AniBlurbs (Column)

I’ve discussed Coca Cola’s Social Media Policy in a column not too long ago. Now there’s an excellent slide deck on Coca Cola’s complementing Social Media Marketing strategy.

The only thing missing in this presentation is the way they handled the unofficial Facebook fan page. Coca Cola’s Facebook fan page had a staggering 3.3 million fans making it the biggest fan page second only to POTUS Barack Obama (until Michael Jackson’s tragic death, now almost a year ago which resulted in the superstar entertainer taking top spot for a while, see Page Data).

What Coca Cola did back there was quite remarkable; instead of the usual corporate Pavlov reaction of shutting the non-official grassroots initiative down (Apple anyone?), they reached out to the two fan page moderators instead, gave them a tour, full support, the works; effectively making them even more engaged as brand ambassadors.

To my eye it is clear that one of the biggest brands in the universe is more than ready for the new realities of the next decade. Are You?

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

“There’s demand in the marketplace for creating a new type of agency,” said Sean Corcoran, an analyst with Forrester Research. “The question is whether that’s viable long term.”

Because it can touch everything from Communications to Marketing to Customer Service to Product Development, Social Media has created a muddied playing field that some see as ripe for creating agency opportunities …

Now the question for social media firms is whether they’ll translate the short-term demand for Facebook pages, Twitter campaigns and audits of social chatter about a brand into a long-term strategic business … Otherwise what they’re offering clients will quickly become the domain of established agencies in Public Relations, Advertising and Digital.

Source: AdWeek – The New Social Gurus: Social media agencies are popping up to address new strategic demands — but will they last?

The jury is still out on this one

First of all let me state clearly that there is no silver bullet with regards to whether a Digital Agency or a PR outfit should be leading the charge when it comes to Social Media.

Furthermore, one size certainly doesn’t fit all when it comes to whether your company or organization should be utilizing Social Media or not, and if so with whom.

Mitch Joel (@MitchJoel), from Twist Image (Canada), also weighed in on this subject:

Going back to that quirky quote from AdWeek, it’s like saying, “we can help you build a Facebook fan page or a Twitter profile, but if you need a microsite or some banners to promote it, you’re best off calling a Digital Marketing agency.”

Newsflash: Social Media is Digital Marketing.

Sorry to break this news to the Social Media Gurus and social media agencies of the world. You can dance around this statement all you want … let’s face it: all Social Media strategy and first-contact happens in the online channels.

The results of that strategy and activity may filter through how an organization communicates, markets, handles after-care or customer service, but Social Media starts and lives in the Digital Marketing channel….

And, if it does live in the Digital Channel, but as a social media agency you can’t help your client also build both the platforms and presence online, what does that say about your skill level?

Let’s not make it bigger than it is.

Like a strong direct marketing strategy, advertising campaign or affiliate program, Social Media is one spoke in the marketing wheel (it just looks more shiny than the other spokes because platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are new and exciting).

In fact, Social Media is much more like a spoke in the Digital Marketing wheel. This doesn’t mean it should be diminished, but to think that a strong Digital Marketing shop doesn’t have the abilities or capabilities to lead Social Media is downright silly and unfounded.

A great Digital Marketing agency that truly meets the clients’ needs is one that can develop the digital strategy and then execute on it (the design, content, technology, marketing and communications).

It’s going to be interesting to see what unique offerings these social media agencies bring to the brand table that the Digital Marketing agencies were missing.”

Read the whole post and the comments over at Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel at Twist Image: Social Media Gurus – That Old Chestnut (Who Owns Social Media?)

Challenges for Businesses with regards to Social Media

A few days back  Liz Pullen(@nwjerseyliz)  tweeted the following on twitter (see screen grab below):

I tweeted in reply that Social Media on a personal level doesn’t scale:

It´s a scientifically proven fact that there’s only so much meaningful interaction, friends, interconnectivity, sharing, status updates and ReTweets one can take at any given moment in time.

And this isn’t even taking time management or life hacking into account; strictly speaking there’s (Dunbar’s number) a bio/psychologically maximum amount of social interaction and stimulus our brains can handle – be sure to keep an eye on the latest Oxford findings regarding this.

What this also means today is that people in general -becoming ever more acquainted with Social Media and most of its apparent benefits & setbacks- are increasingly critical about whom they connect, or “friend”, with online (quality/potential Vs. quantity). And, as a result, how much time they spend with them on any given social network.

The analogy goes that you could compare it to standing in a café socialising with friends and familiars; you wouldn’t appreciate someone breaking in the conversation or party (with a commercial message) without introducing properly first.

These developments have spin-off effects for your brand in this space as well.

Think about this for a minute.

Now, let’s take a look at the slight nugget called Legal, as Clorox has done:

That could help explain why the marketer has taken the unusual step of advertising for a full-time in-house legal counsel to focus on social media — a rather surprising sign of how entrenched social-media marketing is becoming even for relatively established household products.

Currently, having such expertise in-house and full-time at a marketer is rare, said Jack Greiner, an attorney with Cincinnati’s Graydon Head & Ritchey, one of the few attorneys on LinkedIn to list social-media as a specialty. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” he said.

“Social-media channels are a growing focus for consumer communication and stakeholder engagement for our brands and company,” a Clorox spokesman said in an e-mail.

“As a newer communication channel, the application of existing laws to this medium is evolving. For those reasons and the rapid pace of communication in the Web 2.0 world, we’re seeking an attorney to focus on social media as well as talent rights.”

The primary duties, he said, are to clear and procure intellectual property rights regarding production and distribution of advertising, including Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Recording Artists issues, consumer privacy and video licensing.

              

Comment addendum by Antone Johnson:
Regarding social media policies, I think it’s helpful to divide the universe of communications into two distinct buckets.

The first category is the everyday online chatter by thousands of individual employees, which may or may not touch on the company’s business or products.

This kind of communication can and should be regulated by a well-thought-out social media policy, enforced by HR and/or IT in the same way they enforce other employment-related and IT usage policies. (A little training during employee orientation goes a long way.)

The second category is messaging from authorized corporate communicators:

Senior executives, PR, MarCom, Customer Care, Community Managers on online forums, etc. A social media policy alone isn’t enough; these folks need individualized, timely, thoughtful legal guidance.

Their statements can and will be taken as the corporation’s official view of things. Social media make it easier than ever to make misstatements that can be used against the marketer as “Exhibit A” in litigation.

This is particularly true for large corporations, which are perceived as having deep pockets and become targets for class action plaintiffs’ lawyers and government regulators.

Source: AdAge – Clorox Seeking Attorney to Oversee Social-Media Programs: Marketer’s Move Seen as Testament to Importance of Twitter and Facebook

As the quotes above underline, social media expertise should occupy two seats: one inside the advertiser itself (I’ll get back to this in more detail later on) and one inside dedicated Digital Agencies, since, inherent to their DNA, they’re better suited at this than pure traditional Agencies are right now.

Dedicated social agencies can’t create effective Social Strategies

Though I’m all for entrepreneurship and an avid fan of innovation, I’m quite sceptical about yet another specialist niche branch forming, (viral seeding agencies anyone?) be it inside or independent of traditional or Digital Agencies: yes, I’m looking at you, social media agency.

