're going to where our customers are. If they're on Facebook, well, we'll have a Facebook page. If they're on Twitter, we're going to have Twitter accounts. That's how we determine where we're going to participate."
Whether on a brand's "home turf" (corporate website, destination community) or across external social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, conversations about companies big and small are happening everywhere online.
In such an environment, just where should brands, marketers, and community spend their time, focus, and business dollars?
That's the question we'll be exploring in our upcoming webinar, "Social Everywhere 2010 - How Do Brands Cope?" The webinar be held on Tuesday, November 10, at 2:00pm Eastern, and you can register by clicking the link below.
We're thrilled to have Altimeter Group partner Jeremiah Owyang headlining our webinar. And in this video that I recorded at last week's BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas, Jeremiah talks about the evolving social web and the new challenges for marketers:
Your comments: Where's the social web headed?
Jeremiah will be joined in the webinar by Jennifer Gordon, director of global advertising at Campbell Soup (LiveWorld client) and LiveWorld CEO Peter Friedman, and we're looking to gather up questions for all three starting today (I'll be moderation the discussion).
Here are a few questions to think about; we'd love your feedback in the comments section below, or on Twitter using the #Social2010 hashtag.
Does a centralized web presence for brands still matter?
What key questions should marketers be asking when considering which external social networks to participate in?
Should brands be concerned about the recent release of Google Sidewiki? How can they effectively monitor and join those related conversations
I wanted to share my slides from a "Best Practices in Online Engagement" presentation I delivered last Thursday, October 8, at the Integrated Marketing Summit in Kansas City. I was part of a three-person panel on social media best practices with Virginia Miracle of Ogilvy PR and IBM's Rebecca Butler.
As with many of my presentations, the slides are mostly images that are meant to complement the stories that I'm telling; they aren't always meaningful when viewed in isolation, outside the event. To help, I'm including some of my speaking notes as they correspond to the individual slides. I've also turned most of the slide images above into links.
Slide 2 I knew I had a friendly audience in Kansas City when my remark about the Red Sox cap draw a thunderous applause from several attendees. Sports fandom can be good for business, because it offers an immediate human point in comon. A few hours after my presentation, in fact, I was watching the Red Sox-Angels playoff game with a fellow former New Englander.
Slide 3 So what shouldn't be rocket science about engaging with customers in social media but yet is often forgotten: being genuinely helpful, being around before the sale, not force-feeding marketing messages down someone's throat in an online community or online social network. It's an argument Chris Brogan makes all the time.
Slide 4 Mitch Joel is one of the very best content marketers I know. When he blogs and podcasts, he rarely--if ever--talks about his own company's services and projects. Instead, he serves as a voice and resource for his industry of digital marketing. He becomes the thoughtful, insightful marketer that we want to do business with. This approach has helped Mitch's agency, Twist Image, to grow and thrive in recent years.
Slides 5-6 We don't really talk to brands. We talk to the people who work for those brands. When I want to talk to Ford, I hunt down Scott Monty.
Slide 7 More brands should consider employing or talking to someone like Jeremy Pepper to help them find and express their social voice. A big reason why corporate blogs lie at the bottom of the trust ladder is their blandess and lack of any real opinion. Jeremy Pepper? He certainly ain't bland, and he isn't shy about writing what he really thinks.
Slide 8 Chase Jarvis is a professional photographer who understands the importance of giving back to his community online. This screenshot comes from a "story behind the story" video answering blog reader and Facebook fan questions about how Chases uses a tripod. It was recorded on the set of Chase's recent photo shoot in New Zealand.
Slide 9 How does a brand like Starbucks show that it's really listening to its customers and fans? By reporting back on the progress of suggestions submitted through the My Starbucks Ideas site. The Mini Starbucks Card was one of the first community-generated ideas carried through to production, and this announcement from Chuck Davidson has become one of the community's most highly-trafficked and interacted-on posts.
Slide 10 eBay (disclosure: a LiveWorld client) runs a program called Voices for some 150 power members in its online communities. These members are included in communications--and their feedback is sought and incorporated--for potential new eBay products and changes to the community. The result? A "small army" of brand advocates, according to our conversations with eBay.
