Who knew there was so much to say about convergence? Steve Etzler, the founder of the conference and career fair producer Business Development Institute (BDI), did.
Thanks to Social Media Today's Robin Carey, yesterday, I attended BDI's Convergence 2008 conference at The Graduate Center/CUNY. I was pleased, which, gentle reader, is a feat in and of itself. I attend and speak at many, many conferences throughout the year and I know a thing or two about these shindigs.
There were plenty of marketing and PR professionals and everyone there was honestly interested in learning more about social media. There were no egos - if there were, they were mingling in coat check unburdened by their owners bodies.
What definitely helped set the open, honest tone was the conference delivery format. Keep in mind, I attended last year and while there were different tracks, delivery was speaker/audience style. This time there were 17 roundtables, each with a different topic and an experienced moderator - not a speaker talking at you. Lov-ah-ley.
We all got to chat and get to know one another. The "musical roundtables" was really effective in making sure that we didn't just hang around the people we knew and that attendees had multiple opportunities to meet a wide variety of people. We bounced ideas and shared results - both good and bad. With Steve as our "dance card" announcer, we made our way from table to table. You know a conference is good when you don't want to leave the table when the session is done. That happened again and again. I admit that I was a ninja interloper at one table. I sat at table 5 when I was supposed to be at table 17. (Sorry, Steve!)
One of the themes that ran through the conference is that many companies really are still finding their way with social media. There were questions and comments about compliance, legal and crisis communications. Many organizations hadn't started one single social media effort and still others had just hired their first community manager. Either way, people were relieved to find out, "it's not just me!" and they were encouraged by one another's efforts.
I wrote a post for the Marketing Prof’s Daily Fix blog today and in it, I talk about how agency types have “predicted” a slow down in brand spending on emerging media.
I won’t repeat the whole post here, but you can read it as a bit of background for this post, if you like.
I bring up that post for a reason…and that’s to share with you the idea of considering the source of your information.
If agencies that have not been great at meeting their client’s emerging media needs (official surveys support this statement), isn’t it likely that during a time of economic craziness they would predict that emerging media spending would slow down? “It’s high-time we get some of our TV ad spend budget back,” says Amy Agency (not a real person, of course).
You know. Strike while the iron is hot and all that jazz.
Emerging media can be confusing to most brands. There are a bunch of experts who say one thing. Their agencies say another and it’s hard to tell whom to believe and whom to trust. Consider the source.
What companies need to understand is that everyone has an agenda. And, I mean everyone.
Having an agenda is not necessarily a bad thing. It means you’re operating on purpose. Purpose is good.
But, if the intent and focus of your agenda is to skew the game of business by using fear tactics because you don’t like the score, then that’s just poor sportsmanship.
The folks at Razorfish conducted a survey of 1,000 "connected consumers".
Most say they don't mind ads on social networking sites so much so that 40% of them had actually purchased a product or service after being prompted by an ad within a social network.
Nielsen Online says that youth groups see far less online "clutter" (read: ads), which makes sense, because they aren't as equipped to whip out a credit card and make a purchase.
What does all of this mean? It means that social media doesn't replace any form of marketing or advertising and that advertising, when relevant and appropriate, still works like a charm.
Haven't I been saying that for the past 2 years now? But, now that Nielsen and Razorfish are letting you know, it's official. I hope that ends that "debate".
In reading Max Kalehoff's OnlineSpin about how online transparency might affect brand building, I got on my soapbox a bit and wanted to share it with my FC readers. Here's what I had to say:
"I don’t think it’s a matter of whether companies will need to publicize their GOOD deeds. The question is: what will they do to address their BAD deeds? Since, in many cases, negative information that’s communicated about a brand tends to trump good information.
That said, when people talk about transparency, they’re not talking about the ease of which one can parse loads of conflicting online content, they’re most often referring to brands choosing to be more open, honest and direct about everything from how hiring decisions are made to why they chose to use recycled paper products in their corporate cafeterias.
As consumers get to see what’s behind the curtain, it absolutely informs them more about what a brand actually stands for.
Ask Coca-Cola about South Africa, Nike about sweatshops and even poor Tommy Hilfiger about Internet rumors re: his comments on Oprah that he never said.
Slick communications is one thing, but once people find out anything that’s inconsistent with what they already believe, you better believe they’re going to look into it - transactional purchases or not. The public has grown weary of the okey-doke."
What do you think?
Do you think that marketing communications are more valuable than what consumers find out about a brand online or via citizen journalism?
Let's face it, everyone and their mother has a video on YouTube.
That's a good thing - user generated content is mainly what's fueled the rapid growth of social media - and it's also pretty much the bain of a video marketer's existence.