Especially since in this specific case the subject matter ties so close –too close- with the core business of any organization: i.e., taking for your customers / prospects / leads.

Why exactly is your company contracting a newly formed “social agency” to do the crucial interaction with these people in such a delicate environment (sometimes volatile even)? A few more questions:

• Can this freshly formed organization handle the scale 6, 12, or 18 months from now (community management, moderating in real-time 24/7, mob behaviour even)?
• What about legal liability (see the quote above from Jack Greiner) when it comes to international operating brands on Facebook?
• What about accountability (towards customers/end-users, partners and B2B clients), lead follow-ups, customer retention and so on?
• What about integration with the online display, SEA campaigns and the mini site?
• And what about the connection with the core brand values “as seen on TV”?
• Do they understand the finer intricacies of your business goals on the one hand vs. customer service & needs on the other hand?

Make no mistake about this, many industry thought leaders are (the dotcom bubble freshly in the back of their mind no doubt) rightfully questioning this trend of social agencies and self-proclaimed guru’s:

Do they even know your competitors, the field your operating in, the challenges you face, regulations, et cetera? You know; the stuff any Marketing Agency worth their salt actually takes into account before helping you set a long term strategy? If so, then why set up a separate one-trick-pony-entity instead of integrating it in the (digital) media mix? It just doesn’t add up.

Social Media is Anthropology, meets PR, meets Customer Service, meets Sales, meets DM, meets Sociology, meets Business Intelligence, meets Legal, meets… what-have-you, all for the greater good of meeting Business Objectives at the end of the day.

So. Exactly what are the business credentials of the people employed in this social agency, apart from having set up a Facebook fan page for their local small-town barbershop?

[Note: I’m not talking about credentials in a “certified social media company” kind of way, nowadays most of us are aware that in IT -for the most part- certificates (Google AdWords and the like notwithstanding) don’t prevent disasters, nor do they guarantee a pleasurable partnership or outcome. How many big IT projects had multiple Black Belts overseeing certified .NET implementing professionals and failed big time?]

Getting and staying involved in Social Media isn’t the same as setting up a one-way Interruption Marketed Advertising campaign for six weeks and it isn’t action based Sales Promotion with a short term focus either.

Nor is it about hiring a Web Care Team after the damage has been done in order to clean up the online response on a subpar product coupled with bad customer service.

UPC (Cable giant) has felt this here in The Netherlands as recently they’ve been indexed as the company with the worst customer service in a research conducted by the Customer Insights Center from the University of Groningen, intelligence agency MIcompany and Dutch research firm MetrixLab.

This despite being an innovator online by being the first Dutch company to deploy a Web Care Team with varying success. Sweet Irony to some, Social Media in full effect to others (as sharing bad customer experiences has become ubiquitous).

Social Media is a mindset ideally to be adopted throughout the whole organization, just like company values. Larger organizations will have to act on this in the coming decade.

Joseph Jaffe: In my opinion, this isn’t about tactics or platforms….it’s about a mindset shift. Commitments versus Campaigns. Retention versus Acquisition. Conversation versus Communication. And in the former cases, we’re dealing with decidedly post-marketing platforms that are – for the most part – decidedly brand unfriendly.

It’s an ongoing process, not to be automated.

Au contraire; it’s actually about interacting with human beings(!) in a passionate and authentic way, all whilst keeping the mutual interests of the organization, as well as the customer in mind. Though balance to strike.

Earned Media vs. Paid Media (Dealing with The Shift)

Who knows? Maybe over time they’ll embrace your efforts and your brand.

Then again, maybe they won’t because a few days back your Call Centre Manager was focussed more on her maximum allowed Average Conversation Duration Per Service Employee instead of solving the problem of a frustrated customer. So, said customer has started a flame blog, which TechCrunch has picked up, turning it into a trending topic on twitter overnight, which in turn has been indexed by Google in less than an hour, effectively making your SERP turn off potential customers and would-be B2B partners, despite that carefully planned and crafted Super Bowl Ad…

As you can see, Social Media is much as it has always been in real life actually, with the critical difference that these interactions between your brand and “them” are online, out in the open, for all to see, to monitor, to be spread in real-time and archived. Forever (or until Singularity at the very least).

This, combined with the fact that your organization has to structurally change internally for any meaningful long-term results, make this quite a complicated and challenging era, as you cannot afford not to be at least somewhat social, yet it can backfire significantly when implemented in the wrong way. Or with short-term focused expectations from shareholders, the board or senior management for that mather. Oh, and I’ve left the whole Social Media ROI debate out of the equation.

Still convinced that fancy social agency is well equipped and worth the check/PO?

Possible solutions: Internalizing the knowledge

The point I’m trying to make is that these new upstarts are either interested in making a quick buck over the back of you and your customers, or they’re focusing on the “What?” (“Which social tools should we deploy? YouTube or twitter?” -in other words: operational tactics), instead of focusing on the “Why?” and on what Social Media could mean for you and your customers.

Take heed of the former, and as for the latter, well, benevolent though their intentions may be, know that the way to hell is paved with good intentions…

Notable exception / leading example in this discussion are the Social Media Monitoring companies like Radian6 as they have a very tasty asset, or two actually: hard data and experience.

They’ve been busily beavering away for the past years, before Social Media became de rigour and have actual added value in the partner chain around your project/organization. They have the data, the knowledge and experience to translate social media output into actionable insights.

To my eye the solution is as follows:
Your organization must internalize Social Media as soon as possible -not tomorrow or next week necessarily, but do start as soon as you can (word has it your competitors are already a few laps ahead -sensing the urgency yet?).

Then, drilling further down, you should have one or more internal champions, digital marketers along with their traditional kin, who can sit down at the round table with IT partners, Social Media Monitoring Companies, Digital Agencies & Traditional Agencies alike, and get down to business.

You don’t outsource Sales, you hopefully are not outsourcing your Customer Service* and you definitely should refrain from outsourcing direct contact with your target audience and customers. If you’re not convinced yet, then feel free to take a look at an interesting development over at one of the biggest brands on the planet: Coca Cola are internalizing Social Media as they go .

Ford Motor Company is, arguably, one of the leading big brands in the world when it comes to having garnered considerable achievements in/with Social Media; admittedly having Social Media rock star Scott Monty (@ScottMonty) aboard as an internal accelerator or catalyst as well as a CEO backing him helps a lot. Ford’s Scott Monty has the following take on this topic:

“If you have a dedicated social media agency they need to be well integrated with the rest of your team because none of this stuff stands alone,” said Scott Monty, digital and multimedia communications manager at Ford.

Rather than have a single social media shop, Ford works with several for different needs. It leans on the social skills of OgilvyPR, while also working with Social Media Group and Undercurrent. “This is the year that will separate the pretenders from the practitioners.”

Source: AdWeek – The New Social Gurus: Social media agencies are popping up to address new strategic demands — but will they last?

[* In twenty years time we’ll have a jolly great laugh looking back on the days when you actually didn’t help the customer yourself because... err, business books and MBA’s thought us it was the right way, we never questioned its merits out loud towards senior baby boom management and the internet, social media et al didn’t exist to expose this mindset, but I digress...]