Slide 11 Businesses and brands need to set "house rules"--for their digital properties. These could take the form of a comment policy on a blog or easy-to-find community standards in a destination community and outline what is acceptable/unacceptable behavior/commentary/etc.
Slide 12 What's one option in a community or social channel where long-time members have "poisoned" the well and are unwelcoming and downright unhelpful to newcomers? Firing those members. It's a risky tactic but sometimes a necessary one to ensure the community's long-term survival.
Slide 13 This is Bill Johnston's graphical representation of the "presence framework" that Chris Brogan laid out earlier this year. It indicates the importance of creating a digital "home base" (corporate website, corporate blog, etc.) while also connecting with customers and community members in other distributed social channels ("outposts" and "passports" across the social web) across the social media landscape.
Slides 14-15 The presence framework in action: examples of Chase Jarvis's outposts--his Twitter account (@ChaseJarvis) and Facebook Page.
Slides 16-17 Possible to give back to your community on the most "boring subject imaginable" and generate substantial revenue in the process? Christopher S. Penn from the Financial Aid Podcast has demonstrated that it is!
The week-old Google Sidewiki has a potentially far-reaching impact for brands.
Of note:
1. A Sidewiki comment can be left to any web page of any brand site. All that's needed to use Sidewiki is a relatively simple download of the free product (for Firefox and Internet Explorer now, with Google Chrome still to come) and keeping the Google Toolbar open in the web browser. From there, all websites become instantly social, with a comment window appearing alongside each page enabling commenting and voting.
2. Brands don't have much say over the content that appears in a Sidewiki. Apart from an initial post that a publisher/content creator can leave in a Sidewiki, all comments are ultimately displayed according to a Google algorithm. Users--and site owners--can rate comments as not "useful" and flag spam comments/hate speech for abuse, but at least so far, doing so will not necessarily make those comments disappear. There are also no moderation controls or options for brands and publishers in Sitewiki.
3. Brand monitoring is as important as ever. Sidewiki is the latest product giving consumers the power to talk about brands in a public space online. Brand managers, agencies, and community managers should be diligent in reviewing Sidewiki commentary to key pages on their websites to gauge customer, fan, and detractor sentiment, and then engage when and where appropriate. Robust monitoring tools haven't yet been developed, but since an API is available, expect that to change soon.
Where should community management sit inside an organization?
That's one of several questions I posed to Marshall Kirkpatrick (@MarshallK), VP of content development and lead blogger at ReadWriteWeb, in this recent audio interview at his downtown Portland, Oregon office.
* Marshall talks about the implications of Facebook's decision to open up search on status messages, notes, and shared links.
* Marshall considers whether brand monitoring on Facebook will become a new line of professional services.
* Bryan asks Marshall if companies and brands should outsource their community management.
* Marshall explains why "just about every department in an organization needs to have a relationship with the community manager."
* Marshall shares a surprising conclusion--at least for him--from ReadWriteWeb's premium report: Community managers are making very good use of Twitter.
Are customer-service successes on Twitter worth celebrating?
A debate of sorts broke out over that question during yesterday morning's Social Media Breakfast in Ottawa during a presentation (slides embedded at the end of this post) by Tara Hunt | @MissRogue, when she suggested that "@ComcastCares is a victim of our own nepotism.
Tara argued that Comcast's efforts on Twitter and other social media channels are overhyped by an adoring crowd of social-media enthusiasts, even if customer-service problems and culture at the company remain largely unsolved and unchanged.
Tara and Frank have since exchanged tweets with each other, and I expect a direct conversation between the two--and perhaps a face-to-face debate!--to follow.
But until then, the question remains: If good customer service through social media doesn't trigger corresponding improvements throughout an organization, just how should we be talking about it?
If you're looking for a good case study to share with your organization or client about the challenges--and payoffs--of going social as a major brand, then the story of Kansas-based telco EMBARQ (recently acquired by CenturyTel) would be a good place to start.
Here are the slides that Zena Weist, EMBARQ's interactive brand strategy manager, shared ahead of her appearance last Thursday on the "Quick 'n' Dirty Podcast" that I guest co-hosted with Jennifer Leggio on BlogTalkRadio.
