Every once in awhile a video comes along that inspires thought and challenges assumptions. This video of internet guru Clay Shirky speaking as part of the TED series is no exception. From the advent of the printing press to modern community platforms, Shirky uses stories from China, Iran, the Obama campaign, and other political uprisings to demonstrate the power of Facebook, text messaging and Twitter to make a real impact. This is worth the watch.
(Thanks to David Armano for sharing this on Twitter. Feed subscribers please click through to see the video).
This post is co-authored with Gargi Patel, Rosetta‘s new Director of Social Media. Gargi has spent several years as a community manager for large consumer brands and we’re fortunate to have her join the Rosetta team.
Everywhere in social media it’s clear: Listening is important. It’s probably the most important thing you can do to make the most out of social media, whether it’s for your business or for personal interest. It’s easy to start – Chris Brogan‘s posts on starting with listeningchannels make up an all-time great reference kit and should be Chapter 1 in the Great Social Media Reference Book. If every spammer read those posts first, they’d realize they have the wrong idea, but that’s another blog post topic. If “start listening” is Chapter 1, Chapter 2 should be all about motivation. Is the motivation for listening different for every brand? You bet.
Listening, qualifying and quantifying to channels in social media is going to yield different information for every company. A key to sifting through this is understanding the company’s brand perception and position in the market. Here are some factors that may influence how to move to the next step before turning listening into action.
1. Brand Development Lifecycle
Does the brand need to build a fan base or just largely maintain its reputation? For brands with a large public presence or existing polarity in the marketplace, robust analytics and tools with real time alerts are probably necessary. For very young brands or small businesses, free DIY tools on the web may suffice. The lifecycle of the development of the brand will influence the reasons for listening. For example, Budweiser is going to have different motivation for listening and perhaps require different tools than Magic Hat, a lesser known (and personal favorite) microbrewery based in Burlington, VT. Don’t forget that all of these tools can be used to listen to non-branded terms and competitors in the same way – the lifecycle of the brand will influence those too.
2. The Customer’s Level of Risk
How much risk does the customer need to take on to buy your product? Is it expensive, does it carry social risk (bad outfit) or have potentially big consequences (insurance)? The extent to which recommendations from an online social source are impactful depends on the degree of involvement in the purchase. Cars, insurance policies, and electronics are examples of categories which are highly researched prior to purchase. Online reviews and chatter in forums can be extremely beneficial or extremely dangerous for these types of items. Many lesser known items such as books or CDs can also be highly dependent on social reviews. On the other hand, a low ticket or lesser known consumer brand will have very different needs from its social media monitoring, and customers may be less concerned with doing research. Building brand awareness may be more important to these brands and subsequently influence what companies are listening for.
3. Brand Differentiation
Are purchase decisions based more on objective product or service features or based on emotional brand affinity? To a large extent, products/brands fall somewhere in the middle of this continuum, but many will lean heavily one way or the other. For example, most people choose a particular airline based on objective service, price and benefits. Some people buy computers based on an objective evaluation of features to price, but then there are brands that have built an emotional connection (Apple). Chocolate milk is a commodity, but a brand name can draw a premium based on brand affinity (Nesquik). Listening to why people differentiate brands will be key in developing an approach to engage those folks down the road.
How we listen, why we listen, and ultimately, how we use this information to engage with consumers will be different depending on the brand proposition. Does your company listen? What is your motivation? What else did we miss?
Thanks to Dave Knox, a brand manager at P&G, for spotting this video. This is a simple and clear example of how marketing of old is no longer effective, and how “atomized and parallel media consumption” have impacted how brands market today. Dave mentions this is a good way for a brand manager to illustrate the need for change to management. I’d add that it’s a way to also explain why the personalized connections through social media are so important. Worth the three minutes.
Every once in awhile I stumble across a great example of interactive marketing to share. Today a friend shot me a link to a microsite from the consumer product brand Healthy Choice, that has a lot of the right ingredients for a successful campaign. The campaign looks like it was launched last fall but I think it will have a long shelf life. Here are some reasons why I like the campaign.