Off course, your mileage may vary, depending on whether your organization is strategically focussed on either Cost Leadership, Innovation or Customer Intimacy.

And it could be both Mitch, Scott and many others in our field, are proven wrong over time as, like I said above, the jury is still out on this one.

Speaking of Mitch Joel, he posted the following piece regarding ROI and Social Media:

Richard Binhammer (from Dell’s Social Media team) gave a presentation and when one of the audience members asked about how Dell measures the ROI of their Social Media strategy, Binhammer responded that ROI was nothing more than an accounting term and probably has little to no place when it comes to measuring the success of any Social Media marketing initiative.

How would that make your clients, team members and supervisors feel?

Binhammer … concluded by saying that he doesn’t think about ROI, rather he looks at the overall business objectives and if Social Media can help him meet those objectives, then that is what is ultimately the most important thing.

Let’s repeat: forget the ROI and look at the business objectives.

In looking at business through this prism, Dell has changed the way they do business and – in doing so – they have made lots of money by being engaged and using everything Social Media that is under the sun.

In a more primal way, they’re focused on using Social Media to meet practical business objectives and not looking at the overall ROI…

              

Comment addendum:
My argument is not against metrics and measurement as it relates to social media and business. My point is that we sometimes get lost in the forest for the trees….and one step further, some of the traditional metrics and insights need revision when we think about social media and business….but fundamentally we do measure measure and measure more.

Source: Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel at Twist Image: Killing ROI

Conclusion: Due Diligence/Beware the Snake Oil

All in all, the debate regarding ROI in social media and the added value of social media agencies still has yet to give birth to a definite, industry wide accepted outcome, and maybe won’t  for some time.

To my eye, all facts point to one conclusion which I’ve summed up in the title of this very column.

Bold statement?

Dunno, like viral agencies we’ve yet to see a yearbook worth of big brand cases produced by dedicated social media agencies that showcase their worth, yet they tend to position themselves with the swagger as though they have seeded viral or social media campaigns with an 80 to 99% success rate…

Should anyone care? Aren’t we “all in it for the money”?

Well, yours truly is not and I’d like to believe most of us are “in it” out of a passion, which happens to provide us with the means of getting food on the table, paying the rent/mortgage, etc.. Make no mistake, I’m an entrepreneur at heart and a positive minded one at that, but with great power comes… (well, you know the drill)

Remember the dotcom bubble bursting less than 10 years ago? We’ve seen what self-proclaimed consultants in green field markets/industries are capable of if left unchecked: wrecking havoc amongst clients eventually seriously damaging everyone in this space.

Sounds farfetched? The Credit Crunch demonstrated to us what happens when an influential industry is left unchecked and nobody calls out the cowboys.

Granted, social media is new, standards are yet to be fully understood, found and implemented. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take pride in our work, our profession, our science, our art. It is a professional responsibility to call out the snake oil sales men.

Perhaps more than anything Social Media is also about the “echo chamber”; about memes being spread. By adding my voice to the ever increasing echo of industry specialists, agencies and bloggers, I hope to amplify the growing consensus that social does not an agency make. That you should be mindful of letting your company in with any self-proclaimed guru or social agency. Due diligence.

This column turned out somewhat longer than expected, so thanks for bearing with me. I will be keeping a close eye on this topic as it continues to evolve.

In the mean time I’m really curious if there’s an angle I might have missed, so feel free to drop a comment below.

“If it was up to Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek, the music industry would be embracing the future instead of constantly fighting against it.

The new business model is “a mix between ad-supported music, downloads, subscriptions, merchandising and ticketing where the user comes first and where the key to monetization comes from portability and packaging access rights. If willing to adapt, the music industry could then have the potential to become a $40-50 billion industry…”

…Ek calls out the music industry for expecting to see business models proven “within months of inception. That’s just not how it works.” Reminding us how Apple’s iTunes was not initially the powerhouse it is today: In its first year, iTunes missed its revenue targets by 30% and most label executives doubted its staying power at the time.

The overall point: success in this industry takes time.”

Source: ReadWriteWeb – Spotify Co-Founder: Notion of Overnight Success “Misleading and Harmful”

On a similar note Denis Doeland has recently posted a sharp column –in Dutch- on his blog regarding the need for a true sense of urgency and vision regarding licensing fees and innovative business models within the (dance) music industry:

“Due to the transition from the physical to the digital age, the economic value of the master has increased by almost a factor 4 and the economic value of the copyright has increased with a factor of approximately 1,5. This is quite peculiar.

Back in the Nineties Dance-labels apparently were content with a lower licensing rate due to the bigger amounts / volumes being sold. Dance-labels apparently used to make do with 5 to 6 Eurocents for each compilation sold.

Furthermore it’s quite peculiar to note that the fees being paid for the master nowadays are up to 2 and even 5 times higher than the those being paid for the copyright itself.

In the ‘physical age’ the Dance-industry was actually a ‘compilation-driven business’. In hindsight it would now seem that, for compilations, one paid for a collection compensation of sorts.

Popular tracks received higher royalty-percentages than the less popular tracks and depending on the commercial success of said compilation the compensation fees would start pouring in. After all, one compilation would fare better than the other.

The numbers mentioned above are food for thought. Does the business model, as used by the Dance-industry, still hold up today? Hasn’t the use of ‘pay-per-unit’ in the Dance-industry become dated?”

Translated interpretation from original post in Dutch: Doeland’s Blog- ‘The Dance-industry used to make do with 5 to 6 Eurocents …’

Currently Doeland is Director of IP Services and Internet at Dutch dance event giant ID&T/Q-dance (of, amongst others, Sensation White fame) and also co-founder of Dance-Tunes.com. He has written two columns touching these subjects earlier this year, both which you can read here (translated from Dutch with Google Translate).

According to Denis, gone are the days of yore when the Electronic Dance Music (EDM) niche was the main innovator within music and in its stead we now deal with record labels unwilling of seeing or proactively taking on the challenge ahead, namely that 95% of all music consumed is done so illegally.

“Recently it became clear that the Dance-industry isn’t really thinking ‘Outside of the box’.

For the umpteenth time in the (close to five years of) existence of Dance-Tunes we’ve received a note from a certain label with the request to arrange it so that customers visiting our site from a certain given country can’t buy the music from the download store of their choosing.

A so-called ‘territorial restriction’.

A customer not originating from the country in which the download store is based may not download his favourite music or the download store may not offer this music to the customer in his own country, but may do so if he’s outside those borders.”

Translated interpretation from original post in Dutch: Doeland’s Blog- Column: Dance-corporations first ‘Out of the Box’, now ‘Back in the Box’?

The confusing situation sketched above is quite ironic as the likes of SoundCloud, iTunes, Last.FM, Beatport.com, Spotify and Dance-Tunes have finally given labels and artists the low-entry platforms and reach to connect with an audience willing to pay, on a global scale. Frictionless and with permission.

Furthermore, I’ve got to second Doeland regarding the irrational rectulance of some labels to cooperate in spreading their content across as many channels as reasonably possible and using the various opportunities to monetize it, while at the same time its these very same labels being the most vocal regarding mainstream media ignoring them and how they’re falling victim to piracy.