Here are some of the highlights from our conversation with Zena:
* EMBARQ had inherited a very restrictive communications policy after splitting from Sprint Nextel in 2006, and its customer service representatives were initially prohibited from engaging with customers online.
* Crafting a new strategic communications plan, which included social media, took some 18 months, and required buy-in from departments across the company.
* Although EMBARQ couldn't talk back to its customers online from the outset, the company was certainly doing plenty of listening. EMBARQ tracked and rated customer sentiment on blogs, Twitter, and forums. When EMBARQ did ultimately begin responding to online mentions in late 2007, its listening-and-response infrastructure (see Slide 9) was fully in place.
* EMBARQ's currently online presence includes a Twitter account maintained by "customer-service superhero" Joey Harper (@Embarq_Joey). Zena said Joey's tweets make clear that he's "an actual human being," so that customers know "they're not talking to the Man." Twitter has also served EMBARQ as an early-warning system.
* EMBARQ's YouTube channel has created brand advocates. The channel includes 50-plus how-to videos ranging from the specific (testing the EMBARQ modem) to the very basic (how to use a mouse). "We're getting our customers and our prospects to embed those [videos] in their blogs and talk about them," Zena said. "As a brand person, you can't for anything better."
* Other business takeaways: EMBARQ's social media outreach and content-creation efforts have helped the company to improve its customer retention and become part of an online community. Without going social, Zena said, "we never would have that opportunity."
To listen to the complete episode of "Quick 'n' Dirty," stream or download the audio file below. Our interview with Zena kicks off at the 7:40 mark.
My two favorite nuggets out of last Friday's "Cmty Chat" in FriendFeed both came from Richard Millington, an online community practitioner who's currently working with the United Nations Refugee Agency.
1) "Converting offline fan groups into online groups is actually quite easy compared with taking online fan groups offline (meeting at events, etc.). The bigger challenge, by far, is finding and connecting people in the first place."
2) "I see communities of BINGO players, farmers, mommy bloggers, sewing circles, and all sorts of groups that you wouldn't immediately identify with using online communities thriving. I think it's far easier to get an existing offline community to overcome the challenges of technology than it is for an online community to overcome the physical distance barrier."
Richard's insights were mixed into a discussion about how and whether face-to-face groups can also come together and extend their communities online.
In an e-mail exchange following the group chat, I asked Richard to expand on his remarks:
Bryan Person, LiveWorld: Why it is easier to convert offline groups to online than the other way around?
Richard Millington: The biggest challenge of building communities is building relationships between members. People that have met in person have a stronger relationship than those that haven't. One hundred online chats can't match one in-person meeting. If you have a group that already meet offline, then adding an online component is simple. Facebook thrived entirely through giving people that have met offline a place to talk online.
People that talk offline are usually keen to talk online. People that speak online aren't always keen on meeting in person.
BP: What is the right way to go about organizing face-to-face events for members of an online community? How do you know if it's appropriate to do in the first place?
RM: Well, whether it's appropriate is based entirely on the situation, I can't be the judge of that. I would say that people usually don't meet for the sake of meeting; they need a good excuse to meet.
That's why conferences work so well. If you arrange an event and a VIP of your community's top to speak, a lot of people will turn up. It takes the pressure of meeting for relationships. Likewise, if you arrange a trip or an activity, more people are likely to turn up.
From my experience, if none of your members have met up before and if they don't speak offline/communicate individually with each other, then it's far harder to arrange a meeting. So take deposits beforehand!
The SXSW 2010 Interactive PanelPicker launched earlier today, so the rush is now on for votes for next spring's mega-conference in Austin, TX (also my hometown, by good fortune).
If any or all of these sessions sound appealing, we've love your vote.
How to vote
This year's PanelPicker features a new "Yes" (thumbs up) or "No" (thumbs down) voting system, making it a snap to favor the sessions you'd like to see included in the final program.
The PanelPicker voting results account for 30% of the final decisions on panels for SXSW 2010 (staff and advisory board input make up the remaining 70%), and the voting remains open through Friday, September 4.