Comedy is good. The central theme around the microsite is a daily comedy improv show. The actors are funny, regular people loosely resembling the successful TV show the Office. They depict characters debating various agenda topics during a lunch meeting. Quality comedic content can make a site more engaging, more viral and keeping people searching the site for more. The site’s show had daily updates for several weeks when it was launched, for a “season.” It appears Season 2 ended in November. With agenda topics such as, “What Not to Do at Work,” “Dealing with Flatulence,”and “Reuse Staples.” This “best of” show from November 25th is a great example.
Consumers engage and direct the content. You can submit meeting agenda topics, vote on future meeting topics, and send a “care package” to a friend who has been in too many meetings. You can subscribe to reminders about the next meeting, browse through many archived shows and read through dozens of humorous articles.
Product endorsement is pervasive but not overbearing. Healthy Choice could just have easily made a microsite about nutrition and product information. Instead they chose a humorous platform and work the product placement in without diluting the quality comedy content. When you “send a care package” you can share episodes with friends via email but there also is an option to send a Healthy Choice product coupon.
I’m curious what the cost was to produce the show, site and content, and what the overall ROI would be for a site like this versus an ad campaign in a magazine. No question I spent more time on this site than reading an ad and that Healthy Choice will have ample metrics to measure consumption of the content. Well done, Healthy Choice. Do you think this type of microsite works? What are some examples of others you have seen and liked?
Marketers have a lot of data. Online, they know where you live, what you clicked on, and what page layout (among other things) is more likely is going to drive you to make a purchase. They know what you searched for, what ads you saw and how long you spent on their sites. Signs are pointing to an elevated sophistication of using that data – get ready, because with the ability to combine your activities in social media with your online behavior, targeted, personalized approaches to marketing to you could be what’s next.
Exhibit A: CMO’s want to read the tea leaves
Mark Taylor, colleague at Rosetta, recently mentioned a study from the CMO Council that highlighted some key insight as to how CMOs feel they are deficient at understanding and leveraging customer data. Some key findings:
Marketers were asked about their top three areas of focus. Among the responses cited:
* 47% want to leverage existing resources to enhance customer communications.
* 41% would like to explore new customized communications technologies.
* 39% want to move marketing investments to Internet and mobile channels.
* 33% wish to improve behavioral targeting of advertising and online marketing campaigns.
* 32% want to adopt and use CRM and sales automation applications.
Exhibit B: Online activities reveal customer emotions and behaviors
I had a conversation earlier in the week with Evan Schuman, former retail technology editor for eWEEK.com and PCMagazine and author of the retail industry blog StoreFrontBackTalk.com. Evan recently posted a provacative article about how semantic information about a user’s activities could lead to more targeted marketing activities, and I’ve had it on my mind since.
Extensive analysis of a consumer’s Web interactions has been used for years to try and target pitches more effectively. But new research suggests that…every digital comment made by consumers anywhere—in a product comment, an IM, on a social network site, in E-mail and via, exchanges with a live chat tech support person, coupled with Web traffic analysis—can be mined for hints as to emotions and other thoughts.
What it could mean
Imagine what organizations who are savvy enough to tie their CRM data to semantic, social media content left as breadcrumbs out there. Evan rightly suggests that every consumer responds differently to emotion. When you’re sad, so you seek out comfort food or buy some new music? When you’re happy do you surprise your spouse at home with a gift? Could your social media activity be somehow tied, through emotion, prior history, or simply by subject, to your purchasing or brand buying behavior?
Some examples
Consider some possibilities. I’m sure we could come up with better ones together but here’s a stab at some.
In Twitter your posts could be mined for relevant information. Say, you have a cold and are under the weather, and you like to post about it as you are down in the dumps. Imagine a coupon for Advil Cold & Sinus showing up in your email shortly after you have a conversation about cold remedies, and a targeted ad on a news site gives you 20% off on a home humidifer.
In Friendfeed, you show a pattern of mentions about football in blog posts and comments, and favorited Youtube videos – and your favorite team wins the next playoff game. Knowing that when you are on an emotional high you tend to make an online purchase, retailers start showing specific discounted offers pop up on eBay and Amazon related to your team. Beyond the fact that the team won, taking it to the next level targeted people whose buying behavior changes at these peaks.
Imagine if in a Myspace posting you share the loss of a beloved pet. You start seeing ads and receiving offers for “comfort” items.