Now, personally though I’m an avid fan of EDM (Electronic Dance Music) and other music styles, you’d be hard pressed to find any installed torrent software or illegal content on my hard drive. Indeed, yours truly is dubbed a “Digital Native” or a member of “Generation Y” (being born in ‘81), yet I actually PAY for ALL my entertainment, be it games, music or movies.

Actually, I’m even prepared to travel up to an hour through rainy weather, stand in line for over half an hour, just to get my hands on a shrink-wrapped jewel case, containing nothing more than an optical disk and a stapled bunch of dead trees.

All of this with the knowledge in the back of my head that any colleague or friend of mine would’ve been glad to offer me the music digitally and for free weeks before it’s official country release.

It’s okay, thank you, I’ll wait. It’s worth it. And this is not just a case of N=1, as luckily there are still tens of millions of people like me, including Gen Y, buying entertainment.

If anything, the craze around the late Michael Jackson last summer proved that there’s still life left -no pun intended- in the concept of paying for your entertainment (all under the strict condition that it is made easily available for purchase, and for a fair price of course): people mournfully took their wallets and dug in, in part because his CD’s were all over the place, even down to the local grocery store.

Yet, with regards to EDM –and despite its digital nature- the situation is quite the opposite: I’ve frequently found myself waiting months, or even up to a year before a track could be purchased.

Sometimes the record wouldn’t get released at all, or was made available exclusively for certain territories or download stores, where my wallet or IP address location couldn’t reach it. So much for the internet being international or stateless…

Then, when said release wouldn’t sell (sufficiently), the self-fulfilling prophecy to the eye of the label manager was complete:

“See, I told you people weren’t waiting for this “product”, put in on the front page of obscure download shop X in country Y but only one tune sold, digital music stores don’t work, people only listen to 3 minute radio edits, we need a higher cut, we want an advance, where’s my lawyer, nag, nag, nag…”

Most label managers and representatives still seem to be bereft of any sense of basics such as Time-to-Market, Availability, Distribution, Multi-Channel Marketing, Pricing or Customer Centricity.

As a side note, the latter is a trait common to the whole entertainment sector, yet one they’ve managed to get away with. Until now.

Having worked at Dance-Tunes.com a few years back, I recall sitting on the other side of the table, no longer “just” a fan, but as an “insider”, slowly beginning to see –not understand- how on earth it was possible that so many great tunes and artists were not represented and made available legally online in a timely manner: their label management knew of the possibilities, but explicitly refrained from taking advantage of them.

This wasn’t an oversight on their part, it was a deliberate decision.

A decision made not based on data, insights or Business Intelligence, but based on assumptions and emotion, thus de facto spurring illegal file sharing or use of (mobile phone)recorded live sets and performances amongst the community.

After all, how else could these fans relive and enjoy those moments? How else could they gain access to that obscure remix by their favourite DJ/Producer? How else could they share the alleged Magnus Opus of an underground idol and use this to root for support for their upcoming talent of choice?

Let me get this straight: These fans are the core audience, committed ambassadors AND they’re happily willing to let labels part with their money, yet all those labels seem to be able to do is refuse this legal transaction based on invalid argumentation?

Reading the blog posts from both Ek and Doeland it would seem not much has changed over the past two years. All in all a strange paradox and an unnecessary one at that (and it wasn’t about unbalanced licensing fees either, as to my experience at Dance-Tunes at least, everything was negotionable).

Mind you, this is not a column to bash the music industry, it’s a rant by a concerned fan calling and lashing out to not only label moguls but conservative (small) label owners as well.

This column is written by an ambassador, a loyal customer, a paying fan, who wants nothing more but to see musicians succeed; who feels that talent has the right to be heard and should be supported: The very thing that record labels originally set out to do in the first place, right?

Though your “good old days” of getting-rich-quick may be over, at least now you’ll truly get to fulfill your raison d’être.

Music Industry; Indies and the Big Four alike: you need initiatives such as Spotify, Last.FM and (niche, local) download stores more than you realize. And we, the fans, consumers and artists, need you to understand and act on this.

Change your culture, innovate your business model.

Seeing as music and entertainment are known to be one of the main pillars of any culture, and certainly our modern culture today, it would be a fruitful endeavour if you as an industry took a leaf out of the book from leading labels, innovative start-ups, daring pioneers and bold thought leaders.

Make more haste -and take pride(!)- in acting collectively, with a positive, constructive mindset, instead of endlessly debating fickle things such as fees amongst your kin and punishing your fans and propagators (like BUMA did here in The Netherlands).

You’ve spent the last 10 years doing the latter and we all know where and what that has brought you…

[Disclaimer: Though I’ve had the honour of working, in part as a trainee/intern, with Denis Doeland and Peter Hillebrands at Dance-Tunes, I’m currently not tied to them or any company directly aligned to ID&T/Q-dance/Dance-Tunes. I’ve written and posted this column as a music aficionado to tie in with the annually held Amsterdam Dance Event (ADE), which is taking place this week in my home-town of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Here’s hoping that the various international attendants, regardless if they read this column or not, take these issues to heart, discuss them and take concrete action in 2010 and beyond.]

“Ford’s Chief Marketing Executive James Farley says the company has made a bigger digital and social media bet than rivals because, “If you are trying to communicate, as we are, that you have been reinventing the company , you can’t just say it. You have to get the people to say it to each other.”

Perhaps Ford’s biggest single bet on digital and social media has been the Fiesta Movement, a program that began in 2008, 18 months before the cars will actually arrive in dealerships.

Ford gave 100 European Fiestas to people to drive and live with. The results of the blogging, Facebooking, YouTubing and Tweeting by those people, plus the echoing of those messages by the blogosphere, followers, etc. has been an eye opener.

Consider this: The awareness level of Fiesta, a car that is not even in the U.S. yet (though it has been a fixture in Europe for years), is 37% among Generation Y…

That is about equal to the awareness level of Fusion and Flex, models that have received hundreds of millions of dollars in traditional media spend.”

Source: Business Week – Ford Spending 25% of Marketing on Digital and Social Media

Weave Identity is a very interesting component from Mozilla Labs (of Firefox fame) and a possible disrupting one for the Facebook Connect’s, OpenID’s and OAuth’s of this world:

“Offering a single sign-in solution for the web is currently a hot topic. Google, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace and countless other sites are all offering to host your identity for you. Many of these key players on the social web are also offering tools to allow third-party sites to let you log in using the identity you have hosted with whoever your provider is – Google through FriendConnect, Facebook through Facebook Connect and Twitter through its recently debuted OAuth-based system. But in the end, who knows how long any of those sites will last? It seems to make more sense to hand these duties off to something more permanent than the hot site of the moment.

That’s where Mozilla’s latest implementation of Weave starts to make sense. You can store your credentials anywhere, including on Mozilla’s servers or your own web server.”

Source: WIRED’s Webmonkey

If the Weave add-on is implemented as a standard feature in the next version of the 2^nd largest browser in the world, it stands a reasonable chance of becoming THE default Online Identity Manager/Social Media Passport; allowing you to safely and seamlessly log in to your favourite Social Networks, blogs and communities, across multiple platforms (Windows, Mac OS) and various devices (think Mobile, Netbooks, Thin Clients).