Finance and healthcare institutions have often been slow to embrace social media because of strict regulations that govern their industries.
Not so at the Mayo Clinic, where social media efforts have taken off under the direction of Lee Aase.
So just what did it take to convince legal counsel at Mayo that social media could work?
"We're really blessed to have a legal team that looks at risk management as also reward management," Lee told me in a video conversation recorded at Mayo Clinic's headquarters in Rochester, MN last week. "It isn't all about preventing bad things from happening; [instead], it's looking at, 'What is the realistic possibility or probability of bad things happening, but also, what's the upside? What are the benefits?'"
Rather than using HIPAA [The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] and other privacy regulations as a crutch, Mayo has simply learned to work within the law.
The approach has proven fruitful. Mayo's social media portfolio includes some eight corporate blogs, several Twitter feeds, and a YouTube channel that feature stories from patients and research from physicians.
Lee is a also a regular on the speaking circuit (check out his full slate of SlideShare presentations), sharing the Mayo Clinic's challenges and successes in hopes of inspiring other organizations to move forward with social media.
----- Lee's day-job title for Mayo is manager of syndication and social media. But he runs an extra-cool project in his personal time, too, serving as chancellor of Social Media University, Global, or SMUG.
The tuition-free online "university" has a noble mission: providing "practical, hands-on training in social media to lifelong learners."
So if you're looking to learn about blogging, podcasting, microblogging, or how to use Facebook or Twitter, Lee has a course for you!
So writes Charlene Li in the introduction to "ENGAGEMENTdb," a new report from the Altimeter Group (Li's consultancy) and Wetpaint analyzing and ranking the social media efforts of the world's leading brands.
Li's study indicates a correlation between the financial performance of brands and their level of engagement in and across social media channels.
A direct cause and effect? No, but certainly a healthy sign for brands who believe in the value of listening to and connecting with their customers online.
How brands can step up their social media engagement
"ENGAGEMENTdb" divides the world's top 100 brands (as identified by BusinessWeek/Interbrand in 2008) into four categories--Mavens, Butterflies, Selectives, and Wallflowers--based on 1) the number of social media channels in which the brands have a presence and 2) the level of engagement by the brands in each of those channels.
Topping the rankings are the Mavens, or brands such as Starbucks, Dell, and eBay (a LiveWorld client) that "sustain a high level of engagement across multiple social media channels." From branded communities and corporate blogs to message boards and Twitter, these Mavens have made online social engagement an integral component of their communications programs.
But what of those less-engaged companies in the survey, as well as those brands outside the Top 100? How can they make strides in social media?
Charlene offered some pointed advice this afternoon when answering a few of my questions by e-mail:
LiveWorld: Some of the top-performing brands in your report, including No. 1 Starbucks, have built strong social media programs in a relatively short period of time. That suggests that even the Wallflower brands can ramp up their social efforts quickly. What are two or three quick steps they can take to start that process?
Charlene Li: Pick a goal that is central to the success of the organization. Start small if you don't have executive buy-in, or aim high if you've got an executive like Howard Schultz (Starbucks chairman, president, and CEO) behind you (which will be rare). Assuming that you have to start small, start NOW. Even if it's simply trying Yammer with your workgroup internally, you'll be making headway.
More importantly, you have to have a plan on how you will spread social media beyond your core group. Make listening to your customers the responsibility of everyone. Create a social media policy that sets up the guidelines on how every employee can/should and should not engage with customers on company and non-company sites (like Facebook or other blogs).
LW: When brands have to decide whether to expand their presence across new social media channels or to deepen their engagement across existing ones, what factors--cultural, financial, etc.--should they consider?
CL: The biggest one is, interestingly, cultural, not financial. That's because cultural barriers and mindsets about when and how to engage customers is the biggest determinant of engagement. Once a company decides it's important to engage, and second, has an idea of HOW they want to engage, then it's a matter of who and juggling their responsibilities.
Starting with financial considerations will usually end up in doing nothing, because you haven't made the commitment that it's important to engage in the first place. LW: You note in the report that social media engagement is a more natural fit for media and technology companies, while businesses in other industries, such as finance, tend to embrace social more cautiously. Do see that social media gap between industries widening or closing over the next 12 months?