Evan responds,
What consumers receive is nothing bizarre: A pitch from Amazon or Borders or Walmart for a particular kind of product. But what they won’t likely know is that the pitch was prompted by … a MySpace posting the software thought “sounded sad.”
Technologically? This is quite do-able. Psychologically sound? If the software is done properly, yes, these predictive packages can be frighteningly accurate. But here are the big two questions: What about privacy and morality?
Sure there are many concerns about privacy, morality, and transparency. Is it going above and beyond using this type of data to target customers, or just the next logical evolution? It sure makes me think a little more about what I share on searchable outlets, but I am not so sure connecting me with the right products at the right time would be a bad thing. What do you think?
In late October, I got a first hand glimpse into how the web is taking on traditional newspapers. While in Dallas for Forrester’s Consumer Forum, I was grateful to be invited to drop in at the offices of the Dallas Morning News to talk about how retailers are using Facebook.
A Somber Scene
At first glance, the floor where most of the reporters sit is very much like the stereotypical movie sets. I expected Perry White (Jackie Cooper, in my head, anyways) to come screaming out of his office at any moment. The major differences: PCs everywhere instead of typewriters, and most of the desks were empty. I visited them on a Monday – the prior Friday they had been through a series of layoffs, and the mood was somber. As the paper takes on challenges brought on by Web 2.0 and the shift of advertising online, ironically a blog solely for former employeers of the paper cropped up and has some very passionate people engaged.
Challenges for Traditional Newspapers
Three major challenges for the paper are apparent. First, the cost of advertising. Simply put, ads cost a lot less and are far more measurable online. This directly competes with ad revenue for the paper, and was a deciding factor in the recent Chapter 11 filing at the holding company that owns the Chicago Tribune and LA Times.
The second challenge is the proliferation of other media sources. I heard the phrases “reading blogs” and “did you see the blog post” several times. The lines between traditional media and new media are blurring and anyone who can publish a story could conceivably trump a reporter at a paper. Clearly reporters are paying attention. The lines are blurring between official reporters and passionate folks who like to write.
A third challenge for newspapers is really understanding the digital channel. I’ve seen recent discussion on Twitter with Bryan Person and Aaron Strout around how newspapers don’t understand search engine optimization (SEO). Both have pointed out examples of articles in Boston papers where the authors failed to include links in the online version of the story to either personal blogs or corporate web sites. “Sharing the link love” is a key piece of making the digital channel successful and accessible through search.
Understanding a Slice of New Media
The main purpose of my visit was to discuss my agency’s recent study on retailers using Facebook. Several big name retailers, including J.C. Penney, are in the Dallas area, and the retail reporter for DMN was trying to get a better understanding of Facebook and other tools. I spent a couple of hours with her explaining how Facebook works and gave her a demo of Twitter (thanks to many connections there for helping out). It was clearly an eye opening experience for her, and we reviewed what several local-based retailers were doing with Facebook fan pages. The net result, including much of her hard work looking at viral marketing, interviewing a variety of sources and adding insight to what the companies are doing, is this well-written piece published Tuesday called, “Retailers find Facebook friends in hopes of finding sales.” No doubt the folks who are reporters are talented in their research and writing – she did an excellent job tying in the recent viral successes of J.C. Penney and Victoria Secret’s Pink brand to our discussion on retailers using Facebook pages.
Clearly the Dallas Morning News is getting the digital channel – the page where my article lives had (as of my last view) advertisements for Ford, Cars.com and Netflix. The article also had the ability to share via social bookmarking sites and allowed comments. Unfortunately the article had no link here or to our agency’s site, Rosetta.com. But 2 out of 3 ain’t bad right?
In the end this was a real world microcosm example of how the old media industry needs to adapt in order to thrive. Thanks again DMN for including me in the article and I hope we both continue to learn from the experience.
Folks shy away from the term “social commerce.” Why? I asked the question on Twitter, “What’s the first thing that pops in your mind when you hear the term ‘social commerce?'” and I received quite a number of cynical (and humorous) responses:
@illig: “Social commerce: Prostitution, human trafficking and ice cream socials. In that order. But I’m not normal. : ) “
@heatherrast: ” (1)selling out your friends (like personal info?) (2) the cost of selling out your friends (3) revenue from adsense ads”
Taken out of context, my question also sparked a little debate about what social commerce is and caused friend Aaron Strout to weigh in with some great dialog happening in the comments.