All the while giving you complete and FULL control over your online identity (you can even store your Weave login credentials on your own server!), which positions it directly opposite of the Walled Garden approach that Facebook is fast becoming notorious for.

The ease of use, combined with the fact that your average internet user hasn’t even heard of Google-, Facebook- and Twitter’s Online Identity Management solutions make Firefox Weave a serious threat to the aforementioned parties. After all: Wouldn’t it seem more logical and feel safer for her to let the browser take care of her online identity?

“Something that often goes unsaid in the discussion about online identity is that while most websites right now require usernames and passwords, many people actually use the password manager feature in the browser-effectively turning their browser into a limited identity manager.”

Source: Mozilla Labs

By offering this One-Log-In-To-Rule-Them-All^TM feature as a standard option in the browser, much like Yahoo’s- or Google’s toolbar, a lot of the hassle and security issues associated with web based ID alternatives are removed from the user’s table:

“User experience in general suffers as protocols for federation (e.g. OpenID) involve complex redirects which jump the user from page to page and leave them open to phishing attacks…”

Source: Mozilla Labs

And there’s another major USP that promises a bright future for the Weave project: Firefox is an Open Source initiative, and even though OpenSocial, OpenID & OAuth are Open Source projects as well, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google and Microsoft are commercial parties with a deep interest into becoming your single sign-in partner, so they can monitor the sites you visit and the time frame in which you did: pure data mining for marketing purposes. In a time where privacy issues are within everyone’s crosshairs, this could become Mozilla’s trump card in the battle for your Online Identity.

Of course, there’s nothing stopping Google (note that they have 300 Million accounts!) from implementing such a feature in Chrome -it’s very own browser- using Friend Connect, or Microsoft from doing the same with their Live toolbar/Live Passport and Internet Explorer. The point is that the former hasn’t yet managed to get any serious foot in the browser market. And though the latter is the current incumbent in browser market share (for now), it has failed for almost 10 years to make it’s .NET Passport/Live ID efforts a true cross-web success, even as younger initiatives from the likes of Facebook and twitter have taken off in the past year or so.

All in all, it’ll be very interesting to see how the developments around Identity Hosting continue to evolve…

[Update: Netlog now accepts Google FriendConnect, more on TechCrunch.]

Honda recently did a take-over on Vimeo.com which was much talked about by marketing insiders.

Instead of posting or explaining the concept here, I’d like to suggest you’d first take a look over on the site and experience it for yourself -especially if you’re a creative/interactive professional and haven’t seen it already.

[Performance warning: close down any other browser tabs/windows or any other application that has a direct net connection right now, I know I suffered from some serious lag the first time.]

Apart from the novelty(?) factor of this kind of creative content-integration, I’m not quite sure where the real added value for Honda and its customers lies in this particular case.

I’ll get back to that thought in a moment though; first I’d like to point to a section on the page that caught my attention. It clearly depicts how a viral starts spreading (see the 2 images below):

Honda Insight - Vimeo Take over Stats

The table contains the statistics of said video on a daily basis, i.e.: how many times it was watched, “liked” and how many comments were made on the page itself, all in relation to each other and non-cumulative (note that the numbers are displayed on a per day basis!).

Clearly, the usual exponential viral mechanisms are at work here, which is fascinating in of itself, yet I believe that despite these pretty impressive numbers this mini-campaign as is will not enjoy a widespread viewer base and live up to its true potential, mainly because of the following 4 reasons:

1. The content isn’t “spreadable”;
2. A lack of a clear call to action;
3. The quality of the content itself and
4. There’s no follow-up.

The content isn’t spreadable, technically speaking:
Notice how I didn’t embed the video right here as I usually would, instead referring you to Vimeo, because there was no other way you could undergo it the way it was meant to be experienced.

In other words: people will first have to go to the Vimeo page and have a true broadband internet connection(!) to experience it smoothly and in full effect; detach the video from the context of this page and it becomes just another (attempt at a) cool viral. Pure branding, zero capitalization of the ensuing conversations.

Nowadays it’s more effective to take a channel-neutral and/or federated content approach to reach out to your audience on the net, and part of that means making your content spreadable through widgets, embeddable video’s, etc.. The Vimeo video is embeddable of course, but the page -and thus the experience- is not.

There’s no call to action:
The concept itself doesn’t trigger the visitor to do anything: You just sit and watch, just like on TV…

The creative team apparently embraced the technological and creative possibilities that the internet offers in marrying video with a webpage, yet somehow failed to capitalize on the buzz that it generated and thus at the opportunity to generate leads.

Honda’s rich media take over is no interactive advertising but more akin to an online guerrilla advert, which could have been done offline, possibly generating more buzz and brand-awareness outside the digerati niche.

Then again, it was created by Wieden & Kennedy (Amsterdam), a traditional agency with it’s roots firmly grounded in offline advertising campaigns.

The quality of the content isn’t worth spreading:
If it’s aimed at the Marketing/Tech/Creative niche: they’re already accustomed to these “Breaking-The-4^th-Wall” take-over actions by now on YouTube or dedicated viral mini-sites, and this example isn’t remarkable.

If it’s not aimed at said niche, then one has to wonder why on earth it was posted on a niche social video site like Vimeo.com in the first place…

Adding all the numbers together from the stats image above, there are over a 1.750 likes, 300+ comments and 177.000 views generated in less than two weeks(!), pointing to a cult hit and/or people watching it more than once (it’s not clear whether Vimeo filters out non-unique views/cookies).

On the other hand, the numbers in the table don’t depict all mentions of the video across the Social Media space, and it was only posted a few days ago, so this is just merely the tip of the iceberg. Here’s hoping that Honda’s campaign team has access to social media monitoring tools from Radian6 or TrackUr and have activated their BackType Alerts to keep a clear overview.

All in all, in terms of buzz and people interacting with the page this is no bad example of content integration at all, it’s just a shame there’s no apparent follow-up or integration in, say, a 360˚campaign for maximum effect.

Now of course at this very moment we have no idea what Honda’s campaign objective was in the first place: It could be a proof of concept, trying it out for a small fee, with little risk, before scaling it up on YouTube allowing the numbers game to come into play, leading to massive exposure and off course more ways for the community and consumers/prospects to interact with the brand.

As I’m a firm believer in the merits of content-integration instead of plain display bannering, for me personally it will be very interesting to see how this plays out and if Honda will release an evaluation on their company blog or industry titles like Ad Age or ReadWriteWeb.

Or… You could also send me a message:

Currently I’m experiencing some serious trouble with various contact form plug-ins; as I’m very short on time the past few months, I won’t be able to fix this on short notice.

Please feel free to send me a tweet via @AnibalDoRosario should you want to reach out in a real-time manner. You can also send me an e-mail via anibal [at] rosariomultimedia nl

Or, even better, pick up the phone: +31(0) 6 – 431 73 263

Looking forward to connect and hearing from you!