With all those videos, if you're someone who markets your brand with online video - specifically through YouTube - how do you:
- make sure that your video gets found
- determine what SPECIFICALLY about your video grabs people's attention?
HotSpots allows you to see - via a tandem graph - whether a particular section of a video is popular (i.e. being viewed by others at the same time) or whether it's an airball.
The Insight suite of tools allows you to see how people stumbe upon (pun intended) your video and what actions they take after watching. Do they share the link with someone else? Do they embed the code on their blog?
Two things come up for me immediately:
I think this is really good news for people who work with clients that demand ROI and metrics (as they should), but me doth thinks this stinks for privacy. Let's hope Google doesn't keep that data for 18 9 months, too.
What kind of handwriting on the wall is this for analytics companies? Hmmm...
Twitter, FriendFeed and popular blogs are abuzz with notes from conferences and play-by-play crib notes.
Good grief! That's enough to make your head spin.
It's so easy to get caught up in going to conferences. And, because new media and social media are so new and exciting people have loads of information and ideas to share.
A word to the wise about conference hopping...
Know where you're spending your time and WHY you're attending.
I only attend conferences if I'm speaking or if I know I will be exposed to our target market or will have the chance to network with people in markets my company wants to tap.
You have to be on purpose and strategic most of the time, but sometimes it's cool to attend an event just for the heck of it. Follow your inner beagle. (Welcome to the cognoscenti!) I usually hang at the Wizard Academy. It's not for the faint of heart. I found a scorpion in my room the first day of class. Like whoa!
Corporate forecasting is, at best a labor of love and at worst, boring...or usually incorrect.
The folks over at Inking, Inc. have developed prediction market software, called Inkling Markets, that allows companies to tap into the wisdom of the crowds and as a result make their forecasting more on-target.
I sat down (via phone) with Inkling, Inc.'s CEO, Adam Siegel to chat with him about why more and more companies are using prediction markets, what the benefits are for doing so and the future of prediction markets (pun intended).
That's how Josh Bernoff of Forrester and Groundswell co-authoring acclaim, describes the shift in attention that brands have to make now that social media is becoming more and more mainstream and, according to the latest research, growing faster than any other medium.
While I don't think that brands have to worry about "one individual with a microphone called a blog" (that would be just way too time-consuming even for companies that have the resources to throw around), I do believe that Bernoff's comments do, possibly inadvertently, make a case for brands needing to know exactly who their infleuncers are -- and more importantly who they are NOT. This is what's known as influencer identification and engagement.
You see, it's really easy to get swept away with social media, trying to make nice with every begrudged person who woke up on the wrong side of the bed with your brand in their face. And, many companies do make that mistake. It's like a dog chasing it's tail...somewhat. You spend so much time trying to influence the folks who are not influencers that you have no focus and energy left for people who ARE in a position to influence how, why, when and where your brand is consumed.
How can you tell a true influencer from a poser? Easy. Tap into your internal B.S.-o-meter.
You know how when you meet someone at a networking event, you can immediately tell if they are full of it or not? Same deal here.
Take a look at that person's or organization's blog/podcast page and then ask yourself the following questions:
When was the last time they posted/released an episode? If the last post was more than a week ago, forget it, they're probably not influencers because real influencers know that the first rule of influence is regular, consistent contact - especially in this age of microwave attention spans.
How many comments do they get? There are a few successful blogs/podcasts that don't get many comments, but there should be some. The reality is, if they are engaged with whomever is consuming their material, their audience should be engaged in return. If you don't see any signs of life, bail on that ghost town.
Can you subscribe to their blog/podcast via RSS and email? Do they have a substantial blogroll? How many categories/topic do they cover? If there are no signs of strategic marketing in place, they're either too clueless to communicate effectively with their audience or the communication that is release is spotty at best. Solid influencers know that the more ways they attract people to their content, the wider net they can cast in terms of building a community of "followers".
How long have they been blogging? Sure, very experienced people start new blogs everyday. But, take a look at their archives, if they haven't been blogging for at least a year, that should send up a warning flag for you that this organization or person is a poser and you shouldn't waste your time. If you want to give yourself some peace of mind on this one, you might want to search for their name or the name of their organization on Technorati to see what their authority is over there. High authority = high street cred. Low authority = head out to Mickey D's for a sundae.
There really are no rules that are set in stone for identifying influencers, but you might want to take the time to figure out who people are before you give away the farm trying to make someone happy.
This does NOT mean that you should ignore people who have genuine complaints -- just use your judgment before going overboard. It's almost like knowing which at table the restaurant critic is seated. You wouldnt give anyone poor service, certainly, but you do want to make sure the critic walks away a happy camper.