Here’s the danger: People want conversation in social networks to be genuine and to avoid overt marketers hawking their wares. Social networks bring people to connect, not to shop. But as technology evolves and people look to leverage their networks as information sources, invariably those networks will turn to helping each other make purchases. I, for one, take a friend’s recommendation as an important information source before buying – and I have to admit consumer ratings and reviews are helpful and important to me.
Back to the Future
As far as I could dig up, one of the first posts defining social commerce was back on December 23, 2005. Steve Rubel wrote an intriguing post on 2006 Trends to Watch. Steve started to predict the trend of advertising and commerce shifting to blogs:
“Social commerce, however, is an area that I think holds a tremendous amount of promise as a way for bloggers to make money. It’s a win-win for the bloggers, product marketers and existing e-commerce sites.”
His post went on to show examples of how e-commerce sites had extended functionality to allow bloggers to take advantage of the Long Tail and bring the ability to conduct commerce on their blogs, beyond the innovation of Google ads. At the time, Yahoo!’s Shoposphere was the highlight, where users could collaborate on shopping lists. More posts went on about preparing for social commerce as the next big wave of innovation that would push the continuing trend of online shopping growth (combined with broadband adoption at home and at work along with the continual adoption of Web 2.0 technologies like Flash). But the term “social commerce” seemed vaguely defined to include innovation in customer experience on commerce sites, and overall the term remained nebulous.
The Year of Social Commerce?
Jay Deragon predicted 2008 would be the Year of Social Commerce. On January 1, 2008, he wrote:
While social networks continue to grow exponentially the next growth curve will be driven by the “holy grail of economics“, social commerce. Social commerce may actually become the dominant development in 2008 and subsequently turn business models upside down and inside out.
Jay is on to something here. While the last year brought the challenges of Facebook’s Beacon product, and there continues to be large debates about ways to monetize social networks, big ticket retailers are starting to get involved by adding functionality on their own e-commerce platforms. Already we have seen reviews, stories from other customers and ratings start to really permeate the online retail space – where retailers that don’t have them are becoming the exception. (Bazaarvoice is a business partner of my agency, Rosetta, and one of a few vendors who provide user ratings and reviews as a service to be integrated into a web commerce user experience.) In addition to sites adding this functionality – and receiving a bump in conversion % of visitors – here are some other examples of what vendors are doing:
Facebook Connect and platforms like Open I/D allow corporations to authenticate social graphs on their own sites.
IBM did a recent casestudy integrating the capabilities of Lotus Connections with Websphere Commerce.
Companies like LiveWorld have launched products to integrate social interactions directly on websites, like their recently launched LiveBar product.
Based on watching what vendors out there are doing, I’d argue that beyond the initial premise of bringing commerce to social media tools and networks,it appears the next wave is bringing the social networks back to commerce sites. Some companies like eBay and Amazon do this well, but I think more merchants will be trying to figure this out. Bringing customers together to help on purchase decisions can be a good thing if it’s handled properly and e-commerce companies engage their customers the right way, beyond just user ratings and reviews. What do you think?
Every once in awhile a video comes along that inspires thought and challenges assumptions. This video of internet guru Clay Shirky speaking as part of the TED series is no exception. From the advent of the printing press to modern community platforms, Shirky uses stories from China, Iran, the Obama campaign, and other political uprisings to demonstrate the power of Facebook, text messaging and Twitter to make a real impact. This is worth the watch.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://i2.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?w=730)
This post is co-authored with 
Marketers have a lot of data. Online, they know where you live, what you clicked on, and what page layout (among other things) is more likely is going to drive you to make a purchase. They know what you searched for, what ads you saw and how long you spent on their sites. Signs are pointing to an elevated sophistication of using that data – get ready, because with the ability to combine your activities in social media with your online behavior, targeted, personalized approaches to marketing to you could be what’s next.
In late October, I got a first hand glimpse into how the web is taking on traditional newspapers. While in Dallas for Forrester’s Consumer Forum, I was grateful to be invited to drop in at the offices of the 
Danger?