Best,

Anibal

“We are currently facing some of the most difficult and life threatening challenges with severe climate changes, the absence of clean water and food in large parts of our world, financial issues. These are all very physical problems. You may wonder what Social Technology can do about them. I imagine it could do at least 3 things:

1. It can help us create awareness of the problem
2. It can help us discuss and find solutions that can actually work
3. It can help us create enough momentum to force ourselves and our governments to act”

Source: Alexander van Elsas’s Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

“The borders around our job truly change like they never have in the past. The borders of the country we live in don’t have the same power they once did because we are no longer held to them in the same way. With Social Technology everything changes – our world changes – we change.

But it is because of those very things – those changes – that I don’t believe we will see real Social Technology within our lifetimes. These types of changes are too radical and endanger too many positions of power. So the dream will probably remain a dream.”

Source: Steven Hodson: The impossible dream – Social Technology

The slide -embedded below- is a comprehensive-yet-easy-digestible presentation, sensibly touching upon The Cloud, the hype and misconceptions surrounding it, and the biggest issue the Tech industry will face in 2009: Privacy.

“The Biggest Issue the Tech Industry will face in Two-Oh-Nine is Privacy.”

Nat Torkington from O’Reilly Radar has rounded up a whopping 191 slides on the Future of the Cloud and how this ties together with our online privacy; food for thought as we approach enter The Year of Change…

[Note: Expand the presentation to full-screen so you can read the accompanying notes]

As Social Media reached its Tipping Point in 2008 (judging by the Web 2.0 supercharged, grass-roots powered, landslide victory of Obama in the US Presidential Elections, and the explosive growth of Facebook) claiming that Twitter and RSS feeds will break into the Non-Digerati mainstream in 2009 doesn’t seem to be a farfetched forecast for the New Year -at first sight.

Some other predictions: 2009 will be remembered as The Year Of Privacy, Authenticity, Relevancy (in Marketing), Personal Branding & Change Management. Invoking Trust and investing in Innovation will also be two key cornerstones and challenges on which businesses will have to focus in the coming twelve months. WIRED has an interesting post, zooming in on Six Tech Trends.

Yet, as Seth Godin rightfully points out in one of many brilliant posts this month, backed by the outbreak of the Subprime- & Credit Crunch and the Financial Crisis between August 2007 & September 2008 and the ensuing events; long-term predictions tend to fall flat on their face. Often. And in a very ugly matter actually.

[If you've always wondered how any non-gamer/marketer could have fallen eyes wide shut in the Farce that Second Life inevitably turned out to be (even though it was fairly obvious to gamers that it had "FAIL" written all over its face), see the video directly below.
It perfectly communicates what definitely won't be happening in 2009 or what has obviously already come to pass in the past years, all presented by a "Trend Watcher" preaching otherwise.]

Trends FADS In 2009

Now if there’s one thing -the outcome of- the Obama ‘08 Campaign strategy should have proven to Old School Marketers and Agencies, it’s that releasing control over your brand is actually a good thing and even if this casus doesn’t convince them, the word on the streets is that The Crowds seized this “control” ages ago.

Another fact that should have become crystal clear to even the most obstinate of naysayers, is that in 2009, traditional advertising agencies -and newspapers- will have to either sink or swim in order to survive the Interactive Marketing Tidal Wave: The days of the Mass-Media-Interruption-Marketing-Only approach for immeasurable branding purposes are over, as are the days of unaccountability and vaunted effectiveness of artistic-award-winning-yet-incomprehensible advertisements.

In its place we’ll welcome Neo Marketing [jpeg, 69.75 KB (71428 bytes)]

Neo Marketing = Permission Based Marketing, meaning that we’ll only approach people, humans, individuals -and not “target audiences”- with relevant conversations if and when they see fit; taking in their feedback directly, treating it with respect and giving it some order of priority, all the while keeping a sharp eye on Conversion Rates or Task Completion Rates by Primary Purpose, when speaking of the web specifically. Very transparent, results-driven and opt-in actually ;)

Utilizing Neo Marketing is the most effective, consumer-centric way of building and retaining your business/brand in this day and age. A sound investment by any measure.

“Sending one-size-fits-all messages using mass media, as 20^th century marketing bibles and preachers would encourage and even declare as The Truth, has now definitely and officially become an unaffordable waste of precious resources, time, effort and money. Time to move on.”

Note: Branding won’t become obsolete any time soon, it’ll actually become a much stronger focus in your communication plan with one key-value to communicate: Trust.

So, the corporation has taken a step down from its pedestal, in order for the consumer to be seated on her rightful throne: Thus the internal process (the rules behind which mediocre employees tend to try to hide behind when running from responsibility) or technical system setbacks -“IT department doesn’t allow me to help you out with this problem, even though you’re not the first client facing it and it’s pretty obvious that we’re the cause”- shall no longer be the driving- or leading force behind the way we operate our company or engage with our customers.

Instead servicing the end-consu -serving people shall become the core mindset around which the constellation of your organization shall revolve, as it always should have been the main focus of your Service Strategy.

Some more knowledgeable professionals say some of the developments sketched above will be powered and spurred on by the rise of Enterprise 2.0 (Yup, I’m aware of the “Yet Another Two-Point-Oh Suffix”), and the global economic downturn shall see to it that such (r)evolutionary innovations will come to fruition in the coming year, requiring some serious change-management skills (but also a change of culture and heart for our friends from the “Behind-The-Company-Firewall-Within-The-Current-Software-Platform” IT department, putting the employees needs first in its stead).

[Side note to all skeptics- ("But you lack data backing this thesis") and pessimistic- or conservative detractors out there questioning the coming fall of the current Corporate/Advertising Status Quo:

Please do bear in mind that the Financial Armageddon of 2008 was impossible to foresee by even the savviest and clued up of Economical Analysts anywhere in the world.
Also try to remember that the concepts of Democracy, Freedom and Individualism as we know them today, didn't exist once/not too long ago either, yet they've become more widespread than any medieval Feudalist could have ever feared, the 44^th President of The Free World being the crown jewel supporting this thesis reality. And so on, and so on...]

Furthermore, results-driven Contextual Marketing (powered by the Semantic Web) and data backed analyses shall give us unprecedented REAL and actionable insights into customer behavior (only with their consent!) & their TRUE wants, allowing for even better segmentation and targeting.
Social Networks will further position and consolidate themselves as the new market place where we can meet up, connect with, and empower our customers and prospects, hopefully turning them into brand ambassadors. But only when THEY see fit; it’s their territory after all, see.

This year, the challenge for your organization lies in trying to be available for your consumers and prospects whenever and wherever they feel like reaching out to you, or:

“In 2009 Brands need to become truly ubiquitous in their interactions with consumers”

Brands need to become truly ubiquitous: If prospects or clients wish to ask you a customer support question via Twitter or show their brand loyalty by joining your Facebook Group; then please, by all means, let them have it :)
And if there’s a heated debate on a forum about your product, service or your brand in general; don’t hesitate to join in (Think Vodafone’s WebCare Team). Social Media Tracking tools like Trackur can help you, giving you a dashboard on what the latest talk in e-town is concerning your brand.

To be able to do so, you’ll have to learn to actively participate and interact in those spaces first.

