by adam

Eating One’s Own Dog Food: Why I Like Tweetscan

I’ve been a fan and user of Twitter for a few months now, and as adoption grows, I’m finding more uses.  There are a plethora of tools out there to search, measure and capture streams of conversations in Twitter.  I had been using a tool to capture twitter replies via email, but was frustrated with […]

Tweetscan4I’ve been a fan and user of Twitter for a few months now, and as adoption grows, I’m finding more uses.  There are a plethora of tools out there to search, measure and capture streams of conversations in Twitter.  I had been using a tool to capture twitter replies via email, but was frustrated with that tool’s latency.  After asking for a recommendation, I created an account with Tweetscan.

I didn’t see any summary emails coming through from Tweetscan for a few days, and when Scott Monty mentioned having a problem, I piped in on Twitter with a "Yeah, me too"-like response.  Within minutes I had a reply from @Tweetscan with a recommendation, and a couple of DMs later I was back in business.  I’m sure @Tweetscan is using it’s own product to search for users having issues (and praise too) – the prompt response and reply solved the problem for me…and confirmed another fan of the site.

by adam

Top Retailers and Social Media – Designing our next study

The top internet retailers are savvy companies who are mastering the art of user experience, search marketing, email marketing and many other tools to maintain a steadily growing industry.  Have they mastered, or even embraced, social media yet?  Geoff Livingston, in his book Now Is Gone, suggests companies need to "engage or die."  Which online […]

RetailThe top internet retailers are savvy companies who are mastering the art of user experience, search marketing, email marketing and many other tools to maintain a steadily growing industry.  Have they mastered, or even embraced, social media yet?  Geoff Livingston, in his book Now Is Gone, suggests companies need to "engage or die."  Which online retailers have started to engage, and how? 

I am sponsoring another Brulant survey of 100 of the top retailers – similar to Brulant’s Alternate Payment Methods study conducted in February – to see which companies are using social media tools to enhance their online presence and engage their communities. 

Here’s where I could use your help – What to measure? 

To keep it simple, we are going to go do our own research on a series of "yes" or "no" questions.  What questions do you think would help the casual observer determine "adoption" of social media?  Here is what we have so far.

Take 100 of the top internet retailers and measure the following – Does the company have:

  • an official Facebook Fan Page or Sponsored Group
  • an official Myspace page (after looking around this may be hard to figure out, but I’m clearly no myspace expert)
  • 1 or more official corporate blogs on their websites (interesting list at: http://www.socialtext.net/bizblogs/index.cgi)
  • RSS feeds off their websites
  • user reviews of products available on their websites
  • any YouTube “official” videos
  • any YouTube “Unofficial” videos
  • any Flickr results for brand

Realizing some of these may be both hard to quantify and that there are more likely to be individuals doing these activities on behalf of the companies, we’d want the measurements to be easy to capture and refresh at a later date to see trends.  What do you think?

by adam

Digital Footprints – I’m no longer size 10 1/2

At Len Devanna’s blog, he announces a very cool gadget from EMC on their recently revamped emc.com – a downloadable application to calculate your complete digital footprint based on how much you email, send text messages, take digital pictures or videos, etc.  (There is both a mac and PC version).  Len’s was 11.7MB, and being […]

Adamdf_2 At Len Devanna’s blog, he announces a very cool gadget from EMC on their recently revamped emc.com – a downloadable application to calculate your complete digital footprint based on how much you email, send text messages, take digital pictures or videos, etc.  (There is both a mac and PC version).  Len’s was 11.7MB, and being the Director of eBusiness for a data storage company like EMC, I figured that’s some heavy bandwidth.  I don’t consider myself an online junkie, yet I scored 19.1MB!  The app then starts a running ticker showing bytes of data I have created.

First, this gives a great appreciation for how much data is created out there.  Some of the well known bloggers, podcasters and others out there will have much larger footprints, but think of how this ties to corporations, small and large.