CL: I see it closing, partly because the media and technology companies are already pretty much present in all channels and are focused on going deeper. The other companies need to balance going deep in a few channels and widening the breadth, but they WILL advance and improve, mostly because their customers will demand it. But they will also see successes like Wells Fargo in the financial services sector, and they will put aside their concerns and fears and start to really engage.
The main drawback of working remotely is that I can't connect face-to-face on a more regular basis with my co-workers. That includes Mark Williams (at right in the above screenshot).
Mark is a senior community manager at LiveWorld who's been in the business of managing online communities for a decade. Listen to him for 30 seconds and you'll recognize he has an intimate sense of how communities ebb and flow that he knows what it takes to keep members informed and engaged.
In the audio conversation that follows, Mark shares the highlights from last weekend's Community Leadership Summit, an event that brought together some 200 community managers and developers.
* Mark Williams contrasts the cultures of branded communities and open-source developer communities.
* Mark addresses three main challenges for community managers: 1) Not enough time to do the job 2) Choosing the most effective tools 3) Selecting and developing metrics that offer real value
* Mark discusses the premise that clients are, in fact, looking for a quantifiable value from their communities.
* Mark argues that "people are messy."
* Mark explains why analyzing metrics without also actually spending time inside a community is a recipe for disaster.
Sonny Gill and I decided to experiment with #CmtyChat this week by moving the discusson from Twitter to FriendFeed.
And here's the headline takeaway: Although FriendFeed isn't perfect, it is certainly a good platform to support thoughtful threaded online discussions in real time. As for the specific pluses and minuses of FriendFeed, here's my take:
Why FriendFeed chats work
Threads. One big drawback of holding "chats" on Twitter is its lack of native support for threaded discussions. While a third-party application such as TweetChat help get around that problem to some extent, it can't compare to the built-in functionality of FriendFeed, which enables users to comment directly into a specific thread.
Real-time updates. When a new comment is added to a discussion, it appears instantly on the screen. No browser refresh required.
A FriendFeed room can include multiple live threads at once. This encourages CmtyChatters to go deeper into subjects that interest them and skip over the topics that are less compelling for them. Plus, the chunkable threads can make reviewing the archives a more focused exercise.
Moderation controls. As the administrator of the CmtyChat room (or "group," as FriendFeed now refers to it), I can delete inappropriate or wildly off-topic threads or individual messages. Our group is also still relatively new and small enough to escape spammers' detection, but should that ever change, I have a way to minimize their damage.
Search and record keeping. Use FriendFeed's Advanced Search tools to pull up specific keywords/phrases from the group or all messages by a particular user. Searches can also be saved for later recall. Each thread also carries a unique permalink encouraging incoming links.
What could be better
Overload? While the real-time updating feature is generally a plus, there were at least a few occasions today where I was overwhelmed by the volume of new posts at once, particularly when they were spread across multiple threads and I had to scroll up and down to keep up. Plus, FriendFeed's search results pages allow users to "pause" the inflow of new updates and catch their breath, but group pages do not.
No "comment" button at the bottom of threads. Speaking of scrolling, it's a hassle to read down through several new comments, scroll back up to click the "comment" button, and then scroll down again again to actually post. FriendFeed should take a cue from Facebook, which includes a comment link at the top of a thread and a comment box, by default, after the last comment.
Missing avatars. Avatars only display next to the person starting a thread. But for users adding comments, we only see a link to their FriendFeed page; there's no image attached. As Jeff Hurt noted, "I'm missing ppls avatars for responses. Liked seeing the human side [on Twitter]."
What's next for #CmtyChat?
There's plenty to like about FriendFeed's threaded discussions and real-time updates that warrants giving the platform another go next week.
So if you're interesting in the business of managing online communities, please join us for a lively online conversation in our CmtyChat FriendFeed room next Friday, July 24, starting at 1:00pm Eastern.
Links to CmtyChat on FriendFeed from Friday, July 17, 2009
Note: name indicates user who initiated the thread
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