[UPDATE: The Air Force has updated their Social Media Diagram]

Just as “doing a Brand Activation” through TV and Radio in conjunction with print has become the holy trinity for Fortune 500 advertisers in the second half of the 20^th century, the post-modern marketer should let go of The Fear of losing control or actually becoming -God forbid- Accountable and add the online platform and all of its interactive channels in the mix as well.

Conclusion: The internet shouldn’t be treated as just another pillar in the marketing mix; it’s a whole New World of communication opportunities next to the Offline world.

The Break Up

We must try harder to convince our peers, decision makers and conservative marketers that the only other option is to face losing out to the competition; remember this crisis is a catalyst for a long overdue change in not only marketing but business acumen as well.

All in all it won’t be an easy ride though: In the end, if your product or service doesn’t manage to live up to your story, then your organization and all of its stakeholders -CEO, shareholders and employees alike- will have to deal with the harsh consequences, now more than ever.

In the coming months, (enterprise sized) brands will have to show their human face to invoke trust and through this process the Personal Brand will have its mainstream breakthrough.

Employers will have to find a way to somehow incorporate this into their Marketing Strategy fast, as their Corporate Brand, as well as their Employer Brand, will benefit from this -if handled in an authentic way: Forrester Sr. Analyst Jeremiah Owyang has a post touching on Personal Branding vs. Corporate Policies, as always carefully and thoroughly approaching it from different perspectives.

And all the above somehow, mostly ties in to that omnipresent “Privacy Issue” that we’ve got to take into account as well, bringing us full-circle to this excellent presentation by Nathan.

Happy New Year  :)

[Update 13-01-09: link to NYTimes.com & US Air Force Blog Diagram v2]

Two short interviews with Sol Sender, the Design Strategist behind the excellent adaptable and strong brand identity of the US President-Elect Barack Obama, wherein he shares the history, strategic branding process and key take-aways thereof.

As stipulated by Karl Long in the original referring post over at FUTURELAB.net, this could become the most iconic brand identity of our time -even more so when we consider the various ways in which it was deployed: the ultimate contemporary case of product quality (the candidate AND his message) first and marketing perfection second in a sweet marriage with The Crowds if we ever saw one.

Bonus: For the nitpickers out there:  In part 1, pause at 06:46 to see a screenshot of an Outdoor Dummy on a Dutch Public Transport Company bus stop , taken in the city of Amsterdam! [hometown of yours truly ;) ]

Sol Sender – Obama Logo Design Part 1 of 2

Sol Sender – Obama Logo Design Part 2 of 2

Here’s the teams blog post

Original Post: http://experiencecurve.com/archives/new-rules-implied-for-developing-brand-identity-for-social-media

Cutting deep in your Marketing budget (and thereby seeing it on default as a cost instead of an investment) is a short term tactic that isn’t going to help your company weather these uncertain times ahead of all of us. Instead it would be more sustainable to take a long term approach; a more critical look at what channels your spending this budget on and whether the story you’re telling is in line with the quality of your services or products.

And though your Marketing Department may stop talking about your company, products or service, the consumers are not: Au contraire; their conversations (in the Social Media space) are increasing exponentially!

Furthermore don’t forget to also take into account that most of your competitors are probably not as comfortable with such a progressive world view and will focus instead on the short term outcome. This means that by keeping your budget stable, but spending it more wisely, you could seriously gain competitive advantage.

“So, then since online has the reputation for being measurable, we’ll just cut back in our offline efforts.”

Contrary to popular belief among some of my peers, right now is NOT the time to cut in offline Ad spending: If there’s one thing we’ve learned so far, it’s that in times of Crisis there is a peak in the amount of readers, visitors, viewers and listeners to (in this particular case financial) news papers & websites, TV and radio. People are looking for guidance and a steady rock to cling on to. This means that if you have a relevant story to tell there’s never been a better time to reach out to your customers and core audiences than right now!

The core thing to keep in mind here is of course that the Old Media are by their very nature geared towards Branding, and thus, -though it’s not really scientifically-rock solid-proven-effective in generating revenue- it is a perfect instrument to instill customer thrust in your brand, if handled the right way and in conjunction with Social Media Marketing and other forms of Online Marketing.

The key challenge would be timing, as you wouldn’t want to have a multi-million dollar tagline -Here Today, Where Tomorrow?- proven meaningless overnight…

One way to manage your Marketing budget would be to higher or lower it every Financial Quarter, in a wave as it were, analyzing the results and reacting accordingly. Moreover reallocate the money spent on different channels based on campaign directive. So, depending on the field or sector your operating in, decrease the amount of money spend on Branding through offline channels and shift the resulting saved money towards Online Results Based Marketing, such as SEA and in optimizing the Task Completion Rate by Primary Purpose on your website…

Yep, I’m not advising you to plainly look at Conversion Rates, I’m suggesting to take a more holistic approach ;) Back in 2006 Google’s visionairy Web Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik already foresaw that the Focus (should be) Shifting from Conversion to Task Completion Rate by Primary Purpose.

Upcoming Interactive Channels that haven´t quite fully lived up to their potential yet like Social Media and Mobile are likely to be confronted with closed wallets and plummeting ad spending, not just because of advertisers cutting back in costs and investments, but also because the consumers themselves are being hesitant to spend money on luxury products and services including Mobile Internet and Mobile Wireless Internet Devices.

Yet again here it would be wise to be wary of and avoid the FUD; for example here in the Netherlands the mobile version of the largest news website Nu.nl (translated: Now.nl) is also the largest mobile news site. It is known that CTR’s in mobile enhanced sites are up to 7% or even higher, putting Display efforts on the desktop internet to shame; so though it’s understandable to make a Pavlov Reaction and eschew Mobile altogether, the contrary might be a better move. Whether your campaign is geared towards gaining a high CTR in the first place is of course a different thing altogether (I’d beg to differ, basing a campaign on CTR alone isn’t the most cost-effective way of spending your Marketing Euro).

As for Social Media, as I’ve pointed out at the beginning of this post: Your target audience, consumers and people in general aren’t going to be less critical, or dependent of peer advice and ratings and they’ll definitely be looking for bargain deals on price comparison communities, so keep joining that conversation!

Martijn Ros (Brandmerck) did an interview with Andy Beal for his Graduation Thesis on Online Reputation Management in The Netherlands, though the core message is universal.

Andy -a speaker and consultant specializing in Online Reputation Management (ORM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing- is considered one of the world’s most respected Reputation Management experts, and has worked with many brand-leaders, such as Motorola, NBC, GlaxoSmithKline and SAS.

Beal’s current projects include his new book Radically Transparent: Monitoring & Managing Reputations Online, his blog Marketing Pilgrim and Trackur -an online Reputation Monitoring tool.

Two interesting outtakes, highlighting the arguments that every CEO/Marketer should keep in mind when conjuring up a business plan or marketing strategy:

“Martijn Ros: I am convinced that companies that have a so-called ‘interactive online profile’, and are known for their online presence through blogs and social networks, have a head start  when it comes to any unforeseen online reputation crisis. Could you tell something about the way you advise your clients when they want to create an interactive online profile?

Andy Beal: I absolutely agree with you. When a company creates an interactive online profile, it’s effectively telling its stakeholders -customers, investors, employees, etc- that it cares about the community and wants to be a part of the conversation. When an online reputation crisis hits, companies that have an social media profile are more likely to be given the benefit of the doubt and more likely to be able to respond quickly, within that channel.