Second, this is a terrific marketing tool.  Not only is it interactive, it has a direct correlation to EMC’s business.  I’d love to see a similar one created by Earth911.org or the EPA that shows how much trash we generate or each person’s personal impact on global warming.  Or instead of Alicia Silverstone naked, PETA could create an application that calculates your "animal cruelty" footprint.  The campaign for Florida orange juice could calculate your annual carbonated soda footprint.  A hybrid automaker could calculate how much gas is guzzled by driver behavior.  There are lots of applications.  Hmm – maybe I need someone to calculate how many times I’ve watched that PETA ad.  Nah, I only looked at it once, I swear.

by adam

Work Hard, Play Hard – with Social Media

I work for a small interactive marketing and consulting firm called Brulant.  95% of the close to 400 employees are based in Cleveland, OH.  Every year, we have a traditional event called the Practice Wars, teeing up team members in the Java and Microsoft practices against each other, along with folks aligned to industry verticals.  […]

Practicewars_2 I work for a small interactive marketing and consulting firm called Brulant.  95% of the close to 400 employees are based in Cleveland, OH.  Every year, we have a traditional event called the Practice Wars, teeing up team members in the Java and Microsoft practices against each other, along with folks aligned to industry verticals.  The competition ranges from foosball and ping pong to Rubik’s cube and an engineering egg drop.  Other competitions include football, softball and other sports.  Everyone is encouraged to compete in at least one event, and the winning group maintains both a trophy and bragging rights for next year.

This year, we have infused social media into the fun, but as a communication vehicle and a way to educate the company on the tools and communities that are out there. 

  • We’ve launched a Brulant Practice Wars blog (internal only)
  • We’ve started a twitter feed @practicewars http://twitter.com/practicewars for all to follow, with live updates and scores during events
  • The folks followed by @practicewars show up in a real time feed on the blog
  • The blog has a RSS feed, comments, photos, a mashup of maps for the event locations

We used to just send out a big powerpoint of pictures and results – this time we can update everyone real time, solicit ideas, and even let folks talk smack.  This is a great way and idea to leverage social media internally and in the meantime we are teaching everyone the value of a tool like twitter.   Score: New Brulant Community 1, Old school lack of engagement, 0.

by adam

Top 10 Things You May Not Know About Facebook…for Marketers

Think you know all there is to know about Facebook? I admit it, I like Facebook.  I think it’s compelling, addictive, and fun, even though I hate those vampire apps and any app where you gain more points by inviting friends to use the app.  I’m guessing you’ve tried it – If you have, you’ve […]

Think you know all there is to know about Facebook?

I admit it, I like Facebook.  I think it’s compelling, addictive, and fun, even though I hate those vampire apps and any app where you gain more points by inviting friends to use the app.  I’m guessing you’ve tried it – If you have, you’ve probably found a few high school friends, connected with some college buddies, you’ve SuperPoke’d some people, you’ve been bitten by a werewolf or two and you think you’re addicted.  You might check your account a few times a day.  You get poked, you poke back, you deal with all the BACN.  But what about the marketing tools?  What’s the reach of the audience for a retailer? 

Today a regional sales director from Facebook came to our home office to talk about how the Facebook advertising platform works, the origin and history of the company, and how we can better advise clients to leverage the platforms to drive traffic and promote their sites.  Here are the top ten things I learned about Facebook that I didn’t know, after about 4 months of being a regular user:

10. 60% of Facebook’s current traffic is from outside the US

9.  1 out of every 2 people online in Canada is a Facebook user

8.  Facebook has doubled in size every six months

7.  Half of Facebook’s users today are over 25

6.  When a company buys a social ad in your news feed, and a user opts to participate, the first 3 friends of that user who see the ad are free to the buyer

5.  Sponsored stories in your News Feed always first show at #2 on the list, show at the most 5 times in 24 hours, and naturally move down your News Feed in that time

4.  The average Facebook user has just under 120 friends

3.  The next big opportunity where Facebook currently doesn’t advertise?  Facebook Mobile

2.  Companies will soon be able to leverage a tool called "Chatter" to measure and track the buzz going on in Facebook about their company

1.  Facebook has an AVERAGE of 200 data points on every user

That last point really got me – I knew Facebook had a lot of information, but for an average user, 200 data points?  A marketer’s dream and a privacy advocate’s gasoline to pour on the fire.  Either way, thanks to Facebook for presenting today, good stuff and I look forward to figuring out how to to leverage the tools available.

by adam

Competence is King

How do you establish trust in a service provider? When you bring your car in for service, do you go to a certified dealer or the local mechanic? How did you choose – based on your relationship with the mechanic? Your loyalty to the dealer? Your concern about the car? As a consumer you have […]

How do you establish trust in a service provider? When you bring your car in for service, do you go to a certified dealer or the local mechanic? How did you choose – based on your relationship with the mechanic? Your loyalty to the dealer? Your concern about the car?

As a consumer you have many options and factors that influence your decision to buy services.  In the long term, however, you continue to engage in your service provider at a minimum because that provider demonstrated competence in what you seek.  The same principle applies to companies, large or small, that rely on partner firms to solve business problems.  Quite simply, any consultant needs to be competent in solving relevant problems for the client or it will not work.

One of the clients I work with is in the top 250 internet retailers, a small family-owned and operated business that moved years ago from a paper catalog to the online channel.  The catalog makes up 10-20% of its business today, and bricks-n-mortar another 5-10% – but the online channel took off.  As an early adopter of IBM Websphere Commerce, the client engaged a partner firm 8 years ago to help maintain its website.  As the online channel grew, it became apparent that a small technology shop was not suitable to maintain a best of breed site.  As recently as March of 2007 the company still used a modem to download it’s orders on a daily basis. 

Enter my current firm.  As one of the top business partners for IBM Websphere Commerce, we were able to demonstrate not only our knowledge of the product but the deep relationships to IBM’s Websphere labs in Toronto.  With core expertise in the internet retail industry, we were able to demonstrate how we could more effectively manage the website for the client and build a long term roadmap for improvements to keep up with an evolving industry.  We not only constructed a multi-year deal to maintain the Websphere Commerce installation, we have been able to make substantial impact to the business in other areas where we provide relevant expertise:  creative support for campaigns, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) driving significant % in additional revenue, and in the long term a substantial upgrade and conversion focused redesign.

The point is that through bringing the relevant expertise to bear, we are able to demonstrate through competence in online retailing, Websphere Commerce, SEM, and interactive design that we can both have a fundamental impact on the client’s business, provide value and demonstrate ROI in a long term fruitful business relationship.  Not to mention a happy client is a fun one.

How do you decide what service provider you engage, from babysitters to car service to business partners?

by adam

A few words on the Patriots

They had it won.  Brady marched down the field and threw a TD with a couple minutes left.  Defense shows up and it’s over.  Multiple times on that drive I jumped out of my seat thinking the Pats had pulled it off.  Almost INT.  4th down.  Then someone possessed Eli Manning, turned him into a […]

Belichick_2 They had it won.  Brady marched down the field and threw a TD with a couple minutes left.  Defense shows up and it’s over.  Multiple times on that drive I jumped out of my seat thinking the Pats had pulled it off.  Almost INT.  4th down.  Then someone possessed Eli Manning, turned him into a quarterback he’s not, stuck Velcro on Tyree’s helmet and ripped the heart out of every Pats fan with less than 2 minutes to go in the game.  Such is life.  I am very superstitious and believe that the whole karma of the game was thrown off when Belichick walked on the field in that awful red sweatshirt.  That was the baseball equivalent of the Red Sox wearing the once-a-year Sunday Green shirts in Game 7 of the World Series.  Would that ever happen?  Of course not.  If it’s at home it’s white.  If it’s on the road, it’s that traditional grey.  Grey.  Keep the cut off arms and the embroidered ‘BB’.  Sure it looks ridiculous, but you don’t mess with the formula.  I was uncomfortable from the start of the game, I didn’t know if I should keep on my Grogan jersey or leave it in the closet.  Should I put our 3rd and youngest son to bed during halftime, wearing his Brady jersey like I did his older brothers in victorious years past?  (the oldest actually wore a Bledsoe jersey to sleep as an 8-month old baby – who had Brady jerseys then?).  You’re not supposed to think, you just follow the formula. 

It was still an entertaining season, and I’m humble enough to be grateful there are only two weeks between the Superbowl and pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training.

(By the way, for colleagues in Cleveland (like the one who decided to open up a can of worms off my first blog post), can Cleveland ever catch a break at all?  It’s been more than a year of "almost winning" a lot. I’ve been good – I didn’t talk any trash during the ALCS, and sat in the bleachers at the Jake in Game 3 suffering relentless txt message abuse from all of you.  Even with the Patriots losing, everyone will remember they lost in the greatest Superbowl ever.  Years from now no one will remember that Cleveland lost the NBA finals, collapsed in the ALCS and didn’t make it to the NFL playoffs.  Oh, right, except me.  And I’ll remind you, often if necessary.  Looking forward to the NBA playoffs this year…)