I advise my clients to look for the “centres of influence.” Where are their stakeholders hanging-out online? When you understand the types of social media your stakeholders are using -maybe they prefer blogs over forums -you’ll increase your chances of successfully engaging them.

Martijn Ros: Do you advise organizations when they already have problems with their online reputation? Can you give an example of a case, and your approach in that matter (the name of the company can of course remain anonymous)?

Andy Beal: Right now, most companies only react to an online reputation crisis when they see it having an adverse effect on their Google reputation. When a negative blog post is on the first page of Google’s results, for your brand name, you tend to take notice. In these cases, I simply work with clients to help create and optimize positive web content. Our goal is to try and provide Google with positive web content that is more relevant, thus suppressing the negative pages.

The very smart companies are realizing that simply managing their Google reputation is akin to placing make-up over a cancerous mole. You have to treat the underlying cause -not just the symptoms. It’s with these companies that I work to help them address and fix the actual complaints their stakeholders have with their business.”

Read the whole interview over at Brandmerck.nl

Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester reminds you (well, “you” as in, if the shoe fits…) on the why and how of a press release.

It’s hard to believe that PR firms and professionals today are still sending out press releases (regarding Social Media!) that don’t do what they need to do, i.e. delivering -bite sized- news quickly.

Every once in a while something comes along that just… Works.

It can be a product or a service that manages to captivate you just for its sheer brilliance. Not by throwing around zillions of options and other complicated stuff, but by being functional and simple. Really simple. What’s even more rare to discover is a concept that is -in your eyes- so special that it needs to be heard, seen and talked about. Directly.

That something just came along for me a few minutes ago and I just had to share my thoughts on it and what this means for you, your product or service and your organization.

In this case it’s a website for people that like to dabble with producing music, either as a bedroom-producer or as a pro. As some of you may know, I’m quite the audiophile, so when I read about SoundCloud.com and their waveform-annotation concept on SignalvsNoise (37Signals Blog) this afternoon I just had to go and check it out. Serendipity soon followed :)

Note that I was at first purely and only interested by the waveform comment stream idea, wherein you see a visual of a WAV-file and friends or collaborators can leave time based comments on the spot, so the artist gets feedback on exactly which parts of a song sound cool and which parts need, say, a little more mastering to make the bass come out louder etc., etc. This can be shared privately or made public. Already big EDM names such as Funk D’void are using this service and having worked in this industry myself I can assure you that it will be picked up very soon by their respective followers.

What struck me as a huge surprise was not only the user friendliness of the site, both in design and in UI, but also the way the site communicates with me as a prospect. If I was a person who happened to be inexperienced with browsing the internet or using apps, this site would be happy to just gently guide me through the whole process, from the beginning. The funny thing is, the very core audience of this service is very tech- and web savvy!

The size of the fonts are big so I don’t need to squint to see them clearly, the color scheme and lay-out are clutter free and logical; the user is guided through a flowing process. In short: the usability is tops and I haven’t even started to use the service that this site was built for!

Now the thing that really was the icing on the cake for me was that when I went to my account preferences (first thing I always do when signing up for a new service since it contains the privacy settings etc.,) it gave me two relevant fields to fill in: My Discogs.com account and my MySpace artist account.

Bang! “The devil is in the detail”. In that instant moment you just know that this site hasn’t been made or thought up by cynical marketers, but that it was crafted by people who’re obsessed with music just like me and with a lot of LOVE. Aesthetically and conceptually everything fits together. Make no mistake; insiders recognize this kind of dedication and true devotion from miles away: in other words it’s authentic.

Take away: You can’t create authenticity by pushing a button or hiring a nifty PR spokesperson or consulting firm. You either are perceived by an audience as authentic or not, despite the fact that some marketers and self-proclaimed gurus would have the more gullible amongst us believe otherwise…

If you already know this, then why is that you’re still doing the opposite?

Two things I’d like to discuss after seeing this and reading the article by Jeremiah from Forrester as I believe that in his enthusiasm about this initiative he’s forgotten to take a few important factors into account.

Number One:
This is an outstanding example of using Social Media to co-create a buzz and empower the community that you’d like to connect with to spread a message. The mind boggles:

Can you imagine using this example of Social Media and applying it to, say Employer Branding, to engage the ever elusive, out-of-reach prospects and candidates?  You could challenge them to go out and create an advertisement, mini-site, whatever, that shows their values and thus their desired dream job. This would give you very useful insights into what candidates really are looking for when moving on to a new job and gives your organization not only a shot at starting a meaningful conversation with them, but at free publicity as well.

Number Two:
Though this may seem at first as a big step forward in the way advertisers see, treat and engage with their target audience, there’s one Big Question people tend to overlook: It’s an intermediately great PR stunt, especially for Dell, but will it draw in more customers or change the attitudes of the target audience towards Dell in particular?

Personally I don’t believe so and here’s why: If I’m going to buy a € 1.200 + desktop or spend around the same amount of dosh on say a notebook, what are the key selling points for me? What are the conscience and subconscious decision making processes that I walk through before pulling my wallet? These are in random order and depending on whether like me you’re a power user or not;

• 1. Functionality -does it meet your user requirements (family PC? Design workstation Powerhouse? Gaming Dark Horse?);
• 2. Absolute Quality -what do the tests in the specialist press say, does it run Vista as it should? Etc..
• 3. Perceived Quality -how does the specialist press, the fora and/or the influencers in your direct vicinity talk about and review the product;
• 4. Brand Thrust/Reputation- some people are real fanboys when it comes to their gadgets, clothes or means of transportation;

The Total Cost of Ownership and the budget are of course other factors that weigh in when making such a decision.

Now when we take a look at the list above we must conclude that there’s no way that getting a few fanboys/artists/creative professionals or students to participate in such an endeavor  is going to noticeably up your sales now or in the near future. At any rate it’s not measurable.

So then we must conclude that for Dell sales probably isn’t what this is all about, so the main goal of their campaign must be branding. If that is the case than whatever way you’d look at it they’ve achieved at least the following:

• Free PR;
• Innovative and creative profile in the creative community, the media industry and in their own Tech sector;
• Creative, friendly, innovative and non-corporate image towards the participants and their direct social hemisphere.

Now these are all great things to achieve, especially for Dell, I for one have personally never really been a fan of them as a customer so I must admit that I was positively surprised by this move and that it could reflect a change in the way they operate. But does  it change their helpdesk or their customer service, does it make the quality of their products and services any better?

No it does not and that’s where the threat lies: This -for Dell- high profile action could backfire on them in a big and ugly way, unless they manage to keep their story authentic and consequent along the whole chain, from product quality up to customer service. In other words: Live up to your promise Dell.

If they don’t succeed in doing so than all of this was nothing more than a nice exercise of what could be and a reminder of why online strategy shouldn’t be an afterthought but part of your total business plan to begin with.

On the other hand it’s heartening to see that molochs such as Dell are willing to take these kind of innovative steps and are showing that they’ve at least got the intention to be willing to reach out and really get in touch with the consumer. These are exciting times indeed.